In the last communique I enclosed an initial draft of my attempt to use the Roth novel "Plot against America" as a springboard to examine identity, anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the public outcry against Israel and, more specifically, in some of the public Jewish contribution to this phenomenon.
In this final draft I have cleaned up most of the grammar, tightened the language, sharpened the logical progression, added some more references and introduced a few new points which seemed to me important. It follows below and will be posted to the site http://froggyfarm.blogspot.com.
Mike Berger
This article has arisen from a previous blog on the resonances between modern anti-Zionism and the antisemitism explored in Philip Roth’s novel, “The plot against America”. But it is also personal, especially at the two ends, where I briefly explore my own reactions to the complex predicament facing Israel and its diaspora. I make no apology for introducing the personal element since I have never pretended to the status of dispassionate expert. On the contrary, I identify completely with what I see as the core idea of Zionism – that Jews are entitled to a a national identity and homeland in which they can embody their own history and evolving national personality in the same way as the other peoples of this increasingly globalised planet. This makes me the implacable opponent of those, Jewish or non-Jewish, who wish to destroy that possibility.
I make no demands that others share this vision, though I know that it is widely shared, only that they desist from actively working for its demise. This ethnic identity must also share emotional and intellectual space with my other commitment to a universal humanity, not to mention my South African persona. Such sharing is not always comfortable since brothers may engage in murderous sibling rivalry and my universalist leanings at times must take temporary second place to my Zionist affiliations. But there are no simple formulae for such coexistance so I, and others in the same predicament, accommodate the conflicting demands as best we can in each situation.
A fair amount of print space over the past few years has been devoted to examining the treatment of Israel in much of the Western media and, by extension, the role of prejudice (antisemitism and irrational anti-Zionism)1 in the kind of coverage Israel receives. In essence, along with many other commentators, I have argued that the media coverage of Israel is seriously prejudiced and distorted and this continues in the face of rational argument and fact. The historical roots of antisemitism run deep but it is clear that its modern manifestation is the result both of deliberate propaganda as a component of a conscious paramilitary strategy and as the expression of more random forces within the global – especially Western - left.
Such developments have forced Jews who regard themselves as progressive, espousing universalist and humanist values, to confront their own relationship with Israel. Most, like myself, see no deep contradiction between their support for Israel and their broader ideological commitments, and any disquiet experienced with specific aspects of Israeli policy and society does not require a reorientation of their priorities. In fact, many find that their moral and political values impel them to support Israel especially strongly in the international arena in view of the manifestly unjust barrage of criticism it attracts and the retrograde and even fascist practices of the regimes and political groupings which confront Israel both in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, a significant and vociferous section of Jewry have taken up covert or openly antagonistic positions vis-à-vis Israel.
In the following paragraphs I look at some issues determining attitudes towards Israel and the implications these have for the majority of Jews, and many non-Jews, who support Israel. My position is predicated on the view that political choice is a multi-dimensional process determined by both universal and personal psychological processes, by ideological (political) orientations, by intellectual disposition and by situational and interactional factors operating at the material, cultural, political and social levels2. These are all mutually interactive. Although such an analysis can slip easily into a rigidly determinist paradigm, I take the view that all individuals have freedom of choice and, along with Isaiah Berlin, that such freedom is extended by knowledge and self-reflection.3
It is widely recognised that identification with an ethnic or religious group or with an ideological belief or some other collective ideal, plays an important role in determining political attitudes and choice – “Political identity emerges from a dynamic interplay between the psychological make-up of individuals, their embeddedness in particular political and social structures and institutions, and the major political experiences of their lives, which together influence their political ideologies and roles.”4 I can think of no better way of conveying the essence of identity, than through some quotes from Philip Roth’s extraordinary novel, “The plot against America”: “Their being Jews issued from being themselves…” “It was… as fundamental as having arteries and veins…” “(They) needed no profession of faith or doctrinal creed…”.5 He was referring to ordinary middle class Jews, mainly immigrants or the children of immigrants from the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, living in predominantly Jewish suburbs in mid-twentieth century USA. The quote captures the essence of deep identity in which the personal and the collective are indistinguishable and inseparable.
In Roth’s fictionalised but eerily plausible account, the USA was stealthily led into pro-Nazi and insidiously antisemitic policies at the outbreak of World War 2 from which it was rescued only by the mysterious disappearance of Lindbergh, its shadowy and iconic President. What makes his book especially relevant to our time and theme is how closely current Western anti-Zionism mirrors the dynamics of the antisemitism of the mid-twentieth century as depicted by Roth.
A leitmotif throughout the novel is the question: where does paranoia, fear and parochialism end and true antisemitism begin? Do the bland, seemingly innocuous and apparently reasonable criticisms of Jewish cultural difference, exclusivity and failure to assimilate more thoroughly into the predominantly white, Protestant host population disguise a deeper and more sinister threat or are they to be taken at their face value, as some more “enlightened” members of the Jewish community would have their compatriots believe? In essence, according to the “enlightened” argument , the Jewish community should not be immune to rational criticism and serious self-reflection. To claim that such negative comment disguises antisemitic prejudice and evil intentions is precisely the reason why Jews are disliked by their host populations: by using self-serving victimhood as camouflage, so runs the accusation, Jews license themselves to remain an exclusive, self-seeking community free to manipulate the good intentions and tolerance of their non-Jewish neighbours for their own ends.
The resemblance of this line of argument to the debate around Israel is striking. Robert Fine characterises the currently fashionable Western discourse as follows, “…the accusation of antisemitism (by Israel’s defenders) is now used to trash anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government. …(As a consequence) - The struggle against antisemitism, once seen as central to the construction of a new Europe after the war, is increasingly disavowed since the charge of antisemitism merely serves to deflect or devalue criticism of Israeli occupation, Israeli human rights abuses, Israeli racism toward Arabs, and Israeli military force in Lebanon and Gaza.”6
Fine goes on to demonstrate the hollowness of this argument and, while Roth’s answer is more indirect, it is also unequivocal. The ordinary American Jew, reacting with horror, confusion and indignation to Lindbergh’s plausibly rational and ambiguous pronouncements, is right on the money. They were largely accurate in their perception that the Jewish community was being singled out and stigmatised, and correctly perceived such unfair criticism would encourage antisemitism in the general population.
Thus, according to Roth, the Jews were not the only ones who understood the coded messages behind the plausible words; antisemites within the American population took full advantage of the licence afforded by the new discourse to take out their prejudices on their fellow citizens. The DNA of racial stereotyping and exclusion from moral concern is universal and any individual (whether predator or prey) is alert to cues of ostracism and exclusion. It is important to note that Roth does not descend into a simplistic Manichean universe of innocent Jews surrounded by evil predatory foes. On the contrary, he invests his characters with the full gamut of human good and evil regardless of their religious and ethnic affiliations.
Roth’s fictional narrative is acutely relevant to the issue of Israel. Just like the flawed Jews of America, Israel is imperfect despite its enormous successes. Corruption, especially within its political domain, is too frequent for comfort. Racism is prevalent amongst some sections of the population. Social and economic inequality has increased and education policy and funding, on which the future of Israel rests, is far from optimal. Fundamentalist religion exerts an unhealthy influence on Israel’s political and civil life and Israel needs to find ways of living more humanely and harmoniously with its unassimilated and often fractious minority populations. Above all, Israel hasn’t been able to disengage from its role as an occupying power, however reluctant and indirect, over an alien hostile population with all the consequences on its own social and moral fabric.
None of this should occasion any surprise given the history of Israel and the region in which it is embedded and the multiple antagonistic agendas it has to deal with, both within and outside its borders. Some of these are solvable by Israel alone and others depend on the cooperation of others. None are easy and some may be utterly intractable, but they all provide a challenge to those who wish to make tangible contributions to the Zionist project.
Israel’s imperfections and transgressions, however, cannot objectively explain the flood of obsessive and unbalanced criticism levelled at it. David Hirsh in his speech to the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism - Jerusalem, 25 Feb 08 – puts it this way, “Jews are involved in a real conflict in the Middle East ...When Jews are involved in conflicts there is a danger that the ways people think about those conflicts get mystified in the language of antisemitism. Anti-Zionism is not a reasonable response to the actual situation; it is a response to a narrative of the actual situation which has become mystified by antisemitism....Real human rights abuses are mystified as being genocidal like Nazism; institutional racism is mystified as being worse than apartheid; the occupation is mystified as being unique and as being a manifestation of a Zionist essence; Jewish power is mystified as an ‘Israel lobby’ capable of perverting the policy of the only super power on the planet against its own interest....contemporary antisemitism is not explicitly or obviously antisemitic. ... Antisemitism of this sort is not explicit, is not obvious, and is not self-aware. It is necessary to analyze and interpret a text to know whether it is antisemitic.”7
A vivid example is provided by a recent correspondence in the SA Jewish Report. Daniel Mackintosh8 claims that racism is prevalent amongst Israelis (specifically, in this context, Jewish Israelis) and contrasts this with the implied tolerance, except for a few extremists, displayed by Palestinians9. Yet Pew surveys ((http://pewglobal.org/reports/pdf/268.pdf) show an extremely high level (97%) of anti-Jewish sentiment amongst Palestinians, a finding repeated in many other largely Muslim communities and one that comes as no surprise to anyone with knowledge of the political structure, culture and educational practices in many such communities. Of course, surveys also show that anti-Arab and anti-Muslim feelings are significant amongst Israelis (see Chris McGreal at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/mar/24/israel), at the 40 to 50 percent level within the population. Without nitpicking over methodology and precise percntages it is clear that racism is high in both societies, but the ideological, anti-Zionist bias of the writer leads him to imply that racial prejudice is largely confined to Israelis.
