Neoconservative radio personality Rush Limbaugh routinely mentions Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a congressperson and the current Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Wasserman Schultz has the distinction of being the first Jewish congresswoman elected from the state of Florida. It is interesting for self-professed “conservative right-wingers” and Republicans to ask themselves: “To what degree is Debbie Wasserman Schultz an aberration?"
Or, to put it slightly differently, "To what degree are Jewish interests antithetical to conservatism?"
It is obvious that American Jews have long been aligned with the Democratic Party. In many ways, the “Jewish community” broadly construed opposes many things that right-wing Christian conservatives champion.
“[T]raditonally[,] ...Jewish voters ...have favored Democrats by 2-to-1 margins.”[1]
This leftward leaning goes back at least to the era of Franklin Roosevelt. “[F]unctioning under the …aegis of the Democratic party, American Jews fortied their reputation as the most dependably progressive ethnic community in the United States. In 1940, no fewer than 90 percent of their votes went to Roosevelt.”[2]
Despite the rightward orientation of a handful of Jewish king-makers (chiefly Sheldon Adelson, but also smaller fry such as Norman Braman, Henry Kravis, Richard Roberts and Mel Sembler, two of whom – by the way, Adelson and Roberts – are said to favor Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for the [as of this writing] upcoming the 2016 election), “as a group, Jews still endorse the Democratic Party at a rate of around 20 percentage points above most other Americans.”[3]
“Indeed, the Washington Post once estimated that Democratic presidential candidates ‘depend on Jewish supporters to supply as much as 60 percent of the money raised from private sources. Other estimates are lower, but contributions from Jewish Americans form a substantial share - between 20 and 50 percent - of the contributions made to the Democratic party and its presidential candidates.”[4]
“Jews provided at least half the money donated to the DNC [Democratic National Committee] in the 1998 and 2000 election cycles.”[5]
Additionally, “as a matter of comparison they [Jews] are generally found to be the most liberal white ethnoreligious group in the United States.”[6]
To illustrate: At least one benchmark indicates that religious Jews are more likely to be atheists than people of other faiths. This is so prevalent that one journalist writes: “Atheism is entrenched in American Judaism. In researching their book American Grace, authors Robert Putnam and David Campbell found that half of all American Jews doubt God’s existence. In other groups, that number is between 10 and 15 percent.”[7]
Within “rightwing Christian” circles, atheism is lamented. But there is a deafening silence from these supposedly concerned “Conservatives” when it comes to atheism infused American Judaism. As one synagogue-attendee, Maxim Schrogin, put it: “Atheism and Judaism are not contradictory, so to have an atheist in a Jewish congregation isn’t an issue or a challenge or a problem.”[8]
There is a conspicuous case-study. Many Christians bemoan the removal of prayer from public schools. What many people do not know, however, is how this removal came about. It was the result of the landmark Engel v. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421 (1962) case, in which the U.S. Supreme Court legislated from the bench, decreeing it “unconstitutional” for public schools to adopt or encourage the recitation of “official” prayers in public schools.
The genesis of the case was this: “In the fall of 1958, Steven Engel visited his son’s elementary school classroom in Hyde Park, New York. Engel, a Jew, was upset to see his son’s hands clasped and his head bent in prayer. He told his son that this was ‘not the way we say prayers.’”[9]
As George Lincoln Rockwell observed in the late 1960s: “If Israel is a Jewish country and has the right to be Jewish, if Ghana is a black country and has the right to be black, why don’t we have the right to keep a white country white and Christian? Why, how long do you think you people would last if you went over there to Israel and started campaigning in the Jewish schools in Israel against singing Jewish songs? And yet they’re over here campaigning against us singing Christmas carols in ours. …You can’t sing Christmas carols in schools any more. They won’t tolerate it, but we must.”[10]
The Episcopal humorist Gary Edward “Garrison” Keillor has pointed out that Jews have been instrumental in the replacement of Christ-centered Christmas carols, with generic “holiday” ditties. Keillor wrote: “If you don’t believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn ‘Silent Night’ and leave ours alone. This is spiritual piracy and cultural elitism, and we Christians have stood for it long enough. And all those lousy holiday songs by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of that dreck. Did one of our guys write ‘Grab your loafers, come along if you wanna, and we’ll blow that shofar for Rosh Hashanah’? No, we didn’t. Christmas is a Christian holiday – if you’re not in the club, then buzz off. Celebrate Yule instead or dance around in druid robes for the solstice. Go light a big log, go wassailing and falalaing until you fall down, eat figgy pudding until you puke, but don’t mess with the Messiah.”[11],[12]
In another recent news item, we read about the activist goings on of one Michael “Mikey” Weinstein. “...A Pentagon ban on proselytizing has left some conservative activists fearful that Christian soldiers -- and even military chaplains -- could face court martial for sharing their faith.
