When I was little during the Civil Rights movement my father said that he had grown up with racist beliefs, and that he did not think that he would ever eliminate those feelings entirely. I remember thinking, well I would never be racist, but now that I am older than he is I realize that I too was formed by racist beliefs and I don’t know if I will ever fully eliminate them.
I make the confession because it seems important to an understanding of the Israel/Palestine issue; there will not be peace in the region till we deal, on my side anyway, with the racism that exists in the Jewish community toward Arabs.
Of course we did not think of that as racism when I was growing up. The racism we were confronting righteously was white on black racism, and Jews were in the clear on that issue, largely, because we were on the blacks’ side (opportunistically or not, we were on their side, my father was on their side).
But even as we fought that racism, we had our own racism, which was the belief that Jews were smarter than other people and more evolved. As I have said often here, that belief was a great advantage to Jews. It gave us a lot of confidence, but the fact is that it was a racist understanding: it was a belief that through the accident of birth into my tribe, we were better than other people, and they were worse. My father is a scientist and at times in his view these differences were biological, in the genes. He and I used to argue about this. He would joke, Philip believes that a poodle looks like a poodle because of its environment; if you raised it differently it could be a dachshund.
This sense of essential tribal difference may have been the strongest understanding socially as I grew up. We were Jews, we were different and smarter and more advanced. Other people hated us. But we had given more to civilization than any other people, and we were more morally attuned than other people, whether it was our support for the Rosenbergs, or the civil rights movement, or the Democratic Party, or in opposing the Vietnam war—we were better morally.
Looking around today, I recognize that these ideas have softened over the years, because Jews are so mingled with other people in the United States. We're not ghettoized nearly so much as say my grandmother's generation. I'm intermarried and so are most young Jews.
But when I pick up Commentary Magazine or even the New York Times, or when I am in Israel, I am returned to that Jewish ethnic atmosphere of my childhood; and so I hear echoes of my racism all the time. There was the woman I saw in Gaza in Abed Rabbo who said that the Jews treat us like animals. There was Jimmy Carter’s statement on visiting Gaza that the Israelis had treated the Palestinians worse than people treat animals. There is Morgan Elzey’s statement from his birthright trip to Israel that the leader of his trip, who was a liberal, gazed out at Lebanon and said, It is felt that they are more "primitive" than we are. And of course it is evident in the frequent argument by Israel lobbyists that we (the Jews/Israel) have produced x number of Nobel Prizes while they, the Arabs, have produced y, a fraction of the number.
I hear the echoes of my racism when I am in Israel itself, and am called back to my childhood world of a world of Jews, and wouldn’t we prefer the company of Jews, Jews have higher values, Jews have better families, Jews are smarter and Jews know how to argue and talk with one another in a more intelligent manner. So who would want to hang out with anybody else. This was truly the basis of my social identity construction. You are a Jew, and you are smarter, more sensitive, more moral, you are from a matriarchy that worships knowledge, and these are the highest values. You do not work with your hands, you are not agricultural, which is a kind of beastliness.
Even today I can have conversations with Jewish scientists or scholars where we rapidly rate people’s intelligence, on whether they are first-rate or not. He is first rate, he is an impostor, he is insecure, that kind of thing. I do it still. My father is first-rate; and he had first-rate professional friends, there was an elitism about it. One of them, Bill (pseudonymous), was about 5-9 and as wide as he was tall and wore short-sleeved white shirts like a Yeshiva kid, and would sit for hours at my parents’ table telling jokes and gossiping. He had a wicked sense of humor. I left that out of the list of Jewish accomplishments. We were funnier than other people, more emotive, and so on. Bill ate sloppily because he didn’t really care about that kind of thing, he lived in his big head the way Jews do, and there would be chicken grease up past his wrists as he jabbered away with my parents.
Bill introduced me to the concept of anti-Semitism, in the beach community of scientists my parents went to every summer. One day in order to study the physiology of the flounder with his class, he had taken a dissected but living flounder and put it up on a board in the sunlight, and he had to hammer it in, and a young woman student said, oh how can he do that, and a tall Christian student turned to her—that is the word we used for the goyim, "Christian"—and said, he comes from a long line of nailers. I didn’t know why that was anti-Semitic, it had to be explained to me, but I knew that anti-Semitism set us apart; and in truth Bill found the comment devilishly amusing. It fulfilled his sense of the relationship of Jews and goyim. Bill later moved to Israel and nearly won the Nobel Prize, by the way.
Today I think of these as cultural attributes, and don’t see them as essential to being Jewish. Cultures can be changed, cultures shift, as the environment shifts. But that was the culture I came out of and am still formed by. We were smarter than other people, better. It is all over the Jewish response to the Middle East, and we will get nowhere until Jews begin to challenge the nature of their identity formation. Everything about Arab culture is cast today as alien to Jewish values, from the roles of women to the connection to the land to the physical occupations. It is lesser in my understanding.
I remember when I was a child and we had a barn behind the house and one day my mother discovered that the workmen who were working on our house had relieved themselves in an old stall of the barn. That seems to be my primal memory of Christians. It was gross and uncivilized and it was connected to menial labor; and they did not want to be in our house. I feel a need to examine and try and undo all this conditioning even in late middle age.
Wonderful insight, Phil. Should be part of a book length collection of your best essays.
“Even today I can have conversations with Jewish scientists or scholars where we rapidly rate people’s intelligence,”
I think scientists in general tend to be like that. I imagine professional athletes are the same regarding athleticism. Maybe lawyers too–we’re always reading about how so-and-so has a brilliant legal mind. In this case you’re making something Jewish out of something that is pretty general.
