There is something about Michael Walzer's sympathetic presentation of David Nirenberg's ideas on the history of what he (following Nirenberg) calls anti-Judaism which seems – at least to me – to strike a false note. I am focussing here entirely on Walzer's essay and make no judgment about Nirenberg's book.
Part of the problem is that the term 'anti-Judaism' – which one naturally takes to refer specifically to the religion – is being stretched to encompass broader cultural and other factors.
For example, in his essay – the main point of which seems to be to promote the view that the Jews and Judaism of the Christian and post-Christian imagination bear no relationship to actual Jews and Judaism – Walzer writes:
"No doubt, Jews sometimes act out the roles that anti-Judaism assigns them – but so do the members of all the other national and religious groups, and in much greater numbers. The theory does not depend on the behavior of real Jews." [Emphasis mine.]
But, leaving that specific issue aside, consider this passage in which Walzer sums up (and endorses) David Nirenberg's core thesis about 'anti-Judaism':
"… [A]nti-Judaism claims to be explanatory. What is being explained is the social world; the explanatory tools are certain supposed features of Judaism; and the enemies are mostly not Jews but 'Judaizing' non-Jews who take on these features and are denounced for doing so. I will deal with only a few of Judaism’s negative characteristics: its hyperintellectualism; its predilection for tyranny; its equal and opposite predilection for subversive radicalism; and its this-worldly materialism, invoked […] by both Burke and Marx. None of this is actually descriptive; there certainly are examples of hyper-intellectual, tyrannical, subversive, and materialist Jews (and of dumb, powerless, conformist, and idealistic Jews), but Nirenberg insists, rightly, that real Jews have remarkably little to do with anti-Judaism." [My emphasis again.]
"None of this," Walzer wrote, "is actually descriptive." Just to be clear, he means that none of those listed characteristics is actually descriptive of Judaism.
The listed characteristics are descriptive of something, however, insofar as they are exemplified in the social world. This is important because, clearly, ideas can only be seen as explanatory (even if they are only in fact pseudo-explanatory) if the things they purport to explain are there to be explained (or mis-explained).
The question is, then, whether the characteristics in question have any correlation with Judaism or Judaic culture.
Walzer claims here that they do not, pure and simple.
But a strong case can be made that the Hebrew scriptures are characterized by a certain earthiness or 'embodiedness' or this-worldliness which is absent from many other religions. This is not materialism, certainly, but it does reflect a certain orientation which is very different from Platonistic idealism, for example.
There is also evidence of moral and political radicalism in various prophetic and apocalyptic texts.
Even Walzer admits in the course of his essay that the revolutionary Puritans at the time of the English civil war were actual Judaizers (and not just 'Judaizers') in that they focussed more on the Old than the New Testament. He also admits that many of the Bolsheviks were in fact Jewish – "though of the sort that Isaac Deutscher called 'non-Jewish Jews'."
As to hyperintellectualism, there is ample evidence for this in the Talmudic tradition, is there not?
Why not just admit these facts? I don't see the problem.
The issue is complicated and compounded – rather than clarified and resolved (which presumably was the intention) – by the introduction of the inevitably vague distinction between "real Jews" and "'Judaizing' non-Jews".
The basic thesis seems to run as follows...
Non-Jewish (and Jewish, like Marx) thinkers criticized certain forms of thought and action which they characterized as Judaic. But these forms of thought and action were in fact exemplified not so much by real Jews but rather by non-Jewish 'Judaizers'.
Real Jews have remarkably little to do with anti-Judaism precisely because the 'Judaism' of anti-Judaism has remarkably little to do with real Judaism (or indeed with anything Judaic). So the Judaizing non-Jews (or non-Jewish Judaizers) are not really Judaizing (or Judaizers) at all. (Except the Puritans, apparently.)
Got it?
Finally, let me address directly my concern about Walzer's use of the concept 'real Jews' and the substantive distinction which that concept entails between Jews and non-Jews. Making or assuming such a distinction leads inevitably to the sorts of odd dichotomies I was making fun of above and more generally to definitional dilemmas and arbitrary judgements which a more secular and pragmatic approach could easily avoid.
How would Isaac Deutscher's "non-Jewish Jews" fit in here, for example? Presumably they would be seen by Walzer as real Jews who had made some unfortunate choices!
And indeed, according to Philip Weiss who attended a talk Walzer gave to a Jewish audience in 2007, Walzer does seem to take this view (or something like it). Citing Exodus, Walzer allowed that there have always been irreligious Jews. He also accepted that there are Buddhist Jews. But Jews cease to be Jews by active conversion to, for example, Islam or Christianity. (Just in case you were wondering.)
Showing posts with label anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anti-Semitism. Show all posts
Friday, March 14, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Ludwig Wittgenstein and the 'Jewish mentality'
I made reference recently – in a comment on a blog post by Belle Waring on clowns and masks and related matters – to Wittgenstein's curious remark, made in a notebook around 1930, about 'masked theatre': namely, that only Jews will be attracted to it.
That discussion didn't really lead anywhere so I thought I might set out here a few suggestions and thoughts not only on Wittgenstein's comment but, more generally, on his attitude to Jews and Judaism.
I'm not sure what kind of masked theatre Wittgenstein was thinking of, but he appears to have been associating it somehow with the unpoetic, abstracting and intellectualizing tendencies which he saw as characterizing the 'Jewish mentality'.
Most of what Wittgenstein says about Jews is conventional 19th-century nonsense related to the idea that Jews are not truly creative, but the reference to masked theatre is decidedly odd.
This is drawing a very long bow but could he, in his eccentric way, be referring to something like what we would now see as autistic tendencies? Those on the autism spectrum have trouble reading subtle social signals (including facial expression) and – I don't know about masked theatre – but they do tend to gravitate more to comic books and cartoons than the rest of us. They also often have a narrow focus in their thinking and are sometimes highly gifted in mathematics and related disciplines.
And, of course, many of the greatest mathematical and scientific thinkers of the last century-and-a-half (autistic-tending or not) were Jewish...
