ibyx: Race and Religion

The "chosen" people

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 22:23:56 GMT

I haven't been a reader of the Volokh Conspiracy but have seen a couple of posts of late that really intrigue me. Ampersand at Alas points us to David Bernstein's comments on what it means to be God's "Chosen" people. Everything he says I agree with and have made similar observations myself. I am bookmarking this handy explanation to share with folks in the future. Should the subject arise.

Another reason to homeschool

Tue, 12 Aug 2003 03:31:20 GMT

From Brian Leiter:

Texas is the second largest buyer of school textbooks in the US and, unfortunately for the nation, the power to approve and reject textbooks is vested in the hands of a small State Board of Education, which is dominated by the Texas Taliban, that frightening brand of Texas politicos who are committed to making the law of (their) God the law of the land. The publishers frequently cave in to pressure from the Texas Taliban, and edit and revise their textbooks to appease them, since they can't afford to have their books rejected from the Texas market. The result is that the Texas Taliban affect the content of textbooks in dozens of other states.

[...]

A nice thing about the Texas Taliban is that they actually publish their "criteria" for evaluating school textbooks. You can read them (and weep) at the web site of Mel and Norma Gabler, a kindly looking couple who have done more than anyone to try to undermine public education in Texas. They do catch the occasional error in school textbooks, but the errors they want to add (about law, about history, about science, about economics) are just breathtaking.

Remember, this isn't just a Texas issue, since the textbooks selected by the Texas State Board of Education are likely to end up in the classrooms of children from Michigan to Florida to Oregon.

Proposition 54

Sun, 10 Aug 2003 17:44:49 GMT

As folks might know my Dad is here visiting from Israel, and TBG is in the midst of a serious demolition/reconstruction job on our front porch. So my time on-line has been a bit curtailed. But an NPR report on California’s proposition 54 earlier this week, and Prometheus_6’s August 4th post, “But what do you do in the meantime?” have been simmering in the rear of my mind for a few days and so I thought it was time to be blogging it.

This will be a very long post; continue reading it here, ...

Tisha B-Av

Thu, 07 Aug 2003 20:05:12 GMT

Winds of Change reminds me that is a good day to feel a little sad and contemplative. And I am particularly grateful for the link to this post on a Jewish response to "senseless hatred."

Tisha B'Av is a holy day on the Jewish calendar that the vast majority of non-Jews have never and will never hear of. Frankly, I would imagine that the vast majority of reform, loosely affiliated, or culturally identified Jews haven't heard of it. It's a day of mourning -- for the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and for the many many tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people since then. It is a fast day. I spent one summer as a camper and nearly 5 summers as a staffer at the Jewish camp for teens, Tel Yehudah. The camp is not affiliated with any particular denomination of Judaism; but rather was committed to pluralism. The intention was that whether one was an Orthodox Jew or an unaffiliated one, you should be able to fairly comfortably attend. Accordingly the camp was Kosher and Shomer Shabbat and had a short prayer service every morning. And of course, observed the holidays that fell in the months of July and August -- including Tisha B'Av. [Literally the "ninth" day of the month "Av"]. No one was required to fast; small, cold, dairy meals were available buffet-style all day long at camp. [Egg salad, tuna fish, and peanut butter sandwiches, veggie sticks, apples, and bananas.] But there were no regular activities offered -- no swimming, or sports. There was free time to spend quietly, and small discussion groups. And in the evening....

One of the most indelibly etched memories from my camping experience. In the evening as dusk approached, the 200-some teenage campers and staff would congregate at the doors of the "Beit Ha'Am" [literally "House of People"] the cavernous, wooden hall used for all assemblies, plays, dances and indoor basketball games. Inside, the staff would have already set up the hall with dozens and dozens of white candles, lit and melted to the floor. Passing through the doors to the Beit Ha'Am, you would receive a much used photocopied set of papers -- the book of Lamentations -- and you would slowly file in and form small groups around the candles. And for the next, almost 2 hours, the entire camp assemblage would sit on the dusty wood floor of the Beit Ha'Am, lit only by candlelight, and read and chant and sing the mournful poetry of prayers traditional on this day.

