The Israel Test
Around the office last week we all had a good chuckle over the arrival of a book called The Israel Test whose promotional sheet advertises the book with the headline “WASP Prophet of Reaganomics calls Israel the crucial battlefield for Capitalism and Freedom in our time.” But it was just today that I started reading further. The argument turns out to be somewhat unusual in that it hinges in part on what chapter three dubs “The Tale of the Bell Curve,” in other words the innate genetic superiority of the Chosen People relative to the goyim. He offers some intriguing examples to illustrate this point beyond the familiar fact that Jews win lots of Nobel Prizes and are good at chess. For example:
Yes, there is a religious component in anti-Semitism, but there is also a political and economic element, reflected in the objective anti-Semitism of Karl Marx, Noam Chomsky, Friedrich Engels, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, and other Jewish leftist leaders who above all abhor capitalism. Jews, amazingly, excel so readily in all intellectual fields that they outperform all rivals even in the arena of anti-Semitism.
Alternative interpretations would include the possibility that Naomi Klein probably isn’t an anti-Semite, or even that when you combine belief Jewish genetic superiority with the fact of Jewish proclivity for left-wing politics that you seem to get the conclusion that left-wing politics is correct. Back to the publicity material, we learn that what’s so awesome about Israel is that it “concentrates the genius of the Jews in one place.” Which at least to my eye makes it sound a bit as if Gilder likes Israel in part because he wishes American Jews would leave him alone and go live there instead.
104 Responses to “The Israel Test”
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July 21st, 2009 at 2:36 pm
I’m going to go ahead and say that Jews do not, in fact, outperform all rivals in the arena of anti-Semitism. Once you start arguing that the majority of Jews hate their own ethnic group, it’s probably time to start reevaluating your definitions.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:40 pm
I think your eye has tinnitis.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Awesome. If the KKK ever got their shit together and put some Jews in charge, there’s no telling how powerful they’d be.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:41 pm
“to my eye makes it sound”? Really?
July 21st, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Which at least to my eye makes it sound a bit as if Gilder likes Israel in part because he wishes American Jews would leave him alone and go live there instead.
We all know what you’re trying to say here, but I think you’ve got your body parts and sense misaligned.
In a way, I’m happy this Gilder buffoon has so clearly laid out the “Agree with right-wing ideas or your an anti-semite” meme. Makes it easier to know what we’re dealing with here. What are the odds that this guy comes off crazier in person than he does in print (see, e.g. Horowitz, David)? I’m going to say they are quite good.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Gilder is a member of The “Discovery Institute”, which is to say, he’s a very stupid person.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
George Gilder really did go a new kind of crazy after the dotcom bubble burst, then.
Never mind that Israel’s social policies — welfare here, welfare there, welfare welfare everywhere — would make most supply-siders and Christian Zionist GOPpers cry.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Gilder: self-hating loonie.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Kantian antimonies are always in play no matter the identity or non-identity. But, one singularly brilliant Jewish artist who had a real problem with his landsmen was Stanley Kubrick. Of course, he pretty much operated in secret so some of his more outrageous opinions on “his people” are not well known.
July 21st, 2009 at 2:54 pm
So… Hitler was Jewish? If someone converts to Judiasm do they automatically get a ten point boost to their IQ? Do pork chops kill brain cells?
I’m actually more comfortable with some bigot writing a book about how us Jews are evil and control the world than I am with another bigot writing about how we’re superior to others.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Why do you think that is?
July 21st, 2009 at 3:07 pm
Man, if that were sarcasm, it would be really, really good sarcasm.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I’m actually more comfortable with some bigot writing a book about how us Jews are evil and control the world than I am with another bigot writing about how we’re superior to others.
It bothers me too because it implies that Jews are something other than normal human beings. It doesn’t take much after that to go from “all you guys are smart” to “all you guys are (fill in the blank)”.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:09 pm
I once thought Jews were smart too, but that was before so many of them became Zionists. These days a whole lot of them sound like psychos and drooling idiots.
Still, there are some smart ones out there: Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein…
PS. I understand that by the Nazi and Zionist criteria Karl Marx was indeed a Jew, but Friedrich Engels? What’s that all about? I haven’t heard this one…
July 21st, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I’m studying for the Jew test, any advice? ; )
July 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
As a speechwriter for Nixon, Gilder had a front row seat to real anti-semitism.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:19 pm
“Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/man_finally_put_in_charge_of
July 21st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Karl Marx wasn’t a Jew- his father was an ex-Jewish convert to Lutheranism. I was under the impression that converting to Christianity counts as apostasy and removes you and your descendents from the Jewish community.
Re: Do pork chops kill brain cells?
Given that pork can often carry various parasites, including some which attack the brain, this isn’t as dumb a question as it sounds.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Golly. Found this link from Guilder’s Wikipedia entry:
http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=3631
If he knows ten times as much about race or religion as he does about Claude Shannon and information theory, he’d still be dramatically useless. Guilder goes off about how evolution couldn’t work because biology is fundamentally a chemical process, and hence unreliable.
The whole POINT of Shannon’s theory is about how to reliably transmit information over an unreliable medium. He worked for Bell Labs, so he focused on he electromagnetic spectrum, but that’s a unreliable noisy analog medium as well. Shannon’s approach is a great framework to describe how evolution through chemical processes is possible, and the DNA ACGT structure makese complete sense as a mechanism in that context.
