Last month the New York Review of Books published a 1988 lecture by Saul Bellow on being a Jewish writer in America that is noteworthy for the antipathy Bellow expressed toward WASPs. There is so much venom toward WASPs on the part of a 73-year-old writer who had won the Nobel Prize and any number of literary accolades that I wonder why the New York Review published it, also whether it is an accurate portrait of American culture. Somehow I doubt it.
Below is a string of fragmentary excerpts from the talk. The thrust of the remarks is that when Bellow came along there was tremendous rage on the part of the aristocratic establishment toward Jewish and ethnic writers. But apart from one snarky anti-Semitic quote from Truman Capote in an exchange with his cleaning lady in 1979, when he was a mean drunk, and vague allusions to TS Eliot, Henry James, Ezra Pound and Henry Adams, I’m not sure where all this anti-semitism in our culture was in 1988. Bellow does nothing to document the alleged stiffarm he received.
For me the essay comes off as a whine. I remind you: this was a guy who was on the cover of our leading magazines, won any number of prizes, including the Nobel.
I’m not saying that there was not anti-Semitism in American culture. My father suffered for it in academia. Digby Baltzell wrote in the 1960s that the Protestant Establishment excluded Jews; he called for opening the doors. In 1967, Norman Podhoretz wrote in Making It that the WASP establishment demanded a “brutal bargain” of Jews--that they become “facsimile WASPs” in manners in order to get prestige appointments. And Jacob Heilbrunn has written of the neoconservatives, in They Knew They Were Right, that they felt so much resentment at being excluded by the Protestant establishment that they had to create their own "parallel establishment" in Washington and in academia.
But these observers were writing about the 1950s and 60s by and large. And if Saul Bellow had to make that “brutal bargain” I would like to see how it really affected his career or his writing. When Podhoretz talks in his book about all the exciting writers emerging after the war, they are all blacks and Jews, Malamud, Roth, Ellison, Baldwin-- a phenomenon John Updike acknowledged with his Jewish book, Beck--A Book. A writer whom Bellow cites, Karl Shapiro, wrote in his autobiography, Reports of My Death, that in the 1960s the "curtain was coming down on Wasp gentility" and English departments became Jewish.
But with Bellow it's all fresh. Here are some quotes from his lecture:
The young man [Jewish aspirant writer] is challenged from all sides. Representatives of the Protestant majority want to see his credentials.
…My own view is that since Henry James and Henry Adams did not hesitate to express their dislike of Jews there is no reason why Jews, while full of respect for these masters, should not be free to write as they please about them. To let them (the hostile American WASPs) determine once and for all what the American psyche is, not to challenge their views…. would be disloyal and cowardly.
… If the WASP aristocrats wanted to think of me as a Jewish poacher on their precious cultural estates then let them.
...When… Jewish, Italian, and Armenian descendants of immigrants, began after World War I to write novels, they caused great discomfort, and in some quarters, alarm and anger.
…Capote said that a Jewish mafia was taking over American literature and New York publishing as well. He was to write in a later book that Jews should be stuffed and put in a natural history museum. [The quote is inaccurate; check out the footnote of the NYRB piece; Capote said Jews were so stuffy they should all be in the Natural History museum]
… a Jewish writer… had to thicken his skin without coarsening himself when he heard from a poet he much admired that America had become the land of the wop and the kike; or from an even more famous literary figure that his fellow Jews were the master criminals who had imposed their usura on long-suffering gentiles, that they had plunged the world into war, and that the goyim were cattle driven to the slaughterhouse by Yids. [wow. I have no idea what this means, do you?]...
...The dislike of Jews was a ready way for WASP literati to identify themselves with the great tradition. Besides, it is something like a hereditary option for non-Jews to exercise at a certain moment when they discover that they have a born right to decide whether they are for the Jews or against them. (Jews have no such right.) ….
A genteel dictatorship inspired by T.S. Eliot (with a roughneck faction headed by Ezra Pound) and describing itself as traditionalist was in fact profoundly racist…. [Eliot [1888-1965] was born and died more than 25 years before Bellow [1915-2005]. Ditto Pound. Did they really affect him?]....
These merely social matters (unpleasant, uncomfortable) are reduced to triviality by the crushing weight of the Jewish experience of our own time. [Bellow brings in the Holocaust.]
It’s generational. And it works both ways. It’s 20th C. yammer jamming, but these tropes won’t die until all these old people die off.
Actual age isn’t the point—witness Blankfort and Hostage here on this board—it’s old thinking, the fossilized inability to adjust and change to a newer consciousness as it arises, as facts are discovered that alter our knowledge of the past, or who have an innate curiosity to address or uncover the truth wherever it may lead.
My 83-year-old mentor in NYC had a mind like a steel trap. He would not brook historical lies. I have nieces and nephews who in their late teens and early 20s have lost all mental agility. I find most Zios, including the Christian ones, to be IQ-deficient. The world has changed and they can’t keep up. (A great example of the ability to change is Frank Schaeffer, the Christian Right guy who made a 180.)
Indeed, kudos to Frank Schaeffer — let’s hope he is the beginning of a major readjustment in the thinking and attitudes of Christian evangelicals, many of whom have been led up the garden path by the Israel lobby.
MRW, you have summed this up very well. “Actual age isn’t the point…”
Yet you also say, “I find most Zios, including the Christian ones, to be IQ-deficient.”
I suggest the problem has nothing to do with anyone’s IQ. Rather, it has everything to do with holding an ideology thought to be self-evidently “right”, and therefore any deviance is considered a betrayal of that and of others with the same belief.
i’ll second that john h. i don’t think netanyahu is IQ deficient any more than i think cheney is IQ deficient. they are both morally deficient tho.
You got it annie, it is a moral deficiency that comes from the spiritual blindness the ideology brings.
My, you are so quick off the mark! I’ve often wondered how you fit everything you do in, you must be a real dynamo!
why thank you john. sometimes i have my moments.
Sorry you two, I don’t agree. Neuroscience since 2000 (via MRIs) has discovered that the IQ increases as we age IF there is an equivalent change in spiritual and moral awareness, because it requires assessing new information in present time. (And they discovered at McMaster University (2005) in a study of 21,500 subjects that our brain does not age as we age—contrary to the common wisdom—IF the prefrontal cortex is exercised. What people fondly call ‘senior moments’ is the massively greater amount of info that an older person is sorting through compared to a younger person without the life experience. They used one simple example of asking your teenage kid or 20-year-old to find something in your bedroom for you: unless you specifically say ‘look everywhere’, they only look exactly where you tell them because their brains don’t process space or information in the complex way an older person does; they don’t have the information base.)
Without these two factors the amygdala (the flight or fright center) takes over, and the prefrontal cortex diminishes, which is the seat of the IQ. They actually measured it. Excessive and repetitive emotional reactions dull your intelligence over time, just like using the same path through snow. . . even if the first ride through that snow was innovative. You’re in a rut.
