Troubled Conservative gay rabbi (who came out when he had three teenage kids and a wife) writes in the Washington Post:
Jews in America struggled for decades to become white. Now we must give up whiteness to fight racism.
Let’s teach our children that we are, in fact, not white, but simply Jewish.
Heartiste: Giving up the burden of white privilege to “fight racism”, aka to “freely shit in the faces of flyover White goyim in perpetuity and pull the Eskimo card whenever there’s a faint whiff of wholly justified blowback against our machinations”. How magnanimous!
(If you wonder why I used the “our” possessive pronoun above, do note that the chosen-not-frozen author staked his dialectical ground using the royal “we”.)
Of course, this “white privilege” he wants to give up is actually the albatross of “white defenselessness” he doesn’t want hanging around his neck now that it’s open season on Whites in America. It’s easier to subvert the once-dominant-but-now-a-fag69 White culture when you can simultaneously evade collateral damage and also receive protection from return fire by claiming anti-White fringe coalition membership.
Comments at the Chateau:
* It‘s always been part of their plan. Obfuscate the surname, blend in your host’s territory when it suits. Once ingrained, and having secured the important strategic bridgeheads in media and holowood, stand apart from the new world ordure you’ve created, while pointing at the brain-dead blanks and shrieking, “they did it!”
Sad but true, actually. The damage was done a long time ago, as whole generations of nominally white people forgot their heritage and sold their birthright for a mess of pottage.
* They wanted to be white just long enough to amass vast wealth and power, and a tax subsidised homeland. Now that they have it made, they want to morph into something else.
Maybe they should give up the burden of their vast wealth first. That is the greatest of all privilege.
* Right in the first paragraph that eskimo says something 100% false,
“…how, in light of Ferguson, Charleston and seemingly endless incidents of injustice against black people in our society, she felt a need to grapple with the racism that is so pervasive in this country and how it affects her identity…”
Wasn’t it in Ferguson that black giant Michael Brown tried to grab the gun from a police officer and that was minutes after that gentle giant had roughed up a store owner and this was captured on video?
What was the racial injustice against Michael Brown?
Had he managed to grab the gun he would have shot the police officer.
There is no endless incidents of injustice against blacks, there is an endless number of crimes committed by blacks ( most of their victims are other blacks ) and an endless number of blacks who resist arrest or attack police officers.
There is an endless number of journalists who distort facts to brainwash people into believing blacks are victims of some racial injustice ( they even doctored the 911 tape of Zimmerman calling for help to make him sound racist )
There is no endless injustices against blacks.
I stopped reading after the first paragraph, the whole article is based on something 100% false.
COMMENTS TO WASHINGTON POST:
* I am getting so tired of this racism crap and so are very many white people I know. The reason why antisemitism has ebbed in this country is because we live in one of the most racially and religiously tolerant countries in the world, possibly the most. Go to a kosher deli in Paris and see how that works. It’s not because you are perceived as white!! Enough with the self-flagellation and call it what it is. The rest of the world, particularly the Muslim world, hates you and is willing to die to kill you. The United States welcomes you and your successful fellow Jews with open arms.
* Stop cutting up infant boys’ genitals and sucking on them. Once you have made that huge leap towards sanity maybe nonsense like this article won’t occur to you.
* Behold America, the Jew shows his parasitic nature. But the Jews can’t hide from their past and current crimes. Funny isn’t it how Donald Sterling was white to the world when the press was brutally chastising his racism, but as many of us know, Donald Tokowitz aka Donald Sterling was a racist Jew. The Jews have long used minorities to get laws passed that they could use all the while not caring one bit about the black man. From slavery to the civil rights Jews have had their own agenda; control. Don’t fall for the BS this Jew is writing. The Synagogue of Satan is their holy place.
* “We can be the ones who change business practices, housing codes, policing, correctional facilities, social policies, unequal schools”
Hang on a minute. I thought that the idea that Jews control everything was one of those “anti-Semitic” canards. And yet here it’s admitted as plain as day!
* Most American Jews came from Europe, especially Germany, making them white.
There is nothing shameful about being white, so get over it.
* Quite a long article, even for a rabbi. Let me see if I got the gist.
So we Jews were associating with “the Whites”, and we got it all wrong.
We should oppose “the Whites” (who are racists and oppressors) and instead side up with “the Blacks”, who are victims and generally good guys.
