David Shasha on Zohan: Is Either one Sephardic?

On my my regular surfing-for-self-hate sites, I came across this interesting and occasionally brilliant article on Joachim Martillo’s bizarre blog “Ethnic Ashkenazim Against Zionist Israel” (no I am not joking): Insert Zionist Phallus, Achieve Orgasm. Apparently David Shasha is a self-appointed representative of Diaspora Sephardim (Director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage in Brooklyn, N.Y). However, he is really nothing like other Sephardic Jews I have come across in the USA or Israel.
I have taken the liberty to comment on excepts of his somewhat lengthy analysis/review of the movie:
Roth, like Freud, sees the Diaspora Jew as powerless.
Roth, like Freud, like the Jewish Tradition, like Justin White, like the vast majority of Jews in the world (even if they don’t admit it). Apparently only David Shasha, Richard Silverstein, Joachim Martillo, and other passionate galut-philes think otherwise! But, what is “power?” In Germany, Jews had, undoubtedly, great influence, but did they have “power?” Unfortunately, no-they didn’t have the power to save the Jewish masses from annihilation.
The Sabra Jew is here all-powerful, the Diaspora Jew a pathetic example of a human being.
The Sabra is not “all-powerful” because he depends on the Diaspora Jew. The Diaspora Jew is a pathetic example of a Jew in some cases, but certainly not of a human being! Mark Twain said:

If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. It suggests a nebulous dim puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of. He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his commercial importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk. His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine, and abstruse learning are also away out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in the world, in all the ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself, and be excused for it. The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone; other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

He was right-but he was not talking about an Israeli! This quote is what Diaspora Jews drool over-to be considered “the upper echelon” the olive oil that floats upon the common liquid. But, why is the Diaspora Jew pathetic in Torah-terms?:

3 who will inherit the World To Come:
One who dwells in the Land Of Israel.
פסחים קיג-א-4
Machlon died because he left Israel

מחלון שעשו גופן חולין ופרשב”ם חוץ לארץ ארץ טמאה היא עכ”ל

מהרש”א חידושי אגדות מסכת בבא בתרא דף צא עמוד ב

Ktubot (110B.5)
The Rabbis taught in the Baraita: A person should always dwell in Eretz Yisrael even if he has to dwell in a city with a majority of idolaters, and a person should not dwell outside of Eretz Yisrael even in a city with a majority of Jews. Because whoever dwells in Eretz Yisrael is considered to be one who has a G-d, and one whoever dwells outside Eretz Yisrael is considered to be one who is G-dless as it says: “To give you the land of Canaan, to be a G-d unto you. The juxtaposition of the two clauses teaches us that “to be a G-d unto you” is dependent upon being in “The Land of Canaan,” i.e. Eretz Yisrael.
The Gemara asks in wonderment:
And whoever does not dwell in Eretz Yisrael is G-dless?! But the Holy One Blessed is He, is the G-d of the entire world!-?-
The Gemara explains: Rather the Baraita should be understood as follows: The verse comes to tell you that whoever dwells outside Eretz Yisrael is as if he worships idols.

The Jew, not because he is not an Israeli, but because he doesn’t live in his native, G-d-given Land, is not complete.
This is what people have mistakenly called Zionsim, but it is actually simply an aspect of Judaism. Joachim Martillo just doesn’t have the knowledge-courage to present that side of Judaism.

Jewish funnymen from Lenny Bruce to Woody Allen to Mel Brooks to Larry David and most recently Judd Apatow have enriched the comedic traditions of America. In their own way, such Jewish comedians reflect a critical strain of the Ashkenazi Diaspora mentality.

