Confessions of a Deracinated East European Jew

Why does the world hate Jews? Well, that may be a little overstated. Surely, they don’t hate all Jews. And let’s face it, some Jews deserve a little hate: think Meyer Lansky, Bernie Madoff, and Stephen Miller.

The hatred seems to come from two sources: anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. These are different, albeit related, phenomena.  Anti-Judaism is religious in nature, going back to the way we supposedly dissed the Nazarene. It's also eminently curable. As any of those very helpful Jews for Jesus will tell you, one quick dunk in a Christian mikvah and all is forgiven.

Alas, there’s no analogous way out for anti-Semitism, which is racial. You may remember those very fine Unite the Right marchers chanting “Blood and Soil!” and “Jews will not replace us!” I’m not sure we can do anything to get right with that crew. It’s reminiscent of the “one-drop rule” that was used to prop up white supremacy.

In “Constantine’s Sword”, James Carrol documents the Church’s role in propagating anti-Judaism over the centuries. Carrol, a former Catholic priest, points to 15th century Spain as the birthplace of racial hatred of Jews. But fun fact: the term “anti-Semitism” wasn’t coined until 1879 when Wilhelm Marr founded the Antisemites League and published a book called “Victory of Jewry over Germandom.” He seems to have thought of anti-Semitism as a badge of honor.

It’s not surprising that Jew-hating gentiles can’t settle on one reason for hating Jews; maybe any reason will do. For what it’s worth, we Jews are also ambivalent about whether we are bound together by blood or religion.

For starters, what’s the easiest way to become a Jew? Obviously, via a connection by umbilical cord to a Jewish woman, although I’m not sure how halacha deals with IVF and donor eggs. And if you can trace your paternal blood line back to Levi, you’re entitled to pride of place when called to the Torah. Even better, if you’re a Kohane, you can make the Vulcan salute while everyone else in the congregation hides his face in his tallis.

But obviously, blood isn’t everything. Being Jewish is also a religious identity with specific beliefs. There is a process for conversion involving study and a commitment to the law. Oh, and circumcision is required, which brings us back to blood. And, according to the Torah, there are some groups that are never to be welcomed into our community, so, once again, blood.

Years ago, I read a small ad on the front page of the New York Times. It was placed by the Satmar Chassidim and started with the usual disclaimer that anyone who doubts a single letter of the written or oral law forfeits his share in the world to come. Then, it launches into a virulent anti-Zionist screed that made my eyes burn. What I remember most, but not the exact words, was something about gentiles of Jewish extraction behind the abomination of the State of Israel. I suppose that blood isn’t everything for them either, umbilical cords notwithstanding.

One thing some gentiles found particularly insulting was that Jews wouldn’t go into their houses to eat, or even drink wine poured by them, lest they sneak one of their gentile benedictions over the libation. But hosts are frequently called upon to accommodate requirements such as egg allergies or salt restricted diets. Sure, kashrut is harder, but it can be done. When the Lubavitcher Chassidim started their meat packing business in Iowa, some of their children made friends with the locals. When they went over for playdates, the hosts were careful to provide paper plates, paper cups, and unopened boxes of OU certified cookies and crackers. Of course, a family favorite like pig knuckles or rabbit stew is a little trickier, but I understand that the rabbis are pondering lab-grown meat, so watch this space.

Some gentiles find Judaism to be to clannish and inner focused, but at least they don’t have to fuss about eating chicken parm. Yes, some of our laws seem to lack universality, but these invariably apply to relations within the Jewish nation. We’re not alone in that. For example, the United States has selective service laws that require American men of a certain age to register for the draft. So if you’re from New Zealand, you’re off the hook.

If you’re really interested in universality, I found this in Siddur Sim Shalom, based on GITTIN 61a with TOSEFTA GITTIN 3.18:

“The Rabbis taught: One supports the poor of the gentiles as one does the poor of Israel; one visits the sick among the gentiles as one does the sick in Israel; one mourns and buries the dead of the gentiles as one does the dead of Israel; one comforts the mourners among the gentiles as one does those in Israel – for the sake of peace.”

I love that: we do things for Jews because of the Torah, and the same things for gentiles on account of the rabbis. Just as there can be more than one reason to hate, there can be more than one reason to perform acts of lovingkindness.

