Posts from — August 2007

In the dialog about the ADL versus Jewcy over the Armenian genocide, TM of Jewlicious attacked Joey Kurtzman over his dialog with John Derbyshire from the National Review in a mostly serious consideration of Dr. Kevin MacDonald’s inflammatory research on Jews, including Jewish “group evolutionary strategies.� This series of exchanges between Kurtzman and Derbyshire on Jewcy created quite a commotion, not just in Jewish circles, but in race realist and white nationalist circles, some of whom pointed to this series in a popular Jewish publication in order to legitimize MacDonald’s theories.

Anyway, I found out from his comment on Jewcy (responding to my response to his response about the ADL/Aremnian genocide/Luftmentshen posts) that this was apparently his first comment about the MacDonald series since it was posted. Needless to say, this is quite an honor for The Kvetcher to host his first defense of that most controversial series.

Kurtzman hoped no one would respond to his comment about the MacDonald series, as he is about to go away for a couple weeks. But I hope he understands that there is no way in hell I’m not going to publish his comment on the MacDonald series in a separate post. Forgive me, Joey, I’ve been in the media business far too long to let this one slip through the cracks.

TM accused Kurtzman of supporting Kevin MacDonald in that series.

Joey Kurtzman responded,

Supporting, no. I never denied that MacDonald is an antisemite, I said that that’s not an adequate critique of his work. And I said that I couldn’t say where MacDonald was right and where he was wrong, because no one had delivered the academic critique of his work that John Tooby years ago promised to deliver. Meanwhile, prominent evolutionary psychologists have weighed in in support of some of his theories about group selection (e.g., David Sloan Wilson). And yes, despite plenty of honkingly dubious parts, I found his books very interesting, as have other marginal cranks like, say, Andrew Sullivan.

MacDonald’s trilogy has generated too much interest to hope he’ll just go away. If the books are pure antisemitism then we’re still waiting for the sunshine that will disinfect. That’s not a statement of support for MacDonald, it’s just reality.

Update: More from Kurtzman on the MacDonald controversy here.

First of all, I should mention that my post, “The Luftmentshen of Jewcy,� was not representative of Jewschool in any way. I left Jewschool, at least for now, and though Kurtzman had no way to know that, really, I did publish the piece on The Kvetcher, not on Jewschool.

In his response, “The Daily Foxman: The Luftmenschen of Jewcy�, Kurtzman argues,

The Jewish community has worked very hard to instill in its young the sense that bearing witness to genocide is virtually a sacred responsibility, that denial of genocide is the final step of genocide, that the “criminal indifference� of the world to the genocide of European Jewry was a cataclysmic moral failure that must never be repeated, and that only by remembering the past can we prevent its repetition. So no, you don’t get to switch horses now that recalling someone else’s genocide conflicts with a strategic goal.

True, this is promoted by most of the organizational Jewish community. However, it is not a goal that I endorse. Hence, I am not bound by its logic, nor are others who disagree with it. Quite frankly, I don’t think that remembering the Holocaust will prevent anything from happening. I consider such a strategy most speculative, and already proven wrong to a large degree.

Kurtzman invokes a Jerusalem Post op-ed that declares,

Never Again has been exposed as an empty mantra, most recently in Rwanda and Darfur,� and this has happened because we have not “sufficiently internalized� the lessons of tragedies such as the Armenian Genocide.

No. Never Again is an empty mantra because we are not in control of everything. We can “internalize� whatever we want. But terrible things, including genocide, will still happen. The Mandaeans are being exterminated this very instance. Where is the Jewish community? Why isn’t/wasn’t Kurtzman and Jewcy raising hell? Perhaps Kurtzman needs to go “internalize� the Armenian genocide more “sufficiently.� That will surely help the Mandaeans. We could help them a lot more than the Armenians killed in WWI.

Kurtzman argues,

“If this is the direction you want to take the Jewish community, then go ahead and raise the next generation to believe that genocide is a trifle that can be ignored when politically convenient to do so.�

This is not the choice. The Holocaust can be viewed internally by the Jewish community as quite a bit more important than a “trifle,� but still not be the paradigm for which all policy must be crafted.