Yes and it is a strain that devolved into a gentile strain. How many Hollywood Jews are assimilated-Jewish-in-name-only Jew? River Phoenix (drug overdose), Phil Spector (convicted murderer), Pee-Wee Herman (Paul Reubens-I won’t say what he did)-oh my the list could go on! I am not sure what this proves-that Jews who make Gentiles laugh become criminals or eventually Gentiles themselves? Lenny Bruce, who fits the bill entirely, was mentioned by the author himself.
In the wake of the neo-Zionist kerfuffle of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat character, who trafficks in anti-Semitic Russian stereotypes by deploying textbook examples of such racism and re-framing it within a gibberish Israeli-style Hebrew that Borat uses in place of the Russian language, Sandler, perhaps the most popular and commercially successful comedian working in movies today, jumps into the deep end of the pool by creating an entire movie based on Middle Eastern stereotypes and motifs.
Ouch! Run-on sentence! What is “neo-Zionist kerfuffle?” That is a Silverstein-ism. A presupposed indictment of Zionism by labeling the new fad: post-Zionism? That whole paragraph proves that, even if David Shasha is actually Sephardic-he has a thoroughly “Ashkenazic soul.” The only thing post-Zionist about those two is that Baron Cohen used to be Baruch Cohen ברוך כהן and he, apparently a priest (Cohen) had an out-of-wedlock kid with his “convert” girlfriend-to-be-wife. Sandler sings about the relationship because Hanukkah and famous American Jews (and those who have some Jewish lineage).
From Mel Brooks, Lenny Bruce and Woody Allen we see the evolution of a sexual pathology that incorporates the Shiksa other, the neurotic, flaccid, cerebral Talmud student, and the repressive nature of Jewish sexuality in a heady swirl that turns sex into something more than just sex.
This basically shows, brilliantly, that this whole Zohan thing is a concoction of American-Anglo Diaspora Jews. Zohan must have the non-Jewish girl. He behaves like a macho Mizrachi Jew (or how Ashkenazim perceive them to be). Like many Moroccan Jews, he “does hair.” But he has Ashkenazi parents and says phrases in Yiddish! Huh? Plus the accent is way-way off. Mr. Shasha is on the money with this insight.
Caught in the web of this assertion is the complex factor of Israelis leaving Israel to escape the inexorable violence and seeking a new life while still maintaining the trace of their Israeli cultural posture, itself superior to the misanthropy of Diaspora Jewish existence. The Jewish victim now becomes the Jewish victimizer.
Yes-the Israeli mentality of survival and mental stability is superior to the feeble, emasculated, whining, neurotic, obnoxious Diaspora Jew, some of whose members are prominently displaced of the Wall Of Shame of this blog! Victum? Victimizer? More galut-psycho babble? No Sephardic Jews talk this way. Not even the ones who married Ashkenazim. A few hours ago I was studying Gemara with a group of Sephardim in Jerusalem-they are nothing like this. They are honest, straight-forward, simple, trustworthy, non-English speaking, non-Western, pious people. Not this verbose, American, neurotic mental drivel that you present here.
macho barbarian ethos of the Israeli…
That is Mizrachi-sometimes. But that is first and foremost Arab. On a regular basis I walk by Arabs near East Jerusalem and they yell and swear in Arabic. They stop their feet when I walk with my back to them in order to taunt me. They yell garbage from their cars as they pass. They congregate like mosquitoes near every public place as if it were their favorite street light that they must be near. Are they Israelis? You tell me, David. Just don’t be a coward like Richard and dodge the issue.
Flipping salon culture on its head, Zohan seeks to make macho the stereotypical gayness of the male hairdresser; this in light of his parents’ earlier pronouncements on the faygele nature of the typical male stylist.
No, I actually know gay Mizrachi hairstylists (not so well!). I think Sandler is just confused-he is mixing the Israeli Moroccan hairstylist (which is common) with his Rambo-like vision of what an Israeli is-should be. That fact that you don’t understand this makes me question whether the author understands Israeli יורדים (yordim-Jews who leave Israel).
Zohan is marked as a symbol of what it means to be an Israeli in American Jewish eyes.
I think this is fair. As I said before, Sandler is mixing different kinds of people, inappropriately.
Zohan becomes the Aryan uber-Jew, a Jew who is not cerebral or well-mannered; he is a beast of a man who treats women as sex objects in the way that the film’s flashbacks show that he treated his Palestinian Arab prisoners with the same combination of aggression and confidence when he was working for the Mossad.
Again, he is not Aryan because Sandler has him acting like a macho arse ערס:

