Brandeis

I'm a graduate of Brandeis University. Class of 1960. I met my wife there and one of our sons also attended and met his wife there. I got a fine education and, overall, had a very good experience there. When I started the school was less than a decade old. It had been founded after the Shoah and one of its important purposes was to take in Jews, who had long faced quotas and additional barriers to admission at other academic institutions. Face it, no one wanted Jews. Some places accepted them without putting obstacles in their way, but that was not because they were enamored of Jews or objected to the practice of other schools. They just wanted the best students they could get, and that often led to a disproportionate number of Jews. More than would be anticipated based on numbers alone. Quality was the deciding criterion, not quantity.

Not Brandeis though. It was founded with the recognition of a mission. It was a setting where Jews were not only welcome, but which specifically made conditions comfortable for them. It was a school which, in addition to being among the best in the country, provided for the gustatorial and spiritual needs of Jewish students – not by exclusivity: its three chapels attested to its openness to non-Jews. It was a superior school that recognized both the historic bias against its people, an a historic future for that people – a future in which it would play a part.

I went because it was Jewish, favoring it over MIT, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell, having been admitted to all of them. I wasn't among the most religious there, but I wanted to be part of a principled effort to bring my people into the world community. I was proud, and I encouraged and welcomed others to a principled and defiant place, where all people and all ideas were appreciated.

But times have changed.

I am no longer proud of my alma mater. I no longer encourage others to send their children there. The school had fostered liberalism, but in recent years liberalism has metamorphosed into fad, fashion, protest, and anti-semitism. It has become the mouthpiece for dissenting minority groups, and has taken the position of providing support for them irrespective of the justification for that support. And it espouses the position that any ideas which don't echo its ideology are wrong.

In the academic world this leads to the substitution of subjectivity for objectivity in classes and discussions, and the indoctrination of students into a political philosophy. Even if the school does not itself promote this behavior, acquiescence to the spreading of such a gospel – the cowardice of a wish to be like the institutions it emulates – is an encouragement to faculty and students who loudly advocate these actions. And the more virulent the protests by individuals and groups, the more likely that the next cohort of impressionable youth will uncritically accept the most popular philosophy.

Brandeis has assimilated. It has assimilated much like the less religious Jews of the last century, and now this one. The school seems to have a wish to emulate the Ivy League schools that it was founded to make up for. It has adopted the fashions and practices of those institutions in an effort to be seen as one of them and earn their reflected prestige. Along the way it has flirted with, and frequently adopted, such practices as (among many others) the silencing of unpopular opinion, support of popular causes even when they contradict the principles on which the school is based, "diversity" and affirmative action – intended to have a student population more reflective of America (or overrepresented by minorities) whatever the academic cost, non-kosher food so that new students can enjoy the foods they are used to, and advocacy for causes like BDS and Palestinian "rights" despite the fact that they and their students have no knowledge of the facts related to these issues, only the propaganda.

It is current practice to demean those with whom you disagree: to rename sites named in their honor or in gratitude for their contributions and to destroy anything favorable to them, like what is written and what is displayed. Monuments are defaced, destroyed, covered, or removed if they affect the "sensitivity" of some viewing the lives they represent out of the context of their times. Most recently that has resulted in demands to remove statues of Christopher Columbus among others from public view. And many of our major academic centers – including some admired by Brandeis – have taken such steps. Louis Brandeis was Zionistic, but there are many, especially liberals, who view Zionism unfavorably. They are sensitive to the plight of those who, even if they arrived and squatted in "Palestine" after Jews resettled the land in which they have lived for thousands of years, claim the land for their own.

But Brandeis was a Zionist. If sensitivity is adequate justification for protests and a denial of history, it would be logical to change the name of the university and remove his statue from the campus. At the current time the students might even celebrate its renaming as Linda Mansour University in view of her courageous denunciation of Zionists.

There is no denying the excellence of much of the education provided by Brandeis, but much of the education they receive is tainted by the political stances of some of the faculty and students, and the administration's failure to require the honoring of the principles for which the school was founded. And the failure to reassert their own authority over those on the campus – students, faculty, and visitors. Right now Brandeis is disappearing into the fashionable mass of expensive academic centers that cater to the whims of those who pay the bills, and those who instigate them.

It's not the school it used to be. It's not the school I went to.

Look At Me – I'm A Liberal

“I'll be all in clover,

And when they look you over,

I'll be the proudest fellow

In the Easter Parade.”ⁱ

Irving Berlin was a sexist. He also wrote:

“The girl that I marry will have to be

As soft and as pink as a nursery.

