June 21
...serving up your daily dish.
Jews gave the world monotheism, the Ten Commandments and Seinfeld. Also, apparently, Michael Jackson's nose. This week's cover story in the New Jersey Jewish News celebrates the fact that Jews were the early adopters of plastic surgery. Rhinoplasty to be specific.
Consider this: Jews, who have always had a love/hate relationship with plastic surgery — and their own appearance — have helped create a trend that has now exploded into the mainstream. They were “early adopters” of a surgical technology that has since gone from rare to ubiquitous, from stigmatized to embraced. Jews, out of their very desire to appear less Jewish, made plastic surgery acceptable to the very people whom they were trying to look like.
Actually, we don't hear about Jewish girls getting nose jobs the way we did growing up in the 1960's and 70's. We're not hearing about any nose jobs as Bat Mitzvah presents. We'd like to think that the answer is self-acceptance, but we have a feeling it's really the genetic advantages of intermarriage. Or maybe anorexia is the new rhinoplasty?
While we're on the subject, check out this forensic simulation of what Michael Jackson would have looked like without plastic surgery. Via Mary's Lame Attempt at Fame.
I went to the Barista Party.
You weren't wearing a white sheet then, was it at the cleaners?
This is without a doubt the most anti-semitic thing I've read in a long time.
It isn't snarky and cute at all.
It's creepy and mean.
And apparently...so are you.
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 2:10:09 PM
Dan, accusing anyone of "klannish" feelings is ALWAYS tacky, in bad taste and wildly out of left field. No, it wasn't as witty as it was probably intended to be, but it also wasn't genuinely anti-Semitic. (For that, we now have to go to "anti-Israel" web sites manned by the likes of Noam Chomsky and his legions.)
Posted by: cathar | Jun 21, 2005 2:28:26 PM
Having just "defended" the Barista in my post above, I then (no matter my damning status as a white Christian hetero male) checked out "Mamacita" for curiosity. And yet, if the Barista found the stuff on that web site funny, I'm almost sorry I leapt to her defense above.
Posted by: cathar | Jun 21, 2005 2:39:21 PM
For the real thing you need to read some of the "documents".
an overflow crowd watched the hearing on television, activists handed out documents repeating two accusations -- that an Israeli company had warning of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and that there was an "insider trading scam" on 9/11 -- that previously has been used to suggest Israel was behind the attacks.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 2:42:44 PM
(oddly, the New York Times left out the part about the "documents" being handed out)
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 2:44:17 PM
Dan, the New Jersey Jewish News ran the story -- with pictures of six noses -- on their cover this week. Maybe you should bring your complaints of anti-Semitism to the Jewish Federation of Metro West.
Explain what you find anti-Semitic in what we wrote.
Posted by: The Barista | Jun 21, 2005 2:50:29 PM
I am fifty-two years old. So I've had a couple of years in which to experience ant-semitism. While you might not think the story and it's effect is racist, as a Jew I can tell you that's how it smelled to me (with my big nose).
This past weekend at a dinner party one of the guests was recounting a story in which she was awakened on the second night of college by her room-mate feeling her head. The room-mate was trying to find her horns. No kidding.
Yeah my reaction was over-the-top. Do you honestly believe that Jews more than anyone else have a love hate relationship with their appearances? Do you really believe, as the story suggests that Jews have such a lack of self-esteem?
Once (when I was much younger) while on a date, I mentioned "Jewish Guilt", and my date didn't know what I meant. "You mean, because Jews make a lot of money?" she asked. This, by the way was a graduate of one of the Seven Sisters.
Yeah, cathar, my comment about the sheet was dopey. But there's no way this wasn't anti-semitic, despite the fact that the piece it references was originally published in the Jewish press.
I honestly believe, for instance, that the Barista would never have written the same story about African Americans.
And while we can disagree in a friendly fashion, I stand by my original observation: It isn't snarky and cute at all.
I always expect better from the Barista.
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 2:56:47 PM
Hey, what happened to my earlier post on this touchy subject?
Posted by: Person of Interest | Jun 21, 2005 3:01:27 PM
Dan, did you read the linked-to article? You should.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 3:05:17 PM
Dan, did you read the linked-too article? You should.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 3:06:24 PM
Maybe it should not be such a touchy subject after all, since it can open up healthy discussion about western standards of beauty.
Posted by: Person of Interest | Jun 21, 2005 3:07:31 PM
Dear Barista,
As Larry David said: "I have lots of self loathing, but none of it's because I'm a Jew".
Do you think that the Jews believe that there's something wrong with themselves that they are finally "finding self-acceptance"?
Do you really believe that most Jews think that there is something wrong with the way they look and that it's getting fixed by intermarriage?
And yeah, if I bothered at all with the Jewish News, I'd write to them. But I don't so I won't.
And now, to tell the truth, I kind of wish I'd just clicked through and chalked it up to something I wish I hadn't read, and that I hadn't bothered to write anything. People who don't want to get it won't, and people who do...already do. At least that's the way it seems to me mostly.
