Vox Jew Baiting Again (and Accidentally Makes a Reasonable Argument)

My favorite Jew baiter, blogger, and ubermench on the internet, Vox Day is back to his Jew baiting ways again in his post about the circumcision ban in Germany today.  It is hard for me to disagree with his main point, particularly when just yesterday I wrote about how strange the custom of circumcision was and that it was not really based on anything rational or defensible.  I also made a very similar point to his about how Jewish and German cultures were irreconcilable.

He goes on to make the completely obvious point that Judaism is not circumcision... but just yesterday I wrote:  Judaism = Circumcision.  Since Vox often does not get hyperbole I will make this a little more clear. Judaism is not actually circumcision, but there is no form of Judaism that exists without the ritual.  Even the most liberal Jewish movements would have a hard time eradicating the practice from their congregations.  Judaism and circumcision are inextricably connected... to ban the practice is to ban the religion of Judaism.  This has historical precedent, because at times when Judaism has been banned, circumcision has been explicitly banned with it.  However, here is what I found most distasteful from his post today.

One finds it hard to imagine that the Germans have not made it sufficiently clear that they do not cherish living with Jews among them any more than Israelis enjoy living with Sudanese in their midst.

Once again he draws a false equivalence between the situation of illegal African immigration in Israel and the historical persecution of Jews in Christian Europe.  Of course, he does this while we are still waiting for the response he promised to my post about how the two situations are not even comparable .... and he never bothered to respond to my post destroying his "red herring" assertion that the violence necessary to carry out the deportations on two different continents in two different centuries automatically makes them equivalent.   Don't worry, I am sure he will get to it.

Vox will probably accuse me of lacking the ability to read, because if you parse the sentence above very carefully it does not actually equate the Israeli attitude toward the African immigrants with the Nazi attitude toward Jews.  But putting them in the same sentence together is consistent with his intent to use the Israeli deportation of illegal immigrants to justify the historical expulsion of the Jews.  It is more valid to read this sentence for the emotion it evokes than its logical content.  Nasty business.

Finally, Vox makes a good point in an update he provided to the post.  I think he should have led with this because it is his strongest argument.

UPDATE: I have zero sympathy for Jews whining about this court decision. They have no grounds for complaining about finding themselves on the short end of the freedom of religion law this time given this previous German court case: "In 1973, a Jew complained successfully that his freedom of religion was violated by the obligation to speak in a German courtroom decorated by a cross." 

Do you want your traditions to be respected? Then keep your nose out of everyone else's. 

There is an element of truth to this.  I have always been uncomfortable with how zealously civil libertarians have prosecuted their desire to remove Christian prayer from the public square.  In many cases the people promoting this cause are Jewish.

True story.

In 2004, I was a volunteer for the George W. Bush campaign in Florida. All over the country volunteers were asked to observe polling places to prevent another debacle like the unbelievably close results of 2000. On election night, I was waiting in the supervisor of elections office with another volunteer. A stranger with long hair, corduroy shorts and flip flops approached me and asked for a word. He identified himself as a reporter for the local paper. I agreed to talk to him, but did not know what he could possibly want to talk with me about.

“Well” he said, “I understand that ACLU is sending attorneys to supervise the counting tonight and I was hoping to get a statement for tomorrow's paper.”

I looked at him blankly for a minute and then started laughing out loud. My friend from the RNC just laughed, punched me in the shoulder, and said “You sure look the part!”

You see, I am possibly the most stereo typically looking Jewish guy in the world. When the reporter realized we were laughing at him, he slinked away embarrassed and went to find the actual ACLU lawyer, a well dressed elderly southern gentleman, probably of Scots-Irish decent.

The reporter had looked around the room, picked the most Jewish looking guy and decided that I must be from the ACLU.  This is because whenever you see someone on TV complaining about a Christian prayer at a football game... it is usually a Jewish guy.  While the Christian community is generally too polite to say so... they don't like the fact that Jews will scream persecution when they hear a Christmas carol or someone say the word Jesus in a public prayer.  They would much prefer to sing their songs, pray their prayers, and worship God in their own way, without being accused of bigotry.

I grew up in an area that was primarily Southern Baptist and heard many of those kinds of prayers and carols in my childhood.  I learned to bow my head politely and not say Amen, if I could not agree with the prayer.  No one was ever offended by that.  I found that the very religious Southern Christian families I grew up around to be very lovely, warm, kind people who happen to eat a lot of mayonnaise.

Unlike Vox however, these people never blamed me personally (by blaming Jews in general) for the actions of a few Jews in the ACLU.  The closest they will ever get is to shake their head and ask "why is it that Jews are so liberal?"   To which I reply, I have no idea... and then bow my head politely while they bless the food with whatever blessing they choose.   I don't say amen but I do say, please pass the mayonnaise.