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To Eliminate The Opiate, Vol.1
Vol.2
To Eliminate The Opiate, Vol.1 Vol.2.. To Eliminate The Opiate, by Rabbi Marvin S. Antelman is a 2
Volume book set which contains so much page 83: [68] EB, "Society of Jesus", Encyclopedia Britannica, 1941 ed. So the Rabbi Antelman is extremely Jesuit friendly. Antelman explains the title of his books as follows : "In selecting the title of this book, Karl Marx's concept that Inside Vol.1 the nest of evil which emerged in Germany is
painstaken and accurately identified by Antelman. So page 143-146 In this Volume, we have shown how a conspiracy developed to When the Rabbis prophetically saw the Holocaust in Mendelssohn's Implicit to the development of Frankist revolutionaries and the Our description of the Illuminati is based on John Robinson's "Mount Vernon, September 25, 1798 " Sir: Many apologies are due to you, for my not acknowledging I have heard much of the nefarious and dangerous plan and George Washington." [259] Writings of Washington (September 1798), p452 Just as Washington realized that there was a conspiracy to Future chapters of the next volume, God willing, will trace the It goes without saying that one cannot be a Jew and a Communist, The 2nd Volume of "To ELiminate the Opiate" however took rather
long to get finished and published. Here's page 1-2 The Preface to Volume I was written 24 years ago. Little did I Well now, to my dismay i find that my Volume I stops with Chapter
22. Shame on the publisher! See below. Urge Recently Rabbi Antelman was interviewed by Tamar Yonah on Israeli
National Radio. See "Daryl Bradford [1] "To Eliminate the Opiate, Vol. 1" [2] "To Eliminate the Opiate, Vol. 2" Date: Sun, 18 Mar 2007 09:54:01 +0100 (CET) Hi, Inside the Friday March 16, 2007 RBN Radio broadcast Mark Glenn
was 'What Makes a Jew "Jewish"?' "Throughout our 3300-year history, what has defined us as Jews
is a Whatever the truth may be, i have my sincere doubts about people
who The authors, the people of chabad.org, claim their writing is
"Based on Throughout history the Jewish religion has been so much tampered
with As we all know how Hitlers Blitzkrieg army founds its demise in "The Leningrad Codex (so named because it was housed in a museum
in From "The Oxford Bible Commentary" by John_Barton and
John_Muddiman "Until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. which include at ( Hebrew MSS : Hebrew Manuscripts The Aleppo Codex (the first ever complete copy of the Masoretic
Text in "On November 29, 1947, David Ben-Gurion tentatively accepted the The damage inside the Aleppo Codex specifically harmed the Torah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo_Codex : "During the riots against Jews and Jewish property in Aleppo in The missing leaves are a subject of fierce controversy. The Jews
of In January 1958, the Aleppo Codex was brought back to Jerusalem,
by Did i mention the "1138 Aleppo earthquake" yet? Its reported as
the The Aleppo quake is anotated as part of the Dead Sea Transform
system Anyway the current masters of this planet have a whole new
appraoch "The Rothschild Mahzor (Florence, 1492). Collection of The
Library So not only was the Master Codex of the Hebrew Bible (Aleppo
Codex) "If this were the end of the story we could easily say dayyeinu. {23} Gerson D. Cohen, "Foreward," The Rothschild Mahzor, "The Rothschild Mahzor" was eventually moved from New York to
Jerusalem "Zodiac detail from the Rothschild Mahzor (Florence, 1492). The Rothschild Mahzor is truly a magnificent treasure in the The Rothschild Mahzor is fascinating from any number of The Rothschild Mahzor has since been rebound with special Eagerly sought, this manuscript has been featured in several Today the "Rothschild Mahzor" can be found back inside Volume 3
of the An in-depth account of this exciting manuscript, which once These "Renaissance artists of the Veneto" were of course located
in "The first complete Talmud was published in Venice between 1519
and That's enough food for thought as to where the roots of evil are
really Regards, Robert
Post WWII Bibles seriously flawed Hi, I added some new material on the "Aleppo Codex" story, which
starts A Bible researcher recently found out the real story behind The author of the page, "The Real Bible CharlesFinney.com" draws the following startling conclusion : "What was the purpose of WWII? 1946 - United Nations was formed We know what the UN today is all about, and it will be of no
surprise "The Hebrew Bible : from Aleppo Codex to "Rothschild Mahzor" Before WWII _ALL_ Bibles worldwide were based on the Ben Chayyim So what happened during and shortly after WWII that this was changed? CharlesFinney.com offers a 62 minute audio lecture explaining
things. "The Real Bible CharlesFinney.com" I created which is a a repaired mp3 file version, which allows one to slide "According to copyright law, new Bible versions can only be Who holds the copyright for the NIV [New International Version]
? Cheers, Robert
It's clear that there has never been a much more targeted text in
the history of mankind as that of the Bible. A WHY WE USE THE KING JAMES BIBLE ... Modern Bibles Have Removed
the following 16 verses - CHECK This turns out to indeed be the case when checking with "The
Complete Parallel Bible"[13] from Oxford According to copyright law, new Bible versions can only be
copyrighted as derivative works.' Words must be Who holds the copyright for the NIV [New International Version] ?
In 1988, Zondervan and the NIV was The Leningrad Codex IS NOT the traditional text used to translate
the first English Bible and indeed every other As the Codex Leningradus turns out to be oldest complete
preserved copy of Ben Asher's Aleppo Codex, it also The King James Bible of 1611 (KJV1611) [14] turns out today to be
the only valid bible obeying the demands of
Another interesting report on the validity of the Textus Receptus
itself was made by Ivan Panin , who wrote on
[1] "To Eliminate the Opiate, Vol. 1" [2] "To Eliminate the Opiate, Vol. 2" [3] BIBLIA HEBRAICA [4] Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia (Large Print Edition (104067)) [5] Leningrad Codex: A Facsimile Edition [6] "The Oxford Bible Commentary" [7] "Proceedings of the 39th Annual Convention of the Association
of [8] "Rothschild Mahzor Travels to Jerusalem" [9] "Index of Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts, [11] "The 1605 Gun Powder Plot debunked" [12] "Talmud" [13] The Complete Parallel Bible with the
Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books: New Revised Standard [14] "The Holy Bible King James Version: 1611 Edition" [15] "Hebrew English Bilingual Old Testament-PR-KJV/FL" Agenda To Provide the means to achieve human emancipation (normative aspect of the theory) To liberate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them Critical Theory The goal was to make a theory about the relation of capitalistic economy, society, psychology and culture The theory is critical towards the society and theories about the society. Critical for the positivism methods Max Horkheimer : Bibliography In October 1931 was made the director of Institute of Social
Research in Frankfurt Died in 1973 on the 7th of July Methodology Methodology Critical theorists are not just trying to describe a situation but tries to challenge the guiding assumptions and tries to change the situation Strength and Weakness xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx From Fromm’s ‘To Have or To Be?’ (1976): ‘The Shabbat is the most important of the biblical concepts, and of later Judaism. It is the only strictly religious command in the Ten Commandments: its fulfilment is insisted upon by the otherwise antiritualistic prophets; it was a most strictly observed commandment throughout 2,000 years of Diaspora life, wherein its observation often was hard and difficult. It can hardly be doubted that the Shabbat was the fountain of life for the Jews, who, scattered, powerless, and often despised and persecuted, renewed their pride and dignity when like kings they celebrated the Shabbat. Is the Shabbat nothing but a day of rest in the mundane sense of freeing people, at least on one day, from the burden of work? To be sure it is that, and this function gives it the dignity of one of the great innovations in human evolution. Yet if this were all that it was, the Shabbat would hardly have played the central role I have just described. In order to understand this role we must penetrate to the core of the Shabbat institution. It is not rest per se, in the sense of not making an effort, physically or mentally. It is rest in the sense of the re-establishment of complete harmony between human beings and between them and nature. Nothing must be destroyed and nothing be built: the Shabbat is a day of truce in the human battle with the world. Even tearing up a blade of grass is looked upon as a breach of this harmony, as is lighting a match… On the Shabbat one lives as if one has nothing, pursuing no aim except being, that is, expressing one’s essential powers: praying, studying, eating, drinking, singing, making love. The Shabbat is a day of joy because on that day one is fully oneself. This is the reason the Talmud calls a Shabbat the anticipation of the Messianic Time, and the Messianic Time the unending Shabbat : the day on which property and money as well as mourning and sadness are tabu; a day on which time is defeated and pure being rules. The historical predecessor, the Babylonian Shapatu, was a day of sadness and fear. The modern Sunday is a day of fun, consumption, and running away from oneself. One might ask if it is not time to re-establish the Shabbat as a universal day of harmony and peace, as the human day that anticipates the human future. The vision of the Messianic Time is the other specifically Jewish contribution to world culture, and one essentially identical with that of the Shabbat. This vision, like the Shabbat, was the life-sustaining hope of the Jews, never given up in spite of the severe disappointments that came with the false messiahs, from Bar Kochba in the second century to our days. Like the Shabbat it was a vision of a historical period in which possession will have become meaningless, fear and war will have ended, and the expression of our essential powers will have become the aim of living’. 29 ‘The only philosophy which can be responsibly practised in face of despair is the attempt to contemplate all things from the standpoint of redemption. Knowledge has no light but that shed on the world by redemption: all else is reconstruction, mere technique. Perspectives must be fashioned that displace and estrange the world, reveal it to be, with its rifts and crevices, as indigent and distorted as it will appear one day in the messianic light. To gain such perspectives without velleity or violence, entirely from self contact with its objects – this alone is the task of thought. It is the simplest of all things, because consummate negativity, once squarely faced, delineates the mirror-image of its opposite. But it is also the utterly impossible thing, because it presupposes a standpoint removed, even though by a hair’s breadth, from the scope of existence, whereas we well know that any possible knowledge must not only be first wrested from what is, if it shall hold good, but is also marked, for this very reason, by the same distortion and indigence which it seeks to escape. The more passionately thought denies its conditionality for the sake of the unconditional, the more unconsciously, and so calamitously, it is delivered up to the world. Even its own impossibility it must at last comprehend for the sake of the possible, but beside the demand thus placed on thought, the question of the reality or unreality of redemption itself hardly matters. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx By T. Allen Greenfield Bandidar Journal A century before the European Enlightenment produced the
conditions in which modern European Judaism arose, the ghetto
world of the Jews of Europe and Asia Minor was wracked by a
messianic fervor virtually unknown today outside Judaic
intellectual circles. For further reading : MY PEOPLE by Abba Eban (Behrman-Random House, 1968) (section)
"False Messiahs" pp. 232-238; Most general and especially Jewish references have either an
article under Frank's name, or some mention in an article on
'false messiahs' or specifically Shabbetai Tzvi. Notes : The reader may be bewildered by the variation in names; Jacob
Frank is variously referred to as Jacob Leibowicz, Jankiew
Leibowicz and the more familiar Frank.
Yakov Leib Frank "Jacob Frank" Jacob Frank's real name was Yakov ben Judah Leib Frankovich
(1726-91). Frank kept Sabbateanism alive and ended its tribalism, opening
its adherents to the world outside Judaism. The New World Order - A Brief History Ten False Messiahs I am convinced that there is no subject that has the potential
for misunderstanding as does that of Messianism. [...] Jacob Frank (1726-1791)
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://newrepublic.com/article/68842/frankfurt-the-hudson Frankfurt on the Hudson Subscribe MOST POPULAR From its headquarters at 428 West 117th Street, the Institute struggled with the intellectual and practical challenges involved in doing European-style Critical Theory in America. While the members of the Institute eventually scattered—Horkheimer and Adorno moved to Los Angeles, joining the German émigré colony there, while after Pearl Harbor Marcuse and others went to Washington, applying their skills to the war effort—New York remained the Institute’s official home until 1949, when Horkheimer moved it back to the University of Frankfurt. In his book, an unusually thorough blend of intellectual and institutional history, Wheatland sheds new light on this phase of the Frankfurt School’s existence. Wheatland is interested in the ideas of the School, but he is also interested in the ways that less intellectual factors—like money, personality clashes, and opportunism—shaped those ideas’ development and reception. In a sense, Wheatland has subjected the Frankfurt School to a genuinely Marxist analysis—he shows how the group’s economic substructure affected its ideological superstructure. In the process, he brings these often idolized figures back to human scale, and offers an object lesson in the unedifying ways that intellectual careers are made. The Jewish dimension to this story is only occasionally Wheatland’s explicit subject, but it is absolutely central nonetheless. After all, the reason the Institute had to leave Frankfurt in the first place was that, in addition to being radicals and Marxists, the members of the group were almost all Jewish. The Institut für Sozialforschung was created by Herman Weil, a German Jew who had made a fortune importing grain from Argentina, and his son Felix, who like many young men was radicalized after Germany’s defeat in World War I. In 1923, still in the early days of the Weimar Republic, the Weils created the Institute as an independent think tank with a lavish endowment. Their plan was to bring together scholars from different fields, who would work together to develop comprehensive new theories about how modern society functioned and how it might be transformed. Not coincidentally, as Wheatland shows, almost all the Institute’s hires were, like the Weils, highly assimilated Jews from bourgeois families. Max Horkheimer, the philosopher who became head of the Institute in 1931 and guided it for the next several decades, was the son of a textile manufacturer from Stuttgart; his relationship with his father was destroyed when the son married the father’s Christian secretary. Theodor Wiesengrund-Adorno, the most brilliant thinker associated with the Institute, was the son of a Jewish wine merchant and a Catholic woman from Corsica. (He eventually dropped the Jewish half of his last name and went simply by Adorno.) Erich Fromm, a sociologist turned psychoanalyst, was unusual in being raised in an Orthodox family; he “maintained a strong religious identity into adulthood,” Wheatland writes. Similar stories could be told of most of the scholars who came to work at Frankfurt. The New Republic Daily Wheatland makes clear just why Columbia took the bait. Robert MacIver, the head of Columbia’s sociology department, was looking for a way to establish a social research bureau, which would provide quantitative data to support the work of theorists. In 1929, MacIver had applied to the university for $50,000 to create such a bureau, writing in his proposal that “the situation with reference to research through quantitative measurement may really be described as a crisis. If this crisis is not met in a large way, achievement on the part of universities cannot be expected.” But the Depression made such an expensive program impossible. When the Institute for Social Research came calling—with its private endowment, and its experience doing field research and surveys—it seemed like a perfect match for Columbia’s needs. In fact, as Wheatland goes on to show, the fit was not ideal, and grew even less so over time. The Institute did design and fund several important research projects, including a study of the effect of unemployment on family life in Newark, New Jersey, and a study of adolescent attitudes toward authority. But these studies were not really what Horkheimer cared about. Rather, he was interested in developing a total theory of late-capitalist society, which would encompass politics, economics, culture, and society. This would eventually bear fruit in Horkheimer and Adorno’s magnum opus, Dialectic of Enlightenment. To keep the Institute running, however, Horkheimer needed American allies and funders, who were mainly interested in empirical problem-solving. This dilemma became acute in the later 1930s, when a series of bad investment decisions cost the Institute a large chunk of its endowment, and forced Horkheimer to lay off a number of associates. As Wheatland shows, this process was handled badly, with Horkheimer antagonizing Erich Fromm, the most popular member of the Institute among its American patrons. (Fromm would eventually go on to write bestselling psychology books like The Art of Loving.) In fact, Horkheimer comes across in Wheatland’s account as a ruthless academic infighter, not afraid to use his money and power to punish his enemies. The contrast between the Frankfurt School’s dreams of social liberation and its actual dependence on such all-too-human motives is a melancholy and ironic one. In subsequent sections of The Frankfurt School in Exile, Wheatland shows how the Institute came into contact with two important segments of the American Jewish community. The first were the New York Intellectuals, who were in many ways the perfect American counterpart to the Frankfurters: Jewish radical intellectuals with an interest in politics and culture. While the two groups never engaged as deeply as they might have—in part, Wheatland shows, due to the Frankfurters’ policy of staying aloof from American politics—some relationships did form, and New Yorkers like Daniel Bell, Irving Howe, and Nathan Glazer became aware of Critical Theory. More unlikely, on its surface, was the bond the Institute formed with the establishment American Jewish Committee, which turned out to be the patron the struggling exiles badly needed. In 1943, the Committee gave the Institute a $10,000 grant to produce a report on the causes of anti-Semitism. This eventually grew into the landmark five-volume report Studies in Prejudice, published in 1950, which brought the Institute its first real mainstream recognition. Wheatland notes the irony that it should be a specifically, not to say parochially, Jewish project that made the Institute’s name in America. After all, it is possible to see the whole endeavor of Critical Theory as being a way for these brilliant German Jews, assimilated to German culture yet rejected by Germany itself, to imagine a place for themselves outside of Jewishness and Germanness. Yet “the anti-Semitism project,” as Wheatland writes, “suggested an abandonment of revolutionary utopianism and the temporary adoption of American liberalism.” His important book ought to bring new attention to this highly suggestive part of the Frankfurt School’s story
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Sabbateo-Frankism, the Protocols and Cultural Marxism We offer in this post the translation of two different texts
that have in common the one that plunges into the realm of
darkness, into the realm of horror and black magic, into the
absolute subversion of the natural world and social conventions.
Both texts presented here are a continuation and a complement of
another that we published last October ( Sabbateo-Frankismo as the
Paradigm of the Modern Left ), being basically its theme the same.
The first ( Is The Protocols of Zion a Sabbatean Document? ), From
June 2005, is found on rense.com , and analyzes the relationship
between the Protocols of Zion and the heretical Jewish doctrines
of Sabbatai Zevi and Jakob Frank. The second ( The Satanic
Theology behind Cultural Marxism ) is from January 2016, and on
the site that contains it appears as anonymous, but Henry Makow
attributes his authorship to Ayesha Elfathi, and deals more
directly with the relationship between Sabbateo- Frankism and the
Jewish communist university called the Frankfurt School , mother
of cultural Marxism today.
ARE THE SION PROTOCOLS
The famous document known as "The Protocols of Zion" can be paraphrased as The Protocols of Zionism, and most likely it was a secret Sabbatean-Frankist document. The Sabbateans made many writings, due to the secret and revolutionary nature of their sect, to be kept hidden. The original Protocols appear to have been one of those, which ceased to be secret after parts of it were printed as minutes of an undercover meeting held in Paris in 1901, minutes that were later published in Russia by Sergei Nilus. Nilus, who first published the Protocols in 1902, wrote in the Introduction of his 1905 edition: "These are not exactly minutes of meetings, but a report made by some powerful person, divided into sections not always in a logical sequence. They communicate the impression of being part of something . " Hence, what Nilus had at hand could be some notes taken from an original Sabbatean document that still remains hidden. We only know a part of the original that came to be known as The Protocols of the Wise Elders of Zion . Nilus also writes in the Introduction: "This is a faithful copy, in translation, of original documents stolen by a woman from one of the most influential and highly initiated leaders of Freemasonry (Freemasonry of the East). The theft was carried out at the close of a secret meeting of initiated, in France in 1901, that nest of the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. " When mention is made of a woman, that clearly points to Frankists who changed their wives and daughters with other members and sometimes with non-members whom they needed to influence them or to attract them to their sect. Apparently one of those women, having tired of being prostituted, had decided to take revenge by exposing the document in question; or the document could have been allowed to leak on purpose due to a known agreement between the forces of darkness and those of light to declare or make known their intentions to human beings before embarking on a company that would practically enslave people of the Earth in a unique world government. For this reason the Protocols mention, from the beginning, that "we will expose the conception of our policy" , which is equivalent to a declaration of intentions before the earthlings. Then the spokesperson defines those earthlings: "It should be noted that people with corrupt instincts are more numerous than those of noble instincts. Therefore, by ruling the world the best results are obtained through violence and intimidation, and not by academic discussions . " The violence cited here would include a Third World War. On the other hand, the concept that humans are basically bad is also reflected in Sabbatean beliefs that declare: "Since we cannot all be saints, let us all be sinners." The Talmud also emphasizes that humans are basically brute beasts; for this same reason the Protocols open their chap. 2 with the phrase: "What restrained the wild beasts of prey we call men?" Their solution, of course, is despotism and government through fear, fear being one of the main characteristics of animals. Protocol 3.14 says: «The word" freedom "puts society in conflict with all powers, including those of Nature and God . Therefore, when we rise to power, we must remove the word "freedom" from the human dictionary, as the symbol of bestial power, which turns the populace into bloodthirsty animals ». Rabbi Antelman quotes Gershom Scholem in vol. 1 cap 10 of his book "To Eliminate the Opiate" about a distinctive Sabbatean belief that "the royal Torah is not the true Torah and must be infringed by adhering to another superior, different and mystical Torah , called the Torah of the Atzilut (aristocracy) ". Now, the Hebrew word "atzilut" is translated by Antelman as "aristocracy," and this is the same word we see in Protocol 1.18: "On the ruins of the natural and hereditary aristocracy we have built our own aristocracy on a plutocratic basis. We have established this new aristocracy over wealth, of which we had control, and on science promoted by academics." This Protocol sheds some light on the new Torah that Sabbateans were talking about and makes us wonder if they were not the true authors of the Protocols and if not all of their known "minutes" were really reflections of their Torah of the Atzilut . Certainly the Frankists and their friends belonged to a new "elite" aristocracy. Antelman writes in ch. 11 of his book: "The Frankist elite consisted of a circle of talented intellectuals, theologians and men of letters, as well as a group of men of great financial means who were mostly large merchant bankers who exerted an enormous influence in their time in the most financial circles. High in Europe ... The list of the Frankist elite is long, and if one spent time studying in depth only the few families mentioned here, the information would fill several volumes, however, the same pattern continually emerges. rich, addicted to power, eager to assimilate (if they were born as Jews), to destroy religions, favor radicalism, live secret hypocritical lives, sometimes posing as religious Jews, Catholics, or Protestants, but surrendering to their radicalism revolutionary in secret . " "It should be noted that when [in the 18th century] the Illuminati , the Jacobins and the Frankists made attempts to infiltrate among the Freemasons, their infiltration did not mean that they harbored any particular love for Freemasonry. On the contrary, they hated it with passion and they only wished to use the cover of Freemasonry as a means to spread their revolutionary doctrines and to provide a place where they could meet covertly without arousing suspicion " (Marvin S. Antelman, To Eliminate the Opiate , 1974, chap. XI). Protocol 5.4: "The only society known to us that would be able to compete with us in these arts could be that of the Jesuits. But we have managed to discredit them in the eyes of the stupid crowd as a concrete organization, while we ourselves we have remained in the background, reserving our organization as a secret. " "Scholem informs us that the Frankists went underground around 1820, when their emissaries went from city to city and from family to family to collect their secret writings ... When the years passed, the economic and intellectual position of the Frankists was They built factories and became active in Masonic organizations They were known for having secret meetings on the ninth day of Av [August] , which they celebrated as a holiday, which was the Jewish fast day that commemorates the destruction of both Temples The center of the Frankista activity was moved from Frankfurt-Offenbach to Prague and then to Warsaw.The Frankists in Warsaw who were now concentrated among seemingly Catholic families maintained contact before the Second World War with the Turkish Donmeh Sabbateans, who they were based in Turkey and in Thessaloniki, Greece. The Donmeh were active in the Committee for Progress and the Unity of the Movement of the Young Turks ". "The Frankists today no longer call themselves by that name. The Organization has become an international group labeled by outsiders as the Cult of the All-Seeing Eye" (Antelman, op. Cit ., Chap. XI ). Gershon Scholem mentions another distinctive belief of the Frankists: a Frankist believer "should not seem to be what he really is . " Rabbi Antelman comments [ op. cit ., chap. X] about this belief that she "justified her followers' search for the double kind of life they led. One could appear to be a religious Jew abroad and actually be a Frankist. Since although the Donmeh officially converted to Islam and the Frankists to Catholicism, the vast majority of the Frankists, who apparently seemed to embrace Judaism, were integrated into the Jewish community. Although they were all apparently religious, they still aimed at annihilating each religion and positive belief system, and they dreamed of a general revolution that would sweep the past with a single blow so that the world could be rebuilt . " The concept of "order from chaos" [ ordo ab chaos ] is implied here.
Antelman then adds: "Gershom Scholem writes elsewhere, in his book Kabbalah and Its Symbolism: " For Frank, anarchic destruction represented the entire Luciferian glow, all positive tones and connotations of the word "life." The nihilistic mystic descends into the abyss in the which is born the freedom of creatures: he passes through all the incarnations and forms that appear in his path, not committing to any; and not content to reject and repeal all values and laws, he tramples them under his feet and profane, in order to achieve the elixir of Life. In this radical interpretation of a symbol, the life-giving element of the mystical experience was combined with its destructive potential. It goes without saying that from the point of view of the community and its institutions, such mysticism should have been considered as demonic possession. And it is indicative of one of the enormous tensions that cross the history of Judaism which is the most destructive The use of all visions has been formulated in its most unbridled form by one who rebelled against Jewish law and separated from Judaism » (Antelman, op. cit ., chap. X). The duplicity of the Frankists is also mentioned in Protocol 7.3 which states: «In order to obtain these objectives we must resort to a lot of cunning and skill during negotiations and agreements, but in what is called the" official language "we will assume the opposite tactic of looking honest and docile. Thus the governments of the Gentiles , whom we teach to look only on the striking side of matters, as we present them, will consider us even as benefactors and saviors of Humanity. Another important Sabbatean belief is that, says Scholem, "Divinity takes on human form, which allowed sect leaders to incarnate in that Divinity, from Sabbatai Tzevi to Frank and others . " Hence, when the Frankists converted to Christianity and the Donmeh to Islam their God did not become Jesus Christ and the Christian Trinity or Muhammad and his Allah but that "the Divinity of the Frankists included the members of the sect" (Antelman) . Therefore Sabbatai Zevi was his first incarnate God , and after him Jacob Frank (or Yakov Frankovich, a typical Turkish Khazar Jew?) Was his God incarnate. After Frank the divine reign apparently passed to the Rothschilds, and now their incarnate god is a Rothschild man-god or they are waiting for their incarnation and manifestation among them, as is clarified in the Protocols of Zion . Only after a year of his apparent "conversion" Frank was thrown into jail due to that blasphemy. Antelman writes about the prophet Sabbatai Zevi: «At the time of his conversion [to Islam], thousands of his followers became disillusioned and left the movement. However, there were still some fierce followers who believed in him and, of course, rationalized having continued inventing some kind of fundamental reason. Hence the movement gave rise to a special Sabbatea sect in Turkey known as the Donmeh. The order held that the Messiah would have to sin before he could bring redemption, and that provided a foundation for believing in a Jewish Messiah who was from Islam. Many years after the death of Sabbatai Tzevi, the Donmeh continued to exist and grow. Jacob Frank found the Donmeh while he was a traveling salesman in Turkey (in 1757 Frank converted to Islam). He refined the concept of the Messiah who sins by urging members of the movement to sin, reasoning that if salvation could be achieved through purity, it could also be achieved by sin. Gershom Scholem, the great authority of the Kabala, has expanded on this subject in writings such as his Hebrew Mitzvah ha Ba'ah ba Averah , which was translated into an article that appeared in Commentary in 1971 entitled The Holiness of Sin , as well as in a chapter of his book "Messianic Idea in Judaism" entitled Redemption Through Sin . One of the ways in which the Frankists gave free rein to their sin was to get involved in sexual orgies. The Donmeh in Turkey officially converted to Islam in 1683 and the Frankists in Europe to Catholicism in 1759. However, their conversion to those religions was intended to mimic Sabbatean behavior models as well as subvert and destroy those creeds » (Antelman, op. cit ., chapter X) . In Protocol 1.8 we read: "Politics has nothing in common with morality. A ruler who is ruled by morality is not an expert politician, and hence he is not firm on his throne. He who wants to govern must resort to cunning and hypocrisy. "The great human qualities of sincerity and honesty become vices in politics. They dethrone with more certainty than the most bitter enemy. Those qualities have to be the attributes of the countries of the Gentiles, but we are not at all bound to be led by them . " Protocol 5.3 says: "We will organize a strong centralized government , to gain social powers for us. Through new laws we will regulate the political life of our subjects, as if they were parts of a machine. Such laws will gradually restrict all freedom and freedoms allowed by the Gentiles. So our reign will develop as a despotism so strong, that it will be able at any time or place to crush the disgruntled or recalcitrant Gentiles [freedom lovers of any race]. "
This is happening now in the United States and it happened in communist Russia. In the United States our legislatures signed the Patriot Act (after 9/11 ) without reading it. In Protocol 8.1 we read: "The administrators of the Gentiles sign papers without reading them, and serve for love of money or for ambition." After 9/11 it has been spoken all over the United States. of establishing a mechanism for spying on citizens in order to fight terrorism in our land. Well, this is not something new, since approximately 100 years ago it was planned in the Protocols . Protocols 17.12 and 17.13 state: "We will know everything ... our program will induce a third of the people to watch over the rest for a pure sense of duty and for the principle of voluntarily serving the government. Then it will not be considered dishonorable to be a spy; on the contrary, will be considered praiseworthy. On the other hand, the bearers of false reports will be severely punished, in order to prevent abuse of the privilege of informing . " "In a State where power is poorly organized, where the laws and personality of the ruler are ineffective because of the continuous interference of liberalism, I take a new line of attack, using the right of force to destroy existing rules and regulations. , to capture the laws, to reorganize all institutions, and thus become the dictator of those who, by their own will, liberally renounced their power and conferred upon us . " They will enslave the people of the world in a global government based on the collectivism of the masses and the destruction of their individuality, as stated in Protocol 15.17: "They have not yet understood, and will never understand, that this wild dream [of collectivism / socialism / welfare state] is contrary to the main law of Nature, which, from the beginning of the world, created a being distinct from all others in order for him to have individuality . " Yahweh spoke through his prophet Micah, addressing those fallen souls: "Hear now, chiefs of Jacob and magistrates of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice? You who abhor good and love evil, tear their skin from them and their flesh from their bones, and let you eat the flesh of my people, that you tear their skin, break and crush their bones as if they were destined for the pot, as if they were meat in the cauldron " ( Micah 3: 1-3). In their defense, those unfortunate souls give the following answer to God : "From the temporary evil, to which we are now forced to resort, the benefit of a firm government will emerge, which will rehabilitate the course of the mechanism of natural existence [in a government of absolute despotism], which has been destroyed by liberalism . The end justifies the means. In developing our plans we must pay attention not so much to good and moral as to what is necessary and profitable " (Protocol 1.10). "This evil is the only means of achieving the objective of good. Therefore, we must not stop before bribery, deception and betrayal, if they are to serve the achievement of our cause" (Protocol 1.15). It seems that those evildoers still do not understand that the
words of the god who sees everything in chapters 8 and 9 of the
Book of Ezekiel are addressed to them. * * * * ADDENDUM : "We trust that the Gentiles will not harbor feelings of hatred against the creed mass of the Israelites, who ignore the satanic sin of their leaders - writers and Pharisees - who have already proven once to be the destruction of Israel. To avoid the wrath of God. There is only one way left: the union of all Christians in Our Lord Jesus Christ " (Sergei Nilus, 1905). And let me end what Rabbi Marvin Antelman said in his book (in Chapter XI): «So that none of the information developed here serves as a pretext for some open, substitute or subtle form of anti-Judaism, nor for anyone to harbor thoughts such as" See what these Jews did, "it should be indicated that: 1) It was the desire of the Jews to overthrow the yoke of bitter
anti-Jewish Christian persecution that led them to initially
embrace the Sabbataism from which Frankism evolved.
* * * * * * * * * * * * THE SATANIC THEOLOGY behind CULTURAL MARXISM The Kabalist Jews believe that God was fragmented by the act of Creation, and that his attributes are like "divine sparks" embedded in the Creation, which must be collected for him to be restored to unity (known as the act from tikkun ). The kabalist therefore believes that the Jewish Messiah will never arrive, and therefore Humanity will never be released, until God is restored to unity. The way to do that, according to the Kabbalists, is to engage in acts of holiness and meditation in order to recover God's sparks. In 1666 a kabalist and occultist named Sabbatai Zevi declared himself as the Jewish Messiah. After his messianism, he upset the Torah by stating that all sins were now considered "saints" and that the only way to "repair" God was to engage in acts of depravity. He lost several followers after the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire forced him to convert to Islam, after which, however, several Jews still followed him. One hundred years later, Jacob Frank declared that he was the reincarnation of Sabbatai Zevi and took those ideas to an even more extreme level: for God to be fully repaired and for the Messianic Age to arrive, Humanity had to destroy all its traditional moral values and go beyond good and evil. The Frankists, as they were called, got involved in every horrible thing you could imagine: black magic, wife swapping, sexual orgies, homosexuality, incest and pedophilia, and promoted a form of proto-feminism and proto-communism. Each of those disgusting acts was considered a "holy tikkun " (restoration) of God , to be performed with a holy intention. The Frankists were completely apocalyptic, who despised the world of creation, and sought to provoke their early end and produce a messianic utopia.
The Sabbatea and Frankista heresies seemed to disappear towards the beginning of the 19th century. However, there was still an active Frankist stronghold in Frankfurt, Germany, during that time. It was known that these Frankists were affiliated with the Masonic lodges that existed around the city. One such masons was a man known by the name of Franz Joseph Molitor. He was a well-known Satanist and alchemist who had a strong interest in the Kabala , going even as far as synthesizing it with a perverted form of "Christianity." That is what led him to collect the Sabbatean-Frankist ideology. In order to promote his sick and twisted opinions, he wrote a series of books in four volumes that promoted a corrupt understanding of "Judaism" written from a Kabbalist and Sabbatean perspective. Those books by Molitor would be considered later in the early twentieth century by two young Jewish scholars from Berlin: Gershom Scholem, who would later become a famous Jewish theologian, and his best friend, literature critic Walter Benjamin. Scholem and Benjamin were Kabbalists and occultists who became obsessed with the antinomic Sabbataism and all its evil. Benjamin would even go so far as to affirm a "close affinity" with Jacob Frank, which is not surprising given that Benjamin was also greatly influenced by Nietzsche's writings. He and Scholem were also strongly influenced by the writings of other well-known Jewish esotericists of the time: Franz Kafka, Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber (who later would make a good friendship with both of them and who openly admitted to holding Sabbatean opinions), Leo Strauss (who would become the reference of the American NeoCons ) and Ernst Bloch. The latter wrote a book called " Spirit of Utopia" in which he linked the communist revolution with Jewish messianism. Within a few years later, Benjamin would become a Marxist after living in the Soviet Union and meeting with Georg Lukacs, the Marxist philosopher who saw Western culture (and Christianity in particular) as the main obstacle to the revolution communist. Lukacs was one of the key people behind the creation of the Frankfurt School (established as a "Communist University"). Although Benjamin did not formally join that School , he would become one of the key intellectuals behind Critical Theory along with Theodor Adorno (his close friend) and Max Horkheimer (who became the director of the "School", changing his focus from economy to culture). Benjamin doubtfully was the worst of the Frankfurt School . In every conversation about Cultural Marxism he is often overlooked, but that is a mistake. His writings on literature and culture are full of concepts and terminology of the Kabala and the occult. In an early article, The Task of the Translator , he, while making a clear reference to the kabalistic "vessel breaking", states that all modern languages are incomplete and can never give a description completely accurate of anything on the surface until society and language become "complete." This is important to note, because the ideas expressed in that same text would become the backbone of deconstructivism , the same technique used by cultural Marxists to demonstrate that words can mean anything (given that all existing languages they are incomplete) and that all things are social constructions . The satanic and pedophile anarchist writer Peter Lamborn Wilson argues that Benjamin sought to "re-paganize" Judaism, which was exactly the goal of Sabbateans and Frankists. Benjamin died young at his own hands while fleeing from the National Socialist persecution (it must be said, suicide is strictly prohibited in authentic Judaism), but just before doing so he wrote a short essay ( On the Concept of History ) that combined the " historical materialism "Marxist with Kabalist mysticism. Continuing with the semi-Gnostic Kabalist narrative of the shattered God that imposes his suffering on Humanity, Benjamin affirmed that all human history was a history of suffering, and that all human culture was barbaric. For him, the only way to obtain the liberation of Humanity was to identify with the Marxist "class struggle" as has happened throughout history and leaving aside the notion of progress that has "blinded" the working classes to not fight For him, those who are labeled as "oppressed" classes have to remember their pain and suffering so that their hearts are full of hate, which gives them the impulse to go beyond good and evil, so that they rise and destroy capitalism and western civilization. He says: "Hate and the spirit of sacrifice ... are fueled by the image of enslaved ancestors rather than by that of liberated descendants." That spontaneous act will provoke the communist revolution, which will cause a massive redemption of Humanity. This is exactly analogous to the Sabbatea idea that the Messianic Age will only come once everyone is evil. Furthermore, in that "redemption", Humanity will become "complete" due to the act of the Messiah, something that is mentioned in the Zohar (the primary Kabbalist text). That means that Humanity will no longer be divided into classes, genders, races, nations or any other identity marker. That same fact should have parallels with the cultural Marxist agenda of diminishing the differences between races, nations and genders, among other things. It is also important to note that this text was written just after Stalin made a pact with Hitler, when Soviet Marxism seemed to have lost its redeeming qualities, and the combination of Jewish Marxism and mysticism was supposed to bring back the alleged redeeming nature of communism.
There is also reason to believe that the book " Dialectic of the Enlightenment" , by Horkheimer and Adorno, uses many of the same themes that appear in Benjamin's essay: human history is a story of suffering, and all attempts to free Humanity has only enslaved it even more. Of course, they omit Messianism at the end and religious allusions, since they were critical of every religion. Instead, they say that Nature must be "liberated" from the domination of Humanity before a concept of Reason that is not self-destructive can be formed. However, this is not only a precursor to the anti-human ecological movement we see today, but also based on the same Kabbalist concept of looking back. In the book, Horkheimer and Adorno glorified the sexual orgies of primitive peoples, stating that Christian ethics regarding sexuality has "pacified" the "authentic" sexuality of the people. This is remarkable, considering how the Sabbateans were constantly engaging in so-called "holy" sexual orgies. It is also important to note that Adorno repeated his semi-gnostic vision of the world in his writing "Negative Dialectic . " In fact, Scholem referred to the book of Adorno as an "innocent defense of metaphysics," and even suspected that Adorno had some affinity with Sabbatea's own heresy. Erich Fromm is another figure of the Frankfurt School that was strongly influenced by those same Jewish esotericists, and was a frequent guest of the Lehrhaus [Jewish house of study] in Frankfurt established by Rosenzweig and Buber. Fromm wrote extensively about Marx's theory of "alienation," which seems to have strong gnostic allusions. In his book "The Art of Love" he frequently states that capitalism makes people not love each other, and held that human relations would be stronger under socialism. He also claimed that all sexual differences between men and women were socially constructed and rejected gender as being innate. His works were certainly a precursor to feminism that we see today. Herbert Marcuse being the most famous of the Frankfurt School , there is no doubt that he was also under the influence of this ideology. The book "Eros and Civilization" (1955) takes Freud's opinions about sexuality - which were absolutely Sabbateas, since Freud admitted to having high regard for Kabbalah - to an even more extreme level. In fact, much of what Marcuse promotes in that horrible book is directly similar to the things that Sabbateans and Frankists practiced and promoted. He also claimed that Christian capitalism and morality distorted "authentic" sexuality, and openly called for a society where the most sinful of sexual acts were considered normal. He also said that perverted sexualities can help break down capitalism and Christianity. His book is very significant, because he played a huge role in the development of the American New Left, which gave us abortion on demand, feminism, and normalized homosexuality. Marcuse's other book, "The One-Dimensional Man" (1964), was greatly influenced by the thinking of Martin Heidegger, another pagan National Socialist philosopher. It is clear that Cultural Marxism was strongly influenced by a demonic form of Jewish mysticism. Sabbataism seeks to bring the Messianic Era by interpreting the Jewish Law upside down, so that all sins become holy. Critical Theory , likewise, seeks to bring communism by interpreting Western culture and its values backwards, so that the things that Western culture considers as moral and good (such as religious morality, family and free market) are considered as bad, and vice versa. The Sabbatean-Frankist influence is the main reason why Critical Theory insists on abortion, homosexuality, family disintegration, feminism, degenerate art, and total communism. That is why Adorno condemned the so-called "fascistic nature" of "authoritarian personality" as one that adheres to traditional Western values, contrasting it with the "liberal personality" that was unable to meet the standards of traditional Western values. That is also why Benjamin promoted detestable art and literature, while celebrating the death of traditional Western art. Marcuse's concept of "repressive tolerance" also follows that model, as it promotes censorship of those who wish to promote religious morality and traditional values, while having leftist discourse in the highest respect. Critical Theory is really a form of black magic . The recurring
theme in all this is tikkun , or the restoration of everything to
a state of unity. According to the Zohar , the Jewish Messiah
destroys the differences between genders, nations, religions and
everything else. It is communism in its purest form.
