Conservative Donnybrook

Having now been witness to the auspicious start of Doughboy’s CD posting career, let me begin with no further ado to welcome him in the grandest of Donnybrook tradition.

Podhoretz pere is brave, accomplished, and erudite? All right. And President Obama is eminently qualified for the Office he now holds.

Still, it’s an interesting question Doughboy seeks to address. It isn’t really terribly puzzling, but it is interesting. A few questions immediately present themselves to the target audience, though. Who, exactly, are “the Jews” to whom Dougboy (via Prager) refers (as in “the Jews’ best friends today are conservatives,” “the Left is the home of most of the Jews’ enemies,” and “contemporary Christians are the Jews’ best friends.”)?

Mr. Prager does occasionally clarify “liberal Jews,” but one assumes (naturally) that he is referring to American Jews, almost all of whom are liberal, and thus he (wittingly) pounces on a redundancy for the sake of his target audience, Republican Evangelicals. (Another redundancy, I know. Apologies to Mssrs. Wallis and Campolo.) But what Prager, and presumably Doughboy, means by “the Jews” is “displaced or emigrated Ashkenazi Jews, most of whom are socially ‘Jewish’ by way of self-identification but not actual religious practice.” Thus, another question: why are the Ashkenazim largely secular? Volumes could be (and may have been) written on this subject. The point remains: secularists are (broadly) anti-traditionalist, by definition. Humans are, by design, religious creatures. Elementary anthropology bears this out. Therefore, it goes without saying that the ones who kick against the goads of their inherent religiosity tend toward secularism, agnosticism, and atheism. Modern and postmodern secularist movements have been dominated by this anti-traditionalist bent. This anti-traditionalist bent may also (I believe it does) explain the tendency of modern American Jews to marry outside the community. The simple answer to the question “Why are so many Jews Leftists?” is that so many Jews are anti-traditionalist. Perhaps the Jews of the Germanic and Slavic regions (i.e., the Ashkenazim) were witness to and victims of violence and/or different treatment at the hands of their traditionalist, Christian contemporaries. Surely another, more powerful factor (which can be seen even now among the Christians of both Catholicism and Evangelicalism) contributing to the throwing off of tradition is the desire to be accepted (for any number of reasons, from simple human loneliness in the face of ostracization to downright greed in the face of want).

Contra Prager, “conservatives” are not necessarily “the Jews’ best friends.” Evangelical Christians who, since about 1980 have largely been Republicans, may very well support the modern, disproportionately-Ashkenazi-influenced, secular state of Israel (thanks, in large measure to a ridiculous, modern development known as Dispensationalism, unduly influential in modern American Evangelicalism). But even this support for Israel does not make “conservatives” friends of Israel. The increasing animosity against the United States among Semitic Arabs, whether Muslim, Christian, Druze, or otherwise, will reflect on the recipient of America’s favor, daughter Israel. No question there was plenty of animosity toward Israel before, but why continue accepting Uncle Sam’s infuriating baubles? Because you don’t want to pay for them yourself, that’s why. Because you’ve got a socialist, secularist state to run. Just like Uncle Sam does, increasingly. The problem, as has been said before, with socialism is that eventually, you run out of other peoples’ money.

As far as nationalism is concerned, my gut tells me that more American Jews are somewhat (or more) nationalistic when it comes to Israel than aren’t. I’m willing to stand corrected, but the ad hoc appeal to “nationalism” as a bogeyman that Jews instinctively fear is incorrect. That’s simply inchoate. But I’ll do some looking into it.

Cheers, Doughboy. Welcome to the ‘brook, and here’s to more stimulating discussion.