Why Are Jews Liberal? Are They?
Norman Podhoretz has just published a book titled Why Are Jews Liberals?
. No, I haven't read it - it just came out last week, and I only have 342 books ahead of it on my list, and I'm not certain I'll get to it at all.
Tablet, however, the newish American-Jewish magazine, asked a gaggle of American Jewish intellectuals to write up their thoughts on the matter, which they obligingly did, here, each according to their lights. It's an interesting discussion. (And bear in mind, all yee non-American provincials, that the term is being used in its American meaning which is the opposite of its older, British and European meaning).
I was tickled that none of the writers simply came out and said: Jews are liberals because that's what right-thinking people should be, and how could they be anything else? Had anyone asked me to write, in a short paragraph, why a majority of Jews are Zionists, I might have said Because that's what right-thinking Jews must be, and how could they be anything else?
Still, there's a serious point here, and that's that what American Jews are and what non-American Jews are is not obviously the same. A large majority of American Jews really are liberals, and it will be interesting to see what happens if and when they ever have to reconcile that with support for an Israel many liberals no-longer like; one fears some may prefer the American issue, not the Jewish one.
As usual with blogging, I can get away with taking this serious discussion no further, for lack of time or inclination. Were I writing for a respectable journal, the editor would send me scurrying back to my quill and parchment to keep on working.
. No, I haven't read it - it just came out last week, and I only have 342 books ahead of it on my list, and I'm not certain I'll get to it at all.Tablet, however, the newish American-Jewish magazine, asked a gaggle of American Jewish intellectuals to write up their thoughts on the matter, which they obligingly did, here, each according to their lights. It's an interesting discussion. (And bear in mind, all yee non-American provincials, that the term is being used in its American meaning which is the opposite of its older, British and European meaning).
I was tickled that none of the writers simply came out and said: Jews are liberals because that's what right-thinking people should be, and how could they be anything else? Had anyone asked me to write, in a short paragraph, why a majority of Jews are Zionists, I might have said Because that's what right-thinking Jews must be, and how could they be anything else?
Still, there's a serious point here, and that's that what American Jews are and what non-American Jews are is not obviously the same. A large majority of American Jews really are liberals, and it will be interesting to see what happens if and when they ever have to reconcile that with support for an Israel many liberals no-longer like; one fears some may prefer the American issue, not the Jewish one.
As usual with blogging, I can get away with taking this serious discussion no further, for lack of time or inclination. Were I writing for a respectable journal, the editor would send me scurrying back to my quill and parchment to keep on working.
Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
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