LINKS ABOUT CULTURAL MARXISM In this section we have put several original links (in English)
of the article. Several of them had already been presented in
Spanish, and we have added others that we publish that are
relevant and complementary to the subject. Cultural Marxism Frankfurt school Cultural Marxism and Frankfurt School - https://editorial-streicher.blogspot.com/2019/11/la-escuela-de-frankfurt-revolucion.html Erich Fromm, Judaism and the Frankfurt School (in English) Walter Benjamin, Judaism and the Frankfurt School (in English) Freud, the Frankfurt School and the Kabala (in English) The Frankfurt School and the Pathologization of "Gentile" Group
Loyalty (in English) The Frankfurt School and Its Legacy (in English) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx the word Jew
referenced 900+ times For how much longer, Catiline, will you abuse our patience? How
much longer will your madness mock us? What limit have you set to
your unbridled audacity...? Do you not feel that your plans are detected? Do you not see that your conspiracy is already arrested and made powerless by the knowledge everyone here possesses of it? What is there that you did last night, what the night before-where you were-who was there with you by pre-arrangement? Do you think we don’t know all this? What plot did you hatch there that you think we are unaware of? What a time this is! What decay! The Senate is aware of these things; the Consul sees them; and yet this man lives. Lives! Not only lives, he even comes into the Senate. He takes part in public deliberations; he is watching and marking down and checking off for slaughter every individual among us. And we, gallant men that we are, think that we are doing our duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks! You ought, O Cataline, long ago have been led to execution by command of Consul. That destruction which you have long been plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your head.... NOTICE TO ALL READERS Because the Introduction provides the background material
essential to understand the body of the text, I strongly advise
reading it before proceeding to Chapter 1. Notice to any readers
who may prefer an abridged version of the text: The following schedule will provide an essential summary of the
principle ideas in the text: If there were no problem, there would be no need for this book. The problem is that the Liberty that we enjoy is at risk. The risk is not from foreign invasion, or domestic terrorism. The risk is from internal assault upon the principles that serve as the foundation for our liberty. We are at risk of losing freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom of association, and all of the other rights which we have enjoyed for over two centuries. The necessary precondition for all these rights is private ownership of property; absent this, all the other rights, satellites of the first, will collapse. We enter the twenty-first century in possession of liberty; will we leave it, and our descendents, with as much? I am a Jew. As such, I am a member of a race that has suffered
more than any other race from the lack of liberty. I am also of
the race that has benefited the most from the enjoyment of
liberty. Reason would predict that the greatest champions of
liberty would be those of my race. My purpose in writing this book is to explore this enigma. Caveat: let no one think that only Jews form the threat from the Left. The reality is that most members of the radical Left are not Jews, and that what the Jewish Left have been able to do could not have been done by them alone. This book also explores the role of the Protestant Left, which worked and works synergistically with the Jewish Left. However, my chief concern will be with the Jewish Left. Let the Protestants bury their own. The Old Paradigm We came to live in a land (the Palestine Coast) that is exposed to mighty empires to the south, north, and east. To the west of Palestine stretches the Mediterranean basin, open to trade, but also to assault by any maritime power. The classical exposition of the behavioral pattern that I call the “Old Paradigm” is the story of Joseph in Egypt. In one form or another, we have repeated it from his time to our own. In the next few paragraphs I will present the paradigm as clearly as I can. But we, Jew and Gentile alike, must all acknowledge the force that drives this behavior. It is a product of the four-thousand-yearold longing for safety and security. Fear, not evil, is the motivating force. Now for the primeval story that serves as prototype. Joseph was the leader of a small tribe which came to sojourn within a large nation. As a minority that wished to preserve its unique culture, to refuse to assimilate, the Jewish people became the archetypical “other.” To preserve “otherness” and be safe—that was the problem. Joseph’s success with Pharaoh was noted by the leaders of the Jewish people. They gleaned from his experience that the best way to ensure survival was to identify, and then to befriend the highest power in the state. To befriend a multiplicity of lesser powers would be expensive. It would also be dangerous in the face of the ever-shifting alliances of secondary powers. So the most efficient path to safety is to be at the foot of, or better yet, behind, the throne. The goal would be to become indispensable to the ruling power, to be its most loyal ally. There follows from this predictable sequelae. One is the support of the person of the autocrat. (In this case, Pharaoh). This includes support of the office of the autocrat. Through the ages we will see that the Jews in the Diaspora acted according to this pattern. From this followed the support for those measures and policies that served to transfer power from lower to higher levels of government. In the course of this history, we will see many examples that confirm this. In our time and place, perusal of any daily newspaper will confirm that the Jewish Left is the most dependable supporter of the process of upward concentration of power, whether it be from city to county, county to state, or state to federal levels. The New Wrinkle Following closely on the heels of the Enlightenment came Karl Marx. If he could be described as a child of the Enlightenment, he would be its most prominent bastard. With him, the logic of equality took a giant step. If equality before the law is good, wouldn’t equality in everything be better? But here the logic fails. Equality before the law is the precondition of liberty; equality in all things is a precondition for tyranny. Equality in all things, which can be voluntary in a religious community, can occur in the secular world only at the point of a bayonet. But it is easy to see how Marx would fall into this error. Seekers usually discover what they already believe. Despite his atheism and burning hostility toward Jews, he was still a Jew, and his driving force was still the fear common to most secularized Jews. Paradoxically, it was his very Jewishness that informed his political philosophy. In essence, he tried to make a world in which all differences would disappear; in a world of enforced uniformity Jewishness could not possibly be a threat. Viewed from this perspective, he could be considered the most Jewish of Jews. The price, of course, is that if no race, nationality, religion, or selfdefined culture is allowed to exist, Judaism itself also is over. Fear drove him to not only accept this solution, but to embrace it. Marx begins by elimination of private ownership of property. Hence there is no difference between rich and poor. Marx considers the family unit to be a tool of oppression against women and children; hence marriage and family are abolished. Children and spouses are to be held in common. Adults may live together, or separate, as their urges dictate. All boundaries of race, religion, and creed are to be abolished. Sameness must rule. Today’s Left continues his work. They expand the scope of that which is to be leveled by mandating no difference between fully abled and handicapped, and young and old. They seek to redefine marriage to include same-sex couples, but this is a ploy to further weaken the institution of marriage. Their plan is so to degrade marriage, that when they finally reveal their goal of abolishing it, there will be so little left to defend that the rest of us won’t bother to do so. The mentally ill and mentally retarded are “mainstreamed,” meaning that the educational and social norms are reduced to the lowest possible level. Although average and gifted children pay the immediate price, society pays in the long run. In the public schools, competitive games are discouraged. Racial quotas not only dictate job and academic placement, but require specified worksite and academic outcomes. The old Chinese proverb, “all one under Heaven” applies here. The goal is to create a gray sameness, with everyone (except the administrators) as much alike as possible. A leveled society seems to offer the greatest degree of safety for a threatened “other.” Leveling also provides the authorities with a simple creed which appeals to the human emotion of envy. Envy is sanctified by being recast as “fairness.” This cynical manipulation of the masses is the greatest deception of modern times. We now come to what I call philosophical Marxism. Accepting all the above, it is but a short step to define out of existence any difference between moral qualities. The questions regarding right and wrong, good and evil, ethical and fraudulent cease to have any meaning. The glue that holds civilized society together has been dissolved. The final apotheosis of the loss of all moral compass is the presumption that there is no moral superiority of man over animal. At this point, we have reached nihilism, and suicide, individually or as a species, becomes an option. In Western Europe, the population decline below replacement level is a manifestation of suicide at a national level. So much is the creation of an apostate Jew and his followers. What is at base the creation of a frightened Jew seeking safety has grown into a rationale so elaborate that one may easily lose sight of its original purpose and fail to appreciate its underlying simplicity. Even its authors were overawed at their own creation, blinded by their own version of the golden calf. The Frankenstein Effect The American Miracle Now I can point out the failure of the Jewish Left. If we are charitable, we can say that it has failed to recognize that its old pattern for self-preservation is no longer necessary under the uniquely novel conditions of the New World, that the old behavior is atavistic and stereotypic, and is not applicable to this time and place. If we are less charitable, we can say that the Jewish Left recognizes the unique social order in this New World, but out of unbridled arrogance has decided to mutilate what is into its perception of what should be. What we the people think is immaterial. That the majority do not wish to go down an uncertain road toward an uncertain end carries no weight with those who believe in their own self-arrogated moral supremacy. Is that how an immigrant minority, saved from extinction by the inherent goodness of a unique culture, shows its gratitude? It seems so. Riding Two Horses (or trying to) Purposes 1. To explain to the Christian Right that their favorable vision
of Jews as taken from the Old Testament cannot be applied
uniformly to the Jews of today. 2. To solve for Christians supporting Israel the enigma of
anti-Zionist behavior on the part of the Jewish Left. 4. To embarrass mainstream Jewry into breaking its wall of
silence regarding the destructiveness of its left-wing brethren. Ingratitude What about destructive behavior that is intentional and purposefully aimed at destruction or mutilation of the host body? The contention of my book is that such a case exists here, with the Jewish Left being the chief destructive force. The behavior is especially heinous in that it is so solipsistic. The Jewish Left can only think of their own welfare and set no limits on the “collateral damage” they will inflict on the greater society. Yet it is this free society that saved these very Jews from annihilation! This behavior, for which I can find no parallel in political
history, can only be described as— Savage Ingratitude!! There are many factors that contribute to the culture of a people, and they are not all operative for all cultures, and the weight of their influence is not uniform across cultures. In the evolution of the Jewish culture, the factor of insecurity has been of primary importance. A look at a topographical atlas of the eastern Mediterranean basin shows that the Mediterranean Sea has as its eastern border a straight north-south shoreline running from modern-day Egypt to the south, up to modern-day Turkey to the north. This shore, which is made up of Israel, Lebanon, and Syria, is the focus of the first part of our story (map I). Since there is no generally accepted term for this stretch of land, I will refer to it as Palestine. Our specific interest will be in ancient Israel, the southernmost of these three states. I will variously refer to it as Israel, the Holy Land, or by its Hebrew name, Eretz Israel (in Hebrew, Eretz means land). But before discussing Eretz Israel further, we return to the physical map of Asia, looking at Egypt. Flowing out of east Africa is the Nile River, giving Egypt a very fertile southto-north strip of land. This river and its valley are the lifeblood of Egypt (map I). Looking far to the north, at the opposite end of the coast of Palestine, is the Anatolian plateau, surrounded by mountain ranges. The runoff from these mountains produces the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (map II). As in the case of Egypt, these rivers create a valley of fertile land of enormous agricultural potential. Among historians this area is variously called “Mesopotamia” or the “Fertile Crescent.” In contrast, when we look at the coast and plains of Palestine, we see no such water source. So, two rich agricultural areas are separated by a long stretch of relatively arid land. Dating back to prehistoric times, the agricultural potential of Egypt and Mesopotamia allowed large populations with enough surplus wealth to support powerful kingdoms with large military potential. Thus were created two mighty rival empires, separated by a stretch of relatively arid and lightly populated land. Given the human propensity for war, it was inevitable that these two empires should clash. The natural battleground was Palestine. The inhabitants of Palestine could count more on war than on water. The mindset of weak peoples situated between two strong empires is soon conditioned to deal with and make the most of positional weakness. Thus the earliest Jewish history is marked by the presence of geographically determined vulnerability. A little more geography of Eretz Israel will be necessary to understand what is to come. Looking at the physical geography of Eretz Israel once again, on the whole it looks like a corridor running north-south and forming the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea. A closer look reveals that it is actually three north-south strips running parallel to each other. Going from west to east, that is from the Mediterranean coast inland, the first corridor is the coastal plain, which being flat, is easy for people (or chariots) to traverse. About thirty miles inland, also stretching north-south, is a chain of mountains. The third corridor is the land east of the mountain chain and contains bodies of water fed by the runoff from the mountains. Going from south to north, these bodies are the Salt Sea, the Jordan River, and Sea of Galilee. The distinctions are important because the routes on either side of the mountain chain were trade routes for international commerce. The western route along the sea (Via Maris) facilitated Mediterranean trade, while the route east of the mountains (King’s Highway) served trade involving the Red Sea (map I). The mountain chain, being the least hospitable, hence the least populated, was also the least well defended. Thus it was destined to become the initial focus of Hebrew settlement after the Exodus from Egypt. Such was the land. Who were the people? There is an enormous amount of scholarly work regarding the early Hebrews, the review of which is beyond the scope of this book. Various sources place the time of Abraham from between 2100 BC to about 1800 BC. He came from people of nomadic sheepherding tradition. These people came to Eretz Israel from farther east and adopted a more settled lifestyle. As most readers know, Abraham’s grandson Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt. The story of Joseph in Egypt becomes the prototype of a Jewish history repeated for five thousand years. JOSEPH IN EGYPT The Book of Genesis relates how Joseph came to be in Egypt and
how he came to be the favorite of Pharaoh. His family was also provided for: In the course of the famine years Joseph was a very capable steward of Pharaoh’s interests. He acted as a very effective power in increasing the wealth and power of Pharaoh: 13. And there was no bread in all the land; for the famine was very sore, so that the land of Egypt and all the land of Canaan, fainted by reason of the famine. 14. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, for the corn which they bought: and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house. 15. And when the money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came unto Joseph and said, Give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth. 16. And Joseph said, give me your cattle; and I will give you for your cattle, if money fail. 17. And they brought their cattle unto Joseph: and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for horses, and for the flocks, and for the cattle of the herds, and the asses: and he fed them with bread for all their cattle for that year. 18. When that year was ended, they came to him the second year, and said unto him, we will not hide it from my lord, now that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: 19. Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes both we and our land? Buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate. 20. And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh; for the Egyptians sold every man his fields, because the famine prevailed over them: so the land became Pharaoh’s. (Gen. 47:13–20) The episode related above regarding the relationship between Pharaoh and Joseph will serve as the pattern of Jewish relationships to heads of state during the whole of Jewish history: the self-protective behavior of a people who are a small minority in large state. An identified minority as such is at constant risk of negative discrimination, ranging from moderate inconvenience to outright annihilation. Lacking the numbers necessary for selfprotection, it identifies the greatest source of Power in the land and makes itself useful to that Power. It helps to enrich that Power and to aid it in centralizing authority in the hands of that Power. The Jewish minority will be shown, in the course of history, to exercise keen judgment in seeking out the greatest Power, such as Pharaoh, rather than secondary sources such as the nobility or the clergy. The wisdom of such discriminating choices provides a double benefit to the minority. It is far easier to please one master than many, and also the Supreme Master has the ultimate authority. It is thus the most parsimonious use of resources on the part of the suppliant minority. There is also benefit to the Supreme Power: He is able to use an identified minority (The Jews) as a tool in doing unpopular work, and thus to a certain degree the Supreme Power is shielded from the resentment and anger of the masses, while enjoying the economic benefits procured for him by a third party. He also has created a bureaucracy whose loyalty toward himself is guaranteed in proportion as the resentment of the masses toward the Jew removes from the Jew any security independent of the Supreme Power. Another advantage to the Supreme Power is that he can do without the Jew, but the Jew cannot do without him. It is a marriage of unequals. The risks to the Jewish minority are obvious and great, and, unfortunately, after varying amounts of time, occur with depressing certainty. The peasantry develops an intense hatred toward the Jew because of his role as executor of the pecuniary and power demands of the Supreme Power; and the Supreme Power is only too happy to pocket the money and avoid the blame. Reading above the complete devastation of the Egyptian peasantry, it takes little imagination to guess its attitude toward Joseph and his family. The other great risk, which ultimately goes from possibility to near certainty, is that Pharaoh no longer knows Joseph. In the case of Egypt, historians have postulated that the story of Joseph occurred during the course of rule in Egypt by a nonnative (Hyksos) dynasty, which was subsequently overthrown by native Egyptians. That is why Pharaoh did not know Joseph. To generalize, the “court Jew” helps the monarch centralize power and wealth in the hands of the state (which is usually under the control of an autocrat). Then, at a subsequent time, the autocrat (or central power) finds that Jew(s) have either served their purpose, or for some other reason are no longer useful or desirable. The Jews may even have become a political liability, or the autocrat may need a scapegoat for failed domestic or foreign policies. Sometimes the autocrat needs money or is in debt to Jewish bankers. At such time, the autocrat uses the power of the state (which he obtained with Jewish help) to harm Jews and Jewish interests. I call this the “Frankenstein Effect.” THE BEGINNING OF A PEOPLE The Exodus from Egypt was a divine act which preceded the revelation at Sinai, the dwelling place of the God of Israel where the Torah [Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy] was given. According to tradition, the essence of Israel’s uniqueness as the chosen people was expressed at the revelation at Mt. Sinai…various analytical trends…see in the revelation at Sinai those historic days when the tribes were consolidated into a nation and their monotheistic belief purified under the leadership of an outstanding personality—Moses.1 The Torah provides a history that serves to unite the people, as
well as the revelation of God’s will. The origin of the word Torah
is related by Rabbi Daniel Silver below: Thus all of the laws found in the Five Books of Moses (found in Torah) are binding on observant Jews. Obedience to these laws formed a binding force holding the community together. It also helped to define Jewish particularity, i.e., emphasizing its separation from other peoples. There was no injunction to proselytize, the community considering itself a closed body. As we shall see in future chapters dealing with modern times, particularism became anathema to those forces promoting scientific socialism, of which the writing of Karl Marx is the most clear (and most fateful) example. But there was something more than the written Torah. There was also an oral Torah, referred to in Hebrew as Mishnah. Tradition relates that the laws of Mishnah were related by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, but were intentionally not written down. The Mishnah, despite its oral form, was not considered any less authoritative than the written Torah; in fact, certain ancient and medieval scholars considered it more authoritative. The impact of the Mishnah as the key to the development of Rabbinic Judaism will be very important and will be explored in depth in future chapters. Just note here that Mishnah and its derivative works will serve to de-emphasize the role of the written Torah in ages to come, with serious consequences to Judaism and to non-Jewish cultures affected by Rabbinic Judaism. One further event at the base of Mt. Sinai marks the seriousness of the people’s responsibility to accept Jehovah as the only God of Israel. The Israelites had just spent four centuries in a polytheistic culture; undoubtedly they had witnessed the regular practice of numerous native Egyptian cults, and it would be reasonable to presume that some of these practices had made their way into the folkways of the people. Thus when they felt abandoned by Moses in the middle of a desert, they directed Aaron to make for them another deity: “…make us gods, which shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what has become of him” (Exodus 32:1). In addressing the 19th century AD, we will see that a god does not have to be tangible. An ideology can do as well. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica. 1st ed., sv “History.” If the Exodus was an ordeal, the Conquest of Canaan was no less so. Depending upon sources, some time in the 13th century BC, the Israelites arrived at the frontier of their new land, at Kadesh-Barnea in the northwestern Sinai. There were available the three routes (or corridors) referred to in chapter 1. From the point of terrain, the coastal route along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean would have been the easiest. But there were two obstacles: strong Canaanite fortress in the Negev and a string of Egyptian fortresses in the flat coastal plain beyond. These Egyptian fortresses served Egypt in its ongoing conflict with the Mesopotamian power of that time, the Hittites. In approximately 1274 BC, a great battle (Battle of Kadesh) took place between Pharaoh Rameses II and the Hittite ruler, Muratalli II. It occurred on the Orontes River in northern Syria (map IV). The location gives some indication of the extensive power of Egypt at that time, implying control of the coastal trade routes along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. No small Semitic tribe could hope to successfully challenge such large powers as Egypt or the Hittite Empire. As a result, the Israelites broke into Canaan in the easternmost corridor, skirting the Dead Sea and entering through the Amorite kingdom of Hesbon. There was general chaos in the whole region due to the rivalry of the Egyptians and Hittites, and this chaos among local kingdoms served as opportunity for the Israelites. In general, the Conquest proceeded from the south to the north, going up the lessdefended area east of the mountain chain, and probably avoiding direct conflict with the Kingdoms of Edom and Moab for the time being (map IV). After passing the Dead Sea, they were able to follow the Jordan River up to, and beyond, the Sea of Galilee. In the initial stages of the Conquest, the Israelites kept to the hill country, because of the fortresses and chariots of the Canaanites. Interestingly, even at this early date, long before the conquest was complete, the separation of Eretz Israel into two kingdoms is foreshadowed by geographical and political realities: The northern region of settlement was bordered on the south by a strip of plains (Jezreel and Beth-Shean) with fortifications ranged from Beth-Shean to Megiddo. Further, even in the territories of the northern tribes there were numerous Canaanite enclaves which undermined the unity of the Israelites; the large block of central mountains was between the Canaanite of the valleys and the chain of Canaanite fortresses in the south, starting with Jerusalem and ending in Gezer. This chain separated the central tribes from the southern tribes. Between these three blocks and the Israelite settlements in the east there was a natural border—the Jordan. Thus the Canaanite fortresses interrupted the continuity of the Israelite settlement and prevented close contact among the groups of tribes and weakened their attachments to one another. It is noteworthy that the break between the central and southern tribes was so absolute that even the most reliable sources (including the “Song of Deborah”) do not mention the tribe of Judah at all as a component of the tribal alliance during the period of settlement.1 Slowly, the conquest advanced. At some point, it became obvious to the tribes that the lack of centralized leadership was militarily a serious, and possibly fatal, weakness. In addition, internal tribal disputes required resolution. Thus began the period of Judges. Judges served the function of leadership in the individual tribes. Apparently, they had no intertribal authority, and they did not at this point seem to provide any form of national leadership. Since the judges served as military leaders, they had no function in the absence of war. Thus they had an intermittent existence, and consequently, no hereditary rights accrued to the office. It appears that there was also a tradition of “minor judges” whose function was not military, but involved leadership within the tribe in nonmilitary issues.2 At the beginning of the 11th century BC, the conflict between the Israelites and Philistines grew more acute, as the Israelites attempted to settle the plains, and to dispute Philistine supremacy. The disadvantages of having no central authority became acute in time of war, and must have been the major compelling reason for appointing a king over all the tribes. At least that is the opinion of the authors of the Jewish Encyclopedia.3 A different view is given in 1 Samuel 8:4–19: The motivation of the people is mixed; they also want to be like the other nations, and thus to reject some of their uniqueness, or “particularity.” The scriptural view emphasizes the rejection of God as the military leader, in favor of a king. In response to the people’s entreaty for a king, Samuel appoints Saul to be ruler over them. MONARCHY: NATIONAL CONSOLIDATION Israel, lacking the natural advantages of Egypt and Mesopotamia, was able to accumulate wealth and power by trade, as Britain would do millennia later. However, unlike Britain, Eretz Israel is not an island. Also, it is situated, as noted, between two superpowers, and its coastal plain is flat, and therefore, excellent terrain for military purposes. Another factor standing in the way of empire was Jewish particularism. No attempt was made at proselytizing. Also, there was no (official) toleration of other religions, so the accretion of vassal states would have been very difficult. Judaism would not readily accept converts and would not officially tolerate other religions. Thus the idea of empire could not work for either side of any conqueror/conquered equation. Because the Jewish people had a unique, private, and mandatory religion, the size of the state was limited. However, as history will show, the political weakness was more than compensated for by the spiritual power of Judaism; and the people could survive not only with a weak state, but, if necessary, with no state at all. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica. 1st ed. sv “History.” Shortly after the death of Solomon, the Jewish state split into two feuding entities. By 930 BC, the northern tribes separated from the Davidic dynasty, forming a new kingdom under Jeroboam, with its capital at Shechem (map IV). The Davidic line retained control in the south under Rehoboam, its capital remaining Jerusalem. The northern kingdom was called Israel, and the southern, Judah. Both kingdoms were subject to invasion, and invaders played off one kingdom against the other. The first invasion was by Pharaoh Shishak, who attacked from the south. He probably had some sort of understanding with the Kingdom of Judah, because he bypassed Judah to attack Israel (the northern kingdom). This raid seemed to be mainly for plunder and did not leave a stronger Egyptian presence in northern Palestine. It did, however, signal continuing Egyptian interest in all of Palestine, as this area controlled both the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea trade routes (Via Maris and King’s Highway) referred to in chapter 1. In Mesopotamia, Assyria was in a period of decline, losing power to the Kingdom of Aram-Damascus. Aram-Damascus lay between Assyria and Israel (the northern Jewish kingdom). There were constant tensions between the four political entities: Judah, Israel, Aram-Damascus, and Assyria. Alliances were made and broken, and from time to time one of the states would be the most powerful, but there was no stability in the region. In addition, each of these separate states suffered from its respective internal instabilities. This instability continued for two centuries. Slowly, Assyria became the dominant power in the region. In 734–733 BC the Assyrian king Tiglath-Pileser captured Damascus and made the former kingdom of Aram-Damascus into an Assyrian province. At about this time, Ahaz, King of Judah, accepted Assyrian overlordship. Now the situation got more complex, because a Babylonian Empire was rapidly gaining strength to the south and east of Assyria. Thus Assyria was under increasing pressure from the east (Babylonia) while facing constant revolts and shifting alliances between the two Jewish states. In addition, the many smaller states that had been forced into alliance with Assyria, were growing restive. The Egyptians, always interested in this area, at times tried to support Assyria in order to make Assyria a client state of Egypt. The Egyptians preferred a weak, dependent Assyria to the threat of a strong, independent Babylon. At other times, when Assyria appeared to be resurging, Egyptian policy was to oppose Assyria. Palestine had become a battlefield between Babylon in the north and Egypt in the south, with the small states being pawns in a game of great power politics and war. Assyria remained present, as a declining, but still dangerous element in this game. During one of the periodic revolts, the Jewish Kingdom, Israel, with Egyptian support, joined the rebellion (722 BC). The results were disastrous: 4. And the king of Assyria found conspiracy in Hoshea: for he had sent messengers to So, king of Egypt, and brought no present to the king of Assyria, as he had done year by year: therefore the king of Assyria shut him up, and bound him in prison. 5. Then the king of Assyria came up throughout all the land, and went up to Samaria, and besieged it three years. (II Kings 17:4–5) Thus the northern kingdom of Israel came to an end. DESTRUCTION OF THE FIRST TEMPLE By this time Assyria had been pushed as far west as it could go and was threatened with extinction. Pharaoh Neco became alarmed, because Babylon was at the point of becoming master of Palestine, with its trade routes. As Egypt was not strong enough to dominate Palestine, it was in her interest to keep a balance of power in the area. Accordingly, Pharaoh Neco mobilized his forces to come to the aid of Assyria. During this dangerous period, the king of Judah, Jehoiakim, was put in a precarious position. A wise man once said, “When elephants are fighting, the ants had better get out of the way.” The problem for Jehoiakim was that Judah was built on the “way,” and a state cannot move. In the event, a battle was fought at Carchemish in 605 BC in which the combined Egyptian and Assyrian forces were defeated by Nebuchadnezzar (map IV). It is instructive to look at the location of Carchemish on the map, in order to note how far from Egypt a pharaoh was willing to go to support trade routes and influence. As a result of this battle, Assyria disappeared as an independent power, having been made into a province of Babylon. Egypt, from now on, disappears as a significant power, never again making a successful attempt to expand into Palestine. So this date, 605 BC, marks the end of empire for two of the then contemporary world powers, Egypt and Assyria. The kingdom of Judah was one of several small powers that were trying to maintain independence from the growing power of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. There was generalized resentment of Babylonian overlordship in the whole area. Accordingly, a generalized revolt by most of the small states in northern Palestine broke out. Zedekiah, King of Judah, had been installed by Nebuchadnezzar. Nevertheless, against the advice of the prophet Jeremiah, Zedekiah joined the rebellion. Nebuchadnezzar then besieged Jerusalem. The new pharaoh, Hophra, was alarmed at the loss of all of Palestine, and sent military support to Jerusalem, but the relief army was defeated by a Babylonian force. Thus in 586 BC Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar, the First Temple was destroyed, and the state of Judah ceased to exist. The largest part of the Jewish population was forced into exile. Babylon became the new center of Jewish life. CHAPTER 4 The fall of the First Temple in 586 BC is the greatest catastrophe in Jewish biblical history. The First Temple served as a centralizing force for a fractious nation. Since it housed the Ark of the Covenant, it was considered to be the site of the Divine Presence. There were other sites of religious significance that had been set up by the several tribes in their particular areas of settlement and commanded local religious affiliations. These sites were of variable orthodoxy, being subject to certain indigenous religious practices native to the regions prior to the conquest. The Temple served to standardize religious practice: The growth of the Temple’s importance as a religious center was bound up in large measure with the struggle against the high places, which appears to have become intensified in Judah with the political breach in the nation after the death of Solomon. During the reign of Omri the practice of idolatry gained ground in Israel, even as it did in Judah in the days of Athaliah. By the very nature of thing, idolatrous practices were concentrated especially in localities not subject to official supervision, that is, at the local high places. This brought about a sharpening of the religious conflict, which, in turn, led to an increased emphasis upon the special significance of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ultimately in the reign of Hezekiah and Josiah, to the prohibition of the use of the high places and to centralization of worship in the Temple.1 The religion, having become that of the entire people, served to
provide them with a common identity: Response to the Loss Priests dominated Judean life during the exilitic period and post-exilitic period and were largely responsible for the governance of Jerusalem when it was resettled. One theory holds that the priests prepared the Five Scrolls from oral traditions and available documents to provide Jerusalem, when it once again became a city governed by a Judean elite, with a constitutional document that clearly stated God’s will. Ezra and his colleagues believed that obedience to such a document alone could guarantee God’s generous protection. Post-exilitic leaders accepted the teachings of pre-exilitic prophets like Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah, who had driven home the lesson that the national fate depended on the people’s loyalty to the covenant. These leaders looked on the Exile as deserved punishment.3 The exile lasted from 586 BC until 538 BC. It appears that the exiles did well from the beginning, as Nebuchadnezzar decided to raise the children of the best of the exiled Jews to be part of his nobility. Among these favored ones were Daniel, Shadrach, Meschah, and Abednego, who were eventually appointed by Nebuchadnezzar to high administrative offices.4 It is curious that a captured people should have been treated so well. In the years 539–538 BC, Babylon fell to Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians. The change was more than just one of dynasty, as the invaders were of Indo-European race and spoke an Indo-European language (Persian). In that sense, the Persians were ethnically more removed from the Jews than the Babylonian dynasty that they had supplanted. Nonetheless, the exiles got on very well with the new rulers. Daniel lived into the reign of Cyrus, who evidently had great regard for him. Probably because of jealousy, other high court officials plotted to destroy Daniel. Knowing that Daniel prayed to God three times a day, these officials presented a law for Cyrus to approve, making it a capital offense to make obeisance to anyone but Cyrus for the next thirty days. Their plot worked: 12. Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. 13. Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. 14. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. 15. Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king established may be changed. 16. Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee. 17. And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed regarding Daniel. 18. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him. (Daniel 7:12–18) The text above shows that Daniel was favored by the king. It shows something else of importance. The Medes and Persians were not ruled by a complete oriental despotism. They had, to some degree, a government of laws, and not just men. It was not an absolute tyranny. Cyrus was succeeded by Cambyses and then by Darius I (ruled 521–486 BC). Actually, Darius had been, as a prince, very close to Cyrus. It was during the reign of Darius I, in 522 BC, that a group of exiles, numbering 42,360, returned to Eretz Israel (which until 70 AD I will refer to as Judea). They began to work on what was to become the Second Temple. For various reasons, the work was delayed. In 515 BC, the Second Temple was completed and consecrated. During the reign of Artaxerxes (465–424 BC), it happened that an exile of priestly/noble caste, Nehemiah, was made his cupbearer. Ezra was contemporary to Nehemiah. They both returned to Jerusalem in order to complete the walls of the city, but more importantly, to reestablish religious tradition, and the favored place of the priesthood in the revived nation. It was certainly in the interest of the Persian ruler to have reliable ruling elite in a state sponsored by Persia. Rabbi Silver writes: But what is not debated is that Ezra’s activities and those of another contemporary, from the east, Nehemiah, represent attempts by the Judean aristocracy among the exiles, primarily the priests, to assert the authority of their views and practices over the Temple and the City of Jerusalem. Furthermore, Ezra, a “priest and scribe of the law of God of Heaven,” and Nehemiah, a nobleman who had served as a cupbearer in the royal court, seem to have been backed by the Persian court and to have come to Jerusalem on missions authorized by it.5 Early on in their return to Jerusalem, Ezra and Nehemiah read The Book of the Law before the people. We do not know the contents of this book. Probably it was all or part of the Torah. Rabbi Silver points out the enormous meaning of this event: The story of Ezra’s scroll, as told by later priest-historians whose efforts are recorded in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, is significant because for the first time the community seems to have acknowledged that religious authority can lodge in a text [my emphasis]. Little in the earlier biblical records foreshadows such a change. The first group of Judeans to return to Jerusalem (c. 520) with the aim of renewing the cult had apparently not felt the need to bring a Torah type of scroll with them, as none is mentioned. In the intervening generations before Ezra’s arrival, we hear of prophets who brought God’s word to Judea (Haggai, Zechariah, and so on), of priests who were consulted about the oracle, and of the altar and its implements; but there is no mention that a scroll of any kind played a significant role, or any role, in the life of the community. Even later writers, like the rabbis of the Talmudic period, who assumed that the Sefer [book of] Torah had been in existence since Moses’ day, sensed the novelty and the importance of the event. “Ezra was worthy of having the law given through him to Israel had not Moses preceded him” (b. San. 21b).6 At this moment the Temple becomes portable. Wherever the Jewish people goes, its law goes with it. Loss of the homeland no longer means loss of identity as God’s Chosen People. Joseph and Pharaoh Redux The classic instance of capturing the sympathy of the head of state is given in the narrative of the Book of Esther. In the first lines of the book, we learn that the empire consists of 127 provinces. It would have been impossible for Mordecai to have captured the sympathy of 127 satraps (provincial governors). He was far wiser, and targeted Ahasuerus (Artaxerxes?), who was the monarch over all. The last sentence of the Book of Esther shows the relationship of Ahasuerus and Mordecai to parallel that of Pharaoh and Joseph: “For Mordecai the Jew was second to King Ahasuerus and was great among the Jews and approved by the multitude of his brothers, working for the good of his people and speaking peace to all their offspring.”7 The text of the book shows the king giving the Jews protection in an interesting way; there is no rescission of his earlier order authorizing their annihilation, which would logically be the easiest way to resolve the situation. There was obviously time to do so, as the subsequent orders saving the Jews were promulgated in time. The means of saving the Jews was to authorize them to defend themselves, and probably more importantly, the satraps were ordered to help them. This is consistent with the Law of the Medes and Persians cited above in the case of Cyrus, that once the king gives an order, even he is bound by it. Political Power in Judea You have nothing to do with us in building a house to our God, for we ourselves shall together build to Jehovah the God of Israel, just as King Cyrus the king of Persia has commanded us.8 Note that the authority comes from Cyrus, not from God. Rabbi Silver has a terse but clear summation of the political situation: First he notes that to the returnees, Ezra’s Scroll was held in great respect “because it was based on the emperor’s authority, which Ezra used to effect certain reforms in the government of Jerusalem.”9 Descendents of the royal family apparently incurred the wrath of the Persians by making a bid for power during the first years of return. That experience suggested to the Persians that it might be good policy to send more compliant leaders to reorganize the troubled governance of Judea. Priests, men like Ezra and Nehemiah, who had knowledge of Israel’s law and were recognizable figures of authority, filled the bill. Priests had political ambitions, but not kingly ambitions that might trouble the peace of the empire. This powerful and literate priest group had developed its own version of tradition which it accepted as God’s will. It now found itself with a chance to govern Jerusalem, the city where God dwelt as well as where the Temple was located, and which played a central role in the lives of Jews everywhere.10 It is clear that the new state was not only a theocracy, but a
client state of Persia. Now we come to the development of Holy Scripture. Jewish orthodox tradition asserts that there were two scriptures handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The first Scripture was written and is called The Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch, or the Torah. I will use the term Torah because it is well-known among non-Jews and will avoid confusion during the course of further discussion. (The Torah alone does not include the other material listed below under Tanakh; it is limited to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.) There was, by orthodox tradition, also an Oral Torah, communicated by God to Moses. This Oral Torah was not redacted (written out) until well after the redaction the First Torah. There is considerable debate relating to the date of canonization of the Old Testament, which is beyond the scope of this book. In any event, the Hebrew name for the Old Testament is the Tanakh, and it consists of three parts: (1) the Five Books of Moses, (2) the Prophets, and (3) “Writings;” i.e., Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Sons, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles. This is common knowledge to Jews and Christians. What is obscure to almost all Christians, and probably to most Jews, is the history and content of the Second Scripture. As noted above, orthodox Jewish tradition has it that the contents of the Oral Torah were transmitted to Moses by God at Mt. Sinai at the same time as He gave the written Torah. The Oral Torah was intentionally unwritten; in fact, it was for a long time forbidden to write it out. It was to be memorized. What is this oral Torah? The name for it, when it was eventually written out, was the Mishnah. Unlike the Pentateuch, which is largely narrative, i.e., stories, histories, and parables, the Mishnah is a series of laws regulating every aspect of community and personal life. It is boring reading. In Hebrew the term for narrative text, i.e., stories, is aggada. The term for legal writing is Halacha. Thus the Pentateuch is aggadic, and the Mishnah is halachic. Henceforth, as a convention, I will use the word Torah only to refer to the Pentateuch. For the Oral Torah, I will use the term Mishnah. One of the primary, if not the primary, functions of the Mishnah, is to provide a catalogue of laws that would otherwise have to be sought out in various places in Torah. It could be described as a legal abstract of Torah minus the aggadic content. The Mishnah helped to solidify the authority of the priestly class, as they alone had access to the content of a book that had not yet been written. Any question the people had of interpretation of the law had to be viewed in light not just of Torah, but also of Mishnah. Only the priests could do that. Rabbi Silver’s insightful comment is, as usual, pithy and enlightening: Limiting advanced study to direct contact between master and student and keeping the texts oral contributed significantly to the success of the key elements of the rabbinic agenda: it concentrated interpretive authority in the hands of the masters and prevented the growth of any significant challenge to their agenda and authority. The sages controlled not only the subjects discussed in the schools but the terms of any debate. There were sages who challenged another’s authority, but apparently no challenge resulted in any debate about the authority of the second scripture.1 Even in the case of Torah alone, conflicting opinions of the data within Torah may be held. Similarly in the case of material within Mishnah…How much more so with apparently conflicting readings between Torah and Mishnah? There is enough confusion here to keep cadres of priests employed for centuries. And so it did!! The big question was, and remains today among orthodox Jews: Which of the two sources is more authoritative? Surprisingly, Mishnah. By the fourth century (AD), the concept of the two Torahs had been broadly accepted. The image is of equal elements; but in actual practice, the sages gave their oral Torah the greater weight. It served as the basis of their educational and legal decisions. Despite the ceremonial care which they treated the Sefer Torah, [Pentateuch] they did not hesitate to declare flatly: “In three areas the halacha [God’s law, as they taught it] overrides a specific scriptural instruction” (Urbach 1975, p 294). Illustrations of this attitude can be multiplied: “The covenant was made at Sinai only on account of the oral Torah” (b. Git. 60b). “Both written and oral laws have been proclaimed and we cannot tell which is the more precious, but since it is written ‘Al pi [literally “by the mouth of”] these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel’ (Exodus 34:33). 34:33), we infer that the oral Torah [literally, the Torah by mouth] is the more precious” (j. Peah 2:4). Indeed, the regimen of rabbinic Judaism during its formative centuries was singularly free of any bias toward structuralism.2 At this point in my narrative, I am going to jump ahead seven centuries to discuss the further evolution of sacred writ. Following chapters will fill in the gap of the eras of the Greek conquest, the Kingdom of Judea, the Roman conquest, and the destruction of the Second Temple in AD 70. I am violating unity of time in the narrative because I want to preserve the continuity of development of the Jewish sacred canon. As stated, the Mishnah is a text of Jewish law dealing with every aspect of Jewish life, with no distinction made between secular and religious topics. It consists of six major divisions (or Tractates). They were finally redacted around AD 200 by Judah ha Nasi (Judah the Prince), a renowned scholar living in Palestine. With the passage of time, notable rabbis made commentaries on the various sentences of the Mishnah. In fact, an enormous literature grew up around the Mishnah. The commentaries were called Gemara, which means variously study, completion, or addition, in Hebrew and Aramaic. The Gemara was written from after AD 200 until about AD 500. Actually, there were two Gemara written, one in Jerusalem and one in the environs of Babylon. The Babylonian one is longer, and is, and has almost always been the the one alluded to when the word Gemara is used. For all intents, we can make no further reference to the Jerusalem version. One of the key facts about the Gemara is that it is never found as a stand-alone text. It is always found following the Mishnah text that it is explicating. For example, there may be a phrase of Mishnah text followed by many comments on the initial Mishnaic text. The combination of the Mishnah text with its elucidating Gemara is called Talmud. The published Talmud always follows the same pagination, so someone in the U.S. can call someone in Belgium to discuss a topic in Talmud, and the page referred to would always be identical in number and contents. We shall see in future chapters, in Jewish academies throughout the world and through all the ages, the chief interest of students and teachers has been Talmud (derived from Oral Torah) , and not the Pentateuch (Five Books of Moses). The daily application of law to secular and religious questions was a living issue at all times, and an halachic (legal) document was considered more relevant to practical life than the aggadic (narrative and anecdotal) Tanakh (Bible). Almost everyone is familiar with the term kosher. This term defines what an observant Jew can and cannot eat. Other laws determine what can and cannot be done on Sabbath. The scope of these issues relates to every facet of life of observant Jews. It can thus be seen how important it would be to obtain definitive statements of what would be lawful in a changing world. In this vein, the antiquity of the various Gemara following a Mishnaic text has significance. The older a given Gemara following a Mishnaic text, the closer it is to the time of Moses; thus it will be more consistent with the principles of Judaism. The problem is that an ancient text cannot address changing conditions over time. For example, let us say that Maimonides in AD 1190 said that a Jew may consider pastry bought from a Cairo bakery to be automatically presumed kosher. However, today, rabbinic opinion states that pastry bought at the corner bakery in Portland, Oregon, cannot be considered automatically to be kosher. The older opinion is overruled by a modern opinion, even though the older is closer in principle to Mosaic Law. Why? The difference is that a 12th-century Muslim bakery would not have used lard; whereas a 21st-century chain bakery will most likely have used lard. Therefore, while the older ruling is in principle closer the ideal, the later ruling takes into account the practicalities of the present that could not have been anticipated centuries ago. From the time of the Mishnah to the present day, rabbinic scholars have been writing updated synopses of the Talmudic guide in order to account for these temporal changes. Consequent to the above, an observant Jew, having a question on halacha, or the religious orthodoxy of a life situation, may find the matter too complex for a layman’s mind. Therefore, his recourse is to consult his local rabbi, who presumably has the time and resources to answer the question. If the local rabbi is uncertain, he is likely to write to a rabbi he considers competent to rule on such a complex issue. But there is no formal chain of appeal up to a Supreme Pontiff. This example shows that since Judaism lacks a Supreme Pontiff, the organization of Judaism is congregational, as in many Protestant denominations. As a matter of comparative religion, we should note that Islam has its legal code, called Sharia, and it is made up of written texts encompassing the Koran, Haddithah, and Sunni. Islamic scholars settle issues of religious (and in some cases) secular issues according to these published texts. Also, in the Roman Catholic Church, Canon Law is used to make decisions, and papal pronouncements carry the weight of dogma in Catholicism if these pronouncements are made ex cathedra, under the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. 1 Silver, 195. A study of the topographical map of ancient Greece shows lands surrounded by sea, but relatively unfertile: speaking of Athens, Michael Grant states: “The territory, in Plato’s words, is a ‘fleshless skeleton’ of which the bones show through in large slabs on the bare rock. Only one-quarter of the surface of the territory was cultivated.”1 In order to make up for this deficit, Athens was forced to become a sea power, and her merchant ships brought to the city by trade what could not be grown locally. Athens thus became an imperial power much as England would centuries later. Her military fleet was strong enough to defeat Xerxes in 480 BC at the Battle of Salamis. Two years later the harbor about Piraeus was walled, giving Athens a lifeline to the sea in the event the city were besieged. But probably more important than the naval power was a new idea of government. Around 487 BC, in response to political instability, an organization with a large franchise, unique for its time, called the “Assembly,” was given greater power than the smaller ruling group, called the “Council.” Michael Grant describes the event: The contemporary description for the degree of democracy established by Cleisthenes, or existing in his time, was isonomia, equality under the law, replacing the aristocratic hierarchic orderliness described as eunomia. True, the old framework had not been destroyed, but it had been overlaid by a new one; as elsewhere, the old thesmos, “ordinance” fixed by an authority, was now supplemented and partly replaced by nomos, law or custom adopted by a community as a result of its own decision. The isonomia of Cleisthenes, though it did not all come into force at once but emerged gradually, was a sophisticated, intricate and experimental array of new political institutions, adding up to the most democratic form of government that had so far been devised by human ingenuity, and establishing the essential features of Athenian society for 200 years.2 The other major state was Sparta, which had soil, if anything, worse than that of Athens. However, the Spartan leadership had no interest in having its citizens strive for personal wealth, as the state was a military kingship, ruled by two kings at all times. The dual kingship was to provide for leadership at once if one king were slain in battle. And given that the king would personally lead his troops, such a fatal outcome was not unlikely. The nature of the citizenry may be gauged in the following
description of the life of a Spartan boy: I could quote further, but it only gets worse. It has an uncanny
resemblance to the training for Hitler’s SS divisions. It was only a matter of time before these two powers, sharing the same general area, and each strong in its own way, would clash. The inevitable war, the Peloponnesian war, lasted from 431 to 404 BC. Both sides were devastated. The real winner was Philip of Macedon, who began to conquer all of Greece. Although he was assassinated in 336 BC, his more famous son, Alexander the Great, continued his policies, and became master of the known world (exclusive of China). However, Alexander did not live long after his conquests, and at his death the empire was divided among his generals. After some initial (and inevitable squabbling), Judea (along with Mesopotamia) fell to Seleucus, one of Alexander’s generals. He established himself in Babylonia in 312 BC, which marks the start of the Seleucid Empire. Judea was now subject to the Seleucid rulers. Hellenism The Greek rulers wanted to “share” their religious culture with the subject peoples. But this was a hard sell to observant Jews. What made their program easier was the large numbers of Greeks who moved into Eretz Israel: Among the most conspicuous results of Greek rule in Eretz Israel was the transformation that took place in the ethnic composition and organizational forms of its population. An extensive Greek settlement took place, Greek military colonies were established, and the character of the ancient cities underwent a change. In fact, the vast majority of the Hellenistic cities were ancient ones which were now organized according to the political social pattern of the Greek cities. Within a short time the members of the upper classes among the local population joined the ranks of the settlers who had come from Greece.4 Within a short time significant portions of the Jewish population
adopted the culture of the Greeks: It was obvious to the Seleucids that control of the state could be achieved by control of the Priesthood. Therefore, in 175 BC Antiochus IV Epiphanies appointed a puppet, Jason, to be High Priest. Jason promised and delivered: With the Seleucid kingdom’s approval Jason introduced far-reaching changes in the administration of Jerusalem, whose purpose was to transform that city into a polis, named Antiochia, by establishing in it institutions characteristic of the Hellenistic polis. Notable among these was the gymnasium, which soon superseded the Temple as the focus of social life, to the deep dismay of those loyal to the Jewish tradition.6 But this was not enough. In 171 BC, Antiochus replaced Jason with Menelaus. Menelaus (and his party) became allies of Antiochus in plundering the Temple’s treasures, the military occupation of Jerusalem, and essentially banning Judaism: [Antiochus] captured the city [Jerusalem]…To ensure his future control of Jerusalem he stationed in its citadel, the Acra, non-Jewish settlers who were joined by extreme Hellenists from Menelaus’ party. By their domination of the citadel of Judea, the Jewish character of the city became obscured. Antiochus went a step further. He totally prohibited the fulfillment of the mizvot of the Jewish religion and any Jew found observing the Sabbath or circumcising his son was put to death. He likewise forced upon the Jewish population idolatrous rites and prohibited food, chiefly the eating of swine’s flesh. The Temple was desecrated and henceforth called after Olympian Zeus.7 Before proceeding further, I must make clear that the Greek culture and political ethos that Alexander’s empire and its four successor states brought to the world was in many ways unlike the political ideals and philosophy of Athens. Also, they could not generate the sense of nationalism and all-pervasive individual sense of participation in the identity of the state felt in the soul of the average Spartan citizen. They could not generate patriotism and an abstract love of country, because their highest ideals were power and wealth. The successors of Alexander were rapacious tyrants who fought with each other for supremacy and extended their power to any neutral or uncommitted state by any means necessary. They made and broke alliances for temporary advantage. They had become “oriental tyrants” to a greater degree than the Persian king, because they were bound by no law whatsoever. A clear distinction must be made between the Greece of the city-states and the rapaciousness of the states of the empire. The combined results of the political tyranny and religious
persecution had created a critical situation in Eretz Israel, one
that would lead to armed resistance. 1 Michael Grant, The Rise of the Greeks. (New York, McMillan
Publishing Co.,1987), 34. The situation for most Jews had become intolerable. Many suffered martyrdom rather than to forsake their religion. Many, unable to resist the allure of Greek culture, converted voluntarily. Among these were dedicated Jewish Hellenists, “more Greek than the Greeks.” This adoption of an anti-Jewish ideology by Jews will be seen to recur many times in the course of the centuries. These apostates tended to become hostile to loyal Jews, to the extent of joining the armed party of non-Jewish settlers.1 It is easier to understand the behavior of Jewish apostates by recalling that the Greek rulers had encouraged Greek settlers to move into Palestine, in order to weaken Jewish nationalism. It was only a matter of time until armed rebellion would break out. In I Maccabees, it is notable that the first act of armed resistance involved the deaths of a Greek and a Hellenist Jew: 23. Now when he had left speaking these words, there came one of the Jews in the sight of all to sacrifice on the altar which was at Modin, according to the king’s commandment. 24. Which thing when Mattathias saw, he was inflamed with zeal, and his reins trembled, neither could he forbear to shew his anger according to judgment: wherefore he ran, and slew him upon the altar. 25. Also the king’s commissioner, who compelled men to sacrifice, he killed at that time, and the altar he pulled down.2 Following this signal event, Mattathias raised a cry for general
rebellion: The revolutionaries are appealing to religious motivation. There is no strong rhetoric about a free country, or nationalism. The reason for seeking to overthrow the Greeks is to enable the practice of the true religion. It was just as important to rid the nation of Hellenist Jews as of foreigners and Greeks. If there is any doubt that the motivation was primarily religious orthodoxy, the following quote should dispel it: “2:64 wherefore, ye my sons, be valiant men on behalf of the law; for by it ye obtain glory.”4 Eventually the rebellion succeeded, and the Greeks were driven
out. The Temple was rededicated and purified. The Temple lamps
miraculously burned for seven nights on a supply of oil that
should only have sufficed for one night. The holiday of Hanukkah
marks the reestablishment of orthodoxy. Today, witnessing a Reform
or Consistent with the age-old practice of governments to give too little too late, the Seleucids decided to grant Judea full religious freedom. Then, and only then, did nationalism become the major issue. In 161 BC, Judah Maccabeus won his last battle against the Seleucids, because he fell in the next battle, in 160 BC. Over the next several years, there was much political activity, but in 142 BC the Seleucids finally gave up trying to collect taxes in Judea. Which is equivalent to saying that Judea was now independent. During the war and political maneuvering alluded to above, an event occurred which seemed to be a mere footnote to history. Judah Maccabeus authorized an offensivedefensive treaty with Rome. He did this to weaken the Seleucids. The alliance is described in I Maccabees chapter 8: The real reason that Rome wanted a treaty with Judea was due to the ongoing war between Rome and the daughter states of Alexander’s empire. These states, feuding with each other, were in a permanent state of decline and would eventually fall to Rome. After achieving independence, the new state of Judaea needed a government. To that end a great assembly took place on Jerusalem in 140 BC and sanctioned the hereditary rule of the descendents of Mattathias. In 140 BCE a great assembly took place in Jerusalem which confirmed both Simeon [son of Mattathias] and his sons after him “until there should arise a faithful prophet” as ethnarch, high priest and commander in chief of the Jewish nation. This decision of the Great assembly became the cornerstone of the Hasmonean regime and correctly reflected the union, in the hands of that dynasty, of the functions of the high priesthood, the civil rule, and the military command, a union of functions which was characteristic of the Jewish state’s entire development under Hasmonean [name of the dynasty of Mattathias] rule.6 In the initial years of the dynasty, the political impact of Hellenism was reversed. Military expansion extended the borders of the state from Egypt in the south to Antiochia in the north. The entire west bank and most of the east bank were part of the kingdom. (In 104 BC the title ethnarch was dropped in favor of Basileus. In Greek Basileus means king.) It is important to recall that the ruling dynasty, the descendants of of the Maccabees, was referred to as Hasmonean. With the passage of time many things change. As the years went by, the Hasmonean dynasty grew less and less orthodox. Holding the offices of high priest, and the secular authority, they had become politically supreme. As they became more and more Hellenized themselves, they became the natural allies of the upper classes which had previously been Hellenized. After the fall of the Temple, and the beginning of the Babylonian Exile, the power and influence of the priestly class had begun to lessen. During the Exile, a new class of religious leadership arose. This was a group of people called rabbis (explainers). The rabbis were more closely related to the common people, and unlike the priests, they did not have to be Levites. The rabbinate was more orthodox than the priesthood. The priesthood became associated with a proto-political party called the Sadducees, and the rabbinate became part of another proto-political party called the Pharisees. 7 There was thus a split in the religious community, which was reflected in the nation as a whole. What had started out as a popular rebellion to re-establish religious orthodoxy had gotten far more complicated as a result of the fusion of temporal and religious authority. Thus the seeds of much discord were sown.8 1 Encyclopedia Judaica. 1st ed., sv “History,” 628. By 63 BC, all of Palestine was engulfed in war. There was civil war in Judea regarding claimants to the throne. The weakened Seleucid rulers united with the Nabateans to make war on Judea. Meanwhile, the Romans, under Pompey, had taken Syria. As noted in the previous chapter, the Hasmoneans had become bound to Rome. Pompey advanced upon Jerusalem and entered the city. He took it easily because the adherents of a claimant to the throne of Judea, Hyrcanus, opened the gates of the city to Pompey’s forces. The only strong opposition occurred on the Temple Mount, and it took the Roman military three months to capture the Temple complex. Now Pompey became the arbiter of who would rule Judea and how the territories of the small states in the area would be allocated. First, Pompey left Judea semi-independent under the rule of Roman Syria (See map IV). But very soon Judea was territorially weakened: Judea was deprived of the whole coastal plain and of access to the sea. Part of Idumea (Marisa) [Idumea was the then current name of Biblical Edom, southwest of Judea; in Biblical times, the Idumeans had been forcibly converted to Judaism] and of Samaria was severed from Judea. In this manner the continuity of Jewish settlement in western Eretz Israel was destroyed, the only road linking Galilee and Jerusalem being now by way of the Jordan Valley. Pompey naturally freed from Jewish rule the large Hellenistic cities in Transjordan as well as Scythopolis, which were joined to the Decapolis and recovered their autonomous city life. The Greek cities on the coast also regained their freedom. The territory remaining under Hyrcanus II’s rule thus comprised Judea and southern Samaria, most of Idumea, the areas of Jewish settlement on the eastern bank of the Jordan, and Galilee. Hyrcanus was divested of his royal title, and the obligation to pay taxes to the foreign government reimposed. The Jews in the country did not willingly accept the new regime and the following years witnessed frequent insurrections.1 Regarding the kingship of Judea, Pompey made the predictable choice of Hyrcanus. Pompey’s choice was based on something more than Hyrcanus’ treachery to his own country. Hyrcanus was weak and indecisive. The alternate claimant (Aristobolus) had a stronger personality and would not be so easily controlled. Hyrcanus chose as his chief advisor a shrewd man named Herod. Herod was neither indecisive nor weak. This proved to be a fatal choice for Hyrcanus. Rome On a topographical map, Italy is seen to be a long peninsula stretched on a north-south axis (See map V). Down the center of this axis like a spine runs the Apennine Mountain chain. As a peninsula, it is relatively protected from invasion from the east, west, and south by water. To the north, Italy is capped by the east-west mountain chain called the Alps. Although there are passes around and through the Alps, invaders from the north have always found these mountains to be a formidable barrier. From Hannibal in the second century BC to the Allied invasion of Europe in AD 1943, the Alps and Apennine chains had to be considered. The long Italian coasts allow Italy to face Greece and Asia to the east, and Spain to the west. Due south, by short sea voyage, lie the fertile coasts of northern Africa. Trade would be a natural consequence of this geography. In preceding chapters we have seen how the natural advantage of
