Marc Tracy, who writes in Tablet, the Jewish blog magazine, recently re-told the ancient Jewish “parable” about Jews and bicycle riders. According to Tracy, it goes like this:
… a Jew finds himself stuck on a crowded train next to an anti-Semite who rants on and on blaming every serious problem on “The Jews!” to which our hero, sitting next to him, adds, “And the bicycle-riders!”
“This terrible economy?” says the anti-Semite, “obviously a result of the secret machinations of the Jews.”
“And the bicycle-riders!” says the Jew.
“The war is also the Jews’ fault.”
“And the bicycle-riders!” says the Jew.
Finally, the anti-Semite has had enough.
“Bicycle-riders? Why the bicycle-rider?” he asks, exasperated.
The Jew answers, “Why the Jews?”
Much of the humor derives from the very idea that bicycle-riders could threaten anyone (unless, I suppose, they are armed but that would apply also to banana eaters or ballet dancers).
However, lo and behold, hundreds of years after diaspora Jews invented this joke to mock idiocy, the State of Israel has gone to war with, yes, bicycle riders. Here is the story from the New York Times, including the now viral video of the Israeli army attacking innocent bikers. (Don’t watch if you have a weak stomach).
I guess this is what Israel, under the Likud, has come to: a punchline in a Yiddish joke. Sad. And horrifying.
