The Jews that I have known have almost all been distinguished by one or noth of two sets of traits: 1) an extraordinary humanity which is both cause and consequence of a love of the life of the mind and the insight that this facilitates, and/or 2) intolerant moralism. Is the latter a myth? This idea has been a mainstay of anti-semitism from the gospels to the merchant of Venice. I have written about what may underlay this notion. Is there a difference between a morality we can be enthusiastic about and a moralism that oppressed us? Between the obligations that derive from our humanity and for which desire and duty are a unity, and the demands imposed upon us by taskmasters and pharoahs with their debt economy and their demand that we have unquestioning trust in a divine authority who can only represent the state with IRS ideological masking of its coerciveness? I think it is Protestantism, and Jewish Protestantism, which most embodies this intolerant moralism. I would like to think the Jews who have assimilated themselves to this are aberrant. I do not think the Jewish soul is well represented at all by the contemporary American capitalist state. The third reich was after all a form of modem bureaucratic capitalism (and ethnic nationalism). So some of my neighbors have worshipped false gods and sacrificed poor men who languish in prisons. Happy Hanukkah. I continue to write while waiting for the messiah. So to speak.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Nov 2013 16:40:52 +0000