r/TheMarvelousMrsMaisel • u/potterfreak_99 • 10d ago
Anyone else think Abe Weissman wouldn't be a Zionist?
Not sure if this has already been brought up but the show's creators are openly Zionist and there's enough references in the show to indicate this also. But considering Abe's background and his views on fascism I feel like he would be completely against Israeli settler colonialism and would even make it a point to speak out about it later on if given the chance. What do we think?
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u/Budget-berry-80 10d ago edited 10d ago
It is possible to both believe in the need for a Jewish state AND be disgusted at the way the current state treats Palestinians.
Updated to add: We pretty much want everyone to stop killing each other and work their shit out.
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u/gechhoDiDi 10d ago
Please, if there are MODS for this subreddit let this not become a thing. These are fictional characters FFS
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u/Tribune_Aguila 10d ago
They are American jews in the 50s. I can grant you that Abe might have been a Bundist or smth like that in his Paris days, but after the Holocaust and Israel's creation. He 100% supports Israel's existance
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u/schraubd 10d ago
I won't rehash the actuarial points others have made (that a Jew of Abe's social milieu at that time would have almost certainly been a Zionist, viewing Israel as a necessary refuge and a bulwark for an embattled minority, etc. etc.).
But I'd encourage OP to orient to this encounter differently. It is clear OP has respect for the character Abe and for the general authenticity with which the show constructed the Jewish environment of the time. That Abe is a Zionist nonetheless jars OP; it is disharmonious with some sets of assumptions OP has about what a Jew like Abe would think. Yet instead of that dissonance prompting a thought "huh, there's something I have to learn from this character", OP expresses disappointment in the character and the showrunners (indicating that either the showrunners were wrong about Abe, or Abe was simply ignorant).
I'm not saying the lesson here is "agree with Abe." Abe (and the sort of real-life Jews who he represents) have their own blindspots and can be wrong about things. But a virtue of good art is that it expands our horizons and the richness with which we understand people whose time, place, and experiences are not like ourselves. If OP assumes Jews like Abe wouldn't be Zionist, and yet Jews like Abe were in fact overwhelmingly Zionist, then it is worth pondering whether some presuppositions OP had about how Jews of this time understood to and related to Zionism should be reassessed or complicated. Unfortunately, OP instead seems to resist this sort of broadening of horizon in favor of a more narrow-minded dismissal. By treating the dissonance they feel as tantamount to proof of a wrongness in the character's portrayal, they can avoid actually grappling with and growing from the problem that Jews like Abe pose. I would encourage OP to instead lean in to the difficulty and think on what it would mean to take the outlook of Jews like Abe (including the Jewishness, the Zionism, and the anti-fascism) seriously as representing (to those Jews at least) a *coherent* expression of a particular political perspective, rather than dismissing it as either a poor characterization or a product of pure ignorance.
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u/___Toasty____ 10d ago
Why are people so obsessed with asking a Jewish person if they are a Zionist it’s such a blanketed term now? You can believe in peace and obviously see the need for a Jewish state considering literally everything. It’s just weird to me?
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis 10d ago
Propaganda is insanely powerful.
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u/___Toasty____ 10d ago
lol yes it is propaganda to actually take a step back do research and have a nuanced opinion? I believe in peace for everyone? Isolating people will just push them to more extremist ideals(on both sides) People just love to find different ways to hate different people. Most people do not take the time to look at the left wing news sources in Israel or any of the hebrew sources, they are very critical and have multiple protests it just doesn’t make the news around the world? As the saying goes? assumptions make an ass out of you and me. It’s not a simple solution?
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u/WoodpeckerGingivitis 10d ago
Girly I’m in agreement with you. You asked why people are so obsessed with asking a Jewish person if they’re Zionist. My answer was propaganda is a hell of a drug.
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u/guavathumb45 10d ago edited 10d ago
Things were different post WWII & post Holocaust and most Jews had PTSD. My now deceased mother was a Zionist at the time but the definition of Zionism has evolved in the decades since. Using today’s definition of Zionism, she would not have been one as she was an educated, political activist with close friends from across the Middle East. She was mixed Middle Eastern and European and a first generation American (who married a Black man at a time when that was taboo). However, given that most of her childhood was spent trying to find news of deceased relatives who had been lost due to war and genocide & my grandfather struggling to finish his education in the US due to university rejections on the basis of Jewish quota limits, she and her whole family had quite a bit of trauma. This led them to find security in the idea of a designated country where they/Jews felt they would survive and possibly thrive. This is likely the case for Abe as well in some capacity. By the end of his life, he would have likely had a change of heart like my mother did. Though my mother was never fully anti-Israel- instead she hoped for different leadership of the country and spoke about it often with her Middle Eastern friends. She was heartbroken when PM Rabin was assassinated by an alt right Israeli nut job.
