Adam Kirsch has a good tragic piece up at Tablet on a conference at Yivo on Jews and the left. Jews aren't on the left any more, Kirsch concludes, wisely, because of Israel:
For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, from the first immigrant generation through the baby boom, the radical and revolutionary left played a hugely important role in defining how the rest of America saw Jews and how Jews saw themselves....
If the historical Jewish association with the left has become a source of such profound doubt, it is possibly because the current relationship between Jews and the left is so troubled. One reason for that trouble, of course, is the State of Israel, which over the last 10 years has become the target of automatic condemnation and outright hostility on the left.
Well this is true. And Obama is likely to get 62 percent of the Jewish vote, down from 78, Pew says. That's a big drop. Though Kirsch should mention the sociological rise, too, Jewish success. Success makes people identify with the power structure.
Kirsch is on the conservative team. A Zionist, he wants to wish away the Jewish universalist tradition as a blip of the last 100 years. So does Michael Walzer. The man who helped desegregate the south in the pages of Dissent now says he was only doing it for the Jews:
If the left in Europe and, increasingly, the United States is so hospitable to anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic ideas, what does that mean for the future of “Jews and the Left”? Michael Walzer explained the historical Jewish affinity for the left as a straightforward matter: “We have supported the people who support us.”
We supported the people who support us? This is very cynical. It would upset my mother (who bridles when I say that many Jews supported the blacks in the south as proxies). It sounds like Norman Podhoretz, Is it good for the Jews; and I don't think he is right. There is clearly an altruistic tradition in Judaism, eloquently stated by Rabbi Hillel, If I am not for others, who am I? Or read Michael Walzer's 1960 paean in Dissent to direct action and nonviolent resistance in the South:
Everyone seemed to feel a deep need finally to act in the name of all the theories of equality. Once the sitdowns had begun, marching into Woolworth's or picketing outside became obvious, necessary, inevitable activities....
[Inside the church, t]he chant [was] begun by Martin Luther King: We just want to be free. A religion which seizes upon, dramatizes, and even explains the suffering of the Negro people is joined here to an essentially political movement to end that suffering. Out of that combination, I believe, comes the stamina, the endurance so necessary for passive, non-violent resistance.
Act in the name of all the theories of equality! I see that living altruistic tradition in people like Sarah Schulman, Hannah Schwarzschild, Adam Horowitz. It has been cast aside in favor of the importance of self interest, which Hillel also prescribed: If I am not for myself, who will be?
It seems that Walzer has allowed his Zionism to affect his reading of his personal history and Jewish history-- in which he abandons the prophetic tradition, the social justice tradition, for a top-down legalistic one. Kirsch:
In his YIVO speech, he listed six central features of traditional Judaism that made it a conservative force, including the very idea of Jews as a chosen people—an idea that cannot easily be made to harmonize with universalism and egalitarianism.
Where the Greek tradition made room for public decision-making, Walzer argues, the same space in the Bible is filled entirely by God: All historical and legal initiatives must come from the deity, or appear to do so....When the prophets called for justice, they didn’t mean a redistribution of power but a society-wide submission to God: “God’s message overrode the wisdom of men.”
There goes the Jewish enlightenment. As if a fundamentalist reading of the Jewish bible should inform our choices. Graven images, homosexuality? Some traditions get cashiered for a reason. As if the idea of chosenness can survive Israeli militarism and second-class citizenship for Palestinians.
“If I am not for others, who am I” versus if I am not for myself who will be?”
except in a world ruled by the top 1% isn’t it not only stupid but self-destructive for the bottom 99% to abide solely by the maxim take care of number one? certainly many if not most of those of us who have felt the sting of oppression come to realize this almost instinctively, which is why, for example, so many jews, myself included, are siding with the palestinian people, even though they are being oppressed by settlers who, while claiming to be jewish, seem to lack the “memory” of oppression that heretofore has defined jewish culture, such that for us “never again” means never again not just for us but for anyone or any people. thus, the attempt to tie judaism to biblical gobbledegook is nothing but a desperate attempt to stave off the delegitimization of an apartheid zionist entity by substituting the mysticism of ancient faery tales for the logic of modern day life.
Mr. Weiss! This is the favourite kind of post of mine that you write, Jewish anthropology, so here is where you’re wrong.
First, Mr. Kirsch isn’t on the ‘right’. He’s a centrist, just like Jeff Goldberg who leans social-democratic on economic and social issues, but through his strong Zionist core is forced to occassionally (and with difficulty) abandon the Democratic party culturally from time to time, and increasingly so, on Israeli issues.
