Last night I watched Andrew Bacevich on C-Span's About Books program. (Some of it anyway; I surf.) The most interesting point he made is that the U.S. has to give up its sense of its own exceptionalism. We should be like other countries, and understand we're no better. The way I heard it is: We truly were better than other countries not long ago; right now we're actually not. So apart from the irritating arrogance that burns other people up, of saying you're exceptional, it's not the reality. So it's a delusion interfering with statecraft. What's your real role in the world?
Two years ago at Yivo I heard a great panel on Spinoza's excommunication by the Amsterdam rabbis in 1656. One point the scholars on the panel made was that Spinoza was urging the Jews to stop thinking of themselves as the chosen people. Yes, you were once chosen: but this was not a divine chosenness, you had the best laws in all civilization, and this led your society to prosper. But in liberal Europe, or the liberal Europe that Spinoza helped to imagine, that religious chosenness wasn't helpful. The rabbis didn't like that.
It occured to me last night, listening to Bacevich, that I as an assimilating Jew am deeply involved with issues of Jewish exceptionalism. I grew up with Jewish exceptionalism out the wazoo. We are smarter, we are better! We were right about Vietnam! And then the meritocracy valorized these feelings of exceptionalism when in essence we crowded the turrets of the Establishment. Helped run the country. 30 percent of all Supreme Court clerks are Jews, hot damn. Why even Charles Murray says we're the geniuses. And Slezkine says it's the Jewish century; it's our time. While David Mamet says it's our peculiar association with highfunctioning Asperger's syndrome that was genetically centered near Prague–or some such theory of racial superiority. While Jewish law itself, which survived Spinoza, says that Jewish life is more precious than other life, per Israel Shahak.
Well to paraphrase Bacevich and Spinoza, it ain't happenin' baby. We gave the U.S. the Iraq war. We are doing a lousy job with the Palestinians both in Israeli society and the West Bank; and we have set up a system of apartheid and called it righteous, and the world is watching us do it. The Jewish elite is just as hidebound in its way as the WASP elite before it.
Of course Obama is offering a new idea of American exceptionalism. Post-racial, post-identity politics. Get thee behind me, exceptionalism!
Slezkine was probably addressing issues of domination more than issues of exceptionalism.
The tiny Soviet Ashkenazi elite stood in the same relation to the Communist Party (and the mass of Russian Jews) as the tiny Neocon Jewish Zionist Republican elite stands in relation to the Republican party (and the greater part of American Jewry).
Making either anomaly an issue of Jewish exceptionalism (or self-assuredness) instead of an issue of a power grab by a radical Jewish intelligentsia in Russia or by a Zionist intelligentsia backed by Zionist economic oligarchs in the USA turns the threat of tiny subversive cabals attempting to take control of the government into some sort of Jewish existential question.
Misdiagnosing the real situation obscured then and obscures today the real danger to the state and to the world in both cases.
The subversives (Communist or Zionist Ashkenazi) even work to exacerbate the confusion because they can use it to cover themselves and their real goals by flinging accusations of anti-Semitism.
The Magnes Zionist: Kristol and the Shikse discusses some aspects of the real issue of power, perversion and corruption in addition to providing a long possibly relevant excerpt from The Jewish Century.
NONE of the rabbis that I've communicated with, interpreted the "chosen people" to be any reference to any privilege, but entirely to an obligation to serve God, and humanity.
The orthodox attempt to derive logically explain as many of the commandments as they are able. But, those that they can't explain, they just do, reasoning "we'll understand why we are instructed so, when it is necessary for us to understand, and if that is never, so be it."
NONE of the mitzot (commandments) are harmful, that I'm aware.
But, they are instructions, some that makes common human sense, some that separates Jews from assimilation.
Witty's ignorance of Judaism could fill the Rose Bowl.
Sefer haMitzvot of Maimonides (twelfth century) identifies positive commands:
* to lend to poor Jews without interest and
* to lend to non-Jews with interest
among the 613 commandments on which Jewish law (Halakhah) is based.