Ars (Arabic: عرص‎, Hebrew: ערס‎), or Arsim (plural) is a mildly offensive Hebrew slang term for the Israeli stereotype of a low-class punk who wears flashy jewelry and tight clothing. A woman fitting this stereotype is an Arsit (also Freha (פרחה) or Fakatsa (פקצה).
In Arabic the word ars means a “young shepherd,” but in Cairo and other Arab cities it refers to a pimp. A long form used sometimes is arsawwat.
Stereotype
A typical ars wears tight, gaudy clothing and jewelery (commonly Magen David, as well as the “Chai” (Hebrew: ח”י‎) necklaces), speaks poor Hebrew with an excessive reliance on slang, is disrespectful to women and behaves rudely in public.

Arsim (plural of Arse) don’t work for the Mossad as far as I know. You are venting your anger out on your version of what an Israeli is, David. Again, Sandler is mixing up different ethnicities into a single “Israeli” that actually doesn’t exist. All Israelis eat hummus, but it comes from Arabic culture.
The Arabs in the film are presented as filthy, decrepit and degenerate ´towelheads’ who are just waiting to kill a Jew.
Nu? There a educated Arabs everywhere-I see them at University. But that statement has to be based in truth or you wouldn’t have phrased it so accurately-you shot yourself in the foot, David.
Throughout the film, by the use of food symbols and linguistic markers, Israelis are seen as exclusively Ashkenazi.
Yes, perhaps except for the hummus. This is the problem-Yiddish-Ashkenazi parents-a job with the Mossad combined with America-syle cut off jeans, a Sephardic-styled job/appreciation for women, and a accent that is not Israeli whatsoever.
And what has preceded it is a movie of unbridled male egocentrism and macho narcissism driven by the Zionist-Israeli ethos.
Nope-it’s a secular Diaspora Jew’s incorrect portrayal of what he thinks Israelis are like. Many Israelis are gentile, helpful, caring people-many. That is not hasbara הסברה. That comes from a goy-turned Jew (Sephardic) who has spent about 7 years all around Israel. You have read to much Silverstein-go read some Torah like a good Sephardi!
the view that Israeli Judaism represents all that is ‘normal’ and that the Diaspora New York being the paradigm of that Diaspora is filled with abnormality and neurosis.
That, ironically is very close to the truth.
A counterweight to Baer’s argument was made by the scholar Leo Strauss in his 1962 introduction to the English version of his book Spinoza’s Critique of Religion:

Cultural Zionism believed it had found a safe middle ground between politics (power politics) and divine revelation, between the sub-cultural and the supra-cultural, but it lacked the sternness of these two extremes. When cultural Zionism understands itself, it turns into religious Zionism. But when religious Zionism understands itself, it is in the first place Jewish faith and only secondarily Zionism. It must regard as blasphemous the notion of a human solution to the Jewish problem. It may go so far as to regard the establishment of the state of Israel as the most important event in Jewish history since the completion of the Talmud, but it cannot regard it as the arrival of the messianic age, of the redemption of Israel and of all men. The establishment of the state of Israel is the most profound modification of the Galut which has occurred, but it is not the end of the Galut: in the religious sense, and perhaps not only in the religious sense, the state of Israel is part of the Galut.

Yes! Yes! Yes! Very correct. A friend of mine is doing his PhD thesis of Leo Strauss as we speak.
The degenerate Zohan becomes the Moses of contemporary Judaism.
Oh my! That quote can flip a man from Mizrachi to Ashkenazi in a heartbeat. Do you really want that? Maybe you do!
What Adam Sandler has done wittingly or unwittingly is to bring together Jewish paranoia and Jewish power by dwelling on the symbolic meaning of the sexual act and the way in which the orgasm can serve as a unifying marker of a new-found Jewish assertiveness and aggression that is literally embodied in the Zohan whose dual nature brings together the power of the phallic in both sexual and military terms.
What Adam Sandler has done is made money from a project that is somewhat entertaining and grossly inaccurate. This may be said of many of the people displayed on the ASDL’s Wall Of Shame. Please G-d don’t let a Sephardic face get on that Wall!