But I am not making specific claims here so much as just tossing around some ideas to try to make sense of Wittgenstein's remark.*
He was aware, of course, of his Jewish forebears and at times referred to himself as Jewish. After previously playing down his Jewish background, he told his friend Fania Pascal in 1938 that three of his grandparents were Jewish. She subsequently discovered that all three of those Jewish grandparents were – or became – Christians.
Wittgenstein's paternal grandparents were both born to Jewish parents but were baptized as Lutherans and married in a Lutheran church.
His maternal grandfather was raised as a Catholic by his mother who had converted to Catholicism from Judaism. His maternal grandmother was a Catholic without a Jewish background.
"Some Jew," Fania Pascal remarked.
Wittgenstein was baptized a Catholic, instructed in the faith and even considered, about the age of thirty, taking holy orders. He was given a Catholic burial. But he lived his religious life very privately, a devout if unorthodox Christian.
I recall reading that he was not only devastated but disbelieving when he found out that the invading Nazis had classified his family as Jewish.
Wittgenstein's religious commitments have been downplayed or ignored, for the most part, by his philosophical followers but his anti-Semitic-sounding remarks (as well as his fundamental philosophical commitments) only really make sense when seen in the broader context of his Christian beliefs.
As this essay by Michael Walzer (a review of a book by David Nirenberg actually) makes clear, Western anti-Semitism – or, more precisely, anti-Judaism – is only comprehensible historically when seen in the light of Christian doctrines and is, or at least has been, an essentially explanatory idea intrinsic to Christian thinking.**
But there were always conflicting traditions of thought within Christianity, and the frictions were often traceable to tensions between those who emphasized classical elements and those whose focus was more on Biblical and Jewish sources.
Consider, for example, the controveries surrounding the notion of the 'Hebrew republic' in the 16th and 17th centuries when some prominent Christian scholars took a decidedly pro- or philo-Judaic approach. These individuals – mostly Protestants but also Jesuits – sought enlightenment about pressing political questions from the Hebrew Bible and its Jewish interpreters.
By Wittgenstein's time the concerns were quite different, of course, as various forms of idealism dominated the philosophical world and modernism battled with neo-scholasticism.
Wittgenstein's main problem with Catholicism, apparently, related to its emphasis on natural theology and, by extension, metaphysics, both of which disciplines he rejected unequivocally.
His views seem to have more in common with certain mystical and fideist traditions, and he found religious inspiration in the writings of Augustine, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as well as certain books of the New Testament.
John Hayes discusses Wittgenstein's intense moral preoccupations in terms of his Jewish background, but I see these preoccupations as being quite consistent with those forms of Christianity which draw more on Hebraic sources than Greek or classical ones.
Hayes writes: "From the point of view of Wittgenstein's religious sensibility, [a] feeling of Jewishness seems to have manifested itself in a strong belief in the Last Judgement as a young man and, as an older one, in what he called the 'hundred per cent Hebraic' sense that what we do makes a difference in the end. Such a perspective compels taking our actions seriously; there is only one chance at life and an accounting at the end of it. Wittgenstein seems to have had an abiding sense of guilt which he constantly counter-balanced by a renewed resolution to live life decently."
Significantly Wittgenstein felt far more comfortable with Matthew's gospel – the most Jewish of the gospels – than, say, with the Gospel according to John. And he originally rejected but came eventually to see value in the letters of Paul – who had, it seems, been deeply involved with a mystical form of Judaism (as evidenced by his reference to the 'third heaven', for example).
* Another thought relates to concealment and deception, as Jews have often been characterized as deceptive. Wittgenstein was preoccupied at various stages with his own deceptions and confessed them to friends as a form of self-abasement. (They related, amongst other things, to his allowing misperceptions of the extent of his Jewish background to go uncorrected; and to violent behavior – which he had originally denied – towards children during his brief career as a primary school teacher in rural Austria). But, though masks do involve concealment and deception in a sense, so does theatre in general. And, not only is this decidedly not a morally suspect form of deception, any concealment or 'deception' is on the part of the players rather than the audience.
** Though anti-Semitic ideas are not necessarily associated directly with Christianity, there are usually at least indirect links. For example, though many 20th-century anti-Semites were influenced more by philosophical idealism than by Christianity, idealism can be seen as a development of the Platonistic elements embedded in the Christian tradition. And, surprisingly, some of the most virulent forms of Islamic anti-Semitism trace their origins to Christian sources.
That discussion didn't really lead anywhere so I thought I might set out here a few suggestions and thoughts not only on Wittgenstein's comment but, more generally, on his attitude to Jews and Judaism.
I'm not sure what kind of masked theatre Wittgenstein was thinking of, but he appears to have been associating it somehow with the unpoetic, abstracting and intellectualizing tendencies which he saw as characterizing the 'Jewish mentality'.
Most of what Wittgenstein says about Jews is conventional 19th-century nonsense related to the idea that Jews are not truly creative, but the reference to masked theatre is decidedly odd.
This is drawing a very long bow but could he, in his eccentric way, be referring to something like what we would now see as autistic tendencies? Those on the autism spectrum have trouble reading subtle social signals (including facial expression) and – I don't know about masked theatre – but they do tend to gravitate more to comic books and cartoons than the rest of us. They also often have a narrow focus in their thinking and are sometimes highly gifted in mathematics and related disciplines.
And, of course, many of the greatest mathematical and scientific thinkers of the last century-and-a-half (autistic-tending or not) were Jewish...
But I am not making specific claims here so much as just tossing around some ideas to try to make sense of Wittgenstein's remark.*
He was aware, of course, of his Jewish forebears and at times referred to himself as Jewish. After previously playing down his Jewish background, he told his friend Fania Pascal in 1938 that three of his grandparents were Jewish. She subsequently discovered that all three of those Jewish grandparents were – or became – Christians.
Wittgenstein's paternal grandparents were both born to Jewish parents but were baptized as Lutherans and married in a Lutheran church.
His maternal grandfather was raised as a Catholic by his mother who had converted to Catholicism from Judaism. His maternal grandmother was a Catholic without a Jewish background.
"Some Jew," Fania Pascal remarked.
Wittgenstein was baptized a Catholic, instructed in the faith and even considered, about the age of thirty, taking holy orders. He was given a Catholic burial. But he lived his religious life very privately, a devout if unorthodox Christian.
