Josh Voorhees has a
Slate article about language management in Israel:
Banning the N word. N as in Nazi, that is. The Israeli Parliament gave preliminary approval recently to a bill that would make it a crime to call someone a Nazi— or any other slur associated with the Third Reich— or to use Holocaust-related symbols in a noneducational way. The penalty would be a fine of as much as $29,000 and up to six months in jail. Backers of the law say it is a response to what they see as a rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world as well as an increasing, casual invocation of such terms and totems in Israeli politics and even teenage trash talk. But critics, including some with deep connections to the Holocaust, say the proposed law is a dangerous infringement on free speech and an overreach impossible to enforce.
The bill was passed at a preliminary reading, but it must still be debated in a parliamentary committee, then go through a series of votes in the Knesset before it can become law. An official close to the legislation process told AFP that the bill would 'most likely be killed' in the committee, adding that attorney general Yehuda Weinstein has deemed the bill unnecessary. Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem memorial museum, said that legislation was not the correct venue for dealing with inappropriate use of Nazi symbolism.
Rico says it smacks of
George Orwell... And what, will they ban the
Soup Nazi from
Seinfeld? Turns out that
Etgar Keret has an op-ed piece (that
Rico can't get from
The New York Times since he's exceeded his monthly quota for purloined articles) that says the same thing:
Sometimes 'Nazi' Is the Right WordBy Etgar Keret
If Israel bans the word Nazi, Seinfeld will be verboten, too.
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