I just finished reading “Border Lines” by Daniel Boyarin. I’m going to cut myself some slack and say I understood about a third of it. He uses a lot of big words. Nevertheless, I was able to follow his thinking and found it compelling. For example, he compares the Jerusalem Talmud to the Babylonian Talmud. The rabbis of the Yerushalmi were all about solving problems. The rabbis of the Bavli were interested in recording discussion and elevated the notion of Jews arguing with Jews to the highest form of service to Hashem. I may be oversimplifying a bit, but it sure explains a lot.

Boyarin also touched on the esoteric concept of “first cause”, just like we did here a few weeks ago. And boy, did he ever use a lot of big words. But also some smaller ones, like Logos, Memra, and Sophia. He eventually landed on the rabbis declaring the notion of “Two powers in heaven” as absolute heresy which no orthodox Jew should ever contemplate.

And here we get to the central focus of his book. Neither Jews nor Christians had any notion of heresy or orthodoxy until the fourth century of the common era. The original meaning of heresy pertained to the beliefs and practices that different groups had. Now, heresies are considered out of bounds from whatever orthodoxy they deviate. Back then, heresies abounded, and evidently it wasn’t that big a deal. For example, Josephus was a Pharisee, and he described  spending time with the Essenes. This might be a little anachronistic, but he made it sound like attending a Shabbaton with Chabad.

According to Boyarin, orthodoxy was a way to draw a border between Christians and Jews. Until then, there was no concept of a religious identity based on beliefs. For the most part, folks just followed the local gods. True, there was already a sizeable diaspora population of Jews who worshipped Hashem, but even that was more of an ethnic thing.

Then along comes the Nicene Council, pushing out Arianism and Marcionism, leaving the Catholics as the dominant Christian group. At the same time, Rabbinic Judaism established its own hegemony, suppressing Hellenistic Judaism and various flavors of “para rabbinic” Judaism.

And so religion was born. Except the rabbis never accepted the notion of religion. Boyarin leaves me confused. Like I said, I could only follow about a third of his book.

But this is all a head fake. I’d rather focus on a different question: why do Jews hate other Jews? And that too may be a little overstated. This might be better: why do Jews avoid other Jews?

Leaving aside notions like theology and ideology, a lot of this is generational.  For instance, take my son, you know, the one who works for NASA. I can’t tell you how many times he’s pulled his hoodie over his face and screamed: “Boomer! Could you possibly be more embarrassing?”

As a further example, my mother, she should rest in peace, was born in this country but was well acquainted with her parents’ generation. The worst insult one immigrant could hurl at another was greenhorn. That meant someone fresh off the boat who had not acclimated to the new surroundings. And one of the biggest tells was eating boiled potatoes.  You’re in the home of the brave now, and here it’s nothing but French fries. Unless we’re mad at France, in which case it’s freedom fries.

How would I do in a room with my 18th and 19th century ancestors? Our blood is East European Ashkenazic, which is nothing at all like Central European Ashkenazic blood. But I’m second generation American. Even if my ten words of Yiddish were miraculously expanded into fluency, our experiences would be too different to establish any kind of understanding. Still, we’re all Jews, and sharing a religion must give us some place to start.

Has it always been this way? Let’s go back to Ezra-Nehemiah, which sadly get less attention than other books of the Tanach. When the exiles returned to Jerusalem and wanted to rebuild the temple, they were approached by some locals who wanted to help. These were descendants of lower-class Israelites who had not been exiled and intermarried with groups transplanted into the land by the conquerors. The returnees took one look at these half breeds and decided that their yichus wasn’t up to snuff. This might be the wokeness in me talking, but there must have been some better way to deal with this than just blowing them off.  And it led to centuries of conflict with the Samaritans.

But life went on. Later, some of the full-blooded Israelites took local wives.  This upset the powers-that-be, who ordered the miscreants to abandon their families or be cut off from the community. Maybe this is just because I have a gentile wife myself, but this is far worse than the business with the Samaritans. I hardly know where to start with this one. Let me just say that my son’s mother has a better Jewish heart than anybody I know.

