The other day I went on the New Republic site and saw some commenters dismissing me as an assimilationist Jew in connection with criticisms I’d made about the Gaza War. I’m not sure why my Jewish identity should affect the reception of my statements about Gaza, but so be it; this is part of my reputation. My assimilationism is a subject I haven't visited in a while. A few thoughts:
I call myself an assimilating Jew because it seems the most honest
description of choices I’ve made, to marry outside the tribe and
generally decrease my Jewish cultural/religious adherence. Yes, the term "assimilationist" is a little stroppy, as the Brits
would say, and hurts some people's feelings. Why can't I just say
"assimilating"? I think I should take responsibility for my
choices and even honor them.
The derision for my choices comes from strongly-identified Jews and no other quarter. Unaffiliated Jews are not likely to criticize me for this– because they know so many other people who are intermarrying and giving up forms of Jewish observance. And as for other Americans, they don't think there's a problem. My wife thinks assimilationism is fine; of course, we wouldn't have much of a relationship if not for assimilation. And most Americans think of assimilation as a goal for immigrants.
The only ones who write me off are other Jews; the commenter Suzanne calling me an Uncle Tom. Not that this doesn’t have power for me. But it's about power within my original community only.
That said, I'm very Jewish. My complete absorption these days in Kafka–a failed Talmudist by his own description–is a consecration of my Jewish inheritance.
Assimilationism is obviously a threat to Jewish numbers. Of
course no one can predict the future, but at some level a person who
makes my choices places less value on maintaining the tribe than on
a lot of other things in life. True, but assimilation is happening all around us. We have a self-described "mutt"
president whose racial identity today is largely indecipherable.
I could argue that Zionism is hurting Jewish numbers more than
assimilationism. This isn't the place for that argument; but I know that my own
alienation from Jewish life, which has been a factor in my
choices, has to do with the forced association with a militaristic nation practicing Jim Crow and calling it democracy. In fact, one pleasure of the last few
months has been meeting so many non-Zionist Jews who stir me with the
renewed understanding that Jewish intelligence does not have to be
subservient to nationalism.
Assimilation is an ancient pattern in civilization, and in Jewish life. It went on in Spain, in Germany, in central Europe. Many of those assimilating Jews converted to Christianity, something I would never do. In fact, in any other era, I couldn't be both assimilating and Jewish. That contradiction is really at the heart of this post.
The changing status of Jews is at the heart of this post. For hundreds of years we have been a people within a nation, and that was the essence of the Jewish problem/question in Europe. History has tried out lots of answers: different language and customs; ghetto walls; anti-Semitism; the Holocaust; Jewish genius; Israel; the promised land of the United States. And so forth.
Jews were innovative "strangers" in central Europe 100 years ago, Kafka wrote, considering anti-Semitism. "From early on they have forced upon Germany things that she might have arrived at slowly and in her own way, but which she was opposed to because they stemmed from strangers." Of course the reaction to these changes almost wiped out European Jewry, in addition to a ton of other people. But America has prospered by accepting these changes.
Zionists say that it could be 1938 all over again here in no time. I think they're nuts, and we're at an unprecedented moment in Jewish history, one of incredible power in a liberal western democracy. The Israel lobby is just one reflection of that. We achieved this power due to what Slezkine calls "the Jewish century," a period in which Jewish language/legal/investigative gifts transformed modern systems.
Jews have less derived incredible status from these gifts. Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel, David Remnick–very powerful men. And this power has had an incredible effect: other people want to be like us. As Slezkine says, Everyone wants to be Jewish now, to emulate the ways of learning and prestige that were so essential to becoming a Jew. At the risk of repeating myself, I would say that the divisions and real differences between elite Jewish life and elite non-Jewish life in America are less than they ever were. Today I see the outsider intellectual values of my own youth embodied in Jews, Arabs, and gentiles too. Without getting into the genetics business, it's plain to me that many Jewish gifts were transferrable gifts. Ideas are transferrable.
The question is How much I should do to deter the assimilation process or encourage it and I've chosen to encourage it. It's not a program of mine. People have an absolute right to their own values and customs and beliefs. But when I see young people reaching to one another across the religious/ethnic divides, not just romantically, but intellectually, politically, it's something I encourage. In that sense I promote assimilation somewhat. Not a lot, but now and then, to those who are interested. Never been much for proselytizing. That's Jewish law.
