Abraham Foxman from Blue Pilgrimage on Vimeo.
Anti-Defamation League National Director Abe Foxman arrived in Israel in mid-October on the heels of several controversial decisions that prompted a hail of criticism in the United States. Foxman may have hoped that while in Israel he would have been able to avoid sensitive issues like his condemnation of the construction of an Islamic community center near Ground Zero; the ADL's honoring of right-wing media kingpin Rupert Murdoch; or the ADL's release of a blacklist of "anti-Israel organizations." And for most of his trip, Foxman was able to propagate his message to the Israeli public and international media without any background noise from the US.
Then the great macher agreed to an on-camera interview with David Sheen, a young writer and videographer who splits time between the center-left Israeli paper Haaretz and independent documentary projects. Sheen, an Israeli citizen who is a friend and colleague of mine, makes no secret of his strong views about issues ranging from the occupation of Palestine to animal rights. He submitted his questions to Foxman days before the interview at the request of the ADL's press handler. But Foxman did not bother to review the questions. Instead, he walked into the interview expecting to be handled as he was by the rest of the Israeli media: gently and with a degree of deference.
This may explain why Foxman appears so shocked when Sheen confronts him with pointed questions about the ADL's honoring of Murdoch (Foxman calls him "a media genius") and his endorsement of the "bigoted" positions of opponents of the Park 51 mosque (Foxman claims the reporter who quoted him defending the anti-mosque crowd's bigotry "didn't know history from borscht"). As Sheen presents Foxman with a litany of concerns of his growing legion of detractors, who have accused him of turning the ADL into a smear machine that has nothing to do with its stated mission of promoting civil rights, Foxman furiously lashes out at his interviewer, accusing him of staging a "set up."
On at least four occasions, Foxman threatens to end the interview, claiming the questions are "not productive" and that he has better things to do. But each time he remains in his seat and berates Sheen. As the interview progresses (or deteriorates), it is clear that Foxman has little interest in promoting the work of the ADL, or even in rebutting his critics. He is far more interested in screaming at Sheen. It is one of the strangest and most embarrassing interview performances I have seen since Sarah Palin campaigned for Vice President.
At around the 28 minute mark of the video, after Sheen has poked and prodded Foxman about the ADL's denunciation of the animal rights group PETA –- an unusual line of questioning to be sure — Foxman suddenly launches into a forceful condemnation of the "Soup Nazi" character from the TV show Seinfeld. At this point, the interview morphs from a tense exchange into some kind of free association borscht belt comedy routine.
"If you don't understand [the Holocaust] then you don't learn the lessons," Foxman remarks. "So if in New York we have a restaurant where a guy calls himself a Soup Nazi because he decides what kind of soup you're going to eat, or buy, that's a trivialization, you've learned nothing from history, and yeah, we do care, and we'll speak out against it." (No soup for you, Foxman!)
For the rest of the interview, Foxman and Sheen manage not to discuss a single issue of substance. Instead, Foxman rails against Sheen almost uncontrollably, accusing him of setting him up. At around 45 minutes into the video, Foxman launches into a crazed diatribe that ends with him calling Sheen (what else?) a bigot.
"'You don't like this cup. Why don't you like this cup? You support this camera! But what about this camera?' That's what you're doing!" Foxman booms, waving his arms at every cup and camera in sight. "That's the only thing you're doing. And you're selecting which cup of coffee, which camera — you're selecting every example… You only showed your bigotry." (No cups were harmed in the making of Sheen's video).
Once again, Foxman declares an end to the interview. He is furious. But instead of leaving he remains in his seat and invites Sheen out for a meal. "First I want to talk to you at dinner. I want to get to know you. Then if you want to play this game before your audience, fine," Foxman exclaims.
Before Sheen can direct his subject to the nearest TGI Friday's, Foxman is overcome with regret for ever agreeing to the interview. He compares Sheen to the Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, whose acclaimed documentary "Defamation" followed Foxman around the globe and ultimately exposed him and his colleagues as a bunch of goofballs hyping the issue of anti-Semitism to increase their influence and paychecks.
"I've made mistakes before. I participated in a movie in Israel. I made a judgment," Foxman reflected. "I trusted him [Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir]. I took him into my heart. He screwed me. And a lot of people said don't trust media. And in a nice way you basically did the same thing…. This was a set up, David! This was a way to embarrass what we do, to say there's no consistency. PETA? Who gives a shit about PETA?"
