No religion or culture is more beholden to history than Judaism. Is
there any way to prevent that?
…Nostalgia is huge in the Jewish religion – not as huge as for
Christians or Muslims, but huge nevertheless. Two-thousand years after we lost
it, we’re all still paying lip service to the fact that our most cherished goal
is to slaughter goats on the world’s most prized piece of real estate. Our
religion would have us believe that this is what our ancestors endured
two-thousand of persecution to accomplish. If that is the case, I’m getting my
circumcision reversed tomorrow.
The great strength and weakness of Jewish communities is that they
are intractably slow in adapting to new circumstances. Even the Catholic Church
changes faster. The centuries pass, empires rise and fall; but Orthodox Jews
still chant the same prayers, circumcise every male child, don’t eat pork, refuse
to mix linen and wool in their clothes, and segregate women from men. It is the
Jewish mentality to find what works, and then to dig our fingernails into that
solution as far into posterity as they go. There will be female priests in the
Catholic Church long before there are female Orthodox Rabbis.
It is a mentality that goes nearly as far into the more recent
branches of Judaism as it does into orthodoxy. However far Modern Orthodox, Conservative,
Reformed, or Assimilationist Jews rise, the mentality seems to stay the same.
History goes on, the debates within a society rage, but to a certain extent –
it’s other people’s problem. I believe that there’s a part of every Jewish
person which feels this way, and Jewish people who are particularly committed
to another movement do so in part as a rebellion against their Jewish
background; which like Chinese civilization, sees the concerns of the moment as
the blink of an eye within time’s larger span.
In civilization after civilization, when things are at their best,
we Jews begin to enter a state of denial; and the denial only increases in intensity as the years go on. Rather than accept that things are not as good
as they once were, we try to maintain them precisely as they were long past
when it was possible. At the end of the last century, many Jews seemed
to believe that the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz-Josef II, and his beneficent
tolerance of Jews, would live forever. But World War I, ended the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. By the 20’s, many Jews believed that the Weimar
Republic could last – they even believed it would return after Hitler was
elected Chancellor. By the 30’s, many Jews still believed that Stalin and the Soviet
Union would be the savior of the Jewish people – much good that did us.
In all those cases, many Jews believed in the permanence of their
position well past the point that they went down with the countries who housed
them. By the time most Jews realized there was no place for them in Central or
Eastern Europe, it was too late to save themselves. The Jews with enough
foresight to emigrate to Israel and America survived. They too believe in the
permanence of their well-being in these states. For nearly a hundred years,
they’ve been right. But for how much longer will they be?
In 2012, we are faced – as always – with a Jewish state on the
perpetual verge of extinction – encircled on all sides by hostile, dangerous
enemies and ruled by a right-wing government who believes that enough displays
of force will intimidate their enemies into preventing attacks. America is
still the greatest shelter the Jewish people have ever had, yet America is
changing more quickly than we can imagine. We no longer live in the mid-20th
century, and the certainties of that era have long since ended. Yet many Jews
act as though our good treatment will be permanent.
Perhaps there’s good reason to feel this way. America’s not going anywhere any time soon,
and Israel is perhaps the one country in the world to maintain a boom economy
through the Great Recession. Nevertheless, America, Israel, and their
relationships are changing.
Even in the worst possible situation - even if the Tea Party is
able to dictate terms to America’s government, even if America’s entire middle
class is obliterated, even if all of America's works are privately owned by Chinese investors – America’s Jews will be just fine. For better or
worse, it’s true that a disproportionate number of Jews make upper class
incomes (the average Jewish household makes $50,000 a year, $8,000 more than
the average US household) – but if the Middle Class vanishes, Jewish charities
will ensure that other Jews are relatively well provided for in comparison to
other Americans. Like in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the income of the wealthy
will not be threatened, and Jews will continue to contribute disproportionately
to American society – perhaps more than ever. Meanwhile, Israel will remain, as
ever, industrious and innovative. And while the average income in the rest of
the world plummets, Israel will continue to thrive. And because Israel thrives,
wealthy people will invest more and more money into Israel. And thus would
likely begin anew all the conspiracy theories about Jewish control, corruption,
and conspiracy. We know how that ends…
I have no idea how far in the future the next atrocity against the
Jewish people will occur. But if history has taught us anything, it’s that
another such atrocity will most definitely happen. And Jews will unwittingly do
everything within their power to speed up the process. Every Jew should read Amos
Elon’s unforgettable book about the Jews of Germany: The Pity of It All. Towards
the end, Elon discusses how German Jews were the last people to maintain their
belief in the Weimar Republic. Even during the Great Depression as Nazis were
assassinating hundreds of political figures, Jews believed that Nazism was no
more a threat to Germany than Communism, and if Jews simply refused to take a
side and pay no heed to prevailing winds, this too would pass.
American Jews are well-known for their liberalism, but reports of Jewish
liberalism were always a bit exaggerated. Ronald Reagan got 39% of the Jewish
vote to Jimmy Carter’s 45 in 1980. Dwight Eisenhower (no friend of Israel) got
40% of the Jewish vote against Adlai Stevenson’s 60 in 1956. Jews have always been
sensitive (some – not me, would say oversensitive) about shifts to
anti-semitism, and most Jews have always been wary of any extreme belief. Sometimes,
this charge against extremism comes at the worst moments. Running the centrist
Americans Elect movement to provide a moderate alternative in this election was
Peter Ackerman – chairman of Rockport Capital, former head of Freedom House and
founder of the International Center on Violent Conflict . Its principal donor
was Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks. Its primary voice in the press
was Thomas Friedman of the New York Times. Well-known Jews all, but they founded
this movement at the very moment when it was clear that centrism was no longer
a legitimate option for America in the foreseeable future. America had just
elected a Democratic president whose entire campaign was founded on a message of
unity, and the overtures to unify government were completely re-buffed by
Republicans. Democrats are now the American party of the center as well as the
left, yet many Jews persist in the thought that bipartisanship is still an
option.
While assimilated American Jews embrace the left, the Orthodox
community goes further and further into the arms of America’s Religious Right. The
Religious Right not only believes in the bellicose policies of the Israeli
right wing, they actively encourage it and wish Israel were moreso. But what
happens if conservative religious people in America become destitute and their
leaders require a scapegoat to explain why? What happens if Arab countries embrace
democracy and are no longer threats to America? What happens if a significant
portion of American Christians end up working for Israeli corporations without American
government guaranteeing them a living wage? Will there be any reason for this
alliance to continue?
Those Jews who wish to maintain some semblance of religion are
caught in the middle. Taking a stand with one or the other is equated in their
minds with taking a stand on Judaism between orthodoxy and non-belief. And just
as it happened before, and just as it will one day happen again, Jews will long
for a solution that does not exist until after it’s too late. I guarantee you,
Jews will be the last ethnic group still looking back to the wonderful days of
bipartisanship when every other group’s abandoned it for an entire lifetime. Just
as Jews are to parties, no group has a longer track record to being late to
historical realizations than the Jewish people.
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