Took a brief detour today to read âGenocide Badâ by Sim Kern. I donât feel like this warrants a full analysis; I was debating even reading it because the title alone is childish and off-putting, but I see it recommended a lot, and itâs a very quick read. I meant for this to be shorter, but I had a lot to say; I think their writing is very reflective of the average American who gets their news from social media, and that made it a very different read from academic texts. Thereâs a lot to be angry at in here, but also a lot to laugh at.
- Sim Kern describes themself as âJewish in a secular, patrilineal, fun-holidays-only kind of wayâ. They are a middle school teacher, YA author, and self-described âinfluencerâ and âBooktoker.â The book is written with about the level of maturity you would expect from someone who spends all of their time either on social media or around thirteen year-olds; chapter one ends: âIf we can free Palestine, we can save the world, and if we canât free Palestine, weâre all fucked!â This is the general tone of the book.
- They vehemently deny being a self-hating Jew, and I donât like using that phrasing, but what was very clear is that â while they might not hate themself, they do hate Judaism. âThe Book of Joshua is morally repulsive to me. Many of the commandments G-d gives to Moses are morally repulsive to me. The G-d of the Torahâs genocidal plans are morally repulsive to me. And Abraham, the first Jew, is morally repulsive to meâŠ. Iâm too horrified by the foundational text of Judaism, on its face, to want to spend my precious life grappling with its hidden meanings. Not when there are so many other books to read!â Iâm reminded of the Wicked child at the Seder.
- The other media that they consume seems to primarily consist of the Hunger Games, which is very inappropriately used as a framing device for Israel/Palestine for the better part of a chapter, and Star Wars, where Yahya Sinwar is inexplicably and heroically compared to Obi War Kenobi. I actually felt so embarrassed for them reading this. They want to be Katniss Everdeen so badly.
- I have this theory, that a lot of grade school teachers think they know everything, and everyone is eagerly waiting to hear their great knowledge, because their job is to talk at length in front of very small people who have everything to learn. And this isnât inherently a bad thing; Iâm very grateful for teachers everywhere. However, sometimes, in areas where they are not the authority, I think itâs necessary to take a step back and ask âdo I actually know what Iâm talking about and is my opinion needed?â
- âEven I, a Jew, canât look at a Star of David without feeling sick to my stomach. I flinch at the sight of it, the same way I flinch at the Confederate Flag. Iâve packed away in the attic all our Judaica, because I canât stand to look at it anymore. Thanks for that, Israel!âŠ. If it would do Palestinians any good for me to renounce my Jewishness⊠and cease referring to myself as a Jew, I would do so in a heartbeat.â This is odd. Antizionism has become their primary self-identifier.
- When they talked about the complications they had in labor during the birth of their child, they paused and interrupted to tell us that really, they couldnât complain, because Gazans had it worse. Thatâs not a normal way to process the milestones of your life on a different continent. They switch away from their Jewish doctor because they âneeded a C-section and [were] too scared to go under the knife of a potential Zionist.â They see a Jewish family in kippot in their neighborhood and âcouldnât sleep that night for fear of the Jews living across the street.â I think Adam Louis Klein said that what most defined antisemitism to him was obsession, and that comes through in every line of this book; Kern acts deeply unstable and proud of upending their life over nothing.
- When they talked about getting into Harvard, they mentioned that they were probably selected due to a Jewish poem they wrote, because Harvard is controlled by Zionists (considering the writing quality, I kind of wish that were true). The online backlash to their âPalestinian advocacy,â was probably just an Israeli bot farm trying to silence brave truth-speakers. Their YA novel was rejected from major publishers, probably because of Zionists (Iâm reminded of Xiran Jay Zhao). They fully endorse Khazar theory in a very uncomfortable, blood-and-soil way, while admitting that they know nothing about genetics, and misrepresent what the Hannibal Directive was. I genuinely donât know if this is ignorance or malice; they are a terrible researcher and clearly got their sources from social media before bothering to find an article that vaguely supports their claim (Our primary sources for this book are Al Jazeera and Middle Eastern Eye; hilariously, Mamdaniâs dad makes an appearance, as does an instagram post).
- This is interesting: âPalestinian Jews, continuing to resist Zionist aggression, might still have some claim to indigeneity. But those who embrace the Mizrahi identity gleefully serve in the IDF⊠they have become colonizers. And a colonizer is not indigenous.â See, I could take this same argument back a thousand years and say that indigenous Jews who converted to Islam to rule over the Dhimmis became colonizers. Their entire argument is that the indigenous people are the good guys and the colonizers are the bad guys, and if you switch loyalty to the wrong side, youâre also one of the bad guys. This is the Star Wars metaphor again! This has nothing to do with the actual people living on the land. Theyâve turned an actual war into a fandom war.
- âIndigenous people wouldnât uproot olive trees. Indigenous people would not have drained the marshlands [for the love of G-d please learn about Roman deforestation and malaria]. Indigenous people wouldnât have broken up the West Bank into 227 enclaves.â Do you genuinely think that indigenous people are magical elven beings with a special metaphysical connection to the land who always make correct policy decisions? Look at what the indigenous people of Britain have done to their island. Weâre using fairytale logic.
