The Next Pope and the Jews

Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:01:00 -0400

When the next pope is elected, pronouncements from major Jewish organizations will follow this basic script:

The Jews Occupying Wall Street

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 00:10:00 -0400

As an angry mob has amassed in New York’s financial district, and countless other cities, promising to “Occupy Wall Street [Or Your Location Here],” I have felt a discomfort that grows more insistent by the day. Not because I am one of the nation’s wealthiest one percent (I am quite far from it indeed), nor because I would oppose higher taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations (I would likely favor them, depending on the particular proposal). No, my discomfort stems from a source much more primal than any theoretical policy analysis: I am uncomfortable with the angry mob because I am a Jew.

My people has some experience, you see, with angry mobs”more specifically, we have a great deal of experience with angry mobs in times of economic distress who are fed up with suffering while greedy moneylenders prey like leeches on society, oppressing the majority while enjoying the unjust protection of the aristocratic powers that be. My people have heard that song before. It was sung countless times during the long history of Europe, by countless ordinary citizens who boldly resisted the orders of princes and bishops and took matters into their own hands. We still remember that the ghetto walls were originally built to protect us from the genuine will of the majority. We remember that the voice of the people need not be a voice of reason.

Yes, it is true: there are Jews Occupying Wall Street ”not only in the banks, but at the barricades. The High Holidays brought hundreds of such Jews together for an Occupy Yom Kippur service, where the righteous radicals preached atonement”not so much speaking about themselves, of course, but rather about those sinful titans of industry across the street. (It’s very easy to get into the spirit of Yom Kippur when you’re talking about someone else’s need for repentance.) Plans are underway for Occupying Sukkot. Surely, it might be claimed, this is proof that my Jewishly motivated wariness is entirely inappropriate. How could the Occupiers be echoing antisemites of old, with so many Jews in their midst?

On one level, this is a fair point. I have no reason to believe that the Occupy Wall Street movement is antisemitic, and I make no such claim. What I do insist, however, is that Jewish history ought to teach us the dangers of finding an easy scapegoat for a problem, rousing the anger of the people, and taking to the streets for the purpose of confrontation. These dangers persist even in the absence of antisemitism itself, and the fact that Jews have joined in with the marching and shouting does not erase them.

The problem is not with large numbers, nor with passion; the problem is with anger.

Maimonides, who generally favored moderation in all things, made an exception for anger. One “should teach himself not to become angry even when it is fitting to be angry,” he wrote:

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A Particularly Universal Love

Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:44:00 -0400

In an article for Haaretz (subsequently picked up by the über-aggregator The Huffington Post ), Mira Sucharov reopens the “particularism vs. universalism debate,” arguing the utter superiority of universalism and the foul depravity of particularism in strident terms“even to the extent of invoking everyone’s favorite debating tactic: tying the other side to Hitler. Surprisingly, this is the smaller of the two major problems with her argument.

Sucharov is responding to two recent publications she deems particularist: an article for Commentary by Daniel Gordis and a study by the Jewish service organization Repair the World. She finds fault with Gordis for suggesting that Jews ought to feel a special attachment to the Jewish State, and with Repair for suggesting that young Jews ought to consider serving the needs of others (including non-Jews) through Jewish programs, and within Jewish contexts.

In her article, she presents a “chilling” objection to such particularist attitudes:

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The Next Pope and the Jews

The Jews Occupying Wall Street

A Particularly Universal Love