I recall reading that he was not only devastated but disbelieving when he found out that the invading Nazis had classified his family as Jewish.
Wittgenstein's religious commitments have been downplayed or ignored, for the most part, by his philosophical followers but his anti-Semitic-sounding remarks (as well as his fundamental philosophical commitments) only really make sense when seen in the broader context of his Christian beliefs.
As this essay by Michael Walzer (a review of a book by David Nirenberg actually) makes clear, Western anti-Semitism – or, more precisely, anti-Judaism – is only comprehensible historically when seen in the light of Christian doctrines and is, or at least has been, an essentially explanatory idea intrinsic to Christian thinking.**
But there were always conflicting traditions of thought within Christianity, and the frictions were often traceable to tensions between those who emphasized classical elements and those whose focus was more on Biblical and Jewish sources.
Consider, for example, the controveries surrounding the notion of the 'Hebrew republic' in the 16th and 17th centuries when some prominent Christian scholars took a decidedly pro- or philo-Judaic approach. These individuals – mostly Protestants but also Jesuits – sought enlightenment about pressing political questions from the Hebrew Bible and its Jewish interpreters.
By Wittgenstein's time the concerns were quite different, of course, as various forms of idealism dominated the philosophical world and modernism battled with neo-scholasticism.
Wittgenstein's main problem with Catholicism, apparently, related to its emphasis on natural theology and, by extension, metaphysics, both of which disciplines he rejected unequivocally.
His views seem to have more in common with certain mystical and fideist traditions, and he found religious inspiration in the writings of Augustine, Kierkegaard, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as well as certain books of the New Testament.
John Hayes discusses Wittgenstein's intense moral preoccupations in terms of his Jewish background, but I see these preoccupations as being quite consistent with those forms of Christianity which draw more on Hebraic sources than Greek or classical ones.
Hayes writes: "From the point of view of Wittgenstein's religious sensibility, [a] feeling of Jewishness seems to have manifested itself in a strong belief in the Last Judgement as a young man and, as an older one, in what he called the 'hundred per cent Hebraic' sense that what we do makes a difference in the end. Such a perspective compels taking our actions seriously; there is only one chance at life and an accounting at the end of it. Wittgenstein seems to have had an abiding sense of guilt which he constantly counter-balanced by a renewed resolution to live life decently."
Significantly Wittgenstein felt far more comfortable with Matthew's gospel – the most Jewish of the gospels – than, say, with the Gospel according to John. And he originally rejected but came eventually to see value in the letters of Paul – who had, it seems, been deeply involved with a mystical form of Judaism (as evidenced by his reference to the 'third heaven', for example).
* Another thought relates to concealment and deception, as Jews have often been characterized as deceptive. Wittgenstein was preoccupied at various stages with his own deceptions and confessed them to friends as a form of self-abasement. (They related, amongst other things, to his allowing misperceptions of the extent of his Jewish background to go uncorrected; and to violent behavior – which he had originally denied – towards children during his brief career as a primary school teacher in rural Austria). But, though masks do involve concealment and deception in a sense, so does theatre in general. And, not only is this decidedly not a morally suspect form of deception, any concealment or 'deception' is on the part of the players rather than the audience.
** Though anti-Semitic ideas are not necessarily associated directly with Christianity, there are usually at least indirect links. For example, though many 20th-century anti-Semites were influenced more by philosophical idealism than by Christianity, idealism can be seen as a development of the Platonistic elements embedded in the Christian tradition. And, surprisingly, some of the most virulent forms of Islamic anti-Semitism trace their origins to Christian sources.
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
The complex ancestry of European Jews
A clearer picture is finally emerging of the ethnic origins of European Jewish populations. And it seems that the connections to the Near East are more tenuous than previously thought.
An important new study examining Ashkenazi lineages by decoding and analyzing entire mitochondrial genomes has found that the female lines derive predominantly from European rather than Levantine populations.* The four major and most of the minor Ashkenazi maternal lineages form clusters within descent lines that were established in Europe between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Y-chromosome analysis has, on the other hand, revealed distinctive patterns which suggest that male European Jewish lineages may trace back to the large Jewish population of ancient Rome, though complicating the picture is the fact that large numbers of those practising Judaism in the ancient world were converts. Interestingly, of all general present-day European populations, Northern Italians exhibit the greatest proximity to Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations on the basis of whole-genome analysis.
So the story that seems to be emerging is that single males traveled (as traders?) from Italy and adjacent areas (as well as from the Levant, presumably) deep into various parts of Europe and married and converted local women. And it was basically from this process that the Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations of Europe arose.
A simplification, no doubt. But, if the broad outlines of this view are confirmed by future research, the myth of a clearcut racially-based Jewish identity – still entertained by certain Jewish as well as anti-Semitic groups – will be further undermined.
Social myths can be benign. But the myths associated with Jewish origins and identity have been – and unfortunately still are – being used to foment fear, hatred and division.
For example, Islamist groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood draw on traditional European as well as non-European sources which impute demonic powers to Jews whom they define as much by race as by religion.
This sort of medieval thinking has no place in the modern world, and it a great pity that some Jewish groups seem to draw on similarly implausible myths to define themselves and to justify territorial claims and political strategies.
I don't want to get involved in a discussion about Israel and its neighbours – I have never lived there and don't know enough about it. But, like many other Western observers, I regret the fact that Israeli moderates and secularists have in recent years apparently lost ground to Jewish religious groupings whose views seem at times to have more in common with their despised Islamic fundamentalist neighbours than with their moderate and secular brethren.
* See also Nicholas Wade's New York Times article.
An important new study examining Ashkenazi lineages by decoding and analyzing entire mitochondrial genomes has found that the female lines derive predominantly from European rather than Levantine populations.* The four major and most of the minor Ashkenazi maternal lineages form clusters within descent lines that were established in Europe between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Y-chromosome analysis has, on the other hand, revealed distinctive patterns which suggest that male European Jewish lineages may trace back to the large Jewish population of ancient Rome, though complicating the picture is the fact that large numbers of those practising Judaism in the ancient world were converts. Interestingly, of all general present-day European populations, Northern Italians exhibit the greatest proximity to Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations on the basis of whole-genome analysis.
