A religious Jew who advocates the total embrace of illegal aliens

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been observing with consternation how the proposed amnesty for 12 million illegal-alien Third-Worlders has brought out unprecedentedly frank expressions from various Jews of their deep devotion, as Jews, to open borders and the well-being of illegal aliens at the expense of America. Yesterday I saw the most disturbing such expression so far. It came in an e-mail exchange I had with someone previously unknown to me, whom I will call Allan Fleischman. I was included in the bcc list of an e-mail that Mr. Fleischman sent to a VFR reader whom I will call Barbara. He was disagreeing with her on her support for the boycott of the meat companies on May 1 because of their support for illegal immigrants.

This blog entry is long, 4,400 words, but readers who are concerned about the problem of Jewish anti-nationalism will find it of particular interest. (I’ve eliminated any personal information that would identify my correspondent.)

Subject: May Day Alert: Don’t Buy Meat this Monday

dear barbara:

shabbat shalom.

i can not speak from a political or economic point of view on the subject of immigration as politics and economics , like countries, and borders, all fade into history, and others take over, and some even return after 2000 years. i can speak as a God loving Jew trying to do God’s will each day. As Jews, regardless of what political party we think we belong to, we are to care for the vulnerable members of society—the orphan, the widow, the stranger and the poor. We are to emulate God in our care for them and always remember that once we, too, were strangers in a strange land (Deuteronomy 10:17-22). i already do not buy from the companies you wish to boycott because when i toured tyson and another of the plants mentioned, the deplorable way they treated their animals, as well as their workers, was so far from humane, i could not allow my schekels to support them.

if you are to be completely sincerely in this meatless Monday boycott, avoid buying many EU and Israeli and Arab world products, every day, as all of them, use ‘guest workers’, and treat their pack animals better.

Many Blessings,

Allan Fleischman

I then wrote to Mr. Fleischman. I was not disagreeing with him on any substantive issue, but only on his insistence that people supporting the boycott were also required to adopt his position on the meat companies’ treatment of their workers and of animals:

LA to Allan Fleischman:

The issue here is not the general treatment of workers or treatment of animals. That is a legitimate issue and you are free to take the position you take on it.

The issue here is that the meat packing companies are not only using illegals, they are actively supporting the agenda to open America to illegals, they are allowing their illegal employees to leave work for the day to engage in a vast anti-American protest.

Agree with us or disagee with us. But it is wrong to intrude your own issue into our issue and tell us that if we are to be sincere in our issue, that means that we have to adopt your issue as well.

Lawrence Auster

He then wrote back to me.

Allan Fleischman to LA:

But it is wrong to intrude your own issue into our issue and tell us that if we are to be sincere in our issue, that means that we have to adopt your issue as well.

actually, dear lawrence, it was barbara who intruded her issues onto my sabbath. since she and i know each other, as spiritual mentor and student, while i was scholar in residence, now emeritus, for the ____, at temple _____ ____, founded in 1733, by ironically, Latino Jews, who came without “papers.”

i answered her spiritually. to me, and those of the jewish faith, the issue isn’t one of man’s laws being broken or not broken, followed or not followed, but it is , as quoted from our proof text , ‘the torah’, how we treat those among us who are strangers in a strange land, as ‘we’ were once strangers in a strange land as well. ironically, the talmud discusses this very issue, and gives answers, and the exact opposite are being followed by our secular government in the usa today.

i am not looking at it as a usa legal issue, as i stated, nor how illegals impact the usa. i am looking at it purely in spiritual terms. ironically, with a company, like tyson, who couldn’t survive without illegals, [and frankly, nor could our general economy at this point, as if we paid all of them the fair wages they deserve, paid into fica and other government taxes for them, our next trip to a restaurant, would find a ‘side salad’ costing 36$], is doing what is logically in tyson’s, as well as these illegals’, best interest, as if they are not going to be at work monday, and they aren’t going to get legal americans to work in these slaughter houses, they may as well join them.

