In desperate need of a global super-villain they can batter, as a form of atonement for their own wild privilege we were chosen, and not arbitrarily either. Sartre knew the unique utility of Jew-hatred: “The antisemite does not need the Jew to be real, he needs him to be useful to his ends.”
And so, Chlöe Swarbrick, co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, chose to attend, and helped promote through her social media channels, an anti-Zionist Passover Seder, adorned in a keffiyeh and a watermelon-themed kippah. The spectacle was equal measures provocative and grotesque, by design. Ms. Swarbrick wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let us begin with the obvious. Swarbrick is not Jewish. This doesn’t disqualify one from attending a Seder. Many Jewish households open their doors to friends of other faiths during Passover. Hospitality is built into the liturgy. But Swarbrick did not enter as a guest in the spirit of dialogue or humility. She entered, loudly and ostentatiously, as a walking billboard of ideological allegiance counter to all Jewish interests, both in Israel and the diaspora. She came, quite literally, with one thing in mind: desecration.
Ms. Swarbrick would know she stands in direct opposition to most members of the Jewish community. After her refusal to call Hamas terrorists in the immediate aftermath of the Oct 7th pogrom she wouldn’t have expected to keep many Jewish friends. And indeed, those in the community she does call friends are – to put this as generously as I can – considered bunions under our feet.
The Jewish organisers of this “Seder” no doubt imagined themselves bold. In reality, they achieved something both drearily derivative and cruelly presumptuous. Yes, there are Jews who oppose Jewish autonomy, but that doesn’t make the political exploitation of a holy ritual any less sacrilegious. The attempt to cleanse this move by waving the token presence of dissident Jews is as transparent as it is tired. It is the rhetorical equivalent of saying, in the New Zealand context, “I have plenty of Māori mates who support Hobson’s Pledge.” It’s an intellectual cul-de-sac, one that confuses representation with consent and permission with authority. Outsourcing the ethics of participation to the most ideologically convenient interlocutor is quite obviously deceitful.
And what is most galling, is that Passover is not some pliable cultural artefact. It is the story of our exodus from slavery, of identity forged in trauma and endurance, of covenant and survival. For millennia, Jews have gathered around Seder tables to recount their flight from bondage and to taste, quite literally, the bitterness of oppression. To hijack this story, not to honour it, but to redirect it, to violate its very essence, and stampede over it with calls to end Jewish autonomy – to wish us back into bondage – is the desecration. To quote Sarte again, “They (antisemites) delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.” It is as if Sartre knew Ms. Swarbrick personally.
Swarbrick is not a private citizen. She is not a wandering activist dabbling in radical chic. She is the co-leader of a political party, one that purports to champion inclusivity, respect, and cultural sensitivity. Her choices are not simply personal, they carry a degree of weight. And here, she used that weight to flatten the complexity of Jewish identity, to stride through a sacred narrative with the swagger of committed, unfeeling Imperialist.
And of course, Swarbrick didn’t just attend. She publicised. She posed. She promoted. She took a holy tradition, squeezed it through a political sieve, and reassembled the remnants into a tableau that served her purposes, not the purposes of those who have lived, died, prayed, and wept over that tradition for centuries. And who was her audience, exactly? We can assume non-Jews, the overwhelming bulk of her followers, whom she clearly hoped to disinform, and possibly even incite. For a Jewish audience, and by that, I mean the vast majority of Jews outside of her church, the intent was to taunt. No other possible explanation is acceptable that doesn’t challenge her intelligence. Solidarity with Palestinians? Go meet with them, eat with them, enjoy their celebrations. What is in anyway positive or constructive about the desecration of a Jewish festival on an isolated Pacific Island 16,000 kms away from the conflict? But when were the NZ Green Party last constructive? We’d have to take our minds back a few years now.