Now, forward to the rabbinic period. I got this from Artscroll:

“Ze’iri II was a student of Rav and Rav Kahana in Babylonia. He later went to Eretz Yisrael where he studied under the elderly R’Chanina (Rebbi’s student and successor as Rosh Yeshivah in Tzippori) and often quotes his teachings. Afterward, he became a primary disciple of R’Yochanan (who led the yeshiva in Tiberias). R’Yochanan held Ze’iri in such great esteem that he wished for Ze’iri to marry his daughter. Ze’iri, however did not want to marry her (since he was from Babylonia, where the Jews were considered to have purer lineage than the Jews of Eretz Yisrael). When R’Yochanan pursued the matter Ze’iri took to avoiding his teacher. One day they met on the road and when they came to a large pool of water, Ze’iri lifted R’Yochanan onto his shoulders and carried him across the pool. R’Yochanan exclaimed, ‘Our Torah is fit for you, but our daughters are not fit for you!?’ However, the Talmud defends Ze’iri’s refusal (Kiddushin 71b).”

I wrote into Artscroll asking about this, and got a friendly response:

“There was no actual question about the lineage, it was just that, at that point in time the lineage of those from Babylonia was considered fully investigated and thus more established.”

Which is fine. But I’m still left with the impression that R’Yochanan’s blood was not blue enough, or whatever metaphor was current at the time.

For generations, Jews have waited patiently, and sometimes impatiently, for the messiah to come. By tradition, Moshiach will establish peace in the world and rebuild the Temple. For what it’s worth, I don’t expect to see the messiah in my lifetime. But if he can get the various sects of Jews to agree on which one of their Kohanes gets to be the High Priest, then world peace should be a piece of cake.

Even before I became a Bar Mitzvah, I was well versed in the persecution Jews suffered both under Christians and Moslems. There was one aspect of the European experience that I didn’t learn about until much later in life.

To be sure, hostile governments established restrictions and disabilities that kept Jews in poverty and confined to squalid ghettos. Jews did have control over their own affairs, but it seems to me that these communal institutions were at times disinclined to alleviate the misery over which they presided. Indeed, many of the rabbis impeded progress. Ever suspicious of external knowledge, boys were limited to cheder, and  girls didn’t even get that. A century and a half after the Pope excoriated Galileo, the rabbis were still suspicious of Copernicus. And despite evidence that the not so dearly departed were waking up in coffins already in the ground, the rabbis were still insisting on early burial. Perhaps they felt that ignoring modernity would make it go away.

If you were a Jewish square peg that couldn’t fit into a round hole, you were out of luck. It shouldn’t be surprising that so many chose assimilation or even baptism. The Haskalah, also known as the Jewish Enlightenment, urged that secular studies be taught along with religious studies, but they were rebuffed, facing ostracization or even excommunication.

Emancipation did come to the Jews of Europe, albeit in fits and starts. Some of the most progress took place in Germany, where Jews took advantage of educational opportunities, entered professions, and joined in popular culture. No doubt, this is why Wilhelm Marr started propagandizing against the Jews. Germany’s Jews tried to come together to face this challenge. This is from the introduction to Ismar Schorsch’s book “Jewish Reactions to German Anti-Semitism”:

“The major defense organization built by Germany Jewry during the period from 1870 to 1914 was the Centralverein deutscher Staatsburger judischen Glaubens (the Central Union of German Citizens of the Jewish Faith). In retrospect, the Centralverein’s formation in 1893 can be seen to have heralded a turning point in the prolonged ‘identity crisis’ of German Jewry, a crisis brought on and constantly aggravated by the battle for full emancipation which spanned the first three quarters of the century. This bitter struggle decisively affected the self-esteem and self-image of the German Jew. He had not failed to grasp the message that his admission into society demanded the suppression of every external trace of Jewishness. To fight anti-Semitism at the end of the century inevitably required a public affirmation of Jewish identity. But a display of Jewishness was precisely what the extended battle for equal rights had conditioned Jews to fear and loathe. Their deep aversion to self-defense epitomized their commitment to abide by the terms of their admission.”

Schorsch goes on to detail the mostly unsuccessful attempts of German Jewry to present a united response to the rising hatred, and toward the end of the book writes:

“Since its founding, the Centralverein had steadfastly pursued a policy of neutrality on all internal issues dividing the Jewish community. It had quickly divested itself of any association with Reform Judaism, and there after it carefully avoided taking sides on purely internal Jewish matters in order not to alienate any sector of German Jewry. The policy expressed the Centralverein’s earnest effort to unite German Jews in the task of self-defense. This position was dramatically discarded in changed in March 1913, when the national convention of the Centralverein adopted an anti-Zionist resolution designed to expel at least one type of German Zionist from its ranks. The resolution reiterated the demand that Centralverein members cultivate a sense of German identity, and it pointedly declared that the Jewish problem could not be solved internationally. As long as Zionists had worked merely to find a homeland for the Jews of Eastern Europe and to fortify the self-respect of German Jewry, the Centralverein had welcomed their membership. ‘But we must separate ourselves from the Zionist who denies any feeling of German nationality, who feels himself a guest among a host people and nationally only a Jew.’”

