Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Why Are Jews Liberals?

Two of the events on my Left Coast swing were sponsored by the Republican Jewish Coalition (Beverly Hills and Alamo, CA). At the latter, Norman Podhoretz's question was posed to me.

My short answer was, I do not know. I can see why Jews would be left-of-center in Europe, where the right was associated with churches that were established, or persecuting. But that is not the case in America. As George Washington told the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I., "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights." (Did any public figure ever have a higher slugging average?)

I also mentioned the thesis of Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter in their book Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians and the New Left (I see on Amazon that they did a later paperback that drops the "New"). Rothman and Lichter argue that Jews gravitate to universalizing movements, such as Marxism, as a form of protection — if we are all workers together, maybe no one will pick on us. They note that this strategy has been followed by other minorities in other parts of the world — Christians in the Middle East, Chinese in Malaysia and Indonesia.

More interesting to me in Right Time, Right Place is what became of Jews during my lifetime. I arrived in New York in a summer afternoon — 1977 — of Jewish popularity and prominence. Ed Koch became mayor, Woody Allen was still funny, Saul Bellow won a Nobel he had earned. Jews were cool (see pp. 56-7).

It seems unrecoverable now, almost unimaginable. This process I understand, somewhat. Much of it is Israel-driven. Years of anti-Israel Soviet propaganda did their work, and do it still, even as many of the stars whose light we see at night have actually gone out. The 1967 and 1973 wars were deeply humiliating to the Red Army: all those tanks chewed up by Israeli Shermans. Steps had to be taken, and were. Liberals, for their part, grew conflicted about defending a David that behaved like a Goliath. Was Exodus supposed to lead to Ariel Sharon? Finally, Israel acquired allies that simply embarrassed liberals, especially Jews. Liberty Baptist is a long way from Walter Benjamin.

For whatever reason, the tide has turned. In the Bush years "neoconservative" and "Straussian" simply meant, in common political parlance, "Jewish warmonger," and this languague came chiefly — apart from Pat Buchanan and a few Paulnuts — from mainstream liberals (see pp. 170 and 230-231). The fever has abated somewhat since the election of Barack Obama, though I wonder if it will it spike again as Afghanistan drags on.

10/13 06:37 PMShare