The emergent Jewish movement of our time: Jewish promotion of anti-Semitism

I’ve recently noted the increasingly strident advocacy of open borders by American Jews writing as Jews, in which they speak of open borders for Third-Worlders as a requirement of their Jewish soul, as the “Jewish American civil religion,” and as “the very heart, for Jews, of what it means to be an American,” while they add that they support this position because “as a historical matter, nationalism has been Bad For The Jews.” Unabashed hostility toward the American nation and its majority culture, expressed by Jews purporting to speak as Jews and for Jews, has reached such a point that a Jewish college student, speaking as a Jew, feels free to write in the student newspaper of Northwestern University that he hates Christianity:

I hate Christianity. There, I said it. Since its creation, it has mostly caused violence and death, despite espousing the doctrine of compassion and love.

As a Jew, I have always been taught to respect and tolerate other religious beliefs. And for the most part, I do. But I draw the line at Christianity.

A few years ago, Rabbi Daniel Lapin was the pre-eminent American Jewish leader trying to warn his fellow Jews against behaviors that seemed designed to produce anti-Semitism. I don’t know if his efforts had any success at the time, but they certainly need renewal and reinforcement now.

Lapin should remind Jews of the sentiments expressed in an editorial in the New York Herald Tribune in 1888:

[O]ur Hebrew fellow-citizens … should recognize … that the Republic which offers a refuge and the broadest religious freedom to all men, expresses, in so doing, the highest teaching of Christ—the brotherhood of humanity. If it had not done so they [the Jews] would have had no foothold here. The United States … is Christian in its foundation, its structure and its development, and none … who have taken refuge here have more reason to thank God for its Christian spirit than the Hebrews. [Naomi W. Cohen, Jews in Christian America: The Pursuit of Religious Equality (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 71].

Also, in showing the connection between Christianity and the liberalism that gave Jews equal citizenship rights, the editorial reminds us that leftists such as the Jewish student quoted above have always attacked liberalism as “fascist” oppression. It is therefore no surprise that leftist Jews also denounce Christianity, which is the source of liberalism, as a source of violence and death. They just keep sawing away at the limb they’re sitting on.

- end of initial entry -

Sam B. writes:

The Christian-hating “Jewish” student sounds like a plant to me. There are numbers of similar hate-Christian “Jews” postings on the Talk Back features of Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post. Not all pose as “liberal” secular Jews; some pose as religious Jews. When I took issue (and umbrage) at these anti-Christian “Jews,” on J’Post Talk back, I received a response from a knowledgeable Jew who cautioned me not to take these “Jews” at face value; that they were Palestinian operatives in order to foment anti-Jewish reactions from deservedly outraged Christians, who also had been “had,” Divide and rule through mutual suspicion.

Yes, there are self-hating Jews, but it is a stretch to believe that they are so self-obsessed that they would risk alienating the very people who (today) are among the best allies of the Jewish people, especially among the evangelicals. It simply makes no sense, unless there is another hidden agenda here at work—which I believe.

LA replies:

That’s very interesting. The possibility hadn’t occurred to me. If it is a plant, it’s skillfully written. But I doubt it is a plant, since, if you read the original letter in the Daily Northwestern, you will see that it is by a student named Jared Sax who lists his e-mail as j-sax@northwestern.edu. So he seems to be a bona fide individual.

You dismiss the possibility of Jews attacking Christianity, since Christians are their best allies. But surely you are aware that there are many Jews who do NOT regard Christians as their best allies, who do NOT appreciate the American Protestant evangelical support for Israel, but resent it.

On a deeper level, you are assuming that Jews want to exist and survive as Jews, and therefore would not needlessly offend their best friends in a world in which Jews are surrounded by enemies. But the assumption in many cases is false. Leftist Jews, including leftist Israeli Jews, do not want to exist and survive as Jews or as Israelis; they are leftists, and as such they seek (with varying degrees of consciousness of what they’re doing) the destruction of our civilization along with all its constituent parts, including Christianity, Judaism, the United States, the state of Israel, and, ultimately, themselves as Jews.

Igor writes:

I think you are making too much of this Jewish student’s attitude towards Christianity. First of all, he is a freshman and he’s not even in his 20’s yet. He is very naive and ignorant (his understanding of a “tolerant” Islam in the distant past demonstrates his ignorance). Also, there is nothing distinctively “Jewish” about his critique of Christianity. His litany of “Christian” crimes are common complaints I hear from many anti-Christian gentiles. He does not blame Christians for the Holocaust, the Russian pogroms, or “inventing” antisemitism. The only “Jewish feature” in his article is where he states: “As a Jew…”, but other than that how else could we identify the author of this article as a Jew? It seems to me that his bigotry towards Christianity is a result of the liberal education he has received thus far and not due to his Jewish upbringing. The Christian imperialism, Crusades, and Inquisition tantrum was a dead giveaway.

LA replies:

Granted all you say about his stereotypical arguments. But the way people represent themselves politically to the world means something. When someone says, “As a Jew, I hate Christianity,” that means something, regardless of his age. And the reason I particularly picked up on that was the similarity to the other recent statements by Jews that I’ve commented on. The common thread was that the speaker was not just stating a personal opinion but claiming to speak as a Jew and for Jews.

