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CAUSES OF HOSTILITY TOWARDS JEWS:A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW - PART 4 |
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When Victims Rule. A Critique of Jewish Pre-eminence in America In his autobiography, well-known Yiddish author Sholem Aleichem watched a ferryman in Eastern Europe absorbed in the difficult physical task of pulling a boat across a river. "Only a Goy could do work like that, not a Jew," he wrote, "The Bible says of Esau [non-Jews], 'And thou shalt serve they brother.' It is good that I am a descendant of Jacob [Jacob: Jews] and not of Esau." [LINDEMANN, Esau's, p. 5] Albert Lindemann also notes the case of "the eminent Jewish-American intellectual Sidney Hook [who] remembered how, as a boy, he had asked his religion teacher about the injustice of what Jacob did to Esau. The teacher responded, 'What kind of question is that? Esau was an animal.'" [LINDEMANN, p. 5] This Jacob-Esau division is another deep source of enduring Jewish racism and elitism per their supposed genius in outwitting others. The story of Jacob and Esau is from the biblical Genesis. They were the two sons (twins) of Isaac (son of the seminal Jewish patriarch Abraham) and Rebecca. Jacob, however, is understood in Jewish lore as an early patriarch of the Jewish ancestral lineage, Esau is not. Esau is an ancestor of Gentiles. And as the Torah (Genesis 25.21-23) states it, God told the pregnant Rebecca that "two nations are in thy womb, two nationalities will emerge from inside of thee. And one people will be stronger than the other -- the elder will serve the younger." The "younger" of course was Jacob, ancestor of the Jews. "If you fail Jacob," notes traditional Yiddish folklore, "you aid Esau." [KUMOVE, S., 1985, p. 81] Albert Lindemann notes the later development of this brother tale:
"[Jacob's] deception," says Shlomo Riskin, "was orchestrated by his mother, perhaps even ordained by God, but his feeling of guilt never leaves him." [RISKIN, S., 1994, p. 5B] Esau, notes Nathan Ausubel, "surnamed 'the wicked' in Jewish folklore, is portrayed as a fierce warrior and hunter, preoccupied with fighting and the chase. Jacob, on the other hand, is depicted as a gentle scholar, always found in the House of Study in pursuit of divine instruction." [AUSUBEL, p. 28] Jacob, however, in the original story, was the treacherous brother. One Jewish observer, Hugh Blumenfeld, has noted with consternation that the brother who was morally righteous, Esau, is so much condemned in Jewish lore. "It floors me," Blumenfeld told a Jewish newspaper, "because he is the one who forgives his brother, who tries to do right by the end of the story." [KATZ-STONE, 1999, p. 47] Rabbi Yisroel Yaaikov Klapholz notes the traditional Talmudic views of the Esau (Gentiles) - Jacob (Jews) dialectic:
One of Rabbi Klapholz's chapters in a book he authored is called "Jacob's Innocence and Esau's Cunning." "People saw the deeds of the two youths," says Klapholz, "and said: 'Esau is a thorn-bush and Jacob a fragrant flower.' The cunning Esau was always plotting to do evil." [KLAPHOLZ, p. 17] Samuel Heilman, an anthropologist and an Orthodox Jew, notes, from the usual Jewish martyrological view, the Jacob-Esau subject in the Hasidic community:
Throughout Jewish tradition, the origin of hatred of Jewish arch-enemies is the most primitive sort: animosities are rooted in clan-based feuds. The despised are actually blood-related with common, not so terribly distant, ancestors. As noted, the Israelite patriarch Abraham had two sons: Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac is considered by modern day Jews to represent the Jewish lineage; Ishmael, even according to Islamic tradition, fathered the Arab line. In the Jewish family tree, Isaac's sons were Jacob and Esau: Esau is a kind of symbolic patriarch of all Gentiles. Only the children of Jacob are considered to continue the Jewish line. Esau fathered Eliphaz, who in turn fathered Amalek, the most-hated enemy in Jewish tradition. [More, at length, about Amalek later. For purposes here, suffice it to note -- as startling as it may sound -- that the Old Testament commands Jews to "blot out the memory" of him by exterminating all his descendants. To read about Amalek now, click here] Amalek is, hence, actually not that terribly remote from the Jewish bloodline: he was the great-great grandson of Abraham. Joshua Cohen notes traditional Jewish perspective of the Amalek story:
The Israelites/Jews continued on their separatist course thus conceptually armed, victims of senseless bigotry, as they saw it, through history. Before we move on, however, we must yet mention again the influential sage Maimonides, whose pronouncements still find widespread credibility in Jewish culture (particularly amidst the Orthodox in our own day). According to Maimonides, notes Eugene Korn:
