With a somewhat wearied sense of necessity one turns, yet again, to
the question of what is and what is not anti-Semitism. One does so
knowing full well that it will not be the last time. Jewish-Christian
tensions and the attendant charges of anti-Semitism are a staple in
American public life, and will be that for as long as some Christians
view Jews as alien and many Jews view Christianity as threatening. Of
course these perceptions feed one another. At a level deeper than the
perennial contretemps over antiSemitism, and in keeping with St.
Paul's reflections in Romans 9 through 11, the continuing tension has
nothing less than an eschatological horizon. As weary as we sometimes
might be of the subject, Christians must continue to pay attention.
Jews, given their demographic marginality joined to their societal
influence, have no choice but to pay assiduous attention.
The current round of controversies has everything to do with the
political shock of November 8, 1994, and alarms over the perceived
ascendancy of the Religious Right. As a result, some Jews have
ratcheted up to an almost painful degree their antennae for the
detection of anti-Semitism. A few months ago, one of our local
newspapers, the <Times>, went ballistic when the London <Spectator>
ran a little article on the self- described dominance of Jews in
Hollywood. The somewhat naive <Spectator> author thought he was doing
nothing more than reporting an interesting circumstance and, as it
turns out, was in large part relying on what Jewish writers had said
about Jews and Hollywood. The young man did not understand that,
according to the rules of the more extreme members of the
anti-Semitism patrol, nonJews are not supposed to notice when Jews
publicly celebrate Jewish influence and success. As Ann Douglas has
recently described in her acclaimed account of New York in the 1920s,
<Terrible Honesty> (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), the central role of
Jews in American popular entertainment goes back to the nineteenth
century and, far from being a secret, has been frequently extolled in
film and song. With weeks of letters and commentary in the
<Spectator>, our British cousins had great fun with this little
squall, chalking it up as yet another instance of American hypocrisy
about our professed devotion to free speech.
Exploiting Suspicions
Another young man, hardly so innocent, has been doing his partisan
best to exploit the political potential of Jewish-Christian
suspicions. Some years ago Michael Lind fell in with those notorious
neoconservatives and for some time was an editor of the <National
Interest> before he decided to unleash his arrested outrage and go
over to the opposition. Having secured a berth with Lewis Lapham's
Harper's, Lind's attacks on his erstwhile friends have been popping
up with remarkable regularity in publications large and small. He
pushed the button for big-time attention when he rabbled the readers
of the <New York Review of Books> with a slashing indictment of Pat
Robertson, who, according to Lind, runs the Christian Coalition, the
Religious Right, the Republican Party, the pro-family movement, and
just about everything else that Mr. Lind doesn't like about America.
The charge, as best we can understand it, is that Robertson's vast
conspiracy is exceedingly dangerous because Robertson believes there
are vast conspiracies.
Mr. Lind thought he hit pay dirt with the 1992 book, <The New World
Order>, in which Robertson tells you everything you wanted to know,
and more, about how the world got into its present sorry shape.
Robertson's eccentric and sometimes bizarre account of modern history
gives a prominent role to, among others, "European financiers" who
allegedly have been pulling the strings of global politics for a very
long time. Lind pounces on the fact that some of the sources cited by
Robertson are also cited by anti-Semites who explain modern history
by reference to the machinations of "Jewish bankers."
That Robertson refers to them as European rather than as Jewish is
clear evidence, to Mr. Lind, that Robertson is not only anti-Semitic
but is trying to disguise his anti- Semitism. He is the worst kind of
anti-Semite, the kind that refuses to criticize Jews. The
ever-so-devious Robertson also cultivates Jewish leaders, invites
them to speak at his public meetings, and has a Jewish attorney
heading his religious freedom organization. Is more evidence of his
anti-Semitism needed?
This is not to let Robertson off the hook. True, in justifying his
use of notorious sources he invokes the authority of a respectable
professor at Georgetown University who uses the same sources, and he
notes that President Clinton has on occasion invoked the authority of
said professor, who apparently taught him when he was at Georgetown.
But none of this gets us anywhere helpful. The fact is that some of
the sources employed in <The New World Order> are manifestly
anti-Semitic, and Mr. Robertson would have saved himself a lot of
sorrow by clearly and explicitly repudiating that anti-Semitism in
his book. Even better, he should not have used such sources in the
first place. The conclusion remains, however, that while Pat
Robertson is guilty of writing bad history, there is no ground
whatever for accusing him of anti-Semitism.