[I mean, think about it: Netanyahu's father is still yapping about Jabotinsky. He's locked in that mindset.]
What you said, MRW, just confirms what we said.
“the IQ increases as we age IF there is an equivalent change in spiritual and moral awareness, because it requires assessing new information in present time.”
Spiritual and moral awareness is in most people, but it can easily be manipulated by false ideology so that, like Netanyahu’s father, we remain locked in that mindset regardless of our age.
The moral deficiency is the failure to recognize it in the ideology held, or to justify it as serving the higher good, as the means to the end.
So we’re all correct then, john h; I didn’t explain why initially. ;-) What I wrote was: “I find most Zios, including the Christian ones, to be IQ-deficient. The world has changed and they can’t keep up.”
I tend to go with MRW on that. The brain is like a filing cabinet and 90 % of what you know is in your subconscious, the back of the file cabinet. But those files can be accessed and seem to appear on it’s own like a eureaka! moment to add info to some question or thought you might currently be toying with.
Your brain is always going thru those files….if you have a working brain of course.
Just to guild this lily about the neuroscience (and this is all, mainly, from Dr. Norman Doidge’s book)….
What they found out what that the most common belief of the 20th C, which is that your brain, your IQ, determines your actions and your thoughts, was backwards.
While that may work when you’re using your memory to act or think, it works the opposite in active intelligence. Your behavior changes the culture, and the culture rewires the brain. It is in the act of behavior (broadly defined) that the choices of spiritual awareness and moral choices are applied in present time.
“I suggest the problem has nothing to do with anyone’s IQ. Rather, it has everything to do with holding an ideology thought to be self-evidently “right”, and therefore any deviance is considered a betrayal of that and of others with the same belief”
Oh, I think is does have to do with IQ. I don’t know for a fact but I would bet any studies done on people who hold “ideologies” would show they do so more from personal ‘emotion’ then mental intelligence. The lower the Mental IQ the more the Emotional IQ dominates it. Look at the ideologies we deal with here….the ones who hold them most firmly can’t even intelligently support, much less prove the claims or rightness of their ideologies in any rational way.
Each of us is correct but we (annie and I) were drawing a conclusion as to what that told us about certain people as human beings.
MRW was taking IQ as a measurement, whereas we were taking moral and spiritual awareness as a measurement.
“an IQ test will give you a pretty accurate indication of the ability you possess to think, reason and solve problems”. (free-iqtest.net)
IQ refers to what a person knows, but moral awareness refers to what a person does with what he or she knows.
We wrote of moral deficiency, which in our opinion is not related to anyone’s IQ. Those who have locked themselves into a morally corrupt ideology may have a very high IQ, just as some of those taking a high moral stand can possess a quite low IQ.
Any eureka change is not so much a matter of new knowledge (although it can include that), but of new perspective regarding things already known. In those cases it is not that the world has changed, but that they have changed and they see that world with new eyes.
Frank Schaeffer is, as MRW said, a great example.
John h,
We wrote of moral deficiency, which in our opinion is not related to anyone’s IQ. Those who have locked themselves into a morally corrupt ideology may have a very high IQ, just as some of those taking a high moral stand can possess a quite low IQ.
Yes, that was the common “thinking” in the 20th C. But what the new neuroscience research showed, since 2000, when they were able to measure these things via MRI with in situ questions, is which area of the brain was actually activated.
Moral deficiency is tied to the prefrontal cortex, the determinant of the IQ, because of the complex intellectual calculations it requires, and which are shown to be lacking in real time. People who function from the amygdala—I am using woeful shorthand here—are basically, or wind up being, basically, butt-f**k stupid.
Think ‘settler’. Please. This isn’t a philosophical giant.
Scary! If I were to be in an I/P rut, my mind would go as quickly as most politicians (who limit their “thinking” to figuring out very-short-term political advantages for themselves and have no mental processing available for moral, human-rights, the “other”, etc., etc., all of which locks USA’s pols into our capitalism-based political-action-for-sale economy).
Sometimes I feel that I live in a fog of “senior moments” infrequently interrupted by “junior moments.” Think how bad it must be (though they’d never know) for politicians traveling on a single track (rut). The USA’s republicans are so bad all they aspire to is remembering their debating lines. Obama might once have had a politically active soul, but has had to submerge it to what he considers the demands of politics. So sad.
Point taken, MRW.
As does happen over time in language and understanding, it appears what is meant by the term IQ has changed somewhat in recent years.
I’m reminded of that moment in the 2nd to last GOP debate when, re a question about foreign policy, Santorum, young and clean, fresh-looking, gave a snap answer in SOP code, and then Ron Paul, looking old and squirrelly, proceeded to give an historically accurate portrayal of US relationship with Iran going back to ’53, and with Iraq, our supporting its long war on Iran, then giving Iraq harsh sanction for years, etc; leading up to the fraudulent inducement of war on Iraq, and how we really need to change our policy, which breeds responsive terrorism, rather than curtails it, and Paul turned to Santorum, who had been looking at him with a paternal smirk on his face, as if he couldn’t believe such a wacky old fool could exist, and asked him, “I bet you voted for the war on Iraq, didn’t you?” And Santorum nodded yes, yes of course, of course I did, looking like a supremely content young pastor after he had said his prayers for the night.
“the thinking and attitudes of Christian evangelicals, many of whom have been led up the garden path by the Israel lobby.”
Not so, they agree with the Israel lobby because they have been led up the garden path by Hagee and all the other self-deceived purveyors of the Christian Zionism oxymoron.
What they lack is what MRW described as “an innate curiosity to address or uncover the truth wherever it may lead.”
I don’t think you can regard anyone as intelligent if they are lacking curiosity and imagination.
You can be educated and still stupid.
Yes, you can be educated and still stupid. However, education and intelligence are far from being the same.
Christian Zionists lack what MRW described, not because they are not intelligent, but because they have locked themselves and their intelligence into their ideology, which they think is from God.
From our perspective, they lack curiosity and imagination and are stupid. But within the lines they have drawn, they are full of curiosity and imagination and think they have such godly wisdom.
Haven’t you heard their bug-eyed preachers, haven’t you seen interviews with people at one of their conferences? Don’t you know they have a hot-line to God and are watching as their so-called prophecy clock ticks on?
From our perspective, they lack curiosity and imagination and are stupid. But within the lines they have drawn, they are full of curiosity and imagination and think they have such godly wisdom.
john, i see this conversation has greatly expanded. i would prefer it if you didn’t speak in the ‘we’ with some of these new ideas.. some of the things you’ve said i agree with but not all. for example:
IQ refers to what a person knows, but moral awareness refers to what a person does with what he or she knows.
i think of the iq as a muscle that can be exercised. inactivity of the mind will lower ones IQ. but i don’t think i would describe the IQ as ‘what you know’ as much as i would ‘accessing’ or ability to access past/present experience or what you know. a person with a high IQ can access information quickly.
