A while back I said that Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset, is an assimilationist. I did so because I sensed early on in his new book that he was nostalgic for the mixed Germany before the rise of the Nazis (in the way that other German Jews also are, including W. Michael Blumenthal and Fritz Stern). That Germany before the nightmare, in which Jews did so well, and felt such a part of the society. The son of a Holocaust survivor from Germany, Burg grew up in a German section of Jerusalem, and loves Hannah Arendt and Moses Mendelssohn and Heinrich Heine. Heine and Mendelssohn were assimilationist: they felt safe in western societies and did not want to stay in the ghetto.
Zionism, which Burg wants to transcend, goes against the assimilationist idea. It says that Jews are unsafe in western societies. At Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, there is an exhibit dedicated to a Berlin household, a room depicting privileged, happily assimilating Jews. Oh, the folly of thinking they would ever accept you! Ergo: Israel is the refuge to the Jews.
Burg is struggling with that isolationist strain in Jewish life. His book takes on "the groundwater of Jewish identity and the segregationist, confrontational nature of our national existence for ages." He continues:
There is a built-in element of discrimination, arrogance, and preference for anything that comes from Jewish genes. It is much more present than deniers wish to see…
I spoke at one of Israel's finest universities. The conversation revolved around Jewish identity, assimilation, and humanism. At the end of the lecture, a professor stood up.
"I agree with you in theory," he said, "but in reality, it would be very difficult. What would I do if my son brings home a gentile woman? I am secular, but it is difficult for me."
I pondered for a moment whether to dodge the subject or inflame the discussion. I decided to inflame it. [Burg loves polemics.]
"I don't think that our generation's choice is linear and one-dimensional, as was the decision of our parents and elders," I said. "In the past, such a decision was binary, either a goy or a Jew… Your choice today is much more difficult and sophisticated. What do you prefer, that your son marry a gentile woman or a Jewish man?"
…he lowered his head and said, "A Jewish homosexual is preferable to a gentile bride."
For me, it is important that the person that my child marries is good, ethical and moral. I don't care whether he or she is a Jew or a gentile, homosexual or heterosexual. My standard is goodness and morality, not a person's origins or sexual preferences.
I think my parents felt that way too.
The trend seems to be to merge one's DNA with the rest of the earth's population.
Which is a good thing for humankind because it spares individuals from inbred syndromes. Sickle cell, bowel problems, certain cancers…
Of course, this also means eventually that Jews will disappear.
"Into the mystic"?
Not while the Wittys remain, savoring their eternal "continuity."
At first glance it would seem that secular Jews would lose nothing by assimilating. If you put a cup of chocolate milk into a gallon of regular milk, you haven't lost the chocolate milk it's just a lot more dilute. The compensation is you have so much more of it.
I think the real reason many secular Jews don't want to assimilate is that they don't want their superior Jewish genes diluted by commonplace gentile ones. But if that's their fear they could solve it by having their sons only marry, as Phil did, the brightest and most talented daughters of the WASP elite. The offspring are just as talented as ever and, thanks to hybrid vigor, a lot more robust. Furthermore, now they have big strong grandsons who, if anyone ever says something bigoted about Jews, will rear back and pop the offender on the nose.
The 'marry the talented shiksa' strategy is why the Ashkenazi are smart in the first place. The Ashkenazi ancestors who came into Eastern Europe were nearly all male. Shunned from the usual traditions, they took up money-lending and tax-collecting, and the money this gave them meant they could get the best women of the gentiles.
After a few generations, the ghetto walls went up, and it looks like that for some Ashkenazi they are still up. But these anti-assimilationists don't understand the irony that they they were created via assimilation, and assimilators like Weiss are following the ancient traditions of their ancestors.
I always knew that this blog was a hotbed for jew baiting anti-semitism. But what I now realize Walley, and Duscany. You guys are NUTS!!!!!!!!!!!!
Good points here. You shouldn't forget how picky human beings are in selecting marriage partners that consciously or unconsciously reflect their social and religious identity.
Anyone who is serious about raising their children as Jews (which really is the critical issue with intermarriage), is likely to pick a spouse that has the qualities of a "good Jewish father" or "good Jewish mother." These might include a strong interest in family and community, high intelligence and an affinity for reading and argument.
Converts, likewise, are strongly self-selected by the qualities that make them feel at home in a Jewish community.
Jews have stolen the good DNA of elite non-Jews for centuries.
As they worm their way in to various cultures they have used their money and learning to attract the elite non-Jews of each society in to intermarrying with them; this is why the elite of so many societies have become Judaized a few generations after Jews were admitted (or readmitted).
This serves a dual purpose: (1) disarming the native intelligentsia through intermarriage — this prevents anti-Semitism among a culture's elites; and (2) enriching the Jewish gene pool at the expense of the native one, i.e. Jews hoard all or most of the elite DNA for themselves.
All of the talk about hybrid vigor, gene-hoarding, superiority and access to talented shiksas has me confused. Aren't Jews supposed to have Jewish mothers? And isn't hybrid vigor something that is supposedly present in dogs of different breeds and some wild animal species that cross-breed? When has hybrid vigor been observed in humans?
I feel so cursed to be a mere stupid Gentile. Here I am minding my own business and paying taxes, while my betters are gene-hoarding, staking out the best shikas for mating, and benefitting from hybrid vigor. I've seen the light, at last!
LOL
Truth hurts, no?
"elite DNA"?
You got to be kidding me. You people are delusional.
Michael W: "You got to be kidding me. You people are delusional."
When you come to America the deal is you agree to assimilate. If you don't want to assimilate, go someplace that cares about pure bloodlines, in-group marriage and matrilineal descent.
The idea of 'elite dna' is just an expression of a eugenic dream that goes back – in recorded texts alone – to Plato.