Here is an interesting piece in Haaretz on Israel’s struggle with the acceptance of African immigrants. Of course many societies struggle with racism; the point of this article is that secular Jews have caved to the religious, who exalt racism with their religious mumbojumbo:
In the religious education system, racism – which is smothered in the secular education system in the name of political correctness and selection of students for "excellence" – is so blatant as to be crude. But it is Israeli society, and especially its enlightened secular members, that allowed the Ethiopian immigrants to be pushed to these ugly margins. This was inevitable the moment it tacitly accepted the principle that Ethiopian immigrants must undergo pro forma conversion, while the Falashmura [descendants of Ethiopian Jews who converted to Christianity at some stage] must undergo full conversion – compelling both to give their children a religious education, in which the "excellent" schools reject them.
The lesson here for me is about the issue of deference in the Jewish community. To whom do we defer? I have long said that there is deference in the American Jewish community to Israel. They’re on the front lines; and aliyah means higher up; and we’re the yoredim, down below. There is also deference to the neoconservatives, because They Know About This Stuff.
That deference isn’t wise. Yesterday, when Israeli groups dropped the offensive ad that described American Jews who intermarry as "lost," one of the groups’ officials explained that the problem "is that when I speak to the Israelis [about Diaspora issues] I have to speak ‘Israeli,’ and when I speak to Americans I have to speak ‘American.’"
Sorry, bub; we all speak a common language, and when you describe intermarriage as abduction, you are expressing a values system that Americans don’t like. But that American Jews ought to know about. Max Blumenthal has said that Israel’s values conflict with his liberal Jewish values, and he’s not going to be silent about that.
I first observed this disjunction a couple of years ago when Tammy Shapiro of the Union of Progressive Zionists brought Breaking the Silence to Columbia, and a woman from the Zionist Organization of America screamed at her. It’s OK to talk about this stuff in Israel, but not here. I.e., you might upset the American Jews. Right, and about time.