In his brilliant demolition of hypocrisy and cant, Sartre tells us that antisemitism is a “passion,” not an opinion. Reading Benjamin Doyle’s biography on the NZ Greens website, they write “Our efforts for climate change and Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice is what we use to achieve a free Palestine.” Here we really do encounter this manufactured villain – it is all connected – all the world’s ills, of which Jewish autonomy is major one. Possibly even the head of the octopus? Ms. Swarbrick, and her colleagues appear to have fused with the furthest reaches of the nationalist Right on the Jewish question.
And yet, expect apologetics, or even worse, silence, from a complicit media on this latest thuggish act. The genuine anti-racist can only hope this wicked witch continues to putrefy and is rendered a pool of sludge before too many of her affluent supporters have caught her malady. Yes, sadly, Ms. Swarbrick may need to get worse – much worse – before it can become better.
Dane Giraud is a comedy writer and a member of the NZ Jewish community. This article was first published HERE
And so, Chlöe Swarbrick, co-leader of New Zealand’s Green Party, chose to attend, and helped promote through her social media channels, an anti-Zionist Passover Seder, adorned in a keffiyeh and a watermelon-themed kippah. The spectacle was equal measures provocative and grotesque, by design. Ms. Swarbrick wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let us begin with the obvious. Swarbrick is not Jewish. This doesn’t disqualify one from attending a Seder. Many Jewish households open their doors to friends of other faiths during Passover. Hospitality is built into the liturgy. But Swarbrick did not enter as a guest in the spirit of dialogue or humility. She entered, loudly and ostentatiously, as a walking billboard of ideological allegiance counter to all Jewish interests, both in Israel and the diaspora. She came, quite literally, with one thing in mind: desecration.
Ms. Swarbrick would know she stands in direct opposition to most members of the Jewish community. After her refusal to call Hamas terrorists in the immediate aftermath of the Oct 7th pogrom she wouldn’t have expected to keep many Jewish friends. And indeed, those in the community she does call friends are – to put this as generously as I can – considered bunions under our feet.
The Jewish organisers of this “Seder” no doubt imagined themselves bold. In reality, they achieved something both drearily derivative and cruelly presumptuous. Yes, there are Jews who oppose Jewish autonomy, but that doesn’t make the political exploitation of a holy ritual any less sacrilegious. The attempt to cleanse this move by waving the token presence of dissident Jews is as transparent as it is tired. It is the rhetorical equivalent of saying, in the New Zealand context, “I have plenty of Māori mates who support Hobson’s Pledge.” It’s an intellectual cul-de-sac, one that confuses representation with consent and permission with authority. Outsourcing the ethics of participation to the most ideologically convenient interlocutor is quite obviously deceitful.
And what is most galling, is that Passover is not some pliable cultural artefact. It is the story of our exodus from slavery, of identity forged in trauma and endurance, of covenant and survival. For millennia, Jews have gathered around Seder tables to recount their flight from bondage and to taste, quite literally, the bitterness of oppression. To hijack this story, not to honour it, but to redirect it, to violate its very essence, and stampede over it with calls to end Jewish autonomy – to wish us back into bondage – is the desecration. To quote Sarte again, “They (antisemites) delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert.” It is as if Sartre knew Ms. Swarbrick personally.
Swarbrick is not a private citizen. She is not a wandering activist dabbling in radical chic. She is the co-leader of a political party, one that purports to champion inclusivity, respect, and cultural sensitivity. Her choices are not simply personal, they carry a degree of weight. And here, she used that weight to flatten the complexity of Jewish identity, to stride through a sacred narrative with the swagger of committed, unfeeling Imperialist.