I couldn’t believe this guy was a broadly respected tech pundit back in the day, and it’s even harder to believe in retrospect.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:27 pm
As a Jew who knows many, many intellectually unimpressive fellow Jews, I have to say that this entire hypothesis is beyond ridiculous. Saying Jews are extra-smart is antisemitism just like saying Jews are extra bad people. Jews are like everyone. Some are smarter, some dumber. Some work hard and some laze at work reading blogs half the day . . . (I wouldn’t know any like the latter . . .)
July 21st, 2009 at 3:29 pm
I heard Gilder’s investment newsletter’s picks drove a lot of people’s portfolios into the dumpster. Anybody have news on this?
He should be humiliated by this. Instead, he pushes on. Totally pathological.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:36 pm
He was a prime example of the line “Anyone can make money in a bull market.” Same goes for most analysts in the late nineties.
Funny story: Down in Houston, there was a place near work that made a bad-ass pork chop for the Wednesday lunch special. One of the guys ordered it and the waitress actually asked him how he’d like it cooked.
When they ask you if you’d like to go get a cheeseburger say no.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:38 pm
I don’t say this very often, but Mr. Yglesias, that is a beautiful sentence.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Answer each question with a question.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Do pork chops kill brain cells?
That’s why I always force my pigs to chew their cud before I slaughter them.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:42 pm
Apparently he didn’t get the leaflet on famous Jewish sports legends.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:47 pm
And don’t call me Shirley.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:04 pm
To the extent that Jews have performed disproportionately well in certain intellectual pursuits like the sciences, comedy-writing, and chess, doesn’t this apply almost exclusively to Disapora Jews? Does anybody have a sense that a disproportionate number of Israelis are great writers or scientists or whatever?
Concentrating the genius of the Jews in one place perhaps worked well if that place is New York. Much less well if that place is Israel.
This suggests, I think, that Jewish success in the Diaspora in Europe and America has been largely environmentally, rather than genetically, determined.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:18 pm
If you read the genetic whackballs — or at least the one site I stumbled upon — Jews are so smart because that they got pushed into finance in the Middle Ages. It takes more brains to be a banker than to be a dumb German farmer with 20 kids. So, it isn’t Jews who are so smart, Ashkenazim are smart. Sephardim are just as dumb as the rest of us.
Which might explain some of the typos and proofreading problems.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:19 pm
This suggests, I think, that Jewish success in the Diaspora in Europe and America has been largely environmentally, rather than genetically, determined.
I believe George Gilder will be adding you to the list of anti-Semites.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Concentrating the genius of the Jews in one place perhaps worked well if that place is New York. Much less well if that place is Israel.
I read something many years ago about that very question. Why there were lots of great Jewish intellectuals, but not so many great Israeli intellectuals. The guy’s answer, IIRC, was the little boost that assimilation gave to the Jewish imagination.
Go figure.
July 21st, 2009 at 4:53 pm
These fellows make some good word processors and crackers.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Try making your own word processor and crackers. I’ll bet you can’t.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Matt,
If you ever want to progress past incoherent snark and actually learn anything about some of the central issues of the 20th Century, such as how and why Jews excelled in both capitalism and anti-capitalism, the book you must read is “The Jewish Century” by UC Berkeley historian Yuri Slezkine.
Here is the review in the Jewish weekly The Forward:
http://www.forward.com/articles/4225/
July 21st, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Slezkine’s 2004 book is about the three migration made by ambitious Jews from the Pale of eastern Central Europe. We’re all familiar with the one west to America and the one south to Israel, but Slezkine’s mother’s family made the third migration, the one east to Moscow and St. Petersburg, where they became officials in the Communist regime.
Slezkine explains why Communism appealed to so many Jews, such as his ancestors.
In 19th Century Europe, secularizing Jews believed they were hated because of religion, nationalism, and capitalism. Thus, the appeal of an atheist state that would eliminate discrimination based upon religion by eliminating religion. Second, nationalism proposed that every nation should have a territorial state, an idea the small minority of Jews who were active Zionists embraced. But most of the new Jewish intelligentsia of Eastern Europe felt that the solution to the Jews’ lack of a nation-state in a world obsessed with nationalism was the elimination of nationalism and its replacement by internationalism, which Communism promised. Moreover, Jewish intellectuals also believed they were hated because of the Jews’ tremendous talent for capitalism, which communism likewise promised to abolish.
Finally, many young secular Jews were in rebellion against their capitalist, religious, and particularist parents or grandparents, and communism promised them a final victory over their ancestors and all they stood for.
http://www.amazon.com/Jewish-Century-Yuri-Slezkine/dp/0691119953
July 21st, 2009 at 6:16 pm
If Gilder is correct, the US needs to retain and increase its competitive advantage by not only keeping the Jews it has, but 1) recruit *more* from overseas, and 2) concentrate them (bad choice of words) in NYC and LA for even greater productivity.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Yes, a group of people have spent the majority of their existence getting their asses handed to them is really the master race.
At least the skinheads have an actual history of victory to point to.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:25 pm
I gather Sailer is trying to demonstrate that left-wing Jews actually are anti-Semitic, otherwise his little tangent is wildly off topic. But Sailer is conflating dislike of the religion with dislike of the race. True anti-Semites consider anyone with Jewish ancestry a Jew, whatever your religion. Converts, like Karl Mark or Victor Klemperer, are just as Jewish to a George Gilder as Rabbi Schneerson is. Calling Russian Communist Jews “anti-Semites” is meaningless – they were just as harsh on Orthodox and Catholic believers as they were on Jews.
