Peter Beinart, the former editor of The New Republic, laments the failure of the American Jewish establishment to present the universalizing, leftist, secular side of Israel to young Americans whose interest in Israel is small compared to that of their elders. His New York Review of Books essay contains no new information. He bases his view on Frank Luntz’ 2003 polling data of Jewish college students, which I had discussed a year ago in a First Things essay entitled ”Jewish Survival in a Gentile World.” Young, secular Jews (as well as young Reform Jews, if you can find any) don’t care about Israel. They lack the impulses of their secular parents, who came from a religious world and still maintain Jewish loyalties.
So what else is new? And why should we care? Beinart cares, because the ground he occupies is shrinking. He identifies with secular Zionists of an older generation:
These Jews embraced Zionism before the settler movement became a major force in Israeli politics, before the 1982 Lebanon war, before the first intifada. They fell in love with an Israel that was more secular, less divided, and less shaped by the culture, politics, and theology of occupation. And by downplaying the significance of Avigdor Lieberman, the settlers, and Shas, American Jewish groups allow these older Zionists to continue to identify with that more internally cohesive, more innocent Israel of their youth, an Israel that now only exists in their memories.
Beinart offers a condescending glance at the “warmth” and “learning” of Orthodox Jews, but neglects to mention the most startling factoid in Jewish demographics: a third of Jews aged 18 to 34 self-identify as Orthodox. “Secular Jew” is not quite an oxymoron–the Jews are a nation as well as a religion–but in the United States, at least, secular Jews have a fertility barely above 1 and an intermarriage rate of 50 percent, which means their numbers will decline by 75 percent per generation. It is tragic that the Jewish people stand to lose such a large proportion of their numbers, but they are lost to Judaism in general, not only to Zionism. That puts a different light on the matter.
Jews comprise just 2 percent of the American population and our voting patterns are of small importance except in very close elections in New York and Florida. Nonetheless the State of Israel is an issue of impassioned importance for a very large number of Americans, including evangelical Christians who comprise a little less than a quarter of the electorate. Their support for Israel includes an important religious component, and they are far more interested in the minority of observant Jews than the mass of secular or lightly-affiliated Jews, who are overwhelmingly liberal.
American support for Israel is running at all-time highs in the Gallup and other opinion polls, thanks to Christian support for the Jewish State–and no thanks to Jewish liberals. The secular Zionists with whom he identifies “aren’t reproducing themselves.
Their children have no memory of Arab armies massed on Israel’s border and of Israel surviving in part thanks to urgent military assistance from the United States. Instead, they have grown up viewing Israel as a regional hegemon and an occupying power. As a result, they are more conscious than their parents of the degree to which Israeli behavior violates liberal ideals, and less willing to grant Israel an exemption because its survival seems in peril. Because they have inherited their parents’ liberalism, they cannot embrace their uncritical Zionism. Because their liberalism is real, they can see that the liberalism of the American Jewish establishment is fake.
Liberalism assumes that clever and and enlightened people can engineer happy outcomes for everyone. The notion that some peoples fail of their own deficiencies is anathema to liberalism, whose premise is that enlightened intervention can solve all the problems of any society. That is what Jewish college students are taught.
It certainly is getting harder and harder to be both a liberal and a Zionist. To support a Jewish state on purely secular grounds is the conceit of generations that long ago faded away. There is no more illiberal notion than the Election of Israel. To a generation whose heart bleeds for every endangered species, the prospect that peoples may perish of their own cultural failings is an unthinkable, horrendous, nightmarish proposition.
Nonetheless Israel’s position is stronger than ever in the hearts of Americans. The Orthodox may be fewer in number, but more young Americans are spending time in Israel, studying in Israel, and moving to Israel than ever before. The rapid growth of the young Orthodox Jewish population is making an impact on Israeli demographics (which are in excellent condition due to a fertility rate of nearly 3), and will make an increasing impact over time. Skullcaps are multiplying on American college campuses, and many of them sit on heads that spent a year before college at an Israeli yeshiva.
