Why Anti-Semitism Flourishes Whenever Hatred Thrives
- Thread starter dgordo
- Start date
My 38 year-old son was at the house this weekend - he asked, "Why do some people hate people of the Jewish faith?"
After carefully considering all my age-aided wisdom, I replied, "I have no idea".
After carefully considering all my age-aided wisdom, I replied, "I have no idea".
there are plenty of anti semites on here, maybe one of them can tell us what false narrative about jews makes them so triggered.
I know racists that have no reason to be. They have never been hassled or offended by a minority. How many anti semites have a reason to have animosity or prejudice towards a Jew? Hell, I'll bet many don't even know if they have ever talked to one. Certain people are conditioned to be prejudiced. It is embedded in their culture. It is embedded in the right wing culture. This offends people including posters on this board, but it is true.
Great post ft. I would add that not all anti-semites are right-wingers. I live in a city with a sizable Jewish population. I've heard many educated, supposedly open-minded people make casual comments that make me wonder what they are really thinking. They talk about or praise a Jewish broker or lawyer or banker, whatever, but insert the Jewish part. Their brains aren't doing that by accident.
Might the cloud the Madoff affair has cast among the Jews have not a silver but perhaps a zinc lining? One wonders, for example, what effect Uncle Bernie's (as I have come to think of him) amazing caper will have on the attempt at WASP-ification of well-to-do Jews in America. American Jews, the scholar and wit Milton Himmelfarb said, "earn like Episcopalians and vote like Puerto Ricans." But with the passing decades of prosperity many Jews have also begun to live like Episcopalians, or at least as they imagine Episcopalians live.
Many years ago the sociologist E. Digby Baltzel distinguished among the Protestant sects by noting that a Methodist was a Baptist with shoes, a Presbyterian a Methodist who has gone to college, and an Episcopalian a Presbyterian who lives on his investments. That portion of wealthy Jews who have come to live on their investments began more and more to model their leisure and financial lives on those of old-line Episcopalians, with the added benefit of having Sunday mornings free.
Long locked out of the WASP social and commercial institu-tions—the tonier country clubs, the major Ivy League universities, the white-shoe legal and banking firms, large corporations, elegant suburbs—well-to-do Jews in America, where possible, formed their own counterpart institutions, apart from the Ivy League schools. A younger generation has now taken to giving their children WASPy first names, so that today one runs into such comic nomenclatural pairings as Tyler Ginsberg, Mackenzie Rosenthal, Hunter Fefferman, Kelly Rabinowicz and other such preposterosities.
So it is, too, with Jewish country clubs. Madoff's own club, the Palm Beach Country Club, whose members proved such ripe pickings for Uncle Bernie, is a bit exceptional in not carrying a WASPish name, like that of so many Jewish clubs I know in Chicago—Bryn Mawr, Briarwood, Ravisloe, Twin Orchard, Green Acres, everything but Goyesque Pines—in imitation of the names of long-established WASP country clubs.
As part of the country-club drift of well-to-do Jews, of their general Episcopalianization, golf has become a great mania—mishegoss, in the good Yiddish word—for so many Jewish men of my generation. Among many of those who have scored financially, the leading idea of Valhalla is a condominium on a golf course in a dull place with a warm climate. I have one acquaintance who, having rung the success bell resoundingly, is said to belong to 10 different clubs around the country, so that he can play golf no matter where he finds himself.
Another acquaintance, off on a fund-raising trip to Houston for a Jewish institution he heads, discovered upon his arrival on a Wednesday afternoon that almost all his potential wealthy contributors were out on the links. When he remarked on this to one of the few men he was able to reach, the man told him that the former leader of the Jewish community in Houston once told him, "You know, Barry [you have to imagine a southern accent here], our people shouldn't golf."
There is something deeply trivial about golf that is unseemly for Jews, who have traditionally been accustomed to taking themselves seriously. Whacking away at a little ball, hoping, at the end of four hours' effort, to arrive at the finish a stroke or two fewer than the previous time one wasted a morning at this game—no, no, no, I'm sorry, but this is all wrong for Jews. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn't undergo pogroms and the struggle to evade conscription in the tsar's army to come to America for their descendants to put on peach-colored pants, spiked Nike shoes and chemises Lacoste to appear on the first tee promptly at 8 a.m. A Jew should be studying, arguing, thinking, working, making money, contemplating why God has put him through so many trials. A phrase like "dogleg to the left" should never pass his lips. If Madoff's depredations will bring a few Jews in off the links, perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing.