Some modern, and influential, rabbis like Rav Velvel Soloveitchik interpret such Maimonides opinions to their most ominous degree. "Not only is the rational and autonomous moral [non-Jewish] person denied wisdom and a share in the world to come," says Eugene Korn, " ... it robs all non-believers and their cultures of any intellectual, religious, or even human value." [KORN, p. 281] "By modern standards," observes Lenni Brenner, "Judaism is jarring in its ethnic and religious chauvinism, and extreme and contradictory in its social ethics, real and ideal." [BRENNER, p. 41] Israel Shahak, both an Israeli citizen and Holocaust survivor, underscores that racism, stemming from the Jewish Chosen People concept, is intrinsic to the Orthodox Jewish faith. "The rabbis," he writes, "and, even worse, the apologetic 'scholars of Judaism' know this very well and for this reason they do not try to argue against such views inside the Jewish community; and of course they never mention them outside it. Inside, they vilify any Jew who raises such matters within earshot of Gentiles, and they issue deceitful denials in which the art of equivocation reaches its summit. For example, they state, using general terms, the importance which Judaism attaches to mercy; but what they forget to point out is that according to the Halakhah [Jewish religious law] 'mercy' means mercy towards Jews." [SHAHAK, p. 96] Note, for example, the apologetics of professor Robert Pois, who, like many, turns the usual dissimulatives about a "selective interpretation" of the Talmud into the implication that only Nazis and their kindred would, in overview, entertain negative opinion about this important Jewish religious work:
Chamberlain and Rosenberg, of course, were prominent Nazi ideologues. Pois here infers that to investigate assertions of Jewish racism in its sacred works can only be the interest of a Nazi. The origin of the chauvinist Jewish worldview, which will surface many times in this volume, is, again, the traditional Jewish notion of themselves as the "Chosen People" of God. This idea, wrote J. O. Hertzler, is "literally and vividly maintained ... in a very decided Judeo-centric view of history and the world." [HERTZLER, p. 70] It is often referred to as "chosenness," or "election," as if there had been a divine vote cast somewhere to confirm their self-perceived specialness. "The Jews may stand astride time and eternity," wrote Arthur A. Cohen, "... This is unavoidably an aristocratic mission." [EISENSTEIN, I. p. 275] "Alas," says Ze'ev Levy, "the concept of chosenness entails ethnocentrism, for the better (in the past) or the worse (today). Chosenness does not go with otherness, that is, with unconditional respect of others." [LEVY, p. 104] This is an understatement. "The concept of an eternal selection," says Moshe Greenberg, "eventually merges with a doctrine of spiritual-racial superiority, rooted, it seems, in the biblical term 'holy seed' ... [According to the Old Testament / Torah, Ezra 9:2] holiness inheres in the seed and is hereditary." [GREENBERG, p. 31] "The word 'chosen' [per 'Chosen People']," notes Arnold Eisen, "is used sparingly in the Bible, to convey the passion of choosing. Its antonym is not 'considered impartially' or 'ignored,' but 'despised.'" [EISEN, p. RHETORIC, p. 66] "The Jewish religion," wrote Arthur Koestler, "unlike any other, is racially discriminating, nationally segregative, and socially tension-creating." [LINDEMANN, p. 20] The continuing debate about this within the Jewish community by liberal and secular thinkers is generally framed euphemistically in the contrasting terms of "particularism and universalism." While most Jews tend to be apologetic for this term, particularism actually refers to the purely self-concern, self-aggrandizement, racism, and ethnocentrism of traditional Jewish thinking (to the systemic detriment of non-Jews) throughout the centuries. This was consistently manifest by a Jewish segregated lifestyle, tight knit community, different Jewish moral standards for behavior towards Jews and non-Jews, racial and hereditary obsessions, and condescending views of all non-Jews around them. Universalism, on the other hand, refers to a shift in Jewish moral thinking (like everyone else) beginning with the Enlightenment, exemplified in a liberalizing Germany with the universalizing ideas of philosophers like Immanuel Kant. Universalism embodies the notion that Jewish particularism (or any other) is morally incorrect and obsolete and that spiritual and secular laws should be the same for everyone, all-inclusive. (As Israel Shahak notes, the Jews of Europe did not fight for freedom and liberation from their own stagnant ghetto ideology of particularism; emancipation was a gift of universalistic benevolence from the surrounding non-Jewish community which opened the doors for Jews to leave their distinctive ideological ghetto.) [SHAHAK, p. 17] Monford Harris calls tradition Jewish conception of its collective self in our modern, post-Emancipation universalistic age "the scandal of particularity." "The current definitions of Jewishness derive from emancipation-era expeiences," he noted in 1965,