And then there’s this from “The Rise and Destiny of the German Jew” by Jacob Marcus, written in 1934:

“Questioning the German patriotism of the Central Union, a group of Jews, led by the Bavarian war veteran Max Naumann, created the Society of National German Jews (1920). Politically the adherents of this society are German nationalists of a rather chauvinistic type; they are not interested in Jews beyond the German border and are definitely opposed to the East European migrants. They have even suggested that German Jewish Zionists be disenfranchised.”

So it seems that at least some German Jews blanched at any connection to their less cultured East European cousins.

Joseph Roth was a Jewish author known mostly for his fiction. Among his writings was a short book, “The Wandering Jews”, which was translated into English by Michael Hoffmann.  In the introduction, Hoffmann writes: “In the early 1920s, as a young journalist in Vienna and then in Berlin, Roth wrote numerous articles drawing attention to the awful plight of refugees – Jews and others – in the aftermath of World War One, the Russian Revolution, and the redrawing of national frontiers following the Treaty of Versailles (1919). Hundreds of thousands of people – those lucky ones who hadn’t been butchered already – found themselves unhoused and persecuted, with no option but to take to the road. They sought shelter in cities and towns, where they were despicably unwelcome.”

Hoffmann continues: “‘The Wandering Jews’…describes, as Roth says, the human beings who constitute the ‘Jewish’ problem…and extends, it seems almost to every one of them, a unique sympathy and warmth. (The only exception being the middle-class, assimilated, denying Jews in the West.)”

Roth describes the Eastern European Jews in the West as “people who themselves have little truck with the language, culture, and religion of their forefathers…These Jews no longer live in the ghetto either, nor even in their warm and true traditions. They are deracinated as their assimilated brothers are…Eastern Jews have no home anywhere, but their graves may be found in every cemetery.”

Should such a Jew wind up in Vienna, “His first and most difficult call is on the police. The man behind the counter dislikes Jews in general, and Eastern Jews in particular. He will demand to see papers. Exotic, improbable papers. Papers the like of which are never required from Christian immigrants…The papers have generally been burned. (The registry offices in small towns in Galicia, Lithuania, and Ukraine were continually ablaze.) All the papers have been lost.”

Then: “No Eastern Jew goes to Berlin voluntarily. Who in the world goes to Berlin voluntarily? Berlin is a point of transit…where emigrants come who want to get to America via Hamburg or Amsterdam. This is where they often get stuck. They haven’t enough money. Or their papers are not in order. (Again: papers! Half a Jew’s life is consumed by the futile battle with papers.)”

But it’s not always quite that bad: “The Eastern Jews’ bitter existential struggle against ‘papers’ is less intense in Paris. The police are benignly remiss. They are more responsive to the individual case and to personal circumstances. The German police tend to think in terms of categories. The Parisian policeman is open to persuasion. It is possible to register in Paris without first experiencing three or four rebuffs.”

Towards the end of his life, Roth was living in France and contemplating an expanded version of the book. He died before completing it, but here are some excerpts from the preface he wrote in 1937:

“Many years ago, when I wrote this book, which I now hope to set before the reader in revised form, there was no acute problem affecting the Jews of Western Europe. What mattered then was to persuade the Jews and non-Jews of Western Europe to grasp the tragedy of the Eastern Jews – and especially in the land of unlimited opportunity, by which I mean not America but Germany…Most German Jews regarded themselves, despite an abundance of clearly threatening evidence of anti-Semitism, as perfectly good Germans…Some of them unfortunately gave in to the temptation to blame Jewish immigrants from the East for the expression of anti-Semitic feeling. It is an oft-ignored fact that Jews, too, are capable of anti-Semitism. One does not want to be reminded by some recent arrival from Lodz of one’s own grandfather from Posen or Katowice…It seems now I must defend German Jews against their cousins from Lodz, just as I attempted previously to defend the Lodz cousins against the attacks by the Germans. In a way, the German Jew is even worse off than the Eastern Jew. He has forgotten how to wander, how to suffer, and how to pray…Their passports expire and become invalid. And a human life nowadays hangs from a passport as it once used to hang by the fabled thread.”