My wife said not long ago that she doesn't lament the end of the WASPs because she figures that whatever group replaces it will have taken the best from her group or improved on it. I feel that way about the Jews. I love what I came out of but I figure the next model, the assimilated model, may well be an improvement, if only on the ethnocentrism issue which has fed the occupation. So yes, call me an assimilationist.
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I don't say "assimilate" I say "submerge". The world has been divvied up, whatever god made it is not making anymore. Humans need to "submerge" the love of their own culture into the general enterprise the planet calls out for.
The ultimate question is, are we different varieties of ants, or not? Scan slowly from the bottom to the top of Maslow's pyramid. At the bottom we find people like Chris Berel, SOG, Bill Pearlman, Suzanne, David Duke, etc. Ideas of equality are transferable, as Phil says. On the negative side,
ideas of being born superior are also so. When one goes to fill up at the local gas pump, in the old days somebody cleaned your windshield and pumped the gas for you. It may have taken a lot more personal character, ambition, courage for that gas pump jockey just to get to that position than it did for you
to take advantage of it. We are all made in God's image. One not more so than another. Walk a mile in someone else's shoes. Imagination and empathy are sorely lacking. Intellect is abused, but never
sorely lacking…
I think you dance between the substance of assimilating and the substance of differentiating.
There are some conditions that association is necessary to retain the characteristics that you admire, that those characteristics would get minced. The characteristics that you loved in one generation 1/2 from practising, require the association and the urge to justice that is both personal and beyond the individual.
The objectivist approach to justice, dissolves. It loses its personal reference. "Love thy fellow as thyself".
Beyond the characteristic as goal, there is the purpose of Judaism as goal. Which to be a priestly nation. Even with a path for others to join that obligation, to be a priestly nation, the importance of that mission continues, and the characteristics serve the mission.
In some ways I see your argument with Zionism as potentially a question of how to continue that mission, at least if you regarded it as important to pass that on, maybe to adopt some children (even at your advanced age).
We've been brought up to value "freedom from" primarily, moreso than freedom to … . I include freedom to write, to speak, to assemble in that "freedom to", but also in more meta terms, "freedom to serve, freedom to heal, freedom to associate for the purpose of our dual nations".
Assimilation is dilution, and dilution is not so great. But, the marriage of a self-inquiring Jew with an acquiring Jew would also be an assimilation, a dilution of what is great.
And, a marriage between a self-inquiring Jew and a self-inquiring Quaker will hopefully pass on self-inquiring (but no children alas).
My criticism of your comments on Gaza originate from before the Israeli military action.
That was that you ignored and effectively apologized for Hamas resuming shelling of Israeli civilians, and escalating that shelling to larger and cosmopolitan cities like Beersheva.
Your responses to my and even Gideon Levy's comments, were to ONLY comment on the blockade.
I speculated whether you got marching orders from Norman (you know, a friend of the blog).
I think I would question the premise that the intellectual qualities that you rightly celebrate in Jews were not also present in other groups, independently of any Jewish influence. I would suggest that they were.
Having said that, I think the question for anyone would be, which are you first – a human being, or a member of a tribe? If the answer is human being, tribal identification seems pretty irrelevant in the final analysis.
There is also a third option, beyond tribal identification or assimilation. That option being for each of us to allow our own uniqueness to unfold independently of any group or tribal identification, and to be guided by that rather than relying on outside influences for our sense of who or what we are.
My own perspective, which arises from my own spiritual philosophy, is that we are all tiny sparks of divinity and our separateness is an illusion that we have chosen to believe (for many good reasons), but ultimately we are no more separate from each other than a drop of water in the ocean is separate from the ocean, but at the same time, each of us is also a totally unique expression of that divinity.
America's greatness was built on the assimilation of so many disparate ethnicities and religions, which is why the criticism of it is disconcerting.
Richard,
I object to you using the word shelling when referring to Quassam rockets fired from Gaza. It is dishonest:
Shelling – the heavy fire of artillery to saturate an area rather than hit a specific target; "they laid down a barrage in front of the advancing troops"; "the shelling went on for hours without pausing"
Rockets that killed one dozen people since 2000 cannot be said to be a "shelling" of anything.
More people died in that area in road accidents since 2000 than from Quassam rockets.