Another theory I’ve heard on why Israeli Jews seem so ordinary is that “Jewishness” in the West is really a far more fluid concept than people realize. In a place like New York smart successful goyim marry Jews and their children become culturally Jewish because it’s actually more prestigious in the North East, and maybe LA, to be Jewish than, say, Italian or Appalachian Scots Irish (two real examples I know). Unsuccessful Jews marry unsuccessful goyim and their children become goyim and drift away from Jewish culture. So “smart, rich” Jews is a self-fulfilling definition to some extent. You almost can’t stay Jewish in New York unless you’re fairly smart or good at business. Unless they are Hasidic or ultra Orthodox, the less successful Jews in the US just assimilate over time. In Israel they stay culturally Jewish because there’s no dominant culture to assimilate into.
July 21st, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Surprisingly enough, one of the proponents of the notion that Jews are smarter then everybody else was the late and unlamented founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell. In an interview with Playboy Magazine shortly before his demise, he propounded such a claim.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Re: So, it isn’t Jews who are so smart, Ashkenazim are smart. Sephardim are just as dumb as the rest of us.
Well, the Sephardim in Israel have a higher birth rate than Ashkenazim (and in fact, if I recall corectly, Orthodox Jews have a higher birth rate than Arabs). It would seem that the future belongs to the Sephardim.
Vanya,
Isn’t the relevant question who the _Jews_ consider to be Jewish? I don’t think that any Jewish religious association would consider Karl Marx- a Lutheran by birth and a freethinker by choice- to be a Jew.
Re: At least the skinheads have an actual history of victory to point to.
Really? Just what history of victory would you be referring to. Seems to me that Germany’s record in the Napoleonic Wars, WWI, and WWII is pretty pitiful. Hell, they can’t even maintain a decent fertility rate these days.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:11 pm
My last comment disappeared, and I don’t feel like retyping it; however I will note that this Jew actually did believe in Communism when I was 12-13 years old, and in my case it was primarily a reaction to moving from a poorish black neighborhood to a rich white one, and recognizing that all my classmates in the latter were a bunch of fucking idiots.
July 21st, 2009 at 7:31 pm
Vietnam era bodycount type victory? In terms of percentage of the population, WWII worked out pretty well for the haters.
July 21st, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Hector: Isn’t the relevant question who the _Jews_ consider to be Jewish?
Within the faith, yes. Minorities are largely locked out of a majority ethnic culture’s process for defining said minorities, even if the process is seriously flawed.
It doesn’t matter how many times the shade of Karl Marx shouts that he’s not a Jew, if the response is a dismissive “you’re all alike.”
July 21st, 2009 at 11:30 pm
Isn’t the relevant question who the _Jews_ consider to be Jewish? I don’t think that any Jewish religious association would consider Karl Marx- a Lutheran by birth and a freethinker by choice- to be a Jew.
By this criteria, Karl Marx is a Jew, at least according to Orthodox and Conservative Judaism. According to Halachic Judaism, if you’re mother was born a Jew (that means if her mother is born a Jew) then you’re a Jew no matter what you do afterwards. You can renounce your faith and ethnicity (whatever that means) and march around a Golden Calf all day in your Nazi uniform (for which you paid retail) listening to Wagner while eating a ham sandwich on Yom Kippur and you’re still Jewish.
I think that, according to Reform Judaism, if you convert to another religion, you’re out of the club.
According to the Israeli government, you are not a Jew under the Law of Return if you converted to another religion. I think the Orthodox Rabbinate’s definition holds true in all other matters, though.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:39 pm
So, it isn’t Jews who are so smart, Ashkenazim are smart. Sephardim are just as dumb as the rest of us.
Which might explain some of the typos and proofreading problems.
Are you referring to Matt? Because I’m pretty sure he’s Ashkenazi. I think he mentioned that three of his grandparents are from Eastern Europe.
Paradoxically, although the term “Sephardic” comes from the medieval Hebrew for “Spain”, most Sephardic Jews you come across today will not have Hispanic sounding names, but Semitic ones. And most of those Jews with Hispanic names will be Ashkenazim. This is because Iberian Jews were expelled during the Inquisition in 1492, and generally moved to the Middle East, where they eventually adopted Arabic or Hebrew names, or the Netherlands, or Central and Eastern Europe where, after a few hundred years, the Hispanic names typically gave way to those of Germanic or Slavic extraction. Between 1492 and today, however, many Ashkenazi Jews moved to Spanish or Portuguese speaking countries like Brazil, Argentina, Mexico and Cuba.
July 21st, 2009 at 11:41 pm
A further irony that his explains is that the Jewish surname “Ashkenazi” is exclusively employed by Sephardic families. (Ashkenazi, being a semitic word.)
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:14 am
Nobody would have expected a pretty informative comments section for this post.
Congratulations all.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 am
Jews are ’smarter’?…than who? Buffet? Gates? Plato?
Doesn’t look that way to me. Look, they’ve been run out of every country they ever lived in since time began (according to them), almost totally exterminated once already and now most of them support a batshit crazy Jewish country that has never been economically independent, has to have foreign aid to exist, would disappear tomorrow without US backup, is in constant war and violation of most international law and are currently about to suicide themselves by demanding aother ME war.
