The Jew-hater-in-Chief is back in the news for his purported Jew-hatred:
- “Jewish leaders criticized Trump for telling Jewish audience they have ‘no choice’ but to vote for him instead of Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax” (CNN)
- “Anti-Semitism is rising in the U.S. — and many Jews blame Trump” (The Jewish News of Northern California)
The existence of white men who express hostility to American Jews is cited as proof that Trump is responsible for this hostility (and all of this is additional evidence for Trump’s proven stupidity, since only the dumbest of Jew-haters would choose to live in Manhattan and Palm Beach; Wikipedia: “The population of Palm Beach County is 20% Jewish, which makes it by far the most Jewish county in the United States. ‘To find a more densely populated Jewish community, you’d have to go to Israel,’ says Richard Jacobs, vice president of community planning for the Boca-based Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County.”; NYC has the largest Jewish community outside of Israel).
But what if a white guy’s perception that American Jews are his enemies is accurate?
Suppose that a low-to-medium skill white man wants to earn money via working. This article by a Harvard economist says “The total wealth redistribution [due to low-skill immigration] from the native losers to the native winners is enormous, roughly a half-trillion dollars a year.” What political party promotes the low-skill immigration that will take money away from this white man via lower wages and higher rent and give it to rich Americans (they enjoy paying lower wages for their service workers and receiving higher rents for the apartment buildings that they own)? The Democrats. Although only 71 percent of Jews voted for Hillary Clinton (Wikipedia), groups that claim to be “Jewish” constantly remind Americans that adherence to the modern version of the Jewish faith compels them to vote for Democrats, support immigration, etc. (example: “The Jewish Case for Open Borders”, which notes “Jews have been especially active in this mobilization, driven by their social liberalism, their sense of religious duty, or both. Synagogue networks sprang up to offer aid to refugees, while groups like Jews United for Justice and Jewish Voice for Peace have been a visible presence at protest rallies.” (it would be interesting to run an experiment in which physicians and lawyers from around the globe show up and are immediately eligible to practice medicine/law in NYC, Los Angeles, DC, and Miami, then see whether “religious duty” compels Jews to support open borders!)).
An Orthodox friend expressed fears several years ago that the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (now “HIAS“) would lead to anti-Jewish sentiment in the U.S. The group started out by taking voluntary donations to help Jews settle in the U.S. Today they take taxpayer dollars (partly collected from low-to-medium-skill white men) to help “refugees” take up residence in corners of the U.S. that are far from the organization’s suburban Washington, D.C. and Manhattan offices. The organization also lobbies to demand that the government admit more refugees (which would translate into more revenue for HIAS). My friend pointed out that these refugees compete with natives for jobs and housing and that one day either a refugee or a child of a refugee brought in by HIAS might participate in a domestic jihad (see Omar Mateen, child of Aghan immigrants, Syed Rizwan Farook, child of Pakistani immigrants, and our local asylum winner: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev).
In October 2018, a 46-year-old white guy killed 11 mostly elderly Jews in Pittsburgh after their synagogue promoted its support for HIAS. The organization’s web site shows numerous recent articles doubling down on the idea that bringing more migrants to the U.S. is a specifically Jewish mission, e.g., “Jewish Groups Rally to #CloseTheCamps” (“Jewish groups across the country marked Tisha b’Av, the traditional Jewish day of mourning, on August 10-11 with vigils and protests to demand an end to the mistreatment of immigrants and refugees.”), “More Than 1500 Jewish Clergy Sign Petition to Protect Asylum” (“‘This country is a nation of immigrants, our story is one of immigration and travel from one place to another,’ said Rabbi Elyse Wechterman” (#SoBrave, but how many Hondurans are qualified to take her job?)), and “The Pittsburgh Attack: One Year Later” (“We cannot disentangle white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigration sentiment because they are all bound together by hate” — but what if it was HIAS itself that bound together anti-Semitism and anti-immigration sentiment?).
Suppose that a white man is in between jobs. What political party advocates the continued legality of discrimination in employment such that he will be hired only if no acceptable applicants identifying as “women” or non-white are available? Again, the Democrats and again, publicly supported by people who call themselves “Jews.” (See also, the Anti-Defamation League supporting race-based college admissions; the 2018 “Reform Jewish Movement Condemns Decision to Roll Back Federal Affirmative Action Guidance”; a 2017 article noting that “Most mainstream Jewish organizations still support affirmative action.”)