Even after Foxman steps off the set, he continues to berate Sheen for supposedly being unfair. Finally, Sheen lights into Foxman for not being able to handle a few tough questions. "You know what I felt?" Sheen asks him. "You're a professional. It's your day job. You think all the time about these questions. You think all the time about the answers. I thought you'd be like 1, 2, 3 – like throwing cards at me. Because you hear them all the time. If you don't hear them, maybe you're in groupthink; maybe you're only with people who think the same way you do."
Sheen raises a good point here: Why couldn't Foxman simply respond to his questions with a few punchy soundbites and walk away? Why did he throw an hour-long fit that had little to do with the ADL's work and everything to do with his persecution complex? And has Foxman always behaved this way with journalists?
If I were a responsible member of the ADL's board of directors who had watched Foxman's performance, I would enter the next board meeting with some serious questions about his ability to lead. If he persists in responding to mildly adversarial or unpredictable questions like a cantankerous altecocker, or if he cannot control his temper in interviews long enough to muster a semi-coherent thought, Foxman is an organizational liability who might need to be replaced. Personally, I would prefer to see Foxman stay at the helm of the ADL for a long time, and not only because I enjoy witnessing the slow motion collapse of the sclerotic, reactionary Jewish-American establishment that he represents, but because I am a huge fan of borscht belt comedy, even of the unintentional variety
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KMD says: "White people have ethnic genetic interests."
Dear fellow KMD readers:
When I was suffering from the the disease of "political correctness", I was searching for another entrepreneurial venture that was free of ethnic interests. As a back-end to my New York roommate finding service–Roommate Finders, I decided to start a trucking company. My plan was to escape from having to hear my clients ethnic/religious/ racial preferences by delegating Roommate Finders to my staff so I would be free from having to hear: "people of color only" (from my Asian clients), "Jewish only" or "Gay only".
So I started a trucking company with first testing it on my customer list to make sure it would work. It was a success. When it came time for me to start an ad campaign, I would discover (much to my chagrin) that I would have to compete with advertisements placed in the Village Voice (a very liberal newsweekly) that would read either in the headlines or within the body copy: "Nice Jewish Boy", "Gay Man with Van", "former Jewish social worker with van", "Big Black Gay Man with Station Wagon", "Former school teacher and Jewish with truck".
All I kept experiencing, is how you can't get away from ethnic interest. It is everywhere in every venue of our lives.
One night, I lost my keys to my apartment for my huge 4 bedroom apartment near Colombia University, the same apartment that a Barry, a Black student from Columbia University, cleaned as a house cleaner–it was his first and based on his lack of interest to clean probably his last. All we did was talk politics in my kitchen. Was it the same Barry that is now President Obama? I wonder. One of my roommates at the same time frame was a Black student at Columbia and he would tell me that there were not too many Blacks that went to Columbia in the early to mid 1980s. Anyway, I could not get a hold of any of my other 3 roommates (this is before cell phones), so I was locked-out. I went through my little black book at a bar area of a restaurant. It was late at night and I called one of my causal girlfriends who was a Jewish math teacher–without a van! But, humongous breasts, to big for my taste and liking. The only woman in my life I could say this, they were always in the way. Like the French say: "anything more than a mouthful is a waste." She had called me two weeks before, for me to come over, to her place for an intimate encounter. So, being locked out, I needed a place to sleep. I called her to ask if I can crash at her place, only to be told that she can't saying: "I just got married". In the background a hear a man asking "who is calling so late."
I was asking her "how can this be?" She could not answer and hung-up. (It would be the last time I ever spoke to her).
My brain was stunned. As I was hanging up the pay-phone and my eyes rolled towards the ceiling, right above the phone was a flyer screaming in big capital letters:
WASP WITH A VAN
Suffering from "political correctness" syndrome, I couldn't take it anymore. It was that night, I decided to phase out of the trucking business as a back-end to Roommate Finders.
Folks, ethnic interest is everywhere, you can not escape from it! I wish we could. But it is not going to happen. It is part of the human condition.
Peace.
Michael Santomauro
ReporterNotebook@Gmail.com