From Dissent to Degradation

I hope this won't be too deep an observation and I will not make it long (extended references and details are in the embedded links).

Far left forces, mainly but not exclusively American,  consider Israel's military government regime in the territories liberated from Jordanian occupation as immoral, illegal and un-Jewish.  They began and continually attempt to affect a tectonic change in Diaspora Jewry's mutually important relationship with Israel by declaring that military government to be an illegal occupation in the face of major evidence to the contrary 

That "occupation", I think, despite all sorts of outlandish claims, is fair and just in the conditions in comparison to that existed which before 1967, when that administration was applied to regions of the historic Land of Israel as well as today, under the despotic Palestinian Authority rule.  

These forces, in one apparition or another, in one manifestation or another, have always been with us. They fought Herzl. They struggled against the Balfour Declaration. They denied Jewish nationalism. They were either non-Zionist or anti-Zionist. They waged campaigns against President Woodrow Wilson approving the idea of a Mandate that would reconstitute the Jewish National Home. They insisted, despite all past and current evidence, that there should not be a Jewish state, or something quite less than a political entity.

They were called the Bund. The Reform Movment until 1937.  Neturei Karta. The American Council for Judaism. Jewish Fellowship in England. Palestine Communist Party (who actively supported Arab terror in the 1920s and 1930s* and see: Budeiri, Musa. The Palestine Communist Party, 1919-1948: Arab and Jews in the Struggle for Internationalism)

Brit Shalom. Ihud. Breira. Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow. Open Zion. V15's interference in Israel's democratic process. NIF's previous assistance to subversive groups.  Rabbi Kaufmann Kohler, Lord Montagu, Peter Beinart. Michael Chyabon & Ayelet Waldman, Tony Judt. The "tragic mockery" of Leon Trotsky. IJAN. Haaretz. Jews supporting Boycott. Breaking the Silence. Mondoweiss. Richard Falk. Ken Roth. George Soros. Noam Chomsky. Norman Finkelstein. Gideon Levy. Amira Hass and Haaretz's owner, Amos Schocken. They, among others, are ideological opponents, and less than pragmatic critics.

And they lost because their thinking was wrong, because their observance of events was incorrect, because their understanding of political, economic, military and cultural elements was in error and worse, they have not learned from their mistakes in the past.

Now, more than ever, the trend of their promotions is leading not to a singular criticism of a specific policy, of an approach, or lack thereof, of a party or a person.  It is directing anger, frustration and self-impotence against Israel as a whole.

Israel, it is claimed, is an "apartheid" state. It has always been a project of settler colonialism is the assertion. It is "racist". And worse. Now, Nazi memes are employed a la Rogel Alpher.

Basically, what has developed, is that the very idea of Israel is to be rejected and it is being pushed forcefully and prominently.  To be generous, it is difficult to think of these op-ed columnists and bloggers and 'intellectuals' and such as truly intelligent, for any claim that that language and contextualization they employ is not what they intend, although many quite openly do, cannot they see what they are creating?

They present an "Israel situation" that is, in the end, a la Judt** and Mick Davis, bad for the Jews.  As Daniel Gordis phrased it, "It’s not about what Israel does. It’s about what, to their minds, Israel is."  Israel is less important than Diaspora Jews and the existence of a Diaspora. Babylon is better than Jerusalem.  That was done in the 1930s by socialists, non-nationalists and ultra-Orthodox and we know that in a few years, they were all proven wrong.  Shalom Asch declared in 1938 that “what Jabotinsky is now doing in Poland [his evacuation plan] goes beyond all limits…Heaven help a people with such leaders.” Asch eventually declared at a press conference in Jerusalem in 1952: “I deeply regret that I fought against Jabotinsky’s evacuation plan”. 

In the past, these ideas led those that held them to betray Judaism, assimilate, join revolutionary movements, assist the detractors of Jews or be eliminated by anti-Semites.

For these new critics of Zion, these new dissenters, the line of their opposition to certain or any specifics has moved to that of generalities and soon, the line to a totality of rejection will be crossed. And they were learn the lessons of those who trod this path before them, while Israel and Zionism continues to triumph.

