Judaism may be nobody's friend, but please, try harder, part 2

The weather is crap in this country- it’s already July 7th and it’s still entirely miserable. Even though I should be job hunting right now, the weather has deterred me so much that I’ve decided to continue on with my response to Mark Glenn. As I iterated yesterday, the point of this response is not to call him an anti-semite- he is, and he’s proud of it. In today’s post I will, hopefully, delve into why he is an anti-Semite and not simply, as the People’s Voice would contend, a Judeophobe.
Yesterday, for those of you who didn’t follow the general theme of the posts, I dealt with Glenn’s claim that Judaism is inherently insidious. He claimed that Judaism is motivated for the advancement of Judaism, and not for the advancement of G-d. This is patently absurd, and only follows from mistakes Glenn makes that most 5 year olds would not. Judaism is simply a ‘tribal’ or particular religion. Obviously it makes universal claims about metaphysical nature, but it does not make, at least in the form of Judaism itself, a claim about universal obligation. This is specifically unlike Christianity, Islam or even Buddhism and Hinduism. The only ‘obligations’ it imposing on non-Jews is the Seven Noahide laws- theft, murder, promiscuity, blasphemy, cruel and unusual treatment of animals, idolatry, and the obligation to set up a justice system. Now, most of these are universally accepted anyway- so it’s unclear how this could be construed as an attempt to dominate. Further, both Christianity and Islam abide by all of these rules- so Glenn, clearly a Christian, should not even have an issue.
Perhaps, though, he objects the fact that there is a universal claim of obligation made at all. Never mind that his favourite monotheistic religions make universal claims as well, the Noahide laws are not ‘enforceable’ outside of Israel. Within a halachic state of Israel, in other words not the modern state, there a considered a requirement for residing there. Outside Israel they are only to be required by G-d. Of course, Jews can encourage their observance, but nothing more than that. It should be noted as well, that the Seven Noahide laws are in no way ‘the Jewish message’ to the world- they are rather considered the most basic requirements for participation in humanity.
What about his other claims? Such as the fact that Jesus is boiling in a pot of semen, or that Mary had sex with carpenters or something of the like. I have not seen the latter- what I did see was the claim that she was raped right before her marriage to Joseph. But what’s your point Mark? That Jews fundamentally reject the virgin birth? No **** Sherlock- if Judasim accepted Christianity’s claims as true, wouldn’t it be Christianity? So too anyone who is going to reject the ‘doctrine’ of the virgin birth is going to try to come up with a naturalistic explanation for it- just as Glenn would for the religions of Hinduism, etc. Now, the more offensive claim is that Jesus was a blasphemer and that he is boiling in a pot of semen- clearly offensive to Christians. No quibbles about that. But is it any different than the Christian accusation that Muhammad is the embodiment of Satan? It’s a polemic written against the backdrop of Christian dominance of the Jews. And further, Jesus was a Jew. If, as the Talmud understood, he did make the John-esque claims to divinity, he would be a blasphemer. Would the Talmud condemn him as strongly if say the Unitarian version, or even more modern ‘soft’ versions of Jesus’ claims are true? Probably not. So in Glenn’s view, it is alright to condemn Jews to the flame, because they are wrong, but not for Jews to assert that they are right?
Thus far, I have discussed Glenn’s basic claim that Judaism is insidious in nature. But he actually goes further and equates ‘Jews’ with ‘Judaism’. It is here that publications such as The People’s Voice are obviously false- they claim that Glenn is simply attacking Judaism, and not Jews. In their view Judeophobia is fine, as long as some one is not anti-Semitic. Perhaps they forget that for most of its history anti-Semitism was mostly anti-Judaism, and that led to anti-Semitism in its current form. They quickly forget that it was the idea that Jews worshipped Satan led to the idea that the Jews were themselves demonic, and less than human. How else could they betray their own Messiah, if they are anything but demons incarnate?
Aside from the mini-brief on history, Glenn is quite obvious that he is attacking Jews as well. He claims that the reason the discourse has remained with regards to Zionism is because religion is personal. Well, that is indeed the point- religion is personal in a way that perhaps nothing other than culture is. He makes it clear that by attacking Judaism, he intends also to attack Jews.