All the Dirt That's Fit to Print
Nonetheless, Frank Rich, columnist for the <Times>, picked up on the
Lind article to demand that the media dig into the dirt of
Robertson's, and the Christian Right's, putative anti-Semitism. Rich
has been described as the Times' attack dog, which, while not very
nice, is apt enough. He comes across as a toy Doberman in perpetual
snit. His attack elicited an extended response from Robertson which,
to its credit, the <Times> published. Robertson explained that <The
New World Order> was written at the height of the Gulf War when he
was worried about the compromise of U.S. sovereignty and Israeli
safety in a "New World Order" under the aegis of the United Nations.
"I do feel," wrote Robertson, "that only someone who is desperately
attempting to cause mischief would make the unfounded allegations
about me or my book that have recently appeared in the <New York
Times>." He continued: "All who know me, Jewish and Christian,
recognize that I have been one of the strongest friends of Israel
anywhere in the world. In 1974, when Israel appeared threatened and
alone as a result of a worldwide oil crisis, I made a vow that I have
kept to this day: I promised to use my influence, and that of the
institutions I founded, to vigorously support Israel and the Jewish
people. I have kept my vow. My comments on my daily television
program have been pro-Israel. In fact, during the Gulf War, I was one
of the few voices in America speaking out regularly in support of
Israel. I have lobbied for Israel, and donated hundreds of thousands
of dollars to Jewish interests and organizations. By every public
word and deed, I have kept my promise."
Frank Rich was not impressed. A few days later he barked back with a
column imaginatively titled "The Jew World Order," in which he notes
that Louis Farrakhan accuses "international bankers" of nefarious
doings and so does Pat Robertson. So there. "Our two most prominent
extremists of the 1990s," wrote Rich, "are both dipping into the same
well of pseudo-history that once served Father Coughlin and Henry
Ford." This is high hysteria even for a toy Doberman. Pat Robertson
has as much in common with Farrakhan as Frank Rich has with ordinary
decency. The circle of extremists is extended as Rich notes that, at
the Christian Coalition convention last fall, "Phil Gramm, Lamar
Alexander, and Elizabeth Dole, standing in for her husband, all
kissed Mr. Robertson's ring."
Lest he overlook anyone, Rich concludes with the shocking report that
Patrick Buchanan wrote in a publication of the Christian Coalition
that Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, supported the Mexican
bailout to enrich his old investment firm of Goldman, Sachs. (Rubin,
Goldman, Sachs. They all sound Jewish. Therefore Pat Buchanan is an
antiSemite.) Never mind that many critics of the Mexican bailout,
including perhaps a majority of members of Congress, claimed that its
chief purpose was to save Wall Street from its own investment
follies. Never mind that in the very same issue of the <Times>
television critic Walter Goodman gave a favorable review to Bill
Moyers' role as commentator on NBC nightly news, noting that he
injected a note "more populist than partisan" when "he criticized the
bailout of Mexico as benefiting mainly [U.S.] investors."
While critics, including some conservatives, believe that Buchanan
has in the past toyed with anti-Semitic sentiments, his polemics
against the Mexican bailout are solidly within the mainstream of
political debate.
Bigotry or Paranoia?
As one story triggers another, the <Wall Street Journal> has this big
item by Jonathan Kaufman on Jews who see "a rise in bigotry." A
Jewish woman in Birmingham, Michigan, reports that parents in her
son's sixth-grade class have complained that the children can't sing
"Silent Night," and a classmate told her son he didn't like having to
learn about Hanukkah. " Mrs. Wagenheim," reports the <Journal>,
"watched with growing alarm as Washington politicians proposed
reintroducing school prayer." "'I thought I could be like everyone
else,' Mrs. Wagenheim says. 'But now we seem to stand out more. I
never felt like this before."' Apparently it has only now occurred to
her that 98 percent of Americans are not Jewish, with more than 90
percent claiming to be Christians of one sort or another. If one
belongs to a very high profile minority that constitutes no more than
2 percent of the population, standing out should not come as a
surprise. It might even be cherished as a distinction.
Rabbi Peter Rubinstein of New York's Central Synagogue says, "To be a
Jew is not to be anymore in the mainstream of America. You watch the
Republican convention, you read the 'Contract With America,' you
listen to talk radio. Before I could have accepted that, as a Jew and
as an American, my yearnings were going to be harmonious. Now, I'm
not so sure." It would seem that the rabbi's anxieties have nothing
to do with being Jewish and everything to do with being politically
liberal. For many liberal Jews, however, the two are hardly
distinguishable. (Seventy-eight percent of Jews voted Democratic last
November.) The <Wall Street Journal> cites other instances of the
perceived rise in "bigotry." In Phoenix, Arizona, some Jewish
homeowners found advertisements put on their doorknobs promoting a
free video on the life of Jesus. A rabbi who represents the American
Jewish Committee in Phoenix reports that a woman complained to him
that her son was handed a book by a fifth-grade classmate and told,
"Read this." The book was about Jesus. Says the rabbi, "People are
starting to talk in terms of, 'We are being persecuted."' A little
boy wants to share his faith with his Jewish classmate. Can pogroms
be far behind?