Eventually recognizing that complete acceptance of a universalistic ethic towards their fellow human beings could only mean serious endangerment of the "particularist" Jewish identity, liberalizing elements of world Jewry over past decades have moved to proclaim two antithetical ideas as essential parts of Jewish identity: both an allegiance to "Chosen People" Judeo-centrism and pan-human universalism. This is managed by the enduring Judeo-centric notion that distinctly Jewish hands must cling to the steering wheel of humanity itself as some form of a Jewish leadership "mission": in the pseudo-religious sphere, this is generally expressed as some version of "We Jews are fated to lead all of humanity to its destiny." In this new Chosen People construct, Jews can thereby still take satisfaction in their presumed exceptionality, but it is now (supposedly) morally adjusted to do some good for others in their wake. "In the very emphasis upon the particular," says Rabbi Hayim Halevy Donin, "this singular family [Jews] reflected the noblest form of universalism." [DONIN, p. 8] "We Jews are a narrow, nationalist, self-centered people, " observes Samuel Dresner, "There is no point in denying it ... [Yet] in all of Judaism ... particularism and universalism go hand in hand ... Particularism and universalism, both are essentials of Judaism." [DRESNER, p. 50-51] "Jewish pride, Jewish chauvinism, Jewish particularism," says Roger Kamenetz, "-- the idea that we are a special chosen people -- seems to contradict the very universalistic prophetic messages Judaism also teaches." [KAMENETZ, R., 1994, p. 150] Knowing the foundation of Judeo-centric religious history, such Jewish proclamation is peculiar:
"Why did God choose Israel?" asks Alfred Jospe, "Because all other nations refused to accept Torah. Originally, God had offered it to all nations of the world. But the children of Esau [non-Jews] rejected it because they could not reconcile themselves to the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill.' The Moabites declined the offer because they felt they could not accept the commandment 'Thou shalt not commit adultery.' The Ishmaelites [traditional ancestors of today's Arabs] refused it because they could not square their habits with the commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal.'" [JOSPE, p. 14] This is of course yet another manifestation of classical Jewish ethnocentrism, often arrogance, and even today sometimes racism, false-fronted by an illusionary claim of Jewish service to humanity, a service conceived to be more special than any other. Jewish scholar Norman Cantor states the true essence of traditional Jewish identity succinctly:
"Jewish values," adds Charles Liebman,
"In Borough Park's language," says Yossi Klein Halevi, referring to the Orthodox community where he was raised, "'universalist' was a synonym for traitor ... Other people might take their humanity for granted; but Jews, at least in Borough Park, felt certain only of their Jewishness." [HALEVI, p. 75] "Maintaining the bonds one Jew must feel with another Jew," notes Susan Schneider, "is part of Judaism, along with the idea that being Jewish may require maintaining the purity and/or unity of the Jewish people." [SCHNEIDER, p. 323] In an American context, Arnold Eisen notes the modern Jewish liberals' resultant quandary in reframing the Jewish worldview for Gentile consumption:
One of the ways convoluted apologetic seeks to distance itself from racism and inevitable Gentile hostility is to rhapsodize about special Jewish destiny, as does Reuven Bulka, who in this case also obfuscates it:
But as Jewish author Monford Harris notes about such notions of Jewry as a "choosing" people:
In the apologetic realm, it is interesting to note the noble moral currency afforded modern Judaism in popular American culture by the presentation of the pan-human, universalistic excerpt from Jewish religious sources that supposedly says: "Whoever saves a single life, saves the world entire." (This is the stated theme, for example, during a candle-lighting scene to begin the fabulously popular Stephen Spielberg movie about Jews under Nazi occupation, Schindler's List). Even taking this "life-saving" statement at face value, however, it is subject to interpretive manipulation. Some Jewish observers have noted that "this Talmudic saying, taken literally, is the ideological basis for an amoral survivalism," i.e., saving "a" life is merely self-survival. [CHEYETTE, p. 233] Yet this supposedly noble refrain is clouded even further. In the Talmudic Mishna, Sanhedrin 4:5, the original really says this: "Whoever destroys a single Jewish life, Scripture accounts it to him as though he had destroyed a whole world." It is quite particularist in its scope, i.e., it only cares about Jews, self-survival or not. Nonetheless, this literal fact does not hinder many Jewish non-Orthodox apologists from universalizing this chauvinist quote anyway. "Most Jews whose study of the Mishna," says Jacob Petuchowski, "is confined to the standard edition continue to invest this statement with a particularist limitation, while the few scholars who deal with textual criticism are aware of the greater universalistic breath of the original statement." [PETUCHOWKI, p. 8] When dropping the adverb "Jewish" from the seminal source, insists the likes of Petuchowski, one arrives at the "correct reading." "The Talmudic epigraph of Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List," adds Jewish scholar Peter Novick, "'Whoever saves one life saves the world entire,' surely reflected the universalist values of liberal Judaism as it had evolved in recent centuries. The observant knew that the traditional version, the one taught in all Orthodox yeshivot [religious schools], speaks of 'whoever saves the life of Israel.'" [NOVICK, P., 1999, p. 182-183] Apologetic rabbi Isar Schorsch does a little verbal gymnastics to rearrange the timeline sequence of this "regretful" Jewish racism:
