Lightning Times

Why are Jews liberal? A response to Dennis Prager. (Part 1 of 2)

In an earlier post I promised a full response to a column by Dennis Prager, "Why are Jews liberal?". Here it is.

Dennis Prager's column makes six assertions about Jews and liberalism, which I'll take in order.

1. Judaism is indeed preoccupied with social justice (as well as with holiness and personal morality), and many Jews believe that the only way to achieve a just society is through leftist policies.

Here Prager's on solid ground. He agrees with Jewish liberals that there is a connection between authentic Judaism and social justice; the weak (or disputed) link in the chain is the question of whether "leftist policies" are a valid means of achieving a "just society". It would also be appropriate to point out that while social justice is an important part of Judaism, it is not the whole of it; that is, it is a necessary but not sufficient element. And so Prager (again rightly, in my view) finds some truth in the quip that "There are two types of Jews -- those who believe Judaism is social justice and those who know Hebrew."

2. More than any other major religion, Judaism has always been preoccupied with this world.

Quite so.

3. Most Jews are frightened by anything that connotes right-wing -- such as the words "right-wing" and "conservative."

Now, here's where we start running into problems. This statement is both hyperbolic and tautological. Why are Jews liberal? Because they're not conservative! No, wait - they're not just not conservative, they're afraid of conservatives! In fact, they're frightened by the very word "conservative".

Just plain silly. But it only gets worse, as Prager tries to answer the question without really answering it:

Especially since the Holocaust, they think that threats to their security emanate from the Right only.

I want to say, "This statement is both true and false", but I have to ask myself, "Which statement? The Jewish perception of threats from the Right, or Prager's perception of that perception?" Prager evades addressing the question of anti-Semitism on the Right directly.

In fact, Prager has an important point here - many liberal Jews do perceive anti-Semitism as coming "from the right only". But how would they get that idea?

Here's how Dennis Prager answers that question -

(It is pointless to argue that Nazism stood for National Socialism and therefore was really a leftist ideology. Whether that is theoretically accurate doesn't matter; nearly everyone regards the Nazis as far Right, and, therefore, Jews fear the Right.)

- or rather, doesn't answer it. Instead, he quibbles about the "right-wing" designation of the Nazis. What a pointless display of content-free verbiage. A more honest and courageous approach would have been to acknowledge that the Nazis did purport to represent certain "conservative" ideals - nationalism, tradition, discipline, and of course anti-Communism - and to take the barbarity of the Nazi regime as an object lesson in the dangers that may lie in the perversion of these ideals. (Just as the honest liberals of today must acknowledge that Communism claimed to represent the "liberal" ideals of equality, secularism, and ... yes, social justice.)

Anti-Semitism is neither a stranger to the Right nor to the Left. But what Judith, Patti, and other Jewish liberals have been noticing in recent years is the leftward migration of anti-Semitism's center of gravity. Here's Judith, way back in 2002, on the positive side of Jewish liberalism:

Judaism is the original social justice religion - every Shabbat in shuls all over the world some Bar Mitzvah kid is chanting a selection from the Prophets. Jews stand out as the one ethnic group in America which keeps voting liberal as it grows more prosperous. Jews have made up a large percentage of the labor and socialist movements of the early 20th century, and their children became "Red-diaper babies": Freedom Riders, SDS members, libertarians, feminists, ACLU members, experimental artists and their patrons. In the Jewish world 2 degrees of separation is more common than 6, so most "conservative" Republican-voting Jews have family affiliated with these groups and attitudes, and many are proud of their activism if not their exact views.

After all, compassionate rules of war, tithing, sharing wealth as an act of justice rather than charity, challenging God ("Yisrael" means "God-wrestler"), respecting other religious paths, intellectual debate, raising children to value study and intellectual exploration, mandating pleasurable sex as a wife's right, speaking truth to power - all these attitudes are hard-wired into our religious practice and mythology. Even totally secular Jews are very conscious of and proud of the social justice part of our heritage. ...