There’s nothing wrong with Phil that couldn’t be cured by a good long spate of absolute failure. I know that’s a challenge for a guy like him, but the results are worth it. Look what it did for me!
Phil, great post. The only problem I have, though, is that you write as if “Jews” are a race. They are not a race. Judaism is a religion. The reason I put Jews in quotes is because there is no way to trace the lineage of most modern “Jews” to the land of Israel. You are perfectly entitled to consider yourself a Jew, but for reasons I’ve just listed, I find that strange, especially because I don’t get the impression that you even practice the religion of judaism.
I’m not trying to throw stones here. I’m just sharing my thoughts. Love your site. Keep up the good work.
jayhawk, there is hardly any term in the world more fungible on this site that “Jews” or “Jewish”. It means whatever we want it to mean, whenever we want it to mean it. And you can’t fight it.
“because there is no way to trace the lineage of most modern “Jews” to the land of Israel.”
I must be a super-Jew! I can’t even trace my lineage back to my parents. With any certainty, that is.
They sort-of are a race, but more like a tribe.
There are Atheist Jews (eee)
and many Jews have never been bat mitzvahed,
yet their identified as Jewish, even if their dad is
only Jewish (or mother).
Hey, Chu, I mean, look, can we really afford to be fussy? With a low birth rate, a Holocaust in our recent past, and who knows what the future may bring? I say we take all comers, drop the circumcision if not desired, and proselytise like hell among minorities. Besides, we desperately need new blood, new faces, new and different people in Judaism. I’m telling you, you let your religion get stale, and then when there’s a crisis, people turn to stupid shit like Zionism.
In fact, at this time I would like to extend to all the invitation to become Jewish, even if only nominally.
And how could I forget, new music. Some people are trying, but more is needed.
Low birth rate’s a problem when you’re numero uno, and the Japanese are having a tough time accepting Koreans into society also; they’re just not as perfect as the Japanese, but someones gotta do the blue collar work.
Aren’t Israeli orthodox working hard to produce around 8+/- per family? Sounds like a they’ll definitely need more of the West bank for settlements.
Yes, I’ve heard there are few groups which have a high birth-rate, but I don’t care, it’s not enough. We need new blood, and fast, and lots of it.
And with Wondering Jew excommunicating Jews, we will need replacements, just to keep up.
jayhawk – “you write as if “Jews” are a race”
Of course they’re not, and he didn’t say they were.
The working definition of racism the world over (except for some groups in the US, just like the metric system) is group prejudice based on an accident of birth. And, in fact, Philip means “Ashkenaze ethnic”…
Well gosh Phil, that’s all great for you, but you didn’t grow up like me. Coming from where you do, your Jewish ethnocentrism is really no accomplishment, Frankly I wouldn’t brag about it.
Now, if you grew up like I did, and could still maintain a sense of Jewish superiority, that was an accomplishment. That took real effort! I don’t mind admitting that it was much too hard for me. I gave up on it.
Of course the real shocker for me (other than sleeping with non-Jewish women, which nearly killed me) was finding out that there was no absolutely no parallels for this Jewish sense of superiority in other cultures, religions.
I must congratulate you Phil, on the ease with which you gave in to and assimilated this sense of Jewish superiority. It was always too hard for me.
Of course, I knew from an early age I would never be a high-cless Jew, and if that’s the case, why not do what’s best for the religion?
“I remember when I was a child and we had a barn behind the house and one day my mother discovered that the workmen who were working on our house had relieved themselves in an old stall of the barn. That seems to be my primal memory of Christians.”
Gosh, I would hate to have that memory, and all of its sensory memory accompaniment, intruding on me while consummating my marriage.
Mooser, you rock.
I’m sorry Cliff, but these pieces from Phil just baffle me, on so many levels. And I’m always wondering, when does the sex raise its ugly head? He teases us, but never delivers.
I asked my wife to read the piece, and she did, so I could get another, you know, non…, perspective. She reflected for a while, and then said “It looks like they were more affluent and educated than your family” I had to admit: “You’re right, honey, they sure are”
“Well” she said, “It’s my fault, but I should have known what I was getting when you said you weren’t a Zionist!.”
” He would joke, Philip believes that a poodle looks like a poodle because of its environment; if you raised it differently it could be a dachshund.”
He was a scientist? In fact, that’s exactly what happened, and BTW, they are both the same species, just different breeds.
But you could raise it to think like a dachshund, if you knew enough about dachshunds to impart its thought process. ;-)
Now if you could turn a Dachshund into a Bratwurst that would indeed be amazing.
I agree, dogs are a real bad example. And over their long period of domestication environment just as breeding for specific effects matter. To connect this to a human group feels like a peculiar variation of man made natural selection à la Darwin …
Reminds me of an old childish question. How exactly did mankind manage to make cows give milk every day?
” How exactly did mankind manage to make cows give milk every day?”
Because when those guys started pulling on their teats, they knew what was next. Giving up a gallon was better than that.
Phil,
Check out Dr. Norman Doidge’s work. Try to find an online interview you can have on in the background while you do something else. He wrote about the latest work being done in brain science. Scientists in this century have found that it isn’t just the brain that determines the culture, a pre-21st C idea. Scientists discovered through MRIs and more exotic equipment that it’s also the other way around: casts of thought and habit change the culture, and the culture rewires the brain, physically changes it.
==============
I went to an academically tough boarding school. Eight kids sat around me in my home class. One of them got 800 on both the math and verbal SAT tests (and subsequently 800 in Physics, Math, and English in the College Board specialized tests.) Two others got 800 in one and a 795 and 794 on the other. None of them, none of the eight, got under 792. (I wasn’t one of them; in fact, I was the village idiot.) Only one was Jewish (not the 5X 800-er), and there were lots of rich Jewish kids in that school from around the world.
