Fun Day - Entrepreneurship Conference

I am heading into the city for a conference today. There looks to be a great line up of speakers.  The subject is entrepreneurship and government regulation.  I will post more on it later today.

Maybe it Was the Dancing Jews

This video is what happens when you combine syrupy romanticism, community theater people, and the internet.  Over the top, but hilarious.

It kind of reminds me of my own proposal to my wife almost 19 years ago... minus the cameras, the music, the dancers, the choreography, the ring. ... just add a bowl of dog food and it would be exactly the same.  (Yes, she married me anyway, lucky her.)




Not sure about the lyrics... maybe it was the dancing jews?

The End of the Holocaust

In Tablet Mag this week, there was an interesting article by Rachel Shukert titled Ignore Hitler, Indeed.  In the article, she cataloged the way that Hitler is mocked all over the internet... from simple caricature to re-dubbing his speeches with crazy dialog.  

This paragraph from her column had me laughing out loud:

... I studied these books with morbid obsessiveness, until I had internalized the terror of their message to the point that I spent most of my “play” time packing and re-packing my Snoopy suitcase with the items I thought I would most need when we had to go into hiding. And as for “never forgetting,” for nearly five years I couldn’t take a shower without experiencing a panic attack. As a teenager, I went on the March of the Living, and even now, as an adult, an entire bookcase in my one-bedroom apartment is devoted to what my husband lovingly calls “her Nazi books.”

I too have that shelf of Nazi books and went through a period of obsessive fascination with the Holocaust.  Fortunately, I have since matured in my view of Jewish History.  I also happen to agree with Shukert that the memory of the Holocaust is fading and maybe that is not such a bad thing.  As a religious school teacher I believe that 1.) the holocaust is over taught and 2.) that we encourage such morbid fascination without really thinking about why we are teaching the subject at all.

Her article hit such a nerve that Abe Foxman from the Anti Defamation League felt the need to comment directly on her blog.  (Shukert was so excited by this that she tweeted it)  In his post, he scolded her about being too eager for the memory of the holocaust to fade.

Rachel Shukert is on to something when she criticizes those who build their Jewish identity on the Holocaust or who obsess about it.  

Where she goes wrong, very wrong, is in her eagerness to see the Holocaust fade from public consciousness. She is in a position to offer such an opinion, as misguided as it is, exactly because she grew up learning and thinking about the Shoah. If she had her way, the next generation would not know of this historic tragedy and wouldn't even be in a position to think about whether we do too much or too little on the subject.  

In other words, her perspective would trivialize and diminish the Holocaust, both in terms of showing respect for the millions who perished and as a motivator for the concept of "Never Again," preventing anti-Semitism and genocide against any and all people.

Where Abe Foxman goes wrong, indeed where the "Never Again" philosophy goes wrong is that it mistakenly assumes that we, as Jews, could have done anything to prevent the Holocaust.  There were many who understood the importance of what was happening and many who tried to prevent it, unsuccessfully.  

The Holocaust is a painful reminder of our own powerlessness and vulnerability as a very small minority population in a larger culture.  The Holocaust is a very powerful moral example, the whole world understands its message, today.  It has given us a respite from the persecution of Europe, but the memory of the Holocaust is fading and Shukert is only noticing it, not causing it.  Abe Foxman correctly worries about it, but there is not really anything to do about it.

As Jews we would do better to truly internalize the message of the Holocaust, don't shy away from doing everything that you can to prevent such atrocities, but at the same time we can not over estimate our own ability to influence events.  Forgive me if I quote JRR Tolkien, but having written the Lord of the Ring trilogy while the Holocoaust was brewing, he correctly captured the spirit of the times.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo."So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”  

Dehumanizing Republicans: Paul Ryan Edition

I have been getting quite a few hits on my post You're a Republican?  But you seem like such a Nice Guy over the last few days.  This is a difficult issue to discuss in the Reform community, because Democrat Party activism is such an integral part of the the Reform movement.  The Reform movement has been associated with left leaning political causes since the 1920s (some might argue even earlier).  The modern Reform movement certainly does not shy away from taking sides on the political issues of the day.

As a member of a Reform synagogue, you have to understand that this is part of the landscape.  I generally don't complain too much, but as election season approaches, people's emotions run high and the rhetoric gets heated and more constant.  What always amazes me is peoples' willingness to believe something absolutely horrible about someone they don't know... in many cases that someone is a Republican.

Basically, an increase in talking points in the media will also correspond with an increase in thoughtless comments intended to denigrate a Republican opponent.  There is a great example of a quick conversation in synagogue the other day.

In a men's group, we were talking about the concept of charity.  I explained that there were some Reform organizations I could not support because they would funnel a portion of donations to fund political advocacy, the majority of which I opposed.  There was a great discussion about this and the name Paul Ryan was mentioned in the context was that he is an extremist, because his budget makes such deep cuts to social programs.

The minute that his name was mentioned with the word extremist, there was immediately a nodding of heads in agreement throughout the room.  This shows how devastatingly effective talking points can be.  Paul Ryan = extremist.  No amount of reasoned debate was going undo this perception of Ryan.  This, of course, did not stop me from trying.

I opened with what I thought was an iron clad argument... "Well, clearly no one wants to see a return to 19th century capitalism, with bad working conditions and people starving in the streets..."  Unfortunately, even something as obvious as this was not viewed as a compelling argument by the group.  People insisted that Ryan did indeed want a return to that kind of America and that his extremist budget was proof of this.

Why were people so resistant to this line of reasoning?  Ryan has been dehumanized.  Look at a few snippets from the opening of a New York Times article about Representative Ryan by Jonathan Weisman (no relation).

[Emphasis below is mine]

Representative Paul D. Ryan strolls the halls of Capitol Hill with the anarchist band Rage Against the Machine pounding through his earbuds.... 

...For fun, Mr. Ryan noodles catfish, catching them barehanded with a fist down their throats. 

He may be, as a friend described him, “a hunting-obsessed gym rat,” ...

..His prescriptions in the Republican budget plan he devised have become his party’s marching orders: 

According to the New York times, Ryan is an anarchist, cold blooded killer, and dictatorial issuer of "Marching Orders."  It is no wonder that people are willing to believe that he wants to bring the country back to the 19th century.   Later in the article:

“I’m stunned by how oblivious he is to the pain his policies would cause people,” said David R. Obey, a Democrat from Wisconsin who jousted often with his downstate colleague before retiring from the House at the end of 2010. “What amazes me is that someone that nice personally has such a cold, almost academic view of what the impact of his policies would be on people.”

And critics view him as indifferent to people's suffering.

I happen to have a lot of respect for Paul Ryan and do not think that he is an extremist at all.  His major fault seems to be that he has proposed a budget for federal government that makes very deep cuts across the board, which can reasonably be described as severely impacting social programs.  In a more normal time, this might qualify him as extremist, but today it seems like a more logical response to a large and unruly economic problem.  

I will also note that it is exceptional that he has proposed a budget at all, because in the 3.5 years of the Obama administration, the Federal Government has been running without one.  This is no small point.  I have seen organizations run without a budget and invariably they overspend on seemly good ideas and important things, only to find out later they can't pay the electric bill or payroll.  Ultimately, when things get bad enough a Ryan style budget is imposed, not by the board of the organization, but by reality.

It is upsetting how quickly people are willing to believe in the bad intentions of others.  I don't understand why people can not look at Ryan and believe that he is not trying to cause peoples suffering.  He is also not indifferent to it.  He is trying to prevent greater suffering by our nation and the people in it... cutting what we provide now to preserve the ability to provide something later.  Reasonable people can disagree about how far you need to go to do this, but there is no need to turn Ryan into a a sub human monster to make the point.  

