Posted on 11/21/2009 4:01:45 PM PST by rmlew
During a recent speaking tour in Canada, MK Nahman Shai (Kadima) shocked some of his hosts when he said that his primary goal in politics today is to bring down the Netanyahu government. Although indelicate, Shai's comment was not surprising. Kadima is in the opposition. And like all opposition parties in all parliamentary democracies, the primary goal of its members is to bring down the government so that they can take power.
Given that this is the case, it is unsurprising that until this week, Kadima leader Tzipi Livni tried to blame Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu for US President Barack Obama's hostility towards Israel. Far more newsworthy than her criticism of Netanyahu was her public rebuke of Obama this week for his attempt to strong-arm Israel into barring Jewish construction in Jerusalem's Gilo neighborhood.
On Wednesday Livni said, "Gilo is part of the Israeli consensus... and it is important to understand this for all discussions of borders in any future agreement."
Indeed. There is an Israeli consensus. The Israeli consensus regarding Jerusalem is based among other things on the understanding that no nation can give up its capital city and survive.
Livni wants to be prime minister one day. For that to happen, Israel must survive until she wins an election. And Israel will not long survive if it surrenders its right to its capital.
One might have thought that American Jews could be counted on to stand by Israel on this issue. But then, one would be wrong.
FOR THE past six years, Republican Senator Sam Brownback has repeatedly submitted a bill to the US Senate that, if passed into law, would revoke the presidential waiver that has allowed successive presidents to refuse to implement the 1995 law requiring the State Department to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem. This year Brownback co-sponsored his bill with Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman. As luck would have it, the Brownback-Lieberman bill was submitted two weeks before Obama launched his latest campaign against Jewish building in Jerusalem.
In the 1980s and 1990s, American Jews lobbied hard to get the embassy moved to Jerusalem. But now some American Jewish leaders recoil at the very notion. In response to the Brownback-Lieberman Jerusalem Embassy Relocation Act of 2009, the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle published an editorial last Friday titled, "Bad move, Senator Brownback."
The newspaper's editors condemned their retiring senator and called his bill, "a cheap, grandstanding move by a conservative Republican on his way out the door, playing to Jews and Christian Zionists while trying to throw a monkey wrench into President Obama's diplomatic spokes."
According to Sen. Brownback's office, the paper never had any criticism of the same bill when he submitted it during president George W. Bush's tenure in office. But now, as Israel's government and opposition stand shoulder to shoulder protecting Israeli control over Jerusalem from assaults by Obama, Kansas City's Jewish newspaper's editorial board willingly bucked what it acknowledged are the wishes of "Jews and Christian Zionists," in order to stand by their man in the Oval Office.
Some of Israel's most high-profile supporters in the US are conservative talk radio and television hosts like Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck. But rather than thank them for their support, the Anti-Defamation League, which is supposed to be dedicated first and foremost to defending Jews from anti-Semitism, published a special report this week where it insinuated that they cultivate a climate of hatred and paranoia which could endanger Jews among others.
The ADL report, "Rage Grows in America: Anti-Government Conspiracies," dubbed Beck the "fearmonger-in-chief," for his opposition to Obama's domestic and foreign policies. It similarly castigated the so-called "tea party" movement which has attracted millions of Americans opposed to high taxes, and the townhall meetings this past summer where millions of Americans peacefully argued against Obama's healthcare policies.
The ADL's decision to issue a special report attacking Obama's political opponents and insinuating that Americans who oppose him cultivate an environment in which paranoid and dangerous fringe groups feel comfortable operating is strange given that the ADL never put out a similar report against parallel anti-Bush movements. As Commentary's Jonathan Tobin noted this week, the ADL was more likely to see overt and vicious anti-Semitic statements and placards being waved around at anti-Iraq war rallies than at anti-Obama healthcare and tax policy demonstrations.
Ironically, the ADL has a specific institutional interest in combating leftist paranoia. A recent movie attacking the ADL called Defamation, by leftist, anti-Israel Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, is currently hitting the film festival circuit in the US and Europe. A major hit among anti-Israel activists and regular anti-Semites on the Left and Right, Defamation accuses the ADL of exaggerating the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to justify what Shamir views as its nefarious aims. Apparently, tribal loyalty to the Left trumps the institutional interests of the ADL.