“The Defense Department said this week that proselytizing -- trying to get someone to change faiths -- is banned. Its statement does not define proselytizing or address the role of military chaplains. It also does not rule out court martial for those whose share their faith too aggressively.
“News of the ban came after an activist met with Air Force officials to demand that soldiers who spend too much time talking about Jesus be booted from the military.
“If superior officers try to convert those under their command, they should face a court martial, said Mikey Weinstein, president of the Albuquerque, N.M.-based Military Religious Freedom Foundation. …”[13]
Are “conservative, rightwing Christians” on board with the outlawing of Evangelism in the American armed forces? If not, then they should understand that their interests run contrary to those of Jews like Mikey Weinstein.[14]
Additional evidence of Jewish left-leaning can be detected from the fact that the overwhelming majority of Jews – “religious” or “secular” – support abortion[15] and “same sex marriage”,[16] both of which are opposed by many “religious Conservatives.”
It is simply a fact that, historically, Jews have been at the forefront of liberalizing and activist politics.
Recently, much was made about Wasserman Schultz’s comments – or rather lack thereof – about the difference between “Democrats and Socialists.” Another important facet of the larger discussion contrasting “Conservative” and “Jewish interests” must therefore be to note the historical point that Jews have long advanced socialism, communism and other radical, leftist ideologies.[17],[18]
From Moses Hess, Karl Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle to Leon Trotsky (born Bronstein) and Vladimir Lenin (scion of the Jewish Blank family), Communist-Bolshevism was a decidedly Jewish – and anti-Christian/anti-Russian peasant – movement.[19]
Combined with the fact, established centuries ago by intrepid researchers like Gustaf Dalman, Johann Eisenmenger, Alexander McCaul, Bernhard Pick and Johann Wagenseil and admitted by honest scholars such as Theodor Keim and Princeton University’s Peter Schaefer, that the Jewish Talmud asserts such filthy scurrilities as that the Blessed Virgin Mary was a whore[20] and that Jesus was a blasphemer who was justly executed for practicing magic and leading Israel astray[21] and is now being punished in hell by being suspended in boiling human excrement;[22] it’s fairly compelling, as Michael Hoffman has argued at length, that the label “Judeo-Christian” is an oxymoron.
This is not a novel idea. Saint Paul indicated: “the Jews ...killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out. They displease God and are hostile to everyone...”.[23]
Nevertheless, Christians continue to labor under the mistaken belief that Jews have some sort of robust kinship with Christians. The counterpoint can scarcely be better made than it was by Saint John the Evangelist, who wrote in 1 John 2:22-23: “Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christ. Such a person is the antichrist – denying the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.”
According to John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, any person who denies Jesus also has neither the Son nor the Father. Therefore, on Biblical authority, it seems that whatever God the Jews proclaim, it simply cannot be the Father of Jesus – or else the New Testament is gravely mistaken.
As to the idea that (supposed) Jewish pedigree is salvific in and of itself, Jesus himself dismissed this when He said: “And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” (Matthew 3:9).
In fact, more strongly, Jesus told the Pharisees - the forerunners of the rabbis: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”[24]
As Saint Augustine of Hippo once reportedly said: “Judaism, since Christ, is a corruption; indeed Judas is the image of the Jewish people; their understanding of the Scriptures is carnal; they bear the guilt for the death of the Saviour, for through their fathers they killed the Christ.”[25]
The main point to Christians was and is: Debbie Wasserman Schultz, to the degree that she is really spearheading a leftist, anti-Christian crusade in virtue of her political affiliations and sympathies, is really cut out of the same cloth as many of her co-religionists. Whence comes the imaginary camaraderie between Christianity and Judaism? And why are Christians so ignorant – or timid?
Notes:
[1] Ron Kampeas, “Who Are the Republican Candidates’ Jewish Donors?” Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Apr. 20, 2015, <http://www.jta.org/2015/04/20/news-opinion/politics/who-are-the-republican-candidates-jewish-donors>.
[2] Howard Morley Sachar, A History of the Jews in America, New York: Random House; Vintage Books, 1993, p. 463; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=DeFsAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA463>.
