American politics is weird

And such small portions!

Democrats represent American Jews. (Minorities are too weak to represent themselves.)
Republicans openly oppose Democrats. (How dare they!)
Therefore, Republicans are explicitly antisemitic.
Quod erat demonstrandum.

Technically Jews and Arabs are both semites, i.e. descendants of Noah’s son Sem, but in the vernacular only Jews are. Perfectly straightforward.

@Dhfhfjf
Election Day is on November 8

November 8 is also UK Avian Flu Lockdown day
– https://youtu.be/TKy4j_YlyyA?t=380

Free Range ends – will egg boxes be relabeled?

And then there are the US Evangelicals who like Jews but only because they’ve got to convert 144,000 of them to Christianity before Jesus can come back.

Jewish socialist ideals found their home in the kibbutzim in early 20 th Century Palestine.

Socalism was important in the mid and east European communties because of its pattern of mutual support in the community. Those lucky enough to find a uversity ttake hem could then use the patterns and turn them into a theoretical and ideological premise.

It is no wonder that so many revolutionaries were Jewish and it is alas even less a wonder that they were purged after the Revolution ( not just in Russia but in the Soviet bloc asa whole from 1948 onwards).

To Bloke In Spain. There is a residual communal memory of when the Labour Party were decent and helped sweated workers in the garment trade gain better working conditions. But those days are gone and Labour is a very different party. Personally I now tend to refer to those Jews who still support Labour despite all the party’s problems as ‘Meshugganas’ which is Yiddish for ‘crazy people’.

Ottokring. The socialist Kibbutz idea might once have been popular in Israel but no longer. They socialist Kibbutz idea failed in a big way. There are still Kibbutzim but they are far far less socialist than they once were and are more like communities where people choose to live in the way of that community because they like that way of living rather than in order to live out some socialist ideal.

You could argue that it is indeed anti-semitic to subsidise Israel and to encourage Jews from around the world to emigrate there. Because that way more Jews will have their throats cut when eventually the Arabs win a war.

You’d have to be a very patient anti-semite to take that line though, unless perhaps you think Israel will be sorted out with a few megatons of nukes incoming.

It’s a tricky one: would the future of Jewry be more secure if they spread themselves out widely rather than concentrating in Israel (and NYC)? Religious Jews might object that dispersing Jews would destroy Jewry by encouraging intermarriage with gentiles.

Thankfully none of this is my problem: I can continue to have no policy on Israel/Palestine while wishing all good fortune to those British Jews whom I have happened to know.

I myself am an American Jew in the Conservative sect, meaning I don’t keep kosher and am one of those twice-a-year synagogue attendees (there’s a lot of variance in observance in this sect). There is a famous adage: Ask two Jews, get three opinions. Not only are there general differences between and within levels of observance, but also when it comes to other factors.

Some of us are third-generation American. Some were born in the Soviet Union. Some were born in highly educated wealthy families. Some are the first in their family to attend university (my parents). Some of our ancestors came from Europe, others from the Middle East or South America. Some of us are 100% Jewish and some are half, some have a Jewish mother and others a Jewish father.

And some simply were raised with good morals and humility, while others were raised to be entitled, arrogant pricks. The interesting thing about Jews, is that we are part of a religion as well as an ethnic group with certain biological markers in our DNA (hence the genetic predisposition to Tay-Sachs disease). There are a lot of layers to whether and why some Jews are dumber, more leftist, more insufferable than others.

Not only am I religiously somewhere in the middle, but I also grew up in Pittsburgh rather than New York/LA/Chicago/Boston. Where I grew up, Jews were more down to earth because that was the trend of the general population. After 15 years in NYC, I only recently found my first Jewish friend. All the rest that I’ve met have been just terrible. Even for the High Holidays, I had to go to an Orthodox synagogue to escape the talk of climate change and transgender bullshit in the sermon. My friend was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is less observant than me, due to the Soviet suppression of religion.

I have cousins who’ve lived in Florida for years and, while there are certainly liberal Jews there, the politics are becoming much more mixed among them. Same story with the Hispanic population there. My parents grew up in New York, but got to know Pittsburghers well enough to understand real Americans, and have been republicans for decades now. All of my aunts and uncles also married Protestants or Catholics, so we’ve had a lot of exposure to those other faiths.

So for the less religious, it’s more a matter of personal experience and how open they’ve been to meeting different groups of people. Funny thing is, Joy Behar is the most “Jewish” woman I’ve ever seen, and she’s Italian Catholic.