I, like just about every other person in that dark hall, had never observed Tisha B'Av before my summers at camp. And I have not marked a Tisha B'Av since my last summer as a staffer at Tel Yehudah more than 10 years ago. Yet the sense of that night, sitting quietly with a hall-full of typical hormone- and fad-obsessed American teens and reciting words and singing melodies almost 2000 years old ... well, it still gives me goosepimples. Sure we dribbled the candle wax onto the floor and rolled the hot soft goo between our fingers. We yawned. We flipped through the photocopied packets to see how many pages there were left. And by the time we wandered back to our cabins under the crisp stars of the Delaware valley the spell had dissipated and we were back to being the ironic smart-asses we were supposed to be. But something took. And now, I realize the miracle and magic that for those few short hours our hall resonated as an electric bead on a wire of living history that delineated at least pieces of who we are and connected us millenia back to who we were.

Thanks to those bloggers who marked this day and provoked my memories and reflection.

Some interesting distinctions

Tue, 05 Aug 2003 02:54:57 GMT

Okay, right off the bat I apologize because I was merrily bloghopping along and right-clicking links for later viewing when I found something I want to share and now have no idea who to credit for steering me this way.

Anyway, I ended up here, an article in IMPRINTS: A JOURNAL OF ANALYTICAL SOCIALISM which is an interview with Michael Walzer, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Yeah, I hadn't heard of him before either. Anyway, he is asked:

In Just and Unjust Wars you take a strong stand on the issues of war crimes, guerrilla war, reprisals, and terrorism in general. How do you view the current crisis in Israel in the light of what you wrote in that book? How do your insights regarding the history of anti-semitism contribute to an analysis of how radical politics is understood within both sets of national identities?

Walzer responds:

This is a hard question for me to answer with any sort of brevity, given my long involvement in Zionist politics in the Jewish diaspora and in Israeli politics too, as a frequent visitor. I recently published an article in Dissent, 'The Four Wars of Israel/Palestine,' explaining my position, which I will try to summarise here. These are the four wars: there is a Palestinian war to destroy and replace the state of Israel, which is unjust, and a Palestinian war to establish a state alongside Israel, which is just. And there is an Israeli war to defend the state, which is just, and an Israeli war for Greater Israel, which is unjust. When making particular judgements, you always have to ask who is fighting which war, and what means they have adopted, and whether those means are legitimate for these ends, or for any ends. Most of the people attacking Israel or defending it, and most of the people attacking the Palestinians or defending them, don't even begin to do the necessary work. I can't do that work here, but I will suggest some of the judgements that I think it leads to – most crucially these two: Palestinian terrorism, that is, the deliberate targeting of civilians, should always and everywhere be condemned. And Israeli settlement policy in the occupied territories has been wrong from the very beginning of the occupation. But this second wrongness doesn't mitigate the first: Palestinian attacks on the occupying army or on paramilitary settler groups are justified – at least they are justified whenever there is an Israeli government unwilling to negotiate; but attacks on settler families or schools are terrorist acts, murder exactly. (I want to insist that this is not special pleading: I am old enough to have made similar arguments at the time of the Algerian war: FLN attacks on French soldiers or on OAS militants were justified; putting a bomb in a café or a supermarket in the French section of Algiers was murder.) And similarly, Israeli attacks on Hamas or Islamic Jihad fighters are justified; dropping a bomb on an apartment house in Gaza was a criminal act.

The distinctions Walzer makes here are useful to keep in mind when attempting to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The four different "wars" he describes each work toward different agendas and are fought by different "armies." I think this offers a useful analytical framework with which to break down assumptions and rhetoric when one is attempting to discuss this issue.

Walzer continues:

Since I have often been a critic of Israeli governments, I am reluctant to call such criticism anti-Semitic. But it does seem to me that there is an oddly disproportionate hostility toward Israel on the European left, which requires some explanation. I know, for example, people my own age who indignantly refuse even to consider a visit to Israel, but who had no trouble visiting France at the height of the Algerian war and have no trouble visiting China today despite its brutal policy in Tibet (which includes a far more massive settlement program than Israel has attempted in the West Bank). Indeed, much of the criticism directed at Israel has more to do with the existence of the state than with the policies of any of its governments – which was, again, never the case with France or with Germany after World War Two or with China today. Something is seriously wrong here.