a society is judged on how we treat the most vulnerable in it. our government allows illegals in, even though it makes a show of saying it does not, because our economy is so bad, it needs them. this then, gives us two classes of folks living in the usa, those with legal rights, and those without. even in ancient israel, a foreigner, living among jews, was accorded all rights and privileges, even if he were an idol worshipped, which was to a jew, a crime of death.

my point to barbara, is, that as jews, we have been taught a better way of living with the ‘other’ among us. and as jews, who’s mission is to be a light onto the nations, it brings shame upon her, as a jew, to promote protests against those who help the ‘other’ or protests against the ‘other’ as our torah commands us to treat the ‘other’ exactly as we would treat ourselves. jews know all to well what it is like to be treated like ‘the other.’

many blessings, allan

I was appalled by his e-mail, especially his arrogant statement that “I am not looking at it as a USA legal issue … nor how illegals impact the USA,” but solely from the point of view of God’s commandment to be kind to all strangers. I wrote back to him in very strong terms. (Note also that I did not mention my Jewish background as a way of avoiding the charge of anti-Semitism for my harsh criticisms of his Jewish position. This is because I reject the idea that Jews or people of Jewish background should have a “licence” to criticize Jews that is to be denied to non-Jews.)

LA to AF:

Allan,

Are you an anti-Semite pretending to be a Jew?

I seriously get that impression, because everything you are saying fits the anti-Semitic view of Jews exactly.

Anti-Semites say that Jews have a hostility or indifference to America and its majority culture. They say that Jews care more about foreigners and minorities than they do about America. They say that Jews want to use America as a vast social experiment in equality. They say that Jews even arrogantly boast of their lack of loyalty to America.

And what do you do?

You say you don’t care about America and its well-being. You say you only care about the “other.” You say you have no loyalty to America and its laws, you only have loyalty to a God who tells you that the highest obligation is to care for the “vulnerable”—who I guess are defined as everyone in the world who is different from us. You even boast of the fact that as the Jew you have a higher calling—higher than those of us mere non-Jews, and it’s your calling to impose your suicidal standards on everyone else.

You write:

> “Our torah commands us to treat the ‘other’ exactly as we would treat ourselves.”

Does that mean all ‘others’ in the world. So then you think all the people in the world who should want to come to America should be able to? That includes, right now, 40 percent of the population of Mexico. Do you support that? If not, why not?

Do you also believe that Israel should treat all the people who want to come into Israel that way? That includes several million Palestinians who want to move to Israel. Do you favor letting them in? If not, why not?

Also, the Torah commands Jews to treat the other exactly as you would treat yourselves. Then it’s the Jews who should be caring for the illegals. But you want everyone in America to follow the Jewish command of sacrifice for the other. Does the Torah command you to command non-Jews to follow Jewish law?

That you as an American would speak with such contempt for America and its laws, even boasting that you don’t care about the impact of illegals on America, is beyond disgraceful.

I spend a fair amount of fighting anti-Semites. But when I read a Jew writing as you do, boasting of his God-ordained contempt for America and its laws, and his command to force America to sacrifice itself for all the poor strangers in the world, it gets much harder to do that.

Do you think that if America during the great wave of Jewish immigration had looked into the future and seen that the grandchilden of the immigrants would be talking like you, that they would have let all those Jews in? They would have thought, my God, if we let these people in, they will destroy our country. The Jews were let in on the assumption that they would be loyal citizens. But you boast of your indifference to America, its well-being, and its laws.

I only hope that for the sake of the Jewish people that you are not typical of Jews.

Lawrence Auster

Below is his reply to me. In order for the reader to keep in mind the context of this long document, here again is the key text from his earlier e-mail that was the basis of my charging that he is indifferent or contemptuous of the laws and well-being of the United States. He had said:

… [for] those of the Jewish faith, the issue isn’t one of man’s laws being broken or not broken, followed or not followed, but … how we treat those among us who are strangers in a strange land, as ‘we’ were once strangers in a strange land as well … I am not looking at it as a USA legal issue … nor how illegals impact the USA. I am looking at it purely in spiritual terms. [Italics added.] …

Notice that in his response below to my charge that he is indifferent or contemptuous of America, he says that this is not true, because he cares equally about all people and all countries without discrimination! Which means of course that he has no special concern about America. Notice also that in response to my charge that he does not respect the laws of the U.S., he says that he does respect the laws of the U.S., unless they contradict the Talmud (namedly the Talmud’s command to care for all strangers), in which case the Talmud must be followed.

