Entitled, Chosen, but Not Special, and datelined "Berkeley" which in itself is a statement, he used the thriller of those flotilla guerrillas, the humaniterrorists, as a launching pad. In reacting to the news of the Mavi Marmara clash, Chabon claims:-
...for Jews [all Jews? some? Chabon and friends?] the first reaction was shock, confusion, as we tried to get our heads around what appeared to be an unprecedented display of blockheadedness. Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic cast his startled regard back along the length of Jewish history looking for a parallel example of arrant stupidity...
But he knows that we, er, he, is not stupid so he "explains" why Jews are not stupid:
...As a Jewish child I was regularly instructed, both subtly and openly, that Jews, the people of Maimonides, Albert Einstein, Jonas Salk and Meyer Lansky, were on the whole smarter, cleverer, more brilliant, more astute than other people...to a Jew, it always comes as a shock to encounter stupid Jews. Philip Roth derived a major theme of “Goodbye, Columbus” from the uncanny experience. The shock comes not because we have never encountered any stupid Jews before — Jews are stupid in roughly the same proportion as all the world’s people — but simply because from an early age we have been trained, implicitly and explicitly, to ignore them. A stupid Jew is like a hole in the pocket of your pants, there every time you put them on, always forgotten until the instant your quarters run clattering across the floor.
And where are there stupid Jews?
...stupidity now enacted by the elite military arm of a nation whose history we have long written, in our accustomed way, by pushing to the endnotes all counterexamples to the myth of seichel — that one heard filtering through so much of the initial response among Jews to the raid on the Mavi Marmara. This sense of widespread shock at Israel’s blockheadedness
He does not the pattern of antisemites praising Jews:-
Such claims, in mouths of gentiles, are a disturbing echo of the charges of the pogrom-stokers, the genocidalists, the Father Coughlins, who come to sharpen their knives against the same grindstone of generalization on which we Jews have long polished the magnifying lenses of our self-regard. The man who praises you for your history of accomplishment may someday seek therein the grounds for your destruction.
But what really is under Chabon's skin is something else, and it is not smartness or stupidity:
...the foundational ambiguity of Judaism and Jewish identity [is]: the idea of chosenness, of exceptionalism, of the treasure that is a curse, the blessing that is a burden, of the setting apart that may presage redemption or extermination...
This is the ambiguity that cites the dispensation of God and history, of covenant and Holocaust, to lay claim to a special relationship between Jews and the Land of Israel...
Ah, exceptionalism or, as I would suggest: a national sentiment that would make us like many other nations who demand respect, ability to defend ourselves, sovereignty
And the back-handed compliment:
Now, with the memory of the Mavi Marmara fresh in our minds, is the time for Jews to confront, at long last, the eternal truth of our stupidity as a people, which I will stack, blunder for blunder, against that of any other nation now or at any time living on this planet of folly, in this world of Chelm. Now is the moment to acknowledge that the 62-year history of Israel, like the history of the Jewish people and of the human race, has been from the beginning a record of glory and fiasco, triumph and error, greatness and meanness, charity and crime.And, like a klutz, Chabon makes an appeal:-
Let us shed our illusions, starting with ourselves, whoever we are and however august our inheritance of stupidity. Let us not forget the eternal hole in our human pocket. Let us not, henceforward, judge Israel or seek to have it judged for its intelligence, for its prowess, for its righteousness or for its moral authority, by any standard other than the pathetic, debased and rickety one that we apply, so inconsistently and self-servingly, to ourselves and to everybody else. And let us not forgive ourselves — any more than we forgive Israel, or than Israel can forgive itself — for that terrible inconsistency.
Well, Michael Chabon, I, for one, forgive your stupidity to a certain extent.
But you should have been more critical of those people, either motivated by Islamic fundamentalism, antisemitism, antizionism or whatever negative feelings as well as blockheadedness, who seek to kill Jews and destroy Israel.
For they, reading this, are laughing at a stupid, blockheaded, seichel-less Jew. A true Chelmite.