It certainly trumps the interests of New York University's Hillel director Rabbi Yehuda Sarna. As James Taranto reported on Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, this week Sarna called for NYU's Jewish community to join NYU Muslims at a rally that both commemorated the massacre at Ft. Hood and denounced NYU professor Tunku Varadarajan for writing a column in Forbes magazine. In his article, Varadarajan committed the crime of stating the obvious fact that Ft. Hood terrorist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was motivated by his Islamic beliefs when he shouted Allahu Akbar and shot some 40 people, killing 13.
Given that people and groups like al-Qaida and Hamas that share Hasan's views assert that all Jews should be killed, it would seem that the good rabbi would not feel the need to attack professors who point out that Hasan's views are dangerous. But then, it is no longer strange to see Hillels on American university campuses behaving in a manner that is not in line with what might be considered the interests of either the American Jewish community or the Jewish people as a whole.
Take UC Berkeley's Hillel center, for example. Since Ken Kramarz, Hillel's regional director for Northern California, started his job in June 2007, Berkeley's Hillel has adopted a hostile view towards Judaism and Israel. As pro-Israel community activist Natan Nestel notes, in the past year alone, Hillel held a dance party on Yom Hashoah, and it held a Cinco de Mayo barbecue on Remembrance Day for Fallen IDF Soldiers. It has also failed to hold community Seders for the past two years. Instead, last year, its members hung signs in the Hillel building declaring, "Matza sucks."
Beyond its derogatory treatment of Jewish and Israeli holidays, Berkeley's Hillel has allowed an extremist group called Students for Justice for Palestine to participate in its organizational meetings.
SJP calls for Israel's destruction through unlimited Arab immigration. It also advocates for UC Berkeley to divest from Israel. Edgar Bronfman, Hillel's International Chairman, has characterized SJP umbrella organization as "anti-Israel... anti-Semitic [and] alarming..."
No doubt owing in part to Berkeley Hillel's decision to permit SJP members to spread their propaganda at its organizational meetings, Hillel's student leaders and members participated in SJP's Israel Apartheid Week this past March.
The student meeting that SJP participated in at Berkeley's Hillel was sponsored by a group called "Kesher Enoshi."
This group describes itself as "a progressive Jewish community that engages directly with Israeli civil society. We do this by educating ourselves and others about the day-to-day struggles of people in Israel by making direct connections with human rights/social change organizations in Israel, linking their struggles with those on campus and in the wider community, and building a community of active participants in social change in Israel."
This mission statement, which says nothing about Zionism, sounds an awful lot like the goal of the New Israel Fund. This month, three Arab "civil society" groups supported to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the NIF published a poster depicting an IDF soldier touching the breast of an Arab woman with the caption, "Her husband needs a permit to touch her, the occupation penetrates her life every day."
The poster was issued to publicize a conference in Haifa called "My Land, Space, Body and Sexuality: Palestinians in the Shadow of the Wall," whose purpose was to demonize Israel using post-modern jargon.
Unlike Hillel, NIF is widely recognized as a far-left fringe group. But as Arab Israeli NGOs use the dollars of American Jewish NIF donors to advance their "civil society" programs aimed at delegitimizing Israel's right to exist, the Reform Movement - which is not a fringe group - decided unanimously two weeks ago to criticize and pressure Israel for what its leadership views as Israel's unfair treatment of its Arab citizens.
As this column goes to press, if its board members don't cancel their meeting, the San Francisco Jewish Federation will be grudgingly voting on a resolution that would prohibit it from sponsoring events that denigrate or demonize Israel or supporting organizations that partner with organizations that call for divestment, sanctions or boycotts against Israel.
The resolution follows the Jewish Federation of San Francisco's decision to co-sponsor the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival last summer. That festival featured Shamir's Defamation, and the egregiously anti-Israel film Rachel, about the late pro-terror activist Rachel Corrie. The film festival was also sponsored by the anti-Zionist Jewish Voices for Peace group, the American Friends Service Committee, which hosted a dinner for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York last year, the Rachel Corrie Foundation and other radical anti-Israel groups.
If the vote takes place, it will be a great victory for a small group of local Jewish activists. These individual Jews have banded together because they are deeply disturbed by the federation's willingness to use community funds to advance events whose basic message is that Israel should be destroyed.
KADIMA'S INTERESTS as a political party place it at loggerheads with the government on almost every issue. But its leaders this week were rational enough to recognize that they must support Israel's sovereign rights in Jerusalem despite the fact that doing so placed it on the government's side. Their display of sanity is a clear indication that Israeli society today is healthy and capable of meeting the challenges it faces.
