Rootsie

"a relatively small group that wants to convince everybody (or at least everybody in power) that the great bulk of us think the way they do, which we don't . . . Zogby "said polls show a majority of Jewish voters nationally and in New York State oppose war with Iraq. 'But the loudest voices in the Jewish community, the hard-line conservatives who favor the war, are politically the strongest,' Zogby said."


This Much is True: We Remember
Jews Like Us
by BRUCE JACKSON

They're spreading poison about American Jews.

Many of the people spreading this poison are Jews themselves, a relatively small group that wants to convince everybody (or at least everybody in power) that the great bulk of us think the way they do, which we don't. Some non-Jews, like Pat Buchanan and other less-rabid but no less invidious bigots, but find it a good way to stereotype us: Jews all think alike, dontcha know. It's weird and freaky when militant right-wing Jews can hook up with old-fashioned anti-Semites to stereotype the rest of us, but these are weird and freaky times.

The basic tenets of the present poison seem to be these:

* American Jews support Israel's policies whatever they are;

* American Jews believe the settlements in the Occupied territories are a God-given right;

* American Jews believe Ariel Sharon has peace on his mind but can't get there only because evil Palestinians keep blowing themselves up and forcing him to respond by blowing up or driving tanks through their families' houses and orchards;

* American Jews think all issues of world peace must be subsumed to Israel's security, as defined by the Israeli government;

* American Jews favor current U.S. unilateralism and have contempt for the United Nations because it is full of mean little countries that don't like Israel.

And most important of all: any American Jew who rejects the aforementioned is a "self-hating Jew."

SELF-HATING JEWS

Could any goy have thought that one up? "You disagree with my politics, therefore you are a self-hating Jew. The problem, the ethical issues, the guilt are all yours." Freud would have danced all over it.

You respond, "No, man, you're WRONG about all of it. Let's go over the facts."

They listen, politely, or not, and at the end they say,"See? I told you, you're a self-hating Jew."

True-believers of whatever stripe find ratification wherever they look. In the court where the conclusion is foregone, all facts serve only to convict.

I first heard the phrase "self-hating Jew" in Greenwich Village in the 1980s when a group from the Jewish Defense League, Meyer Kahane's militant organization, stood in the street yelling it at William Kunstler's house. I looked out the window, saw the bared teeth and raised fists and thought that they looked and comported themselves very much like Hitler Jugend, missing only the armbands.

Kunstler's comment on them was, "Pay them no mind. They don't know what they're talking about. That's the silliest thing to call me. I don't hate myself. Everybody knows I love myself."

I went out of the house and before I'd even stepped from the doorway to the top of the steps they were yelling "Self-hating Jew! Self-hating Jew!" at me. I yelled back, "But you don't even know if I'm Jewish." They didn't care. They kept yelling "Self-hating Jew" until I reached the police barricade at Christopher Street, whereupon they started yelling at the house again.

LUNATIC STUFF

I'm not making this lunatic stuff up and neither am I waxing rhetorical.

All reliable studies and surveys show that the great majority of American Jews, whatever the level of their support for Israel itself, oppose unilateralism, think the United Nations an important forum, favor a Palestinian state, are opposed to the settlements in the Occupied Territories, oppose Sharon's militancy, are sickened and appalled by the images of Israeli tanks destroying homes, villages and vineyards, and are desperate for the killing and dying on both sides to stop now. Not after every potentially suicidal Palestinian is wiped out. Not after the world is made perfect. Now.

The neocon and radical right, though a numerical minority, have politicians running scared. One example of that is New York Senator Charles Schumer, who recently told students at an upstate Catholic military school that he was now in favor of pre-emptive wars. "Pollster John Zogby said Schumer's tough posture is a political move to appeal to pro-war upstate voters and elements of the Jewish community in New York City," wrote Buffalo News Washington bureau chief Doug Turner. Zogby "said polls show a majority of Jewish voters nationally and in New York State oppose war with Iraq. 'But the loudest voices in the Jewish community, the hard-line conservatives who favor the war, are politically the strongest,' Zogby said. 'I think he's bidding for the Likud vote,' Zogby joked, referring to the party of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon."