It does not take much to go from these commandments for members of the Jewish community to work together to exploit non-Jews.
Phil,
You lost the little credibility you had by citing Israel Shahak. You are no journalist. You are just a propaganda spokesperson for antisemites. Too bad it took me that long to realize. You read the same books, you say the same things, you have the same ideas. What do you think your rabbi/mom/co-religionists/judge would think if he saw this blog of yours?
i have decided that the hurling of the anti-semitism threat is the playground equivalent of "i'm going to tell the teacher on you" it's an admission of an inability to argue your points in a coherent fashion.
and joachim,
you have not even chosen the scariest examples. i did not post here an article about the debate in a man's hebrew school about whether a jewish doctor should save the life of a gentile on the sabbath. i didn't post because of anti-semitism sensitivities. those jews who pretend not to understand anti-semitism are lying to themselves about the attitudes they know are fostered in their own community and family. how can you pretend that the enclosed non-participation in the human race does not engender hatred itself?
Here is what the Center for Zionist Education says about Jewish ethics & the Jewish view of gentiles:
Jewish Ethics: Are They Ethical? Are They Jewish?
"The development of Jewish ethics reflect concern for both the community and the individual. The fundamental aspect has been the survival of the Jewish people. In each of these works it seems that the idea is not to treat non-Jews fairly because they have intrinsic merit but to prevent them from turning against the Jews. It is for this reason that what most ethical theories consider to be essential-not stealing, not murdering-could be put aside under certain conditions for the higher goal of Jewish survival. Similarly, commandments which may modern Jews would consider secondary, such as Sabbath observance, are often of primary importance because they are viewed as essential for Jewish survival. Thus there are Jews both in the diaspora and in the State of Israel who feel that the survival of the Jews is the highest value and there are others who feel that the ethical dimension to life is more important then survival itself."
Anyone just starting to explore the idea of "antisemitism" and the role it plays in Jewish identity would be well off spending a few hours (or months) studying the collection of writings gathered in When Victims Rule. It's not the whole story (nothing ever is) but it does a good job illuminating some of the more problematic aspects of this concept.
The Accusation of Anti-Semitism, Part 1
The Accusation of Anti-Semitism, Part 2
(I warn you however that it is rather depressing reading.)
I am talking about the made up stories of Israel Shahak. Nobody here is even trying to prove what he says.
Speaking of depressing, that's an amazing link from Whorowitz. And that's from the Jewish Agency!
(And they're not just presenting this as one of many possible ethical stances, because they go on to say, "On the other hand are many Jews, devoted to Israel and Jewish philanthropy who have no doubt about their loyalties to Judaism. Yet rebelling against what they have viewed as old-world provincialism, ritualism, and obscurantism, they provide their children with cosmopolitan education, rejecting Jewish education but hoping to maintain ethical behavior as a commitment to Judaism. Many of their grandchilden are now being raised Christian and they cannot understand why.")
The Nation of Zion (NOZ) in the diaspora has two faces, two different sets of values and plays by two different sets of rules: there’s the Jewish supremacist values that it truly adheres to, and then there’s the face it shows to gentiles and the secular values and laws it pretends to embrace in order to throw them off the scent, the idea being “not to treat non-Jews fairly because they have intrinsic merit but to prevent them from turning against the Jews.’ In other words, get away with whatever you think you can against gentiles, just don’t get caught.
I think a strong case can be made that many components of the NOZ should be prosecuted under federal racketeering laws in many different areas. There is absolutely no question that the NOZ has played a huge role in the latest Wall Street rip-offs, for example, which was really just another variation of a previous scam. If only America had read more closely when James B. Stewart wrote Den of Thieves (about the 1980’s Wall Street junk bond scandal revolving around Jewish criminals Milken and Boesky and their mostly Jewish cabal) instead of allowing Alan Dershowitz’s charges that the book was an “anti-Semitic screed” throw them off the scent, a lot of Americans would still have their stock portfolios and retirement funds intact today.
