Posted on 07/22/2002 6:32:30 AM PDT by 1bigdictator
Which Came First, Stupidity or Anti-Semitism?
July 22, 2002 by Marc J. Rauch
Does stupidity beget anti-Semitism or does anti-Semitism cause stupidity? Stupid people aren’t always or necessarily anti-Semitic, but anti-Semitic people are always stupid; at least that’s been my experience.
Case in point: A reader of one of my recent essays about Yasser Arafat wrote to me because he (the reader) hates Jews. He didn’t write to press a counter argument on behalf of Arafat, or even to discuss the premise of my essay. He just wanted me to know why he and so many other people hate Jews. He wrote, “…because they will always put their country first even to the destruction of the country they are occupying and feeding off. They are parasites.”
Of course I responded and reminded him that until 1947 Jews didn’t have their own specific country to “put first” for nearly 2,000 years, so I was uncertain as to which country of their own he was referring to. “However,” I wrote, “the hatred of Jews still thrived and spread during much of that time.” Hence, I suggested that his rationale was severely faulty and without any merit.
Furthermore, I informed him that during the 2,000 years, Jews served and fought with distinction in the armies and navies of all “their” countries that they lived in (when allowed to do so): United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia (Soviet Union), Poland, Turkey (Ottoman Empire), Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Mexico, and many others. More importantly, I pointed out that Jews had contributed far more to those respective countries than just military service, and that they were, and are, leading participants in helping to advance all fields of endeavor: art, industry, commerce, education, law, and medicine. I probably further surprised him by writing that it is actually Jewish custom to place loyalty to your home/host country before all other considerations (I’m quite certain that this bit of information is not mentioned during any of the skinhead and neo-nazi rallies that he frequents).
I concluded my response by calling him anti-Semitic and stupid (although I didn’t have sufficient information at that time to decide whether his anti-Semitism was the result of his stupidity, or if his stupidity was as a result of his blind hatred of Jews).
As I expected, he ignored my response and instead replied in a manner that I’ve heard many times before: he objected to being called anti-Semitic, and then castigated me for “…doing what all Jews do, and rush to use the term anti-Semitism just because he expressed an adverse opinion of Jews.” And then, to prove how egalitarian he is, he described some of the conversations that he has had with his father’s wife, who happens to be Jewish (he couldn’t bring himself to call her his “stepmother.”) According to my new pen pal, his stepmother (there, I said it for him) espouses similar anti-Israel/anti-Jewish sentiment. She has also told him “There is a movement simmering in the Jewish community with the same feelings.” This then prompted him to sarcastically write, “I guess they would be anti-Semitic Jews?”
By the way, I left out a significant element of this story: he identified himself as a 37-year old surgeon living in Texas, who is now also in the process of getting a Masters Degree in History.
It’s funny how people will think they’ve stumped you over the issue of anti-Semitism by invoking what they believe is impossible by definition: How can a Jew be anti-Semitic? Ignorance seems to allow the presumption that all Jews think and act alike.
The truth, of course, is that if an American can be anti-American, and a Catholic can be anti-Catholic, then a Jew can certainly be anti-Semitic. And unfortunately, as we’re reminded all too often, some of the most virulent anti-Semites are Jews, or at the least, were born Jewish. But being an anti-Jewish Jew doesn’t validate the anti-Jewish opinion; it merely shows that Jews can be stupid, too. After all, Jews are just like real people; we have diverse opinions, tastes, and abilities.
I pointed this out to the “doctor” along with two additional points. First, that by knowing the perspective of his stepmother and the Jews she referred to, it should have been obvious to him that all Jews do not always “put their own country (presumably Israel) first even to the destruction of the country they are occupying and feeding off.” Thereby rendering his original statement to me knowingly fallacious and absurdly biased.
Second; that when you tell someone you hate Jews and use an erroneous, bigoted reason for the hatred, it is anti-Semitism and the practitioner is anti-Semitic. Ergo, he is a stupid anti-Semite, (although my question of which begat which, was still unanswered).
