Before I get to discussing Amos Elon's The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch: 1743-1933, which I discussed last week, I must discuss Trump's latest comments about American Jews, which are a part of an anti-Semitic style that will have relevance to the phenomenon Elon is discussing in German politics and German history.
What makes Trump's comments dangerous are more than the comments themselves, but how the comments expose how Zionist thinking can itself be anti-Semitic. Consider: Senator Schumer expressly and proudly says he is in the Senate primarily to support Israel (a shomer, or in English, guardian). However, people, particularly many American Jews, bristle if anyone (especially a non-Jew) says that means Schumer or other pro-Israel shills in Congress are as loyal if not more loyal to Israel than the US (The "dual loyalty" trope). Now, here comes Trump, assuming US Jews have to be loyal to Israel--something I have heard nearly all my life--and then rips into the growing number of American Jews who are showing they are NOT "loyal" to Israel. And now, Trump's acknowledgement that Jews are NOT loyal to Israel, meaning they do NOT have "dual loyalty," is suddenly called anti-Semitic.
Huh?
Yes, Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes in speaking of Jews as "the Jews" who run things in the US and who are supposed to be in lockstep to Israel because, "Well, they're Jews, ya know?" I am paraphrasing here, and not quoting Trump, but that is the assumption behind his commentary. Trump knows Chuck Schumer and Trump knows how Jewish organizations behave regarding Israel. However, the reason Trump's statement is, in fact, an anti-Semitic trope is not for the reasons never quite explained in the media commentary. If anything, the media commentary assumes Trump is anti-Semitic more because of Trump's tone, his previous problematic anti-Mexican/anti-Muslim statements, and his statement regarding the Charlottesville, Virginia riot, where there was a major anti-Semitic chant during the event that led to a riot.
The real reason Trump's commentary is anti-Semitic is because Zionism itself contains anti-Semitic assumptions. Yes, you can read that again to ensure I am being clearly understood.
Now, let's move forward. Zionism, as a political-nationalist creed, says anti-Semitism in Western society (Europe and the US) is immutable and we, as Jews, must support Israel no matter what. This, ironically, is akin to the way back-to-Africa African-Americans in the 1920s, and later the Black Muslims, ingest the deep racism of the US, agree that African-Americans can never belong as "Americans," and accept the terms of a racist debate. That is Zionism, too. This is why the Reform Judaism movement (which grew out of Germany, and was trying to show Jews were a religion, not an ethnicity) rejected Zionism so long in the early 20th Century. It is important to remember the Reform movement-denomination only embraced Zionism with the coming of what became known as the Holocaust, as Reform Jewish leaders in the US recognized Americans overall would never accept European Jewish refugees, and Palestine was the only refuge for Jews escaping the growing conflagration. The shift from anti- to pro-Zionism was therefore a historically-politically based shift. After WWII, and especially after the euphoric pride of finally having a "Jewish" State, arising from the ashes of the decimation of European Jewry, Israel became embedded within American Judaism. It is why nearly every synagogue or temple has, on its pulpit (which Jews call in Hebrew a bimah) an American flag and an Israeli flag. This historically based perspective helps explain why, today, so many older American Jews are so confused and angry when their grandchildren (or children) see what a mess Israel has become (and has been) as a nation which recreates settler-colonialism, including apartheid, and has become itself embedded within the American military-industrial complex.
Therefore, unless one acknowledges how Zionism accepts anti-Semitism as embedded within Western culture (Europe and North America), and how Jews must be loyal to Israel, one is confused about why Trump's statements are anti-Semitic. For one may again ask, How can Trump saying American Jews are NOT loyal to Israel be anti-Semitic if the charge of "dual loyalty" is anti-Semitic? :) And again, to reach the conclusion Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes, one also needs to acknowledge the way in which corporate media is itself complicit in this confusion--and then ask, Why is so much of corporate owned media complicit? The reason is Israel is itself wrapped up in the US military-industrial complex and must be protected from criticism above all else. Why else do we see the majority of US States with anti-Israel boycott laws, which clearly run afoul of the First Amendment jurisprudence, yet still exist across much of the nation?
Yes, these are dangerous times for non-whites and Jews.
This finally brings us to Amos Elon's deeply compelling and fascinating The Pity of it All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch: 1734-1933 (2002), which I posted at FB and blogged about last week. As I am completing the book, I am struck by how deftly Elon describes Germany's descent into Fascism and screaming Nazism, where 0.9% of the German public, German Jews, were made the scapegoat for the German Kaiser's spectacularly wrong decision to essentially start WWI, even though many Jews supported the fighting of that war, and fought in that war (proudly) for Germany. What is extraordinary is how most of the German Jewish community ardently supported the war, while a relatively few percentage of Jews who opposed it became, in German mass media, the primary scapegoats--with the media largely refusing to acknowledge or highlight the major decisions made in the non-Jewish German political circles, economic elites, and military high commands. Elon is clear how the industrialists were afraid of socialism and communism coming, and gave tacit support to nationalist extremism, though not as consistently (but more than we like to think) the Nazis themselves. At page 372 of his book, and after describing the political murders and growth of extreme nationalist politics, Elon wrote:
The political thugs, their intellectual counterparts, the feigned objectivity of the courts that tried them, the complicity of judges, police officers, and politicians--all these would later be recognized as harbingers.
Yes, that is sort of happening right here in the United States, with the way in which increasingly violent and delusional rhetoric from the right is being normalized, while what I called ten years or more ago, Weimar Democrats (corporate Democrats), continue with their fecklessness in not protecting Americans from the ravages perpetrated by international oriented capitalists (not capitalism, as that is merely an ism or itself a creed). 1920s Germans had a choice, which was to go more hard socialist or even communist, which would have greatly lessened the anti-Semitism so long integrated into German national development OR go to hard nationalism, fascism, and Nazism. We know where the elites took refuge, and 0.9% of the nation be damned. Trump is of that ilk of industrialists/financiers, and he knows how to use racist and anti-Semitic tropes to rile up his fans.
So, yes, again, Trump is using anti-Semitic tropes, as he has done for years. However, until American Jews especially face the contradictions within Zionism, as a creed, and how Zionism functions in Israel and within US power corridors, there will be continued confusion that will eventually lead to a growing anti-Semitism in the US political discourse. It is horrible enough that racism against African-Americans remains a staple of the US political discourse, with anti-Hispanic and anti-Asian racism not far behind. But, as we saw in Charlottesville in 2017, anti-Semitism is part of "the Great Replacement Theory."
We have been warned. But, as usual with human beings, we won't see the danger until it is nearly fully upon us. But, sure. Keep thinking the way the Democratic Party leaders and politicians are running things is all we have, and all that can be done. Sorry, but that thinking is how we got here.