And of course, Swarbrick didn’t just attend. She publicised. She posed. She promoted. She took a holy tradition, squeezed it through a political sieve, and reassembled the remnants into a tableau that served her purposes, not the purposes of those who have lived, died, prayed, and wept over that tradition for centuries. And who was her audience, exactly? We can assume non-Jews, the overwhelming bulk of her followers, whom she clearly hoped to disinform, and possibly even incite. For a Jewish audience, and by that, I mean the vast majority of Jews outside of her church, the intent was to taunt. No other possible explanation is acceptable that doesn’t challenge her intelligence. Solidarity with Palestinians? Go meet with them, eat with them, enjoy their celebrations. What is in anyway positive or constructive about the desecration of a Jewish festival on an isolated Pacific Island 16,000 kms away from the conflict? But when were the NZ Green Party last constructive? We’d have to take our minds back a few years now.
In his brilliant demolition of hypocrisy and cant, Sartre tells us that antisemitism is a “passion,” not an opinion. Reading Benjamin Doyle’s biography on the NZ Greens website, they write “Our efforts for climate change and Te Tiriti o Waitangi justice is what we use to achieve a free Palestine.” Here we really do encounter this manufactured villain – it is all connected – all the world’s ills, of which Jewish autonomy is major one. Possibly even the head of the octopus? Ms. Swarbrick, and her colleagues appear to have fused with the furthest reaches of the nationalist Right on the Jewish question.
And yet, expect apologetics, or even worse, silence, from a complicit media on this latest thuggish act. The genuine anti-racist can only hope this wicked witch continues to putrefy and is rendered a pool of sludge before too many of her affluent supporters have caught her malady. Yes, sadly, Ms. Swarbrick may need to get worse – much worse – before it can become better.
Dane Giraud is a comedy writer and a member of the NZ Jewish community. This article was first published HERE
20 comments:
Chloe and her Green mates get far too much attention by the media.
Some context to this article would be useful. What did Chloé actually do? All I understand from the article is that she turned up to a Jewish religious event, did something with a watermelon and then wrote something in social media the author doesn't like.
Chloe Swarbrick is ignorant of history. The land of Israel was purchased not taken. We have the same ignorance in New Zealand regarding Maori grievances concerning land, much of which was sold by Maori to early settlers. All these inflammatory issues are now being amalgamated by groups such as the Green Party to appeal to the ignorant. There is nothing noble about their aims, as there was with environmental issues.
The Jewish people have every right to a homeland especially after the terrible events of WW2. I have read Jewish history and at least 38 books on the Holocaust. Most were accounts of great individual heroism and resilience. Especially poignant from a childs point of view. I am appalled by the anti-semitism. I'm appalled that the hallmarks(scarves) of a terrorist organisation like Hamas are worn in our parliament.
I think Chloe Swarbrick is an idiot, but I'm sorry Dane: in an ostensibly free society (particularly a secular one), Jews have zero right to expect that they will be uniquely free of critcism and even mocking, be it that on the basis of their faith or their underlying ethnicity.
As a White Christian male, I know only too well what it is like to be the go-to subject of derision and blaming for all the world's wrongs.
I'd tell you and your Jewish coethnics and coreligionists to get over yourselves and stop playing the victim card whenever things don't go your way.
chloe and her sheeples-saving the world, one soundbite at a time.
jewish supremacists', killing at will-'god' said to do it!!
You know an opinion piece written by a Jewish individual that relies heavily of the historical Jewish experience to bolster some situation in the present is essentially an appeal to emotion rather than rationality.
You'll always hear the Jewish explanation for past experiences (which boils down to "everyone else is evil, and we are blameless'), but rarely does the more rational explanation (given that Jews are the common denominator in "antisemitism" perhaps they have a part to play") get a look in.
To borrow a meme-phrase often seen online, "if you've been thrown out of 109 bars for poor behaviour, is it really just the bar tenders' fault?"
I don't see the current crop of Green MPs as having the intellectual maturity to be Government ministers. We need a mechanism of filtering out people. It would be helpful if we had a media capable of objective reporting.
"Some context to this article would be useful. What did Chloé actually do? All I understand from the article is that she turned up to a Jewish religious event, did something with a watermelon and then wrote something in social media the author doesn't like."