Kurtzman asked,

What sort of ideological shakeup is taking place in the Jewish community that Jewcy sides with the Jerusalem Post for the universalist luftmenschen against the tough-minded ethnocentrists of Forward and Jewschool?

I obviously don’t speak for the Forward, but I would guess that it is the same “tough-mindedness� that has frequently placed the Forward historically on the opposite side of the utopian Luftmentshen for most of its past 110 years.

Some things change. Some things don’t.

I have declined to comment on Foxman’s Armenian genocide scandal so far, though I am certainly no fan of Abe Foxman generally.

But Jewcy and others are attacking Abe for the wrong reasons. The problem with Foxman is that Foxman attacks and barks as if the Holocaust itself justifies his personal rule over the parameters of politically acceptable speech, and he does so on behalf of the general Jewish community, whether dead or alive. All who defy his will risk being deemed an “anti-Semite.� That’s the problem, not a need for Foxman consistency.

What is the benefit of “consistency� here? The benefit is that Joey Kurtzman and the whole Jewcy mishpacha get to look like badass idealists willing to challenge the Jewish “defense� organization status quo, and show they are very big universalists not confined to shtetl-like thinking.

This is, in and of itself, of some value, as the Jewish community needs to distance itself publicly from the ADL, who is usually creating much more harm than good, because the ADL’s interests are not our interests, but the interests of a narrow, specific type: his donor base.

But what is the cost of championing this specific cause? The cost is a further agitation to the Turkish-Israeli alliance, which is the most critical Muslim ally to Israel. Turkey is important in so many ways to the Jewish state. Emergency water supply plans, intelligence sharing, political shield from the EU, etc., etc. And yet, these punks have no qualms threatening that alliance, a relationship already under pressure. The new Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, has an Islamist past, and perhaps retains some of those ambitions. And he is not happy about what is happening with the U.S. Jewish community’s support of Armenian remembrance. I am going to go out on a limb that those in Turkey who resent Turkey’s alliance with the Jewish state just might be using this issue to further question the alliance generally.

You think the Armenians just want acknowledgement? I doubt that. I would suspect they want retribution. That means resolutions of condemnation, but it also may mean the right to sue Turkey. And I don’t blame them for that, but this is not our fight. And guess which genocide-centric community is going to be expected to back that also?

As the moderate-Left Forward (and no fan of Abe Foxman) notes in this week’s editorial,

As for the Armenian tragedy, as real as we know it to be, the fact is that Israel desperately needs the friendship of Turkey, its most important ally, and that friendship comes with a painful price tag. Remembering genocide is important, but not as important as saving lives today.

Foxman’s ADL is a problem. But Jewcy’s specific demand for Jewish communal support of the Armenian community carries an unfortunate byproduct, the implicit, concurrent attack on a crucial Israeli ally.

Jewcy and friends should have done a cost-benefit analysis before going apeshit. If they did, then they clearly harbor a most unsympathetic view towards consideration of the Jewish state’s needs. If they didn’t, then they are classic, irresponsible, Diaspora Luftmentshen.

Update: Joey Kurtman Responds.

And here I was, listening to all those silly scientists, with all their gloom and doom scenarios. Everyone, go back to your SUVs, and don’t worry about the little things. Like how our planet is being destroyed.

The Jewish Press, one of the most respected periodicals in the science community, explains,

Seems we just can’t get away from all those warnings of envirnomental [sic] catastrophe that fly in the face of Parashat Noach.

Full dissertation.

Okay. I admit it. I have a crush on Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

But how can I not? She is a courageous beyond my comprehension, facing down tyranny, rationalizations, and specious excuses (what we in the offline world call “bullshit”). She is a brilliant prophetess, and yes, she is quite beautiful. If she asked me out for drinks, I would say yes. And since she’s a feminist, we would go Dutch (I know…that one was a groaner).

Anyway, in an interview with the Mainichi Daily News, the following was discussed.

Q: When did you begin to become suspicious of Islam?