- This person is, unfortunately, responsible for Holocaust education in Houston, Texas. They decided to read the Protocols to prepare for this. They pause for a moment to say that the Protocols are a forgery, of course, and not an actual historical text â but that doesnât really matter because Israel is doing everything in them anyway. They actually recommend reading the Protocols to learn about Zionism. They are outraged and indignant that their Jewish family members have called them antisemitic and cut ties with them.
- What does being Jewish mean to Kern? âEthnically, I have Ashkenazi ancestry â that fact canât be changed â but why consider calling myself a Jew? Because I like the pretty lights and fried potatoes of Hanukkah? Because I like to pepper my vocabulary with a little Yiddish, for spice?â They do add in occasional Yiddish words with footnote definitions: âmishpocha is a Yiddish word for family, a term I lovingly use to refer to my followers on social media.â They also helpfully define terms like âfascismâ for us: âa fascist government is a capitalist government without the nice window-dressings of neoliberalism.â I feel bad for their students.
- They do some surface level research into the ways that Jews were persecuted in Christian Europe, and tie this to paganism and the witch-hunts. They seem a lot more interested in the pagans than the Jews. They skim over Mizrahi history, and blame the expulsions on Zionists. We neglect the effect that Naziism had on Arab countries at the time. They claim the Dhimmi protected the Jews, who âdidnât have toâ (werenât allowed to) serve in the army, taking the word at its literal meaning and glossing over the centuries of discrimination and humiliation (âThis is our land and the Jews are our dogsâ). Again, their arguments are based on whether the good or the evil side is acting, rather than the actions themselves. I could say that the Palestinians of Israel are under the special protection of the IDF because they donât have to serve in the army, but that would be dishonest; we both know that serving in the army is not the primary marker of status in society.
- Iâm immensely unimpressed by their persecution complex. Theyâre scared of Jews because of online backlash to their TikTok account, and imaginary Zionists pulling the strings to harm their YA novelist career. In my actual neighborhood, Iâve seen a synagogue firebombed by antizionists and cannot walk to the store without seeing graffiti calling for violence against Jews; I have known someone who was shot and killed in the street by a man shouting Free Palestine, and polls in my country find that 50% of Muslims hold antisemitic views, but Iâm not going to lose my mind and have a panic attack if I see a woman in hijab on the street, because I thought we all agreed a few years ago that being afraid of people on the basis of their religion and ethnicity is bad, actually. If an Arab man walks up to me and calls me sister, Iâm going to talk to him, not run home and hide. Itâs a lot harder to be afraid of the people in your community if you take the time to get to know them. Thatâs part of why Iâm reading these books; having read Khalidi and PappĂ© and whatever the hell this is, I feel a lot less afraid. Antizionism is a house of cards; it is built on lies and therefore fragile. If youâre so afraid of Zionists that you canât walk past a Jew in the streets, I think that says a lot more about you than the Jews.
- What happens to half the worldâs Jews when Palestine is free? Easy answer for Kern: they donât care. A whole chapter is titled âDebunking Hasbara: âWonât somebody please think of the colonizers?ââ Yes. Seven million Jews live there and both Palestinian governments are invested in killing all of them. What happens to the Jews is half of the equation here.
- Hereâs one of the last pages: âWouldnât it be nice, Zionists, to put down the fear and hate?â I donât know if theyâre talking to themself or to the Jews.
- As with PappĂ©, I was curious to see their answer to the question: âwhat does a free Palestine look like?â The answer is âsounds of winds, waves, and children laughing, no drones, bombardment, gunfire, or screaming.â Sounds nice, if vague. How to we get from here to there? Their proposed idea for a Palestinian future looks like âIsraelis giving up the settlements and the homes taken in 1948.â I â thatâs it?? 200 pages of arguing that Israel is the greatest, evilest, most genocidal apartheid state there ever was, and the way to fix it is âmaybe a two state solution, maybe one, I donât know; a ceasefire with Hamas, and ending the settlements?â Iâm baffled. Those have been mainstream Israeli political positions for decades; thatâs entry-level debate material for the conflict. They have a preschool understanding of whatâs going on and they wrote a book about it.
- When Israel implements Kernâs revolutionary policies, and Palestine is finally free, we will achieve âa world beyond imperialism and capitalism.â Itâs going to be hard, like in Batman, they say, or like in Mad Max, Black Mirror, Wall-E, and the Lorax, but we can do it. âWhen I say free Palestine, people want to know what kind of nation state do you have in mind once Israeli apartheid is toppled. But I donât dream of nation states. Because Iâm an anarchist!â
- A lot of this book made me angry, but in the end, I was laughing. I wasnât reading a political argument, I was reading a YA novel written by a middle school teacher/booktok influencer, using the Gaza war as set dressing for their dystopian heroâs journey. It was deeply inappropriate, insultingly shallow, and everything a YA book should be. I would rather believe that my old friends view the war this way than the alternative. âFor now, I remain a small child, cocooned in my parentsâ dreams, hopeful for a future where love conquers all.â How American.
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