Differing Jewish Perspectives
The Journal suggests there is now a "role reversal" between the
Orthodox and what it calls mainstream Jews. Mainstream Jews, it says,
never felt anti-Semitism was a part of their lives, while the
Orthodox were ever alert to anti-Jewish expressions. This is very
dubious history. In the past and at present, it is liberal and
secular Jews who chiefly support the hypersensitive institutional
alarm systems that flash "Anti-Semitism!" at the suggestion that Jews
are not just like everybody else. The Orthodox have always known that
being Jewish makes a difference, and should make a difference. There
is nothing new in the view of the traditionalist rabbi who, according
to the <Journal>, is inclined to "welcoming the religious right and
scoffing at suggestions of bigotry." "Moving to the right is a
blessing for the country," says Rabbi Joseph Gopin of the Chabad
movement. "The government should support religion."
Jews who are astute analysts of the American scene have a similar
take on what is happening. William Kristol, the Republican
strategist, observes that alarm about anti- Semitism "often does
verge into paranoia among Jews." As for his own view, Kristol says,
"I prefer the Christian right to the pagan left." Norman Podhoretz,
the retiring editor of <Commentary> (Who ever would have thought to
describe Norman Podhoretz as retiring?), observes that conservatives
don't hate Jews. "They hate liberals. As it happens, most Jews are
liberals." Midge Decter's 1995 Erasmus Lecture (to appear in a
forthcoming issue) is titled, "Being Jewish in AntiChristian
America." If the choice is between a dominantly anti-Christian elite
culture and the majority culture of Christians, it is suggested, Jews
have compelling prudential and religious reasons to side with the
Christians.
Another piece of nastiness that has received almost no attention in
this country is a controversy generated over Human Life
International, a pro-life organization based in Maryland that this
spring held its convention in Montreal. B'nai B'rith of Canada
launched an all-out campaign against HLI, charging that it is an
extremist organization guilty of antiSemitism. The campaign received
major media attention in Canada, and some went so far as to demand
that the government stop HLI delegates from crossing the border to
attend the convention. B'nai B'rith also pressured the Archdiocese of
Montreal, unsuccessfully, to refuse HLI the use of the cathedral for
the convention's opening Mass. The prime exhibit in support of the
claim that HLI is anti-Semitic is a chapter in a book by Father Paul
Marx, <Confessions of a Pro-life Missionary>. Marx is a Benedictine
priest and founder of HLI, and in that chapter he deplores the
prominent role of Jews in the pro-abortion movement, arguing that
Jews, of all people, should recognize the consequences when human
life is devalued.
The chapter in question may be injudicious, and some points of fact
may be disputed, but it is hardly anti-Semitic. No reasonable person
will dispute the fact that Jews are disproportionately represented
among the promoters of abortion, and drawing analogies between
abortion and the Holocaust is hardly "extremist." Without taking a
position on abortion, a number of prominent Canadian Jews
courageously challenged the slander perpetrated by B'nai B'rith. In
this country, Msgr. George Higgins devoted his column, which has a
wide readership in the Catholic diocesan press, to the HLI affair.
Msgr. Higgins, usually a more fair-minded commentator, accused HLI of
engaging in a "flirtation with antiSemitism," and says that the fact
that bishops are associated with HLI makes it difficult for Jews "to
distinguish the preachments of HLI from the official teaching of the
Church, which clearly condemns forays into anti- Semitism." The
Catholic Church does indeed condemn anti-Semitism in all its forms,
but, pace Msgr. Higgins, there is no evidence that HLI is guilty of
flirting with anti- Semitism. Promptly upon the appearance of
Higgins' column, the interreligious affairs office of the New
York-based Anti-Defamation League issued a press release commending
him for his bold opposition to antiSemitism.