Folks who've read my blog for awhile might know that I myself am suspicious of the particular vehemence and passion of anti-Israeli rhetoric in Europe. Whether or not such criticism is justified, it always smells just a little off to me.

Anyway, the interview touches on many, many other issues that have nothing to do with Israel. I am intrigued by Walzer and will keep my eye open for more.

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 21:39:06 GMT

I have kept mum about the recent law passed by the Israeli Knesset forbidding non-Israeli Arabs to marry into Israeli citizenship. Other folks have been talking about it. I found it disheartening and nothing to be proud of. In clicking through the sites I try to check daily I found this post at Setting the World to Rights , one of the handful of right o' the aisle bloggers I read regularly. In it, STWTR has a different perspective on this new law and added a piece of information that I hadn't heard. The law expires in one year. Additionally, STWTR notes:

The fact is that the existing right of non-Israelis to gain citizenship, with its automatic right of entry and freedom of movement in Israel, by the expedient of marrying an Israeli Arab, has already been used many times as a means of murdering people. For instance, this murder of sixteen people was carried out by a Hamas man who had gained entry to Israel by marrying an Israeli Arab woman. The Israeli security services say that there have been nineteen such cases so far, involving 87 murders. To do nothing about this situation out of deference to ‘Love’ would be an obscenity.

Disclaimer: I think the law is unfortunate and discriminatory. However, viewing it as a temporary exigency during a time of war shifts my perspective a little.

I am interested in others' thoughts. Feel free to chime in.

Update: Damian at Daimnation shares this view in this post:

I hate to sound cold and hard-hearted here, but might this new law have something to do with the fact that Israel and the Palestinians have effectively been at war for the past three years? Something tells me it wasn't easy for an Briton to bring his new German wife to the UK between 1939 and 1945.

For that matter, if an Israeli marries a person from, say, Saudi Arabia, would he or she gain the right to live in Saudi Arabia? I think you know the answer to that one. But I don't expect to see any front-page articles in the Independent about it.

On the other hand, Jimm at Project for a New Century of Freedom has this to say:

And going beyond the issue of racism, this is also about the disturbing trend of citing security as a reason to suspend our most cherished ideals. Of this trend gaining too much traction in the post-9/11 world, and probably just making things worse.

Perhaps we all should become more comfortable with the idea of living with some risk for awhile, as a condition for freedom and democracy.

That is certainly the arguement I would make here vis-a-vis the Patriot Act. And yet I have a hard time applying it to Israel. Maybe because I can't imagine the amount of violence that happens in such a small place. I can't imagine living in a place where a routine trip to the grocery store or local cafe could end in such tragedy and horror. Or where putting my child on the bus to school carries such risk.

I know people think that this law, and the "wall," are awful, racist, anti-democratic strategies. But I would rather see Israel isolate itself from its neighbors that continue to be responsible for the atrocious violence in the occupied territories.

In case you haven't noticed, dear reader, Israeli policy is the one arena in which I am acutely torn between the "turn the other cheek" self-flagellation of the left and the "bomb them into submission" violence of the right.

A confession

Tue, 22 Jul 2003 14:08:16 GMT

Matthew at Occasional Subversions shares this:

Asked at a Human Rights Campaign forum for presidential candidates if he supported gay marriage, Rev. Al Sharpton was the only candidate not to hedge the issue:

"That's like asking me, 'Do I support black marriage or white marriage.'"

Well I have to admit, I have never really paid any attention to the Rev. Al Sharpton. It's not that I consciously chose to dismiss him; he just was never on my radar screen one way or the other. Never knew anything about him or heard him speak. But the more I hear, the more he delights me. Not in the "He's gotta be our next President" way. [He and Kucinivich don't have a shot in hell. Too far off the map for the majority of 'uhmurricens'.] But in the "This guy calls 'em like he sees him -- and I like the way he sees 'em" way.