It is clear that most American Jews believe that it is in their interests to support the Democratic Party and the Left. But like the anti-establishment Jewish activists in San Francisco, American Jews ought to realize that on issues like Israel's survival and their own survival as Jews they ought to stand by their interests even when they seem to clash with their leftist and Democratic loyalties. And they ought to stand by their friends on these issues, even when their friends are conservative Republicans.
It can only be hoped that the San Francisco pro-Israel upstarts' campaign against the federation was successful yesterday. Then, too, if the American Jewish community is to long survive, these San Francisco Jewish activists' demand that their community support Israel's right to exist must be joined by their fellow American Jews throughout the country.
ping
When 79% of American Jews vote for 0bama, what do you expect?
I don’t remember you being very friendly toward Jews, but as another poster/replier said, so many of our tribe voted for “the Messiah.” How could they not know what kind of person he is?
I’m sick of these JINO self hating Marxist vermin running these idiotic jewish organizations. Its time we get together and counter these @#$$%%^. We should start a Jewish chapter for freepers and counter these bums with press releases every time they open their filthy mouths criticizing conservatives (who support Israel) and side with liberals like Osama who bans Jews from living in Israel.
My co-religionists in Manhattan are simply cringe-inducing.
Where do I sign up?
Sad. Even sadder when Abe Foxman of the ADL attacks Geert Wilders of Holland. Geert has great backers like Savage, Pam Yellen at Atlas and Joyce Kaufman.
Great “supporters” instead of “backers.”
I’m completely befuddled by the Jewish religion.
Jews in America vote overwhelmingly for socialists, communists and fascists.
And that’s after Moses took them out for a hike for 40 years to clear their heads.
If Moses can’t get their heads straight, what can we do?
Just asking...
Thanks for a good post. Glick is great at all times, and this article is no exception.
It’s a religious thing. Secular leftist Jews were disproportionately represented within the Bolsheviks and carried a hostility towards traditional Jewish culture that they acted on once in power.
You have assumed, incorrectly, that Jews have not changed sine the time G-d took them out of Egypt. You look at them now and assume they've always been like that. It's like me looking at you as you are getting out of bed on a dark wintry morning and deciding that you are always sleepy.
In the last two millennia, Jews of Europe were far from "progressive:" they belonged, in fact, to the conservative element of society. Religion and traditions is what kept them alive.
Significant changes came about in and after the Enlightenment. As many other Europeans --- Catholics and Protestants of various denominations --- Jews started to drift away from religion. Discrimination did not help, naturally; a cornered person becomes desperate. Having arrived in France before the Franks, Jews lacked citisenship there until 1781. Germany granted citizenship to them in 1869, i.e., very recently. It was actually the Left that advocated equal rights for the Jews. As a consequence, many Jews identified them as friends and viewed the Church with distrust. The promise of equal rights enthused many Russian Jews to embrace the communist revolution.
While none of this was happening here, Jews immigrating en masse at the turn of XX century brought with them ages-old apprehensions and continued to identify with liberal causes. That's what we see today.
The point is, the left leanings of the Jews are quite recent. They undergo the same vicissitudes as all other religions. What Leftist cause has Anglican Church failed to support recently, for example?
Thanks for your explanation. I just figured that with a big and influential guy like Moses leading you out of the wilderness, you’d come out of the desert with some semblance of common sense.
Then again, you hit the bullseye. Roman Catholics voted in the majority for king obuma. Explain that, sergeantdave!!!
Good grief!!
Anyway, that’s why I asked. I don’t understand liberal jews. Nor do I understand liberal Catholics.
Touche.
Maybe if we run both Jews and Catholics through Marine boot camp we might get different voting patterns, yes?
We can wish...
I am shocked and heartbroken to learn what has taken place at UC Berkeley's Hillel Center. When I was a student there in the sixties, the Hillel Center was my refuge and I participated in many acivities there. We always had a community Seder there. Rabbi Balanoff was our leader and he was a great Rabbi who built the Hillel Center to be a thriving institution. Now from this article by Caroline Glick, I learn for the first time, how it has changed and it comes as a shock. I had over the years thought that if I were ever able to visit the campus again the first place I would want to go would be the Hillel House. Now I would not want to visit. How could this generation of Jews turn out to be such fools?