MRW
It is in the act of behavior (broadly defined) that the choices of spiritual awareness and moral choices are applied in present time.
i agree with this. i just disagree with your statement ‘most zios are IQ deficient’. deficient compared to what?
do you also think colonialists have lower iq’s? what about slave owners? we’re they necessarily iq deficient? i just do not necessarily link iq to morals because i believe some very bad immoral people can be very smart. sometimes they conspire with people to control the masses. i believe there are some very smart imperialists who have checked their morals at the door.
Fair enough, annie.
I only ever intended the “we” to refer to our common objection to MRW’s ‘most zios are IQ deficient’, not to anything else I discussed.
Your quote of me about what IQ refers to is not surprising. As soon as I posted that I realized I had not said it well at all, but then decided to see if anyone challenged me on it.
Well, you did, and good on you. What I should have said was what I quoted earlier, “‘the ability you possess to think, reason and solve problems’ based on what you know.” And I should have said that “moral awareness is reflected in the moral choice made based on what you know.”
When I wrote the “From our perspective” you quoted, I was not meaning only us two, but everyone who is not in the Christian Zionist camp.
I agree with what you said to MRW.
thanks john h, your graciousness is always appreciated.
annie,
I’m not talking about innate intelligence. That’s one thing. (You can be brilliant, but still operate from the amygdala. However, your decisions and choices are different.) I am talking about what they saw from the MRIs. Michael Kearney was 16 and accepted to have these neuroscientists MRI his brain. At the age of five, his IQ measured 225. There is no way to measure above that, apparently. I think he finished college at nine.
Anyway, they asked him all sorts of questions while he was hooked up to the machine. (HuffPo had the video about this in September 2008 or 2009, I can’t find it now.) They asked him to compute difficult equations, and explain complex theories, etc. The MRI showed his prefrontal cortex fully firing. They videoed this. Then they asked him about his girlfriend, and how he got along with his friends. Prefrontal cortex off. Zero. Zip reaction. His amygdala took over. He was “acting like a typical 16-year-old,” said the scientists. What shocked the scientists was how the PFC shut down. Nothing fired from it. You could see it on the monitor. And as the neuroscientists in the video said, they were completely surprised because they always thought—it was common scientific belief in the 20th C, they said—that at least a portion of the PFC acted when someone thought emotionally. Apparently not. You could see it on the monitor. It was dramatic. They said it was solving an issue they had deciding where the IQ is created and maintained, and it is exclusively in the PFC. It’s why you get PEP. ;-)
And why some of the people on this board repeat the same thing over and over and over again, and you can’t reason with them. They ain’t usin’ the PFC.
They “think” with their ethnocentrism gland — that is, that don’t think at all. It’s all a primal howl. And after a point one realizes that efforts at rational discussion with people at this level of development are a waste of time.
Thanks MRW, that makes it all very clear.
“He was “acting like a typical 16-year-old,” said the scientists. What shocked the scientists was how the PFC shut down. It was dramatic.”
I read this from you after posting on another thread quoting what jonah said about a Gazan, “This boy – and all those who agrees with his spurious arguments – is imbued with pure [Zionist] propaganda and must first get his basic facts straight. Instead of complaining and blaming only others, he should do everything possible to…grow up free…” and then remarking “Whatever your age this applies to you and all hasbarists.”
Until they do, as sean put it, “after a point one realizes that efforts at rational discussion with people at this level of development are a waste of time.”
In this area it is not merely arrested development but reversal back to puberty. Scary!
Dr. Spock, where are you now?
John h,
Interestingly enough, it’s why people who are really in love with someone (or even infatuation) don’t see the other person’s faults, or will overlook them if the love is a mature one….when they are feeling those loving feelings. The limbic system does have its merits, but executive control ain’t one of them.
In the average person, the PFC isn’t fully developed until 30. As annie says, the brain is a muscle and it has to be exercised, but what has to be exercised is the PFC. Just try getting a bunch of rowdy teenagers to do that on illegal drink night. Or adult settlers out for revenge, or discussing Palestinians (as I said IQ deficient).
Interesting indeed. This explains why women can marry or cohabit with abusers and stay with them in spite of the abuse, and even leave one to live with another.
Teenagers and settlers, eh. Note this from Wikipedia on Jews as a chosen people:
“According to the Rabbis, “Israel is of all nations the most willful or headstrong one, and the Torah was to give it the right scope and power of resistance, or else the world could not have withstood its fierceness.”[2] (Beẓah, 25b)
Willful, headstrong, and fierce, a good description of teenage with its volatility, its confidence it has all the answers, and its defensiveness.
Not just the settlers, but all who have made Zionism number one.
Some on this blog have called them psychopaths or sociopaths.
Re: “From our perspective, they lack curiosity and imagination and are stupid. But within the lines they have drawn, they are full of curiosity and imagination and think they have such godly wisdom.” This pretty much captures what I have deduced after having long, extended communication with some HS educated fundies who are old like me. I’ve also had extended contact with Jehovah’s Witnesses who knock on my door; one man use to come every month. With the fundie folks, every question I ask is at first, then at the very end, answered by pointing to some lines of scripture. With the JWs, all they do is point to scripture lines. In my university days I had considerable contact with a Reform Rabbi in Chicago associated with the Spertucus (sic?) Museum there–been a long time…. He taught the nexus between Hegel and Maimonides (sic?). He gave me a low grade on my term paper, which was on the newrealism in literature of the late ’60s, especially the French writer Robbe-Grillet. He told me my term paper had nothing to do with what he had taught. I explained the key connection was the camera eye writing divorced of human content Grillet’s style, and that if the bible was divorced from its anthropomorphic text, what would be left? He gave me an A. Wonder what Hagee would have given me?
Now, the Scientologists…
There were many highly educated Nazis; in fact I think Germany led the world in just tons of areas of human achievement.
I was under the impression that Bellow — well, mellowed as he grew older, but there’s always the temptation in the old to return to return to their “greatest hits” and reopen old wounds.
See this interview (if that’s what it was) with Harold Bloom — link to thejewishweek.com
“Christianity? Christianity?” he said in a recent phone interview, when asked about his views on the Christian interpretation of Judaism. “The New Testament is a violently anti-Semitic reading of the Hebrew Bible.”
Interfaith groups that try to patch over the differences today, he went on, do so in vain: “Christianity is our enemy. It’s an uncomfortable truth that nobody wants to deal with. It’s a ghastly religion founded on the cross, a symbol of torture.”
If it’s legit, it’s not exactly what you’d expect someone to have gleaned from a lifetime of wide and close reading, but in old age many return to the comforting prejudices of youth.
Perhaps Bellow’s thinking was shaped in the same way as those participating in this forum, discussing how “truly racist and anti-semitic” the parable of the Good Samaritan is:
link to messiahtruth.yuku.com
Apparently, substituting ‘Yoshke’ for Jesus is somehow derogatory. I don’t know, so perhaps someone who does will tell us what it means.
