Saturday, May 26, 2007
JEWISH TRIBAL REVIEW
A commenter in another thread has objected to my use of the Jewish Tribal Review website as a source. In an effort to investigate his objections, I've explored the website in further detail.
Jewish Tribal Review is the work of "Israel Shahak, Israel Shamir, Alfred Lilienthal, John Sack, Norman Finkelstein, and a few others of Jewish heritage" according to their website. It began as a book titled WHEN VICTIMS RULE. A CRITIQUE OF JEWISH PRE-EMINENCE IN AMERICA, but the authors quickly discovered they could not find a publisher for anything critical of Judaism. Thus the website was born. Their guiding theme is "Criticism of the powerful is not immoral. It is a necessary part of any truly open society" according to another webpage in their website.
They address anti-Semitism here and here. At the first link there are many quotes from Jewish sources that are critical of the jump to "anti-Semitism" whenever something negative is said about a Jew. The authors make this comment:
The notion that Jews, scattered throughout the world, are collectively victims at the hands of all others [i.e., today categorized as "anti-Semitism"), is a conceptual framework, originally religiously based, that actually precedes authentic history and is self-fulfilling. The foundation to understand the Jewish victim complex can be found in their Torah (the Old Testament), for example in Deuteronomy 28. What is today called anti-Semitism was originally conceived as God's punishment of the Jewish people:
"And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from one end of
the earth unto the other ... And among these nations shalt thou find
no ease, neither shall the sole of they foot have rest: But the Lord
shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow
of mind. And they life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt
fear day and night and have none assurance of thy life ... and thou
shalt be only oppressed and crushed always."
A quote given in the website makes an interesting point:
"Fighting anti-Semitism seems to be for some Jews more
important than any other expression of Jewishness ... The
danger appears when one becomes dependent upon them for
one's identity, so that one begins to need anti-Semitism."
Stanislaw Krajewski,
(Polish Jew)
It is a perspective guaranteed to surprise coming from Jewish sources as it is. It happens to be a perspective I think deserves a hearing, especially given the massive effort that has gone into this website.
Truth is not anti-Semitic. If anyone can show me that these authors are not telling the truth, please do so. If, on the other hand, your sensitivities are offended because I am interested in what is written at the website and am blogging on it, please save your efforts at making ad hominem comments because I will delete them. I expect to return to this website periodically.
