A Jewish friend tells me: I especially liked P.R. Stephensen’s assessment of Anti-Semitism. The more of them I read, the more I understand the ADL’s desire to suppress what they have to say. If looked at dispassionately, it will be very difficult for Jews to argue that anti-semitism is purely irrational instead of recognizing that it is a manifestation of a group seeing that Jewish interests are not necessarily aligned with the interests that the nation as a whole would pursue absent Jewish influence.
One of the things I am thinking about is that on some level, perhaps not even conscious, Jews fear that if the reasons for rejecting refugees from Syria (and Muslims from the middle east and sub Saharan Africa) and the reasons for wanting to curtail immigration (both illegal and legal) gain acceptance, it is inevitable that core Americans (and even non-core Americans such as Blacks, Asians and Latinos who exhibit a higher level of anti Jewish feeling than core Americans) will begin to assess Jews and their influence on America on a cost benefit analysis. Once the costs are known, Jews may find themselves in a more precarious position in American life than they are now.
Jewish immigration to the United States was not a reaction to European Anti Semitism. The reason Jews left the Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia was for economic, not religious reasons. As evidence, all of the European and Eastern European Jewish learning centers remained there. The Rabbis and scholars did not come the United States. Most Jews in Europe stayed put, the number who emigrated were a minority.
Jews tend to look at instances of anti Semitism (the Dreyfuss affair) or Pogroms as things that triggered emigration, but this is simply not borne out historically.
It was only during WWII that anti Semitism gave rise to genocide. So when Jew talk about how if only America had opened its doors to millions of Jews, they wouldn’t have been killed by the Nazis that is nonsense. The Wannsee conference took place on January 20, 1942 [which settled on mass killing of Jews].