Given the evidence of those surveys, why do Schumer and otherwise sensible members of Congress act as if these bullies of the right represented even a large minority of us? Maybe for the same reason they continue to base U.S. Caribbean policy on the hysterical voices of the small Cuban exile community in Miami. Remember how Al Gore (D.), Dan Burton (R) and so many of the rest fell over one another trying to be politically correct and make political capital in the Elian Gonzalez soap opera three years ago? They're terrified of groups of middle-class people who scream at them and they think such screamers are more likely to vote and write checks than people who speak softly or rationally.

More and more I hear that those militaristic Jews in and advising the Bush administration--such as Paul Wolfowitz inside the White House and William Kristol on the outside--prove where Jews are at, politically. Nonsense. That only proves what political stripe of Jews are in favor in the Bush White House.

Wolfowitz and Kristol are Americans who are Jewish and who are part of the American Conservative Right. Why single them out as Jews and then blame the rest of us Jews for them? Most of us don't like or agree with those ideologues either. Blaming the rest of us for them is like blaming the Methodists for Dick Cheney or Baptists for John Ashcroft. It's not the religion that made those people what they are. Wolfowitz, Kristol, Cheney and Ashcroft would be the way they are if they were Zoroastrians.

JEWS LIKE US

In spring 2001, I started working on a book the working title of which is "Jews like us." I thought it might be useful to give some of the Jews who don't scream a chance to say what they think about being Jewish in America now. I stopped working on the book when everything got cranked up after 9/11, but I've started doing interviews again. I have basically one question I ask everybody: "You say you're Jewish. What do you mean by that?"

The responses are astonishing in their variety. I'm continually amazed at the huge range of stories, opinion, and analysis. The only generalization I can make about it is this: hardly any of it comes close to the militant neocon line. Sure, there are some groups in which the ideology is locked down tight and some individuals for whom Sharon's version of Israel's security needs transcends all reason and decency. But that's the minority. Painting us all with the Wolfowitz-Kristol brush, saying, in effect, that our considered political and ethnical opinions are worthless, is just today's trendy way to be anti-semitic, no matter who is doing it.

There is an ever-growing number of organizations of American Jews trying to get the word out that the press and politicians should look beyond the noisy minority. (Links to the web sites of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel, Not in My Name, Jews Against the Occupation and Brit Tzedik v'Shalom are listed below.) Thus far, they seem to have made little impact. Their activities get almost no coverage in the press and few members of Congress consider them the same kind of threat as the militant right or the neocons.

Perhaps they've been too polite. Perhaps they will have to start making the same kind of noise that has so frightened Chuck Schumer and so many other powerful people in Washington. Perhaps the will have to remind those politicians that they also vote and write checks, and that of all the things you can accuse us Jews of there is at least one that is true: we remember.

Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel
http://www.jppi.org/

Not in My Name
http://www.nimn.org/

Jews Against the Occupation http://www.jewsagainsttheoccupation.org/

Brit Tzedik v'Shalom: Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace http://www.btvshalom.org/

Bruce Jackson is SUNY Distinguished Professor and Samuel P. Capen Professor of American Culture at University of Buffalo. He edits Buffalo Report.

His email address is bjackson@buffalo.edu.

"These shrewd, Machiavellian rulers made a psychologically brilliant pact with an elite, assimilationist group of Jewish subjects who craved nothing more than acceptance by the power structure of society. Often, these ambitious Jews were so eager to serve the interests of the rulers so that they could ease their feelings of internalized self-hatred. They viewed serving the power structure as a way to overcome the marginality and stigmas associated with being Jewish which were built into the very fabric of society by the power structure to begin with. The rulers understood this yearning to enter the halls of power and took advantage of it by dangling a carrot of illusional power before the hungry eyes of this wayward Jewish elite."


http://www.counterpunch.org/ruebner03142003.html

CounterPunch

March 14, 2003

An Open Letter to Paul Wolfowitz
To My Former Dean and Other "Court Jews"
by JOSH RUEBNER

Dear Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,

I doubt it if you remember me. That's okay though. I don't think that I did anything to merit drawing the attention of the dean as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). I was pretty bookish at SAIS and spent more than my share of time toiling over economic models in the library. As the dean of SAIS, I am sure that you had fleeting contact with hundreds of students like myself. I think that we shared a few coffees together during your weekly breakfast meetings with students. I thought that custom was classy and demonstrated the importance that you placed on being in touch with us. I liked the fact that you invariably showed up at our Friday afternoon Happy Hour ritual in the courtyard when we all unwound after an intense week of studies.

