[Membroj] Mort-al Foot in Mouth

[Jim Ryan]

Another entry in the long, strange saga of the (mis-)(ab-)use of 
"Esperanto" by non-Esperantists to mean heaven knows what. 

This one is from a book I'm reading, A Great Idea at the Time: The Rise, 
Fall and Curious Afterlife of the Great Books.  Great Books scholar and 
booster Mortimer Adler is describing his own background and temperament 
employing various contrasts, including:

"Jewish and German by ancestry but anti-Semitic and Esperanto by nature."

Huh?  In context, and knowing Adler, I think he means "not bound by 
Jewish or German (or presumably any other) culture or traditions, but 
rather international and cosmpolitan."

But what a way to put it!  "Anti-Semitic and Esperanto"!  What an ironic 
turn of phrase, especially given how Zamenhof was intellectually 
nurtured by Jewish traditions, how he was a Yiddish scholar as well as a 
general polyglot and linguist, and how Homaranismo began as Hilelismo.  
And how the Nazis persecuted Esperanto as being a tool of the Jews, and 
how Zamenhof's children died in concentration camps, etc. etc.  
Esperanto was one of the many gifts of Jewry to the world. 

"Anti-Semitic and Esperanto" is the most ridiculous pairing since ... 
well, I'll let you all supply better examples of rhetorical "odd couples." 



                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                                                        
                                        


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