The view you take once you defend Israel against the left is essentially a conservative position. You decry the ‘naive’ leftists who cannot comprehend the ‘barbarious’ Arabs. In your head, you start to rank races according to various categories. It’s called racism, but this is the position more and more Zionists are forced to take. Others, like Beinart, dispair.
See it from this view: people ask why the white working classes vote Republican. And the answer is simple: the Democratic, overwhelmingly white, elites hate them. They serve as a redemption target to show everyone(mainly other whites in a status contest) who is the biggest anti-racist. And since hating yourself, in persona, isn’t really that wise from a power perspective, attack your own group but do so by class. And go after them geographically, too. So that’s why poor, white working class voters in the South is the most attacked target.
These voters also cannot circumvent affirmative action or the less affluent (and more violent) of the illegal immigrants, who move to their neighbourhoods while the rich white liberals get the sophisticated Indian IT professionals and fascinating Iranian artists who live close to them.
So, the left asks, why do these voters vote against their economic interests? And here again the left is blind. You cannot only look at people through the prism of money. Even Marx himself attacked this notion as the fallacy of the ‘Economic Man’ as if we’re all rational moneymakers. Marx understood the huge value that culture, race and identity has.
So too for Jews. We still lean left, and even when we are on the right we’re liberal socially and economically(pro-gay marriage, pro-immigration, pro-libertarian, pro-free trade etc). Very few Jews are comfortable with old school WASPish conservatism, namely social conservatism(although moderate), religious focus, tradition, no immigration and foreign policy isolationism.
This is why the neocons came into the Republican party, to make space for Jews and turn the party much more towards Israel and Wall St(where we never had problems) and slightly less from the oil and energy industries in Texas(which still have an important role but by now are eclipsed by Wall Streeters).
So, increasingly, Jews are drifting to the right culturally, but we’re still often to the left economically. And since people tend to vote on economic issues first and foremost, Democrats will still win the majority of the vote, but economic issues will slowly be swamped by cultural and sociological issues, it will slowly and surely drain away the vote.
Remember, as late as 2007, both parties were seen as legitimate. It’s only post-Obama that leftism in of itself is out of favour, in large part because of Zionism’s clash with the liberal values of the modern secular left. And this conflict which Beinart spoke about(although in a context of young Jews) is happening now, for everyone. And some people, who feel strongly about Israel, are slowly becomming disillusioned.
I don’t think they will become Republican, rather they will lament the fall of Rockefeller Republicanism and the fall of the Clinton Democrats, both of whom have fallen to a Democratic party which is populated by intellectuals increasingly prone to outright Keynesaism(under the guidance of the eminent Dr. Krugman), away from the traditional embrace which the Clinton Democratic intelligentsia have had towards Wall St. And culturally, too, because of minority growth etc, it is very much so progressive. Israel among this crowd has no chance. At all.
We saw the early seeds of this in the whole debacle concerning Think Progress last fall. The Israel Lobby may temporarily hinder, but it cannot undo. It is merely prolonging the inevitable breach, and some Jews are paying attention.
Still, feeling abandoned by the left doesn’t mean Jews will go into the arms of the Republicans, who have drifted far to the right. Jews will increasingly become politically embittered and cynical, that’s my guess, with an increased minority core on both sides of the political aisle who acuse each other of extreme things while the disillusioned middle look on in dispair.
Krauss. I stand aghast at the number of nonsensically wrong things you can say in the act of saying absolutely nothing of substance. But when it comes to the kind of common knowledge which is commonly dead wrong, you excel. Outstanding in your field. for sure.
BTW, Krauss, we can start with that one paragraph, a truly emetic one about “affirmative action” and you go downhill from there.
Mooser your entire existance is based on saying no, so why should it be different now?
At some point people stop paying attention to someone who never takes himself seriously.
Sorry Krauss boy you lose on this one. We all love Mooser and pay attention to him because he does not take himself seriously. If you haven’t noticed his self doubt is what we all identify with and this makes his comments (humorous as they may be) even more serious.
Sorry ToivoS boy you lose on this one.
Mooser’s shtick is as old as it is simple: whatever I say, say the opposite.
A good example is here:
link to mondoweiss.net
I did a post, Mooser as always goes against it and then gets totally shut down by an actual Asian.
This is a repeating pattern and for you to enable it and defend it, well, speak for yourself and not the entire site :)
Your first link is linking to one of your old articles instead of to the Tablet article. Please fix this. Thanks.
“one of your [Phil's] old articles”
Is it the article of March 26, 2007 about a Walzer lecture on Jewish identity at Yivo? – In this article Phil summarises what Walzer said:
- “Our anomalous status [being both a religion and a nationality] might make the world uncomfortable, but the world should just get used to it, Walzer said. There will be accusations of parochialism and disloyalty. We shouldnât try and deny the anomaly so as to be liked; we shouldnât be critical of ourselves …”
Well the world – and the Left – should just get used to the anomalous status of Israel.
