An Open Letter to the Jewish People

Guys, we need to have a serious discussion.

You’ve been around my whole life–friends, confidants, you’ve even helped me move–and I’m getting worried for you.

Anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe:

Overall, anti-Semitic violence rose by 40 percent worldwide, according to figures provided by the Kantor Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at Tel Aviv University. A total of 766 violent incidents were recorded worldwide last year, a “sharp increase” over the 554 tallied in 2013, according to the European Jewish Congress, which contributed to the report.

Black Lives Matter’s anti-Israel position and the increasing expulsion of Jews from SJW-spaces:

Milan Chatterjee, a third-year law student at UCLA, on August 24 informed the school chancellor of his decision to leave the university and finish his UCLA law degree at New York University School of Law. In a letter that was made public earlier today, he alleged that since November 2015 he has been “relentlessly attacked, bullied and harassed by BDS-affiliated organizations and students” and that the harassment had become intolerable.

Anti-Semitism on the rise in the US, especially online harassment from the far-right. (Actually, the far-right exists in Europe, too.)

What’s driving this? Trends normally don’t just come out of nowhere.

Muslim immigration appears to be a major factor in Europe, eg:

A number of studies conducted among the Muslim youth in various western European countries have showed that Muslim children have far more anti-Semitic ideas than Christian children- in 2011 Mark Elchardus, a Belgian sociologist, published a report on Dutch-language elementary schools in Brussels. He found that about 50 percent of Muslim students in second and third grade could be considered anti-Semites, versus 10% of others. In the same year Unther Jikeli published his findings from the 117 interviews he conducted with Muslim male youngsters (average age 19) in Berlin, Paris and London. The majority of the interviewees voiced some, or strong anti-Semitic feelings. They expressed them openly and often aggressively.^[47]

A large number of violent antisemitic attacks in Europe were done by Muslims- the murder of 4 Jews in Toulouse in 2012 by Mohammed Merah,^[48] the 1982 attack on the Jewish Goldenberg restaurant in Paris that was carried out by Arab terrorists, the kidnapping and murder of the French citizen Ilan Halimi in 2006 by a Muslim gang and the antisemitic riots in Norway in 2009 are a few examples to this phenomenon.^[47]

This is not really surprising to anyone who’s been paying attention.

Now, I know many of you have been in favor of helping Syrian refugees, on the grounds that suffering people fleeing from warzones ought to be helped. It’s a kind impulse, a humanitarian impulse. And it’s not in your own best interest.

If you want to help refugees, then help them get to safety in countries that are similar to their own, where they won’t face major linguistic and cultural barriers to starting new lives.

I know more about the American situation because I live here. Most American Jews, whether liberal or conservative, vote Democrat–even though it’s Republicans who are your staunchest allies. I mean look at this:

White Evangelicals are the Jews’ biggest fans, and they like Jews better than any other religious group (except themselves.) By contrast, Jews like Evangelicals less than everyone one–even less than Muslims.

Sure, Evangelicals can be kind of loud, they may support Israel because they think it’s somehow going to trigger the apocalypse, and they seem to think that Jews are just Christians who don’t yet believe in Jesus, but they don’t mean you any harm and they’re still trying to be supportive.

I figure this disconnect is largely due to Jews being heavily concentrated in NYC and LA, while Evangelicals are concentrated in the South. NYC and LA are Democratic strongholds where Evangelicals are disliked for their habit of voting Republican, so Jews have picked up this dislike.

But this is not sensible. Just because something earns you social approval in NYC does not mean it is in your own long-term self interest.

You’ve been involved in the Civil Rights movement since its beginning–again, because you believed it was the right thing to do. Tikkun Olam and all that.

Bernie Sanders was volunteering with the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and getting arrested in Chicago during a demonstration. Hillary Clinton was a Young Republican and volunteering with Barry Goldwater, who voted against the Civil Rights Act.

(For the confused, Bernie Sanders is Jewish.)

And what have you gotten for your trouble?

Let’s check in with Louis Farrakhan:

In Part 2 of his Saviours’ Day address at Mosque Maryam in Chicago, Farrakhan received a standing ovation after telling his audience that “the Satanic Jews that control everything and mostly everybody, if they are your enemy, then you must be somebody.”

Farrakhan says a lot of other, similar things. The “Nation of Islam” is not your friend.

Wikipedia notes:

Black Americans of all education levels are significantly more likely than whites of the same education level to be anti-Semitic. In the 1998 survey, blacks (34%) were nearly four times as likely as whites (9%) to have answers that identified them as being of the most anti-Semitic category (those agreeing with at least 6 of 11 statements that were potentially or clearly antisemitic). Among blacks with no college education, 43% responded as the most anti-Semitic group (vs. 18% for the general population). This percentage fell to 27% among blacks with some college education, and 18% among blacks with a four-year college degree (vs. 5% for the general population).^[83]

Modern liberals see themselves as a coalition fighting for the rights of non-whites (“PoC”) against white oppression (structural racism.) While Jews are perfectly well aware that they have suffered from racism in white countries, PoC logic dictates that Jews are “white” and Palestinians are “brown,” and therefore Jews are white supremacist oppressors of non-whites.

Did you know that a majority of whites haven’t voted for the Democrats, in a presidential election, since 1964? American politics, viewed from the outside, is pretty darn racial: blacks and Hispanics vote overwhelmingly Democrat (For example, 90% of blacks voted for Gore; 62% of Hispanics and 55% of Asians voted for Gore. By contrast, 55% of whites voted for Bush II.)

To skip forward to the current election, (which, to be frank, is no longer interesting,) of the three major candidates, Sanders is explicitly Jewish; Trump has an Orthodox Jewish daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren; and Clinton’s daughter married a Jew, but does not appear to have converted and her grandchildren therefore aren’t Jewish under Jewish law.

Say what you will for the man, but I don’t think Trump hates his own grandchildren.

One of the weirder parts of this election has been people accusing the candidate with more Jewish family members of saying anti-Semitic things about the one with fewer Jewish family members–as though anti-Semitism were some kind of selling point with the Republican base! (No, that’s Hillary’s base.)

The media, in particular, has been actively pushing the whole “Trump is literally Hitler!” rhetoric for a long while.

Now, you might be saying, “Hey! We aren’t the entire media!”

Yes, I know. But you are visibly over-represented in the media, and many Jewish media folks have been vocally anti-Trump. Fair or not, being a small minority always means that people will be judging you.

To be explicit: You look like you are actively siding with non-whites (who hate you) against whites. With Muslims (who hate you) against the Evangelicals (who like you.) With internationalists (like Hillary) against nationalists who want to promote American interests.

And on top of that, you are super-successful, dominating Ivy League admissions and high-paying professions, way more than your % of the population, (while at the same time claiming that white over-representation in various areas is due to “white privilege.”) You write things like this:

White people need to open ourselves up to a particular type of wounding to genuinely understand and then work toward racial justice. Our comfort and privilege generally keeps us from incurring these wounds naturally, and thus they must be sought out, disseminated, and used to motivate action.

From the outside, this looks really weird.

And this is why the far-right thinks you are doing it on purpose to destroy white America.

Let’s show a little common sense. Stop working against your own long-term interests. Step away from divisive politics. Being simultaneously high-profile and opposed to the interests of the biggest groups in the country is a good way to get the majority of people mad at you. Stop supporting people who don’t support you.  Shame and ostracize Jews who make the rest of you look bad. Figure out who your friends are and be loyal to them.

Do science. Live well. Build civilization with me.

 

Oh, everyone, I know this goes without saying, but please be polite in the comments. Comments that impede discussion will be deleted.