Seva Brodsky is a militant pro-Israel hater, who’s become an expert at targeting divestment initiatives across the country against the Israeli Occupation. He also appears to be a semi-professional provocateur who enjoys shreying about Muslims who allegedly threaten to kill him. After reading this linked blog post, you get a clear idea that he’s a Jewish Chicken Little who sees it as his duty to try to provoke Muslims into treating him badly. And if they don’t rise to the bait, Brodsky will do his bit to fill in the facts with his own “coloring.”
After I wrote about Initiative-97, he wrote some typical propaganda swill here which I addressed and refuted.
But what took Brodsky’s attacks out of the typical realm of right-wing snarkiness was that he made what I consider to be a potentially serious threat on my life. Here’s a choice selection of his greatest hits:
1. Richard. Judenrat in action. Why do my people have so many sickos?
2. Richard, you can go and jump off the bridge…if you are hesitating whether to jump, I can assure you that you should — hell, I would even be willing to give you a push, should you be in need of it.
3. We have enough morons and self-loathing Jews (including you)…
4…You are a…thug.
4. I have to apologize to you for calling you a self-loathing Jew — Richard Silverstein, you are NOT a Jew. You may have been born into Jewish family, but that does not necessarily a Jew make.
You are a person of Jewish lineage, but certainly NOT a Jew. Moreover, you are an enemy of the Jewish people. The evil Torquemada, who went on to become The Grand Inquisitor of Spain, was a convert from Judaism — the grandest Capo of them all. You, of course, have not (yet) reached his stature, but you are still despicable.
Don’t ever let me meet you in person, you over-sensitive thug.
I am a proud Jew and no swinish lout like Brodsky will wrest that from me. From his tone you can tell the kind of hateful Jew he is. Unfortuanately, I have to share a religion with this despicable piece of dreck.
Do you get the impression this guy lives to brawl? And that ideas aren’t important so much as the drama of hate and invective. He actually reminds me quite a bit of the late and not lamented Meir Kahane. He too was a brawler. And it’s rich that Brodsky calls me a thug, who has never threatened any commenter in this blog in the way he has me. This reminds me of the wife beater who accuses his spouse of assaulting him. That’s the way of the bully.
My right-wing readers may scoff (not having ever been similarly threatened) and pass this off as the hyper-pugilistic rantings of someone who is perhaps a bit too passionate in defending his own odious version of the Israel and the Jewish people. As for me, I take threats against me of any kind very seriously. Even if they’re made by armchair thugs like this. That’s why I’m writing this post. The Brodsky bullies of the Jewish world will know they will get as good as they give from me. So I put Brodsky on notice that I WILL report him to the Seattle Police Department should he write another comment containing any such threatening content.
More about Brodsky. Apparently, he’s a fixture at Solomonia, a Pajamas Media right-wing blog, where he’s known quite aptly as the “Pest of Zion.” From the description there, it appears he’s a semi-pro uber-Zionist provocateur of the Rachel Neuwirth-variety:
…Intrepid “Pest of Zion” Seva Brodsky showed up to check out the exhibit. What happened is that Seva was recognized, man-handled and thrown out of the exhibit by the very same folks who assaulted him at that pro-Hizballah rally back in July…
You can get a sense of how much of a Jewish extremist this one is by the title of a talk he proposed to give: The Unholy Trinity of strange bedfellows: Islamo-Fascists, Neo-Nazis, and left-wing radical extremists.
Dore Gold’s Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, another right-wing anti-Arab Israeli think tank, says this about Brodsky:
Seva Brodsky grew up in Moscow and immigrated to the United States in 1981. He received his BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northeastern University in Boston, respectively. Brodsky was actively involved in the struggle against divestment in Somerville.
He also wrote a publication of some sort analyzing the Somerville anti-Occupation divestment initiative.
He also appears to be a Jewish favorite of Sean Hannity’s over at Fox NEWS (are we surprised?). And Michele Malkin has been known to refer to him fondly. He’s also attempted, along with his friends in the David Project, to be a scourge of Columbia University’s Middle Eastern studies program.
Brodsky claims to be treading the holy ground of Jerusalem though the Solomonia post above has him living in Boston in April, 2007.
