Leon's "Kill Jews" cocktail tradition hate or innocuous?

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I as a Jew have a lot of difficulty seeing “kill Jews” as innocuous at any time, never mind at this especially sensitive time.

This situation has similarities to “Aspie”. 10 years ago “Aspie” was a fun and even prideful way of describing ourselves. I used an image of Hans Asperger in my posts. Like Leon residents literal ignorance of “Kill Jews” hateful origins we were ignorant about Hans Asperger's complicity in the Nazi eugenics program. 10 years ago “Aspie” had been around for 15 years. “Kill Jews” cocktail drink had been a fun tradition for centuries. But then again “Aspie” does not literally mean commit a hate crime.

Even though we now know about Hans Asperger many in the Autistic community still use the term “Aspie”. In this case many have accepted that “Aspie” has evolved past its roots.

Like has been said we don’t know if there antisemitism behind a facade and won’t know unless Jews move there.

Yeah, while I’m not a Jew, I agree with you. It’s not like people would be completely unaware of what they were saying. People know history, including about the Holocaust. I have trouble believing that such a phrase would be innocuous, not that making light of killing a group of people is a nice thing to do in general.

TBH before 7 October, I would have considered reaching out to those people and asking if somebody wants to talk about it, as I will assume they are basically nice people who don't hold a grudge against real-life Jews. Under present circumstances though, I think the timing would be bad. This would make me feel extremely uncomfortable, like if I happened to be in that night club district and somebody hands me a drink and says "hey let's kill Jews!" which could happen. The closest thing I can think of would be the time my brother-in-law, a die-hard Orioles fan, took my wife and me to a game at the old Yankee stadium, at which the Orioles lost to the Yankees, and the testosterone-laden people around us started high-fiving everyone in sight, and somebody high-fived me and I high-fived him back, because I was literally scared not to.

Another thing about Spain that sort of comes out in this story is how hedonistic the Spaniards are. They don't give up alcohol for Lent and think the idea is ridiculous. To them, everything is an excuse for a party (although alcoholism per se doesn't seem to be as big a problem there as in Northern Europe and the British Isles).

I think this kind of thinking is alien to just about any American, one reason I can't imagine myself living in Europe (although I probably could have when I was younger).

But yeah, Jewish people have had to see and hear this sort of thing all their lives, and it always hurts.

You'd think, at the very least, that the immediate post-WWII era would have triggered some self-reflection over whether or not a drink called kill Jews was really a proud tradition worth preserving.

The countries with the lowest unfavorability rates also have very strict laws against hate speech, and in Germany, Holocaust denial is a felony, and rightfully so.

In those countries, one can get fines or jail time for such speech, whereas in the US, one only gets kicked off certain social media platforms.

That said, only 18% in Hungary and Russia? I can't imagine what it is in Turkey.

According to the research and the lived experience of Spanish Jews, antisemitism is a problem in Spain even if you may not have experienced it. Most people are “basically nice.” Obviously, a percentage of people are antisemitic. This holds true for many countries. Spain is not an exception.

Last edited by TwilightPrincess on 31 Mar 2024, 1:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have an honest question, because I never thought about this until recently...

Is there anything racist/antisemitic about those purple houseplants called "Wondering Jews"? I have them in my garden and just about everyone I know grows them. They're very common here...

But I'm wondering where that name even comes from?

Wandering Jews, not wondering.

They're named after this legend.

What's your definition of a Spanish Jew? To my understanding, there were no Jews there until some immigrated, probably beginning in the late 1970s. So perceptions of them would to a large extent be influenced by perceptions of immigrants which happens to be quite hostile in Spain.

OK to try to corroborate my understanding, it would seem that since the 19th Century, there have variously been a few thousand Jews living in Spain but also some moved to Israel after the Naqba. Apparently there are currently about 3500 in Barcelona which is the largest community, although Barcelona is not, strictly speaking, "culturally" Spanish. Which means that the size of the community in Madrid is less than that. We're talking small numbers. Whereas metropolitan Baltimore, a much smaller place, has 108,100 Jews.

So yeah technically there are Spanish Jews and no doubt they face antisemitism, about which the surrounding community probably doesn't feel a great deal of shame. But I still think it's an apples vs. oranges comparison, anyway I am done with this topic, which I find distasteful anyway. Fortunately, when we go to Spain we won't be anywhere near Leon.

So yes it's antisemitic, although I doubt that my mother, who identified a plant we had growing in our yard, as wandering jew, had any idea about that legend. Strangely, my mother, who was from NYC, had a couple of Jewish boyfriends in her youth but yet also had antisemitic attitudes. Go figure.

Thanks for the correction.

And... wow. That IS messed up where the plant name originated.

I don't like the alternative name "Wandering Dude" either though, that sounds like a plant grown for stoners to smoke.

I'll stick with the name "inchplant" then. I also went from calling a certain plant "Confederate Roses" to "Cotton Roses" (which are actually a type of hibiscus). Since I don't like what the Confederacy stands for either.

So I am trying to make some progress, at least in not using racist plant names.

You would think...except that in 1945 Spain was still ruled by Franco. A fascist dictator allied to Hitler and Mussolini (who aided Franco's ascent to power in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s), and wasnt free of him until he died in a hospital in the 1970s. So being the last remaining "axis power" maybe why Spain lagged in its public political correctness.

A Spanish Jew is a Jew who lives in Spain.

I guess you didn’t read the PDF I linked yesterday. Here it is again in case you’re interested:

https://fra.europa.eu/sites/default/fil ... ain_en.pdf

Also interesting:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federatio ... the%20FCJE.

While certainly a minority, it’s not like Spanish citizens would be completely unfamiliar with Jews, their history, or broader European issues/concerns which, at times, involve antisemitism.

I did not have knowledge of the legend but the phrase has always struck me as saying you people were wandering because every place you went they realized taking you in was a mistake. I until now had no idea it was the name of a plant.

“Wandering Jew” is near the bottom of the list of antisemitic slurs in America. It is not relatable to the Jewish-American experience. It always struck me as a European thing