Anti-Semitism: New Movie

Every revisionist is accused (sooner, rather than later) of anti-Semitism - it doesn't come with the territory, really, but it comes, with breathtaking speed and vociferousness, just as soon as one expresses interest in the facts of the experience of European Jews in World War II.

Having grown up among, and being friends (and better) with many Jews, I have always been interested in anti-Semitism. Going public with my revisionist interests has produced many grossly incorrect (not to say, shrill and obscene) characterizations of my sympathies - illogically at that. If I'm anti-Semitic, would it interest me to minimize the dimensions and motivations of the holocaust? Quite the contrary - I would take satisfaction in its magnitude, and laud its purposes. Revisionism is, if anything, pro-Semitic, though the inquiry it entails puts a bad taste in one's mouth regarding the many "carpetbaggers" (Jewish and otherwise) taking a free ride on the holocaust train for their own benefit.

I just read a detailed review in Jewish Week of a new film out from Israeli Director Yoav Shamir called "Hashmata" ("Defamation" in English), and I have placed the not-yet-released DVD in my queue at Netflix. It sounds balanced, insightful and, for the severely alienated, an intelligent "view from the other side." Provisionally, I regard it as a view from much closer to our side than many of us might suppose (this is not a group, racial, or even identity matter, after all).

It must be the exceptional revisionist who resists all interest in anti-Semitism despite the yellow swastikas we're forced to wear, though the association between it and revisionism is nothing like the accusations. For those of us who share my interest, I (in advance of having seen it myself) recommend getting this movie.