In the previous post.
But I still don't like Zionism..
I recognize the religious and cultural yearnings of jews for their previous homeland, next year in Jerusalem, but I don't believe that that's a realistic goal in this day and age.
More importantly, and dealing directly with Zionism, I dislike it because it suggests a defeatism which is simply not true. Gentile society is eternally hostile to jews, jews can never feel at home in a country that's not conducted according to jewish law and tradition, anti-semitism will always be there and that's just how things are.
I don't believe any of this, and what's more I think that the success of jews in many parts of the United States is a persuasive counter-argument to the Zionist pessimisms about the status of jews in gentile countries.
That pessimism, I believe, has lead individuals to accept things the way they are instead of struggling to change them and to challenge them directly, and, ultimately, lead to the outrages that I cited in the below article. Basically, right wing Zionists, lead by Jabotinsky, known as Revisionists, agreed with the anti-Semites that jews had no place in Europe and collaborated with them in regards to jewish emigration from their countries. Leni Brenner has documented this ultimate outcome in several books, most notably "Zionism in the age of Dictators".
Anyways, like I was saying, the fact that in many places, like New York and the New York metro area, and Detroit, (two places I have direct knowledge of), being Jewish is like being Irish, i.e. it doesn't matter because it's so normal, and, I'm assuming, this basic situation prevails in many large cities and metropolitan areas, negates the idea that jews can only be successful or be accepted in a Jewish State, i.e. Israel.
Which is not to say that this situation didn't take struggle to accomplish or that there wasn't (and isn't) anti-semitism in the United States, but that with struggle and effort this situation did change, so that although you can surely find anti-semitism in more rural and less populated areas of the United States, real anti-semitism simply doesn't exist in many places.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
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1 comment:
The United States is indeed for the most part friendly to Jews, and most people in the United States are decent and not at all anti-Semitic. There is, however, a large and influential minority in the United States who are just as anti-Semitic as the worst Nazis were. Fortunately they are a minority. But they exist, and they are dangerous.
I have nothing against Zionism and those that do usually, though not always, are anti-Semites and hate Jews. There are exceptions, that is people who are not anti-Semitic but are against Zionism. In my experience I would say that out of every 10 people who are virulently against Zionism 9 are also anti-Semites and hate Jews.
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