You've got better things to do, Phil, than get caught up in these ad hominem attacks — which are only intended to get you off topic. Operating as Information Central for Americans on the I-P issue, you are becoming too much of a threat. Don't lose any sleep over this assimilationist discourse: you are a cosmopolitan — which is precisely what all diaspora Jews should be, instead of trying to live out the schizoid split of being a Zionist but refusing to live in Israel.
Weiss: "it's interesting that derision for being an assimilationist comes from strongly-identified Jews, and from no other quarter…And most Americans think of assimilation as a value, something that is upheld as a goal for immigrants. The only ones who will write me off are other Jews"
This is Judeofascism 101: the rules that apply to everyone else, don't apply to Jews. (And they wonder why they're singled out).
Let's see. The Judeofascists don't want to interbreed in order to uphold Hebrew miscegenation laws; they don’t want to proselytize in order to keep non-Jewish blood out of their “religion”; they obnoxiously engage in some of the most totalitarian political movements known to man (left-liberalism/Communism in the diaspora; ethnic nationalism in Israel), which winds up getting a lot of them killed off as a blowback result of totalitarian murderousness…
So because of their own actions and ideological attitudes, there are relatively few Jews walking the earth today — which makes them go ballistic on Jews that assimilate.
C’mon. Is this the behavior of a rational, sane people?
I don't get why assimilation is so bad. Adopting the values of your host country is the least you can do, out of respect.
Here in Britain, Muslims get berated for not doing enough to 'integrate', yet people seem to be fine with Jewish isolationism.
A further thought -
Several years ago, in the essays section of the Not In My Name website (I have not been able to find it in a cursory search just now), a Jewish writer was expressing concern for the future of the Jewish religion. She felt that Jews were being led down a blind alley by those who were making the decisions about the future of Israel, and by extension, the Jewish People. She didn't see a very good future for that approach. She said that what was needed was a new generation of Jewish visionaries who could lead Jews in a new direction.
Personally, I see you, Phil, and also Adam, as some of the Jewish visionaries that the essayist was hoping would emerge.
Quote from Phil on being an assimilationist:
"Many of those assimilating Jews converted to Christianity, something I would never do."
Never say never, no? Why not? Would you convert if you became convinced CHrist was Messiah? That's what it takes to be a Christian. Presently Xty is semi-defunct because IMHO the clergy has finked out on the "Jewish question." Pope Benedict is evidently terrified by the Sanhedrin or whatever you call the biggies. Which means he is afraid of their money power. (As am I.) This fear comes from having made peace with wealth, which means having made peace with Mammon, which means giving up on God and his Christ. St. Paul took on the whole of the then Sanhedrin and won. Was that a fluke? He and his gang then took down (non violently!) the entire Roman Empire and Xty was on top of the Western world for 1,000 years. Then came Judaizing Protestantism and in 500 more years they have taken down Rome and backed it into a corner. Whereupon the Jews arrived en masse and have taken down the WASPs, and it is now the turn of the Roman Church to buckle entirely. Never say never. Tom White
Here in Britain, Muslims get berated for not doing enough to 'integrate', yet people seem to be fine with Jewish isolationism.
Posted by: Shafiq | April 18, 2009 at 02:46 PM
Unassimilated Jews do not bomb British subways
I object to you using the word shelling when referring to Quassam rockets fired from Gaza.
Posted by: Eva Smagacz | April 18, 2009 at 02:39 PM
Fine. We will call it genocidal missle launches from Gaza. Sent in the hopes of killing a Jew. Any Jew.
Happy?
Is this the behavior of a rational, sane people?
Posted by: Ed | April 18, 2009 at 02:43 PM
No one considers you to be sane
”I might argue that Zionism is hurting Jewish numbers more than assimilationism.” I’d say you’re right.
”Many of those assimilating Jews converted to Christianity, something I would never do.” Shlomo Sand says that many of those assimilating Jews converted to Islam, which he called a logical extension of Judaism. See Pulse.org for the English March 2009 interview.
Actually, it was Jewish assimilation into German culture that upset the Zionists. German Jews before WWII were wildly successful in Germany, which is why Zionists started demonizing them to get the ball rolling for Palestine. And Israel Shahak makes the cogent point that Jews have only flourished in history when they have assimilated into whatever culture they live in.
P.S. I can hardly wait until Shlomo Sand's book is published in English. Gawdalmightee, it's gonna be a free-for-all on this Web site.