In absolute numbers, the support of young American Jews for Israel is stronger than it ever has been. Zionism is in no danger. The entity that is in trouble is Jewish liberalism.
That is what Beinart mourns: he espouses
a different Zionist calling, which has never been more desperately relevant. It has its roots in Israel’s Independence Proclamation, which promised that the Jewish state “will be based on the precepts of liberty, justice and peace taught by the Hebrew prophets,” and in the December 1948 letter from Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and others to The New York Times, protesting right-wing Zionist leader Menachem Begin’s visit to the United States after his party’s militias massacred Arab civilians in the village of Deir Yassin. It is a call to recognize that in a world in which Jewish fortunes have radically changed, the best way to memorialize the history of Jewish suffering is through the ethical use of Jewish power.
In fact, the left wing of Zionism just had its moment in American history. If you blinked, you missed it. J Street, the leftist “pro-Israel” alternative to the mainstream American Jewish organizations, persuaded President Obama–or so one hears from the Israeli government–that if it put pressure on Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, it could force him out and bring in a more amenable government. This effort failed miserably; Obama has ensured that Netanyahu will be prime minister for a very long time, and only served to make J Street’s friends in Israel look like rag dolls.
Beinart’s view prevailed at the White House, and resulted in a humiliation for the President, a humiliation so profound that Rahm Emanuel was hauled out to convene a group of rabbis and acknowledge that his boss had “screwed up the message” in dealing with Israel. After the fact, his lament reads less like a program than a eulogy for the liberal Zionism of the past.
May 17th, 2010 | 3:38 pm
It’s hard to remember the time when Jewish liberalism made any sense and actually served a purpose, and I’m not even that old (yet). One really has to go back to Europe of the 19th century or no later than 1950′s America to grasp why Jews ever became so identified with secular liberalism in the first place. There was a reason, though, and a good one, but in another place and another time.
We live in a different world than that which produced WWII, the Holocaust and widespread antiSemitism in all social classes. Antisemitism in the Western world now largely exists among effete leftists and liberals, and proZionism and sympathy for Judaism exists most among devout Christians. This is a shocking turn around from years ago, but why should anyone be surprised? At the beginning of the 20th century, Communism and socialism looked like they would be the most successful of the secular ideologies, while Zionism seemed the most likely to fail miserably. In fact, Zionism enters the 21st century as a great success while communism has been an ignominious failure, and the EU looks set to collapse.
Secular/liberal Jews of the sort that Beinart might be nostalgic for bet on the wrong ideology and on the wrong world view. Shocking as it may seem, Jewish particularism has survived, both the Holocaust and the culture of assimilation. The prophets of ancient Israel must be smiling.
May 17th, 2010 | 4:35 pm
This is an excellent commentary on a subject dear to my heart. However, I am going to go off on a subject unrelated to the subject and comment on your use of the word “factoid.” I originally learned the word in National Review, maybe 30-some years ago. It meant then a bit of information that seems like a fact and poses as a fact but is actually false. Hence the suffix “oid,” which means resembling or trying to counterfeit, but not the same as. Think of asteroid and android.
It’s a useful word in its original meaning and I can’t understand why that meaning was lost; now it synonymous with “fact” so it might as well not exist. I’m hoping someone will be moved to revive its original meaning.
May 17th, 2010 | 4:43 pm
Ellen,
Those are excellent points which I should have made in the original post, thanks. Beinart wrote as if his concern was for the wellbeing of Zionism–which as you say is doing better than ever before–whereas in fact he mourns the demise of his own ideology.
May 17th, 2010 | 6:11 pm
Oh, those silly young secular American Jews who don’t realize that peoples occasionally fail of their own accord and should be helped along by means of settlement policies that keep them from building viable states.