American Jews on the whole are simply interested in furthering the interest of the democrat party. They don’t give two s***s about Israel.
Oh sh.. (read without the ellipses)! I got you confused with someone else. I am very very sorry :(
I am 100% convinced that you are correct here.
I am sorry to add to Glick's article that, although Berkeley tends to be to the left at any given time, there is nothing unusual about that Hillel. In fact, since earlier years of this decade, whenever I visit a university, I always ask friends about their Hillel. It seems to be the same story: the liberal bend accelerated in mid-1990s (just as the in the rest of the academia), and since about 2004-2005 included active abandonment of Israel. A friend who teaches at Dartmouth tried to counter it there for a while but, I think, not much came out of that. It's a really sad situation.
"How could this generation of Jews turn out to be such fools?"
Well, whene disappointed with a kid, look at the parents, It is the parents of the present-day students that continue to send their alumni contributions although they know full well by now that universities teach PC rather than age-old wisdom and instill obedience rather than develop ability to think. They look the other way. It is not the kids but your friends and mine that make this possible. Do you really think that those that hold the purse strings could not change the situation in a heartbeat? And what about Jewish professors? They are older, they have weight on campus, they could do a thing or two. But most of them have not much connection with Jewishness (aside from the love of lox) and a great deal of connection with leftist ideology. With a few exceptions (such as my friend I mentioned earlier), they actually push Hillels toward all things PC.
So, my friend, it is not "this generation" of kids --- it is your generation and mine. We've met the enemy... and it is us.
Well thanks for your comment. I have to agree. But I don't remember seeing the seeds of this forty years ago. And go back another generation, right after the war we were all passionately pro Israel. Michael Gelerntner(Sp?) has written about this. He says we lost the battle in the universities.
Correction’ Should be David Gelernter, not Michael
Well, after they help reelect Obama in 2012, he will have gotten everything out of them that he needed, so...
“even purportedly religious ones, are leftists by faith”
That’s been my experience too.
Also we are losing the young people as the leftists poison their minds. Jewish youth are unprepared to counter the Israel criticism that is rampant on campus. I just went to a forum with JPost journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. It was very pro Israel including audience questions.
The only anti-Israel questions and positions came from college students who had been educated in Yeshivas. If this trend continues, the US will be as hostile to Israel as Europe in ten years.
Not surprising. That might be expected statistically, when you consider that Christians outnumber Jews in the US by a ratio of about 40 to 1.
I would still think, though, despite all the garbage going on college campuses, that the percentage of American Jews that are pro-Israel still exceeds the percentage of American Christians that are pro-Israel.
I don't know. I think it depends upon what you mean by "pro-Israel." Every Jew I know thinks of himself as pro-Israel, but once you scratch the surface you find out differently. Most of these are part of the two-sides-to-every-story crowd and think there is some justification for Arab resistance to the State of Israel. If you look for people who feel as I do that, yes, there are two sides: the right one and the wrong one, I think you'll find a higher percentage of us among the Christians.
ML/NJ
The central Hillel Foundation, which hires the campus directors and financially supports the entire Hillel operation, should be firing the directors whose chapters willfully sponsor anti-Israel activities on their respective campuses. Those who hold the purse strings should be responsible enough to send a stern message that the presence of flagrantly anti-Israel groups at their facilities or under their aegis will not be tolerated.
The central Hillel Foundation, which hires the campus directors and financially supports the entire Hillel operation, should be firing the directors whose chapters willfully sponsor anti-Israel activities on their respective campuses. Those who hold the purse strings should be responsible enough to send a stern message that the presence of flagrantly anti-Israel groups at their facilities or under their aegis will not be tolerated.
Hillel sucks. They sucked beans when I was in college and they suck now. They are filled with a bunch of wacko’s who know less about Judaism than they know about doing a “doobie” with their buds on campus.
Hillel sucks. They sucked beans when I was in college and they suck now. They are filled with a bunch of wacko’s who know less about Judaism than they know about doing a “doobie” with their buds on campus.
My sample is heavily Jewish, as I live in Manhattan.
Well at Kansas U Hillel they are very supportive of Israel and their major programing focus is Israel. Their foundation receives very little funding from National Hillel.
The Kansas City Jewish federation provides a major portion of their funds.
As a Kansan we are proud of Sam Brownback’s effort. He has always been a friend of Israel.