well-watered fertile land gave advantage of empire to Egypt and
Mesopotamia, leading to struggle from north to south, and
engulfing Palestine, which had the misfortune of lying between
these two powers. Rome, although far from arid, did not have the
easy fertility of the TigrisEuphrates Valley or the Nile Valley,
yet created an empire that not only exceeded these, but engulfed
all of Egypt and parts of Mesopotamia. The reasons for Rome’s
success were based on social and military organization, which
ultimately, over significant periods of historical time, have
proven to be of far greater importance than accidents of
geography. Around 510 BC, the city of Rome, which had been a monarchy, rid itself of its king and became a republic. Unlike Athenian democracy, it was not a “one citizen, one vote” system. Instead, there were various assemblies which represented the people. Around 400 BC, the Roman city-state began to expand and came in conflict with neighboring Italian states. By around 300 BC, Rome could claim precedence, if not superiority, over its fellow Italian states. The Romans referred to the boundaries of their state as the pomerium, which encompassed the city of Rome and its surrounding territory. The government they set up evolved over time during the course of the Republic. Of the assemblies that existed, the most important was the Comitia Centuriata, which represented all citizens. In this assembly, citizens were classed on the basis of their ability to arm themselves for war, and a citizen who could afford full body armor received more representation than one who could be only a lightly armed soldier. The very poor, who could afford no arms, were not permitted to be part of the army, and had much less voting power in the Comitia Centuriata. Thus the mainstay of the Republic was, at the beginning, a sturdy peasant class. They were citizens and part-time soldiers. The executive power was vested in two consuls, who were elected by the Comitia Centuriata every year. In addition to being the chief magistrates responsible for carrying out the laws, they were also responsible for leading the troops in time of war. The other important assembly was the Concilium Plebis, which included the poorest citizens, but also the large majority of citizens. Over time, the Concilium Plebis also acquired the authority to pass law. Laws passed by either assembly were binding on all citizens. Over time, many plebeians grew wealthy and many patricians became poor, so that plebian/patrician status was no longer a predictor of one’s power in society. For a man with political or social ambition, the attainment of the highest office, that of consul, was the ultimate goal. To get there, it was traditional for a young man to pass through a series of lesser offices, in ascending scale of importance. The higher the position, the fewer places were available, so in the higher ranks competition was fierce. There was some difference in the chain of ascent for plebeians and patricians, but the highest office was open to both. The route to achieving this dignity was called the cursus honorum. This system was relatively stable until a series of wars broke out between Rome and the wealthy North African city-state of Carthage. These wars lasted from 264 BC until 146 BC when Carthage was totally destroyed. In the process of the war with Carthage, Rome acquired the Carthaginian empire, which consisted of Spain, parts of what is now southern France, Sardinia, Corsica, and large parts of the North African coast. The victory over Carthage spelled doom for the Republic. Prior to the expansion of Roman power beyond Italy, citizen-soldiers were called up for brief periods of military duty. There was still time to take care of the family farm. But with the extension of Roman power all aver the Mediterranean, the day of the citizen-soldier was over. A soldier was called up for the duration of the war. These wars, which now might take years, put the soldier at risk of losing his farm, which began to happen at an alarming rate. Wealthy men bought up these small-holdings, and set up large farming operations worked by slave labor. There is more than one irony here: slaves were by now very cheap because of the victory of the Roman legions over subject peoples. The soldiers’ military success in the field of war cost them their fields at home. As wars continued to multiply, the requirement for some wealth on the part of a would-be soldier was abolished, and all citizens, even the poorest, were liable for military service. What had been an honor had become an onerous obligation. The republic is now doomed. Let us examine three of the chief
factors. Finally, two new words had entered the political vocabulary which were to be important in the last century of the republic. First, the Gracchans were rather disparagingly described by their opponents as populares (“mob panderers”), a term referring to their practice of promoting their cause through the manipulation of the popular institutions and at the expense of the senate. The populares were not thrusting outsiders; they were an integral part or faction of the nobility. Not surprisingly, their opponents chose a far more honorable word for themselves-optimates (“the best men”). Again, the word does not single them out as aristocrats, but indicates their own view that a traditional approach to government, based upon the practical primacy of the senate, represented the best way. In following it, the optimates were displaying traditional values and acting in a manner consistent with ancestral custom. The politics of the late republic revolved around the optimates and populares; each contained groups of factions and ambitious individuals whose objectives remained unchanged: the acquisition and use of power.2 It is so easy to recognize some of today’s demagogues, such as
Ted Kennedy, the Clintons, Jessie Jackson, or Al Sharpton. (In the end, many of them did receive land in the provinces because it served the Roman state the dual functions of paying off the veterans and also securing the borders of Italy from invasion. An unnoticed (at the time) result of this scattering of Italians all over the Mediterranean basin was the establishment of linguistic, cultural, religious, and legal basis of the modern nations of Spain, France, Portugal, Italy, and Romania and to a lesser degree those of the Anglo-Germanic nations. But that is the subject, not just of another book, but of entire libraries.) 3. The third chief factor was clientela: Among the services rendered was political support; a man might be helped to office by the votes of his clients and by those of his friends and associates; naturally they expected him in return to deliver the votes of his clients. The ingrained habits of dependence of clients in particular and the lower orders in general emerge with dramatic clarity… One important consequence of clientship was that the struggle of the Orders, of the patricians and the plebeians, was in no sense a class struggle; the plebeian leadership was rich and ambitious and part of its support came not only from those in whose interest it was to support it, but from its clients at every economic level; the patricians were similarly supported by all their clients, the humble amongst them perhaps acting against the economic interests of their class, but nonetheless bound to their patrons by real ties of shared sentiment and mutual advantage.3 I cannot read the citation above without noting how it might have been used as a playbook by Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., in setting up the careers of his sons. He did his work with the Democratic Party machine in Boston by his own efforts and worked through Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago to secure power there. It is also very likely that he enrolled Mafia support in both cases. An additional aspect of this sort of clientela is the relationship between the wealthy leaders of the Democratic Party and the mass of Black voters. The Democratic Party uses the influence of its direct clients, such as the Congressional Black Caucus, to deliver the votes of their clientela, a mass of ignorant, angry, and easily manipulated people. This will be explored in detail in subsequent chapters. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica. 1st ed., sv “History,” 635. 3 Michael Crawford , The Roman Republic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1993), 28. In the year 43 BC, Herod had worked himself up to chief advisor to King Hyrcanus II, who was destined to be the penultimate ruler of the Hasmonaean dynasty. In the same year, Herod became betrothed to Mariamne, a Hasmonean Princess. In this way Herod gained some legitimacy as a would-be successor to Hyrcanus II. As a consequence of the concurrent struggle in Rome for supremacy, Palestine was a battleground for some of the contending forces in Rome itself. There was bloody chaos in Palestine, including Judea. In this period of Roman weakness, Parthia (Persia) attacked and occupied Syria and Judea. In 40 BC, Herod went to Rome to pledge his support to Rome. Since Herod had impressed Antony and Octavius, then in power in Rome, Herod was given the kingship over Judea. At that time, however, Judea was under Parthian control. This gave Herod the opportunity to prove that he could work directly with the Romans. Herod’s troops, supported by Antony’s Roman legions, retook Jerusalem in 37 BC. Herod began his reign with a bloody purge of the Sanhedrin: When he came to power, Herod took absolute control of the government by putting to death 45 members of the Sanhedrin who supported the Hasmoneans. This destroyed the political power of the Sanhedrin, which seems to have been left only with the authority of a religious court, lacking any real influence in practical legislation. He also made the appointment to the high priesthood dependent on his favor and during his reign dismissed and appointed high priests arbitrarily.1 Herod’s first priority was the political situation in Rome. He seemed to have an uncanny knack for estimating who would come out on top in the bloody fighting at the highest levels of Roman power; or failing that, to ingratiate himself to the ultimate victors. Herod was king only by the grace of Rome, which regarded him as a convenient instrument for carrying out its policy in the East. He established his rule on the basis of Roman patronage, and with great diplomatic skill and personal charm succeeded in winning the favor of the constantly-changing Roman rulers. Herod was loyal to Antony during the period that he was all-powerful in the east…However, with the defeat of Antony at Actium, it seemed as if Herod was doomed. But unperturbed, he immediately abandoned his old friend and endeavored to join the side of the victor.2 In 22/21 BC Herod met Agrippa, Augustus’ right-hand man, thus the
second-most powerful man in the Western world. In 22/21 BCE Herod went to Mitylene to visit Agrippa, Augustus’
son-in-law, who was acting as viceroy in the East, and there
established extremely cordial relations with him.3 Herod had done what we have seen so often in Jewish history: as ruler of a second-rate power, he used personal ties with the highest level of the dominant power in order to do something for his people. He had already prevented the destruction of Jerusalem in 37 BC by his personal intercession with Antony.4 He was successful in extending Judea to its former borders. He rebuilt the Temple on a massive scale: To dedicate his loyalty to Judaism, he decided to rebuild the Temple. He erected a splendid edifice to take the place of the previously unpretentious building, at the same time extending the boundaries of the Temple mount. About 10,000 commoners and 1,000 priests were occupied for nine years in building it.5 He also helped the people in times of famine: Herod was also an advocate for Jews outside of Eretz Israel: Herod did not feel secure on his throne. He may have been paranoid; he suspected betrayal everywhere. Mariamne, Herod’s wife, had a brother named Aristobolus, whom Herod was forced by political circumstances to appoint high priest. This young man was also popular with the people. He was at a swimming party with Herod’s friends, and “accidentally” drowned. Herod eventually had his wife Mariamne executed on a false charge of adultery. He subsequently was so remorseful that he became seriously ill. However, he recovered from the melancholy well enough to have his two most promising sons executed. They were Mariamne’s children and were educated as princes in Rome. The stench of this was appalling even to Rome. He was called to Rhodes to account to Augustus for these executions. But before he left, he had the harmless, aged ex-king Hyrcanus II put to death in order to prevent the old man from becoming ruler again if Augustus should have had Herod himself executed for murder. Somehow, he got off scotfree, but legend has it that Augustus commented, “It is better to be Herod’s pig than his son.”8 The Aftermath Following Herod’s unlamented death, his kingdom was divided into
three parts for his three appointed successors. All of this was
done subject to the approval of Rome. Things went from bad to worse. The Emperor Caligula (37-41 AD)
decided to order a statue of himself as a God (Jupiter) to be
placed in the Temple. As a result of this, the Encyclopedia
Judaica states: Unfortunately, the Jews did not learn the lesson that tyrants are dangerous, as subsequent history will show again and again. Caligula was petitioned not to proceed with this plan by Jewish delegation sent for that purpose to Rome. They informed him that Although their religious principles made it impossible for them the sacrifice to him, they were always very glad to to sacrifice for him, which indeed they regularly did. The ruler was unimpressed, remarking that failure to recognize his divinity seemed not so much criminal as lunatic.10 Fortunately, tragedy was postponed. A Jewish prince, Agrippa I, succeeded in changing Caligula’s mind. In a history which is largely tragic, Agrippa I plays one of the few positive roles. Agrippa I was the grandson of Herod I and had a way with people. Not only was he able to charm Caligula, he also was a friend to Caligula’s uncle Claudius. In AD 41, Caligula’s Roman guard assassinated him, making way for the unexpected accession to power of Emperor Claudius, who gave Agrippa I authority over all Eretz Israel. It was one of those propitious times when two good men were simultaneously in power and interacted to the benefit of both their peoples. Of all the leaders of the Herodian dynasty, he alone in all his strivings gave primacy to the Jewish nation and its future, and became the most illustrious Jewish politician of his generation. The last years of his life were marked by a complete identification with the Jewish nation and with its needs as he saw them, and to this end he cooperated with the greater majority of the Jews of Eretz Israel who regarded him in every respect a Jewish king and the heir to the Hasmonean rather than the Herodian dynasty. The non-Jews in Eretz Israel looked upon him as their enemy.11 The fact to bear in mind here is the degree to which the peace and safety of Eretz Israel depended on the personalities of two men and the importance of Agrippa’s ability to influence the most powerful man in the world. After the deaths of Agrippa (AD 44) and Claudius (AD 54), it will be the same old story, “Pharaoh will no longer know Joseph.” Very shortly thereafter, rivers of Jewish blood were to flow and centuries of exile to commence. There is no long-term security to the Jewish nation by befriending powerful rulers or tyrants. This is something an otherwise intelligent people have never learned, despite millennia of lessons. It would be horrible enough if only the Jewish people suffered from this blind, obstinate, repetitive behavior. But the whole world has had to suffer for some of its results, particularly for the Jewish role in the rise of Soviet Communism in the twentieth century. But that is for future chapters. Now to examine the political reality that made the rebellions possible (Persia), then to the actual wars themselves. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica, 1st ed., sv “Herod I.” 10 Michael Grant, The History of Ancient Israel (New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948), 237. Back to our topographical map (map IV). A look at the northeastern Mediterranean shows that sea to be capped at that point by a great mass of land, almost a peninsula. It is called variously Turkey, Asia Minor, or Anatolia. This mass of land is the northern gateway from Europe to Palestine and Egypt. It separates the Greco-Roman world from that of Persia. Immediately to the west of Anatolia, the Italian and Greek peninsulas jut into the Mediterranean (see map V). Immediately to the east of Anatolia, separated from Anatolia by the southern Caucasus Mountains, lies Persia (also referred to at various times as Iran or Parthia). The entry, by land, into Palestine and Egypt from Europe lies through Asia Minor. So Greek or Roman involvement in this area requires passage through Asia Minor. Over centuries, ancient Greece had planted and supported colonies in Asia Minor, but especially along the Aegean coastline. Many of the islands in the Aegean were colonized by Greeks, especially the Cyclades and Dodecanese. The great islands of Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus were major centers of Greek settlement and culture. Even today, there are disputes between Turkey and Greece regarding some of the islands, especially Cyprus. The Persian Empire began around 560 BC with the sweep into present-day Iran of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus the Great. After conquering Babylon, and adding that city and its empire to his own, he proceeded to occupy Anatolia. Persian influence was felt as far away as the Ionian Islands, which sought Greek help to free them from Persian control as early as 499 BC. In these days, Persia was the aggressor. In 492, the Persian general Mardonius attempted to occupy Thrace, the territory due north of the Greek citystates, but was thwarted by bad weather. Then the Great King of Persia, Darius I, sent an army in 490 BC to the Greek mainland, but it was defeated at the Battle of Marathon. After the death of Darius I, the new Great King Xerxes I authorized land and sea invasions of Greece, which ultimately failed. Hostilities continued at a lower level until the time of Alexander the Great, who took the offensive. Between the years 334–331 BC, he defeated the Persians and acquired not just Persia, but also the Persian holdings in Palestine and Egypt. Alexander’s attitude toward the Jews of Eretz Israel was very benign, and he was regarded warmly by the Jewish people, as he made no attempt to interfere with their religious practice. Alexander’s empire fragmented after his death because the successor states lacked a unifying force. Starting in 238 BC, an Iranian tribe called the Parthian, who had been settled in Persia since the time of Alexander, began a struggle for independence, which resulted in native Parthian rule in 170 BC under king Mithradates I. This new state shared a border with Rome along the Euphrates River. Thus Rome inherited the Persian conflict from Greece. The battleground was Syria and Asia Minor. The Fall of Rome and Persia In 630, the founder of the Muslim religion, Mohammed, captured Mecca and began to spread a new religion. The Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula, united by Mohammed and his successors and driven by religious zeal, began to push west. Realizing that the Arabs were a threat to both empires, the Persians and Byzantines combined forces in 633 to stop the Arab advance into Mesopotamia. The effort was too late, and the allies, exhausted by war against each other, lost the battle (Battle of Faraz). The cost to Byzantium was the loss of Jerusalem in 638, Syria in 641, and Egypt in 642. Persia fared even worse. Persia itself fell to the Arabs in 642, ending the Sassanid dynasty. Although these victories were incomplete and some of the conquests, at least initially, insecure, the course of world history was changed irrevocably. The consequences of the advent of the Muslim religion and the Arab advance could be traced in an infinite number of historical directions. At this point, I will choose to follow just one minor thread in order to continue to present the idea alluded to above. After the fall of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) in 1453, the Roman Empire comes to an end. The Third Rome To bring this struggle to modern times, we must consider the
Russian belief that it became the “third Rome” after the fall of
Constantinople: Another factor that came into play was the growing awareness of the Russian court of the need for a warm water port as a year-round outlet to the world’s oceans. Control of Constantinople (now called Istanbul by the Turks) would meet both needs. For the next 400 years Russia will be watching Turkey like a buzzard watches a weakening prey. Russia has inherited from Rome the struggle with eastern powers for the gate to the Middle East. Control of Constantinople is the key to control of the Eastern Mediterranean. Constantinople is valuable real estate…location, location, location. Now we get to the purpose of this exposition of Roman and Persian history: how it relates to Eretz Israel. After the fall of Israel to Babylon in 586 BC, a large number of Jews were exiled to Babylon. After they were allowed to return to Eretz Israel, following the fall of Babylon to the invading Persians, many, probably most, did not return. This was probably largely due to the favorable treatment they received by the Persian court: Babylonian Jewry, the oldest mass-settled group of Jews outside Eretz Israel, had maintained its strength throughout the period of the Second Temple. Living since 129 BC under Parthian rule, a loosely knit semi-feudal state, it was able to develop its autonomous institutions with little interference from the royal government. The Parthians who had always to fear Roman intervention welcomed Jewish opposition to Rome [my italics], at least till the time of Hadrian, when peace reigned on the border. They left a free hand to the exilarch who headed Babylonian Jewry. Descended allegedly from the House of David, proud of their genealogical purity, the exilarchs wore the kamara, the sash of office of the Parthian officials. The community which they headed was both numerous (estimates of its number vary from 800,000 to 1,200,000, i.e., 10–12% of the population of Babylonia) and well-based economically, comprising a fair number of farmers and many traders who grew rich as intermediaries in the profitable silk trade between China and the Roman Empire passing through Babylonia. The Jews enjoyed not only freedom of worship, autonomous jurisdiction, but also the right to have their own markets and appoint market supervisors (agranomoi) [my italics]. These favorable conditions continued after the replacement of the weak Parthian kings by the much stronger Sassanids…after a period of troubles and disagreements at the beginning of the reign of Shapur I (241–272 AD), better conditions were gradually established with the king; one of the reasons for this understanding was Shapur’s plans for the conquest of the Roman Empire. Jewish help could be of great value in his campaigns, and the Jews of Babylon had proved their staunch opposition to Rome in the revolt against Trajan [my italics].2 Compared to the prosperous conditions in Persia, one may assume that the rigorous life in Eretz Israel compared unfavorably. American Jews face a similar situation. Referring to Israel, they say, “It’s a great place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” With this background, we may proceed to the wars of the Jews
against Rome. CHAPTER 11 As noted above, the reign of Agrippa I in Eretz Israel coincided with the benign reign of the benevolent Roman Emperor Claudius. After the death of Agrippa, the internal situation in Eretz Israel was complicated by the presence of large numbers of Greeks and other non-Jews whose settlement there was encouraged by both the Greeks in their time and the Romans later. The imperial policy was to weaken the unity of the Jewish state. There was also a large number of Jews, usually of the richer classes, who were sympathetic to Hellenistic and Roman ideas. In Israel today, the Jewish Left plays an analogous role, including sponsoring programs to empower Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Muslims. We see a failed, corrosive policy 2000 years old being used again by malevolent, self-hating Jews: The revolt also had the aspect of a social revolution, its revolutionary character being particularly prominent in those extremist groups in which messianic leaders, such as Mendham the Galilean and Simeon Bar Giora, were active. To them the revolt was not only a war against Rome. It was also a struggle against the upper classes of Judea who for many years had cooperated with the Roman regime.1 The social revolution referred to above by Encyclopedia Judaica is misapplied. The revolutionary activity was that of the non-Jewish elements united with the Romanizing Jews: In the realm of theory there was a conspicuous discrepancy between the Jewish belief in the Divine choice of the Jewish nation and in its glorious future on the one hand and on the other the present reality of the Roman Empire’s omnipotent rule. This discrepancy found vent in increasing messianic hopes and in expectations that the eternal kingdom of the Jewish nation would be established. The contrast was sharpened by the very essence and character of the Roman Empire with its tyrannical rule and its idolatry which extended even to political manifestations such as emperor worship. In addition to these feelings there were also several tangible features of the Roman regime which gravely offended the Jews. The presence of a Roman army in Jerusalem, the supervision by the authorities of Divine worship in the Temple, the heavy burden of taxes and customs duties—these, but perhaps most of all the Roman administration’s support of the non-Jewish population in Eretz Israel, made the rule of Rome hated by the Jews.2 If Eretz Israel had continued to survive under these circumstances, it would have lost its identity as a Jewish state within a few years. Gaul, Romanized, became France. Hispania, Romanized, became Spain. Dacia, Romanized, became Rumania. If Eretz Israel had not succumbed to Roman arms, it would have fallen to Roman culture as a result of the nonJewish population and the then-equivalent of today’s culturally suicidal Jewish Left. As noted previously, not only was there a large in-migration of non-Jews into Eretz Israel, a large and powerful Jewish community existed in Parthia (Persia). The Persian Jews supported their brethren in Eretz Israel. Ill-timing, however, interfered with the likelihood of Parthian support because Parthia and Rome had just concluded one of their frequent (but short-lived) peace treaties.3 In August AD 66, Eleazar, captain of the Temple and second to the high priest, proclaimed that no more Temple sacrifices would be accepted from any foreigner. Since Rome was sponsoring twice-daily sacrifices for itself and the emperor, this was taken as a proclamation of war against Rome. Violence between Greek and Jew broke out all over Egypt, North Africa, and Palestine, with massacres perpetrated by both sides.4 By this time, the Roman governor of Syria knew that the situation was serious and marched toward Jerusalem, but was routed before he could get there, at Beth-horen, with the loss of 6,000 soldiers, the equivalent of one legion. After this loss, Nero sent a man of high rank, Vespasian, who was a senator and former consul. Vespasian collected 65,000 men with whom to besiege Jerusalem and then left his son Titus with the task of reducing Jerusalem. Vespasian himself had gone to Rome because Nero had been assassinated and Vespasian had imperial ambitions. In Rome, as in many places, power and danger went together. Vespasian kept himself out of the initial jockeying, and only when the other serious (and dangerous) claimants had assassinated each other, did he make his successful move. The result was inevitable. In AD 70, Jerusalem was taken, and the Second Temple destroyed. Not only was Jerusalem destroyed, but damage to the land was enormous. This was the result not only of Roman depredations, but also because the Jews themselves had carried out a scorched-earth policy. The Romans allowed pagan immigrants to settle in the place of the massacred Jews. We do not have census figures for the time around the fall of the Second Temple. We do know that although there were few Jews remaining in the areas around Jerusalem, that the area in the Galilee had a large Jewish population.5 The question of population becomes important because there was a subsequent, and final, effort on the part of the Jews to free themselves from pagan domination. “The war of Bar Kokhba lasted three years and strained the military resources of the empire to the utmost.”6 A very good summary of this last war and its sequellae are given
in the Encyclopedia Judaica: The two keys here are the dispersion of Jews into the Roman dependencies of Gaul, Spain, and Germania. These were the embryos that would become Western Europe. The second key point here is the dispersion of the scholars, who would be the creators of a new Temple, one that would be made of parchment and ink, a culture centered not on place, but on sacred writings. These writings would have the advantage of portability. And although made of parchment and ink, because of their easy reproducibility, they would prove to be far more substantial than a single sacred building of stone. And equally, if not more important, they would prove to be in a mode of constant evolution over centuries, as if they were an actual living organism. This unique phenomenon in world history forms the subject of part II of our story. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica, 1st ed., “History,” 641. 3 Michael Grant, The History of Ancient Israel (New York:
Scribner and Sons, 1984), 240. The Purpose of Part II, “The Bridge,” is to relate the history of the Jews from the end of ancient times to the beginning of the modern. As was true in the case of part I, the history of the Jews cannot be considered in vacuo, that is without due reference to the communities in which Jews were a presence, willingly or unwillingly on their part; welcome or unwelcome on the part of the host community. In later ancient times, following the fall of the First Temple, we had the dual identity of being part of a nation with a physical location (as there remained Jews in Palestine), as well as a minority community within larger communities. During the period under discussion in Part II, there is no national Jewish state. The time period considered here will be from the final defeat of the forces of Bar Kokhba (ca. 135 AD) to the beginnings of the various Enlightenments (ca. 1517 AD), and the events immediately following. The events that will form the bulk of this section will be discussions of Jewish Law. In order to put this in perspective, the reader will have to understand that the usual presumption of “law” in Western studies deals with temporal rather than religious law. That will not be the case here, during the evolution of rabbinic Judaism. The Gentile communities will not concern themselves with the internal legal code of the Jewish minority. It will not be until after the Enlightenment and the establishment of modern nation-states that the distinction between civil and religious law engage the Jewish communities of Europe. In the gentile communities this distinction was drawn much
earlier, because of the enormous power and wealth that was in play
between Church and State. -the supposed grant by the emperor Constantine, in gratitude for his conversion by Pope Silvester, to that pope and to his successors forever, not only of spiritual supremacy over the other great patriarchates and over all matters of faith and worship, but also of temporal dominion over Rome, Italy and “the provinces, places and civitates of the western regions...” It is now universally admitted to be a gross forgery... however, it is certain that the constitutum was regarded as genuine both by the friends and enemies of the papal pretensions throughout the middle ages.1 The operative words here are that it was regarded as genuine by
both sides. What is real and what is believed to be real have
equal force as motivators of human behavior. This struggle between temporal and spiritual authorities could not have occurred in the Jewish Diaspora community, as there was no Jewish state. There was insufficient wealth and power to lead to war. Hence the rabbinic rulings encompassed both the religious issues and matters of civil law that arose in the Jewish communities. In general, the medieval gentile communities restricted this authority to non-capital cases. The authority to fine and imprison were generally permitted to the local Jewish authorities. However, prior to discussing the Law, I will give a brief history of the spread of Jews through Western Europe. This will include the discriminations, pogroms, and expulsions that precipitated the migration of the bulk of the Jewish community from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. sv “Donation of Constantine”. In chapter 5 we discussed the origin of Holy Script. These texts were redacted by scholars who were descendents of the Jewish refugees who fled to Babylon, that is, to the East. There was, after the fall of the Second Temple in AD 70, and after the defeat of Bar Kokhba in AD 135, a massive exodus from Eretz Israel due to forced migration, sale into slavery, and the hostility of the Greek population that had been transplanted by Rome into Eretz Israel. Many of these Jewish migrants went first to Rome, and then spread to the provinces, that is, to the West: The first Jews to reach Germany were merchants who went there in the wake of the Roman legions and settled in the Roman-founded Rhine towns [see map V]. The earliest detailed record of a Jewish community in Germany, referring to Cologne, is found in imperial decrees issued in 321 and 331 AD.1 Regarding France (or Gaul, in the terminology of the time): In Spain, there is evidence that Jews were settled in Roman Spain
by the third century AD.3 There seems to have been little conflict between the Jewish communities and their neighbors during the earlier centuries of Roman rule. There appears to have been no forced segregation and no special laws enforced against Jews as a community. This era of tolerance is probably a result of the pre-Christian nature of the natives, because, having a plurality of religions, they would have less reason to view Jews as different. However, records from these times are sparse, and there may have been conflicts of which we are not aware. However, with the advent of Christianity, changes would occur. As early as AD 339, Roman Emperor Constantinius II prohibited marriage between Jews and Christians. This was not, in itself, a great disability to Jews, because it was consistent with rabbinical decrees. However, the same edict forbade Jews to possess Christian slaves. This last prohibition went far to undermine the economic structure of the Jewish community in agriculture in particular. At this period it was inconceivable to maintain any fair-sized agricultural unit without employing slaves, who were becoming rapidly Christianized.4 (The reader will recall that by the late Roman Republic, yeoman
farming disappeared throughout the Imperium.) We believe it is wrong that the enemies of the heavenly Majesty and of the Roman laws should become the executors of our laws, and that they, fortified by the authority of the acquired rank, should have power to judge or sentence Christians…as if they insult our faith…For the same reason we prohibit that any synagogue should arise as a new building.5 In reading these disabling decrees, it is important to realize the era in which they were written. There were similar decrees written by the Jewish authorities (in Mishnah and Gemara*) against the rights of non-Jews living in a Jewish state. Life in the Daughter States of the Roman Empire Several centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire, Muslim forces sweeping out of the Arabian peninsula from the 7th through the 11th centuries created a vast empire that included all of Egypt, North Africa, most of Palestine, eastern Turkey, Persia, and much of Spain. As a result, 90 percent of the world’s Jews were under Muslim rule. In general, during the medieval period, Muslim rule was relatively benevolent toward Jews, especially when contrasted to that of the successor states of the Roman Empire. These were the Jews referred to as Sephardim. However, for our purposes, we will emphasize the Ashkenazim, or European Jewry. The story of the 10 percent of world Jewry (Ashkenazim) requires a brief look at the Roman Catholic Church. As a rule, the upper ranks of the Church were relatively better disposed to Jews than the parish priests or the monastic and mendicant orders. This reflects the general principle that, with some drastically tragic exceptions, European Jews fared better among the ruling elite than among the common people (including the lower clergy).6 Early Christian Spain Seventh-century Visigothic Spain waged a continuous struggle against Jewish existence. A series of laws was promulgated throughout the century to punish Jews for adhering to their faith…and to take away their children from them in order to educate them in true Christian homes.7 Regardless of the rulership of Spain, from Roman times, at least
until the late twentieth century, Spain has never been noted as
favorable to trade, banking, and manufacturing. Early Christian
France It is interesting to note once again the role played by geography in the settlements of the Franks along the Rhine River. Again nature provides well-watered croplands and ease of transport and communication (map V). As noted, Jewish settlers followed the legions along the Rhine. The advent of Charlemagne’s empire had a positive effect on Jewish settlement: In the Carolingian Empire of the eighth and ninth centuries, trade and mercantile connections were at a much higher premium than in the declining Visigothic kingdom [Spain]; hence the treatment of Jews was much better, though always within the framework of the general attitude set by the Church. Emperor Louis the Pious and his advisors were in particular favorably disposed to Jewish trade, and under him court society treated Jews well.9 During the years leading up to the 10th and 11th centuries, the Christianization of the European peasantry proceeded, until there were very few (and probably no selfconfessed) pagans left in Western Europe. Jews were becoming regarded with mixed feelings: they were necessary for trade, which enriched the rulers through tax revenues and made goods available to the peasantry, but proselytizing Christianity carried with it hatred against Jews as “killers of Christ” and also the stigma of being “other” in a culture newly unified under a single religion. In a sense, paganism worked to the advantage of the Jews, because Jews were not uniquely “other” in the presence of many pagan cults. Here we see the disadvantage of “particularism” as it relates to Jews, and we will see such repeated episodes of being singled out for persecution, over the ensuing centuries. But we will also see, in the 19th century, a Jewish response to “particularism” that will be wholly new, with tragic consequences to the entire world. The Church itself was not of one mind regarding the Jews, and
this ambiguity figured into state policy and private feelings
toward Jews in all of western Europe: As we will see, the phenomenon of acceptance of Jews by the upper classes, and the hostility toward them by the lower classes will be a theme running through the entire history of the Jewish people, whether we speak of clergy, or any other section of society that is, within itself, layered by class. This distinction will be seen to hold in general, but not in all instances. 1 Encyclopedia Judaica, 1st ed., 1971. sv “Germany.” This discussion of the Crusades will explore their effect on the
Jews of western Europe. A study of their global effects is beyond
the scope of this book. Rather than academically describing the cultural life of this rich period, I will introduce some quotes from the Arabian Nights, written before the Crusades. They will show a civilization of great affluence, and one which respects trade. We will also see the liberal use of wine and apparent acceptance of homosexuality. We will see that trade is an honorable profession, unlike in Europe. First, the description of the house of Sindbad the Sailor: Regarding trade: Proceeding further in the Arabian Nights, we find mention of male homosexuality in a manner varying from outright to grudging acceptance. In several passages, the discussion is cast in a debate between characters as to whether making love to young girls or young boys is more pleasurable. One such passage is cited below: Surely you will admit that a woman has nothing which can compare with the beauty of a youth, his supple waist, his fine-drawn limbs, the tender mingling of color in his cheeks, his gentle smile and charm of his voice? The Prophet himself, in putting us on our guard against so evident a danger, said: “do not look upon beardless boys, for their eyes hold more temptation that the eyes of huris…” When you compare boys with girls, you simply flatter your corrupt
desire. We know your boy-loving poets well! The greatest of them
al, Abu Nuwas, the king of pederasts.3 Despite the Muslim takeover of the Holy Land, Christian access to the Holy Places at first remained unrestricted. In fact, in 807 Harun al Rashid “acknowledged Charlemagne as protector of Jerusalem and owner of the Church of the Sepulcher. Charlemagne founded a hospital and a library in the Holy City.”4 However, expressions of religious sentiment tend to fluctuate
from tolerance to claims of exclusivity. It was only a matter of
time until the inevitable turn of the wheel: The response of Christians in western Europe to this loss, real and imagined (few in western Europe could afford the time and money necessary for the pilgrimage, so the real impact on the average person was nil), was deep and emotional. Prior to the First Crusade, widespread massacre of Jews was rare in the west. No longer. The year is 1096. The First crusade falls naturally into two parts. One of these may be called the Crusade of the people; the other the Crusade of the princes. Of these the people’s crusade—prior in order of time; if only secondary in point of importance—may naturally be studied first. The sermon of [Pope] Urban II at Clermont became the staple for wondering preachers, among whom Peter the Hermit distinguished himself by his fiery zeal. Riding on an ass from place to place through France and along the Rhine, he carried away by his eloquence thousands of the poor. Some three or four months before the term fixed by Urban II, in April and May 1096, five divisions of paupers had already collected. Three of these, led by Gottschalk, and William the carpenter respectively, failed to reach even Constantinople. The armies of Fulcher and Gottschalk were destroyed by the Hungarians in just revenge for their excesses (June), the third, after joining in a wild Judenhetze in the towns of the alley of the Rhine, during which some 10,000 Jews perished as the first fruits of crusading zeal, was scattered to the winds in Hungary.6 The princes’ crusade was much more successful: On July 15, 1099,
they captured Jerusalem and slaughtered all the Jews and Muslims
they could find: Other than that “incidental” massacre, there does not appear to have been any concerted attempt on the part of the princes to single out Jews in Europe. This may be because the motivation of the princes was different from that of the people. “We have already seen that among the princes who joined the First Crusade there were some who were rather politiques then dévots, and who aimed at the acquisition of temporal profits as well as spiritual merit.”8 One aspect of the massacres relating to the Crusades in general is that in many instances the Jews were offered the opportunity of conversion or death. In most instances, they chose death, first killing their children, and then dying themselves, either in last-ditch fighting or by suicide. Martyrdom in these circumstances was sanctioned under rabbinic law as an act of Kiddush ha-Shem, or honoring God’s name. The Second Crusade (1146– 7) and the Third Crusade (1189–90) produced similar massacres, motivated as much by greed for plunder as by religious zeal. Again, the higher clergy discouraged mob action. In a letter to “the English People” and also sent to “the Archbishops, Bishops and all the clergy of eastern France and Bavaria,” Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: The Jews are not to be persecuted, killed or even put to flight…The Jews are for us the living words of Scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered. They are dispersed over all the world so that by expiating their crime they may be everywhere the living witness of our redemption…Under Christian princes they endure a hard captivity, but “they only wait for the time of their deliverance.”9 With the passage of the crusades, two new threats to the Jews appeared in the form of the blood libel and the desecration of the Host. The first was the belief that Jews killed Christian children to obtain their blood for Passover matzos, and the second was that Jews desecrated the consecrated communion wafer. Those who held these beliefs were the generally poor and/or rural. Life could get so insecure for Jews that they “protected themselves by leaving the towns and moving to castles of the nobility—paying money for the Christians to leave the castle so as to defend it themselves.”10 As unbelievable as it would seem, there were still more than a few benighted souls who still believed in things like the blood libel and desecration of the Host at the beginning of the twentieth century. An enormous disaster was about to strike Europe. A ship from the Crimea slipped into a Genoese harbor in 1347, barely able to sail because so many of the crew had died of a mysterious ailment. A few similar ships grounded themselves on the Italian coast with no living crew. These ships were promptly looted. Thus was the Black Death introduced to Europe. In the ensuing epidemic, it is estimated that one-quarter of the population of Europe died.11 There was no understanding at the time of bacteria and the role played by rats and lice in transmitting disease, so it was natural for theories of every sort to be believed. One of the most common theories was that Jews were poisoning the wells of Christians. Although this theory may sound preposterous, there is evidence that in the United States today many Blacks think that the AIDS epidemic is a government plot against them. Stupidity knows no boundary of time or race. Recurrent episodes of plague continued to occur in Europe until about 1665–6. Prior to the advent of the Black Death, medieval art had pictured the Jews as killers of Christ and minions of Satan. Thus it was not at all difficult for the well-poisoning theory to gain wide-spread credence. Many Jewish communities were destroyed, rebuilt, and destroyed again. There were enormous massacres. But these massacres had an element missing in those of the Crusades: Jews were not given the option of conversion. Those who could not flee, died. By the end of the 15th century, Christian forces were on the verge of defeating the last Muslim strongholds in Spain. After the amalgamation of Aragon and Castile, the Spanish rulers expelled all non-Catholics from Spain; Portugal soon followed suit. Many Jews went to the Netherlands where a policy of religious toleration had been developing since the Reformation. Such toleration existed nowhere else in Europe at this time. Outside of the Netherlands, it was the era of cuis regio, eius religio (as the ruler believes so must the people). Thus with the exception of Holland, by 1500, there were practically no Jews along the Rhine basin, ending a presence that had been there since the late Roman Empire. The migration to Poland and Lithuania (see map V), which had been slowly proceeding, made those areas the principle center of European Judaism. Prior to exploring Jewish culture as it developed in Eastern Europe, one aspect of the Western Jewish experience needs attention. This is the evolution of the role of Court Jew. To the extent that Jews were literate, they were competent to do administrative work and collect taxes. To the extent that they were money lenders, they were a source of capital, either borrowed or extorted. These functions were important to princes. The term Court Jew in German is Hoffjude. Another term is Hoffaktor, although Hoffaktor may relate specifically to banking. I quote below a passage from the Jewish Encyclopedia that sums up this relationship between prince and Jew. The term used in the article is Serf of the Chamber: The legal status of the Jews and their security remained unstable as the result of the First Crusade. The old system of granting charters and Imperial episcopal protection and defense was found totally wanting in the face of popular incitement and attack. The state, as well as the Jews, was searching for a new formula and new guarantees of safety… Legendary influences, legal notions, and fiscal hopes of the chance to exact maximum extortion in taxes and contributions from Jews merged with old imperial conceptions of the duty to give protection and the safeguarding of ordered life to embrace all the inhabitants of the realm. From early formulations that the Jews “belong to our chamber” (attineant ad cameram nostrum, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, in 1182), through the final legal conception of Emperor Frederick II expressed in 1237, that “the imperial authority has from ancient times condemned the Jews to eternal servitude for their sins” in his charter granted to the city of Vienna, there arrived the term given currency by the same emperor that the Jews were “servi camerae nostrae, sub imperiale protectione” [serfs of our chamber, under imperial protection]. King Henry III of England formulated…“That no Jew remain in England unless he do the King Service, and that from the hour of birth every Jew, whether male or female, serve Us in some way.” This legal conception served in many cases as a license for the capricious extortion of money from Jews…. “The servitude of Jews” did not always work to their detriment.
Considered as a Royal chattel, they usually enjoyed royal
protection… 1 The Thousand and One Nights. Trans. by Mardrus and Mathers.
Vol. II. (London and New York: Routledge, 1993), 177. At this point, we must consider two additional works that were
added to the canon. As is usually the case, these works were
produced to meet current needs. But for the Midrash this problem is not a difficulty; it is an opportunity. Midrash supplies the missing dialogue. We hear the cause of the enmity between Cain and Abel and the confusion is solved. Thus according to one source, the story of Cain and Abel is one of petty and foolish jealousy—on both sides. And because of that murder entered human experience.1 This Midrash then becomes almost existentially plaintive: This passage is so poignant and so universal that any reader feels a painful tug at the heart by this parable. Barry Holtz, who cited the passage above, notes that it refers to the story of Cain and Abel. Mr. Holtz also notes the trepidation felt by Rabbi Shimon in daring to hold God accountable for evil: “This is a difficult thing to say and it is impossible to say it
clearly.” Certainly the parable is obvious—God is the king; the two wrestlers are Cain and Abel. The wrestler cries out with great anguish—“Who will get justice for me from before the king?” Why? Because he realizes that it is the king who must be blamed. Had the king wanted to stop the fight he could have. Does the text mean to say: Had God wished to prevent the murder [of Abel] He could have? What Shimon ben Yochai is suggesting is that God is to blame for this murder—He is the true culprit.3 However, the Midrash, as a collection, is very large, perhaps twenty-two volumes. So this question, as many others, is revisited. This time, it is revisited from another angle, that of the perpetrator himself trying to justify his act by serpentlike logic. In this midrash, Cain represents the universal culprit. He makes three universal excuses in a dialogue with God. The first: The whole situation, he argues, is very much like something else—a thief who steals from under the nose of the night watchman. Clearly, it is the watchman who is to blame—the thief was only doing his job.4 This defense is not as outrageous as it appears. There was a case in a state court in which a thief trying to rob a school fell through the roof of the school building and successfully sued the school district. Cain acted as a good liberal should. The second: God, according to Cain, created the inclination in man to do evil
and therefore, in at least an ultimate way, He is to be blamed.5 Why does God accept Abel’s sacrifice in Genesis 4.4, but reject
Cain’s? Is not God the true culprit in the tale by this act of
favoritism? The world as we know it is unfair. The problem is that attempts
to make everything fair lead to enforced egalitarianism. Thus we
enthrone mediocrity. Mr. Holtz points out that God’s response to these complaints is
the simple rebuke “[The] voice of your brother’s blood calls out
to me.” The Midrash, as noted, is later than the Old Testament...The Five Books of Moses, the Pentateuch, does not concern itself with eschatology. But by the time of the Second Temple, if not earlier, questions of the immortality of the soul and life after death had become a central concern of Jews, as it had to Greeks, Persians, and Egyptians. The entire Mediterranean world was almost obsessed with these questions. Whether these issues were raised from within Judaism or were adopted from the outside world, they had to be addressed. Thus the Midrash assumes the existence of the soul and life after death.6 However, the importance of eschatology in Judaism has almost always been less emphasized as compared to Christianity and Islam. Kabbalah As noted above, the Midrash was codified by the end of the thirteenth century. But religious needs did not stop evolving. Almost as if to continue to provide a medium of expression, a series of writings known as Kabbalah evolved. The term Kabbalah in Hebrew means “that which has been received.” What has been received, alluded to here, is divine truth, as given by God to Moses at Mt. Sinai and transmitted by him to the select among Israel. Thus, although Kabbalah is acknowledged in the thirteenth century, tradition relates that it had been present since the revelation on Mt. Sinai. A definition of mysticism (and thus Kabbalah) by Joseph Dan is as good a definition as we can find: While religion is an expression of faith in the words of scripture and revelation, mystics tend to claim that truth lies beyond any possibility of expression by terms derived from sensual experience or logical deduction.7 As Kabbalah is an enormous subject, I can only touch upon it. It should be noted that the Kabbalah is not a specific book; the term Kabbalah refers to a series of books. The three principle books comprising the Kabbalah are the Sefer Yetzirah, redacted between AD 300–400, the Bahir, first published around AD 1176,8 and the Zohar, published around AD 1305.9 A principle idea, if not the principle idea, is that God can be described as a series of ten emanations. These emanations are each called Sefirah (plural Sefirot). (See figure 1, pg 104.) The English word sapphire derives from this term. The highest Sefirah is called Ein Sof, Hebrew for without end. As we go from the higher to lower levels of Sefirot, we progress from what is completely inaccessible to human experience to what is more accessible: I will quote Lawrence Fine’s definition of Ein-Sof: Mr. Fine continues his description, which now becomes anthropomorphic (note: there are other descriptions which are not anthropomorphic). As we descend, the next level contains two Sefirot; Wisdom on the right side, and Understanding on the left. These paired forces must be in balance for the universe to be in balance. They pour Wisdom and understanding to the Sefirah in the middle, called Beauty. Beauty is the male symbol, or phallus. By way of another Sefirah, Beauty fills the lowest Sefirah, the female symbol. In Hebrew this lowest emanation is called Shekhinah and is the point at which God and Man most directly interact. When all is well with the universe, the Shekhinah is close to man. When the world lacks holiness, the Shekhinah draws away from the world. During the time of the First Temple, it was thought to be God’s abode on earth, and was believed to be located just above the Ark of the Covenant. Humans can bring the Shekhinah closer by practicing piety, charity, and fulfilling as much as humanly possible all the commands of Torah. This activity is called Tikkun Ha Olam, (repairing the world). We will see in the twentieth century the perversion of Tikkun to advance secular Socialism. “Rabbi” Michael Lerner, a one-time advisor to Hillary Clinton, is a proponent of this heresy, and publishes a pro-Socialist magazine labeled Tikkun. This is an example of Hillul ha-Shem, dishonoring God’s name by profane use of a sacred practice. Kabbalah added some new ideas to Jewish tradition. One was the ability of man to affect God. According to this concept, God and Man are locked in a mutually dependent relationship, working together to perfect creation. Man is indispensable to God; He had to create Man. The most important of modern (ca. 1570) Kabbalists, Isaac Luria expressed this concept: Isaac Luria dared, unlike most theologians and philosophers, to put in the center of his worldview the most basic questions, which are so often avoided: Why everything? Why does God exist? Why did the creation occur? What is [the] meaning of everything? He gave to these questions a most radical and revolutionary answer, expressed in daring mythological concepts and terms. The most innovative concept that lies at the heart of Luria’s teachings is the imperfection of beginning. Existence does not begin with a perfect Creator bringing into being an imperfect universe; rather, the existence of the universe is the result of an inherent flaw or crisis within the infinite Godhead, and the purpose of creation is to perfect it.11 It is also important to note that the concept of the multilayered manifestations of the Godhead brought Judaism to a closer relationship with Christianity. This may be the principle reason that Kabbalah has attracted the interest of Christians for centuries. The ancient idea of parallel universes of Good and Evil is also
part of Kabbalah: One key element that we cannot lose sight of here is that orthodox belief is that all the ideas that are searched out in texts redacted after the Pentateuch are already present in the original text, albeit in hidden form. The Torah is always considered complete. This expansion of meaning given to Torah explains how the text can be complete when it is on the surface seemingly only historical narrative and legalistic detail. In addition, the contention is that there is not even one superfluous word in the Pentateuch. Thus the Torah is complete in its exclusivity and its inclusivity.13 Regarding both Midrash and Kabbalah, we may draw some conclusions. The process of Midrash allows great scope of commentary on Biblical text, with only the most tenuous connection or even with no apparent connection at all to the actual text. Even greater scope is allowed in Kabbalah, as the very core of theological philosophy is unmoored from previous restrictions. It may have been the massacres and deportations that stimulated these arcane thoughts. But we must never forget that during all these excursions of the spirit and mind, obedience to the letter of the Law, Halacha, was strictly maintained. It has been the maintenance of Halacha that accounts for the
survival of Judaism for the last two thousand years. 1 Barry W. Holtz et al., eds. Back to the Sources: Reading the
Classic Jewish Texts (New York: Summit Books, 1984), 180–181. 7 Joseph Dan, Kabbalah: A Very Short Introduction (New York,
Oxford University Press, 2006), 9. 8 Aryeh Kaplan, The Bahir Illumination (York Beach, Maine, Samuel
Weiser, Inc., 1979), xvii. In Western Europe, by around 1100, just as the Crusades began, so did the University system. By that date, society was getting more complex, and it seems that the universal curse of complex societies is the perceived need for lawyers. Doctors were needed too, but given the state of medical science of the time, they were more like apprentices to the Angel of Death. The Church was catholic as well as Catholic, and needed capable administrators, as well as canon lawyers. The state needed civil servants. It always does. It doesn’t take long for the reciprocal relationship: civil servants need the state. The problem was that most literate men were in monasteries. Since one couldn’t get the monks out of the monastery, the solution was to take the learning from the monasteries, and establish seats of learning in the outside world. Thus we have major universities founded: Paris, 1100; Bologna, 1088; Oxford, ca. 1100. The problem now was to find a knowledge source upon which to base the teaching. The Bible and the writings of the Church fathers were immediately accepted as part of the curriculum. But for natural science, medicine, logic, and philosophy, the only encyclopedic source of knowledge were the collected works of Aristotle. His work was lost to the West in the chaos following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, but was retrieved from Arab sources just before and during the Crusades. Today, when we are literally drowning in scientific and literary material, it is difficult to imagine a time when a book was a rare thing. Aristotle, at his peak about 335 BC, produced a canon of knowledge in philosophy, natural science, logic, ethics, drama, and poetry that dominated the European University from the twelfth century until the sixteenth. From the twelfth century until today, no one man has had such an impact on Western civilization. The Arab world was also influenced, but to a lesser degree. To some degree, all three religions of the Book, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were affected. Christianity, during the High Middle Ages, produced a scholar who attempted to reconcile science with religion, Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas held, with Aristotle, that philosophy and science (there was no difference at that time) could use reason to add to science and mathmatics. From observing what is around us, we can inductively draw general conclusions, thus proceeding from the specific to the general. Religion, on the other hand, proceeds from the general (revelation) to explain the specific. Some of what is learned through revelation is not discoverable through reason, but what is discoverable through reason will not conflict with revelation, since both reason and revelation lead to truth. His major theological writing is the Summa Theologica, which is still used in Catholic education today. The method of scholarship used in the medieval period is known as
scholasticism. A few citations from the Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy may define the methodology: In general, medieval Latin commentators through the thirteenth century rarely abandon the principle that the text makes some kind of sense. Thus even when the Aristotelian text is extremely cryptic, corrupt, or terse, commentators make every effort to give the text a clear and consistent sense, even if it must be almost completely constructed… Medieval philosophy remains one centered on authoritative texts and, hence, on their commentaries…medieval philosophical writers understood their own work as emerging out of a tradition of authorities rather than abstraction from or opposition to a tradition…[also] their work emerges out of an encounter with texts rather than in an unmediated contact with ideas problems, or arguments.1 There is something here quite remarkable. Aristotle was a close observer of nature. Alexander the Great ordered his generals to send back to Aristotle any unusual plant, animal, or mineral they might come across. Here we see the scholastics accept Aristotle’s work, but not his method! They paid no attention to the natural world around them (except for women and wine). Ironically, the term Aristotelian has come to mean the opposite of the methods actually used by the master. One of the main reasons for this paradox is that in ancient and medieval times there was no way to accurately measure time. Also there were no compasses, barometers, microscopes, telescopes, or most of the instruments that are found in any high school today. In addition, the Arabic numerals and the importation of algebra were yet to come. Without this basic math, instruments of measurement lose most of their power. As noted above, the medieval universities’ utilitarian function was to produce educated people to run the machinery of church and state. Officially, the most important subject was theology, to which everything else was considered secondary. Here again, Aristotle was used. Aristotle’s view of God was not anthropomorphic. He referred to God as the “Unmoved Mover” or “First Cause.” What in Aristotle’s thought was the unconscious principle of motion and immanent form of the world, the Unmoved Mover, became, especially at the hands of Aquinas in the thirteenth century, the philosophical description of the God of Christianity.2 The definition of God that would hold for the scholastics would
also be valid for Aristotle as he was then understood: Impact on Judaism This conflict between religion and reason was neither new nor unique to Judaism. It continues to this day. All of us have faced it individually in one form or another, and religious and social organizations have been made and unmade by this inherent conflict. The medieval Jewish community was divided over Maimonides: Maimonides’ grandiose attempt at a synthesis between the Jewish faith and Greek-Arab Aristotelian philosophy was received with enthusiasm in some circles, mainly of them upper strata of Jewish society, and with horror and dismay in others, imbued with the mysticism and dreading the effects of Greek thought on Jewish beliefs. The old and continuously smoldering issue of “Athens versus Jerusalem” conceived in the Talmud as the problem of hokhmah yevanit (Greek wisdom), now burst into flames. Essentially the problem is one of the synthesis or the absolute antithesis between monotheistic repealed faith and intellectually formulated philosophy.5 In order to address this issue, he wrote a book entitled The Guide for the Perplexed. This book was written for scholars, as Maimonides was very unwilling to trust uneducated people with beliefs that might lead them astray. In the Guide, he addressed a number of specific problems. One of these was the question of whether God created the universe at a point in time (as stated in Genesis), or whether the universe has been in existence forever (Aristotle). Maimonides concludes that if Aristotle could prove the preexistence of the universe, that he (Maimonides) would interpret scripture accordingly: For if the Creation had been demonstrated by proof, even if according to the Platonic hypothesis, all arguments of the philosophers against us would be of no avail. If, on the other hand, Aristotle had a proof for his theory, the whole teaching of Scripture would be rejected, and we should be forced to other opinions.6 Regarding the Nature of Evil: Maimonides accepts the neo-Platonic doctrine that evil is not an
independent principle but rather the privation, or absence, of
good.7 Regarding eschatology: Regarding the purpose of the Law: It is important to note that the upper classes were most
receptive to Mainmonides’ synthesis. However, those imbued with
mysticism were the most immune. It needs also to be noted that
Jewish communities near the center of culture, Spain, North
Africa, and southern France, were most sympathetic to Maimonides,
while the outlying Jewish centers (northern France) were often
hostile. We will see in the nineteenth century that Marxism had
its greatest hold among educated German Jews, and least appeal
among the poorer and less assimilated, and less
university-educated Eastern European orthodox and Hasidic Jews. Before concluding with Maimonides, we must note another side to him. He produced a very orthodox codification of Torah Law, and also wrote The Thirteen Principles of Faith, which is prominent in the daily prayer book for Jews. The thirteenth statement reads: I believe with complete faith that there will be a resuscitation of the dead whenever the wish emanates from the Creator, Blessed be His Name and exalted is his mention, forever and for all eternity.10 There is clearly a variance between the philosophical Maimonides and the orthodox Maimonides. This raises questions regarding what he truly believed. One thing is certain: he did not trust the masses to make their own decisions, and he realized the danger of his writings, and discouraged non-scholars and young men from reading them. We see expressed, in the microcosm of this one man, a clear foreshadowing of the philosophical split that will come to full fruition during the period of the Enlightenment and which continues to this day. Impact on Islam The impact of Greek philosophy was at least as great on Islam as
on Judaism or Christianity. However interesting the subject may
be, it is beyond the scope of this book. Neo-Platonism 1 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Online, sv “Aristotle,” http://aristotle.stanford.edu 2 Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 92. 6 Moses Maimonides, The Guide for the Perplexed. trans. by M.