Anyway, when I find the time in the next few days, I am going to google Sharpton and learn more about him and his history. To edify myself.

A perfect example ...

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:58:19 GMT

of what folks mean when they claim that the US is still a racist country.

In the last several weeks, I've seen some bloggers commenting on efforts to allow convicted felons to vote after they've served their sentence. When I saw those posts, I noted it and thought to myself, "Oh yeah, ok. I think that's a good idea. If someone has paid their debt, then I cannot imagine forbidding someone from exercizing their constitutional right to vote." But the issue did not ignite my passion for social justice and I didn't do any further exploration. Plenty of other stuff on my plate.

Now, listening to the Candidates Forum at the NAACP convention the third question presented to the candidates is on just this issue. And wham, like getting hit by a bucket of ice water I get it.

A quick google for "percentage black americans prison" brings up the AP's Disproportionate Share of Prison Inmates are Black from July 18, 2001. For example:

In data released yesterday for South Carolina, 68 percent of men between the ages of 18 and 64 in correctional institutions were African-American. Blacks made up 27 percent of the state's total population in the same age group.

And from Drug War Facts: Race, Prison and Drug Laws:

1.46 million black men out of a total voting population of 10.4 million have lost their right to vote due to felony convictions.

Source: Thomas, P., "Study Suggests Black Male Prison Rate Impinges on Political Process," The Washington Post (January 30, 1997), p. A3.

Of course, ensuring that convicted felons can regain their right to vote is an issue the NAACP cares about.

And it is a priviledge of my white skin that I did not make that connection.

Just in case you don't, I'll try to spell it out:

There is evidence to indicate that a disproportionate percentage of persons of color are behind bars [particularly for drug offenses].

There is evidence to indicate that this is in part due to systemic inequalities in the way law enforcement and the judicial system are applied.

These systemic inequalities have the net result of disproportionately disenfranchising people of color.

That, friends, is racism in action.

Listening to the '04 Dems

Fri, 18 Jul 2003 21:21:04 GMT

I am currently listening to the '04 Dems at Monday's NAACP Presidential Candidate Forum. How wonderful that the internet makes this kind of stuff available. Months and months and months before I would normally have the opportunity to hear candidates face off and answer the same questions as one another side-by-side, I can sit at home and listen.

After hearing all the opening remarks so far, I have to say first: that Al Sharpton is wonderful and while I don't think he is a viable candidate, I am glad he is in there being heard right now. Second, I don't give a flying fig what any political analyst says. Dean has a damn good chance.

Ingram. And Antisemitism again

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 23:41:05 GMT

Andrew Sullivan gives us another peek under Ingram's rock. Evidently he's been at it for awhile. And is quite unabashed.

The investigation of antisemitism in Europe is one that intrigues me in much the same way that I am wrestling with the history and present of racism in the US. Quite some years ago I was a counselour at summer camp [a zionist teen camp in New York] and we were observing Yom HaShoa [Holocaust Remembrance Day] and watching excerpts from the documentary Shoa. I remember vividly the interview with Polish citizens who had lived in towns near the death camps. I remember being deeply chilled by how matter of fact they were about the horrific chapter in history they had witnessed. And for the first time I truly understood at a visceral level that the history of European anti-semitism was just as ugly and violent as racism in the US.

Maybe I should explain. Despite the fact that I am Jewish, my experience of antisemitism in the US has been rather benign and easy to dismiss as the ignorant knee-jerk rants of poor white kids who I knew were getting smacked around by angry frustrated fathers at home. I had a much keener appreciation of the virulence of racism. Maybe it was watching Gone with the Wind, or seeing an old black and white photograph of a lynching, or old racist caricatures of slaves, or just studying US history at school -- but I got it. I got how ugly and evil and creepy and violent racism is -- as it was acted and spoken and felt in the US. I mean, the evil of it -- when you really let yourself understand what "ordinary" white folk perpetrated against black americans -- the evil of it chills me deeply and primally like a story of ancient horror by Lovecraft.