“Scientists discovered through MRIs and more exotic equipment that it’s also the other way around: casts of thought and habit change the culture, and the culture rewires the brain, physically changes it.”
Look, I just want to assure everyone that when I win the Nobel Peach Prize for discovering ziocaine, I won’t change. I’ll still be the same button-cute, rapier-keen and wafer-thin Mooser you all know and tolerate, to an extent.
Then that’s it, Mooser. You are now Mooser NPP.
MRW- Putting aside the question of how one would measure the effects of culture through an MRI, what you are describing sounds to me a lot like “learning effects the brain.” Seems reasonable, perhaps even obvious. One implication is the enormous significance of environmental factors on the various aspects of mental ability. This, in turn, highlights the fact that privilege tends to provide an environment that creates the conditions which are then used to justify the privilege. One consequence is that to the degree that we are committed to a just, diverse society, we also need to commit to some sort of affirmative action to provide an enriched intellectual environment for all who are so inclined, not just for the privileged. Otherwise, we will have a society where people wind up in traditional niches. Like father, like son.
“I remember when I was a child and we had a barn behind the house and one day my mother discovered that the workmen who were working on our house had relieved themselves in an old stall of the barn. That seems to be my primal memory of Christians.”
I remember my mother and sister used to always cringe when I spoke of relieving myself in the woods. I assumed it was a female-male thing.
Then I began dating a girl who would gladly “pull a squat” when necessary. Couldn’t be the female-male angle.
Now I learn it may be a Jewish-Christian thing.
It’s really hard to keep up.
Anyway, thanks for the personal story, Phil. I always enjoy them.
Funny how my little cohort of Polish nobility, terribly impoverished but fiercely intellectual, held similarly racist and snobbish views about other classes, nations and races. Snobbery and racism are but different sides of xenophobia. In my, and your, family defence, I would like to point out that xenophobia is present in many primate species, so its not purely human trait.
If you and your family were forced to live in a community of Mizrahi Jews, with not a goyim in sight as a point of reference, most of your conversations would revolve around the superiority of Ashkenazim tradition over Mizrahi one.
Absolutely, Eva. It’s our tie to barnyard animals: it’s called pecking order.
Physical revulsion is a strong signal of threat and poison (it gets imprinted in our neural network faster – often when seen just once, fleetingly, on the face of a parent – that any other emotion) and the speed and depth of this imprinting has an obvious evolutionary value. Xenophobia is disseminated using the same neurological mechanism. You can de-sensitise yourself to spiders, snakes, urinating Christians and dirty Jews, but it usually take generations to diminish the message unless you consciously work on it.
But when you have an entire community, an entire tribe, living around you reinforcing the imprinting, fiercely, you never change. And if what Dr. Doidge says is true, you hardwire this imprint into the brain.
I believe limbic system of the brain, where emotions are hardwired, is the least accessible, and most difficult to modulate. Its neuroplasticity declines steeply after adolescence, and is, if anything, hindered by activity of cerebral cortex.
Which means that racism – or disgust associated with other people’s race – can only be reprocessed (un-wired) by stimulating emotions, and you cannot coldly, intellectually and calculatedly think yourself out of racism.
You can de-sensitise yourself to spiders, snakes, urinating Christians and dirty Jews, but it usually take generations to diminish the message unless you consciously work on it.
:)
“urinating”
I had the impression something more solid was involved. Perhaps Phil could clear this up?
Another Phil, Roth, that is, also discusses the scatological differences between the religions, and his admiration for his Gentile girlfriend’s father’s “soft Goyischer turds”. Yes, that’s a quote.
So it seems to work both ways.
I Dub this thread in the name of Christendom… “Pulling a squat, urinating Christians and dirty Jews”. Go forth and defend the realm sir..
“Physical revulsion is a strong signal of threat and poison (it gets imprinted in our neural network faster – often when seen just once, fleetingly, on the face of a parent – that any other emotion) and the speed and depth of this imprinting has an obvious evolutionary value.”
You are so right, it used to freeze my blood when my Mom looked at me that way. The evolutionary value though, is doubtful, I’m still here, and could have children, or adopt.
the noble step forward phil, reaching back through all those memories.
I felt this attitude of Jews being special sometimes growing up. The friends I had never acted this way, but there were always elitist snobby Jews (ues), that had no problem looking down at non-jews and even half-Jews. Although there were many rich other families who had no problem snubbing others as well.
The barn association of the Christians paired with the animals is great. That is top-notch racism (sub-human degradation analogy). White people can read this and think, he this is how my racist uncle looked at black people a time ago. It’s really awful how we form and make snap-judgements about others (i.e. top notch, etc). It will always exist though.
Now that settlers are farming those Palestinians hills, the diaspora will have to reconcile that idea of agricultural beastliness. Perhaps, it’s the start of become part of humanity. It all starts with the tilling the soil.
Don’t bother feeling guilty, Phil. While you guys were busy feeling superior, working class Christians were looking down on you for being weak, cheap and cowardly.
There’s plenty of racism to go around!
“working class Christians were looking down on you for being weak, cheap and cowardly”
Actually, those are my good points!
But let’s make a scientific comparison! Africans, possibly numbering in the millions, were kidnapped into slavery in the US, and out of it we got Blues, Jazz, and Gospel music. The Jews were slaves in Egypt and all we got was an MGM sandal opera. Who the hell will go to see a movie where the hero has a bigger chest than the herione?
lmao.
