The chapter that interested me the
most was “How Soccer Explains the Jewish Question.” I think this chapter was
very interesting because it discussed how there are very few famous Jewish
athletes in the world now. Something that majority of people would overlook,
but something that hits close to home to me when I think about sports and the
way my religion is connected to it. I thought it was interesting that he
brought up this fact that it isn’t very present and that they only come around
“once in a decade” (Foer, 65).
In
lecture, we talked about pluralism and how states are no longer homogenous
nations, but instead are a mix of all different sorts of people. I think it is
interesting how some countries have stayed so homogenous in the sense of
religion. We also learned that the concept of globalization includes the flow
of ideas, which ties in nicely with when Foer talks about how anti-Semitism
spread around the world, and can still be found. Here is where critics will
argue that globalization is not such a good thing for these ideas are
misconstrued. Foer makes a good point that anti-Semitism is alive and well and
is as “pervasive as it has ever been…or even more so” (Foer, 71). Foer moves on
to talk about how even after the Holocaust and the founding of Israel, the
acceptance of the Jews never really occurred. Instead, the Jews remained
foreigners, people that the Europeans could not identify with, but could solely
recognize them for their symbols. But even so, globalization helped to
transform Europe. Immigrants who mainly have been taking the brunt of the
“hate” off the Jewish people have flooded the country, and instead much of the
hate in soccer focuses on the blacks and the Muslims.
I
liked that the author then related the way the Europeans perceived the Jewish
people using symbols, to the way that U.S. sports teams use Indians in their
mascots. Today there are many arguments against teams like the “Redskins,”
arguing that it is offensive and should be changed. This is a huge debate that is
happening across the country one, which I believe, will never be settled.
I had never considered that fact you mentioned at the beginning of your post, and the more I thought about it the more i realized how true it is. It's crazy how our attention can be so diverted from things as obvious as that, but i think it is in part to how we are socialized our entire lives. I also agree that the dispute over the Redskins will be difficult to settle. Nice connection between that and Jewish symbols.
ReplyDelete-Karla P.
Ellie Silverman: I thought your last point about the Jewish symbols and Redskins was really interesting. It is completely unacceptable to use the symbol of an Orthodox Jewish person holding money as good fortune and it should be equally unacceptable for the Redskins to continue using their mascot and name. I think the public opinion is swaying towards hat anyway because we have become a more sensitive society in the last decade or so, in my opinion. That doesn't mean we are an accepting society, just a little bit more than our parents years.
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