This kind of modern revisionism has set the stage for a bitter -- and intensifying -- struggle in international Jewry for the heart, and meaning, of Judaism between Orthodox followers of traditional belief and liberalizing revisionists, who largely suppress the historical facts of their own religious history. In recent years a number of Orthodox groups have even declared that their ideological rivals -- those Jews who at least pay lip service to universalistic ideals -- are not even Jewish. "In debates within the Jewish community," says Gordon Lafar, "both universalists and chauvinists claim to be speaking in the name of traditional Jewish values." [LAFAR, p. 180] "In my youth," noted Meir Tamari in 1987, "Judaism was synonymous with socialism. There were religious Orthodox trade unions and religious Orthodox socialist parties. In Reform Judaism, this was a major issue. And we literally distorted Jewish sources -- and I was guilty of that, misguiding many young people in explaining to them that the Torah and socialism were synonymous." [JEWISH WEEK, 5-15-87, p. 28] "After fifty some years of conscious exploration," wrote professor Paul Laute, a 1960s-era Civil Rights activist, "it has finally occurred to me that my identification of Jewishness with progressive social action is as much a historical construction as the messianic intolerance of [the racist Jewish messianic movement] Gush Emunim." [LAUTER, p. 45] Amnon Rubenstein, an Israeli scholar, in noting the folly of claiming Judaism as a "universal" religion, cites the following crucial Torah (Old Testament) passages about God's favoritism towards the Jews:
"These well known passages," he observes, "explain why it is impossible from the traditional viewpoint, to separate the idea of chosenness, of a 'treasure nation,' from the concept of the covenant and the observance of Jewish religious law and how false it is to relate these religious paradigms to secular values. It is futile to transplant the biblical injunctions into a secular context and support this by referring to the prophets' 'universal' visions of social justice and peace among nations." [RUBENSTEIN, A., p. 34-35] Rubenstein attributes the values of "human equality" to "Christian monotheism" and the French revolution. [RUBENSTEIN, A., p. 36] Another Israeli, Bernard Avishai, notes that left-wing Israelis "cringe when they hear the same people ["Jewish American intellectuals"] talk about 'Jewish ethical vocation' or, worse, lecture Israelis about how Judaism mandates a peculiarly open-spirited morality, a sense of history." [AVISHAI, B., p. 350] As Stuart Svonkin notes:
In Israel, a society for Jews and controlled by Jews, there is no need for universalizing apologetics over the essence of traditional Judaism. Charles Liebman and Steven Cohen note that
In 1996 American-born Israeli Ze'ev Chafets noted how troubled he was at what he discovered to be powerful expressions of traditional Judaism in the Jewish state:
"Real Torah Judaism," concludes Chafets, with sarcasm for the Orthodox, "is a scientifically based doctrine of racial purity. Jews have one, superior, kind of blood, the rest of humanity has another ... [My rabbi in Michigan] was probably ashamed to tell the truth." [CHAFETS, Z., 1996, p. 18] The origin of this divide between "particularist" and "universalist" Jews is to be found in the 19th century, in the wake of the Enlightenment and the emergence of European Jews from their isolationist ghettos. "Rationalism, modernism, and emancipation," notes R. J. Zwi Wroblowsky, "made the notion of a chosen people increasingly problematical." [WERBLOWSKY, p. 158] Religious reformers in Germany sought to "redefine Judaism to fit Protestant categories." This new Reform Judaism, says Charles Silberman, "expurgated ... aspects of Judaism ... to make worship in the synagogue resemble Protestant services as much as possible." [SILBERMAN, p. 38] "In general, [Reform Judaism] gave Jewish religion a distinctly gentile tinge." [PATAI, R., 1971, p. 304] "Orthodox Jews naturally expressed their horror at the progressive Christianization of the synagogue," says Walter Laqueur, "for this, not to mince words, is what it amounted to." [LAQUEUR, p. 17] In 1884, Orthodox Jews even sued a Reform temple in Charleston, South Carolina, for introducing an organ into the synagogue, "a desecration of the Jewish ritual." [GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 6] Theology shifted in "Reform Judaism" too. In 1869, for example, a Philadelphia conference of Reform-minded rabbis formally de-emphasized the more literal aspects of the old chosen people concept, refocusing on "the unity of all rational creatures." [LIPSET/RAAB, p. 59] Even a strand of Orthodox Judaism in America -- commonly termed "Modern Judaism" -- in earlier years did play down some of its segregationist and anti-universalistic tenets. But, as Jack Wertheimer noted in 1993,
Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 1 || Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 2 || Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 3 || Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 4 || Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 5 || Causes of Hostility Towards Jews - Part 6 || Table of Contents
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