We should do that because we are, after all, “the Jews”, and “the Jews” , too, must behave in a prescribed ( by the rabbi, I suppose) pattern.
And this is the way to fight racist attitudes and to ensure everyone in US is not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Oy, what is wrong here?
* Let’s assume Rabbi Steinlauf knew that a good portion of his congregation, like most of the commenters here, would be offended by his offering up campus SJW drivel on Rosh Hashanah. Why give this sermon then (and probably many others like it)? Why not even acknowledge “white privilege” is a highly contentious idea even amongst liberal Jews, and that there’s room for nuanced, thoughtful disagreement. I think Rabbi Steinlauf’s likely purpose is to drive non-left liberals and moderates out of Adas Israel’s congregation. In turn, this gives him the temple membership that will support his taking Adas Israel much further to the cultural left than it is now. That said, I have no familiarity with Adas Israel itself and would very much like to hear from members of that synagogue.
* My extended family (18 first cousins who have all had many children) are all orthodox jews from eastern europe (I’m the atheistic black sheep), and no matter what the rabbi says, we’re all white, have always been white, and will continue to make white babies.
The drivel in this article is the reason I stopped attending synagogue.
The rabbi, like most leaders of religious congregations, is a sanctimonious, bombastic moron, utterly enamored of every word that comes out out of his mouth, his common sense having left him as the compliments form the older female parishioners piled up about just how wonderful he was.
Their god is the reason people attend your synagogue, rabbi, not your glowing presence. If you dropped off the face of the earth tomorrow, attendance wouldn’t suffer one iota.
Your self-serving effort to once again separate us from mainstream society is misguided, to be kind.
* Tell us, Rabbi:
Did Jews drink from colored water foundations in the South?
Was the Secretary of State for the Confederacy Jewish?
Did Jews fight for the Confederacy?
Did Jews own slaves?
Did Jews own cotton brokerage houses in the South during the Civil War?
What is the history of Lehman Brothers?
* Perhaps he is seeking absolution of the guilt of white “privilege”? Somehow I don’t think the members of other races are going to allow them off that easily. But what is curious is that part of the reason he claims that Jews are not white is because of anti-Semitism. But that is specious. There are numerous ethnic animosities between whites. There are anti-Irish, anti-Scot, anti-English, anti-French, anti-German, anti-Pole, anti-Slav, anti-Italian, anti-Spanish, etc. Every white ethnic group has negative (and positive) stereotypes associated with it and has been on the receiving end of abuse by other whites. The same divisions exists within all racial groupings of ethnicities I would suspect.
* Note that this rabbi’s indiscriminate attack on Whites would be unacceptable and “racist” if directed at ANY other ethnic group. Unfortunately, it has been clear for some time that a vocal segment of Jews, such as a Tim Wise and Noel Ignatiev, are rabidly, virulently anti-White. The very concept of “whiteness” and I suspect “White Privilege” are constructs of Jewish intellectuals. So, Rabbi, please leave the White race, as it’s already clear that you hate us.
* The Black Lives Matter rabble is an obnoxious anti-white hate group that advocates the killing of police officers and encourages attacks on police officers primarily white police officers so your selection of that group as a group to model yourself after is ironic if not just plain dumb. Also you do realize at least I hope you realize and I don’t mean to stereotype groups but there is a pervasive and virulent anti-Semitism that runs in the black community. And while it is your right to shoulder as much white guilt as you feel necessary or to shun your racial identity in order to make yourself feel better or more magnanimous toward different groups you should be aware of the feelings that others groups might have toward you based not on your race but rather on your ——————- religion. Think about it.
* I have to say I’m astonished at how this author missed the salient point of his facts. Assimilation works! For God’s sake shout it from the rooftops! Work hard, learn English, out American the Americans. Raise kids who have to be told they’re different, because they feel nothing but their American identity. And shame on you author, for further propagating the lie of Ferguson. That shooting was found to be totally beyond reproach by the justice department, led by Eric Holder himself. Liar! Shame on you for stoking racial hatred! You cant stand that being Jewish does not make you a victim, you are feeling excluded from the great American pity party. White man! I call you out as the most hated creature on earth! White Man! Suffer your whiteness and your lack of victimhood. Tee hee!