Unless, of course, HaShem happens to be on their side. Then, such a nation deserves billions of dollars in subsidies just like the U.S. puppet states in Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan. Only, if HaShem has already given them the entire land, then they need pay no heed to the interests of their benefactor, unlike those kowtowing Mohammedans.
I can understand the rejection of liberalism and universalism on a religious level, but when it extends the political impulse to give Israel a free pass to do whatever it will with my tax dollars, then I worry. So sad that Rahm Emmanuel feels the need to grovel before these rabbis when they should be thanking him, Biden, and Obama for their patience. But I suppose that Zionists still have the political power to “humiliate” their own financial supporter. Why that is so, I have no idea (other than that Obama needs to grow a backbone).
May 17th, 2010 | 6:29 pm
I am saddened to see many of my liberal Jewish friends lack the ability or the desire to strongly defend Israel. Their brains though have for so many years been bombarded with moral relativism and squishy internationalism that when times get tough they simply give up.
The solution is for young Jews to read and have a better understanding of the Tanakh and of actual Judaism. Most young, Jewish liberals I know don’t really practice Judaism and don’t ever read the Tanakh. I myself grew up religiously conservative, had parents who were very involved with Jewish causes and always strongly identified with and defended Israel. But after my Bar Mitzvah, I spent less and less time actually practicing or understanding Judaism. While my parents, grandparents and family always put the spark of Judaism in me and would always ensure that at some point I would become more observant, I credit Chabad, Dennis Prager and Spengler and his forum for leading me back to the Tanakh.
I also think it is interesting in a way that I married a modern orthodox girl. Although I was always a Republican and a proud Jew, most of my high school and college friends would not have picked me to marry a modern orthodox girl. But I think I realized that if I married a secular Jewish girl it could eventually spell the end of my family’s Jewishness. Secular Jews have largely stopped practicing Judaism.
Ellen — It is great to see you posting here. I think I speak for the whole forum when I say that we very much miss your posts.
May 17th, 2010 | 8:44 pm
Thanks Dodger. I actually feel a bit nostalgic for the old Jewish left myself, for the people Irving Howe wrote about in his masterpiece, ‘World of Our Fathers’. Those were the real idealists and people who believed social democracy and liberalism would bring a better world, for all, including the Jews as individuals AND as a community.
By the time of my childhood in the 1960′s, that sort of leftwing Jewish idealism had already rotted on the vine and produced the condescension, hypocrisy and lack of Jewish commitment that became the stereotypes of Jewish liberalism. I grew up surrounded by it, and was nauseated by the whole shtick, which is all that it ever was – a grand production for the benefit of the gentile audience.
Religious Jews have their own negative tendencies too, such as too much parochialism and small-mindedness, but Judaism is a strong foundation for a noble community, and the defects of the community can be corrected over time. Jewish liberalism spells the end of Jewish community totally since it always places the pleasures of the individual as more important than the needs of the community. Hence, it becomes a suicide pill. Jews ultimately must face up to this contradiction, and either Jewish liberalism will disappear or the Jewish community will. I think we already know which entity is going to disappear first, as David Goldman pointed out.
May 17th, 2010 | 10:23 pm
I was born after WWII and the 1967 war, but I have always wondered why Israel was created in the Middle East. Was there ever any consideration that Israel should have been created out of a part of Germany after WWII? After all, the Jewish State really came into modern existence after WWII, and the main anti-semites were Nazi Germans. Why weren’t several hundred square miles partitioned off in Germany to found the Jewish state?
Tying a modern Israel to the land of the Old Testament covenants seems so unwise in retrospect.
I think internal Arab population growth will be the key to Israel’s undoing, and this would not have happened if Israel were built in Germany and not on land stolen from people whose ancestors stole the land from the Jews whose ancestors were given the land by God even though there were others already on it.
Two sensitive topics – religion and real estate – collide in discussions of Israel.
Having said that, of course we should do everything possible to help Israel survive and thrive. This mission is part of the collective atonement of the whole world for thousands of years of anti-Semitism culminating in the Nazi regime. I just wish it weren’t in the Middle East.