Dehumanizing people, particularly for political gain, is definitely not consistent with Jewish values.  We are obligated to judge people favorably to the greatest extent possible.  It is possible to disagree with the specifics of the Ryan budget without viewing him as an evil tyrant.  In a time when the majority of lawmakers in Washington are doing nothing to address the major problems our country faces, Ryan is a serious man, with a serious message...  Maybe his proposal isn't perfect, but it is also not the epitome of evil.  Just like us, he wants to prevent people's suffering, not cause it.  Implementing cuts now to prevent a collapse later is a reasonable position, it should be treated that way.

Part 2 - Immigration and Jewish Hypocrisy

This is part two of a post titled Immigration and Jewish Hypocrisy.  You can read Part One here.

People will often criticize Israel, saying that it is a racist state and no doubt the recent anti-immigrant riot in Tel Aviv will fuel this charge.  Fortunately, Israel's reaction to the violence within its borders is what we hope to see.  Look at this Op-ed by Daniel Feldman in today's edition of Ynetnews.  This has been characteristic of the reaction that I have seen from Israeli and American Jewish communities.  

In another post I have been debating blogger Vox Day on the anti-semitic dangers of his alternative-right philosophy and in his response he challenged me on Israel's immigration problem.  I have taken this opportunity to try to outline a fair, logical, coherent position on immigration that applies equally to the US and Israel (and all countries) and takes into account the Jewish nature of the State of Israel without being hypocritical.  So, here it is.

First I would like to say that generally, I believe that a sovereign state has the right to determine who resides within its borders, although that comes with some limitations.  The state also has varying degrees of responsibility to its residents.  To categorize what those responsibilities are, I would divide people up into four categories in descending order of the state's responsibility to each.

1. - Citizens / Subjects

2. - Resident Aliens

3. - Illegal Resident Aliens

4. - Non-Residents

So, the state's responsibility to category 1 (Citizens) are much greater than any responsibilities in has to category 4 (non-residents).  Each category should be treated fairly within their category... and by this I mean that everyone within a specific category should have a fair set of laws that apply to them, the equal application of those laws, protection from ex post facto laws, etc. 

For the purpose of this discussion, we are dealing primarily with categories 3 and 4.  

Category 4:  You can argue that a sovereign state has no responsibility toward anyone in category 4.  The only exception to this is if a person in category 4 is in mortal danger because their home state is exercising illegitimate authority against them (examples are war refugees and victims of attempted genocide). Then the state would have the responsibility to help to greatest extent practical, meaning that they should give legitimate refugees category 2 (resident alien) status provided that it does not present an unreasonable burden on its (category 1) citizens.   For this reason, most modern states will have asylum laws, agreeing that some level of refugee immigration can be absorbed... or they will allow the establishment of refugee camps within their borders, with their final status to be determined after the conflict ends.  Reasonable people can disagree as to the extent to which a state is required to provide assistance.

Category 3:  This one gets a bit more tricky, because residency, even illegal residency, means that the state has some degree of responsibility (although not as great as to people who fall into Categories 1 and 2.)  Time is also a factor.  It matters if someone has been an illegal resident for one day or for 20 years.  

The problem with illegal immigration in the US, is that our current policy is clearly insane.  We simultaneously have very strict immigration laws and then refuse to enforce them.  This gives us all of the disadvantages of a big government bureaucracy and all the disadvantages of lawlessness with none of the advantages of either.  This punishes citizens and residents by placing an (illegal and) unwanted burden on them and punishes illegal residents, because they become an underclass with no access to police or workplace protection.  The only class that benefits are the organized criminals and other lawbreakers.  You could reasonably argue that if the US has the ability and refuses to stop illegal immigrants at the border, they are actually encouraging the illegal immigration and should grant the rights of (at least) a resident alien.  

I don't know the situation in Israel first hand, but I suspect that this is a very similar case.  For whatever reason, Israeli authorities have allowed illegal immigration to occur across the Egyptian border.  Confirming my suspicions,  I came across this piece by Yoaz Hendel in Ynetnews this morning.  He writes:

The culprit here is the government, which has woken up only after seeing screaming newspaper headlines. The State is at fault, for informing the High Court of Justice that it will no longer follow the practice of returning refugees to Egypt right after they are nabbed. Indeed, the infiltrators do not arrive in southern Tel Aviv on their own; the authorities transport them.

I agree, immediately deporting an illegal immigrants firmly keeps them into Category 4, a category with no specific rights, however allowing them into the country, even for a period of time, confers upon them the status of a more permanent resident.  This is not to discount the concerns of the Israeli citizens who live in Tel Aviv, the government of Israel needs to address these concerns because it is the government's lack of enforcement that caused this problem to occur.

I doubt very seriously that there will be any mass deportation of African immigrants, legal or illegal from Israel.  Even if the government wants this, the high court will never allow it.  Correctly, they will have to evaluate the cases of each of 60,000 illegal residents and act appropriately with each.  With all of the coverage about the violence in Sudan and attempted genocide there, it will be easy to make the case that many of these illegal residents are fleeing a potentially life threatening dangerous situation.

As for Vox Day and his charges of Jewish hypocrisy in this regard, clearly he is unwilling to make distinctions in applying enforcement of an immigration policy.  He also does not account for the effect of government inaction and the problems it presents.  He seems to favor the right of a state to deport anyone of its residents (at least in categories 3-4) at any time for any reason.. which is an odd position for a libertarian to take.

To summarize, a state should be allowed to determine if it wants to have an open border policy or a closed border policy (or in between), but whatever policy the state has, it ought to enforce.  If they fail to do this, it works to the detriment of its residents (legal and illegal) and the state is responsible to all parties for the mess it has created.

Finally, Vox's charge that a mass deportation of African Immigrants from Israel would be an ex post facto justification of the expulsion of Jews from Europe in the Middle Ages is laughable and I will deal with that more at length in another post.





    

On Immigration and Jewish Hypocrisy

There has been a lot of news coverage about the recent conflict in Israel between Sudanese Immigrants and Jewish Israelis in Tel Aviv.  On Monday this week, the Jerusalem Post published an article detailing Netanyahu's plans to address the problem, which are a combination of increased security on the Egyptian border and deportations of the estimated 60,000 immigrants already illegally in the country.

Last week, there were violent demonstrations in Tel Aviv coupled with images that are certain to make the Jewish World sick to its collective stomach.  The idea that Jewish citizens of the State of Israel would riot violently against any population group is something that immediately conjures images of anti-Jewish riots in Europe and the Arab world in the Middles Ages through the 20th century.

These parallels are not lost on the Jewish World.  Jewish leadership in America and Israel have been quick to condemn the rioters.  Of course, condemnation of the rioters does not solve the underlying problem, the fact that there are 60,000 illegal immigrants that are causing enough social problems for there to be violent protests.  Arrest and punish the rioters for certain, but that only solves the basic human rights issue of police protection, it does not solve the rest of the problem.

In another post I have been debating blogger Vox Day on the anti-semitic dangers of his alternative-right philosophy and in his response he challenged me on Israel's immigration problem.  He believes the "Jewish Conservatives" such a John Podhoretz (and presumably me) are hypocritical on immigration, because we simultaneously support Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State and an open borders policy in the United States.

My first instinct was to respond that Podhoretz' views are not mine and he can defend himself, but I believe that there are a lot of interesting issues in what makes up the collective Jewish consciousness about immigration and I welcome the chance to discuss them.

A Basic Primer on Jewish Views of Immigration 

Jewish views on this issue tends to be very liberal, even among notable Jewish conservatives.  There are three basic reasons that come to mind to explain this mindset.