The girl I call my own

Will wear satin and laces and smell of cologne.”ⁱⁱ

His view of women obviously was that they were people who were created to give pride to men, and to be the “soft” and “pink” possessions you could find in a nursery.

That perspective, though, was not unique. In the Book of Esther, King Achashverosh wished to parade his wife, Vashti, in front of his guests at a party. Even today it is a common practice for men who can do so to marry and display a “trophy wife.”

But if men have always whistled at beautiful women, women have cherished that attention and eagerly participated in beauty contests and pageants, vying with each other to establish superiority among those who dare to consider themselves peers or betters. And the status of wife and mother are still sought by the majority of women. Whether that preference is inborn or the result of our culture is not the point. What is more significant is that Berlin's views were the predominant ones – at least until recent years. He was saying in a poetic way what almost everyone believed.

Nowadays there is a totally different view of sex. (I'll pursue this issue further in a future essay.)  What used to be a private affair, both in terms of people and practices, is now flaunted in the media. Free sex is good.ⁱⁱⁱ LGBTQ organizations and their members are the darlings of the courts and of the press, and failure to laud and to respond positively to the demands of those once viewed as displaying deviant behavior is evidence of prejudice. Not surprisingly, there are many who eat it up. They may loudly proclaim their own conventional sexuality, but applaud those with appetites different from theirs. They kvell^iv at each report of someone “coming out of the closet” and praise his (or her) courage for doing so publicly. They shep naches.^v They feel his pain. The Constitution may not have recognized this group of oppressed people, but they do. They are sensitive to the feelings of those who are in distress, and they want the world to know it.

They're also so understanding of the feelings of others that they identify with those having with gender dysphoria.^vi From their perspective, anyone who doesn't see things their way is displaying evidence of prejudice.^vii There is no room for difference of opinion; they are sensitive and understanding, and those who see things differently are biased. With the granting to school children with gender dysphoria of the “right” to use the bathroom of their choice,^viii notwithstanding the feelings of those already using them, the courts are giving, to the confused, “rights” which take precedence over those of people who are certain,^ix and whoever disagrees with that approach is reactionary and insensitive. He (or she) is probably a religious zealot – a fundamentalist or some other form of hypocrite. He certainly has no concern about the views or feelings of others – only his own. After all, the dysphoric's defender is open-minded, as opposed to someone who thinks differently.

“Look at me.” Advertising their virtue is all they have to do. Once everyone else is aware of their bravery they can move on to another windmill.

For example, there is another situation in which some people seem to place their own feelings and views above those of others, though they claim the opposite and take pride in flaunting it. They make a point of adopting children who are not of their own race. At times they will adopt several children of different races. And at times they do so even though they are fertile and could have children of their own.

There are two messages^x that their actions declare: first that while others simply don't care, they are concerned over the sad fate of children who are not being reared by their own parents, and they are generous, brave, and sensitive to the needs of those children; and second, they are above making distinctions between people based on race or ethnicity. Indeed, they choose to advertise that disdain by a public act. They select the children they adopt because of their race, something which everyone else must notice.^xi It's a brave act and they are making a statement.

However they may see themselves, though, and whatever message they want to express about their views, they do not seem to take into consideration the feelings of the child, who will be reared by those parents and who will have to introduce them to his friends of all races. It will be obvious to him, and to them, that they are “other,” that he's adopted. And however they may try, they will not be able to teach him the customs and the heritage of his own race and those of his birth parents. His loyalties will forever be split, and he will live neither in the world of those who bore him nor those who reared him.^xii But the parent will have demonstrated to the world that he cares. As William Voegeli^xiii noted in The Case Against Liberal Compassion,^xiv “ … liberals care about helping much less than they care about caring.” He also notes,^xv “If you’re trying to prove your heart is in the right place, it isn’t.”

That's the problem. The details of the cases I described are very different,^xvi but in these instances someone was trying to show the world that he cared about the suffering of others and proudly he did his part to right the wrong. His heart was in the right place. But of course he was more interested in displaying his own sensitivity than looking for the best solution to the problem – especially if that way his own moral excellence would not be appreciated by all.

Our concerns and our culture have changed since Irving Berlin's day, and we are quick to criticize our predecessors' lack of sensitivity as we brag about our own. But what we're really doing is advertising ourselves as the purveyors of the current culture as we denigrate the culture of the past. And as we ignore the fact that our descendents will criticize our society and us for all our “isms.”

Next episode: “They The People” – It's time for a change? Well, yes and no.