Friedlander (New York: Dover Publications, 1956), 200. We left off with the wanderings of the Jews in chapter 3. Driven out of France, Germany, and England by the violence of the Crusades and out of Spain by the order of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, there was a great redistribution of the world’s Jewish population. Half of the total came from Europe, and are called, as previously noted, Ashkenazi (probably an archaic term for German). The other half came from Spain. We have seen that they are called Sephardim. The Sephardim settled primarily in the lands of the Ottoman Empire. Some few of both types found safety in the Dutch provinces (see Holland, map V). This book will not follow the path of the Sephardim, except for Baruch Spinoza and Uriel da Costa. At the same time as the Jews were forced to leave Western Europe, there was a strong population shift and growth in the population of Poland and Lithuania. These areas were newly Christianized and were in need of people who could manage trade and supply credit to growing economies, as well as possess the literacy necessary to run estates and new industries such as liquor, furs, timber, and grain distribution. Jews were used by the landed nobility to collect taxes and generally to manage the estates of the nobility. The system used was that of tax farming, in which the landowner would sell to the Jew the right to collect taxes. Whatever, if anything, the Jew could obtain from the peasants above this amount, would be his profit. Many times the Jew was forced to do this task and would have to pay out more than he could collect. This system was very advantageous to the nobility, because the onus of actual collection fell on the Jew, and the hatred of the peasants could thus be deflected from the nobility. This East European expansion was on the surface similar to that which was to take place in the not-yet formed United States. But in the United States, the role of capital and business was to be viewed as a national asset, and businessmen were honored rather than despised. The many cultural differences between Europe and the United States (not yet in existence) will be considered in future chapters. As most of the eastwardly migrating Jews came from German-speaking territory, they carried with them a dialect of German, eponymously called Yiddish. They also brought with them the holy books. They were distinctly “other.” The Jews came into new lands with their own well-defined culture. While there were certainly cultural differences between Poles and Lithuanians, they were nothing compared to the “otherness” of Jews. Jews had a religion which was very different, with a different Sabbath day. They had dietary restrictions that precluded them from sharing dinner with their neighbors. This was a significant handicap, as “braking bread together” has always been a source of communal identification. Their dress was different. Their body features were sufficiently different from those of their neighbors as to be noticeable. Their sacred language was not that of the Church. They did not intermarry. They did not share the folklore and songs of the people around them. They tended to be more literate and to be involved in trade. Returning to Poland-Lithuania, we find the Jews taking up residence in specific quarters of towns and cities. This was convenient for Jew and Gentile because the two separate cultures had no desire to merge. They were locked together in economic, but not social, bonds. There was almost universal hatred of the Jew on the part of the peasant and the clergy, especially the lower clergy. From the point of view of the nobility, the Jew was a kind of human cow; it was useful as long as it could be milked. When it no longer produced milk, it could be slaughtered. The nobility seemed to have less visceral hatred toward Jews, because Jews were so much beneath them. After all, a man may not like cockroaches, but he does not find them important enough to hate. Two events devastated the Jews of Poland-Lithuania in the middle of the seventeenth century, one physically, and one spiritually. The physical trial was the Cossack reign of terror under Bogdan Chmielnicki (ca. 1593–1657). He entered history unwillingly. After serving in the Polish army against the Turks, he returned to the Ukraine. There, he settled down quietly on his paternal estate, and in all probability history would never have known his name if the intolerable persecution of a neighboring Polish squire, who stole his hayricks and flogged his infant son to death, had not converted the thrifty and acquisitive Cossack husbandman into one of the most striking and sinister figures of modern times. Failing to get redress nearer home, he determined to seek for justice at Warsaw, whither he had been summoned with other Cossack delegates to assist Wladislaus I in his long-projected war against the Turks. The king, perceiving him to be a man of some education and intelligence, appointed him pisarz or secretary of the registered Cossacks, and he subsequently served under Koniecpolski in the Ukraine campaign of 1646. His hopes of distinction were, however, cut short by a decree of the Polish diet, which, in order to vex the king, refused to sanction the continuance of the war. Chmielnicki, now doubly hateful to the Poles as being both a royalist and a Cossack, was again maltreated and chicaned, and only escaped from gaol [jail] by bribing his gaolers. Thirsting for vengeance, he fled to the Cossack settlements on the lower Dnieper and thence sent messages to the khan of the Crimea, urging a simultaneous invasion of Poland by the Tatars and Cossacks (1647).1 The invasion occurred. In June 1649, arrayed in cloth of gold and mounted on a white charger, Chmielnicki made his triumphal entry into Kiev, where he was hailed as the Maccabeus of the Orthodox faith, and permitted the committal of unspeakable atrocities on the Jews and Roman Catholics.2 The remembrance of this horror in the minds of the Jews of
Eastern Europe lingered as the greatest slaughter of Jews of
modern history until the holocaust. While in Ottoman territory, Shabbetai was taken to the court of the Turkish Sultan, and there offered the choice of death or conversion. He left the interview wearing a turban (Sept. 16, 1666). Unsurprisingly, his predictions of Redemption proved hollow. A great disappointment followed. The next Messianic movement to engulf large numbers of Jews would be Marxism in the 19th, 20th, and now, 21st century. Unfortunately, this fatal delusion was not limited to Jews, and in its contagion spread to all races and caused untold harm not only to Jews, but to millions of non-Jews also. The evil continues today, and, despite its consistent failure, time and again, grim reality does not seem to scotch it. A New Story Starts In the year 1500, the vast majority of people living in Europe on both sides of the Rhine were Roman Catholic. Along the north bank of the Danube, the inhabitants of Austria, present-day Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Poland were overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. The population south of the Danube was also largely Roman Catholic. Exceptions to this were the people of Bulgaria and Greece, who were Orthodox, and those inhabitants of the southern Balkans who had adopted Islam while under Turkish rule. Look again at these two rivers. They divide Europe into a northern half and a southern half. During the time of the Roman Empire, the area south of these rivers was relatively securely held by the Roman legions. The area north of this line was either not secure at all or was at risk of barbarian incursions and chronic revolt. Officially, the Western Roman Empire ended in AD 476. Jumping ahead to the year AD 1500, we note that the population on both sides of these river valleys was Roman Catholic (with the exceptions noted above). Yet in the year 1600, much of the population north of this line was Protestant. People who had been Catholic for almost 1000 years abandoned the traditional religion in a few decades of the first half of the sixteenth century. This was one of the most momentous events in the history of the world. What happened and why did it happen? As background we go back to the time of the Roman Empire. The lands south of the two great rivers absorbed a great deal of Roman culture. Many retiring Roman legionnaires were paid off by being given land grants in the above-mentioned locales. The languages of Italy, Spain, France, and Romania reflect this influence. Roman legal traditions were maintained, and many cultural aspects of the Roman social order remained. The Catholic Church represented the shadowy continuance of the empire. As the hold of the empire was less secure to the north and east, so the Roman tradition was less strong. But there were many other reasons for the failure of Catholicism to hold the north. The lightning strike that ignited the Protestant Reformation occurred on Oct. 31, 1517. On that date Martin Luther nailed to the door of Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, his Ninetyfive Theses. His was not the first attempt to question Catholic orthodoxy, as previous attempts had been made, only to be quashed by the forces of Church and State. In the extreme, heretics were burned alive, discouraging their activities. Luther, however, questioned Roman Catholic orthodoxy at a time when the prestige of the papacy was at low ebb and the German princes were open to any reason to justify arresting the flow of money to Rome. In addition, they greedily eyed the real estate holdings of the Church, which had grown over the centuries by endowments from the faithful. Luther’s action at that time was a response to the sale of indulgences by a papal representative named Johann Tetzel: This man [Tetzel] went around the country proclaiming that as soon as the money clinked in the chest, the soul of some dead relative flew from purgatory, and that by buying a papal pardon the purchaser secured plenary remission of sins and the grace of God…and many of the people of Wittenberg went out to buy heaven at a bargain. Luther was sickened by seeing what he believed to be the deception of poor people in being taught to rely on these wretched papers instead of on real, lively faith…He pointed out that the doctrine of the Church was very uncertain, especially in regard to the freeing of souls from purgatory; that contrition was the only gate to God’s pardon; that works of charity were better than the buying of indulgences, and that the indulgence-sellers were extremely scandalous and likely to foment heresy among the simple.3 Martin Luther had tweaked the lion’s tail and survived. It was the signal for a massive anti-Catholic movement. The next most significant figure to challenge the Church was a Frenchman, John Calvin. In 1541 he wrote in French his Institutes of the Christian Religion. The work is summarized by Professor Smith: The sole purpose of the universe, and the sole intent of its Creator, was the glorification of the Deity. Man’s chief end was to “glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” God accomplished this self-exaltation in all things, but chiefly through men, his noblest work, and He did it in various ways, by the salvation of some and the damnation of others. And his act was purely arbitrary; he foreknew and predestined the fate of every man from the beginning; he damned and saved irrespective of foreseen merit. “God’s eternal decree” Calvin himself called “frightful.” The outward sign of election to grace he thought was moral behavior, and in this respect he demanded the uttermost from himself and from his followers. The highest virtue was faith, a matter more of the heart than of the reason.4 Crossing the English Channel, we note that Henry VIII also followed the lead of the German princes. Step by step, he severed England’s connection with the papacy. His actions culminated in the passage of the Act of Supremacy by Parliament in 1534. This Act “declared that the king’s majesty ‘justly and rightfully is and ought to be supreme head of the Church of England.’ ”5 And thus ended Roman Catholic hegemony in Europe. The early Protestants were for the most part Calvinist, and it was the Calvinist theology that the Pilgrim Fathers brought to New England and which informed the early history of the New England colonies. Of all religious theologies, it was the Calvinist that had the greatest impact on early American history and will be of chief concern in our consideration of its mutation from a clear statement of iron faith to its current iteration as secular humanism. It is the Protestant branch of Christianity that will be our chief interest. The differences between Catholic and Calvinist beliefs are profound. Calvinists believe that God has determined the fate of each person ever born because God is omniscient. Catholics believe that people are free to choose between good and evil. A Calvinist would respond that if moral freedom existed, God would not be omniscient, hence limited in some way. To maintain that God is limited in any way would be sinful. Now, despite this difference in view between Calvinist and Catholic, it is curious that St. Augustine (AD 354–430), a Father of the Church, and Bishop of Hippo, held the Calvinist view. There were others; the line between heresy and orthodoxy in Catholicism is frequently hard to draw. Calvinists believe that most of the sacraments are useless ritual and are meaningless to God. The Catholic Church holds that they are essential to salvation. The Calvinists believe that man communicates directly with God and that no priest is necessary to mediate between God and man. Calvinists believe that the Bible contains all of God’s words and that everyone should have access to and read the Bible. Traditional Catholic belief was that laymen could not understand the Bible and that to translate it out of Latin would be dangerous. They supplied their believers with Church law and dogma and resisted any direct appeal to the Bible because laymen could misunderstand it and fall into heresy. Calvinists felt that everyone should read the Bible and that no one had the authority to render an “official” meaning to Biblical text. Obviously, they felt it imperative to translate the Bible into every spoken language. They still do. The Catholic Church is episcopal in structure. That means it is run like an army, from top down. The pope, at the top, makes a final declaration of what God wills, and the interpretation is transmitted from pope to cardinal, to archbishop, to bishop, to monsignor, to parish priest, to congregant. In Calvinist religions, generally (there are some exceptions such as the Scottish Presbyterians), each individual congregation chooses its own pastor and has no authority over any other congregation. This form of church governance is called congregational. If a congregant in a Calvinist church disagrees with beliefs of his individual church, he is free join another congregation. Simultaneously with the questioning of Roman Catholic orthodoxy, there was a questioning of the Aristotelian orthodoxy. That is the subject of the next chapter. 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., sv “Chmielnicki.” 3 Preserved Smith, The Age of the Reformation (New York, Henry
Holt and Co., 1920), 66. The period of the Enlightenment is so rich in meaning and material that it is not possible to give an overview of it in this brief history. Therefore, I will limit my consideration of the Enlightenment to those aspects directly related to this area of study. Our efforts will consider some of the developments in science and philosophy. Science He concluded that the earth rotates around the sun; conventional belief was that the all heavenly bodies rotated around the earth. Galileo was hauled before the Inquisition and forced to recant his beliefs. The Catholic Church felt at that time that belief in a heliocentric solar system was heresy. Thus Galileo’s works were put on the Index of forbidden books, where they remained until 1832. Surprisingly, many Protestants had less difficulty accepting a heliocentric solar system. The Catholic Church paid a price by turning a blind eye to scientifically demonstrable astronomic data for 200 years, even into the twentieth century. I know of no Catholic theoretical physicist who has won a Nobel Prize; Nobel Prize winners in this field are largely Protestants, Jews and Asians. But there was also a gain to the Church; the suspicion of the novel led to a rate of change in dogma that is glacial; thus there is a comforting continuity of tradition and practice that has prevented the Church from deteriorating into secular humanism, as happened to Calvinist and Jewish orthodoxy. René Descartes (1596–1650) was a contemporary of Galileo. He did his major work in France and in Holland. He agreed with Galileo regarding cosmology, but was unwilling to write for publication on the subject, fearing the reaction of the Church. Descartes’ major contribution to science was by way of mathematics; he was able to apply the concepts of algebra to geometry, thus doing the work necessary to produce analytic geometry. While Descartes was still living, and in the year that Galileo died, Isaac Newton was born. He was able to integrate the analytic geometry of Descartes with the studies of motion begun by Galileo and perform the greatest advance in mathematics and physics of anyone in the entire history of the human race. No single human being has ever contributed more to science and mathmatics than Isaac Newton. In discussing his work, Newton said, “I stand on the shoulders of giants,” referring, undoubtedly to Galileo and Descartes. Physics, as known up to the time of Einstein, was primarily the work of Newton. In order to describe his physics, he invented the mathematics of differential and integral calculus. Without this mathematical tool, modern science would be impossible. (In fairness, I must point out here that the principles of calculus were worked out independently and at the same time by the German philosopher Gottfried von Leibniz). Few dates in history are as important as 1687. In that year Newton published Philosphiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. This work presented both his new mathematics and physics to the world. It is interesting that the work of Galileo marks the chief contribution of Catholic intellectuals to theoretical physics, although not to higher mathematics. The Protestant universities, from that time to today, continue to have much greater productivity in theoretical science. Engineering and the applied sciences do not appear to suffer the same dichotomy. The differences between freedom and license, between enough and too much, are hard to draw. The cost-benefit analysis is hard to perform. The seventeenth century saw advances in science and mathematics that have never been even approximated before or after. In comparison, from that point on all advances have built on the massive foundation of the seventeenth century. Subsequent advances have been comparatively incremental. The results of the progress above were prerequisite to the Industrial Revolution, which has materially enriched all the inhabitants of Europe and is now transforming Asia. But the scientific and mathematical revolutions raised grave philosophical questions. Philosophy: Great Britain Following the ramifications of Newton’s physics, if one could predict the impact site of a cannonball (which one can do), one can also predict the future location of planets, given adequate data. There is a slight correction for relativity, as per Einstein’s 1903 theory, but the effects of relativity were not large enough to be measured until the late nineteenth century). At the other extreme, any minute body of matter that you could find or make could be demonstrated to follow the same laws. Anyone doubting this could be invited to try out the cannonball experiment noted above, but with a small bullet. If everything in the material world could be predicted, given enough data, what is the role of God in the universe? How can miracles be explained? If everything moves according to Newton’s laws of mechanics, is God necessary? What about human behavior? If we know what a person’s past experiences were, can we not predict how he will behave in a given set of conditions in the future? If everyone is merely a product of his particular circumstances, is anyone responsible for his actions? A French philosopher stated, “tout compris c’est tout pardonner” (everything understood is everything pardoned). These are the questions that the philosophy of the Enlightenment had to address. The questions are still relevant. So let us see how the wise men of the day addressed the problem. The first man we consider is John Locke (1632–1704), and the first thing we notice about him is that he wrote after Newton’s great work was published. As Newton, Locke was English. In 1690, Locke published An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. This work attempts to determine, in a scientific manner, what people can and cannot know about our world. Locke states that the mind is like a “blank slate,” with no innate ideas. Everything we know is the result of experience. Experience comes to us through our five senses. Thus what is “real” is always beyond our ability to know absolutely, since our knowledge is necessarily indirect. The input from our senses provides us with simple ideas. When our mind processes these simple ideas, by comparing them, and by blending them, we create in our minds complex ideas.1 His thinking demonstrates the carryover from the logic of Newton’s physics into philosophy. A Scott, David Hume (1711–1776), took up where Locke left off. Not only did he agree that we cannot know what is real, he also concluded we cannot assume causality. What is the “assumption of causality”? Explanation: Let us assume that A happens. One moment later B happens. Every time A happens, we notice that B happens. For example, if you hit your finger with a hammer (A), in the next instant you feel pain (B). If you repeat the process, you get the same result. Hume summarizes this “assumption of causality” by stating the three conditions that lead us to assume it. (1) Contiguity, that is, A and B happen very close to each other; (2) Constant connection, that is, we always see B after A occurs; and (3) Priority in time, that is, A always comes before B. These three criteria lead our common sense to presume causality, but, states Hume, there is no necessary reason why causality should hold. This led Hume to skepticism and perhaps to periods of atheism.2 The seventeenth century was truly phenomenal. In addition to Galileo, Descartes, Newton, John Locke, Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Hobbes (whom we will discuss), George Berkeley, and Leibniz, we have Spinoza. In 1492, all Jews were expelled from Spain and in 1497, from Portugal. Among the thousands of Jewish refugees, a few found safe haven in Holland. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Holland was unique among European countries for having relative religious freedom. Among the refugee families were those of Spinoza and da Costa. Although the impact of Spinoza in philosophy was far greater, the biography of Uriel da Costa is more instructive as an early prototype of the thought process that has contributed to development of ideology in some Jews. An early twentieth-century American writer noted that “the Jews are like a man carrying a precious vase from a BC culture to an AD culture. During the transition, the vase shatters. What we see now are the attempts to make something of the shards.” That is how the author (whose name I cannot recall) describes the origin of Marxism. Philosophy: Holland A few years after the death of da Costa, Baruch Spinoza was born. He was born in Amsterdam to a family of Jewish Portuguese refugees. Whereas da Costa’s heretical beliefs were vague and not systematized, those of Spinoza were precisely thought out and written. He, too, was excommunicated because of his beliefs. In a nutshell, Spinoza equated God with nature. He was a strict determinist, believing that all of our actions are determined by our previous experience and that free will does not exist. And he was an atheist. He had a much stronger personality than da Costa and made a living as a lens grinder. His writings so impressed philosophers and some important public figures of the era, that he was offered the chairmanship of the department of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg by the Elector Palatine, but Spinoza declined, saying that he “preferred his quiet life of philosophical research to teaching.” He later changed his name from Baruch to Bernard “and became involved with some liberal Protestants.”4 There are three points of interest here. The first is that the Jewish community of Holland had enough respect for the dominant Christian majority to want to avoid unnecessary provocation. Secondly, Spinoza’s reaching out to liberal Protestants foreshadows what the Jewish Left in the United States would do in the twentieth century. Thirdly, it is important to note that Spinoza could not have had any impact on the outside world if he had lived in a ghetto. Holland and England were the only places that would allow a Jew sufficient civil rights to be involved in the intellectual and philosophical life of a nation. Is it safe to give Jews full civil rights? We will address this question in the closing chapters. Philosophy: Germany One point relevant regarding the Aufklarung is that most of the men who are so defined went through either the German university system or were educated in Stiften, Protestant seminaries. The period of the Aufklarung coincides with the reign of the Prussian6 King Frederick the Great. Although he was an autocrat, he was philosophically liberal, and, accordingly, the universities produced a large number of academics who were not conventionally religious. The king did not require religious orthodoxy of his scholars. Frederick had no suspicion that when you let the cat in, you also let in the fleas. So far we have seen the questioning of religious orthodoxy (chapter 16) and the questioning of Aristotelian orthodoxy (this chapter). Could questioning of political theory be far behind? The next chapter faces the issue squarely. 1 Samuel Enoch Stumpf, Philosophy: History and Problems, 3rd ed.
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983), 255–62. During the Enlightenment, two British authors wrote books on the theory of government that are still important today. They present opposing views. They are useful today because they are brief, clear, and complete. The first author we will look at is Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), whose principle work is Leviathan. The book makes the case for a government which gives absolute power to the king. Hobbes is motivated by fear and pessimism. The two go together. In this sense his motivation is identical to that of the Jewish Left. In addition to sharing their pessimism, he also foreshadows their social and political solutions. The term Leviathan comes from the Book of Job in which God describes a sea monster, “king over all majestic wild beasts.” “Its very sneezings flash forth light, and its eyes are like the beams of dawn. Out of its mouth there go lightening flashes, Even sparks of fire make their escape. Out of its nostrils smoke goes forth, Like a furnace set aflame even with rushes.” Hobbes states that the king should be feared by his subjects as if he were a terrible monster. Only such a government, felt Hobbes, could check man’s destructive impulses. Below I will cite some quotes from Hobbes that will summarize in his own words his beliefs and how they relate to today. Premise: Human behavior is predetermined. Free will does not
exist. Communism and left-wing thought require the premise that the environment determines how people behave. If genetic factors are paramount, government intervention would be of limited effect, but if environmental factors (like welfare benefits) could improve people’s lives, then the more we give people, the better they will do. Governmental meddling means public sector jobs. Public sector jobs create clientela, who respond by voting for their benefactors. In this manner, liberals buy votes by making dependents out of welfare recipients, as well as the bureaucrats who serve them. The really neat thing about this little racket is that liberals can use tax dollars (other people’s money) to buy votes for themselves. So liberals tax productive citizens, take their money, give the money to those who do not produce, and harvest the votes they have bought with money they stole from the people who actually work. Premise: People are basically equal in talents and abilities.
People should basically be paid the same. An official sets the
wage scale. The question who is the better man, has no place in the condition of mere nature; where all men are equal…yet because all men that think themselves equal, will not enter into conditions of peace but upon equal terms, such equality must be admitted. And therefore…I put this, that every man acknowledge another for his equal in nature. (Ibid., Chapter XV) And distributive justice, the justice of an arbitrator; that is to say, the act of defining what is just. Wherein, being trusted by them that make him arbitrator, if he perform his trust, he is said to distribute to every man his own; and this is indeed just distribution, and many be called (though improperly) distributive justice; but more properly equity. (Ibid., Chapter XV) That such things as cannot be divided, be enjoyed in common…otherwise proportionably to the number of them that have right. For otherwise the distribution is unequal, and contrary to equity. (Ibid., Chapter XV) For equal distribution, is the law of nature; and other means of
equal distribution cannot be imagined. (Ibid., Chapter XV) We raised the issue above about who will keep the arbitrators honest. Thomas Hobbes, unlike the Jewish Left, is both clear and honest about this issue. In a state-run system, you cannot keep them honest, so you simply accept their dishonesty. You simply state that their dishonesty is still “justice.” Watch the word magic below. See how it is done; see and be amazed: Premise: Justice is whatever the sovereign (state) says it is. Secondly, because the right of bearing the person of them all, is give to him they make sovereign, by consent only of one to another, and not of him to any of them; there happen no breach of covenant on the part of the sovereign; and consequently none of his subjects, by the pretence of forfeiture, can be freed from his subjection. ( Ibid., Chapter XVIII) Thirdly, because the major part hath by consenting voices declared a sovereign…because every subject is by this institution author of all the actions, and judgments of the sovereign instituted; it follows that whatsoever he doth, it can be no injury to any of his subjects; nor ought he to be by any of them accused of injustice…but by this institution of a commonwealth, every particular man is author of all the sovereign does: and consequently he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth of that whereof he himself is author. (Ibid., Chapter XVIII) The logic is impeccable. The people have contracted among themselves to be ruled. Note that the contract does not bind the sovereign. Thus the sovereign has no contractual obligations to the people. The power of the state is supreme; there is no Bill of Rights. This is the logical and legal kernel of belief that unifies Hobbes’ thought. Stalin could not have said it better. Premise: Religion is a (useful) construct. And by these, and other such institutions, they obtained in order to their end, which was peace of the commonwealth, that the common people in their misfortunes, laying the fault on neglect, or error in their ceremonies, or on their own disobedience, to the laws, were the less apt to mutiny against their governors And thus you see how the religion of the Gentiles was a part of their policy. (Ibid., Chapter XII) Karl Marx was pithier: “Religion is the opiate of the masses.”
Raymond Aron was more original: “Marxism is the opiate of the
intellectuals.” Premise: Good and Evil are Relative. Premise: Peace at any Price. It is pretty clear that Jews in Europe led lives that fit the description of constant fear and danger of violent death. It is not surprising that they would adhere to a statist political philosophy that, although it might tax them highly, would provide physical security. The first premise of my entire book is this quest for freedom from fear and for security on the part of Jews. Other premises have been alluded to, and still others remain to be developed. Premise: Freedom of Speech and Press not Permitted. We see today the “political correctness” movement dictating what may and may not be said. Recently, Laurence Summers was deposed as president of Harvard University for the mere suggestion that there might be inherent differences in the mental makeup of man and woman. (It would be a surprise to me if the majority of the faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard were not Jewish.) I don’t like the term political correctness because it understates what is happening. What is happening is censorship of ideas repugnant to the Left, especially the Jewish Left. The mainstream media not only neglects to present matters of fact not favorable to the Left, but also lies and exaggerates on a chronic basis. The mainstream media censors by acts of omission as well as commission. The media is controlled by the Jewish Left (see chapter 32). The U.S. today is in the grasp of an enormously powerful propaganda apparatus involving the schools from elementary through graduate education, as well as the media. Much more about this situation will be shown in succeeding chapters. Premise: Competition is Bad. So that, in the nature of man, we find three principle causes of
quarrel. First, competition…(Ibid., Chapter XIII) Thomas Hobbes presents his opinions honestly. The Jewish Left is deceptive, claiming higher moral values. We will explore their hypocrisy in future chapters. For now, we can say that if Marx is their God, Hobbes must be their patron saint. Theory: Counterpoint Premise: Right of Self Defense. Thus a Thief, whom I can not harm but by appeal to the Law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill, when he sets on me to rob me, but of my Horse or Coat: because the Law which was made for my Preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my Life from present force, which if lost, is capable of no reparation, permits my own defense, and the Right of War, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common Judge, nor the Decision of the Law, for remedy of a Case, where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common Judge with Authority, puts all Men in a state of Nature; Force without Right, upon a Man’s Person, makes a State of War, both where there is and is not, a common Judge. (John Locke, Two Treatises on Government, Second Treatise: 19) The Jewish Left wants to disarm all Americans because that will strengthen central power. The Jewish Left does not, and never did, trust the people. From their point of view, this is understandable. Even my own cousins (now deceased) were chased by armed Cossacks. I concede that it would have been better to be chased by unarmed Cossacks. However, the motivation of the Jewish Left is doubly flawed: this is not Ukraine, and it is selfishly parochial to put their own atavistic fears ahead of the legitimate well-being of the citizenry. Unfortunately, many, if not most, of the leading gun-grabbers are Jews. Re: Corollary: I do not expect Mr. Locke will require me to meet
a highwayman who is armed with sword and pistol when I have only
my fingernails. Premise: People are Basically Good. Premise: Purpose of Government and Law: To Preserve Private
Property. And the condition of Humane Life, which requires Labor and
Materials to work on, necessarily introduces private Possessions.
(Ibid. Second Treatise: 35) Premise: Unjust Laws are Not Binding. Premise: Sovereign is Bound by Law. Tis a Mistake to think this Fault is proper only to Monarchies; other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that. For wherever the Power that is put in the hands for government of the People, and the Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends…There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those that use it are one or many. (Ibid. Second Treatise: 201) Although the liberal media, controlled by Jews (don’t panic: I will prove this contention subsequently) did its best to hide it, the classic case of being above the law, is the political career of Hillary Clinton. Also, Ted Kennedy literally got away with murder and still sits in the Senate. The Jewish Left protects its own. Premise: Private Ownership of Property Multiplies Net Quantity of
Goods. Premise: Nuclear Family is based on Love, Not Fear. Or that either of our Queens Mary or Elizabeth, had they married any of their Subjects had been put by thus text into a political Subjection to him? Or that he thereby should have had Monarchical rule over her? God, in this text, give not, that I see any authority to Adam over Eve, or to men over their Wives, but only fortels what should be woman’s Lot, how by Providence he would order it so, that she should be subject to her husband, as we see that generally the Law of mankind and customs of nations have ordered it, and there is I grant, a foundation in nature for it. (Ibid. First Treatise: 48–49) The so-called women’s liberation movement is one more front run by the Jewish Left with the intention of further dissolving the glue that holds the country together. The playbook for the women’s liberation movement is Engels’ book The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and State. (Engels was Karl Marx’ coauthor and colleague.) I cite Engel’s work to demonstrate the continuity between the Communist movement and the any number of successor movements co-opted by the Communistic Jewish Left (don’t worry; I’m not going to let the nexus between Jews and Communism go unproven. Be patient; the relevant chapters are ahead). Re: Father and Children: Locke shows the great sacrifice fathers (and mothers) make for their children. But all we hear from the Jewish Left and their minions are the evils of patriarchal society. Again, this is taken from the canon of Marxism. Today’s Jewish Left is singularly uninventive; all that they propose is taken from Marx and Minions. For them, the canon was closed in 1895 with the death of Frederick Engels, Marx’ collaborator. Re: Inheritance: The Left does not like competition for power. And since money is power, the Left wants a monopoly on it. Therefore it does all it can to confiscate inherited wealth. As we noted, with the money it confiscates from those who produce, it buys the votes of those who do not produce. Re: Procreation: Wherein one cannot but admire the wisdom of the great Creator, who having given to man foresight and an Ability to lay up for the future, as well as to supply the present necessity, hath made it necessary, that the society of man and Wife should be more lasting, than of Male and Female amongst other Creatures; that so their Industry might be encouraged, and their Interest better united, to make Provision, and lay up goods for their common issue, which uncertain mixture, or easie and frequent solutions of conjugal society [promiscuity] would mightily disturb. (Ibid. Second Treatise: 79-80) The Left has had forty-plus years to work on the “most vulnerable” of our people. The Negro poor have been the targets of their kind ministrations. What have they bought us? All too many of the Negro young copulate like animals, with no affection. All too often their females get pregnant as soon as menses start. Far too many women have multiple babies from multiple partners, the women frequently being unsure of which male fathered (too generous a term?) which child. They have grandmothers of age thirty, great grandmothers of age 50, all at public expense. I will demonstrate in a future chapter that this is exactly the outcome the Left desires, because it will help dissolve the bonds of citizenship and responsibility that makes society function. The point/counterpoint laid out above shows basically the two paths available to Western Civilization. We will see how they are followed by different polities in modern history. But more immediately, we will see how religious philosophy can determine the economic and social structure of a nation. The English colonies of North America developed under the influence of strict Calvinism. Can we trace America’s economic dynamism to Calvinist roots? Where would we be absent that historical accident; or more importantly, what would be the cost to our society of purging its influence? All belief systems change over time. The next chapter will show the step-by-step weakening of the religious traditions under which the nation began its existence. CHAPTER 19 THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND: TIES TO THE
NEW WORLD In 1500, England was officially Roman Catholic. There was, however, a strong presence of “Lollards”. The Lollards were a loose collection of proto-protestants who questioned, among other things many of the practices of the existing Church. Among these was the need for most of the sacraments, such the necessity of priests for hearing confession, and Church ties to Rome. These people presented to Parliament in 1395 a statement of Twelve Conclusions, which summarizes these differences with the Catholic Church. Thus there already existed in England a number of people among whom the ideas of Luther and Calvin would be well-received. The year 1500 saw Henry VIII on the throne of England. He inherited a state in which the power of the nobility to maintain private armies had ended; and, in addition, the beginning of country gentry, “new money,” was beginning to challenge the political supremacy of the old nobility in the shires and countryside. This was a period in which central control was advancing also in France and Spain. The concept of a supra-national power, such as a Church governed from Rome was not consistent with the power of these new national states. Each of these new national powers “domesticated” their respective Churches in different ways. Henry VIII probably thought he was separating from Rome because of a messy divorce; he was actually taking a step that would inevitably have occurred about that time. Lutheran ideas were coming into England; indeed, in Hamlet, Shakespeare makes reference to Wittenberg, the site of a great Lutheran University. Also, English translations of the Bible were being smuggled into England. To a large degree, the invention of the printing press with the associated spread of literacy made the Protestant Reformation inevitable. As in France and Germany, the early Protestants were merchants, skilled tradesman, and prosperous farmers: a middle-class affair. In 1534, Henry had Parliament pass the Act of Separation, which served to sever the ties of the English Church to Rome. Now, with the nobility stripped of real power, and the English Church in his control, Henry VIII was truly the supreme ruler of England. Similar trends were underway in France and had already been realized in Spain. One of the long-term consequences of the establishment of the Church of England was that the clergy became employees of the state. As we shall see, whenever the clergy become state employees, the soul of the church dies. The same thing happened in France, but it was more indirect, due to the political tension between Rome and Paris, but the last word rested with the French monarch, whatever the appearances. Henry VIII died in 1547, and a period of regency occurred. Then in 1553, Mary, daughter of Henry’s first (and Catholic) wife became Queen, and made a bloody but futile attempt to re-establish Catholicism as the state religion. At her death, in 1558, Elizabeth I became Queen. Elizabeth was a pragmatist, who wanted peace, stability, and prosperity. To that, the watchword for religious dogma became “adiaphora,” which means in English: “indifferent.” Elizabeth merely wanted to have a general consensus regarding faith, without close questioning of what one believed. Moderation was the aim. But England had many immoderate people, such as Catholics who wanted to restore the Roman Church, and an increasing population of firm Calvinists. The factor that kept these fractious elements under control was a war between England and Spain: in the face of foreign invasion, both Calvinist and Catholic were Englishmen first. The Spanish king, Phillip II, decided to invade England, and gathered the largest fleet in modern history. In 1588, this fleet reached the English Channel. Following “a tremendous expenditure of powder and shot by both sides with precious little damage done,” a storm blew in. The English fleet went into harbor, and the Spanish fleet was literally blown away. It was blown as far north as Ireland, and proceeded to circle around the northern shore of Ireland. Most of the boats and crews were lost. Before, during, and after this period, the ideology of John Calvin was making inroads into the Church of England. Simultaneously, the House of Commons was being taken over by the new “gentry” class. Almost as a challenge to the absolutist Tudor state, people were beginning to talk of a Law that transcended the earthly powers. These forces continued to grow. Following the death of Elizabeth, her cousin, James I (1603-1625) became king. His reign almost started out with a bang, as a disgruntled Catholic was caught stacking barrels of gunpowder under Parliament, with the intention of sending both king and Parliament in the direction of heaven. Despite this near-fatal experience, James I continued Elizabeth’s policy of moderation, attempting only “‘to harry from the land” those who had extreme views. At James’ death, his son Charles inherited the throne, to become Charles I (1625-49). Charles lacked his father’s ability to compromise, and his wife was a French princess, and a devout Roman Catholic. It is difficult for us to imagine today the hatred Calvinists and Catholics had for each other, but without understanding the power of this hatred, the wars that will presently break out make no sense to the modern reader. Also, at about this time, Dissenters (i.e., extreme Calvinists) were starting to migrate to New England. In 1630, John Winthrop, arrived in Massachusetts. This event starts the most important aspect of the book, and will be picked up in due course. The Church of England at this time was under Calvinist influence. Charles I was suspected of being a “closet Catholic” by many Calvinists. Charles was certainly “high church,” in that he wanted to reinstate the role of ritual in the Church of England. That would have changed the services by making them more like those of Catholicism. But more disturbing to Calvinists was Charles’ appointment of William Laud, in 1633, to be Archbishop of Canterbury. The problem with Laud was that he was an Arminian. Now, dear reader, if you are typical, you will ask: “What is an Arminian?” I have to confess that prior to writing this book, I didn’t have a clue. We recall that strict Calvinists believe that God knows in advance whom he will save. This is based on His omniscience (knowing all). We humans see events as being past, present, and future. To God is ascribed the quality of being atemporal, or not restricted by time. That is, what has been, is, and will be are equally knowable to Him. So future indeterminacy does not exist for Him. To believe otherwise is to project human limitations on God; a form of anthropomorphism. Belief in strict determinism led some people to despair, and others to feel that since all is predetermined, why bother with good works; nothing one could do could change a predetermined future. The problem every individual Calvinist faced was to know whether or not he was of the “elect,” i.e., the saved. It was felt that God, in a moment of revelation, would vouchsafe to each of His elect knowledge of his having been saved. This almost brutal view of predetermination was softened by a Dutch theologian, Jacobus Arminius (1560-1609). Arminius left a role for human agency to lead to salvation: The decree of God is, when it concerns His own actions, absolute,
but when it concerns man’s conditional, i.e., the decree relative
to the savior to be appointed and the salvation to be provided is
absolute, but the decree relative to the persons saved or
condemned is made to depend on the acts-belief and repentance in
the one case, unbelief and impenitence in the other-of the persons
themselves.1 These questions led to war between the king and the forces of Parliament; the worst kind of war—civil war. During the chaos of civil unrest and war, Parliament was taken over by the forces of the more extreme Puritan faction of the Calvinist movement. A period marked by civil war began in 1642. It ended in 1649 with the execution of the king, and the installation of a military dictatorship under Oliver Cromwell, who assumed the title of “Lord Protector.” His government was opposed on the right by Catholics and High Church Protestants. On the left there was a collection of agrarian communists (Diggers and Levelers) who wanted to establish a sort of utopian state. There were also religious mystics, who felt they were chosen to inaugurate a new era of the Kingdom of God. Many of these people were armed, and had fought in the civil wars. Fortunately for England, Cromwell was not driven by his own internal demons to be a Caesar, and did not glory in power. Dictatorship had a brief life in Britain. Now it is time to examine the Puritans’ relationship to Jews. For the Calvinists in general and the Puritans in particular, the Bible was the source of God’s will. For these Protestants, the Bible meant the Old Testament as well as the New. Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, Protestants were not only allowed to read the Bible (in the vernacular), but were expected to read the Bible. Again, it is difficult for us today to relate to a time when the common man was not to be trusted with Biblical text. The best way to limit access to the Bible was to prohibit translations into the vernacular. Having every man became his own ultimate authority on the word of God became the Protestant way, and indicated a trust in man not seen in the Roman Church. But there was a downside to free interpretation: church unity could not be preserved. We will study the result of this loss of a common belief as we trace the ratcheting decay of New England Calvinism to secular humanism. However, that is two centuries in the future. Looking at place-names in the early settlements in New England and Pennsylvania, we see many Biblical place names (Salem, Bethlehem, Canaan, etc.). Also, the first names many of the early settlers gave their children (Obadiah, Nehemiah, etc.) were from the Old Testament. Thus there was much respect manifested for the Old Testament, and by extension, the people of the Old Testament. In England, in 1656, by indirect, almost sleight of hand acts, Cromwell removed the legal impediments to in-migration of Jews: Cromwell was largely responsible for the readmission of the Jews to England, His puritan views, based largely upon the Old Testament, and his tolerant nature predisposed him to regard the Jews with favor... When it [during discussions at the Whitehall Conference] became apparent that readmission would only be recommended on the most unfavorable conditions, Cromwell dissolved the conference… [to decide the issue himself] It was expected he would issue a favorable reply... based on his own authority. However, in view of public opinion, Cromwell preferred to adopt an informal arrangement… Cromwell’s personal sympathies were manifested in the pension of 100 pounds granted to Manasseh ben Israel. His favorable attitude was so marked that, according to his enemies, Jews regarded him as their messiah.2 The quote above is rich for commentary. It shows that popular opinion was not favorable to Jews. It shows that the goodwill of a benevolent despot was sought and received. It demonstrates yet again the practice of the Jewish community to identify and support such an individual. In this instance the choice worked out well, because Cromwell was an honorable man, and because England is a civilized place. It is easy to find despots; it is hard to find benevolent ones, and, more importantly, to assure that their successors will be benevolent. Returning to the issue of Calvinism… in order to make the Calvinist position more secure, Parliament passed a law defining the elements of faith of the Church of England. As Parliament was under Calvinist domination (Oliver Cromwell) at this time, the law reflected that fundamentalist influence. The document, called the Westminster Confession, was ratified in 1648. It made official the belief of double determinism, that is, that God determined in advance, who would be saved, and who would be damned. It also postulated the belief in original sin, and the efficacy of Jesus’ death on the cross as atonement for original sin. However, His atonement did not gain salvation for all men, but was necessary for the salvation of the elect. God’s grace was a pre-requisite for individual salvation. Man could not earn his salvation by good works. (This would be too much like buying an indulgence). The Confession also defined the Bible as the inerrant word of God, and the only document that could take precedence over the Confession itself.3 Calvinism and Capitalism The aspect of Calvinism that is controlling is that of double determination. Under this condition, the sacraments are useless for salvation. In fact, all “works” are useless for salvation, because participating in the sacraments is a form of work. To presume works to be efficacious is to presume that man has power over God, and can change His will through human agency. Weber calls this “magical thinking.” According to this thesis, Catholics, Lutherans, and Anglicans practice “magic,” or more properly, credit “magic” as being efficacious. Given this belief system, priests have no meaningful role in salvation. Following this Calvinist belief further, there is no specifically sacred space, place, or time. Instead, all time, space, and place is sacred. Thus everything one does is a sacred action. In this sense, life is a substitute for the sacraments; or more clearly, nothing one does is other than sacramental. One can see that Catholicism and Calvinism are incompatible. This being the case, one’s daily work becomes sacramental. But why do anything if sacraments are useless for salvation? Calvinist belief is that although works are useless for salvation, they are a sign of one’s having been chosen by God as one of the elect. Therefore Godly behavior is a sign of election. In daily work, one of the elect could be a shrewd businessman, but he would not cheat. He could buy and sell in any market, but would not countenance corruption or bribery. Fulfillment of duty could be (actually, must be) done in business as well as in any other sphere of human endeavor, because to God, all spheres are the morally equal. To live a monastic life, physically withdrawn from the world, would be a dereliction of duty. In his daily work, the Calvinist maintained an aspect of “worldly asceticism;” in that way he can be in the world, but not of the world. Weber remarks on the loss of spontaneity and joy in the lives of such businessmen. There are certain sequellae to the above way of life. One of them is not to consume. Whereas dutiful production is a sign of election, conspicuous consumption is a sign of arrogance before God. On the other hand, investment of capital, i.e., “working” capital is desirable. In England, Ireland, and the southern North American colonies, men who became wealthy strove to buy land in order to join the landed aristocracy. This was anathema to Calvinists, because it smacked of the sin of pride. One of the least recognized sequella of the introduction of the capitalist Weltanschauung to Western Europe and North America has been the necessity, over many years, of the development of an accompanying working class, one compatible with increased production. Weber points out that offering more pay to workers who produce more does not automatically lead to greater production. He notes that workers not accustomed to the Western market system simply stop working when they have made enough money to meet their immediate needs: [Among workers] For not only is a developed sense of responsibility indispensable, but in general also an attitude which, at least during working hours, is freed from continual calculations of how the customary wage may be earned with a maximum of comfort and a minimum of exertion. Labor must, on the contrary, be performed as if it were an absolute end in itself, a calling. But such an attribute is by no means a product of nature. It cannot be evoked by low wages or high ones alone, but can only be the product of a long and arduous process of education. Today, capitalism, once in the saddle, can recruit its laboring force in all industrial countries with comparative ease. In the past this was in every case an extremely difficult problem. And even today it could probably not get along without the support of a powerful ally along the way, which, as we shall see below, was at hand at the time of its development.4 In the next paragraphs Weber remarks upon the good labor ethic of the girls from Pietistic backgrounds in Germany in the early 20th century. A comparable situation can be seen with Amish labor in Ohio and Pennsylvania today, which is very highly prized by employers. (In subsequent chapters I will point out how the Communist Party in general, and the Jewish Left in particular [but I repeat myself], have done everything in their power to destroy this engine of general prosperity. Paradoxically, the old Soviet Union was doing all it could to produce this work ethic. Cuba and North Korea are currently trying to do so.) Weber also points out the value of education among the New England Protestants, by noting the extraordinary number of the emigrants who had university degrees. We could also note the importance of Harvard College to the early Boston colony. Webber was also perceptive enough to notice the fatal flaw in the culture of the new nation. He remarked upon what he saw, over time, to be a separation of business practice from religious ethics. On his concluding page he writes that “the care for external goods, [which] should lie on the shoulders of the saint like a light cloak, which can be thrown aside any moment, [has now become] an iron cage.” The Migration of Calvinism to New England A few years later, a second crucial issue arose. Although they had abandoned most of the Catholic sacraments, they did retain the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Only full members of the congregation could partake of this sacrament. However, full membership in the congregation was predicated upon having had a credible experience of personal salvation. With the passage of about twenty years, prosperity and population increased, and the parents of the new generation were not certain of the status of the souls of the next generation. To make matters more complicated, full church membership was necessary to be a voting member of the community. Politics and religion met. To solve this problem, the older congregants proposed a status for the next generation. They called it the Half-Way Covenant (1657 and 1662). This was a compromise that would allow the younger generation to vote (they were already paying taxes and fighting Indians), but would deny them Communion until such time as they had individually experienced saving grace. The institution of the Half-Way Covenant effected a change in religion practice by giving partial entry to the congregation of less committed members. It also made a small step in the direction of separation of church and state by reducing the religious requirement as a prerequisite for voting. The expansion of the voting franchise was necessitated by the population dearth. Every available man was needed to fight Indians and to pay taxes. We will see that the need to supply an ever-growing demand for labor has been, and still is, a constant in American history. It may appear that the need for western expansion was the driving force for immigration, but the real driving force was, and still is, a free-market economy that is hungry for labor. We see how Calvinist Christianity got to North America, and we have seen its first compromise. In following chapters we will trace the continuing series of compromises that eventually will lead to the total loss of faith. 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., s.v. “Arminius.” 3 On line: Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics. www. Reformed.org/index.html 4 Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism,
trans. by Talcott Parsons (New York:Charles Scribner’s Sons,
1958), 61-62. With the passage of time, the people of New England demonstrated less ardor in their religious practices, probably because of a weakening of pure doctrinaire Calvinism. Sermons in the New England Congregational Churches were less inclined to embrace “experiential” religion. The scene was set for a revival. “We capture the meaning of the revival only if we remember that many congregations in New England were stirred from a staid and routine formalism in which experiential faith had been a reality to only a scattered few.”1 What is referred to here by “experiential” is the gut feeling of utter depravity of a sinner facing God, followed by the great joy felt on having the inner, personal experience of God’s saving grace. The First Great Awakening was stirred by itinerant preachers such as George Whitefield (1714–1770). There were great outdoor revivals marked by exuberant expressions of faith. The appeal was to emotion, not to the intellect. People who responded to this appeal were referred to as “New Lights.” In contradistinction, those who were suspicious of this emotionalism were called “Old Lights.”2 This difference was very important, as it prefigures a split that persists until today. The Old Lights were the more conservative, traditional people. They were well established in business and trades. It soon transpired that the Old Lights became ensconced at Harvard, and one of the Old Lights, Charles Chauncey, wrote a criticism of the emotionalism of the New Lights entitled Seasonable Thoughts on the State of Religion in New England. According to Ahlstrom, this became a core document in support of the arising Unitarianism.3 A very important date in American history is 1707. In that year, John Leverett was installed as president of Harvard College. Leverett was one of the Old Lights who belonged to the Boston merchant aristocracy which had been finding the old religion incompatible with its growing international trade. We see here the emergence of an intellectualism. It had already been demonstrated in 1699 when Leverett and others liberalized the Brattle Street Church by removing the Half-Way Covenant as a bar to full church membership. Full membership was open to all, regardless of state of grace. Thus we see the beginning of the New England merchant class becoming the New England aristocracy. Attendance at Harvard College became a necessary rite of passage for the sons of this new elite. Hence it was only a matter of time for Harvard to necessarily become Unitarian. Although Harvard was “essentially and conscientiously” Unitarian by 1820,4 it had been a bastion of liberalism for a century. Boston and Harvard looked to the European Enlightenment as their intellectual mentor. As their bodies went west, their eyes went east. Some things don’t change.5 As we mark the course of the Old Lights, we will see that they make a step-by-step transition from extreme Calvinism to modified Calvinism. From there they progress to Unitarianism by the early 18th century. Slowly they make their way, via the Social Gospel of the mid 19th century to a sort of Transcendentalism on the one hand, and a formal, moralistic religious piety (but without a sense of divine presence), on the other. From there these two streams come together again as secular humanism, and finally, in the 20th century, as “religious” Socialism. By 1800, the First Great Awakening has been played out. The American Revolution had occurred, and a new nation had come into existence. Under these changed circumstances, a Second Great Awakening occurred. Although similar in many respects, there is one key difference. The Second GA emphasized human efforts as the agency for improvement in order to be of help in God’s plan for redemption. This element had been absent in the First Great Awakening. As in the First Great Awakening, the Second was marked by emotional responses to being touched by the Holy Spirit. This undignified behavior was again viewed with contempt by the Old Lights and the growing Unitarian movement. But there was something useful to the Old Lights in the Second Great Awakening. Out of the desire to prepare for God’s kingdom grew movements such as temperance, prison reform, better care for mentally ill, and increasingly, abolition of slavery. Before going further into the consequences of the Second GA, this is a good point at which to examine a “manifesto” of Unitarianism as it was in the early years of the 19th century. On the occasion of the induction of a new Unitarian minister to The First Unitarian Church of Baltimore (May 5, 1819), a clergyman named William Ellery Channing delivered an address which serves as a key document in the history of the Unitarian Church. Since this ideology was the dominant ideology of the powerful Boston mercantile elite, it deserves some attention. But first, who was Channing? He was, of course, a Harvard graduate. He became a minister, whose interests lay in promoting the major social reform movements of the era (noted above). Traditional Christianity could not be deconstructed in one step. Deftly disposing of the Old Testament (“The dispensation of Moses…we consider as adapted to the childhood of the human race”)6, all that remains is to in some way “neutralize” the New Testament. This he accomplishes by noting that we must take into account the era in which it was written and appropriately transpose its meaning to our times. In addition, we must bear in mind that the writers of the New Testament were flawed human beings and that their flawed understanding has to have been transferred to their transcription of God’s Word. In addition, we are to interpret Scripture in accord with contemporary human reason. By the time his twenty-page sermon7 is concluded, we see Scripture reduced to a spiritual Rorschach test that will mean whatever you want it to mean at the time you are reading it. Tomorrow it may mean something else. At the beginning of the 19th century, the Unitarian Churches were the spearhead in the movement that ultimately would lead to the destruction of Christianity. But man does not live by bread alone, and as Kant pointed out, man needs some spiritual anchor. Since “scientific Socialism” had not yet been revealed to mankind, something else had to fill the gap. The filler was Transcendentalism. Here we have the first evidence of the baleful influence of Germany on the U.S. In the period from 1819 to the Civil War, the transcendental movement flourished in New England among the scions of the Boston elite: If fresh influences had not come in from abroad, American religion and especially the later forms of Puritanism would have stewed much longer in their own juices. For this reason one can ascribe more than symbolic significance to the decision of four gifted New Englanders to pursue advanced studies at Göttingen University. Every one of these students returned to the America as at least a temporary apostle for those aspects of German intellectual life that had impressed him most. In their train came two accomplished German scholars to the Harvard faculty. In the meantime many men, both orthodox and Unitarian, were improving their linguistic equipment in growing recognition of German scholarship, while others, in mounting numbers, followed the pattern of study in Germany.8 As to what this transcendentalism actually was, I can only say it
consisted of a mixture of half-digested Kant, with a sprinkling of
British and Continental Romanticism. Added to that was a dollop of
garden-variety mysticism. They also give us our earliest report on
the death of God.9 I will not waste our joint time in further
exploration of this fluff. The interested reader is free to pursue
it on his own time. Social Gospel consists of two words, one secular and one sacred. This is thus an appropriate phrase for an intersection. In the U.S., we have not allowed a governmentsponsored church, and as a result, our churches are far stronger than those that have been or still are government supported. Examples are the weakness of religion in the life of the French, English, and Germans. For most of these EU citizens, God is dead. In the U.S., because the church is separate from the state, religious feeling has not suffered the consequences of being a branch of the state. In the early 19th century, the New England Protestant elite decided to use God to render unto Caesar the power to “fix” society. All abuses, real and imagined, were fair game. This was not such a stretch for the Puritans, because the Blue Laws mandating the sanctity of the Sabbath went back to the 17th century. The concept that a person might not be liable to civil penalties for such offenses as violating the Sabbath would have appeared alien and dangerous to them. It still does, as the augmented penalties for hate crimes are but a modern iteration of the moral crusade under a new guise. It is much easier to recognize the danger of using religious moral fervor to support interference in civil law when one considers the situation in Moslem countries in which the attempts are currently being made to apply Islamic law as a part of the civil code. The religious motivation impelling the Protestant elite to create
a nanny state is clearly stated by Timothy Smith: The social gospel is alive and well today. In fact, in the mainline Protestant churches, in which God is either dead or on life support, the promotion of social causes is all that remains. If you go to a United Church of Christ on a Sunday and a meeting of a Socialist party on Monday, the only way to tell the difference would be to consult the calendar. If a fellow parishioner had left his umbrella in Church on Sunday, you could return it to him on Monday. Some of the recent and present causes supported by the mainline Protestant churches have been forced bussing for racial balance and Section Eight Housing. These reforms allow the white working class equal access to such benefits as drugs, midnight basketball, and stray bullets. (Note that the liberals who give us such legislation are generous enough to allow the working class to have all these benefits and more! The liberals have taken it upon themselves to live in such depressing compounds such as Hyannis port. Inexplicably, they have been too modest to publicize their sacrifices.) You might think that since these churches support gay marriage and giving condoms out in junior high school, that they would have nothing to say regarding man’s sinful nature. But rest easy! They have not lost the moral indignation of their forefathers. Not one bit! They rightfully castigate us for our sins: racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism. They remind us that we are also responsible for the children starving in Asia, global warming, and sunspots. In fact, if you ask them of which social sin we are not guilty, they are unable to come up with any. Just like their forebears, they consider us thoroughly depraved. However, since all sin is social, grace is unnecessary. We can be saved by works alone: from each according to his means, to each according to his needs. How do they know it’s true? Marx has told them so. They have come full circle from belief in God to belief in
themselves-as-God. God is not dead; he has been fired. Communitarian Movement In addition to having religious base, the other reason for the success of Communistic enterprises is the voluntary nature of the groups. Unlike Socialism and Communism as a political movement, there was no attempt to force a system on unwilling people. In the secular world, the institution of collectivism can only be accomplished at the point of a bayonet. 1 Sydney Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People.