Besides the objective inaccuracy of Mackintosh’s claim it ignores the fact that Israeli society as a whole is legally and informally committed to non-racism, further reinforced by the proliferation of vociferous human rights groups and judicial institutions committed to combatting racist practices by individual Israelis or civil society10. Surprisingly, given the severity of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the provocations often faced by Israelis in their interactions with Palestinians11, serious racist actions by Israelis are relatively infrequent and examples of productive coexistence common12. It is legitimate to ask whether such restraint would be shown by many other Western societies with a similar history and on-going predicament?
The problem encountered in analysis is that antisemitism can be used in two related but distinct ways. One refers to objectively irrational and selective criticism of - or behaviour towards - Jews as a whole or a significant and core sector of Jewish society, Israel for example. The other usage refers to the emotion, conscious or unconscious, of hostility towards Jews or Israel/Israelis specifically. It is widely assumed that the former implies the latter, but need that be the case? Is it possible that a dominantly biased discourse (perhaps itself derived from conventionally antisemitic sources) compounded by simple ignorance, other ideological loyalties, identification with the perceived underdog, conformity impulses or more serious situational pressures, can produce an objectively biased (antisemitic) belief and action pattern while free of conventional antisemitic prejudice? And is this important? Does it really matter, in practical terms, whether biased behaviour is caused by faulty information processing and situational factors or by internal disposition?
In my view the short answer is that one cannot easily generalise about the sources of irrational anti-Zionism in individual cases and, secondly, it probably doesn’t much matter. Given the multi-dimensional processes whereby political choices are made, the individual pathway can vary from one individual to another. In many cases the mechanism may be obvious: some are clearly motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism revealed by the virulent tone and abusive content. This can infect Jews and non-Jews alike and is marked by the significant presence of the following cues: fixity of belief and resistance to contrary evidence, obsessiveness, a low trigger threshold to expression of hostility, excessively emotive language and choice of metaphor, stereotyping and essentialising, a tendency to select, exaggerate and misrepresent and, of course, unambiguous statements of hatred and threats of destruction. All these gradations are apparent in considerable portions of the Western media and on the Internet.
In other cases the cause may include a mix, in varying proportions, of the other personal and social factors mentioned above. While of great interest to various academic disciplines, the individual motivations underlying irrational anti-Zionism is, arguably, of less importance than its prevalence (and hence potential for social spread) and its political and military impact. It must be remembered that the diplomatic and media campaigns are significantly driven by a deliberate strategy to use “public opinion” as an offensive weapon to undermine, psychologically, economically and diplomatically, the capacity of Israel to resist13. The provocations of Hamas and its approach to its military action are components of this strategic agenda. A prime example on the diplomatic-public opinion front is the Goldstone Report14 which, on a host of objective criteria15, is a plainly prejudicial and politicized document intended to stigmatise Israel.
It would be perverse to believe that the flood of anti-Zionist comment, irrespective of motivation, pervading much of the Western media does not result in secondary antisemitism of the conventional variety. It would imply a compartmentalization of rational thought and emotion for which no evidence exists and which is contradicted by the very content and volume of the critical comment, by the mass meetings and inflammatory placards and slogans, by the spike in antisemitic acts in many Western countries and by the abusive and clearly antisemitic tone of large number of contributions to Internet threads. The reality is captured in the following quote “It has often been asserted by left authors (for example, Noam Chomsky) that the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a tenuous one. Chomsky asserts that the linkage is a device used by Zionists to squash dissent. Yet the linkage would not be possible—or at least would be much more difficult—if there was no past or current demonstration of anti-Semitism among Israel’s opponents. Simply stated, while it is absolutely true that all anti-Zionists are not Jew hating bigots, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic in intent.”4 And, I would add, as an outcome.
As shown in numerous studies, pervasive social prejudice is internalised by the exposed population and by the targets (specifically here, Jews and Israelis) themselves. The overt response to such an assault on self-image varies between individuals and according to situational factors. Not surprisingly, it has driven many Jews into an ultra-nationalist stance in which Israel figures as a paragon of virtue in a sea of evil and hostility. Many others have been impelled into a more moderate, but equally obdurate, resistance to the programme of stigmatisation and delegitimisation. At the very least, few Jews for whom the Zionist project represents something positive and admirable, are eager to add their tuppence worth of criticism to the malevolent chorus and thus keep their counsel when otherwise they may have been willing to publicly chastise their brethren.
But for a significant minority the ideological assault on Israel has had a different effect. Simple observation attests to the fact that the individual may may succumb to such stereotyping. In this case we expect, and see, a spectrum of graduated responses ranging from disengagement to the role of actively hostile internal critic. Underlying much of the critical comment directed at Israel from within idealistic segments of Jewry, especially the younger generation, is the intrusion of middle class guilt, historically naïve and unrealistic ideals and decontextualised analysis into the historically and politically fraught territory of the Middle East.
But personal psychology and temperament can also contribute. In Roth’s novel the character of Rabbi Bengelsdorf, Lindbergh’s tame Jewish apologist, is depicted in distinctly unflattering terms. Specifically, he and others like him have taken on board the antisemitic prejudices they encounter in popular society or in groups to which they wish to belong, and thus seek to distinguish themselves from the Jewish common man. Laura Miller, in a review of Roth’s novel, put it this way16 “Bengelsdorf is a marvelous creation, part object lesson in the perils of collaboration and part meticulous parody of self-important men everywhere…”. In extreme cases, we encounter Jews who strenuously compete with the most bitter antisemites in the unrestrained expression of hostility towards Zionism and Israel17.
What lessons can be drawn? Public antisemitism and anti-Zionism constitute an existential threat to Israel through their multi-dimensional impact on Jews and non-Jews alike. This is now widely recognised, as is the importance of countering other paramilitary challenges of various kinds. The response cannot be predicated simply on answering prejudice with counter prejudice. Israel cannot afford the same retrogressive politics and racist stereotyping practiced by many of its enemies. It must appeal to its own highest ideals and those of the democratic world, not solely as.a public relations exercise or for some abstract ethical imperative, but also because its democratic and open culture provides Israel and Jewry with the creative edge and strategic flexibility to counter their numerically superior enemies.
The challenge is to reconcile democratic freedoms with the immediacy of existential threats. Such tensions are unavoidable in a conflict-ridden world. It is through the resolution of these difficult dilemmas that democracies derive their competitive edge, and all of us will have our own idea on where lines should be drawn. As a broad principle such lines must not curtail criticsm, especially uncomfortable criticism. But where this strays systematically into betrayal and incitement constitutes a grey but important junction where democracies under threat need to erect barriers. More important is the constant ideological repair and maintenance of the Zionist project so that it retains its potential for renewal and sturdy growth. It is only in this way that Jewish youth will remain committed to Israel and to the idea of a Jewish people living as respected members of a globalised world. Our ability to adroitly navigate these stormy waters may the be key to the survival of Israel as a Jewish state for all its peoples.
Mike Berger
1. I use the words antisemitism and anti-Zionism in this article in different ways. Anti-Zionism is hostility towards Israel that goes beyond criticism of one or more specific acts, social features or policy decisions, but is a systematic and encompassing critique of the philosophy, the country and society. In some instances, this may arise from a variably rational view which sees the Zionist project as misguided or even partaking of colonial and imperialist characteristics. At some ill-defined point such anti-Zionism passes over into what I term, in places, “irrational anti-Zionism” in which Zionism is essentialised as an evil movement fascist in spirit and intent and comparable to other widely condemned movements like apartheid or Naziism. Antisemitism, as pointed out in this article may have, at least, two meanings. One is the conventional antisemitism expressed by significant sectors of Christian Europe and much of the Muslim world in which Jews as a people are depicted as inherently evil, treacherous, devious, cruel, cowardly, greedy and aesthetically repugnant. Clearly the intensity and virulence of such feelings vary. Antisemitism may also be applied to the excessive and selective criticism of Jews or prominent aspects of of the Jewish world, eg. Israel, which is relatively unaccompanied by pan-Jewish prejudice but derives from other sources, like ideology, conformity, ignorance and so forth. Much antisemitism, both conventional and unconventional, is expressed in the form of anti-Zionism, especially irrational anti-Zionism – but the two terms are not identical in meaning. Nevertheless, irrational anti-Zionism, irrespective of its origins, can be defined as objectively antisemitic even where its motivation does not arise from conventional antisemitic prejudice. Also see, for example, “England’s not so pleasant aspect” by Anthony Julius in The Jewish Chronicle, 4 Feb 2010 at http://www.thejc.com/print/26775.
2. See for example: The new synthesis in moral psychology. Jonathan Haidt, et al.Science 316, 998 (2007); Collective psychological processes in anti-semitism. Avner Falk Jewish Political Studies Review 18:1-2 (Spring 2006); Spontaneous Inferences, Implicit Impressions, and Implicit Theories. James S. Uleman, S. Adil Saribay, and Celia M. Gonzalez In Annual Review of Psychology Vol. 59: 329-360 (2008); Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, by David P. Houghton. Publ. Routledge, December 2008, (ISBN: 978-0-415-99013-4).
3. From hope and fear set free. Isaiah Berlin in The Proper Study of Mankind: an anthology of essays. Eds. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer, Publ. Farar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2000.