[3] Geoffrey Brahm Levey, “Jewish Liberalism,” Paul A. Djupe and Laura R. Olson, Encyclopedia of American Religion and Politics, New York: Facts on File; Infobase, 2003, p. 231; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=frt7RDOT1PUC&pg=PA231>.
[4] John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, New York: Ferrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007, p. 163; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=zIrFUBs7G6kC&pg=PA163>.
[5] Laura Blumenfeld, “Terrorism Jars Jewish, Arab Party Loyalties,” Washington Post, Dec. 7, 2003, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/12/07/terrorism-jars-jewish-arab-party-loyalties/b2d1a3c2-fd22-4aff-8532-a3eccc4d28c1/>.
[6] Ibid. Note: “Liberalism is typically measured in this context by political identification with the Democratic Party; electoral support for Democratic candidates, self-identification as ‘liberal’ rather than a ‘conservative’; and support for liberal positions on civil liberties, civil rights, state welfare, and, sometimes, foreign policy issues”, ibid.
[7] Kimberly Winston, “Judaism without God? Yes, Say American Atheists,” Religion News Service via USA Today, Sept. 26, 2011, <http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/religion/story/2011-09-26/jew-atheist-god/50553958/1>.
[8] Quoted in ibid.
[9] “Religion in Public Schools: Engel v. Vitale: Date: 1962,” doc. no. 1197, Digital History Archive, 2014, <http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=1197>.
[10] Rockwell, speech, Brown Univ., 1966; archived as “George Lincoln Rockwell 1966 Speech at Brown University,” YouTube, May 3, 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovyhWgn1B3M>.
[11] Garrison Keillor, “Nonbelievers, Please Leave Christmas Alone,” Baltimore Sun, Dec. 16, 2009, <http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2009-12-16/news/bal-op.keillor16dec16_1_silent-night-unitarian-christmas>.
[12] One Jewish periodical opens with the following paragraph: “‘No wonder I didn’t recognize it. It must be the only Christmas song not written by a Jewish songwriter.’ So said Howard Wolowitz, a lead Jewish character on TV’s ‘Big Bang Theory,’ after hearing his buddy sing ‘Good King Wenceslas,’ a traditional carol. Popular culture outlets are finally catching up with the fact that about half of the most popular modern Christmas or ‘holiday’ songs were written by Jewish songwriters.” Nate Bloom, “All those Holiday/Christmas Songs: So Many Jewish Songwriters!” Jewish world Review, Dec. 22, 2014, <http://jewishworldreview.com/1214/jewz_xmas.php3>.
“White Christmas” and “Happy Holidays”? Irving Berlin. “Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!”? Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne. “Santa Baby”? Joan Javits and Philip Springer. “Winter Wonderland”? Felix Bernard. “Sleigh Ride”? Mitchell Parish (born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky). “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “A Holly Jolly Christmas” and “Silver and Gold”? Johnny Marks. “I’ll Be Home for Christmas”? Walter Kent. “Silver Bells”? Jay Livingston (born Jacob Harold Levison) and Raymond Bernard “Ray” Evans. “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year”? Edward “Eddie” Pola (born Sidney Edward Pollacsek) and George Wyle (born Bernard Weissman, best-known for composing having Gilligan’s Island’s theme song). “Do You Hear What I Hear?”? Gloria Shayne Baker (born Gloria Adele Shain). “(There’s No Place Like) Home for the Holidays”? Al Stillman (born Albert Silverman). “The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire”? Mel Tormé (a.k.a. Melvin Howard Torma).
[13] Bob Smietana, “Soldiers Inclined to Proselytize May Face Court Martial,” Gannett News Service via The Tennessean, May 2, 2013, p. ARC; accessed via LexisNexis; archived online at <http://archive.tennessean.com/article/20130502/NEWS06/305020063/Soldiers-inclined-proselytize-may-face-court-martial>.
[14] Here and elsewhere throughout this article, the issue of whether many of today’s self-professed “Jews” really are what they claim. For an introduction to the “Khazar hypothesis,” the idea that today’s Ashkenazim are really descendants of an Asiatic clan that converted to Judaism before the 10th century, see for example Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People.
[15] “That different Jews have disparate views is not news. What is news is when most Jews agree on a particular idea or approach. And so it is with the curious consensus of Jews on abortion. ...Essentially regardless of denominational affiliation or demographics, American Jews think abortion should be legal in all (49%) or almost all (44%) cases. That is, fully 93% of all American Jews support legalized abortion in some fashion. Even political leanings, while influential, are not determinative. Among Jewish Democrats support is 95%, but 77% of Jewish Republicans also favor legalized abortion in all or most cases, far exceeding the rate of other groups studied.” Roger Price, “The Curious Consensus of Jews on Abortion,” Jewish Journal, Feb. 1, 2013, <http://www.jewishjournal.com/judaismandscience/item/the_curious_consensus_of_jews_on_abortion>.)
