view themselves as embattled anti-Westerners condemningrntheir loss of collective identity or only a universal attention torntheir concerns. Brownfeld is right that Wisse has fewer reservationsrnabout contemporary than about classical liberalism.rnThe old liberalism brought Jews into a European middle-classrncivilization that she wishes to have them forget. The new liberalism,rnthough sometimes allied with the Palestinians, featuresrnthe kind of victimology in which Wissc feels most at home.rnAs for the debate about the feminization of Jewish males,rnit might be best to pursue it under different auspices.rnToughs and softs are both Jewish victimologists wearing interchangeablernmasks, like feminists and men’s rights groups. Onerneven finds the same Jewish figures combining soft and toughrnstances, e.g., Alan Dershowitz, Abe Rosenthal, and MartinrnPeretz, all social liberals who are Zionist hawks. Here thernaffinities to Afro-American nationalism are all too plain. Inrnboth cases the most militant and easily offended nationalistsrnfeel a natural pull in America toward the victimological left.rnThat pull is subject to change only when the left favors somernother victim group at the expense of one’s own. But as soon asrnthat sense of slight passes, the militant, alienated majorityrnagain aligns itself with the left.rnThus Jewish toughs and black power advocates typicallyrnidentify themselves with the same political side as gavs andrnfeminists. Alienation is a stronger theme in both instances thanrnthe cult of masculinity. Both Wisse and Kahane rebuke Jewishrnliberals for not being sufficiently suspicious of Gentiles.rnLiberalism, for these toughs, would be fine, so long as it incorporatedrnenough Jewish suspicion of Arabs and their WesternrnChristian apologists. This tough position is entirely consistentrnwith the liberalism it never gets around to criticizing. Itrnis in fact parasitic on that liberalism, like black separatists andrnIrish American supporters of both the IRA and Ted Kennedy.rnBehind all these shows of masculine toughness is the samernwhining by self-designated victims, much of it intended forrnguilt-obsessed WASPs. And the point of this whining is alwaysrnthe same: certain victims are not getting enough attentionrnand refuse to be Uncle Toms. This may exemplifv the pronenessrnto hysteria that Freud believed afflicted only Jewish males.rnI close this essay with one critical observation about thernbest of the works studied in the course of my research: PaulrnBreines’ Tough jews. In a detailed discussion of American Jewishrnschlock, Breines notes the continuing popularity of toughrnZionist novelists like Leon Uris, Gloria Goldreich, GhayymrnZcldis, and Joel Gross (the most prototypical of these authors,rnBen Hecht, belonged to an older generation). Such novelistsrnappeal to aggressive Jewish nationalists in America, who are alwaysrncriticizing fellow Jews as “self-hating.” Breines observesrnthe cultural resentment abounding in some Zionist novels,rnwhich invariably treat German Jews as Uncle Toms and the oldrnProtestantized American Jewish elite as even worse. The aestheticrnand moral judgments here are certainly sound, butrnBreines ascribes too much of a consistent rightist gestalt to hisrnsubjects. Are they psychological “fascists,” as he seems to suggest,rnor just too contradictory and too trivial to be assigned ideologicalrnlabels?rnAnd was that ardent Europeanist and despiser of communism,rnZev Jabotinsky, the spiritual ancestor of the tough Jewsrnwho read and write hyper-Zionist schlock? The pre-WorldrnWar I generation of tough Jews whom Breines cites faced realrnexistential and cultural problems: their identification withrnWestern thought in a society that was largely non-Westernizedrnand the task of transforming that society, to which they feltrnmorally and ancestrally bound, into something that they couldrnadmire and that also would survive its enemies. In no sense didrnJabotinsky, a multilingual novelist who felt at home in most ofrnEurope, foreshadow the American ghettoized schlepp whornreads Goldreich, Zeldis, and perhaps Ruth Wisse: i.e., onernwho gets macho kicks out of accounts about how Israelis shootrnArabs or capture Nazi scientists before attending meetings ofrnNOW with his opinionated, bleached-blond wife. Breines’ genealogyrnis wrong for at least two reasons: first, he goes too farrnin demonizing Jabotinsky’s and Freud’s Jewish self-criticism,rnand then he assigns too much theoretical importance to thosernwho are better left to satirists. As one Austro-German Jew tornanother, I would urge Breines to lighten up and take schleppsrnless seriously.rnKeeping Up With Political CorrectnessrnA Partial Guide for the Socially Perplexedrnby Katherine McAlpinernA “drunken Indian,” you said? That’s worse inrnpolite society than a lewd curse. Instead,rn”say substance-dependent indigenous person.rn”Gay rights” is non-inclusive. Gay’s just guys.rnOne who is conscientious specifiesrnhe/she supports gays, lesbians, and bi’s.rnNot surgery or flu! Now get this straight:rn”recovering” can simply indicaternsomebody’s read a self-help book of late.rn”God” is a sexist concept. If you mustrnmention a deity, try to adjustrnto “Source of All.” No one will be nonplussed.rnT-shirts are social suicide when theyrnendorse Old Glory or the NRA.rnRainforests, whales, and pandas are okay.rn*rnDon’t light a cigarette, don’t order steak,rndo not wear fur or (if you’re female) makeup.rnAnd no satiric humor, for Ghrist’s sake!rnWe know you try to mind your manners, butrnif the amenities still aren’t clear-cut,rnbetter stay home and keep your big mouth shut.rnFEBRUARY 1994/25rnrnrn