HIAS tweets: “HIAS post-it notes at our #JFNAGA booth. We don’t want to take any back with us–come grab yours!”
@HIASrefugees I could get these printed for you less than what you’re paying now @ a printing press using undocumented labor. #JFNAGA
On Thursday I quoted Stephen Steinlight, the redoubtable but lonely patriot who is trying to persuade his fellow Jews that mass immigration—specifically Muslim immigration—is bad for them, Steinlight said:
“What`s happened here is that the entire conservative side of the cultural divide has been demonized as potential extremist terrorists…I`m thinking that one day a group of FBI agents will come to CIS [Center for Immigration Studies, where Steinlight is a senior policy analyst] and want to go through our files.”
These comments were part of two very long and rather discursive interviews on LukeFord.Net.
This website is run by an Australian immigrant of Seventh Day Adventist heritage (and with an unusual career history) who has converted to Orthodox Judaism. Part One is here and Part Two here.
Steinlight was still seething with rage over the HIAS [Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society] attempt to repress him through a secret letter-writing campaign. He had some memorably caustic moments.
There is a very strong case to be made that the attitude of the Jewish community is the single most important element in determining US immigration policy. So a selection of the remarks of this dedicated immigration patriot is prime VDARE.com material. (Hat tip The Kvetcher. For the sake of clarity, paragraphs are reordered slightly and some links added.)
Steinlight says:
“I spend a lot of time in shuls because I speak about immigration to Jews. I spend a lot of Shabboses in shuls. It ended up being part of the job…I find myself amused when I go speak at synagogues, particularly Reform synagogues, when my worst antagonist is invariably the rabbi who will often interrupt what I`m saying and will jump on me and who has only three things to say — we were immigrants, he will tear Leviticus 19:33 totally out of context, and then say that anyone who disagrees with him is a nativist. And then he`s finished because he has nothing else to say.
“Leviticus 19:33: `You shall love the stranger.`… What`s really being said here? What`s the translation? What else does the Torah say? That wasn`t a charter of independence for people dwelling among them. One law for everybody. You better conform to our laws. If you put up idols, we will stone you. If you want to become one of us, you have to undergo circumcision. It`s saying that if you dwell among us, you have to obey our laws….”
(This is a great contribution by Steinlight. As The Kvetcher has noted, this cliché seems to be central in the Jewish thinking—or more properly emoting—about immigration. Like the Statue of Liberty doggerel for Americans generally.)
Steinlight continues:
“I would love to speak to Orthodox congregations. I`ve never had an invitation to one. We`ve had ads in Jewish newspapers…
“African-Americans have fallen off [leftist Jews`] moral radar screen. They don`t exist anymore. The new fashion is Hispanics. Jews and blacks didn`t work out very well. So Jews ran on. Jews are always dying to dialogue and to be loved by everyone. Now they`ve gone running off to the next multicultural context….”
“I was …AJC`s [American Jewish Committee] representative at the National Immigration Forum, the chief body in this country pushing for open borders and amnesty. It`s a really bad group of people. I rarely use the word unAmerican. I was brought up in a home where that was associated with Joseph McCarthy, but I will use `unAmerican` to describe these people.
“The constituents of this body are mostly ethnic identity groups that are all separatists. They don`t believe there is any such thing as America or Americans or American cultures. It`s merely a bunch of aggrieved diaspora communities and sometimes they fall out with each other because they argue about who is more aggrieved. The only white people who were members of this were Jews…
“…These are the kind of Jews who want to be citizens of the world. They want to be cosmopolitan, and we know how cosmopolitanism ended up for Jews under Stalin. I wish these Jews would understand that even if you want to be that, they`re not going to buy it. They`re not going to take you. They`re not interested in you anymore. They hate your guts.”
“They don`t understand that this country is pretty much the only place we`ve got apart from Israel where we are not tolerated guests in somebody else`s house. Where we are home and we are equal.
“Showing love to this country is appropriate and not doing it is blind ingratitude and incredibly stupid and endangering Jewish interests.”
“My views on immigration evolved. I didn`t start out believing in lower levels of immigration or change in criteria for immigration. Jews are pathetically ignorant of their own immigration history. Jews for the most part were refugees, not immigrants.
“I started out thinking that immigration is the great American story. It was all very emotional. Then going to those meetings at the National Immigration Forum and seeing who those people were pushing for open borders… I would become sickened going to those meetings and I would leave trembling with rage. That`s rare for me.”
