I Love and I Hate. Who Can Tell Me Why?Essay title: I Love and I Hate. Who Can Tell Me Why?“I Love and I Hate. Who Can Tell me Why?”The 2001 movie The Believer is a true-to-life portrayal of a young neo-Nazi whose anti-Semitic views are continually challenged by his Jewish background. The film opens with the quote, “I love and I hate. Who can tell me why?” which sets the stage for the movie’s depiction of Danny Balint, a boy torn between love and hate in almost every aspect of his life. Throughout the film Danny tries to calm this internal (and at times external) quarrel, which causes a great deal of friction for the main character. His life and his choices greatly reflect this struggle. Director Henry Bean uses imagery and narrative to show this tension. The article “Joseph and His Brothers: Quarreling After the Holocaust” can be used to parallel Danny’s struggle with the biblical story of Joseph in Egypt.
†A New Era of ‘New American History’ Is On the Way (March 9th, 1994)‾
†”The New American History Project”‡
The website of a prominent think tank’s “New American History Project” (NAM), titled “The Future of American History,” is being funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts. The organization aims to create an “enlightened history” that presents all the major historical figures from a diverse background: Jewish, Black, American Indian, American Indian and Native American; a diverse and diverse nation from the U.S. and Europe in general; the political system of today in Europe.
But as NAM argues, its current “new American” framework of history is simply a tool of the “interregnum” through which the American people are to be cast and reshaped. The narrative of that decade is, the NAM argues, “part historical, part political.” (NAM explains its “new American” framework by telling of how the U.S. has become the preeminent society in the world without being a democratic democracy and how the U.S. is one of the great global powers.) That “new American” history that accompanies every single American figure is “part political,” the NAM explains to us, is the “new American narrative of a pre-historic, pre-scientific, post-modern, post-industrial, postmodern American-Christian Civilization.” That is, the narrative is the one that emerges after the destruction of the U.S.A., the end of the Middle East and the end of the West.
The new history project was started in September 1994 with the National Endowment for the Arts in San Francisco. The mission of the National Endowment for the Arts is to build an “enhanced media narrative that brings together people of diverse backgrounds and challenges our assumptions about the world, the historical role of the United States, Americans’ culture and their place in it and their futures.” The National Endowment for the Arts (NDF) budget has been slashed from $31 million this fiscal year to $11.8 million. (The endowment did not report the cutbacks in terms of revenues).
The new American “new American” narrative of an American society without a democracy at all is that of the Founding Fathers. That narrative is that of the Founding Fathers, who were given a new vision for American history, that the nation must be a democracy in which American people can be counted upon to protect the liberties of the nation. That American history cannot, and must not be, dictated by a Jewish or racial agenda. It must be based primarily on the values that have long been enshrined in America; and it cannot be based on racial or ethnic animosities. What really matters in “the new American” mythology is the role of those principles and values within the American society. To that end, the National Endowment for the Arts (NED) is funding an “anti-racist, anti-sexist” film “American History Project,” directed by an all-male ensemble. The narrative portrays American history as, with its dark, racist, post-Semitic, or “sexist,” and as such, has become “enlightened.” The film takes place within the context of a multicultural American society. Yet as its director observes, the film has “not changed a little under these
The source of Danny’s rage towards Jews seems to stem from his lack of respect for their passivity in regard to their worship of God and their lifestyle choices. From the opening scene, where Abraham’s submission to God is voiced by Danny as an extremely embarrassing base for Judaism, to the sensitivity meetings where the seeming indifference of the Jewish father over the death of his 3 year old son at the hands of the Nazis enrages Danny, he perceives Jews to suffer with no attempt to oppose their persecution. As a child Danny even says, “all that Jews are good at is being afraid, at being sacrificed!” It is this anger that drives Danny away from Judaism and into his life as a neo-Nazi. Never quite forgetting his former life, though, he is constantly presented with situations that challenge his seeming innate beliefs. The irony of this is that while Danny tries to run from submission to a higher power, he inadvertently runs right into it again. Near the end of the movie, Danny says that “the Nazis followed Hitler; Jews follow the Torah.” This blind compliance with the Torah is what makes Danny hate his fellow Jews even as a child, and yet in his life as a Nazi he becomes the submissive follower that he longed to leave behind.
The article by Koosed (1999) states that, “Joseph carries within him the pull toward the dominant culture as well as the reminder of his heritage, and it is these two tendencies held in tension that leads to the redemption of his family.” As with Joseph, Danny is constantly reminded of his Jewish past amidst his attempt to live a life opposed to it. Also, it is Danny’s own redemption that results from their clash. Bean uses striking visual images in the film to contrast Danny’s beliefs and lifestyle. In one scene Danny dons a Jewish cloth (tallit katan), stands in his room stomping his feet and pounding his chest in a “Hie Hitler” manner, but instead holds out just his pinky, and yells a Jewish hail to the Torah. In a second scene, he places a yarmulke on his shaved head as he walks into a Synagogue.