May 18th, 2010 | 7:09 am
Novice, you are a novice and a know nothing. Anyone who understands the connection between the people of israel and the land of Israel would never ask why Israel was created in Judea and Shomron. The purpose of the Palestine Mandate was to reconstitute the Jewish homeland as it was thousands of years ago. The connection between Jerusalem and Judaism has always existed and was also recognized by Napolean. So why don’t you become knowledgeable in Jewish history and religion to save you from asking stupid questions.
May 18th, 2010 | 8:02 am
In the mid-80′s few thought that the fall of the soviet union would come so soon. The two state solution is upon us because Europe, Russia and the US are in favor of it, and China is not against. Israel will secure its boarders and adopt similar immigration policies to that of the US.
Liberal Jews aren’t born. They evolve so the conservative projections for their numbers are low. Right now Iran is giving conservative Jews an edge. Take away that edge and liberal Jews will greatly increase in numbers again. Don’t short the liberals especially if Iran starts shipping its uranium abroad.
May 18th, 2010 | 12:29 pm
[...] Judaism won’t eventually melt away into something that’s basically post-Jewish. As First Things’s David Goldman notes, responding to Beinart: … [the essay] offers a condescending glance at the “warmth” and [...]
May 18th, 2010 | 1:12 pm
Goldman wrote: Beinart offers a condescending glance at the “warmth” and “learning” of Orthodox Jews, but neglects to mention the most startling factoid in Jewish demographics: a third of Jews aged 18 to 34 self-identify as Orthodox.
Beinart wrote: According to a 2006 American Jewish Committee (AJC) survey, while Orthodox Jews make up only 12 percent of American Jewry over the age of sixty, they constitute 34 percent between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.
Unless Goldman’s castigating Beinart for leaving out the 24–34 year olds, better reading comprehension needed.
May 18th, 2010 | 2:27 pm
The math is problematic and misleading as well. I assume that your remarks about intermarriage assume that the children of non-jewish mothers are not jewish. However, as slightly more than half of all jews are women, intermarriage actually increases the number of jews.
You might also mention that a fertility rate of more than one is increasing the size of the population (and is on a par with many european nations), rather than decreasing it as you suggest.
Back to basic arithmetic!
May 18th, 2010 | 2:34 pm
Um, Greg, every baby born is, I suppose, and increase in population. But until men can have babies, the minimum population-replacement rate is around two babies per woman, not one. If women have only 1 baby each, the population will be halved in the next generation.
May 18th, 2010 | 4:08 pm
And I might have repeated the often-cited fact that the overwhelming majority of children of intermarriage between Jews and Gentiles lose their Jewish identity.
May 18th, 2010 | 5:08 pm
Um, Joseph. The statistic cited is (an average) of one child per person, not per woman. That is (most likely) an average of two per woman, and 0 per man.
And David, oft-cited is not the same as fact (source please). My anecdotal experience (which includes myself) is that children tend to adopt the religion of their father. There is, in fact, a theory based on genetic markers, that the Askenazi is, at source, completely patrimonial. That would represent quite an expansion of the jewish population as a result of intermarriage.
May 18th, 2010 | 8:06 pm
Novice, Israel was created in the Middle East as the Jewish people, which constitutes a people under international law, remained a Middle Eastern people in diaspora, and attached to its historic homeland is in the Middle East. The location of its foundation is not related to the location of antisemites as its foundation is authorized, not by antisemitism, but by the international laws on the self-determination of peoples. Similarly, your assertion that Israel’s flourishing is “the collective atonement of the whole world for thousands of years of anti-Semitism culminating in the Nazi regime” is, perhaps, a policy you would like to promote, but is certainly unrelated to anyone’s obligation under international law, which is only to accord the Jewish people the same collective rights as any other people, and to treat Israel in a manner that is equitable having regard to the treatment of other states.