In Part Two, Steinlight goes on:
“The general coverage of this subject is appalling. I wrote a long essay analyzing coverage of immigration as a literary genre… The mainstream media is on the other side… There`s a monolithic mindset. Of all the aspects of the politically correct mindset, this seems to be the holy of holies…”
At this point, Luke Ford commented: “It seems to me that the primary reason for the near unanimity opinion on this issue is that elites are so conditioned that anything that has the slightest smack of racism is to be fled from and abjured.” (This, of course, is what Peter Brimelow has called “Hitler`s Revenge”.)
Steinlight`s response:
“Yes. Also, they`re post-Americans. That is the great dividing line between people who take my side, we believe in the rule of law…but a lot of folks in the elite…they tend to think of themselves as multilateralists, universalists. They regard the nation-state as old-fashioned and done with. I don`t think they see themselves as American. One`s fundamental sense of civic identity, how one sees oneself in relation to the polity, is the driving force in this debate.
“I am an American. My first identity is as an American. My primary identity is as an American. My first concern is the well being of my fellow citizens.
“Immigration is a zero-sum game. You have to pick sides. For me, it is simple. I pick first my countrymen. I think that those on the other side don`t care…there is an animus against this country. Their over-sympathizing with Mexicans or Central Americans is an expression of their disdain for America even though that disdain is impacting the least among us.
“God spare us all from tikkun olam Jews. The rural white poor in this country, they despise. They no longer particularly like blacks because their self-loathing love was not requited. Right now they think they can patronize hispanics.
“Jews are disproportionately involved in every kind of insanity.”
Luke Ford asked: “What, if anything, has surprised you in this attempt to silence you?”
Steinlight:
“A lot of things have surprised me and been extraordinarily painful and disappointing. It reveals something deplorable in the heart of the Jewish establishment. That someone could come out and conduct a surreptitious poison-pen campaign based on lies supplied by the Southern Poverty Law Center [VDARE.com: $PLC to us!], a whole tapestry woven together of quarter-truths and happenstance, to describe me as a white supremacist. Where was David Harris of the American Jewish Committee where I worked for eight years? Why didn`t he stand up and say, `That`s outrageous! I`ve known this man. This guy has stood against bias and bigotry and racism all of his life.` Where were the voices of outrage in the Jewish community? They`ve run along like sheep.”
“Gideon Aronoff [HIAS President] can`t debate an idea because he can`t write a sentence and he can`t speak a sentence. He`s hopeless. He`s an idiot. I`ve made mincemeat of him before congressional committees on one occasion and I`ve made mincemeat of him on other occasions. He`s a horse`s ass. I`m sure he dislikes me intensely.
“HIAS — the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society — is Jewish in name only. Basically it is involved in immigration and supporting illegal immigrants. It has no particular Jewish focus.
“We were testifying to a Congressional panel bringing faith perspectives. It was one of those typically unbalanced (nine witnesses on their side and only two on ours, Jim Edwards and me)…under John Conyers, who`s basically senile, and Zoe Lofgren, who`s got an IQ of 60, and Luis Gutierrez, who`s absolutely monstrous. One of the worst things you can ever do is testify before Congress… Aronoff ended up quoting Leviticus 19:33: `You shall love the stranger.`… There was a really disgusting moment at the end when we watched a Cardinal and a member of the National Council of La Raza and someone from a meat packing company go out the door together for lunch.”
Luke Ford:
“What are the chances Gideon Aronoff wins this battle with you?”
Steinlight:
“No. He`s picked the wrong person. I am not going to go away. I`ve gotten speaking invitations as a result of this….
“I like going to places that are hostile and I end up converting people. That`s why Aronoff wants to shut me up.
“If comprehensive immigration reform were ever to pass, Heaven help us, it would have the most enduring and palpable impact on this country of any piece of legislation since the Emancipation proclamation.
“The heart of that legislation is not amnesty. That`s a weapon of mass distraction. The heart of that is doubling legal immigration. Given the way the system works, the engine of extended family reunification, chain immigration, it will mean 60 million to 100 million more Mexicans here in 20 years.
“You don`t want to be thinking about your bubbe and zede`s immigration. You want to be thinking about how immigration is going to affect your grandchildren.”
Generally, we at VDARE.com regard CIS as another herbivorous ruminant on the immigration restraint slope. Our liking for the helpful wonkery it produces is qualified because of its unsporting habit of triangulation against us.
Steven Steinlight however, is a different matter. He has definitely put himself at the sharp end of this war.
Congratulate him: and thank Luke Ford for giving him a platform.
