By Zvi November
I read the NYT op-ed by Ron Lauder, head of the WJC. His world view is full of misconceptions. First, American secular Jewry needs Israel much more than Israel needs Jewish American help. The secular Jewish community in the US is in an advanced state of disintegration. Forty percent of Jewish women never produce a child. The intermarriage rate is well over 50%. Reform Judaism is little more than another Protestant sect minus Jesus Christ. The basic tenets of Judaism such as kashrut, Sabbath observance, Torah study and fulfilling the 613 mitzvot enumerated in the Torah are mostly ignored because secular Jews are about 95% American and perhaps 5% Jewish. As things stand now, the secular American Jewish community will probably disappear in 100 years time despite organizations like the World Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee that ISSUE STATEMENTS while doing little.
And Jewish self-destruction has a frightening precedent.
When World War I broke out in August, 1914 German Jews (both individuals and their organizations) became extremely patriotic. Jews (well-known industrialists, successful businessmen, rabbis, intellectuals like Martin Buber and even Zionists and socialists) strongly supported the war effort. For them, Germany’s cause was just and its invasion of neutral Belgium and France as well as the vast eastern territories controlled by barbaric Russia was part of a crusade to spread a far superior German culture. The poor, dirty, decrepit peasants and Yiddish speaking Jews of Russia were going to be uplifted. Both Germans and German Jews were convinced of Germany’s military superiority and knew that the war would be over in a few months with Germany taking control of and colonizing vast areas in the East.
About 100,000 Jews served in the Kaiser’s army. Some 12,000 were killed in action for the Fatherland and many others wounded. Relations with fellow Jews living in Entente countries were severed. Indeed, there were Jews in all of the opposing armies killing each other. However, in the fall of 1916 when things started going badly for Germany a census of Jews was taken because of false rumors that Jews were not shouldering their fair share of the war effort. When Germany surrendered in 1918 lots of people believed that Germany was stabbed in the back and many pointed to the Jews as the culprits.
Ron Lauder should read “A Deadly Legacy” (2017) by Tim Grady who teaches history in the UK to learn about German Jewry; its passion to be accepted as full-fledged Germans and its subsequent annihilation 20 years later (highlighted by Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938) because American Jewish behavior today is somewhat similar to German Jewish behavior a hundred years ago. It seems that the only US Jews who will survive the next 100 years are the orthodox (disparaged by Lauder) who both reproduce (mitzvah # 1) and practice Judaism as our forefathers did before the “enlightenment” replaced our traditional Jewish lifestyle/civilization.
Lauder discusses the new Israeli nation-state law that the Knesset recently passed by a clear majority. This law is similar to laws in other countries. For instance, Denmark is self-defined as the nation-state of Danes and Lutheranism is its national religion. Everyone knows that Croatia is the nation-state of the Croats and Serbia is the nation-state of the Serbs. Most Arab states with constitutions declare that they are Arab and Islamic Sharia law is the basis of their judicial system and society. The affirmation that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people is crucial because Israel’s many enemies and their sympathizers in Europe want to destroy the country. Critics of the nation-state law , in one way or another, do not accept the idea of a Jewish state especially one that promotes traditional Judaism. These critics advance contrived bogus claims that the law is discriminatory and racist. But this law does not decrease anyone’s civil rights and liberties in any way whatsoever.
As a small vulnerable country, Israel may not survive the next 100 years. Neither do we know what America will look like in 100 years considering the damage done by Obama. The US is in upheaval and, perhaps, decline. Astute commentators like Dennis Prager, Thomas Sowell and Victor Davis Hanson are just a few of the intelligent voices that explain how the illiberal Left has undermined America’s traditional Judeo-Christian values.
We can only hope for the best.
@ H.H.:
What industries? I am not aware of any industries that are filled with “vicious hate,” or much the less, any significant numbers of Jews who are filled with “vicious hate,” except perhaps for themselves and their fellow Jews. Just what industries, and what “vicious hate” do you mean, H.H.? The notion that Jews dominate widely disliked and distrusted, although vitally necessary, industries (mainly banking and finance) has been one of the rationales for antisemitism since the Middle Ages, when Christian rulers and the Catholic Church forbade Christians from loaning money at interest, and rulers made “contracts” with their Jewish subjects to perform this “dirty work,” while claiming a large part of it for themselves in taxes. Do you support this rationale for antisemitism as wel l, H.H.?
100 years?? At this point it doesn’t look like there will be be any human beings at all 100 years ago, given all of the international conflicts, the scientists who are continually devising new and more potent weapons of mass destruction, the constant and accelerating damage to the environment by logging, fossil fuels, nuclear fuels, pesticides,GMOs, etc. “If the hoods don’t get you than monoxide will” (Tom Lehrer). Unless God intervenes to save us from both our numerous and relentless external enemies and our penchant for self-destruction, there will certainly be no Jews in the world 100 years ago–at most, some individuals with Jewish ancestors who do everything they can to conceal the fact. That is why all loyal and faithful Jews must pray to Hashem to save us, as he has so often in the past, from both our external enemies and ourselves. At the same time, we must also do everything we can humanly do to instill a renewed sense of faith, loyalty and courage in our fellow Jews. (“Hazak, Hazak.” God most often intervenes to help people who do everything they can to help themselves.
Hope is not a plan.
A plan would probably begin by noticing that small minorities should not make themselves the visible enemies of larger majorities, as a basic principle of human affairs. Unfortunately, Jewish participation is very high in key industries that have done exactly this; industries that select for members (Jewish or otherwise) who share their vicious hate.
To which we should add the understanding that Jewish ethnicity will be more and more openly noticed going forward. Something guaranteed by the changing demographic makeup of the USA, not just political trends. So you can’t make it go away.
Part 3 is that the USA has begun a civil war, which hasn’t yet progressed to widespread shooting but is using all measures short of that.
No-one said the answer would be easy.
On the bright side, we haven’t yet screwed ourselves as badly as Europe’s Jews, who have guaranteed that they will lose no matter who wins. But the current Jewish “leadership” guarantees disaster unless changed.