My chief interest in reading and writing about David Brog's book, Standing With Israel, concerns the deep-rooted resistance American Jews have shown to recognizing who their friends are. Brog delineates a number of reasons for this reticence and I hope to explore this today, and add my own view "from the inside" of liberal Secular New York Judaism.
One salient explanation is that American Jews have traditionally been aligned with the Democratic Party and with "Progressive" politics, in general. There are many reasons for this, not least that for much of the last century, anti-Semitism was more closely identified with the Right than the Left.
[An interesting discussion could ensue to explain how the Nazi's National Socialism became identified with the Right and how Soviet anti-Semitism managed to be so thoroughly white washed and minimized, but that is not for today.]
Brog identifies this as one of the significant impediments to the Jewish Community resisting the support of those Christians who support the state of Israel and count themselves as friends of the Jewish people.
He also makes the point that the history of the Jewish people has not been exactly filled with the friendship of the majority population in the countries in which they have resided; this leaves a residue of distrust, even when expressions of friendship are extended:
The problem is not that the Jewish community is unaware of what the Christian Zionists are saying. They know that with few exceptions the words have been right. Unlike Christians in prior generations, these Christians do appear to come in peace. Yet the suspicion is so deep that words, and even deeds, are discounted. There is a fear that even if sincere, this Christian enthusiasm for Israel could instantly morph into the hostility of the past. Even for so paranoid a scenario, Jewish history provides ample precedent.
While I would modify his statement that the Jewish community knows what the Christian Zionists are saying and doing (which I will address later in this post) his description of Jewish insecurity is on target.
After a brief moment of hopefulness for Jews following the publication of the 95 Theses, all illusions were shattered when the Jews' refusal to convert led Martin Luther to explore heights of anti-Semitism that the Catholic Church rarely aspired to. This has, unfortunately, left many Jews with a model of Christian friendship which they see as based on a covert plan to convert the Jews to Christianity. Such a model does not inspire trust between friends.
The fear that Christian fundamentalists only want to befriend Israel out of a desire to convert the Jews is understandable but is based on some ignorance. Presumably anyone who believes that their own religion teaches that in order to be saved and go to Heaven one must believe the same thing they do, would want their friends to be saved. However, that is not the same thing as demanding they convert or be forced to live as a second class citizen or that they cannot be tolerant of someone who doesn't see the world in quite the same way they do. While I am sure there are people who have been subject to overbearing efforts to convert them (and there is a tradition in New York of a Hasidic sect of Jews attempting to convert non-observant Jews into observant Jews, often in an overbearing manner) I think Brog has put this to rest:
While Christians may want to see Jews accept Christ, however, there is simply no evidence to connect their zeal for evangelism to their support for Israel. The suggestion that the two are somehow related rests on a strange conspiracy theory. This argument presumes that Christians -- millions of them -- have agreed to a plan that they re now implementing church by church across America. Somehow, Christians from the Deep South all the way north to Minnesota, from Los Angeles all the way east to New York, know that they must support Israel -- something they presumably would not otherwise do -- in order to harvest Jewish souls at some point down the road. Why hasn't someone leaked the memo to the press?
Brog suggests then that the American Jew does not trust the motives of the Christian Zionist community, does not naturally align himself with people on the right politically, and fears betrayal.
I would like to add some additional points which I believe are crucial to the explanation of the distrust so many American Jews feel toward their new, unrecognized, friends. As I pointed out, American Jews tend to be quite liberal politically. Consciously, this is based on the desire to make the world a better place by helping those less fortunate than they are. Additionally, it is related to the Right's past flirtation with anti-Semitism and the continuing association of Conservatism with inequality, racism, and various other -isms so powerfully reinforced over and over again by the organs of information dissemination which until very recently were predominantly politically left.
However, I am convinced that the much more important motivation is unconscious. It is the same motivation that animates all left wing ideology, the fear of evoking envy in others. Jews, who have always been a minority and often a successful minority, in their host countries, have a visceral understanding that evoking envy in the greater population is one sure way to bring catastrophe upon the Jewish community. The Jews in Germany were the most assimilated and successful Jews in the world until their neighbors turned on them. With such a history, it would only be natural for Jews, especially successful Jews, to embrace ideologies that promise to diminish the power of envy by fostering more equal outcomes.
But there is another complicating factor. Few New York liberals actually know any fundamentalist or evangelical Christians. Most of what New Yorkers know about this exotic species is gleaned from newspapers and TV news which are equally ignorant of their subjects. Secular New York liberals, of every religion, often treat their belief in God and their own theology as of relatively minor importance. Religion for these liberals has become a flexible thing which is used in the service of their greater political religion. Combine this with the MSM tendency to cherry pick sound bites that fit their pre-conceived notion of believing Christians as ignorant, simple minded, and bigoted, and you end up with a population of insular, pseudo-sophisticated, New York Times reading provincials who do not even recognize their own projections.
While David Brog's book concentrates on the Christian Zionists, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians, I believe there has been some analogous movement toward support of Israel and the Jews in the Catholic Church. Though the Catholic Church has a long tradition of anti-Semitism, official and unofficial, and has been slower to embrace Israel and the Jewish people, the current Pope, as well as Pope John Paul II, have gone a very long way toward reconciling Judaism and Catholicism. While it may be true that the Catholic Church has not abandoned "Replacement theology" (and I do not know enough about this to offer an educated opinion) I think it is safe to say that the official statement at Vatican II absolving the Jewish people of guilt for the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, was a ground breaking step toward allowing Jews and Catholics to find their common ground.
It is not possible to write about the reconciliation of Judaism and Christianity, which is in part reflected in support of Israel, without recognizing that the Church and the Synagogue now face a common enemy in predatory Islam. When we cannot recognize who our friends are and expend our energy fighting imaginary dangers (I am still waiting for signs of the impending Christian theocracy which should have been here already if the left were correct in their assessment of the Republican party) we leave ourselves less able to recognize and fight our real enemies.
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