Tom, the Russian government is moving in increasing cohesion with the Russian Orthodox Church, if you're looking for healthier
stripes of Christian practise not in retreat.
Jews have only flourished in history when they have assimilated
Good point. Assimilation is responsible for most of America's immigrants attaining high living standards, which was one of the reasons they immigrated here. Native Americans have some of the lowest living standards of any ethnic group. Their lack of assimilation was both imposed and perhaps even chosen. After all, they did not choose to immigrate to America. Certainly the creation of semi-autonomous, separated political reservations has continued to keep them from fully assimilating and achieving average living standards.
@ tomewhite: "Then came Judaizing Protestantism and in 500 more years they have taken down Rome and backed it into a corner."
IMO, Rome (The Church) took itself down by becoming hopelessly corrupt — not unlike contemporary Washington.
Christianity is naturally oriented towards mutation and regeneration. It's those at perpetual war with Christianity from without (Jewish ideologues, "secular" left-liberals/Socialists) who do it the most damage, but they're closely followed by corrupted interests (the pre-Reformation Church, Christian charlatans, Christian Zionists, Big Government conservative Christians, Christian mammonites) waging war from within.
Christian mutation is nothing to fear, so long as it doesn't mutate into a neo-replacement theology, which comes from both corrupt Left and Right (ie government, or democracy, or free market capitalism as “the new Christianity.”)
Berel: "Unassimilated Jews do not bomb British subways"
No, but they participate in terrorist plots to lie their countries into war on behalf of Israel, and they routinely betray their countries on behalf of Jewish Zionism (ie Jonathan Pollard). Just because they are more devious and cunning than the blunt Islamists doesn't make them any less dangerous. In fact, it makes them more dangerous.
Phil, you damned, dirty, non-separatist!
Unassimilated Jews bombed a British theater and other civilian and government (including US government) buildings in Egypt in 1954. They tried to blame it on Egyptians, but the Israeli Jews who committed the terrorist acts were caught red handed and the bombings were revealed to be the false flag operation that they in fact were. There is no way to know how many other false flag operations Israel has conducted without getting caught, so we really can't say with any accuracy that unassimilated Jews do not bomb subways.
There will continue to be large number of Jews that self-identify as Jews, and not as residue from a past.
My son's rabbi had 13 children. His daughter that lives in my hometown has three at 22. 80% of children of haredi (ultra-orthodox chasidim), remain Jewish.
Phil had 0. I had 2.
Berel: "Unassimilated Jews do not bomb British subways"
No…
Posted by: Ed | April 18, 2009 at 04:37 PM
Thank you for being honest for one second.
Berel: "Unassimilated Jews do not bomb British subways"
But one killed Yitzak Rabin. Meir Kahane slaughtered people. The biggest mass murderer of the 20th C, an unassimilated Jew Genrikh Yagoda, founded and commanded the NKVD, murdered 10 million people, and started and managed the gulags with his Jewish deputies.
"Assimilationist Jew" should be a badge of honor, not the label of a turncoat opportunist. Teddy Roosevelt set out the formula. When a man comes to America, he gives up his ancient loyalties for new ones in which he honors and embraces all Americans and not merely those of his original ethnicity, creed or tribe.
Most Americans have made the transition pretty completely. The big exception are American Zionists, for whom Israel is variously their lodestar, rising sun, and forever faithful fatherland.
Witty: "80% of children of haredi (ultra-orthodox chasidim), remain Jewish."
These kinds of astonishing reproductive stats are common to most all fundamentalist sects. The last thing an increasingly crowded and over-heated world needs is more people.
@Philip
Great post. Personally I would not use language like Jewish genius and transferrable gifts. That opens the door for the notion that less admirable traits can be "inherited" as well. Speaking of culture and education is less prone to such unwarranted association.
To be an assimilationist you are surprisingly ethnocentric..you see no contradiction in this ? Cognitive dissonance ?
If your conviction as an assimilationist started after you met your wife– was it Postdecision dissonance.? Postcoital dissonance ?
Sorry for the last one..Its Saturday night here, and it's time for bed.
Hope you don't mind me asking. I love what you do here.
Duscany,
Its a statement of what flavor of Jews remain over generations.
The assimilated Jew disappears, especially if they intermarry (twice is the breaker), and have no children.
Everything that Phil is, would not have come to be.