Like in most cases of allegations of the capital thought crime of "antisemitic remarks," if the author gave context, then most reasonable people would probably say "so what?" By not giving proper context (instead insinuating vaguely about Swarbrick hating Jews or something), the reader is more likely to come away thinking the next Jewish pogrom is about to commence any minute.
Much personal rancour coming through here. Argument would work better without so much animus against CS, the Greens, and the non-Zionist Jews. Anger only persuades those who already share those feelings.
I find this article and comments interesting.
I read it as an article about respect- or lack of it- in NZ. Likewise the comments. Ok - It is the context of the Jews and anti- semitism, clearly of profound personal importance to the writer.
However I feel the same sense of desecration when Captain Cook is abused or women are subjected to the brutality of the patriarchal narrative or my white heritage is trashed or the Police are whimsically are demonised or asylum seekers rape visitors to NZ.
Why is respect such a dirty concept in NZ?
SOME READERS ARE SUBMITTING URLs WITHOUT ANY COMMENTARY. PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL DELETE SUBMISSIONS THAT CONTAIN ONLY A URL.
Chloé and the other Jew hating homosexuals on the left would not last long in Gaza. They would be tossed off a tall building.
Chloe's capture of the media is pure egotistical pantomime. She is ignorant, quite nutty, and vicious. Reckon quite maaad. But she sure knows how to play the media quite ignorant these days of the importance and significance of Judeo-Christian traditions and belief. The Passover seder meal, as with Good Friday, and the Triduum is a sensitive tradition. Thank heaven there's little hope of Chloe rising again once flattened.
glan011
"Judeo-Christian" is not real. It's a made-up concept that helps Israel dupe Christians into supporting Zionism.
After the Jews rejected Jesus (and with him, Christianity itself), the history of Jews and Christians is one of divergence, not commonality, and has been characterised by near constant antagonism.
In fact, it's not going too far to say that Jews tend to have the same extremely low opinion of Christians as they do Muslims, but the difference is they require the support of the (largely post)-Christian West (particularly the US) to help them create their Greater Israel, so they can't be too outspoken about their anti-Christian outlook.
Go to an American school today and the "religion" inculcated in the students is much more likely to be what is called "Holocaustianity" than Christianity, which used to be a given.
I wait for the day, when the entire NZ Green party, present themselves in front of the NZ Media, the theme - " We have a press release" - Chloe steps forward and speaks, and during that speech, the members beside and behind then collectively - " raise their right arms above shoulder height, palms forward fingers closed together and in loud voice call Sieg Hail".
At that point they will have shown just how Anti-Semitic they are!
I had thought Palestinian identity emerged in the early 20th century but Jewish identity was 2000 years older. I had thought that Judaism was 1000 years older than Islam. But I could be misinformed.
I think 'Judeo-Christian' has become part of culture wars. Not really anything to do with Jews or Christians or such, but a kind of synonym for 'Western', often used by people who are neither Jewish nor Christian. in practice And like most culture-war terms that are intended positively, it means 'people like us'. So it's anti-Islamic in that sense.
The Prophet Mohammed drew much more on Jewish/Judaic tradition than Christian, so we should be talking about 'Judaeo-Islamic' as well as 'Judaeo-Christian'. Both Islam and Christianity are offshoots of Judaism.
As a Western European, I much prefer acknowledging my Graeco-Roman heritage, visible as it is to this day in law and governance.
If one believes in the prophet Mohammed one might as well believe in the prophet Joseph Smith and his golden plates.
Acknowledging the historicity of Mohammed and Joseph Smith is not the same thing as 'believing in' them. Mohammed was a very real historical figure who had a massive impact on world history by founding the religion of Islam. The point I am making is that he drew heavily on Hebrew sources and so the term 'Judaeo-Islamic' is as legitimate as 'Judaeo-Christian'.
Post a Comment