Madoff's handiwork might also not have been altogether without purpose if it eliminates a number of the trust funds wealthy Jewish parents, usually acting on the advice of savvy lawyers looking for tax loopholes, have conferred upon their children. The few young Jewish men I have known who have trust funds, making life all too easy, have somehow along the way lost both their Jewishness and, by not working for a living, their edge. It is one thing to live on your investments; it is quite another to live on the investments of money you yourself never earned. "Money is funny," Gertrude Stein said, and the lady knew whereof she spoke.
Reading the scores of thousands of words written about the Madoff affair, I cannot help wondering if I wouldn't myself have been susceptible to having been cheated by Bernie Madoff. I can all too easily imagine a wealthy friend putting me onto a good thing by arranging for Madoff Securities to take my money under its large protective wing, then sitting back, noting the impressive gains on my monthly statements, until one morning waking to learn that I had been had and was now tapped out. One of the only reasons this didn't happen, I suspect, is that, over a long and undaring life, I neglected to accumulate the $4 million that Uncle Bernie required as an ante to get into the game.
My father used to say that it is good to be cheated every once in a while. Being cheated, he held, teaches humility, reminds you that you aren't as smart as you thought you were; it's good for the mental hygiene. John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s father used to claim that he cheated his sons every chance he got; it smartened them up, with results we all know. Will Bernie Madoff's duping so many people of their money, Jews prominent among them, smarten them up?
A few weeks ago I spoke over the phone with a Hungary-born historian, a man who, as befits a scholar from an older culture, fancies himself taking long views. He suggested that I write a book about the efflorescence of the Jews in 20th-century America. The book would tote up their remarkable contributions to science, scholarship, the arts, journalism, entertainment, commerce, education. "It is a big subject," he said, "and calls for a big book. But you know of course that the end is already written. The story of the Jews in America is now over."
He didn't say it straight out, because he didn't have to, but what was implied is that American Jews have lost the great energy that made them such a force in American life. They will never again, if he is correct, equal their earlier achievements. There have been too many Tylers, Mackenzies, Hunters and Kellys, too much intermarriage, too many doglegs (both left and right), too many inept scions walking around frivolously spending trust-fund money. As they become ever more assimilated, American Jews, my friend the historian was saying, will no longer constitute a distinctive group with a distinguished role to play in American life.
Which brings us back to Bernie Madoff, who has performed the valuable—if very expensive—service of demonstrating to his coreligionists, among others, that the waters of life are not as pacific as they seem. Sharks are down there, and barracudas, and other scarifying species, some of them selling impressive-sounding financial security, but really waiting to eat you alive. Tyler and Mackenzie, Hunter and Kelly had better learn now that life isn't going to be a smooth swim, going with the current all the way home. If you don't believe it, ask Uncle Bernie.
Many years ago the sociologist E. Digby Baltzel distinguished among the Protestant sects by noting that a Methodist was a Baptist with shoes, a Presbyterian a Methodist who has gone to college, and an Episcopalian a Presbyterian who lives on his investments. That portion of wealthy Jews who have come to live on their investments began more and more to model their leisure and financial lives on those of old-line Episcopalians, with the added benefit of having Sunday mornings free.
Long locked out of the WASP social and commercial institu-tions—the tonier country clubs, the major Ivy League universities, the white-shoe legal and banking firms, large corporations, elegant suburbs—well-to-do Jews in America, where possible, formed their own counterpart institutions, apart from the Ivy League schools. A younger generation has now taken to giving their children WASPy first names, so that today one runs into such comic nomenclatural pairings as Tyler Ginsberg, Mackenzie Rosenthal, Hunter Fefferman, Kelly Rabinowicz and other such preposterosities.
So it is, too, with Jewish country clubs. Madoff's own club, the Palm Beach Country Club, whose members proved such ripe pickings for Uncle Bernie, is a bit exceptional in not carrying a WASPish name, like that of so many Jewish clubs I know in Chicago—Bryn Mawr, Briarwood, Ravisloe, Twin Orchard, Green Acres, everything but Goyesque Pines—in imitation of the names of long-established WASP country clubs.
As part of the country-club drift of well-to-do Jews, of their general Episcopalianization, golf has become a great mania—mishegoss, in the good Yiddish word—for so many Jewish men of my generation. Among many of those who have scored financially, the leading idea of Valhalla is a condominium on a golf course in a dull place with a warm climate. I have one acquaintance who, having rung the success bell resoundingly, is said to belong to 10 different clubs around the country, so that he can play golf no matter where he finds himself.
Another acquaintance, off on a fund-raising trip to Houston for a Jewish institution he heads, discovered upon his arrival on a Wednesday afternoon that almost all his potential wealthy contributors were out on the links. When he remarked on this to one of the few men he was able to reach, the man told him that the former leader of the Jewish community in Houston once told him, "You know, Barry [you have to imagine a southern accent here], our people shouldn't golf."