A fascinating article.
It’s interesting that what you find most provocative is that last paragraph
with the “We have supported the people who support us.”
Isn’t it just human ?
A normal human behavior.
Not the behavior of chosen people that somehow have to make
“tikkun olam” or be in the front lines of every struggle for justice
there is.
Historically Jews joined the left because they saw it as chance to change the
repressive and antisemitic world in which they lived in,
an entirely self serving strategy.
“Isn’t it just human ?”
No. Being “just human” is to look on another person and see a human who is deserving of full human rights and respect unless they, themselves, committed some crime. And, even then, they are treated with the human rights warranted under those circumstances.
So a person who is “just human,” for example, wouldn’t just invade Poland and commit attrocities at Katyn or rape innocent German women as your grandfather and/or his friends did, or commit human rights violations in Gaza as you and/or your friends did. The apple doesn’t far from the tree, eh, comrade?
“Historically Jews joined the left because they saw it as chance to change the
repressive and antisemitic world in which they lived in,
an entirely self serving strategy.”
This is hilarious! I think posters have been banned for suggesting that Jews made up the bulk of the Bolsheviks, and used the power of the Communist Party in Russia to persecute their enemies. But if you say it’s true OlegR, I believe you.
Though Kirsch should mention the sociological rise, too, Jewish success. Success makes people identify with the power structure.
so ‘altruism’ isn’t an integral component of judaism? or have these ‘successful’ ‘cynical’ jews stopped being jews? and i hate to beat the dead horse of the meritocracy, but how does a minority which has become closely aligned with the ‘power structure’ conclude that social mobility is a benefit? educational opportunities are becoming increasingly limited, with financing structures ensuring that many qualified students can’t attend elite, private universities, and every indication confirms an increasing generalized lack of social mobility. for all the horseshit talk of no one being turned away from yale, princeton, etc. on account of finances, the numbers don’t support that argument. anecdotally i have had many clients whose children have chosen Northeastern over Cornell, UMASS/Amherst over Brown, etc. on account of the piss poor financial aid packages offered to middle class/lower middle class families from the ivies or ivy-type schools.
as a close a thing to a true meritocracy existed in this country from roughly WWII through 1980, but the corpse isn’t even warm anymore.
This is dissapointing from Walzer. His earlier texts were magnificent creations. It seems his age has made him want to hunker down. Good thing there are those of us who don’t reject the Haskalah.
I remember reading a book by an Israeli author (in Hebrew) about 15 years ago, which made an argument similar to the one Kirsch ascribes (maybe a little tendentiously?) to Walzer’s new book — that Jewish religious consciousness was so consumed by God that there was no room for politics, no template for secular governance. Can’t remember the book title. Still, it doesn’t sound like Walzer’s quite reached the Podhoretz approach to the prophets, which strips them of any universalist intent.
In any case, whatever the original intent, many have taken both conservative and radical lessons from the Biblical text. And it hasn’t all been an exercise in finding backup for externally conceived moral/political notions. Though I suppose you could argue that much of it has been an exercise in creative misreading.
I believe Walzer still defines himself as a leftist, regardless of how he now explains that orientation. I don’t think he’s saying that he himself sided with the left simply because it was good for the Jews. I think he’s making a sociological not a prescriptive statement, that many Jews were on the left for reasons that had to do with self-interest.
Anyways — to get a little post-Biblical, I’ve always been struck by the fact that the first order of the Mishnah (the ground floor of the Talmud) is overwhelmingly concerned with redistribution of wealth and goods. Depending on your predilection you could say this is an instance of Jews looking out primarily for the welfare of other Jews, or you could try to extrapolate a bit, and say that Judaism argues for a society concerned with the welfare of all.
“Judaism argues for a society concerned with the welfare of all.”
Why would you say something so anti-Israel? Are you trying to deligitamise the place? Obviously, Judaism argues for apartheid, and long occupations leading to the dispossession and demise of the victims.
As far as I know, what they do and say in Israel is the true blue Jew way, the hard Jewy center, and the model for Jews everywhere. Don’t you agree?
I wasn’t talking specifically about Israel, the hard Jewy center.
But what Israel does will serve as a commentary on what Judaism is. It could narrow possibilities, close down paths.
what israel does serves as a commentary as to what zionism is.