Apparently, substituting ‘Yoshke’ for Jesus is somehow derogatory. I don’t know, so perhaps someone who does will tell us what it means.
Jewish religious law forbids speaking the “names of idolatry”. Jesus is thus referred to (in descending order of irreverence) as “Yeshu” (rather than Yeshua), “oto ha-ish” (“that man”), Ben Pandera, “Yoshke” or sometimes “Yoshke Pandrik” (son of Pandera).
Yeshu has become standard Hebrew for Jesus and is not considered derogatory – to the point that some Orthodox Jews treat it as a “name of idolatry”.
How widespread in the Jewish community is this disrespect for Jesus? Is it a fringe view?
I wonder if the Christians who are always talking about Judeo-Christian this or that know about this disrespecting of Jesus.
How widespread in the Jewish community is this disrespect for Jesus? Is it a fringe view?
I have never heard a non-Orthodox Jew (and the vast majority of Jews are not Orthodox) refer to Jesus as “Yoshke” or even “that man”. It’s a religious precept that some observe in a technical fashion, with no specifically disrespectful intention, and some wallow in. I presume that those who do show intentional disrespect would also have little use for the term “Judeo-Christian”. Considering the fact that Orthodox Jews constitute a small minority of Jews today, and not all Orthodox Jews share this attitude, I would say it’s a fringe view, although attitudes to Christianity in general can be complex.
Historically, Jews have shown a good deal of contempt for Jesus – well documented and described in a book by Avigdor Shinan (Oto ha-ish: Yehudim mesaprim al Yeshu), published about 10 years ago.
An interesting modern Jewish approach to Jesus can be found in a book I’ve mentioned here before: Jacquot Grunewald’s Chalom, Jésus! Lettre d’un rabbin d’aujourd’hui au rabbi de Nazareth.
That is very interesting. Thanks, Shmuel. I had no idea that this was a something that was going on.
I had no idea that this was a something that was going on.
Spit and learn, I always say ;-)
Oh, now we’re going to go down this stupid road.
There is a long record of Christians persecuting Jews. There is no record of Jews persecuting Christians. And there is no widespread disrespect of Jesus that I’ve ever seen.
Stop with this crap.
The link to the story of the GS from a Jewish POV is very interesting. But seems irrelevant to the question how the story was INTENDED at the time of writing it (maybe [1] as a moral teaching to be a good neighbor in a new way, a Christian way, possibly going beyond the way taught to Jews, which makes sense, if Christ was a revolutionary; or [2] (merely) a snipe at elegant/wealthy Jewish behavior and teaching at the time) and how it was RECEIVED and UNDERSTOOD at the time it was earliest promulgated; or [3] a snipe at all Jewish behavior and teaching at the time) and how it was RECEIVED and UNDERSTOOD at the time it was earliest promulgated
That Jews of today would see it as a snipe at Jews generally may be way off track. OTOH, such a reaction may be in line with an orthodox belief-system which makes it correct to refuse to help non-deserving people in certain situations (non-deserving because impure, because non-Jewish, because insufficiently Jewish; (nowadays) because anti-Zionist).
It is easy to see how Christians in any era could see it as a teaching toward “Christian charity” which some would follow and many would ignore, it being difficult and unusual to be a good Christian; and/or as a snipe at Jews (or at rich Jews if they so understood Levis and Cohens) at the time of christ, explaining WHY it was necessary to have a revolutionary teacher. HOWVER I give myself away here: I do not regard Christ’s emergence into history as a divine event; Christians do. Some might therefore regard this story as a revelation of God’s intent that charity be more general than some Jews (of those days) were practicing.
There is no record of Jews persecuting Christians. And there is no widespread disrespect of Jesus that I’ve ever seen.
Jews persecuted early Christians (along with other Jewish sects), and have certainly persecuted Christians in Palestine.
Historically (as noted above), Jews have treated Jesus with quite a bit of disrespect. When I was a kid, it was still relatively common among Yiddish-speaking Jews of my father’s generation, and it is common in Orthodox communities to this day. You should get out (or in) more.
You can contextualise, excuse and even justify past Jewish attitudes to Christianity (it’s a little harder today), but there is no reason to suppress the facts (and every reason not to). For a sensitive but honest look at some of these attitudes, see Elliot Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence.
hi hophmi, i think it was on this site someone informed us once about how christmas eve was observed by a segment of the jewish religious community. it didn’t sound very nice. can anyone recall what that night is called other than christmans eve?
“Oh, now we’re going to go down this stupid road. ”
First of all, bigot, I wasn’t talking to you, so move along.
“There is a long record of Christians persecuting Jews. There is no record of Jews persecuting Christians.”
Second of all, not really true. There is a record of members of the early Christian Church being ostrosized, shunned and persecuted by Jews in, e.g., the first century C.E. But that is besides the point, because the idea of “persecution” is something you pulled wholly out of your ass and was not a part of this conversation.
“And there is no widespread disrespect of Jesus that I’ve ever seen.”
Third: well, good for you. The question of how widespread the disrespect for Jesus was the question I asked Shmuel, who answered properly. Not like a jackass, like you.
“Stop with this crap.”
What crap? The fact that there is a fringe group of Jews who disrespect Jesus to the point of no saying his name or calling him the son of Pandera is very interesting. (Especially the latter, because it is, in itself, self-contradictory. Because if one believes that Jesus was the son of Pandera, then one is implicitly stating that he was not divine, in which case there would be no need to go through the nonsense of coming up with another name.)
can anyone recall what that night is called other than christmans eve?
It is forbidden to say the word Christmas, just as it is forbidden to say the name Jesus. In Yiddish, it is called Nittel (a variation of “natalis”) or Nittel Nacht. A less common, and derogatory name is Kratz-mich (“scratch me”).
Ashkenazi religious custom is not to go out of doors (due to fear of anti-Semitic attacks in previous generations). Torah is not studied, and the time is spent in “frivolous” pursuits, generally frowned upon the rest of the year (like card-playing).
No record? You mean, until the establishment of Israel, I’m sure.
I don’t know why hophi feels the need to make a fool of himself denying well-known and well-attested practices of haredi Jews and blowing the discussion up to be some antisemitic campaign. They wear huge fur hats in the middle of a mideast summer, too. So what?
Perhaps no record of Jews persecuting Christians AS SUCH. But plenty of history of Israeli Jews persecuting Palestinian Christians. Assuming you admit the persecution, you might say that was not religiously-motivated persecution but merely territory-grabbing persecution (just as many pro-Palestinian folks say that anti-Zionism is not religiously motivated but merely territory-restoring in nature).
“Stop with this crap”
Oy! I feel so bad! If only there was another website Hophmi could look at. It’s just not fair that his browser should be stuck on a website he despises, but isn’t that always the way for us poor, persecuted Jews. We always have to ride third-class and not even semi-conducters like us!
Because if one believes that Jesus was the son of Pandera, then one is implicitly stating that he was not divine, in which case there would be no need to go through the nonsense of coming up with another name.
