The Forward's Marissa Brostoff has a good piece on the Lehman family, celebrated in Stephen Birmingham's book Our Crowd, which is frittering away for all the usual Tolstoyan reasons. But obviously assimilation is playing its part:
“We had everybody at this reunion from Wendy Vanderbilt to Matthew
and Adam Bronfman, both of whom have become very religious,” Loeb said,
suggesting the religious spectrum that the Lehman clan now spans. Once
strictly Reform Jewish, family members are now related by marriage to
WASP-ish families such as the Vanderbilts and strongly affiliated
Jewish families like the Bronfmans.
…The
society Birmingham depicted was solemn, cloistered and perfectly
groomed, walled off from both the WASP upper crust that rejected Jews
and the Jewish hoi polloi.
It's my hunch that the Bronfman position is the exception. It seems to me that the physics of success in the U.S. is the more dough you have, the more pressure there is on you to let pretty girls and boys of other persuasions into the fancy bedrooms. E.g., the class mixing in Goodbye, Columbus.
To restate the position of this blog: I'm not urging anyone to assimilate. You are perfectly free to wall yourself off from anyone. It's a free country. I dig Utah. I dig the Amish and their cute buggies. This blog is opposed to Amish setting policy re the highway system. That's my exception. If you're going to wield public power, particularly over Middle East policy, then you cannot issue edicts of ethnic discrimination to your children. Especially if those children aren't in the armed forces. I'm looking for the lines here… A friend cooed on the phone yesterday that I'm tortured. Okeydoke, I guess I am.
By George youve almost got it Phil!
Jew + Assimilating = Darth Vador
Jew + Assimilated = Madeline Albright = Ruling Class
Thats what you are buying into.
I think the Amish should determine US road policy.
Your formula excludes Jews, Catholics, Muslims from official position.
Its racist Phil.
Find another dividing line.
Also, don't be so hypocritical literally to make serving in the armed forces a criteria for anything.
On "tortured". People that are healthy make good judgement and help. People that are "tortured" usually make desparate judgements and actions.
Better to heal thyself, than risk spreading a disease.
The scoundrel Witty hides behind "Jews, Catholics, Muslims," typical of the anti-assimilationist agenda to divide the American people into communities on the model of Jewish separatism. How long can this disingenuous pretext be maintained while waging overt and covert war on other confessions? Are there any limits to chutzpah?
As for the Amish, they are very explicit about not meddling with the Obrigkeit, governmental authorities. The sharp separation of the church from the world and thus from political influence is central to their world-view. Amish non-interference with others, non-violence, and decency is the polar opposite of the behavior of the organized jewish community in this country.
Its still a racist position, to exclude a member of a community from participation in governance, solely on the basis of their participation in that community.
Phil, you are not tortured. You are complex. That's okay.
Amin Malouf wrote a book I think you would enjoy called "On Identity". It bothered him when people asked him if he felt more French or more Arab. He answered "Both". His thesis is that we all have a multitude of identities, not just one.
And generally, says Malouf, we identify most with that identity which is most threatened. These days, the Jews seem to be doing okay. America, however, seems to be in trouble. So it is natural and good that you identify most as American. So do I. That is not tortured, that is healthy.
I don't know Phil enough to say whether he is tortured or confused or complex.
If he determines that he is tortured on this, it sounds plausible.
There are hateful voices and hateful positions that people take on Israel/Palestine/Islamic "land", and too damn willingly express.
He doesn't need to stand in between the bullets is all. How many call him disloyal? The left when he adopts Mearsheimer's views. The right when he expresses sympathy with Chomsky. Jews when he cites the litany of fascist diatribe ("Jews control the media", "Jews control the economy", "They conspire".) Palestinians when he expresses any sympathy for the two-state solution or any sympathy for Israelis as persons.
What a damn dilemma.
And those voices are intimate to him. His brothers/sisters/parents, his long-time personal and family friends.
Politically, those that have trusted him, been encouraged by him.
For what its worth.
Those that call me "racist" habitually, or "scoundrel", or "fascist" enhance my reputation and validity of my comments.
If you wish to denounce my comments, it would be more effective to address the arguments.
"Its still a racist position, to exclude a member of a community from participation in governance, solely on the basis of their participation in that community."
Teddy Roosevelt said 100 years ago that the last thing we need in this country is "hyphenated Americans." He was right then and he's right today.
Phil mentioned the Mormons and the Amish, which I think are bad examples. The Amish are an infinitesimally small group with no political power and in any case aren't spending hundreds of millions of dollars to convince our government (and its virtually all-gentile military) to go bomb Iran for the benefit of a foreign power.
As for the Mormons, they are hardly racially exclusive. At some times of the year there are guys on bikes in short sleeved white shirts and neckties all over my neighborhood. There's no mumbo-jumbo about your mom having to be a Mormon either. They don't care about keeping the bloodline pure. They want everyone to join.