Go read the whole thing at the link as soon as you get the chance.

Now here's Patti at White Pebble in February 2005:

Another article which makes me realize that I never so much changed my views away from liberalism — it’s that liberalism itself moved.

And she links to this article by Daniel Pipes:

Developments since World War II and the Holocaust have been especially fast-paced and portentous. Here are four of the most significant shifts:

From right to left: For centuries, anti-Semitism was the hallmark of the right and merely episodic on the left. To take the ultimate examples of these trends, Stalin's Judeophobia was peripheral to his monstrous project, but Hitler's was central to his. Even a decade ago, this pattern still basically held true. But recent years have witnessed a rapid and global realignment, with the mainstream right increasingly sympathetic to Jews and Israel and its leftist counterparts cooler and more hostile. ...

And in September 2004, Judith followed up her earlier post this post about Party A and Party B:

I have defended this honorable legacy to long-time conservatives, vociferously and in great detail. But it's not 1940 anymore. The global initiatives of that legacy, as well as the will to justify and defend that legacy, have been picked up by the neo-conservative movement and is now being carried forward by the other party. Change comes hard to any minority group which has so wholeheartedly identified its salvation with a certain ideology. (Blacks have this problem too, and are shifting their alliegances just as gradually.)

Recent immigrants don't have the burden of this ideological legacy. The huge Russian Jewish community in NYC is overwhelmingly voting for Bush, and Eastern European immigrants in general have fond feelings for Republicans, based on the party's support for entrepreneurship and Reagan's facing down the Soviet Empire.

Go read it all. It's an excellent pre-buttal (is that a word?) to Prager.

A Different Kind of Liberalism: Euston Manifesto Makes the BBC

Dreams Into Lightning congratulates Norm Geras and the writers of the Euston Manifesto for upholding the highest values of the British and European liberal tradition - and getting a spot in the BBC News:

A pub on the Euston Road in London was the venue for a document that has caused quite a stir in political circles in Britain and the United States.

The document, called the Euston Manifesto, was drawn up in a series of meetings at O'Neill's, opposite the British Library and not far from Euston station.

It is set for a public launch on 25 May (not at the pub), but it has already been published and extensively discussed on the internet, where it had its origins.

It was drafted by a veteran left-wing academic, Norman Geras, professor emeritus in politics at Manchester University. Geras runs his own blogsite called normblog.

"We wanted to declare support for values that are being compromised," he told me.

"We did not want a socialist document but one which would appeal to others who are liberal and democrats.

"For example, it is quite regular to read about terrorism that 'Yes, putting bombs on buses is bad, but you need to understand it'.

"The word 'understand' has two meanings. It means to explain and to condone - and that 'but' often tends to condone the act."

And then there's a lot of blah-blah about whether the Euston group should be ashamed of the support of neo-cons like Bill Kristol, and predictable rejoinders from the New Statesman and the Guardian. Never mind, go read the article anyway.

Here's why the Euston Manifesto matters. There are many matters of governance on which reasonable people can reasonably disagree - Great Society vs. Small Government, and so on. But these conversations can only take place when there is common ground and a set of shared values and interests. By isolating itself in a shrill, nihilistic orgy of radicalism, the Left not only sabotages itself; it also deprives the greater society of the benefit of a constructive critique.

Whether or not you agree with the social/economic program of the Euston Manifesto, remember that it is an important step toward the renewal of true debate in the Western world - an all-important, intellectual "commons" that seems very much in danger these days.

Dennis Prager: Why are Jews liberal?

Dennis Prager at Townhall:

1. Judaism is indeed preoccupied with social justice (as well as with holiness and personal morality), and many Jews believe that the only way to achieve a just society is through leftist policies.

2. More than any other major religion, Judaism has always been preoccupied with this world. The (secular) Encyclopedia Judaica begins its entry on "Afterlife" by noting that "Judaism has always affirmed belief in an afterlife." But the preoccupation of Judaism has been making this world a better place. That is why the Torah (the Five Books of Moses) is largely silent about the afterlife; and it is preoccupied with rejecting ancient Egyptian values. That value system was centered on the afterlife -- its bible was the Book of the Dead, and its greatest monuments, the pyramids, were tombs.