As to the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle I didn’t agree with the editor’s editorial and have not over the years. They have a retired Rabbi named Morris Margolies who is a contributing writer and for a respected elder of the community he is a very bitter Anti-American and freedom loving American. He weekly wrote Anti-Bush poison columns in the paper getting a free pass from the Kansas City Jewish Chronicle.
For smart folks sometimes my fellow Jews are stupid.
Ok, start it up. I’m in.
Please see my post # 27.
Please see my post # 27.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Exactly. It does not because the Foundation is drawn from the same pool of people --- if not outright leftist, then sufficiently unprincipled and confused, hence passive in the face of the Leftist onslaught.
The idea was that if government were purged of its Christian character that Jews would rise to the heights. They also bought the myth that Jews under Islam flourished. So there is an unacknowledged anti-Christian sentiment at work. Also unacknowledged, as Barbara Tuchman ointed out, Zionism owes a tremendous debt to British Judeophilism, examplfied by the Balfour Agreement. Liberal Jews, like the Arabs, think it can be explained as British perfidy, because the Brirish also promised the Arabs very much. The truth is that Lawrence made promises he had no right to make and through his celebrity sold this version of history to the left. So Zionism had been tarred with the anti-colonialism of that is part of the mindset of the Left. The non-jewish Left has never trusted Jews, because they think that Leftish Jews are untrustworthy, that they were willing to sell-out their own people for their self advancement. This is undeniably true of the Stalinist Left.
The idea was that if government were purged of its Christian character that Jews would rise to the heights.
This is not only false but sounds much like mid-1800 anti-Semitic propaganda. No, no Jews had an idea of "purging the government of its Christian character." What is the "Christian character" of those English kings that expelled Jews for centuries and of Cromwell that allowed them back? What does the "Christian character" of the English court have in common with that of the French? No much: one allowed Magna Carta in 1215 and the other was overthrown in a revolution of 1789. What does "Christian character" of Spanish Isabella (called the Catholic for her expulsion of Jews and Roma) have in common with that of the Dutch monarchs, that allowed the expelled into Holland? Nothing at all. What is the "Cristian character" of the Russian court?
There is no such thing as the "Christian character" of the government. Our form of government was heavily influenced by a particular stream of the Christian, largely English, thought. All other, equally Christian, governments held an opposite view of the world.
And, no, European Jews did not want or demand weakening of Christianity. They wanted the end of expulsions, robbery, rape and murder. The "Most Christian" monarch of France did not even want to entertain the thought, and it was the revolutionaries of 1789 who granted Jews equal rights. These rights were brought to Germany by Napoleon but denied again after his defeat. It was actually some influential Christian thinkers that demand equality for the Jews at the time. Most "Enlightened" Jews in the fist half of XIX century converted to Christianity. Those that did not invented a more secularized, Reform Judaism. Nobody I know of has advocated that "government [be] purged of its Christian character" --- whatever that means.
You have turned Jews from victims of the Church policy to attackers of Christianity.
"hey also bought the myth that Jews under Islam flourished."
Who are they? And when did "they" allegedly buy into that idea?
The safety of a Spanish Jew under Islam was indeed incomparably greater than in contemporaneous Europe. Yes, their culture flourished in Spain and Northern Africa. This is largely because the Eastern countries were incomparably more enlightened than the West at the time. You sound as if the "idea" is somehow false and Jews merely "bought" into it.
"So there is an unacknowledged anti-Christian sentiment at work."
This is simply a defamation. There is deeply rooted apprehension of any strong expressions of any religiosity. Every Easter, Jewish mothers in Eastern Europe prohibited their children to play outside: they may be harmed by a "Christian" returning from church to avenge the death of Christ. For almost two millennia then living Jews were declared collectively guilty in the death of Christ, and their oppression was justified on those grounds. The more strictly a ruler bought into this logic, the more oppression he inflicted.
As a consequence, German and East European Jews acquired apprehension of religiosity. There is no "anti-Christian sentiment."
"Zionism owes a tremendous debt to British Judeophilism, exemplified by the Balfour Agreement."
Another nonsensical statement. There was no such thing as British Judeophilism. In mid-1800, as part of the continuing Enlightenment, it became acceptable not to hate or oppress Jews; it became OK to state that one stands for equality of all religions. Just like those standing up for Blacks were called "n-lovers," the opposition often referred to liberals as Judeophiles. Yes, they could even have Jewish friends.