Finally, perhaps most disturbingly, notice that that he bases his entire position on Jewish religious law. It has been said over and over, by Dennis Prager for example, that Jewish leftism and anti-nationalism are the expression of secular Jews who reject Jewish religion, and who therefore are not “real” Jews. But here is a Jew who proudly bases his left-wing anti-national vision of America on the Talmud. (However, the good news, as Paul Gottfried indicates in the below comment, is that Fleischman’s radical egalitarian interpretation of the Bible and Jewish law is as off-base as the open-borders Christians’ interpretation of the Bible.) Further, he attacks secular Jews for being assimilated to America and its pagan ways, while other religious Jews attack secular Jews for being leftist anti-Americans.

In Fleischman’s e-mail, he interspersed his answers with my text. To make it more readable I have made each quote and reply into a separate paragraph. I’ve also cleaned up spelling and introduced normal capitalization.

Allan Fleischman to LA:

LA: Are you an anti-Semite pretending to be a Jew?

AF: No.

LA: I seriously get that impression, because everything you are saying fits the anti-Semitic view of Jews exactly.

AF: What others may think of the way Jews are taught, is none of our business.

LA: Anti-Semites say that Jews have a hostility or indifference to America and its majority culture.

AF: The Talmud says that the law of the land is the law of land. But, if at any time, the law of the land, supersedes our religious obligations to another human, our rules supersede the law of the land. We aren’t taking about ritual. The Talmud, which is the basis of Judaism, is quite clear on this.

LA: They say that Jews care more about foreigners and minorities than they do about America.

AF: Jews should care more about fellow humans, than about borders. Fellow humans are made in the image of God. Hence we as Jews have an obligation to follow certain behaviors towards them. America was founded in the late 1700s. Our Talmudic edicts were given to us, while we were in captivity in Babylon circa 580 BCE and kept oral until circa 500 CE.

LA: They say that Jews want to use America as a vast social experiment in equality.

AF: I think our Founding Fathers, who knew more about Talmudic Judaism, than the average Jew today, would, if one took the time to read their writings, have believed that America was a vast social experiment in equality.

LA: They say that Jews even arrogantly boast of their lack of loyalty to America.

AF: Fools will say foolish things. The first South Carolinian to die in our revolution against the tyranny of great Britain was Francis Salvador, a Jew. [there then follows some personal information including information about his Jewish ancestors in the U.S. going back to Colonial times.] Fools can say Jews aren’t loyal to the USA because we see the USA not standing up to the ethical principals on which is was founded. I doesn’t change what is ‘emet’.(truth)

LA: What you do you?

AF: I do my best each day, as instructed in the Mishna, to make my will, his will.

LA: You say you don’t care about America and its well-being.

AF: Whoa. Never said that. I care very deeply about the well being of every country and every human.

LA: You say you only care about the “other.”

AF: Didn’t say that either. I said, as Jews, we have an obligation to care about the ‘other’.

LA: You say you have no loyalty to America and its laws, you only have loyalty to a God who tells you that the highest obligation is to care for the “vulnerable”—who I guess are defined as everyone in the world who is different from us.

AF: As explained above, of course I must obey American laws, provided they don’t contradict the laws provided to me by a higher authority. America provides for conscientious objection. I didn’t burn my draft card during the Viet Nam war and run to Canada. I protested the war legally. And so it is the same with this boycott of yours. I won’t participate in it, as we have an obligation to treat the stranger among us with certain acts of ‘ahavath chesed’. (Loving kindness). Using your logic, in 1938 Germany, would be following the Nuremberg laws, done democratically, as Hitler was elected democratically. And this is exactly how Germany got into trouble. The church advised their members not to follow church ethics, but to follow German law … laws against the ‘others’, Jews, gypsies, communists, unionists, and so forth. It wasn’t until the 60’s that the Lutheran church of Germany, made amends for such stupidity.