* A rather odd commentary, especially coming from a religious leader. All whiteness is privilege? Maybe he could drive his BMW out to Appalachia some time and check out the pockets of illiteracy and disease about three or four hours’ drive from his nice neighborhood in the D.C. area in West Virginia, western Virginia, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
* What a bunch of ridiculous nonsense. He seems to be saying that Jews are supposed to join every bandwagon that certain members of the black community parade. Jews who supported the demonstrators in Ferguson were supporting a lie, not justice. Jews who lock in march step behind false claims of discrimination based on “disparate outcome” are not helping the black community, but only increasing its inability to rise out of the welfare quagmire it finds itself in.
* If the majority of blacks had assimilated, worked and STUDIED like the majority of Jews in the US, there would not be as much of the racism they claim. My wife and mother-in-law were emotionally burned out as teachers because they tried over and over to help black kids in poor neighborhoods to advance their lives with scholarship, only to have their efforts rejected because the kids’ “friends” told them to “stop actin’ white.” Some racism is earned.
* I applaud Rabbi Steinlauf’s comments. However, I find the way that Israel treats African refugees and even worse, Ethiopian Jewish Israeli citizens to be completely at odds with the supposed Jewish tradition “…that motivates us to remember the stranger, for we were strangers in Egypt; that calls on us to lift up the cause of all those who are oppressed.” What to do if the Jewish state is in fact itself the oppressor and where is the condemnation of it?
* You know what’s unique about the American Jewish experience? No other people, ever, has had a host country build its entire foreign policy around keeping a special homeland for them that they, and only they, can have an open door “right of return” to if they wish.
What other people have ever had another country spend billions to to keep a separate country for themselves? If this isn’t “privilege”, I don’t know what is.
The first way one could check their privilege is to agitate for a cutting of such purse strings. The other is to stop arguing for a perpetual opt-out clause that exempts them from responsibility for, well, anything.
* The other thing that is problematic about this article is that it completely ignores the reality that Jews are oppressors in this world, too, both in the United States (as White people) and in the Middle East (as Jewish people and US allies). The situation in Palestine/Israel right now is structurally racist, and those who focus solely on how Jewish people have been oppressed in history should know better. We know that isn’t cool, cuz we’ve been there. So how about we stop doing this to other people now?
* Let’s teach ALL OUR CHILDREN that they are simply AMERICANS. All other identities are secondary. When we abandon E Pluribus Unum we will be lost as a nation, and multicultural idiocy and fractionating identity politics are weakening our foundations. We must make a larger sense of national belonging primary. The rabbi also has it profoundly wrong: immigrant Jews like my father NEVER struggled to white: he ONLY wanted to be an American.
* So Jews were originally people of color, fought hard to become white, and now should renounce their whiteness to fight racism? Do you know how crazy you sound?
* What would happen if African Americans, 13% of the population, didn’t commit over 50% of US homicides? What if almost everybody I’ve known or read about whose been raped, robbed, carjacked, killed or beaten up on a bike trail had been done so by a Jew instead of an African American? What if African Americans had family structures as strong as Jews and worked as hard in school? (I worked in DCPS for 7 years. I’ve seen it.)
It’s not perfect, but there is no more slavery. There is no more Jim Crow. Companies and universities have diversity training and compete hard for all willing and able black applicants. The best boss I ever had was a black guy. Most of my colleagues and clients are African American. They are my bosses and mentors.
But it seems there is a critical mass of African American culture that doesn’t participate in what it takes to be successful. And it stains all, especially in the eyes of white people who don’t have everyday experiences with African Americans. Whether these behaviors of success are good or bad…they are what they are, and you can do it or not. But it’s your move now.
What if I was willing to stipulate that every problem every African American has ever had was because of something white people had done? That doesn’t mean we can fix it, even with the best of intentions. Something has to change on the other side. Aside from trying to treat people fairly and constantly acknowledging my white privilege, what am I supposed to do? White liberals like myself are not going to get very excited for very long about micro-aggressions and how many African Americans are nominated for Emmys. If you lose us, you lose.
* When a Jewish person writes an article that is hateful and bigoted against an entire ethnicity of people, and is called out on it, then his critics are being hateful. I forgot that criticism of political action and speech was protected by de facto hate laws.