4. Leaving the Radical Left: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and Jewish Response (Part Three, Draft 1). From the New Centrist Blog at http://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/leaving-the-radical-left-anti-zionism-anti-semitism-and-jewish-response-part-three-draft-1/
5. The plot against Ameica: a novel. Philip Roth, Publ. by Vintage International, Sept 2005.
6. Re-membering the Holocaust. Robert Fine at http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/robert-fines-talk-to-the-ucu-meeting-legacy-of-hope-anti-semitism-the-holocaust-and-resistance-yesterday-and-today/ .
7. Speech at Global Forum for Combating Anti-semitism, Jerusalem 8 Feb 2008. David Hirsh see ENGAGE http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/printarticle.php?id=1683.
8. SA Jewish Report, 22 Jan 2010: “I have met young Jewish people who are not proud of the racism that is so prevalent in Israel...”
9. SA Jewish Report 4 Dec 2009: “South African Jewish youth have started to meet Palestinians, and although there are those violent, anti-Semitic extremists, many.... have found that the majority of Palestinians want to live in coexistence with their Jewish neighbours under a just peace.”
10. Arab citizens of Israel. Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel; Coexistence between Arabs and Jews in Israel. The Israel Project. See http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=883997&ct=5667281; Israel at 61. The Israel Project. See http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/c.hsJPK0PIJpH/b.5118555/k.5CB4/Israel_at_61/apps/nl/newsletter2.asp.
11. “Hello Police? Scew your sister!”. In The Jerusalem Post byYaacov Lappin, 12 Feb 2010. See http://www.jpost.com/LandedPages/PrintArticle.aspx?id=168520.
12. The surprise of it all. In The Jerusalem Post by Daniel Doron, 10 Feb 2010. See at http://www.danieldoron.com/en/commentary/full/the-surprise-of-it-all/.
13. See launch of International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) at http://www.globalwomenstrike.net/AntiZionism/internationalJewishAnti-ZionistNetworkerCharter.htm; Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/malam_multimedia/html/final/eng/sib/aic2_04/aic_hp.htm; NGO Monitor, 13 Oct 2008 at http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/ngo_lawfare_new_monograph_from_ngo_monitor; Manipulating the marketplace of ideas, Gerald M. Steinberg at Haaretz, 29 Nov. 2009; Viewpoint by Gerald Steinberg, Jerusalem Report, 17 Aug 2009.
14. HUMAN RIGHTS IN PALESTINE AND OTHER OCCUPIED ARAB TERRITORIES. Report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict at http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/12session/A-HRC-12-48.pdf.
15. Memorandum to the Human Rights Council re the Goldstone Report at http://maurice-ostroff.tripod.com/id235.html; Open letter to Goldstone by Trevor Norwitz, see http://www.goldstonereport.org/open-letters-to-goldstone/428-open-letter-from-trevor-norwitz; The Goldstone Illusion, Moshe Halbertal in The New Republic 6 Nov 2009.
16. Review of “The plot against America: a novel” (Philip Roth) by Laura Miller, 8 Oct 2004 at http://www.powells.com/review/2004_10_08.html.
17. Jewish Anti-Zionism Unravelled: The Morality of Vanity (Part 1) by Anthony Julius in Z-word (blog), March 2008 at http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/jewish-anti-zionism-unravelled; Jewish Anti-Zionism Unravelled, Part Two: Questioning Antisemitism by Anthony Julius in Z-word (blog) at http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/jewish-anti-zionism-unravelled%253A- questioning-antisemitism-%2528part-2%2529.html.
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label identity. Show all posts
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism reconsidered
David Sacks has invited me to work up one of my recent posts, leaning on the Roth novel "The plot against America", into an article for the periodical Jewish Affairs. I enclose below a draft of the article for input - critical and otherwise. It goes over old ground of motivation and explanation for the unbalanced treatment of Israel in much of the Western media, but I hope it clarifies some points and maybe introduces a better understanding of the phenomenon. A couple more references will be added in due course and this draft will be posted on the site http://froggyfarm.blogspot.com/.
kind regards
Mike Berger
I have occupied a fair amount of print space over the past few years examining the treatment of Israel in much of the Western media and, by extension, the role of prejudice (antisemitism and irrational anti-Zionism)1 in the kind of coverage Israel receives. In essence, I, along with many other commentators, have argued that the media coverage of Israel is seriously prejudiced and distorted and this continues in the face of rational argument and fact. The historical roots of antisemitism run deep but it is clear that its modern manifestation is the result both of deliberate propaganda as a component of a conscious strategy of stigmatization and delegitimisation and as the expression of more random forces within the global – especially Western - left.
These developments have forced Jews, both within and outside Israel, who would regard themselves as progressive, espousing universalist and humanist values, to confront their own relationship with Israel. Most see no deep contradiction between their support for Israel and their broad ideological commitments, and their disquiet with some aspects of Israeli policy and society does not necessitate a reorientation of their priorities. In fact, many find that their moral and political values impel them to support Israel especially strongly in view of the manifestly unjust barrage of criticism it attracts and the retrograde and frankly fascist practices of the regimes and political groupings which confront Israel both in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, a significant and vociferous section of Jewry have taken up openly antagonistic positions vis-à-vis Israel.
In this article I look at some issues around identity, social dynamics and prejudice in determining attitudes towards Israel. This is predicated on the view that political choice is a multi-dimensional process determined by both universal and personal psychological operations, by ideological (political) orientation, by intellectual disposition and by situational and interactional factors operating at the material, cultural, political and social levels2. These are all mutually interactive. Although such an analysis can slip easily into a rigidly determinist paradigm, I take the view that all individuals have freedom of choice and, along with Isaiah Berlin, that such freedom is extended by knowledge and self-reflection.3
It is widely recognised that identity, whether to an ethnic or religious group or with an ideological belief or some other collective ideal, plays an important role in determining political attitudes and choice – “Political identity emerges from a dynamic interplay between the psychological make-up of individuals, their embeddedness in particular political and social structures and institutions, and the major political experiences of their lives, which together influence their political ideologies and roles.”4 Identity may be fluid and multiple or more limited and fixed. I can think of no better way of conveying the essence of identity, than through an abbreviated quote from Philip Roth’s extraordinary novel, “The plot against America”: “Their being Jews issued from being themselves…” “It was… as fundamental as having arteries and veins…” “(They) needed no profession of faith or doctrinal creed…”.5 He was referring to ordinary middle class Jews, mainly immigrants or the children of immigrants from the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, living in the Jewish suburbs in mid-twentieth century USA. The quote captures the essence of deep identity in which the personal and the collective are indistinguishable and inseparable. This subjectivity is given more substance in neurocognitive studies which show that personal and social identity are processed in the same parts of the brain.
The quote is embedded in Roth’s fictionalised, but eerily plausible, account of the USA being stealthily led into pro-Nazi and insidiously antisemitic policies at the outbreak of World War 2 from which it was rescued only by the mysterious disappearance of Lindbergh, its shadowy and iconic President. What makes it relevant to our time and theme is how closely Western anti-Zionism mirrors the dynamics of the antisemitism of the mid-twentieth century as depicted by Roth.
A leitmotif throughout the novel is the question: where does paranoia, fear and parochialism end and true antisemitism begin? Do the bland, seemingly innocuous and apparently reasonable criticisms of Jewish cultural difference, exclusivity and failure to assimilate more thoroughly into the predominantly white, Protestant host population disguise a deeper and more sinister threat or are they to be taken at their face value, as some more “enlightened” members of the Jewish community would have their compatriots believe? In essence, according to the “enlightened” argument, the Jewish community should not be immune to rational criticism and serious self-reflection. To claim that such negative comment disguises antisemitic prejudice and evil intentions is precisely the reason why Jews are disliked by their host populations: using self-serving victimhood as camouflage, Jews license themselves to remain an exclusive, self-seeking community free to manipulate the good intentions and tolerance of their non-Jewish neighbours for their own ends.
The resemblance of this line of argument to the debate around Israel is striking. Robert Fine characterises the currently fashionable Western discourse as follows, “…the accusation of antisemitism (by Israel’s defenders) is now used to trash anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government. …(As a consequence) - The struggle against antisemitism, once seen as central to the construction of a new Europe after the war, is increasingly disavowed since the charge of antisemitism merely serves to deflect or devalue criticism of Israeli occupation, Israeli human rights abuses, Israeli racism toward Arabs, and Israeli military force in Lebanon and Gaza.”6
Fine goes on to demonstrate the hollowness of this argument and, while Roth’s answer is more indirect, it is also unequivocal. The ordinary Jew, reacting with horror, confusion and indignation to Lindbergh’s plausibly rational and ambiguous pronouncements, is right on the money. Ordinary Jews were largely accurate in their perception that the Jewish community was being singled out and stigmatised, and correctly perceived such criticism would encourage antisemitism in the general population. More sinisterly, their suspicion of a larger agenda was probably correct.
Thus, according to Roth, the Jews were not the only ones who understood the coded messages behind the plausible words; antisemites within the American population took full advantage of the licence afforded by the new discourse to take out their prejudices on their fellow citizens. The DNA of racial stereotyping and exclusion from moral concern is universal and any individual (whether predator or prey) is alert to cues of ostracism and exclusion. It is important to note that Roth does not descend into a simplistic Manichean universe of innocent Jews surrounded by evil predatory foes. On the contrary, he invests his characters with the full gamut of human good and evil irrespective of their religious and ethnic affiliations.
