Woody On Antisemitism

Thank you Dani Rotstein for this amazing Woody Allen rant on antisemitism today. And Dani, I will steal a line from you... "Kol HaKavod Woody!"
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This quote was NOT said by Woody Allen but instead written by AI:

“You know, I always thought the greatest advantage of New York was that you could be neurotic and nobody noticed. In other cities, if you talk to yourself, they send you to a doctor. In Manhattan, they offer you a magazine column.
Yesterday I went out to buy salmon. Incidentally, salmon is probably the only stable Jewish tradition that has survived Babylon, Rome, and my relationships with women.

I was walking through Brooklyn thinking about death. Not because I’m a philosopher. Just because I’m over ninety now, even though originally I had planned to make it only to seventy.

And suddenly — a crowd outside a synagogue. At first I thought some famous psychoanalyst was speaking there. In New York, people will stand in line for hours to hear why everything is their mother’s fault. Jews already know that without attending a lecture.

But no. They were shouting something about the ‘intifada.’ And you know what surprised me most? The amount of energy those people had. Where do they get it? After climbing two flights of stairs, I’m already mentally drafting my will. Meanwhile, they’re ready for a revolution before even having a decent cup of coffee.

One guy was yelling about ‘decolonization.’ My God. When I was young, colonization meant Aunt Frieda taking over our sofa for three months and refusing to leave. Now suddenly it’s a Zionist conspiracy.

Modern antisemitism has become far too intellectual. In the old days, people just hated us. Straightforward. Efficient. Today, no.

Today some guy in a scarf — who looks like he writes poetry about his own beard — explains, using Heidegger and Nietzsche, why the existence of Jews is itself a form of aggression and a threat to humanity.

And I stood there thinking: at least in the old days, the people beating us up didn’t have graduate degrees. Now the organizers of pogroms have diplomas from Columbia University.

Then a girl beside me said, ‘We’re against Zionism, not against Jews.’ That’s like my ex-wife saying, ‘I have nothing against you. I’m just against everything you say, do, feel — and especially against sleeping with you.’ Same meaning.

And then someone shouted, ‘Zionists are Nazis!’ At that moment I felt my grandmother spinning in her grave fast enough to power part of Queens.

My grandmother, by the way, lived through actual Nazis. She hid in a basement in Poland with a man who coughed so loudly the Germans could’ve found them just by following the bronchial acoustics.

And now some kid from an elite university — whose greatest trauma is getting a cold Starbucks coffee — explains to me what fascism means.

These really are astonishing times.

Today people talk like they accidentally swallowed a university library. Nobody says anymore, ‘Sorry, I’m an idiot.’ No. Now they say, ‘I’m deconstructing the dominant narrative.’

Listen, I grew up around Jews. We don’t deconstruct narratives. We create narratives.

I got home and turned on the television — because when you have anxiety, television always seems like a terrific idea. It’s like treating alcoholism with a vodka martini on the rocks.

There was Roger Waters again, explaining the world. Aging rock musicians always frighten me when they start sounding like paranoid men who see conspiracies every time a black cat walks by.

Then Kanye West appeared. When I was growing up, crazy people at least looked crazy. Wild hair, oversized coat, pigeons, conversations with trash cans. This guy just wears a black mask and says he loves Hitler. And that’s when I realized: humanity has progressed a long way — from ‘Never Again’ to ‘Well, let’s discuss the nuances.’
And the politicians? Politicians say, ‘The situation is complicated.’

No.

Complicated is explaining to a Jewish mother why her forty-year-old son still isn’t married.

But when a crowd outside a synagogue is chanting ‘Death to Zionists,’ that’s not complexity. That’s a remake. And not even a good one. No original script, but an enormous social media budget.

And what really frightens me isn’t the radicals. I’m used to radicals. I lived in 1970s New York. Back then, anyone who distrusted tap water and washed fruit with soap was considered radical.

What frightens me is how quickly normal people start acting as though nothing is happening. Human beings adapt unbelievably well. Even when a Jewish girl gets her hair pulled or a boy with sidelocks gets blinded with strobe lights.

We get used to everything. War. Hatred. Coffee costing nine dollars. That last one, by the way, only with enormous difficulty.

That night I lay in bed thinking: maybe humanity simply shouldn’t be given free time. Because the moment people get bored, they either try to save the world, kill each other, or start podcasts about the benefits of conflict.

And yet… if tomorrow there are once again people outside a synagogue shouting about the death of Zionists, I’ll go out there. Not because I’m brave. I’m the kind of person who once fainted during a blood test. But because Jews have waited too many times for madness to disappear on its own. It never does. It just puts on a suit, enters a university, and opens a TikTok account.

Still… first I’ll eat my salmon. I’d rather not die on an empty stomach. My Jewish mother never would’ve approved of that.”