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rfmcdonaldCBC describes the controversy surrounding an extended personal essay by Calgary woman Naomi Lewis, published in the Calgary Herald, describing her complex personal relationship with her nose.
My reaction, as a non-Jewish reader, was that this was a sensitive essay examining one woman's complex relationship with pervasive stereotypes and her own body. You?
In A Bridge Too Far: The story of my big Jewish nose, 38-year-old Lewis writes about her experience getting a nose job at age 14. She also shares the experiences and complicated relationships between others in her life and their noses.
She interviewed her mother, aunt, father and two cosmetic surgeons in the hope of presenting different perspectives on why some Jewish women feel compelled to get nose jobs.
"It's something that I've thought about quite a bit since it happened and I regretted it," Lewis told CBC Radio's Calgary Eyeopener.
"The more that I thought about it, the more it seemed related to a sort of internalized racism, a kind of after-effect of intergenerational trauma. I have a lot of Holocaust survivors in my family and I think that the cultural phenomena whereby Jewish women have more nose jobs than anyone else, historically, I think is related to that kind of persecution and a kind of internalized self-loathing."
In response to the essay, Calgary Rabbi Shaul Osadchey wrote an op-ed piece blasting it as a "defamatory, borderline anti-Semitic, and anti-multiculturalism article."
Osadchey said the article perpetuates offensive stereotypes that "lead to prejudice and discrimination on an individual level, which in term ultimately leads towards the gas chamber and the path of genocide."
My reaction, as a non-Jewish reader, was that this was a sensitive essay examining one woman's complex relationship with pervasive stereotypes and her own body. You?
