Why liberal American Jews demonize conservative Christians

Concerning the recent insane attacks on conservative Christians by Abraham Foxman of the ADL and Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union of Reformed Rabbis, a correspondent has come up with an interesting explanation:

I think I figured out something important about Jews over the weekend:

The real root of their anti-gentilism isn’t the Talmud, it isn’t sociobiology, it isn’t Zionism, it isn’t neoconservatism, it isn’t Marxism, it isn’t hatred of whites, it isn’t a conspiracy, and it isn’t revenge for the Cossacks or the Greenwich Country Club.

It’s a tool to preserve group solidarity.

If Jews tell each other gentiles are nasty, this gives Jews good reason to stick together. If they tell each other gentiles are nice, Jews might wander off, go be friends with the gentiles, and lose interest in sticking with their own kind.

This explains a number of otherwise-puzzling phenomena:

1. Why seriously religious Jews, and actual Israelis, are generally less anti-gentile than whitebread American liberal Jews like Foxman. Why? Because they have serious religion, or nationality, to prop up their group solidarity, so they don’t feel the need to depict gentiles as nasty to do it.

2. Why Jews in the U.S. and Europe have gotten more anti-gentile since WWII, just as the surrounding societies were getting less anti-Semitic. Why? Because the gentiles, by making themselves more friendly, made themselves more seductive, and thus more threatening to group solidarity.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 07, 2005 10:52 AM | Send