May 19th, 2010 | 11:07 am
[...] notice that a peculiar piece of datum from First Things contributor David Goldman is being passed around, repeated by Ross Douthat no less. Goldman states: Beinart offers a [...]
May 19th, 2010 | 12:00 pm
Mr. Goldman, Your last paragraph asserts “Rahm Emanuel was hauled out to convene a group of rabbis and acknowledge that his boss had “screwed up the message” in dealing with Israel.”
According to the Jerusalem Post “Jack Moline, a Conservative rabbi at Congregation Agudas Achim in Alexandria, Virginia, initiated the two meetings” at the White House. JP also reports ” The meetings were part of a charm offensive after the Obama-Netanyahu meeting last month.”
The first report I ever read about this charm offensive was April 4th in Yediot.
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he is in deep trouble at the White House. This weekend he made an interesting effort to find ways into Barack Obama’s heart. The author Elie Wiesel, in Israel for the holiday, received a call from the Prime Minister’s Office asking that he meet urgently with Netanyahu. On Friday afternoon Wiesel arrived at Netanyahu’s Ceasarea home.”
Obama is not humiliated. The Jewish community was very upset with the way Netanyahu was humiliated and has initiated this outreach every step of the way. While the messaging might have not proceeded swimmingly Obama’s policies are appropriate and I’m not seeing him walking back, not one iota. Cool framing bit I’m just not buying it.
May 19th, 2010 | 12:59 pm
Somewhat related: About half of the college students who identify as Jews have only one Jewish parent. Those with two Jewish parents are somewhat stronger in their identification.
The NJPS data reveal that the college-age Jewish population is almost evenly split between those who have two Jewish parents (48 percent) and those who have only one Jewish parent (45 percent). Students with two Jewish parents tend to be more religiously observant and Jewishly connected than those with only one Jewish parent. For example, 80 percent of those with two Jewish parents felt very positive about being Jewish compared to 65 percent among those with one Jewish parent. Both groups demonstrated an interest in Jewish studies, with 43 percent of those with two Jewish parents and 24 percent of those with one Jewish parent taking at least one Jewish studies course during their time in college. Source: http://www.hillel.org/about/news/2004/jan/20040121_involved.htm
May 19th, 2010 | 1:30 pm
Ted Belman: I have to admit, your insightful comments about Novice being a “know nothing” and “asking stupid questions” was a real tour de force. But I’m not quite convinced. Maybe if you had also insulted his mother and made fun of his little sister’s lisp, I could have seen more clearly the weakness of his argument.
May 19th, 2010 | 2:08 pm
The irony is that in the comments over at the Times, the liberal American Jewish posters pretty much proved the point of this article. They want to be Jewish, but don’t want to manifest any of the characteristics of Jewishness, other than ancestry, which is meaningless if they condemn “tribalism”. Their god is now Yahweh but “tikkun olam” twisted and objectified. Like all modern liberals, they are self-deceived; Luntz’s survey proved that their beliefs are not the products of “free thinking” but of the left-wing dogma they absorb at home and in academia. They are only Jews when they don’t want to be white “oppressors”. Truly sad. The “secular” Jews of the past? They assimilated and vanished. Preserving a people requires exclusivity.
May 19th, 2010 | 4:08 pm
Yes, I understand Hitler was quite exclusive.
You use a remarkable number of quote marks for someone who quotes no one.
May 20th, 2010 | 2:17 pm
Mr. Goldman’s arithmetic is problematic. The Orthodox population in America has stayed pretty constant over the past few decades, which means many of the products of the higher birth rate he cites actually grow up and leave that affiliation. Not surprising: too many frum families have more kids than they can afford and devote sufficient individual attention to, so no wonder they seek greener pastures. Not to mention the spousal and child abuse scandals.
And what kind of people are these Orthodox products of the past? They are back-stabbing Sen. Joe Lieberman; financial expert Bernie Madoff; the Deal, NJ rabbinical tax cheats; the EJF sexual harasser, etc.