Not surprisingly, the NOZ front ADL is at it again, “reporting a dramatic upsurge in the number of anti-Semitic statements being posted to Internet discussion boards devoted to finance and the economy” in the wake of the latest Wall Street rip-off.
I can hear the left-liberal establishment now: "Don't blame organized Jews. Why, they're just an innocent, persecuted minority. They're historical victims. It's all the fault of Capitalism. Let's switch over to socialism. Look, here's Chuck Schumer, Rahm Emanuel and Barney Frank ready to show us how to do it!"
"And Slezkine says it's the Jewish century; it's our time."
The 20th Century definitely was the Jewish Century, but the 21st Century will most decidedly not be a continuation…unless many Jews start moving to East Asia and living/working over there – oh yeah, wait…this is already happening…they are already abandoning the American ship!
I've been chosen by God to bring light into your dank cave. Yes, its a burden but I will strive to do my best.
What?
Sorry, there's no more flashlights.
What?
OK, OK, allrightalready….here.
Now what?
Sorry, fresh out of batteries.
No, no–those aren't batteries–they're just crystalized dog turds.
Trust me. Watch out now, you wouldn't want to touch them.
Yes it's true, the reason given by the orthdox rabbis for allowing jews to save a non-jewish life on saturday is that otherwise, it might create a PR problem for the jews as against the non-jews.
And, re:
"Witty's ignorance of Judaism could fill the Rose Bowl.
Sefer haMitzvot of Maimonides (twelfth century) identifies positive commands:
* to lend to poor Jews without interest and
* to lend to non-Jews with interest
among the 613 commandments on which Jewish law (Halakhah) is based.
It does not take much to go from these commandments for members of the Jewish community to work together to exploit non-Jews.
Posted by: Joachim Martillo"
Joachim's analysis here is completely accurate. It accords with
true translation of the original Talmudic guides, as distinguished
from the "cleansed" versions offered up to the non-Jews.
Does it not show that the Hebrews realized how wrong it was to
take advantage of the less fortunate? However, the Hebrews only
thus protected their own tribe's less fortunate. They didn't give
a hoot about the other human tribes.
There is an analogy in the current USA banking system, where
banks pay depositors less than 1% interest, while they themselves
use the deposit money to loan at usurious rates.
What's good for the goose is not good for the gander.
The banking system in the USA, especially after 1981 when all walls against usury were taken down, models itself after the talmudic system.
please let's be careful to not overgeneralize about the financial system, i think you political junkies are not qualified to pass judgement on how banks are run. banks are not a jewish cabal, they just aren't. a lot of the crisis was caused by too great a confidence in "risk management" derivatives. they were designed by "quants" or the genius mit types. needless to say they were not connected to the real world. to understand this read taleb's book about the black swan.
if you find a jewish cabal everywhere , it really does give ammunition to those who want to blame any criticism of apipac/israel on anti-semitism.
阿丽(Ari),谁猜得着呢? 哦,我明白了. 和平犹(PAZ-jew)搬走了!
东亚的国家多了一位犹太复国主义大使.
Speaking of China, Hank Greenberg has made time in his busy career to be chairman of the Asia Society. In fact, the society is housed in the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Building.
I am afraid that if there is a GOD… he/she/it is not as petty as most of us are and that no group of 'peoples' can own him/she/it! Love your article and will post on my Facebook page. Religions and Political Groups that use 'Holy Books' crafted and compiled with myriad agendas by patriarchal fraternities in antiquity are KILLING us all fast. This is the key fallacy of those that 'claim' to be the champion stewards of 'Peoples'. Fact is that Neocons care shit about the average American, Osama Bin Laden cares shit about the average Muslim, Fact is Zionist care shit about the average Jew… It is all about mindless agendas and the retention of as much political and economic power in the hands of a few EMOTIONAL RETARDS that can never achieve SATISFACTION of ANY kind!!! SAD!