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Scurrilous

(38,687 posts)
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 05:27 PM Apr 2012

Students cheer Nazis at Holocaust Remembrance Day play

News of youngsters’ behavior at Cameri performance of ‘Ghetto’ prompts debate about educational failures

<snip>

"You embarrassed the Jewish people and the Holocaust,” actor Oded Leopold said from the stage of the Cameri Theater last Thursday, lashing out at hundreds of high school students after they repeatedly disrupted a play dealing with the Holocaust on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The students’ behavior, news of which only hit the Israeli media on Monday, prompted an intensive bout of national radio debate and soul-searching about indiscipline, educational failures, poor parenting and lost values among Israeli youth.

During the play “Ghetto,” which portrays the life of Jews in the Vilna Ghetto in the early 1940s at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theatre, students in the audience made fun of the actors and shouted offensive remarks toward the stage. Some laughed and cried out encouragement during scenes depicting Jews being killed by Nazis, and when a kapo beat a Jew. Calls of “hit him harder” and “well done” were heard from the audience.

When the two-hour play ended, Leopold, who played the kapo, silenced the post-performance applause and addressed the audience. “I hope what goes on in your heart is different from what came out of your mouths,” Leopold said. “It was disgraceful behavior, embarrassing yourselves most of all. You also embarrassed the Jewish people and the Holocaust,” he said.

Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday condemned the students’ behavior, calling it “a disgrace that pains the heart.”

http://www.timesofisrael.com/students-continuously-disrupt-play-on-holocaust-day/
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COLGATE4

(14,732 posts)
1. Heartbreaking. If this is typical of how teenagers react
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 05:52 PM
Apr 2012

to the Holocaust, the time when it is just "ancient history which has nothing to do with me" has already arrived, barely 65 years afterwards.

 

Speck Tater

(10,618 posts)
2. Since the dawn of civilzation...
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 05:55 PM
Apr 2012

... teenage humans have always been the stupidest and cruelest animals on the planet.

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
3. Ali Abuminah is pimping this story on Electronic Intifada
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 05:59 PM
Apr 2012

Seems really keen on getting this one out there to his minions who are dutifully posting it on message boards around the world.

Keep up the good work!

 

shira

(30,109 posts)
5. Oh yeah, it's just criticism of the Israeli gov't. Nothing to do with Jews...
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 06:42 PM
Apr 2012

I wonder what our anti-zionist one state friends here would think about Zionist websites obsessed with stories that portray Arabs or Muslims negatively.

Why those sites are pro-peace and only criticize, right?

It's not like those sites deserve to be called racist or bigoted for legit criticism...



That "anti-Israel Lobby" is against all criticism of Arabs and Muslims, whitewashing crimes, owning the media...

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
6. well if this what you mean by pimping he combined 2 stories
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 06:53 PM
Apr 2012

we see here in one blog post entitled

Israeli police forcibly prevent Nakba event and Israeli high schoolers cheer for Nazis

but here is what he had to say about the latter

How could any actually identify with Nazis to the point of cheering them on? One of the anti-Semitic themes long present in Zionist thought is the notion that Jews in “exile” – living in the European native lands before the establishment of Israel – were weak and effeminate. Zionism sought not just to create a Jewish state in Palestine, but to fashion a new, Palestine-born “Sabra” Jew who was tough and militaristic.

This attitude was manifested in contempt for Holocaust victims and survivors who were somehow seen as to blame for their own fate. As holocaust scholar Israel Charny explained:

These undesirable aspects were expressed in juxtaposed attitudes of contempt by the Israeli youth in their slang expressions in the 1940s and 1950s for the survivor immigrants – “galuti,” “gachaletznik” (disdainful terms relating to the European origins of the survivor) and “sabon” (soap) [a reference to Nazis making soap out of human bodies of their victims]. The denial and repudiation of their own vulnerability were seen in the Sabra self-image of mastery and invincibility.

Obviously, the kinds of racist outbursts we are increasingly seeing are not universal. But the point is they are not rare either. Indeed aggressive racism and Nakba denial in Israel are far more common than the phenomenon of the Zochrot activists who were attempting another kind of discourse by trying to commemorate the Nakba.



http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-police-forcibly-prevent-nakba-event-and-israeli-high-schoolers-cheer

now I am going to be very honest I have seen things along these lines posted by ProIsrael posters here no not as blatant but the Holocaust being referred to as when Jews were weak along with now we're strong ect and I must add that in the US the manner in which the Holocaust is being taught would tend to re-enforce that notion too, at least in my 15 year old son's case total Jewish victim-hood no mention of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising at all and Sobibor was according to his books closed because of the Nazi's realizing their moral failing! NO mention of the rebellion that led to the closing of camp at all I had to tell him that the actual reason Sobibor was closed was because what the Nazi's realized was that sometimes Jews fight back !

 

oberliner

(58,724 posts)
7. That's exactly what I mean
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 07:01 PM
Apr 2012

You almost never see him citing stories from sources like The Times of Israel.

This one, however, seems to have stuck his fancy for some reason.

Perhaps you can find out why and report back?

azurnoir

(45,850 posts)
8. well this one seems to be getting diverse coverage
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 07:56 PM
Apr 2012

a Google news search of this OP's title gave me everything from Yeshiva World News to Stormfront with Xinhua in-between, seems to have lot's of folks saying WTF in all it's possible shades

shaayecanaan

(6,068 posts)
9. They had full-blown passion plays at the State school that I went to as a kid...
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 09:50 PM
Apr 2012

the Church people that staged these plays would put Jesus up on the cross, and have someone mimic the driving of nails through his hands, while hammering sounds emitted from the speakers. Invariably, someone would cry out "Jesus Christ, that hurts!". Or during the whipping scene, someone would cry out "Spank me harder, Claudius!". It was a bit like Rocky Horror-style audience participation where people were competing to come up with the most withering comments.

The teachers openly tolerated all this, since most of them resented the fact that, under law, they had to allow the Jesus freaks a certain amount of access to the school for religious instruction - about once a week, as I recall.

I suspect that Israeli school students get a fair bit of holocaust-related material doled out to them in the course of the year and that they would react similarly on occasion.

bemildred

(90,061 posts)
10. Well, that makes some sort of sense, at least.
Thu Apr 26, 2012, 11:58 PM
Apr 2012

Sort of like cheering for the Indians in a cowboy movie.

shaayecanaan

(6,068 posts)
11. Yeah
Fri Apr 27, 2012, 12:48 AM
Apr 2012

A flatmate from Ireland told me a story from when he went to a convent school. The padre there was well known for droning on about Oliver Cromwell, the famine and taking the Protestant soup. Apparently one day a boy muttered, sotto voce: "Christ, I'll drink their damn soup here and now if you'll only shut the fuck up". The whole room burst out laughing.

Similar sentiment. It only gets more pronounced with time.

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