So the story that seems to be emerging is that single males traveled (as traders?) from Italy and adjacent areas (as well as from the Levant, presumably) deep into various parts of Europe and married and converted local women. And it was basically from this process that the Ashkenazi and Sephardi populations of Europe arose.
A simplification, no doubt. But, if the broad outlines of this view are confirmed by future research, the myth of a clearcut racially-based Jewish identity – still entertained by certain Jewish as well as anti-Semitic groups – will be further undermined.
Social myths can be benign. But the myths associated with Jewish origins and identity have been – and unfortunately still are – being used to foment fear, hatred and division.
For example, Islamist groups associated with the Muslim Brotherhood draw on traditional European as well as non-European sources which impute demonic powers to Jews whom they define as much by race as by religion.
This sort of medieval thinking has no place in the modern world, and it a great pity that some Jewish groups seem to draw on similarly implausible myths to define themselves and to justify territorial claims and political strategies.
I don't want to get involved in a discussion about Israel and its neighbours – I have never lived there and don't know enough about it. But, like many other Western observers, I regret the fact that Israeli moderates and secularists have in recent years apparently lost ground to Jewish religious groupings whose views seem at times to have more in common with their despised Islamic fundamentalist neighbours than with their moderate and secular brethren.
* See also Nicholas Wade's New York Times article.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
A boy, a bomb and a bus: more on Jews and politics
Following on from an earlier post, here are a few more (fairly inchoate) thoughts on Jewish intellectuals and left-wing politics.
First of all, it might be said that intellectuals (Jewish or otherwise) generally tend to the left. And the fact that so many intellectuals happen to have a Jewish background might give the false impression that the leftishness derives from the Jewishness rather than from the intellectuality.
But I am inclined to tie the particular ideals of left-wing thought, as well as its uncompromising moral vision, to the Jewish (and Christian) scriptures. And I have made the point that people with a Jewish background who no longer believe religious doctrines are more likely to continue to identify with their cultural and religious traditions than are non-believing ex-Christians.
This issue is complicated by the fact that Jewishness is such a vague concept. It simultaneously relates to genetic, cultural and specifically religious factors. So, identifying particular individuals as Jewish or not Jewish is problematic.
For example, Ludwig Wittgenstein was staggered to learn that the Nazis considered his family Jewish. And not only the Nazis. He is (despite having been baptized a Roman Catholic and even buried as one) widely seen as Jewish. And, indeed, many of his forebears were Jewish.
Similarly, Kurt Gödel, was, though a Lutheran, considered by many of his contemporaries to be Jewish. But he insisted that he was not.
It all becomes quite arbitrary – and tedious. Who is going to be interested in determining how many of (and how long ago) a given person's forebears practised Judaism?
The 'racial' side is also problematic because of the large numbers (for example, in Southern Europe during Roman times) who converted to Judaism. Genome analysis studies have reached no clear conclusions, but they do seem to show genetic similarities between the general population in Italy, for example, and Jewish groups in other parts of Europe.
To an extent, Jewishness has been defined by anti-Semitism and so it is hardly surprising that the whole notion is shot through with myth on various levels. The key driver of anti-Semitism is the belief that 'the Jews' rejected the true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and were responsible for his death. During the Middle Ages, Christian anti-Semitism spawned a whole range of myths and legends which imputed sinister powers to Jews and reinforced various stereotypes. Interestingly, the Islamic 'reform' movements of the late-19th and early-20th centuries beefed up traditional Islamic anti-Semitism with elements derived from the rather more vivid and intense Christian tradition.
So any talk about radical Jewish intellectuals is a bit sensitive because it can easily appear to play into this anti-Semitic, scapegoating tradition.
Think of the early Hitchcock film, Sabotage, about a secret agent (played by Oskar Homolka) seeking to cause havoc in London. It involves a bomb, a bus and a child, the trusting little brother of the Homolka character's trusting English wife. Enough said.
Another kind of subversion was evident in the real world in the course of the Manhattan Project. And during the 1950s, of course. Jewish intellectuals and writers in particular were often under scrutiny.
The fact that there were real traitors who happened to be Jewish and who passed secret information to the Soviet Union served to give renewed life to some anti-Semitic stereotypes.
But my point – about the tendency of secular Jews to have left-leaning views – is, I think, generally true or at least defensible; as is the idea that this tendency derives from an essentially Biblical understanding of justice and morality.
I was going to say something about some of the names mentioned in the comment thread of the previous post, but, given the huge number of significant Jewish intellectuals who flourished during the last 150 years or so, not much would be gained by cursory comments on an arbitrarily-selected few.
It's pretty clear that Jewish thinkers spanned the ideological spectrum, even if the distribution is skewed in the direction of socialism and related philosophies.
First of all, it might be said that intellectuals (Jewish or otherwise) generally tend to the left. And the fact that so many intellectuals happen to have a Jewish background might give the false impression that the leftishness derives from the Jewishness rather than from the intellectuality.
But I am inclined to tie the particular ideals of left-wing thought, as well as its uncompromising moral vision, to the Jewish (and Christian) scriptures. And I have made the point that people with a Jewish background who no longer believe religious doctrines are more likely to continue to identify with their cultural and religious traditions than are non-believing ex-Christians.
This issue is complicated by the fact that Jewishness is such a vague concept. It simultaneously relates to genetic, cultural and specifically religious factors. So, identifying particular individuals as Jewish or not Jewish is problematic.
For example, Ludwig Wittgenstein was staggered to learn that the Nazis considered his family Jewish. And not only the Nazis. He is (despite having been baptized a Roman Catholic and even buried as one) widely seen as Jewish. And, indeed, many of his forebears were Jewish.
Similarly, Kurt Gödel, was, though a Lutheran, considered by many of his contemporaries to be Jewish. But he insisted that he was not.
It all becomes quite arbitrary – and tedious. Who is going to be interested in determining how many of (and how long ago) a given person's forebears practised Judaism?
The 'racial' side is also problematic because of the large numbers (for example, in Southern Europe during Roman times) who converted to Judaism. Genome analysis studies have reached no clear conclusions, but they do seem to show genetic similarities between the general population in Italy, for example, and Jewish groups in other parts of Europe.