(New Haven, Yale University Press, 1973), 287. This chapter will delve into the philosophy underlying Communism.
I will try to present the Communist response to life stress
starting from the most abstract level possible. Some species of living creatures form societies. One of the simpler societies is that of the ant colony. As a society it demonstrates the same ability to grow, reproduce, and selfrepair that we have seen in the cell. The individual ant, as well as the colony, will also fight to live. Some specialized ants live to fight. What is lacking here is innovation. The behavior of its members is stereotyped. Ant society does not appear to produce poets. However interesting Hymenopteric poets might be, our concern is with human society. The essence of the motivating force for human behavior is based on the same elemental force of self-interest first manifest in single-celled organisms. This is not to deny either the myriad forms sublimated self-interest can take, nor to deny the evolution of altruistic behavior. These higher-level forms of behavior are nonetheless derivatives of the elemental drive. No nonliving matter can be altruistic. It is the self-interested behavior of individual humans that has led to society as we know it. Self-interest leads to innovation. Innovation is lacking in ant colonies and the human equivalents. In Communist societies, there is no reward for innovation, so it does not occur. If one word could be used to define Communist society, it would be conservative. As a result, production of goods and services over time does not increase. Such societies are, at best, zero-sum affairs. The driving force of self-interest cannot be abolished in living things without destroying life. But human society can make laws that will limit the venues and degree to which an individual may act in his own self-interest. From this derive the legal codes of all societies. In free-market societies, expression of the basic drive (within the law) is called initiative. There are also instances of such initiative in organized crime—we call this criminal conspiracy. The motive force is the same. One of the chief determinants as to whether a manifestation of drive is labeled “initiative” or “criminal” is the legal parameter set by a given society. Numerous examples can be had. One good example is the provision of medical care in the former USSR. Medical care was a “right,” and as such was available to all Soviet citizens. Doctors were paid by the state and could not bill patients. The salary levels set for doctors were so low that doctors had to moonlight doing other jobs. Taxi drivers made more than doctors. Because of this situation, doctors routinely expected bribes from patients. Absent these bribes, patients would receive care below the level customary to the time and place. In a market system, such as the private sector, in which a physician can set his fee, the result is roughly the same, but whereas in the first instance the payment is called a ‘bribe,” in the second it is “fair market value.” In some countries, especially in Asia and South America, service employees, including government employees, are paid so poorly that absent bribes, they could not subsist. Everyone knows this, and no government that made a serious attempt at ending baksheesh would even be contemplated, let alone come into office. Some years ago I experienced an example of the lack of initiative native to Socialism. I was working as a physician at a governmental agency. At that site, the patient records were still paper and frequently got lost. Finding the records doesn’t always solve the problem, because doctors’ handwritten notes are typically hard to read. Also, medication lists may be outdated, and lab work may be hard to find. I mentioned this to a mid level administrator. She acknowledged that going to computerized records would be cheaper in the long run and also make for better patient care immediately. But, she said, that even if she could prove that the change would be cost-effective in the long run, the higher-ups don’t care. They are salaried also, so why should they bother? Then she stated that she is not really concerned, because she also is salaried and will gain nothing by advocating for change. Can self-interest be suppressed? No, because self-interest is an integral part of human nature. When suppressed by law, it shows itself in the form of a perversion. The frustrated form of self-interest is corruption. One way or another, the human drive for life will out. The drive for life, defined above, is the motive force in evolution. Those species most competent to deal with their environment, flourish. A key part of species survival is the ability of organisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Sometimes too much of a good thing is fatal: a species too perfectly adapted to its environment may die out in the face of even moderate change in climate or fauna. This is a case of overspecialization, in which successful adaptation has led to rigidity. The downside to random genetic change is disease or maladaptation. But that is the price living organisms must pay, because random genetic drift is also the source of heritable advantage. This genetic innovation is neutral in itself; it is useful or harmful to any given creature only in relation to the environmental challenges unique to that creature. However, absent this genetic innovation, life would cease to exist. I think that I have established that common to any living
organism is a drive for survival. Further, the means for achieving
survival is the ability to change. Individuals also require challenge for adequate social and psychological development. We will go back to hoary sources to demonstrate this. GWF Hegel, a German philosopher of the early nineteenth century, wrote The Phenomenology of Spirit in 1806. In the section titled “Lordship and Bondage,” Hegel postulates that a human being can only attain full self-consciousness as a result of a serious (even life-threatening) confrontation with another self-conscious being.3 Freud postulates something similar in his theory of the Oedipal event. He states that one of the requirements for the psychological health in the adult is the successful resolution of the Oedipal conflict as a child.4 Do we as a society, as well as individuals, require challenge? I believe that individuals will not mature into healthy adults in the absence of challenge. What about society? Here we come to Karl Marx. He accepts the presence of conflict in human society, but states that the conflict seen in society is not random. It serves to drive society to a given preordained endpoint. This progression undoes the historical layers of pre-Communist (i.e., feudal and capitalist) society. Specifying these layers, Marx and Engels speak of the initial subjection of women by man; they speak of race and class oppression. However, this oppression was not in vain, since the conflicts generated by these tensions provide the necessary preconditions for the endpoint of the eventual utopia. Hence these necessarily sequential conflicts cannot be shirked since the evolution of scientific Socialism follows a particular and necessary order, called historical materialism. They inform us that the penultimate stage is the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” After that, our prophets inform us, “the state will whither away,” heralding the millennium of profane utopian Socialism. If anything that Marx has said should give us pause, it is this last statement. It gives us assurance that the dictators will be wise enough to know when to relinquish power and virtuous enough to actually do so. How long can you hold your breath? The other assumption is tacit. It presumes that human history has an endpoint, and then will stop. By the stoppage of history Marx envisages a society free of major conflict. The major conflict in question almost always involves the production and distribution of goods and services. Does any sane person actually believe that such an utopian society, a society without law and social organization, can really exist? Although he doesn’t address the issue, Marx’s utopia also requires a technological arrest, such that the means of production will be frozen in time to the moment of the revolution. It has been observed by many archeologists that technological change destabilizes society.5 In a utopia, there will be no impetus to innovate; on the contrary, vested interests will exert a strong and continuous force in favor of the status quo. The advances in transportation, manufacturing, and medicine that we have seen in the West since 1860 to the present would have been stillborn in a Marxist utopia. Communist (utopian) society cannot survive in the face of change. The stark reality is that Marx’s utopian plans, if carried out, would have to produce either anarchy or tyranny. Since anarchy doesn’t last long, it would necessarily have to be followed by tyranny. Men have always chosen tyranny over anarchy, given only those two options. But mankind is not limited to these two options. As I have shown (chapters 18 and 19) England and the U.S. have evolved stable democracies in the absence of either extreme. I concede that these governments evolved over time and with much effort. They are “high maintenance” affairs. But they do present an alternative to anarchy and tyranny. In the face of viable alternatives, and because of the inherent fairy-tale “happily ever after” aspect of Marxism, I wonder at its appeal. A large part of Eastern Europe and Asia have been intoxicated by this witches’ brew. Many Western intellectuals have similarly been beguiled. It is beyond the scope of this book to explore that issue. An issue that we can explore will close this chapter. That is the connection between the “other” and the Jewish Left. Marx, the apostate Jew-hating Jew, harbored in his core the very essence of Diaspora Judaism: Fear. His whole theory is an elaborate fantasy in which he could create a society in which there is no “other.” Only in such a society, marked by unending sameness, could the frightened Jew be indistinguishable from everyone else. No more pogroms, no more expulsions, no more punitive taxation, no more accusations of being a Christ-killer, no more discrimination in job selection, no more restrictions to ghettos…no more other. 1 Charles A. Janeway, et al., Immunobiology: The Immune System in
Health and Disease (London: Elsevier, 1999), Part IV: The Adaptive
Immune Response. 2 John Nolte, The Human Brain: An Introduction to Functional
Anatomy (St. Louis: Mosby, 1999), 420. 3 GWF Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit trans. by AV Miller (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1977), 111–119. 4 James Strachey, et al, The Standard Edition of the Complete
Works of Sigmund Freud (London: Hogarth Press, 1975), vol. XVI,
332–338. 5 Michael A. Hoffman, Egypt Before the Pharaohs (New York: Dorset
Press, 1979), 98– 99. This chapter will deal with the concept of “benevolent despot” by studying the reigns of two eighteenth-century autocrats: Frederick the Great of Prussia (1712–1786) and Joseph II (1741–1790), Emperor of Austria. Before delving into the details of their individual lives, I will define two terms: (l) liberty and (2) legitimate prince. I divide liberty into two types, following Montesquieu: First, political liberty: “as in a country of liberty, every man who is supposed a free agent ought to be his own governor; the legislative power should reside in the whole body of the people.”1 Thus political liberty consists of participating in making the laws of the nation. There is another kind of “liberty,” particularly spoken of in the U.S. today. The word liberty is not usually attached to it: rather it is called civil rights, economic freedom, equity, justice or economic justice, or fairness. I will call it civil liberty, consistent with the most common usage in the U.S. today. Our liberal politicians do not like the word liberty, but are very comfortable with civil rights. That should be our clue to pay close attention to what civil rights means. Having civil rights does not necessarily mean having political liberty. Political liberty, as noted above, allows all citizens to have a say in legislation. Civil rights say nothing about citizen participation in making laws. A civil right could relate to universal access to “free” medical care or guaranteed employment or the right to a “free” education. It could be the right to ride in the front of the bus. It in no way guarantees the citizen the right to shape legislation. The most oppressive dictatorships of the past, such as Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, gave their citizens many, if not all, of these civil rights listed in the sentence above. Today, in North Korea and Cuba, I assume the average citizen also has the civil rights mentioned above, to the extent that the economies of these dynamic workers’ paradises are able to supply them. If these polities are performing true to form, each individual citizen has an equal share in less and less, as the national economies of these statist regimes continue to contract. (It must be noted that corruption is inherent in all secular Communist societies, and that corruption, per se, reduces productivity. (See chapters 21 and 26 re. corruption/Communist link). It is because of the failure of voters to distinguish the difference between civil and political liberty that the Left is able to maintain its pose as champion of freedom as it continues to cut away at political liberty. The confusion is intentional. Legitimate Prince In contrast to the legitimate Prince, there is the dictator or tyrant. (I do not mean to draw an absolute line by this distinction between Prince and dictator. Legitimate princes can become tyrants, and a tyrant can be the beginning of a dynasty of eventual princes.) In general, tyrants are first-generation rulers and do not have in place the traditional balancing forces noted above in the case of a “legitimate prince.” They have not developed a sense of limit to their authority, which makes those about them also uncertain as to the limits of autocratic authority. Tyrants frequently turn on their own supporters due to real or imagined conspiracies. Because of the above, tyrants are known to be exceptionally cruel. Some examples from ancient history are the Roman Emperors Nero, Caligula, and Commodus. A recent example is Saddam Hussein. Tyrants behave toward the outside world in a similarly self-defeating manner. Unable to compromise, tyrants go for all or nothing. Two examples are Napoleon and Hitler. After 1812, Napoleon could have compromised with the powers of Europe by giving up any claim to territory outside France. The existing monarchs of Europe would have accepted him as ruler of France. But Napoleon was so insecure due to his own lack of royal lineage, that he could not accept half a loaf.2 A more recent example is Hitler. He could have stopped after the Munich agreement, but proceeded to engage in a suicidal two-front war. Absolute power has its dark side. Along with absolute power come the gnawing forces of fear and personal inadequacy. This combination of power and fear is almost always fatal to both ruler and ruled. I do not think any but the strongest personality can resist the horrifying mental strain of absolute power. There have been in history very few absolute rulers who were not destroyed by absolute power. Benevolent Despot in Prussia: Frederick the Great By way of introducing Frederick, I will start by giving a quote from Carl Gottlieb Svarez, tutor to Frederick’s son. From what we know of Frederick, there is no reason to doubt the accuracy of these words: The most regular order in the whole constitution of the state; the strictest supervision of the prompt and impartial administration of justice; the ever-alert precaution against one estate or class of the nation impairing the rights of the others so that the poorer and lower is not oppressed by his rich and powerful fellow-citizens; the undiminished care for the foundation and support of public institutions whereby the prosperity of the individual is furthered and agriculture, manufactures and factories benefit; the regard for civil liberty; for the rights and possessions of the subjects; and finally, the most complete religious and intellectual freedom—these are the fundamental pillars of the administration of the Prussian state.3 Frederick lived a Spartan personal life—“The king dressed in a threadbare uniform at all times”4—with little concern for rank or ceremonies. Accordingly, he did little if anything in the way of personal glorification. As a result of his work and that of his father, Frederick William I, “the state had been made independent of the sovereign: the ‘King of Prussia’ was a permanent institution above the king as a person.”5 It could be said with accuracy that Frederick was more the first servant of the state than its master. The information above gives a general impression of the atmosphere in the Prussian court at the time of Frederick the Great. Now to the particulars. As we view these particulars, we will note that they seek to create a removal of barriers of social class and rank in the interest of national unity. In regard to religion, he stated, “All religions must be tolerated. The Fiscal shall only keep an eye open lest one encroaches on the other, for here everyone must be allowed to choose his own road to salvation.”6 His reason for advocating religious toleration may not have had very much to do with salvation. “Sects were tolerated and churches built for them, as long as they made no claim to a special provision within the state. In the interests of religious peace controversial sermons and any form of heresy hunting were forbidden. The “ultimate purpose of all state regulations on religious matters was the preservation of state unity. The state claimed and obtained supremacy over the churches.”7 I italicized the sentence. The purpose of religious toleration was to preserve state unity. At first glance this appears to be reasonable. But the motivation to preserve state unity is impeachable, as it is not the noble motivation for religious freedom as a value in itself. It makes the interest of the state the criteria upon which a policy is judged to be good or bad. The next part of the phrase says, “The state claimed and obtained supremacy over the churches.” The problem of a state church is not that it uses public funds to function, but that public funds poison the recipient. None of the state churches of Europe (Germany, Scandinavia) have any vibrancy. Nietzsche said, “God is dead.” He should have said, “The church is dead,” poisoned by state support. In the end, state support means state control. A further example of the ulterior motive for religious tolerance is seen in regard to the Jesuits, whose order was abolished by papal brief in 1773. “The order was not published in Prussia, and Bishop Strachwitz of Breslau was instructed to extend his protection to the Jesuits in the exercise of all their religious functions. Their scientific and pedagogical approach to teaching made them irreplaceable in Silesia and West Prussia…Tolerance and raison d’état mingled in the royal decree of 1776 ordering the Jesuits to change their name to that of Members of the Royal School Institute.”8 I think raison d’état trumped tolerance. Frederick’s attitude toward Jews, not surprisingly, was also based on raison d’état. “Not only do the principles of law and order demand that we protect the Privileged Jews; but the common good, especially as manifested in the preservation and development of industries, do so as well.”9 I must point out here that tolerance for Jews was extended only to those Jews who were specifically licensed by the state to live in Prussia. This licensure was extended to “protected Jews” (Schutzjude). The cost was 1,000 thalers per head, and for a long time, the Jewish community had to assume responsibility for any crimes that might be committed by their individual members. Jews were beginning to be commercially and administratively valuable. In 1754 some royal mints were leased to Jews.10 Again, we see that tolerance was predicated upon its usefulness to the state. Missing is recognition of tolerance as a quality to be valued as a thing in itself. Frederick was the first great leveler in Prussian society. Since the chief good in Prussia was to be a dependable cog in the wheel of state, much of what follows can be seen to support that end. Taxes were extended to all; the nobility and clergy lost their former exemption from taxation: “The exemption from taxation previously enjoyed by the nobility and clergy was abolished: Frederick held that, since the state extended its protection to all subjects, all should contribute to its expenses; even the royal domains were liable to tax.”11 He also eliminated the local Estates, that is, local councils in various parts of the realm that had rights and privileges dating back to the Middles Ages.12 Everyone was to be the same under the law. A famous instance in which Frederick himself was subject to the law was the windmill incident. Frederick had built himself a palace in Potsdam which he called Sans Souci. Right in the middle of the palace grounds was an old windmill, worked by a miller, the son and grandson of a miller. He refused to sell the windmill to Frederick; Frederick did not use any legal tricks to force sale. One can still see the working windmill in drawings and paintings of the completed palace grounds. The king did not consider himself above the law. I do not know the rest of the story regarding the windmill. For all I know it could still be there. The state was also the force behind industrial expansion, providing capital, monopoly rights, and protective trade barriers to help new industry.13 During his reign, the state added self-sufficiency in capital goods production, in addition to the preexisting agricultural self-sufficiency. In addition, after Prussia received territory to her east as a result of conquest, Frederick used the state finances to obtain settlers for the area, by having homes and churches built at government expense.14 In 1780, Reichsfreiherr vom Stein wrote a succinct description of
Prussia under Frederick II: But what would happen when the power of this centralized state falls into the hands of a man far less noble than Frederick? What happens when the time comes that “Pharaoh no longer knows Joseph”? Now we will discuss a man who rivaled Frederick in power, and, in fact was his chief enemy on the battlefield and halls of diplomacy. While he may have rivaled Frederick in power politics, he was very similar to Frederick in his political philosophy. We will now explore the policies of Joseph II, Emperor of Austria. Benevolent Despot in Austria: Joseph II Fanaticism shall in future be known in my states only by the contempt I have for it; nobody shall any longer be exposed to hardships on account of his creed; no man shall be compelled in future to profess the religion of the state, if it be contrary to his persuasion and if he have other ideas of the right way of insuring blessedness. In future my empire shall not be the scene of abominable intolerance…Tolerance is an effect of that beneficent increase of knowledge which now enlightens Europe, and which is owing to philosophy and the efforts of great men; it is a convincing proof of the improvement of the human mind, which has boldly reopened a road through the dominions of superstition, which was trodden centuries ago by Zoroaster and Confucius, and which, fortunately for mankind, has now become the highway of monarchs.”18 Saul Padover clearly states how the Emperor viewed the
relationship of Church to State: In order to discourage papal action against him, Joseph II borrowed a ploy from the French. Whenever the French monarchy did something that displeased Rome (such as imprisoning a pope), the French used their “sacred weapon”’ against Rome. This weapon was the threat to convene a General Council of Catholic clerics (of which many were French), which could then be used to overrule the pope. (The dogma of papal supremacy was not accepted until 1871.) Joseph II made clear that he had no qualms about using the “sacred weapon.”21 It was bad enough that Joseph copied the French; at least they were nominal Catholics. But Joseph also took a page from that heretic Henry VIII of England and shut down the monasteries. That action provided the state with an enormous amount of real estate; three-eighths of the land in Austria had been owned by the Church.22 Joseph reimbursed the Church in the same manner as Henry VIII had, i.e., not at all. Needless to say, the Church was hostile to Joseph (or at least as hostile as it could be within the bounds of political reality). Joseph II had a great sense of sarcasm: when the Archbishop of Cologne remonstrated against Joseph for letting anyone own and read the Bible, Joseph responded: Had I not studied people sufficiently to realize that only few read, and that even less understand what they have read, and that only a slight number make use of their reading [sic]. I am even acquainted with some who do not know what they write. With such creatures prohibition of books is more to be feared than bad publications; for the former make possible the reading of the latter. Without the unfortunate prohibition, we would still be promenading naked in the earthly paradise and would never have had the chance to discuss these important matters raised by Your Electoral Highness.23 Joseph was equally radical as far as social status within Austria. He annulled all legal immunities relating to legal status, and on several occasions noblemen were chained to others criminals on a street-cleaning crew.24 Not surprisingly, this did not go over well with the nobility, and a noble lady complained to Joseph’s mother (Maria Theresa) about this practice. The practice continued. As far as state intervention in the lives of the people, the Austrian state might well qualify for the honor of being the first nanny state. Even Hillary was to be outclassed by Joseph II: With or without aid and co-operation, the absolutist monarch instituted a regular “paper regime”. Edict followed edict with lightening rapidity. At the end of his ten year reign there were six thousand decrees, and over eleven hundred and forty-seven folio pages. Every conceivable and inconceivable matter was regulated, rearranged, and prescribed. The emperor was trying to create a rational, mechanized state, soulless and will-less, but one that should function like a well-greased machine. The thoroughness with which he went to work on this monster, which he called the State, is appalling. Nothing was left to chance, imagination, or initiative. He meant well, of course. His people were to be made happy in spite of themselves. He was to be to them a father, a harsh and brooding, but just and solicitous father.25 In my description above of both rulers I have tried to present the sort of polity each created. In addition, I have intentionally tried to give a portrait of each as a specific personality. The personality of an autocrat is of vital importance because there is so much power at his disposal. Thus the impact of his decisions has a great impact on the role the state plays in domestic and international politics. In the case of Prussia and Austria, we see the evolution of the state as machine, such that it will be usable by whoever is the ruler. The power is vested in the office of the ruler, to be used or abused at his will. What does this state of political structure mean for Jews? I believe it provides the sort of state in which lapsed and lapsing Jews feel safest, and which they strive to replicate wherever they live. As noted at many times in the history of the Jews above, they support central power because local authorities tend to display local prejudice (such as antiSemitism). They also support leveling because the less the difference between one citizen and another, the less conspicuous is the reluctant Jew. Jews support civil rights (which can and do coexist with Communist and autocratic states). But some fear and abhor political liberty because they do not trust power in the hands of the people or in the possession of local institutions of authority. They do all they can to transfer local power upward in order to concentrate power at the federal level. They intentionally blur the distinction between civil rights and political liberty so as to be perceived as champions of freedom when in fact they are among its greatest enemies. In chapter 24 we will explore the degree to which Jewish financiers played a role in supporting the governments of Prussia and Austria. 1 Charles Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws.
trans. By Thomas Nugent (London, Hafner, 1949), 134. 2 Henry Kissinger, A World Restored (New York, Grossett and
Dunlap, 1964), 131. 3 Walter Hubatch, Frederick the Great of
Prussia. trans. by Patrick Doran (London: Thames and Hudson,
1975), 220. 17 Saul K. Padover, The Revolutionary Emperor: Joseph II of
Austria (London, Eyre and Spottswoodie, 1967), 38. France was an absolute monarchy until 1789. In that year a revolution, or more properly, a series of revolutions, ended what has been termed by historians the ancien régime. We need to look at the revolutionary period because it brought out all the isms that we have seen in the 19th, 20th, and that are still present in the 21st century. Democracy, capitalism, Communism, Socialism, Nazism, Fascism, and the “nanny state” are all prefigured in these pregnant years. So are state-sponsored terror and a variant of genocide in which a group of humans are liquidated not on the basis of race, but on the basis of social class. In order to have a blanket term for the aggregate of these revolutionary events, I will use the term Revolution (of 1789) with a capital R. I believe that 1789 is the most important date in modern history. Prior to examining the Revolution in any detail, we need to look at the conditions that preceded it. France (in 1798), with a population of 25 million, was the largest state (outside of Russia) in Europe. It also had a standing army with state-of-the-art infantry, artillery, and cavalry. Thus continental Europe and Great Britain could not ignore what was happening in France. The state was an absolute monarchy which had achieved its greatest measure of centralized power during the reign of Louis XIV (reigned 1643– 1715). He crushed any autonomy the nobility may have had. He was interested in his own aggrandizement; everything done in France was done for his glory. His statement “l’état c’est moi,” (I am the state) is absolutely appropriate. He was succeeded by his son Louis XV (reigned 1715–1774) who was no better. He was a hedonist, concerned only with living luxuriously and gratifying all his passions. Among his extravagances was the parc aux cerfs, an estate on which young girls were raised to meet his sexual pleasures. When he tired of one, he would marry her off to one of his courtiers and replace her with a younger model.1 Although he did not say it, his motto could have been “l’état c’est pour moi” (The state exists for me). He was followed by Louis XVI, who was faced with political and financial crises that would have challenged the world’s greatest statesmen. He was a dim bulb, to say the least, and lost any influence he might have had on the situation had he been a better man. He also lost his head. He said nothing. He had no motto. By the time of his reign, the machinery of state was on autopilot, run by an entrenched bureaucracy. He was too incompetent to be an effective autocrat, let alone a wise guide to a nation at the point of the most profound crisis in its national history. Haunting the stage upon which the visible forces of politics and war played themselves out were the ideas of the philosophes. Little did anyone realize that these ideas were just about to materialize in a storm of fire and steel, clearing the old players off the stage. But back a step…who were the philosophes? They were a group of scientists, writers, musicians, and social theorists who spent their time discussing and popularizing new ideas. Many of these ideas were critical of established religion and questioned the inequities in the existing social order. They eventually combined much of their writing in an encyclopédie, which was to be a compendium of all human knowledge. Needless to say, it had to overcome numerous attempts at state and Church censorship. The values the philosophes espoused were freedom of press and freedom of speech. Although the philosophes were largely Deists, thus not sympathetic to organized religion, they supported freedom of worship. (Although Voltaire supported freedom of religion, he was hostile to Judaism, which he found regressive and particularly barbaric.) One of their chief beliefs was that of personal and social determinism. That is the belief that a given child is a blank slate, and he will become whatever his environment steers him to become. Also, citizens of a state will be molded according to the educational experiences they receive. Thus the nature of the citizenry is determinable by social planning. Historians sometimes seem surprised that the philosophes were honored guests in the courts of Joseph II (Austria) and Frederick the Great (Prussia) because the enlightenment belief in freedom of expression and opposition to organized religion would seem inimical to an autocratic state. But there were two reasons why the philosophes would be welcome: the first is that they were interesting men with interesting ideas. The other reason is their belief in the power of social conditioning to make perfect citizens and perfect citizens would lead to a perfect state. Thus the autocrat and the philosophe were not that far apart. But to be on the safe side, Frederick and Joseph prohibited the translation of the work of the philosophes into German. We need to look at one of the philosophes in particular. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712– 1778) addressed the education of the individual and the theory of government. I will focus on his theory of government. The reason that he is so important is that he was one of the very few writers who was able to capture and present to contemporaries and posterity alike a concise political statement powerful enough to have influenced human thought from his generation to ours. Upon his work is based the work of other writers. The foremost of these was Karl Marx, who played Jesus to Rousseau’s John the Baptist. Ideas can float around in an inchoate form; then someone puts them in print in such a clear and compelling way that the ideas capture an age. So it was with both Rousseau and Marx. What Rousseau and Marx wrote in ink, their successors wrote in blood. Rousseau wrote and published during the three decades that preceded the French Revolution. The ideas he presented served as the ideological basis of the Revolution. As we shall see, many of these ideas are compatible with Marxism, and are current today. Below are his major ideas, as expressed in his own words, followed by my glosses. His initial premise is that current civilization is degeneration from an earlier human condition. The earlier human condition was in a state of nature and uncorrupted. The latter follows from the former. Our ancestor of this early period he refers to as the “noble savage.” But savage man, living dispersed among other animals, and finding himself betimes in a situation to measure his strength with theirs, soon comes to compare himself with them; and perceives that he surpasses them more in adroitness than they surpass him in strength, learns to be no longer afraid of them.2 Being subject therefore to so few causes of sickness, man, in the
state of nature, can have no need of remedies, and still less of
physicians.3 There are also occasional instances of cannibalism.8 But Rousseau found this deficit an opportunity rather than a handicap. He set the pattern for the Left of drawing conclusions from inadequate (or no) documentation. In the event, the imaginary “noble savage” has proven to be useful as a weapon against Western culture. The transition from the idyllic state of nature to civil society parallels, or is a secular retelling, of the expulsion from Eden. The sin is going from solitary living to group living. In going to group living, social structures are formed that are fatal to liberty: “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains” (the most famous quote from The Social Contract). But since we have made this compromise, Rousseau offers to help us make the best of a bad situation. Any collection of people that identifies itself as a nation has to have rules to regulate how the members of the group relate to each other. Such is the origin of the legal code. Rousseau tells us that the laws made for this purpose must meet a certain criteria. In order to be legitimate, they must be an expression of the general will (volonté générale). What is the general will? It is that which is best for society as a whole. It is the choice made by any and all individual citizens based on promoting the general good. It means the individual’s rejection of what might be to his particular benefit in favor of what is the best interest of the group. In addition, factions, or groups of people with similar interests, are obligated to renounce those factional interests if they do not tend to the best interest of the whole. “If you would have general will accomplished, bring all the particular wills into conformity with it; in other words, as virtue is nothing more than this conformity of the particular wills with the general will, establish the reign of virtue.”9 All statutory law, the letter of the law, is made to support the general will. Virtuous citizens really need minimal written law, because they know, by sentiment, what is right. “The greatest support of the public authorities lies in the hearts of the citizens, and…nothing can take the place of morality in the maintenance of government.”10 In fact, too much written law is dangerous: “For in this case the best laws become the most pernicious; and it would be a hundred times better that they should not exist. In such a situation, it is vain to add edicts and regulations to regulations. Everything serves only to introduce new abuses without correcting the old.”11 The general will is the “most just” and “the voice of God.” It is infallible and indivisible. The general will is not necessarily the voice of the people. “But
how, I shall be asked, can the general will be known in cases in
which it has not expressed itself ? Must the whole nation be
assembled together at every unforeseen event? Certainly not. It
ought to be the less assembled, because it is by no means certain
that its decision would be the expression of the general will.”12
Happiness is achieved by conformity to the general will. However,
Rousseau is aware that not everyone realizes wherein his happiness
lies. Some people must “be forced to be free.”13 What sort of economic philosophy can we expect from a society based on the general will? We can expect a “zero-sum economy”: “Thus it is that we find our advantage in the misfortunes of our fellow-creatures, and that the loss of one man almost always constitutes the prosperity of another.” This view is the pessimistic view of Socialists, Communists, and liberals. It pits the poor against the rich and is used to buy the votes of the have-nots. In reality, economic expansion leads to a win-win situation in which both parties engaged in a transaction come out ahead. Market allocation of goods and services leads to a greater aggregate sum of goods and services. Cuba and North Korea are mired in poverty because of their Marxist belief in zero-sum economics. For Rousseau to believe such nonsense in 1770 may be excusable; for liberal academics to believe it in the 21st century is an indication of ignorance or conscious deception. Another of Rousseau’s policies is heavy taxation of “luxuries.” This is also destructive to higher standards of living, as telephones and washing machines were once luxuries. In expanding economies, yesterday’s luxury becomes today’s necessity. Rousseau’s philosophy is based on the belief that man is primarily a product of his environment, a premise that is true to some extent. His corollary that we can control social machinery to ensure a certain behavioral output is not borne out by experience. What is certain is that such attempts have led to gnawing unhappiness at the best and gulags at the worst. Just in passing, it should be noted that Rousseau was certifiably insane. When the Revolution began in France in 1789, the men who made it were weaned on Rousseau. The Revolution came about as the result of a financial crisis. The king was forced to convene the Estates Générale (a sort of national council) because the government had no money. It is interesting to note that the English Revolution of 1642 occurred in the same manner. The immediate cause of the American Revolution of 1776 was taxation. Going back to France…the Estates Générale had not met for 200 years. The Estates Générale was composed of three classes, or “Estates.” The First Estate was the clergy, and the Second was the nobility. Everyone else (about 98 percent of the nation) comprised the Third Estate. The Estates Générale represented all Frenchmen, but voted by Estate, each Estate having one vote. Since the clergy and nobility voted together, “commons” (the Third Estate) was always outvoted. The Estates Générale was convened on May 5, 1789. But by June 17, something happened that changed everything in France, forever. The First Estate termed itself the National Assembly and invited the other Estates to join it, on the basis of voting by delegate, not by Estate. (The Third Estate had the most delegates.) After some resistance, the other Estates joined. In effect, a Revolution had occurred, and France had become a constitutional monarchy. One of the great what-ifs of history is what would have happened if the king had been a practical man, capable of accepting the inevitable change. In the event, he was not. As he proved unreliable and uncooperative, the power shifted entirely to the National Assembly, which subsequently termed itself the Constituent Assembly. The next stage in the ongoing Revolution was the sweeping away of the civil privileges of the nobility (August 4, 1789), followed by the takeover of Church property on December 2, 1789. A very important event occurred on July 12, 1790, when the clergy were made state employees (Civil Constitution of the Clergy). The political temperature of France as a whole was lower outside of Paris. Paris was dominated by radicalized mobs, pandered to by journalists. The mobs and their more-educated leaders formed numerous extremist clubs, the most well-known of which was the Jacobins (ironically named for a Catholic ex-monastery where they met). Democracy had degenerated into ochlocracy (rule of the mob). The names of some of these orators and editors who played upon the mob are well known: Danton, Desmoulins, Marat, Robespierre. Soon there was civil war, followed by foreign wars as the monarchist neighbors of France feared the effect the ideas of democracy might have on their own populations. The combination of internal and external threats to the Revolution led to radicalization of the Assembly. France was governed by Paris. Because the Assembly met in Paris, it was subject to mob pressure. At the least, disinterested debate could not take place in a meeting place with a dangerous mob milling around. If the Paris mob had been merely a potential threat before, it took actual control of the Assembly on August 10, 1792. From this point on, matters grew worse and worse, culminating in the Reign of Terror (1793–1794). This was also the time during which “political correctness” was first introduced as national policy. People were forbidden to use titles of rank and/or nobility. Use of “Monsieur” and “Madame” were forbidden. Everyone was to be addressed as “citizen.” In part of the program of dechristianization, the calendar was changed to start with Year One of the Revolution. (1789). The months were renamed. A description of the Terror (from Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed.) follows: Couthon presented the crowning law of the Terror, known as the Law of 22 Prairial. As the Revolutionary Tribunal was said to be paralyzed by forms and delays, this law abolished the defense of prisoners by counsel and the examination by witnesses. Henceforward the impressions of judges and jurors were to decide the fate of the accused. For all offences the penalty was to be death. The leave of the Convention was no longer required for the arrest of a member. In spite of some murmurs even this law was adopted. Its effect was fearful. The Revolutionary Tribunal had hitherto pronounced 1200 death sentences. In the next six weeks it pronounced 1400. With Robespierre’s approval, St. Just sketched at this time the plan of an ideal society in which every man should have just enough land to maintain him; in which domestic life should be regulated by law and all children over seven years should be educated by the state. Pending this regeneration of society St. Just recommended the rule of a dictator.14 A point of significance, rarely raised, was the liquidation of a group of people based on social class; in this case the aristocracy. In the Communist revolutions of the future, liquidation by class will become common. It is important to note that the Jewish Left never lets us forget about the Holocaust based on race, but we never hear about holocausts based on class. Could one of the reasons be that they participated as Stalin’s butcheries during the Ukrainian holocaust of the 1930s? It is estimated that 5 million Ukrainians were starved to death. This issue will be examined at length in chapter 37. The above quote from Britannica (1911) is very significant. It was written before the Communist Revolution of 1917 in Russia. Events in France foreshadowed the Russian Revolution by proposing a program of land redistribution, state control of children over age seven, ruthless terror as a means of governance, law made at the pleasure of a small group of men, and imposition of dictatorial rule pending the development of the “new man.” It is uncanny how closely Lenin followed the playbook of Robespierre and St. Just. I will demonstrate how the Jewish Left in the U.S. seeks to take us down the same path. At the point where too many people felt threatened by the Terror, it was stopped, and the terrorists were themselves guillotined. Confusion continued to grow, and anarchy threatened. The inevitable dictatorship occurred under the rule of Napoleon Bonaparte, commencing in 1799. Napoleon’s Impact Balance of Power After Napoleon’s fall, Metternich continued his efforts to find an autocrat to rule France and opposed efforts of the victorious European states to weaken the defeated French nation. Metternich knew that Austria would need a strong France to combat the growing power of Prussia. Thus begins the European balance of power that held until World War II. 1 Le siècle des saint-sevin dits l’abbé,
http://perso.orange.fr.saint-sevin/pg1lab.htm (2007). 2 Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract and Discourses,
trans. by GDH Cole (London and Toronto: J.M. Dent and Sons, 1923),
54. 5 George T. Hunt, The Wars of the Iroquois (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1940), 6, 94, 100, 119. 8 Michael A. Hoffman, Egypt Before the Pharaohs (New York: Dorset
Press, 1979), 97,173. As always, it is easier to understand history by looking at maps. In 1812, France, under Napoleon, was at the height of its power. Looking at a map of Europe at that time shows that French speakers were generally located west of the Rhine, and German speakers east of the Rhine (map V). The problem is generally. Who will rule the border lands? Those areas with mixed populations? Look at the map more closely and locate the Rhine River as it leaves the mountains of Switzerland. Just north of Switzerland, along the west bank of the Rhine, lie the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Rulership of this territory was fought over between France and Germany. Follow the Rhine as it continues north, until it reaches the border of Holland. There is a long, narrow strip of land, along the western bank of the Rhine. The people in this area speak German. Immediately west of this northsouth narrow band, the population speaks French, until we get to Belgium, when most of the people along the Belgian-German border speak Flemish, a dialect of Dutch. The soil of these areas along the northern Rhine absorbed the blood of millions of soldiers from 1870 to 1918. Germany, at the beginning of the nineteenth century was not a single land. It was composed of about 300 independent political entities. Among these, there were a few large states, of which the most important was Prussia. Austria was a German-speaking state also, but it was a special case, as it was part of an empire ruled by the reigning head of a dynasty named the Hapsburgs. As such, it cannot be considered a part of Germany. By 1812, the French, under Napoleon, controlled large amounts of German territory. The French directly controlled all the German-speaking land on the left (western) bank of the Rhine. Most of the German states east of the Rhine (except Prussia) were consolidated into one and termed “The Confederation of the Rhine.” The Confederation was controlled from Paris as a puppet state. In 1806, French troops defeated the Prussian army at Jena (see map V) and proceeded from Jena to occupy Berlin. From Berlin they dictated peace terms to Prussia. As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia was humiliated by France. Two major things happened as a result of the French occupation of “Germany.” First, an unintended consequence was the reduction in the number of small German-speaking states, helping to speed the unification of Germany. Paradoxically, the French-engineered amalgamation of these small states was to have a devastating effect upon France. The second thing was the very powerful enmity toward France on the part of many Germans. There followed from this a very strong growth of German nationalism, which was to be of enormous consequence to the entire world. German Nationalism Fichte’s Addresses to the German Nation (a total of fourteen speeches) succeeded in more than stirring up German resistance to French imperialism. They also served as a declaration of German cultural identity that has remained potent into the twentieth century. The purpose of the lectures was to define a German citizen. He began by rejecting class identity in favor of national identity.1 Language was an essential bond between Germans. It gave them a common way of sharing experiences. Foreign languages, such as French, he termed “dead” and incapable of expressing pure German ideas. That is because as language evolves, it carries its historical baggage with it.2 German culture was to be kept pure and did not need to draw on other cultures (read French culture). Fichte taught that the French language was a derivative of Latin, hence a spiritually dead language.3 For Germans, the “golden age” of Greece is to be no model, because, like the Latin and Greek languages, it is derivative and cannot relate to the German experience. Traditional religion, he also considered dead and was to be replaced by morality.4 I must give Fichte credit for stating openly his plan for scotching religion in the state; the New England Protestant elite was soon to do the same, but was too cowardly to admit it. Thus where German Protestants had honesty, New England Protestants had hypocrisy. In any case, to both groups, God was dead. The means for achieving the German state and culture was education. Education was to be universal and to stress the commonality of German identity rather than social class. The purpose of education was to make the perfect man as a means of making the perfect state.5 Education was not meant to stimulate original thinking.6 In assessing the impact of the above on German national life, we need to remember that it was written to protest French influence in Germany. However, looking forward, we have to ask how a non-German people would fare in a nationalistic Germany. As we know today, not very well. Consider the Jews in Germany. Fichte himself did not say that one had to be racially German to be German. He stated: Whoever believes in spirituality and in the freedom of this [German] spirituality, and who wills the eternal development of this spiritual freedom, wherever he may have been born and whatever language he speaks, is of our blood; he is one of us, and will come to our side. Whoever believes in stagnation, retrogression, and the round dance of which we spoke, or sets a dead nature at the helm of the world’s government, wherever he may have been born and whatever language he speaks, is non-German and a stranger to us; and it is to be wished that he would separate himself from us completely, and the sooner the better.7 Fichte’s openness in allowing “others” to become German would not be shared with many other nationalists of the future. The story of the attempts of Jews as individuals and as groups to become an accepted part of the German nation is a tragic story because so many were patriotic Germans and did everything possible to become German, only in the end to be rejected. It is particularly ironic in the face of the many current Muslim German citizens who are openly hostile to assimilation. Prussia After Napoleon In an effort to increase trade and prosperity in northern Germany, Prussia and many of the smaller states around it formed a tariff-free free-trade zone called the Zollverein. It was an enormous boon to prosperity for all involved and also served to plant in people’s minds not only the idea of a unified state, but of a unified state under Prussia. Austria was specifically excluded from this union. She had her own free-trade zone in the form of the multinational, multilingual Hapsburg Empire. The states of the Zollverein had coal and steel resources. Unlike Britain, they were not dependent on foreign trade. They had river transportation and dug canals. They had a labor pool of hardworking people, capable of becoming skilled at technical work. They were agriculturally self-sufficient. And they had the relative peace of post-Napoleonic Europe. By the middle of the nineteenth century, they challenged Britain in coal, steel, and railway production. In the first half of the nineteenth century, investment capital was largely provided by government funds, and most projects involved government investment. But by the middle of the century, there was enough free-market capital available to create almost 300 joint stock companies. The simultaneous occurrence of at least partial Jewish emancipation and the industrial revolution provided a fortuitous opportunity to Jews, and they were quick to use it. Jewish banking skills were valuable to the state, and Frederick the Great was quick to take advantage of them. During the Seven Years’ War, he solicited and received Jewish financial expertise from two prominent Jewish bankers. “Frederick II gave [Daniel] Itzig and V. H. Ephraim contracts for financing the war through the issuance of successive series of debased coinage.”8 Daniel Itzig was also personal financier to Frederick the Great’s successor, Frederick William II. He was also appointed court banker and inspector of road construction. These Jews were of great importance in the early creation of a powerful Germany. Note the ever-recurrent “Joseph and Pharaoh” relationship. Note also the willingness of Jewish plutocrats to enable heads of state to violate justice. We will see this repeated time and again. We can carry it forward to the Clinton-Jew relationships of the present era. There are many instances, but the most egregious is the Sandy Berger episode (Sept. and Oct., 2003), in which Burger purloined government files for the (apparent) benefit of the Clinton administration. The biographical sketch of Itzig in Encyclopedia Judaica ends with the laconic note “Virtually none of Itzig’s descendents remained Jews.” It is likely that Jews are no more easily corrupted by power than any other race, but the opportunity for exposure to temptation is greater, as Jews seek relationships with the powerful with greater determination. Benjamin Ephraim (1742–1811) was also helpful to the Prussian state. “In 1779 he took on in his factory unemployed Jewish girls and women from the recently annexed Polish territory. He successfully averted the expulsion orders of Frederick William II by stressing the usefulness of his 700 to 1,500 workers to the state. In Berlin, Benjamin maintained a leading salon, was the first Jew to own an art collection, and had access to ruling circles, having loaned the king large sums before his accession.”9 Most of the Ephraim descendents also became apostates. A sad case of another banker is that of Solomon Heine (1766–1844). He was a banker in Hamburg. Following a great fire in 1844, he sustained the credit of the city by his bank. He also gave heavily to community charities, but was still denied citizenship and admission to the Chamber of Commerce.10 It is heartbreaking how hard these men strove for acceptance, even to the point of conversion. Still, acceptance was grudging at best. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the ruler of Prussia was Kaiser William I. His Chancellor was Otto von Bismarck, who was far more aggressive than the kaiser he served. Two questions of great geopolitical importance were on the table. First, which state, Prussia or Austria, would be the nucleus of a large German state and thus the principle power in central Europe? Bismarck resolved this question by provoking a war with Austria, which Prussia won. The next question, with Austria out of competition, was: What would be the new relationship between France and Prussia? The resolution of this question came as a result of the total defeat of the French in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. In order to win these wars, Prussia needed access to international capital and good financial management domestically. This was provided by Gerson von Bleichroder. He was the financial genius behind the Prussian war machine.11 He was also the personal financial manager for Bismarck: “Pomeranian estate owners have always had their House Jew. I am a Pomeranian estate owner and have Bleichroder.”12 The consequences of this war were more than I can explore here, but two of the major consequences have to be mentioned. The most important one was the amalgamation of all non-Austrian German-speaking states in one German Reich (empire). Not all the German states entered this union entirely willingly, but under wartime conditions they had little choice. As a result, for the first time in modern history, Germany became a united and powerful modern state. Jewish bankers played a key role in this fateful happening. The second consequence of the war was to set the stage for German autocracy. Bleichroder worked closely with Bismarck and the government “to lessen the influence of parliament on the resolution of economic questions.”13 He also helped to curb freedom of the press14 and “played a major role in the nationalization of Prussian railroads.”15 Following the war, Bismarck turned to the internal politics of the new German state. He consciously decided to develop a nanny state, not because he felt it was morally right, but because it would be a way of tying the people to the state. It was pure cynicism and calculated instrumentalism: “Bismarck had always been an interventionist and a paternalist; economic necessity, political calculation, and personal predilection combined to set his course in the late 1870’s and 1880’s. He set a new tone as well as policy: the new Reich should appear not only as tax collector, oppressor of Socialists, or rival old dynasties, but as a beneficent agent, as protector of the nation in the social realm-hence shield the workers from the ravages of occupational accidents, sickness, and old age. The state should offer succor—so the subjects might be grateful.” 16 (My italics). It is important to note that under these circumstances, volunteerism and charity become politically incorrect because individual initiative weakens dependency on the state. With implications fateful for the future (Hitler), Bleichroder supported Bismarck in the parliamentary elections of 1878. Bismarck’s electoral victory was great, as was the renewed defeat of German liberalism. It was a victory won by a campaign of ruthless vilification; the example set and the results achieved did great harm to the political future of Germany. The French chargé d’affairs in Berlin appreciated the importance of the moment: A German Caesarism—the ideal of this great authoritarian and in his mind more and more connected with the end of Germanic unity should [now] be close to realization. It is true that this order of things apparently can exist only with Prince Bismarck, that he is the only one capable of directing and dominating it; was this not proven in the political struggle that has just ended, where his personality united scattered and indecisive forces and was the principle element of his victory?17 Austria Austria, like Prussia, was modernizing with new roads, bridges, canals, and railroads. It needed capital. It also needed capital for war. Austria was fortunate to be the home of the Rothschild family. They were loyal to the state and were accepted by the emperors as friends and loyal subjects. Also the Rothschilds had an ally in Metternich, the most powerful man in the empire after the emperor himself. The major problem the Rothschilds had was the anti-Semitism of the nobility and the town councils.18 This was a problem throughout the empire. Jews could only count on the emperor. This reinforced Jewish support for the central government. The wars against Napoleon allowed the Rothschilds (1) to demonstrate loyalty to Austria by arranging war funding, (2) to grow their fortune as a result of such funding, and (3) to win the confidence of the emperor and Metternich.19 The vast majority of Rothschild business was with government loans, both within the empire and to nations allied with the empire.20 Private sector investment did not play a significant role in their rise to riches. This supplied one more reason for their statist predilection. We must note here the enormous potential for resentment that developed among the nobility and local government toward Jews. In this history of central Europe, we have seen Austria lose out to Prussia as the German fatherland. We have also seen that Austria comprises a multinational, multilingual state in which the emperor is friendly to Jews and in which Jews are handmaidens to the emperor. There was an uneasy peace in the empire, as nationalist sentiments struggled against the centralizing tendency in Vienna, capital of the empire. Maintaining a centralized state was to the benefit of most Jews because national identity as “subjects of the Emperor” was inclusive, whereas identity as a Czech, Pole, or Hungarian was too exclusive to admit Jews. In non-German parts of the empire, Jews were disliked because they were Jews and were German-speaking. In German-speaking lands they were reviled as being Jews. The best hope for Jewish safety seemed to be a strong, benevolent, central power. As it turned out, two of these three requirements were to be met. 1 J. G. Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, trans. by RF
Jones and GH Turnbull (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1968), 13. 11 Fritz Stern, Gold and Iron: Bismarck and Bleichroder (New
York: Vintage Books, 1977), chapters 4, 5, and 6. 18 Egon Conti, The Rise of the House of Rothschild (Boston:
Western Islands Press, 1972), 162. 19 Ibid., Chapter III, The Great Napoleonic Crisis and Its
Exploitation by the House of Rothschild. 20 Ibid., Chapter IV, The Brothers Rothschild During the Period
of Congresses, 1818– 1822. During the centuries of exile, Jews have lived separately from Gentiles. It would appear they have resisted assimilation over the ages. Or have they? It is much more likely that most Jews took the course of least resistance over the centuries and did assimilate. If this is true, it is only the small non-assimilating residue that makes up today’s recognized Jews. Judaism is (or was) more than a religion and culture. It was a group of people who traced their descent from Abraham. They were proud of this direct descent. Within the children of Abraham, some were further set off. The descendents of Aaron formed the priestly class, and still today, those who mark their descent from Aaron are first called to Torah reading during orthodox services. The descendents of David are also set aside. This recognition of different hereditary classes is explained in the orthodox prayer book as follows: “Blessed art Thou…For not having made me a gentile…a slave…a woman. The Torah assigns missions to respective groups of people. Within Israel, for example, the Davidic family Kohanim and Levites are set apart by virtue of their particular callings, in addition to their shared mission as Jews. All such missions carry extra responsibilities and call for the performance of the mitzvos associated with them. We thank God, therefore, for the challenge of improving His universe in accordance with His will. Male, free Jews have responsibilities and duties not shared by others. For this, they express gratitude that, unlike women, they were not freed from the obligation to perform the time-related commandments.”1 Jewish rituals involve numerous religious holidays not compatible with the Christian workweek. Dietary rules preclude Jews from dining with Gentile neighbors or being house guests of same. Since the effect of following the rules of the code of Jewish law effectively isolates Jews from non-Jews, it is a fair question to ask whether that is the purpose of the code. I cannot answer whether effect and purpose coincide. As long as Jews lived in ghettoes and their own villages (shtetls) there was no strong force to weaken traditional lifestyles. Everything changed with emancipation. University life was now an option. Government offices were now an option. In these circumstances, at that time, keeping the Law was very difficult, if not impossible. One of the first things Jews in German-speaking lands did was to convert to Lutheranism or Catholicism. This was a sham, as the conversions were usually not motivated from the heart, and everyone knew it. In addition, the mainline Protestant religions in Germany had become subservient to the state and had lost much of their spiritual force. They were well on their way into the black hole of irrelevancy in which they now find themselves. True, there were Protestant religions, strong in faith, but they were out of the mainstream and not popular with the government. Jewish converts, motivated solely for social acceptance, naturally ignored these religions. Still, in the early part of the nineteenth century, acceptance
was still open (in theory) to Jews who would become “true
Germans.” Fichte’s opinion is notable: As we have seen, the contest between Prussian hegemony (Kleindeutsch) and Austrian hegemony (Grossdeutsch) in the German-speaking lands was settled in favor of Prussia. Thus the German Empire, unlike the Austrian Empire, was purely German. Unlike the multinational, multilingual Austrian Empire, Germany was fulfilling the hopes of the German nationalist historian Heinrich von Treitschke “to dissolve the fairy-tale world of particularism and provide the basis for a free and powerful Germany.”3 Although Treitschke was referring to the small German states when he speaks of particularism, he later on singled out Jews. In his famous (or infamous) quote in 1879, he stated: “The Jews are our misfortune.” However, “Treitschke was not a racist in the Hitlerian sense of the word. He limited himself to demanding the rapid and complete assimilation of the Jews in the Germanic culture ‘without prejudice to their faith and their ancient sacred memories, which we all respect.’ ”4 By the latter half of the century, the benefits of conversion, already weak due to their widely recognized pro forma nature, were delivered their deathblow by the theories of racial supremacy advanced by people such as Arthur Gobineau and H. S. Chamberlain. From this point forward, the expedient of conversion would not work. While one may choose a religion and change it at will, not so race. Reform Judaism One of the principle leaders of the German Reform movement was Samuel Holdheim (1806–1860). He was one of the new type of rabbis who held degrees from German universities. It would be very unlikely that he would be any less hostile to conventional religious beliefs than any of the irreligious German philosophers such as Fichte or Hegel. He was appointed rabbi of the Berlin Reform congregation in 1847. From this position, he changed the Sabbath to Sunday. His attitude was that Judaism should conform itself to the particular national demands of the nation in which a Jew found himself: “In any case he was ready to compromise in the religious sphere if the need arose in the country in which the Jews were to be integrated.” He also felt that religious questions should be resolved on the basis of the written Torah, rather than Talmud.5 One of the serious problems of having Judaism conform to national custom would be a loss of its universality. Abraham Geiger (1810–1874) was a contemporary of Holdheim and, like Holdheim, was also a product of the German university system, that indifferent factory of good and evil. “In his desire to see Judaism solely as a religious community, Geiger set out to eliminate from Judaism every mark of national uniqueness and of dissociation from the gentile nations.”6 The attitudes of the men above show the dilemma of German Jews: how to be German and Jewish. There was never to be a satisfactory answer to this question. I believe that the attempts to remove from Judaism its “particularism” served to aid in its destruction as a living spiritual force in Germany (and subsequently in the U.S.). Incidentally, German Christianity had suffered the same fate, but for different reasons. In any case, regarding Judaism, there was a great irony here. Just at the time that Judaism was, chameleonlike, reforming itself so that Jews “could be like the other nations,” religious identity in Germany ceased to have the meaning it had when it was a choice from the heart, as opposed to membership in a state-controlled church. So religious identity paled, and racial identity took its place. For the Jews—all those efforts—a day late and a dollar short. Marxism: If the Shoe Doesn’t Fit, The third response, Marxism, was earth-shattering. Sometimes statements like “earthshattering” are hyperbole, but not in this instance. Probably we would have to go back to the Mongol invasions to find anything as catastrophic in the last thousand years. Its victims since 1917 number in the tens of millions. Marxism is nothing more nor less than a Jewish response to the Jewish Question. This response to the Jewish Question was different from anything proposed then or since. Marx turned the Question on its head. Instead of saying what changes can Jews make to be accepted, it asked what needed to be done to the world, in order for it to be a safe place for Jews. The arrogance of the approach is only exceeded by the originality and scope of the answer. Karl Marx invented a new religion. Its god was the State. This new religion had its Prophet: fittingly it was Marx himself. It also had its “companion of the Prophet” in the person of Frederick Engels. It had its Holy Writ in Das Kapital and The Communist Manifesto. It developed its academic scholars, analogous to Talmudists, and some actually were ex-Talmudic scholars. However, I do not wish to deprive Gentile Marxists of due credit. Certainly the written works of Lenin and Mao are known to the entire world. It had its lines of succession (like the Caliphate) in which the power of state and church were united in the hands of a single autocrat (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Kim Sung Il, etc.). Why was there this drastic response? What could explain it, if not justify it? I will try to explain its motive force. Any examination of the history of the Jewish people in Europe and the Muslim world demonstrates an almost uniform experience of misery imposed by majority populations. The day-to-day existence of most Jews in most places for the last two thousand years has been that of degradation at a group and personal level. Few Jews outside of the United States and Israel have an unchallenged sense of being “OK” or at least the same as everyone else. Almost all of the period of exile has been one of assault on personal self-worth, and most of the period has carried with it the risk of sudden death at the hands of a mob. Sometimes the mob was sponsored by the state. It is not possible to suffer this abuse without a warpage of the soul. Many of its victims engage in self-hate and become threats to themselves. Reason suffers by distortion. Values applied to decision-making are based on skewed experience and frequently satisfy limited goals at the expense of long-range solutions. There is very little as damaging to a group of people as an accepted sense that it belongs to a subclass of human beings. These people become not only destructive to themselves, but can become destructive to the rest of the world. This is particularly true when the people is, in fact, talented. I hope that I have given some measure of understanding as to the
force motivating Marx. These positive and negative precepts will have to be obeyed in order for the new social order to work. In both cases, the reasons for requiring certain social behaviors and forbidding others will have to be explained on the basis of a theory that is far more intellectually respectable than the real reason for the rules. Making life safe for Jews is too parochial a rationale: making life safe for the working class and downtrodden has far more universal validity and will appeal to the easily manipulated masses. The theory will have to appear elegant, parsimonious, and be easily grasped. It will have to appeal to laborers and intellectuals alike. It will have to be so inspiring that people would dedicate their lives to studying it and promoting it. It must be noble enough that people could say, “I am a Communist,” with as much pride as someone else might say, “I am a Christian.” Last but not least, its believers must be willing to die (and kill!) for it. It must be, in other words, a religion. 1 The Complete ArtScroll Siddur, trans. by Nossan Scherman (New
York: Mesorah Publications, Ltd, 1995), 19. 2 Encyclopedia Judaica. sv “Fichte.” 3 James J. Sheehan, German History: 1770–1866 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994), 846. We have addressed in the previous chapter the why of Marxism. Now we must define what it is. Marxism is the abandonment of the attempt on the part of the Jewish Left to assimilate into existing society. Instead it attempts to remake society into its image of what it considers the final state of human perfection. It could be considered the Revenge of the Jews. Now for the details… I will discuss Marxism as it relates to (1) family structure, (2) economic activity, and (3) the political structure. In discussing Marxism, I make reference to the works of Marx and Frederick Engels without distinction. Engels was Marx’ amanuensis, and historically their writings are viewed as a unit. I will follow that practice. The World According To Marx Dismantling the family was a start. Now we dissolve all classes.3 There are to be no owners; everyone is a worker. One for all, all for one. One big happy fam—sorry, we can’t say family. One big happy proletarian commune! There, that’s politically correct. Since “the idiocy of rural life” retards the development of our secular utopia, the difference between rural and city will be abolished by distributing people more uniformly.4 To the Jewish Left, people can be sown like seed corn. In the former “peoples’ republics” of the USSR and puppet states, this was done on a wide scale. Those elements who resisted were liquidated. (Remember the 5 million Ukrainian peasants? Of course, you don’t. The New York Times, owned and operated by the Jewish Left, then printed Stalin’s lies as they now print those of his successors. Read the history of Pulitzer Prize–winning NYT writer Walter Duranty, chapter 37.) Following the abolition of class is the abolition of the State. However, before the State can be abolished, a period of dictatorship of the proletariat is essential to liquidate remaining bourgeois elements. After that, the State (that is the dictatorship) will whither away. 5 And we will all live happily ever after! Not quite yet. You can’t safely turn one state into paradise in a predatory world. It follows that the advantages of Communism must be shared with all peoples. Toward this end, we must do away with nation-states, national borders, and national identification.6 Then won’t we all be members of one universal happy family! Unfortunately there are always a few misguided or deluded individuals who cannot see what is best for them. As Rousseau said, we will “force them to be free.”7 Maybe a handful (100 million?) will have to be “removed,” but you can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs. After seeing how Communists, where given the opportunity, have succeeded in making a hash out of family and state, let us examine how these saintly altruists propose to run an economy. No real surprises here. Since leveling is the guiding principle, money will be abolished.8 Also to be abolished is the use of precious metals, or anything that can serve as a store of value.9 The power to accumulate opens the way for some people to have more than others. Therefore retention of private property is illegal. Trade allows some to get more than others, so it too must go. Exchange is the road to hell.10 Clearly the middlemen (traders) produce nothing. They just accumulate the wealth produced by others. A concise outline of the cultural anthropology upon which much of the above is based can be read in Engel’s Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. This book is clearly written and relatively short. One benefit of reading it is that you will have the entire playbook of the Left. This includes feminists, Socialists, Communists, liberals, Hollywood pop tarts, red diaper babies, hack columnists such as Maureen Dowd, and much of the professoriate of the American university system. The entire Pink Orchestra was weaned on this material. We need to spend a little time discussing economic theory. Marx used classical economic theory, such as was presented by David Ricardo (1772–1823). I will give only a very general description of this theory. His theory, prevalent in the nineteenth century, stated that the price or “value” of an item has two components. First, there is the cost of the material of which it is composed. The second factor is the value added to the raw material by labor. (A more complete explanation would include other factors, such as costs of machinery, etc.) The final value of the finished product, then, is the sum of the raw material plus the value added by the labor. The most common alternative theory (generally accepted today) was proposed in the early twentieth century. This theory states that the price or “value” of something is only what someone would be willing to pay for an item on the market at a specific time and under specific conditions. The term “hammer price,” which approximates these conditions, will have meaning to anyone who goes to auctions. It is also defined as what someone will pay for the most recent item produced (marginal price). It may well be that in many instances the value of an item would be the same (or nearly the same) under either the surplus value theory or the marginal value theory. But at the extremes of market conditions, (great surplus or great scarcity, great demand or little demand) the value predicted by each theory will greatly diverge. I will give two examples at the extreme. Let us say that you have a piece of wood. You decide to add value to the wood by carving it. The finished product is the sum of the value of the raw wood, plus the labor you put into it. But it may well be that you have put in hours of labor to produce something that people consider ugly. You cannot sell it now for more than the price of the raw wood. Another example would be a man who sells bottled water. The price he would get for a bottle of water from a customer who could go to another grocery store would be less than the price to a customer in Death Valley in August for the same bottle of water. The next principle to understand is the function of price as an economic signal. Let’s consider the case of shoes. Consider that shoes are in short supply in Boston. This will result in the price of shoes going up in Boston. On the other hand, let us assume that the New Haven market has too many shoes. The price of shoes in New Haven will go down. These price fluctuations serve to signal suppliers what to ship to which city. They also serve to tell manufacturers what sort of goods are in demand and how much of a given good should be manufactured. The system is self-correcting and works with minimal waste. We have stated that the distributor reads the price signals. Who is the distributor? He is the middleman. He makes a profit while producing nothing. But is he really producing nothing? Back to shoes. You have a foot of fixed length and width. You would like the shoe to fit. (The bourgeoisie are so spoiled.) You might even prefer a particular style and color (bourgeois tastes are so fickle!). Someone has to get the appropriate shoes to the appropriate end user. Under the Communist system, the worker in the shoe factory has no incentive to see that the product goes where it is needed. The factory manager has no incentive to distribute the shoes appropriately. No one has the incentive to make distribution work. What good does it do the end users to have shoes in a warehouse or randomly distributed throughout the country? Since employees of the state (that means everyone under Communism) are paid by the state, there is no incentive to “get it right.” In the west the “customer is king;” under Communism or Socialism, the customer is an annoyance. We have two additional topics to consider, that of innovation, and that of corruption. First, innovation…Communism and Socialism are inherently conservative. Bureaucrats do not like change, because responding to changing conditions is inimical to planned society. It is the elitist view that the important factors in production of goods and services can be identified and properly controlled by bureaucrats. This view is not borne out by experience. The proof of Communism’s failing in the real world has been the need for industrial espionage. Industrial espionage is the only way Communist societies can keep up with technological advances, since innovation does not happen under bureaucratic rule. Next, corruption. As I pointed out in chapter 21, corruption is
an inevitable part of secular Socialist or Communist states. Going back to consider the society Marx offers us by fixing everything from the nuclear family to the family of nations, we find ourselves in possession of a roadmap to utopia. But is it really such a map? What is it really? It is a protected environment in which a Jew may finally feel no threat. Under the conditions Marx prescribes, there is no way to consider the Jew as separate or different. Marx has given us a roadmap for the benefit of a few, under the clever guise of salvation for all. It has been very easy for other aggrieved social groups to be intoxicated by the cyanide of Marxism. It has simplicity and claims universality. It is understandable to the masses. It is the most parsimonious explanation of culture ever devised, and usually the most parsimonious explanation is the one likely to describe reality best. But not always. It also has an allure for intellectuals, because it is clearly elitist. It makes absolutely clear that the proletariat needs to be led by elite
cognoscenti, because the workers’ ability to determine what is in
their best long-term interests is subject to bourgeois meddling.
