Is the Statue of Liberty a ‘Jewish Woman’?
A Bizarre Claim
In an article in JWeekly of Northern California; Professor Rachel Gross of San Francisco State University claims that the famous Statue of Liberty that was built on Liberty Island in New York Harbour between 1885 and 1886 claims that the statue is...well… ‘a jewish woman’. (1)
Gross’ argument is weak at best, but she does try ever so hard.
Her case can be reasonably summarised as this:
A) Jewish Culture has a long tradition of lionising the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of a release from European persecution and of new opportunity for jewish immigrants.
B) Therefore, because jews have co-opted the Statue of Liberty as a cultural artefact. It can be said that – because identities are inherently relative and can be applied/removed from an object or subject dependent upon one’s feelings – it follows that Lady Liberty is indeed ‘a jewish lady’.
The problem with this is that – if we follow Gross’ logic – then pretty much anything can be a ‘jewish woman’ if jews decide to co-opt it into a cultural artefact, including… well… Adolf Hitler. Or put another it also means that jewishness is a shifting identity that has no actual basis and therefore there is no such thing as a ‘real jew’, but only a fluid anthropomorphic organism that may or not decide it is jewish at some point or another.
There is no ‘opt-out’ clause in relativism applied to culture and identity, which in turn leads to the crazy positions that I have just outlined.
The simple facts are that the Statue of Liberty is modelled on Marianne the idealised figure of the French revolution, was conceived by a Frenchman (Edouard de Laboulaye) and sculpted by another Frenchman (Auguste Bartholdi). (2)
The only jewish thing about the whole structure is the sonnet by Emma Lazarus ‘The New Colossus’ that is carved into a plaque at its base.
So, in other words: the Statue of Liberty is not a jewish woman, but rather a Frenchwoman.
Vive la France!
References
(1) http://www.jweekly.com/2017/07/03/is-the-statue-of-liberty-is-a-jewish-woman/
(2) https://www.nps.gov/stli/learn/historyculture/the-french-connection.htm