But the truth is...it made a little bit of sense then, for Jews to be liberal. The arts, helping the poor, charity. Being the underdog and making common cause with other underdogs. Now that worldwide anti-Semitism is apparently staging an alarming comeback, amazingly, only a snippet more diffuse than before WW2 yet arguably far more dangerous now with the arming and sophistication of pan-Arabism, it makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, now, for Jews to be libs. Yet overwhelmingly, they are.
Jews never castigated FDR for refusing to bomb rail lines leading to the concentration camps. Instead, Jews identified with the more collectivist movement that the early union movement embodied. Jews embraced America, and despite their difficult times in early 20th century US, came to embrace the utopian part of the American dream. I am of course oversimplifying. I grew up in NJ, not far from where you grew up. Voting Republican, those rich white guys, was unthinkable.
My parents were hardcore Dems until they died. It was genetically engrained in them. Despite their relatively high level of education, they didn’t know that the Dem party was the party of the KKK. They didn’t know Lincoln (a great man by any measure) was a Republican. These facts did not register. To them, all Republicans were Barry Goldwater types who wouldn’t let them into their country clubs. Not that they played golf or even were members of any other country club. It was just a well developed habit pattern borne of utter ignorance of historical fact. It was all based on this weird mishmosh of “lore”. Tribal lore, is all I can call it. That evangelical Christians might try to convert people was a worse thing than Arabs trying to slaughter people, to slit their throats. Amazing. Someone talking to you, sure, with an agenda, maybe an agenda you reject yet can walk away from or ignore, that’s more threatening than someone with a gun up your nose ready to blow your brains out.
(American) Jews act out of a complete reverence for utopianism. The world should be perfect. The underdog should be given a chance. If the underdog robs me and beats me, it’s only because he’s still an underdog after all this time and we just have to keep trying to help them. I just haven’t done enough.
The Jews have forgotten that they themselves are the most at risk underdogs.
“To them, all Republicans were Barry Goldwater types who wouldn’t let them into their country clubs.”
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Barry Goldwater? What kind of name is Goldwater?
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater30.htm
Barry Morris Goldwater was born in Phoenix on New Year’s Day, 1909, three years before Arizona was admitted to the Union. He was the eldest son of Baron and Josephine Williams Goldwater, and the grandson of “Big Mike” Goldwasser, a Jewish immigrant from an area of Poland that was then ruled by the Russian czars. Although Jewish on his father’s side, Mr. Goldwater was raised in the Episcopalian tradition of his mother.
“Big Mike” Goldwasser left Poland at the age of 14 and went first to London, then to California and, in 1859, to Arizona where with his brother, Joe, operated a trading and mercantile operation in Prescott. In 1896, Baron Goldwater — the surname had long since been Anglicized — opened a branch of the family business, M. Goldwater & Sons, in Phoenix. The Goldwater stores would remain in family hands until 1962
“< snip > It was just a well developed habit pattern borne of utter ignorance of historical fact. It was all based on this weird mishmosh of “lore”. Tribal lore, is all I can call it. That evangelical Christians might try to convert people was a worse thing than Arabs trying to slaughter people, to slit their throats. Amazing. Someone talking to you, sure, with an agenda, maybe an agenda you reject yet can walk away from or ignore, that’s more threatening than someone with a gun up your nose ready to blow your brains out.”
I think you hit on part of it here.
For generations following the Diaspora, Jews settled in a given region at the behest of the local king or prince, who usually welcomed them for their commercial skill and intellectual ability, but would expel them in a heartbeat if they became more problematic or “inconvenient” than they were worth.
They were under the “protection” of the local ruler, yet there would still be pogroms once in a while. Sometimes they erupted outside of the local lord’s control, other times with his tacit approval...either to allow the locals to vent steam and direct their frustration away from its real cause (their rulers), or to quietly remind the Jews who was in charge. Being a tiny percent of the population, they stood no chance of successfully standing up against their distrusting/resentful neighbors...and, I’m sure, over generations many of those who were genetically inclined to fight and resist were eliminated.
Centuries of living like this, in my opinion, served to breed a sense of servility and helplessness into European Jewish culture.
Consider the old story of why the circus elephant can’t pull the stake holding its chains out of the ground...everything in its whole life, from infancy, told it that it couldn’t be done, indeed it was dangerous to try.
Likewise, generations of living as a minority, dependent on the goodwill of the local king and knowing that your neighbors would wipe you and your family out given the chance, bred a sense of “obey and depend on your earthly rulers, don’t even THINK of standing up to threats on your own” into European Jewish culture, and has passed it down to today’s generations.