Idolatry is, by definition false. The problem lies in saying a name that is venerated by idolators, in a way that could be understood as reverence.
“Idolatry is, by definition false. The problem lies in saying a name that is venerated by idolators, in a way that could be understood as reverence.”
Interesting. But does that presume that using a non-insult constitutes reverence?
For example, how did these Jews refer to the former Ras Tafari Makonnen, a.k.a. Haile Selassie I?? Presumably they found the worship of him by the Rastafarians to be idolatry, and since both of these names are held in Rastafarian culture to express reverance, would these Orthodox Jews simply say, “look, I’m just using the man’s name. No reverance intended” or would they have to come up with some other name?
This is a very interesting topic.
Woody,
The “Laws of Idolatry” fill an entire tractate of the Talmud, and reflect attempts by Rabbinic Judaism to come to terms with an “idolatrous” environment, while preserving their absolute condemnation of such beliefs and practices, and minimising contact with the “abomination” of idolatry.
In Talmudic times, Pagan civic religion and public holidays posed particular difficulties. There are even discussions regarding the use of public baths, where statues of the gods were inevitably erected (permitted). Bad-mouthing the Divus Caesar was not a particularly good idea under any circumstances.
Christianity was a little better, although the Trinity and Christian figurative art were/are problematic, and other sources of tension between the two religions exacerbated matters. Islam was (literally) a godsend.
May Orthodox Jews say the name Haile Selassie (or Tafari Makonnen) without distorting it? That would the type of thing one might ask one’s rabbi.
although the Trinity and Christian figurative art were/are problematic
Yes, but there is abundant archeological evidence that Jews adorned the walls of their ancient synagogues with murals and their floors were paved with mosaics depicting the Sun God Helios riding in his chariot surrounded by the four seasons and the 12 idolatrous signs of the Zodiac, i.e. behold, every form of creeping thing and animal of detestation and all the idols of the house of Israel, engraved on the wall around and around!
The Mosaics have been discovered in Beth Alpha, Hammath-Tiberias, Khirbet Susiya, Jaffa, Sepphoris, Beth Shean, Husifa (Mt. Carmel),and Na’aran (Jericho). These “image chambers” date back to Greco-Roman times. The most famous examples were the murals on the walls of the Synagogue at Duros Europa, in modern-day Syria. Portions of the Capricorn image from its Zodiac wall mural are preserved in the Louvre Museum.
Philo of Alexandria even wrote that the sun, moon, planets and fixed stars were recognized as “visible gods”. Steve Mason noted that:
Mason goes on to say that if Josephus’ Essenes revere the sun as God, there is no reason to look for some non-Jewish source, they are simply expressing Josephus’ own views about the Sun.
In any event, the revulsion for images was adopted much later on, probably in response to these widespread heretical practices.
Interesting thread. I don’t know if mutual slaughter would count as “persecution”, but Jews in Palestine did ally themselves with the Persians during the reign of Heraclius. They slaughtered a large number of Christians. Eventually the Byzantines triumphed and in turn slaughtered a large number of Jews. Heraclius wanted a Hitler-style Final Solution to what he saw as his Jewish problem, but it (obviously) didn’t happen. I don’t know how reliable the links below are (one is wikipedia), but I’ve read more or less the same thing in various places, including the Jewish Virtual Library.
link
link
Shmuel,
Thank you very much. This has been a very interesting subject that I had no idea was a concern, at least in this detail.
“That would the type of thing one might ask one’s rabbi.”
Well, since you are closest I have to a rabbi in this area, that’s why I asked you! Thanks, again.
I didn’t think there was any archeological evidence of ‘ancient synagogues’
Hostage,
There are distinctions in Halakhah between different types of images (flat, in relief, animals, entire human figures, human features, etc.), and of course Halakhah has not always been the same, nor has it always been observed. Some of the images you cite would pass the test of consolidated Halakhah, and some might be debatable or even forbidden. The subject of the zodiac and celestial bodies is somewhat ambiguous even in the Talmud, and has aroused a good deal of debate throughout the ages (Maimonides’ famous rant against astrology being a case in point).
Christian figurative art, and especially 3-dimensional representations, as well as the concept of the Trinity (although not universally considered idolatry in Jewish religious law) did in fact create complications for normative, consolidated Halakhah that simply did not exist in the case of Islam.
I didn’t think there was any archeological evidence of ‘ancient synagogues’
I’m discussing the remains of synagogues that are believed to date from of the second or third century CE. The legends about synagogues that may have existed in earlier eras aren’t very well supported by archeological evidence.
The subject of the zodiac and celestial bodies is somewhat ambiguous even in the Talmud, and has aroused a good deal of debate throughout the ages (Maimonides’ famous rant against astrology being a case in point).
Yes, I was just pointing this out because many of our modern-day impressions about the orthodox nature of the Judaism or Christianity of that period are anachronisms that were sorted-out in subsequent eras.
Walter Zanger on the Zodiac in “Ancient Synagogues.”
link to bib-arch.org
Thanks, MRW. I’ve been to most of those sites. Beit Alpha is amazing (but so are Zippori and Hamath Tiberias). I love mosaics.
I love mosaics.
And you’re pretty good with the mental ones. ;-)
Shmuel, Zanger’s description of the meaning at the end of the article is fascinating (Judaism took a right-turn) as well as this footnote:
MRW,
The mystical approach has its merits, and there were certainly strong gnostic currents among Jews of the period. I think David Biale offers a more in-depth analysis of the phenomenon in the first volume of his Cultures of the Jews. Oded Irshai has suggested a political reading of the mosaics as Jewish “public art”, with Helios representing the Byzantine Emperor.
I think Zanger downplays the literary information we have from Jewish sources of that period a little too much. I’m not familiar with Zanger, but am always wary of anything published in BAR.
Shmuel, he’s a rabbi: link to walterzanger.net
Take a gander at this: link to walterzanger.net
he’s a rabbi
Well, that’s OK then ;-)
Take a gander at this: ["ON THE DELEGITIMIZATION OF ISRAEL"]
Troublemaker that I am, that’s the first thing that caught my eye. Kind of brings us full circle to your neurological discussion above :-)
I was immersed in the jewish community for 30 years in Chicago and no Jew I ever met had the slightest respect for Jesus, including my wife and her giant, extended family. Just my experience. I have no skin in the game since I am not a true believer of any sort. Some young Jews I’ve met since those days are less so.
discussing how “truly racist and anti-semitic” the parable of the Good Samaritan is
That simply demonstrates the lengths some people are willing to go in order to score points and avoid the discussion in the parable between two experts in the law over the question: who is my neighbor?
There are many Jews today who say that the commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” only applies to Jews, not Gentiles. Here is another example: Love Your Jewish Neighbor link to inner.org
The members of the Jerusalem Temple cult went to great lengths to treat the Samaritans as idolators and Cutheans, but excavations on Mt. Gerizim by the Israeli Antiquities Authority proved that their Temple was dedicated to ‘Yahweh-el-’Eljon’. Modern-day Samaritans didn’t inherit Cuthean Y-chromosomes either. They share a common male ancestor with the modern-day Jews, so they obviously weren’t a bunch of “lion-proselytes”.