The people, Marxists claim, are susceptible to intoxicants such as
religion, “the opiate of the masses.” Marxism is tempting to the
academics, intellectuals, and society’s overeducated misfits
because it gives a leadership role to them. It also gives them a
secular religion, which is easier to live with than nihilism or
existentialism. As a religion, it supplies the third of Kant’s
“regulative principles” discussed earlier. Raymond Aron once
commented, “Marxism is the opiate of the intellectuals.” Very
true. I do not think that Marx consciously developed his
philosophy to make the world “safe for Jews.” In fact, he despised
Jews. No Nazi anti-Semitic tract could take a backseat to Marx’
two essays on “The Jewish Question.” But he grew up in a milieu in
which the dilemma of assimilation was real for him, and his
response was based on the general question of the place for the
“other.” 1 Robert C. Tucker, The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed. (New York: WW
Norton and Co., 1987), 473. 8 Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property
and the State, trans. by Alec West (New York: International
Publishers, 1973), 138. Karl Marx was not the only pioneer on the Jewish Left. His contemporary, Ferdinand Lassalle, was more practical in his approach to Socialism. Lassalle was born Ferdinand Lassal to a middle-class Jewish family in Breslau in 1825. From the point of view of our history, the most important thing he did was to found the first German Workers’ Party (Allgemeiner Deutscher Arbeiterverein) in 1863. Lasalle was a popular figure among actual workers.1 Marx was a cold theoretician and did not relate well to real workers. Actually, he didn’t relate well to most human beings. Marx preferred workers who had the decency to remain abstract. Thus it is not surprising that Lassalle’s influence at the time was far greater than that of Marx, although Marx’ eventual impact on the world was to be infinitely greater and infinitely more malevolent. The thrust of Lassalle’s work was to put the representatives of workers into the political structure, thus to become eventual participants in government. Marxists opposed collaboration with the existing system; Marxian Communists considered working through the established structures to be a betrayal of the eventual proletarian revolution. The Socialists (including the followers of Lassalle) who worked through the parliamentary structure eventually formed the Social Democratic Party (SPD) of Germany. By 1914, the SPD was the largest single party in the Reichstag (Parliament). The SPD was the political organ of the German Workers’ Party. At the time of the founding of the German Workers’ Party, the German emperor (Kaiser) was Wilhelm I. But more importantly, the chancellor was Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was the real power. “In May 1863, Prussia has two despots, Bismarck and Lassalle. The former wields the power of which the latter dreams.”2 What the author means is that Lassalle as leader of the Socialist movement has more power than Bismarck as chancellor of the empire. What to do? Bismarck invites Lassalle for a series of chats! Taking into account the rigid social structure of Prussia, it is hard to imagine a Prussian Junker (nobleman) inviting a Jew for a series of chats, but it happened. They found they had something in common. The power of the state: During the first half hour, the two agree that they have a “common metaphysical ground”. The Junker wields the power of the State. The Hegelian [Lassalle] is the advocate of the power of the State…for both of them the State signifies the restriction on individual liberty. For both of them the idea of the State has a dictatorial character. Bismarck, being the arch enemy of the bourgeoisie, needs the sympathy of the proletariat…Lassalle…urges the inauguration of State enterprises…[This] notion appeals strongly to Bismarck. The State as entrepreneur—this would mean a huge increase in the economic powers of the State. The king, who is already chief judge, chief priest, and chief soldier, would become chief factory owner! It implies the extension of State supremacy into the domain of industry. The State will undertake social reform. The program which brings Bismarck and Lassalle together is one
which aims at increasing State authority and at the weakening of
liberalism.3 The German Jewish Socialists and Communists are but the age-old continuation of the Jewish sickness of supporting centralist tendencies in government. In the case of Germany, the Frankenstein effect will be horrific under the Third Reich. But as always, few Jews will learn the obvious lesson despite the terrible cost. The Great War (World War I) was the most destabilizing and damaging event in the history of the modern world. It led to the simultaneous collapse of the Russian, AustroHungarian, German, and Ottoman empires (1917–1919). The stability of the old world, for all of its flaws, was lost at one stroke. With this loss, the chance of controlled evolution toward a better world was lost for at least a century. While the Ottoman and Russian empires might have been hopeless, at least the German and Austro-Hungarian empires contained elements that could have produced positive change. Instead we have reaped Blood and Terror until the collapse of the Soviet Empire. While historians and philosophers will debate forever the causes of the Great War, my take is almost simplistic. The unlucky coincidence of Power and Chance in the hands of a deeply flawed personality allowed one man to give the order to open the Gates of Hell. Although Kaiser Wilhelm II did not create the demons of Hell, he unleashed them. But we must narrow our scope and return to Central Europe. Following any political change, even so much as a routine national election when the endpoints of change are reasonably predictable, there are still unexpected consequences. How much the more so when an entire government collapses overnight with no mechanism of succession in place. So it was in Germany in November, 1918. The Kaiser’s government evaporated overnight. In the face of the power vacuum, one of the first events was a naval mutiny by 40,000 radicalized sailors from the naval base at Kiel. The sailors fanned out through Germany, agitating for a Socialist revolution.4 In the meantime, a provisional government was set up by the SPD, the largest party in the Reichstag. Needless to say, this was a time of unprecedented chaos and confusion in Germany, the details of which are beyond the scope of this book. We will, however look at a few characters and events in this tragedy. During and before the Great War, two German Jews assumed leadership positions within the left-wing political camp of the German Empire. Karl Liebknecht was one. He was one of the leaders of the German Socialist Party (SPD). But he felt that the SPD was not radical enough, and he became one of the founders of the Spartacist League (Spartakusbund) in 1916. In this endeavor he was joined by Rosa Luxemburg, a Marxist revolutionary born in Poland, but active in Germany. Building on the sailors’ revolt, the Spartacists attempted a takeover of the state in Berlin and other cities. These events happened in the first weeks of 1919. By this time, the Spartacus League had become the Communist party of Germany (KPD). The revolt was quickly and bloodily suppressed by a mixture of government troops and right-wing volunteers called Freikorps (Free Corps). The Free Corps were unemployed demobilized soldiers unhappy with German defeat. They were easily induced to form reactionary forces willing to do the bidding of the extreme Right. They were to form the embryo of Hitler’s SA. The shaky government of postwar Germany felt obliged to make use of these troops, despite the risk of making deals with the devil. In the process of suppressing the Communist revolt in Berlin, the Freikorps murdered Leibknecht and Luxemburg.5 It is hard to unconditionally condemn Leibknecht and Luxemburg within the context of the political and social situation in Germany at that time. Jews were certainly threatened by forces of the Right, while tyrannies of the Left were as yet unknown. What is unforgivable is the activity of the Jewish Left in the modern United States because they know where Communism leads. Despite this knowledge, they continue the same attack on pillars of liberty in the land that has given them haven. Savage Ingratitude! Bavaria Efforts to establish a stable and legitimate government after the assassination failed. It was followed in early April, 1919 by a takeover by “a strange band of tribunes… the anarchist philosopher Gustav Landauer, the young dramatist Ernst Toller, the poet of Bohemian life, Erich Muhsam, whose chief political act was the writing of some verses called ‘Der Lampenputzer’ which slanged the Majority Socialists, and a demented academic named Dr. Franz Lipp, who assumed the post of Foreign Minister and immediately dispatched a telegram to ‘Comrade Pope, Peter’s Cathedral, Rome’ in which he accused [the former Prime Minister] of having absconded with the key to his toilet.”8 Unfortunately, this entire pack of lunatics was Jewish. The Communist leadership in Moscow was at this time hoping for worldwide revolution. Therefore, events in Bavaria were important to them. Moscow felt that Germany, and then France and Italy, would fall to Communism very shortly. Given the importance of Bavaria in this scheme of things, orders came from Moscow to replace the group of clowns above with their agent Eugene Levine. This occurred on April 13. A Communist dictatorship was established, and recruitment for a Red army began.9 These were serious Communists, who did not let details such as the will of the people get in the way of establishing utopia on earth. However, it was not to be. An amalgam of regular army forces and Freikorps ended the event as well as the lives of most of those involved. Germany was becoming stable. The Weimar Republic was about to begin its short and tragic history. Hungary The First World War ended. As noted above, the Austro-Hungarian Empire had been the glue holding together a polyglot and multinational population. With the end of the war, the glue evaporated, literally overnight. Millions of people had to figure out to what nation they now belonged. The confusion that arrived in November of 1918 is still not resolved at the onset of the twenty-first century. The attempt to create fair and acceptable borders for the Hungarians, as well as the other peoples, was complicated by the mixture of races, especially at the border areas. The Hungary that finally emerged in the early 1920s was considerably reduced in size from what might have been expected due to multiple political reasons.11 The intricacies of interwar European politics are far too complex to be addressed as such. I will mention them only as is necessary in the course of general exposition. We will return to a consideration of Hungary. The postwar government was conditioned by the events of the late nineteenth century. Hungary came of political age under the influence of German Socialism: Socialism was brought to Hungary in 1860’s literally in the knapsacks of itinerant Hungarian, Austrian, Bohemian, and German journeymen who had been exposed to the ideas of Ferdinand Lassal and Karl Marx while learning their trades in Germany. On February 23, 1868, these men founded the first politically motivated group of Budapest proletariat, the General Workers’ Association…Socially, the preponderance of foreignborn skilled workers and immigrant Jewish craftsmen in the first Hungarian workingman’s associations made such groups appear as distinctly alien phenomena, and hence of dubious value in a xenophobic country.12 Hungary was largely an agricultural country in the 1860s. But by 1918, there had been enough industrialization for the creation of “a relatively small but politically and culturally conscious urban middle class made up of impoverished gentry, Hungarian and German craftsmen, and recent Jewish immigrants from Galicia.”13 That the ideas of Socialism had become sufficiently widespread is given strength by the almost bloodless devolution of power upon the moderate Count Mihaly Karoli following the end of World War I. He was willing to consider a Socialist government, coupled with land redistribution, as the most accommodating solution to the demands of the varied interests of the population.14 Added to the problems of internal administration, there were external problems consequent to the collapse of the empire. The question of borders with the Czechs to the north and the Romanians to the east led to open warfare. One of the long-term consequences of this struggle was the loss of Transylvania to Hungary. An immediate consequence of the confusion was the takeover of the government by a Communist-dominated minority on March 21, 1919. The leadership was almost entirely Jewish: the dictatorial power rested with Bela Kun (Kohn), and the Red Army was commanded by Matyas Rakosi (Rosenkrantz).15 There was a special squad of roaming hooligans used to terrorize the people. Its leader was Tibor Szamuelly, and its members were called “Lenin’s Boys.” The Communist regime was hoping for support from the Soviet Union, but the Russian Revolutionaries were involved in their own fight against the Whites. Thus the Hungarian Republic had to fight alone against its own internal enemies, as well as the Romanian armies still active in the field. This Communist domination was bloody, brutal, and brief. The end came for the Hungarian Communists when Budapest fell to the Romanians. With the support of the French, an army of counterrevolutionaries under the command of (Hungarian) Admiral Horthy took control of Hungary and purged the country of Communists and Communist allies. The Horthy regime, however, was broad enough to include some anti-Communist, Socialist elements. One of these was Gyula Gombos, who stated that Hungarian Socialism did not require expropriation of all private property and that Hungarian Socialism aimed at preserving personal initiative. His assessment of the flaws of Marxist Communism were prescient: “Marx’s state, in the final analysis, will be nothing but a bureaucratic state, without any dynamism [and] full of boring people who are nothing but lifeless parts of a great social machine.”16 Following the defeat of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, the surviving Communists fled to Austria or Russia. Bela Kun fled to Russia, where he was a victim of one of Stalin’s purges. The Frankenstein effect again. Meanwhile, Horthy’s regime continued to rule without interference until 1940, when Nazi Germany pressured the regime into an alliance. Horthy was not enthusiastic about the alliance, but had to choose between acquiescence or outright German takeover. Just before the final stages of the war, the Nazis did take over the direct rule of Hungary.17 However, the collapse of the German armies made the takeover brief. Some of the Hungarian Communists who had fled to the USSR survived Stalin’s purges. They came riding back into Hungary on the tanks of the Red Army. Again they were led by Jews: Erno Gero and Matyas Rakosi. (Again. Like a bad penny.) This time, although no less dedicated to total control, they were much more subtle: In the early postwar period the miniscule Communist party under Muscovite (generic term for the returning Communists) leadership advocated a coalition government, praised the principle of democracy, and preached the necessity of collaborating with the Catholic Church. The Muscovites publicly extolled the bourgeois and peasant leaders of the coalition as progressive and reliable democrats who were entitled to share leadership of the country.18 In addition to deception, they also were cunning enough to
distribute land to the peasants, but they were sure to make the
allotments too small for successful farming. Thus they were able
to impose collective farming as a necessary measure to “save” the
peasants. Hillary Clinton, take notice! The power of the police increased by the establishment of People’s Courts. This was one of the first institutions introduced in all countries under Soviet occupation. The activities of these courts contributed considerably to the creation of an atmosphere of fear, intimidation, and insecurity.19 We have only to remember the “courts” during the Reign of Terror in Revolutionary France or the legal system in Nazi Germany to realize the power of a corrupt judicial system. That is a prime reason why, in the U.S., we need to rein in the tendency for liberals to use the court system to injure the body politic. Hungary had the misfortune of suffering Communism twice. For all
its misfortunes, Poland suffered only one Communist episode. Poland The deportations of one and a half million Poles—mostly Catholic—to the Soviet Gulag traumatized the entire Polish nation and that happened before the Shoah [italics in original]. Polish children were starved and gassed, Polish parents were taken to Germany and worked to death as forced laborers. The nation was brutalized to the point which I am afraid would have been incomprehensible to secure middle-class Americans even if they learned about it from textbooks which they have not, for this section of history has been excised from American memory as well. Have we ever heard from Jewish organizations any words of sympathy for the unspeakable tragedy, suffering and losses that befell the Jews’ Polish brethren in World War II…Between three and four million Polish Christians were killed during World War II by two sides, Nazis and Soviets. In a book entitled Maus, a Jewish cartoonist, Art Spiegelman, presented Polish people in World War II as secure pigs, who looked indifferently at Jewish suffering. That such a racist and mendacious book is taught in American schools and universities today is a great injustice to Poles. And this is happening today, even as we speak, and not in some remote point in the past; and it is perpetrated by educated and supposedly responsible people, teachers and university professors. This book is also prominently displayed in the Houston Holocaust Museum’s bookstore. In spite of the terror imposed on Poland in World War II, there was no systematic collaboration with the Nazis. None. Zero. There were no SS units composed of Poles. There was in Poland no Vichy government. You cannot find any document written by any member of the Polish Government or the underground resistance that condones or encourages turning in Jews to the Nazis. This was rather exceptional in Nazi-occupied Europe, but it has been elbowed out of American Jewish memory. The third segment of Polish history which needs correction in American Jewish memory has to do with the Polish-Jewish relations under the Soviet occupation in 1939–41 and again, in the decade following World War II [emphasis in original]. A book published by Princeton University Press and titled Revolution from Abroad: the Soviet Conquest of Poland’s Western Ukraine and Western Byelorussia, says that when the Soviet army attacked in September, 1939, it was met, consistently and repeatedly, by friendly Jewish crowds. After these greetings there took place arrests, executions and deportations to the Gulag of persons who were predominantly Polish and Catholic. Poles expect the responsible members of the Jewish community to recognize that there took place in the first two years of World War II and after the war, a massive collaboration of Jewish Poles with the Soviet occupiers, a collaboration which contributed to numerous Polish Christian deaths and family tragedies. Joseph Stalin appointed Jakub Berman as the virtual dictator of Poland between 1945–1953. How many Polish Christian lives did Jakub Berman waste, only God knows. Sources speak of 30,000 Polish patriots who were arrested and killed under his supervision. Have we ever heard any Jewish organization condemn Jakub Berman and express sympathy to Poles who suffered under his terror for nine long years?20 The above passage is truly a cry from the heart. The only thing I could add to it is the failure of the Jewish community to address as well the similar situations in Russia, the Ukraine, Germany, and Hungary. 1 Rudolf Coper, Failure of a Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1955), 18. 2 Arno Schirokaurer, Lassalle: The Power of Illusion and the
Illusion of Power, trans. by Eden and Cedar Paul (New York: The
Century Co., 1932), 259. 3 Ibid., 260–261. 4 Gordon A Craig, Germany: 1866–1945 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978), 400. 10 A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1809–1918 (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1976), 11. 11 Ibid., 253. 12 Rudolf L. Tokes, Bela Kun and the Hungarian Soviet Republic
(Stanford, CA: F.A. Praeger, 1967), 15. 13 Ibid., 16. 15 Answers.com: Oxford University Press. sv “Bela Kun”; “Matyas
Rokasi.” 16 Corvinus Library. Chapt. 6: Refugee Participation in
the Revolution and Counterrevolution, October 1918–August 1919.
www.hungarian-history.hu In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the thinking of leaders in American business and education began to change. The change paralleled that seen in the Protestant religion among the New England elite. As far as education is concerned, this is not surprising, as the leaders in education were largely from the same class as the business elite. Among American businessmen the change seems to have occurred in the children of the “robber barons” rather than in the persons of the founding generation itself. I do not know the reason(s) for the change, but I do know that this is one thing that cannot be blamed on the Jews. America was blessed not to have a stable, hereditary aristocratic class. One became important on the basis of achievement, and no field of endeavor was as well respected as business. Our great nation came into existence with the Industrial Revolution and grew great because of it. Railways knit the country together through trade, and telegraphy allowed the transmission of data that guided the flow of commodities. Through the miracle of freedom under law, we developed the greatest nation the world has ever seen. It could not have been done in the absence of free trade, of the fortuitous concatenation of a new continent, of the Industrial Revolution, and of English cultural heritage. If the colonization of North America had occurred a century earlier, lack of communications would have doomed us to the centrifugal forces that afflict Central and South America. If we had been colonized under a tyrannical Spanish aristocracy and the intolerant Roman Catholic Church of the Inquisition, our liberty would not exist. We are who we are only by grace of a confluence of events that are unique in the history of civilization. We must not lose this miracle! John D. Rockefeller Andrew Carnegie In the case of the oil and steel cartels, both Rockefeller and Carnegie argued the advantages of economy of scale in support of their respective monopolies. Rockefeller was also able to argue that the precipitous price drops due to oil oversupply could only be dealt with by monopoly. In fact, at one point, the price of oil was so low “that the wooden barrel was worth almost twice as much as its contents”!4 It is true that there was chaos in the production and refining of oil, and that price stability was obtained, but at what cost? General Case I discussed Rockefeller and Carnegie because they were the two most important and well-known entrepreneurs of the era of rapid industrialization. There were many more, such as Jay Gould, Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, E. H. Harriman, and William Randolph Hearst. What they had in common was the creation of large enterprises that they personally owned and controlled. At the present time, most large enterprises are controlled by diverse shareholders through joint-stock companies, and thus the businesses lack the imprint of the personality of the original founder. Most of today’s large businesses are run by university-trained MBAs who are essentially glorified technocrats. They have all had essentially the same training. In France, this training is called formation. In German it is called Bildung. Let us look at these words. Formation relates clearly at the English term formation. Bildung is related to the English term building. Both of these foreign terms give us a clearer appreciation of the limitations to be expected in the minds of these private sector bureaucrats. After such “formation” are they still able to think independently? These terms also warn us that these managers have little to gain by resisting government encroachment. In fact, they could work in government just as easily as in private industry. After all, a bureaucrat is a bureaucrat is a bureaucrat. That tells us something about the ease with which big business has accepted racial preferences and a host of other “politically correct” government policies. The Heirs II Education Although this section on education and the following one on religion are written in the form of biographical sketches, I will use the studies of these individuals to demonstrate how their ideas shaped the culture of their times. Their influence is still felt today. Horace Mann (1796–1859) is the first man who might be called a student of education in U.S. history. Living at a time when education was haphazard, he began the process of giving primary education its current structure. It was he who championed free, compulsory, and universal public education. He also founded the first teachers’ colleges in the U.S. Some of the imprints of his personal beliefs and those of many of his academic contemporaries are seen grafted onto the primitive educational establishment of his time. First, Mann disbelieved in free will.7 As a determinist, he believed in the perfectibility of man.8 However, perfection could not be achieved by leaving control of education in the hands of the masses. Educational policy was to be directed mainly toward character development; literacy and mathematics were necessary, but secondary.9 Accordingly, parental involvement in school policy was not encouraged.10 Since character formation is so important, it must be left to the moral and intellectual elite; it is beyond the scope of the common man. Proof of this is that the common man believed in revealed religion: a clear indication of intellectual failing.11 It was his desire to mold society by control of education.12 He and his type would be only too happy to provide the mold. Mann hated competition: What sort of person was Mann? Messerli describes him thus: A contemporary critic accused him promoting “liberal goals…by illiberal means.”15 It should surprise no one that he took as his model the Prussian educational system. The modern educational Mafia rightly claims him as their role model.16 Elite Peabody had a strong sense of Christianity, without being overly concerned with dogma. He had come from a Unitarian family, but the spiritual sterility of Unitarian practice left him unsatisfied, hence he became Episcopalian. His faith was deep, and it was mixed with a strong sense of moral rectitude. What was pronounced in his faith, in contrast to the earlier Puritans, was his concern with morality in the public sphere. He refused to limit religious obligation to the personal relationship between God and man. It will be from this, as we will see, that internationalist and interventionist U.S. proclivities of the post–WW II mentality will spring, that is, from a misplaced sense of noblesse oblige. He was a strong believer in family and tradition. The two beliefs in internationalism and traditionalism were bound to eventually conflict. The graduates of his school were strong enough to shape U.S. foreign and domestic policy. Under people like Franklin Roosevelt, Averill Harriman, and Dean Acheson, it was bound to lead us, as a nation, down a road to tragic involvement in what can only be described as an updated version of “the white man’s burden.” An attempt to transplant democracy to parts of the world to which it is alien betrays on our part a form of cultural imperialism. In domestic affairs, too, it encouraged a sense of superiority on the part of a small elite over the (presumed) limited capacity of the masses. Its domestic imperialism may have been less blunt than that of Mann, but it was no less arrogant. It will be tragic, when, in the last quarter of the twentieth century the forces of Mann and Peabody will merge to nurture a formidable beast called Political Correctness. III Religion By 1820 the Unitarian faith was the “religion of record” in Boston. It had come to dominate Harvard and the Boston Ministerial Association.18 Since the Unitarian “confession” could consist of whatever one wished, or nothing at all, its adherents were left with no moral compass. Numerous other Protestant denominations have taken the same road, although maintaining a tenuous connection to Christian Gospel. One could suspend belief while still holding membership in a confessing domination. So we have similar minds in diverse denominations. But the need for meaning was universal. As Kant pointed out, one cannot believe in nothing, so we will see Unitarians taking three main directions: (1) Social Darwinism, (2) Philosophical religion, and(3) Socialism quâ Social Gospel. If Darwin was right, and man is the high point of evolution, one
could presume evolution would continue in a progressive way: Along with this unbounded optimism, Darwinism made Christianity subject to the “German Disease,” that is the concept of the changing basis of reality, or, at least the perception thereof. The door was left open for Hegel, and all his successors, one of whom was Karl Marx. The second philosophical approach is seen in the works of Emerson, the other Transcendentalists, and people such as Mme. Helene Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy. It also is the way of the Kabbalah. It is frequently referred to as “syncretic” because it attempts to unite diverse elements by determining their underlying unity. Today some of its manifestations are called “New Age” religion. In modern times this syncretic approach to religion inevitably appealed to those who were fascinated or troubled by the increase of knowledge about other world religions. Emerson and his transcendental friends inspired a revival of serious study of the eastern religions. Later in the century, both in Europe and in America, the alluring message of the Hindu and Buddhist scriptures began to be known—especially after Max Muller’s multivolume edition of Eastern scriptures (1875–1901) became available. Not only did “reincarnation,” “Karma,” and “nirvana” enter the American religious vocabulary, but one or another of the Eastern religions often became an alternative for those who were dissatisfied with or untouched by the more traditional forms of Judeo-Christian religion.20 A third way is best exemplified by citing the work of a typical exponent of Social Gospel. Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) lived during the high point of the Social Gospel movement. He was a professor of theology at Rochester Theological Seminary (currently Colgate Crozier Divinity School) in Rochester, New York. My first quote demonstrates the tie between religion and social action: This insistence on Christian morality as the only thing God cares about us is of fundamental importance for the question before us…The prophets were the heralds of the fundamental truth that religion and ethics are inseparable, and that ethical conduct is the supreme and sufficient religious act. If that principle had been fully adopted in our religious life, it would have turned the full force of the religious impulse into the creation of right moral conduct and would have made the unchecked growth and accumulation of injustice impossible.21 The tie to the “social” is shown by Rauschenbusch’s belief in the discredited “labor theory of value,”22 and the statement “If we want approximate political equality, we must have approximate economic equality.”23 There is the usual complaint that the extremes of wealth and poverty are great and becoming greater.24 I cannot think of one liberal democrat since FDR who has not made that claim, yet it was not true in 1916, and it is not true in 2008, or in all the intervening years. As this chapter ends, I want to make clear that the sequence just related above of progression from Calvinism to Unitarianism to Social Darwinism to Philosophical Religion to Social Gospel was not a necessary progression. None of these belief systems is predicated on the prior existence of the others. It was the peculiar events of the American Experience that explains them and their sequence. 1 Allan Nevins, John D. Rockefeller: The Heroic Age of American
Enterprise, vol. I (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), 80. 2 Joseph Frazier Wall, Andrew Carnegie (Pittsburgh, PA:
University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970), 132, 429, 430, 968–969. 7 Jonathan Messerli, Horace Mann: A Biography (New York: Alfred
A. Knop, 1972), 214. 18 Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 396–397. 21 Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis
(London: McMillan and Co. Ltd, 1916), 7. In this, the last chapter on the declension of American Protestantism, I will show it to have arrived at the “God is dead” stage. I will use primarily the work of Episcopal Bishop John Spong to illustrate at what point we have arrived at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Firstly and appropriately, Mr. Spong tells us what he does not believe. He lists the five fundamentals of Reform Protestant religion which he denies:1 1.The inspiration of Scripture as the literal, revealed word of
God. 2.The virgin birth as the miraculous and literal means by which
the divine nature of Christ has been guaranteed. 4.The certainty of the physical bodily resurrection of Jesus from
the dead. The accuracy of both the empty-tomb and the appearance
stories in the gospel tradition. He does not accept God as a supernatural being; he does not believe that God interferes with human existence, or with any natural phenomenon.2 He states that he is not a theist, which is pretty clear from the preceding. But he denies that he is an atheist. However, by functional definition, most people would consider him so. But how one defines one’s personal belief system is just that: personal. His belief system would fail many people, inadequate to answer the most common human needs, at least for those of us in the West. An eloquent quote from Pascal (Blase Pascal, 1623–1662, French Philosopher) expresses these needs: We flounder in vast waters, always uncertain and floating, tossed here and there. Whatever support we hope to find is insecure and leaves us; and if we pursue it, it eludes our grasp, and continuously glides away from us, forever evading us; nothing waits for us. This is our natural state, but one most alien to our desire. We burn with the desire to find a firm and constant base, upon which to build a tower to the heavens, but our very foundation cracks, and the earth splits open beneath us.3 Let us look at the alternative Bishop Spong offers us: I have taken this quote from his book A New Christianity for a New World. The subtitle is Why Traditional Faith is Dying and How a New Faith is Being Born. William James, in his work The Varieties of Religious Experience, cites a passage printed in 1901 on “Cosmic Consciousness” which is almost verbatim what Spong gives us above. What Spong is saying is hardly “new.” If we really wanted to trace it down, his thought processes would take us back to Boehme, Fichte, and Hegel. Not only is it not new, it is hackneyed in comparison to the far better prose of the classic mystical religious writers. What Spong offers would not be far removed from any of a number of Eastern traditions. However, the Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and Confucianism come from cultures in which they are deeply grounded, and of which they are a longstanding part. Spong offers “New Age” thought to a flock that is unreceptive. He acknowledges that he is speaking to a small minority: “At its core, this group will be a small minority of the population, but they will be augmented by a much larger group of fellow travelers.”5 At the same time he faults the mainline churches for failing to meet the needs of the people, and notes that they are losing congregants as a consequence. He fails to notice a simple and profound truth: the people are not leaving the mainline churches; the mainline churches are leaving the people. It is his arrogance, and the arrogance of his “fellow travelers,” that assures him that he is a modern-day Moses who can decide for the masses what they should and should not believe. The principle difference between him and his ilk as compared to similar mystical writers noted by William James in the chapter, “Mysticism in Varieties of Religious Experience,” is that the nineteenth-century mystics were not evangelically driven to take control of the thought processes of the benighted masses. That is, they lacked the arrogance of Spong, et al. I say this in order to shield mystics, happy in their beliefs but not seeking to destroy the belief systems of others. Having eliminated God from any role in human affairs, Spong has given to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to Caesar what is God’s. Caesar has become omnipotent: Church and State are one. Now we can go to the Political Correctness police for uniform enforcement. They know what to do: group rights, such as racial preferences. Increase taxation of the rich to fund utopian giveaway programs to those who choose not to work. The assignment of “victim status” upon everyone who is not a white male. Gutting freedom of speech by banning “hate speech” (to be defined by the Left). Enforcement is the real issue. During the Spanish Inquisition, priests determined who was a heretic. But the Church itself did not burn the heretics at the stake. They turned them over to the secular authorities for execution. So it is with the mainline churches. They depend upon the forces of the state to redistribute wealth, to create a whole new category of “hate crimes,” to implement group rights, forced busing, and a host of other depredations upon a free people. In this the Spongs are like their Puritan forbearers in their arrogant intolerance of any who might question their goodness—or their power. It is useful to look for a moment at who these people are. Most of them come from wealthy East Coast Protestant establishment families. Many have gone to Ivy League colleges and have had no real contact with people who actually work for a paycheck. But they are no strangers to the semiliterate young Negroes they have fished out of ghettos to place in elite schools. These token Negroes have the job of being angry and of reminding these clerics that they, too, are the recipients of white privilege. This white liberal guilt has now become the “original sin” for the “WASPS.” In the field of religion, little disappears; it just takes on new guises. These elite themselves frequently have trust funds and hold secured positions in well-endowed churches; therefore they need selfimposed scourges like token Negroes or waspy feminists to assuage their sense of guilt. There has been a strange but direct evolution from Jonathan Edwards (Sinners in the hands of an angry God) to sinners by virtue of race, class, and gender. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more it changes, the more it is the same thing.) The truly noble and honest action for these clerics would be to leave the church. It is hypocrisy to remain in clerical garb. But to leave the church…to leave the cushy job, the pension plan, the adoring looks of fellow-travelers…that is a lot to ask. It might mean having to get a real job to supplement the trust fund income. These men and women would be ridiculous, they would be pitiful, they would be marginal, they would be an embarrassment….except that they have power. They are connected to the foundations, the universities, the large corporations, and the highest levels of government. They are dangerous to a free society. We ignore them at our peril. 1 John S. Spong, A New Christianity for a New World (San
Francisco: HarperCollins Co., 2001), 2. 2 Ibid., 3–4. 3 Blasé Pascal, Pensées (extraits), trans. by author (Paris:
Nouveaux Classiques Larousse: Imprimerie Larousse, 1965), 113. Herman Weil was a Prussian Jewish millionaire who made his money in the free enterprise system. He was a major shipper of grain from Argentina to Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century. He was personally known to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who consulted him regarding the German war effort. The kaiser “liked the optimism and certainty of victory in his reports.” He advised the kaiser to initiate submarine warfare. “His role in the war as ‘father of submarine warfare’ was in the end seen to have been disastrous.”1 We have another iteration of Joseph helping Pharaoh. Two points are key here: firstly, Weil made his money in the free-market system, and, secondly, he tried to be of help to the autocratic German state. He had a son named Felix who became a dilettante in art, and a “patron of the left.” This history is so common among Jews that it is the norm. However, while most run-of-the-mill Jewish Communists produced moderate harm to society, Felix Weil was truly in the big leagues. Using some of the money of the family fortune, he established an institute in Frankfurt, Germany. This occurred immediately after the close of WW I. Its purpose was to promote Marxism and work for the eventual triumph of Communism in the world. The use of money made in the free-market system to destroy the free-market system should have a name. I will call it the “Soros Phenomenon.” The question of naming the Institute shows some deception: Weil originally was going to include Marxism in the title, but decided to use the more innocuous title “Institute for Social Research.” It was run “as a dictatorship of the director.” “In our Institute, it seems to me that sharing the directorship, especially with individuals of other ideological or methodological viewpoints, is quite out of the question.”2 We will see this recur decades later when the personnel of the Institute flee to the United States. It is currently called “political correctness,” but is more accurately called left-wing fascism. It was not coincidence alone that led the Institute to Frankfurt: “a city which had the highest percentage of Jews in the population of any German town and the best known and, after Berlin, the second largest Jewish community.”3 It also had a Socialist city government and had a long history of having been a “free” city, that is, a politically independent entity in what had been a fractured German-speaking mass of small states. The Institute was accepted as a department within Frankfurt University, because the Institute offered to endow a professorial chair at the university. Money was scarce after WW I, so this financial bait worked. The Institute itself was financially independent, which gave the university an added department at no expense. As it paid its own way, the Institute was free of university meddling.4 At the time the Institute was founded, it was clearly Marxist-Communist. One of its founding professors, Carl Grunberg, stated “Marxism will now have a home.”5 The founder, Felix Weil, was clear regarding his hope for the future of his Institute; “ ‘Weil’s heartfelt wish,’ recalled Rosa Meyer-Levine, ‘was still to create a foundation similar to the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow—equipped with a staff of professors and students, with libraries and archives—and one day present it to a German Soviet Republic.’ ” It would turn out that the description of the Institute would eventually describe the state of affairs on the campuses of the elite American universities at the end of the twentieth century. The progress of the Institute in Frankfurt was cut short by the advent of Hitler. But Weil had enough foresight to transfer the assets of the Institute to Switzerland. This gave him the leverage necessary to transfer the Institute to Columbia University in New York, under arrangements similar to those at Frankfurt University. As we will see in the chapter entitled Anschluss, the Jewish Left infiltrates American society by using “cofactors.” These cofactors are usually WASP leftists or fellowtravelers. In the case of the Institute, it was Robert S. Lynd, a radical professor of sociology at Columbia. Behind the scenes, he pulled the right strings to get a favorable decision from the president of the university.6 It was also (again!) helpful that the Institute could fund itself. Now we look at the rats that fled the sinking ship. Who came to the U.S. with and from the Institute? I will list some of their names: Franz Neumann, Karl Mannheim, Otto Kirchheim, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and last but not least, Herbert Marcuse. These men were all Jews, and mostly, if not entirely, Marxists. They came to the U.S., and oddly, a number of them found work with the OSS, the precursor of the CIA. That was because they were anti-Nazi. That they were anti-American was determined only when it was too late. The OSS veterans, joined by the others, subsequently found work in the U.S. university system. The evil they accomplished is seen on the campuses today with the fascistic restrictions on freedom of speech and the Marxist indoctrination so common in the social sciences and humanities. Of all of the ills perpetrated by the Jewish Left on the U.S., this one is at once the worst and the least visible. Thus it is the most insidious. German Jewish Jurists I will present here a brief sketch of the evolution of these two kinds of law in the West. The law on the continent of Europe goes back to codes of law first introduced by the Roman Empire. It was easier to rule masses of subject peoples by promulgating a onesize-fits-all code to cover a vast heterogeneous (multicultural?) empire. Many other codes were promulgated in limited areas of Europe, but the principle went back to the Roman model. The next major code of law was the Napoleonic Code that applied to France and to all the territories under French bayonets. With the fall of Napoleon, the various disparate legal systems that predated the Code were reinstated. But slowly, the advantage of a uniform Code that gave all citizens equal status before the law, while at the same time preserving the supremacy of the state, became too tempting for statists to resist. Therein, dear Reader, lies the reason positive law is so loved by the Jewish Left. Positive law is the right hand of the autocrat, and the Jewish Left has always been partial to autocrats. But our concern here is limited to German law. Regarding the evolution of German law, the English jurist Leonard Schapiro has this to say: “In the absence of common law, the source of validity of the law for the rationalists of the German nineteenth century became the state; and the dominant doctrine in German law, right up to the advent of National Socialism, was positivism.”7 We can now look at specific German Jewish jurists. Our first example is Eduard Gans (1789–1839). He studied under Hegel (this does not bode well). He became a jurist, but discovered that he could not advance without abjuring Judaism, so he became an apostate. Here we see his denial of “particularism” by becoming just like everybody else. But it was not enough that just he become like everybody else: he concluded that Judaism had “degenerated” because of its isolation. He began an organization to promote “progress” in Jewish thinking (Verein fur Kultur und Wissenschaft der Judentum). Boiled down to its essentials, the organization was merely a tool to deconstruct traditional Judaism. It was no different from today’s Reform “Judaism.” Further rewarding him for rejecting particularism, the government promoted him to full professor at Berlin University. 8 (With few exceptions, all university professors were and are state employees in Europe. Who pays the piper calls the tune. If you are a piper, it is a good idea to be on good terms with the payer. The Jewish Left knows this very well.) More recently, and more ominously, two jurists who helped shape the German legal system were Jews. They played major roles in creating the Rechsstaat, that is a state with a legal code that is binding just because it an act of the state. It is the quintessence of positive law. The first of these jurists was Georg Jellinek (1851–1911). Of Jellinek, Schapiro writes: Jellinek was immediately followed by another Jewish jurist, Hans
Kelsen (1881–1973). Of Kelsen, Schapiro writes: Now Kelsen’s motive for so defining law was with the best of intent: he wanted to clear the road for a benign Socialist system and natural law was not flexible enough for him. For him, law was instrumental in nature, a means to an end. In the event, Kelsen had to flee the Nazis. His place was taken by a German of Aryan lineage (Carl Schmitt), who took the next logical step and identified the state with one man. And so we have come to the final evolution of law as Rechsstaat. We were led almost to the end by the Jewish Left, and if we replace the name “Hitler” with “Stalin,” they would have taken us through the last step also. Here is a clear example of the Frankenstein Effect, in which the creation turns upon the creator. The worst part of the story is yet to come: Kelsen was given a full professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. Franz Neumann (1900–1954) is unfortunately a good example of another attribute of the Jewish Left: ingratitude. But to study his case, we need to review a little German history. After the German defeat in WW I, the kaiser abdicated, leaving the Reichstag (Parliament) the legitimate government in Germany. Very shortly thereafter, the Communists attempted to hijack the German Revolution, as they had the Russian Revolution. One of the Communist fighters was Neumann.11 Although he and his Communist colleagues failed to install a Communist government, he continued to work for Marxist causes. With the accession to power of the Nazi regime, Neumann wended his way to the U.S. Here he was given asylum and began to work for the Office of Strategic Services, giving him access to Allied war secrets. In savage ingratitude, he began to spy for the Soviet Union.12 After the end of WW II, Neumann worked with Justice Robert Jackson prosecuting Nazis at the Nuremburg Trials. The defendants claimed they were only following orders, that is, the law as written. Had they had Kelsen as defense counsel, they would have been acquitted. An irony in Neumann’s case is that if the Communists had taken over Germany in 1919, they would in all likelihood have subjected the people to a Red Terror as was the case in Russia. Then Neumann would have been a party to crimes against humanity. Maybe Kelsen would have defended him in the event of a trial. At about the same time as the Nuremburg Trials, Neumann became a professor of government at Columbia University, and many of his papers are preserved at the Houghton Library at Harvard. Thus his influence went beyond the sphere of law. To make matters worse, the pathology continues into the next generation. One of his sons, Michael, being a red-diaper baby, continues to spew Marxist garbage as a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. The contamination continues to spread. The natural habitat of the Jewish Left is the university campus. Unfortunately, they show no sign of becoming an endangered species. The list of German Jews who came here, only to betray the ideals for which this country stands is very long. I cannot discuss all the people “worthy” of note. I will have to limit our discussion to those who prove relevant to the subject under discussion in future chapters. 1 Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, trans. by Michael
Robertson (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1995), 12–13. 12 Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood (New
York: The Modern Library, 1999), 246–250. In a previous chapter, I showed the basis of the bond between the Calvinist Puritans and the Jews. This affinity is based on the respect for the shared Old Testament. I know of no other people in modern times who had such profound respect for Jews. As we noted, this respect was the basis for Oliver Cromwell’s arranging for Jews to be readmitted to England after an exile dating from the twelfth century. This amity made its way to the New World with the New England Puritans. Law He was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1916 to 1939. This time period coincides with that of rapid industrialization and the concomitant labor-management issues. Following the onset of the Great Depression of 1929, it also coincided with the extension of government regulation to industry. The great questions of the industrialized West had to be answered. Should market forces prevail? Should the government nationalize the means of production and distribution? If there is to be a minimum wage, should there also be worker productivity requirements? Which branch of government should make these decisions: legislative, executive, or judicial? To what degree would industrialization change the nature of society? In discussing the roles of the three Jewish jurists, we will have to address the profound questions posed above. Very soon after graduation Brandeis became interested in public causes and helped begin the pro bono publico tradition of public service. Looking at pro bono service over time, it is a question whether it has been more used to promote worthy causes or more misused to promote the leftist agenda. One practice Brandeis began was to bring to the Court pages of sociological data to support a legal claim: “Determined to support the constitutionality of [an] Oregon law, Brandeis presented the case with only two pages of traditional appeals to legal doctrine and nearly a hundred pages summarizing statistical data from around the the world.”2 Thus began a new era for the Court in which it engaged itself (or allowed itself to be engaged) in studies from outside “experts.” Brandeis was joined by Benjamin Cardozo in 1932. He was generally a dependable liberal vote on New Deal measures, but otherwise not distinguishable from the usual liberals of his era. He certainly could not be considered a radical. Following the appointment of Cardozo was that of Felix Frankfurter in 1939. Frankfurter was an appointee, supporter, and friend of Franklin Roosevelt. In viewing the impact of Frankfurter on American history, I will look not at his decisions as a justice, but at his role as the provider of personnel to staff the New Deal agencies. The New Deal brought about a monumental shift in power from the periphery of the country, to Washington, DC., as FDR instituted the welfare state. There was no formal training ground for would-be bureaucrats, so finding personnel to staff the new agencies presented a problem. First, we must note that there were two types of agencies: the old ones such as the State Department, and the new alphabet soup agencies such as Works Progress Administration, Tennessee Valley Authority, Agricultural Adjustment Agency, National Labor Relations Board, National Recovery Administration, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, just to mention a few. The new agencies were important in redefining the nature of our government. With federal involvement in so many areas of daily life, Congress could not keep track of the growing list of regulations. So Congress authorized the agencies to draw up, on their own, the necessary regulations. This was to be under the overseeing eye of Congress. This loose oversight in reality left bureaucrats increasingly in control of daily life in America. Since the New Deal, the intrusion in our lives has inexorably increased. Frankfurter was probably an atheist.3 The problem with some atheists is that, while not believing in God, they believe in the perfectibility of man. This leads them to attempt the impossible, with sometimes disastrous results, as seen in the former Soviet Union. Liva Baker describes Frankfurter quâ professor “as a high priest in the legal temple that was Harvard Law School.” It was his passion to unveil in all its manifestations the god of law to all its worshipers, then to send them like holy men out into the world to live in the memory of their vision and “try to build heaven on earth.”4 Years later, during his confirmation hearing in the Senate, Patrick McCarran asked Frankfurter whether he was a Marxist. Frankfurter answered: Senator, I do not believe you have ever taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States with fewer reservations than I have or would now, nor do I believe you are more attached to the theories and practices of Americanism than I am. I rest my answer on that statement.5 I find this answer evasive. “It depends upon how you define is.”