LA: You even boast of the fact that as the Jew you have a higher calling—higher than those of us mere non-Jews, and it’s your calling to impose your suicidal standards on everyone else.

AF: I have never mentioned suicide. That is a sin. And Rabbi Yeshua, aka Jesus in Greek, taught talmudic Judaism in what is called the ‘new testament.’ would Jesus turn away ‘the stranger’ in his midst? No, Jesus would follow the Torah, and the Talmud. Jews don’t have a higher calling compared to anyone else. But we have a calling from God, as Isaiah says, we are to be a light unto the nations (i.e. you). And we, as the Torah teaches, “don’t stand idly by.”

LA: You write:

“Our torah commands us to treat the ‘other’ exactly as we would treat ourselves.”

AF: This is 100% correct.

LA: Does that mean all ‘others’ in the world.

AF: All people are created in the image of God. Judaism doesn’t discriminate.

LA: So then you think all the people in the world who should want to come to America should be able to?

AF: This is a question that is not Judaic. I can tell you that as a Jew, the closed door policy of the USA State Department, run by admitted anti Semites in the time prior to WW2 and during, that closed the door to Jews trying to escape Nazi Europe, is a permanent shame on USA history.

LA: That includes, right now, 40 percent of the population of Mexico. Do you support that? If not, why not?

AF: You are mixing immigration policy, i.e. decisions to let people into a country, with the edict, that is one of the Jews 613 commandments, of treating the stranger living among you with the same decency as someone born in the land. Treating , as you call them Mexicans (when Latinos come from all over central American and south America), as second class citizens, is wrong by our Jewish code. Jews should be working toward legislation to help those here, become legal, and develop perhaps, an Ellis Island type of immigration center, where those wishing to enter, can come first, to be examined, and get legal documentation, as it was 100 or so years ago, and not have this open border situation.

LA: Do you also believe that Israel should treat all the people who want to come into Israel that way?

AF: Again, you’re confusing politics with Judaism. Israel picks and chooses which Jewish laws it wishes to obey. It calls its self a ‘Jewish state’ but it is truly not. It is extremely secular and the Jewish education of Jews there, is at an all time low.

LA: That includes several million Palestinians who want to move to Israel. Do you favor letting them in? If not, why not?

AF: I have publicly spoken out on this question and my comments are published globally. In brief:

The right of individuals to their homes is primary and undeniable, and no amount of apologetics or global shuffling can eradicate it. The demand for the restitution of the refugees to their land indeed is seen by virtually all Israeli Jews as tantamount to the dismantling of the state of Israel, and the disintegration of Israeli Jewish society.

Yet, the lack of progress towards the resolution of this issue not only dooms Israelis and Palestinians to perpetual violent struggle, but also negates the basis of, and perhaps even de-legitimizes, the very existence of the state of Israel.

Judaism has a tool that must be activated for this situation: ta-ka-nat ha-sha-vim, the ordinance for a compassionate justice in the restoration of misappropriated property.

In order to encourage the thief to return stolen property, the strict rules of restoration that would require one who has misappropriated a wooden beam (and already used it to build a roof) to dismantle whatever the stolen beam has been used for and restore the very same beam, the Talmud allowed for the beam’s value to be paid.

In our case, we could use this principle to foster a gradual restoration of “Arab homes”—built by Palestinians before 1948 and involuntarily surrendered when the refugees were expelled——to the descendants of the original owners. It would maintain Jewish homes or neighborhoods built on expropriated or “abandoned” Palestinian land, as long as equivalent plots of land be given to the heirs instead.

Thus, ta-ka-nat ha-sha-vim applied as-sid-u-ous-ly but compassionately would work towards the restoration of Palestinian roots without revisiting trauma on Jews. The reciprocal relationship between inner peace and interpersonal peace requires us, as it does all religious leaders, to recognize the religious imperative to contribute to peacemaking.

LA: Also, the Torah commands Jews to treat the other exactly as you would treat yourselves.

AF: Correct

LA: Then it’s the Jews who should be caring for the illegals.

AF: My wife and I and my rabbi and our congregation does. This is an interpersonal thing.