This image of being more morally-attuned, smarter, more tolerant and open-minded, isn’t just relative to Christians, it also sets up Muslims and especially Arabs as a foil. Jews are more open-minded than Christians, Arabs are the epitome of closed-mindedness, &c. For every stereotype about Jews, Arabs are seen as exemplifying the opposite of that, and for every stereotype about Arabs and/or Muslims, Jews are seen as exemplifying its opposite. Maybe the most pithy of these stereotypes is the perception of Jews as being funny (look at all the Jewish comedians) and Muslims as being humorless.
There is also, I think, an older history of Jews seeing themselves as representing a kind of “third way” between “modernity” as exemplified by Western Christendom, and “tradition” as exemplified by Asian societies. This particular self-image creates a need to be critical and dismissive of Asian cultural traditions, especially whenever those take any kind of assertive posture. There can only be one third way. So Jewish exceptionalism and Euro-American Orientalism go hand-in-hand, and produce hybrid offspring.
And more generally, these opposed stereotypes of Jews and Arabs are not just something that Jewish culture produced in the course its particular historical experiences, these shared images are the combined product of Jews’ self-image, and other Americans’ self-image, and of their respective ideas about each other. Americans (especially non-Jewish Americans) use these ideals/stereotypes to define our culture, in general, and to situate ourselves against the rest of the world.
fascinating post phil. well, i have to admit i love taking a piss in the woods and barns are a great place to roll around naked.
now that that’s out of the way. hmm, i wasn’t raised like you were although i was raised to believe i could be anyone go anywhere and do anything. telling the truth, originality, adventure and creativity were highly valued in the environment i grew up in, conformity not so much. i wasn’t instructed on ethnic traits although we could tell the catholic kids on the block because they went to a different school and wore school uniforms. mill valley was mixed and there were lots of jews around but i didn’t know what a jew was til i grew up and my friends who were jewish either didn’t mention it or it flew right past me. maybe because they didn’t wear uniforms like the catholics, i really don’t know. every spring as soon as day light savings started we’d all play kick the can on the corner. the same batch of kids from pre kindergarten into high school. the older kids would disappear into the tall hedges and were impossible to find and we never figured out what they were up to til we reached adolescence and started disappearing into the bushes ourselves and around then everyone became hippies and we used to car pool over to berkeley to demonstrate against the war and hitchhike over my tam and drop acid. i remember once some europeans picked us up hitching to the beach and told my friend and i we lived in one of the most beautiful places in the world and we were privileged. i will always remember that conversation because before that perhaps i assumed everyone thought their home was the most beautiful place in the world. i have no recollection of learning about ethnic traits from my family or my environment, not classy ..bad taste.
RE: “This was truly the basis of my social identity construction. You are a Jew, and you are smarter, more sensitive, more moral…You do not work with your hands, you are not agricultural, which is a kind of beastliness.” – Phil Weiss
NETANYAHU’S FATHER: “The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases.
The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetuate war.” – Benzion Netanyahu, 2009 interview
SOURCE – link to richardsilverstein.com
This stereotype of Arabs as people of the desert is absurd. The vast majority of Arabs are city slickers or farmers. Only a tiny minority are Beduin.
Lawrence has a lot to answer for.
RE:”Lawrence has a lot to answer for.” – RoHa
MY REPLY: I was about to ask who the hell “Lawrence” was, and then suddenly I had this “vision” of Peter O’Toole in full desert regalia. Let me tell you about T.E. the AAAAA-rab, the sheik of the burning sands*.
The horrible irony is that Benzion Netanyahu’s view of “Arabs” is essentially that of “The Eternal/Wandering Arab”** [reminiscent of the notorious 1940 film Der Ewige Jude (The Eternal Jew)] .
* Ray Stevens – Ahab the Arab , 1962 (VIDEO, 02:57) – link to youtube.com
** Signs of the Coming Holocaust (The Eternal Jew) [VIDEO, 09:42] – link to youtube.com
A great topic.
This is an area where again you need to speak of YOUR racism, not your parents’, not your upbringing, not Israelis.
The thing that allows racism to not be racism is contact, learning of the other. And, for the purpose of being able to tell which individuals you can trust, for what, and when, rather than the generalization of them.
I haven’t had that degree of contact yet with more than a few Palestinians and Arabs. Those that filter their interpretations through strictly political lenses never get to see me as more than a stereotype (not a person), and I don’t get to assess their person except in some role.
Do we have to wait for political perfection to begin that? Or, does that create a circular reasoning, that political transformation won’t change until hearts and minds change, and hearts and minds won’t change until politics changes.
Israel is NOT a tyrranical leadership like the nazis were a strictly heirarchical orchestration of hate. Politics is NOT the starting point their, not the factor that causes the rest.
Its not Palestinians’ fault, but the isolation is a result of long history of violence and rejection. I can’t tell you what percentage of Jews and/or Israelis desire that isolation to stop, maybe majority maybe not.
It is important to demand that the leadership of Palestinians also not bear racist attitudes. There is a difference between Nelson Mandela and Stokely Carmichael.
You should get out more Witty. You might learn something if you actually made the effort to meet a few real live Arabs or Palestinians.
Judy,
I’ve made that effort, which is why I have some contact, rather than very little.
I live in rural Western Massachusetts, and there are only a few Arabs and Palestinians resident.
I had a Palestinian business school study partner. I traveled extensively in the West Bank alone in 86, without a tour, but a long time ago. And, whenever Palestinians have come to my home town or neighboring Amherst or Northampton, I try to see and shake hands and converse if feasible.