First, every Jew in this country has an immigration story.  Mine is that my Great Great Grandfather came from Germany in 1858 and enlisted in an all German speaking rifle company from NY when the Civil War started.  Every Jew in America is keenly aware of the hospitality that this country has shown to Jews and that they benefitted from a liberal US immigration policy that allowed them to escape Europe.  So, to be against something that benefitted you personally (even a few generations removed) creates cognitive dissonance.  (Note that Jews will tend to believe that they have benefitted personally from more open immigration, even though they did not personally immigrate.)

The second, is the memory of the 1938 Evian conference.  To summarize, the world was using the issue of harsh treatment of the Jews as a diplomatic attack on Hitler.  Hitler, believed that the West did not care about the Jews and called their bluff.  He declared that he would willingly allow Jews to emigrate from Germany and Austria to whatever country would have them.  The US and Britain backed down, deciding that the issue of the Jews was not that important after all and the conference was not considered a success.  The fact that most of the Jews who remained in Germany and Austria perished in the Holocaust will make any Jew wince at the idea of closing borders, particularly to refugees who are being persecuted by their home countries.

The third, is the tragedy of the SS Saint Louis.  It is a fascinating story of political intrigue and is worth a read if you are interested.  The bottom line is that the SS Saint Louis sailed with Jewish refugees to Cuba, were denied entry into Cuba and then denied entry into the US. The ship returned to Germany and the refugees ultimately went to the death camps.

So, Jewish thought on immigration is so colored by these experiences that even conservative Jews have difficulty with a tight American immigration policy.  For politically liberal (most) American Jews, they also support a liberal immigration policy in Israel and will most likely come down on the side of the Sudanese immigrants.

A Consistent Policy

So to say that Podhoretz is inconsistent (hypocritical) on this issue is entirely correct. I think that he knows this and frankly struggles with it.  The quote in the National Review says that he feels deeply which is not the same as having thought about it and come to a conclusion.  It is difficult for me to defend because I think that his views are not very well put together on the issue.

So, Podhoretz aside, the more interesting question:  Is it possible to articulate a fair, logical, coherent position on immigration that applies equally to the US and Israel (and all countries) and takes into account the Jewish nature of the State of Israel without being hypocritical?  I think it is possible and will post more about it later today.

More Response to Vox

I wrote my response to Vox's charge #1 of Jewish Hypocrisy on immigration policy, but I decided I don't like it and will have to rewrite it before I post.  I am hoping to get it done before sundown tonight, but I can't make any promises.  If not, it will have to wait until Sunday.  I am not an Orthodox Jew, but I do have some rules about what I will and won't do on the Sabbath.

I liked Vox's post yesterday and found how he characterized my summary of the Amalek comment controversy very funny... primarily because he claims that he initially understood the comment as rhetorical exaggeration but claimed not to understand my recap also as rhetorical exaggeration... intended to set up the closing joke... please don't feel threatened when I say "attack."

So, I fully concede the point that Vox did not really think that the Amelek comment was a credible and realistic threat of violence.  I just found it amusing to assure Vox of my non-violent intent every time I say something that could be vaguely misinterpreted as a threat.  It makes me laugh and so I will probably repeat the joke.  Following this theme, the title of his post also made me smile.  [Insert Top Gun Quote Here]

I will also note that Vox's continued the strategy of overwhelming me with charges to respond to continued in his post today.  He seems to recognize a pattern that he calls the fighting withdrawal, where a commenter will simply declare him wrong and decide not to respond.  Vox should take a moment to think about this.  If this is a consistent pattern, then perhaps the problem is his debate style.  I must admit that I had a moment of ... is this really worth it? ...before I posted yesterday.  Basically, Vox has given me a To Do list of between 4 and 7 posts to adequately respond to him.  I think that it is fine (and frankly fair given the nature of what I wrote) and because the topic of each is relevant to the theme of my blog I think it appropriate to continue.

Vox did say something very interesting in reminding me that he lives in Europe where there are more virulent strains of anti-Semitism than the US.  I actually find this to be a very credible defense.  I suppose that in Europe, where negative comments toward Jews are much more common place, his comments about Jews could be considered very generous.

I am glad that Vox pointed this out as there appears to be a correlation between this European attitude toward Jews and actual violence in their direction.  I wrote a post last month about why it was so difficult to get American Jews to care about anti-Semitism, while for Jews in Europe it is a much more immediate concern.   I took a study of major anti-Semitic incidents by country in 2011 and crossed it with the size of the Jewish populations in each country.   The methodology is not perfect, but good enough for this purpose and the results were remarkable.

You can see that the difference in anti-semitic incidents, per Jew in Europe versus the United States.  Basically, a Jew in the US is more likely to be struck by lightening than to be a victim of assault, battery or vandalism for being a Jew.  These incidents are much more common in Europe.  In the US you read about it in the news, in Europe it happens in your synagogue or to a friend.  That is a major difference.  My Jewish friends that come from Europe will always say that Americans just don't understand what it is like there.

Of course, while Vox may live in Europe, he generally writes for an American audience.  Given the greater incidence of anti-Jewish violence in Europe and the historical pattern that anti-Semitic speech often precedes actual violence against Jews, I am sure that Vox will concede that when hearing someone speak in a European style about Jews to an American audience... the shift in language is unusual and it is reasonable to consider the change dangerous... which is why I labeled it so in my original post.

It is also interesting to me that Vox has never objected to the label alt-right.  I wonder if he considers his blog to be an example of the alt-right as I have asserted?  The reason I applied that label is because I became aware of the alt-right, primarily through links from his blogs.

Finally, I do want to talk more about the anti-African riot in Tel Aviv and will write a post on it.  Obviously, I am not in favor of riots and the reaction from the Jewish community in America and Israel has been to condemn the rioters.  That is my instinct as well.  There are some other things he said in his post, but I will get to them as I go down the list.

Just Received My Complimentary Full Body Massage

Courtesy of the Transportation Security Administration. Small airport, they were bored and very thorough. I always opt out of the X-ray machine. Not much of a protest, I know... But that old guy couldn't have enjoyed it any more than I did.

Cigarette?

Israel is Under Attack - By Zombies?

In the Arty Semite column of The Forward, Michael Kaminer does a drive-by post on the developing Israeli film industry and the horror film.  The breakout Israeli horror film Rabies is attracting more attention to the niche genre in Israel.

I must admit, that I am not a big fan of horror and Jews have been making horror films in the US for years, so there is not much surprising here.  However, it is interesting to see something so "normal" as pure entertainment, dedicated to the bloody silliness that is the modern horror film.  According to Kaminer:

“The common explanation [for the lack of success of Israeli horror films] was that the state of Israel is stuck with wars, bereavement, and pain, so there is absolutely no room for movies that would add blood and violence,” according to Aharon Keshales, the film critic-turned-director who co-directed “Rabies.” “But what we answer to those who said that is that making a horror movie and dealing with blood and gore brings us catharsis. It relieves. Serious bereavement dramas, which Israeli filmmakers love to make, just draw you deeper to the agony and sadness.”

I won't see the movie Rabies, as it is just not my kind of film.  I just can't stand the blood and gore, it is not cathartic to me at all.  However, I don't begrudge horror movies fans their films and I have to admit that some of the concepts sound very funny to me.

What hath “Rabies” wrought? How about “Cannon Fodder,” in which an Israel Defense Forces unit sneaks into Lebanon for a “special mission,” only to confront undead locals with serious munchies? Or “Another World,” which depicts the brutal existence of survivors of a nuclear disaster? Or maybe “Cats on a Pedal Boat,” in which a pet feline falls off a raft into a polluted river “and turns into something so hideous it makes the creatures in ‘Piranha’ look like gefilte fish”?

There is no doubt that there is appeal to the zombie genre.  One of my students told me this joke the other day:

What do brains and cantaloupe have in common?  
They are delicious...