LA: But you want everyone in America to follow the Jewish command of sacrifice for the other.

AF: No. My comments are to Barbara as a Jewess. And to Christians and Jews on her email list who will find that Jesus is teaching the same thing…as he was a talmudic rabbi. America is not a theocracy. As I Jew, I am commanded to ‘love my neighbor as myself, …and to reprove them when they are wrong, so that I remain sinless.” When I see a Jew, going off the Jewish beam, one who I have a relationship with, I have a Judaic obligation to inform him or her. Once I’ve done that, what he or she does, is between them and God, if they believe in God.

LA: Does the Torah command you to command non-Jews to follow Jewish law?

AF: The Torah doesn’t command me to command anyone to follow any law. I have an obligation to reprove, gently instruct. Once I’ve done that, Leviticus tells me, I am sinless. Barbara has been given her lesson in what a Jew’s obligation is to the stranger in her midst. If she wishes to take an ax and kill everyone of them, that’s on her.

LA: That you as an American would speak with such contempt for America and its laws, even boasting that you don’t care about the impact of illegals on America, is beyond disgraceful.

AF: I never said that. I don’t have contempt for America and its laws. Most of America’s laws are taken right from Judaic law. I do pray for those who are spiritually ill and so bigoted that they forget that America wasn’t even bought from those that lived here, was built on the backs of slave labor, and that for most of us, we came here, from some place else. My mother’s side came here, as Sephardic Jews and they didn’t go through immigration. I have contempt for no one. The Torah tells me not to hate and not to hold grudges. I do discern however. And I do work for justice, as we as Jews are taught, “justice, justice, shall you pursue” in our Torah.

LA: I spend a fair amount of fighting anti-Semites. But when I read a Jew writing as you do, boasting of his God-ordained contempt for America and its laws, and his command to force America to sacrifice itself for all the poor strangers in the world, it gets much harder to do that.

AF: Jews don’t need your help. You don’t understand true Judaism. So you’re defending most likely Jews who have strayed from Judaism. We have all the help we need from god almighty. In God we trust. Its even written on the paper money in your wallet. You’ve now been writing to a Talmudic scholar who is teaching you Judaism as it really is, and you say, you might not be able to fight anti Semitism. This means you only like Jews if they have assimilated and are no longer Jews. Hence you are an anti-Semite.

LA: Do you think that if America during the great wave of Jewish immigration …

AF: Which one? The one that started with the Spanish explorers in 1492? My family has been here longer than yours. My relative came here in 1733 and when Jews made up the majority of the city of Savannah. We let your family in.

LA: … had looked into the future and seen that the grandchildren of the immigrants would be talking like you, that they would have let all those Jews in? They would have thought, my God, if we let these people in, they will destroy our country. The Jews were let in on the assumption that they would be loyal citizens. But you boast of your indifference to America, its well-being, and its laws.

AF: Your anti-Semitism is really showing. Have you read Dershowitz’s Chutzpah? We Jews don’t kowtow to anyone anymore. If we Jews in 1733 Savannah knew what bores you right wing conservative so called Christians would be, would we have let you in? Most likely. We need someone to pray for.

LA: I only hope that for the sake of the Jewish people that you are not typical of Jews.

AF: Unfortunately, you are typical of an unlearned gentile, so I will pray for you. And unfortunately, Jews have become so assimilated in America, they don’t know what is right or wrong, Judaically. So if you meet Jews who have studied Talmud, Midrash and Torah, they will understand Judaism like I do. And if not, they will most likely be eating pork sausage with you on Christmas morning. You love the Jew when he acts like a pagan but hate the Jew when he acts like a Jew. I wonder now that I exposed you as the anti Semite you are, if Barbara will still call you ‘friend’ or if she will mount a protest in front of your home and send you back to church to learn about Jesus the Jew, who is your lord and savior?. There is nothing that I am saying that is not Jewish. And if you are told by a Jew that it is, ask him or her to show you such in our texts. These are not my opinions, but Judaism straight from our Talmud and Torah. And if you don’t like it, fine. But don’t go lying to me saying you fight against anti-Semitism. Next you’ll be telling me, you love Mexican food and hence love your Mexican neighbors. My prayers for you.