Well, out Tea Party friends choose to ignore it, but in fact there is SOCIALIZED MEDICINE in Israel. Not to mention entire political parties of WELFARE BUMS in the ostensibly right wing government. Basically, it is a Communist country. Of course, when GOP legislators visit Israel on a junket, they never see such shameful details. [Thinking about it, I never read GOP congresscritter mentioning a gay parade after returning from the Holy Land.]
socialized medicine doesn’t get israel off the hook for being an apartheid entity.
Well yes, Phil there is the traditional “House of Hillel” vs. “House of Shammai.”
Shammai dismissed the Gentile who asked him to explain the Talmud while he stood on one foot. Hillel did not, but rather chided the Gentile yet explained to him: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow: this is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn” (Shab. 31a). Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish moral law. (Lev. xix. 18).
“Hillel recognized brotherly love as the fundamental principle of Jewish moral law”
Was this “Hillel” an Israeli, or even a Zionist? Did he have a Jewish country to run, and expand on? What on earth would he know about the “shades of grey”?
Frankly, “Hillel” doesn’t sound like a Jewish name to me. Probably a Gentile in drag.
I think the success thing is a red herring. Jews aren’t significantly more successful now when (assuming you are right) Obama is getting 62% of the vote (still higher support for him than most groups) than when he got 78%. Jews (other than the orthodox) usually have a pretty liberal outlook. I think any drop in Obama’s percentage can be attributed to the perception that he is against us. In other words, it isn’t that we are attracted to those who are for us (the Republicans are also for us, so why did they get 22% of the vote in the last election). But that we are against those who are against us. Unlike the Log Cabin Republicans or the gays for Hamas, we don’t cuddle up to people that anathemize us.
we are against those who are against us
pearls of fredsdom
“we don’t cuddle up to people that anathemize us.”
Fredblogs, if you want to accuse somebody, or rather dishonestly insinuate (you wish you had the courage to accuse) somebody, try using an actual word to do it.
First of all “anathemize” (sic) is not a word. And if it was, you don’t know what it means.
Oh wait, weren’t you educated at a (to be very generous) “religious” school of some type? Sorry Fredblogs, I guess expecting you to know English is not fair. But when you half-learn a word, dimly realise it could be some type of pejorative, and throw it around, I guess you are doing what you learned best. I’m sure your teachers would be proud.
RE: “There is clearly an altruistic tradition in Judaism, eloquently stated by Rabbi Hillel, If I am not for others, who am I?” ~ Weiss
MY COMMENT: Yes, but Judaism is a religion (at least it once was), whereas Zionism is nationalism! “Therein lies the rub.”
FROM GEORGE ORWELL, “Notes on Nationalism” (1945):
• SOURCE: “Notes on Nationalism”, by George Orwell – link to literaturecollection.com
- “Judaism is a religion… whereas Zionism is nationalism! “Therein lies the rub.”-
—————————————
As Michael Walzer said (see my post above) Judaism is both a religion and a nationalism – therein lies the “anomaly”. And this anomaly is played out in Israel.
An anomaly that some people seems to me are unable or unwilling to accept despite all that talk about multiculturalism
and understanding of the other.
For some reason the following comment of mine was not posted. I said:
[In an article by Phil] of March 26, 2007 about a Walzer lecture on Jewish identity at Yivo … Phil summarises what Walzer said:
————————————————————————————–
- “Our anomalous status [being both a religion and a nationality] might make the world uncomfortable, but the world should just get used to it, Walzer said. There will be accusations of parochialism and disloyalty. We shouldnât try and deny the anomaly so as to be liked; we shouldnât be critical of ourselves …”
—————————————————————————————-
Well the world – and the Left – should just get used to the anomalous status of Israel.
_____________
This comment of mine that the world and the left should just get used to the anomalous status of Israel – that was of course ironical.
“An anomaly that some people seems to me are unable or unwilling to accept despite all that talk about multiculturalism
and understanding of the other.”
Of course, to be a good Jew you have to steal land and kill people! Why can’t people understand that, and stop bothering us? And I wish they would stop with all the crocodile tears, they didn’t want those kids anyway.
You know Fredblogs, if I wasn’t aware that almost 3/4s of the world’s people are Jews, and we don’t have to live by anybody’s rules but our own, I might think you’re a bit crazy. But history has proved, many times over, the ability and power of Jews to shape the world to their liking. And besides, there are no Palestinians, and nobody likes them.
- “Our anomalous status [being both a religion and a nationality] might make the world uncomfortable, but the world should just get used to it, Walzer said. There will be accusations of parochialism and disloyalty. We shouldnât try and deny the anomaly so as to be liked; we shouldnât be critical of ourselves …”
Gawd….you just look at people like this in wonderment. The world doesn’t care what they want to consider themselves. The world only cares if they cause the world too much trouble.