Oy!

Vox Day Takes Exception With my Characterization of the Alt-Right

The other day I wrote a post about an exchange I had with Vox Day on his website Vox Popoli.  I made a rhetorical mistake by referring to some of his more hotheaded anti-semitic commenters as "Amalekites."  Vox took this to be a credible and realistic threat of violence against his readers... which I believe reveals more about Vox's thinking than mine.  You can read his post here and my response here.

If you didn't read the post, additionally, I had the nerve to described him as dangerous, because his blog is a great example (in terms of quality) of a group of web sites of the "alternative right" (or alt-right) which, among other things, seeks to create an intellectual basis for a more socially acceptable anti-semitism.  

Now that you are caught up, Vox wrote a response today so filled with errors that I almost don't know where to begin refuting them.  This is interesting to me, because I have been reading Vox's blog for years and he doesn't usually make these kind of mistakes.

So, maybe it is not a mistake... in fact, I think it is just a strategy.  Vox is a skilled debater and I have seen him get into these kind of tiffs with other bloggers around the internet.  This statement near the end of his post reveals what he is trying to do.

You can only attack people for so long before they get tired of your antics and start to find you irritating. And this is as true of groups as it is of individuals.

I agree, in fact, I wrote about this subject a week or two ago in a post title The Trap of Anti-Semitic Whack-a-Mole.   The post was about an anti-Israel newspaper headline at a "pro-Israel" newspaper in Australia but the concept is relevant here.  The relevant portion is below:

This is the concept of the "Big Lie" at work.  Throw as many outrageous accusations at Israel as possible and some of them will get through.  Sure there will be apologies and corrections... at first, but eventually people will become desensitized to the outrageous nature of the statements and they will creep into more casual conversation.  Finally, they will become commonplace and they are just part of the landscape, paving the way for more outrageous accusations.

So, how much effort should the Jewish community spend playing Whack-a-Mole with these crazy and libelous charges?  The problems, of course, are many.  First, the time you spend defending yourself against baseless charges comes at the cost of doing more productive things.  Second, if you constantly do this, you  end up sounding like a paranoid and self-obsessed idiot.  There you go on the Apartheid issue again... are you still talking about the Holocaust?  Move on, it is getting boring.

That is the verbal trap that is laid for us.  Ignore it and risk it becoming a casual part of the conversation or  actively oppose it and sound deluded, paranoid, and self-obsessed.

So, this is what Vox did in today's post.  There are so many errors and accusations in it that to try to refute them all in one shot would require a long rambling... boring... post.   In advance, he is slamming me for doing exactly what he is inviting me to do.  So here is how I will approach this... I will list the accusations below (paraphrased) and over the course of the next few days, I will refute them one by one.

1. Vox - opening volley  - Jews are Hypocrites for supporting open borders in the US and supporting Israel, which is considering deporting its illegal immigrants.  Defend yourself!
2. Vox says - that there is an equivalent relationship between the expulsion of Jews from European countries in the middle ages and modern deportation of illegal immigrants from Israel.  Implication: Jews are bad because they are doing exactly what was done to them. (In the comments - and you don't know what you are talking about when it comes to Jewish history anyway.)
3. Vox says - What me?  Try to create an intellectual basis for more socially palatable anti-semitism? No way, you must be mistaken AND if this is so easy for me to do, there must be something to the antisemitism business anyway.
4. Vox says - Me an anti-semite? I don't care at all about the Jews at all.  Are you still talking about anti-semitism, you must be paranoid.
5. Vox says - All this talk about Anti-semitism is just creating enemies for the Jews... so stop talking or whatever happens is really your own fault.
6. Vox says - I don't know why you are defending that Amalekite comment (which I didn't) but don't blame it on me that I thought you were threatening violence... I know, I looked it up on wikipedia and I was like totally justified in my own paranoia.
7. In the comments - Vox and commenters: And to prove I am not an anti-Semite, here is a list of Jews I would like to see deported from the US.

Seven different angles of attack, where to begin?  (Oh!  I mean that in the literary sense of attacking your argument, I am not threatening violence Vox.)  Take a deep breath.  I will handle each one until I am finished or until I get bored.

Of Curses and Taxes

There were two very interesting archeological finds reported in the news today.  They are separated by almost a thousand years but they are great evidence of how people lived, thought, and believed the ancient world.

First there is a clay seal that was found in the City of David in Jerusalem.  It is most likely a proof of tax payment.  What is important about the seal, is that bears the name of "Beit Lechem" (Bethlehem) and is consistent with the biblical account that the city existed as a property of Judah in the first Temple period.

According to Eli Shukron, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “it seems that in the seventh year of the reign of a king (it is unclear if the king referred to here is Hezekiah, Manasseh or Josiah), a shipment was dispatched from Bethlehem to the king in Jerusalem. The bulla we found belongs to the group of “fiscal” bullae – administrative bullae used to seal tax shipments remitted to the taxation system of the Kingdom of Judah in the late eighth and seventh centuries BCE. The tax could have been paid in the form of silver or agricultural produce such as wine or wheat”. Shukron emphasizes,” this is the first time the name Bethlehem appears outside the Bible, in an inscription from the First Temple period, which proves that Bethlehem was indeed a city in the Kingdom of Judah, and possibly also in earlier periods”. 

When I teach biblical history, I am often asked if the Bible is true in a historical sense.  That is a complex question to answer and there are differing opinions as to the Bible's historical accuracy.  What I can say for certain, is that the accounts in the Bible are generally consistent with the archeological record.  It is also true that the further you get into the book of Kings, the more archeological evidence there is to back up the Biblical account.  This find also fits that pattern, it is most likely from the late first Temple period.

The second archeological find are a couple of tablets from the late Roman Empire that have recently been translated.  The tablets were created for the purpose of black magic.  They are curses written to have one of the Roman deities to destroy the person on the tablet.  I mention this, because it is a great illustration of pagan belief in late antiquity.  A skilled black magic practitioner and artisan was paid good money to construct these tablets.  Clearly the people who paid for them were expecting results.  I always try to paint a picture of life in the ancient world, because unless you understand that... biblical history is very confusing.

Both curses feature a depiction of a deity, possibly the Greek goddess Hekate, with serpents coming out of her hair, possibly meant to strike at the victims. Both curses contain Greek invocations similar to examples known to call upon Hekate. 

One of the curses targets a Roman senator named Fistus and appears to be the only known example of a cursed senator. The other curse targets a veterinarian named Porcello. Ironically, Porcello is the Latin word for pig.

People of antiquity believed that Black Magic worked.  Personally, I don't think that you could pay me enough money to translate a curse tablet.  I would be uncomfortable holding one or even being near it.

I Am Really Jealous of Their Hats

I posted yesterday about a large gathering of 40,000 Hasidic Jews at a baseball field in Brooklyn.

The reporter for the Forward who covered the gathering rode the train home from the event and recounted his experiences talking to the men in the train car.  He wrote:

The men also gave me a primer on the fine distinctions between the hats favored by the Satmar Hasids and the hats worn by the small Klausenburg sect.

How cool is that?  

I have wanted a nice shtreimel (fur hat worn by married hasidic Jews) ever since I saw this picture in Reform Judaism Magazine.  This picture looks exactly like my father, right down to the facial expression.

I think I would look great in a shtreimel, but I can't seem to find one.  So, am I breaking a commandment by coveting a hat?  What kind of a man am I to have shtreimel envy?

A Victim of Their Own Success - Everyone Expects Israel to Take Care of Iran

I attended a briefing on Capitol Hill the other day about Israel's options to attack Iran to prevent them from developing a nuclear capability.  I wanted to attend the briefing, because I have my own opinions about the possibility of an Israeli strike and thought it would be good to hear what a paid expert in the field had to say on the issue.