Assimilation is not an evil perse. Much of the best of the world originates from native civility, that doesn't require a scripture, a social code, a cultural millieu.
But, the mission of being a Jew is an important mission in life, one that in most cases was not chosen, but either accepted or rejected, or fence-sat.
There should be acceptance of those that choose to remain associated with a community.
The first couple generations of all immigrant groups include that discussion very heatedly. The American melting pot hero myth is of assimilation, of the Italian who becomes American, of the Jew whom becomes American, of the Irish that becomes American. The myth gets confused with Native Americans and African-Americans both that did not immigrate by choice for the most part.
But Witty, you are not including the Catholic who becomes American, the Protestant who becomes American, or the Muslim who becomes American, only the Jew? Why?
Jews aren't a race like Native Americans or African-Americans. There isn't a single solitary work in the world that makes that claim scientifically; although as Shlomo Sand laughed in his recent Berkeley interview, there are people at his university in Israel working day and night to find some DNA proof. And they can't find it.
Jews are a religion, and again according to Shlomo Sand, they bought the anti-semitic 3rd C Christian statement hook, line, and sinker that the Jews were sent into exile by God…for not converting to Christianity.
The Irish, while mostly Catholic, can also be Protestant. Either way, as a national grouping, the Irish suffered their ostracizing because they were brought over as white slaves.
But, the mission of being a Jew is an important mission in life, one that in most cases was not chosen, but either accepted or rejected, or fence-sat.
There should be acceptance of those that choose to remain associated with a community.
As if the mission of being Quaker, Catholic, Pastafarian… is somehow less important than the mission of being a Jew.
Your second sentence makes no sense at all. Who says that there is not acceptance of those who choose to remain associated with the community — unless you are speaking of Dawkins; in which case you have completely lost me.
Rather than me trying to read between the lines, why not just come out and say what you want to say.
"I’m not sure why my Jewish identity should affect the acceptance of my statements about Gaza, but so be it; and this is part of my reputation."
I don't think it should either. But then again, I don't think that misleadingly quoted sentence fragments from David Brooks should affect the acceptance or rejection of his views either. I hope that this entry signals a new path, whereby you no longer try to bait or tar someone with their background when trying to address the substance of a viewpoint.
Jews, like anyone else, have the right to hold opinions that dissent from the mainstream. What's disturbing is when people with outright hostility to Jews then use those dissenting opinions as cover for their hostility.
Let's face it, some of the comments on this site are no different than that on Stormfront or other hate sites. Yet they are somehow repackaged as "progressive" when they follow a Phil Weiss diary.
By all means, your views on Israel are your views on Israel, and your relationship toward Judaism is your relationship toward Judaism. Celebrate them or ignore them as you wish. Link or delink them as you wish. Just don't be so hateful towards others who do it differently.
@Witty – The assimilated Jew disappears, especially if they intermarry (twice is the breaker), and have no children.
You certainly are right about the need to have children, and I'm sorry that Phil doesn't. I often warn liberals that whatever the merits of their views, natural selection is favoring religious conservatives, whether Muslim, Christian, or Jewish.
However you're forgetting the whole history of German/American Reform. It was a serious and quite successful attempt to find a way to be Jewish in a civil society in the same way Catholics or Protestants were. It explicitly renounced nationalism and particularism, and found ample precedent in the Prophets for doing so.
This movement, like so much else in Jewish life, was effectively destroyed by the Shoah. Assimilation was discredited and much of the trust Jews had felt for their Christian neighbors was seriously damaged. After a bitter fight between Reform anti-zionists in the ACJ and Zionists (which led to the breakup of two synagogues in Houston), Zionism became the fundamental core of Jewish organizational identity.
My point is that there is ample precedent for being Jewish while being fully assimilated into American civil life, and for one's identity to be based on much stronger foundations than the politics of a nation on the other side of the world.
RE: "…I went on the New Republic site and saw some commenters deriding me as an assimilationist Jew…"
MY COMMENT: No one would ever accuse Marty "Macho Man" Peretz of being an assimilationist. Perhaps Phil should make more of an effort to say obnoxious, macho things like "Don't f*** with the Jews".
Do any women work at the "New Republic"?
Of course, individuals may choose how they live.
The objection I have is the animosity for those that choose to retain an identity. So long as those that do so live considerately and obey the law, then its wonderful.