You make it sound like those "Judeophiles" were ruling the country. Where have they gone immediately after Balfour? England was so rampantly anti-Semitic in 1920s-1930s.
You also make it sound as if Balfour was some kind of a gift to the Jews. Perhaps as a gift to the Jews they also created Jourdan?
"Lawrence made promises he had no right to make and through his celebrity sold this version of history... So Zionism had been tarred with the anti-colonialism of that is part of the mindset of the Left."
Another conspiracy theory. Zionism is anti-colonial as a consequence of it being heavily influenced by socialism. As I said earlier, it was liberals and socialists that advocated for equality, being thus natural friends of the Jews. In addition, in the second half of XIX century, socialism was strongly influenced by Marx and took strong hold in the minds of Europeans, both Jews and Gentiles. That is when Zionism was born, and many Zionists were socialist. As such they opposed colonialism.
The non-jewish Left has never trusted Jews, because they think that Leftist Jews are untrustworthy, that they were willing to sell-out their own people for their self advancement. This is undeniably true of the Stalinist Left.
You should try to read fewer conspiracy theories. What you stated is the opposite from the truth. Great many of the socialists, social-democrats, anarchists and communists were former Jews -- that is, Jews born to Jewish parents. Many of these people were leaders of the respective movement -- so much for the distrust. In fact, the present-day anti-Semites in Russia love to point out how many of the Russian communist leaders had Jewish surnames.
You appear to have a complete misunderstanding of the socialist and communist movements. Two of the central parts of those ideologies are secularism and internationalism. A Russian communist born into a Jewish family and a German communist born into a Christian family have this much in common: both view themselves and each other as (i) non-Jewish and non-Christian respectively, and ((ii) members of one world without national boundaries.
Russian communists, whether born into Christian, Jewish or Muslim families, were destroying churches, synagogues and mosques with fervor. They did not think they were fighting their own people but enemies of the people --- od all people.
There was no distrust of Jews among the Russian communists. There was envy (Jews tend to be over-achievers, and were prominent in particular in the Communist Party) and ancient hatred. It is funny but true that many Russians Communists admitted to hating Jews "because they killed Christ." Some things never die. The Stalinist Left proved nothing else in that regard.
What you plug in here is an age-old trick: Jews deserve the treatment they had for millennia. I find it interesting that your post contains not a single true fact but quite a bit of bias.
Jews distrust Christians for the same reason that blacks distrust whites—that is, for good reason. Your argument sounds a whole lot like “blacks can’t be racist.” And when I use the word Christian I mean simply Christian “vaues,” not some supposed “true” Christianity. I mean Cultural Christianity. There can be no doubt that our culture is Christianity. There can be no doubt that our laws are founded on Christianity beliefs. Just as canon law followed the forms of Roman law, so the English common law followed the forms of Canon law and used its principles. Even our infidels are those whose attitudes are formed by Christianity. or a rejection of it.
My assessment of Bronfman is the same as your. But why has not he done that by now, then? The detioration of Hillels is going on for a couple of decades, especially since mid-1990s. Has Bronfman failed to notice it somehow?
I don't think so. The explanation may quite different: Bronfman is not as powerful as his title and his money appear to look. You can be a brilliant general but it is foot soldiers and cavalry who carry out your strategy. And Bronfman's foot soldiers are the radicals of the '60s, graduates of leftist universities. They themselves are not particularly pro-Israel any longer. The Left never was: it subscribes to one-world, transnational view, remember?
American Jewry, as a whole, was pro-Israel for about a decade or two after the Six-day War. As in Germany, most viewed Zionism with suspicion and animosity: they thought that Zionism undermined their fight against accusations of dual loyalty. [ A prominent example is Arthur Sulzberger, the part-owner and publisher of the NYTimes since 1935. Unlike the present owners, who converted to Christianity, he was Jewish. Some people accuse him of playing down the news of the Holocaust precisely because he did not want NYTimes to be seen as being "too Jewish." He spent his lifetime speaking out against Zionism. ] Personally, I am not surprised by the liberals' abandonment of Israel. The left is transnational. If they can abandon American ideals for the leftist ones, why would they not abandon a faraway Israel?
Well, I am glad to hear that. But that's not what you actually said.
"here can be no doubt that our culture is Christianity. There can be no doubt that our laws are founded on Christianity beliefs. Just as canon law followed the forms of Roman law, so the English common law followed the forms of Canon law and used its principles. Even our infidels are those whose attitudes are formed by Christianity. or a rejection of it."