He makes this intent even more lucid with some of the examples he cites in support of his theory of how insidious Judaism: Bolshevism, the destruction of the moral fabric of society, liberalism, WW1, WW2. I don’t recall if he made any other claims than that- his article is extremely long, and it is rather difficult to sift through the vacuous rhetoric to find every single accusation.
Whatever the validity of these accusations, they are clearly accusations against Jews and not against Judaism. Or rather, to anyone who separates the two, they are against Jews. Glenn believes that all actions performed by Jews are related to Judaism- this follows from his assumption that Judaism is the religion for the advancement for the Jews over anyone else. However, the actions of, for example, Muslims, are not relatable to their religion unless the rationale given is religion, or there is an actual development related to religion. For example- many Muslims live in the Middle East. According to Glenn, one would conclude that therefore it is Islamic to leave in the Middle East. What would be an Islamic idea would be an interpretation of jihad- an Islamic concept- which seeks pro-active domination. It would not be justification to condemn the entirety of Islam, as most reject the concept of ‘offensive’ jihad, but it would nonetheless be an idea that stems from Islam.
However, even this modicum of support Glenn fails to achieve. I assume that when Glenn says he blames the Jews for the breakdown of morals in the country he is referring to the pornography industry. It may be indeed run by many Jews, but this has nothing to do with Judaism. These Jews are, by definition, not religious. Judaism does not sanction pornography any more than Christianity does. Further, to blame the pornography on the Jews Glenn would need to further assert that the Jews, right now, invented pornography. However, anyone with any sense of history knows that just as rules about sex are a uniform part of any culture, so too is some amount of deviance from those rules. Pornography, as well as the sex industry, has been around for much longer than Judaism.
His claims of Jews starting WW1 are almost incomprehensible to me, barring the following conjecture- he thinks that since the British gave mandated Palestine to the Jews, when they obtained control in the first, it must have been a Jewish plot. Perhaps the fact that many Jews fought on the German side (forgetting the many Jews that fought on both sides) it must have been a Jewish plot.
Perhaps a simpler explanation can be construed- Glenn merely lapped up the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In it is documented the supposed Jewish plot to take over the world. One of the methods of this plot is by destabilizing governments in general (as well as many other similarities to the other accusations that Glenn makes about the Jews) by means of war. So, the fact that it happened must be proof in the pudding that the Jews did it. Because everything the Jews attempt to achieve, they are capable? Correlation is not causation. Even if Glenn could show that the Jews indeed do seek to destabilize society, that would still be a far step from proving that they did so.
But more problematic is the assertion that it is the Jews intent in the first place. The Protocols has been shown to be both forged and plagiarized- how’s that for an impressive resume? Nietzsche once said that the notion that the Jews want to take over the world is absurd- had they wanted to, they already would have. These Protocols are nothing more than propaganda- indeed, very similar to Glenn’s article, where emotive phrases are much more important than factual information, or intelligent and critical analysis. He’d rather call Zionism Godzilla and Judaism its steroid juiced parent than to present factual criticism of Judaism. To be sure- there are many valid criticism of Judaism, but criticizing Jews is not one of them. Perhaps Glenn ascribes to racial ideology- whereby characteristics of people are determined by their ‘race’- but then he’s the anachronism, and not the Jews.
Glenn further accuses the Jews of Bolshevism, and by extension the failure that was communist Russia, and perhaps the very notion of communism itself. Ironic that this ignores the fact that Jesus was likely from a second-Temple group who practiced a hard form of communism- oops! More problematic is that the Jewish involvement in Communism was actually in the semi-opposing Menshevik movement- which the Bolsheviks brutally suppressed after their ascension to power. So, the Jews attempt to impose their brand of communism actually failed- and Jews were one of the main parties to suffer for it. Further ‘evidence’ of the Jewish origins of communism is that the person who laid the most ground for it was Carl Marx. His father had converted to Christianity, so that when he wrote the Communist Manifesto he was only ‘racially’ Jewish. So again, equivocation- Jews are not Judaism. They may choose to practice it or not, but it does not become Judaism merely on account of Jews ascribing to such an ideology.
