Comment on Is saying "Don't need to know hebrew to know the Holocaust was bad" antisemetic?
xantoxis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
No, it isn’t.
Does it erase Jewish culture, history, or trauma? No, it’s clearly doing the opposite of that: affirming the trauma.
Does it dehumanize Jews? No. It’s neutral to the humanity of Jews, except insofar as it’s clearly meant to affirm the horrors of the Holocaust, which dehumanized and destroyed Jews and Jewish culture.
Does it perpetuate a harmful stereotype? Nope! It might be considered a stereotype that Jews know Hebrew, but it’s not a harmful one, and it doesn’t make the claim that all Jews know Hebrew in any case. In fact, it strikes back at the idea that specific facts about Jews are even relevant to the conversation about the Holocaust.
The person you were arguing with just wanted you to go away, and gave you a bad faith rebuttal.
Blamemeta@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Heres the context: lemm.ee/comment/2233830
Quatity_Control@lemm.ee 1 year ago
Not anti Semitic and even worse, it was a deft destruction of a gatekeeping argument.
xantoxis@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Agree with Quality_Control, this is an apt comparison and not anti-semitic.
chaircat@lemdro.id 1 year ago
I’ll go against the grain here and say I do think it’s antisemitic, for precisely the reason outlined in the parent comment, even though they themselves are also giving you a pass.
The genocide against the Jews, the Holocaust, was a situation where they were rounding up every single member of the ethnicity they could find in order to exterminate them.
Even though we use the same word genocide for the Uighurs, no credible authority I’ve ever come across is alleging that is what is happening in Xinjiang. Uighurs still openly populate the province and roam the streets publicly.
To compare them like this is to directly downplay the Holocaust in order to make a point on the Uighurs. In fact, I’d also say the widespread use of the word genocide for the Uighurs is the same, for reasons we’re seeing from the reactions of everyone else in this thread.
Jaytreeman@kbin.social 1 year ago
I'm going to assume that you mean well, but aren't well informed on this subject.
Genocide isn't just about killing people. It's about destroying a people. The best example I know is how Canada treated/treats indigenous peoples.
Forced sterilization and children removed from their culture are two ways that these peoples have been decimated.
The Canadian genocide against the indigenous peoples has been recognized by multiple governments and falls within the common definition.
The genocide during the Holocaust was immediate and violent like a bomb. The Canadian genocide is a slow burn like a forest fire.
chaircat@lemdro.id 1 year ago
That’s fair as a definition of genocide, though it isn’t the way I’m used to understanding the word.
Precisely because of the differences though, I’d also find it in poor taste to make comparisons been the Canadian genocide against indigenous peoples and the Holocaust.