American Jews are more likely than non-Jews to benefit from a larger government. Jews are over-represented in medicine by 7X (source, a bit misleading since I don’t think this is adjusted for the fact that median age among Jews is older than the U.S. median and an older person is more likely to have completed medical school). For anyone working in health care, the river of government cash that started flowing in the 1960s (Medicare and Medicaid) has been wonderful. Jews have more years of education than the average American (Pew) and therefore are more likely to get jobs at universities, which have been supported by federal student loan subsidies (and soon, loan forgiveness in Queen Elizabeth Warren’s jubilee year!), tuition grants, and research grants. Jews living in larger cities (that may be 97 percent of us) have benefited from the fact that a big government builds most of its lavish facilities in big cities. I don’t want to take the risk of being lumped in with the Jew-haters by implying that there are Jews who work in finance, but if there are indeed any Jews in this sector of the economy they’ve been advantaged by government policies favoring Wall Street. Jews tend to hold the credentials that qualify them for unionized government work, e.g., school teacher, social worker, etc. So they benefit when government payrolls are fattened and expanded.
Jewish Democrats will tell you that they’re voting for a bigger government not in order to line their own pockets, but because of their commitment to social justice, which they say may be inspired by their Jewish faith and identity. But what stops a white man who can’t access these rivers of government cash from resenting these Jews and disbelieving their claims of altruism? (When queried, my coastal-dwelling Jewish friends simply dismiss the possibility that there is anyone who could have voted against the Democrats for reasons of rational self-interest; in their view, Trump voters, for example, are stupid and short-sighted, and fail to realize that they are stupidly voting against their own self-interest, e.g., because Planet Earth will be destroyed by climate change without the Democrats in charge of the federal government.)
Hypothetical: Suppose that the coastal elites forgot to take away the right of the non-elite non-welfare-collecting Americans to vote. And then a candidate who promised to advocate for the interests of those who weren’t poor enough to collect welfare and weren’t credentialed enough to get on the government payroll actually became President of the United States? Then a bunch of Jews simultaneously showed up to Congress to try to get rid of this person? Would a non-elite white guy then be irrational to perceive Jews as his enemies?
Reality: “Three of the impeachment witness lawyers were Jewish, and it matters”:
And while the officials who appeared before Schiff’s committee were fact witnesses who described the events surrounding the Ukraine scandal, Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., brought three witnesses — all constitutional scholars — that he hoped would outline a theory of impeachment.
All three witnesses are Jewish: Noah Feldman of Harvard, Pamela Karlan of Stanford and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina. So are Schiff and Nadler, and so was the Democrats’ counsel who directed the first 45 minutes of questioning, Norm Eisen.
I.e., if you were a Trump voter watching the above on TV and someone called from the kitchen to ask what was going on, you would be literally correct in saying that “a bunch of Jews are trying to undo my vote”. Of course, it wouldn’t be correct to say that “all Jews are trying to undo my vote,” but that’s a logical correction, not an emotional one.
Maybe the majority of American Jews do wish to continue their efforts to harm the interests and undo the votes of roughly 25 percent of Americans (i.e., the white men who voted for Trump). But is it then reasonable to cry “anti-Semitism” if the non-elite white men object to being harmed and disenfranchised?
Readers: What do you think? Given the increased power of government, the dramatic effect of government policies, and the tendency of American Jews to support a particular party/platform, is it possible that the irrational anti-Jewish sentiment of the 19th century has been replaced by rational anti-Jewish sentiment, motivated by anger at the reported actions of Americans who identify as Jews (and are willing to go to any length, short of practicing Judaism, to maintain that identity!).
Separately, could the relationship between Jews and those who currently experience anti-Jewish feelings be repaired? I think so. After 56 years and 50 states (see Travels with Samantha for some of these conversations), I can’t remember meeting anyone in the U.S. who hated Jews as individuals, even those who expressed negative views about the actions of Jews in politics, Jews in media, and/or Jews in finance. Suppose, for example, that in response to any question on low-skill immigration, upper-income degree-holding Jews said “We don’t have any special insight into migration-into-a-cradle-to-grave-welfare-state issues as a consequence of our Jewish heritage and therefore we should let the low-wage native workers who will bear the cost decide policy.” Suppose that Jews quietly voted their self-interest by voting for bigger government, but didn’t use Jewish-owned media (NYT!) to broadcast “anyone who disagrees that the government needs to be bigger is a moron and/or immoral.” Suppose that Jews who are passionate about social justice used their own money to fund private efforts to accomplish social justice goals, e.g., building homes for the homeless, rather than using the political process to try to force people who don’t agree that these goals are appropriate targets of government efforts to pay higher taxes. Given that lobbying the government is the most lucrative investment an American can make (Heritage Foundation), it is a big ask to request that Jews with political connections do something other than politics, but maybe they could try to avoid all showing up at the same time to the same hearing as they did recently?
Related:
- this Showtime clip (“Look at that fine-looking Jew” (towards end))
- “Donald Trump Is Bad for the Jews” (Paul Krugman): “this particular anti-Semitic cliché — that Jews are greedy, and that their political behavior is especially driven by their financial interests — is empirically dead wrong.” The brilliant economist notes that some high-income Jews vote for Democrats, which he credits as altruistic due to the potential for higher tax rates, but never considers that these Jews may derive their income from government spending programs and/or regulatory regimes that Democrats promise to maintain and expand. A physician earning $300,000/year from Medicare and Obamacare may have different interests than the owner of an aircraft repair business who earns the same $300,000/year (see also “Paul Krugman: The Economic Fallout” from 2016: “If the question is when markets will recover, a first-pass answer is never.”).
- “The epidemic of bomb threats against Jewish organizations, explained” (Vox, March 3, 2017): “… the genuine and growing fear among American Jews that the country has entered into a new era where anti-Semitism has left the shadows and taken a louder, bolder place on the center stage of American society. That fear shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. As my colleague Yochi Dreazen wrote back in October, candidate Trump “revived some of the ugliest of anti-Semitic stereotypes” in speeches and advertisements that recalled canards over Jews controlling the levers of power and money in American society.” (Wikipedia notes that threats were ultimately determined to have been made by just two people, neither of whom was a Trump supporter)
- “Donald Trump is threatening Jews?” (about the bomb threats)
- “Trump Targets Anti-Semitism and Israeli Boycotts on College Campuses” (nytimes, December 10), about the threat to cut off the federal money shower for colleges that love to indulge in hating Israel (not Jews, of course!); #LandOfFreedomOfSpeech (TM)
- About Billy Joel: “Rich Jew brave enough to put on the mantle of victimhood”
- “Would gentiles like Jews better if we complained more?”
I wonder how many of the righteous readers from the tribe will be able to subdue their visceral responses and see what it is that you’re actually saying. Kudos for walking the thin line well.
‘Separately, could the relationship between Jews and those who currently experience anti-Jewish feelings be repaired?’
Absolutely. Only a few increasingly (already?) irrelevant clingers will keep beating “Frankfurt School” scapegoat drums if there’s actually a way forward out of this madness.
You can reach some discontented whites with examples of how victim status doesn’t make you a better man and making excuses is short of the rugged self-sufficiency they claim for their identity. And it seems in line with what would be a nice deescalation of identity politics – that victim claims should only be used as a *defensive* weapon.
This was very well done and didn’t make me hate the Jews any more than I already do. 😉 I’m KIDDING. About the last part. It was very well done. I’m glad I didn’t have to publish it, but I applaud you for doing so. Maybe it will serve as some food for thought, I hope so.
Also, hate crimes were down in 2018 despite the “Jew Hater in Chief” running our $100B/Mo. criminal enterprise, and that’s not just Massachusetts, but also nationwide
New FBI data shows the number of reported hate crimes decreased nationwide, a trend that was mirrored in the Bay State.
https://patch.com/massachusetts/medford/s/gy3qd/hate-crimes-in-massachusetts-fbi-report-shows-decrease
You wrote: “When queried, my coastal-dwelling Jewish friends simply dismiss the possibility that there is anyone who could have voted against the Democrats for reasons of rational self-interest; in their view, Trump voters, for example, are stupid and short-sighted, and fail to realize that they are stupidly voting against their own self-interest, e.g., because Planet Earth will be destroyed by climate change without the Democrats in charge of the federal government.”
I suspect that attitudes like this are a lot more of the reason for anger than anything having to do with anti-semitism. Condescention and ridicule when someone is trying to express a grievance or disagreement is just about the best way to make anyone despise you.
For myself, I’ve never hated the Jews for any reason, and especially not for having high standards, high intelligence, and tending to produce a lot of high-achieving offspring who wind up in good schools and are disproportionately represented among the well-off. They earn that. What I can’t stand is someone telling me I must be stupid when I disagree with them.
This article could be considerably simplified. The average white person is slowly beginning to realize that a) the entire system of schooling, media, finance, and government has been set up to destroy them – and that it is working quite well, as Whites have shrunk from 28% of the world’s population in 1950 to 12% today – and b) this system of destruction is disproportionately filled with Jews.
So while one can debate whether Jews are behind the destruction of traditional White Christian America (my belief is no) it’s simply impossible to argue that many have not enthusiastically participated in it. This pattern has repeated itself many times, which is why Jews keep getting kicked out of Western nations. Despite his pro-American/white nationalist reputation Trump is actually incredibly pro-minority, pro-gay, and pro-Jewish in practice, so it seems that the system has progressed beyond that stage and we are entering the end game . . .
This post is unfortunately way too long and unfocused so it is hard to grasp exactly what the point is but Trump is easily the best American president for the Jews since Harry Truman. We will have to see how Jewish voters address this fact in 2020. The various people and organizations noted above are mostly Jews by an accident of birth and do not observe the religion, which is very conservative and contrary to popular belief not at all “progressive.” Unfortunately there is no such thing in Judaism as excommunication so there is no way to deal with this issue. Also, with the much higher birth rates among the Haredi community along with intermarriage the Sanders/Schiff/Nadler portion of the US Jewish population will eventually become a small minority — as it is in Israel, with the high birth rates among the Haredi and the large scale immigration from the Soviet Union and the Muslim world, none of whom are at all sympathetic to the left.
Note also videos from the recent Jewish conservatism conference, which could well represent the future of US Judaism — unlike Sanders et al, who represent the past. https://www.jewishleadershipconference.org/2019-conference/2019-conference-sessions/
One thing I have noticed, and again I applaud you for putting some of these things out there, among my Jewish friends through the years, has been a subtle but quite noticeable tendency to self-censor when in mixed company – for example, when having dinner with their families in their homes. Certain subjects seem to be hushed away, and I’ve never completely understood that. You like me, we’re friends, I’m having dinner here at your table, but you won’t discuss certain subjects like the latest voting in Israel with me around. Perhaps they were genuinely shy and didn’t want to give me any offense, but it would have been based on a presumption that I didn’t agree with them. or worse. It would be interesting to go back through life and be able to document which subjects caused which families to clam up in mixed company.
You’ve probably documented a couple dozen of them here. Anyway, I’ve always found that regrettable, and something of a loss. I try not to do that myself.
The main reason the American Jews that I’ve met wouldn’t discuss the latest voting in Israel is that they wouldn’t be aware that it had occurred or who had been running for election, not to mention the fact that the entire population of Israel is comparable to what you’d find in mid-sized Chinese city (see https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/335rank.html ).
The majority of American Jews have never visited Israel (see https://www.jta.org/2019/06/02/israel/israeli-french-and-american-jews-agree-on-almost-everything-except-trump for some statistics).
@philg: Amazing, color me surprised. I always begin by thinking that almost anyone I’m talking to about any subject knows more about it than I do, not just to be respectful but that’s always been part of my personality (maybe not so much online, but in real life, that’s how I am.) I always look to people around me to educate me about what they know, so I’ve always assumed that more Jews would be very well informed about politics in Israel. And I’m surprised that more Jews haven’t visited, I would have thought at least a slight majority.
Certainly when you go into someone’s home and you see piles of newspapers in several languages laying around, stacks of books, etc., etc., you tend to think: “These people are probably better informed than I am about most things.” (It certainly is true in your case). And yet I’ve had several of those experiences.
And oh, boy, now all we have to do to make this conversation head for the moon is start talking about a billionaire Democrat Presidential candidate who wants to close all the coal power plants and natural gas plants, eviscerate the 2nd Amendment, and create Smart Cities everywhere. Off we go into the Wild Blue Yonder.
He changed his mind! I guess he decided being Jewish too wasn’t much of a liability. After all, the Democrats already have a Cherokee!
For what it’s worth, I’ve always been puzzled that more Jews don’t understand why so many Americans feel besieged over their support of the 2nd Amendment. Israel is armed to the teeth, possesses nuclear weapons, is surrounded by hostile powers that want it wiped off the map, and possesses probably the smartest and certainly among the most lethal defense forces in the world. If there’s anyone who should understand the right of self defense, it should be them. I had always thought more Jews would find themselves on the side of the NRA, promoting responsible gun ownership, self-defense, and the right to keep and bear arms, but that’s *never* the way the NRA and gun owners are portrayed.
I was at a range last weekend, and one of my buddies was showing off his maglula UpLula, so I know there are some who do — but it’s not a popular position and it certainly isn’t part of mainstream progressivism (whatever that is.)
https://www.maglula.com/contact-us
If you’ve ever tried to load a cranky 9mm magazine by hand, the UpLula is a great help, and has been for years now. They even come in pink!
A great summary of how Jews are broadly supportive of diverse immigration into the US. US Jews also of course support Israel. Israel is “not an immigration country” and applies rigorous ethnic criteria to would-be citizens, sometimes even requiring a DNA test. A curious contrast, is it not?
Lord P: That is a great point. Instead of staying here to argue that 1.2 million legal immigrants per year are not sufficient (plus a guestimated additional 12 million undocumented immigrants; see https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/18_1214_PLCY_pops-est-report.pdf ) and that our borders are not porous enough, politically righteous American Jews could make https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliyah and immediately acquire Israeli-American dual citizenship. A week later they could vote to reform Israeli immigration policy in line with #OpenBorders and #NoHumanBeingIsIllegal . After another week of soaking up the sun on the beach in Tel Aviv, they can move back to the U.S. and vote for Elizabeth Warren.
All my Israeli colleagues describe Israel as a country of immigrants. Just because it is not a country of *all* immigrants, or even recent immigrants, does not make it less so.
Obama always says if you like your Jews you can keep your Jews!
I wonder if the author contemplates that, in legitimizing arguments that “white men’s” marginal economic self-interest is equivalent to and rival with other groups’ moral interest, he is providing a questionable basis for out-and-out tribalist xenophobia (not just antisemitism)? That is, there is an implicit assertion embedded in his discussion that “it is a moral imperative (and therefore, valid policy prerogative) that my group’s marginal economic interest deserves protection against other groups’ moral interests”. Indeed, this assertion seems to underlie Trumpism (and its foreign versions, as in Brazil, the UK, Hungary, etc.)
Of course, no one wants to see their marginal economic interest diminished. But this is hardly a basis upon which to claim political spoils (let along go on murderous xenophobic shooting sprees), especially considering that the “freedom to lose out” is a fundamental part of laissez faire (which, let’s not forget, is supposed to be one of the core tenets and “cultural innovations” of the West).
Also, consider the role of perspective: is HIAS the majority aid recipient of Office of Refugee Resettlement? Are jewish groups as a whole? I sincerely doubt it. Given such, why are we even having this discussion, once properly attributing a majority of ORR funds (to the same ends) by non-“jewish” groups? What if it, in fact, the majority goes to overtly Catholic and/or Protestant groups? Would Trumpists be up in arms about moral “christians” as their enemies?
Again, I sincerely doubt it.
Thus, this whole line of discourse, which requires “singling-out” jews, is predicated upon the assumption that jews as a “group” are always deserving of special scrutiny, have a special responsibility to be “impeccable”, and/or have a special duty to continuously earn the validation of the “good Christian white man” (who is, of course, the natural “default person” — anywhere other than Europe, for absolutely no reason).
If Native Americans begin to widely perceive white Americans as “their enemies” on a comparable basis, should we have a little sympathy for any murderous rampages committed by them? Or, at a minimum, if they found political movements that are either openly or implicitly “anti-Anglo”?
Seems to me a dangerous road to go down… and a distraction from the self-inflicted economic flaws of a system which is, at its core, continuously eroding the middle class and impoverishing everyone except the already-wealthy.
Deplora-Bull: I would agree with almost everything that you say, except that at least some of the people advocating for more low-skill immigration and/or pocketing tax money for helping to settling low-skill migrants are Jews who say that they are doing it because of their interpretation of Judaism. It isn’t that these advocates for and profiteers from migration happen to be Jewish. It is that they say that are doing it because it is somehow required of them by Jewish law or tradition.
@DB
So in your opinion Whites should not be allowed to lobby for their economic interests even though our government explicitly discriminates against them via affirmative action and welfare policies that transfer huge amounts of net money to minorities? Instead, they should enjoy the freedom to lose in an unfair system, and if they are upset about this they should remember that they are all guilty of the crimes of their fathers for establishing freedom and democracy on the American continent?
If you would just stand in the grocery store for a few minutes you would realize that most white people are not in the 1% and are struggling hard just to get by. And if you can’t feel compassion for someone just because of their white skin, then you’re a racist.
(By the way, if anyone wants to see an illustration of how a questionable tribalist economic-vs-moral equivalence assumption combined with questionably singling out one “tribe” opens the door to even more extreme tribalism and xenophobia, just read the rest of the posts here in response to the OP. Does anyone honestly think the conversation here would be much different in a Trumpist, AFD, UKIP, or Fideszmeeting? Presumably the above posters would actually answer “no”… but express concurrence with such groups… what if we then expand the list to the “Klan”?)
Philg:
“It isn’t that these advocates for and profiteers from migration happen to be Jewish. It is that they say that are doing it because it is somehow required of them by Jewish law or tradition.”
And that distinguishes from any other religion how?
Again, I don’t see how the situation distinguishes from any other situation where an ethnic group (however properly-delimited) is, in all truth, being attacked purely for being the “other”.
Deplora-Bull: Great question. Let’s take Islam as an example of another religion. A quick web search brings up some groups identify as “Muslim” advocating for more Muslim immigrants. I couldn’t easily find a group or individual saying “My faith in Islam compels me to demand that U.S. borders be open and that all migrants be welcomed.”
For Hindus, I found https://www.hafsite.org/about-us/where-we-stand in which they do seem to advocate for the undocumented to be granted citizenship. But their justification seems to be that there are a lot of Hindus who could benefit from this, not that it is a religious requirement for Hindus.
https://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2016/09/22/india-is-the-fastest-growing-source-of-new-illegal-immigrants-to-the-u-s/
says “India Is the Fastest-Growing Source of New Illegal Immigrants to the U.S.; The country ranks fourth after Mexico, El Salvador and Guatemala for the largest source of unauthorized migrants to America”
What about Hindus back home in India? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-india-politics-citizenship/india-aims-to-expel-all-illegal-migrants-interior-minister-says-idUSKCN1UC1MJ says “India will identify and deport illegal immigrants from across the country, the interior minister said on Wednesday”
So the Hindu support for migration could be based on expediency and self-interest, unless you want to say that the Hindu religion requires an open border in the U.S. and a closed border in India. (As Lord P notes above, American Jews say that Judaism requires open borders, but we have the counterexample of Israel, in which a majority of voters are Jewish and the borders are mostly closed.)
Deplora-Bull: I think you’re right that there are a ton of Americans who claim to be “Christian” and that this requires them to support open borders (but, here in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the Unitarian faithful who are always happy to say that no human being is illegal do not support relaxing the zoning laws so that any of the migrants who make it across the border could settle in their actual town; i.e., no human being is illegal, but a human being who can’t afford a 2-acre lot actually IS illegal).
But Americans are more familiar with Christianity. So even if there are a lot of Christians in the news saying that Christianity is the Open Border Religion (TM), they will personally a lot of churchgoing Christians who do not support open borders. Since Jews are a small percentage of the U.S. population and are clustered in a handful of cities (right next to Donald Trump’s homes!), the typical American who forms a negative opinion of Jews from watching CNN or reading the New York Times will have almost no opportunity to meet a Jew who says “Actually, in my opinion Judaism does not require cashing in on the refugee industry.”
Gee, I wonder what in the Jewish experience of the last 2000 years may have made them more sympathetic than Muslims, Hindus or Christians to the plight of refugees and immigrants. The Baha’i are as well.
Finally, to answer your central question:
“Readers: What do you think? Given the increased power of government, the dramatic effect of government policies, and the tendency of American Jews to support a particular party/platform, is it possible that the irrational anti-Jewish sentiment of the 19th century has been replaced by rational anti-Jewish sentiment, motivated by anger at the reported actions of Americans who identify as Jews (and are willing to go to any length, short of practicing Judaism, to maintain that identity!).”
The only thing arguing against this, really, is that progressivism spans all sorts of nationalities, religious affiliations, gender identities, and so forth. So if anyone wants to have a “rational” antipathy for Jews, a minority among progressives, and single them out, that person is probably guilty of antisemitism more generally. When I think about progressive ideas, in other words, I haven’t customarily started with the author’s last name and thought: “Oh, of course. Jewish.” But now you’ve made me think about it! 😉
Perhaps that has to do with how I was raised by my father in particular: he always warned me as a child about attributing any particular habits of thought or ideology to any group of people very strongly. On race, for example, we really never tolerated traits being attributable to racial differences (although they do exist) and that’s how we were raised more generally. Especially if someone had an interesting idea (or a bad one) it really didn’t matter what their background was. A concrete example of this was my younger brother, who once had a teacher mark up an elementary school essay because he talked about the “tan people” in his school at around 6 years old. We were puzzled.