Explain to me how Jews are smart. I don’t see it.
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:20 am
Plato?
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 am
I mean, seriously, dude, at least give us Plato.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 am
Surprisingly enough, one of the proponents of the notion that Jews are smarter then everybody else was the late and unlamented founder of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell.
There’s nothing surprising about it. One doesn’t have to be an Einstein to understand that anti- and philo-semitism are manifestations of the same exactly phenomenon.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:21 am
Hector, the fact that white people more or less enslaves everyone else, stole all of their resources, and left their civilizations destroyed so thoroughly that many have STILL not gotten back on their feet.
Like it or not, for at least a couple of centuries white people managed to parlay a few fortuitous technological advantages which we stole or created into near world-wide domination.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:43 am
Soullite,
I thought you were refereing specifically to Germans. Don’t the skinheads normally view Germans as the master race, and venerate Hitler? It was that trend (stupid as well as evil) that I was referring to.
Richard Blanco,
Thanks for the correction- I was under the impression that formally converting to another religion did get you ‘removed’ from Judaism, but apparently not. (Thought it seems as though Marx would not have been allowed to emigrate to Israel).
Is there a special name for the Jews whose ancestor always lived in the Middle East but never in Spain? I’m thinking of the longstanding Jewish communities like those in Iraq, Yemen or Palestine.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:59 am
Re abb1
Gee, is Mr. abb1 telling us that Hitler was antisemitic because he considered the Jews to be superior? If so, his rhetoric certainly didn’t convey such a position.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:04 am
Thought it seems as though Marx would not have been allowed to emigrate to Israel
He most certainly would. Zionism is a typical savagery ‘Blut und Boden‘ secular ideology and the law of return is primarily based on ancestry, not religion.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:10 am
Hitler was antisemitic because he considered the Jews to be different, same as Gilder.
Smarter and more talented than the others – or more sly and insidious – that’s pretty much the same thing, a matter of framing.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:14 am
Re: He most certainly would. Zionism is a typical savagery ‘Blut und Boden‘ secular ideology and the law of return is primarily based on ancestry, not religion.
Don’t be dumb, Mr. Abb1. As Richard Blanco points out above, Israel’s Law of Return treats ethnic Jews who practise a non-Jewish religion as non-Jews, and denies them the right of return. Marx was raised a Lutheran before he became a freethinker, thus he would not be considered a Jew. The facts of the matter in this case are clear.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:22 am
As Richard Blanco points out above, Israel’s Law of Return treats ethnic Jews who practise a non-Jewish religion as non-Jews, and denies them the right of return.
It doesn’t. Richard Blanco is wrong.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:29 am
Re abb1
As is usually the case, Mr. abb1 is full of shit. Hitler considered Jews to be inferior, just like blacks, slavs, gypsies, etc.
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:33 am
Hektor:
I recalled the word Mizrahim being used for non-Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. Googled and found this bit in wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sephardi_Jews#Sephardim_and_Mizrahim
Glancing at it the definitions strike me as being about as complicated and contentious as “Jew.”
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:37 am
From the above link: “For example, Jews of Arabic-speaking backgrounds are sometimes referred to as Musta’arabim or “Arab Jews”, though for political reasons this last description is disputed.”
July 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 am
Hitler considered Jews to be inferior
But “inferior” is not synonymous with “stupid”. Nazi propaganda portrayed Jews as clever agents and leaders of capitalism and communism – just like Gilder – only to the Nazis these both concepts are inferior, and to Gilder only communism is inferior; capitalism is superior.
So: Gilder likes capitalism, Hitler doesn’t, their assessment of ‘the Jews’ is exactly the same.
July 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 am
On a fantastically depressing trip to the west bank several years ago I noticed that some of the Israeli conscripts at particularly dull postings were immigrant Ethiopian “jews”. I add the quotes because it was not uncommon for them to have crufix tatoos.
Very odd indeed and it strongly suggested to me that devout Judaism was not on the criteria for new immigrants.
I might add that the Ethiopians were more polite and easygoing than the majority of the heavily armed checkpoint children but that a visit to Hebron or Nablus will not make anyone into a fan of Israel who does not already hate Arabs and, in particular, Arab children.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:39 am
Is there a special name for the Jews whose ancestor always lived in the Middle East but never in Spain? I’m thinking of the longstanding Jewish communities like those in Iraq, Yemen or Palestine.
The broad term used is “Mizrahim” (Easterners, or Orientals), as godoggo said. However, as one can imagine, such Jews are often from widely disparate cultures, and don’t always appreciate being lumped together under one term, especially one which only takes into account how European you are. Many people lump Sephardim and Mizrahim into the same category, because for the most part they live in the Middle East anyway. Such lumping-together is especially common amongst Israelis, as those two groups form the lower Jewish economic strata of Israeli society, as compared to the Ashkenazim. The Jewish political party Shas, founded as a Sephardic party, represents both of them (and even has a small Arabic constituency).
The long-standing Yemenite community is called the Teimanim (Teiman is the Biblical Hebrew for Yemen). The Jewish Community of Palestine before the New Yishuv (1880s – onwards) tended to be made up of several different communities. I don’t think the Mizrahim were that strongly represented in the demographics, but there were communities of Sephardim (especially around Safed, in the north) and Ashkenazim (especially around Jerusalem and Hebron). Old communities from Jerusalem are called “Yerushalmi”, from, you guessed it, the Hebrew for Jerusalem – Yerushalayim. I don’t really know any other terms, but the various Middle Eastern Jewish communities typically have very different self-conceptions, although I imagine being all lumped together in Israel has a sort of melting pot effect.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:50 am
As Richard Blanco points out above, Israel’s Law of Return treats ethnic Jews who practise a non-Jewish religion as non-Jews, and denies them the right of return. Marx was raised a Lutheran before he became a freethinker, thus he would not be considered a Jew. The facts of the matter in this case are clear.
