Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Antisemitism is Anti-Rationalism

Frank Furedi has a long and depressing article about the rise of antisemitism and its interconnectedness with Israel. As the good folks at Achse Des Guten note, the article starts out rather poorly, but then gets more serious.

I'm merely indexing for future use. One quick comment, however: to my mind, the fusion of antisemitism with anti-Zionism is a fine thing. (I'm not talking about legitimate criticism of Israel). Zionism is the most important expression of Judaism in something like 1,800 years, and you can't be against it without being against what the Jews are about. Not even if you're Jewish yourself, by the way.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, THAT'S a revealing comment.

According to you, Zionism is a more important "expression of Judaism" than:

- The Talmud
- The Geonic academies
- The Tosafist school
- The Pashtanim
- The Zoharic circle
- The Lurianic Kabbalah
- Hasidism

I call one giant B.S. on that.

Yaacov said...

Well, perhaps I should have said "most important political expression", but now that you've asked, with the exception of the Talmud, yes, Zionism is certainly more important than all the others on your list. I say this advisedly, as someone who loves them all, tho not equally. The Zohar-Lurianic parts, for example, I find less appealing the the earlier ones.

Anonymous said...

I'll take your slight corrections under advisement, although I still marvel at your opinion.

I read your blog because I like your reasonable tone, even though I often wonder at the things you use your reasonable tone to recommend.

To me, Zionism is probably most akin to a Jewish movmement I didn't include on my list -- Sabbateanism. Something that hypnotizes the Jews after they have suffered incredibly and causes them to drive themselves right off a cliff.

That's why, as a logical matter, I can't agree with your point that "you can't be against it without being against what the Jews are about."

Also as a logical matter, for a corollary, I would like to say that this says nothing about the reasons for which most actual anti-Zionists (for example, the Brits you love to hate) are anti-Zionist. For all I know, they just don't like Jews.