Also: in FIRST THINGS Goldman has presented himself as a defender of the writings of Christophile non-Zionist (i.e., anti-Zionist)
“Orthodox” pundit David Klinghoffer, which ipso facto calls Mr. Goldman’s own loyalties into question.
May 20th, 2010 | 10:12 pm
My source for the datum that a third of American Jews aged 18-34 self-identify as Orthodox came from a First Things study by Rabbi Ben Greenberg, the Orthodox chaplain of Harvard Hillel:
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/01/the-orthodox-moment
Greenberg wrote, “Not until the appearance of the National Jewish Population Survey (NJPS) of 2000–2001 did the underlying strength of Orthodoxy register with the Jewish world at large. The year 2000 was also the year in which an Orthodox Jew ran for the vice presidency of the United States. The NJPS placed the percentage of American Jews who define themselves as Orthodox at 10 percent of the total Jewish population. In addition, another 21 percent of Jewish households belong to an Orthodox synagogue. What is perhaps most stunning is that 34 percent of Jews within the age bracket of 18–34 identify with Orthodoxy.”
May 20th, 2010 | 10:17 pm
Update: it appears that the source for Rabbi Greenberg’s statement was a 2004 presentation by the UJC based on the 2001 National Jewish Population Survey showing that a third of Jews in the 18-34 bracket who belong to a synagogue self-identify as Orthodox. That is a smaller proportion than the overall Jewish population, to be sure. It does not change any of the conclusions in my post.
May 20th, 2010 | 11:50 pm
van damme – Joe Lieberman a backstabber?
I played a small part in the 20008 campaign. On the Senate floor and on the campaign trail Sen. Lieberman went to great lengths to publicize the efforts of Iran via its IRGC to target US troops in Iraq and to propose counter-measures (ex. the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment).
Candidate BHO and his acolytes went to great lengths to conceal or minimize this.
Joe Lieberman watched the backs of U.S. soldiers in Iraq while BHO stabbed them in the back to pander to his base.
I’m guessing you were on the side of the backstabber.
May 21st, 2010 | 10:07 am
Marc H: Van Damme is correct.
It was one thing for Sen Lieberman not to support to certain Democratic policies and candidates; it is something else to speak at the GOP National Convention in denouncing them, and to avidly campaign for John McCain.
That is rightly called ‘back-stabbing’ and, in general Western parlance, Judas-like behavior.
Also, keep in mind that Sen. Lieberman is totally in the pocket of Big Pharma and the insurance industry (as in: AIG, et al. which brought about the current world financial crisis).
May 21st, 2010 | 10:29 am
Full disclosure: Mr. Goldman is a supporter of Kentucky Senatorial candidate Rand Paul because of the latter’s view that private individuals and businesses have the right to discriminate: in other words, white-owned businesses should not have to sell to Blacks, Christians should not have to sell to non-Christians, etc. Goldman apparently paskens this as also meaning that Yidden (Jews) should not have to sell to schkutzim (Gentiles).
May 21st, 2010 | 11:12 am
Mr Goldman really needs to explain his ties- and that of certain FIRST THINGS board members- to the Rushdoony family of White Male Supremacist Christians.
May 21st, 2010 | 11:23 am
I have no ties of which I am aware to the Rushdoony family, and I have nothing whatever to do with Rand Paul, nor, for that matter, any other political candidates presently seeking office. I know of no ties of First Things board members. I have been asked to advise none, and support none, with the exception of David Malpass, who is running for Senate in New York State. I have known David for twenty years and think highly of him. Do-wan and Sid Eig are making unsupported, inflammatory accusations of which they should be ashamed.
May 21st, 2010 | 5:27 pm
[...] David Goldman at First Things: Liberalism assumes that clever and and enlightened people can engineer happy outcomes for everyone. The notion that some peoples fail of their own deficiencies is anathema to liberalism, whose premise is that enlightened intervention can solve all the problems of any society. That is what Jewish college students are taught. [...]