I        From “As Thousands Cheer,” 1935.

ii       “Annie Get Your Gun,” 1946.

iii      Although women who charge for it are the victims of men.

iv       Boast, take pride, gloat. According to the OED this is US slang. I learned it as a Yiddish expression which focused more specifically on taking pride.

v        Another Yiddish expression. It's similar in meaning to kvell. However you usually shep naches over the accomplishments of a family member (usually a child) and bask in the reflected glory.

vi       Presumably if you “Enjoy Being a Girl” (“Flower Drum Song,” 1958) you have gender euphoria.

           Unless you're a boy.

vii      From their perspective G-d got it wrong, and they are obliged to set things right.

viii    See http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2014/01/31/22520422-bathroom-ban-violated-transgender-students-rights-court

ix       Actually a girl doesn't have a specific right to use the Girls' Room nor a boy the Boys' Room, so there's no competition of rights. How that child or his parents feel is a secondary issue.

x        Three if they're fertile. They also show that they're concerned about overpopulation, and would prefer to adopt children already here than bring any more into being. (Incidentally, homosexual unions are a good way to limit population growth. Perhaps that's why they support them.  More on that subject in a few weeks.)

xi       Actually they do make distinctions between people based on their race or ethnicity. Their affirmative action in child selection is evidence of that.

xii      Perhaps his rejection by members of both races is an indictment of our society, but it is a reflection of the reality of the life we live. There is prejudice among all groups, and ignoring it puts those we love at risk. The same difficulty exists for the children of intermarried couples who also face prejudice and identity problems.

xiii     Senior Editor, Claremont Review of Books.

xiv      “Imprimis,” Volume 23, Number 10, October, 2014.

xv       Citing Philosophy Professor David Schmidtz

xvi     They're just two random points in the long spectrum of advocacy for the oppressed. Many others could have been cited and it's likely the reader is aware of some. But in these and in others, the guilt-ridden have no higher priority than standing up for what is politically correct. They care.

Dina

 

It's counterintuitive to think that members of one religion might write the rules for another, but that's just what happens in Judaism. Not that Jews write laws for non-Jews,ⁱ but they obey those formulated by others – invariably non-Jews. And it's been going on for a long time. Some semblance of the law probably dates back to the time of Samuel,ⁱⁱ and it has become common practice to pray for the nation and government under which the the Jewish community lives, and to accept the law of the land.

The basic principle is dina d'malchuta dina, “the law of the land is the law.”ⁱⁱⁱ And whether the source is halakha^iv or minhag,^v we are bound by it. According to Nehemiah,^vi “Thou has set [foreign kings] over us because of our sins; … they have power over our bodies, and over our cattle, at their pleasure.” This is considered support for the view that, from a halakhic perspective, we must obey the laws of our rulers when we live under a foreign government, and we must support it. More to that point, however, are the words of Jeremiah,^vii “Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”

The key word, for me, is “captive.” There is an assumption that we will continue in a subservient position – one in which others have power over us. It is certainly our assumption. We envy our captors and try to be like them. Our psychology is that of the Stockholm Syndrome, and we identify with the society in which we live, attempting to assimilate into it. But, as the German-Jews learned, that strategy doesn't always work. Nor is it effective where there is a theocracy and the conversions of Jews are either not permitted, or viewed with suspicion. The Conversos^viii found that out in fifteenth century Spain.

So we have adopted other coping strategies which, to one degree or another, are intended to help us survive. One of the more revealing – indicating our feelings of inferiority and vulnerability in the societies in which we live – has been the impulse to seek invisibility and silence when we are faced with situations about which we may actually have passionate feelings. We don't advertise them. After all, “What will the goyim think? It's not so much that we care what they think. We know what that is. Antisemitism has been around for two thousand years so the message isn't particularly secret. But our main goal is that they don't think about us at all. So we try not to be noticed.^ix

In fact, we have developed the principle of maris ayin, “the view of the eye,”^x and we avoid whatever someone else may consider a negative action. We have even indulged in self-censorship so that we will not leave evidence of some idea that might be used against us – statements, for example, of what we view as the superiority of Judaism over other religions. In centuries past, our literature was scrutinized for such statements by non-Jews^xi and we were forced to remove those statements. So we often prepared our texts for such investigation by “cleaning them up” ourselves.