The Christian and Talmudic narratives hint that they were simply a despised sect of Israelites that had been excommunicated and treated badly. The modern-day members of Reform or Conservative movements are often portrayed as “another people” by members of the Orthodox streams too, but that doesn’t mean they are really Gentiles or not to be considered your neighbor.
Rabbi Akiva held that Samaritan priests were perfectly fit, their unleavened bread kosher, and etc. Other Sages held that the Samaritans only had to stop worshiping at Mt. Gerizim, take up the practice of levirite marriage, or some such thing in order to be accepted into the community. That indicates the underlying fact that the Samaritans were genetically Israelites and that the charge they were all Cutheans was fictitious. For example, a priest could not be fit and married to, or descended from a Cuthean.
In the Christian literature, the woman at the well claimed to be a descendent of the Patriarch Jacob and talked about the dispute concerning Samaritans worshiping on Mt Gerazim. The account says that Jesus spent several days among the Samaritans at Sychar during the same period when he also claimed “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. The visit of Paul to the Roman, Cornelius, in Acts Chapter 10 was considered the first mission to the Gentiles, not his earlier visit to the Samaritans with John and Phillip in Acts Chapter 8. So the parable was not about antisemitism, no Gentiles were mentioned at all. It was about fulfilling the commandments regarding one’s neighbors.
Hostage: There are many Jews today who say that the commandment “you shall love your neighbor as yourself” only applies to Jews, not Gentiles. Here is another example: Love Your Jewish Neighborlink to inner.org…
a different look at a word:
The love your enemy isn’t so easy to digest, and obviously the elders of the Christian church together with their noble brothers found quite a few ways around this commandment.
Thanks’s Shmuel, thanks Hostage, interesting comments. Isn’t it strange, I thought, that the BDS side in our debate knows their religion better than the other?
Had the parable been intended to convey an anti-Semitic message, there would have been four passersby – a Kohen, a Levite, an ordinary Jew and a Samaritan. The fact that the ordinary Jew (“Israelite”) was left out shows that the criticism was specifically aimed at the elites of the day, and not at Jews per se. That a Samaritan was chosen as the one to show mercy was obviously meant to further highlight the low social standing of the only one who truly understood the meaning of altruistic love.
The answer to the question of the “lawyer”, “who is my neighbour?”, is in fact the man beset by thieves, not the Samaritan. The Samaritan is merely the model of one who understands the commandment, who knows how to “be a neighbour” to another.
this is great Shmuel, i am going to reread the parable with that in mind. elites are always out of touch. occupy the old testament
occupy the old testament
That too, but the parable of the Good Samaritan is from the New Testament.
The site the stuff came from is ‘anti-missionary’, so I suppose that might explain its vehemence on the most negative interpretation of the parable. It seemed that someone with similar views may have had a strong influence on Bellow’s thinking wrt christianity.
details
thanks Shmuel
Luke, the only evangelist to report the Parable, also makes a point of having the mass of Jewish people in his crucifixion scene behave like onlookers, not knowing what to think, or even (women especially, for whom Luke-Acts has a soft spot) as weeping sympathisers. It’s only the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers who mock and scorn.
The story does goes on, I suppose I must accept or admit, to show Roman alienation decreasing and Jewish alienation increasing.
Alienation did increase to a tragic degree, of course. Donald mentions the time of Heraclius and the temporary Persian capture of Jerusalem in the early seventh century. From about a century before that there had been vicious Jewish-Christian wars in Arabia, which must have played their part in the rise of Islam.
For all that, I’m sure that modern Christians read the Samaritan story as meaning that religious professionals can be morally useless and that outsiders can be, when challenged, remarkably humane. The useless behaviour need not be inexplicable – the priest and Levite pass by on the other side, maybe indicating that they think that the man on the ground is a decoy. This is the personal risk or challenge that the Samaritan accepts. The story doesn’t suggest that Jews shunned Samaritans – the Samaritan is obviously doing regular business and booking hotel rooms in Jewish territory.
Yep, occupy new testament too.
in old age many return to the comforting prejudices of youth.
I see that all the time. I was soooo lucky to have my 83-yeard old mentor, who would talk to me after his wife went shopping about the things he learned when he was 75. He marveled at how fortunate he was to have reached his age so that he could learn where he had been wrong, and change. And he was lethal in his self-reflection.
As a side issue, I adored his wife, but if you said the word “Palestine” in her presence, she hit the chandelier. So he would wait until she went shopping to disabuse me of her version of Israel. They made aliyah, then came home, because he couldn’t stand it there. Every single Israeli poobah would come to worship at his feet when they came to NYC. He was a bigwig in that world.
“He marveled at how fortunate he was to have reached his age so that he could learn where he had been wrong, and change. And he was lethal in his self-reflection.”
Thanks for sharing this about someone with real integrity. Clearly a man with moral and spiritual awareness in spades.
John h,
Thanks for sharing this about someone with real integrity. Clearly a man with moral and spiritual awareness in spades.
Yeah, he was. Ben Gurion ate lunch with him four times a week (at Ben Gurion’s insistence) while he lived in Israel. (Actually, because Ben Gurion had the hots for his breathtakingly beautiful wife but the poobahs didn’t know that). I loved my mentor’s brilliant brain. What I loved even more were his lectures that I must pursue the truth even if it hurts me. He kept saying to me: you must live your life in exile like my friend Arthur Koestler, whom he was extremely close to, but you must have the courage to issue the truth. He kept telling me ‘don’t compromise, even if you have to keep your mouth shut for a while’.
He said that to me over and over and over and over and over again.
He said to me, ‘You can not arrive at my age with regrets in logic or realization, or your life will have been in vain.’
He was an extraordinarily famous man. Please forgive me if I don’t reveal him. I worked for him for two years. And he took me under his wing. Not to teach me about his field, which I desperately wanted to know. HE decided to teach me how to think about life.
I loved him. I loved him desperately. And he knew it.
So did Pauline Kael, who visited at least one a month for years, actually mostly every two weeks. (She lived in Massachusetts, but she would visit him in the AM before she hit the New Yorker. I was not a morning person, so I got the afternoons and the early mornings with him, like 2 AM when I left after 12 hours of work).
But, Jesus, did he hate Sabra Israelis. He thought they were subpar intellectually; he said to me ‘the smart ones leave’, ‘listen to them’.
“HE decided to teach me how to think about life.
What I loved even more were his lectures that I must pursue the truth even if it hurts me. He kept saying to me: you must live your life in exile like my friend Arthur Koestler, whom he was extremely close to, but you must have the courage to issue the truth. He kept telling me ‘don’t compromise, even if you have to keep your mouth shut for a while’.
He said that to me over and over and over and over and over again.”