More problematic however is the claim that Jews want communism in the first place. Nationalism, the basis of Zionism, is the antithesis of Communism. You can be a Zionist Socialist, but not a Zionist Communist. Further, and more to the point, just as much as Jews have been accused of being attracted to communism, they have been similarly attracted to capitalism. In fact, for every Jewish neo-con, there is a Jewish bleeding heart liberal. For every Jewish Zionist, there is a Jewish anti-Zionist (sometimes called post-Zionists). For every white European Jew, there is a darker one- many are even from Africa. Jews are accused being lead like sheep to the slaughter, and likewise accused of complete bloodthirstiness when it comes to their plot to strangle to world. Jews have been accused of being absurd tribal and particularistic, as well as been being too cosmopolitan. The common denominator is then, not what the Jew does, but rather the fact that he is Jewish. Jews are hated not because they stand for any abhorrent ideology in particular, or because the commit any particular pernicious crime, but rather because they are Jewish. Why people hate Jews is another story for another place, but it clearly has nothing to do with how they act. Professor Dershowitz once related the story that the President of Harvard did not want to let in Jews because they cheat. When told that gentiles also cheat, the President responded, “don’t change the subject- we’re talking about Jews.”
Glenn further accuses the Jews of being ardent proponents of liberalism. To be sure, Jews have traditionally been supporters of the Democratic Party. This is starting to change, but I want to deal with his basic assertion that the Jews are behind liberalism. To be sure, Jews have benefited greatly from one of the main tenets of liberalism- the restriction of religion to the private sphere by means of the separation of Church and State. However, neither the Jews, nor Judaism, are behind that development in Western Society. Instead, it was Christianity itself that paved the way for the removal of religion from the public sphere. When Luther broke from the Catholic Church, the ensuing wars damaged Europe so badly that a compromise had to be reached: the foundations of the current separation in which we live. To be sure, it is even rooted in Christian doctrine. Christianity was initially not a political independent religion, and as such Jesus declaring that the state belongs to the Romans and the Kingdom of G-d belongs to G-d, is quite understandable. But, more to the point freedom of conscious, etc. are concepts belonging to the Reformed version of Christianity. Further, much of the impetus for the scientific flourishing of the Renaissance was due to Christian ideology. And, spawned from this was a further discussion of liberalism- well before Jews entered the discourse. If anything, the Jews were a much maligned after-thought- French discussion to extend the rights of citizens to Jews was rife with lament.
Yes, Jews were more than willing to march side-by-side of Blacks in the Sixties to achieve their normalization- is that a bad thing? Yes, many Jews are very wary of President Bush and his Christian agenda- but only having recently achieved their right to freedom of worship, does that surprise anyone? And further, there are many Jews that are attaching themselves to the idea of a Judeo-Christian ethics. Suffice it to say that these claims are contradictory, naïve, and rather patently false.
The last claim that I will address today is that the Judaism was behind WW2. For those who have not yet heard this drek ( in English b***s**t) the logic is as follows- the Holocaust was perpetrated by the Zionists in order to facilitate the establishment of the State of Israel. Again, correlation is not the same as causation. But further- if Zionism is the movement for the national agenda of the Jewish people, why would they murder, or attempt to murder Jews? What is often claimed, therefore, is that both the numbers of those martyred are greatly exaggerated and that those killed in the name of Zionism are very few. However, the number of those who perished (about 11 million innocent civilians, amongst them somewhere between 5 to 6 million Jews) is well-documented- it is a fact attested to by countless historians, and even upheld in court.
This is perhaps the most absurd, and the most insidious, claim that Glenn makes. It both needs the least amount of response, and the most. Most people will recognize it as patently false; those who don’t will end up with nothing more than the most disgusting view of Jews imaginable.
In my next post, I might address this accusation a bit further. Most likely, I will simply refer to others who deal with it extensively already. I am going to end here, as it is the perfect segue to the Glenn’s next major theme- Zionism is the offspring of Judaism. To Glenn’s mind, this is perhaps the paradigm example of that truth- and therefore what I will discuss next.