[16] According to a Jewish Telegraphic Agency dispatch printed in the New York-based Jewish newspaper Forward: “American Jews are among the most supportive religious groups of same-sex marriage. Some 77 percent of American Jews expressed support for same-sex marriage, according to data gathered in 2014 by the Public Religion Research Institute.” “U.S. Jews Among Biggest Backers of Same-Sex Marriage, Data Show,” JTA via Forward, Jun. 28, 2015, <http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/311026/us-jews-among-biggest-backers-of-same-sex-marriage-data-show/>.)
Relatedly, Nation Public Radio reported: “The government of Israel is styling the country as a haven for the gay community. But it’s more than just beaches, parades and clubs. Israel has laws protecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, community.” Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, “Israel Presents Itself as Haven for Gay Community,” National Public Radio, Jun. 4, 2012, <http://www.npr.org/2012/06/04/154279534/israel-presents-itself-as-haven-for-gay-community>.
On a darker note, the state of Israel is presently a major hub for sex slavery and human trafficking. See Rabbi Daniel Brenner, “Will Men Stand Up Against the Sex Slave Trade in Israel?” Huffington Post, February, 1, 2012, <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-daniel-brenner/teaching-young-men-end-sex-trafficking_b_1242842.html> and Roni Aloni-Sadovnik, “Israel’s sex slaves,” Yedioth Ahronot, April 3, 2007, <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3384268,00.html>. Cf. Anya Stone and Martina Vandenberg, “How the Sex Trade Becomes a Slave Trade: The Trafficking of Women to Israel,” Middle East Report, no. 211, Summer, 1999, pp. 36-38.
[17] Of these, Communism is by far the most deadly -ism that the world has ever seen. The Harvard University-published Black Book of Communism observes that “the intransigent facts demonstrate that Communist regimes have victimized approximately 100 million people”. (Stéphane Courtois, “Introduction: The Crimes of Communism,” Stéphane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrej Paczkowski, Karel Bartošek and Jean-Louis Margolin, Le livre noir du Communisme: Crimes, terreur, repression, Paris: Robert Laffront, 1997, Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer, transl., The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1999, p. 15.)
[18] Incidentally, Democrats of the same era were accused of pandering to the black vote. This combined outreach to blacks and Jews earned the opprobrium of some of the old guard from within the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment. “[P]erhaps the most revealing of the caste resentment which characterized so much of the antipathy toward the New Deal was the following bit of doggerel about Franklin and Eleanor: You kiss the negroes | I’ll kiss the Jews, | We’ll stay in the White House | As long as we choose.” Edward Digby Baltzell, The Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy & Caste in America, New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press, 1987, pp. 247-248; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=jOCnJpjcjy8C&pg=PA247>.
[19] Other prominent Jewish-Communist thinkers included Eduard Bernstein, Haim Kantorovitch, Rosa Luxemburg, Julius Martov [born Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum], Alexander Lvovich Parvus (born Israel Lazarevich Gelfand) and Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev (born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky, a.k.a. Hirsch Apfelbaum). Erstwhile British Prime Minister Winston Churchill once wrote: "From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia), Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemburg (Germany), and Emma Goldman (United States), this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing," Winston Churchill, “Zionism Versus Bolshevism: A Struggle for the Soul of the Jewish People,” Illustrated Sunday Herald, London, Feb. 8, 1920.
[20] According to the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 106a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_106.html>.
[21] See for instance the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, folio 43a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/sanhedrin/sanhedrin_43.html>.
[22] See the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Gittin, folio 57a, <http://www.comeandhear.com/gittin/gittin_57.html>. Note: in some Talmud editions, the name “Jesus the Nazarene” is replaced by code words such as “Balaam.”
[23] The Holy Bible, 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse14-15.
[24] John 8:44.
[25] Quoted by Benjamin Weintroub, The Chicago Jewish Forum, vol. 25, 1966, p. 52; archived online at <https://books.google.com/books?id=CssMAQAAMAAJ>. However, attributions from Zionist sources ought to be taken with a grain of salt. However, similar sentiments were indisputably expressed by Christians from Saint John Chrysostom to Martin Luther and beyond.