I was pleasantly surprised that I did not learn much that was new.  The current line of thought is that Israel could strike strategic nuclear facilities in Iran much the same way they did in Iraq and Syria.  So, the briefing focused exclusively on this scenario.  There are a few problems with this.

The first problem is distance.  Iran is much farther away than Iraq or Syria and the distance alone would require Israel to refuel in the air or land somewhere other than home base in Israel.  Logistically, this is difficult and would present a significant challenge, but even that is compounded by the second problem.

In order to reach Iran, Israel would have to fly over hostile territory.  Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Turkey would all be in the necessary approach routes.  There are rumors that these countries, who do not wish to see a nuclear Iran, would not contest an Israeli overflight for such a righteous cause.  However, both the Iraq and Syria strikes were heavily dependent on the element of surprise and any Iranian sympathizer in one of these Arab militaries could warn of unusual Israeli activity over the region.  This would add an unacceptable level of risk to an Israeli strike.

Third, is that the Iranian nuclear program is decentralized and heavily fortified and so is a hardened target, much more difficult to attack effectively.  Neither the Iraqi or Syrian nuclear programs had this advantage.

Summary, Long distance... can't count on the element of surprise...  difficult to achieve military objectives, means this kind of Israeli attack on Iran is unlikely.  

It is really pretty obvious that Israel can not do this effectively.  This is why we have seen things like targeted assassinations of key Iranian nuclear personnel and computer viruses that ruin expensive centrifuge equipment and not a direct military attack.

But everyone seems to think that Israel can take out Iran's nuclear capability and I believe that many of the world's nations (who would all criticize Israel) expect them to and hope they will.

Israel has a mystique of invincibility.  The Western world is convinced (whether they wish to admit it or not) that Israel is under the protection of God and can't be destroyed.  This is for good reason.  Israel has been able to take everything that has been thrown its way since the founding of the Jewish State in 1948.... and what has been thrown its way is considerable.  There have been many times when it looked like Israel would be destroyed and yet it has survived and thrived.  This lesson is internalized by the world and so, it is expected that the Israelis can once again break the rules of military conflict and come out on top against impossible odds.

This kind of thinking makes bad strategy.  The world, weary of war in the Middle East, may wake up one day to find an aggressive and dominant Iran as the key regional power... and an Israel unable to prevent it.  Iran could continue to promote terror without the deterrent of conventional military attack against them.

So what can Israel do?

Their first option is to continue the current level of conflict.  Targeted assassinations,  cyber warfare, and other covert warfare (if in fact, it is Israel doing this and not the US).  A direct conflict is not in Iran's best interest while their nuclear weapons are still in development.  Israel can operate this way and more aggressively if it desires.

Their second option is to strike Iran,  not to destroy their nuclear program, but to start a regional conflict that Israel could win.  The risk would be very high and victory for Israel is not certain.  The US would certainly back Israel in a conflict, but if the current administration was annoyed by Israeli aggression, they could back Israel publicly while slow rolling out real support such as resupply.  With the tension between Netanyahu and the current White House, this is a real risk for Israel.

Their third option, is something that no one has thought of yet.  I can't tell you what it is because I haven't thought of it yet.  You cannot discount the possibility that Israel will come up with something unique and amazing.  That has to be terrifying to the Iranians.

I do not envy the current Israeli government.  The political stability in the country is an indicator that the Israelis understand what is at stake.  It is better to be underestimated than overestimated... Israel's capabilities are overestimated by the world.

A Jew Grows in Brooklyn

A good friend of mine once told me a joke:

A Hasidic Jew was walking down the street with a frog on his shoulder.  As he made his way down the street, the frog would greet passersby in perfect English and sometimes Yiddish.  He would make funny comments on the items in the shop windows.  He was a clever frog.  Wherever the Hasidic Jew with the frog on his shoulder went, a crowd would gather. 

Finally, one bystander looked at the Hasidic Jew and and said,  "Wow that's really unusual,where did you find him?" 

The frog replied "In Brooklyn, they're all over the place."

This week's article in the The Forward reminded me of this joke.  The idea of 40,000 Hasidic Jews packing a baseball stadium is an incredible image.  Where I live, you occasionally see a Chabad Rabbi , but that is the extent.  Even when I was in Israel, I don't think I went anywhere a large number of Hasidic Jews would gather.  Even though I am a liberal Jew the idea of the gathering fills me with pride of the resilience of the Jewish people.

They packed together to hear a number of Rabbis in their communities speak about the dangers of the internet.

Wachsman criticized the Internet in terms familiar to the non-Orthodox world. “The Internet is about the moment, it’s about the instantaneous, about the artificial, the superficial, it’s about if you’re bored you click on to something else, its about being fleeting and empty,” he said.

While the dangers of the internet are apparent and must be approached carefully, I would have to say that I would know a lot less about Judaism without the invention of the internet and the willingness of orthodox groups, such as Aish HaTorah and Chabad, to use it.

Because of the internet, I have been able to learn Jewish History from some of the greatest orthodox scholars in the world.  Nothing beats Rabbi Noah Weinberg's, 48 Ways of Acquiring Wisdom audio series or Berel Wein's Jewish History lectures.

Without these internet resources to give me a foundation, there are whole areas of Jewish learning that would have remained inaccessible to me forever.  So, I respectfully disagree with the Rabbis of this gathering and hope that the orthodox world continues to use technology to engage the Jewish world at large.

God Bless and Keep the TSA

Far away from us!

I am in the airport today... I made my choice earlier... do I get zapped by radiation or do I get felt up?

I chose the pat down. Everyone should opt out of the X-ray machines. If we did they might go away.

I suspect the existence of these machines have more to do with who was selling them than any security need. I am all for good security, but you shouldn't confuse more security with better security.

It seems to me that the TSA has never caught any terrorists. All foiled plots have been foiled through our intelligence agencies. They did catch a heroine addict trying to sneak his needle on the plane though.

The Dangerous Nature of the Alternative Right

I got into an interesting and revealing exchange over at the website Vox Popoli this weekend.

Vox Popoli is one of the best (in terms of quality) examples of an Alternative Right (alt-right) blog site.  The alt-right, as it is called, is a group of like-minded thinkers who share a similar set of beliefs on subjects such as immigration, race, feminism, and Jews.  What is dangerous about the alt-right is that they are not the usual group of neo-Nazis and crazies who pathologically attack Jews, but that they are attempting to put together an intellectually, socially palatable basis for a more modern brand of anti-semitism.

They are astute critics of society and are not always wrong in pointing out the absurdities of Western culture.  As a standard bearer for the alt-right, Vox Day is very smart and has a lot of interesting ideas about economics and small government libertarianism.  He may not be classified as an overt anti-Semite, but he is a Holocaust minimizer, a believer in a historical Jewish conspiracy against "Christendom", and a habitual if infrequent Jew baiter.   I have read his blog regularly for years.

The exchange took place on a post titled Israeli-occupied territory, by which Vox means the US Congress.

Vox asked the "philo-semites" among his readers to try to give him a rational justification for HR 4133 which passed the House of Representatives this week.  The only rule of course was that you could not appeal to anti-semitism.  After responding... Vox's readers, subsequently ignored anything of substance and proceed to beat the "philo-semites" over the head with garden variety anti-semitic attacks.  You can read the comments for yourself, they range from standard "zionism = racism" charges to paranoid schizophrenic writings obsessively focused on the Jews.

I inadvertently stepped in it when, deprived of the term anti-semite, I substituted the term Amalekite to describe the irrational Jew haters posting on that thread.  Amalek is an ancient tribal enemy of the Israelites, who attacked them as they fled out of Egypt.  They were later destroyed by Israelite King Saul at the command of God.  Haman in the book of Esther is considered by tradition to be a descendant of Amalek.  Amalek is used in a modern sense to be a metaphor for the irrational persistent nature of hatred against the Jews.