Well, I’m not so sure. (Sorry if I misled you.) Karl Marx is an interesting case because although he was raised Lutheran, I doubt he considered himself that much of a Lutheran, being generally not very predisposed to any religion at all. A hypothetical lawyer may argue that he never accepted the Lutheran faith and still had an ethnically Jewish parent. A Jewish atheist is still very much Jewish, according to even the Law of Return.
According to all branches of Judaism of which I am aware, returning to Judaism does not require any conversion ceremony. I don’t know the position the Law of Return takes on this. I suppose it’s possible for someone to return to Judaism, and be considered Jewish even according to the most strict definition of Orthodoxy, but, ironically, not under the secular state-derived Law of Return, based entirely on acceptance of religion.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:00 am
Regarding Gilder vs. Hitler understandings of Jewish intelligence.
I think Nazi ideology considered the Jews to be “clever” or “cunning”, in the sense of being manipulative or duplicitous. Although some intelligence is required for this, it wasn’t what the Nazis considered “true intelligence”. For instance, they valued creativity, which the Jews and other inferior races could not have.
So, the Jews are good at spreading the doctrines of communism and unrestrained capitalism because these are clever manipulative schemes that steal food from the mouths of Aryans. But they can’t be artists, or musicians, or leaders, or scientists or professionals because they lack the ability to be truly intelligent, in the pure, Aryan cultural sense, because they cannot be creative. And they cannot be creative because they are depraved, duplicitous, etc.
So, German Jewish artists like Mendelssohn or whoever, were not really artists, because they were stealing or perverting German music. Jewish art was depraved. And so on and so forth.
In short, whenever a Nazi refers to the cunning of the Jew, they don’t intend it as a compliment.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:03 am
George Gilder. Why read further?
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 am
Zionist law of return is based on Nazi Nuremberg laws. Religion has no relevance to it whatsoever, except for the provision in the law of return for converts to Judaism.
As far as the arts and stuff, this is, again, simply a matter of likes and dislikes. The Nazis didn’t deny that Jews can and do create art, they just called it ‘degenerate art’.
Again, both anti- and philo-semites agree that “the Jews” are different, not like the other human being. The only difference is that the philo-semites admire (at least some of) the outcome of these supposed special Jewish talents – and the anti-semites despise it, that’s all.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:07 pm
I think the sort of German anti-Semitism that Hitler ascribed to was basically mystical. Since Sailoresque eugenics were in fashion he tried to meld the two, but it was a pretty awkward fit.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:53 pm
And as much as I hate to provide ammunition for abb1 on account of him being so fucking obnoxious, unlike me, I think this is pretty interesting:
http://www.porges.net/JewsInVienna/5WasYounghitlerAntiSemite.html
“As late as 1930 Hitler talked extensively about the Jews’ ability to preserve their race by way of religion and strict rules, among them, the prohibition of marriages with non-Jews. Hitler directly continued list’s theories when he told Wagner: Through Moses the Jewish people received a rule for life and living one’s life that was elevated to a religion which was entirely tailored toward the essence of one’s race, and simply and clearly, without dogmas and dubious rules of faith, soberly and absolutely realistically contains what served the future and self-preservation of the children of Israel. Everything is geared toward the well being of one’s own people, nothing toward consideration of others. After further explanations, Hitler arrived at the conclusion that we. ..no doubt have to recognize with admiration this incredible strength of the Jews’ preservation of their race.
Hitler adopted Jewish “purity of race” as nothing less than a model for his own weltanschauung regarding the necessity of the racial purity of Aryans.”
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Of course Israeli Jews are going to not achieve as well as we Jews in the diaspora. The whole point of Israel — pace many on the left who think of Zionism as some sort of evil, colonialist plot — is to have a place where the Jewish people can form a nation just like anybody else!
So why should Israeli Jews in Israel be any different than British Anglicans in Britain, Roman Catholic Italians in Rome, Greek Orthodox Greeks in Greece or anywhere else?
That anti-Zionist lefties sometimes seem to think that whatever Israel does is part of some super clever plot indicates they’ve absorbed rhetoric about Jews that used to be limited to the likes of Gilder. That Israelis somehow think they are so clever (which is a destructive thing to think about yourself when you are in the position Israel is in) indicates they’ve absorbed too much anti-Semitic thinking too (and maybe then Gilder has a point).
Of course, you expect righty-tighties to indulge in a bit of anti-Semitism. But why certain Jews are comfortable with this “because at least they support Israel” is beyond me. Hearing said Jews congratulate themselves on being so clever for getting goyish support for Israel (there’s that anti-Semitic Jews are clever meme again) reminds me a bit of (if you’ll pardon the Godwining of this thread, but if not here, where?) anti-Communist Germans who didn’t mind the Nazis because they’d get rid of the Commies.
Newsflash to righty-tighty Jews — the goyim you are in bed with politically really don’t like you. Figure it out d00ds!
