Jewish Political Masochism: We Address Every Cause but Our Own:
Four examples of Jews clamoring for various left of center interests while neglecting issues near and dear to Jews
By
David Gottfried
Friederich Nietzsche said that he was the best critic of decadence because his life was steeped in decadence.
I don’t want to seem too grandiloquent, but I think I am one of the best critics of Jewish liberal masochism because my life was steeped in Jewish liberal masochism. (I am still fervently left wing on some issues, but much of the left has come to disgust me.)
As the conflagration in the Mid East smolders, and as Israel begins its campaign to demolish Hamas, 1 we are beginning to hear familiar arguments about Jews and their allegedly selfish political affiliations and desires. Perennial anti Semites, nativists and people who are merely confused assert that Jews do not really care about the diaspora nations they live in, only care about Israel and are not genuine and bona fide members of the British or French or American communities.
This essay offers 4 examples demonstrating that Jews are, more often than not, inspired by political dreams along the lines of universal brotherhood and that left of center ideals are so fervently adored by Jews that Jews routinely neglect Jewish issues in favor of leftist agendas that either do not address Jewish concerns or are, at times, patently inimical to Jewish interests.
1) The Presidential Election of 1948: Many Jews abandoned Harry Truman, who made the U.S. the first nation to recognize the State of Israel, in favor of the Socialist, Henry Wallace
Although the Democratic nominee, Harry S. Truman, made the United States, in May 1948, the first nation to recognize the State of Israel, many Jews abandoned him just a few months later in the November 1948 election. For example, in New York State, 45 percent of the vote went for the Republican candidate, Dewey; 44 percent of the vote went for the Democratic candidate, Truman; and 11 percent of the vote went for the socialist candidate, Henry Wallace. (Among other things, Henry Wallace suggested that, as a gesture of good will, the U,S, should share the secret of the atomic bomb with the Soviet Union.) Most of the Wallace faction, in New York, consisted of hardline, leftist Jews. Their commitment to Marxist Leninism, and related leftist creeds, by far outweighed their commitment to Jewish concerns.
(I am not contending that Jewish support for Wallace was good or bad. I am simply positing it as a fact that shows that Jews are not zealously looking out for Jews to the exclusion of all else.)
2) Young Jews Gravitated toward the Civil Rights Movement and largely ignored Holocaust survivors in America
Contrary to the popular imagination, most Jewish survivors of the Holocaust did not become Wall Street tycoons. Many of them, indeed many of the people I grew up with, were wondering in New York City, still shell-shocked twenty years after World War Two ended. In the early Sixties, there were well over 100,000 Jewish refugees of Hitler in New York City. They had run across the sea to escape the crematoria and many of them sought to hide, until they died, in the forlorn tenement slums in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan. They bore the concentration camp tattoos on their arms. They were ubiquitous.
However, wealthy, educated liberal Jews were oblivious to them. In the early sixties, only one political movement stirred their interest: The black civil rights movement. Of course, the black civil rights movement was most meritorious. However, how could a New York Jew, not in any way conversant with the culture, moods and ambience of the South, get anything done down South. And why did they have to run so far from home to try to do some good. Why couldn’t the rich Jews of Great Neck say hello to their poorer cousins of Brooklyn.
Actually, the cerebral, talkative, New York Jews eventually alienated both blacks and Southern segregationists. In 1966, black organizations such as SNCC (The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee) advised white people to leave the civil rights movement.
The next time a black radical chastises whites for insufficient attention to black concerns, remind him that in 1966 SNCC told white sympathizers to get lost.
When I was six going on seven, in the Summer of 1964, I was a member of the JCH (Jewish Community House) day camp. The outfield extended into the street, and we did not have a pool. It was the poor Jewish version of a country club. After lunch, we were taught songs. Every song we were taught pertained to the civil rights movement. (I can still give very soulful renditions of old black songs dating back to slavery. This musical indoctrination had one salutary aspect: It made me very attuned to R&B and ushered me into rock and roll.)