An anomaly that some people seems to me are unable or unwilling to accept despite all that talk about multiculturalism
and understanding of the other.
Fundamentalist Judaism does a damn poor job of understanding the other. There’s nothing to understand about a State where one of the former Chief Sephardic Rabbis and spiritual leaders of a major political party openly pronounces racist doctrines like this one:
link to ynetnews.com
Maybe all of the liars and apologists can finally stop libeling the late Prof. Israel Shahak for exposing this ugly stuff.
And by they you mean who just to make sure?
And by they you mean who just to make sure?
I believe that “people like this” would be all those who express the anomalous sentiments about parochialism, nationality, religion, and disloyalty that American italicized and quoted, i.e. Zionists.
After all, American was commenting on an article which highlights the fact that “Walzer has allowed his Zionism to affect his reading of his personal history and Jewish history”.
since hitler’s naziism and stalin’s communism were served up as a combination of religion and nationality, weren’t both these also anomalous? which raises the question as to whether the zionist entity, on account of its expansionist ways. will go the self-destructive way of its anomalous expansionist predecessors?
RE: “As Michael Walzer said (see my post above) Judaism is both a religion and a nationalism…” ~ Klaus Bloemker
MY COMMENT: Personally, I call that Revisionist Judaism – Judaism that has been co-opted by Zionism. I also call the Christian nationalism in this country Revisionist Christianity.
But who cares?
more like shanghaied than co-opted
How can Jewish (English) nationalism, a set of political beliefs, be equated with Judaism (Anglicanism), a set of religious beliefs? However much you revised the religious beliefs you’d surely have to say both that atheists could not hold the relevant form of nationalism and that the national claims are valid only if we believe in special divine commands, ie not valid under ordinary morality? These would not be welcome admissions.
MHughes976,
Ancient Judaism is messianic ethnic nationalist at its root and source — the core meme is the perpetual struggle of a chosen nation (a people, an ethnic group) against all the other peoples, ethnic groups and nations — “the nations.” Zionism is the latest logical iteration of this ideology.
Christianity at its core is a trans-national and trans-ethnic ideology. Many Christians do not understand that Judaism is steeped in militant ethnocentrism and ethnic nationalism.
Thoughts?
Not long ago on this site, there was a long thread about “Jewish Geography.” The practice of counting all the good things Jews did for the world, (and some countered, why don’t they list the bad things, the bad Jews too? Which list would be bigger in terms of great achievements by individual Jews?). Here’s a guy who brags, while Jews are less than 1/4th of 1% of the world’s population, they raise, by far, the most noble achievers benefiting mankind. He says, yet the real achievement and goal of the Jewish People is showing they have the highest morality which others should follow for they are the light to the world: link to deliberation.info
So now, this Walzer wants to bring in the motivation for such altruism? Such epic morality? Next thing you know, somebody will be looking at why Bill Clinton gave a pile of his soiled old underwear to charity, and so what if he overestimated the value on his IRS return?
“He says, yet the real achievement and goal of the Jewish People…”
As long as you think there’s such a thing as “the Jewish People” he’s more than halfway to his goal, and I’m sure he appreciates your helping him in this.
Mosser, I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “Gentile,” or “Goy.” Quit projecting onto me your own assumptions.
Gosh, I wish somebody would link me to a Jewish Creed, or something from the Head Jew, or President of Judaism which could settle once and for all this big discussion over what kind of ethical and moral tradition Judaism has. I mean, what the heck is going on. We can steal a country and make it stick, but we can’t publish a Jewish handbook or Constitution or something?
Of course, there’s always the Ten Commanments, but do they apply only to inter-Jewish relation or to relations with all people?
Anyway, they call this organised religion? Some organisation. Why, if this goes on, and the Jewish tradition proves to be both widely differing and sort of inscrutable (“Charlie Chan”, remember? I’m reading about him.) one could almost come to the conclusion that ZIonism worked so well on the Jews for precisely this reason, possibly, but Zionism itself has very little to do with Judaism, except as a “front” and a people conveniently (for the Zionists) having quite a few dispossesed and/or persecuted people the religion itself was unable to deal with.
You should convert to catholicity Mooser
and you will have all the answers from a single universal authority.
Judaism can’t help you on that.
- “You should convert to catholicity Mooser”
Mooser says he is carrying a cross – so he has already converted.
Yes but which one Greek Orthodox,
Catholic, Mormon or one of the myriad protestant denominations.
Or maybe he is starting his own church.
The church of Mooser.
It has a proud ring to it.
- It got to be ‘Jews for Jesus’, which is the only authentic one.
