Why Jews Should Not Be Liberals Read online

  Whatever the polls showed approval for-whether it was affirmative action, expanded welfare, protecting the environment, pouring more money into public schools, denying school choice-the majority of American Jews wanted to be on the "winning" side. Seldom if ever would Jews support a minority position, even though that position may be more in harmony with Judaism. Certainly, we did not want to be portrayed as being selfish, money-grubbing shylocks! It seemed not to occur to most American Jews that they have become an elite group entitled to express their individual opinions on the issues of the day without bending knees to the current majority.

  However, the big question is what if the majority opinion, as expressed in current polls, should turn in favor of conservative positions? What if the majority decided to back school choice in some form, an end to government-enforced affirmative action, or an end to the governmentimposed welfare system? Will American Jews be consistent in their desire to be with the majority and change their political backing? Now we would hope so. One would think that if Jews and, most importantly, their leaders would be consistent and go with the new majority, a seachange in Jewish voting would take place. Suddenly the mantra of "to be Jewish, means you must be a liberal" would fade away with all the other false theories that have bit the dust throughout history. The idea that we must go along to get along has never worked for us. We have always had to eventually fight the majority to gain and then maintain our individual freedom to be Jews.

  Hans Kung, in his 1992 book, Judaism, quotes Abraham Joshua Heschel on this point. Heschel in his book, God in Search of Man, wrote, "The spirit of Judaism is not the spirit of conformity to American secular society, but above all is the spirit of protest, embodied in the great prophets, against a confusion of the true God with the many earthly, false idols of this society. Also the protest must be made on matters of religion and law. To be a Jew is to renounce allegiance to false gods, to remain free of infatuation with worldly triumphs, and never to succumb to splendour."

  In The Jewish World, edited by Elie Kedourie, it is written, "But it should never be forgotten that the fiercest conflicts between Jews and Gentiles in Antiquity erupted against kings who were considered enlightened, liberal and tolerant. Antiochus Epiphanes, Titus and Hadrian are typical examples. All three persecuted Jews with the declared objective of compelling them not to be different from other people. Thus, even these `well-meaning' rulers had fallen victims to the disease of dislike of the unlike, the epitome of intolerance."

  The notion that we Jews will somehow curry favor from a country's majority by blindly backing programs momentarily favored by that majority, conflicts with our tradition of independent thought. When the evidence is clear that these programs do more harm then good, why can we not use our own common sense and change our thinking. It is a fact that we gain the respect and admiration of others, mostly by standing up for our true principles no matter how unpopular they may be at the moment.

  The problem here is that too often, we do not recognize what our true Jewish principles are, and our Jewish leaders are not very good in explaining them. So it is left to our religious leaders to show us the way, but alas, it appears there are few of them who seem to see the light. But we Jews have survived through the centuries by never losing our optimism that better days are ahead. We must continue to hope that Jews in America will soon see what their best interests are and vote accordingly.

  The terrible calamities that have fallen upon the Jewish people in our own "enlightened" 20th century did not come about because Jews stood out from the crowd by hacking unpopular programs or issues. It would not have made any difference to a Hitler or a Stalin whether or not Jews favored or opposed a higher minimum wage, or granted monopoly powers to a union, or were for or against abortion. No, we were singled out only because we were Jews, and we were considered to be a threat to those dictators, largely because of our tradition for independent thinking. If we are to prevent any repeats of this type of persecution, then we must be ever on the alert to resist any government from obtaining excessive power and control over the individual, no matter how attractive those programs of the moment may appear to be.

  Today's liberal philosophy, when stripped of all its camouflage, is one that grants greater and greater powers to a central government. Many of the current liberal programs are ostensibly designed to correct some evil or solve some pressing social problem. From the "war on tobacco" to the "war on guns" to the coming "war on fat in our diet" to whatever the facile minds of the liberals can conjure, all of these schemes result in limitations on the freedom of the individual to live his or her own life. This has never been in the interests of Jews throughout their history and it is time that American Jews recognized that truism. If for no other reason than enlightened self-interest, American Jews should reject today's liberal doctrine.

  It is somewhat ironic that liberals are now very concerned about the possible loss of individual freedoms under the Patriot Act enacted after 9/11/01. It is true that this act gives government new powers to intrude into the lives of our citizens, along with the ability of our intelligence agencies to share information. There was a general consensus that intelligence failures may have contributed to our inability to prevent the attack, and this is why the Patriot Act came into being. To date, there have been few, if any, instances of abuse of these powers. American Jews should be ever watchful for such abuses. Liberals, however, always seem to be able to choose which freedoms they support, so long as their own oxen are not being gored.

  The fact is that throughout our 4,000-year history, Jews have been willing to endure the most terrible of consequences in order to speak their minds on what they believe. The history of persecution by the Christian Church from the time when Emperor Constantine declared Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire was due primarily to the unwillingness of the Jews to accept that religion as their own. If Jews had been willing, history would have recorded a far different fate for the Jewish people. This is why it is so difficult to analyze why today's American Jews present such a united front in their obedience to the liberal Democratic philosophy and programs.