- end of initial entry -

Carl Simpson writes:

A very interesting and informative exchange between yourself and Allan Fleischman. My overall reaction is that this proves another axiom that you’ve posted at VFR—that Christianity by itself cannot be the basis for a country. Assuming everything Mr. Fleischman stated about Jewish law is correct, the same axiom (that religion alone is insufficient to sustain nationhood) appears to apply to Judaism as well.

If the Israel ever enacted the type of restitution he advocates, it would be destroyed as a nation in the space of a couple of months. Even if the returning “Palestinians” were all peaceful Christians or Buddhists, the Jews would soon be reduced to minority status in their own land. This is exactly the same argument one encounters from both Catholics and Evangelicals who favor open borders, BTW. While I can’t speak for the erroneous interpretation of scripture as far as Judaism goes, the Christians who take this position are ignoring other parts of scripture (like the tower of Babel, the entire establishment of Israel—including the Divinely ordained ethnic cleansing of Canaan, and others) in order to promote this utopian idea.

Since God established nations in addition to creating humans in his own image, who gave Mr. Fleischman and his utopian followers the authority to destroy and tear them down?

Another thing that struck me was Mr. Fleischman’s conflation of a small number of the “others” living among a majority population—the type of situation addressed by the scriptures he quoted—with a full scale, deliberate invasion, which is what is taking place on our southern border (as pointed out in your FrontPage Magazine article).

Though it repeats points I’ve made above, here for the sake of completeness is my e-mail reply to Mr. Fleischman:

LA to AF:

You keep rejecting my charge that you are indifferent to or contemptuous of the laws and well-being of the United States. But that charge was based on what you yourself said:

“… [for] those of the Jewish faith, the issue isn’t one of man’s laws being broken or not broken, followed or not followed, but … how we treat those among us who are strangers in a strange land, as ‘we’ were once strangers in a strange land as well … I am not looking at it as a USA legal issue … nor how illegals impact the USA. I am looking at it purely in spiritual terms…” [Italics added.]

Thus you said that this issue is not about man’s laws (i.e the laws of the U.S.), and you said you’re not looking at how the illegals affect the U.S. What that means is that you are looking at this solely from the point of view of Jewish law, regardless of the impact on the U.S. That is what I mean when I say that you are indifferent to and contemptuous of the laws and well-being of this country. Your own mouth condemns you.

Ironically, in denying my charge that you are indifferent to or contemptuous of America, you said that you care equally about all people and all countries without discrimination! Which means of course that you have no special concern about or loyalty to America. So my charge is correct. You live in this country, but your active loyalty is to the entire human race all of which must be treated equally, with no special concern or preference for your own country and its people.

Also ironically, in response to my charge that you do not respect the laws of the U.S., you said that of course you respect the laws of the U.S., unless they contradict the Talmud (namely the Talmud’s command to care equally for all strangers), in which case the Talmud must be followed. So it comes to the same thing. Since, as you interpret the Talmud, the laws of the United States do contradict the Talmud with its rule of radical egalitarianism extended to all humanity, therefore you do not respect the laws of the United States.

Your religious views would be as suicidal to Israel as they would be to America. They are incompatible with the survival of any human society. Your views are as antithetical to nationhood as those of the liberal Christians who interpret literally a couple of passages in the Bible as a mandate for open borders and total sacrifice to the other, ignoring everything in the Bible about God’s creation of distinct nations for men to live in. Yet your position is even more offensive than that of the liberal Christians, because of the arrogant way you boast of how Jewish Talmudic law supercedes the law of the United States.

And by the way, I am of Jewish background. I didn’t mention that before, because I don’t think that a person should get a special license to criticize Jews and be free of the anti-Semitism charge, just because he’s Jewish. If an argument is valid, it is valid regardless of who makes it.

