Judenfrei

In the Germany of 1935, a fun night at home with die kinder might well have seen the board game Juden Raus hauled out of the cupboard for some family fun. Akin to Monopoly with a touch of Chinese Checkers, the object was to drive from a walled city pawn-like playing pieces (above), all sporting the conical hats of medieval ghettoes and bearing anti-Semitic caricatures. For those interested, the Weiner Holocaust Library provides both a backgrounder and a worthwhile discussion of the ethical considerations in displaying, perhaps even reproducing, the game as an exhibit and educational tool.

Contributor and friend of Quadrant Michael Galak sends a link to a Tablet piece which might well prompt the thought that, once again, there is a popular sentiment that the best Jews are banished Jews:

…In academia, Hollywood, Washington, even in New York City—anywhere American Jews once made their mark—our influence is in steep decline.

For many Jews, the first instinct is to look inward: We blame intermarriage, assimilation, the loss of the immigrant work ethic. This is, of course, a cope. Because the most significant cause of the decline isn’t Jews themselves, but that American liberalism, our civic religion, has turned on us. Where Jewish success was once upheld as a sign of America’s strength and progress over its prejudices, Jewish “overrepresentation” is again something to be solved, not celebrated.

A tenure-track humanities professor at a prestigious public university tells of the finalists for her department’s next graduate school cohort. Of the 20 or so candidates, four to five are Jews. One is a working-class yeshivish applicant with an incredible backstory and even better recommendations. He is passed over for not being “diverse” enough. Of course our professor doesn’t complain — her own tenure is at risk. In the end, not a single Jew is offered admission…

The Tablet essay can be read in full here.

-rf