May 23rd, 2010 | 1:38 pm
I can’t address your critique of Beinart, but I must commend you for your courage – as exemplified by the call in to a Dallas talk show by one “David Goldman”- in supporting the new Texas state school board social studies standards, especially the replacement of “slave trade” by “Atlantic triangular trade”.
You are a fine Christian gentleman!
May 23rd, 2010 | 5:36 pm
Mr Ryan,
Wasn’t me. I don’t call into radio shows. There was a triangular Atlantic trade, though, and I suppose it deserves mention along with the slave trade. It also might be mentioned that the cotton produced by American slaves became textiles in Manchester exported to Bengal, which ruined the hand-weaving industry. The British set the Bengalis to growing opium and made the Chinese buy it.
May 25th, 2010 | 10:50 am
Check your facts:
the slave trade WAS the Atlantic triangular trade, not something “along with” it!
from the Washington POST’s Valerie Strauss’ AnswerSheet blog:
“…calling the U.S. slave trade the “Atlantic triangular trade.” That refers to the trade system among the American colonies, Europe and Africa, which, if connected on a map, certainly forms a triangle. The proposal is correct on the geometric merits.
On historical and moral merits, however, it fails miserably. Trying to whitewash the country’s ugly past is itself ugly and dangerous.
Even Rod Paige, whom President George W. Bush picked to be the first African American education secretary, pleaded, to no avail, with the Texas school board not to approve such alterations.”
—–
May 26th, 2010 | 12:53 pm
A thread entry highlighting Rand Paul’s endorsement of the right of individuals and businesses to discriminate and similar views in the Talmud (regarding relations between Jews and Gentiles) – views which are incumbent upon you, Mr. Goldman, as an Orthodox Jew – has been posted as a comment on a different blog.
So much for your attempt at censorship!
Be sure to add GENAIVAS DA’AS to the litany of sins for which you will have to seek forgiveness during the upcoming High Holy Days, in September.
May 26th, 2010 | 3:30 pm
Shoshanna, the Torah she’Baal Peh including the rulings of Hazal is a living instrument; responsa reflecting the position of Jewish communities living under oppressive conditions in the Diaspora cannot be applied to the United States of America mechanically. Vayikra 19:33 makes clear that strangers must be treated under the same laws as Jews and constitutes the first anti-discrimination law in history (a point that Joseph Hertz makes eloquently in his Chumash commentary). Contrary to Rand Paul I support the Civil Rights Act in its entirely and I am sure that the great majority of Orthodox rabbis in the US support it as well.
May 26th, 2010 | 3:31 pm
Jonah g., please re-read my post: the global trade including slaves also included the forced sale of opium to China and other atrocities. I would teach the whole picture of world trade in the 18th and 19th centuries in order to call attention not only to slavery but to other evils.
May 27th, 2010 | 1:29 pm
Mr. Goldman:
Nice save, but you did not explain why you excised my original postings on this topic.
Also: you claim that “Vayikra 19:33 makes clear that strangers must be treated under the same laws as Jews.” There were no ‘Jews’ at the time of the Pentateuch, only Israelites.
And there is distinctive anti-Gentile legislation in the Talmud, so clearly those sages had no problem
ignoring – i.e., redefing the applicability of – Vayika 19:33.
May 28th, 2010 | 10:10 am
Mr. Goldman notes that he is “sure that the great majority of Orthodox rabbis in the US support” the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
I would agree that this is the case with regard to Modern Orthodox rabbis, but no so when it comes to the haredi (Ultra-Orthodox)
community, which is known – documented!- for
its racism.
May 28th, 2010 | 6:14 pm
[...] Douthat cites David Goldman's First Things reply to Beinart: Beinart offers a condescending glance at the "warmth" and "learning" of Orthodox Jews, but [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact