ZGram - 8/20/2004 - "Paul Eisen: Jewish Power" - Part IV

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

Zgram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

August 20, 2004

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

This is Part IV of Eisen's brilliant essay:

[START]

What is a Jew?

Israel Shamir, the Russian-born Israeli writer, advocates the right 
of all people, whatever their ethnicity or religion, to live together 
in complete equality between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River. 
Shamir condemns the behaviour of Israel and of Diaspora Jews and 
calls for an end to their preferential treatment, but he also 
proposes an opposition to Judaism itself for which he stands accused 
of being anti-Jewish - a charge he does not deny but actually 
embraces.

Shamir proposes the existence of a Jewish ideology, or "Jewish 
paradigm" as he puts it, and proposes that it is the voluntary 
adherence to this "spirit" which makes a Jew into a Jew. For him, 
Jewishness is neither race nor ethnicity - there is, for Shamir, no 
such thing as a Jewish 'tribe' or 'family' - no biological or ethnic 
body from which there can be no escape. Further, this ideology, based 
on notions of choseness, exclusivity and even supremacism is, at 
least when empowered, incompatible with peace, equality and justice 
in Palestine or anywhere else for that matter.

No-one wants to oppose any Jews simply for being Jews, or even for 
what they believe, but only because of what they do. The problem is 
that since, according to Shamir, what Jews believe and even do is 
precisely what makes them into Jews, so opposition to Jewishness as 
an ideology surely comes dangerously close to opposition to Jews 
simply for being Jews. But for Shamir, Jews are Jews because they 
choose to be Jews. Someone may be born of Jews and raised as a Jew 
but they can if they wish reject their Jewish upbringing and become a 
non-Jew. And many have done just that including such famous escapees 
as Karl Marx, St. Paul, Leon Trotsky (and Shamir himself), etc. 
Opposition to Jews is not, therefore, like opposition to Blacks or to 
Asians or to other common racist attitudes since the object of the 
opposition is perfectly able to relinquish the ideology in question.

Shamir has never in any way called for any harm to be done to Jews or 
anyone else, nor for Jews or anyone else to be discriminated against 
in any way. Adherence to this Jewish ideology is, for Shamir, 
regrettable, but not, in itself, a matter for active opposition. Nor 
does this mean that Shamir is opposed to any individual Jew just 
because he or she is a Jew. What Shamir actively opposes is not 
"Jews" but "Jewry". Analogous to say, the Catholic Church, Jewry 
consists of those organised Jews and their leaders who actively 
promote corrosive Jewish interests and values, particularly now in 
the oppression of the Palestinians 

One doesn't have to be in complete agreement with Shamir to 
understand what he is talking about. Why should Jews not have a 
"spirit"; after all, such a concept has been discussed with regard to 
other nations?  

"It is dangerous, wrong, to speak about the "Germans," or any other 
people, as of a single undifferentiated entity, and include all 
individuals in one judgment. And yet I don't think I would deny that 
there exists a spirit of each people (otherwise it would not be a 
people) a Deutschtum, an italianitia, an hispanidad: they are the 
sums of traditions, customs, history, language, and culture. Whoever 
does not feel within himself this spirit, which is national in the 
best sense of the word, not only does not entirely belong to his own 
people but is not part of human civilization. Therefore, while I 
consider insensate the syllogism, 'All Italians are passionate; you 
are Italian; therefore you are passionate," I do however believe it 
legitimate, within certain limits, to expect from Italians taken as a 
whole, or from Germans, etc., one specific, collective behavior 
rather than another. There will certainly be individual exceptions, 
but a prudent, probabilistic forecast is in my opinion possible." 
Primo Levi

And for Jews it is, perhaps, even more appropriate. The place of 
Judaism as an ideology at the centre for all Jewish identity may be 
debated, but few would dispute that Judaism is at least at the 
historic heart of Jewishness and, whatever else may bind Jews 
together, it is certainly true that religion plays an important part. 
Second, for a group of people who have retained such a strong 
collective identity with no shared occupation of any land, language, 
nor even, in many cases, a culture, it is hard to see what else there 
could be that makes Jews into Jews. Surely for Jews, in the absence 
of other, more obvious factors, it is precisely such a spirit that 
has enabled them to retain their distinctive identity for so long and 
in the face of such opposition.

But if there is some kind of Jewish spirit or ideology, what is it? 
As far as Judaism, the religion, goes it seems fairly clear that 
there is an ideology based on the election of Israel by God, the 
special relationship Jews are supposed to have with God and the 
special mission allocated to Jews by God. So for observant Jews there 
is a special quality intrinsic to the covenant and to Judaism itself, 
though not all of them find it appealing:

"There is a strain in Jewish thought that says there is a special 
Godly something or other that is passed down in a certain genetic 
line which confers a special quality on people and Jewishness is a 
special quality. I call that metaphysical racism."  Rabbi Mark Solomon

But whilst easy to see such a common spirit in religious Jews - after 
all it is precisely that which makes them religious - it is so much 
harder to define it in secular Jews, those Jews who reject, often 
quite vociferously, all aspects of Jewish faith. They often claim 
that they don't have an ideology, or that their ideology is one of, 
say, the left: not only not Jewish, but opposed to all religions 
including Judaism. Yet seemingly so free of all such ignorant 
superstition, these same people still call themselves Jews, still 
more often than not marry other Jews and still turn up to solidarity 
rallies only with other Jews and under Jewish banners. What is their 
ideology?