Anti-Semitism in Decline
The happy fact, documented by every serious study, is that
anti-Semitism in America has dramatically declined in the last fifty
years, and even more so in the last twenty years. It is kept alive at
the margins by fringe groups such as Aryan Nation and by racist
skinheads broadcasting their hate messages via Internet. Regrettably,
it is also kept alive by institutions such as the Anti-Defamation
League. The purpose of ADL is to counter defamation of Jews. If there
is no defamation of Jews, ADL has no reason to exist. It is an
organization that operates by demand-side economics. It has a
built-in institutional need for a dependable supply of antiSemitism
in order to maintain itself. Its fund-raising depends upon
sustaining a high level of Jewish anxiety about anti- Semitism. One
is reminded of a recent report from the Midwest about a volunteer
fireman convicted of arson. The village was going to close down the
volunteer fire department, and he wanted to provide a convincing
reason for not doing so. We do not suggest that groups such as ADL
and B'nai B'rith of Canada are deliberately creating antiSemitism,
but by setting off false alarms they seriously reduce the
believability of the anxiety upon which their existence depends.
The above-mentioned account in the <Wall Street Journal> reports the
views of Daniel Levitas, described as a liberal Atlanta Jewish
activist, who invokes memories of czarist Russia. "The Jews used to
have a response when the Cossacks came to town," he says. "You close
the doors, you batten down the hatches, and you shutter the windows.
Eventually the dust will settle and you can come out again. The Jews
used to say 'This too shall pass.' This time it's not going to pass."
Such sentiments reflect the paranoia to which William Kristol refers
and, not so incidentally, are an outrageous insult against non-Jewish
Americans. The United States in 1995 is not czarist Russia and the
American people are not Cossacks bent upon killing Jews. Whatever his
own intentions, statements such as those of Mr. Levitas cannot help
but exacerbate Jewish-Christian relations, inflaming anti-Christian
feelings among Jews and anti-Jewish feelings among non-Jews.
But he got one thing half-right: "This time it's not going to pass."
If the "it" in question is the freer expression of religion and
religiously grounded moral convictions in public, a major and lasting
change does seem to be underway. Given that this is America, such
expression will be predominantly Christian in character. This
circumstance is understandably worrying to many Jews, but the
challenges that it entails can be explored by Jews and Christians in
a manner that does not threaten but strengthens our common
participation in the American experiment. This was recently
demonstrated by a symposium at Harvard marking the fiftieth
anniversary of <Commentary> at which Midge Decter and this writer,
among others, spoke.
In the last quarter century, it was pointed out at the Harvard
meeting, there has been a dramatic change among Christians-from
Catholics to evangelical Protestants-in the understanding of
Christianity's dependence upon Judaism. Not simply the Judaism of
what Christians call the Old Testament but the living Judaism that
continues in mysterious relation to God's election and unbreakable
promise. References to a "Judeo- Christian" moral tradition, for
instance, are not merely a euphemistic trope employed to avoid
offending Jews, although that may sometimes be the case. There is a
much deeper level at which Christians are coming to understand their
providential entanglement with Jews and Judaism, an understanding
that has slight precedent in the two millennia of interaction between
Jews and Christians. This growing understanding should be carefully
nurtured by Jews and Christians alike.
From Birmingham, Michigan to Atlanta to the Upper West Side of
Manhattan, many Jews have assumed that the more secularized America
is, the safer it is for Jews. In this view, Jewish security and
success has been achieved <despite> the fact that America is a
predominantly Christian society. This view, which is probably shared,
at least intuitively, by a majority of Jews, is of relatively recent
vintage. An alternative view is that Jews are secure and successful
<because> this is a predominantly Christian society. All too
obviously, there have been predominantly Christian societies in which
Jews have been anything but secure. But the argument is that
Christianity in America really is different, that it has internalized
the imperatives of tolerance as a matter of religious duty, and that,
more recently, it has come to see Judaism as an integral part of
God's purposes in history. In a forthcoming historical study of
Jewish attitudes toward "Christian America," sponsored by the
Institute on Religion and Public Life, Rabbi David Dalin of Hartford
University and Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University examine earlier
Jewish perspectives that are newly relevant to our changing
religio-cultural circumstance.
A More Embracing Sensitivity
It would be a tragedy of historic proportions were the opportunities
of this new circumstance to be wasted in politicized rantings against
the public assertiveness of conservative Christians. In a time when
we are called to be "sensitive" to every grievance and discontent, a
measure of sensitivity is due also those Christians who say that they
want to take back their country. With the exception of a few kooks on
the margins (who bear close watching), people who talk that way do
not mean that the country must be taken back from Jews. They do have
opponents in mind-"secular humanists," "the pagan left," "the
cultural elites," "the mainstream media." In sum, the people and
institutions that have in the past portrayed, and still do portray,
millions of Americans as dangerous aliens, as strangers in their own
land. These newly activated Americans are fed up with being put on
the defensive because of what they see as their adherence to
Christian belief and morality. This populist resurgence is
undoubtedly driven by a degree of resentment, and it, too, may
sometimes "verge into paranoia." For the most part, however, it is a
perfectly understandable reaction to be being treated with
disrespect, even contempt, by the champions of secularism.