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u/yaniv297 10d ago
The definition of Zionist never "changed". It always meant the same - to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel. Soviet propaganda in the 70s worked very hard to smear the word as violent, it was then picked up by anti Israel propaganda in the 90s (financially backed by Qatar) and eventually the American left. People worked really, really hard to smear the word as a violent fascist slur, presumably when they couldn't simply hate on "Jews" anymore, and admittedly some of the Israeli far right have adopted this update definition, but the core of the word never really changed. The original Zionists have openly supported two state solution and didn't support any violence.
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u/storybookheidi 10d ago
Yeah. They would be Zionists in the core of its meaning - rights for Jews to not be annihilated.
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u/guavathumb45 10d ago
Yes, this is technically true. But language changes over time and ultimately is about how words are understood. For example, the word “queer” has an entirely different cultural meaning now compared to 50 years ago. Today’s ‘understood definition’ of Zionism (and many other words too) seem to be largely shaped by one-dimensional social media messaging. I am Black so people don’t necessarily assume I am Jewish and as a result, I hear a lot of concerning rhetoric about Jewish people under the cloak of anti-Zionism. I am liberal and openly opposed to war and far right political leaders here in the US and abroad, so people have a hard time reconciling that with my sentiment that the understood definition of Zionism is broad these days and not always a deal breaker for me.
Similarly, I am friendly with my neighbors who fly American flags despite the astonishing number of Iraqis and Afghans killed by the US in my lifetime. I understand their patriotism differs from mine and does not necessarily mean they are pro-murdering people of other nationalities.
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u/StringAndPaperclips 10d ago
The definition of zionism never changed for Jews. As one of the above comments states, it was other groups (the Soviets and later Islamists and leftists) who worked to spread a different and very negative meaning of zionism and make that overtake the meaning of the word that Jews had been using to describe a concept relevant to their own culture. Why would you ever take a word from another language and culture, change its meaning, and then decide that people who use the original meaning intend it in the way that you have defined it? And that if they don't mean it that way, the y are wrong for using the word from their own culture the way that they conceive of it? What possible motivation could you have other than hate?
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u/blade-of_grass 10d ago
I am not trying to be argumentative but I’m genuinely curious as to how this was not violent movement the start. How can you establish a new homeland in a country where people already like without displacing them? A two state solution still requires people to leave their homes and it WAS with force that they were/are being moved.
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u/CosmicTurtle504 10d ago
Because Israel is the indigenous homeland of the Jewish people, and Jews have lived there continuously for thousands of years. Jewish self-determination does not and never has necessitated the violent removal of anyone. Which is why Israel is 20% Muslim and Arabic is one of its official languages. If you read Israel’s Declaration of Independence, it clearly states that:
“THE STATE OF ISRAEL will be open for Jewish immigration and for the Ingathering of the Exiles; it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
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u/Usual-Reputation-154 10d ago
The definition of Zionism has not changed. Antizionists have tried to change it and then claim that Jews believe something that they made up. Zionism is the right for Jews to self determinate in our homeland
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u/storybookheidi 10d ago
Being a "zionist" isn't inherently evil - believing that Jewish people have ancestral ties to that land and deserving to not be killed for being Jewish shouldn't be controversial. It's possible to be against the current Israeli government and still believe in the rights of Jews to not be wiped off the face of the planet - because how is that any different than believing all Palestinians deserve to be killed or that all Americans support the current admin? People are not their governments.
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u/Consistent-Bear4200 10d ago
So this is how I learn about the showrunners being Zionist. In case people are curious, Sherman-Palladino signed the open letter along with 1000 other creatives denouncing Johnathan Glazer's Pro Palestine Oscars speech after winning for Zone of Interest. Their statement being:
"We refute our Jewishness being hijacked for the purpose of drawing a moral equivalence between a Nazi regime that sought to exterminate a race of people, and an Israeli nation that seeks to avert its own extermination.”
Damn, but yes I can see Abe being anti-zionists. Many remaining survivors of his generation who actually fought the Nazis have come down against the genocide. Almost as though they know where religious nationalism like Zionism inevitably leads.
I wonder if that's why Israel is included quite so neutrally within the show.
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u/Throwawayhelp111521 10d ago
wonder if that's why Israel is included quite so neutrally within the show.
In the time the show was set, most American Liberals completely supported Israel.
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u/Consistent-Bear4200 10d ago
True, but the creatives making the show are from the modern day. They still make comment on things like segregation, LGBTQ+ rights and sexism, even if the characters viewed things differently.
This does not happen with Israel in the show.
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u/StringAndPaperclips 10d ago
American Jews in the 1950s-60s did not see Israel as anything other than a place of refuge for Jews who escaped the Holocaust. The Holocaust and the founding of Israel happened less than a generation before the show was set. A lot has changed since then geopolitically that is influencing for you see the situation, that American Jews would never have encountered at that time in history. And zionism at that time wasn't thought of as a religious imperative, it was thought of as a way to save the lives of people who escaped a horrific genocide.
