Tuvia Tenenbom

AVI pointed out a link about antisemitism in Germany. The source for the article is a book by Tuvia Tenenbom, a journalist writing about people he talked to in Germany. I Sleep in Hitler's Room hasn't arrived at the local library yet, but The Lies They Tell was handy.

Tuvia is Jewish, but usually pretends to be German in this picaresque tale of his experiences during a 6-month tour of the US. He likes to go to the strange or dangerous places. And he wants, in particular, to find out how/why people like or dislike Jews. (And why Jews seem to detest Jews.) And whether belief in climate change correlates with dislike for Israel.

He tells the stories well, and professes to have discovered unexpected delight in the American landscape, in driving, and even in shooting. In the end, he determines that Americans are afraid to speak, racist, and rather hypocritical--and, as one rarely finds in the world, ashamed of being tribal.

The problem with his conclusions is that he picked and chose the people he wrote about in depth. I don't believe he met that few people on his trip. Drama and contrast he wanted--that's what he put in.

He might object that the majority of the people along the way were busy with their phones or their netflix and weren't available to interact with him. But seriously--what fraction of the people in the USA own 100 guns? And I generally don't have any difficulty in learning who people voted for--they often volunteer that. (Whatever became of secret ballots?)

In one chapter he interviews Untermeyer, who was unaware of the depth of Jew-hatred in officialdom of Qatar and Saudi Arabia--ambassadors get escorted in, and don't see their documents rewritten to have a birthplace of New York rather than Tel Aviv.

What seems to leave him most aghast is the way people fret over Palestinians without a care for the homeless a few blocks away. That seems a bit overdrawn to me--I know people who are somewhat like that, but there's a little nuance in their attitudes that Tuvia didn't see, or didn't report.

He understands enough to know that you have to visit churches if you want to know the people here, but he's pretty tone-deaf. His "superiority" grates after a while.

Yes, read it--people like them are out there--but don't trust his conclusions.

And when the book on Germany arrives, I'll try to calibrate his reporting on Germany accordingly.