There seems to be a certain personality type among Russian Jewish emigres who tend toward extreme Israeli nationalism and violent political attitudes. It’s as if the chemical interaction between Soviet Communism and their version of Judaism has caused the most corrosive reaction possible. Among those I’ve written about here are David Yerushalmi, Avigdor Lieberman and now Brodsky. One could add Natan Sharansky, though he seems more of a political-intellectual thug than a physical one.
And to all my Jewish readers who understand this imprecation, I address it to Brodsky: Ymach shmo v’zichrono. This curse is usually reserved by Jews for the Nazis, but it seems an appropriate reply to as revolting a Jew and human being as Seva Brodsky.
Richard,
You say, ‘Unfortunately, I have to share a religion with this despicable piece of dreck.’
In my opinion, no you do not share his ‘religion’ anymore than Dr. King shares a religion with the guy who killed an abortion doctor professing ‘Christian’ beliefs.
For people of Brodsky’s ilk, religion is a vehicle. They have such venom and bile they must spew and they do it thru religion.
In another day they would be crusaders, killing people in the name of God, or Inquisitors, torturing women to death for witchcraft.
They remind me of Charles Mansion (I just saw a show where he explains his ‘world view’). They are totally sociopathic and you are right to take their threats seriously.
They should be locked up.
ellen
So how come he lives in the US and not Israel? If he’s so Zionist.
Zhu Bajie
good question…why doesn’t he live there instead?..my guess is because here he can make an easy living off the Hannity /Malkin types who have their own agenda…There he’d just be another russian emigre schmuck who doesn’t want to work for a living…when he can denigrate and work for the Machine just like in the bad old days of the USSR..why work when he can live as a barnacle on Richard’s blog and elsewhere being a pain in the tuchas? cant teach an old DOG new tricks.
“Oversensitive thug”??? Guess words don’t mean like they used to.
Seva lives in Jerusalem. and there’s at least as much venom here as in Seva’s attitude towards you. Nothing to be proud of.
@rlandes: Could you point out where I threatened his life? I only cursed him AFTER he did me. As I point out here, I will not allow character assassins to spew their venom & stand back & play nice.
Richard,
if you’re seriously worried about your safety, and your family’s, get yourself a good dog, and get some serious training together. My step-brother, career military policeman and dog-handler, says that a dog is always better than a gun. Dogs never miss.
Zhu Bajie
he didn’t threaten you. get a grip. when you get a real death threat you’ll know it. and it’s unlikely you will since you flatter the real thugs and insult people who don’t play by the rules of honor-shame self-help justice. as for using seva’s harsh language as an excuse to demean yourself, that’s a form of intellectual failure. surely you can find something of substance. instead it’s just a bunch of insults and ad hominems.
what, is your response supposed to show you’re a man and won’t take crap from anyone?
@rlandes: What do you know about threats? Who has ever threatened you? I receive threats mutliple times every yr. I’ve reported one to the Seattle PD. Telling me he would help me commit suicide by pushing me is a threat whether you call it that or not. I don’t parse threats to try to determine which one is genuine & which one is made by a blowhard. I’ll leave that to you since you know & understand the psyche of right-wing wingnuts better than I.
Don’t talk to me about “intellectual failure.” I’m quite happy with my intellectual & writing achievements these days. If that’s failure, it’s one that lots of other bloggers would love to have.
A note about “death threats’ to Richard Silverstein:
Seva’s offering to assist you should you decide to kill yourself was clearly facetious. I find it interesting though that for such a sensitive man, you show no emotion over the endless death threats made against Jews by Palestinian media, terrorist organizations and their leadership. Richard, do you work for a living, or do depend on support from the Arabs as a tuchas lecher?
@Lee Kaplan: If I were going to create a list of the 10 or 20 most odious Jews in the world Lee Kaplan would be on the list. He wouldn’t be at the top of the list since I wouldn’t want to give him the pleasure of thinking he’s of any significance to anyone but himself.
I’d hoped to avoid the contagion here at this blog. But now he’s brought his swill to us. Alas.
I never heard of “Zhu Bajie” before.
Thanks to Wikipedia I now think that BHO should have used the phrase “lipstick on a Zhu Bajie”.
It would have been less problematic.