Roth’s fictional narrative is acutely relevant to the issue of Israel. Just like the flawed Jews of America, Israel is imperfect despite its enormous successes. Corruption, especially within its political domain, is too frequent for comfort. Racism is prevalent amongst some sections of the population. Social and economic inequality has increased and education policy and funding, on which the future of Israel rests, is far from optimal. Fundamentalist religion exerts an unhealthy influence on Israel’s political and civil life and Israel needs to find ways of living more humanely and harmoniously with its unassimilated and often fractious minority populations. Above all, Israel hasn’t been able to disengage from its role as an occupying power, however reluctant and indirect, over an alien hostile population with all the consequences on its own social and moral fabric.
None of this should occasion any surprise given the history of Israel and the region in which it is embedded and the multiple antagonistic agendas it has to deal with, both within and outside its borders. Some of these are solvable by Israel alone and others depend on the cooperation of others. None are easy and some are utterly intractable.
But none of Israel’s failures, imperfections and transgressions can objectively explain the flood of obsessive and unbalanced criticism levelled at it. David Hirsh in his speech to the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism - Jerusalem, 25 Feb 08 – puts it this way, “Jews are involved in a real conflict in the Middle East ...When Jews are involved in conflicts there is a danger that the ways people think about those conflicts get mystified in the language of antisemitism. Anti-Zionism is not a reasonable response to the actual situation; it is a response to a narrative of the actual situation which has become mystified by antisemitism....Real human rights abuses are mystified as being genocidal like Nazism; institutional racism is mystified as being worse than apartheid; the occupation is mystified as being unique and as being a manifestation of a Zionist essence; Jewish power is mystified as an ‘Israel lobby’ capable of perverting the policy of the only super power on the planet against its own interest....contemporary antisemitism is not explicitly or obviously antisemitic. ... Antisemitism of this sort is not explicit, is not obvious, and is not self-aware. It is necessary to analyze and interpret a text to know whether it is antisemitic.”7
The problem is that antisemitism can be used in two related but distinct ways. One refers to objectively irrational and selective criticism of - or behaviour towards - Jews as a whole or a significant and core sector of Jewish society, Israel for example. The other usage refers to the emotion, conscious or unconscious, of outgroup hostility towards Jews or Israel/Israelis specifically. It is widely assumed that the former implies the latter, but need that be the case? Is it possible that a dominantly biased discourse (perhaps itself derived from conventionally antisemitic sources) compounded by simple ignorance, other ideological loyalties, identification with the perceived underdog, conformity impulses or more serious situational pressures, can produce an objectively biased (antisemitic) belief and action pattern while free of conventional antisemitic prejudice? And is this important? Does it really matter, in practical terms, whether biased behaviour is caused by faulty information processing and situational factors or by internal disposition?
In my view the short answer is that one cannot easily generalise about the sources of irrational anti-Zionism in individual cases and, secondly, it probably doesn’t much matter. Given the multi-dimensional processes whereby political choices are made, the individual pathway can vary from one individual to another. In some cases the mechanism may be obvious: some are clearly motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism revealed by the virulent tone and abusive content. This can infect Jews and non-Jews alike and are marked by the significant presence of the following cues: fixity of belief and resistance to contrary evidence, obsessiveness, a low trigger threshold to expression of hostility, excessively emotive language and choice of metaphor, stereotyping and essentialising, a tendency to select, exaggerate and misrepresent and, of course, unambiguous statements of hatred and threats of destruction. All these gradations are apparent in considerable portions of the Western media and on the Internet.
In other cases the cause may include a mix, in varying proportions, of “detribalisation”, ideological commitment, social pressures, personal ambition, idealistic identification with the perceived underdog, a contrarian streak or resistance to change, a search for relevance and meaning – or indeed simple arrogance and vanity. In Roth’s novel the character of Rabbi Bengelsdorf, Lindbergh’s tame Jewish apologist, is depicted in unflattering terms as ambitious, vain, arrogant and detached from the run-of-the-mill Jew. As summarised in Laura Miller’s excellent short review8 of the novel “Bengelsdorf is a marvelous creation, part object lesson in the perils of collaboration and part meticulous parody of self-important men everywhere…”.
While of great interest to various academic disciplines, the individual motivations underlying objectively irrational anti-Zionism is, arguably, of less importance than its prevalence (and hence potential for social spread) and its political and military impact. It must be remembered that the diplomatic and media campaigns are partly driven by a deliberate strategy to use “public opinion” as an offensive weapon to undermine, psychologically, economically and diplomatically, the capacity of Israel to resist. The provocations of Hamas and its approach to its military action are components of this strategic agenda. A prime example on the diplomatic-public opinion front is the Goldstone Report which, on a host of objective criteria, is a plainly prejudicial and politicized document intended to stigmatise Israel.
At the same time, it would be perverse to believe that the flood of anti-Zionist comment pervading much of the Western media does not result in secondary antisemitism of the conventional variety. It would imply a compartmentalization of rational thought and emotion for which no evidence exists and which is contradicted by the very content and volume of the critical comment, by the mass meetings and inflammatory placards and slogans, by the spike in antisemitic acts in many Western countries and by the abusive and clearly antisemitic tone of large number of contributions to Internet threads. This occurs despite still significant normative prohibitions on the public expression of antisemitism in the classical sense in most Western countries. The reality is captured in the following quote “It has often been asserted by left authors (for example, Noam Chomsky) that the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a tenuous one. Chomsky asserts that the linkage is a device used by Zionists to squash dissent. Yet the linkage would not be possible—or at least would be much more difficult—if there was no past or current demonstration of anti-Semitism among Israel’s opponents. Simply stated, while it is absolutely true that all anti-Zionists are not Jew hating bigots, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic in intent.”4 And, I would add, as an outcome.
As shown in numerous studies, pervasive social prejudice is internalised by the exposed population and by the targets (specifically here, Jews and Israelis) themselves. The overt response to such an assault on self-image varies between individuals and according to situational factors. Not surprisingly, it has driven many Jews into an ultra-nationalist stance in which Israel figures as a paragon of virtue in a sea of evil and hostility. Many others have been impelled into a more moderate, but equally obdurate, resistance to the programme of stigmatisation and delegitimisation. At the very least, few Jews for whom the Zionist project represents something positive and admirable, are eager to add their tuppence worth of criticism to the malevolent chorus and thus keep their counsel when otherwise they may have been willing to publicly chastise their brethren.
But for a significant minority, for whom Rabbi Bengelsdorf of Roth’s novel stands as a partial representative, the ideological assault on Israel has had a different effect. Psychological and sociological research - and simple observation - attest to the fact that the individual may resist such stereotyping - or may succumb. In the latter case we expect, and see, a spectrum of graduated responses ranging from disengagement to the role of actively hostile internal critic. Underlying some of the critical comment directed at Israel from within idealistic segments of Jewry, especially the younger generation, is the inappropriate intrusion of middle class guilt, historically naïve and unrealistic ideals and decontextualised analysis into the historically and politically fraught territory of the Middle East. In extreme cases, we encounter Jews who strenuously compete with the most bitter antisemites in the unrestrained expression of hostility towards Zionism and Israel.
For the majority of individuals, especially in democratic cultures, identity is fluid and multidimensional. It is thus possible to be simultaneously adamantly supportive of Israel while subscribing, perhaps more in hope than expectation, to the universalistic ideal of a community of peoples. Defenders of Israel need not descend into the traps of stereotyping and essentialising their opponents and should not close the doors to understanding, dialogue and incremental improvement. The common ground of universal global membership can be kept available for reconciliation and compromise when, and if, the context warrents it. Every situation requires balance between the stark (sometimes subtle) imperatives of reality and the ideal. Our ability to adroitly navigate these treacherous waters may the be key to the survival of Israel as a democratic, Jewish state for all its peoples and even to a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict.
Mike Berger
1. I use the words antisemitism and anti-Zionism in this article in different ways. Anti-Zionism is hostility towards Israel that goes beyond criticism of one or more specific acts, social features or policy decisions, but is a systematic and encompassing critique of the country and Israeli society. In some instances, this may arise from a variably rational view which sees the Zionist project as misguided or even partaking of colonial and imperialist characteristics. At some ill-defined point such anti-Zionism passes over into what I term, in places, “irrational anti-Zionism” in which Zionism is essentialised as an evil movement fascist in spirit and intent and comparable to other widely condemned movements like apartheid or Naziism. Antisemitism, as pointed out in this article may have, at least, two meanings. One is the conventional antisemitism expressed by significant sectors of Christian Europe and much of the Muslim world in which Jews as a people are depicted as inherently evil, treacherous, devious, cruel, cowardly, greedy and aesthetically repugnant. Clearly the intensity and virulence of such feelings vary. Antisemitism may also be applied to the excessive and selective criticism of Jews or prominent aspects of of the Jewish world, eg. Israel, which is relatively unaccompanied by pan-Jewish prejudice but derives from other sources, like ideology, conformity, ignorance and so forth. Much antisemitism, both conventional and unconventional, is expressed in the form of anti-Zionism, especially irrational anti-Zionism – but the two terms are not identical in meaning. Nevertheless, irrational anti-Zionism, irrespective of its origins, can be defined as objectively antisemitic even where its motivation does not arise from conventional antisemitic prejudice.