* I think the good Rabbi has identified one of the problems of being Jewish. If a religious group spreads out throughout neighboring countries but is exclusionary, insular and closed, never really becoming a part of the countries they inhabit, then they are always the ‘other.’ It drives me crazy when someone says that they are Irish and Jewish. Jewish is not a nationality but is a way to set a small group (tribe?) apart from others. Perhaps it is good that Jews have a homeland (even if stolen from the previous inhabitants) because now there is somewhere where they are not outsiders. This is a sad reality where the need to be different creates responses that can be unpleasant. I am Scottish, English and Atheist. My poor Atheist tribe wanders the planet, searching for a safe place where Atheists can rule and others are second class citizens. Strange.
* Their chutzpah is so astonishing that I don’t even know what to say except let’s judge them by their actions and not their words. In order to move to Israel and get Israeli citizenship, you pretty much need to be Jewish (have at least one grandparent that is Jewish) so let’s work for similar immigration laws in America. E.g., you need at last one grandparent that is North-West European in order to get American citizenship. Let’s deal with illegal migrants the exact same way that Israel does – by building a fence to keep them out and detain the ones that got through in a huge detention center. One Israeli newspaper even reported that they force their Ethiopian Jews to get Depo Provera shots to jeep their birth rate down. We can apply that same method to the – here.
* Perhaps Jews like Rabbi Steinlauf, eager to abandon their “whiteness”, should go further and extend their embrace of migrants and open borders to include Israel, a land that has built powerful walls along its border with Egypt to keep out the many desperate Africans who have tracked so far in search of a better life. And perhaps too, Jews like Rabbi Steinlauf should give up their advocacy of Israel as a “Jewish” State. Israel has no more (or less) of a moral right to be majority “Jewish” than Europe has to be majority “White” or “Christian.” But don’t hold your breath.
* This seems like the worst type of bandwagon politics, in order to avoid taking criticism for privilege and racism at a convenient time.
It’s also viciously racist against people of indigenous European decent, many of whom were stripped of their ethnicity because of anti-ethnic bigotry, and are simply left with being “White”. Millions of these people are destitute.
Also, why just single out Whiteness? Let’s look at wherever bigotry and differences exist. Why aren’t more Blacks given the education and opportunity to become Jewish and benefit from that culture? There are very few Black converts and no Black Jewish congregations in the USA, especially amongst the Orthodox. After all, we have an income inequality problem in this country and the statistics put Jewish income above Whites. It seems like lack of conversion opportunity is having a disparate impact on Blacks. Let the Jewish faith benefit them. Also, what about Jewish privilege in Israel and the legacy of oppression and racism there? The author is casting stones while living in a glass house.
Insofar as being multiracial is concerned, the majority of the Jewish population is closely genetically related. They have a Tay Sachs problem for a reason. No White religions have problems with diseases caused by genetic inbreeding. Few other religions can say that they have racial elements to them, and almost no religions followed by White people with any significant membership. Ethiopian Jews, the largest group of Black Jews, do not follow the Talmud and are discriminated against in Israel. They aren’t well included in the group. There is almost no intermarriage. They hardly exist in the U.S.A.
It seems hateful, opportunistic, and hypocritical to write this article. What difference does it make if ethnicity is based in religion or skin color if both groups are intractably exclusive due to difficulty of group entry? The religion becomes a default racial group anyway.
* How times have changed. My father instilled in his children a love of being Jewish and a love of the United States and, yes, a love white American cultural. (Granted, he was only half Jewish and married a non-Jew.) He studied history and understood quite well how differently Jews were treated in the U.S. compared to almost any other country that we have lived.
You article stinks of contempt for a group that did more for Jews than any group in history. If you think that the rising non-white groups in this country will be so accepting, you are insane.
When my fellow Jews start moving out of white areas to live in majority black and Hispanic neighborhoods, send their kids to majority black and Hispanic schools, look for black and Hispanic doctors and dentists and CPAs instead of a nice Jewish boy (or that smart goy) and truly feel happy when their daughters marry a black or Hispanic, then you can stop identifying as a white Jew and consider yourself just a Jew.
Until then, quit crying about how you have to endure the stigma of “white privilege.” First off, you are white from a genetic standpoint. Second, on a per capita basis (and sometimes on an absolute basis), we have more power and influence in any number of aspects of society than gentiles, so if there’s white privilege, we’ve got it whether we want it or not.
And for the love of God, can my fellow Jews stop bringing up the country club thing. You do realize that almost all of the times that Jews were banned from country clubs, it was be other Jews! It was German Jews keeping out East European Jews.
