A few years ago, The NYT featured the most prominent people in corporations and institutions, with photos, to demonstrate how white people dominate elite positions. Instead, someone on the internet went and put the star of David on all the pictures of photos with Jewish sounding surnames to demonstrate how actually it’s Jewish people dom…
A few years ago, The NYT featured the most prominent people in corporations and institutions, with photos, to demonstrate how white people dominate elite positions. Instead, someone on the internet went and put the star of David on all the pictures of photos with Jewish sounding surnames to demonstrate how actually it’s Jewish people dominating these positions. I had a bad feeling about what was to come after seeing that.
It reminded me of something I learned when my kids started school. They had a program where teachers rewarded students for good behavior, especially students with challenging behaviors. Some parents were complaining about the message it sent to kids then a parent explained the program isn’t for the kids. It’s for the adults. It keeps the adult engaging positively with challenging children and this is what helps to stop bullying, that kids will feel they have permission to bully a child that adults don’t like and ultimately this gives the child permission to bully anyone they don’t like.
I think our social justice/CRT movement has done just that. Now it’s ok to group white people, men together and make assumptions, and denigrate them based on this grouping. The gatekeeper adults have given permission for one type of prejudice which is giving permission for all types of prejudice.
This was an excellent conversation-thought provoking and riveting. I never knew what each person was going to say and found myself surprised by a lot of it. Everyone was great but my heart is with Kmele. Once you grasp what he’s saying it’s hard not to be deeply frustrated by what is and what it could be.
Kmele has really spearheaded that aspect in a modern context. We are encouraged to see evil in whiteness. Many blacks who use that same logic and apply it to Jews are not prepared for the epic backlash. It's kind of a classic issue with intersectionality. All the leftist groups end up being antisemitic because they can't modulate the guilt by association and erasure of nuance.
I'm disturbed that the Jewish community idly stands by whilst the Amish get trashed by the MSM, and then are surprised when that same lens turns on them.
Imagine the backlash if Hollywood produced a series "Breaking Judaism" yet how many Jews applaud "Breaking Amish."
I’m only an hour in so I don’t think Kmele did this specifically but I’m starting to see anti-“woke” / anti-CRT people wanting to dismantle Jewish identity because they see it as the same as race essentialism. (As a Jew) that makes me nervous. Not sure if either of you two have come across the same thing.
Kmele discusses it more on Fifth Column. There is a good argument for rejecting the over emphasis on racial categories. Judaism as a religious group isn't quite the same thing.
This isn’t directed at you and don’t feel obligated to respond but I’m seeing NatCons and Religious Zionists teaming up and saying only Orthodox Jews are Jews — that only practice makes you Jewish. I don’t want that to happen in the anti-CRT crowd, too — that the only way to be Jewish is practice (since in their eyes it’s only a religion, all other categories of being Jewish, I.e. ethnicity, group/historic association are constructions).
Granted, at the end of the day only Jews get to decide what it means to be Jewish but these arguments are hitting my ears funny
I don't mind responding. Firstly, though they're the most obvious of Jews, due to their outward appearance, the orthodox (and ultra-orthodox) only make up 10% of the American-Jewish population. There's almost no interaction, physical or spiritual, between these subsets of Jews and the majority who identify as modern orthodox, reform, conservative, reconstructionist, or secular. It true that many orthodox Jews consider those Jews who are not their denomination to not be Jewish...but who cares, certainly not the other 90%. According to Pew Research "Secularism has a long tradition in Jewish life in America, and most U.S. Jews seem to recognize this: 62% say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15% say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, more than half (55%) say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, and two-thirds say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish."
Secondly, when you say, " only Jews get to decide what it means to be Jewish", have you've forgotten the Nazis who crafted and legislated The Nuremberg Race Laws? The Nazis could care less about Judaism, the religion of the Jews...they focused on the "race" and "ethnicity" of Jews, using quasi-science to formulate the reasoning for progressing toward the systematic extermination of the "vermin" Jews as set forth in the guidelines established for the Final Solution at the Lake Wannsee Conference (1942).
Naked, and waiting for the hydrogen cyanide to extinguish their lives in an Auschwitz gas chamber, do we really think that the orthodox Jew and the secular Jew argued over who could call themself Jewish? The Nazis had already done the meticulous legwork for them?
When I say "I'm a Zionist" I believe, given the history of Jewish victimhood, that there should be, and must be, at least a single nation on the planet that can be considered a permanent safe haven for the Jewish people. There are 50 Muslim dominated countries, 15 Christian nations, 3 Hindu nations, and 16 nations that identify Buddhism as their dominant religion. Why can't Israel, which has a population that's 74% Jewish, and is only the size of New Jersey (USA), be an uncontested Jewish Homeland. Israel is almost as old as most of the Arab States that surround it (founded in 1948), yet nobody contests the existence of Jordan (1946), Egypt (1953), Lebanon (1943) or Syria (1946).
As soon as I hit send I knew that “only Jews get to decide” thing was going to stand out 🤣 yes. You are 100% correct. I think what I was getting at in this instance is that we can tell these current people that we’ll decide our identity for ourselves. Like how you’re saying with the Orthodox and secular Jews.
I'm a non-practicing secular Jew who's a lifelong Zionist. There are Jews who practice the religion of Judaism and attend services at their synagogue, and there are "Ethnic Jews, like myself, who are non-observant but strongly connect with their ancestry and their "Jewishness". Judaism is a religion...being "Jewish" is much more complicated.