Ah Richard. I'm sure you can say what you mean.
No fair making others read between the lines. People are going to think you are dishonest.
Whatever Phil is, he isn't an asimilationist! Rejecting parts of his Jewish upbringing isn't the same as assimilating. I can hardly call a person who cavalierly proposes over lunch that the nation should end an assimilationist.
Also, what are the "Jewish gifts" that Phil's always going on about? Seriously, if Jews have been as powerful over the last generation as he often claims, what have they actually done for the nation?
some of the comments on this site are no different than that on Stormfront or other hate sites
–
Yeah, Chris Berel is a piece of work, isn't he?
Witty,
The objection I have is the animosity for those that choose to retain an identity. So long as those that do so live considerately and obey the law, then its wonderful.
Couldn't agree with you more.
I have to agree with Todd. Phil has rejected some aspects of "Jewishness' but is still clinging, for whatever reason, to an idea of Jewish superiority or intellect or 'gifts' to the "others" of the world.
I don't know why he sticks to this myth… maybe Phil's relationship with his jewishness is somewhat like siblings who squabble with each other all the time but then defend each other if someone else tries to pick on either one.
Let's try something ..by changing a few words in Phil's writting…
"We achieved this power due to what many call "the American century," a period in which Gentile British english language/legal/investigative/ Britian's Black's Law which was brought to America and became the basis for American law transformed the world.
"Americans have less derived incredible status from these Gentile
gifts, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Walt Whitman, Ben Franklin –very powerful men. And this power has had an incredible effect: other people want to be like us. As Slezkine says, Everyone wants to be an elite gentile now and emulate the ways of learning and prestige that were so essential to becoming America.
Today I see the gentile intellectual values of my own youth embodied in Jews and Arabs. Without getting into the genetics business, it's plain to me that many Gentile gifts were transferrable gifts. Ideas are transferrable."
So how does inserting gentile for jews in Phil's paragraph sound?
Looks as I have for the Jewish contributions Phil talks about I can't find them. I am willing for Phil or anyone else to point out to me what the Jews have contributed to the world.
What exactly have they contributed to the world? Seriously?
Most students of history are familar with the contributions of the Greeks, their intellectual gifts of philosophy and early democratic ideas…and with the Arabs gift of early math brought into the world…and the Otterman empire and their secular version of society,…the Romans, whose military tactics are still studied to this day….the Italians for their of unsurpassed contributions to art..the great building Egyptians who invented the concept of leverage in construction….the Gentiles of Britian who were the first to create a common law system for society….I could go on…but exactly what have
the Jews as a race,or religion,or nationality,given the world?
Have they given us anything as enduring and important as the great philosophy of the Greeks, the art of the Italians, the Egyptian builders, the great Otterman society, British secular and common law,…a George Washington or democratic country or a constitution ..????????????
Show me how the Jews have done something here in America..not
one who has just attained something for himself like a government office or a seat of influence inorder to help
the jews..but one who has done something for this
country or any country or any people other than jews or any society or universal humanity…furthered
some democratic or humantarin ideal or goal..created something for good of the world at large..had a idea and built a change in any country or society that impacted the masses for the better….
When I look I see that Jews have mainly used intellectual pursuits to study and write about Jews and Jewish history,some
with a lot of myth I might add and very little facts..
…and education for the most part to pursue money by any means possible and through money to pursue influence aimed at benefiting Jews and Jewish interest.
Maybe it is the fact that jews have never ruled, have had no history of creation of anything substanial,or admired,or even feared by non jews or the rest of rest of the world that compels
them to think or pretend to think they are special or have some special gifts..maybe becuase they have been a scattered tribal and therefore outsider group,they need to convince themselves
and others that they have been outsiders and underdogs because of some kind of specialness or superior gifts.
I do think jewish parents raise their children to be studious and value education ..but then no more so than Asians as an ethnic group and we see that same education value at work in
most immigrant or minority groups in countries.
I see a lot of pro israel jews in these discussions that make the most outrageous statments….Israel invented the intell chip
and without Israel we wouldn't have computers, Israel invented such and such a drug…stupid things that are easily disproven and made even worse by the truth. I can see no reason for this ex
cept that they themselves believe the propaganda put out by their leaders or they feel so inferior that they make up stuff and are so dumb they don't think any one is going to follow up with the facts.