Awesome. You are indeed privileged to have had such a mentor and role model. One in a million or more.
It’s not something I have had, but as life has gone on I found my own; they were Ali, Gorbachev, and Mandela, men of courage, men of integrity.
And I have had a similar philosophy to your mentor, which began from the age of 15 when I first became aware of world events and was transfixed by the brave 1956 Hungarian revolution and from reading Michener’s “The Bridge at Andau”.
Pursuing the truth does hurt at times, and I know what it is to ‘keep your mouth shut for a while’.
“He said to me, ‘You can not arrive at my age with regrets in logic or realization, or your life will have been in vain.’”
I have reached my three score and ten, and have to say it is only in recent years I have grasped just what Israel/Palestine is all about. Better late than never. If that had not happened there would have been regrets in logic and realization.
Without pursuing truth and justice my life would have been in vain.
Yes, it was good to hear about the old guy, especially since I’m getting there my self.
I don’t mean to defend the wife’s pro-Israel anti-Palestine ideas and comments. But she, as he, was a human being, and he understood the need to live with people who have (a few) very bad ideas, fixations. He made a leap toward being open to new understandings, but she could not.
Look at all the holocaust survivors and their kids many who lived after others died. Some (it seems only a few) defend Palestinian rights, others are trapped in an anti-human-rights view.
We all have limitations. Be thankful his dear wife was able to go shopping and the discussions could occur.
Bellow’s opinions are his own, of course. However, I have always found the Old Testament to be much, much more violent and bigoted toward outsiders than the New Testament. Jews are among the outsiders in some readings of the New, so that may be at the heart of Bellow’s rage.
I have always found the Old Testament to be much, much more violent and bigoted toward outsiders than the New Testament
The history of the Jews is no more violent or bigoted toward outsiders than the history of the post Apostolic-age Church. It’s just that the latter isn’t fully documented in the sacred texts.
Even the Christians view the Jewish scriptures as a progressive revelation over a large number of generations and the basis of their beliefs. Christians also use the Tanach as “proof” for their articles of faith and claim the underlying message was always there waiting to be revealed.
P.S. with respect to treatment of outsiders compare Jesus attitude to the “woman at the well”, a descendant of Jacob, and the Canaanite woman, i.e. “Let the children be filled first, for it is not appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” Christians explain that and the “Old Testament” as instances of changing dispensations.
But the point of the “bread and throw it to the dogs” part was just the opposite of what you’re trying to say. Jesus did heal the woman.
That is an interesting point Hostage. I wasn’t thinking about the people, per se, but the documents. Specifically, I was actually thinking of the verious genocides in Deuteronomy and Joshua. But you make some very good points.
But the point of the “bread and throw it to the dogs” part was just the opposite of what you’re trying to say. Jesus did heal the woman.
I wasn’t trying to say any such thing. I pointed out the difference in his initial attitude in the two cases. Unlike the Samaritan woman at the well, he didn’t consider the Canaanite woman to be one of the children of Israel to whom he had been sent. He indicated that the lost sheep of Israel were his priority and that it wasn’t appropriate to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs. She persisted and her faith was reputedly rewarded when she pointed out that even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.
Nonetheless, there were only Jews in the “Upper Room” and even after Paul’s mission to Cornelius it was still “for the Jew first and then the Gentile” – until the turning point with the Jewish community of Rome in the final chapter of Acts. I alluded to the Christian belief that that occasion marked the beginning of a different dispensation, not the incident with the Canaanite woman.
I was actually thinking of the verious genocides in Deuteronomy and Joshua.
Some of the people responsible for the genocides and mutilations (collecting foreskins) actually received a “good report” from the Christians in Hebrews Chapter 11, i.e. By faith the walls of Jericho fell down & etc. There is a Christian doctrine that they will be made perfect by an act of grace in the world to come.
Sorry for the misunderstanding!
Bellow wrote an entire book about his experience in Israel in spring of 76 called “To Jerusalem and Back”
I found many interesting aspects to the Bellow interview, beyond his comments on Zionism and the aspects of the WASP establishment that you have quoted. His disdain for assimilation (colleagues who found their way to Anglicanism) and his Jewish second and American writer first were two of the items that I picked up just now skimming for the second time.
Bellow wrote an entire book about his experience in Israel in spring of 76 called “To Jerusalem and Back”
Yes there is a reference to that in the excerpt above “a Jewish writer… had to thicken his skin without coarsening himself when he heard from a poet he much admired that America had become the land of the wop and the kike;” & etc. . . .
From To Jerusalem and Back page 17:
Thanks Hostage, this is a good catch. So he is quoting Faulkner’s character’s stream of consciousness to explain the prejudice in his America. When I thought someone said the word kike to him. I wonder how many times he actually heard the word kike. I dont think I have ever had that word directed at me though yes I have had antisemitism directed at me– cheap Hebe, from a friend.
So he is quoting Faulkner’s character’s stream of consciousness to explain the prejudice in his America.
It’s just a wild-assed guess, but I think one of the other references is to John Berryman’s “The Imaginary Jew” which employed antisemitism as an object lesson for the audience. So that might be another fictional explanation of prejudice in America too. link to jstor.org
Now if there’s one thing you aren’t, Phil, it’s cheap, and I have a gold star to prove it.
The words wop, kike, greaseball, mick, nigger, darkie, spic, hebe, pollack, shine, guinea, were common lingo where my parents grew up in New Jersey, NY. They were part of the Greatest Generation. “Jew-down,” was a common expression.
Bellow never appealed to me for whatever reason. I can’t remember my exact reason for not being interested in reading him, but I wasn’t….I just had some “impression” of his work .
But it’s plain to see he had a severe inferiority complex with a ting of bitterness…maybe that’s what my impression was and why I wasn’t interested in him.
Never had much use for Bellow, either. I prefer writers who are more soft-spoken. And now that there’s Orgo-blo, there’s really no need for Bellows.
Herzog was pretty good way back when I read it; I gleaned there was a lot of autobiography in it. Bellow was born in the same year my father was…
“But it’s plain to see he had a severe inferiority complex with a ting of bitterness…”
You can’t blame the man for knowing what to sell, or selling what he knew.
Roth sure did.
american, set aside his whining superiority complex, and bellow can be great. try his ‘dangling man’ if you have the time and inclination. bellow’s description of an interaction between the protagonist and his mother-in-law is a beautiful synthesis of the highly personal and caricature. here is ‘joseph’, after he has graciously performed some old country chiropractic on his arthritic father-in-law:
I rolled down my sleeves and was preparing to go when my mother-in-law reminded me that she had poured a glass of [fresh squeezed] orange juice for me in the kitchen. That was not lunch, but it was better than nothing. I went to get it and found on the kitchen sink a half-cleaned chicken, its yellow claws rigid, its head bent as though to examine its entrails which raveled over the sopping draining board and splattered the enamel with blood. Beside it stood the orange juice, a brown feather floating in it. I poured it down the drain.
beautiful, simple distillation of a relationship to a few words.