July 22nd, 2009 at 1:23 pm
…on 2nd look, that Hitler quote, as is so often the case, is kind of stupid, and not really relevant. But interesting!
July 22nd, 2009 at 2:06 pm
Pork is quite safe cooked medium rare. Modern pork is so lean that a well-done pork chop of any thickness is not going to make for a very pleasant eating experience at all.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Any culture they gave us Einstein, Dylan and the Marx Brothers is alright with me. Better than alright, perhaps superior.
July 22nd, 2009 at 3:45 pm
The notion that Jews are “clever in business” devious and especially smart has embedded itself in the culture of the western world. “To Jew” is a verb meaning to cheat someone in a transaction. Every ADL questionnaire on anti-Semitism reveals that 10 to 30% or more of the population of Europe believe that Jews are especially good in business because of our devious ways.
The facts of history are sadly different from the image however. Jews have been mostly poverty stricken throughout our exile, whether in Yemen, Ethiopia or Eastern Europe. The Jewish immigrants received at Ellis Island in the United States were so consistently ragged and underdeveloped, so seemingly dull witted, that racists were able to use them as examples to “prove” that intelligence is inherited and that Jews are racially inferior.
By now, one would think that every thinking person is familiar with the reasons for Jewish “success.” Evidently it is not so, so you will bear with me for repeating what you may know. Jews have achieved success in some fields out of proportion to our numbers, primarily because nobody else wanted to go into those fields. Because Jews were unable to own land in the Middle Ages, they became proficient in commerce and money changing, where literacy and knowledge of languages stood them in good stead. Therefore, some Jews were in a good position to benefit from the rise of commerce. Jews were excluded from leadership and even from employment in most of the major basic industries. Even in the United States, there are few Jews in the automotive industry. Denied entry to these employments, and generally possessed of little capital, Jews followed academic pursuits where there was relatively little competition, and where merit could sometimes overcome prejudice. Albert Einstein in Germany and Switzerland and Richard Feynman in the United States, as well many others, were able to succeed in the then obscure disciplines of physics, despite prejudice, because virtually nobody else was interested and good researchers and teachers were in demand. Likewise, shut out of other pursuits, Jews entered the infant movie industry.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Why has anti-Semitism been so pervasive in so many countries, in so many time periods and for so many reasons? (One begins to wonder. Perhaps there is something wrong with the Jews and Judaism? After all, there is an old Yiddish saying — “If one person calls you a donkey, ignore him; if two people call you a donkey, buy a saddle.”
Between the years 250 CE and 1948 CE – a period of 1,700 years – Jews have experienced more than eighty expulsions from various countries in Europe – an average of nearly one expulsion every twenty-one years. Jews were expelled from England, France, Austria, Germany, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, Bohemia, Moravia and seventy-one other countries.
Historians have classified six explanations as to why people hate the Jews:
1. Economic — “We hate Jews because they possess too much wealth and power.”
2. Chosen People — “We hate Jews because they arrogantly claim that they are the chosen people.”
3. Scapegoat — “Jews are a convenient group to single out and blame for our troubles.”
4. Deicide — “We hate Jews because they killed Jesus.”
5. Outsiders — “We hate Jews because they are different than us.”
(The dislike of the unlike.)
6. Racial Theory — “We hate Jews because they are an inferior race.”
As we examine the explanations, we must ask — Are they the causes for anti-Semitism or excuses for Anti-Semitism? The difference? If one takes away the cause, then anti-Semitism should no longer exist. If one can show a contradiction to the explanation, it demonstrates that the “cause” is not a reason, it is just an excuse. Let’s look at some contradictions:
1. Economic — The Jews of 17th- 20th century Poland and Russia were dirt poor, had no influence and yet they were hated.
2. Chosen People — a) In the late 19th century, the Jews of Germany denied “Choseness.”
And then they worked on assimilation. Yet, the holocaust started there. b) Christians and Moslems profess to being the
Quote:
“Chosen people,”
yet, the world and the anti-Semites tolerate them.
3. Scapegoat — Any group must already be hated to be an effective scapegoat. The Scapegoat Theory does not then cause anti-Semitism. Rather, anti-Semitism is what makes the Jews a convenient scapegoat target. Hitler’s ranting and ravings would not be taken seriously if he said,
“It’s the bicycle riders and the midgets who are destroying our society.”
4. Deicide — a) the Christian Bible says the Romans killed Jesus, though Jews are mentioned as accomplices (claims that Jews killed Jesus came several hundred years later). How come the accomplices are persecuted and there isn’t an anti-Roman movement through history? b) Jesus himself said, “Forgive them [i.e., the Jews], for they know not what they do.”
The Second Vatican Council in 1963 officially exonerated the Jews as the killers of Jesus. Neither statement of Christian belief lessened anti-Semitism.
5. Outsiders — With the Enlightenment in the late 18th century, many Jews rushed to assimilate. Anti-Semitism should have stopped. Instead, for example, with the Nazis came the cry, in essence: “We hate you, not because you’re different, but because you’re trying to become like us! We cannot allow you to infect the Aryan race with your inferior genes.”
6. Racial Theory — The overriding problem with this theory is that it is self-contradictory: Jews are not a race. Anyone can become a Jew – and members of every race, creed and color in the world have done so at one time or another.