I ran a lending library of progressive spoken word material in the early 90′s and met a few prominent Arab writers/speakers including Ahmad Eqbal and Ed Said.
During that period was the first first-hand point where I encountered dismissive, opportunistic and sometimes hateful attitudes on the part of dissent, particularly around issues of Israel.
Heads down bulls sometimes, people be damned (in the name of the people).
And in spite fo all that witty, you’re still a racist, supremacist biggot.
And I’m willing to bet, Richard, that you find actual Palestinians a lot easier to talk to than the poseurs here, as I have.
The same could be said of real Istaeli as opposed to thf Zipnist scum who claim to represent Israli interests.
Oh look, poison word salad! What’s a good dressing for deadly nightshade and toadstools.
“There is a difference between Nelson Mandela and Stokely Carmichael.”
I do believe they have both been in the same room at the same time, so yes, there definitely is. They’re different people!
“The thing that allows racism to not be racism is contact, learning of the other. And, for the purpose of being able to tell which individuals you can trust, for what, and when, rather than the generalization of them.”
Yeah Witty, I know, they come in “house” and “field” varieties.
Yeah baby, you are one fine piece of work, Witty, they never made better.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, did Witty just say that Israel suffers from Palestinian racism? Holy crap, that is what he’s saying.
So I see, Israel’s actions aren’t the problem, the problem is that some Palestinians, maybe all of them, got a bad attitude towards Israel and Israelis. Ah, of course, makes perfect sense.
“I haven’t had that degree of contact yet with more than a few Palestinians and Arabs.”
Stop the world, Witty wants to get off! Well, Witty, you be sure and tell the rest of us when it’s safe to go ahead. We’ll wait for you. Just wait here. (Quick, let’s run)
Mooser,
You must have some other potential way of communicating besides misrepresentative ridicule.
Hey, that’s my mock-in-trade. And I would hope you have some way of communicating, too, and will someday show it to us.
“It is important to demand that the leadership of Palestinians also not bear racist attitudes.”
Yes, let’s hope the Palestinian leadership doesn’t engage in ethnic cleansing, demand it’s citizens include their religion on their passports, discourage mixed marriages, push for ethnic purity and demand an ethnocentric state….oh wait, Witty is only demanding this of the Palestinians right?
yes mooser, i believe he did.
Its not Palestinians’ fault, but the isolation is a result of long history of violence and rejection.
what’s that you were advising phil about? “This is an area where again you need to speak of YOUR racism”.
I take it back, Witty’s problem is that he communicates much better than he means to. And of course, when he’s not patronised approvingly, or treated like he’s an adult talking to children, that’s mockery and derision.
But, really, what does it matter, cause when Phil, for instance, gives him an unequivocal answer in simple words (“I consider Goldstone a leader…”) he just blithely ignores it.
And how on earth he expects his use of the syntax of liberation to defend Zionist oppression not to grate on people I’ll never know. And he’s been told that many times.
Phil, the following quote seems relevant to your post:
“Therefore, the real test facing both Israeli and diaspora Jews is the test of their self-criticism which must include the critique of the Jewish past. The most important part of such a critique must be a detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish attitude to non-Jews.” (Israel Shahak, JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION: The Weight of Three Thousand Years)
Quite powerful. This one moved me.
However, don’t feel too bad. Having been raised a Roman Catholic, I was taught that everyone else – Protestant, Jew, Hindu, et al – was going to hell. Even we weren’t guaranteed easy passage through the pearly gates. It is the nature of the human ego to look down on others who are different and judge them inferior. It is our first order response to difference of any type.
It’s kind of sad, but that is how we think. But we do know better.
Two useful results from this topic.
1. I now begin to get some understanding of why anyone would stay a Jew.
2. I now see that, whenever I think that Mooser has reached his peak, he overtops it.
“2. I now see that, whenever I think that Mooser has reached his peak, he overtops it.”
And promptly falls flat on his keister.
“Sure, it’s a great trick” he gasped with his last breath, “but there’s a small problem. I can only do it once!”
“which was the belief that Jews were smarter than other people and more evolved.”
News to me! But that begs the inevitable question. If this is how Jews see themselves in comparison to non-Jews, better, smarter, grander, more “moral”, prettier and more “evolved” then could it be that antisemitism could be partly explained as a reflexive response to such attitudes of superiority, self-righteousness and supremacy?
BTW, I work with various groups of gifted children in high school settings. The majority of students composing those groups are not Jewish by any means, but Asians. Chinese and Indians..also many are from Muslim countries as well. I see few Jews.. Give it a couple of decades and the future Nobel winners are going to be mostly Asians. My bet.
All ethnic groups in America have experienced what Weiss portrays about Jews in America and their prosperity. The difference is American Jews have an alternative nationality with which to project this new found elitism earned from accomplishment. The most recent comparison is with the American Irish and the IRA, which had wealthy backing by Irish Americans. Without Israel, many American Jews who have achieved elite status would not be concerned about how best to exploit American resources to expand the domination of that other country. This availability of an alternate nationalism is not just for Jews, though, and without the support of non-Jews in support of this other nation’s domain the exploitation of American resources to subsidize Israel’s aggression would not be possible. Clearly, if Jews are so super fantastically superiour, then they must be the exploiters, but if they are accomplished, perhaps considered first rate, some exploit and some are exploited, and the why for the rationale of the aggression might extend past one ethnic group and encompass a much greater nationalism that becomes imperialism, and practiced by a reason unconcerned with the long term consequences for the people living in the geographical location involved in its strategies, regardless of whatever religion they practice.