_____________________________________________________________

*

For example, as described here:  "A squad led by Daniel Abramovich scattered nails on the roads for a few nights, to harass Jewish transportation, and also cut down electricity poles. Two bombs were thrown in Haifa, one of them at the building of the Labor Council. There was also a plan to attack the new dock that was then under construction in Tel Aviv, but it was too well guarded, so the activists set fire instead to a pavilion of the Orient Fair.  Dothan maintains that [Simcha] Tzabari, who was then the only Jew on the Central Committee (Meir Slonim was in prison), bore responsibility for the terrorist policy...Dothan quotes a leaflet written by Tzabari in July 1936 [but not distributed], which explained that by “destroying the economy of the Zionist occupiers through acts of sabotage and partisan attacks, the Arab liberation movement seeks to make the continuation of Zionist colonization impossible.” 

**

"Diaspora Jews cannot influence Israeli policies, but they are implicitly identified with them, not least by Israel’s own insistent claims upon their allegiance. The behavior of a self-described Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews. The increased incidence of attacks on Jews in Europe and elsewhere is primarily attributable to misdirected efforts, often by young Muslims, to get back at Israel. The depressing truth is that Israel’s current behavior is not just bad for America, though it surely is. It is not even just bad for Israel itself, as many Israelis silently acknowledge. The depressing truth is that Israel today is bad for the Jews."

^

Chabon the Exceptional Chelmite Himself

An author I admire, Michael Chabon, had an op-ed in the New York Times badmouthing Jews.

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

- - -

Temple Mount in a Chabon Novel

Two years ago, I blogged about finding the Temple Mount prominently dealt with in a Michael Chabon novel.

Ilana B. lent me "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay", and as she occasionally tests me to see if I am reading it thoroughly, I note that I found this on page 24:

"...and kept a steel engraving of the Temple Mount on the east wall of his room"

My Comment on A Book Review at the London Times

Here:-

Michael Chabon has another opportunity to write his "Jews with Swords" book. All he has to do is to review the true story of a Jewish revolt in the Persian exile, later Iran, under Mar Zutra II. He led the revolt against the fanatic Kobad the Zenduk (488-531) in 502, establishing a Jewish state in Babylon with Mahoza as its capital. It lasted seven years. Eventually his army was overcome and he and his grandfather, Mar Hananiah, were crucified on the bridge of Mahoza. Many Jewish leaders were forced to flee and their institutions were closed.

Yisrael Medad, Shiloh, Israel

It's Out

GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD

By Michael Chabon

Illustrated. 204 pages. Del Rey/

Ballantine. $21.95.

In what’s become something of a pattern for him, Michael Chabon has followed up a big novel with a small one — this picaresque tale set along the Silk Road, where, in the medieval Jewish empire of the Khazars, there has been a coup. (In an afterword Mr. Chabon says his original title for the book was “Jews With Swords.”) In it both Mr. Chabon and his characters — a pair of wanderers named Zelikman and Amram — have, as he says, “gone off in search of a little adventure.” And found it.

Temple Mount in Chabon's Latest Novel

Michael Chabon has a new novel out, it appeared on May 1, entitled "The Yiddish Policeman's Union".

A summary below (*).

My aunt and uncle sent it to me and I'm two-thirds through. I now came across a discussion of the Red Heifer and the building of the Temple, along with a short discssion of whether Mashiach comes before the Temple reconstruction or he can be brought by building the Temple. It's on pages 294-295.

Amazing where the Temple can pop up. I have a feeling it'll come into play when the book is wrapped up.

After all, it is a detective story.


====================

(*)

For sixty years, Jewish refugees and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.

But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life—and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder—right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage—and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.

A dozen or so reviews here.

And see this NYTimes' story.

Yiddish, Alaska, Detective Novel

Here.

And the author's admission (with which I identify completely):-

“I don’t like having my ignorance pointed out to me. I was embarrassed and shamed. I had the nice Jewish boy impulse that I disrespected my elders and caused pain and embarrassment.