3. Most Jews are frightened by anything that connotes right wing -- such as the words "right-wing" and "conservative." Especially since the Holocaust, they think that threats to their security emanate from the Right only. (It is pointless to argue that Nazism stood for National Socialism and therefore was really a leftist ideology. Whether that is theoretically accurate doesn't matter; nearly everyone regards the Nazis as far Right, and, therefore, Jews fear the Right.) The fact that the Jews' best friends today are conservatives and the fact that the Left is the home of most of the Jews' enemies outside of the Muslim world have made little impact on Jews' psyches.

4. Liberal Jews fear most religion. They identify religion -- especially fundamentalist religion and especially Christianity -- with anti-Semitism. Jews are taught from birth about the horrors of the Holocaust, and of nearly 2,000 years of European, meaning Christian, anti-Semitism. They therefore tend to fear Christianity and believe that secularism guarantees their physical security. That is what animates the ACLU and its disproportionately Jewish membership, under the guise of concern with the Constitution and "separation of church and state" (words that do not appear in the Constitution), to fight all public expressions of Christianity in America.

5. Despite their secularism, Jews may be the most religious ethnic group in the world. The problem is that their religion is rarely Judaism; rather it is every "ism" of the Left. These include liberalism, socialism, feminism, Marxism and environmentalism. Jews involved in these movements believe in them with the same ideological fervor and same suspension of critical reason with which many religious people believe in their religion. It is therefore usually as hard to shake a liberal Jew's belief in the Left and in the Democratic Party as it is to shake an evangelical Christian's belief in Christianity. The big difference, however, is that the Christian believer acknowledges his Christianity is a belief, whereas the believer in liberalism views his belief as entirely the product of rational inquiry.

The Jews' religious fervor emanates from the origins of the Jewish people as a religious people elected by God to help guide humanity to a better future. Of course, the original intent was to bring humanity to ethical monotheism, God-based universal moral standards, not to secular liberalism or to feminism or to socialism. Leftist Jews have simply secularized their religious calling.

6. Liberal Jews fear nationalism. The birth of nationalism in Europe planted the secular seeds of the Holocaust (religious seeds had been planted by some early and medieval Church teachings and reinforced by Martin Luther). European nationalists welcomed all national identities except the Jews'. That is a major reason so many Jews identify primarily as "world citizens"; they have contempt for nationalism and believe that strong national identities, even in America, will exclude them.

Just as liberal Jews fear a resurgent Christianity despite the fact that contemporary Christians are the Jews' best friends, leftist Jews fear American nationalism despite the fact that Americans who believe in American exceptionalism are far more pro-Jewish and pro-Israel than leftist Americans. But most leftist Jews so abhor nationalism, they don't even like the Jews' nationalism (Zionism).

Remarks: I want to do a full post in response to this, but let me give my initial reactions here:

First, I generally agree with Prager's points and his analysis. The question of why Jews are liberal has been raised a number of times in the post-9/11, neoconservative era. (LaShawn's question and my response; Patti at White Pebble citing Daniel Pipes; Judith at Kesher Talk; and this anonymous Jewish New Yorker have dealt with this issue. See also my post here.)

Prager is arguing from an explicitly conservative perspective. Where his analysis is weakest, I think, is where it is most partisan: Prager glibly throws up 'every "ism" of the Left. These include liberalism, socialism, feminism, Marxism and environmentalism' as examples of figurative "golden calves" pursued by wayward liberal Jews. I would object that this is not wholly wrong but it is simplistic. Can one be (for example) a good Jew and a feminist, a good Jew and a liberal? Dennis Prager appears to believe one cannot. I respectfully disagree.

That's all I have time to post now; I'll return to this topic soon. Have a good Shabbat.