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Educated antisemites are nothing new
- 11 January 2023
- 11:05 pm
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- 11 January 2023
- 11:05 pm
In her report on antisemitism as the U of T medical school, Dr. Ayalet Kuper notes a small number of Jews at TFOM who have joined the antisemites. She says, “Some of them described to me a deep embarrassment at being Jewish.” (Photo: FSWC)
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(To read Part One, click here.)
Anyone with the least familiarity with Jewish history can’t be surprised that Jews have ended up in the bad column. Of course, our new Critical Theorists see Jews as oppressors! The new ideology maps seamlessly onto the old myth of Jewish power.
In the new ideology, Jews aren’t only white, we’re worse. This is in part because the old antisemitic myths lie dormant everywhere in our culture, waiting to be picked up by any belief system susceptible to them – which Critical Theory has proved itself to be. More than that, the new ideology has inherited the antisemitic beliefs of its predecessors on the left.
Israel has long been seen on the left as uniquely evil – the only country in the world whose destruction is routinely called for (and the further left you go, the truer this is). The left has seen Israel as racist – as irreparably racist because while, for others, national self-determination is seen as a human right, for Jews and only Jews, it’s called racist.
Israel is also accused of being a colonial state – making Jews the one and only indigenous group called a colonial power in our own land.
The new ideology has fully taken on these antisemitic lies and adds the twist that as “whites” Jews are oppressing the “brown” Palestinians.
Educated antisemites are nothing new.
Antisemitism has always been the preferred bigotry of those who see themselves as superior – intellectually, socially or morally. Antisemites at our universities seem to be most especially pleased by their imagined moral superiority.
Of course, the uneducated also sometimes see themselves as superior. Hitler had about a Grade 8 education. But while Hitler was no intellectual, German intellectuals were strongly pro-Nazi. Even before Hitler rose to power in 1933, most student groups were already Nazis. A swastika pin showed you were one of the cool kids. And when Hitler did come to power, faculty at universities across Germany applauded.
Martin Heidegger, foremost German philosopher of the 20th Century, chancellor of Freiberg University, stated: “The Fuhrer himself and he alone is German reality and its law, today and for the future.”
Heidegger’s main philosophical concern was man’s “being-in-the-world.” But Jews, he wrote in his notebooks, are “worldless,” a status lower than animals. According to Heidegger, ontologically speaking, Jews don’t belong in existence at all. In the context of the Holocaust this gives me chills.
At the Wannsee Conference called to lay down the strategy for the murder of Europe’s Jews, seven of the fifteen attendees held doctorates – and this in an age when PhDs were rare.
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Hanukkah, which we’ve been celebrating recently, commemorates the success of the Jewish rebellion against our Syrian-Greek rulers. In the last centuries before the Christian era, Greek culture dominated the Middle East. It was the height of culture.
As the American novelist and essayist Dara Horn points out, “Judaism is a counter culture,” and because of that, throughout the ages, dominant cultures pick on the Jews – we show there’s another way. But when you know you represent the height of culture or you’re establishing a thousand-year Reich, or you’re woke and on the right side of history, a counter culture looks like a manifestation of evil – or at least an annoying challenge to your superiority.
In 167 BCE, the Greeks decided to no longer put up with these primitive Jews and banned Jewish practice. That ignited the Maccabean revolt which ended with the re-establishment of an independent Jewish kingdom.
But before that happy ending and the subsequent establishment of Hanukkah, even some Jews thought the Greeks had everything right. To become Greek, they underwent surgery to reverse their circumcisions – this at a time with no effective pain killers or antibiotics, when such surgery wouldn’t just hurt; it could kill you. There’s no limit it seems, to what some people will do to hang out with the cool kids and, specifically in the 2nd Century BCE, to play sports in the nude as all superior people did.
These days it’s easier for Jews to hang out with the cool kids. Jews don’t need to mutilate their penises, just their souls.
Dr. Kuper reported: “… a pervasive belief in certain circles of faculty members and learners that anyone at TFOM who angers ‘the Jews’ will have their career destroyed by ‘the Jews’ – and I have had it explained to me on multiple occasions that this fear of Jews, instead of being a bias to be combatted, is actually the reverse: that those who fear Jews based on this egregious stereotype are actually the ones being discriminated against, since they have to cope with their fear of ‘the powerful Jews.’” (Photo: U of T)
In her report on antisemitism at the U of T medical school, Dr. Kuper notes a small number of Jews at TFOM who have joined the antisemites. She says, “Some of them described to me a deep embarrassment at being Jewish.”
The antisemites hide behind these co-opted Jews. “Their being Jewish is often used by them and by their non-Jewish colleagues to claim that what they are all saying or doing can’t possibly be antisemitic,” says Dr. Kuper, a process she describes as “Jew-washing.”
We know such coopted Jews have been around for the past 2200 years (and doubtless longer). They come and they go, but the Jews remain.
In the meanwhile, the new ideology represents a grave danger, particularly as its’s being taught throughout the university system and increasingly in high schools and with its attitudes leaking down to the grade school level.
On the bright side, we should remember that, although this new ideology encourages bad behaviour and invites people to enjoy the pleasures of bullying, of cruelty, while feeling virtuous about it, most Canadians don’t want to be cruel. For the moment, most of us are mostly safe.
***
Note: For my analysis of Hanukkah, I’ve relied heavily on Dara Horn. If you haven’t yet read her, do run out and buy People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present (available here) or start by reading Yair Rosenberg’s conversation with her on Deep Shtetl in The Atlantic (here).
Brian Henry is a writer, editor, creative writing instructor, and publisher of the Quick Brown Fox blog. He’s written opinion pieces for the National Post and the Toronto Star. He was also a regular contributor to the (now defunct) Jewish Tribune and the Engage and Harry’s Place websites in the UK.
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Thank you for choosing TheJ.Ca as your source for Canadian Jewish News.
We do news differently!
Our positioning as a Zionist News Media platform sets us apart from the rest. While other Canadian Jewish media are advocating increasingly biased progressive political and social agendas, TheJ.Ca is providing more and more readers with a welcome alternative and an ideological home.
We revealed the incursion of anti-Israel progressive elements such as IfNotNow into our communities. We have exposed the distorted hateful agenda of the “progressive” left political radicals who brought Linda Sarsour to our cities, and we were first to report on many disturbing incidents of Nazi-based hate towards Jews across Canada.
But we can’t do it alone. We need your HELP!
Our ability to thrive and grow in 2020 and beyond depends on the generosity of committed readers and supporters like you.
Monthly support is a great way to help us sustain our operations. We greatly appreciate any contributions you can make to support Jewish Journalism.
We thank you for your ongoing support.
Happy reading!
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