We are strangers
We are in a strange situation. Reality has changed in ways we don’t want to admit.
What if we print some views that conflict with yours?
Does it make sense to read only things that you already believe?
No Jew wants to inflict suffering on other people. We all want to improve life on this planet. When people vow that they intend to kill us, and then they do — what’s the appropriate response?
We owe it to ourselves to study history and try to understand what has happened. A recent book that I’ve been looking at — very eye-opening — Benjamin Ginsberg, The New American Anti-Semitism: The Left, the Right, and the Jews.
Another book — We Are Not One, A History of America’s Fight Over Israel By Eric Alterman
If you believe in a “two-state solution,” consider that the Palestinians were given Gaza in 2005. And what kind of a “state” did they create?
Tobin of JNS has a commentary on a piece in the Atlantic that tries to make sense of the betrayal of the liberals:
https://www.jns.org/why-liberals-failed-in-the-fight-against-antisemitism/
He argues that it’s “woke” ideology that has infected and rotted the Western ideals (which, I might add, are based on Jewish principles!).
It’s going to require a hard look at reality, strength, and courage to realize that our “friends” on the “Left” are not friends. They may have been once; we need to find new friends. We need to reevaluate the way we think about living. Maybe Jews, who usually focus on helping others, need to put self-interest first.
What happened to our society’s “standards,” the respect for learning, for thinking — for “decency”? How has our civilization become so degraded? What gave rise to “woke” ideas (not to mention our degenerate entertainment industry), and why are they accepted by so many?
Part of the answer to those questions can be constructed by looking at the history of philosophy in the West, and the way systems of thought have dialectically self-destructed due to internal contradictions and inadequacies.
We can try to re-engage with older modes of belief and practice — the “make America great again” movement seems like that kind of attempt; and in Jewish communities the move by some to embrace Orthodox praxis… but what do people do who have in some way surpassed those modes?
One level of answer: the world will not improve unless individuals improve. The only control I have is over my own being. There can be no peace, no bliss, unless I attain realization. In religious terms, “salvation” is by coming into accord with the will of the creator — which means “I” have to become, as the chassidim say, “bittul,” empty. This state is beyond comprehension by the rational intellect…
— Jim Clevenson
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