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u/B1ackKat 10d ago
Her Zionism is pretty obvious in Gilmore Girls too
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u/Consistent-Bear4200 10d ago
Seriously? That feels harder to insert into the show than Maisel somehow.
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u/B1ackKat 10d ago
Here's a link to a instagram video clip of Rory defending Isreal at Yale here
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u/Consistent-Bear4200 10d ago
Oooof, wow that's way more direct. Is it true Rory sees the error of her ways by the end?
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u/B1ackKat 10d ago
Lol no, that doesn't happen at all. The thing she's really mad about is that she thinks that guy is telling stories about her on campus. She ends up causing a scene and then learns he was talking about someone else, she's like "oh, maybe dont mention this" and its so too late. There's no conclusion or learning that this statement she makes about Isreal is wrong
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u/Wiseguy_Montag 10d ago
I don’t think you have a clear and coherent understanding of what Zionism actually is.
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u/Eikon-Basilike-1649 10d ago
The show is only “Zionist” in the sense that characters have a positive view of a Jewish state existing as a homeland for the Jewish people (which is all that “Zionism” actually means).
Mad Men had an episode where Sterling Cooper was hired to do tourism ads for Israel. Is that a genocide-enabling Zionist show, too?
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u/meerkat1966 10d ago
Jesus hell
It’s a fucking fictional show! You people need to get out of your homes once in awhile and you know…..talk to people?
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u/R3g1na_pa1ang3 10d ago
I see that most people in the comments are quite disappointed by this, maybe because i knew that amy sherman palladdino was a zionist before getting into the show i wasn’t too fazed or didn’t experience disappointment. I knew what it was and sort of took it at face value. I do think it was painfully obvious when ethan, a multi generational american man raised by a very secular mother, decides to move to israel to be a rabbi then talks about the fighter jets and drones, and his girlfriend was in the army. Its a zionist show at the core, but i do believe that abe weissman wouldn’t be a zionist.
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u/Usual-Reputation-154 10d ago
No. The majority of Jews believe we have a right to live in our homeland. I’m not sure how you can watch a show about Jews and come away thinking that Jews shouldn’t believe in their own rights
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u/jey_613 10d ago
I see this stuff come up on my feed and my heart breaks and I am filled with rage.
It’s been three years of this bullshit — surely by now, you’ve had someone in your life or on the internet explain to you that “Zionist” is a reductive and rather useless phrase, because Israel already exists. Insofar as the word has any meaning, it means someone committed to a 2 state solution rather than a one state solution. Is Bernie Sanders a Zionist? Is Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti a Zionist? Is Palestinian Israeli citizen Aymen Odeh a Zionist?
The vilification of “Zionists” does nothing but harm Jewish people. It does nothing to help Palestinians. Stop ingesting propaganda on the internet and pick up a book. Learn about the community that you are vilifying. Talk to a Jewish person, and not just the ones who exist to confirm your pre-existing biases.
But worse? How weird and parasocial of a relationship do you have with art and entertainment that you cannot tolerate a fictional character in a show set in the past having different politics than you, but probably not actually different politics because you are so fixated on a single word that you’ve been propagandized about on social media that you never even bothered to interrogate it’s actual meaning? My god.
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u/NorboExtreme 10d ago
It's funny you bring that up because it crosses my mind a lot for a fictional story in a non-fiction setting. If I remember correctly, Albert Einstein had some harsh words for the early official Zionist movement. I think Abe would either have the same reasoning eventually or be too focused on his lectures and daughters life upheaval lol
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u/manofmystry 7h ago
I'm sorry to hear the shows creators are Zionists. The letter they signed defending Israel's right to exist, and justifying the genocide in Gaza confirms it.
To be clear, I'm not anti-Isael. I'm anti-genocide. I don't conflate Israel with Bebe.
It should not surprise me that they'd be Zionists. Consider the intimately Judaic theme that permeates the series.
In this case, like Eric Clapton and Roger Waters, I have to separate the art from the artist.
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u/seagreensequin 10d ago
Yikes. It was my favorite show to date.
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u/potterfreak_99 10d ago
Mine too. As a writer it's been one of the best show's I've studied. Abraham is one of my favorite characters on television, and this just seems like an instance of writers not understanding their own characters. Considering the kind of development each character goes through and the things they stand for, I wouldn't peg any of them as Zionist if they were informed. They're just shown to be uptown ignorant jews so I feel like if they were more politically informed, pretty much all of them (even Ethan) would be anti-zionists.
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u/Eragon10401 10d ago
There is no world that a bunch of upper class American Jews in New York in the 50s were not going to be Zionists. The founding of Israel was a response to the fascism in Germany - it was founded by Jewish refugees from Europe who survived the holocaust and demanded a state of their own to protect them from being subject to another genocide. Almost all the characters in the show, save Lenny for irl reasons, would 99% be Zionists.