2. See for example: The new synthesis in moral psychology. Jonathan Haidt, et al.Science 316, 998 (2007); Collective psychological processes in anti-semitism. Avner Falk Jewish Political Studies Review 18:1-2 (Spring 2006); Spontaneous Inferences, Implicit Impressions, and Implicit Theories. James S. Uleman, S. Adil Saribay, and Celia M. Gonzalez In Annual Review of Psychology Vol. 59: 329-360 (2008); Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, by David P. Houghton. Publ. Routledge, December 2008, (ISBN: 978-0-415-99013-4).
3. From hope and fear set free. Isaiah Berlin in The Proper Study of Mankind: an anthology of essays. Eds. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer, Publ. Farar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2000.
4. Leaving the Radical Left: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and Jewish Response (Part Three, Draft 1). From the New Centrist Blog at http://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/leaving-the-radical-left-anti-zionism-anti-semitism-and-jewish-response-part-three-draft-1/
5. The plot against Ameica: a novel. Philip Roth, Publ. Vintage Intnl. Sept 2005
6. Re-membering the Holocaust. Robert Fine at http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/robert-fines-talk-to-the-ucu-meeting-legacy-of-hope-anti-semitism-the-holocaust-and-resistance-yesterday-and-today/ .
7. Speech at Global Forum for Combating Anti-semitism, Jerusalem 8 Feb 2008. David Hirsh see ENGAGE http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/printarticle.php?id=1683.
8. Review of “The plot against America: a novel” (Philip Roth) by Laura Miller, 8 Oct 2004 at http://www.powells.com/review/2004_10_08.html.
kind regards
Mike Berger
I have occupied a fair amount of print space over the past few years examining the treatment of Israel in much of the Western media and, by extension, the role of prejudice (antisemitism and irrational anti-Zionism)1 in the kind of coverage Israel receives. In essence, I, along with many other commentators, have argued that the media coverage of Israel is seriously prejudiced and distorted and this continues in the face of rational argument and fact. The historical roots of antisemitism run deep but it is clear that its modern manifestation is the result both of deliberate propaganda as a component of a conscious strategy of stigmatization and delegitimisation and as the expression of more random forces within the global – especially Western - left.
These developments have forced Jews, both within and outside Israel, who would regard themselves as progressive, espousing universalist and humanist values, to confront their own relationship with Israel. Most see no deep contradiction between their support for Israel and their broad ideological commitments, and their disquiet with some aspects of Israeli policy and society does not necessitate a reorientation of their priorities. In fact, many find that their moral and political values impel them to support Israel especially strongly in view of the manifestly unjust barrage of criticism it attracts and the retrograde and frankly fascist practices of the regimes and political groupings which confront Israel both in the Middle East and elsewhere. However, a significant and vociferous section of Jewry have taken up openly antagonistic positions vis-à-vis Israel.
In this article I look at some issues around identity, social dynamics and prejudice in determining attitudes towards Israel. This is predicated on the view that political choice is a multi-dimensional process determined by both universal and personal psychological operations, by ideological (political) orientation, by intellectual disposition and by situational and interactional factors operating at the material, cultural, political and social levels2. These are all mutually interactive. Although such an analysis can slip easily into a rigidly determinist paradigm, I take the view that all individuals have freedom of choice and, along with Isaiah Berlin, that such freedom is extended by knowledge and self-reflection.3
It is widely recognised that identity, whether to an ethnic or religious group or with an ideological belief or some other collective ideal, plays an important role in determining political attitudes and choice – “Political identity emerges from a dynamic interplay between the psychological make-up of individuals, their embeddedness in particular political and social structures and institutions, and the major political experiences of their lives, which together influence their political ideologies and roles.”4 Identity may be fluid and multiple or more limited and fixed. I can think of no better way of conveying the essence of identity, than through an abbreviated quote from Philip Roth’s extraordinary novel, “The plot against America”: “Their being Jews issued from being themselves…” “It was… as fundamental as having arteries and veins…” “(They) needed no profession of faith or doctrinal creed…”.5 He was referring to ordinary middle class Jews, mainly immigrants or the children of immigrants from the ghettoes of Eastern Europe, living in the Jewish suburbs in mid-twentieth century USA. The quote captures the essence of deep identity in which the personal and the collective are indistinguishable and inseparable. This subjectivity is given more substance in neurocognitive studies which show that personal and social identity are processed in the same parts of the brain.
The quote is embedded in Roth’s fictionalised, but eerily plausible, account of the USA being stealthily led into pro-Nazi and insidiously antisemitic policies at the outbreak of World War 2 from which it was rescued only by the mysterious disappearance of Lindbergh, its shadowy and iconic President. What makes it relevant to our time and theme is how closely Western anti-Zionism mirrors the dynamics of the antisemitism of the mid-twentieth century as depicted by Roth.
A leitmotif throughout the novel is the question: where does paranoia, fear and parochialism end and true antisemitism begin? Do the bland, seemingly innocuous and apparently reasonable criticisms of Jewish cultural difference, exclusivity and failure to assimilate more thoroughly into the predominantly white, Protestant host population disguise a deeper and more sinister threat or are they to be taken at their face value, as some more “enlightened” members of the Jewish community would have their compatriots believe? In essence, according to the “enlightened” argument, the Jewish community should not be immune to rational criticism and serious self-reflection. To claim that such negative comment disguises antisemitic prejudice and evil intentions is precisely the reason why Jews are disliked by their host populations: using self-serving victimhood as camouflage, Jews license themselves to remain an exclusive, self-seeking community free to manipulate the good intentions and tolerance of their non-Jewish neighbours for their own ends.
The resemblance of this line of argument to the debate around Israel is striking. Robert Fine characterises the currently fashionable Western discourse as follows, “…the accusation of antisemitism (by Israel’s defenders) is now used to trash anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government. …(As a consequence) - The struggle against antisemitism, once seen as central to the construction of a new Europe after the war, is increasingly disavowed since the charge of antisemitism merely serves to deflect or devalue criticism of Israeli occupation, Israeli human rights abuses, Israeli racism toward Arabs, and Israeli military force in Lebanon and Gaza.”6
Fine goes on to demonstrate the hollowness of this argument and, while Roth’s answer is more indirect, it is also unequivocal. The ordinary Jew, reacting with horror, confusion and indignation to Lindbergh’s plausibly rational and ambiguous pronouncements, is right on the money. Ordinary Jews were largely accurate in their perception that the Jewish community was being singled out and stigmatised, and correctly perceived such criticism would encourage antisemitism in the general population. More sinisterly, their suspicion of a larger agenda was probably correct.
Thus, according to Roth, the Jews were not the only ones who understood the coded messages behind the plausible words; antisemites within the American population took full advantage of the licence afforded by the new discourse to take out their prejudices on their fellow citizens. The DNA of racial stereotyping and exclusion from moral concern is universal and any individual (whether predator or prey) is alert to cues of ostracism and exclusion. It is important to note that Roth does not descend into a simplistic Manichean universe of innocent Jews surrounded by evil predatory foes. On the contrary, he invests his characters with the full gamut of human good and evil irrespective of their religious and ethnic affiliations.
Roth’s fictional narrative is acutely relevant to the issue of Israel. Just like the flawed Jews of America, Israel is imperfect despite its enormous successes. Corruption, especially within its political domain, is too frequent for comfort. Racism is prevalent amongst some sections of the population. Social and economic inequality has increased and education policy and funding, on which the future of Israel rests, is far from optimal. Fundamentalist religion exerts an unhealthy influence on Israel’s political and civil life and Israel needs to find ways of living more humanely and harmoniously with its unassimilated and often fractious minority populations. Above all, Israel hasn’t been able to disengage from its role as an occupying power, however reluctant and indirect, over an alien hostile population with all the consequences on its own social and moral fabric.
None of this should occasion any surprise given the history of Israel and the region in which it is embedded and the multiple antagonistic agendas it has to deal with, both within and outside its borders. Some of these are solvable by Israel alone and others depend on the cooperation of others. None are easy and some are utterly intractable.
But none of Israel’s failures, imperfections and transgressions can objectively explain the flood of obsessive and unbalanced criticism levelled at it. David Hirsh in his speech to the Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism - Jerusalem, 25 Feb 08 – puts it this way, “Jews are involved in a real conflict in the Middle East ...When Jews are involved in conflicts there is a danger that the ways people think about those conflicts get mystified in the language of antisemitism. Anti-Zionism is not a reasonable response to the actual situation; it is a response to a narrative of the actual situation which has become mystified by antisemitism....Real human rights abuses are mystified as being genocidal like Nazism; institutional racism is mystified as being worse than apartheid; the occupation is mystified as being unique and as being a manifestation of a Zionist essence; Jewish power is mystified as an ‘Israel lobby’ capable of perverting the policy of the only super power on the planet against its own interest....contemporary antisemitism is not explicitly or obviously antisemitic. ... Antisemitism of this sort is not explicit, is not obvious, and is not self-aware. It is necessary to analyze and interpret a text to know whether it is antisemitic.”7
The problem is that antisemitism can be used in two related but distinct ways. One refers to objectively irrational and selective criticism of - or behaviour towards - Jews as a whole or a significant and core sector of Jewish society, Israel for example. The other usage refers to the emotion, conscious or unconscious, of outgroup hostility towards Jews or Israel/Israelis specifically. It is widely assumed that the former implies the latter, but need that be the case? Is it possible that a dominantly biased discourse (perhaps itself derived from conventionally antisemitic sources) compounded by simple ignorance, other ideological loyalties, identification with the perceived underdog, conformity impulses or more serious situational pressures, can produce an objectively biased (antisemitic) belief and action pattern while free of conventional antisemitic prejudice? And is this important? Does it really matter, in practical terms, whether biased behaviour is caused by faulty information processing and situational factors or by internal disposition?