In any case, it was in my early twenties -- watching Shoa -- that I first understood that Jews were the target of hate that deep and old and evil as well. So now I find myself a bit of an anomaly politically. Firmly on the left in terms of US policies, and firmly on the left in terms of Israeli policy, but I also consider myself a Zionist. I am in favor of a Palestinian state, yes. But I am also acutely sensitive to the reality that many "friends" of the Palestinians use [unconsciously or not] legitimate criticism of Israeli policy as a convenient pressure valve for an enmity they have been carrying deep in their bones for centuries.

So Ingram's antisemitism doesn't surprise me. Only his candor does.

More on Europe, Jews, and Israel

Thu, 17 Jul 2003 05:55:38 GMT

Excellent article. I have skimmed it once and am off to read it again.

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 23:47:10 GMT

Have spent some of the afternoon link-hopping among self-proclaimed blogs of the right. Now I know that there must be clear-thinking and well-meaning folks on the other side of that aisle but frankly I am having a hard time finding them.

Following some of those links I found this "humorous" reflection on the topic of the day, reparations. I know it's a bit tongue and cheek, but what depresses me is that a post like this reveals how deeply and essentially different the way we understand the universe can be.

Too cranky and bummed to say anything more...

Yes we do suspect

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 19:29:41 GMT

Andrew Sullivan points us to this bit by British editor Richard Ingrams of the Guardian:

I have developed a habit when confronted by letters to the editor in support of the Israeli government to look at the signature to see if the writer has a Jewish name. If so, I tend not to read it. [emphasis mine, Ibyx]

Too few people in this modern world are prepared to declare an interest when it comes to this kind of thing. It would be enormously helpful, for example, if those clerics and journalists who have been defending Canon Jeffrey John, the so-called gay bishop, were to tell us whether they themselves are gay. Some do, but more don't.

The issue arises partly because, in both cases, these people are often accusing the other side of being prejudiced and biased - we are either homophobes or anti-Semites.

The other day, for example, the Canadian journalist Barbara Amiel wrote a long denunciation of the BBC in the Daily Telegraph, accusing the Corporation of being anti-Israel in its Middle East coverage.

Many readers of the Daily Telegraph may have been impressed by her arguments, assuming her to be just another journalist or even, as she was recently described in another newspaper, an 'international-affairs commentator'.

They might have been less impressed if the paper had told them that Barbara Amiel is not only Jewish but that her husband's company, in which she has an interest, owns not only the Daily Telegraph but the Jerusalem Post .

In other words, when it comes to accusing people of bias on the Middle East, she is not ideally qualified for the role.

I do of course see that he could have been making a more benign point here: that folks who are commenting on an issue might better serve their audience if they reveal whether they have any kind of bias or stake in the issue. I think this point is debatable on its own, but at least it's relatively benign. But Ingram gives us a nasty glimpse of the underside of his rock with his opening paragraph. He does not assert that he takes opinions of folks with "Jewish names" with a grain of salt. He says he, "tend[s] not to read it." This is astonishingly brazen admission of prejudice for sure and antisemitism in particular. Can you get uglier? First: generalizing about names that sound Jewish. Two: assuming that all Jews have the same kind of biases when it comes to any issue. Worse: assuming that there is a Jewish position and then admitting that he dismisses or ignores it!

YEEEEEUUUUCCCKKKK.

Reparations ...

Tue, 15 Jul 2003 19:19:15 GMT

Prometheus, who I check in with several times a day, began an interesting conversation yesterday about reparations to Black Americans. This is an issue that I have heard discussed every year or so on NPR but never outside that. In the last year I have become more overt and conscious in my reflection and learning on issues of race and so I am really interested to engage and learn on this topic now. [By the way, I really appreciate that Prometheus_6 is a place where folks can talk about these issues and learn.]

Anyway, the conversation starts here and continues here . It's already shifted how I am thinking about it.

I want to add that in addition to my general desire to learn about issues of race in the US, I have also been thinking in the last year that Israel has a lot to learn from how other countries heal these kinds of traumas. When the occupation finally ends, two peoples who have inflicted incredible pain on one another will be living side by side. And something will have to be done.