“The difference is American Jews have an alternative nationality with which to project this new found elitism earned from accomplishment. “
Well put.
” the IRA, which had wealthy backing by Irish Americans. ”
Baffling to the English. (I lived in England for a lot of that time.) They asked “Why are these Americans sending money to the IRA? It is nothing to do with America.”
Englishmen cannot understand how Americans can be Irish.
(Later, when they learnt how one is supposed to deal with terrorism, they also sometime thought “Why isn’t the RAF bombing the crap out of Boston?”)
Jews start off with the premise that they are “The Chosen”. The other stuff just flows naturally from it.
Damn! I musta got the cheap, second-hand, third-rate, Jewish education! They told me we were chosen to serve, and not having done so good at that, may have been chosen to suffer some, or at least possibly be ignored for a while. Maybe that’s what happens when your parents don’t pay their Hebrew School bill.
Phil, your residual pride at your jewish heritage is as nothing compared to your massive and so far unexamined liberal mindset.
I suppose I should emphasise that I am not contrasting ‘liberal’ to ‘conservative’, in the usual USAian style, but to ‘proletarian’. The point is not just the endless defense by default of some imagined model of capitalism that is compatible with the machine age, but more broadly the overvaluation, to the point of mysticism, of ‘the individual’ and his ‘authenticity’. The proletarian perception of the human species requires a drastic demotion of ‘the individual’, an acceptance that s/he is no more than a trivial cog in a faceless mass. I make no attempt to make this sound attractive; my point is that it is inevitable. Ask the Chinese, who, I feel fairly confident, will still be here when the USA is but a memory.
Hey, Li, cmon over here, pal, I wanna ask you something! So, you’re “no more than a trivial cog in a faceless mass”? And you’re cool with that, right? And you regard it as “inevitable” even if not “attractive”? Ouch! Li, cut it out! I didn’t mean to insult you, your family, your ancestors, your region, your clan! Okay, stop already! Say, I didn’t know you knew Feng shui!
Are you saying that the I-P issues can only be resolved in the context of a proletarian revolution? Thank God! Now we have a good reason to avoid doing anything about it! Who wants to risk that? No wonder all the Zionist trolls are always accusing us of being “left-wing”!
Thanks, Rowan, for the warning! I guess I didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but then Commies are never truthful, are they?
Oh, BTYW, Rowan, is that you in your Avatar? You’re a pretty handsome guy for a faceless mass!
link to rwitty.wordpress.com
My “notes on my racism (part 1)”.
“And of course it is evident in the frequent argument by Israel lobbyists that we (the Jews/Israel) have produced x number of Nobel Prizes while they, the Arabs, have produced y, a fraction of the number.”
I once checked the background of all 160+ Jewish noble prize winners and wasn’t surprised to find… two from North Africa and none from the Middle East. Middle eastern Jews can’t win noble prizes anymore than Muslims or Christians. This is a symptom of the “Jews can’t be Arab” racism of Zionism. In exchange for your Arab identity, you get to win noble prizes with us!
This is an interesting thread. However, I’d rather see a discussion on how attitudes such as Phil describes among American Jews would affect the way they would wield power over non-Jews at home. I’m much more worried about the United States than I am about Palestine.
“I’m much more worried about the United States than I am about Palestine.”
What was my first clue?
“The only problem I have, though, is that you write as if ‘Jews’ are a race. They are not a race. Judaism is a religion”! [Jayhawk]
• Well, it’s quite remarkable how pliable history can be when zionists use it to fit-in a particular version of the events to suit application! Above all, that the Jews are a “religious interbreed”. Nonetheless their highly revered Albert Einstein, a Nobel Prize recipient (from institution devoted predominantly to pamper elitist Jew egos) was a symbol of the high IQ race.
Nevermind that precisely such a supremacist cult’s weirdomania led to the nazi nationalism decades earlier. While the casteless Jews (referred often as Jew lesser brethren) have been scapegoated always as a collateral human shield to deflect focus from the actual evildoers totalitarian ideology consequences.
Going back to the “born to rule” species and their emphasis on being the almighty “chosen” nobility to reign on the planet earth within the “rule by the best”! Ever since such a stiff-necked evildoers hierarchy constituted surreptitious arcane system within the parallel universes. Set apart light years away from the apartheid erected for the Jew lesser brethren, bundled together with the gullible goyim and shiksas. Who were precluded in their own countries from asking imperative questions in the zionist era of universal deceit.
Concerning crucial specifics: What kind of Jews we’re talking about? Since the deeper analysis of this issue in question to attest that it’s wrong to lump all the Jews together with the neurotic psychopaths savagery. What supremacist zionism has come to represent. It insults scores of the sane raised Jews and deflects crucial debate evolution on the life vital issues.
Bear in mind that the casteless Jews, marginalised lot in the 18th century Europe, were obliged to wear yellow bonnet and star-of-david arm band for the “community sake“. As a warning sign for others, not to get too close and thus contaminated.
At the time when Rothschilds (the highly revered Jewish dynasty) within the “rule by the best“, held apparently a key to the soul of the Roman Catholic Church. Encyclopedia Judaica having depicted Rothschilds as “Guardians of the Vatican Treasury”! No wonder a fleeting demise in Judeo Papacy in 1809, resulted in the Holy Land to be chosen as the viable alternative to erect there Zionist Vatican upon Haram al-Sharif.
“We had our own racism, which was the belief that Jews were smarter than other people and more evolved. As I have said often here, that belief was a great advantage to Jews. It gave us a lot of confidence, but the fact is that it was a racist understanding: it was a belief that through the accident of birth into my tribe, we were better than other people, and they were worse. My father is a scientist and at times in his view these differences were biological, in the genes”!
