Jerry Haber
Jerry Haber wrote this in a new year’s post a week ago. I missed it. A non-Jewish friend sent it to me today, someone who loves Jews. This says it all. It’s why I pour so much energy into this site. (Jerry and I were bar mitzvah’d by the same cantor in the same shul. But I was in the inner city branch, he was in the suburbs.)
So let me start by repeating what I have said before: We are living in a long dark night for Judaism.No this is no ordinary Jewish pessimism. Historically, American Jews, according to Jonathan Sarna, have often viewed their generation as the last, or next to last, before the American Jewish community went kaput. My pessimism is of a different sort. If the Holocaust was a hurban, a physical catastrophe for Jews, the “New Chauvinism,” euphemistically portrayed as “Jewish Pride” (as if pride were anything but a vice in traditional Judaism), together with real power and the loss of Eimat ha-Goyyim / Fear of the Gentiles, has been a moral catastrophe of epic proportions for Judaism.Every day Haaretz publishes at least one article, usually buried somewhere, about how Palestinians are being cheated out of the birthright in a variety of ways by Israelis. It has nothing to do with Israeli security; it has nothing to do with Palestinian “terrorism;” it has everything to do with the theft of land, resources, and the infringement of liberty.And yet, with very few exceptions among my coreligionists (God bless them), NOBODY CARES. Of course, people in general, and Jews in particular, need to feel moral outrage about something. So they aim for a Jewish consensus in their expressions of such outrage. Palestinians are being thrown out of houses that they purchased or received legally? Why not protest social injustice against Jews by Jews? Palestinian women undergo humiliating strip searches by private security firms at checkpoints? Why not protest the separation of Jewish women from Jewish men on public transportation?… as disgusting as this new practice of public separation is, it pales in comparison with what we Jews are doing on a daily basis to Palestinians. So, yes, there is injustice here, and I condemn it, — but Jewish tribalism shouldn’t dictate all priorities, and a sense of proportion should not be lost.
Circa 1870s-1880s, FRANCE: “The belief of Anti-Semites in France about Jewish secretiveness was based on a real secretiveness of some highly placed and influential Jews. What anti-Semites suspected was not so much pure fantasy as a malicious if plausible exaggeration , since solid facts were hard to come by.”–Esau’s Tears, page 212.
“Jewish tribalism shouldn’t dictate all priorities, and a sense of proportion should not be lost”.
I think Gilad Atzmon would like this sentence.I guess ,the whole article for that matter.
His comment, quite accurate, is simply confirmation that much of our mythology on Jewish exceptionalism(concerning morality) is a hoax.
Jews are not more evil, but we are certainly not morally superior. This detachment is missing for the simple reason that Palestinians are The Other. In the end, most Jews kvetch for politically correct reasons but do nothing. They are passive and letting this happen in their name, in the name of the Jewish state for Jews based on supposedly Jewish values.
As for Haber’s asseration that it’s somehow good to fear the gentiles, I just disagree. I’d rather not fear anyone and precisely for that reason that I do not want Sartre to be proven right when he wrote that the anti-Semite defines the Jew.
Jews are many things, but we are not devoid of writers, intellectuals and cultural icons who are filled to the brim with moral fortitude. We need to tap into that rich legacy, and not rely on outside pressure, even if sadly it seems for each day that that is what will be needed. All the while when so many of us, confused as they are, will scream ‘anti-Semitism’ when challenged to uphold truly Jewish values.
This is a terrific post, Phil. ALL of your posts are terrific. I’m going off-topic for a minute, to tell you what it is that I don’t always write but I do always think. I have boundless admiration and respect for ALL that you do. THANK-YOU!
“A non-Jewish friend… someone who loves Jews.”
I’m thinking this is shorthand for, “A non-Jewish friend… someone who loves certain individuals who happen to be Jewish.”
I read Haber’s entire article – just great. It reminds me of how far things have come, yet how far they still have to go.
I’m interested in the process of people tiptoeing toward hard truths.
“Apartheid-like” vs. Apartheid
“… theft of land, resources, and the infringement of liberty.” vs. ethnic cleansing.
He’s correct, of course, but it doesn’t go far enough.
Words matter and the devil is in the details.
“So let me start by repeating what I have said before: We are living in a long dark night for Judaism.”
Survival = long dark night for Jerry Haber and Phil Weiss, which is why they will never reach anything but a fringe audience.