The comfortable, accessible relationship that you had with your students at SAIS makes it difficult for me to address you as the Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States of America. It sounds so formal and removed, doesn't it? Yet I wouldn't have the audacity to call you by your first name either. Perhaps, for the sake of this letter, I can simply call you "brother." I hope that you do not take offense at this intimate appellation. But, you see, I am not writing this letter as a secular American critic of a unilateralist U.S. foreign policy that has run amok. Instead, I decided to write to you as one fellow Jew to another. And as Jews, we do share that intimate connection and shared sense of destiny even if we do not really know each other. Perhaps in Hebrew school you learned the dictum kol yisrael arevim zeh la'zeh-that all Jews are responsible for and to each other. It is in this spirit of mutual responsibility that I write to you.

Brother, I am concerned about you. I am concerned that you are being exploited and that you do not realize it. Before you discard my pro-peace, anti-imperialism views about the war in Iraq as the ranting of an aberrant SAIS student who somehow escaped from the school's neo-conservative straitjacket, I plead with you to engage in chesbon nefesh-that powerful, beautiful Jewish tradition of "soul accounting" in which we engage during the High Holidays. Before the bombs start falling on the long-suffering, innocent civilians of Baghdad, please look into your heart and ask yourself honestly whose interests you are serving by being such a visible symbol of this policy.

Lately I have come to the disturbing conclusion that the Bush Administration is using you as its "court Jew" par excellence. Rest assured, this is not a term that I learned during my studies at SAIS. Rather I picked it up in the course of my involvement with the Jewish peace movement which is calling simultaneously for an end to Israel's self-destructive military occupation of Palestine and is helping to mobilize the millions of good-hearted Americans who have taken to the streets to protest the war of aggression that the Bush Administration is pedaling.

"Court Jew" is a term that originates in the context of anti-Semitism in "enlightened" Europe. On that blood-soaked continent, the reigning monarchs and other despotic rulers thought up an ingenious system to perpetuate their oppressive systems of government. These shrewd, Machiavellian rulers made a psychologically brilliant pact with an elite, assimilationist group of Jewish subjects who craved nothing more than acceptance by the power structure of society. Often, these ambitious Jews were so eager to serve the interests of the rulers so that they could ease their feelings of internalized self-hatred. They viewed serving the power structure as a way to overcome the marginality and stigmas associated with being Jewish which were built into the very fabric of society by the power structure to begin with. The rulers understood this yearning to enter the halls of power and took advantage of it by dangling a carrot of illusional power before the hungry eyes of this wayward Jewish elite. These "court Jews" were given politically unimportant, yet highly visible positions within the regime. Why? So that when the subjected masses rose up from time to time in justified outrage at the oppressive nature of the regime under which they lived, there was a convenient, ready-made scapegoat in place. The "court Jew," as a highly visible symbol of the regime, served as the lighting rod to bear the brunt of the blame and deflect criticism from where it belonged rightfully. Brother, need I remind you how disastrous it was for our people to be the target of this rage? I think that you would agree that, in retrospect, it would have been better not to have played the fool for those European monarchs.

But, alas, the tragic mistakes of history do tend to repeat themselves. (Brother, it makes we wonder sometimes if the global community of human beings is making "progress" toward anything worth progressing to.) Maybe you don't see it coming, but I do. Your job is to interact in the high-brow world of intelligence briefings and diplomacy. My job is to interact with the people and mobilize them against the very steps that you're taking. With all due respect, I think that I am in a better position to hear what the people are saying. Do you know what they're saying already? That the war in Iraq is being planned by a cabal of extremist Jews. That it is the first part of a Zionist conspiracy to redraw the map of the Middle East. That Israel stands to be the prime beneficiary of this war. And it's not just the marginalized skinheads who are saying this either. It's also mainstream folks who would swear up and down that they don't have an anti-Semitic bone in their bodies. I'm sure that you, like me, recoiled in horror when you heard Congressman Jim Moran assert that it is the Jews who are advocating for this war and that only the Jews have the power to stop it.