As I said I am open to someone proving to me that Jews as a whole are genetically or culturally superior in some way to gentiles or Asians or Arabs or whoever. Minorities of
every kind manage to rise in a open society simply becuase minority families stress the things they must do and acheive to be part of that society…jews as minorities have been no different that way…but some are evidently unable to learn the
real and basis intellectual lessons of what is necessary to 'maintain' a permenent place in any society.
Witty: "But, the mission of being a Jew is an important mission in life, one that in most cases was not chosen, but either accepted or rejected, or fence-sat."
That's really a strange phrase–"the mission of being a Jew." It's as if you were assigned at birth to this cosmically important quest which it would be cowardly or ignoble even to think of turning down. (Why am I reminded here of the plot of "Dune?")
Look, if you feel that being a Jew is some incomprehensibly wondrous gift that was miraculously laid at your feet while you were still in the cradle, then you would be a fool not to pick it up. Just don't be irked when you discover that the rest of us regard your conscious "self-association" as an equally conscious exclusion of "the other."
Witty: "The objection I have is the animosity for those that choose to retain an identity."
Being an American is an identity (and an honorable one).
Duscany,
So be a good American, hopefully a form of being a good human, and treat others that have multiple or even different single (very very rare) associations well.
My sense is that condemning others' identity that differs from yours, is a definition of NOT being a good American.
Witty,
Teddy Roosevelt warned against "hyphenated Americans" nearly a century ago. Was he wrong? I just don't see how America can be a workable proposition when some citizens' primary loyalties are to a country six thousand miles away.
Berel,
unassimilated Jews do not bomb British subways
Neither do unassimilated Muslims. The 7/7 bombers were surprisingly assimilated – they went to the Mosque rarely (if ever), didn't have beards, wore 'Western clothing'; and the ringleader married a British-born Muslim, which is highly unusual for a Briton of Pakistani origin.
So, you hate African-Americans, Palestinian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Native-Americans (the ones that actually were here before the white immigration), Mexican-Americans (also here long before white immigrants), not only Jewish-Americans.
What are you primarily loyal to, honestly?
If your children resided in Canada say, and your primary loyalty was to your family, would you then be a disloyal-American (another hyphen)?
And, isn't the term "loyal-American" similarly a hyphen?
Think about it a little.
Assimilation:
the state of being assimilated; people of different backgrounds come to see themselves as part of a larger national family
the social process of absorbing one cultural group into harmony with another
the process of absorbing nutrients into the body after digestion
a linguistic process by which a sound becomes similar to an adjacent sound
acculturation: the process of assimilating new ideas into an existing cognitive structure
in the theories of Jean Piaget: the application of a general schema to a particular instance
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Phil, this is a great post. Your worldview is highly unique, and a fascinating bridge for those of us supporting the cause of peace in the Middle East.
It is problematic to hear criticism for "assimilationists" . . . when non-assimilationists make this strident charge, it feeds into the dual-loyalty accusation that the ADL continues to screech is a "canard." But by their own conduct, non-assimilationists virtually confirm the stereotype of being Israel-first and America-second.
The character of America is about assimilation PLUS forming your own individuality — an amalgam of personality, morals, culture, religion, DNA, etc.
You'd probably be a great guy to have a beer with.
Witty: Hate? What? Who? I'm primarily loyal to the human race. I'm American; I have rights and obligations as an American but no American has primacy with me over someone from another country by virtue of being American. Are we really different in this respect?
What's with the jump to hate?
@ Conscientious Objecto
I don't find Phil's world view highly unique at all. Nor does anyone I know, or have known, or simply have met, for many decades, and up and down the social-economic-education ladder. What's unique about it?
Unassimilated Muslims do not bomb British subways
" The 7/7 bombers were surprisingly assimilated – they went to the Mosque rarely (if ever), didn't have beards, wore 'Western clothing'; and the ringleader married a British-born Muslim, which is highly unusual for a Briton of Pakistani origin."
Posted by: Shafiq | April 19, 2009 at 07:31 AM
Thank you for reminding us of this, Shafiq. Something I find interesting about assimilation as an issue is that the rate of schizophrenia in the population apparently increases as societies become more industrialized and people move from rural to urban areas. Historically, such movement is accompanied by diminishment of ties among families and between family members, and weakening of ethnic bonds. One hopes this is transitional in effect; that such trends have appeared is cause for thought. IMO
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