“This sense of essential tribal difference may have been the strongest understanding socially as I grew up. We were Jews, we were different and smarter and more advanced. Other people hated us. But we had given more to civilization than any other people, and we were more morally attuned than other people”! [Philip Weiss]
• Of course such sensation has been experienced by many, due to the innate affinity felt by the Jews worldwide, even though being invariably cowed by the Jew peers of the realm. Who belonged to the same spiecies. Yet our casteless Jews descended via “inferior” lineage. Hence being exploited as a collateral human shield. Where instead of zionism being the hope of the Jews, our blood has been the political salvation of the atrocious zionism!
So much for the authentic source, Jewish people’s innate connection, inherited naturally at birth. Unfortunately exploited for the wrong reasons by the crypto-Jew rulers worldwide. Those, with with a prima-facie case to answer for the diabolical Pale of Settlement plot.
Denoting burning stake (pale) of the final solution (settlement). What meant to culminate with the six millions burnt offering to the insatiable Yahweh, purportedly obligatory before aliyah to proceed. No wonder religiously indoctrinated fanatics were deeply divided as to the scriptural legitimacy in a treyf creation Jewish utopia in Palestine. In the meantime gigantic internment several millions casteless Jews lasted for 130 years, during 1791-1917 period, in anticipation of the sacrificial inferno to come (hence the immense significance attributed to the holocaust).
link to rwitty.wordpress.com
My part two.
Where is Phil’s?
link to rwitty.wordpress.com
My third. Where’s Phil’s?
Its important Phil, please make the time.
I organized my series into
1. Inter-personal
2. Social/prejudices
3. Political – institutionalization (Israel/Palestine)
4. Political – institutionalization (other)
This is a transparent attempt to glom onto Phil’s intellectual property and siphon off members of the Mondoweiss community to support your own blog, Witty. More power to you, but your blog is dull as dishwater.
“The current fracas was sparked after a number of families of Russian origin applied to be accepted in the community. In each of the families, at least one member is not Jewish according to halakha, or religious law”! [Philip Weiss]
• Well, most of us feel very comfortable being Jewish without keeping any real Halacha at all. The question of whether one can be Jewish without keeping the Halacha was answered long ago. The question now is slightly different: Can a community claim to be Jewish without relying on the Halacha for definitions of its own Jewishness?
Even though most of us feel entirely Jewish as individuals without the need for any formal Halacha in our lives – we have left the ultimate Jewish character of the community entirely in the hands of the Halachists. The Halachic system performed a great service to the Jewish people. Arguably it guaranteed the survival of the Jewish people for 2000 years without a homeland or a sovereign state of our own.
Yet the great epoch of the Halacha is at an end!
We may not be living in the era of redemption, but neither are we living in the Exile proper. As a community we need to rethink our relationship to the Halacha. Instead of accepting it as a ruler and master, we should adopt it for what it actually is – a frame of reference. The word Torah etymologically derives from the word “hora’ah” or guidance!
In the language of our most ancient forefathers the word Torah did not mean law but guidance. If we saw the Halacha as a guide to our ancient traditions, rather than hard and fast law, we would be in a better position to fashion a Jewish experience that is congruent and consistent with the way we actually live our lives! [Yoram Symons]
“But even as we fought that racism, we had our own racism, which was the belief that Jews were smarter than other people and more evolved.”
Well, we do tend to score higher on IQ tests, and we do have a long tradition of learning and placing emphasis on education. Being proud of that is not racism. Was the father in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” being racist when he went on and on about the contribution of the Greeks to civilization?
I think, Phil, you’re confusing elitist and racism, at least when it comes to talking about intelligence. I find pretty much everyone I know, Jewish and non-Jewish, rate others by intelligence, particularly if they themselves went to an elite school.
I’m sorry you had a negative view of Christians growing up. But that certainly is not my experience, and it is not the experience of anybody I know. Again, Phil, you are taking your own psychological baggage and attempting to cast it as somehow reflective of the American Jewish experience or American Jews in general. It is not. It is YOUR experience.
HOPHMI- To clarify, when Jews think that they are smarter than non-Jews, that is elitism, not racism? That this “elitism” is at least somewhat justified insofar as Jews do score higher on IQ tests? That being an elite, smart Jew hasn’t caused any negative view of Christians in your elite, smart circle? Wow! Not only are you superior, you are humble! I’m impressed!
As usual, you’re distorting what I said. First of all, I think that judging people based on intelligence is not something practiced by Jews more than it is practiced by anyone else. Everybody does it to some extent, particularly elites. Phil talks as if it is a Jewish thing. It’s not.
As I said, I do not perceive widespread negative views of Christians as Phil describes them in my community.
HOPHMI- If you think I’m distorting what you said, you need to reread what you said. Your phraseology reeks of arrogance. Did Phil mention IQ scores? Why bring it up except to boast? Your extremely select group (of Jews, I assume) consider the Goyim just folks? You, sir, are a member of a truly unique group of Jews.
Since you dwell in such an atypical environment, I offer the following: “Therefore, the real test facing both Israeli and Diaspora Jews is the test of their self-criticism which must include the critique of the Jewish past. The most important part of such a critique must be detailed and honest confrontation of the Jewish attitude to non-Jews.” (Israel Shahak, JEWISH HISTORY, JEWISH RELIGION: The weight of Three Thousand Years).
Read it Hophmi. Open your heart and mind. Save the hasbara for another day. By the way, are you the only hophmi, or are there several people posting on your handle? I’ve noticed a significant difference in quality between the various posts under “hophmi.”