Interestingly, this Texican doctor is not the only Jew-hating doctor that I’ve come across during the last few months. One is an ex-nazi Panzer Tank commander living in Utah (I kid you not), the other is a GP in Northern California. The ex-nazi has written two anti-Semitic books and retreats to references from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” when confronted with factual details that conflict with the prejudiced information he spews (yes, I’m totally serious). Incidentally, Dr. Demento in Texas likes to quote Soren Kierkegaard, George Orwell, and lyrics from heavy-metal songs to support his preposterous theories.
Before you ask, while I usually quote liberally from the works of Marx: Groucho Marx that is, I actually rely on facts to prove points.
However, the California doctor is the most interesting case because he stakes his anti-Semitic opinions and rhetoric on his several years effort to write a book about Jewish history. To impress me with his in-depth knowledge of the situation, he went so far as to brag that he was in the Middle East, in Egypt, during Israel’s 50th Independence Day celebration in 1998.
When I asked him why he was in Egypt during Israel’s anniversary and not in Israel, noting that he could have been basking in the glory of achievement, rather than wallowing in the muck of despair, he called me a bigot and broke off further correspondence. It seemed like the right question to ask a man that’s writing a book about Jewish history.
Anyway, prior to that time, he typically espoused the view that Jews and Israelis were criminally negligent in their treatment of the West Bank Arabs and that they had no right to object to Arafat’s suicide bombers. He also stated that the September 11th attacks were justified in light of Jewish/Israeli aggression and oppression. When presented with any evidence that refuted his position or proved Israel’s undeniable right to exist and defend herself, he would quote from the ancient writings of Flavius Josephus (born Joseph ben Mattathias), the Benedict Arnold of Judea. He was incapable of rebutting or responding to facts with contemporary information or relevant data. Indeed, he appeared ignorant of any information that might be available to do so.
Now it may seem like this essay has regressed into a condemnation of doctors, but that’s not my point at all. No, without doubt there are many doctors from all religious persuasions and ethnic backgrounds who are able to discern simple basic, logical realities. They can put two and two together, and be absolutely certain that they add up to four. It’s just that one expects that all doctors might have learned enough in the years’ of his or her studying to recognize that Jews haven’t been merely parasitic squatters in America. They don’t necessarily have to like Jews or their own Jewish stepmothers, but they might have come across a “Yid” or two that made a significant contribution to this country’s way of life. A contribution without which we might be just a bunch of deformed cowboys “stampeding women and raping cattle” (a quote from Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles - he is also a Groucho-phile and a Jew).
Maybe these three stooges sucked in a bit too much formaldehyde during their training and internship. The problem with that hypothesis is that it doesn’t explain if anti-Semitism causes stupidity, or if stupidity is the root cause of bigotry. It may mean that both stupidity and racism is actually caused by sniffing noxious fumes.
Hmm, I’ll have to read up and see what Alice’s friends think about that.
Marc J. Rauch was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1952, and lived in the metropolitan area until “emigrating” to the West Coast in the early ‘80s. He is a multi-award winning TV/film writer, producer, and director, and has been a broadcasting and marketing executive since the 1975. Marc regularly lectures on various subjects concerning broadcasting and new media at conferences and seminars throughout the U.S. and Europe. In 1994, he authored a book on advertising and has had several business and industry articles published in a variety of related magazines. After the events of September 11, 2001, Marc began writing about U.S./Arab relations and the Middle East conflict. He has since had several articles published on these subjects.
Send the author an E mail at marcrauch@mail.earthlink.net.
To read more, visit Marc J. Rauch's archives.
Must've been a European. They argue the same thing about America. The Europeans don't understand that normal human beings put their own country first before their enemy's country. The French, Dutch, Norwegians, and Belgians were all too ready to put Germany before their own countries in WWII, and the private citizens of those countries were all to ready to put the Taliban before Western democracies after September 11.
Incredible, really. I kept asking my husband if people really did and said this stuff in that time period of American history.
Who put who in the death camps?
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