It pains me that so many of my fellow citizens are falling into this age-old trap of blaming the powerless Jews who seem so powerful because of the existence of a handful of "court Jews" who front for the power structure. This doesn't mean that the "court Jews" of the unelected Jewish Establishment haven't been hawking for this war. They have been. There is no denying that Israel sent Benjamin Netanyahu to Capitol Hill to testify for the war in Iraq and "convince" Members of Congress that it was in the interests of the United States to let loose the dogs of war (as if they needed much convincing anyway). All of this is true. This is the beauty of how the system works. Take a few "court Jews" and give them unimpeded access to the mainstream media and, voila, you create the impression among the masses that "the Jews" are spoiling for a war. Do you see brother how you are misrepresenting us? I wish that we in the Jewish peace movement could have as much access as you do to the mainstream media so that we could shatter the monolithic view of the Jewish community which the "court Jew" by definition is set up to propagate. Of course, we are denied that access by the same power structure which has an interest in making sure that yours is the only "Jewish" voice heard.

I'm really afraid that we are heading for a calamity. If the people are this incensed now my brother, how do you think they will feel when American men and women start returning from the sands of Kuwait in body bags? Who is going to be blamed if, God forbid, we are subjected to another terrorist attack? Do these thoughts keep you awake at night? Are you scared like I am that this imperialistic war in Iraq threatens the existence of the Jewish people?

My brother, I don't blame you for accepting the starring role of "court Jew." It must be a pretty amazing feeling to convince yourself that you have as much power as everybody says that you do. I hope that I never get close enough to the power structure of this crumbling, decrepit empire to get a taste of it. In my humble opinion, there is only one honorable thing that you can do to undo the shameful damage that you have caused already: resign. For the sake of your own dignity, you must refuse to be exploited as the "court Jew." Step down and deprive the power structure of its "court Jew" and you will expose to the world the actors who really motivate the Bush Administration. Please, before it is too late, tell the world that it is not the powerless Jews who are pushing for this war, but the greedy, venal barons of corporate America who stand to profit while cowering behind the myth of the all-powerful Jew. Tell everybody what you and I both know. That the real interests hawking for this war are the defense contractors and the oil industry who will make billions of dollars to first destroy Iraq and then "rebuild" it under the protective wing of American "democracy." And, while you're at it, please tell the world that the $100 billion the Bush Administration will require to pay the military-industrial complex to finance this war of aggression will be sucked from the wallets of the impoverished American working class which is systematically being stripped of government services by this rapacious regime.

I am not the type of Jew who generally bases his opinions on whether a particular action "is good for the Jews." I would like to believe that I have a more embracing, holistic view of humanity. Maybe it even seems self-centered to worry about what will happen to the Jews because of this war when thousands of innocent Iraqis stand to die in order for the United States to "liberate" their country. I confess though that I'm worried and I don't know what else to do with my fear except express it. Brother, it seems to me to be so painfully obvious that this war will benefit no one but the corporate interests I mentioned above. Not Jews, not Americans, not Israelis, not Iraqis, and not Palestinians.

If I've sparked even a sliver of doubt in your mind as to the wisdom of the course you are pursuing, please call me and we can get together for a cup of coffee over breakfast. It will be just like the good old days at SAIS.

With love,

Josh Ruebner

Josh Ruebner is co-founder of Jews for Peace in Palestine and Israel (JPPI) and a former Analyst in Middle East Affairs at Congressional Research Service (CRS). He can be reached: jruebner@hotmail.com

Court Jew
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Court Jew (from German: Hofjude(n), Hoffaktor) is a term for historical Jewish bankers or businessmen who lent money and handled finances of some of the Christian European noble houses. A corresponding historical term is Jewish Bailiff. See also shtadlan.

