I have the following column about Oy Va Goy in the new issue of Jewish News:
I’ve got a confession to make: I am responsible for the credit crunch. Apparently, it’s all because I’m being secretly funded by a global Zionist financial conspiracy. Or at least I am in the eyes of several visitors to my blog. No sooner did I start blogging as a non-Jewish supporter of Israel (at www.oyvagoy.com) than I was bombarded by all sorts of bizarre online comments from visiting antisemites, aghast that a non-Jew might dare to defend the Jewish state, and sure that there must be some sort of dark plot involved. One such frequent visitor asks me: “So how much are those Jews paying you, Chas?”
So – how much are “those Jews” paying me? Not a penny, not even a shekel, is the bitterly disappointing truth. But then I’m no more in the online Hasbara game for the money than I am for the friends it makes me among the Jew-haters of the worldwide web (“You’ve got blood on your hands, you filthy scumbag” etc). I’m in it because I really love Israel and am genuinely upset by the growing antisemitism British Jews are facing left, right and centre. It’s been eye-opening to discover what anonymous, online antisemites say when it’s a non-Jew they are venting their spleen on.
I’ve grown strangely fond of some of these kooky visitors, as they keep me endlessly entertained with their latest theories. One of my regulars likes to inform me that I only blog in support of Israel and the Jewish community because I suffer from an “enormous inferiority complex”. I suppose they call that projection, as it is the antisemites of the world who are all too often suffering from that complex in my experience. And according to one of my best friends, that isn’t the only inversion at work in their accusation. When I told him about it he burst out laughing and said: “Erm no, it’s an enormous superiority complex you suffer from.” Not true, I’m just much better than most people, is all.
Meanwhile, just where are all these predatory Rabbis that are supposedly “brain-washing” me? One Christian visitor from Nigeria is convinced that I’m being indoctrinated by missionary Jews (try reading some basic facts about Judaism, pal) and that if I fly to Nigeria, he can “save me” from a forced conversion and all the “terrible terrors” that it involves. Terrible terrors? Sounds fun, no? Think I’ll stay here and take my chances.
It is not just my website that such cranks descend upon to heckle me. Another site, which dared to positively review one of my books, had every discussion disrupted for months on end by hysterical flaming about my admiration of former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin. Well, at least they got that one factually correct. Israeli Prime Ministers seem to get the worldwide web ablaze. “You’re only doing this because you’ve got a crush on Benjamin Netanyahu,” said one commenter on my blog. That’s not factually correct, but I know just what he means. There’s just… something about Bibi, isn’t there?
Meanwhile, on the financial conspiracy front, I’m honestly not proud. I’ll gleefully pass on my paying-in details to any person (Jewish or otherwise) who wants to make me part of any sort of fiscal plot. So bring it on, all donations welcome – however large. Don’t let me down, I shall be checking my bank balance hourly.
Fabian from Israel
Unspeakable horrible horrors!
25 June 2009 at 11:19 AM
Lynne T
I’m not sure what the Jewish population of Nigeria is for your would-be rescuer to know what dangers you are in, but I bet it’s pretty tiny.
His/her offer reminds me of the brave Syrian-born anti-Islamist American psychiatrist Wafa Sultan said of her first encounter with a Jew in California.
She was buying shoes one day not long after arriving in the US and it turned out the salesman attending her was Jewish. She had heard such evil things about Jews back in Syria, where the ancient Jewish community had been reduced to a scant few thousand, that she ran out of the store in fear.
25 June 2009 at 4:24 PM
naomi
what did you do to piss off will (of the drinksoakedtrotsforwar blog fame) so much?
i know he’s not one to bite his tongue but he really went for you on his blog!
25 June 2009 at 6:27 PM
surbitonite
Chas – your website & blogs really cheer me up – it’s good to have your support. Thank you so much. I’m just sorry that you get so much abuse from the ignorant anti-semites.
25 June 2009 at 7:52 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
Thanks everyone.
Naomi – I don’t know who Will is, nor what he’s written about me, nor what I might have done to annoy him.
25 June 2009 at 11:13 PM
Jackie
your great chaz
25 June 2009 at 11:34 PM
Ros
Keep on ploughing away Chas. It’s great to know that we’re not completely on our own…!
26 June 2009 at 12:10 PM
Lynne T
Will is probably pissed off that Chas just isn’t as miserable, foul-mouthed and f-ed up as lickspittle Willie is.
26 June 2009 at 5:13 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
I don’t know who Will is, nor anything he might have said, so I cannot comment.
26 June 2009 at 5:30 PM
delcatto
I’ve just saved you to favourites having discovered your blog. I’m also not Jewish and a supporter of Israel. Those antisemites will believe the ‘conspiracy’ is growing!
26 June 2009 at 7:30 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
Thanks Delcatto. Hope you enjoy!
27 June 2009 at 7:39 AM
marallyn
oy it is never boring in the middle east…sigh
27 June 2009 at 11:32 AM
Yosal
I must have missed out somewhere. I’m 55, redundant, sent out 100’s of my C.V. heard nothing in return, living off £300 pension a month and digging deeper and deeper into my savings, cannot even get jobs seekers. So much for being a chosen one.
27 June 2009 at 6:30 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
Good luck, Yosal.
27 June 2009 at 8:12 PM
Jonathan Hoffman
Chas, next time the global Zionist financial conspiracy sends you a wedge, can you bung some the ZF’s way, please? (We run on a shoestring!).
Thanks
27 June 2009 at 8:17 PM
Chas Newkey-Burden
Will do, Hoff!
Interestingly, one of my online stalkers has made a mistake on this very post. He left a silly comment (which I did not approve) under a fake name and email address but under the same IP details that he posts under his real name. Oops.
27 June 2009 at 8:27 PM
Jack
Enjoy the pleasure of dealing with trolls who cannot believe that you’d ever take these positions without being coercion or drugs.
27 June 2009 at 8:57 PM