“Your extremely select group (of Jews, I assume) consider the Goyim just folks?”
Keep repeated nonsense, Keith. I didn’t say any of this.
If you read Ayaan Hirst Ali on Islam, I’ll read Israel Shahak on Judaism. They are pretty much in the same boat; both are apostates. But then again, it was always the practice of antisemitic Catholics to use Jewish apostates to argue their case.
Are Jews Smarter?
• Did Jewish intelligence evolve in tandem with Jewish diseases as a result of discrimination in the ghettos of medieval Europe? That’s the premise of a controversial new study that has some preening and others plotzing. What genetic science can tell us — and what it can’t. We may consider ourselves the products of a new, more enlightened age, and scientists may carry on with more sensitivity than they did in the past. Yet to invoke the genome as an explanation for anything more complicated than illness or the most superficial traits (like skin color) is still considered taboo!
On the face of it, it would seem as if Jews are over sensitive to the ‘racial’ discriminatory implication of the ‘J’ word. However most Jews are not that concerned when being associated collectively with some great minds, adorable violin players or conductors. In short to safely apply the ‘Jew’ category, you just have to make sure you say the right things. No one will ever cause you any trouble for mentioning Albert Einstein in reference to Jewish intelligence or even bringing up Anne Frank as an exemplary motif of Jewish innocence but you may get into some serious trouble once you mention:
“Nations with racial differences appear to have instincts which work against their fusion — the assimilation of the Jews of the European nations among whom they live in language, in customs, and to some extent even in the form of religious organisation, could not eradicate the feeling of lack of kinship between them and those among whom they live. For this reason it cannot be eradicated by any amount of well-meaning pressure. Nationalities do not want to be fused, they want to go each its own way”! [Albert Einstein]
Jews may take tremendous pride in their aristocracy, but we fetishize it at our own peril; to suggest that we’re chosen, rather than that we make our own choices, curdles quickly into a useful argument for anti-Semites who’d love to claim that the objects of their derision are immutable vermin. It can’t be an accident that the most aggressive debunkers of Jewish essentialism, including the participants in this story, are generally Jews themselves!
“Well, we do tend to score higher on IQ tests, and we do have a long tradition of learning and placing emphasis on education. Being proud of that is not racism.”
Actually you don’t. Only 47% of Israeli students have scored high enough in their exams to pass their high school education equivalent in the US.
“I think, Phil, you’re confusing elitist and racism, at least when it comes to talking about intelligence.”
You are confusing intelligence with education. Education won’t give you intelligence, so Phil is right.
“Again, Phil, you are taking your own psychological baggage and attempting to cast it as somehow reflective of the American Jewish experience or American Jews in general. It is not. It is YOUR experience.”
Aren’t you the one who argues that the world is out to get Jews? Was that based on your experience or psychological baggage?
“Actually you don’t. Only 47% of Israeli students have scored high enough in their exams to pass their high school education equivalent in the US.”
And there are other Jews in this world besides Israelis, as you know. I believe the statistics show that Jews tend to score higher than average.
“You are confusing intelligence with education. Education won’t give you intelligence, so Phil is right.”
I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Phil claimed that Jews had “our own racism, which was the belief that Jews were smarter than other people . . .” and said that “Even today I can have conversations with Jewish scientists or scholars where we rapidly rate people’s intelligence.” I don’t think this is a Jewish trait; I think it is a trait displayed by highly educated people. It is an elitist trait, not a racist one. That doesn’t make it right, but it doesn’t make it racist either.
SHINGO- While we generally tend to agree, you should be aware that IQ scores (which may or may not be indicative of some vaguely defined attribute as “intelligence”) are highly correlated with education. That is to say, IQ scores are to a significant degree correlated with quality education (privelege). Stated another way, privelege tends to create the justification for privelege. Phil seems aware of this. Others, obviously, are not.
Abraham’s Children uses the latest DNA technology to reconstruct genealogical trees and captivating family narratives. This is a biblical epic told through the prism of our genes. Entine traces the historical travails of Abraham and his seed. Is there genetic witness to the story of the Exodus? Have the Lost Tribes vanished, as we have come to believe, or is there truth to the claims of Israelite ancestry by sects in Africa, India, and China? What role does the story of the Ten Tribes play in Mormon theology? How did Jesus revolutionize Western religion and alter forever the genealogical signatures left by the ancient Israelites? Are most of today’s Jews the descendants of converts? Do our genes shed any light on the unending conflict between Middle East Jews and Arabs over the “right of return” to the Holy Land of their ancestors?
DNA is both time machine and microscope, offering answers to provocative mysteries. Entine addresses the riddle of the vast ruins known as the Great Zimbabwe, the only surviving architectural marvel in Africa, and the pride of black Africa — which geneticists now believe may have been built by Israelites in exodus from the Middle East. He discusses the rise and fall of the golden age of religious tolerance, when Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived at peace in an enlightened Spain. He unravels the story of Christian Hispaños of the American Southwest, many of whom have come to believe they are descendants of Jews who had been forced to renounce their faith during the Holy Inquisition.
Entine examines the origins of many diseases, from breast cancer to brain disorders, which often target one ethnic or religious group over another. And he explores how medieval Christian practices may have contributed to the once-common belief that Jews are a race apart-and may also explain why Jews are known to have the highest IQ of any ethnic group in the world.
This book is a fascinating journey back in time and through history to reconnect with our biblical Israelite ancestors. In our multiethnic, socially fragmented, post-modern world, identity is often elusive. Abraham’s Children brings to life the profound implications of the Age of Genetics for how we think about who we are!