Lawrence Auster

Paul Gottfried writes:

As someone who has studied Talmudic law, I am horrified by AF’s attempt to read liberal Christianity into rabbinic teachings. It is the height of dishonesty based on AF’s non-reading or gross manipulation of Jewish sources. Rabbinic law makes sharp and obvious distinctions between Jews and rov akum (the gentile multitude). No special ethical obligation is owed to gentiles, other than the duty not to break the “laws of their kingdom,” as long as Jews are forced to live there. Rabbinic law also instructs Jews to exterminate the descendants of the Amalekites and other Semitic tribes whom God commanded the ancient Hebrews to war down. If there is anything in Jewish law, as opposed to leftist reconfigurations of nineteenth-century Unitarianism, that requires Jews to welcome wetbacks into this country, I’m not sure where these revelations can be found. There are rabbinic and medieval Jewish glosses concerning the stranger or “ger” to whom Jews were urged to give hospitality. The conditions were extremely limited and referred to those who wished to assimilate to Jewish life and did not belong to the surrounding tribes that the Hebrews were supposed to treat as enemies. “Love thy neighbor as thyself” meant exactly as Jesus suggests it did, namely “try to get along with one’s fellow-Jews.” Note that I am not making value judgments when I bring up what ancient Jews really said. I am urging AF to speak for himself and to stop ascribing to our ancestors stupid things that are different from anything that they could have possibly meant.

Carl Simpson writes:

I just read Paul Gottfried’s analysis, which is very interesting indeed. Perhaps what’s going on is that Mr. Fleischman and open-borders Christians alike are really simply creating religious justifications for their Neo-Jacobin ideology (to borrow Dr. Gottfried’s excellent term).

LA replies:

Also, whatever Mr. Fleischman is, he’s not a “Zionist Jew,” since his egalitarian and universalist interpretation of the Talmud would mean the rapid demise of Israel. I mention this because so many anti-Semites single out the “Zionist Jew” as the primary threat to the West. Of course the threat to the West is not Zionism, which is merely nationalism for the Jews, but the opposite of nationalism, the liberal universalism which denies the legitimacy of all nations. This universalism is pushed by religous Christians, by secular people of Christian background, by secular Jews, and (as we now see from Fleischman’s example) by religious Jews. It is, we might say, a universal sickness of the West.

Allan Fleischman wrote back to me, and I replied to him with interspersed bolded text:

AF to LA:

I am not sure what you mean by “Jewish background.” Does this mean that you are Jewish and are hiding this fact in the “background,” or at one point your family was Jewish, but became apostates and converted away from Judaism?

There are those who are politicians. I am not one. And there are those who dwell and deal with the spiritual realm and live in this realm. To us, matters of politics and matters of countries are not worries for us, as we are astutely aware that our goal is working one on one with people, to light a candle rather than to sit in darkness. Understanding that we are all G-d’s children, equal children, I live my life, giving freely, knowing that G-d provides me all that I need. Matters of politics do not concern me. There are plenty of people to take care of that. Matters of morality and spirituality concern me. We do not have many speaking for this. That is not to say that one is a better path that the other.

[LA to AF: After having spoken at length about what America’s policy toward illegal aliens must be, you now turn around around and claim that you are not a political person, that you only care about spiritual things. Why then do you insist that America have a particular policy regarding illegal aliens? It’s obvious what you’re doing here. I caught you out in your anti-Americanism, and so you now claim that politics, nations, etc. is something you simply float above, because you’re such a spiritual person.]

I spent Passover in India with the Dali Lama and other world spiritual leaders. This is my realm. I pray and meditate each day and live a simple life. It doesn’t matter to me where I am, because G-d is my heavenly father. One of his many names in Hebrew is macomb, the place. Where ever I do holy acts in his name, is home to me. For the moment it is America. Last month it was India. Two months before a lead a Jewish spiritual group to Machu Picchu for a glorious shabbat of study and worship, and a few months before that, I spoke at 9 synagogues in the countries in the former Yugoslavia, along the Danube and at the new Holocaust center in Budapest.

[No wonder you don’t give a damn about the impact of illegal aliens on America. You have no particular attachment to America, it’s just a place you stop by in occasionally. Again, if that’s your view, you should be consistent and not take positions on American politics. But instead you want it both ways; claiming to be spiritual and above politics while simultaneously pushing the total acceptance of illegal aliens in this country and condemning other people as immoral or irreligious if they don’t agree with your POLITICAL position. What a PHONY you are.]