In my view the short answer is that one cannot easily generalise about the sources of irrational anti-Zionism in individual cases and, secondly, it probably doesn’t much matter. Given the multi-dimensional processes whereby political choices are made, the individual pathway can vary from one individual to another. In some cases the mechanism may be obvious: some are clearly motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism revealed by the virulent tone and abusive content. This can infect Jews and non-Jews alike and are marked by the significant presence of the following cues: fixity of belief and resistance to contrary evidence, obsessiveness, a low trigger threshold to expression of hostility, excessively emotive language and choice of metaphor, stereotyping and essentialising, a tendency to select, exaggerate and misrepresent and, of course, unambiguous statements of hatred and threats of destruction. All these gradations are apparent in considerable portions of the Western media and on the Internet.
In other cases the cause may include a mix, in varying proportions, of “detribalisation”, ideological commitment, social pressures, personal ambition, idealistic identification with the perceived underdog, a contrarian streak or resistance to change, a search for relevance and meaning – or indeed simple arrogance and vanity. In Roth’s novel the character of Rabbi Bengelsdorf, Lindbergh’s tame Jewish apologist, is depicted in unflattering terms as ambitious, vain, arrogant and detached from the run-of-the-mill Jew. As summarised in Laura Miller’s excellent short review8 of the novel “Bengelsdorf is a marvelous creation, part object lesson in the perils of collaboration and part meticulous parody of self-important men everywhere…”.
While of great interest to various academic disciplines, the individual motivations underlying objectively irrational anti-Zionism is, arguably, of less importance than its prevalence (and hence potential for social spread) and its political and military impact. It must be remembered that the diplomatic and media campaigns are partly driven by a deliberate strategy to use “public opinion” as an offensive weapon to undermine, psychologically, economically and diplomatically, the capacity of Israel to resist. The provocations of Hamas and its approach to its military action are components of this strategic agenda. A prime example on the diplomatic-public opinion front is the Goldstone Report which, on a host of objective criteria, is a plainly prejudicial and politicized document intended to stigmatise Israel.
At the same time, it would be perverse to believe that the flood of anti-Zionist comment pervading much of the Western media does not result in secondary antisemitism of the conventional variety. It would imply a compartmentalization of rational thought and emotion for which no evidence exists and which is contradicted by the very content and volume of the critical comment, by the mass meetings and inflammatory placards and slogans, by the spike in antisemitic acts in many Western countries and by the abusive and clearly antisemitic tone of large number of contributions to Internet threads. This occurs despite still significant normative prohibitions on the public expression of antisemitism in the classical sense in most Western countries. The reality is captured in the following quote “It has often been asserted by left authors (for example, Noam Chomsky) that the link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is a tenuous one. Chomsky asserts that the linkage is a device used by Zionists to squash dissent. Yet the linkage would not be possible—or at least would be much more difficult—if there was no past or current demonstration of anti-Semitism among Israel’s opponents. Simply stated, while it is absolutely true that all anti-Zionists are not Jew hating bigots, anti-Zionism is anti-Semitic in intent.”4 And, I would add, as an outcome.
As shown in numerous studies, pervasive social prejudice is internalised by the exposed population and by the targets (specifically here, Jews and Israelis) themselves. The overt response to such an assault on self-image varies between individuals and according to situational factors. Not surprisingly, it has driven many Jews into an ultra-nationalist stance in which Israel figures as a paragon of virtue in a sea of evil and hostility. Many others have been impelled into a more moderate, but equally obdurate, resistance to the programme of stigmatisation and delegitimisation. At the very least, few Jews for whom the Zionist project represents something positive and admirable, are eager to add their tuppence worth of criticism to the malevolent chorus and thus keep their counsel when otherwise they may have been willing to publicly chastise their brethren.
But for a significant minority, for whom Rabbi Bengelsdorf of Roth’s novel stands as a partial representative, the ideological assault on Israel has had a different effect. Psychological and sociological research - and simple observation - attest to the fact that the individual may resist such stereotyping - or may succumb. In the latter case we expect, and see, a spectrum of graduated responses ranging from disengagement to the role of actively hostile internal critic. Underlying some of the critical comment directed at Israel from within idealistic segments of Jewry, especially the younger generation, is the inappropriate intrusion of middle class guilt, historically naïve and unrealistic ideals and decontextualised analysis into the historically and politically fraught territory of the Middle East. In extreme cases, we encounter Jews who strenuously compete with the most bitter antisemites in the unrestrained expression of hostility towards Zionism and Israel.
For the majority of individuals, especially in democratic cultures, identity is fluid and multidimensional. It is thus possible to be simultaneously adamantly supportive of Israel while subscribing, perhaps more in hope than expectation, to the universalistic ideal of a community of peoples. Defenders of Israel need not descend into the traps of stereotyping and essentialising their opponents and should not close the doors to understanding, dialogue and incremental improvement. The common ground of universal global membership can be kept available for reconciliation and compromise when, and if, the context warrents it. Every situation requires balance between the stark (sometimes subtle) imperatives of reality and the ideal. Our ability to adroitly navigate these treacherous waters may the be key to the survival of Israel as a democratic, Jewish state for all its peoples and even to a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict.
Mike Berger
1. I use the words antisemitism and anti-Zionism in this article in different ways. Anti-Zionism is hostility towards Israel that goes beyond criticism of one or more specific acts, social features or policy decisions, but is a systematic and encompassing critique of the country and Israeli society. In some instances, this may arise from a variably rational view which sees the Zionist project as misguided or even partaking of colonial and imperialist characteristics. At some ill-defined point such anti-Zionism passes over into what I term, in places, “irrational anti-Zionism” in which Zionism is essentialised as an evil movement fascist in spirit and intent and comparable to other widely condemned movements like apartheid or Naziism. Antisemitism, as pointed out in this article may have, at least, two meanings. One is the conventional antisemitism expressed by significant sectors of Christian Europe and much of the Muslim world in which Jews as a people are depicted as inherently evil, treacherous, devious, cruel, cowardly, greedy and aesthetically repugnant. Clearly the intensity and virulence of such feelings vary. Antisemitism may also be applied to the excessive and selective criticism of Jews or prominent aspects of of the Jewish world, eg. Israel, which is relatively unaccompanied by pan-Jewish prejudice but derives from other sources, like ideology, conformity, ignorance and so forth. Much antisemitism, both conventional and unconventional, is expressed in the form of anti-Zionism, especially irrational anti-Zionism – but the two terms are not identical in meaning. Nevertheless, irrational anti-Zionism, irrespective of its origins, can be defined as objectively antisemitic even where its motivation does not arise from conventional antisemitic prejudice.
2. See for example: The new synthesis in moral psychology. Jonathan Haidt, et al.Science 316, 998 (2007); Collective psychological processes in anti-semitism. Avner Falk Jewish Political Studies Review 18:1-2 (Spring 2006); Spontaneous Inferences, Implicit Impressions, and Implicit Theories. James S. Uleman, S. Adil Saribay, and Celia M. Gonzalez In Annual Review of Psychology Vol. 59: 329-360 (2008); Political Psychology: Situations, Individuals, and Cases, by David P. Houghton. Publ. Routledge, December 2008, (ISBN: 978-0-415-99013-4).
3. From hope and fear set free. Isaiah Berlin in The Proper Study of Mankind: an anthology of essays. Eds. Henry Hardy and Roger Hausheer, Publ. Farar, Straus and Giroux, NY, 2000.
4. Leaving the Radical Left: Anti-Zionism, Anti-Semitism, and Jewish Response (Part Three, Draft 1). From the New Centrist Blog at http://newcentrist.wordpress.com/2008/07/18/leaving-the-radical-left-anti-zionism-anti-semitism-and-jewish-response-part-three-draft-1/
5. The plot against Ameica: a novel. Philip Roth, Publ. Vintage Intnl. Sept 2005
6. Re-membering the Holocaust. Robert Fine at http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2010/02/01/robert-fines-talk-to-the-ucu-meeting-legacy-of-hope-anti-semitism-the-holocaust-and-resistance-yesterday-and-today/ .
7. Speech at Global Forum for Combating Anti-semitism, Jerusalem 8 Feb 2008. David Hirsh see ENGAGE http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/printarticle.php?id=1683.
8. Review of “The plot against America: a novel” (Philip Roth) by Laura Miller, 8 Oct 2004 at http://www.powells.com/review/2004_10_08.html.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Identity, Judaism and Geekism
One penalty/benefit of writing a blog on Israel and the Middle East is the sheer volume of material challenging one's preconceptions and assumptions to the point of serious intellectual (and sometimes emotional) indigestion. The other challenge is to select from the torrent that which may interest and stimulate the reader.
A brief personal diversion is necessary to introduce the topic of today's blog on Identity, Judaism and Geekism. I come from a strongly assimilated Jewish background, heavily influenced by Anglo-liberal (in the progressive Fabian and literary sense) secular philosophy. It was not a bad beginning though far removed from the traditional Jewish ethos, but certainly not entirely incompatible with it, and even more distant from any form of Jewish ritual, practice and community. These tendencies were further strengthened by a lifetime in science with its emphasis on hard empirical fact, rigorous logic and transnational collaboration.
In the light of these formative and persisting influences, the belief structure and the practices of religion in general, including the Jewish religion, seemed to me absurd - even distasteful at times.
