Geelastic
The Venerable Writings of Gavin Shulman: Updated Every Tuesday-ish (gavinshulman@gmail.com)

Man, it has not been a banner couple of months for The Jews, huh?

First, the banking industry melts down. Which, I know isn’t completely our fault, but we’ve certainly got to shoulder some of the blame. We’re supposed to be good at the whole money-lending thing, and we kind of screwed the sub-prime pooch. Sure, there were some goyim who messed up pretty big as well, and a whole wasp contingent that was running amok, but banking is supposed to be our department and we got to accept a good chunk of the responsibility. Especially when it looks like the guy who messed up the most, the Holy Banker on High, has a name like Alan Greenspan. That just doesn’t bode well for the rest of us. (Oh, also his replacement Ben Bernanke, for those who were curious or in denial, definitely a yid as well.)

          Then, as if the Greenspan backlash wasn’t bad enough for everyone with a similar sounding name, we got Banker to the Stars Bernie Lawrence Madoff emerging as the biggest scam artist since Banker to the Swiss Bernard Bernie Cornfield. Yeah, look that one up. So not only did we fail in our domain, money-making, we had a Jew making money up that didn’t even exist. (A digression: Really, some of the richest, greatest money minds in the world fell for a Ponzi scheme? You’ve got to be shitting me. I remember one time when I was in high-school and Ian Federgreen invited me over to pitch a business proposition. I know as much about business as I do about operating a steam-train, and knew it was a pyramid scheme after five power-point slides. Yet, these assholes, these wealthy, money-loving assholes couldn’t sniff one out. Nothing that’s happened over the past year has done more to reveal just how little everyone on Wall Street and in the whole Investment Racket truly knows about money and markets than this Madoff thing. No wonder the Mets keep collapsing and Kevin Bacon hasn’t made a good movie in years.) And really Bernie Madoff? You’re going to rip off Yeshiva University. That’s just low. It’s one thing to rip off some prosperous pagans, but your own people. You should be ashamed.

          And then we go into Gaza guns blazing. Which, tactically speaking, I fully support, but, I think we can all agree it’s not exactly a great PR move. As if people weren’t mad enough already about being ripped off and seeing their savings disappear, let’s stir the pot and create an international humanitarian crisis. That will really swing support to our side. Couldn’t we have at least waited until a couple more people had died on our side? Nothing crazy, but like one kibbutz blowing up. Because when you look at numbers like 900-13 that just doesn’t really look super kosher to the outside eye. Especially when everyone loves to sympathize with Palestine and Gaza anyway, because, let’s face it, that’s cool. Certainly much cooler than supporting a bunch of rich, money-grubbing Jews who just want the right to a peaceful existence in a home-country that isn’t a harboring and training ground for new terrorists. Gaza is totally the new Palestine. So hot right now.

          You throw on top of that the rash of sub-par sentimental holocaust films in multiplexes right now: Defiance, The Reader, Boy In The Striped Pajamas, Valkyrie, Good and we’re just sucking dry all our dramatic good favor. And, if over-exposure to the holocaust isn’t enough, then how about outright exploitation? Yes, the icing on this unleavened cake, the cherry on top of this unfortunate sundae of events, the final straw in these strained times for Jews everywhere came in the form of Herman Rosenblat’s recent holocaust memoir “Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love That Survived.” The lovely story of a Jewish girl hiding in the woods who would throw apples and food over the electrified fence of a concentration camp to a young Jewish boy working inside, and their subsequent chance encounter on a blind date fifteen years later where they married and fell in love. This beautiful, redemptive tale tugged the heartstrings of Jews and non-Jews everywhere. Even Oprah. Only problem was, not true at all. A fake holocaust memoir. Yes, we Jews sure did hit rock bottom at the end of 2008.

          But, one must hit bottom before they can bounce back up. And if it’s one thing us big-nosed, bagel-loving bastards are, it’s resilient. So I predict a big year for The Jews in ’09. I predict a full economic recovery when some brilliant Heeb banker invents something new or figures something out or we all take the stack of cash and Jew gold out of our safety deposit boxes and start spending it; I expect Bernie Madoff will be prosecuted and forced to hole up in his luxurious pent-house prison and then being all but forgotten except to the rich people who lost all their money and who really cares about them anyway; I expect peace in the Middle East, or at least in one piece of the Middle East, maybe in the UAE or Oman; and I expect Leonardo DiCaprio to portray young Jewish peasant Moshe Moyachim in the greatest, most-beloved, biggest blockbuster holocaust movie ever made. Yes, the future looks bright, as long as no one looks back to the past.