To an extent, Jewishness has been defined by anti-Semitism and so it is hardly surprising that the whole notion is shot through with myth on various levels. The key driver of anti-Semitism is the belief that 'the Jews' rejected the true Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and were responsible for his death. During the Middle Ages, Christian anti-Semitism spawned a whole range of myths and legends which imputed sinister powers to Jews and reinforced various stereotypes. Interestingly, the Islamic 'reform' movements of the late-19th and early-20th centuries beefed up traditional Islamic anti-Semitism with elements derived from the rather more vivid and intense Christian tradition.
So any talk about radical Jewish intellectuals is a bit sensitive because it can easily appear to play into this anti-Semitic, scapegoating tradition.
Think of the early Hitchcock film, Sabotage, about a secret agent (played by Oskar Homolka) seeking to cause havoc in London. It involves a bomb, a bus and a child, the trusting little brother of the Homolka character's trusting English wife. Enough said.
Another kind of subversion was evident in the real world in the course of the Manhattan Project. And during the 1950s, of course. Jewish intellectuals and writers in particular were often under scrutiny.
The fact that there were real traitors who happened to be Jewish and who passed secret information to the Soviet Union served to give renewed life to some anti-Semitic stereotypes.
But my point – about the tendency of secular Jews to have left-leaning views – is, I think, generally true or at least defensible; as is the idea that this tendency derives from an essentially Biblical understanding of justice and morality.
I was going to say something about some of the names mentioned in the comment thread of the previous post, but, given the huge number of significant Jewish intellectuals who flourished during the last 150 years or so, not much would be gained by cursory comments on an arbitrarily-selected few.
It's pretty clear that Jewish thinkers spanned the ideological spectrum, even if the distribution is skewed in the direction of socialism and related philosophies.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
Anti-Semitism isn't what it used to be
Old-fashioned European and American anti-Semitism, which envisaged a sinister conspiracy, global in its reach, implicitly ascribed special powers - supernatural or demonic - to Jews. How else could such a relatively small number constitute a serious threat to Christian civilization (which, after all, had God and His angels on its side)?
This (ultimately) medieval outlook has faded in the West as other forms of religion or irreligion - less rooted in European history - have come to prominence.
Besides, as wealth moves from west to east, it's clear that the chief beneficiaries of the global financial system (and, increasingly, the key players) are more likely to be east or south Asian than Jewish.* If there was a secret Jewish plan to control the world, it has clearly failed!
Oddly, the absurd view of Jews as arch-evil villains, long since abandoned in mainstream circles in the Christian and post-Christian West, flourishes in sections of the Islamic world due in part to the continuing influence of 19th and early 20th century Muslim thinkers who blended elements of European thought (including fascism and European-style anti-Semitism) into their political theology in an attempt to revivify and - irony of ironies - modernize their religion.**
Anti-Semitism was a dark strand in European history which once spawned potent fictions capable of inducing even intelligent men and women to suspend their disbelief. But in the context of today's world it can only ever be a fringe phenomenon, a magnet for small minds and a tawdry cover for fanatics with a taste for violence.
* The latest Boston Consulting Group global wealth survey showed that Singapore has the greatest concentration of households with investable assets in excess of $1,000,000. The number of millionaire households in the United States is falling. The number of millionaire households in China is surging.
** Last year I wrote a little on this movement, prompted largely by my reading of Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals and Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. (See, for example, 'Islamic death cult' and 'Islamists and Nazis').
This (ultimately) medieval outlook has faded in the West as other forms of religion or irreligion - less rooted in European history - have come to prominence.
Besides, as wealth moves from west to east, it's clear that the chief beneficiaries of the global financial system (and, increasingly, the key players) are more likely to be east or south Asian than Jewish.* If there was a secret Jewish plan to control the world, it has clearly failed!
Oddly, the absurd view of Jews as arch-evil villains, long since abandoned in mainstream circles in the Christian and post-Christian West, flourishes in sections of the Islamic world due in part to the continuing influence of 19th and early 20th century Muslim thinkers who blended elements of European thought (including fascism and European-style anti-Semitism) into their political theology in an attempt to revivify and - irony of ironies - modernize their religion.**
Anti-Semitism was a dark strand in European history which once spawned potent fictions capable of inducing even intelligent men and women to suspend their disbelief. But in the context of today's world it can only ever be a fringe phenomenon, a magnet for small minds and a tawdry cover for fanatics with a taste for violence.
* The latest Boston Consulting Group global wealth survey showed that Singapore has the greatest concentration of households with investable assets in excess of $1,000,000. The number of millionaire households in the United States is falling. The number of millionaire households in China is surging.
** Last year I wrote a little on this movement, prompted largely by my reading of Paul Berman's The Flight of the Intellectuals and Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe. (See, for example, 'Islamic death cult' and 'Islamists and Nazis').
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Schrödinger and friends
I am revisiting some of Erwin Schrödinger's beautifully-written essays in which he reflects on science, life and religion. (The Canto paperback published by Cambridge University Press incorporates What is Life? and Mind and Matter as well as Autobiographical Sketches.)
Schrödinger was profoundly influenced by Vedantic thought and, when I read him previously, I was more interested in and respectful of mysticism than I am now. It will be interesting to see whether I still feel I can endorse his view of the world.
He was not a paragon of virtue. An only child, he had a very happy childhood, though he admits that as a young man he neglected his ailing parents. I know that he fell out with Albert Einstein, and, though I don't know the circumstances, I believe that Schrödinger was at fault.
And here is a paragraph from Autobiographical Sketches (1960). It strikes a rather odd - and disturbing - note. But it should be noted that the Schrödingers stayed only a brief time in Jena, and Hitler's rise to power was well over a decade away.
In March/April 1920 Annemarie and I got married. We moved soon after to Jena, where we took furnished lodgings. I was expected to add some up-to-date theoretical physics to Professor Auerbach's set lectures. We enjoyed the friendship and cordiality of both the Auerbachs, who were Jews, and of my boss Max Wien and his wife (they were anti-Semites by tradition, but bore no personal malice). Being on such good terms with them all was a great help to me. In 1933, the Auerbachs, I am told, saw no means of escape from the oppression and humiliation which Hitler's taking over ... held in store for them but suicide. Eberhard Buchwald, a young physicist who had just lost his wife, and a couple called Eller with their two little sons were also amongst our friends in Jena. Mrs. Eller came to see me here in Alpbach last summer (1959), a poor bereaved woman whose three men-folk had lost their lives fighting for a cause they did not believe in.