Given this background surely I would be an automatic disciple of someone like Dawkins who sees religion as so much superstitious garbage from a bygone era; the toxic detritus of primitive minds which in the light of science and progressive social ideas should be permanently sealed in concrete mental silos? After all, many "enlightened" and scientifically sophisticated people feel this way as do a host of lesser geeks.
I am moved to these observations by exposure to two quite distinct minds over the past 24 hours or so. The first is an article by a Jarred Cinman entitled "Let’s talk about the Jews" on ThoughtLeader (no less), the Mail and Guardian online blog. It is a text of quite unbelievable naivete, of which the author is wholly unconscious. I suppose it could be termed the "unbearable obtuseness of geekism". I use the phrase because we are led to understand in the blurb accompanying Cinman's article, that he is a successful IT practitioner and businessman. Some examples give the flavour:
Virtually throughout the article he uses the term "the Jews" based, one imagines, on his experience of the Jews of his limited business and suburban acquaintance together with a bundle of unexamined anti-semitic stereotypes he has absorbed like blotting paper. It does not occur to Cinman that "the Jews" encompass Isaiah Berlin, Marx, Einstein, Rabbi Kook, Spinoza and Maimonides to mention just a few.
Other pearls of insight include such observations as 'The Jews, in what I have always found a supreme act of arrogance, state that a Jew is born with a “Jewish soul”... "Let it be said that the underlying religious beliefs are no more inspiring or coherent than those of any other religion and, in many cases, sound more like the writings of JRR Tolkien than ancient spiritual practitioners."..."Leaving God aside, there are all kinds of bonkers stuff going on within the Jewish belief system."..."Likewise, there is the shady concept of “Amalek”, the shady archetypal enemy of the Jews, who (some argue) are embodied by present-day Arabs. They are told they must take from them a ring of power, and throw it into a volcano … well, not really, but it does get pretty weird."
In between this adolescent tripe are anti-semitic tropes borrowed wholesale from your average yobbo on the football terraces. Again examples are the only way of conveying the full flavour of Cinman's "thought" processes: ..."the Jews have made a big mark. Hostile to outsiders, lavish in giving advantages to its (sic) own kind and filled with a persecution complex"... "There is still a God, the renowned Yahweh (sometimes called Jehovah), whose acts and attitudes in the Old Testament are a case study in brutality, xenophobia and cruelty. He routinely has entire nations slain, swallows up people into the Earth, drowns, burns, turns into salt and so forth."
In these quotes I have hardly skimmed the surface: Cinman is a case study in crass prejudice and arrogance strutting its stuff on a public stage. So why spend any time on him? Surely there are anti-religious commentators capable of informed argument couched in adult, even eloquent, prose more deserving of our attention.
Of course, but partly it is worth noting because this mindless drivel appears under the imprimatur of the Mail and Guardian blessed by the designation, ThoughtLeader. That the world of blogs, especially those with strongly partisan agendas, are a cesspool of prejudice and ignorance is not news. But this is not usually accompanied with the seal of approval from a newspaper which pretends to intellectual and political respectability. If it is claimed that the Mail and Guardian is in the business of presenting different viewpoints with which it may seriously disagree, surely it can do much better than Cinman?
But maybe it can't. Or, maybe, Cinman simply reflects the prejudices of a significant section of the M & G editorial staff.
But let's get past Cinman (and the M & G) and deal with something worth talking about. Here is a rather long extract from a blog coming out of a Progressive Orthodox standpoint which I urge readers to have a look at. This extract is by Haim Watzman: "Both these American philosophers (William James and Emerson), as you note, viewed religion principally as an inner experience. Such a view of religion is peculiarly suited to the liberal American tradition, which holds that belief should be a private matter. A person’s relationship with God is his or her own business, and not the state’s.
I’m not arguing against this view as a political strategy, but most religious people would, I think, find it inadequate as an account of their experience and their needs. For them, religion not only comes from within but also from without, as a matter of revelation, tradition, myth, and sacred texts. The religion of James and Emerson has no room for ritual, for the performance of precepts (other than general moral ones), and relatively little for collective experience. Their religion did not need a church, mosque, or synagogue; it did not need stories of creation, redemption, and liberation; it did not need the performance of precepts. In a large measure, they viewed such elements, which bring individual believers together for prayer, disputation, and collective memory, as impediments to the inner spiritual state they viewed as the essence of man’s relationship to the divine.
The American relegation of religion to the private sphere grew out of specific historical circumstances. It produces an assimilating society that can absorb nearly anyone who accepts this principle.
My grandparents accepted it, were accepted into American society, and managed to work their way up into moderate prosperity, safety, and happiness. For them it was a great bargain, compared to what they had experienced under the czars and the commissars. But they gave up a lot, too; assimilating into America meant gradually sloughing off their Jewish heritage. They remained committed, identifying, and partially practicing Jews, as did their children and grandchildren. But their Jewish culture, the connection to Jewish history, tradition, practice, language, and texts, grew more and more attenuated in each generation. It wasn’t until I began relearning these things, first in high school and then after settling in Israel, that I realized how much we had given up in order to become American.
It’s wonderful that the world has a United States of America and a liberal American tradition, but not every place need be the United States and not every fair-minded, moral person need be an American-style liberal. In fact, if the whole world accepts the American solution, the world will lose a great deal. One of the things it will lose is the heritage of faiths that stress collective experience.
The Exodus, which we will both sit down to commemorate tomorrow night through the reading of an ancient text and the performance of ancient rituals, was a public, not an inner spiritual event—as the Seder makes its yearly rehearsal to this day.
This, let me assert once more, does not give religions a right to force others to believe or worship. I’m a fierce critic of the Orthodox Jewish establishment in Israel and of hyper-nationalist, xenophobic interpretations of our heritage (and of others). I believe that a seriously religious person in any faith ought to question, doubt, and struggle and that such engagement is a necessary condition for creating the humility and creativity that ethical life in the modern world requires.
But the proper answer to that is to seek to create a Judaism (and a Christianity, and Islam, and all the rest) that is open, accepting, and humanistic, but also faithful to and conversant in its heritage."
When contrasting Cinman and Watzman (besides the obvious difference in quality), Watzman recognises two things: firstly, that religion cannot be divorced from the larger society of which it is a part and will inevitably reflect the impact of its social environment and, secondly, that religion is always in a state of evolution - whether slow or rapid, whether abrupt or smooth. The one indeed follows from the other.
I have just finished reading Chinua Achebe's classic "Things Fall Apart" which describes the life of a Nigerian village just before the advent of white colonialism (with its Christian missionaries) and the impact of the latter on the traditional religious life of the village. His writings brilliantly illustrate (without flinching from the ugly bits) the intimate, mutually sustaining (ecological) relationship between a superstitious religious belief system and the daily life of the village, and its inhabitants; an existence in which history moved at a snail's pace until the arrival of the white man. In some ways Achebe's book closely resembles Isaac Bashevis Singer's beautiful collection of Jewish/rabbinical stories entitled "In my Father's Court".
Modern Judaism, as do all religions, illustrates the impact of accelerated history driven by technology and increasing (but precarious) mastery over the natural world. It has branched out and will continue to do so in response to the fragmented, diverse, sceptical and abrasive ethos of the modern age. At the extremes, one line of Judaism has retreated into a denial of modernity and has attempted to recreate a "purified" and idealised version of of the religion and, on the other, many Jews have totally rejected the divine in any form in favour of various wholly secular doctrines - or no doctrine at all. In between are various other solutions which retain some of the traditional collective forms with the best of Judaism's ethical, poetic and spiritual elements.
What many secular fundamentalists miss, is that religion can become a vehicle for poetry, art and ethical thought. The divine, in one sense, is a metaphor for human strivings towards meaning and transcendence of our animal nature. When linked to tradition, ritual and history, it becomes a collective enterprise providing a sense of belonging and guideposts to ethical behaviour.
Of course, it can be argued, religion can become an excuse for the worst of human instincts: intolerance, aggression, irrationality and greed. What is more religious doctrine can be used not simply to justify such behaviour but to encourage it. Whether religion is worse in this respect than secular creeds like Marxism and its offshoots, or even less coherent secular doctrines, is uncertain. I personally suspect that religion, through appeals to a group-specific divinity, is less susceptible to "disproof" and can more readily become a source of exclusive identity and a motivation to extreme political conflict than secular doctrines.
I'm also not sure that any doctrine which holds up unattainable standards of human behaviour is, ultimately, not more damaging than more tolerant creeds. For those like myself, inclined towards scepticism and science, serious adherence to religious doctrine with its emphasis on faith (at root an exercise in irrationality) poses serious intellctual and emotional obstacles.
So, in the last analysis, I find rather attractive the freedom to select out those elements of Judaism which provide a sense of historical continuity, identity and human transcendence while avoiding the spectre of irrational belief and infatuation with the minutiae of ritual and practice. I suppose one cannot have one's cake and eat it, but this is as close as one can get to (Isaiah Berlin's ?) philosophy of liberal humanism. I incline heavily towards non-observance in practice while encouraging it in theory.
For those who find these ideas inadequate (as I do), please use the comment facility at the end of this post to enlighten me and other readers.
Mike Berger
A brief personal diversion is necessary to introduce the topic of today's blog on Identity, Judaism and Geekism. I come from a strongly assimilated Jewish background, heavily influenced by Anglo-liberal (in the progressive Fabian and literary sense) secular philosophy. It was not a bad beginning though far removed from the traditional Jewish ethos, but certainly not entirely incompatible with it, and even more distant from any form of Jewish ritual, practice and community. These tendencies were further strengthened by a lifetime in science with its emphasis on hard empirical fact, rigorous logic and transnational collaboration.