What is Frankfurter’s definition of Americanism? We may better
answer this later. He was fully aware of his own power in the legal profession: So far, it is clear that the universities are the ultimate source of knowledge and the law school is the brain of the university. For the modern university, law has taken the place formerly reserved for theology. Is it an improvement? And if law is the chief vehicle for the betterment of mankind, what is the role of the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court, “the most undemocratic feature of American democracy,” is “in good truth…the Constitution.”7 Universities are the fount of all wisdom. The law schools chart our course. The faculties of social science, a little lower on the ladder, provide the technocrats to carry out the social engineering of the executive branch of the university, i.e., the court system. Now we have it: the Dictatorship of the Professoriate. One caveat: all universities were not created equal. Harvard is the ultimate pinnacle of not only social success, but the final arbiter of cultural norms. And, as a result of its philo-Semitic-Puritan tradition, Harvard was willing to accept Jews. Thus began the Anschluss. By remarkable coincidence, it catapulted the Jewish Left to the very nerve center of the body politic at the very time that the academy launched its takeover of nation. Friends in High Places Frankfurter’s staffing of New Deal agencies in quantity partly stemmed from the insatiable hunger for talent demanded by these offices, expanding under Roosevelt at enormous rates…partly, too, from Roosevelt’s confidence in Frankfurter’s dependability. But it was nothing new for Frankfurter. “He had been operating a one-man employment agency for Harvard Law School almost since he set foot in the place.”9 As we shall see in a subsequent chapter, Communists found these agencies to be ideal places from which to infiltrate government. Although New Deal agencies were relatively easy to infiltrate, the old-line agencies, such as the State Department were more difficult. High positions at State tended to go to WASPs from old families, and there were relatively few such positions as compared to those available at the new agencies. But Jews and Communists (frequently the same) are nothing if not enterprising. As we shall see, where there is a will, there is a way. With access to governmental agencies, the Soviet Union had friends in high places. But ultimately more damaging by far, the non-Communist (but not necessarily noncommunist Left) also had friends in high places. In the long run, the harm done to our country and culture by non-Communist members of the Left, particularly the Jewish Left, that has been immeasurably greater than that done by actual espionage. Civil Rights Organizations NAACP Jewish support is understandable and expected. There was also large support from the Protestant Left. A history of the NAACP by Mary White Ovington is found on the NAACP Web site. It lists about sixty cofounders of the NAACP. Almost every one of them who is not Jewish comes from the Protestant elite. Ovington herself was a student at Harvard (Radcliffe College) and a radical Socialist involved in every left-wing cause extant.11 ACLU Although the ACLU was to become a tool of the Jewish Left, some
of its earliest members, like those of the NAACP, came from
another source: In summary, I have noted here the coming together of the Jewish Left and the WASP enragés. I feel confident that I understand the psychology that motivates the Jewish Left. I have described phenomenologically the role of the WASP Left, but I do not feel I understand the psychological force(s) that motivate it. 1 American National Biography online sv “Brandeis”. 10 Howard M. Sachar, A History of the Jews in America (New York:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 803. 11 Unitarian Universalist Historical Society Web site, 2007. sv
“Mary White Ovington.” 12 Robert C. Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin
and the American Civil Liberties Union (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2000), 122. For decades people have complained about Jewish control of the media. They are routinely dismissed as bigots. In fact, the complaint is justified because it is supported by reality. Media control is of supreme importance in American history because who controls the media controls the past. People’s perception of past (and passing) events is based on what they know of the event. In addition, the public’s attitude toward the event is conditioned by the context in which the event is reported. The news can be thus sculpted in a positive way. There is also a method of negative control by studied omission of facts that are inconsistent with the desired attitude the media wishes to create or sustain. In the extreme, such manipulation is propaganda, best exemplified by the Nazi and Soviet ministries of propaganda. One of the inherent problems with presenting propaganda rather than news is that the more facts the journalist presents, the more difficult it becomes to function as propaganda. With the presentation of many facts, a perceptive reader will be able to piece out what journalist seeks to hide or obscure. In this sense, the New York Times is superior to a local city paper. Both are part of the mainstream media, and as such are purveyors of the left-wing agenda; however, as an unintended consequence of presenting more detail, the New York Times runs the risk of being less successful in its mission of shaping opinion. An unintended consequence. The flagship of American media and the flagship of the Jewish-controlled media are one and the same: the New York Times. To trace the history of Jewish ownership of the NYT, we go back to the Revolution of 1848 in Bavaria. One of the refugees from that time and place was Julius Ochs (1826–1888). He settled first in Kentucky, then in Tennessee. He had a son, Adolph, (1858–1935) who entered into the newspaper business by starting a newspaper in Chattanooga in 1877, but the paper failed. He tried again by buying an existing paper, the Chattanooga Daily News. His editorial policy was to be “in line with the Conservative Democrats of the South.”1 Both as a citizen and as a publisher, he was aware of his Jewishness and acted accordingly. “We should live quietly, happily, unostentatiously…Don’t be too smart. Don’t know too much.”2 In order to improve his financial status, and probably for reasons of prestige, Adolph decided to buy a paper in New York City. The New York Times was noted for its quality as a news source, but was failing as a business. Adolph bought it (1896) by highly leveraging the small capital he had and saved it from bankruptcy. By this time Adolph had married and had a daughter, Iphigene. With her enters the fatal seed of leftist ideology. In the meantime, Adolph was careful to cultivate the image of “reliability, comprehensiveness and objectivity.” As for his personal life as a Jew, he was fully assimilated, and not at all tolerant of the recent Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe: Adolph himself had little tolerance for Jews who wore unclipped beards and long black frock coats, feeling it was unfair of them to set themselves “apart from other men, and then complain that [they are] treated differently from other men.”3 Adolph’s politics were conservative, and he faulted Louis
Brandeis for his liberal views on labor and reformist attitude
toward big business.4 As Iphigene was an only child, it was vitally important to Adolph that she married well, because in that era, only sons were supposed to manage businesses. In the event, she married Arthur Hayes Sulzberger (1891–1968). He went to Horace Mann School, “a private co-ed institution so progressive that the boys were taught to sew and the girls tended the garden on the school’s West 120th Street campus.”5 It is now clear that the descendents of this couple were to get a double dose of liberalism. But that is for the future. Having married the boss’s daughter, Arthur was appointed to run the news side of the paper. According to the policy of Adolph, the patriarch, the paper was to be “conservative and cautious and not involve itself in all public clamor for a change.”6 As Adolph’s health weakened, he relinquished day-to-day control of the paper to Arthur (and Iphigene, the one who owned the stock. Arthur did not have voting shares). Now, contrary to Adolph’s opinion, the NYT began to back New Deal programs. This was due both to the liberal inclination of Arthur, but more importantly, to the prodding of his “Socialist” wife, Iphigene.7 In 1926, the couple presented Adolph with a grandson named Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (nicknamed “Punch”). At this point the two blood lines merged, and the issue of marrying the boss’s daughter was resolved by the “legitimacy” of the third generation. Punch had a weird childhood: “The Sulzbergers forbade Punch to play with toy soldiers or guns…Encouraged by his sisters’ example, Punch played with dolls.”8 Family life in the clan had gotten a little strange…It was to get even stranger. A crisis occurred in 1935 because of the death of the patriarch,
Adolph. At his demise, effective control of the paper could go one
of two ways; to Arthur Hays Suzburger, his son-in-law, or to
Julius Ochs Adler, his nephew. The voting stock was owned by
family members in a trust. There was some concern that if the
son-in-law were put in control, he would be too liberal. That was
not a risk with the conservative Julius. Probably due to the
influence of Iphigene, the power went to Arthur Hays Sulzburger,
her husband.9 The fatal die was cast. Consistent with the guiding principle of the Jewish Left of anti-particularism, the NYT shamefully did its part as Holocaust deniers, but in a subtle way. One can bury a story or leave out salient details. Because Arthur rejected the idea that Jews were members of a “race,” he was vehemently against collective phrases such as the Jewish people and launched a campaign to roust them from the Times. He instructed editors to substitute expressions like people of the Jewish faith or simply Jews, which he felt subtly conveyed the notion that being Jewish was something one could freely choose, like being Methodist or a Presbyterian. Regarding the above, his daughter concluded the obvious: “Deep down, my father probably would just as soon not have been Jewish.”13 I don’t think one had to go very deep down to draw the conclusion that we have here a self-hating Jew. If there remains any doubt about Arthur’s attitude toward his own people, it should be dispelled by the two following quotes: A July 2, 1944, dispatch citing “authoritative information” that 400,000 Hungarian Jews had already been deported to their deaths and an additional 350,000 were to be killed in the next three weeks received only four column inches on page twelve, while that same day a story about Fourth of July holiday crowds ran on the front page.14 The front page story on the liberation of Dachau never mentioned the word Jew. A week later Cy Sulzberger’s story about the Russian estimates of the death toll at Auschwitz appeared on page twelve, with no indication that most of the victims were Jews.15 The NYT has no credibility writing anything critical about Holocaust deniers, because they have set the pace in this matter. The above anecdote also shows how the NYT makes the news “fit” its private agenda. It can hardly claim to be the “paper of record” unless it be the record of intentional deception. In matters of race, the NYT has a schizophrenic policy. In reporting crime, it would omit the racial identity of the culprit; simultaneously, it began, in 1945, a program to employ Negroes as reporters. More than that, it began a policy, continuing today, to retain them even in the face of incompetence: George Streator, a Fisk graduate with a master’s degree from Western Reserve University, arrived at the NYT…Having worked only at activist publications; Streator had no training in the Times’ tradition of objectivity. Turner discovered that sometimes Streator made up quotes in order to present blacks in a more positive light: “Once he admitted to me he’d invented some quotes for A. Philip Randolph, because he was sure he knew what Randolph meant to say, whether or not he said it.” Corrections and critical memoranda piled up in Streator’s file. The final straw was the omission of an important fact from a story about a black university in Texas, necessitating yet another “humiliating” correction in the NYT. Shortly thereafter, Catledge fired him.16 There is so much to comment about here. The NYT excludes mention of race in instances where the exclusion promotes their private political agenda. By the same token, they make a very public fetish of it for the same reason. There is no even-handedness here, and to keep up with what is currently politically correct is reminiscent of the same problem writers for the Soviet Union’s state organs, Pravda and Isvestia, had to negotiate. In addition, the writers of my source for the history of the NYT (Tifft and Jones) do not seem to find it remarkable that Streator, who had worked for the Crisis, the official journal of the NAACP, “had no training in NYT’s tradition of objectivity”! What an admission on the part of the liberal apologists Tifft and Jones that we should not expect objectivity from activist publications. It is an admission that the NAACP official journal, and others like it, are no more than propaganda mills. The point that they produce little but propaganda is no surprise, but for liberals to admit it—that is astounding. It is clearly a mistake on the part of Jones and Tifft. This is an example of the problem of the lying publications I mentioned earlier: giving too many details makes the lie easier to discover. It is clear that the NYT is no better than the Crisis; it is merely more sophisticated. The episode of false reporting by George Streator taught the
Times nothing. The Times repeated the same scenario in the Jayson
Blair case in 2003. Although the NYT is the most important newspaper in the country,
it is not the only one. Two other important papers are the
Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. The Washington Post In 1933, Eugene Meyer, a Jewish millionaire, bought the ailing
Washington Post. He wanted a voice in the political arena. Early
on he was aware of the power of journalism: He began as a liberal.23 After the purchase of the paper, he was faced with the difficulty of finding people to run it. He had a daughter named Katherine, but he did not think her capable of running the paper. However, she solved the problem by marrying a very talented young man, Philip Graham. Philip Graham was put in charge. Mr. Meyer demonstrated his trust in Graham and also his residual old-fashioned values by putting majority stock in the young man’s name, rather than in his daughter’s name. The story of marrying the boss’s daughter, as in the case of “Punch” Sulzberger, is repeated here. Phil Graham and Katherine were both left of center, so there was no clash of opinion within the family.24 Their choice of hires mirrored this: the political cartoonist Herbert Block and journalists Alan Barth and Jim Bellows. The ubiquitous Felix Frankfurter served as a source for some of these hires.25 In 1964, the Jewish liberal Ed Guthman became national editor. Liberal bias was demonstrated in the Bay of Pigs invasion, during which the paper played down the event.26 The Washington Post did not thoroughly investigate either the drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne at the hands of Teddy Kennedy at Chappaquiddick in 1969 or the death of Clinton legal counsel Vince Foster in 1993. Nor did it investigate the ease with which Ted Kennedy avoided any legal consequences subsequent to the Chappaquiddick incident. Compare these half-hearted efforts to the investigative energy the Washington Post invested in the Watergate scandal. At the very onset of his career, Phil Graham had enunciated the need to shape the news: “He was the friend of the powerful, advisor to them, doer, activist; his instructions to the city editor, Ben Gilbert, left no doubt that the paper was to be an instrument for social progress. Stories that reflected badly on integration or home rule simply would not make the paper.”27 Other Print Media Of all the weekly news magazines, probably Time has been, and still probably is, the most influential. It was founded in the 1920s by Henry Luce, an internationalist with strong personal ties to China. Unlike the Marxists, who felt that history was driven by anonymous forces, Luce believed that “men, not the great rhythms of history or economics, were the key to the past.”30 He was no cultural relativist; he was convinced that Western values were best, and he influenced the news accordingly.31 The change at Time occurred after the death of Henry Luce. In May, 1968, Henry Grunwald, the foreign editor, was promoted to managing editor. This was a conscious effort to change the politics of the magazine from Right to center. In the event, it turned out to be the beginning of the decline of Time to its present status as a run-of-the-mill left-wing hack copy machine. Henry Grunwald was an AustrianJewish refugee from Hitler. He was very at home in the New York intellectual world.32 He was a nonobservant Jew.33 He was the right man at the right place “to turn” a major media outlet. There are many more print media outlets owned or controlled by
the Jewish Left. Time and space constraints limit the exploration
here. Hollywood Formal myths are written and discussed. Informal myths may be subliminal, but still dictate cultural norms. Anyone interested in comprehensive knowledge of this field may consult the canons of religion, physical anthropology, and ethics. Any meaningful review of this field is beyond the scope of this book. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a little-noted revolution began. Moving pictures came into existence due to technical advances, primarily electricity. As a result, people everywhere could expose themselves to amusement cheaply. Before this time, the closest equivalent, theater, from street theater to grand opera, was limited by expense. By the early twentieth century, a nickel or dime could be the ticket to escapism every day. The earliest purveyors of this new media, as well as their critics, were aware of its power. It would be a mistake to underestimate the power of this new media and its electronic successors, such as radio and television. It is frequently the most important single influence on shaping the values of a child in the U.S. Only a very strong family structure is proof against the media. But Meyer realized, as so many moral arbiters did, that the movies transmitted values, and that by controlling entertainment, he would be inculcating values, which in turn, would make him a kind of father to the whole community—its moral and spiritual guide.34 He was not alone in this realization. Henry Ford, in his
anti-Semitic paper, The Dearborn Independent, also noted it: Henry Ford’s assessment of the degree of control is exaggerated, but it is true that the preponderant influence was Jewish. There were also Jews who noticed this influence with regret. In 1931, the following open letter was run in the Christian Century: I am a Jew, but I am ashamed of my kinship with people who have wholly forgotten their spiritual mission and are now engaged only in the feverish acquisition of wealth by pandering to the worst instincts of humanity.36 In reading these quotes, I am not sure that I understand the issues of 1931. But given the role of Hollywood Jews in the late-twentieth century, these critiques could not be better stated. In the first generation of Jewish moguls, there was a refreshing patriotism. Take the case of Louis B. Meyer, a Russian refugee. He did not know his actual birth date. So he adopted the Fourth of July. He became a rabid, conservative Republican.37 He went so far as to as to lecture Mickey Rooney, apparently for womanizing: We looked out the window because there was screaming going on, and Louis B. Meyer held Mickey Rooney by the lapel. He says, “You’re Andy Hardy! You’re the United States! You’re the Stars and Stripes. Behave yourself! You’re a symbol!”38 Adolph Zukor, founder of Paramount Pictures, was equally patriotic. He too, became a conservative Republican.39 He was also rigidly monogamous. He wanted to present films that would elevate the common culture. To that end he produced, in rapid succession, Queen Elizabeth, The Count of Monte Cristo, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and The Prisoner of Zenda. But a transition was on the way. The studio bosses needed screen writers. They got them from New York, because New York had a pool of underemployed Jewish intellectuals: The Jews in New York were socialists. They were old-country socialists…and unions and left-wing thinking of that simple soul that was so Jewish in those days was translated to their children…young Jews with a gift for writing wanted to use it to right wrongs, expose injustices, redress grievances, and create new worlds, and that is precisely what they tried to do…Alvah Bessie, screenwriter and one-time drama critic for the left-wing New Masses, admitted surprise when Warner Brothers’ executive Jerry Wald told him they deliberately hired progressives “because these boys knew what society in general and fascism in particular were all about…and could create characters and situations that bore some resemblance to reality.”40 Today, these young Jews are no longer there, but their
grandchildren are and are producing the same propaganda quâ
entertainment. This change appears to be generic in the Jewish community—the same transition can be seen at the NYT from the conservative patriarch who created an objective “paper of record” to the current hippy-freak who has reduced it to a shrill, partisan rag. This transition is more than disappointing, it is dangerous to a free society. The Jewish influence in radio and television is no less. However,
constraints of time will require me to defer the study of these
industries to another time. Slavery was viable in the southern colonies of British North America because of the plantation system. Demand for tobacco, rice, and cotton both in the colonies and abroad drove the system, and the pre-mechanization status of agricultural techniques supplied the pressure for slave labor. The slaves imported from West Africa came from many African cultures, and thus as a group, lacked a common culture. They had no common language, common religion, nor related tribal structure. They had no holy books. Whatever religious practices they might have had individually could have had nothing in common with that of their Christian masters. They could have had no defined and commonly recognized classes among themselves. This loss of an entire culture for a vast number of people may be unprecedented in human history. What holds a people together is a shared culture. When the Jews were slaves in Egypt, they retained folklore, a language, and a religion. They knew who they had been. During the Babylonian Exile, the same was true, only by that time, the cultural heritage was even richer. In addition, in most historic instances of slavery, the enslaved population was drawn from peoples of relatively similar cultures, so both slave and owner had some common ground. Enslaved populations may have had languages different from the dominant population, but the children of the slaves would speak the common language and would usually be physically indistinguishable from non-slaves. The situation of the African slaves bears comparison with that of the Indians (i.e., Mayan, Aztec) of South America who were enslaved by the Spanish. The enslaved Indian populations were able to retain their native languages. They knew that they came from an ancient culture, and they preserved myths from ancient times. In many cases the land bore archeological witness to their past greatness, and they lived on the land in which their ancestors were buried. They were able to infuse in the Catholic religion many elements of their native religions. Their individual family structures suffered far less disruption. Maybe a thought experiment would be the best way to appreciate the trauma of the African slave experience: imagine that you were abducted by aliens and taken to another planet and put at forced labor, with no explanation of where you were. You are surrounded by people who look very different, whose language is incomprehensible, and whose behavior is unpredictable. The land has vegetation and animals you have never seen before. You have no overall grasp of your situation, nor for how long it would last. The United States Constitution is best viewed within the context of the Enlightenment in its broadest context. The concept of the Rights of Man was gaining strength throughout Western and Central Europe, even in the lands of the “benevolent despots.” The tension between the promise of the U.S. Constitution and the reality of slavery was unbearable and was resolved during our Civil War. That this was a “sign of the times” is demonstrated by the outlawing of serfdom in France at the time of their Revolution (1789), and, the abolition of serfdom in Prussia and Russia in the mid-nineteenth century. The abolition of serfdom in Europe was effective because the son of a serf could potentially rise far above his father’s station through education or enterprise. In North America, the situation was different. The freed African slaves were racially distinct from the majority population. Thus it was much harder to lose identity as a separate class of people. The son of a slave still had a black skin. Now, imagine another group, small in number, but advantaged in every way that the American Negro is disadvantaged. This small group, cunning and united, seeks to obtain an ally whose population would give the small group the numerical clout it lacks. The Negro has no preexisting culture, has a gutted family structure, is desperately poor, and has no allies. The perfect mark. The Jewish Left, few in number (the head of the spear) have found a useful tool. The Negro is to provide the shaft for the spearhead. The raw material for the weapon against liberty is at hand; it has yet to be shaped. This thread of the story will be continued as the history of the NAACP. Solutions Niagara Movement Duties: And while we are demanding, and ought to demand, and will continue to demand the rights enumerated above, God forbid that we should ever forget to urge corresponding duties upon our people: The duty to vote. This statement, complaint and prayer we submit to the American
people, and Almighty God.1 The Niagara Movement lasted only a few years. Due to lack of financial resources, it folded. However, its rise and demise were noted by powerful forces: the Jewish Left and the Protestant Left. They noted the moral power inherent in the cause. The cause itself was as compelling as had been abolition as a cause. Causes are necessary to promote social agendas that transcend the cause. Specific causes are secondary to the overarching goal. Those who believe in the cause are useful, as their energy may be put at the disposal of the wise men and women who understand the larger issues. The Niagara Movement, as it had been constituted, had attributes considered fatal to those wise great powers. First, the movement was controlled by Negroes, and as such could not be manipulated at will to serve a greater cause. Secondly, it included a list of responsibilities incumbent upon Negroes, and as such was counterproductive to those greater forces whose ultimate goal was (and is) to dissolve the entire existing social order. The Niagara Movement had to die. But the power of the cause quâ cause had to be preserved and cultivated. So the NAACP was founded by the Protestant and Jewish Left, with almost no Negro membership. Of the six founding members, only two were Negro. One of the two was W. E. B. Du Bois. Regarding transfer of Niagara Movement membership to the NAACP, Du Bois notes: “In the end, Trotter, the most radical Negro leader, and Mrs. Ida Wells Barnett…refused to join the new organization, being distrustful of white leadership.”2 Du Bois however, understood and agreed with the greater purpose
of the new organization: It was not for nothing that Du Bois had been educated at Harvard and in Germany. He was the sort of Negro who could be used; his internal motive forces were self-sufficient drivers. Like a well-trained horse, he could serve his purpose without oversight. A history of the founding of the NAACP is given by Mary White Ovington, herself a Socialist and founder. She gives a list of about fifty cofounders. It reads as a Who’s Who of the Jewish Left and the Protestant Left. One of original six founders, Mr. William Walling is a classic case of white liberal guilt. He came from a slave-owning family. Ovington writes of him: “Mr. Walling had spent some years in Russia where his wife, working for the cause of the revolutionaries, had suffered imprisonment.”4 When assessing the threat to liberty posed by the Jewish Left and the Protestant Left, one is hard-pressed to state from which quarter the threat is greater. Although it has not been previously stressed, we should note that the Niagara Movement was founded by men and women who had a deep respect for religion. The NAACP was founded by atheists. Over the years the chief complaint the Communist Party (and other left-wing organizations) have had regarding Blacks is their “religiosity.” It is presumed that this trait can be purged. At this point we must make reference to an earlier chapter. In chapter 8, I noted the role played by clientela in the Roman Republic. This was a practice in which wealthy or socially dominant elements obtained the support of numbers by organizing poor masses to do their bidding. In return, the wealthy few arranged to obtain limited benefits for the masses. The same dynamic is at work here. In this instance, to ensure that the masses do what they are supposed to do, and to avoid independent thought or action on the part of the Negroes, the leadership was predominantly Jewish. Most of the money was (and probably still is) supplied by Jews. By the last quarter of the twentieth century, enough Negroes had been “in the traces” of the Jewish Left that their political instincts had been co-opted. Review the leadership of the NAACP from its inception to present. Most of the administrators have been members of the Jewish Left. As the twentieth century drew toward its close, the Negro family structure had been so weakened that the vacuum left by the evaporation of any sense of right and wrong could be filled with a free-floating sense of anger and frustration on the part of young Negroes. This anger has been, and is being, channeled by the Jewish Left into a powerful tool. By the late-twentieth century, the mentality of the Black leadership had been so perverted by the Jewish Left that the takeover of the leadership of the had been so perverted by the Jewish Left that the takeover of the leadership of the plus percent consistent with the wishes of the Master. A new form of slavery had been established, all the more destructive as a result of the insidious evolution of the internalization of the slave mentality. In addition, a native leadership had been cultivated that would consciously or unconsciously promote the Marxist agenda. The Uses of the American Negro George Alvin Wiley is best known for his effective use of the so-called “Cloward-Piven strategy,” which called for swamping the welfare rolls with new applicants, beyond which the system could bear. The plan’s inventors, Columbia University political scientists Richard Cloward and Francis Fox Piven, hoped that the resulting economic collapse would lead to political turmoil and ultimately socialism. Cloward and Piven recruited Wiley to put their plan to work in the streets.5 Because Cloward and Piven so clearly illustrate the “Anschluss” of Jewish Left and Protestant elite, I will digress momentarily to remark upon this couple. Richard Cloward was the son of a radical Baptist minister and a radical feminist mother.6 Francis Fox Piven, (née Fox), was the daughter of Jewish-Russian immigrants to this country, a country she did so much to injure.7 Here is a typical case of “savage ingratitude.” Unfortunately, such examples are all too common. But the instance of the partnership of this couple also serves to symbolize something. It demonstrates (literally and figuratively) the marriage of the Jewish Left to the Protestant Elite. It is all too easy, and intellectually lazy, to blame only the Jewish half of this malevolent partnership. It is crucial not to overlook the conjunction of the two forces. The presence of the Jewish Left has been necessary to work toward the destruction of American liberty, but not sufficient. The Protestant Elite must be present as a co-factor. My digression complete, we return to the main topic of how these two forces, identified above, made use of the American Negro. Their strategy worked, at least in part, due to WASP guilt: Wiley and his welfare radicals terrorized social workers all over the United States, but their greatest success came in New York City. Newly elected in 1966, Mayor John Lindsey knuckled under to every demand from NWRO. New York’s welfare roles had already been growing by 12 percent per year before Lindsey took office. The growth rate jumped to 50 percent annually in 1966. “By the early 1970’s, one person was on the welfare rolls in New York City for every two working in the city’s private economy,” writes Sol Stern in Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. As a direct result of its reckless welfare spending, New York City was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1975.8 Again, how do we decide whether the Jewish Left or the Protestant
Elite Left is more destructive? The situation gets even worse. By means of a sleight of hand that would make Satan himself jealous, the conjoint forces of the Jewish and Protestant Left use the misery they have spawned to multiply the evil. They have created a machine to mass-produce poverty. We have seen that. Now, with devilish ingenuity, they blame the average American for the poverty, and demand more taxes to repair the poverty. And how to repair it? By adding more machinery to the production line that creates poverty, that is, more government programs, and the requisite taxation to fund the new poverty-producing machinery necessitated by the resulting increased poverty levels. The common term for this is “vicious cycle,” but I would call it a “social terrorism.” What is the impact of these programs? Can they be quantified?
Yes, to some extent. Let’s consider unemployment figures for
teenagers: Much of the evil generated is more difficult to quantify. The cultural decay in the Black community that leads to an endemic hatred for education and traditional achievement is most damaging. Teenage boys walking around with their pants down to their knees; the widespread acceptance of women with multiple children from different fathers; the elevation of poor language skills and illiteracy to cult status; the rap music that pollutes the mind; the ubiquity of violence; the dominance of the drug culture as a model for young men; and the acceptance of a life on welfare as the norm... All of these are evidence of the decay. Jacob and Esau: The Bowl of Porridge For a pittance, for welfare payments. Is that all the Jewish Left had to pay to buy the Black vote? A
mitziah (Yiddish for a real bargain)! “A population of people is chained in a cave so that they face away from the sun and only see shadows of what passes on earth. And since they had never seen reality, when they speak to each other, they would discuss the shadows as if the shadows were reality. But suppose one of their number is released and freed to wonder upon the earth. He then goes back to visit the others, still chained as before. “And when he remembered his old habitation, and the wisdom of the den and his fellowprisoners, do you not suppose that he would felicitate himself on the change, and pity them [the others still chained]? “Certainly, he would. “Yes,” he said, “I think that he would rather suffer anything
than entertain these false notions and live in this miserable
manner.” “Imagine once more,” I said, “such a one coming suddenly out of
the sun to be put back in his old situation; would he not be
certain to have his eyes full of darkness?” “To be sure,” he said. I put in this allegory in order to do honor to the real heroes of Black America. They are the conservatives such as Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, and Clarence Thomas. Because they see clearly the shell game of the Jewish Left, they have been vilified in the Jewish-controlled mainstream media. Thus the Protestant Left and the Jewish Left, which together form the bulk of the “chattering class,” or the Pink Orchestra, or the mainstream media (all terms for the same thing), portray them as traitors to their race, when exactly the reverse is true. Thus these Black men mentioned above are human beings of extraordinary courage. They speak the truth despite being vilified by the white media and being vilified by the rank and file of the Black masses, effectively lobotomized by the Jewish Left. 2 W.E.B. Du Bois, The Autobiography of W.E. Burghardt Du Bois
(New York: International Publishers, 1968), pg. 254. 7 “The Guardian Profile,” Nov. 4, 2000. from Guardian
Unlimited@Guardian News and Media Limited, 2007. 8 Obituary of Richard Cloward. (See above). 9 Paul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus, Economics,13th
edition (New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1989), 295. In chapter 30, we met Herbert Marcuse, as one of the Frankfurt
School who had escaped from Hitler’s Germany. Like the others of
his group, he was a Jewish In 1968, as a senior Judeofascist, he gave a talk to Brandeis undergraduates, a band of neophyte Judeofascists. He entitled his talk “Repressive Tolerance.” In this talk, he made clear his views of freedom of expression; there is none. Because we are in a “crisis,” he informs us, we cannot tolerate freedom of expression: The whole post-fascist period is one of clear and present danger.
Consequently, true pacification requires the withdrawal of
tolerance before the deed, at the stage of communication in word,
print, and picture. Such extreme suspension of the right of free
speech and free assembly is indeed justified only if the whole of
society is in extreme danger. I maintain that our society is in
such an emergency situation, and that it has become the normal
state of affairs. Different opinions and “philosophies” can no
longer compete peacefully for adherence and persuasion on rational
grounds.1 At that time, the crisis was social inequity. We have had crises in health care, homelessness, and currently, global worming. The Left will never be at a loss for a crisis. They will use any given (or contrived) crisis as a reason to transfer power to the central government. Now we discuss discussion. Some ideas are acceptable to the
Judeofascists; others are not: The quote continues, as it tells us that the people are not
competent to decide what should and should not be tolerated: In the body of this talk, he makes it quite clear that the people
lack this ability. Who, then, should choose for them? Why, Dr.