There is something deeply trivial about golf that is unseemly for Jews, who have traditionally been accustomed to taking themselves seriously. Whacking away at a little ball, hoping, at the end of four hours' effort, to arrive at the finish a stroke or two fewer than the previous time one wasted a morning at this game—no, no, no, I'm sorry, but this is all wrong for Jews. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers didn't undergo pogroms and the struggle to evade conscription in the tsar's army to come to America for their descendants to put on peach-colored pants, spiked Nike shoes and chemises Lacoste to appear on the first tee promptly at 8 a.m. A Jew should be studying, arguing, thinking, working, making money, contemplating why God has put him through so many trials. A phrase like "dogleg to the left" should never pass his lips. If Madoff's depredations will bring a few Jews in off the links, perhaps that is not entirely a bad thing.
Madoff's handiwork might also not have been altogether without purpose if it eliminates a number of the trust funds wealthy Jewish parents, usually acting on the advice of savvy lawyers looking for tax loopholes, have conferred upon their children. The few young Jewish men I have known who have trust funds, making life all too easy, have somehow along the way lost both their Jewishness and, by not working for a living, their edge. It is one thing to live on your investments; it is quite another to live on the investments of money you yourself never earned. "Money is funny," Gertrude Stein said, and the lady knew whereof she spoke.
Reading the scores of thousands of words written about the Madoff affair, I cannot help wondering if I wouldn't myself have been susceptible to having been cheated by Bernie Madoff. I can all too easily imagine a wealthy friend putting me onto a good thing by arranging for Madoff Securities to take my money under its large protective wing, then sitting back, noting the impressive gains on my monthly statements, until one morning waking to learn that I had been had and was now tapped out. One of the only reasons this didn't happen, I suspect, is that, over a long and undaring life, I neglected to accumulate the $4 million that Uncle Bernie required as an ante to get into the game.
My father used to say that it is good to be cheated every once in a while. Being cheated, he held, teaches humility, reminds you that you aren't as smart as you thought you were; it's good for the mental hygiene. John D. Rockefeller Sr.'s father used to claim that he cheated his sons every chance he got; it smartened them up, with results we all know. Will Bernie Madoff's duping so many people of their money, Jews prominent among them, smarten them up?
A few weeks ago I spoke over the phone with a Hungary-born historian, a man who, as befits a scholar from an older culture, fancies himself taking long views. He suggested that I write a book about the efflorescence of the Jews in 20th-century America. The book would tote up their remarkable contributions to science, scholarship, the arts, journalism, entertainment, commerce, education. "It is a big subject," he said, "and calls for a big book. But you know of course that the end is already written. The story of the Jews in America is now over."
He didn't say it straight out, because he didn't have to, but what was implied is that American Jews have lost the great energy that made them such a force in American life. They will never again, if he is correct, equal their earlier achievements. There have been too many Tylers, Mackenzies, Hunters and Kellys, too much intermarriage, too many doglegs (both left and right), too many inept scions walking around frivolously spending trust-fund money. As they become ever more assimilated, American Jews, my friend the historian was saying, will no longer constitute a distinctive group with a distinguished role to play in American life.
Which brings us back to Bernie Madoff, who has performed the valuable—if very expensive—service of demonstrating to his coreligionists, among others, that the waters of life are not as pacific as they seem. Sharks are down there, and barracudas, and other scarifying species, some of them selling impressive-sounding financial security, but really waiting to eat you alive. Tyler and Mackenzie, Hunter and Kelly had better learn now that life isn't going to be a smooth swim, going with the current all the way home. If you don't believe it, ask Uncle Bernie.
My opinion, Jews are less than 2% of the population in almost every country outside of Israel. You can live your entire life in many places without ever meeting someone who is Jewish. If you have never met a Jew it is easy to believe the stereotype and it’s easy to hate someone you’ve never met.
There are a lot of things that are attractive about hate. That's just the reality.
It gives one an easy target to point to as the cause of problems. That leaves the person self assured that they are not the cause of the problem nor do they have to make any hard sacrifices to fix it.
Furthermore it gives a person an easy outlet for anger. It let's that little psychopath that resides in all of us come out. And we can advocate to harm people for the shear joy of harming others while leaving ourselves assured that we are doing the right thing because they really do deserve it and they arn't really fully human beings anyways.
When all else fails in one's life they can hold themselves up as being better then many others because of their race/religion etc.
There is no right wing or left wing culture. Just the fact that you allude to a "wing" culture is dumb. Is there a reason to be racist, then? Of course not. Any prejudice is almost always based in ignorance. There as always been and always will be ignorance.