“The Tan People? Who are the Tan People?”
“You know, the tan ones. Like dad’s friend Andre.” [Andre was a programmer my Dad had hired who came from Haiti as a refugee and worked like crazy to buy his family out of the hellhole.]
“Andre isn’t tan. He’s Black! That’s the color of his skin! He didn’t *get* tan, he always *was* tan!”
[Amazed look on his face.]
“Wow.”
Anyway, if American Jews are more reliably progressive, it’s the progressivism I think about, not the Jew part.
Interesting statistics. I’m partially Jewish, and know a lot of Jews, who are mostly immigrants. Overwhelming majority are republicans, pro-Trump and anti-illegal immigration (as many, if not most, legal immigrants are). So there are Jews and there are Jews.
That’s been my experience as well. I’m not Jewish but am relatively well acquainted with the Jewish community in Toronto. Among conservatives, Jews are 100x more patriotic (as Canadians, not sure if this is equally true in the US) than WASPS. WASPS here seem to be the caricature of capitalists who will sell you the rope with which to hang them: they favor open borders for short term business interests. Jewish conservatives seem to be a lot more level headed about immigration/sensible levels of multiculturalism.
I get the sense that Jewish overrepresentation in advocacy for open borders is just a proxy for Jewish overrepresentation in advocacy in general. A group of articulate people will tend to be leaders in arguing lots of positions. The reason you don’t hear more of them openly advocating conservative positions is that putting those opinions in writing in today’s intellectual climate is so fraught with the danger of getting damore’d out of your job. You’ll only learn how people really feel by talking to them off the record over a pint.
“Immigrants” here is probably the key word. As I posted elsewhere:
“All my Russian-Jewish friends who emigrated about 25-30 years ago are very conservative, without a single exception, and vote republican if at all. All their children, without a single exception, are extremely left-leaning (open borders, Trump is a Nazi devil, government control of everything, gender/race is a social construct, you name it) to the degree that one of them stopped talking to his parents because they voted for Trump.”
The reason for the parents being the way they are is rather simple. They испытали прелести коммунизма на собственной шкуре (experienced communism on their own hide). Not sure why their children turned the way they did. There are multiple explanations for that none of which seem adequate. The only thing one can be sure of is that parents have virtually zero influence on their children, at least politically.
I had to double check the URL here, thought I was on The Unz Review for a moment…
Parallel to HIAS, Catholic Charities is a source of simmering anger. Many Catholics have left the church over it. In many places you can’t be sure your tithing isn’t being used to pointlessly import foreigners. Catholic Charities is mostly about milking federal dollars for replacing the American population with foreigners, which has nothing whatsoever to do with Catholicism.
One must understand the psyche of the jew in order to properly assess the damage that they inflict on humanity.
The one reason that makes “jews” so successful is that they formulate and enact laws (civil-rights for some) that deny us whites the right to look after our own self-interest while they flout the laws that are imposed on the rest of us. THAT, my friend is a reason for their “success”.
[Philip stepped in (over toes of moderators) and removed remainder of comment due to fears that Google will deplatform this site if it hosts statements regarding Jews in general along the same lines as Der Stürmer (though perhaps the original post will also prove sufficient for a deplatforming!). Readers who dislike Jews: remember that there are American Jewish heretics (Republican voters) so we are not a monolithic group. So feel free to complain about actions taken by specific Jews or subgroups of Jews, especially those who say that they’re doing it because they are Jews, but please try to avoid characterizing all Jews worldwide as sharing certain characteristics.]
Philg,
I have one remark to make
I think your treatment of Jews is skewed by living on the coast, esp. the Peoples Republic of Metro Boston. There is more variation than you might think: I live in an orthodox community in the midwest. It seems to me that the majority of voters in that this community are Trump supporters (disclaimer 1: I am not one of them; disclaimer 2: I originally come from elsewhere). There is anti-immigrant sentiment among community members. There is a deeply anti-intellectual, anti-elitist, and sometimes racist streak in this community.
I do not think your longish post is referring to these people.
Your post seems to be stereotyping the secular east coast, social justice warrior, committed Democrat till death, Jew.