The first examples of what would be later called court Jews emerged during the Renaissance when local rulers used services of Jewish bankers for short-term loans. They lent money to nobles and in the process gained social influence.

Noble patron of court Jews employed them as financiers, suppliers, diplomats and trade delegates. Court Jews could use their family connections, and connections between each other, to provision their sponsors with, among others things, food, arms, ammunition and precious metals.

In return for their services, court Jews gained social privileges - sometimes even titles - and could live outside the Jewish ghettoes. Some nobles wanted to keep their bankers in their own courts. And because they were under noble protection, they were exempted from rabbinical jurisdiction.

Some court Jews, unlike the majority of the other Jews, amassed large personal fortune and gained political and social influence. Sometimes they were also prominent people in the local Jewish community and could use their influence to protect and influence their brethren. Sometimes they were the only Jews who could interact with the local high society and present petitions of the Jews to the ruler.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew)


Useful Jew

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The term useful Jew was used in various historical contexts, typically describing a Jewish person useful in implementing an official policy, sometimes by oppressing other Jews.

In 1744, Frederick II of Prussia introduced the practice of limiting Jewish population to a small number of the most wealthy families, known as protected Jews. The first-born son in such families inherited this privilege, other children were considered useless by the authorities and had an alternative to "either abstain from marriage or leave" (quoting Simon Dubnow). See also Court Jew, Schutz-Jude and Shtadlan.
After the establishment of the Pale of Settlement in the Imperial Russia, only useful Jews (Russian: полезные евреи), such as wealthy 1st guild merchants (Russian: купцы первой гильдии), persons who received higher education, cantonists after serving in the army the full term (25 years), or registered prostitutes, as well as some other categories, were allowed to live outside the Pale.
During the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe, the Jews who helped implement the Final Solution, such as members of Judenrat, were considered useful Jews (German: Wertvolle Juden: "valuable Jews"). They, and sometimes members of their families as well, were immune from deportation for extermination so long as they served the Nazis' purposes.
In the Soviet Union, Jewish members of the Anti-Zionist committee of the Soviet public were colloquially known as useful Jews or pocket Jews, implying their corruption by high positions in the state hierarchy.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_Jew (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_Jew)

Schutzjude

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Schutzjude, means "Protected Jew", a status for German Jews granted by the royal courts.

For example, in October 1763 the King of Prussia granted Moses Mendelssohn the privilege, which assured his right to undisturbed residence in Berlin.

- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzjude (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzjude)

Mayer Amschel Rothschild family
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The Mayer Amschel Rothschild family (often referred to simply as The Rothschilds), is an eminent international banking and finance dynasty of German Jewish origin that established operations across Europe, and was ennobled by the Austrian and British governments.

 . . .

The basis for the Rothschild fortune was laid during the latter stages of the Napoleonic Wars. From 1813 to 1815, the Rothschild family was instrumental in the financing of the British war effort, handling the shipment of bullion to the Duke of Wellington's army in Spain, as well as arranging the payment of British financial subsidies to their Continental allies. Through the commissions earned on these transactions, the Rothschild fortune grew enormously.

. . . Elevated to Peerage


In 1816, four of the brothers were each granted the title of baron or Freiherr by Austria's Francis I, formerly Francis II the last Holy Roman Emperor. Nathan was elevated in 1818. As such, some members of the family used "de" or "von" Rothschild to acknowledge the grant of nobility. In 1885, Nathan Mayer Rothschild II (1840-1915) of the London branch of the family, was granted the peerage title Baron Rothschild in the Peerage of the United Kingdom.

Rothschild family banking businesses pioneered international high finance during the industrialisation of Europe and were instrumental in supporting railway systems across the world and in complex government financing for projects such as the Suez Canal. After amassing huge fortunes, the name Rothschild became synonymous with banking and great wealth, and the family was renowned for its art collecting, as well as for its philanthropy.




. . . Zionism

The Rothschilds were supporters of the State of Israel, and Baron Edmond James de Rothschild was a patron of the first settlement in Palestine at Rishon-LeZion. In 1917 Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild was the addressee of the Balfour Declaration, which committed the British government to the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.


- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild_family (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayer_Amschel_Rothschild_family)