A: When I came to Holland, I came to a country that was not ruled by Islam and I found it confusing to see that people like me, who are Muslims, were at war with each other. And our stereotype of the non-Muslims was that they are cursed. Coming to Holland and being cursed was clean streets, a lot of food, a lot of wealth, a lot of peace. If it was the curse of Allah, then I was very confused.
[…]
Q: Your position is that women in Muslim societies should be freed. You freed yourself from Muslim society but now you have to move around with security. Do you feel like you are freed now?

A: Well I am free intellectually. I got an education, I learned a whole new world opened up to me. After Sept. 11, discussing Islam and exercising my intellectual freedom got a price with it. Which is then that you understand the Jihadists will threaten you and some of them may want to kill you and that is for me a price I still want to pay, it is not too much.

What is so amazing to me is that at the core of her crucial resistance is a commitment to freedom of thought.

In POLJ’s guest post on The Kvetcher, POLJ noted that, “DK is a fan of all things homogeneous.� While POLJ was hopefully joking, I must counter that this is hardly the case. Rather, I am dubious of the supposedly far superior benefits of diversity.

While POLJ disputes Mr. Furman’s notion of integration for social purposes, he did not really explain how his vision is substantially different. Instead, he noted,

“In college I got to know many folks of different colors and creeds. But for the most part my close friends were Jewish. When I started into college politics, I was forced to work with different people. By working with them for long hours, like Furman did on his basketball team, I got to know these people better. I learned about Pilipino customs (and of that particular spelling because there is no “F� sound in the Pilipino language), Latino music and food, Black American holidays and even some Christian stuff. Because I was forced into a situation that I didn’t know before, I learned more.�

That’s nice, but it is hardly worth busing a few lucky chosen middle class kids across town to a predominantly “inner city� school, as wonderful an opportunity as that might seem to them and their families. What would be better is learning about other cultures in our schools, and reinstituting geography, as well as seriously teaching foreign languages at an early age. That’s real education.

All too often, from what I have seen, we Americans place more value on socialization than education when it comes to other cultures, in part because we view race itself as the only real barrier between peoples to overcome, and in part, because we don’t see value in other civilizations. Which is really dangerous, since they own more and more of our ever-increasing national debt. But I would prefer my kid to know many languages. I have more faith that he would be able to appreciate, say, French culture and even French people, much better if he knew the French language fluently, than if he had a couple of kids in his class of French descent. I had a friend of French descent as a kid. But surprisingly, it just doesn’t help me get around Paris, nor does it help me understand the difference between French colonialism and British colonialism.

We have to ask ourselves what is important. POLJ says he prefers education to socialization. But it still looks a lot more like socialization to me. It looks like a Benetton commercial. I prefer real education about others. Curriculum, languages, tests…but hey, I’m just a reactionary.

I will say this. POLJ wrote about growing up in a mostly Jewish school. I grew up in a school with almost no Jews. It was quite…challenging. When I went to a magnet arts school, it was better, because it was more diverse. But not because it was educationally diverse, but rather, because I didn’t feel so strange. In the end, I would certainly have preferred a diverse school with more Jews than a homogenous school with almost no Jews.

But quite frankly, I don’t think this is really about education at all. I think a lot of Jews who prefer “diversity,� aren’t really concerned about either education or socialization. And we are fooling ourselves about what we claim we want, and declining to be honest about what we are actually afraid of. And we are not prodding this country towards a good place when we are really motivated not by humanitarianism, but by secret fears.

How can we craft reasonable and strategically sound communal policies if we aren’t honest about what is really motivating us?

I received the following email from a woman concerned about her boyfriend’s attendance at Ohr Somayach. Well…she should be concerned. She should be very concerned.

I’m writing with regards to your post “Checklist for Steve Brizel” on Ohr Somayach.

Please do not use my real name. While I can’t answer all of your questions, I can give you a few answers and share my impressions with you.