Every other hated group is hated for a relatively defined reason. Jews, however, are hated in paradoxes: Jews are hated for being a lazy and inferior race – but also for dominating the economy and taking over the world. Jews are hated for stubbornly maintaining our separateness – and, when we do assimilate – for posing a threat to racial purity through intermarriages. Jews are seen as pacifists and as warmongers; as capitalist exploiters and as revolutionary communists; possessed of a Chosen-People mentality, as well as of an inferiority complex. It seems that Jews just can’t win.
Now we know what are NOT the reasons for anti-Semitism.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Lloyd George stated in 1923:
Quote:
“The uniqueness of anti-Semitism lies in the fact that no other people in the world have ever been charged simultaneously with alienation from society and with cosmopolitanism, with being capitalistic exploiters and also revolutionary communist advocators. The Jews were accused of having an imperious mentality, at the same time they’re a people of the book. They’re accused of being militant aggressors, at the same time as being cowardly pacifists. With being a Chosen people, and also having an inferior human nature. With both arrogance and timidity. With both extreme individualism and community adherence. With being guilty of the crucifixion of Jesus and at the same time held to account for the invention of christianity.”
- A speech about the irrationality of anti-Semitism
by professor Michael Curtis, of Rutgers University, 1987
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Anti-semitism only exists in Christian cultures, so ‘deicide’ obviously is the underlying reason. Nazism is a different story, an exception; that was a clear case of scapegoating.
July 22nd, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Wow. A superior race that should be supported against the encroachments of inferior ones???
Adolph Schickelgrueber would be so proud.
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:48 pm
I read a couple really good books about the roots of antisemitism, which I keep plugging without much success, as far as I know. The author is James Parkes, who was a Christian theologian who first became interested in the topic around the time the Nazis were coming to power. Anyways, his first 2 books, “Conflict of the Church and Synogogue,” and “The Jew in the Medieval Community” gave what I thought was a convincing explanation of how and why anti-Jewish attitudes hardened over the 1st millennium of the common era. Also, a little book he wrote in the early ’60s called “A History of the Jewish People” nicely summarizes the 1st two books and takes the story up to the then-current era, although it loses a couple points for predating by a couple decades the work of the New Historians that detailed the nastier stuff Israel did as part of its founding. At the moment I don’t feel much like summarizing the causes of antisemitism according to these books, but suffice to say that they’re more complicated than “deicide.”
July 22nd, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Oh, yeah, forgot to mention, I think his theological training was relevant because in provided him with the linguistic skills to deal with lots of old texts (in fact the main problem with that first book is that it’s sprinkled with annoyingly untranslated quotes in Greek, Latin, French, and German).
July 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Re: Anti-semitism only exists in Christian cultures
I was not aware that such noted antisemites as the late and unlamented Hitler, Stalin, Antiochus Epiphanes, and Nietzche were Christians.
July 22nd, 2009 at 7:55 pm
Nietzsche?
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Just to be on the safe side, get a whole pork shoulder and slow cook it in a smoker for 12 hours. There’s enough fat so it won’t dry out when you get it to a higher temperature.
More importantly, it’s sacrilicious.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Anti-semitism only exists in Christian cultures, so ‘deicide’ obviously is the underlying reason.
I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Unless the Middle East is an exclusively Christian world.
Fact is, you’ll find antisemitism, or traditions of antisemitism, wherever you have or had significant Jewish populations. There’s nothing remarkable about antisemitism, or its history. In a Europe where everyone either believed in Jesus or didn’t, Jews were the other. The alien in the midst of the camp. And not an alien that was ever concentrated enough in one place (or really that attached) to make a stand and say, “No, you leave!” So, a community would be forced to move, and usually be allowed in elsewhere, and the process would repeat itself. When you’re barred from assimilation (either de jure, or de facto), and you are not allowed to band together in great enough numbers to create your own nation-state or society, you become an eternal minority. When you reconcile yourself to forever being a minority at the mercy of a majority populace, all you can do is shuffle off to the next ghetto.
July 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 pm
The best thing about the internet is that it proves the maxim that a little learning is a dangerous thing.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:09 am
I guess I will have to eventually summarize what was in those books to show why I disagree with pretty much everything in Blanco’s comment, but I kind of feel like shit at the moment. We’ll see.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:15 am
Hmm, I was going to copy and paste from my blog (which is under a different fake name), but the poste seems to have disappeared. I know there’s some shithead out there who’s been implying that I’m a Nazi, so presumeably Blogger removed it…
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:22 am
Correction: the posts are still there, but I don’t want to copy and paste after all…maybe I’ll get back on this. But better yet, read some Parkes.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 am
BTW, in case I don’t get back to that: I know it annoys people when I leave them hanging like that, and I apologize, but I really do feel like shit.
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 am
Richard Blanco,
the fact is, there is no, and has never been any anti-semitism in the middle east (except, perhaps, for some christian communities in the middle east), or anywhere outside christian cultures. There are, of course (and I’m sure have been before) conflicts of a political nature, but that is not anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is a purely christian phenomenon.