I tend to agree with you here, but only in part. When you speak of our form of government as being Christian, it sounds as if Christians share in our vision. They do not. The Christians of England and Spain have opposed us. One should speak of this matter more precisely. I think it is unambiguous to say that we owe a great deal to a particular stream of English Protestants. Iberian Catholics have created a very different form of government both in Spain and Portugal, and in the New World. The regimes of Guatemala and Paraguay can also claim that their form of government is rooted in Christianity. Think about that.
Moreover, what you said earlier was much stronger, prejudiced and factually incorrect. You have invented an idea that Jews want to remove the Christian roots of our (form of) government. This rises to the level of being ridiculous. While Jews were dispersed among nations for two millennia, there has never been recorded such a movement, or idea, among them. In fact, every week we say a special prayer for peace and prosperity in our country -- for all its inhabitants --- and for our government to conduct itself in a righteous way.
"Jews distrust Christians for the same reason that blacks distrust whites—that is, for good reason."
I agree only to the extent I indicated earlier. You may not be able to related to that, but Jews are soooo used to being a minority --- it bothers them not at all that someone is a Christian. Every Jew I know would laugh if I suggested to them they have "anti-Christian sentiment." It is not the fact that someone is Christian but very vigorous expressions of religiosity that Jews are traditionally apprehensive about: it is from such expressions that they suffered in the past (in Europe, much less here).
I can find a partial agreement with you here but not with what you said earlier. I repeat, there is no "anti-Christian sentiment" among the Jews as a whole.
"Your argument sounds a whole lot like “blacks can’t be racist.”
You commit another logical fallacy here (taking part for the whole, pars pro toto). You, as many other prejudiced people, speak of "the Jews;" that is, those traits that are supposedly share by the whole tribe. I spoke against that and said that your claims are false. The fact that certain traits ("anti-Christian sentiment") are NOT shared by all does not preclude, of course, that SOME members of the group may exhibit those trades. SO you are incorrect when you say that my "argument sounds a whole lot like `blacks can’t be racist.'" Not at all my argument was that, contrary to your claim, a typical Jew is not anti-Christian.
Of course there are racist Blacks, but I am yet to meet an anti-Christian Jew. You may view aloofness of some Orthodox Jews as expression of "anti-Christian sentiment." Well, they are equally aloof with respect to me, because I am not sufficiently observant. For a similar reason, monks went to monassteries. They were not anti-Christian, anti-people, or anti-anythihg.
I suppose there may exist some weird guy who can present some illogical theory with an "anti-Christian sentiment." Such person may of course exist. But that is NOT what you said earlier. You attributed this to Jews in general, which is both false and prejudiced.
If you are indeed Christian --- I am familiar with what that means, as many of my friends are true and observant Christians --- then you may want to look into your heart and see if your views expressed in the previous post are indeed pure.
Perhaps, we'll meet again under moder agreeably circumstances. Have a good day.
Thanks justiceseeker93.
Nobody aid they were immune from prejudice. If you have any intellectual honesty, you'd admit by now that this was NOT the point your were making. You ascribed to "Jews" prejudices such as "anti-Crhirstian sentiment" and basic lack of morals, which supposedly allowed them to persecute "their own people" -- so much so that even the scummy Left supposedly did not trust them. This has nothing at all to do with whether Jews are immune from prejudice.
"while they may not have harding feelings against Christians, or even nowadays not even Jesus,"
It's not just nowadays: Jesus disturbed the priests at the time of his life, but not after his death. People differentiate a person and his teaching. Jewish priests continued to guard Jews against acceptance of Jesus' teaching, but they had no feelings one way or another against him.
" they reject Christianity."
Yes. And also Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism --- any other religion. Don't you do the same?
"they reject Christianity. Which is why they embraced the Enlightenment."
Where do you get this stuff?
As I mentioned earlier, and you can easily verify, most Jews that accepted Enlightenment converted to Christianity. In the first few years of XIX century, about 10% of all German Jews converted to Christianity. They did not become atheists or agnostics.
The two notions are disconnected. A Jew "accepting the Enlightenment" can: (i) remain Jewish, (ii) convert to Christianity or some other religion, or (iii) become an atheist or agnostic. That is, he has the same options as the person that does not "accept the Enlightenment."