3) The Juxtaposition of the 1956 Presidential Election in the United States and the Sinai Campaign
In the autumn of 1956, Israel was embroiled in a brief war against Egypt. Israel conquered the Sinai Peninsula, and very quickly returned it to Egypt.
(When Israel gave back the Sinai, it was agreed that although Egypt’s borders would now be extended north and east so that Tel Aviv would be only an hour and a half from the Egyptian border if one drove briskly, U.N. troops would be stationed at the border to keep the peace. In May 1967, when Egypt found peace boring, it demanded that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Mr. Uthant, withdraw UN forces so Egypt could start another war and mutilate Israelis.
UThant withdrew UN forces, 500,000 Egyptian soldiers surged to the border, Egypt blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba, depriving Israel of oil shipments from Iran (Then under the control of the Western-aligned Shah) and manic, murderous hordes swarmed through Arab capitals pledging to drown the Jews in the Sea.)
Back to 1956: Israel’s seizure of the Sinai Peninsula coincided with President Eisenhower’s re-election campaign. Only days before the Presidential election, Eisenhower castigated Israel for its incursion into Egypt. Eisenhower’s stern criticism of Israel, on the eve of his re-election, proves that he was not afraid of the Jewish vote and did not make political decisions on the basis of the Jewish vote.
4) American Jews and Global Political Issues After 1960
Jews were heavily represented in leftist movements, from the 60’s and beyond, which sought to decolonize the third world, bring U.S. troops home from Vietnam, bring socialist revolution to El Salvador and end apartheid in South Africa. In the course of their activism, these Leftist Jews attacked the United States, perceived as the grand ogre of Western Imperialism. By attacking the United States, these Jews were attacking Israel’s strongest supporter and were, arguably, compromising Israel’s security. (America was Israel’s strongest supporter starting in the 1960’s. As explained in prior articles, America’s support for Israel was quite equivocal before the 60’s, even though America was the first state to recognize Israel.)
Also, global political movements for “liberation,” which often captured the imagination, time and pocketbooks of western Jews, were often aligned with Arab movements and so-called Palestinian movements. By aiding and abetting various global leftist syndicates, Jews were aiding and abetting Arab campaigns to devour and dismember Israel and the Jewish people. Jewish leftist activists, including Bella Abzug in the 1960’s and 1970’s, and Bernie Sanders in the 2010’s, made common cause with leftists who were hostile to Israel. Also, leftist Jews were among the biggest champions of affirmative action. Jews, who constitute a very small proportion of the American population but are very heavily represented among SAT scorers above 700 verbal and 700 math, clearly suffer when affirmative action is implemented.
In conclusion, the facts negate the popular conception. The Jews are continually castigated as being selfish, and only attentive to Jewish issues, but the facts show that most Jews are way out in left field, giving their hearts, time and money to leftist concerns that ignore Jewish needs, address them only obliquely, and sometimes oppose Jewish needs.
I am sure many people will argue that my analysis is flawed and fallacious given the rise of right-wing ferment among some Jews. My best rebuttal is rooted in the maxim of the German Philosopher Hegal: “Every thesis has within it the seeds of its own antithesis." Very simply, after years of catering to other people and other groups, many Jews have ineluctably moved to a stance diametrically opposed to the altruism and self-abnegation of the past.
Israel’s actions are of course giving the electronic media lots of blood and fire to film, and this blood and fire is arousing hatred against Israel. Of course, there is plenty of blood and fire, and castrations and beheadings, in the Arab world, but the media cannot freely roam in Arab lands. Given the paucity of photos recording the atrocities committed by Arabs, the simpletons who side with the Arabs perceive the Arab world the way the Obamas romanticized the third world in the 2008 campaign, as a land where people know that “it takes a village to raise a child.” They quickly forget that if that child is a girl, she may suffer a clitorectomy and that if that child is gay, he will suffer the tortures of the damned.