Not quite as good as this, from Juan Rulfo, though, a mother’s send off of her adult son in search of the father that abandoned them both:
Don’t ask him for anything. Just what’s ours. What he should have given me but never did . . .. Make him pay, son, for all those years he put us out of his mind.
a paragraph that travels seemlessly from indifference to murderous revenge fantasy. (sontag f*cks up the foreward, lazily praising the first, forgettable sentences of ‘pedro paramo’ as the ‘hook’, but what can you expect from an icon.)
Nice summary of that paragraph, marc b.
“…the WASP establishment demanded a “brutal bargain” of Jews–that they become “facsimile WASPs” in manners in order to get prestige appointments.”
I know just how he feels, I had to make the same bargain, not to get “prestige appointments”, but simply to avoid having the crap beaten out of me daily. But I eventually learned to enjoy a daily bath.
And you know, it wasn’t so bad.
But my blood boils when I think of the way a certain other dusky minority was brought here on first-class pleasure cruises, and immediately given cushy sinecures.
Another words, can anybody tell me that the Jews in America have suffered a more brutal bargain than any other somewhat exotic minority which arrived here of their own free will?
“I wonder why the New York Review published it, also whether it is an accurate portrait of American culture. Somehow I doubt it.”
What does that matter? I’m sure he gave the audience (to the lecture) their money’s worth. I mean, c’mon who wants to hear about another boring father-son or other family conflict in the writer’s life when he can dramatise his struggle against an entire society? A man does his job, and you give him heck for it.
That’s a darn good point, Mooser. Funny, I never heard it in my literature classes.
Okay, I’ll admit my comment here will only tangentially be related to this interesting article by Phil.
I have “reading envy.” I don’t like to read literature (or even longer works of non-fiction), but I wish I did. I’m jealous of all you folks who casually drop names of all the novels you’ve read. I can’t remember the last time I read a novel (probably in freshman English class in college).
I’ve always wondered: Is this just a natural part of me? (My not liking to read, that is.) The other alternative: All writers suck and if I could just find one I liked, then I would like to read.
I know it sounds crazy, but I’m going with the second option! :)
But seriously, I think if the haute literary crowd weren’t so political then perhaps I would like them. Even politics I agree with I find annoying in literature. Even, say, the Palestinian struggle for a fair state. It’s so worldly compared to the deeper, more timeless themes of life.
I understand literature will touch on politics (and probably should touch on politics), but to me it seems that it should do so tangentially and very obliquely. Because the political issues du jour won’t be important (probably) in three hundred years.
What is important? What our priorities should be: God, life itself, family, friends, neighbors, and all people (even strangers or the “Other”) we might connect with in some way.
Novels may be fun, but there’s an awful lot of non-fiction books to get through. And I remind myself constantly: There will always be time to look at a computer screen or a printed page, but the sky, the clouds, the sun, the birds and other animals, beautiful plants, growing grass, trees; how much longer will they be around to look at?
Look now while you can. When we have to sit in sealed rooms to avoid being poisoned, I’ll have time to read fiction.
That’s funny you say that. I almost mentioned in the first comment that when I first start to read I get the overwhelming sensation to look up from my book and just LOOK out somewhere!
moose the witch hazel is in bloom in these parts. doyou have witch hazel?
do you ever scratch your snout up against a hop hornbeam? i do
Phil, this post of yours on Bellow has been such a goldmine of comments, one of the best on Mondo.
And, dare I say it, that’s because we got right off Israel/Palestine as such. We got into what, when it all comes down to it, really counts in the end.
Great posts about IQ and spiritual and moral awareness, the Jewish view of Jesus, and the good neighbor parable. And to top it all off, we have these gems:
“HE decided to teach me how to think about life.
What I loved even more were his lectures that I must pursue the truth even if it hurts me. He kept telling me ‘don’t compromise, even if you have to keep your mouth shut for a while’.”
“What is important? What our priorities should be: God, life itself, family, friends, neighbors, and all people (even strangers or the “Other”) we might connect with in some way.”
“And I remind myself constantly: There will always be time to look at a computer screen or a printed page, but the sky, the clouds, the sun, the birds and other animals, beautiful plants, growing grass, trees; how much longer will they be around to look at? Look now while you can.”
Mondoweiss rocks!!
But who, Saul, is the Melville of the Jews?
Moby Dick?
“from an even more famous literary figure that his fellow Jews were the master criminals who had imposed their usura on long-suffering gentiles…”
Who is this famous Jewish writer?
I think that could be: “from an even more famous literary figure that his [Saul Bellow's] fellow Jews were the master criminals who had imposed their usura on long-suffering gentiles…”
I think he was referencing Ezra Pound, the last rower.
Saul Bellow didn’t like WASPs? I’m not surprised.
As Bellow grew older, he became more and more bitter. Towards the end he hardly had any personal friends. He seemed to have some problems relating to women: Bellow was divorced 4 times, with wife #5 surviving him.
His book, To Jerusalem and Back, is very sympathetic to the Israeli right wingers.
Most important to readers of Mondoweiss, Saul Bellow endorsed Joan Peters’ book, From Time Immemorial, which purported to prove that “there are no Palestinians”. (Norman Finkelstein’s first achievement was debunking the Peters book).
Throughout his career, Bellow was showered with all sorts of academic and literary prizes, and he held a prominent position in American life. He never received the criticism that he deserved for endorsing Peters’ fraudulent book. Nobody else who endorsed the book suffered any consequences, either: Elie Weisel, for example.
Bellow era anti-Semitism
In a 1967 letter to Evelyn Waugh’s biographer, Christopher Sykes, Graham Greene tells how he once reproached Waugh for his “anti-Semitic rudeness” to Alexander Korda at a dinner party. Waugh said “He had no right to bring his mistress to Carol Reed’s house”, to which Greene said, “But I had my mistress with me”. Waugh’s casuistic reply, “That is quite different. She is a married woman”.
Did Bellow become more bitter with age or just more set in his ways? Some people grow older and come to relish being difficult and embattled. They aren’t embittered; they positively thrive on their enmities. Hatred or anger or argumentativeness is toxic when combined with failure, but can be a tonic for those who don’t feel that they’ve failed.
Bellow clearly did have trouble with women. You can read Vivian Gornick’s analysis of Bellow’s and Roth’s misogyny. She sees it as a way of maintaining that sense of being in the minority, of struggling against the odds. Having won success, Bellow and Roth set up the women in their lives as the oppressor figures, and thus kept the vitality and energy of their earlier years. Gornick would see Bellow’s grudge against the old WASP establishment and his hostility to women as two aspects of the same complex.
But of course, Bellow wouldn’t have seen things that way. Samuel Johnson called second marriages “the triumph of hope over experience.” Something similar could be said for third, fourth, and fifth marriages. Bellow, so we’re told, was happy with Janis, his last wife. It may not have lasted if he’d lived longer, but disillusionment hadn’t yet set in.