Sunday, August 17, 2014

The American Jewry

“Whether it be Mark Rothko, or Woody Allen, or Mel Brooks…Baruch Spinoza there’s Jews everywhere and you sort of use those people as a barometer and think Jews are these special people. I mean we’re chosen in The Bible, we’re the chosen people so you think you’re special…Every Jew is an old Jew waiting to get out. It’s actually something you grow into. I think the old Jew is there when you’re born and eventually you catch up with it…Every American Jew I went to Hebrew School with in some form or another.”
            -Marc Maron

“Israel isn’t really my country. New York is. I am very proud to be a Jew, but I am a secular Jew, like Baruch Spinoza, Albert Einstein, or Sigmund Freud. Indeed, the best Jews have always been assimilated and free thinking. The bearded Jews you see at the Wailing Wall, rocking back and forth, cowering before their god, those are fairly second-rate Jews.”
           
            -Misha Vainberg (the arrogant Russian-Jewish oligarch in Gary Schteyngart’s Absurdistan)

“My grammy never got me gifts, she was too busy getting raped by Cossacks.”
           
            -Alvie Singer (Woody Allen in Annie Hall)

Born in New York in 1987, I was lucky enough to live in a world where anti-Semitism was something of an afterthought. Four decades removed from the Holocaust, there was barely a stigma left about being Jewish. The WASPs who seemed to control the universe, the country clubs and the banking system were overtaken by the Jewish invention of the hostile takeover. It seemed like the other minorities had it much worse. Secular Jews were prominent in the arts, sciences, and the business world; Princeton no longer capped the amount of Jews they were willing to accept. No one, except for a dying American aristocracy seemed to mind. Jews became so deeply imbedded in liberal American politics, it’s a wonder one never got elected president.
            I had no shame about my Jewish heritage. Why would I? The appearance of Jewish exceptionalism was evident in all the spheres of society. We, as a people, had perfectly assimilated into the nation and thrived every chance we could. We were no longer even slaves to Jewish law. Me being the chief example as a Reform Jew with a Christian mother, who ate pork and lobster every chance I could. There is however a danger to this assimilation. We forget history and lead the rallies for our hatred all across the world.
            While it may appear that Jews are the same as everyone else, in spite of the veneer of equality, anti-Semitism is always hiding in the shadows. We may not wish to be thought of as Jewish first, but we will always be thought of this way. There’s a blatant distrust of Jews. While a politically correct society won’t tolerate the Mel Gibson’s of the world, a huge portion of Christians believe we are doomed to Hell and even bigger slice of the Arab world want us dead. Jews in America have it so good, they forget that they are only two generations removed from the Holocaust and that before and after the war no country on earth, including the United States, was willing to give us asylum.
            In spite of the inherent distrust of us throughout the entire world, we have survived diaspora and now of course the rest of the world wants to destroy the one place where we have any sanctuary. It has become fashionable for young American Jews to casually bandy about their support of a Palestinian state, because the foundation of an Israeli State somehow closely resembles Imperialism. We all sympathize with the horrific situation Palestinians must endure, but there is no reasonable solution. It must come from Above.

See these self-hating Jewish professors blame Israel for the conflict. Have I lost my mind? Is it crazy that I find these arguments obscene?
After reading through it carefully, I lost my cool and wrote this.
This is the most absurd article I have ever read. How can you comment on the Israel/Palestine conflict without mentioning suicide bombers, or the goal of Hamas to eliminate all Jews from the planet? Palestinians had to deal with being human shields (is this not a choice?). You can't reason with an enemy that doesn't care about the lives of its people. It's always pretty inane to forget that Jerusalem was desolate before the Zionists came and started hiring Arabs in the 20s. Also this one made me laugh, "Palestine that was already in the midst of its own modernization." You know that the territory called Palestine, which was always a colony and never had any central government was mostly taken by Jordan. Please let's defend the people who punish homosexuality with death, give their wives cliterectomies and support the ethnic cleansing of Jews and Christians throughout the world. I don't understand what the self-hating Jews aim to accomplish. Do you want Israel to open its borders to people who will undoubtedly kill them?”


Half the world is massacring each other, but the only nation that gets criticized is Israel. For this reason, there is no doubt in my mind that being anti-Zionism and being anti-Semitic are one and the same. As a left-leaning, formerly secular Jew, it is confounding that my closest allies on this issue are Howard Stern, Sarah Palin and televangelists, but I don’t know what to tell you. Do we really think it is a coincidence that Judaism has survived for 5,000 years in spite of the fact that throughout our entire history the nations of the world almost unilaterally wanted us dead? The Creator is calling us to unite above our egos. While the American Jew lives in comfort now, it is not a markedly different state from 19th century Germany or 15th century Spain. When the Jews forget they are The Chosen People (not just leaders in the nations of the world) and refuse to unite, they are depriving the world of the singular truth of the universe that there is none else besides Him. Without recognition of our common problem, we will never awaken the Creator through our connection and the world will continue to suffer.


I know this is blatant self-promotion, but if you are interested in Kabbalah, I just published a book about my experiences studying Kabbalah and the world in the state of crisis.

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