I had a conversation with those guys once.
It was weird man …
It’s like missionaries on crack.
“Mooser says he is carrying a cross – so he has already converted.”
I’ll carry a cross, gladly, before I carry a swastika, Klaus.
Klaus and OlegR, it’s always nice to read a dialogue between two people so evenly matched in intelligence and perception.
- “I’ll carry a cross, gladly, before I carry a swastika, Klaus.” – Mooser
I’m sorry I got off topic – with your cross – but the swastika is off topic also.
Swastika is a cross; it’s literally a twisted cross.
swastika – definition of swastika by the Free Online Dictionary …
link to thefreedictionary.com ancient cosmic or religious symbol formed by a Greek cross with the ends of the arms bent at right angles in either a clockwise or a counterclockwise ..
“You should convert to catholicity Mooser
and you will have all the answers from a single universal authority.”
What’s the matter OlegR, are their too many Jews for you. BTW, you are participating in a great tradition here at Mondoweiss! Nearly every ZIonist we get here points out that there are too many Jews, many of them not up to snuff, and the number should be reduced.
Gosh, too bad the Nazis aren’t around! You could give them the lists of excess Jews, or maybe just do the job yourself, and they will pay you a bounty.
Mooser dude i was trying to help you
You so desperately looking for simple answers to complicated questions
so i thought i would offer you one.
You don’t have to convert to catholicity if you think that would hurt your Jewish
identity you can try something historically and culturally neutral,
Scientology maybe?
“I see that living altruistic tradition in people like Sarah Schulman, Hannah Schwarzschild, Adam Horowitz.”
But maybe what they show is just natural, decent, human fellow-feeling, and nothing to do with Jewish tradition at all. After all, you get the same sort of behaviour from Gentiles.
“After all, you get the same sort of behaviour from Gentiles.”
You don’t say! Hard to think of a Gentile doing right without a Jew there to tell him what to do. I guess it could happen.
Head-snapping. Up until now its been called about as classic as classic can be an anti-semitic libel to say that jews only do things for others when it benefits them. A Protocols-level libel, if not in fact *in* the Protocols. And now, no less than Walzer saying it.
Goodbye universalism then, goodbye anti-nationalism, goodbye pluralism even (not to mention multi-culturalism), goodbye true democracy even … hello blood?
Nah, that’s for Walzer’s Chosen only and not for the rest of us.
Indeed though I think this piece by Walzer *was* only for his Chosen, and a desperate piece it is too: American jews ain’t gonna agree to this on the whole, leaving Walzer where exactly? As a source for the Stormfront/David Dukes out there.
I’m almost certain Walzer still self-defines as a social democrat and liberal Zionist (in the Beinart ballpark). I don’t think he’s changed his stripes politically. I suppose he’s no longer using the Biblical text as some kind of support for his politics; it doesn’t sound like he’d consider that valid in general.
As for “We have supported the people who support us.” — I think he means that Jews have usually embraced the political side that helps their team. I don’t think he’s claiming that he forms his own politics that way.
I think I would partly disagree that Judaism itself was the central, direct cause for common leftist politics.
According to Einstein, “As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by lack of power.”
Another philosopher I think suggested that if they had an ethnic state, they would do discriminatory things like other nation states.
My perception is that as a social phenomenon, Jewish people held more leftist perspectives because they were an ethnic or religious minority. They were reacting against a non-Jewish establishment and dominant non-Jewish social mores, and in some cases in Europe, a history of institutions that discriminated against minorities.
That Judaism wasn’t a central, direct cause of the community’s progressive perspectives is suggested by the fact that the least religious were more frequently the most leftist. Instead, like blacks and working class minorities like Italian Americans, they often took leftist perspectives because of their own societal position and background. Judaism could be used as a source of justifications for social justice positions because it is still a moral code.
Now you could go beyond what I am saying and assert that although there was commonly a stand-offishness about those outside the religion, the religion had underneath itself in its roots the idea of a universalism and universal mission for all mankind. But if you are going to assert this, you might as well assert that Christianity, with its Messianism and universal evangelizing was the logical outcome of Judaism.
In any case, I don’t think that in the case of America’s minorities, it is primarily each group’s religion that mainly decides whether the group is progressive, but rather the group’s backgrounds of its position in society. You might as well use societal mobility and lack of discrimination to explain why there is less of a strong progressive motivating impulse.
RE: “Another philosopher I think suggested that if they had an ethnic state, they would do discriminatory things like other nation states.” Truman said the Zionists were doing just that in 1948; he was upset enough to put it in his personal notes, which you can see online at the Truman Library Archive. The untermenschen had become ubermenschen. Truman was severely disappointed the Zionist Jews were no better than the rest of humanity with power.