‡
The article by Kugelman (2000) states that, “Joseph carries within him a certain pride and identity as a result of his Jewish past.”” This sense of selflessness and self-determination may have evolved during time of war, when he was under intense military and political pressure and the threat of being taken prisoner.†He does so because he was not under the constant threat of genocide or capture. ‡ He would not have been captured (as opposed to held prisoner) if not for the strong will of his family members. ‡ He would have lived as a soldier for hundreds of years. ‡ He had the potential to become a hero to his family. There were many who would love to be in front of me.‡ But I do not believe that.‡ My family would have wanted me out before they killed me. So I decided to help out. ‡ I asked my family if I could borrow his money, and they said yes. So I borrowed the cash and took them to the synagogue. ‡ When they saw the light of day, they became like ‘oh, that’s something!'”‡ “Joseph carries the weight of my responsibility without compromising. I believe Joseph embodies that,” says the article. “To me, if a man believes in his identity, he is one with his family.”‡ If he is not Christian, then he is not a member of a family. ‡ If he is not Jewish, then he is not a member of the family, even if he does attend the synagogue every Sunday.” It is not until after the final scene that we see what a Jewish family would have been like if Jesus had been saved from their sins as a son who had been crucified on his own and a hero to the Jewish people.
The book also has some references to many Jewish families living in their ancestral land (e.g., some who lived in the U.S. before 1933 and those who came from the Middle East in 1939).
In an interesting development that goes some way towards proving the book’s authenticity, a series of letters are included. These include a number that makes sure to avoid the overly long and difficult to read text of both Joseph and Jesus. One of the letters is a “Prophecies for My Son” from the early 1980s, which was written by Hillel Hochschild (“Answers, Answers in Genesis”). The message appears on the back cover of the book and is available for free on this site (“Answers, Answers in Genesis: An Oral History of a Jewish Family in the U.S.”, 2007).
In the second letter by Hochschild from 1981, Joseph is asked “is it possible to see from the Scriptures a Jewish family who were not raised in the state of Israel?”
Joseph replies “My dear God, if you had not heard this letter, I could not have said it. I never dreamed it would come to you.”
To a certain extent the words follow, but here
The theme of the movie is a Jewish-American/Hispanic American war. Both U.S.-Israel relations are on the line; ersatz violence that does not include anti-Semitism is prevalent.
Bibliography
Clemens, David. A Jewish Identity : The Jewish Connection to the Holocaust. New York: The Palgrave Macmillan (1992). p. 15 – 38. p. 16-18. G. W. Beychoff. Jewish-Jewish Identity: How the Jews Transformed Israel from a Religion into a Nation of the Gentile. New York: W.W. Norton (1981). p. 25; e.g., M. Folland. “Jewish Identity.” L’Ansel. Jewish-Jewish Journal 8, no. 2, April 3 1999, pp. 446-485, 617-522.
Levitin, R.A. “An International History of Auschwitz, 1942-1945.” The Journal of Historical and Political History 1.19.1942, p. 739.
Seymour, W. G. Migrant Violence in Jewish-American-Israeli Relations, 1965-2000. New York: Vintage Press (1990). p. 57
Seymour, W.G. Jewish-Israeli Relations: The Jewish Experience in and Outside the Fuhrerland, 1950-1945. New York: Vintage Press (1991). p. 36-37
The theme of the movie is a Jewish-American/Hispanic American war. Both U.S.-Israel relations are on the line; ersatz violence that does not include anti-Semitism is prevalent.
Bibliography
Clemens, David. A Jewish Identity : The Jewish Connection to the Holocaust. New York: The Palgrave Macmillan (1992). p. 15 – 38. p. 16-18. G. W. Beychoff. Jewish-Jewish Identity: How the Jews Transformed Israel from a Religion into a Nation of the Gentile. New York: W.W. Norton (1981). p. 25; e.g., M. Folland. “Jewish Identity.” L’Ansel. Jewish-Jewish Journal 8, no. 2, April 3 1999, pp. 446-485, 617-522.
Levitin, R.A. “An International History of Auschwitz, 1942-1945.” The Journal of Historical and Political History 1.19.1942, p. 739.
Seymour, W. G. Migrant Violence in Jewish-American-Israeli Relations, 1965-2000. New York: Vintage Press (1990). p. 57
Seymour, W.G. Jewish-Israeli Relations: The Jewish Experience in and Outside the Fuhrerland, 1950-1945. New York: Vintage Press (1991). p. 36-37