“< 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.
I think you’ve accurately described the historical conditioning. The elephant image is quite apt.
And yet...here are Jews in the one place where they and others, and others allegedly far less gifted in terms of depth of culture and regard for artistic and creative and entrepreneurial talent and the potential for all that stuff could finally be planted into fertile ground and at least have a good chance for germination, growth, and ultimate success. Yet there is still little or no appreciation for the absolutely unique-in-human-history circumstance of America.
I consider it a shortcoming of tragic proportions that the uniqueness of America is ignored or dissed. Not just by Jews, but especially by Jews. If Jews are so damn smart, how come they don’t get this? The obvious answer, as you’ve laid out, is that they believe the mishmosh of the chanted lore more than they believe their own eyes and senses. Here, where Jews arguably have more religious freedom than in any other place that comes to mind, including Israel, to practice their faith to any degree they may choose; Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, somehow the lesson, the opportunity, the freedom isn’t appreciated. It’s dumb, to put it in crass terms.