And then there’s this from “After They Closed the Gates: Jewish Illegal Immigration to the United States, 1921-1965” by Libby Garland:

“In 1921 and 1924, the United States passed laws to sharply reduce the influx of immigrants into the country. By allocating only small quotas to the nations of southern and eastern Europe, and banning almost all immigration from Asia, the new laws were supposed to stem the tide of foreigners considered especially inferior and dangerous. However, immigrants continued to come, sailing into the port of New York with fake passports, or from Cuba to Florida, hidden in the holds of boats loaded with contraband liquor. Jews, one of the main targets of the quota laws, figured prominently in the new international underworld of illegal immigration. However, they ultimately managed to escape permanent association with the identity of the ‘illegal alien’ in a way that other groups, such as Mexicans, thus far, have not.”

I don’t know who first said this, but the world consisted of two sorts of countries, those where Jews could not live and those that Jews could not enter.

As a Jew, and even as a deracinated Jew, I am horrified at the talk of the upcoming mass deportation. This is a great country, but every so often we face these torrents of bigotry and hatred: the Trail of Tears, the Fugitive Slave Act, the internment of Japanese Americans, and now this.

Our politicians used to rattle on endlessly about this being a land of immigrants, but that seems to have gone out of style. Now, we have the children and grandchildren of immigrants pulling up the ladder so no one else can follow. Or at least, only the right people can follow.

“Well, my people came here legally!” Considering how our ancestors had to skulk about Europe hiding from authorities, and how many Jews snuck into this country, I’m not impressed. When the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, I’m not sure how good their documentation was. But at least they and other Europeans brought smallpox. Look at the Jew nearest you: chances are that Jew’s family are only a few generations away from ancestors who struggled with papers, either here in the United States or abroad.

There’s also a lot of bloviating about a migrant crime wave. Presented with the reality that the undocumented are less likely to be involved in violent crime than legal residents, the response is typically “Their just being here is a crime!” These vulnerable masses, yearning to breathe free, put in long hours for low pay at jobs that no American citizen would think of taking. Kind of like the Jews who flooded into the Lower East Side over a century ago.

Whatever else can be said about them, the Nuremburg Laws were a remarkable hodge podge of confusion. For starters, The “Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor” banned intermarriages and sexual relations between Jews and people “of German or related blood.” That sounds racial to me. But then, who was Jewish? I got this from the website of the United States Holocaust Museum: “According to the Nuremberg Laws, a person with three or four Jewish grandparents was a Jew. A grandparent was considered Jewish if they belonged to the Jewish religious community.” So, not racial? It seems that the Nazis were eclectic in their hate.

The narcistic sociopath who just won the presidential election warned about immigrants poisoning the blood of our country. When challenged that this was the same thing Schicklgruber used to say, he was shocked, shocked that anyone would make that connection. After all, he meant it in a very different way.

I’m reticent about suggesting how all Jews should react to this, but then I remember that the Orange Moses said that any Jew who doesn’t support him should have his head examined. Well, if he can do it, then me too!

Any Jew who hears that bit about poisoning the blood of our country, or vermin infesting the nation, or any other rhetoric from the 1930’s and doesn’t get nauseous and furious should have his soul examined. To paraphrase Pastor Martin Niemöller: “When they came for the migrants, I did not speak out, for I was not a migrant.” Except, it turns out that all Jews are migrants.

When I look back at what I’ve written previously about Rabbi Avigdor Miller, he should rest in peace, I regret that I’ve been a bit snide. To be sure he’s a great foil for some of my heterodox points of view, but I might come across as jaded and a bit sophomoric. I want to start turning that around, so let me share some great advice he once gave.

I only attended services at his shul three times, but it was striking how focused the congregation was on his every utterance as he taught. However, as he moved from one line of text to the next, there was frequently an awkward pause as everyone tried to find the right place in whatever he was espousing. At one point, he exclaimed, with a bit of frustration, that there would be less time wasted if folks would just keep a finger on the page.

I believe I can run with that. The following is from Kedoshim, and specifically, Vayikra 19:34.

“The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt; I the L-rd am your G-d.”

Every Jew should keep a finger on that line. In fact, if the Almighty had held back all the Torah, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and everything else in our tradition and only gave us that one pasuk, then dayenu. It would have been enough.

Now, go and study.