Schrödinger was profoundly influenced by Vedantic thought and, when I read him previously, I was more interested in and respectful of mysticism than I am now. It will be interesting to see whether I still feel I can endorse his view of the world.
He was not a paragon of virtue. An only child, he had a very happy childhood, though he admits that as a young man he neglected his ailing parents. I know that he fell out with Albert Einstein, and, though I don't know the circumstances, I believe that Schrödinger was at fault.
And here is a paragraph from Autobiographical Sketches (1960). It strikes a rather odd - and disturbing - note. But it should be noted that the Schrödingers stayed only a brief time in Jena, and Hitler's rise to power was well over a decade away.
In March/April 1920 Annemarie and I got married. We moved soon after to Jena, where we took furnished lodgings. I was expected to add some up-to-date theoretical physics to Professor Auerbach's set lectures. We enjoyed the friendship and cordiality of both the Auerbachs, who were Jews, and of my boss Max Wien and his wife (they were anti-Semites by tradition, but bore no personal malice). Being on such good terms with them all was a great help to me. In 1933, the Auerbachs, I am told, saw no means of escape from the oppression and humiliation which Hitler's taking over ... held in store for them but suicide. Eberhard Buchwald, a young physicist who had just lost his wife, and a couple called Eller with their two little sons were also amongst our friends in Jena. Mrs. Eller came to see me here in Alpbach last summer (1959), a poor bereaved woman whose three men-folk had lost their lives fighting for a cause they did not believe in.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Jews with force
Roger Cohen used the following fragments of dialogue from Philip Roth's novel Deception to bookend his recent New York Times opinion piece on anti-Semitism and Jewish identity.
The novel's protagonist, a middle-aged American writer, is speaking to his English lover.
"In England, whenever I'm in a public place, a restaurant, a party, the theater, and someone happens to mention the word 'Jew', I notice that the voice always drops just a little... [That's how] you all say 'Jew'. Jews included."
When he returns to New York, he tells her that he has realized he had been missing something. What? she asks.
"Jews."
"We've got some of them in England, you know."
"Jews with force, I'm talking about. Jews with appetite. Jews without shame."
Nicely observed. (Sits uneasily, by the way, with Cohen's worthy but rather contorted reflections.)
The novel's protagonist, a middle-aged American writer, is speaking to his English lover.
"In England, whenever I'm in a public place, a restaurant, a party, the theater, and someone happens to mention the word 'Jew', I notice that the voice always drops just a little... [That's how] you all say 'Jew'. Jews included."
When he returns to New York, he tells her that he has realized he had been missing something. What? she asks.
"Jews."
"We've got some of them in England, you know."
"Jews with force, I'm talking about. Jews with appetite. Jews without shame."
Nicely observed. (Sits uneasily, by the way, with Cohen's worthy but rather contorted reflections.)
Friday, May 6, 2011
Islamists and Nazis
If ever one is tempted to doubt, as I sometimes am, that ideas matter - I am speaking of ideas without technological applications - one has only to consider the havoc wreaked in recent years by violent Islamists. The pattern and manner of their actions could in no way be explained by economic or narrowly political factors. Recruiting young men and women (even children sometimes) as suicide bombers could only happen in an environment where all notions of decency and love of life had been replaced by poisonous myths, resentment, hatred, a cult of death and whatever else constitutes the ideology of violent Islamism.
I have in recent weeks been posting on this general topic as I educate myself on some of the main figures and groups involved. Paul Berman's book The flight of the intellectuals (Melville House, 2010) has been my main source. Berman has a sharp turn of phrase - for example, he refers to Yusuf al-Qaradawi as "the theologian of the human bomb" - but, more importantly, he has been scrupulous - as far as I can tell - in his presentation of (mainly) other people's research.
Two things struck me particularly: one was the influence of Romanticism on the Islamist cult of death; the second was the closeness of Islamism to extreme Western political ideologies, left and right.
The writings of Hassan al-Banna - founder of the Muslim Brotherhood - seem to have been as much concerned with overturning the Western cultural and political establishment as with religious preoccupations. Though his focus remained on early Islamic ideas and history, he was keen to incorporate modern notions into his ideology and was particularly impressed by the extreme right-wing movements which were flourishing in Europe in the 1920s. The Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt as a very small, seemingly insignificant group. Al-Banna had great plans for it, however.
A few years later, he wrote of the potential power of small groups with charismatic leaders, citing the example of the Prophet Mohammed. He cited other examples also, though just two from the modern era. One was Ibn Saud, founder of modern Saudi Arabia; the other was Adolf Hitler!
"... And who would have believed that that German workingman, Hitler, would ever obtain such immense influence and as successful a realization of his aims as he has?" (Cited Berman, p. 31)
In 1936, in Palestine, the 'Arab Revolt' against the British and the Zionists broke out. "The most violent and intransigent of the Palestinian leaders was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Al-Banna revered the mufti. He pledged support. He launched a solidarity campaign..." (Berman p. 31)
Membership of the Muslim Brotherhood increased rapidly during this period and reached about two hundred thousand by 1938. Berman's description brings out elements which are suggestive of fascism:
"It was a religious movement, pious and observant. It was intellectually vigorous. It was educationally active. The Brotherhood was athletics-oriented (the Boy Scouts were a direct influence). And welfare-oriented. The Brotherhood was also paramilitary, if only covertly, with an exterior appearance of law-abiding cautiousness. The Brotherhood cultivated the principles of discipline, obedience and adulation of its own Supreme Guide, who turned out to be Hassan al-Banna himself. Each new member swore an oath of loyalty to al-Banna. And the Brotherhood was a revolutionary movement on the grandest of scales." (Berman, pp. 31-32) It sought to subsume local nationalisms into a broader idea of Islamic unity.