And the fact that the newspaper would print it, matters, it says something about the kinds of statements that are considered acceptable in our society. And there are plenty of Jews who are older than this person and who have different arguments, but feel the same thing.

Also, many older and prominent people, indeed many experts in Islam, believe the myth of tolerant Islam.

All my life I’ve been hearing people say that Islam is tolerant and Christianity is awful because of the Crusades and the Inquisition. I’ve never heard someone say, “As a Jew, I hate Christianity.” So that stands out and calls out for comment. Something is happening in the Jewish (or the leftist Jewish) community, a new level of aggression against the majority culture is coming out. I add that this is not different in kind from the aggression of leftists generally. But when Jews, who are members of a distinct minority, say that they take this position because they are members of that minority, that stands out.

Ron L writes:

While Mr. Sax is ethnically Jewish, I see no reason to believe that he is religiously Jewish.

His first religious attack on Christianity is based on a liberal idea, completely at odds with the ethnic basis of Judaism:

“First of all, the concept of Jesus dying for ‘the sins of humanity’ is ridiculous. I am responsible for my own actions, and I am angered at the thought of someone being killed for them before I was born.”

Perhaps if he were to reread the Torah, he would understand that Israel is held accountable for the actions of Israelites.

He continues: “Second, any religion that tries to convert others to ‘save them,’ whether by force or by passive means is not a real religion. Worry about yourself and your family, but leave everyone else alone. If they want to convert, fine. But don’t come knock on my door and explain to me that I’m going to hell because I don’t believe in Jesus. “

This is liberalism, not Judaism.

“The modern Christian Right obsesses over telling people how to live: Whether they should have abortions, take an elderly person off of life support or teach that evolution is only “unproved theory.””

Again he has no concept of how a Jewish state would be run.

In fact, I would guess that he is hostile to Israel. Notice how he claims that Islam only became violent in 1880. [LA note: Sax actually wrote this idiotic sentence: “Since its inception in 610 up to the 1880’s, Islam was a tolerant and peaceful religion.”] He is under the delusion that Muslims were tolerant before Zionism.

Sax is merely an ignorant leftist, for whom Jewishness is merely an excuse for his victimology. He knows nothing about Christianity but the litany of anti-Jewish instances in the past and the “threat” trumped up by the left. Sadly, this fellow’s prejudice is far too common among self-proclaimed intelligent Jews, who live their whole life among the left, and have no respect for religion.

It is really sad to think that the ranting of this anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist leftist of Jewish descent will be used to justify anti-Semitism.

LA replies:

You wrote: “It is really sad to think that the ranting of this anti-Jewish, anti-Zionist leftist of Jewish descent will be used to justify anti-Semitism.”

Agreed. But the same could be said for all the Jewish-born Bolsheviks and lefties and hyper-atheists of the last 158 years. The fact remains, as I said recently, that the Jewish people keep producing a fantastic number of “non-Jewish” Jewish leftists whose shenanigans justify anti-Semitism. Decent Jews, instead of pretending that these “non-Jewish Jews” have nothing to do with Jewishness, need somehow to come to grips with this phenomenon. Do we see the “real” Jews condemning the statements by “non-Jewish” Jews that I’ve quoted recently? I’m not aware of it. So then, doesn’t the “good” Judaism start to take on the appearance of “moderate” Islam? I’m not saying that’s true. But clearly the “good” Jews owe it to themselves and to the larger society publicly to denounce the Leftist Jews who aim to destroy the society.

This is just basic politics Ron. If the “moderates” in a group do not condemn the “extremists,” then that group will be identified with the extremists. It is NOT enough to say, “These people are not Jews, they have nothing to do with us.” That’s what Muslims always say about terrorists: “These people are not Muslims, they have nothing to do with us.” Instead of taking responsibility for Muslim terrorism, they say it doesn’t exist! That is not the responsible way to respond.

However, the problem is worse today than with the old-time “Non-Jewish” Jewish leftists who explicitly denied that they were Jews. Today we have leftist Jews who call themselves Jews and insist that their leftist secular agenda is the essence of Jewishness.

AS Voegelin explains in the early chapters of The New Science of Politics, politics at the most fundamental level consists of representation, not the “we vote for a candidate for Congress and he represents us” type of representation, but “existential” representation, as Voegelin calls it, meaning that groups and societies represent themselves to the world, by means of words and symbols, spoken by recognized leaders or representatives, as a society or group organized for action on the stage of history. When I learned that all 57 Muslim countries in 1990 signed the “Declaration of Human Rights in Islam,” which made sharia the standard of all laws and rights, that meant that at the highest, largest, most official level, the Muslim world as the Muslim world represented itself as standing for sharia. This convinced me, as I wrote in an article at the time, of the “Centrality of Jihad in Islam.”

Not all representations are at the global, official level I just described, but the basic principle applies.

If people calling themselves Jews, and accepted by the world as Jews, say that “as Jews” they believe in X, Y, or Z, then that effectively becomes a representation of the Jewish people before the world. That is political reality. If religious Jews feel that the first group of Jews are not legitimate Jews, then they must wage political war against them and deny their right to represent themselves before the world as Jews. As long as they fail to do that, the world will be justified as taking leftist Jewish statements such as “Our Jewish soul hinges on open borders,” as at least an expression of the Jewish people.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 21, 2006 12:08 PM | Send