The more you comment here, the more it appears that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
July 23rd, 2009 at 3:18 am
No fun to hang around
Feeling that same old way
No fun to hang around
Freaked out for another day
July 23rd, 2009 at 7:26 am
As the husband of a Jew and father of 2 Jews, I’m not sure that the idea of the Jews being G_d’s special people has really served them well. Every tribe has a creation myth that places themselves at the center of the Universe and makes them the apple of G_d’s eye. When you are a small minority, emphasizing your uniqueness makes it easy for larger and more powerful tribes to marginalize you, a Newtonian (non-Jew) action-reaction kinda thing. Rome didn’t pee all over Jerusalem in 70 C.E. because it was an important place, it got peed on because it was a pain in the ass due to its insistence on its “speoialness”. On one hand, nobody has a monopoly on either good ideas or wrong ones. On the other hand, if Jews do run the financial and media worlds, that sounds like the guys I want to be real good buddies with…Shalom! But if G_d’s preferences are revealed by the stats, She/He’s clearly put His/Her chips down on the Han. reedsch at hotmail
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 am
“He offers some intriguing examples to illustrate this point beyond the familiar fact that Jews win lots of Nobel Prizes and are good at chess. ”
But weren’t smart enough to run away from the Nazis? How do you square that circle? They’re so talented they even exceed the rest of the world in the business of being annihilated?
Gilder sure does seem to be better than the average bear at bigotry.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:30 am
the fact is, there is no, and has never been any anti-semitism in the middle east (except, perhaps, for some christian communities in the middle east), or anywhere outside christian cultures. There are, of course (and I’m sure have been before) conflicts of a political nature, but that is not anti-semitism. Anti-semitism is a purely christian phenomenon.
Then I guess we need to define terms. How is the anti-Semitism evinced by Christian communities qualitatively different from hatred of Jews in other places? Oh sure, I doubt Muslims would be as upset with Jews for killing Jesus, but why is hatred for Jews in, say Muslim lands, only of a political nature, and not anti-Semitism? How do you define politics? Was hatred of Jews in Europe not of a political nature as well? Why is political hatred against an ethnicity or religion not racism? Why is it when an ethnic group (and not just “Zionists”) is called the products of pigs and monkeys, that is not racism? Because it’s motivated by political interests? As opposed to who? The Nazis didn’t hate Jews politically? The Soviets didn’t hate Jews politically? The Ukrainian peasants and Cossacks didn’t hate Jews politically? The Church didn’t hate Jews politically? Or was their enmity pure Christiness? No other religions can quite pull it off?
Unless, of course, you’re defining anti-Semitism as the hatred of Christians against Jews. I have no idea why, though.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
The more you comment here, the more it appears that you have no idea what you’re talking about.
Well, I was always rubbish at statistics, so I’ll keep commenting. That should convince you otherwise.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Still not going to deal with Blanco, because too much work (Read Parkes!!!!), but, really, aab1, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are widely believed in the Middle East, Holocaust denial is common (and if you’ve ever read any HD lit, it all depends on the sort of typical antisemitic conspiracy theories), the blood libel is widely believed, Nazi-inspired imagery is common in Arab propaganda, etc. If this isn’t antisemitism, the sky is green. Anyway the difference between aab1 and me is that I know enough to know that I don’t know very much, and he doesn’t.
July 23rd, 2009 at 12:19 pm
but why is hatred for Jews in, say Muslim lands, only of a political nature, and not anti-Semitism?
There hasn’t been any hatred for Jews (except for a natural reaction to Zionist colonization effort) in any Muslim lands, that’s why.
People hated and, occasionally, abused and persecuted ethnic Germans in the US during the WWI and WWII, but that’s nothing like anti-semitism.
July 23rd, 2009 at 1:30 pm
There hasn’t been any hatred for Jews (except for a natural reaction to Zionist colonization effort) in any Muslim lands, that’s why.
This is difficult to parse. Are you saying that the hatred of the Jewish people (by those in Muslim lands) is only confined to those involved in the Zionist colonization project, and is therefore, not racism, because it is limited to those of specific political beliefs? Or are you arguing it’s not antisemitism if it’s a “natural reaction”? Or both? I’d argue with both assertions.
People hated and, occasionally, abused and persecuted ethnic Germans in the US during the WWI and WWII, but that’s nothing like anti-semitism.
It sounds exactly like antisemitism. Just, instead of Jews, it’s Germans.
Are you trying to make a larger point that antisemitism is, by definition, some inexplicable hatred of Jews for which no one can find any reason? That, if the reasons for the hatred can be articulated, it is no longer antisemitism? I’m not getting your argument. You yourself have stated that only Christian communities can be guilty of antisemitism, because only they believed in the charge of deicide. So? Deicide is a reason, isn’t it? Why doesn’t Christian antisemitism fall into your category as a “natural reaction” to the Jewish deicidal effort?
July 23rd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
I’m not a huge Memri fan, but they do provide some useful materials. I think this article on antisemitism in the Islamic world is pretty good:
http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sr&ID=SR2604
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Yes, I think I would define antisemitism as centuries-old irrational hatred of Jews that exists in Christian societies and is originated from the Christian dogma of Crucifixion and the role of ancient Hebrews in it.
It’s a very specific phenomenon and that’s why it deserves a special word while the hatred of guys named Fritz in circa 1914 USA doesn’t.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Yes, I think I would define antisemitism as centuries-old irrational hatred of Jews that exists in Christian societies and is originated from the Christian dogma of Crucifixion and the role of ancient Hebrews in it.
It’s a very specific phenomenon and that’s why it deserves a special word while the hatred of guys named Fritz in circa 1914 USA doesn’t.
Well, that seems an absurdly narrow definition. Does it have any scholarly basis, because that’s not the way most people understand the term?
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Well, that is how I defind the term. Which allows me to avoid endless absurd pontifications exhibited earlier in this thread, from #76 down. I like that.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
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