One of the most fascinating - and shocking - features of Berman's book is the elaboration of the intimate links between the Nazis and key figures in the Islamic world, most notably Amin al-Husseini, al-Banna's "hero and inspiration" and his greatest ally outside of Egypt.
"Haj Amin al-Husseini, [...] when his time of desperate troubles came, would look to al-Banna, the most powerful of his own comrades for help, and would receive it too. And so began a three-way dance - between the Grand Mufti and the Nazi leaders, on one hand, and between the Grand Mufti and al-Banna, on the other." (Berman p. 67)
Rather than attempting to detail the dealings the Grand Mufti (who saw the Nazis as natural allies) had with Hitler and Himmler, I will quote a passage from a book by Matthias Küntzel whose "angry tone" seemed to Berman "well struck":
"The Mufti only ever criticized the Nazi policy when he feared that Jews might escape the Holocaust. He was on friendly terms with Heinrich Himmler, whom he admired. Their friendship was, however, strained when in 1943 Himmler wanted (as a propaganda stunt and in return for the release of twenty thousand German prisoners) to permit five thousand Jewish children to emigrate - and therefore to survive. The Mufti, who, according to a German government official, 'would prefer all of them (the Jews) to be killed,' fought tirelessly against this plan. With success! The children were dispatched to the gas chambers. The mufti showed special interest in reacting to decisions by the governments of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to allow some thousands of Jewish children accompanied by responsible adults to leave for Palestine. It would be 'appropriate and more expedient,' he wrote promptly to the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, 'to prevent the Jews from emigrating from your country and send them somewhere they will be under strict control, for example to Poland.' Another success! Already issued emigration permits were withdrawn and the salvation of the Jewish children prevented." (Cited Berman, pp. 94-95.)
This was the man Hassan al-Banna welcomed as a hero into Egypt after the war: " ... this hero who challenged an empire and fought Zionism, with the help of Hitler and Germany. Germany and Hitler are gone, but Amin al-Husseini will continue the struggle." (From a 1946 address by al-Banna to the Arab League, cited Berman, p. 106.)
Such attitudes are still alive and well within the Islamist movement as anyone who follows current affairs will know well. What is surprising to me is that such notions are held, not just by the uneducated, but also by supposedly learned figures within the Muslim world.
In the 1980s, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi wrote a book expounding al-Banna's ideas (including the notion of a massive jihad and world domination). Al-Qaradawi has been portrayed by Tariq Ramadan as the greatest of scholarly authorities on al-Banna's thought. But these three sentences, from a transcript of one of al-Qaradawi's television sermons (broadcast by Al Jazeera in 2009), suggest that something is profoundly wrong, not just with the scholarly judgement and moral perspective of the speaker, but with the politico-religious thought-world which the speaker and many of his listeners inhabit:
"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated the issue - he managed to put them in their place." (Cited Berman, p. 78)
The Islamist ideology is simply crass and credulous, morally bankrupt, intellectually null and void. It represents a tragic betrayal of all that is beautiful, all that is subtle and all that is fine in the cultural and intellectual traditions of the Islamic world.
I have in recent weeks been posting on this general topic as I educate myself on some of the main figures and groups involved. Paul Berman's book The flight of the intellectuals (Melville House, 2010) has been my main source. Berman has a sharp turn of phrase - for example, he refers to Yusuf al-Qaradawi as "the theologian of the human bomb" - but, more importantly, he has been scrupulous - as far as I can tell - in his presentation of (mainly) other people's research.
Two things struck me particularly: one was the influence of Romanticism on the Islamist cult of death; the second was the closeness of Islamism to extreme Western political ideologies, left and right.
The writings of Hassan al-Banna - founder of the Muslim Brotherhood - seem to have been as much concerned with overturning the Western cultural and political establishment as with religious preoccupations. Though his focus remained on early Islamic ideas and history, he was keen to incorporate modern notions into his ideology and was particularly impressed by the extreme right-wing movements which were flourishing in Europe in the 1920s. The Muslim Brotherhood started in Egypt as a very small, seemingly insignificant group. Al-Banna had great plans for it, however.
A few years later, he wrote of the potential power of small groups with charismatic leaders, citing the example of the Prophet Mohammed. He cited other examples also, though just two from the modern era. One was Ibn Saud, founder of modern Saudi Arabia; the other was Adolf Hitler!
"... And who would have believed that that German workingman, Hitler, would ever obtain such immense influence and as successful a realization of his aims as he has?" (Cited Berman, p. 31)
In 1936, in Palestine, the 'Arab Revolt' against the British and the Zionists broke out. "The most violent and intransigent of the Palestinian leaders was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini. Al-Banna revered the mufti. He pledged support. He launched a solidarity campaign..." (Berman p. 31)
Membership of the Muslim Brotherhood increased rapidly during this period and reached about two hundred thousand by 1938. Berman's description brings out elements which are suggestive of fascism:
"It was a religious movement, pious and observant. It was intellectually vigorous. It was educationally active. The Brotherhood was athletics-oriented (the Boy Scouts were a direct influence). And welfare-oriented. The Brotherhood was also paramilitary, if only covertly, with an exterior appearance of law-abiding cautiousness. The Brotherhood cultivated the principles of discipline, obedience and adulation of its own Supreme Guide, who turned out to be Hassan al-Banna himself. Each new member swore an oath of loyalty to al-Banna. And the Brotherhood was a revolutionary movement on the grandest of scales." (Berman, pp. 31-32) It sought to subsume local nationalisms into a broader idea of Islamic unity.
One of the most fascinating - and shocking - features of Berman's book is the elaboration of the intimate links between the Nazis and key figures in the Islamic world, most notably Amin al-Husseini, al-Banna's "hero and inspiration" and his greatest ally outside of Egypt.