Vox immediately took this as a threat of violence.  Seriously, he thought that because Saul, the Israelite King, was commanded to destroy the Amalekites, that I was similarly threatening to destroy the Jew haters posting on his website.  Really, he seriously believed that this is what I meant and then declared that this was a reasonable justification for preemptive violence against the Jews.  When I finally figured out what he was talking about I responded:

[Chelm Wiseman]  It occurred to me what exactly you meant here and I am horrified. I do not believe that I am justified in murdering anyone. The commandment to kill the Amalekites was King Saul's, not mine. The biblical Amalekites are long since gone. As I said, I used the term Amalekite to mean "irrational Jew haters"... of which this thread has an abundance. 

[Vox Day]  Well, good, I suppose. However, when you call someone an Amalekite, and the Biblically aware understand that the Israelites exterminated the historical Amalekites, you should understand that many people will believe, incorrectly in your case, that you are announcing your evil intentions towards them. Given the historical metaphor, calling someone an Amalekite strikes me as giving the less metaphorically astute a perfectly understandable justification to not only hate Jews, but commit violence against them. So, you may wish to rethink the use of the slur.

As I pointed out later in the thread, his response says way more about him than it does about me.  Vox often writes about the concept of psychological projection, which is the practice of ascribing your own thoughts and motives to others.  I wonder if he has enough self-awareness to understand what he revealed about his own thinking in this exchange?

I should also point out that he thinks that because he jumped to the conclusion that I was threatening violence, it is reasonable justification for others to commit violence against Jews.  Yes, he is blaming me for his own thoughts and holding them up as justification for violence against me (and other Jews that had nothing to do with this exchange).  Interesting.

That being said, it is best not ignore his warning:

I don't care in the least about the Jews qua Jews. However, I am deeply opposed to a bankrupt country sending billions in foreign aid every year to Israel as well as every other recipient, I'm deeply opposed to AIPAC, to the idea that Jews and Israel can never be criticized, and pretty much everything that Ben Bernanke does. I don't believe that the Holocaust was a singularly tragic event in human history. I also don't believe that protecting the existence of the Jewish nature of the Israeli state is a legitimate American national interest or even a Constitutional one. 

If that all makes me a modern Nazi, fine, I'll cheerfully wear the armband. Of course, none of it has anything to do with the policies of the historical German National Socialist Worker's Party. And there are an awful lot of such "Nazis" out there.

This is a great summary of the tactics of the alt-right.  Feign neutrality toward the Jews, undermine Israel, exaggerate the influence of the "Jewish lobby," complain that Jews and Israel can't be criticized (while criticizing them) , attack Jewish bankers, and minimize the Holocaust.

Vox must have been in a Jew baiting mood, because this wasn't the only Jew baiting post he made this weekend.  No one really took the bait... but I suppose if you really want to Jew bait, best not to do it on a Friday afternoon.

Shabbat Shalom!

I hope that everyone had a good week!  I certainly did.  I hit my post goal this week and had a few popular posts.  My political posts are the ones that generally get the most hits... as they have appeal beyond the Jewish community.

There was surprisingly large interest in my book pre-review of Norman Solomon's Torah From Heaven.  Wiseman of Chelm appears on the first page of search results if you look for that book on Google.  I guess that I am an SEO genius!

According to Google Analytics, I have a loyal group of just over 100 unique readers.  This is very exciting!  I have still been very minimal about doing things to promote the blog, but readership is growing slowly.

I had a productive week, both in and out of the blogosphere and am ready for Shabbat.  Shabbat Shalom to you all... I hope you have a meaningful and restful Shabbat.

Chelm

Why Do People Hate the Jews?

Reading the news today, I came across an interesting story about the former Spanish Prime Minister's private conversations with the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.   It caught my eye because of a conversation I  had when I was teaching a Jewish History class the other day, giving the recap of the course, from ancient Israel to modern American Judaism.  After listening to the recap, one of my students apparently had the aha moment.  She very sincerely asked a question that has troubled us all at one point or another:  Why do people hate the Jews?  It is a great question that deserves a serious answer. The problem, of course, as with all great questions, is that the answer is not so simple.  The question is completely at odds with our daily personal experience here in the United States of America, because for the most part in the United States, people don't really hate the Jews.  So, getting an American student to the point where she understands enough Jewish history to realize the patterns of historical anti-semitism gives me some pride in accomplishment for the school year.

That of course still leaves the question of why?  In order to answer it, one needs to grapple with the uniquely Jewish problems of believing exclusively in one God.  If there is a God that created and sustains the Jewish people through their troubles... and that God also sustains the world... and there is no other God... then this God has sustained us through troubles that He created.  The inescapable conclusion of this line of reasoning is that anti-semitism is not some temporary problem, but it is part of the historical plan created and approved by God.  Why would He do this to us?  That was really the core of her question.

This is how I answered:

The Jewish people are unique in history.  No other people has been through what we have and  survived.  No other people have resurrected a dead language and created a first world country out of nothing in sixty years after 2000 years in exile.  If you set out to do what the Jews have done over the last 3000 years of human history, you would fail.  It is an impossible task.  The fact that we exist is the closest thing you will ever get to actual proof of God's existence.  In that 3000 years we have brought into the world the Torah... the basic ideas in the Torah are the foundation of the Western world.  The places in the world that have adopted those ideas are better places to live than those places that have not.

If you look at all of the world's most prominent Jew haters...

Antiochus Epiphanies
The Roman Emperors (Vespasian, Titus, and others)
Hitler
Stalin

They all have one thing in common.  Each believed that he ought to be a god.  The title Epiphanies taken by Antiochus means "god on earth."  The Roman Emperors were worshiped as gods after their death and sometimes before.  Hitler attempted to reestablish the ancient Teutonic pantheon of gods and intended to join that pantheon.  Stalin rejected the notion of God altogether to replace it with the power of the state... with him at the head.

The Jewish people are an unpleasant reminder to would be human gods that they are only human beings.

It gives a new perspective to the concept of Jews as the chosen people.  We were chosen for the task of being indisputable proof of God's existence in the world, which is sometimes a very unpleasant task.

The question on many minds right now is if the Iranians will join this list of infamous and successful Jew haters.  Is their rhetoric political posturing or something more sinister?  One of Khamenei's comments to the former Spanish Prime Minister was very revealing in this regard.

Khamenei described Israel as "an historical cancer, an anomaly," and said that he was "working toward Iran defeating the United States and Israel in an inevitable war against them."

Khamenei is right that Israel is a historical anomaly.   He correctly recognizes its existence as a challenge to his notion of himself as an executor of God's will.  The Jews and Israel are an inconvenient fact.  Khamenei can not be who he thinks he is as long as the Jews exist.  This puts him in dubious company and makes him very dangerous to the Jews and to the world.

Book Review: Jew Gangster by Joe Kubert

I am preparing a curriculum on Jewish graphical novels and decided to read  Jew Gangster by Joe Kubert.  It was a quick read and certainly worth the time.

I must admit that the first read through, I did not really like the book.  Primarily because it was not what I was expecting.  If you are looking for a semi-historical romanticized telling of the Jewish gangster stories of the likes of Bugsy Siegel or Meir Lansky, this book is a disappointment.  However, once I made the mental shift from the expectation of the book I wanted to read to the actual book in my hand, I realized it is a very powerful telling of an important story.

The book tells the tale of a young Jewish boy named Reuben (Ruby) who lives in the New York Tenements during the Great Depression.  He is the child of immigrants from Poland.  His mother and father work inhumane hours:  His father works fourteen hour days in the garment district and his mother runs a restaurant in a store front attached to their apartment.  Frustrated by lack of opportunities and his domineering father's powerlessness in the face of the Depression job market, he is driven to join the local gang of Jewish criminals.