You claim that Jews "embraced the Enlightenment" because "they reject Christianity" does not make any sense. Many Christians --- people who did NOT reject Christianity --- have also embraced the Enlightenment. Great many of them became atheists. Have you looked around lately? Only about 5% of Europe is now Christian. The vast majority of the remaining 95% are not Jews. These people accepted Christianity before but no longer do so.
In every sentence you show that you hold Jews to a standard and view them as if they were all the same. This is one of the oldest forms of prejudice.
"Which is why they embraced the Enlightenment. It was a way for them to become Europeans"
Here is another prejudice: who on earth told you that they were NOT Europeans and needed to become such? They arrived to France before the Franks and to Spain before most of its other inhabitants. Who the h-ll are you to say that in 1800s, almost 2000 years after their arrival to Europe, they were not Europeans?
Jews were Europeans and, for many centuries, they had fought and died for their respective countries. What they did not have was equality of rights, including the most basic one --- citizenship. In the vast majority of times and places they were prohibited from owning land, hold public office, and engage in most professions. Equality was the issue. Only for bigoted people like you did not consider them "Europeans."
"But a society whose members actually believes in the divinity of Jesus and whose laws reflect their worldview, is not substantially different from the old European societies."
Another expression of bigotry. You just excluded all Jews that ever lived in Europe from "society." They certainly rejected the divinity of Jesus. According to you, they were not members of societies that constituted "old Europe."
I cannot understand how you can call yourself Christian: yuu are incapable not only of love but of mere tolerance to other people. And, of course, you statement is illogical. What is "old Europe." You don't mean those Germans whom Charlemagne has to fight and kill en masse (by tens of thousand) in order to convert them to Christianity? You don't mean to say that those pagan Germans were not European?
Are Rome and the rest of Italy, Spain and Portugal up until V-VI centuries not European? Spain was Christian for only about 150 years -- up until the discovery of America. That is, out of 2000 years after Christ, it was predominantly Christian for only 650 or so. What does "old European" mean. The images you have in your mind --- not only of Jews but also of Christians -- are unsupported by facts.
And so it this statement: "Liberal Christians who like reform Jews think of Jesus as just another prophet are easy to get along with."
Judaism, whether Orthodox, Reform or Conservative, does not view Jesus as a prophet.
And yet another: "a society whose members actually believes in the divinity of Jesus and whose laws reflect their worldview, is not substantially different from the old European societies."
What is the proof here. Where have you seen as society such this in the last 200 years? What is Christian about socialism, for instance? Most of Western Europe embraced it after about 1850. And when you say "European," you clearly have in mind Western European. Liberalism never arrived into Eastern Europe. In a previous post, you claimed that American society is an outgrowth of Christianity. Well, Eastern Europeans and especially Russians have chosen completely opposite, oppressive systems --- were they not a part of "old Europe?"
Not a sentence in your posts makes sense, and not one of your claims is supported by facts.
I have written to you extensively in the hope that you will realize that your views are hateful and prejudiced. You do not even engage in a discussion: you simply go to some other point and blatantly lie, stating something different as if reiterating.
I have nothing else to contribute to this discussion. Have a good day.
You sure like to use words. But of course Jews are anti-Christian, just as most protestants are anti-Catholic. And as for persecuting their own people. I am hardly the only one who had pointed out the strange phenomenon of Jews at the extremes of the divide between communism and capitalism. This was one reason for Stalin’s paranoia about Jews.
And it is not useful to talk about Jesus and the Jews. Judaism as we know has a history that in its development is a product of the Diaspora not the land and people that Jesus knew. The destruction of the Temple changed everything, including the religious practices of the Jewish people. One key to that was their reaction to Christianity. Jews and Christians were rivals for the affection of the same sort of gentile-God seeker, but after Hadrian’s final destruction and rebuilding of Jerusalem, the Jews become racially m more exclusive even as the Christians became ever more inclusive. It is said that Constantine considered Judaism when he was trying to fix on a new monotheist religion for the Empire, but decided on the Christians because they were less nationalistic and yet had similar social cohesion.
As for the Enlightenment, a Jew can be an atheist and be accepted as a Jew. The Enlightenment offered the alternative of a secular society, one in which religion did not matter, which is why many people, Christian or Jew , found it attractive. they had given up on the idea of a “true” religion.” and had turned to “Reason” as the only way of attaining truth. As European elites turned away from Christianity, they were more open to men of talent of whatever faith or no faith.
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