  We need more leaders like Norman Podhoretz, editor of Commentary for many years, who changed his political stance sometime during the course of his distinguished career, and is now an eloquent spokesman for the conservative cause. Because of his current beliefs, Podhoretz lost many of his closest friends, but has remained an effective champion of individual rights and freedoms. Irving Kristol, sometimes described as a "Neo-conservative," changed his beliefs as he evolved, along with his wife Gertude Himmelfarb. There are other outstanding Jewish conservatives-Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Michael Medved, Jeff Jacoby, Dennis Prager, Bruce Hershensohn, to name a few-so all is not hopeless. Unfortunately, there seem to be few Jewish conservatives who are prominent in the major media, and we could certainly benefit if we had more columnists like Don Feder, Mona Charen, and David Brook.

  When one reviews the years leading up to the Nazi Holocaust and questions why German Jews in particular seemed so helpless during those years to try and change the political climate, the fact emerges that German Jews believed they were so much a part of the German fabric that nothing bad could happen to them. German Jews were very prominent in that society, garnering almost one half of the Pulitzer Prizes awarded to Germans. Ever since the liberation of Jews in Europe, stemming back to the French Revolution, Jews had been steadily improving their financial and social status in Western Europe. Now to be suddenly torn away from the German culture that so many Jews were a part of came as a tragic shock. One wonders what would have happened if German Jews had used some of their economic and political power to stand out from the crowd and oppose Hitler in the 1930s before he had attained absolute power.

  I believe the lesson of that history is that American Jews must exercise their own independent judgment, apart from what may be the current majority, to oppose those laws, regulations, and programs which have as their ultimate purpose the limiting of individual
freedom. It has been this freedom in America which has made possible the unbelievable successes of Jews here these past three centuries. Lipset and Raab write to this point, "Even constitutional restrictions are not necessarily forever. It is not paranoid and may even be healthy for a majority of Jews to harp on the possibility that anti-Semitism could conceivably become a serious problem in America's future."

  The problem is that all the liberals have to do is to throw out the magic words of "social action" or "save the environment" or "help the minorities," and our Jewish leaders rise up to take the bait of supporting those government programs ostensibly designed to solve these sticky problems. And then, to compound their mistakes, these leaders ignore the failures of those programs and too readily buy the notion that the reason for failure is not enough money was spent or too few regulations were imposed.

  Would they accept such an explanation from their associates in business if their business plans did not meet with the planned success'? I don't think so. If our leading Jews would use the same God-given brains that they use to make their businesses and professions successful, the "war on poverty" would have lasted about as long as the first unsuccessful results began to become apparent. But then again, their motives were pure and how can you fault that'? Liberals believe that as long as they try to solve problems this is all that counts, whereas most Jewish traditions look to results, not just intentions.

  Liberals seem to seek out easy solutions to our difficult social problems. Pass a law and all else will fall into place. Don't bother to dig deep for the basic causes of problems. No, just wave a magic law over the mess and all will come out fine. And we Jews-noted for our intelligence, our ability to analyze and ferret out the truth of the most complex problems, as exemplified by our Einsteins, our Salks, and our Rubins-swallow this garbage.

  Did the Jewish people solve any of their historic problems by the passage of laws? The only thing new laws did for Jews was to free them at times from the oppressive yoke of government so they could be free to solve their own problems through hard work and independent action. The 2.5 million Jews who fled Eastern Europe from 1881 to 1925 to seek a new life in the United States did not wait for any magic laws to be passed to permit them to seek that new life. They simply acted in their own selfinterest. This is what American Jews should be doing, acting in their own self interests, which almost always is not following the path that the liberal Democratic Party advocates.

  We Jews need to keep reminding ourselves that our exodus from Egypt, our Passover, was the central and most profound episode related in the Torah. The Soncino Pentateuch describes Israel's redemption from slavery as teaching mankind that "God is a God of Freedom." It goes on to state, "The Ten Commandments, spoken at Sinai, form the Magna Carta of religion and morality, linking them for the first time, and for all time, in indissoluble union." Jews need freedom as much as the air we breathe. If we want respect from our non-Jewish friends, associates, and neighbors, the best way is to be true to our Jewish religion and traditions, no matter how separate a path those beliefs may take us. Jews must use their intellect to think through the issues on their own and rely on Jewish principles to help them make informed decisions.

  Judge Bork writes about Alexis De Tocqueville, the young Frenchman whose observations on America in the 1830s have proven to be extremely farsighted. De Tocqueville warned that a soft form of despotism consisting of a myriad of small complicated rules, would soften and guide the will of man to acceptance of a form of servitude, which would be disastrous to the liberties of the people. He thought that certain strong institutions, in defending their own rights, would help preserve the common liberties for all. Unfortunately in America today, we cannot depend on those powerful forces to fight this battle for us. Jews, as individuals, have an opportunity and a responsibility to stand up for their own rights and principles, because it appears no one else is going to do that for them. Hopefully our younger generation of Jews, encouraged by the multitude of opportunities available to them in this new Internet-driven age, will prove to be more independent of thought than were their forebears.