The things that you concern yourself with are not things that I do.

What you quote of me below is 100 percent correct. I look at things from a spiritual angle. How G-d wants us to behave. I am not worried about a Mexicanization of the USA. Most of the southwest and California was Spanish/Mexican to begin with, as was Florida.

[There you go again, talking about politics. I thought you took no interest in politics. Now it turns out that you have no problem with the Mexicanization of the U.S. That sure sounds like a political position to me—and about as anti-American a position as one could imagine.]

All countries have beginnings, middles and ends. Great Britain is no longer great, and the Roman Empire is no longer. The first one now will later be last. These are spiritual concepts. It is how I treat my fellow humans, of whatever creed or race, or whether they have papers or not, that I have to answer to my G-d.

[Not only do you not care about America, you don’t care about whether America survives or not, since, as you have put it repeatedly, all countries come to an end. Why do you keep emphasizing that point? It’s to say that nothing that happens to America or any country matters. In practical terms that means that if America is endangered by something, you won’t lift a hand to help it, because, after all, all countries come to an end anyway. In particular, if America is endangered by the very policies you are pushing, you won’t change your mind and pull back from those policies.]

By understanding Kaballah and reaching the godhead, and picking up the yoke of god, the Mishna teaches, all other yokes, including politics and government, fall from us.

I pay by taxes and abide by the laws. I don’t go quail hunting and shoot my friends, and I don’t go to war in foreign countries and give my friends big contracts. But I don’t fret about these issues either. These are dubious luxuries of political men.

[If you don’t fret about such “political” things as war, why do you mention it. Again, you’re a PHONY.]

G-d doesn’t get involved and neither do I. But, my wife and I are up each day, doing volunteer work for the needy, morning till night.

This doesn’t mean that I am contemptuous of the USA or of its laws. And the fact that I will aid an poor Indian as quickly as a poor American, doesn’t mean I love America less.

[You’re already established your indifference to the long-term survival of the United States.]

G-d doesn’t look at the globe with lines and colors on it, demarking nations, and neither do I.

[Oh, really? The Bible is filled God’s references to nations, most importantly the story of the Tower of Babel, where God makes it clear he wants men to live in distinct nations, not all blended together into one nation.]

Our temple in Jerusalem, had a ceremony each day, praying for all of the nations of the earth. I pray for all peoples each day and for G-d to bestow peace and his blessings on all humanity. That doesn’t mean I love the USA less. It just means my heart isn’t covered with a layer of stone as yours is, and there is room in my heart, for Americans , as well as even our so called enemies. This is living in the spiritual realm. This is living so that eventually, there is no “other.” As the “other” really is just a part of me. This may all be too heady for you as its not realpolitik. That is ok. But I live a life happy joyous and free and have no worries and no resentments and no enemies and no axes to grind.

My essays and books are all about peace and G-d’s mercy and love and forgiveness. I read some of your articles on the web. You’re about exclusiveness and protection and worries. I know G-d gives me everything I need so I can share it with, as you say, 40 percent of Mexico.

[Whoops, there you go again. You do have a POLITICAL preference—to let 40 percent of the Mexican nation immigrate to the U.S.]

You think what you have was gotten by your own hand, and that some brown hand will take it from you. Living with G-d, in the spiritual, allows me not to look at anyone as the “other” but as everyone as a “brother.” And again, my proof text is in the teachings of my people, Talmud, Torah, Midrash, etc, were written while most of the Founding Father’s forebears, were living in caves in Europe, raping and eating swine.

[Yes, from the way you talk about European gentiles, I can see that you really are a compassionate, loving person. Underneath your claims of spirituality and universal compassion, you are a HATER. Your description of the ancestors of the modern Europeans as raping and living in caves like animals is almost identical to the way the Black Muslims talk about them. And yes, your loathing of non-Jews eating pork is really universal.]

[In conclusion, if you were a typical Jew, you would be a walking advertisement for anti-Semitism. Fortunately for the Jews, for America, and for the world, you’re not typical.]

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2006 01:36 PM | Send