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Add to NewsvineWhy is it that Evangelicals love them some Jews -- and really love them some Israel -- but it's a sentiment that's largely unrequited? Similarly, why is it that so many African-Americans are hostile toward Jews, but so many Jews identify with blacks despite this? Why do so many Christian liberals identify with the Palestinians even though they are far more illiberal than the Israelis? James Q. Wilson ponders these questions. He concludes that Jewish hostility to Evangelicals is based mostly on prejudice, and is even dangerous to Israel:
Christian Smith, a sociology professor at the University of North Carolina, analyzed four surveys of self-identified evangelicals and found that, while they do think that America was founded as a Christian nation and fear that the country has lost its moral bearings, these views are almost exactly the same as those held by non-evangelical Americans. Evangelicals, like other Americans, oppose having public schools teach Christian values, oppose having public school teachers lead students in vocal prayers, and oppose a constitutional amendment declaring the country a Christian nation. Evangelicals deny that there is one correct Christian view on most political issues, deny that Jews must answer for allegedly killing Christ, deny that laws protecting free speech go too far, and reject the idea that whites should be able to keep blacks out of their neighborhoods. They overwhelmingly agree that Jews and Christians share the same values and can live together in harmony. Evangelicals strongly oppose abortion and gay marriage, but in almost every other respect are like other Americans.Whatever the reason for Jewish distrust of evangelicals, it may be a high price to pay when Israel’s future, its very existence, is in question. Half of all Protestants in the country describe themselves as evangelical, or born-again, Christians, making up about one-quarter of all Americans (though they constitute only 16 percent of white Christian voters in the Northeast). Jews, by contrast, make up less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and that percentage will shrink: as many as half of all Jews marry non-Jews. When it comes to helping secure Israel’s survival, the tiny Jewish minority in America should not reject the help offered by a group that is ten times larger and whose views on the central propositions of a democratic society are much like everybody else’s. No good can come from repeating the 1926 assertion of H. L. Mencken that fundamentalist Christians are “yokels” and “morons.”
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Well, Mr. Wilson seems remarkably unaware of what is called Philosemitism in the literature. Which Jewish scholars basically agree is an attitude that buries substantial unresolved anti-Semitism underneath it. For a somewhat extreme example, German Neonazis are highly supportive of Israel and Israeli sabras- they admire their determination, their onesided fight for land and domination with Arabs and Palestinians, the Settler intent to outbreed the Savages they battle daily, the rigid sacred materialism and nationalism and divinely ordained glorious destiny that is the ideology. It's just real Jews, serious manifestations of Judaism and Jewish faith, and Semitic/desert peoples' cultural conventions and habits they can't stand.
In Wilson's article there's a lot of Philosemitic attitude in patronizing form, some of which is just patronizing and the rest mostly a denial of Judaism and culturally Semitic group identity as the core of Jewish life, reducing Jewish interests to the existence of Israel and "liberalism". I think he could learn a lot from e.g. Thorleif Boman's "Hebrew Thought Compared to Greek" (1961) about the pre-Christian European assumptions and ways of thinking by which he misanalyzes American Jews and the history of Jews in the West. Ironically, that deep Semitic-European conceptual clash is the root of anti-Semitism in the West when one side absolutized its claims or they were taken to be irreconcilable. (When viewed and lived as tolerable and as complementarity, it's led to the famous creative 'symbiosis'.)
Jews are necessarily more aware of this pattern and the underlying realities than most European cultural traditionalists, of course. (Martin Buber's "On Judaism" lectures and essays of 1912-30s contain much of the same observations vis a vis European cultural norms and way of thinking as Boman's book of 1961.) And if you do scratch your average elderly American Evangelical or orthodox Believer hard about Jews and Judaism, in my experience the result is usually quite morally ugly.
Wilson, if he were wise, might also want to consider what it would take for American Evangelical society to survive as truly a small religious and pseudoethnic minority without majority sympathy, i.e. needing to stand on its merits and historical record rather than numbers. Just about every religious group will or has had to choose between numbers and internal integrity in its clash with Modernity and majorities unfavorable to it. The long term survivors are those who choose integrity, relinquishing institutional wealth, group political power and status, and peacefully letting loose or rebellious adherents go- often a large proportion of the membership. Rigidity or orthodoxy are not qualities identical with integrity, it must be noted, though they are often the most successful substitutes.
There's a curiosity noted in cultural or social anthropology, which is that societies expand to a unit size of between 15 and 20 million people, and then either growth continues but the group splits, or people leave or die until population sinks below the critical number again. Functional cities/metro areas tend to obey the 15-20 million matured social unit model rather nicely, e.g. New York or Los Angeles in the U.S., and subregions like California or countries seem to obey it fairly well. (Texas seems to be in some turmoil about whether it will form one or two mostly overlapping ones; if two, one will spill over geographically into Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana.)
In aggregate, the world population of self-identifying Jews has likewise held around to that putative mature societal unit size this century, and that despite the millions lost in the Holocaust. The eventual integration of Israelis with Palestinians will be an interesting challenge, but that lies two generations away or so. The unit size also poses an interesting set of considerations about the future of American Christianity/ies, given how increasingly identified particular kinds are becoming with regions and ethnic descent.
Posted by: Jillian | February 6, 2008 7:12 PM
"Oh, and most American Jews are pretty scientific-minded and think that young-Earth creationists and other evolution deniers (and they would include most of the Haredi Jews in Israel or Crown Heights) are downright delusional, with an anti-scientific attitude that's genuinely bad for society." trotsky
I have long wondered about the attraction between Jews and Communism. Reading your above quote about the disdain of Jews toward evolution deniers, it occurred to me that the said attraction to Communism may be based in part on the Communist abhorrence of evolution deniers and near worship of science.
Could I be on to something?
Posted by: Cleveland | February 7, 2008 12:30 AM
Cleveland,
The digital handle is the alpha and omega of my attraction to Communism. However, the easy answer to your question is that millions of Jews lived in the old Russian empire and were terribly oppressed therein. They thought the old order was worth overthrowing -- and in fact I'd say they were right.
Alas, history is filled with tragedy, and the new order wasn't much better. We've gone through a few orders since in Russia, and it's still only a little better. It's enough to make you believe in the Fall of Man.
Posted by: trotsky | February 7, 2008 2:00 AM
"Alas, history is filled with tragedy, and the new order wasn't much better."
Actually, the "new order" was much worse for Jews; you must be aware of the horror stories. Ergo, my wonder at the disproportionate attraction Communism has for Jews.
I have a theory: Communism's historical enemy is the Church, and Judaism's historical enemy (at least in the perception of many Jews) also is the Church. Thus, because "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", Communism is disproportionately attractive to Jews, and has taken on a life of its own.
Posted by: Cleveland | February 7, 2008 2:55 PM
Cleveland, I submit that there is a much simpler explanation: given the Christian hegemony in western governments and politics, communism is simply one of the few avenues open to a Jew gaining a similar level of power.
It's not the Church, it's the closed doors of a private club. Only solution: start one's own club, and gain enough power to displace the other club.
Posted by: Franklin Evans | February 10, 2008 12:35 PM
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