============
The letters-to-the-editor that appeared:
The Many Ways Jews See Themselves
To the Editor:
Re “Chosen, but Not Special” (Op-Ed, June 6):
Michael Chabon writes eloquently about his desire for Jews and Israel to shed the idea of exceptionalism. But exceptionalism is intrinsic to almost any group, and it is a fantasy to expect a nation or a religion to shed the idea, however irrational and ridiculous, that somehow it is special.
Rather than view Jewish exceptionalism as an albatross, we should view it as a way to inspire Jews and Israel to do better and to be openly critical of events and actions that fall far short of the ideal.
This ability to be self-critical is, like the belief in exceptionalism, an intrinsic part of Jewish and Israeli culture. It is precisely what is happening right now with the widespread acknowledgment that the raid on the Mavi Marmara was a tragic blunder.
Stuart Rojstaczer
Palo Alto, Calif., June 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Michael Chabon is right in one respect: Jews are like others in that every person believes that his or her behavior is rational. And Israel and its supporters must lose their sense of intellectual invincibility.
Otherwise, the facts are against Mr. Chabon. The high representation of Jews in American political life (Congress, the Supreme Court, activism across the spectrum) and among Nobel Prize winners is, whatever the causes, exceptional.
The Jews’ survival as a Jewish nation after being deprived of their political and religious base is exceptional in history; it happened twice. Once might be “luck,” as Mr. Chabon suggests; twice says otherwise.
No, we Jews cannot rely on this exceptionalism for survival; we must realize its limits. We must take the same kind of care others should (but often don’t) in making and acting on decisions. But Mr. Chabon won’t convince people of that by denying reality.
Gabriel Lampert
San Francisco, June 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Michael Chabon inadvertently establishes a different sort of Jewish exceptionalism: we are, I believe, the most self-analytical people on earth.
Most Israelis couldn’t care less whether we are any better, smarter or more persecuted than other nations. All we ask is this: know that any other nation faced with a neighboring government that has vowed to wipe it off the map would respond in exactly the way we have.
Daniel Reifman
Yad Binyamin, Israel, June 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
The headline on Michael Chabon’s essay should be reversed to read “Special, but Not Chosen.” We secular Jews do not derive the view that Jews are more intelligent or creative than non-Jews from the religious theory of a people chosen by God, or from the endurance and survival throughout history of the Jewish people against all odds.
Instead, we note the number and proportion of the Jewish population who have achieved brilliance and excellence in science and in the arts, as compared with the number and proportion of non-Jews who have done the same — a comparison that is factually indisputable.
Mildred Rein
Chestnut Hill, Mass., June 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
In debunking Jewish intellectual exceptionalism, Michael Chabon misses the larger point. We expect better of Israel because we expect every responsible government to behave sagely and morally. An impossible benchmark, yes, but one that is completely unrelated to Israel’s status as a Jewish state.
Jacob Gerber
Riverside, Conn., June 6, 2010
•
To the Editor:
Michael Chabon does not distinguish between being a Jew and the process of living a life of Jewish tradition and teachings. He seems to repeat a popular conflating of Jewish “chosenness” with Jewish exceptionalism. Jews were not chosen for privilege, wealth and achievement; these are available to anybody, not just Jews.
Rather, Jews were chosen by God for the responsibility and obligation to receive, carry, study and live Torah, including both the moral and religious laws of Judaism.
Sadly, ever larger numbers of people who identify themselves as Jews become less and less observant of Torah and Jewish tradition. That makes Jewish people as a whole become ever less exceptional. Yet that in no way prejudices the right of Jews to defend themselves whether in Israel or in the diaspora.
David Heller
Potomac, Md., June 7, 2010
•
To the Editor:
I respect the brutal bluntness in Michael Chabon’s essay that some Jews may think they’re smarter than everyone else.
Of course we’re not!
But how can he convince my 82-year-old mother without tearing her heart out?
Steven Cohen
New York, June 6, 2010
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