When we do get adventuresome, when we raise our heads a little, it is to build alliances. We espouse the goals of others and fight on their behalf. We are liberals and we are ready to take up any cause that will help someone else.^xii We are all too often more concerned about others than ourselves.^xiii And to solidify our liberalism and, in the United States, to prove our dedication to preserving the rights of all who may be the victims of prejudice, we lead the fight for social justice, for the ACLU, and for a high wall of separation between church and state, while fighting any attacks on our rights^xiv and principles such as those in the Patriot Act, tax breaks for the rich and, unfortunately, Israel. The last of these efforts – our refutation of Israel – not only disproves the idea of dual loyalty, but demonstrates our dedication to the underprivileged – in this case the oppressed Palestinians.^xv The Jews of Germany were more German than their countrymen, and we are more liberal and understanding than anyone else. So we wind up too often the leaders of efforts which result in the strengthening of terrorists, and of actions to ban attempts to provide improved security – all in the name of liberalism and justice.^xvi

The zeal to end particularism and promote “equality” and “universality,” however, is, in effect, a zeal to put an end to Judaism. What might have been one of the world's largest religions is among the smallest. Indeed, we view ourselves – and are viewed by others – as a small minority.^xvii That paradox is one of the factors that has kept Judaism alive for millennia. (Some see theological explanations as specious, so they will be omitted at this time.) The remnant who remained were passionate about maintaining the faith or their ancestors – if only to spite the non-Jews. They had been promised they would be as unmerous as the stars in the heavens, but like the stars in the heavens, the vast majority could not be seen – especially in the light of day. 

But that is not the end of the story, and it is we cannot let our successes blind us to the dangers around us. After Haman was hanged his edict remained. There was a possibility that he would achieve his end even after death. Similarly Hitler may triumph posthumously if assimilation completes the Holocaust's work. So despite internal forces aimed at keeping Judaism alive, there are extensive pressures to eliminate Israel and to take the religion out of Jewishness. Jews are tolerable only as a nation, no better than anyone else. For as a nation they can be eliminated without any taint of religious persecution.

Hillel said, “If I am only for myself, what am I?” And that is the Judaism of most Jews, as well as the byword of most non-Jews. It's fine if the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob devote themselves to concern for others as long as they are not deluded into thinking that Judaism and Israel have any inherent value. So the thinking goes.

But before that, Hillel said “If I am not for myself, who will be?” And after that, “If not now, when?” It is incumbent on us to make sure that the assimilationists and the universalists don't triumph. According to the Bible, Judaism is to be “a light to the nations.” We must not let the nations extinguish that light.

Never again. We can write our own rules.

Next episode: “The Council Of Wise Folks” – No. I didn't say wise guys.

i     Although Jews talk about the Noachide laws – laws which we maintain non-Jews are obligated to follow – it is our belief that these were instituted by Hashem (G-D), not by the Jews themselves.

ii     About 3500 years ago.

iii    There are exceptions, however, for situations in which secular law is in direct conflict with religious law and in some other instances, but since most secular laws like the payment of taxes, or injunctions against jaywalking and speeding for example, don't involve such issues, we are obliged to follow them. Not that everyone does.

iv     Jewish religious law.

v     Custom.

vi     Translation in Soncino Press edition. Nehemiah 9:37.

vii    Also Soncino translation. Jeremiah, 29:7.

viii    “Conversos” (“the converted”) is preferable to “Marranos,” but the latter is more more frequently seen. It means “swine.” Anusim, “the coerced,” is also sometimes used.

ix     Interestingly, the view that “silence is golden” is sometimes carried to extremes. And very well. The two most famous mimes of the twentieth century, Marcel Marceau and Harpo Marx, were both Jewish.

x     That's what it means literally, but it refers to what is seen – even if it is completely permissible in Jewish or secular law – that might be misinterpreted by someone else (even someone Jewish) to our detriment. Consequently we are to avoid any action that may be misunderstood.

xi      Often former Jews seeking to justify their own apostasy.

xii     It cannot be denied, of course, that when we stand up for someone else we are also standing up for ourselves. Our defense of the rights of other minorities can be translated into a defense of our own people. As can our concern for a separation of church and state. It may be expressed as advocacy of Seventh Day Adventists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or Mormons, but it is also self-justification and protection. Sadly, many will not do for their fellow Jews what they do for others. Their view is that if there were a G-D, He would help those who help others.

xiii    The basic assumption is that they're right and we're wrong.

xiv    “Profiling,” which is such a powerful and useful tool for self-protection, especially in Israel, is viewed as discriminatory and rejected. It's better to be sorry than safe.

xv      We ignore the oppression of the Palestinians by their own people and blame all their problems on the Israelis.

xvi     Sadly, some of the most vicious antisemites are Jewish. Their determination to help others is accompanied by a similar determination to denigrate their fellow Jews.

xvii   The Jewish concepts of definition of “Jewishness” by the religion of the mother, and of the permanence of that Jewishness, irrespective of the practices of the mother, mean that since Abraham's time the number of Jews has increased geometrically. Most converted either voluntarily or involuntarily and very few, today, identify themselves as Jews even though there must be a very large number of people who fulfill the definition set by religious law.