My boyfriend arrived at Ohr Somayach [time frame deleted]. His life has already been turned into a living hell. He actually enjoys the classes, finds them interesting, and is very impressed with the quality of the rabbis. It’s what goes on outside of class that bothers him and me. From what he’s told me, it comes very close to a brainwashing cult. There is no Internet access on campus, except for two computers that are broken and only allow access to web-based email accounts. I can understand them wanting to block porn downloading, but do not see the logic in blocking access to newspapers or sports scores or things like Facebook. They are clearly trying to isolate the students from the rest of the world as much as possible. Students are discouraged from reading newspapers, except for local Charedi ones.
He also feels that he was misled as to what the school would be like. They told him there were lots of activities outside of class, there was a gym, they had sports teams. They have none of that. They are in yeshiva from 7 in the morning until 11 at night and have no time for anything else, even jogging.

The students beyond first year all wear the standard yeshivish garb and long beards. Many went to top universities and had good jobs that they have since abandoned. Expressing a desire to return to the workforce or law school/med school is seen as a weakness. Another goal is to get the students married off as soon as possible. They’ve already told my boyfriend to break up with me, because I am not frum enough[...]His parents are really worried. He had a good job, was well-educated. We’re all worried he’s going to turn into some sort of zombie!

Despite NCSY finally adding Modern Orthodox religious study options for public school Jews after a mere three decades (wtf?!?) of haredi options only, the haredi relationships are intact, and with their own expansion, growing. Please tell parents that NCSY is absolutely sending public school teens to Ohr Somayach/Neve, and other places like them, and they are recruiting public school students to various programs directly from the public schools themselves, through the JSU. Look at the problems the haredi ones create even for fully grown adults. Then imagine what it does to naive eighteen year olds coming straight from public high schools…

You imagine. I don’t have to imagine.

Guest post from Pissed Off Liberal Jew!

While DK is a fan of all things homogeneous, I personally feel that educational institutions benefit from teaching high level materials to diversified groups of people. This week Professor Andrew Furman writes about his time on an inter-racial basketball team in the San Fernando Valley during the early 1980s in the Forward. Furman paints a picture of, well, taking a picture with his team of blacks, whites, Jews and an Asia. All stereotypical jokes aside (for there are plenty) OF COURSE this happened:

I remember the photographer looking down into the viewfinder of his fancy camera, then looking back up again, gazing toward us for a moment without saying anything, as if he had noticed something troubling through the lens but wasn’t quite sure how to address the problem. Recognizing the photographer’s discomfort, our graying coach, Bob Johnson, a man as mild as his name, broke his pose and peered over toward his players, taking us in.

“Okay, I think we better mix it up a little over here. This doesn’t look so good,” he uttered, giving audible expression to what was certainly on the poor photographer’s mind.

A quick look about and his meaning was clear. The five black players on our squad all stood on one side, while the rest of us had congregated together on the other. It took a mere moment to arrange a satisfactorily integrated tableau. Appeased, the photographer snapped the photo and we were done.

But holding hands and making friends, in my opinion, isn’t the point. The point is the exposure. Yes it would be wonderful, and in the end it worked out this way for Furman and his team, if people made friends with people from the other side of the tracks. The benefits of busing are summarized in one of his final points: I didn’t realize it at the time, but my world, as well as the world of my black teammates, had grown larger because of the vigorous efforts during the 1970s and 1980s to integrate the city’s public schools. Furman and his teammates were forced, by the state and school, to learn something that would have never been teachable with a book.

Regardless of the downsides (for there are plenty) busing and forced integration made/makes people think bigger. I went to a public school in the San Fernando Valley as well. However, it was not in the LAUSD. I was in a “public” school district with far fewer people in a much more expensive suburban ‘hood. The over all feeling of the school was Jewish. While playing of the football team that forced the Catholic coaches to let us miss two-a-days for Yom Kippur was empowering, over-all my high school wasn’t exactly “Stand and Deliver.”

In college I got to know many folks of different colors and creeds. But for the most part my close friends were Jewish. When I started into college politics, I was forced to work with different people. By working with them for long hours, like Furman did on his basketball team, I got to know these people better. I learned about Pilipino customs (and of that particular spelling because there is no “F” sound in the Pilipino language), Latino music and food, Black American holidays and even some Christian stuff. Because I was forced into a situation that I didn’t know before, I learned more.