"Haj Amin al-Husseini, [...] when his time of desperate troubles came, would look to al-Banna, the most powerful of his own comrades for help, and would receive it too. And so began a three-way dance - between the Grand Mufti and the Nazi leaders, on one hand, and between the Grand Mufti and al-Banna, on the other." (Berman p. 67)
Rather than attempting to detail the dealings the Grand Mufti (who saw the Nazis as natural allies) had with Hitler and Himmler, I will quote a passage from a book by Matthias Küntzel whose "angry tone" seemed to Berman "well struck":
"The Mufti only ever criticized the Nazi policy when he feared that Jews might escape the Holocaust. He was on friendly terms with Heinrich Himmler, whom he admired. Their friendship was, however, strained when in 1943 Himmler wanted (as a propaganda stunt and in return for the release of twenty thousand German prisoners) to permit five thousand Jewish children to emigrate - and therefore to survive. The Mufti, who, according to a German government official, 'would prefer all of them (the Jews) to be killed,' fought tirelessly against this plan. With success! The children were dispatched to the gas chambers. The mufti showed special interest in reacting to decisions by the governments of Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to allow some thousands of Jewish children accompanied by responsible adults to leave for Palestine. It would be 'appropriate and more expedient,' he wrote promptly to the Bulgarian Foreign Minister, 'to prevent the Jews from emigrating from your country and send them somewhere they will be under strict control, for example to Poland.' Another success! Already issued emigration permits were withdrawn and the salvation of the Jewish children prevented." (Cited Berman, pp. 94-95.)
This was the man Hassan al-Banna welcomed as a hero into Egypt after the war: " ... this hero who challenged an empire and fought Zionism, with the help of Hitler and Germany. Germany and Hitler are gone, but Amin al-Husseini will continue the struggle." (From a 1946 address by al-Banna to the Arab League, cited Berman, p. 106.)
Such attitudes are still alive and well within the Islamist movement as anyone who follows current affairs will know well. What is surprising to me is that such notions are held, not just by the uneducated, but also by supposedly learned figures within the Muslim world.
In the 1980s, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi wrote a book expounding al-Banna's ideas (including the notion of a massive jihad and world domination). Al-Qaradawi has been portrayed by Tariq Ramadan as the greatest of scholarly authorities on al-Banna's thought. But these three sentences, from a transcript of one of al-Qaradawi's television sermons (broadcast by Al Jazeera in 2009), suggest that something is profoundly wrong, not just with the scholarly judgement and moral perspective of the speaker, but with the politico-religious thought-world which the speaker and many of his listeners inhabit:
"Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them - even though they exaggerated the issue - he managed to put them in their place." (Cited Berman, p. 78)
The Islamist ideology is simply crass and credulous, morally bankrupt, intellectually null and void. It represents a tragic betrayal of all that is beautiful, all that is subtle and all that is fine in the cultural and intellectual traditions of the Islamic world.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Rue de la Paix
I quote here, however, a rather unfortunate passage from Clouds of Witness (1926). The offending clause, so casual and gratuitous, may have passed in the 1920s, but strikes us today as totally unacceptable.
A detective is making inquiries at a jeweller's shop in the Rue de la Paix:
The majority of the staff failed to recognize the photograph, and Parker was at the point of putting it back in his pocket-book when a young lady, who had just finished selling an engagement ring to an obese and elderly Jew, arrived, and said, without any hesitation:
'Mais oui, je l'ai vu, ce monsieur-là. It is the Englishman who bought a diamond cat for the jolie blonde.'
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Jesus the Greek
Ernest Renan... Nassim Taleb (whom I have written about recently) is a fan of his. Friedrich Nietzsche was most decidedly not.
Renan was a seminarian who famously renounced his Roman Catholic faith to become a leading scholar of Semitic languages and a literary celebrity in 19th century France. Much of his fame was due to the spectacular success of his Life of Jesus which rejects the miraculous but which betrays a continuing religious sensibility built around philosophical idealism and a sentimental attachment to the figure of Jesus. For Renan (as one of his biographers put it) religion was expelled from the front door but came in again through the back. Nietzsche saw Renan's perspective as not only religious, but priestly.
Renan had a deep knowledge not only of the languages of the Holy Land but also of its geography and he traveled widely in the region with his beloved sister while researching the Life. What he has to say about the ethnic background of Jesus of Nazareth is interesting, though it probably says more about the (relatively mild?) anti-Semitism of Renan's cultural milieu than about historical reality. There was a great vogue at the time for all things Indo-European, and, though Renan saw the Indo-European and the Semitic peoples as "the two great races which, in one sense, have made humanity [read: European civilization] what it is," he is not altogether even-handed in his treatment of these two traditions. Clearly, Renan is ever-so-slightly uncomfortable with a Jewish Jesus, and the infinite delicacy with which he expresses himself on this matter is nothing short of comical.
He points out that, at the time of Jesus' birth, the population of Galilee was racially diverse and "there were many who were not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks)." Since many of these non-Jews converted to Judaism, it is impossible, asserts Renan, to "ascertain what blood flowed through the veins of him who has contributed most to efface the distinctions of blood amongst mankind."
Renan was a seminarian who famously renounced his Roman Catholic faith to become a leading scholar of Semitic languages and a literary celebrity in 19th century France. Much of his fame was due to the spectacular success of his Life of Jesus which rejects the miraculous but which betrays a continuing religious sensibility built around philosophical idealism and a sentimental attachment to the figure of Jesus. For Renan (as one of his biographers put it) religion was expelled from the front door but came in again through the back. Nietzsche saw Renan's perspective as not only religious, but priestly.
Renan had a deep knowledge not only of the languages of the Holy Land but also of its geography and he traveled widely in the region with his beloved sister while researching the Life. What he has to say about the ethnic background of Jesus of Nazareth is interesting, though it probably says more about the (relatively mild?) anti-Semitism of Renan's cultural milieu than about historical reality. There was a great vogue at the time for all things Indo-European, and, though Renan saw the Indo-European and the Semitic peoples as "the two great races which, in one sense, have made humanity [read: European civilization] what it is," he is not altogether even-handed in his treatment of these two traditions. Clearly, Renan is ever-so-slightly uncomfortable with a Jewish Jesus, and the infinite delicacy with which he expresses himself on this matter is nothing short of comical.
He points out that, at the time of Jesus' birth, the population of Galilee was racially diverse and "there were many who were not Jews (Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, and even Greeks)." Since many of these non-Jews converted to Judaism, it is impossible, asserts Renan, to "ascertain what blood flowed through the veins of him who has contributed most to efface the distinctions of blood amongst mankind."
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