The book is extremely violent, but not overly graphic.  It is not at all realistic from a historical perspective.  For instance, the father's religious attitude without the trappings of traditional Judaism  and his twice a year synagogue attendance is anachronistic and is more reflective of a modern liberal Jewish practice than a 1930's Polish immigrant.  There is no mention of overt anti-semitism or the impending Holocaust in Europe.  There is only a vague mention of unionization and the social struggles of the 1930s in America.

Ruby's story is not one of corruption and a slow descent into criminality. He is attracted to the life naturally and early in the story.  He goes boldly and knowingly into the underworld.  It is more a story of his decisions and their consequences.  The whole book is overshadowed by the nameless faceless "Big Guy" who decides people's fates and runs the underworld enterprise from afar.

Ruby's encounter with him at the end of the book is one of the more bizarre scenes with the Big Guy as a Yarmulke wearing, hunch backed, crippled Jew.  There is no historical precedent for this kind of Jewish gangster, so I can only assume that the Big Guy is a metaphor for God.  He ultimately forgives Ruby his transgressions and lets him go with the understanding that Ruby is responsible for the fate of his mother and sister.

The art is gritty and tells the story in a very effective way.  The book is in black and white, which gives the reader the feel of a 1930s moving picture.  I found myself thumbing through the artwork three or four times after I read the book.

My conclusion is that Jew Gangster is a great telling of a meaningful story.  It is a quick read, but the story will stay with you long after you are finished reading it.  There is a lot in it about Judaism and Jewish struggles, but you really have to dig to make it apparent.  I think  that there is enough material to develop a curriculum against it... but I would caution that it should only be used with older students.  I will blog later about how well the curriculum works.

J Street Endorsement is a Liability for Incumbent Senator

This week in the Forward, I got into a debate as a commenter on an article about a Jewish Republican who is running for a senate seat in Ohio.  Josh Mandel is a Cleveland native and is very popular locally.  This is a good strategy for him, because if he can get votes from liberal Cleveland, running as a Republican... he can also expect support form the rest of Ohio, which is much more conservative.

To make matters worse for the incumbent, he was endorsed by J-Street.  You  would think that being endorsed by a Jewish organization against a Jewish challenger would be a positive thing, but not when it is J-Street.

I commented that an endorsement by J-Street means that the pro-Israel voters should steer clear of Sen. Sherrod Brown, to which the other commenter took exception.

The Jewish Press today published a hilarious piece about J-Street and a video where J-Street admitted that their mission was to influence the Jewish community to be more in line with Democrats in Washington... not to influence Democrats in Washington to be more in line with the Jewish community... Interesting.

This settles the debate about J-Street.  It is a top down advocacy organization that is trying to build a constituency... not a grass roots organization that is representing one.

My theory about J-Street is this...

After Ariel Sharon had a stroke, the Israeli government was left with a very weak left of center government.  Olmert and Kadima hung on to power primarily by distributing money and benefits to their coalition members, who otherwise would not have stayed.

There was friction between AIPAC and this left of center government... which arguable was not representative of the Israeli population.  The American left established J-Street in an attempt to make an AIPAC that could work well with a left of center government in Israel.  So, now we have J-street.

This video they released is just the latest in a series of mistakes... the worst being taking a contribution from George Soros and then covering it up.  I have no doubt that they will ultimately be successful in establishing themselves as a voice of the Jewish community, but they have a more mistakes to make before they get there.

The Peace Process - What is Obama's Policy?

Last week I wrote a post about the fact that the Left is coming to terms with the problems with the current Middle East peace process... which so far has not yielded peace.

In today's Forward, Nathan Guttman writes an article noticing this trend and documenting the fact that there could be other solutions to the problem.  Buried in page two of this article is a revealing bit of information about how the Obama administration views the peace process.

But so far, the Obama administration shows no signs of giving up on the peace process paradigm. “The U.S. still believes this issue has a lot of resonance in the Arab world,” said David Makovsky, director of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

The US believes that this issue has a lot of resonance in the Arab world?  What does that even mean?  Either it is a completely self-evident statement that the Arab countries have consistently refused to live at peace with a Jewish State in the Middle East... or it is more revealing.  The Obama administration is sympathetic with the Arab world in its refusal to live with a Jewish State in the Middle East... or more realistically, as long as the Arabs are against Israel, the US must push Israel to meet their demands.

This has long been the worst fear of pro-Israel anti-Obama voters.  The fear that Obama really doesn't care about Israel and is returning to the Eisenhower days with a policy of how can a few million Jews hope to prevail against 80 million Arabs? (or over a Billion Muslims?)  We worry that he believes the US should follow a completely pragmatic foreign policy, which means that the the US should cut Israel loose, because siding the with Arabs has a great potential benefit.

Any open discussion of this scares the hell out of the Jewish community.  While I happen to disagree that US policy would be better served by siding more closely with the Arab world, that argument is by no means self-evident.  General David Petraeus said as much a couple of years ago with his statement to Congress that support for Israel in the region comes with some baggage.  Ron Paul made it an issue in the Republican primaries.  Pretending that US-Israel foreign policy synergy is beyond dispute does not serve anyone's interest... but pretend we do, and so this conversation only takes place behind closed doors.

Many in the Jewish community believe that Israel is simply not important to Obama, except in the context of Jewish votes and Jewish money for his reelection.  In fact, there is a vaguely anti-Semitic narrative developing int he US media about how Obama is being forced into silence about Israel because of the upcoming election.  After the election he will be free to pursue his preferred policy toward Israel... one of forcing Israeli concessions to please the Arab world.  If that is the case, the next statement by Makovsky in the Forward article can be viewed very ominously. (Cue scary dramatic music)

[Makovsky] argued that the lack of movement on the peace process should be seen as an election-related hiatus that could end in 2013.

“This is more of an intermission than the end of the play,” Makovsky said.

That is exactly what scares me about Obama.

Part 2 - Prisoner's Dilemma - How You Can Use It to Understand the Israel Palestinian Conflict

Last week I posted on using a the prisoner's dilemma game theory concept to analyze the Israel-Palestinian conflict.  It is a useful construct that has broad applicability to any area where a continued relationship increases the value of cooperation  between people or groups.   It is no surprise that Judaism has quite a bit to say on the matter.

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, what am I?  If not now when? - Rabbi Hillel

This is an often quoted from Rabbi Hillel, one of the great Jewish sages who lived during the Roman occupation of Judea.  It express one of the central conflicts of humanity -  when to advocate for yourself and when to advocate for others.  It shows the necessity of taking care of your own selfish needs, but at the same time points out that a human should not only do this.

In game theory terms, our default position is compete, but we should force ourselves to cooperate more.  Hillel didn't just make this up.  I love to study Bereshit (Genesis) because it contains within it, some of the most interesting decision making examples in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Jacob's imperfect application of game theory

In the Torah, the entire story of Jacob is the story of his competitive nature and his struggles that result. In the story, Jacob competes with his brother Esau even prior to their birth.  The conflict between Jacob and Esau brings them both to ruin... Jacob gets the blessing of his father, but can not enjoy it because he has to flee from Esau who is intent to kill him.  They are clearly in the lower right quadrant of the Prisoner's dilemma cube... when both compete neither party benefits much.

After they separate, Jacob is forced to work for his uncle Laban, who is a used camel salesman if I ever saw one.  Laban is constantly in compete mode, cheating Jacob whenever the opportunity arises.  Jacob agrees to work seven years to marry Laban's daughter Rachel, but Laban substitutes Leah.  Jacob agrees to work another seven for Rachel.  Jacob cooperates, Laban competes and Laban gets the benefit of fourteen years labor for his two daughters, one of which was un-marraigeable.  A win for Laban.

