First of Three

I'm not a blog-reader by nature. I don't know why. I love to read. I think it's just the Internet format that makes it difficult. I don't have a book in my hands, and I can use my computer for all kinds of things more exciting that reading a blog, so when it came time to find three blogs that weren't fellow classmates I sorta went.... durr? Then I went to google.

The search words I used were 'Anti-Zionism blogs by Jews'. I had tried several arrangements of these words before I got to what I was looking for. The blog is titled 'Jews sans Frontiers'. You know, sort of like 'Doctors without Boarders', or so I assume.

Jews sans Borders appears to be maintained by a Jewish gentleman in the UK. He uses this blog (he has another, but I haven't looked at it) to platform a very specific political view of Anti-Zionism. Most of his entries are reposted articles out of various print and Internet news publications (linked and sited), with a few comments by himself as to his feelings on the article, suggesting that this blog is a 'Filter'. Although after reading through almost every post on the blog, I have to agree that this would be the best catchall, I feel that there is a strong element of sort of a notebook/blog-iness (as defined by Blood) to this particular blog.

Although I'd say a good 85% of what this author does is link and reprint articles from "foreign" (foreign to myself, that is, as I assume some of these are UK newspapers that people from that side of the pond have heard of) news publications and small special interest publications, he does spend a fair amount of space making comments about current events and his take on them.

I would have read this blog "cover to cover" if I had been reading for pure information and enjoyment. Obviously, I intentionally chose what subject I wanted to read on, but also it is an area of politics I've only recently started to look at more closely. The reason for my being 'sucked in' to this particular blog actually wasn't due to its readability or strong sense of voice, quite the opposite in fact.

Over all the grammar and punctuation and the physicalities of the writing are just fine. The blogger, though, seems to have little personal voice. I couldn't tell if that was intentional, that due to the highly charged nature of what he was reporting, he wanted it to seem to have as little personal biases as possible, or if maybe it's something he is so passionate about, he refrains in showing more of himself for fear of not seeming as reputable. Or it could simply be that he has no interest in having, or no ability to have, personal voice. It didn't matter, for me, to the overall blog, aside from the fact that at times I felt almost adrift in the vast volume of information. It was very disorienting at times, and I would have to scroll back up to see where I had come from, in order to ground myself again.

This sensation of disorientation may not be experienced by his general audience. In fact, I would assume it isn't. I think my own lack of grounding while reading this blog came from the fact that I was constantly trying to play catch up using context clue from within the article to fill in for information that I suspect many of his readers would already know.

Despite a lack of voice and a sense of disorientation, I found the blog deeply engaging (again, I feel that maybe part of the reason I was so engaged is due to this sense of free floating). I can't speak as to the 'truth' of what his general message is. I actually did more research on the topic to help try and give me some perspective, and find that, as within this blog itself, Anti-Zionism walks a very fine boarder between what appears to be truth and paranoid fantasy.

The blogger for Jews sans Borders (Mark) is, as I mentioned (and as far as I can tell) a Jew and an Anti-Zionist. This would seem to be a contradiction in terms to most laymen, or even most Americans in general, and I found myself wishing that he had spent at least some time on explaining why an Anti-Zionist political sentiment is in some ways MORE Jewish than a Zionist stance. He alludes to certain aspects of this, discussing the ties between anti-Semitism and Zionism and that the Jewish Zionists themselves exploited anti-Semitist sentiment to sort of give them a leg to stand on in terms of Zionism.

On the other hand, his intended audience isn't really your average Joe America... or even Joe Brit (since he's from the UK). He isn't out to educate the unwashed masses. If he is, he's missed the mark by a long shot. Someone with no perspective out side the American and even British media would be totally lost. Even having some prior knowledge of the situation I had to do some exploring of both his links, and on my own, to truly understand what he is talking about, or rather what he is showing us that others are talking about.

Mark clearly has some following, as all of his posts have at least a few comments, but I think too he draws a lot of attention based solely on his subject alone. The posts that I knew were more controversial in subject matter (how one can get more controversial than the Israel/Palestine conflict I don't know, but he does) had as many as 60+ comments. I chose not to read these comments, although I do plan to go back and do so. I think it would be very easy to get caught up in that kind of clamor, and be completely distracted from looking at the blog itself.

Over all it was a very unique experience as a 'filter' style blog, one that I think I will spend more time on in the future. It is being updated frequently, not every day, but darn close.

Some of the outside research I did for this blog were to look at specific movement of Anti-Zionist Jews. Neturei Karta is a specific organization of ultra Orthodox, or as they call themselves 'true Torah Jews'. Although they agree with Mark about the issue of Zionism (well, anti-Zionism) they have a slightly different and more religious perspective than from what I gathered of the bloggers opinion in Jews sans Borders.

Ohr Somayach is a website I had previously bookmarked before reading this blog for a different reason all together. After looking at this blog, I returned to it, to see if it had anything to say on Zionism. It did, of course, and was EXTREMELY Zionist. It did help give me perspective on Jews sans Borders though.

As I personally couldn't vouch for the authenticity of the sources and links given in JsB, I was unsure how much credit to give the overall opinion presented. Although I personally agreed with the general stance of the blog, I was concerned by what nearly constitutes paranoia and conspiracy theory. After reading some of what Ohr Somayach had to say, I feel that even if the anti-Zionist stance presented in JsB is a bit on the paranoid fringe, the mainstream view of Zionism is just as bad. So, at least everyone is equally crazy. There is something to be said for that.