  JEWS AND THE FREE MARKET

  (CAPITALISM)

  Most observers of American politics would agree that between the two competing political doctrines of liberalism and conservatism, when it comes to promoting, encouraging, stimulating, praising, expanding, and identifying themselves with the free market, capitalistic system, it is conservatism that captures the prize. Of course, liberals welcome the fruits and benefits of the free market, but it is mostly to their liking because it creates sufficient wealth for their redistribution schemes and not because it is the most natural and productive system yet devised by man. Still liberals continue to want to tinker with it, to control it, and when necessary, to intervene with their own pet programs and ideas.

  Again their thinking is that too much freedom in the marketplace is no good because too many people are just too dumb to spend their hardearned funds on those goods and services and programs that liberals deem most important. When asked in 1999 whether the projected federal budget surplus should be returned to the taxpayers who provided the surplus, President Clinton replied that, "No, we could not do this because we could not trust our citizens to spend their refunds in the wisest way." This typifies the arrogance and feeling of superiority that today's liberals possess. Thus if we need to tax away the surplus funds that people have paid in order to "invest" in more education, or welfare, or animal rights, or whatever, then so be it. Isn't that what America is all about'?

  Conservatives on the other hand, seem to be generally more in favor of permitting people to spend their money as the individual sees fit. They are content to permit the free market to do its wondrous work, and with the "invisible hand" doing its thing, they sit back and enjoy the fruits of their endeavors. If Americans want to spend their hard earned dough to see Madonna, Barbara Streisand, or Michael Jackson in the flesh, at the ridiculous prices charged for those events, so be it. Conservatives may secretly wish that our citizens would agree to pay their teachers and policemen and firemen and garbage collectors more, and those celebrities less, but they realize this is the free market at work. If we want to enjoy the fruits of the market, one has to take the bitter with the better, and then we must make it work as best as we can. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism may be a sometimes cruel and ineffective system, but it is still the best economic system yet devised by man.

  So what does this have to do with American Jews being liberal? If we agree that it is the conservatives who do the best job of growing the free market; and if we agree that the free market is the best system yet devised by man to spread the wealth created among all the participants; and if one of the cherished goals of Judaism is to help solve the problem of poverty, then doesn't it follow that American Jews should be the foremost champions of growing the free market, and to do this they should be conservatives?

  In spite of this apparently irrefutable logic, the overwhelming majority of prominent, wealthy, American Jewish capitalists-and we could name dozens-remain strong supporters of the liberal Democratic Party. What if we could demonstrate that Jewish law and tradition are much closer to today's conservative philosophy than to the liberal position? Would this be enough to turn them politically? Let us give it a try.

  In his book, With All Your Possessions: Jewish Ethics And Economic Life, published in 1991, Dr. Meir Tamari, formerly chief economist of the Bank of Israel and a Biblical scholar, interprets the Bible and the Talmud as they relate to the business world. Dr. Tamari wrote that society is free to determine the degree of competition it desires, provided that the demands of justice and mercy are met. However, Jewish law tended to prefer a free market, which would provide for the benefit of the majority of the people.

  Tamari explains further that economic wealth and prosperity were desirable, they were a gift of God. There is a joint ownership of wealth between God, the individual owner, and his fellow man, Dr. Tamari writes, but Judaism recognizes
the legitimacy of private property, profit motive, and the market mechanism. The merchant or entrepreneur is legitimate and is morally entitled to a profit for fulfilling a function. Price controls always distort the market, although they were allowed for some basic commodities, while the pricing mechanism was always to be based on free markets. Halakhah sources encouraged a competitive market even in the ghetto where political freedom was absent. There was no trace of the Marxist labor theory of value, and wages were to be determined by the market. Also, unions could not use force to prevent the free entry into the market of non-organized workers. (The Talmud as interpreted by Dr. Tamari, sounds as if Milton Friedman had written it.)

  Each individual has the right to perform with his property whatever economic activity he sees as most profitable to him. Morality and kindness are part of the market mechanism, even when they cannot be legally enforced. The bottom line according to Dr. Tamari was that the free market is really the only economic system sanctioned by Jewish law and tradition. The community could interfere with the workings of the market only if the weak and ignorant were not benefiting, but such interference was to be of a short and limited duration. Does it not follow that Jews should be doing everything possible to strengthen and enhance the free market system in the United States and that being a liberal is not consistent with that goal'?

  When it comes to welfare, Dr. Tamari wrote that welfare's aim is to provide a means of breaking the poverty cycle or to prevent a descent into poverty. One should accept the most menial of jobs before accepting welfare. Although acts of welfare are considered to be characteristic of the Jewish people, poverty carries with it no spiritual connotation. There is a line in Fiddler On The Roof that sings, "It is no great honor to be poor." In Jewish tradition there is a strong bias against being dependent on others or on the communal purse. Dr. Tamari did write that assistance to the weaker members of society is an obligation placed on the individual and on the community, so that its financing falls both on the public purse, through taxation and on voluntary donations. Again though, this help was to be only temporary. There was no automatic support for the forced re-distribution of wealth as this would not be consistent with the principle of controlling one's own private property.