Over at the CST blog, Dave Rich has an absolutely superb piece examining how racists of both leftist and rightist varieties will vilify a person not because of what they say, but because of what they are called. Barack Hussein Obama. Michael Abraham Levy. Rahm Israel Emanuel. Go and read it. And then savor the Woody Allen clip at the end - perhaps the greatest stand-up routine, like, ever?
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Esther Delisle, who wrote a book about the legacy of Lionel-Groulx and antisemitism in Quebec, talked about how the idea of the invisibility of the Jew was a source of national paranoia during the thirties and forties. A Jew named Goldberg could change his name to Godbout and there would be no way of telling him apart from non-Jews.
Mordechai Richler had an ironic twist on this paranoia when he discussed Jews as being designated “an invisible minority”. “My people”, he used to say with some acerbity, “are anything but invisible”.
I am quite familiar with Woody Allen’s “moose” sketch, but on record, not TV. The recorded version is funnier, because, after he accidentally puts “the berkowitzes” on his fender, he repeats his previous line that “there’s a law in New York state,” and then goes on to say “Tuesday, Thursday and ESPECIALLY Saturdays…..”
Hilarious.