A few years ago, The NYT featured the most prominent people in corporations and institutions, with photos, to demonstrate how white people dominate elite positions. Instead, someone on the internet went and put the star of David on all the pictures of photos with Jewish sounding surnames to demonstrate how actually it’s Jewish people dominating these positions. I had a bad feeling about what was to come after seeing that.
It reminded me of something I learned when my kids started school. They had a program where teachers rewarded students for good behavior, especially students with challenging behaviors. Some parents were complaining about the message it sent to kids then a parent explained the program isn’t for the kids. It’s for the adults. It keeps the adult engaging positively with challenging children and this is what helps to stop bullying, that kids will feel they have permission to bully a child that adults don’t like and ultimately this gives the child permission to bully anyone they don’t like.
I think our social justice/CRT movement has done just that. Now it’s ok to group white people, men together and make assumptions, and denigrate them based on this grouping. The gatekeeper adults have given permission for one type of prejudice which is giving permission for all types of prejudice.
This was an excellent conversation-thought provoking and riveting. I never knew what each person was going to say and found myself surprised by a lot of it. Everyone was great but my heart is with Kmele. Once you grasp what he’s saying it’s hard not to be deeply frustrated by what is and what it could be.
Thanks for the great podcast!
Kmele has really spearheaded that aspect in a modern context. We are encouraged to see evil in whiteness. Many blacks who use that same logic and apply it to Jews are not prepared for the epic backlash. It's kind of a classic issue with intersectionality. All the leftist groups end up being antisemitic because they can't modulate the guilt by association and erasure of nuance.
I'm disturbed that the Jewish community idly stands by whilst the Amish get trashed by the MSM, and then are surprised when that same lens turns on them.
Imagine the backlash if Hollywood produced a series "Breaking Judaism" yet how many Jews applaud "Breaking Amish."
I’m only an hour in so I don’t think Kmele did this specifically but I’m starting to see anti-“woke” / anti-CRT people wanting to dismantle Jewish identity because they see it as the same as race essentialism. (As a Jew) that makes me nervous. Not sure if either of you two have come across the same thing.
Kmele discusses it more on Fifth Column. There is a good argument for rejecting the over emphasis on racial categories. Judaism as a religious group isn't quite the same thing.
This isn’t directed at you and don’t feel obligated to respond but I’m seeing NatCons and Religious Zionists teaming up and saying only Orthodox Jews are Jews — that only practice makes you Jewish. I don’t want that to happen in the anti-CRT crowd, too — that the only way to be Jewish is practice (since in their eyes it’s only a religion, all other categories of being Jewish, I.e. ethnicity, group/historic association are constructions).
Granted, at the end of the day only Jews get to decide what it means to be Jewish but these arguments are hitting my ears funny
I don't mind responding. Firstly, though they're the most obvious of Jews, due to their outward appearance, the orthodox (and ultra-orthodox) only make up 10% of the American-Jewish population. There's almost no interaction, physical or spiritual, between these subsets of Jews and the majority who identify as modern orthodox, reform, conservative, reconstructionist, or secular. It true that many orthodox Jews consider those Jews who are not their denomination to not be Jewish...but who cares, certainly not the other 90%. According to Pew Research "Secularism has a long tradition in Jewish life in America, and most U.S. Jews seem to recognize this: 62% say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, while just 15% say it is mainly a matter of religion. Even among Jews by religion, more than half (55%) say being Jewish is mainly a matter of ancestry and culture, and two-thirds say it is not necessary to believe in God to be Jewish."
Secondly, when you say, " only Jews get to decide what it means to be Jewish", have you've forgotten the Nazis who crafted and legislated The Nuremberg Race Laws? The Nazis could care less about Judaism, the religion of the Jews...they focused on the "race" and "ethnicity" of Jews, using quasi-science to formulate the reasoning for progressing toward the systematic extermination of the "vermin" Jews as set forth in the guidelines established for the Final Solution at the Lake Wannsee Conference (1942).
Naked, and waiting for the hydrogen cyanide to extinguish their lives in an Auschwitz gas chamber, do we really think that the orthodox Jew and the secular Jew argued over who could call themself Jewish? The Nazis had already done the meticulous legwork for them?
When I say "I'm a Zionist" I believe, given the history of Jewish victimhood, that there should be, and must be, at least a single nation on the planet that can be considered a permanent safe haven for the Jewish people. There are 50 Muslim dominated countries, 15 Christian nations, 3 Hindu nations, and 16 nations that identify Buddhism as their dominant religion. Why can't Israel, which has a population that's 74% Jewish, and is only the size of New Jersey (USA), be an uncontested Jewish Homeland. Israel is almost as old as most of the Arab States that surround it (founded in 1948), yet nobody contests the existence of Jordan (1946), Egypt (1953), Lebanon (1943) or Syria (1946).
As soon as I hit send I knew that “only Jews get to decide” thing was going to stand out 🤣 yes. You are 100% correct. I think what I was getting at in this instance is that we can tell these current people that we’ll decide our identity for ourselves. Like how you’re saying with the Orthodox and secular Jews.
Yes, Gabrielle as I opined in my original missive on this thread...the fact of being Jewish is oh-so "complicated."😀🤔
I'm a non-practicing secular Jew who's a lifelong Zionist. There are Jews who practice the religion of Judaism and attend services at their synagogue, and there are "Ethnic Jews, like myself, who are non-observant but strongly connect with their ancestry and their "Jewishness". Judaism is a religion...being "Jewish" is much more complicated.