Last week in an attack on online critics of Israel, Commentary slammed me for what it suggested was anti-Semitic ideas, including this one: “Weiss reflected that Jewish identity imparts ‘a sense of difference, yes, inevitably of elite identity, that’s part of Jewish history and one I struggle with.’”
Well I do struggle with it; and I think it’s anti-intellectual of any supposed magazine of ideas to suggest that the American Jewish experience is not an elite one. Privilege is a reality of American Jewish identity, and denial doesn’t help. Two recent examples from public radio bear me out.
This morning, Krista Tippett whose spiritual show “On Being” I listen to regularly, did an hour with celebrity chef Dan Barber from a synagogue. I could not believe Barber was Tippett’s guest, because he serves the court at his lavish expensive restaurant, on a Rockefeller estate in Westchester County. But that’s the point: in his charming presentation, Barber effortlessly melds Rockefellers, his own privileged background, and service to the court; and when an audience member in the Indianapolis synagogue suggested that his approach to cuisine is “elitist,” Barber said that elites often drive progressive trends and cited the writer Michael Pollan.
I think Barber and Pollan are plainly right on this point, but it also suggests the ways in which Jewish identity is invested in privileged cultural politics. When a Harvard student was told about the wonders of “the Jewish mind” on her recent trip to Israel, she was only getting the indoctrination that I have received all my life– and a sense of cultural difference that in some ways I accept.
The other NPR report that bears out this point was Susan Stamberg’s piece a couple weeks back on an exhibit at the Jewish Museum in New York on the painter Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940) and his Jewish patrons in Paris. The piece was quite frank about a Jewish elite (a word I am pretty sure NPR used in promoting the piece the night before). Wealthy Jews with great taste sustained Vuillard’s career — “very intellectual and very artistic in… manner and… interests,” as Stamberg described them.
Or as Alma Mahler wrote in her Viennese diary in 1899, “[T]he opera public is mostly Jewish anyway.” This is also the scene of Maugham’s story about Jewish musical patronage in London, The Alien Corn. And, going back to Vienna, of the famous case of the Klimt paintings stolen by the Nazis from the Block-Bauer family.
No one who opens this door can deny the anti-Semitic uses of such observations. The Maugham story has an anti-Semitic flavor. And in the LRB, Adam Shatz lately quoted De Gaulle, after the ’67 war, describing Jews as “an élite people, sure of themselves and domineering”. There have to be ways to understand our presence without that bigotry; but understanding that presence is simply too important a task to me to avoid that mental struggle.
How about Jewish loosers? There has always been ‘the rich Jew’ and ‘the poor Jew’.
During most of Europe’s history probably more of the latter. – But, here comes catch: Even the poor Eastern European Jew in his squalor had an ‘elite identity’.
I think the Commentary people are insinuating that you mean “Jewish identity imparts ‘a sense of difference, yes, inevitably of elite identity” no matter what.
In general I try to avoid commenting on other religious beliefs/cultures, regardless of what I think privately. Oh well. Here goes.
A good education really can improve thinking and intelligence, and I’ve observed, education is a Jewish cultural value. Anyway, I doubt there’s anything innate about the “Jewish mind,” it’s a cultural pro-education trait.
Unluckily, the dominant pop culture is anti-elite, anti-intellectual. At one of my friend’s grade schools, for example, you would get beat up if people thought you were “smart,” showing off in class or something. Right-wing radio and republican politicians especially are always playing to people’s inferiority complexes about their intelligence, remember Spiro Agnew and his effete intellectual comment? Well that’s just my observation. Maybe it’s less true today then when I was in grade school.
On top of that, anyone with an “I’m better than you” attitude is sure to cause offense (unless it’s clear they aren’t).
So, if Jews think of themselves as elite, then it’s understandable they don’t want the general population to think they think they’re elite, because people are offended by the elitist attitude and because intellectuals are the target of populism. Certain other elites, e.g. movie stars and royalty, spend considerable time meeting the public and presenting themselves as “one of the people.” I.e., their elite status is usually unaccompanied by an (apparent) elite attitude.
In fact, elites such as royalty are members of the same society, sharing the religion and so forth, while historically, Jews were outsiders. Calling themselves exclusive elites in this case, is continuing that division. In times of shortages, famine or economic stress, any elite and any outsider is more likely to come under attack. This is just what happens, groups form (or are already formed) and fight over resources. Any fear of being thought of as an elite or outside group is well founded. Luckily we are currently living in a time of plenty.
Well, anyway, more than struggled with, I think the elite attitudes should be confronted as well as the anti-elite (read anti-intellectual) attitudes. Meaning, they should be understood first. Why do certain Jews think the “Jewish mind” is superior? Why are populist radio hosts able to play to anti-intellectualism?
Anyway, as the pro-Israel hasbarists have discovered, a little humility framed as “Yes, Israel has some flaws…” works better at promoting Israel’s image than proclaiming Israel’s superiority. Which is why I never take anything coming out of the pro-Israel crowd as anything other than calculated, whenever it’s not straight out misinformation.
No one likes to be made to feel uncomfortable, but any good journalist’s job is exactly that … and Phil has taken on the lightning-rod issue of our time so it is a joy to see when establishment figures and institutions Phil is showcasing are made uncomfortable
There is nothing wrong with elites, per se, rather it is how they behave which can provoke enmity – pretentiousness is always abhorrent and worthy of contempt (usually it is “new money” which is the most vulgar and pretentious) … arrogance and disregard for those less fortunate are behaviors that provoke hostility and at times hatred
Nothing wrong at all with Jews, and a subset of them who are in the super-elite, having elite status in terms of education and social position and wealth – what do they do with that? – That is the question being discussed
One doesn’t have to look back at the poor European Jew and his ‘elite identity’. Here is what ‘poor’ Krauss wrote about growing up:
– “I was growing up with very dark descriptions of my neighbours. We were not just smarter. We were more pure. Morally superior and culturally sophisticated. They wallowed in material wealth, but they were simpletons, brutes and worse.”
The gift of the Jews | Mondoweiss – Dec. 26, 2011
Aren’t all identities created to support a separatedness from other and always in the direction of being a better one ?
Politics,ethics,legal ramifications come into play when those ideas are imposed on other within the country or on the international agreed upon system of checks and balances. At one time it was having the religious book or oral/written history, another time it was color of skin and now it is the wealth,excellence in science and arts as producers and consumers that confer this separatedness. Elitism assumes this ( at some point one society may prove to be superior to other )and also assumes the right to spread the values of these achivements/gains among the disadvantaged. This is the aristrocracy the founding fathers looked forward to and Aristotole advocated . But when the ideas of elitism/aristocracy become part of the DNA by claims as is the case with Zionist and also with other groups in histroy like Nazi or Wahabist or KKK ,the problem start with devastating impacts on the rest. in case of zionism and Nazism or KKK the door is open to thise connected by DNA and closed to evrybody else for good.