For my money it is much the same sense of specialness found in 
religious Jews but with a special reference to victimhood. "Yes, but 
only in the Hitlerian sense", answered philosopher Maxime Rodinson 
when asked if he still considered himself a Jew. For many of these 
Jews it is their identity as a threatened and victimized people that 
makes them Jews. "Hitler said I was a Jew, so I may as well be a Jew" 
is one response or "To be a Jew somehow denies all those who ever 
persecuted Jews a victory- so I'm a Jew".  For these Jews, albeit 
estranged from Jewish religious and often community life as well, 
Emil Fackenheim's famous post-Holocaust 614th commandment (to add to 
the other 613): Thou shall survive! is an absolute imperative. But 
whatever the motive, this self-identity runs very deep indeed. 
Amongst these Jews, no matter how left or progressive they may be, 
one may criticise Israel to the nth degree, poke fun at the Jewish 
establishment and even shamefully denigrate Judaism as a religion, 
but depart one iota from the approved text on anti-Semitism and 
Jewish suffering, and you are in deep trouble. For these rational 
folk, Jewish suffering and anti-Semitism is every bit as 
inexplicable, mysterious and therefore, unchallengeable as for any 
religious Jew.

Jewish secularism is often offered as evidence that there is no such 
thing as a Jewish identity gathered around any shared ideology. After 
all, if all Jews subscribe to the same basic ideology, then how come 
so many Jews so obviously don't? And if all Jews essentially support 
the same interests, how come so many Jews so obviously don't? But is 
it that obvious? Not only do secular Jews very often seem to 
subscribe to Jewish notions of specialness and victimhood, but also, 
in their attitudes to non-Jews in general, and Palestinians in 
particular, they are by no means all that different from religious 
Jews. 

It is often quoted how many Jews are in solidarity movements with 
Palestinians and how many of these are secular. And it's true: there 
are many Jews in sympathy with the Palestinians and the overwhelming 
majority are secular, and the main thrust of post-1967 virulent 
Zionism has come to be associated with the religious right. But this 
secular Jewish tradition, in fact, has been at the forefront of 
Zionism's assault on the Palestinians. It was secular Labour Zionists 
who created the Zionist ideology and the pre-state Jewish-only 
society. It was secular Zionists - good, humanistic, left-wing 
kibbutzniks - who directed and carried out the ethnic cleansing of 
750,000 Palestinians, and the destruction of their towns and 
villages. It was secular Zionists who established the present state 
with all its discriminatory practices; and it was a largely secular 
Labour government that held the Palestinian citizens of Israel under 
military government in their own land for eighteen years. Finally, it 
was a secular, Labour government which conquered the West Bank and 
Gaza, and first built the settlements, and embarked on the Oslo peace 
process, coolly designed to deceive the Palestinians into 
surrendering their rights.

And even those secular Jews who do support Palestinian rights, on so 
many occasions, the solidarity they offer is limited by self 
interest. That these people, at least as much as anyone else, act out 
of their highest motives may be true. Many have been lifelong 
activists for many causes and many find their activism springs, 
consciously or unconsciously, from what they see as the highest 
ideals of their Jewishness. But nonetheless for many of them, 
solidarity with Palestinians means above all, the protection of Jews. 
They call for a Palestinian state on 22 per cent of the Palestinian 
homeland, but only to keep and protect the 'Jewishness' of the Jewish 
state. The Palestinian state they call for would inevitably be weak, 
dominated by the Israeli economy and under the guns of the Israeli 
military - surely they must know what this would mean!

At rally after rally, in speeches and on leaflets and banners, these 
Jews denounce the occupation: "Down with the occupationŠdown with the 
occupationŠdown with the occupationŠ" but not a word of the inherent 
injustice of a state for Jews only; perhaps a mention of the 
ill-gotten gains of 1948, but nothing of the right of return of the 
refugees, no restitution merely 'a just solution' taking account, of 
course, of Israel's 'demographic concerns'. "We are with youŠ.we are 
with youŠ.we are with you" they say "Š...but Š" Whether it be 
condemnation of some form of Palestinian resistance of which they 
disapprove, or some real or perceived occurrence of anti-Semitism, 
for these Jews there is always a but." 

They should take a leaf from Henry Herskovitz. He is part of an 
organisation called Jewish Witnesses for Peace, which holds silent 
vigils outside synagogues on shabbat. Of course, all the other Jewish 
activists are shrieking at him that you mustn't target Jews for 
protest, that you must draw a distinction between Jews, Israelis and 
Zionists, that you'll only alienate the people we want to engage.... 
but he doesn't care. He knows that support from the Jewish 
mainstream, as Tony Cliff the Trotskyite used to say, "Š.is like 
honey on your elbow - you can see it, you can smell it but you can 
never quite taste it!" Henry also knows that to say that Jews in 
America individually and in their religious and community 
organisations should not be held accountable for what is happening is 
a lie and discredits all Jews before the non-Jewish world.

  [END]

Tomorrow:  Conclusion