@Dhfhfjf
What I can’t understand is why Jews identify with a political movement that hates them. UK & US.
I can understand the residual anti-semitism of the UK’s upper middle class. It isn’t really. It’s the distaste they have for the working class & they see Jews, however well they’ve prospered, as eternally working class & beneath them.
I can understand the anti-semitism on both sides of my own family. My father’s who were of that middle class above. My mother’s because the family were from the East End & had seen their locality colonised by Jews in the late C19th early C20th. So they’re equivalent to the people undergoing Pakistani colonisation today. I’m not surprised there were more than a few Mosely supporters amongst them. Despite the fictional history of the East End.
But with the left, they don’t have those reasons. It’s just straight racism.

For “noticing” read “making up”

@BiS

This is not unique to Jews, but is a phenomenon seen with most minority groups that come into a society through immigration. I once met a guy who came to the U.S. from Singapore, who now runs a pro-MAGA meetup group, but told me that his family was greeted by a bunch of democrats who showered them with resources and free stuff.

Similarly, at a Celebrate Israel parade in Central Park a few years ago, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo had flyers all over the place. I was on the fence about wearing my “Israel supports Trump” yarmulke (purchased in Jerusalem) in protest. In fact, Israeli Jews are much more like Orthodox American Jews, regardless of their specific affiliation. There is a liberal paper called Ha’aretz which is basically the Israeli Guardian, but I’ve been told 99% of Israelis read the Jerusalem Post instead of that blatant filth. But it’s often human nature to base allegiance on whoever your “friends” are. Biden certainly banks on that idea when he acts all chummy with people during a photo op. That’s what political endorsements are based on. Just the other day, there was some LGBTQ TikToker doing an influencer video with Obama, who claimed he/she voted for McCain in 2008, but grew into a democrat when Obama enacted “marriage equality.” Never let a liberal tell you they aren’t selfish. Everyone acts in their own self-interest.

Looking at any religious factors that might be at play, similar to many Western Catholics, there is much preaching about the underclass and social justice. Pass by any Catholic church in NYC, and you’ll see posters for Black Lives Matter, and sanctuary for any illegal immigrant or AntiFa rioter. They offered a place to sleep and free food for Occupy Wall Street in 2011. As I mentioned before, the Reform synagogues engage in the same political bullshit, but usually not the Orthodox ones. And even the Reform places usually have an exception when it comes to BDS activism. The Jews who support Palestinian terrorism are much like the LGBTQ people who support them. They usually live in Brooklyn, do not observe any religious practices or principles in general, but will be the first to exploit an ethnic group to achieve their political means of power. They also don’t use much solid logic and simply repeat the sources they trust, or make it fit their preconceived narrative in which republicans are always the enemy. Even when the left starts to turn on them, some will sadly just say to themselves, “I guess I’m the oppressor, then.” In the U.S., at least, the Establishment now considers Jews synonymous with other white people. Which, physically most of us are, but it’s an excuse for the left to account for the fact that they’re losing our support. Our admission to universities used to be limited due to anti-Semitism, and now it’s limited due to affirmative action. If the war in Ukraine wasn’t a money machine for certain politicians, no one would give a shit that Zelenskyy is Jewish. Most on the left have either never heard of George Soros, or they only consume media that presents him as “some guy” who the right uses for conspiracy theories. But if you’re Lee Zeldin, a Jewish republican running for New York Governor, the left will even go so far as calling you an anti-Semitic fascist.

Never underestimate the power of mass media in creating a narrative. The internet still hasn’t completely replaced television in terms of influence. A chunk of Americans still trusts certain institutions and bases their opinions on emotions rather than facts. Many people still have a cable plan and landline phone. So even a cheesy attack ad saying a Jewish guy is the next Hitler will convince at least a handful of viewers. I think Gen-Xers and younger generations have a different understanding of where power comes from, and it’s becoming much more decentralized. So it’s only a matter of when, not if, the West starts prioritizing one’s actions over his words or media optics. Bullshitters will be called out much more quickly and effectively in the coming years.

There does tend to be less mixing of religion with politics in less liberal regions, or in red states. I alluded to that when I mentioned Pittsburgh and Florida Jews.

The Jews who support anti-Semitic or just plain evil policies, but still claim to stand for Jews, have never spent much time thinking about theology. They are just using whatever tool they can to promote victimhood and gain cheap power. It’s virtue signaling for themselves. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is a great example of this. They are desperate for relevance and clout, so they scream anti-Semitism if the deli runs out of knishes. They also recently had some campaign acknowledging “Jews of color” so they could divide people on an even more granular level.

Basically, if people stopped obsessing over their identity groups and those of others, they could start thinking for themselves, and just do and believe whatever makes the most sense to them as an individual.

Fuck off Snag. Go kvetch somewhere else.