RE: “But if you are going to assert this, you might as well assert that Christianity, with its Messianism and universal evangelizing was the logical outcome of Judaism.
Yep. That’s why Anne Coulter referred to Jews as not yet “perfected.”
Mooser idea that someone should take initiative and settle what are the correct Jewish principles was already tried. From Wiki:
As the Jewish conflict with the Romans grew, the nations surrounding Judea (then part of Roman Iudaea province) all sided with the Romans, causing the House of Shammai to propose that all commerce and communication between Jew and Gentile should be completely prohibited. The House of Hillel disagreed, but when the Sanhedrin convened to discuss the matter, the Zealots sided with the House of Shammai.
Subsequently Eleazar ben Ananias, the leader of the militant Zealots, invited the students of both schools to meet at his house; Eleazar placed armed men at the door, and instructed them to let no-one leave the meeting. These circumstance led to the deaths of many of the House of Hillel, meaning that those present from the House of Shammai were able to force all the remaining individuals to adopt a radically restrictive set of rules known as The Eighteen Articles; later Jewish history came to look back on the occasion as a day of misfortune.
Thank you, piotr. That, among othere things, was exactly what I was referring to.
yeah, he took the words right out of my mouth.
Annie, you would not believe how many times I make a comment based on something I think is right, but don’t have cites for, and boom, within the next couple of comments one of the informed commentors (and there are so many, to name any would be to leave out even more) comes up with the cogent facts for what was amorphous in my mind. It’s almost like having a personal anti-Zionist Google.
I only hope I remember to thank those who do it, but I know I don’t always. So again, as many times before, and for the times to come, thank you all, very much.
i know exactly what you mean. especially when i’m not in the mood. sometimes i just grab the subject and place it in the archive search of posters who’ve creamed the subject in the past.
i actually have hundreds of comments saved with subject lines including posters names. someday i will organize them, or write a book “countering hasbara”.
some of the people here are so smart, i’ve already accepted i can never ever catch up. i have my moments, my days..but some people are on permanent brain power. blows me away.
I don’t know where they find the patience or the time to assert the what are essentially the same facts over and over. But I’m glad they do.
I could not find The Eighteen Articles on the internet, just references to them, saying they forbid any contact with non-Jews, originated in protest against the Roman tax, and affirming that they were the result of the murder of some Hillel leaders by Shammai at a closed meeting to come to agreement, basically, on what it means to be a real Jew.
It’s interesting to see these echoes from the 1st Century in the here and now, especially re the role of the US, UN, AIPAC, J-St, Beinart, BDS, Methodists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Hagees, etc.
Hillel, Shammai., so where does Jesus fit here? Will the 98% Gentile Americans ultimately decide this conflict as a practical matter, since neither Hitler nor the modern Zionist state of Israel has?
link to treeoflifeknoxville.com
link to newworldencyclopedia.org
link to forward.com
link to biblesearchers.com
Piotr,
Not all of the Eighteen Articles are “radically restrictive” (only a few actually deal with relations with non-Jews), and the story of Shammaite violence only appears in the Palestinian Talmud (redacted late 4th cent.), based on the rather laconic accounts provided in the Mishnah and the Tosefta (redacted early 3rd cent.), of events that supposedly occurred in the late 1st cent. BCE – early 1st cent. CE.
That the day on which the Shammaites attained a majority was considered a “day of misfortune” (“like the day on which the golden calf was made”) is recorded in the Tosefta, and taken up both by the Babylonian (particularly fond of its favourite son Hillel) and the Palestinian Talmud. Even Rashi (foremost Talmudic commentator, France, 11th cent.), who was undoubtedly familiar with the story of violence recounted in the Palestinian Talmud, explains the misfortune as stemming from the fact that Hillel was Nasi and a great and beloved man (compared to Moses in Midrashic tradition, and considered a far greater authority than Shammai). The entire episode is used to illustrate that the law is determined by the majority – even a chance majority – of an assembly of sages, and cannot be changed except by an assembly “greater in wisdom and number”.