Then something interesting happens.  Jacob and Laban agree on terms of compensation for Jacob's employment.  Jacob with his superior knowledge of God, that was passed down to him from his father Isaac, receives much more in the way of compensation for his labor than he should.  No matter how many times Laban tried to change the terms of the deal to get the upper hand, God blessed Jacob and Jacob comes out on top.

This turns our game theory concept on its head...  Jacob is cooperating while Laban is competing and Jacob still turns out to be the winner.  Ultimately this so infuriates Laban that he is going to kill Jacob and take all of his property including Laban's daughters away... reestablishing our original game theory premise.   Jacob can't sit and wait to be killed by Laban so he switches to compete mode and flees.

Before I continue with the Jacob story, I will say that the Torah teaches us something that is not intuitively obvious.  There are some times you should cooperate, even when it makes sense to compete.  In fact, you could say that the whole Jewish religion is geared toward encouraging cooperation even when competition objectively is the right option.

The laws of the Torah bear out my interpretation of the Genesis story.  If your neighbor refuses to lend you his hammer and then later asks to borrow yours, you must lend it to him.  If you find your enemy's ox in the field, you have to return it to him.  That is your enemy's ox, not your neighbor's ox.

This is the primary reason that Jews tend to be liberals.  It is ingrained in our condition to cooperate and be nice even when it doesn't make complete sense to do this.  Because we do, we are blessed.  But God has also set up the world so that this concept only goes so far.  We can not act completely selflessly to the point where we are in physical danger.  We can't just act this way an hope that God takes care of us.  It is a tough balance, one that Hillel correctly to articulated.

So let me finish up the Jacob story before I get to how this applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  Jacob flees Laban and can ultimately only go home to his brother Esau... who last time Jacob checked wanted him dead.  He comes back to Esau in complete cooperation, pledging himself as a servant to Esau.  At the same time he arranges his approach to maximize diplomacy with gifts and create a backup plan to fight and flee if Esau tries to destroy him.  On this journey his name is changed to Israel.

Israel only survives by correctly striking this balance between cooperation and competition.

In the current conflict there are some great examples of Israel cooperating when it should compete.

Prisoner Exchanges

 Exchanging Gilad Shalit, a single soldier, for a thousand Palestinian prisoners, (many who will return to violence) is objectively crazy.  The exchange rate should be one to one... yet there was almost complete unanimity in the Jewish world that Gilad was worth it.

Smart Bombs

Israel's use of advanced weapons to limit civilian casualties is another example of cooperating when it makes sense to compete.   Targeted strikes limit damage to non-combatants, even though the result is that the terrorists use those same non-combatants as shields against Israeli bombs.  Smart bombs are expensive and consume resources.  Dumb bomb are much cheaper.  Missile defense is a $50,000 defense against a $250 bomb.  It would be much less expensive to respond with overwhelming force, but much more deadly to the Palestinians.

One of the most interesting stories I heard out of Operation Cast Lead was that before bombing a house known to be a weapons storage facility, the Israelis called the occupants and told them to evacuate before the bomb hit.  No one has ever done this sort of thing in the history of war.  This is objectively crazy behavior... but the Israelis take a bizarre pride in it.

Withdrawal From Gaza

This was also an crazy move by Ariel Sharon.  However, the conversation was so changed by this act that Israel has been under much less pressure to withdraw from other territory.

Conclusion

By acting in this way, the Israelis are blessed as Jacob was blessed with great wealth while tending his uncle Laban's sheep.  He cooperated where he could, and competed only where he had no choice.  He only became Israel when he struggled to learn this lesson and reconciled with his brother.

So in my last article on this subject, I concluded that the best objective strategy was mostly cooperate with a slight bias to compete.  Jewish tradition teaches us the opposite that we should mostly cooperate with a slight bias toward cooperate.  It does not make sense mathematically, but there is a spiritual reality we acknowledge with this behavior.

As Jews we must always struggle with this line.  When do we act on behalf of humanity and when do we act on behalf of ourselves?  The current conversation on this issue would be elevated if we only understood that we are only arguing degrees of cooperation... not cooperation itself.

Next time I will write about the cultural aspects prisoner's dilemma and how it relates to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict...

Dehumanizing Republicans - Ann Romney Edition

I wrote in previous weeks about the tendency of Jewish media personalities to dehumanize Republicans.  The latest attack, of course, comes in the form of equating Ann Romney with the Nazis.  Yes, Ann Romney and the Nazis.  I wish this was a joke.

When I heard about this, I put my head in my hands.  I knew what was coming next.  The attack was made by one Michelle Goldberg.  She is probably Jewish, certainly of Jewish background, and she saw some of the most startling parallels between Ann Romney's Op Ed on motherhood published in USA Today and the policies of Hitler in Nazi Germany.

As transcribed by the Blaze, Goldberg's comments on MSNBC were:

“I found that phrase ‘the crown of motherhood’ really kind of creepy, not just because of its, like, somewhat you know, I mean, it’s kind of usually really authoritarian societies that give out like ‘The Cross of Motherhood,’ that give awards for big families. You know, Stalin did it, Hitler did it.”

Yes, she equated Ann Romney's comments about a "crown of motherhood:

Women wear many hats in their lives. Daughter, sister, student, breadwinner. But no matter where we are or what we're doing, one hat that moms never take off is the crown of motherhood. 

There is no crown more glorious.

Ms. Goldberg was likening this comment to Adolph Hitler's Cross of Motherhood, which was awarded to German women who had more than five children.  Immediately, she sees in Ann Romney's words about how challenging, difficult, and all consuming motherhood can be... to a fascist plot by Republicans to force women to breed against their will.  Goldberg found this creepy.

The worst part of Ms. Goldberg's comments were that they are sincere, she was not being political.  She really believes this about Ann Romney, because she lives in a culture that dehumanizes Republicans, ascribing to them the most evil and megalomaniacal tendencies.  She has been conditioned by the words of people like Letty Cottin Pogrebin who wrote this in her Op Ed in Moment Magazine.

...Let’s be clear, ladies: These conservatives don’t trust us to think for ourselves. They valorize a time when there were two kinds of women, virgins and whores, and men knew which was which.  They want to short-circuit our personal aspirations, squelch our rising workplace power and move us back to the kitchen and nursery...

Ms. Goldberg really believes that Ann Romney wants this.   This is not just a political problem.  Jewish voters are unable to make a clear choice about candidates for political office, because they believe that Republicans are all horrible fascists...  We are not horrible fascists, we are not even moderate fascists.

Jonathan Tobin writes in commentary magazine about the War on Ann Romney.   First Hilary Rosen's comments about stay a home moms and now Michele Goldberg's comments about her fascist leanings.  Both Rosen and Goldberg should think very carefully about why they are so reflexively opposed to Ann Romney.  I would suggest that they stick to the issues... but that would be to their disadvantage.  The Democrat candidate is so weak on what is really important to America that they must dehumanize Romney (and his wife) in order to maintain the Jewish vote for Obama.  Clearly, there will be more to come...

Politics aside, the really uncomfortable question that no one is asking, is why are these attacks coming from the Jewish community?  What is it about the discourse in our community that makes it so easy to believe the worst about this particular group of people.  Especially when we are so likely judge other, more dangerous groups so favorably?  These views are not at all mainstream and are very much out of step with the rest of America.   Liberal Jewish leaders really need to stand up and speak out against this toxic and unfair accusations against Republicans or be responsible for the consequences.  Fortunately, the Republican establishment and their evangelical Christian supporters are way to polite to point this out, but I would not expect that to last forever.