Editorial

Jewish Double Standards Department

A consistent theme of Jewish behavior is its lack of principle. That is, there is a long list of behaviors in which Jews exhibit double standards. In the contemporary world, this is most obvious with respect to Israel — a point that has been noted in these pages several times. This fits well with the general clichè that for Jews policies are evaluated according to whether they are "Good for the Jews" rather than whether they conform to moral principle. As Alison Weir notes in the following Op-Ed, what is good for the Jews in Israel is quite different from what is good for Jews in the U.S., and therefore Jews have quite different values in the  two countries.

She also discusses the fact that Israel does not have a constitution. It's really the same point: Constitutions, like moral principles, limit flexibility in the pursuit of interest. However, if a constitution is in place, as in the United States, the strategy is to mold it so that it conforms to Jewish interests.  For example, it is well known that Jewish activists have successfully altered the standard interpretation of the U.S. Constitution to conform to Jewish interests in Church-State relations.

What Our Taxes to Israel are Funding

April 4, 2008

While US media almost never report this, the fact is that their religions are routinely disparaged, their economic situation is far inferior, their children are taught in school that Jewish culture is superior to all others, and periodically there are outright attacks on their institutions and texts -- in 1980 hundreds of copies of the New Testament were publicly and ceremonially burnt in Jerusalem under the auspices of a Jewish organization subsidized by the Israeli Ministry of Religions. Today, thousands of Muslims and Christians under Israeli occupation are prevented from worshiping in their holiest churches and mosques.

I am continually astounded at the stance of people such as Rabbi Hurvitz, who support Israeli discriminatory practices. It seems to me that either one is against discrimination based on race, religion, and ethnicity, or one is not. It seems a bit hypocritical – or at least to reveal that one's behavior is governed by interest rather than principle – to be for such practices when one benefits, and against them when one does not.

It seems that when Rabbi Hurvitz is a member of a minority (Jewish Americans constitute approximately two percent of the American population) he applauds a secular state in which the majority religion relinquishes its traditional symbols and culture in the name of freedom of religion. When he is a member of the majority, on the other hand, he advocates a state where a religious symbol is on the very flag itself, and where individuals must carry ID cards denoting their religious background.

Second, it is odd that Rabbi Hurvitz brings up the Constitution, given that Israel itself has deliberately chosen not to adopt one – a far cry from the US system, in which fundamental principles and rights were codified at the very beginning of our national existence and can only be modified through a long and tedious process of public involvement. [more]