But I'll leave you with this: I met a Jewish fellow at a social function who told me that when he came home from WW2, he got a job teaching in the Montclair school system. In 1946, he was the FIRST Jew ever to be hired by the Montclair system. In some ways Baristaville is very diverse. Yet is wasn't so long ago...
Oh, and sorry about the sheet comment. I was really pissed. I know it was dopey.
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 3:17:18 PM
Jews have horns?! Holy cow. I thought that was an old wives tale.
Posted by: walleroo | Jun 21, 2005 3:21:34 PM
Dan, just curious and you don't have to answer. But if noses and self-image are this important (and you make some good points) how do you feel about what was going down at DNC HQ the other day?
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 3:26:26 PM
I confess that I have no idea about what's going on at the DNC.
Got a link?
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 3:40:14 PM
It's up there in this thread the word "documents" is underlined and is a link.
Posted by: Right of Center™ | Jun 21, 2005 3:47:18 PM
I don't find the Jewish News article or the Barista's remarks anti-Semitic at all. It's just reporting on a social phenomena. To answer the Barista's question, I think one reason we're seeing less nose job mania among young women is that with the influx of more ethnicities into America, there's a healthier acceptance of what defines beauty. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon with a perky nose is no longer the only beauty norm.
Posted by: Miss Martta | Jun 21, 2005 4:49:29 PM
The solstice traditionally makes people act crazily. Hey, it's only for 12 hours or so. We'll all get through this.
Posted by: cathar | Jun 21, 2005 4:50:05 PM
Are you Jewish Miss Marta?
I only ask because my reaction, say, to a story about the lives of Black Americans, for instance, might be different than that of my African-American friends.
I'm not trying to pick a fight. I'm just trying to get my head wrapped around your response.
THough, as I said, I'm really wishing I had just clicked past...
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 5:16:31 PM
Dan, I get it.
On the one hand - the article from NJ Jewish News discussed most of what Barista posted on, and it can't be denied that many Jews have had plastic surgery to get a more gentile appearance.
On the other hand, I think the phrase "the genetic advantages of intermarriage" was way over the line. Even if unintended, and I believe that it was, when it starts sounding like eugenics then it's no longer funny.
Dan may have overreacted, but I certainly understand why he did. I'm also sure that the only sheets at Barista's house are for the bed.
Posted by: eleVate | Jun 21, 2005 7:45:59 PM
What difference does it make if I'm Jewish or not? The original article was written by a Jewish person in a Jewish newspaper, was it not? So how can it be anti-Semitic? Did I miss something here?
Posted by: Miss Martta | Jun 21, 2005 8:52:51 PM
Anybody have any idea why there is no real discussions about the Downing St. memos. Who cares about noses and the DNC! This is real news.
Posted by: PAZ | Jun 21, 2005 10:00:47 PM
Uh, Miss Martta, just because it was in a Jewish "newspaper" doesn't mean it couldn't be Anti-Semitic. You did say that YOU didn't find it Anti-Semitic. I was assuming that you had some criteria other than where you read it.
I try to judge an essay by it's content, not it's location. And I (trying to be diplomatic, here) suggest that not being a Jew, you might have missed something, that Jews might be more sensitive to.
And, for what it's worth, the Jewish News is a publication that is given away to people who donate money to MetroWest. Not exactly the New York Times, right?
Finally, as I said, I'm not trying to pick a fight. This all started, because I thought that the original remarks here, not the quoted article, went past the usual light-hearted and clever editorial commentary that I look forward to here.
In my mind, there is clever to make a point, and clever just for the sake of clever.
I think in this case the cleverness didn't make any significant point that I'm aware of.
Intelligent readers can agree to disagree. I hope we can agree and move on.
It's just my opinion. And as Dennis Miller used to say at the end of a rant: "...I could be wrong."
I like to think that when the Barista created the "talk back to the Barista" link, she didn't assume that everyone would always agree with her?
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 10:15:27 PM
Uh, Miss Martta, just because it was in a Jewish "newspaper" doesn't mean it couldn't be Anti-Semitic. You did say that YOU didn't find it Anti-Semitic. I was assuming that you had some criteria other than where you read it.
I try to judge an essay by it's content, not it's location. And I (trying to be diplomatic, here) suggest that not being a Jew, you might have missed something, that Jews might be more sensitive to.
And, for what it's worth, the Jewish News is a publication that is given away to people who donate money to MetroWest. Not exactly the New York Times, right?
Finally, as I said, I'm not trying to pick a fight. This all started, because I thought that the original remarks here, not the quoted article, went past the usual light-hearted and clever editorial commentary that I look forward to here.
In my mind, there is clever to make a point, and clever just for the sake of clever.
I think in this case the cleverness didn't make any significant point that I'm aware of.
Intelligent readers can agree to disagree. I hope we can agree and move on.
It's just my opinion. And as Dennis Miller used to say at the end of a rant: "...I could be wrong."
I like to think that when the Barista created the "talk back to the Barista" link, she didn't assume that everyone would always agree with her?
Posted by: Dan | Jun 21, 2005 10:15:27 PM