Not all of the Eighteen Articles are “radically restrictive” (only a few actually deal with relations with non-Jews)
The various schools of form and textual criticism have struggled to find the original meaning of the term ger or “stranger”. The sages devoted too much effort discussing the topic of their status and reception for it to have been a long-settled part of the “eternal” Torah. It appears that they were trying to rationalize more recent developments with their recorded history and simply invented classes of alien “proselytes”, “half converts”, and rules for relations with them. link to jewishencyclopedia.com
I don’t personally think that “You shall not oppress the ger, for you know the feelings of the ger, for you were gerim in the land of Egypt.” meant that the children of Jacob were proselytes or half converts in Egypt. But that’s the sort of thinking that some employ to withhold justice from their modern-day gentile neighbors, i.e. “and you shall love your neighbor (fellow Jew) as yourself.” link to inner.org
I think the original author(s) intended to convey the idea that Jacob’s children were just a family, until they and a company of Egyptian friends became a “nation”. Later still, they were given the law and became a religious congregation. So “All Israel” included the native born and those strangers, “half of them over against Mount Gerizim and half of them over against Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded, to bless the people of Israel first.” Joshua 8:33
I think that is also represented as the idyllic future state of affairs: “For the Lord shall have mercy on Jacob and again choose Israel, and He shall place them on their soil, and the strangers shall accompany them and join the House of Jacob.” Isaiah 14:1
Trying to figure out if these strangers were keeping the 7 Noahide commandments, the negative commandments, or all of them is simply beside the point when it comes to dispensing justice.
Your point about “for you were gerim” is a good one. I would add that the broader category of “ger, orphan and widow” indicates that the category is simply one of social vulnerability, with no further requirements.
The development of the category of “ger toshav” stemmed both from the need to “rationalize … recent developments” and to reconcile these commandments and the values they represented with other, apparently contradictory precepts (e.g. Deuteronomy 7 – abused to this day by the religious right).
The idea represented by the biblical commandments regarding the treatment of the ger is an admirable one (without reading too many modern sensibilities into it), but a little off the mark when it comes to relations with Palestinians, who are not “strangers in your midst”, but the indigenous population of the land colonised by Zionism. As biblical rhetoric goes, B’tselem’s emphasis on fundamental human dignity and equality (Gen. 1:27) is far more to the point.
The idea represented by the biblical commandments regarding the treatment of the ger is an admirable one (without reading too many modern sensibilities into it), but a little off the mark when it comes to relations with Palestinians, who are not “strangers in your midst”, but the indigenous population of the land colonised by Zionism.
That would depend upon the original meaning of the terms in question. It might be that stranger and neighbor should be considered one and the same in many contexts. The people of Israel can still be considered strangers from the Divine perspective: “The land shall not be sold permanently, for the land belongs to Me, for you are strangers and [temporary] residents with Me.” — Leviticus 25:23
And that will be what you allot as a heritage, for yourselves and for the strangers who dwell in your midst, who will beget sons in your midst, and they will be to you as citizens among the children of Israel; with you they will inherit of the inheritance in the midst of the tribes of Israel.
And it shall be in the tribe with which the stranger sojourns, there you shall give his inheritance, says the Lord God. — Ezekiel 47:22-23
“And Obama is likely to get 62 percent of the Jewish vote, down from 78, Pew says. ” What, all 65 Billionaires? Is there a Jewish vote that matters? Have the 2 wings of the property party fallen so low that the Jewish vote matters? The Christian wackos yes, but I don’t think there is a numerical Jewish vote that’s significant? Certainly, the money matters to Demo/Republicans, but their vote count wouldn’t seem important in a Nation of 300 million! I’m sure they think that’s not the case, but I wonder. Perhaps.
Hej!
NYT
By MARY PILON
Published: May 17, 2012
”The International Olympic Committee has rejected proposals from the Israeli government and two United States representatives to hold a moment of silence at this summer’s London Games in memory of the 11 Israeli athletes and coaches who were killed by Palestinian terrorists at the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
Last month, the deputy foreign minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, sent a letter to Jacques Rogge, the president of the I.O.C., requesting a minute of silence 40 years after the Munich massacre. The letter was sent on behalf of Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, widows of two of the murdered athletes, who have been urging the Olympic committee to hold a moment of silence at the Games for decades, officials said.
Representatives Eliot L. Engel and Nita M. Lowey, Democrats of New York, also sent a letter to Rogge this month requesting a minute of silence during the opening ceremony at the London Games on July 27.
“Unfortunately, this response is unacceptable as it rejects the central principles of global fraternity on which the Olympic ideal is supposed to rest,” Ayalon said in a statement Thursday. “The terrorist murders of the Israeli athletes were not just an attack on people because of their nationality and religion; it was an attack on the Olympic Games and the international community. Thus it is necessary for the Olympic Games as a whole to commemorate this event in the open rather than only in a side event.”
LOL….will they ever get the message? ….the world is tired of them.
I think the days of ‘honoring’ the Jewish victimhood, the poor Israel, and the whole cult is slowly coming to an end ….they’ve overdone this garbage to death.
Faster please.
“they’ve overdone this garbage to death.”
Can’t be helped. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Jews are just like everybody else, only more so.