Frank Rich and others of fevered imagination to the contrary, the
reaction has nothing to with antiSemitism. Unless, of course, Jews
and Judaism are equated with, inter alia, promoting abortion,
eliminating religion from public schools, advocating homosexuality,
denigrating marital fidelity, shocking traditional sensibilities, and
depicting Christians as potential perpetrators of genocide. Those who
slander Jews and Judaism by making such an equation are indeed guilty
of anti-Semitism, and it makes little difference whether the slander
is peddled by Jews or by Christians.
If our reading is correct, the political culture has been
dramatically changed in recent months and years, and more dramatic
changes are in the offing. The deepest and probably most long-lasting
change is the rediscovery of the free exercise of religion, and the
assertion of religiously grounded moral conviction in the public
square. This is a change that can be welcomed by both Jews and
Christians-as citizens devoted to a free society, and as children of
the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jesus. This change is
understandably feared by determined secularists, Jewish and other,
who are taken by surprise that American history is not turning out
the way they had confidently expected. The vibrant resurgence of
public religion forces them to reexamine their basic assumptions
about America and the course of modernity, which is a difficult and
painful undertaking.
The Uncertain Future of American Judaism
There is reason to believe, however, that the next generation of Jews
in America will more readily cope with, and even welcome, the free
exercise of religion in public. A new study by Seymour Martin Lipset
and Earl Raab, <Jews and the New American Scene> (Harvard University
Press), examines the ways in which Jewish ethnic identity is fast
eroding. Given the rate of intermarriage with non-Jews and other
factors, it is quite possible that a few decades from now only half
as many Americans will identify themselves as Jewish. Jewish identity
that is based upon ethnicity, anxiety about anti- Semitism, and
concern for Israel is, say Lipset and Raab, a fragile thing. The
Jewish future in America will be secured not by "Jewishness" but by
Judaism, and Judaism is, most importantly, religion. "The central
core of Jewish identity has been religion, even though an ethnic
culture is built into that religion. It is that religious core which
provides a special edge of separatist cohesion for Jews."
Those who have constructed Jewish identity on the foundation of
political liberalism have, according to Lipset and Raab, built upon
sand. "Some want to believe that an intrinsic quality of Jewish life
consists of such universally benevolent 'Jewish social values' as
equality, social justice, and world peace.... But however strongly
held, most of those social values are no longer particular to the
Jews, and have clearly not provided the glue which can keep the
Jewish community together." As the Jews of tomorrow are more
religiously observant, they will also be more socially and
politically conservative. And that is because, as these scholars and
many others point out, there is a strong connection between religious
commitment and conservatism on a very broad range of questions.
Anti-Semitism is a very serious business. Christians, too, are
responsible for seeing to it that it is watched assiduously and
countered forcefully. That will not happen, however, if anti-Semitism
is equated with opposition to the liberalism that many Jews believe
to be the essential core of their "Jewishness." It will not happen if
fair criticism of the behavior of some Jews, or many Jews, is
recklessly condemned as anti-Semitism. And it will not happen if the
dominant voice of Judaism in America is that of secular agencies
whose stock in trade is to accuse non-Jews of anti-Semitism. Within
American Jewry, there are a growing number of thinkers-including but
hardly limited to those mentioned above-who point to a more promising
way for the flourishing of Jews and Judaism in America. Jews will
decide how their message is received, but the rest of us, as
Christians and as citizens, have a deep interest in the revival of a
Jewish identity that transcends the political partisanships of this
historical moment.
Jews who are indifferent to the religious core of Judaism may, as
Lipset and Raab suggest, be assimilated into the sector of secular
Americans who are equally indifferent to Christianity. There they may
maintain for a time an attenuated sense of ethnic identity, much in
the way that others are vaguely Italian, Irish, or German "by
extraction." But extraction means separation, and identities by
extraction are by definition tenuous and short-lived. The interesting
and promising future of Jewish-Christian relations rests with Jews
and Christians who, in mutual respect and reverence, seek to discern
and obey the will of the One who is, through Israel, the light to the
nations, and not least to these United States of America.
This article appeared in the June/July 1995 issue of "First Things."
To subscribe write First Things, Dept. FT, P.O. Box 3000, Denville,
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