Despite a brief dalliance with Voyager, I’ve never been a Star Trek guy. Forgive me, then, if I’m restating the obvious. Also, spoiler alert, or whatever.
I gather that there’s long been a vague association between the Vulcans and the Jews, based mostly on the Cohenic origins of the split-fingered Vulcan greeting. Watching this latest Star Trek picture over the weekend, I was struck by the extent to which those connections were reinforced. Perhaps I’m imagining things, and perhaps these two years at New Voices have left me unable to enjoy culture through anything but a Jewish lens. Let me know in the comments.
For starters – and, again, you probably should stop here if you haven’t seen the movie – the plot hinges on the destruction of the planet Vulcan, in which six billion Vulcans are killed. Even without resorting to numerology, the destruction of Vulcan offers plenty of opportunities for Holocaust allegory. Previous to the implosion of the planet, we’re introduced to Vulcan culture though a visit to a Vulcan schoolhouse filled with wan nerds with prominent ears who, like so many pre-war Yeshiva students, study in hevruta with their computerized rabbis. Instead of joining the militaristic Starfleet, the high achievers among them will attend the Vulcan Science Academy. Their elders are obsessed with the purity of the race, which leads to trouble for young Spock, whose mother is human. (It’s worth noting that the director, J.J. Abrams, told the L.A. Jewish Journal that he is intermarried.)
Spock’s character development hinges on his conflicting allegiance to Vulcan “logic” and human emotion, in the film’s terms. In earlier Star Trek products, it’s my understanding that Spock never swayed far in the direction of emotion. This time, however, precipitated in no small part by the genocide of all but a handful of his race, Spock gives in to emotion, resigning command and, later, making out with Uhura in the transporter room.
Is this a realization that the intellectualism and passivity of Vulcan life was insufficient? There’s no indication that the Vulcans could have done anything to prevent the destruction of their planet, and yet through Starfleet, Earth was able to save itself.
My prediction: in the inevitable sequel, the remaining Vulcans – led by Leonard Nimoy, who looks even more Jewish now then he did back in the day – colonize an apparently empty planet, only to discover that its previous inhabitants aren’t so extractable as they first appeared.
Ah, was digging the analogy until that last line. Low blow Nathan-Kazis. Low blow.
Do you think I could pull off that Caesar look? Would someone like Uhura fall madly in love with me if I behaved MORE emotionally distant? Interesting things to consider.
I’m more of a casual trekkie to moderate trekkie here…so although, sure, the Jewish allusions are there, the Vulcan philosophy always struck me as being far more Buddhist than Jewish. They favor isolation to community, and Vulcans meditate in solitary rather than gather in numbers to “pray.” The Jewish elements I have heard were many times added by Leonard Nimoy himself (such as the cohenic finger “blessing”). I’m far more interested in how the writers will aim to fix the timeline. So much stems on the existence of Vulcan itself for the remaining television series, it’s kind of difficult to accept an alternative timeline in the past has come to be. I think this far more likely a plotline than colonizing an empty planet only to find other inhabitants that won’t leave…Vulcans would leave rather than put up a fight. They don’t really have chips on their shoulders or a sense of entitlement, in my opinion.
I am no Trekkie, but I thought in the very first scene on Vulcan with the children, “Oh, the Vulcans represent the Jews”. The Romulans represent the skinhead/Arabs/pagan world. Chris and George and young Kirk represent the Zionist Christian world.
Interesting; I had a slightly more contemporary interpretation. Here’s an excerpt from my netflix review:” As with many Star Trek installments, this adventure patently translates into a very current event. Here, Nero the Romulan represents Ahmadinejad the Islamist, bent on destroying the Vulcan homeworld (that’s Israel to you and me–Spock and the Vulcans always being Star Trek’s stand-in for the Jews, who do not exist in the franchise).”