In the light of these formative and persisting influences, the belief structure and the practices of religion in general, including the Jewish religion, seemed to me absurd - even distasteful at times.
Given this background surely I would be an automatic disciple of someone like Dawkins who sees religion as so much superstitious garbage from a bygone era; the toxic detritus of primitive minds which in the light of science and progressive social ideas should be permanently sealed in concrete mental silos? After all, many "enlightened" and scientifically sophisticated people feel this way as do a host of lesser geeks.
I am moved to these observations by exposure to two quite distinct minds over the past 24 hours or so. The first is an article by a Jarred Cinman entitled "Let’s talk about the Jews" on ThoughtLeader (no less), the Mail and Guardian online blog. It is a text of quite unbelievable naivete, of which the author is wholly unconscious. I suppose it could be termed the "unbearable obtuseness of geekism". I use the phrase because we are led to understand in the blurb accompanying Cinman's article, that he is a successful IT practitioner and businessman. Some examples give the flavour:
Virtually throughout the article he uses the term "the Jews" based, one imagines, on his experience of the Jews of his limited business and suburban acquaintance together with a bundle of unexamined anti-semitic stereotypes he has absorbed like blotting paper. It does not occur to Cinman that "the Jews" encompass Isaiah Berlin, Marx, Einstein, Rabbi Kook, Spinoza and Maimonides to mention just a few.
Other pearls of insight include such observations as 'The Jews, in what I have always found a supreme act of arrogance, state that a Jew is born with a “Jewish soul”... "Let it be said that the underlying religious beliefs are no more inspiring or coherent than those of any other religion and, in many cases, sound more like the writings of JRR Tolkien than ancient spiritual practitioners."..."Leaving God aside, there are all kinds of bonkers stuff going on within the Jewish belief system."..."Likewise, there is the shady concept of “Amalek”, the shady archetypal enemy of the Jews, who (some argue) are embodied by present-day Arabs. They are told they must take from them a ring of power, and throw it into a volcano … well, not really, but it does get pretty weird."
In between this adolescent tripe are anti-semitic tropes borrowed wholesale from your average yobbo on the football terraces. Again examples are the only way of conveying the full flavour of Cinman's "thought" processes: ..."the Jews have made a big mark. Hostile to outsiders, lavish in giving advantages to its (sic) own kind and filled with a persecution complex"... "There is still a God, the renowned Yahweh (sometimes called Jehovah), whose acts and attitudes in the Old Testament are a case study in brutality, xenophobia and cruelty. He routinely has entire nations slain, swallows up people into the Earth, drowns, burns, turns into salt and so forth."
In these quotes I have hardly skimmed the surface: Cinman is a case study in crass prejudice and arrogance strutting its stuff on a public stage. So why spend any time on him? Surely there are anti-religious commentators capable of informed argument couched in adult, even eloquent, prose more deserving of our attention.
Of course, but partly it is worth noting because this mindless drivel appears under the imprimatur of the Mail and Guardian blessed by the designation, ThoughtLeader. That the world of blogs, especially those with strongly partisan agendas, are a cesspool of prejudice and ignorance is not news. But this is not usually accompanied with the seal of approval from a newspaper which pretends to intellectual and political respectability. If it is claimed that the Mail and Guardian is in the business of presenting different viewpoints with which it may seriously disagree, surely it can do much better than Cinman?
But maybe it can't. Or, maybe, Cinman simply reflects the prejudices of a significant section of the M & G editorial staff.
But let's get past Cinman (and the M & G) and deal with something worth talking about. Here is a rather long extract from a blog coming out of a Progressive Orthodox standpoint which I urge readers to have a look at. This extract is by Haim Watzman: "Both these American philosophers (William James and Emerson), as you note, viewed religion principally as an inner experience. Such a view of religion is peculiarly suited to the liberal American tradition, which holds that belief should be a private matter. A person’s relationship with God is his or her own business, and not the state’s.
I’m not arguing against this view as a political strategy, but most religious people would, I think, find it inadequate as an account of their experience and their needs. For them, religion not only comes from within but also from without, as a matter of revelation, tradition, myth, and sacred texts. The religion of James and Emerson has no room for ritual, for the performance of precepts (other than general moral ones), and relatively little for collective experience. Their religion did not need a church, mosque, or synagogue; it did not need stories of creation, redemption, and liberation; it did not need the performance of precepts. In a large measure, they viewed such elements, which bring individual believers together for prayer, disputation, and collective memory, as impediments to the inner spiritual state they viewed as the essence of man’s relationship to the divine.
The American relegation of religion to the private sphere grew out of specific historical circumstances. It produces an assimilating society that can absorb nearly anyone who accepts this principle.
My grandparents accepted it, were accepted into American society, and managed to work their way up into moderate prosperity, safety, and happiness. For them it was a great bargain, compared to what they had experienced under the czars and the commissars. But they gave up a lot, too; assimilating into America meant gradually sloughing off their Jewish heritage. They remained committed, identifying, and partially practicing Jews, as did their children and grandchildren. But their Jewish culture, the connection to Jewish history, tradition, practice, language, and texts, grew more and more attenuated in each generation. It wasn’t until I began relearning these things, first in high school and then after settling in Israel, that I realized how much we had given up in order to become American.
It’s wonderful that the world has a United States of America and a liberal American tradition, but not every place need be the United States and not every fair-minded, moral person need be an American-style liberal. In fact, if the whole world accepts the American solution, the world will lose a great deal. One of the things it will lose is the heritage of faiths that stress collective experience.
The Exodus, which we will both sit down to commemorate tomorrow night through the reading of an ancient text and the performance of ancient rituals, was a public, not an inner spiritual event—as the Seder makes its yearly rehearsal to this day.
This, let me assert once more, does not give religions a right to force others to believe or worship. I’m a fierce critic of the Orthodox Jewish establishment in Israel and of hyper-nationalist, xenophobic interpretations of our heritage (and of others). I believe that a seriously religious person in any faith ought to question, doubt, and struggle and that such engagement is a necessary condition for creating the humility and creativity that ethical life in the modern world requires.
But the proper answer to that is to seek to create a Judaism (and a Christianity, and Islam, and all the rest) that is open, accepting, and humanistic, but also faithful to and conversant in its heritage."
When contrasting Cinman and Watzman (besides the obvious difference in quality), Watzman recognises two things: firstly, that religion cannot be divorced from the larger society of which it is a part and will inevitably reflect the impact of its social environment and, secondly, that religion is always in a state of evolution - whether slow or rapid, whether abrupt or smooth. The one indeed follows from the other.
I have just finished reading Chinua Achebe's classic "Things Fall Apart" which describes the life of a Nigerian village just before the advent of white colonialism (with its Christian missionaries) and the impact of the latter on the traditional religious life of the village. His writings brilliantly illustrate (without flinching from the ugly bits) the intimate, mutually sustaining (ecological) relationship between a superstitious religious belief system and the daily life of the village, and its inhabitants; an existence in which history moved at a snail's pace until the arrival of the white man. In some ways Achebe's book closely resembles Isaac Bashevis Singer's beautiful collection of Jewish/rabbinical stories entitled "In my Father's Court".
Modern Judaism, as do all religions, illustrates the impact of accelerated history driven by technology and increasing (but precarious) mastery over the natural world. It has branched out and will continue to do so in response to the fragmented, diverse, sceptical and abrasive ethos of the modern age. At the extremes, one line of Judaism has retreated into a denial of modernity and has attempted to recreate a "purified" and idealised version of of the religion and, on the other, many Jews have totally rejected the divine in any form in favour of various wholly secular doctrines - or no doctrine at all. In between are various other solutions which retain some of the traditional collective forms with the best of Judaism's ethical, poetic and spiritual elements.
What many secular fundamentalists miss, is that religion can become a vehicle for poetry, art and ethical thought. The divine, in one sense, is a metaphor for human strivings towards meaning and transcendence of our animal nature. When linked to tradition, ritual and history, it becomes a collective enterprise providing a sense of belonging and guideposts to ethical behaviour.
Of course, it can be argued, religion can become an excuse for the worst of human instincts: intolerance, aggression, irrationality and greed. What is more religious doctrine can be used not simply to justify such behaviour but to encourage it. Whether religion is worse in this respect than secular creeds like Marxism and its offshoots, or even less coherent secular doctrines, is uncertain. I personally suspect that religion, through appeals to a group-specific divinity, is less susceptible to "disproof" and can more readily become a source of exclusive identity and a motivation to extreme political conflict than secular doctrines.
I'm also not sure that any doctrine which holds up unattainable standards of human behaviour is, ultimately, not more damaging than more tolerant creeds. For those like myself, inclined towards scepticism and science, serious adherence to religious doctrine with its emphasis on faith (at root an exercise in irrationality) poses serious intellctual and emotional obstacles.
So, in the last analysis, I find rather attractive the freedom to select out those elements of Judaism which provide a sense of historical continuity, identity and human transcendence while avoiding the spectre of irrational belief and infatuation with the minutiae of ritual and practice. I suppose one cannot have one's cake and eat it, but this is as close as one can get to (Isaiah Berlin's ?) philosophy of liberal humanism. I incline heavily towards non-observance in practice while encouraging it in theory.
For those who find these ideas inadequate (as I do), please use the comment facility at the end of this post to enlighten me and other readers.
Mike Berger
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