I also made some great friends, but that isn’t the point nor should it be the argument for integration of schools. The educational system in the United States is in really bad shape. Anything to make it better and more complete is needed. Economic and social integration of public schools is the right thing to do for education not for socialization. Make the better argument.
–
I am a Liberal Jew and I am Pissed
pissedoffliberaljew.blogspot.com

Last week, we discussed the failure and downright hateful approach of the far-Left towards whites in terms of their grappling with the challenges faced by Jews of Color. But the challenges faced by such Jews are real. And after all, we are not talking about diversity for its own sake; we are talking about a diverse reality among our own. And we are a small and shrinking religious group that has always harbored grand ambitions of influencing the world through example. For Jews to feel excluded because they look different…this is indeed a terrible thing, not just for these Jews, but for Judaism itself, which has no explicit word for race in the Torah.

So who is constructively addressing these issues?

Whether we like or not, it appears that NCSY is doing so, and has been doing so fort awhile, quite seriously.

Rabbi Jack Abramowitz, with the help of Yavilah McCoy and Tobey Herzog, has reprinted an important brochure from 2003 entitled, “Getting to Know Jews of Color.�

In the section “10 Tips Toward Sensitivity in the Jewish Community,� Ms. McCoy’s suggestions include,

“Remember that it’s OK to be curious, but to become fascinated with a person because of an aspect of their physicality alone, is to turn that person into an object in your regard. Make efforts to make your relationship with people who are different from you more than skin deep.�

And,

“When we sit with things inside us that make us uncomfortable, we often find deeper truth and growth on the other side.�

Kudos to NCSY for the important work they are doing in this matter, and for the sophisticated and positive message of inclusion they are spreading.

And yet…

Being the Apikorus that I am, I have to ask, aren’t these problems to some extent our own doing? Don’t we have some quite questionable views on conversion itself? Aren’t we a bit schizophrenic about whether or not we are a nation or a universal religious group?

For instance, one of the most egregious ideas in traditional conversion is that those already born to converts are no longer really part of their family. Their parents are not their parents; their siblings not their siblings.

Once again, traditional Judaism is willing to deny basic biology. And any time traditional Judaism denies basic scientific FACT, isn’t Judaism itself compromised?

And in light of such an extreme view of what it means to be Jewish instead of gentile, is it really such a surprise we have problems in terms of accepting those of a different group as our own? Is it any surprise that the more different they appear, the greater the challenges they face in terms of their acceptance by some Jews?

I don’t think this problem is faced by Christians of Color the same way. Just the term itself sounds ludicrous. Most Christians don’t even question that there are other Christians who look quite different than they do. While there may be expectations about the race of Christian leadership, there is simply no expectation of a specific race for a Christian. The far-Right often rejects Christianity for this specific reason. Of course, Christianity is an expansive religion, while Judaism is an insular one.

But is it that simple?

There is a belief in traditional Judaism that a Jewish convert is no longer part of his or her biological family in a meaningful way…does that not this set the tone that others—gentiles—are of inherently less value?

I don’t think Judaism is inherently racist. But I do see that Jewish supremacism can be exacerbated by race. Traditional Jews, like other frequently xenophobic near-Eastern people, sometimes have a profound contempt for others. And if you have contempt for the otherness of a person, this will affect how you view a person who comes from that otherness.

There are gains in remaining an insular people. But there is a cost as well, because like so many other near-Eastern groups, we have a reluctance to see value in others. Rather, we are struggling to see comparable value despite converts coming from otherness. Those costs are disproportionately borne by Jews of Color.

Ye one more reason to consider that even if we support an Orthodox monopoly on conversion in Israel, we should resist the haredi quest for international conversion hegemony.

The Kvetcher will have its second guest post ever! Monday, Pissed Off Liberal Jew is doing a guest post here on The Kvetcher — on the benefits of diversity.

Why POLJ is choosing to do a fantasy piece is beyond me, but I’m happy to have it, and I’ll give it a fair hearing, before ripping it to shreds on Tuesday.