Socialist Israel comes full circle with Ayn Rand being classified as a Jewish “hero” in the children’s gallery of the Museum of the Diaspora:
The museum folks say that, after leaving the Soviet Union, Rand “went on to become one of those responsible for drafting the foundations of American capitalism.” Yet Wikipedia says that she began publishing in the 1930s, just as the U.S. was abandoning a market economy in favor of a Welfare state.
Related:
I wouldn’t say Ayn Rand is celebrated in Israel outside that museum (which as you correctly point out, or should I say hint, is in terrible need of a qualified curatorial team.)
I have never met anyone or read anything by anyone who’s both fond of Ayn Rand and has a sense of humor (including Ayn Rand). I believe it precludes her being celebrated by any nation, on the theory that sense of humor is too widespread.
Thanks for the heads-up, Phil, and for the soothing comment, Yossi. The first decade in the US Ayn Rand eked out a living as a Hollywood screenwriter, though it doesn’t appear that any of her then-scripts were ever produced (one 1941 movie “based on a play by…”). That’s what made her realize which scripts sell in Hollywood, such of the Life Imitating Art type.
I have not been to that Museum yet, but now that I’ve been forewarned, I’ll come and visit well armed with ARGUMENT$ against any veneration of the sad-sack bimbo there or elsewhere, that intellectual snake oil saleswoman, whether she was a prominent Jew or not (and I don’t remember her ever writing about any religion or ethnicity as something to behold).
From what Yossi wrote, it sounds like one of its curators, or some sponsor of the institution, is a “Randian,” and that inclusion of her was a condition for a donation or similar. I.e. she didn’t get in there on either her Ethnic-Picnic, or Objectivists merits (“objectivist merits” ha-ha funny).
BTW. ADMINISTRIVIA to Phil. I’m getting confused. You are supposed to be traveling Boston–Paris–Helsinki–around the Baltic–Copenhagen–Boston(?). Yet you simultaneously post some recent stuff from Israel. What did you do, helped some fellow wedding attendee in Paris upload pictures to “the cloud,” for the [Ayn Rand’s NOTHING I$ FREE] price of appropriating some pictures, and the tales that go with them? If so—respect.
Also, while I have your #ATTN: if flying back home from CPH, check out the Bose QC35 noise-canceling headphones with BT that they have on offer in the largest electronics shop there. The tax-free price [you apply if you go straight back to Boston] was below UK street price of ~£290. Be the first on your helicopter block with the latest! (tax write-off, too!) If you buy them, I’ll expect this Consumer’s Report later on.
Those who knew her claim that Ayn Rand had a keen sense of humor. But she did not make fun of her core principles. She was always serious when it came to philosophical issues.
As for her screenwriting, there were at least three of her scripts which were produced,”The Fountainhead” starring Gary Cooper and Patricia O’Neal, the Academy Award winning “Love Letters,” and the less successful comedy “You Came Along.” Universal Pictures bought her original screenplay “Red Pawn” but never produced it.
It should also be noted that Ayn Rand was a strong public supporter of Israel as are Objectivists in general.
Observe that they who throw stones at Ayn have no values to defend. She taught:
1. You must choose your values and actions by reason;
2. Every individual has a right to live for his or her own sake,
neither sacrificing self to others nor others to self; and
3. No one has the right to seek values from others by physical force,
or impose ideas on others by physical force.
Anyone able to show these things are wrong would completely destroy her influence and be rewarded by looter altruists. None have even tried, because they all know she was right but they are ashamed to admit it.