Marcuse, of course! Lest we Americans underestimate the degree to which Marcuse will accept mass murder to achieve his ends, let us do two things. First, let us recall the mass murders carried out in Russia, Poland, and Hungary by the Left, and that many of the commissars were drawn from the Jewish Left that had remained in Europe. Remember: the only difference between the Jewish Left in Europe and the U.S. is geographical. Given the opportunity, they will do here what they have already done there. Secondly, let us read his own words: In terms of historical function, there is a difference between revolutionary and reactionary violence, between violence practiced by the oppressed and by the oppressors. In terms of ethics, both forms of violence are inhuman and evil—but since when is history made in accordance with ethical standards? To start applying them at the point where the oppressed rebel against the oppressors, the have-nots against the haves is serving the cause of actual violence by weakening the protest against it.5 Two things are happening here. First, Marcuse is excusing the slaughters done by Communist demagogues, slaughters in which members of the Jewish Left participated as butchers. Secondly, he is alerting us that he is willing to do the same here. It is clear that what may and what may not be said and done will be dictated by Marcuse and those like him. The Jewish Left is supremely arrogant. The essay from which I just quoted can be found online. It is about twenty pages in length. I highly recommend my readers familiarize themselves with it. It is perhaps the clearest and most honest exposition of what the Jewish Left has in mind for us in the United States. What is chilling is that we are partway there. The political correctness movement (which is a euphemism for Communism) has already obtained hegemony on our campuses. I wish I could say that it had only gained a foothold, but it is too late for that. In fact, the movement has permeated the entire cultural establishment. It is a top-down movement, consistent with the elitism of the Jewish Left and its allied forces. This perversion of meaning has progressed so far and its intrusion into our daily lives is so ubiquitous, as to be hardly noticeable. The replacement of words such as “waitress” with “waitperson” or “chairman” with “chairperson” are but two examples. Marcuse gave us warning in 1968 that this was the direction the Jewish Left was going to take: Withdrawal of tolerance from regressive movements before they can be become active; intolerance even toward thought, opinion and word…[It] must begin at the place of entrance, there where the false consciousness takes form (or rather: is systematically formed)—it must begin with stopping the words and images which feed this consciousness. To be sure, this is censorship, even precensorship.6 Clearly, he had very good students. They are diligently
continuing the work of the master. “Economic Justice” as a Prerequisite for Utopia Utopia, or is it Hell? Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due 1 Robert P. Wolff, Barrington Moore, Herbert Marcuse, A Critique
of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon Press, 1969), 110. Discussion of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) would be easier if it were all “good” or all “bad.” It is neither. It has 500,000 members, many of whom disagree with each other. Also, it is not a single issue organization. Still, it is my opinion that it is, overwhelmingly, a sinister force in the USA. It was begun in 1920 as the successor organization to a group called the Civil Liberties Bureau. The CLB was organized to defend people critical of U.S. involvement in WW I, including the rights of conscientious objectors. The founders of the ACLU were Crystal Eastman (1881–1928) and Roger Nash Baldwin (1884–1981). They wanted to continue the work of the organization, and to increase the scope to include issues beyond those raised by the First World War. The causes at issue would be “freedoms endangered by government repression, especially against labor-free speech, a free press, and the right to strike, criminal justice, immigration equity, and racial equality.”1 Crystal Eastman came from the already familiar background of the WASP elite, that elite which makes common cause with the Jewish Left. She graduated from Smith College, a nursery for such as she. Having no real purpose in life, and blessed with affluent circumstances, she succumbed to the infantile Leftism that was as prevalent as the influenza epidemic of 1919.2 The difference is that the influenza killed its victims and that the victims of Leftism survived, becoming a continuing source of contamination to society at large. When their Puritan forbearers warned them that “the devil makes work for idle hands,” they knew of what they spoke. She was joined in this noble endeavor by her male counterpart, Roger Nash Baldwin, similarly bored with whatever the idle rich of that period did for amusement. It would have been much better for the world, and certainly for the United States, if the ruling doyens and doyennes of upper-crust culture had been more creative. Boredom among the wealthy is dangerous for the rest of us. Baldwin came from old wealth. “The lines on both sides of the family went back to the Pilgrims. Baldwin attended Wellesley public schools. As a boy he lacked prowess in sports and developed interests in music, art, and nature. He was regarded as “different,” which made him seek, early in life, “unconventional, nonconformist avenues of expression” consistent with the intellectual heritage of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and other New England icons. His family were free-thinking Unitarians.3 Baldwin carried two serious risk factors. First, he was of the idle rich. Secondly, he was weird. Weirdos are dangerous because they project the cause of their unhappiness outside of themselves. If they are very weird, they become mental cases and ineffective. However, when they are only moderately weird, they can become serious social risks. Baldwin had both risk factors. First, he had family wealth and social status, which gave him the means by which to be dangerous, and secondly, he was moderately weird, which, making for a sense of personal inadequacy, fueled his drive toward social activism. Needless to say, he took his bachelor’s from Harvard. Being a Harvard graduate adds a third risk factor. With all these risk factors, we could say that he was statistically doomed to become dangerous to the world as we know it. Why must society suffer because of social misfits? Marx was one; Stalin was another. An old friend of mine referred to the activities of these weirdos as “The Revolt of the Dwarves.” She was on the money. A review of the names of the first ten founders of the ACLU in 1920 gives nine wellknown WASP aristocrats, and Felix Frankfurter, apparently the lone Jew. The reason for concentrating on Baldwin is that he was to be the executive director from then until 1950. He set the tone. Baldwin expressed his personal views in an autobiographical sketch in 1935 for his Harvard class reunion. Please recall that we are reading the opinion of a man who never had to work for a living: if he chose to work, he was always aware that he could quit at a moment’s notice—for him real work was “slumming.” My chief aversion is the system of greed, private profit, privilege, and violence which makes up the control of the world today, and which has brought it the tragic crisis of unprecedented hunger and unemployment. I am opposed to the new deal [sic] because it strives to strengthen and prolong production for private profit. At bottom I am for conserving the full powers of every person on earth by expanding them to their individual limits. Therefore, I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It sums up into one single purpose—the abolition of the system of dog-eat-dog under which we live, and the substitution by the most effective non-violence possible of a system of cooperative ownership and use of all wealth.4 We now know what Baldwin believes. What is the role of civil liberties to him and those like him? The answer is implied above. He has an end: Marxism. He has a means- Civil liberties: “Civil liberties, like democracy, are useful tools for social change.”5 Baldwin’s long-standing personal secretary (and sometime mistress), Lucille Milner, (née Lowenstein) reflects the same attitude: “Milner viewed civil liberties not as an end in themselves, but as ‘a means to an end. What I was interested in was to abolish poverty, not the right to say that poverty is horrible.’ ”6 Let us look more closely at the ends. According to the theory of Marx and Engels, the task of the revolutionary is to destroy the entire culture of existing society. That means especially the family (see Engel’s Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State), and any laws or traditions that might lend support to family or any other normative community behavior. The matter that brought this issue to a head was that of obscenity. In 1926, the Boston Watch and Ward Society tried to ban Lady Chatterley’s Lover. There was a curious split in the ACLU on this issue. Baldwin, Norman Thomas, and John Haynes Holmes were unwilling to take on the issue. Their belief was that free speech issues should deal with politics and not involve pornography. However, the Jewish members of the ACLU Board of Directors (Arthur Garfield Hays and Morris Ernst) took the opposite view. Apparently the non-Jews needed a refresher course in Marxist praxis from a pair of bona fide “secularized Jews.”7 There are many things the ACLU does in order to support the illusion that it is concerned with civil rights. For example, about a decade ago it supported the rights of Nazis to parade in Skokie, Illinois, at that time the home of numerous Holocaust survivors. But that action was pure window dressing on the part of the ACLU, as Nazis pose no real threat in this country. It was a calculated ploy to deceive. On the other hand, on real issues, such as racial preferences, they follow a straight Communist/Jewish Left line. Also, their support of the Bill of Rights is highly selective: they would like to trash the Second Amendment, consistent with the dictates of the Jewish Left. The membership list and donor list for the ACLU is not subject to popular review. Thus I cannot prove that today, as opposed to 1920, the vast majority of members are drawn from the Jewish Left. But I believe it is so. I also believe that the greatest amount of funding comes from the Jewish Left. I believe this because the ACLU is the single most powerful weapon possessed by the Jewish Left in their crusade to destroy America as we know it and to rebuild it into a Communist state. They would never use the term “Communist” because it has too much blood on it. They have other euphemisms such as “progressive” or “fair” or “a just society.” These are all sanitized terms to mislead the gullible and those who wish to be misled. The Piranhas Because they frequently use patriotic-sounding names, or names indicative of high civic purpose, their true nature is disguised. In the main, they seek to limit liberty by the usual liberal transfer techniques. That is, transfer of authority from regional to central organs of government and concomitant increase in the popular tax burden. They stress entitlements rather than liberty, consistent with the usual left-wing way of buying votes. In the end, we, the people, have neither freedom nor security. The Congress of the U.S. has the authority to investigate matters of grave import to the country. This includes the responsibility to investigate fraud and treason. Just such an incidence of massive deceit was the subject of the Nye Committee hearings following World War I. After World War I ended, Americans saw that the high ideals and lofty goals that led us into a European War were more illusory than real. A period of isolationism set in. One of the key factors that fueled the spirit of isolationism following World War I resulted from popular revulsion to wholesale war profiteering. Between 1934 and 1936, Senator Gerald Nye and his Senate Committee showed that many munitions manufacturers took enormous profits from both sides, even during the war itself. He demonstrated an amoral culture in which merchants of death were equal opportunity players. He demonstrated the existence of a small group of corrupt men who put their personal interests above that of our nation. These people were able to manipulate events so that they always came out ahead. I believe we are experiencing something like that in the U.S. today. We have a small group of people skilled at manipulating public opinion. These people transfer huge amounts of money among various puppet organizations that function as this small group dictates. The members of this small group prefer to work behind the scenes. The organizations they control work in concert to promote particular candidates. This small group is the Jewish Left. A primary example is moveon.org, a tool provided to the Clintons by this group. It is not only the Jewish Left that seeks to destroy liberty. It is also the Protestant Left. It too, is involved in every aspect of public policy and private life. One of the chief organs of the Protestant Left is the foundation. We have a Campaign Finance Reform Act to limit influence just prior to national elections, but there is no limit on foundation influence on public opinion. The work of foundations goes on throughout the election cycle. The subtle and not so subtle influence of the foundations exceeds by far all the combined monies in campaign contributions. Think for a moment of the monies disbursed by the large, old-line foundations such as the Ford, Carnegie, Robert Wood Johnson, and Rockefeller Foundations, just to name a few. How can we measure their impact? To whom must they answer for their impact on public policy? Now consider the expenditures of the myriad of smaller, newer, purpose-bred organizations. Is the sum of their assets any less than that of their older brothers? Is it greater? Do we have manipulation that reaches the point of conspiracy? Is there violation of the tax code? Or is this array of captive organizations within the boundary of the law? Since so much is at stake, I believe it is an area that can and should be subject to congressional investigation. Because I was interested to see what influence the Jewish Left
might exert by means of non-profit organizations, I ran an
experiment. I went online and used the search engine Google to
obtain a list of liberal organizations. The Web site I used was My results show that between 37 and 58 percent met the criteria I set out; that is, that these organizations are the products of a small, well-financed, and influential minority: the Jewish Left It is a grave disappointment to me that so many who should be so
grateful are so hostile to the nation that saved them. This is one
more example of 4 Robert C. Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil
Liberties Union (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000),
228–229. In the U.S., Deceit triumphed in two ways by the middle of the twentieth century. First, the Soviets were successful in espionage, and then, in the late fifties, they were able to conceal their deceit by discrediting as “McCarthyism” any attempt to expose the harm they had done. Their espionage cadres were usually American citizens who were recruited or had volunteered to betray their own country. The vast majority of these traitors were Jews. In appendix A of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America is a list of Americans and U.S. residents who had covert connections with the USSR.1 If their family names sound like the membership list of a synagogue, that is not surprising, as I have shown how Communism is a religion to these people. Espionage There were two major spy rings in the U.S. during the New Deal. One was the “Perlo Ring.” It infiltrated mid-level positions in the Roosevelt administration.2 Some of its members (other than Victor Perlo himself) were John Abt, Edward Fitzgerald, Charles Kramer, Nathan Witt, and Henry Collins.3 A list of some of the data sent to the USSR by this group is given on page 231 of The Haunted Wood, by Weinstein and Vassiliev. The second group, referred to as the Silvermaster Group, included Gregory Silvermaster, his wife Helen, William Ullmann, Solomon Adler, William Taylor, George Silvermaster, Frank Coe, William Gold, Sonia Gold, Irving Kaplan, Norman Bursler, Lauchlin Currie, Anatole Volkov, and Harry Dexter White.4 This group targeted FDR’s closest associates, such as Harry Hopkins and Henry Morganthau. The purpose was to make FDR more receptive to Soviet goals in postwar Europe. Moscow indicated this goal in a dispatch in April, 1942: “We are interested in the [U.S.] government’s plans for the country’s foreign and domestic policy…The task is to penetrate into those places where policy is born and developed, where discussions and debates take place, where policy is completed.”5 At the Yalta Conference, Roosevelt allowed Stalin to occupy Poland, “temporarily,” pending free elections. Is that gift to Stalin courtesy of American traitors?6 Also at Yalta there was another agreement between Roosevelt and Stalin that led to an episode of enormous human suffering. Stalin was suspicious of his returning POWs and also of Soviet citizens who had been exposed to the West. He feared that they would be “potential spies, or at least…contaminated by their stay outside of the Soviet Union.”7 Below is a passage recording their fate: Once the Yalta accords had been signed, convoys left Britain weekly for the USSR. From May to July, 1945 more than 1.3 million people who had been living in the Western zones, and who were considered Russian by the British, including people from the Balkans, which had been annexed in 1940, and the Ukrainians, were repatriated. By the end of August more than 2 million of these “Russians” had been handed over. Sometimes they were kept in terrible conditions. Individual and collective suicides involving whole families were frequent, as was mutilation. Often, when the prisoners were handed over to the Soviet authorities, they tried to put up passive resistance, but the Anglo-Americans did not hesitate to use force to satisfy Moscow’s requirement. When the prisoners arrived in the USSR, they were placed under police control. The day the ship Almanzora arrived in Odessa, on 18 April, summary executions took place. This was also the case when the Empire Pride arrived in the Black Sea.8 Early in the war years, the U.S. and USSR had a common interest in defeating the Axis powers. Thus, Adolf Berle, Assistant Secretary of State, decided to develop joint intelligence with the USSR in order to be more effective against the common enemies, Germany and Japan. To meet this need, the Office of Strategic Services was founded in 1942. It was supposed to work closely with the Soviet intelligence agency, the NKVD. The Soviets considered this arrangement a great opportunity to infiltrate American intelligence for anti-American, as well as anti-Axis purposes. It did not take the Soviets long to achieve this goal. The OSS hired several German-Jewish refugees, whose hostility to Nazism was beyond doubt. But some of them were, or became, Soviet spies, thus betraying the country that saved them. One such individual was Franz Neumann.9 Another Jewish Marxist in the OSS was Herbert Marcuse. Although there is no indication that he was a spy, his influence through the New Left was more destructive than outright espionage. The value of espionage is time sensitive; the results of political poison bear fruit for generations. Although time sensitive, the espionage did exact its price in American blood. In order to make real the impact of this espionage on everyday Americans, I will cite the probable consequences of one instance of this espionage on American soldiers and airmen. At the onset of the Korean War, North Korean and Communist Chinese pilots had the MiG-15, a better fighter plane than anything we had. This technological disadvantage caused the unnecessary deaths of American pilots and the ground forces who depended upon air support. The spy enabling the Communists in this instance was William Perl.10 Even worse was the betrayal of atomic secrets by Klaus Fuchs and Theodore Hall from the Manhattan project. Stalin’s premature possession of the atom bomb changed the balance of power in Korea: “The killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians on both sides of the war in Korea might have been averted had the Soviets not been able to parry the American bomb threat.”11 Perl, Fuchs and Hall were Jews. Does the Jewish community have any comment? Deceit This task was made easier by the fateful arrival of Joseph McCarthy in the U.S. Senate in 1946. He was to become the self-appointed messenger of anti-Communism. The messenger, however, was seriously flawed. He was an alcoholic and willing to use the issue of Communist infiltration as a means of gathering personal political power. In the process, he made many enemies of people who might have been open to the fundamental truth of his arguments had he not been a demagogue. If the Jewish Left had possessed the power to invent an enemy, they could not have done better than fate alone had done in providing Joe McCarthy. By discrediting the messenger, they were able to discredit the message. But the Jewish Left did more than just to discredit McCarthy and his message in its era. They were able to convert him into a symbol, which, through their control of the media, has endured to this day. It is still an effective shield protecting the predatory forces of Judeofascism in its continual assault upon liberty. A glance at any high school textbook will show the prominence given to the McCarthy era, with little or no data about Soviet espionage. Who writes the textbooks? Howard Zinn, a Judeofascist whose work we will subsequently examine, has written a textbook entitled A People’s History of America. This book is popular with the educational establishment because it is violently antiAmerican. It is nothing more than a left-wing propaganda treatise formalizing the ideology of the Jewish Left for high school consumption. A trip to the local library will turn up Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, which was a high-brow propaganda assault on McCarthy. The daily newspapers will use the term McCarthyism when attacking anyone who questions the Left or its motivation. This is true today and reveals who controls the print media right now. The major problem faced by McCarthy and his supporters in the late forties and early fifties of the last century was the difficulty of proving that what they knew to be true was, in actual fact, true. They could have easily demonstrated the degree of Communist infiltration in government agencies had the Venona documents been made public at that time. At this point I will briefly digress from McCarthy to explain the Venona documents. In 1943, Col. Carter Clarke of U.S. Military Intelligence had begun a project to decode all the Soviet cable traffic he could find. Using the services of many brilliant young cryptographers in the U.S. and England, he had some success. We succeeded in decoding about 3000 messages, despite the constantly changing Soviet encoding procedures.12 But this was still only a small fraction of the total coded traffic, on the whole, probably not more than 5 to 7 percent. Noting the leaks in the White House, Military Intelligence told neither Roosevelt nor Truman of the successful project. Instead, they filtered the necessary information to the White House in such as way as to protect the project.13 Unfortunately, that indirect procedure detracted, in some measure, from the power the data would otherwise have had. The total number of American citizens noted to have covert connections to the Soviets was 349.14 If we could have decoded a greater percentage of the messages, the number of spies uncovered could only have been greater. The information derived from the Venona Project was instrumental not only in identifying Soviet agents, but also in prosecuting them. The problem was that the actual Soviet cables could not be referred to without endangering the whole Venona Project. Thus in many cases, such as the Alger Hiss and Julius and Ethyl Rosenberg cases, public knowledge of the project could have led to easier convictions. Instead, the prosecution had to proceed with more circumstantial data. This complication served only to provide the Jewish Left with more ammunition in its campaign against American justice. It is only in the context of understanding the enormity of the Soviet infiltration of government agencies that the loyalty oaths and security measures of the 1950s can be properly understood. Also, the Smith Act, requiring members of the American Communist Party to register as agents of a foreign government was absolutely justified, as the CPUSA was an active participant in Soviet espionage. (There are too many instances of CPUSA serving Soviet espionage purposes to permit a reference here. Interested parties are referred to the index of Haynes and Klehr: Venona). Incidentally, it was not until 1987 that the Venona Project was declassified.15 Now we can return to the history of Joe McCarthy and his era. McCarthy’s career as a factor in American political life began in Wheeling, West Virginia. He gave a speech there, which was not recorded, so there is some question regarding the details. The key phrase that launched McCarthy into the national spotlight was his statement “I have here in my hand a list of 205 —a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working in the State Department.”16 To this day no one knows what, if any, list he actually had. However, if he’d had the Venona list, he could have ticked off several at the State Department and many more at other departments. History remembers him for the above passage, but he also said something much more important in the same speech. He repeated some lines previously spoken by Richard Nixon, which shows Nixon’s great understanding of the Communist threat: “One thing to remember when discussing Communists in our government is that we are not dealing with spies who get thirty pieces of silver to obtain the blueprint of a new weapon. We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy.”17 I am not certain whether McCarthy was aware of the importance of what Nixon said in the above quote. For McCarthy it may have been the mindless recitation of words because they seemed appropriate to the time, place, and prosody of his own speech. With the passage of time, McCarthy became a source of power that was a threat to Democrats and Republicans. He was almost isolated in the Senate. However, had he not had widespread popular support from Americans of all states and both parties, McCarthy would have had no power. His popular support shows that on the issue of the Communist threat to the U.S., the people of the United States were far more in touch with reality than the politicians. The task for the Left was not simply to destroy McCarthy the man and the Senator, but to discredit the message. In this they were successful. In conclusion, I would like to remark that while most of the spies and masters of deceit were Jews, some very important ones were not. A key example is Harry Hopkins, advisor to FDR, and probably the man closest to him. Hopkins was also a favorite of Eleanor Roosevelt. His activities and their consequences are related by Romerstein and Breindel (The Venona Secrets). First, they give evidence of Hopkins’ ties to the USSR: “Two Venona messages from Belyaev to the Soviet leadership contained messages to them from Hopkins.”18 There is much additional proof, but space precludes my citing it. The consequences, however, are too important to skip. In 1944, the Poles in Warsaw were preparing an uprising against the Nazi occupiers. They pled with Britain and the U.S. to airdrop supplies. But Stalin opposed supplying the Poles with arms, because he knew armed Poles would not be receptive to replacing the Nazis by the Russians. As a dutiful Russian tool, Hopkins promised to block all cables to Roosevelt that would support arming the Poles: “According to Anderson [deputy commanding general for operations, U. S. Strategic Air Force in Europe] Hopkins said ‘that he would see that any cablegrams whether they came from Mr. Churchill or from Mr. Winant [U. S. ambassador in London] would be held in abeyance and that we would not be committed to do this job.’ ”19 In closing this chapter, I wish to point out that most of the authors of the books regarding the Venona Project are Jews. This is an important redeeming point that should not be overlooked in a global assessment of the troubling issues raised in this chapter. 1 John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr, Venona: Decoding Soviet
Espionage in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999). 2 Allen Weinstein and Alexander Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood (New
York: Random House, 1999), 224. 7 Mark Greenberg, et al., eds. The Black Book of Communism
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 230. 16 Robert Griffith, The Politics of Fear (Amherst, MA: University
of Massachusetts Press, 1987), 49. 17 Ibid., 48. 18 Herbert Romerstein and Eric Breindel, The Venona Secrets
(Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2000), 213. This chapter deals mainly with the Holocaust—no, not the one you are thinking of. This chapter deals with the one that occurred less than ten years before the Holocaust. I am referring to the massive murder of at least 5 million human beings by the Communist regime of the USSR under Joseph Stalin. The Ukrainian term for it is Holodomor, which means death by hunger.1 During the years 1931–1932, Stalin decided to destroy a nation: Fifty years ago, as I write these words, the Ukraine and the Ukrainian, Cossack and other areas to its east—a great stretch of territory with some forty million inhabitants-was like one vast Belsen. A quarter of the rural population, men, women and children, lay dead or dying, the rest in various stages of debilitation with no strength to bury their families or neighbors. At the same time, (as at Belsen), well-fed squads of police or party officials supervised the victims… On a battlefield men die quickly, they fight back; they are sustained by fellowship and a sense of duty. Here I saw people dying in solitude by slow degrees, dying hideously, without the excuse of sacrifice for a cause. They had been trapped and left to starve, each in his home, by a political decision made in a far-off capital around conference and banquet table. There was not even the consolation of inevitability to relieve the horror. The most terrifying sights were the little children with the
skeleton limbs dangling from balloon-like abdomens. Starvation had
wiped every trace of youth from their faces, turning them into
tortured gargoyles; only in their eyes still lingered the reminder
of childhood. Everywhere we found men and women lying prone, their
faces and bellies bloated, their eyes utterly expressionless… What was happening here? Since the Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century, no such massive, planned human destruction had occurred in Europe. With the close of the First World War, something new came into existence. In previous wars civilians may have been victims, but they were not commonly targeted as such. Even on the battlefields a sort of chivalry prevailed, with a certain respect for the enemy. There were even occasional informal truces at Christmas and New Years. A sense of this chivalry can be seen in Jean Renoirs’ film Grand Illusion, which takes place during World War I. But with the advent of Marxism, a new view of the “enemy” had developed. The enemy was a “class.” As a class, the enemy had a culture, systems of belief. Defeat of the enemy on the battlefield was merely the beginning. It was imperative to destroy his way of living, his way of thinking, his religion, his internal value structure. He had to be remade. The Communist dictatorship took over the role of God, to remake man in the image of the Marxist ideal. In the event that any person could not be so changed, that person, or those persons, or those classes of persons, had to be “liquidated.” This mass murder was perpetrated in order to create a utopian society. Those individuals, who, even unknowingly, stood in the way of this quest to Utopia, had to be removed for the greater good of all. That was the theoretical basis upon which the Holodomor was executed. It was obvious that Stalin, ensconced in the Kremlin, could not do the job himself. To carry out the mass murder, he appointed Lazar Kaganovitch. This butcher of humans was born a Jew and early on became a Communist. He became a slavish sycophant to Joseph Stalin, thus winning Stalin’s favor by his willingness to commit mass murder as readily as another would be to harvest wheat. He was backed up by a corps of junior commissars. How many of these commissars were Jews? I don’t know. What I do know is that in Poland, Germany, and Hungary, as shown in previous chapters, the leading Communists were Jews. It is unlikely that the situation here was any different. In the Congress of the United States, on Oct. 21, 2003, House Concurrent Resolution #356 passed the House by vote of 382–0. In addressing this question, it read, in part: When OGPU failed to meet execution quotas, Stalin sent henchman Lazar Kaganovitch to destroy Ukrainian resistance. Kaganovitch, the Soviet Eichmann, made quota, shooting 10,000 Ukrainians weekly. Eighty percent of all Ukrainian intellectuals were executed… Kaganovitch and many senior officers (later, NKVD) were Jewish. The predominance of Jews among Bolshevik leaders, and the frightful crimes and cruelty inflicted by Stalin’s Cheka on Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Poland, led the victims of Red terror to blame the Jewish people for both Communism and their suffering. As a direct result, during the subsequent Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, the region’s innocent Jew became the target of ferocious revenge by Ukrainian, Balts and Poles. While the world is by now fully aware of the destruction of Europe’s Jews by the Nazis, the story of the numerically larger holocaust in Ukraine has been suppressed, or ignored. Ukraine’s genocide occurred 8–9 years before Hitler began the Jewish Holocaust, and was committed, unlike Nazi crimes, before the world’s gaze. But Stalin’s murder of millions was simply denied, or concealed by a left-wing conspiracy of silence that continues to this day. In the strange moral geometry of mass murder, only Nazis are guilty.3 The words from the passage above, “as a direct result, during the subsequent Nazi occupation of Eastern Europe, the region’s innocent Jew became the target of ferocious revenge by Ukrainian, Balts, and Poles,” requires a comment from me. As mentioned earlier, there is a saying among conservative Jews such as myself, which states Trotsky makes the revolution; Bronstein pays the price. This saying makes sense if you remember that Trotsky was an even greater butcher than Kaganovitch, and that Trotsky’s name was Bronstein, before he ethnically cleansed it. Before one starts out exterminating people, two things must be seen to. First, the victims must be unarmed, and secondly, the killing crews must be convinced that the victims are subhumans. As a result of liberal control of the media, most people think the Nazis invented the two-step process above. Actually, it was a Communist invention that the Nazis merely copied. During the years 1929–1930, the people were disarmed. Now for step two; the Communist death squads would threaten people with guns, as if they were under a spell, calling small children “kulak bastards,’’ screaming Bloodsuckers!” They had sold themselves on the idea that the so-called “kulaks” were pariahs, untouchable, vermin. They would not sit down at a “parasite’s” table; the “kulak” child was loathsome, the young “kulak” girl was lower than a louse. They looked on the so-called “kulaks” as cattle, swine, loathsome, repulsive: they had no souls; they were not human beings; one had a hard time making out what they were—vermin, evidently.4 This characterization of certain people as subhuman is a direct result of Marxist ideology. With the abnegation of any overriding value system, with the abolition of any difference between right and wrong or good and evil, anything is possible. An Englishman once said “the problem with those who do not believe in God is not that they believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything.” It was the Communists who introduced this nihilism; the Nazis merely continued it. Not only in Ukraine have we seen this evil. Communist regimes in
Cambodia, China, and North Korea have done the same. The most egregious example of Holodomor denial was the series of articles written from Ukraine for the New York Times, a Jewish-owned and controlled newspaper then, as it is today. This series was written by Walter Duranty who was on-site in Ukraine as the events unfolded. He was Stalin’s puppet, or more accurately, Stalin’s transcriptionist. For this Duranty received the Pulitzer Prize in 1932. (Incidentally, Joseph Pulitzer, who established the Prize, was a Jew.)5 In 2003, the New York Times, in a belated attempt at damage control, asked the Pulitzer Board to consider whether the prize should be revoked.6 The Board’s reasoning is truly astounding: In its review of the 13 articles, [written by Duranty] the Board determined that Mr. Duranty’s 1931 work, measured by today’s standards for foreign reporting, falls seriously short. What a pack of lies! Look at the bias in the media today. The mainstream media has an enduring love affair with Fidel Castro and Cuban Communism! Havana, with its perfect health care system, is the New Jerusalem of the Jewish Left. Today’s standards for foreign reporting are no different from those of Duranty’s time. In that regard, the Board’s view is similar to that of the New
York Times itself and of some scholars who have examined his 1931
reports. However, the Board determined that there was not clear and
convincing evidence of deliberate deception, the relevant standard
in this case. If that is true, why has the Board not awarded Hitler’s Minister
of Propaganda, Josef Goebbels, a Pulitzer Prize? His work was
equally devoid of “deliberate deception.” Revoking a prize 71
years after it was awarded under different circumstances, when all
the principles are dead and unable to respond… What arrogance! The majesty of the Board, a collection of
self-congratulating cryptoMarxists, eclipses the horrific
slaughter of 5 million civilians! Comparison: Holodomor and Holocaust All over the world, and in many major U.S. cities, there are Holocaust Memorials. How many such memorials are there in the U.S. for the Holodomor? The absence of such memorials is due both to the unwillingness of Jews to share their status as victims, as well as the inconvenient questions regarding the role of Jews as perpetrators. The Jewish identity as unique and uniquely victims has its uses. Another defense against considering the Holodomor as a manifestation of evil, is that Communists and Socialists believe that it was done as a “noble experiment.” As such, there may have been errors, but they were done with the best of intentions. Many nonJews took this line. One of the most notable, because he was so typical of his class, was Noel Field.8 He came from an old New England Protestant family, went to Harvard, and had all the connections necessary to advance in public service. So he became a Communist spy, planted in the U.S. State Department. He was, in Stalin’s famous phrase, “a useful idiot.” There were many such from among the New England Protestant elite. None of this perversion of truth could have occurred if the chattering classes in the U.S. and Europe had not first been intoxicated with the vapors of Marxism that floated out from Germany. We have traced the Frankfurt School, as it went from Germany to the U.S. With the victory of Nazi arms in Europe and the accompanying extermination of European Jewry, the Jewish Left suffered a serious setback in Europe. But one of the consequences of their fleeing Europe was to plant the disease of Marxism firmly into American academia. Today we call it “political correctness.” Under this thought system, genocide and mass murder are quite different things. Genocide has as its victims members of a specific race; hence it is morally reprehensible. Mass murder, on the other hand, does not discriminate on the basis of race. It discriminates on the basis of class, as in Ukraine, where, theoretically, it was only the “kulak,” or independent peasant, that was exterminated. Thus mass murder, as opposed to genocide, may be excused, because it is done with laudable intent; that is, to make a “workers’ paradise.” When there is an overriding greater good, mass murder is excusable. In 1963, in Israel, a memorial was established. It is called Yad Vashem. Its purpose is to honor “the Righteous Among Nations,” that is, to honor the non-Jews who risked their lives saving Jews during the Holocaust. It is the height of human spirituality to risk one’s life to save others, and no memorial can provide the honor due to the best of our species. But if you read interviews with these “Righteous Gentiles,” you will find that they did not save Jews because the victims were Jews; they saved Jews because Jews are human. Mirroring the role of the Righteous Gentiles, there were, in the Ukraine, some Righteous Jews, who did what they could to save Ukrainians. These people have never been honored and have died in obscurity. Why? There are many reasons. A sufficient reason would be that to honor them would risk bringing to light the role of other Jews, Jews such as Kaganovitch. The Late Holocaust: Perfidy Prior to relating the history of the last million, we need to review the makeup of the Jewish community in the United States, Israel, and Western Europe. It is basically split between the orthodox, who follow tradition, and the reform and assimilated types who do not. From the assimilated types we get the Jewish Left, starting with Karl Marx, and continuing on to today’s iterations of him. The Jewish Left hates all religion, and Judaism is no exception. So when the issue of saving the one million arose, the fact that most of them were orthodox sharply reduced their value in the eyes of the Jewish establishment, whose political views ranged from moderate Socialist to hard-line Communist. To this Marxist-impregnated leadership, the orthodox were chaff, and not only dispensable, but undesirable. Chaim Weizman, the highest ranking Jewish leader of his day, assessed them as follows: “They are moral and economic dust…in a cruel world…They must meet their fate…Only a branch shall survive. They must accept it.”9 Chaim Cohen, a colleague and friend of Weizman, and future Israeli Supreme Court justice, had this to say: For those and millions of Jews like them there came true the old curse: “And lo, they were meant but to be taken like sheep for slaughter, for killing, for destruction, for crushing and shame.” There was no spirit in them. The Jewish masses in Warsaw were in the same condition.10 Having this background, we can return to the remaining million.
The German government issued an offer to the Jewish Agency. The
offer was to exchange the million Jews for certain commodities.
Since the Jewish Agency did not want to rescue the million, they
hid the offer. They practiced deceit at every level. The history
of this event is related in the Ben Hecht’s book Perfidy, which I
highly recommend. The catastrophic slaughter resulting from the simultaneous occurrence of mass murder and closure of escape routes led to a massive campaign in the U.S. to influence the American government to pressure the British to reopen the only escape route that existed. Many prominent people signed a petition to that effect. They included thirty-three Senators, one hundred and nine Representatives, fourteen state governors, hundreds of rabbis, priests, and ministers, a score of admirals and generals, and far too many others to enumerate.11 But there was a terrible, bloody secret. Among the leaders of U.S. Jewry, the “Respectables” did not want to see the gates to Israel opened to “those” Jews!12 Palestine was to be settled by followers of Marx, not Moses. Most of our high-powered cohorts and endorsers were Gentiles. Out of the five thousand important Names we were able to pipe to our side, hardly a handful were Important Jewish names. Thus our Gentile Captains of a Thousand, after winning a battle, felt it their duty to step aside modestly, and permit the Jewish leaders of the land to finish the victory. We could convince our Gentiles of our cause, but we could seldom convince them that all the fine American Jews whom they admired were enemies of our cause.13 It is almost beyond belief that the “Respectables” would betray their own people, but betray them they did. It is not coincidental that the descendents of these “Respectables” comprise today’s Jewish Left. Their spiritual ancestor is Judas Iscariot. It is this group of “Despicables” who are now ceaselessly chattering about the Holocaust. Why? Uses of the Holocaust But the evil is even more subtle. The Jewish Left have created a new category of crime. It is called a hate crime, and augments the penalty of an act already defined as criminal, if it can be maintained that the motive for the crime was, at least in part, due to racial differences. The moral weight of Christian guilt for the Holocaust was used to pass this legislation. Criminal assault on a person of a different class is not considered a hate crime, because mass murder on the basis of class is a standard Marxist practice; the Jewish Left in Europe have used class difference as a basis to carry out mass exterminations. In a rational society governed by rational law, a criminal act would be just that, regardless of the victim’s race. What the Jewish Left have introduced into the U.S. legal code is the further institutionalization of “political correctness.” Any one penalized under such statutes is, by my definition, a political prisoner. It is only a matter of time before the list of political crimes is expanded. This assault on American liberty may yet be the worst evil brought upon us by the Jewish Left; it provides the forces of oppression with a tool of the most powerful destructive force. Legislation of this sort is alien to anything in the U.S. Constitution. Its roots go back to certain European legal codes which gave the aristocracy privileges and immunities in law and custom. Related to this, the Jewish Left have given us the legal concept of a “protected class.” What this means, in effect, is that some are “more equal than others.” A member of a “protected class” has greater range of privileges, and is more immune to punishment for criminal acts, than someone less “equal.” The whole concept of “protected class” was a payoff by the Jewish Left to its clientela, the Black masses whose votes are necessary on the first Tuesday of November. In this chapter we have discussed the idea of the Holocaust, but mentioned individuals only secondarily. The next chapter will deal with three individuals and show how their influence conditioned the way we contemporary Americans think of ourselves and the world around us. 1 www.ukrainianmuseum.org sv “Holodomor.” 2 Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986), 3, 245, 253. In this chapter I will review the work of three men who will serve as symbols for the types of evil under study. For me this is a matter of convenience, in which a representative sample must serve in place of the whole. It is not possible to write an exhaustive study on treachery within the scope of a survey text. I. The Historian: Howard Zinn He wrote a textbook of American history entitled A People’s History of the United States. Knowing his Marxist orientation will inure us against a sense of surprise when reading his vile screed, but it cannot protect us against a sense of outrage. One of his first attempts at distortion is to cite the idyllic view of Native American Indians provided by the Spanish priest, Bartolomé de Las Casas: Marriage laws are non-existent: men and women alike choose their mates and leave them as they please, without offense, jealousy or anger. They multiply in great abundance; pregnant women work to the last minute and give birth almost painlessly; up to the next day, they bathe in the river and are as clean and healthy as before giving birth. If they tire of their men, they give themselves abortions with herbs that force stillbirths, covering their shameful parts with leaves or cotton cloth; although on the whole, Indian men and women look upon total nakedness with as much casualness as we look upon a man’s head or at his clothes.1 Zinn then cites Las Casas to the effect that the Indians have no religion, or at least no temples. How we may be certain that this singular observation of las Casas is accurate remains unknown, but Zinn takes it literally, because it is “news that fits.” He continues to cite Las Casas regarding the Indians’ communal
lifestyles: These descriptions of Indian life appear to owe something to Biblical accounts of the Garden of Eden, or to wishful thinking. While it is possible that they are accurate, it is doubtful. However, as before, they fit the mold of the noble savage and portray Indians as having a communistic, utopian existence. Thus they serve as a template of what life could be like if evil white men had not corrupted society. As a counterpoint to Zinn’s selective imagery, I present below a citation from a scholarly source. A few hundred miles west of Zinn’s sylvan paradise, the following event was occurring: This Jaina figurine, a living nightmare of torture, opens his mouth in a great howl of pain. His face is swollen and bloodied, and his scalp hangs down from his head, still attached to the nape of the neck. Evidence for this degree of torture among the Maya is not unknown. It appears, for example, that captives on the bench entablature in the Bonampak paintings have had their hands and fingers mangled out of joint. Although the hands and feet of this figure have been reattached, they too, appear to have been twisted out of joint. Like many captives, this figure wears ragged strips of cloth for garments; tied over them at the lower back are pieces of firewood. Even though he is about to be set on fire, this captive will feel little pain, for he has already been killed through disembowelment.3 The event above is indicative of the horrible barbarity of the Mayan and Aztec cultures, an inconvenient truth for Professor Zinn. In fact, the opening sentence in the above source (The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art) reads as follows: “Blood was the mortar of ancient Maya life.” But it was not only the Mesoamericans who were brutal. Prof. George Hunt, in his book The Wars of the Iroquois, shows the Iroquois to be no less brutal than the worst of the Europeans.4 As for the Southwest, a peer-reviewed journal, Current Anthropology, shows evidence in the form of skeletal remains that abuse of women and girls was widespread prior to the arrival of the white man.5 All of the above evidence debunking the myth of the “noble savage” is so plentiful that only a hack historian or a scoundrel could ignore it. The historical records of these events imply that the only thing that prevented even worse internecine atrocities were technological limitations. The Indians were not as savage as the Europeans only because the Indians lacked the necessary weaponry. The claims of various Indians today to represent the generic “native American” is spurious, because so many tribes were exterminated by fellow Indians. Some, if not all, of the surviving tribes had to have engaged in genocide, simply on the basis that they had survived as tribal entities long enough to be recorded in the books of the white man. Next we go to the Revolutionary War, which is viewed through the mechanistic prism of class warfare by Zinn. Since Zinn can view reality in only one way, this is no surprise. What is disturbing is that this intellectually lazy way of thinking is generic to the academy today. Intellectual diversity is nonexistent in today’s academy. Regarding the personalities of the Revolutionary period, Zinn fails to remark on the extraordinary personality of George Washington. This man could have become an autocrat, but chose not to. Maybe Zinn is afraid mention of George Washington would lead to a comparison to Lenin or Stalin. These Russians were (are?) the heroes of Judeofascists such as Zinn, something these Jews are reluctant to admit publicly. The statesmen who drew up the U.S. Constitution created the greatest instrument for self-government in the history of the world, not in the least because it includes mechanisms for self-correction. Which of Zinn’s workers’ paradises has produced anything close to the U.S. Constitution? Russia? China? North Korea? Cuba? Anyone who can flee from these paradises does so, even at risk of death. These are the sorts of governments the Judeofascists have planned for us. Next we go to slavery and race relations. In fact, this is the bulk of his entire text, which is nothing more than an indictment of white racism. According to Zinn, every other aspect of U.S. history is a minor aside. He is blind to the ability of our form of government to evolve and solve intestine problems. He is so enamored with Communism that he views any other way of life as aberrant. Subsequently, he discusses the status of the Irish.6 After reading the ordeals they underwent, both in passage, and upon arrival on these shores, one would wonder why anyone immigrates under such conditions. But come they did, by the millions. The grandson of one of these immigrants became the thirty-fifth president of the United States. Could it be that the U. S. offered social mobility? Could it be that the class structure was permeable and open to achievement? Could it be that Marxism is wrong? Impossible! No true believer would sacrifice theory to fact; and Zinn is nothing if not a true believer. As far as settling the West and the availability of free or cheap land, that was an illusion. Zinn approvingly quotes Hamlin Garland: “Free land is gone. The last acre of available farmland has now passed into private or corporate hands.” He continues to quote Garland, citing failed farmers’ woes.7 Certainly, it is true that there were failed farmers, but most did well. If Zinn’s analysis held, the West would never have been settled. But Zinn, from his Marxist perspective, tells us how things should have been. Approvingly, he quotes Hamlin Garland again: I see a time when the farmer will not need to live in a cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together in groups. I see them with time to read, and time to visit with their fellows. I see them enjoying lectures in beautiful halls, erected in every village. In see them gather together like the Saxons of old upon the green at evening to sing and dance. I see cities rising near them with schools, churches, and concert halls and theaters. I see…happy men and women who will go singing to their pleasant tasks upon their fruitful farms.8 This idealized commune can exist only in the mind of a liberal intellectual, divorced from the real world. Farmers prefer tractor pulls to violin concertos; they do not set up lecture halls in villages. Zinn does not understand farmers, and if he did, would agree with Marx concerning “the idiocy of rural life.” Like Marx, Zinn is an upper middle-class urban Jewish intellectual. Like Marx, his lack of common sense is made up for by a surfeit of arrogance. Zinn’s hack work goes on ad nauseam for 662 pages. Since I am not intending to do a point by point refutation of Zinn’s work, I will limit myself to one other observation, that of the McCarthy Era. Zinn states that the prosecution of the Communist Party was unjust. He follows the “party line” that they were just discussion groups, and merely distributors of Marxist-Leninist tracts, and were no real danger.9 In fact, as demonstrated in the Venona documents, the CPUSA was actively engaged in espionage for the Soviet Union.10 It is almost certain that Zinn, a Judeofascist living in New York at that time, personally knew some of the Soviet spies. We now leave Zinn to go on to someone, who, if possible, is more disgusting. The Berserker: William Kunstler Probably there is no member of the Jewish Left more obnoxious than the attorney William Kunstler. As a young man growing up in New York City, he had all the advantages this country could ever give an immigrant family. His father was a doctor, and the family lived in a nine-room apartment on Central Park West.11 Kunstler got his BA at Yale, and his law degree at Columbia. As in the case of the Zinn family, had the Kunstlers remained in Europe, they would have been turned into bars of soap. To that extent, they would have been useful to humanity. Instead, they repaid the country that saved them by crapping on its doorstep. Kunstler used the law as a weapon against society. He seemed to be motivated by the urge to destroy. We all know that to destroy is fun and easy, to build is difficult and frustrating. He would support anyone who was engaged in antisocial behavior as a way of weakening the social fabric. Regarding the law, he said: [The law]…is nothing other than a method of control created by a socioeconomic system determined, at all costs, to perpetuate itself by all possible means necessary, for as long as possible. Clarence Darrow put it even more expansively, fifty-eight years ago, when he said that “There is no such thing as justice—in or out of the court.”12 His berserker mentality is further demonstrated by his own
explanation of his evolution into a radical: He is just like a bull in a china shop, carelessly and wantonly destroying. Let us take a look at some of his cases/causes. In 1966, he attempted to disrupt the House UnAmerican Activities Committee’s investigation into Communist influences in the antiwar movement. 14 I was at that time part of the antiwar movement, and worked with
members of the Communist Party to subvert the antiwar movement
into a pro-Communist front group. The antiwar movement was
infiltrated with Communists and fellow-travelers. I was one and
could name dozens of others. The antiwar movement was for us a
cause to be exploited, regardless of its inherent rightness or
wrongness.15 Abbie described himself as a ‘child of America.’ Despite his sophisticated political savvy, underneath the veneer of a man who was so anti-establishment [my emphasis] that he named one of his sons “Amerika” [sic].16 I think the term antiestablishment is a code word for “anti-American” just as “progressive” is a code word for “Communist.” Fortunately for society, Abbie Hoffman committed suicide in 1989. In an act of mob violence, prisoners in Attica Correctional Facility in New York took guards hostage. Kunstler represented the prisoners. Kunstler describes one of the inmates: “Sam was a young revolutionary who had been convicted of firebombing a New York bank.” He liked inmates of this type, and he also liked Black Muslims. Both groups hate America, thus qualifying for his “most favored nations” status. He felt privileged to represent them in court. He was especially pleased to represent Blacks who have killed police officers, or anyone who is white. “Any time a black person is charged with a crime against a white law enforcement officer, I consider it political.”17 Then what could have been a better case than that of Joanne Chesimard (now Assata Shakur)? She was accused of killing a white police officer. Despite Kunstler’s best efforts, she was convicted of murder. Eventually, she escaped from prison, and made her way to the New Jerusalem of the Jewish Left (Havana).18 A case similar to the last above was that of Kathy Boudin. She was convicted in the case of the murder of two police officers and one guard during the attempted robbery of a Brink’s truck in 1981. (Those were the days before George Soros; therefore the Left had to gain money “by any means necessary.”) This case is interesting because it weaves together the lives of three Judeofascists who were licensed to pervert law. Kathy Boudin was the daughter of Leonard Boudin, an Old Left Commie lawyer. Some weeks before the trial, the media asked Kunstler his opinion of the case, and he played down the political aspects of the case, thinking that would be in the best interests of his potential clients. It was only after the media statement that Kunstler actually met the defendants. The defendants were furious with his action; they wanted it to be a political case: I made my statement to the press because I thought I was doing the right thing for the defendants. But when I met with them later in prison, they were furious. To them, the Brinks robbery was a revolutionary act because it was the first time since the abolitionist John Brown attacked the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, that white and blacks had physically fought together on the same side as an integrated unit.19 Enter the third Old Left Commie lawyer: Leonard Weinglass. Probably because of Kunstler’s admitted blunder (for which he expressed regret), Papa Boudin hired Weinglass to represent his daughter. The trial must have been like old home week for the New York
Communist Party. The final episode to relate is that of the World Trade Center bombing of 1993. Kunstler defended the leaders in the plotting and execution of this terrorist act. As an act of mass terrorism, the attempted physical destruction of a part of the capitalist system must have given him the greatest pleasure of his entire career. It would have served to actualize his infantile need for destruction on a scale that just might have begun to satisfy his warped psyche. Certainly, the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001 would have gladdened his heart, which fortunately for us, ceased to beat in 1995. Our Soros / Our Sorrow He grew up in dual anti-Semitism: in his home and in Hungary. “I grew up in a Jewish, anti-Semite, home.”23 The family attitude was a reflection of the widespread antiSemitism prevalent in Hungary at that time. Soros, like all Judeofascists, is an antiSemitic Jew. His take on being a persecuted Jew is that Jews react to persecution in predictable ways: When you look at the ways Jews react to persecution, you’ll find that they tend to follow one of two main escape routes. Either they transcend their problem by turning to something universal [sic] or they identify with their oppressors and try to become like them. I came from an assimilationist family and I have chosen the first route. The other alternative is Zionism, the founding of a nation where Jews are in the majority.24 This is approximately correct. Included in the first alternative
there is the path of becoming Joseph to Pharaoh. In the next
chapter, we will see how this plays out. Now we will examine Soros in his own words, as told to Steve Kroft on 60 Minutes (CBS) on December 20, 1998.25 The interview begins against a backdrop of films of Hungarian Jews boarding trains to death camps. KROFT: You’re a Hungarian Jew— SOROS: Mm-hmm. (Vintage footage of women helping each other get on train; train
door closing with people in boxcar) KROFT: And you watched lots of people get shipped off to death
camps. SOROS: Right. I was fourteen years old. And I would say
that that’s when my character was made. KROFT: In what way? KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector
of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson. KROFT: I mean, that’s—that sounds like an experience that would
send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many,
years. Was it difficult? KROFT: No feeling of guilt? KROFT: For example that, “I’m Jewish and here I am, watching
these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be
there.” None of that? Returning our attention to the general case, we must ask: What
specific function did collaborators play? These collaborators worked through the Jewish Council, an organization set up by Eichmann to get the Jews to operate the engine of their own death. It was this Council with which Soros collaborated: George, meanwhile, began working as a courier for the Jewish Council, which had quickly been established by Eichmann. As in other cities where the Nazis had set up such organizations, the council was intended as a first step leading to the identification and registration of Jews, which would be followed by herding them into ghettos and ultimately by their deportation to forced labor and death.27 For a normal person, to have collaborated with the Nazis would have led to a postwar life of guilt. By Soros’ own admission, he felt none of that. But the matter gets worse. Not only did he feel no remorse, he felt it was “a great thrill”: For the next three and a half hours, Soros spoke about his Jewishness, about his childhood experiences, and especially about hiding from the Nazis during World War II. “It was one of the most exciting things in my life,” he told Landa. “Hiding like that was like playing cops and robbers. It was a great thrill.”28 There is something wrong, very wrong, with a man who participated
as a Nazi collaborator, and not only had no guilt, but also found
that the period provided him with a “great thrill.” When caught by
Kroft’s unexpected questioning, Soros offered the same excuse used
by so many Nazi war criminals: “if I wasn’t doing it…somebody else
would.” If the truth be known, I carried some of rather potent messianic
fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control,
otherwise they might get me into trouble… It is a sort of disease
when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of
everything, but I feel comfortable about it now since I began to
act it out… A journalist once suggested to Soros that he should be
appointed pope. “Why?” he asked. “I’m the pope’s boss now.”29 We need to look at one additional aspect of Soros before proceeding to the next chapter. No matter how gifted, the behavior of all human beings conforms to certain categories. We can safely assume, therefore, that although Soros may be unique in the degree to which he possesses certain traits, that the particular constellation of traits that comprise his personality is not unique to him. Below are listed the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM IV) traits for the Sociopath. Profile of the Sociopath This Web site summarizes some of the common features of
descriptions of the behavior of sociopaths. I have boldfaced those
characteristics that I think fit Soros. Glibness and Superficial
Charm Manipulative and Cunning Pathological Lying Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt Shallow Emotions Incapacity for Love Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are
normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common. Callousness / Lack of Empathy Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only
contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking
advantage of them. Poor Behavioral Controls / Impulsive Nature Early Behavior Problems / Juvenile Delinquency Promiscuous Sexual Behavior / Infidelity Tends to move around a lot or makes all-encompassing promises for
the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively. Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life
story readily. Other Related Qualities: Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations
where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or
admired Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs
their victim’s affirmation (respect, gratitude and love) (The above traits are based on the psychopathy checklists of H.
Cleckley and R. Hare.) NOTE: In the 1830s this disorder was called
“moral insanity.” Profile of the Malignant Personality These people are mentally ill and extremely dangerous! The
following precautions will help to protect you from the
destructive acts of which they are capable. First, to recognize them, keep the following guidelines in mind: 1. They are habitual liars. They seem incapable of either knowing
or telling the truth about anything. 2. They are egotistical to the point of narcissism. They really
believe they are set apart from the rest of humanity by some
special grace. 4. They are remorselessly vindictive when thwarted or exposed. How do we protect ourselves from these people when they have the
levers of the power of the state in their hands? 1 Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States, (New
York: Harper Collins, 1999), 5. 2 Ibid., 6. 3 Schele, Linda, and Miller, Mary E., The Blood of Kings: Dynasty
and Ritual in Maya Art (New York: G. Braziller, Inc. and the
Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1986), 228. 4 Hunt, George T., The
Wars of the Iroquois: A Study in Intertribal Relations (Madison,
WI., The University Press), 68, 90, 93. 5 Kohler and Turner, “Raiding for Women in the Pre-Hispanic
Northern Pueblo Southwest,” Current Anthropology, vol. 47, issue 6
(2006). 10 Weinstein and Vassiliev, The Haunted Wood, (New York: Random
House. 1999), 302–308. 11 Zinn, 264. 12 William M. Kunstler, My Life as a Radical Lawyer (New York:
Citadel Press, 1996), 403. 20 David Horowitz and Richard Poe, The Shadow Party (Nashville,
TN: Nelson Current, 2006), 78. 23 Robert Slater, Soros, The Unauthorized Biography (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1996), 20. 24 George Soros, 240. 25 CBS 60 Minutes: Interview Soros and Kroft. Dec. 20, 1998.
http:sweetnesslight.com/archive (accessed Nov. 17, 2007). 26 Ben Hecht. Op cit., 178. 27 Michael T. Kaufman, Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic
Billionaire (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002), 32. We have now for a long time, O conscript fathers, lived among these dangers and machinations of conspiracy; but somehow or other, the ripeness of all wickedness, and of this longstanding madness and audacity, has come to a head at the time of my consulship. —Cicero If Soros had remained merely one of the richest men on earth, he would not be of concern to me. As I noted in the previous chapter, he is a sociopath. That also would not be a concern to me. I also noted that his power to understand what is happening around him is developed to an extraordinary degree, to say the least. He could not possibly have been so successful an investor, over time and to the degree that he is, if he were not a master of instantly understanding complex situations. Being a sociopath and a genius are traits that sort independently in the makeup of the personality structure. Under usual circumstances, all of the above would be of no concern to me. But because Soros has decided to marshal his impressive resources for the purpose of destroying my country, he is of concern to me. Putting aside his seductive and well-written autobiography (Soros on Soros), we must look at his actions. As I stated in the preceding chapter, what the master says and what the master does are two different things. Therefore, to make further reference to his selfproclaimed guiding philosophy will serve only to mislead us. Soros’ first step in deconstructing American society was to start a master foundation. He named it the Open Society Institute. The name could have been chosen by George Orwell, because the function of the Institute, as we shall see, is to impose corporate Socialism on the U.S. One of its directors is Morton Halperin: Halperin waged open war against the U.S. intelligence services, through the courts and the press, seeking to strip the government of virtually any power to investigate, monitor or obstruct subversive elements and their activities. It did not take him long to go to the next logical step and argue for abolishing America’s intelligence services altogether. “Using secret intelligence agencies to defend a constitutional republic is akin to the ancient practice of employing leeches to take blood from feverish patients. The intent is therapeutic, but in the long run the cure is more deadly than the disease…” In a March 1987 article in The Nation, Halperin expanded on this theme and…took the position that America was the real villain in the Cold War. He wrote, “Secrecy does not serve national security. Covert operations are incompatible with constitutional government and should be abolished.” This was a call for unilateral disarming of our intelligence services to match the disarmament of our military, which has long been a staple of the radical agenda.1 Soros has great skill identifying U.S. citizens who are dedicated
enemies of their native land. These are the scum that no other
countries would tolerate. Soros employs them. In this class is
Aryeh Neier, a high-ranking operative in the Institute: Not all the anti-American home-grown scum is Jewish. Lynne Stewart is a non-Jewish traitor. Long an activist in pro-Communist causes, she is a lawyer who defended the “blind Sheik” Omar Abdel Rahman, one of the plotters of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. But she did more than that; she served as a messenger to deliver his messages from his prison cell to his terrorist followers still at large. When arrested, she stated her agenda: To rid ourselves of the entrenched, voracious type of capitalism that is in this country that perpetuates sexism and racism, I don’t think that can come nonviolently…I’m talking about a popular revolution. I’m talking about institutions being changed and that will not be changed without violence.3 There is something else to note regarding Stewart. Ordinarily, she would have no sympathy for Islamic fundamentalism, which is categorically opposed to her feminist ideology. But since Islamic extremists are enemies of the U.S., she supports them insofar as they weaken the U.S. She acts on the premise that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Cynical utilitarianism. Who do you think contributed $20,000.00 to the Lynne Stewart Defense Committee? Why, none other than the Open Society Institute!4 When this embarrassing contribution became known, the Institute declined to make further contributions. But that was only to delude the gullible; other Soros-funded entities continued to do so. In fact, Soros seems to be her financial angel: “Soros may have stopped giving direct grants to Lynne Stewart, but…virtually every other organization taking a prominent role in the ‘Free Lynne Stewart’ movement receives financial support from the Open Society Institute.”5 In this fashion Soros thanks us for giving him shelter from European tyranny. Savage Ingratitude! Using the Democratic Process to Subvert the Democratic Process Alinsky’s real power came not from the criminal underworld, however, but from Wall Street—specifically, from the wealthy, “socially-conscious” patricians who funded his activism. A skilled fundraiser, Alinsky managed to smooth-talk some of America’s wealthiest philanthropists into underwriting his Industrial Areas Foundation—an organization dedicated to waging class warfare in America. He prided himself on his ability “to use the strength of the enemy against itself”—a strategy he called “mass jujitsu.” “I feel confident that I could persuade a millionaire on Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday,” Alinsky once quipped.6 We have seen that the Kennedy family did the same, as did the
Clintons. The reason for giving this brief introduction to Alinsky is to point out his ingenuity. He saw that Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program was giving away money to an alphabet soup of new agencies “to make war on poverty.” Some of these were VISTA, Head Start, Job Corps, and the Community Action Program. Alinsky was shrewd and made certain that the employees of these agencies were radical leftists. This ploy served the dual purpose of getting the taxpayer to fund programs designed to defraud the taxpayer himself, and to destroy the very system that most taxpayers wanted to preserve. The ploy also allowed radicalized suburban intellectuals (usually Jews) the opportunity to radicalize poor urban Blacks. There was no downside for the players in this particular shell game. There is another shell game the Left uses. Probably it was a leaf taken from organized crime, which used (uses?) union funds for its own enrichment. We are here dealing with labor organizations, particularly the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). With the union movement losing steam in the private sector, the Left is tapping into the public sector, which is growing. Also, a significant proportion of public sector employees are poorly motivated and do not wish to work. They are well protected from disciplinary action by union contracts, and if they happen to have minority status, are practically untouchable. So for someone who wants a paycheck with minimal work requirements, or who has a character disorder, the public sector is a safe place to be. The president of the SEIU is Andrew Stern, another Jew of whom we may be proud. He is actively engaged it deconstructing the country which has kept him from becoming a bar of soap. The union dues of the SEIU are a “cash cow” to leftist organizations.8 So we see that Soros is cunning enough to get other people’s money to support his bastard progeny. He has been successful in capturing tax dollars, foundation money, and union funds. Hillary Clinton, Queen of the Jews If Bill and Hillary had not been able to tap into the resources of the Jewish Left, they would have ended their careers as they began; corrupt co-dictators of a small southern state. Their role model could have been early Huey Long. Propelled by Jewish money and influence, they have been able to realize national ambitions. We will consider Hillary first. Between the two of them, she is the ideologue. Hillary came of age in Park Ridge, an affluent and conservative suburb of Chicago. It was the era of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Methodist Church to which she belonged had just obtained a new pastor. Rev. Don Jones had just left seminary and was inspired by the work of German theologians such as Paul Tillich (it seems we are never free of the German influence). He was also knowledgeable about the works of T.S. Eliot, French New Wave cinema, and last but not least, Marxism. We see again the influence of the dead hand of Karl Marx. Marx seems to have a most unshakable grip on the minds of certain intellectuals.9 “Rev. Don” was one more who succumbed to Marxism,“the opiate of the intellectuals.” Her exposure to “Rev. Don” marked the beginning of her “conversion” from Methodism to Marxism. The next step on Hillary’s “conversion” was her undergraduate education at Wellesley College. “My mind exploded when I got to Wellesley,” Hillary recalled several decades later.10 Hillary was so impressed by this experience that she institutionalized it in a program in Arkansas called the ‘Governor’s School.’ The course work included two sections, one on critical thinking and another on feeling. “Students were told that the unit on critical thinking was designed to take you apart so that the feelings unit could put you back together.” 11 What this amounted to was to destroy any conventional values the student may have had, in order to replace them with ‘progressive’ values.12 It is easy for college-educated adult ideaologues to bully teenagers. Which views are Hillary “taking apart”? The institutions that Hillary seeks to destroy are those that “enslave” individuals. Examples are “along with the family, past and present examples of such…include marriage, slavery and the Indian reservation system.”13 She is saying, in essence, “that all dependency relationships are bad, except for dependence of the individual on the state.”14 We should be grateful; she is generously willing to pass on the benefits of a Wellesley education to those of us unfortunate enough to have missed out. Another one of the results of her “conversion” was the belief that childcare should be turned over to government, and that parents must surrender all rights to transmit their values to their own children.15 Children play a great role in Hillary’s life… as symbols. Hillary is keenly aware that she has a far better chance of putting the government in charge of as much of our lives as possible if she can frame the power grab as something in the interest of children. Children become her means to an end. We cannot know, nor does it matter, what she really thinks of children. Children, like Blacks, because they are a means to an end, would have to be invented if they did not already exist. Her greatest ally in this endeavor is Marion Wright Edelman. If any one person could be found to unite the forces of the Left into one person, it would be she. Marion herself is Black, and came of age during Lyndon Johnson’s failed attempt to drown poverty in tax dollars. She married Peter Edelman, a member of the Jewish Left. They created an organization that eventually became known as The Children’s Defense Fund, which was financed by the Carnegie Corporation as well as the federal government.16 If there is some sort of Connivance Olympics, the bronze would go to Edelman. (George and Hillary would take gold and silver.) One of the organizations to which our tax money goes is entitled the Legal Services Corporation. In theory, it is supposed to be an engine to ensure that legal services are provided to the poor. In reality, it is an agency which has been highjacked by the Left. It is one more of many agencies that use tax dollars to destroy the institutions that most taxpayers cherish. It is a poison in the body politic, paid for by the body politic. What does this organization do? In 1978, Hillary chaired the organization. During a two-day retreat, its board affirmed its goal of “empowering the poor”: The LSC’s idea of empowerment was to use legal action to expand the welfare rolls and get as many people as possible on food stamps and Social Security Disability…to bring about a redistribution of income. This goal would be expressed by Gary Bellow, executive director of the legal Services Institute…by “increasing people’s sense of grievance and entitlement.”17 By the late 1970’s, LSC training programs were teaching harassment techniques, such as nailing a dead rat to an opponent’s front door…Another approved tactic, often used against small business owners, was filing many small harassment suits in order to break the opponent financially…Literature handed out…explained that plant closings presented an “exciting opportunity” to move toward “rebuilding a broad-based American socialist movement.”18 Clearly going outside the law, the LSC campaigned against a tax-reduction initiative in California (Prop Nine) and against Ronald Reagan. When the scope of their illegal activities was finally tackled by the GAO, it was found that when the original charter for the LSC was written by Alan Housman, it was phrased in such a way as to immunize the law-breakers from any penalty. However, the Justice Department did state that “the activities of the LSC and many of the people associated with it are uniquely reprehensible and beyond the scope of the LSC’s original mission.”19 Not surprisingly, many staff positions on the LSC went to attorneys from the National Lawyers’ Guild, a Communist-front organization. Funds to such Communist lawyers went to support causes such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the BaaderMeinhoff Gang (Communist terrorists) in Germany. To find an institution like this without involvement of the Jewish Left would be as rare as finding Bill Clinton sleeping alone. Through this organization Hillary met Frederick A.O. Schwarz, a wealthy New York Jew of great local political clout. Later she would meet Mickey Kantor, another wealthy Jew who would be of service to her and Bill in his role of Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton administration. Although most of the Jews that Hillary met and used served either as cash cows or political facilitators, at least two served as ideological mentors. One was Michael Lerner. Lerner founded a magazine called Tikkun. “It puts forth an amalgam of neo-Marxism, Judaism and New Ageism that Lerner calls ‘the politics of meaning.’ ”20 I have read a few of his articles, and I have no idea how the title “politics of meaning” has any connection with the infantile utopian Socialism he advocates. I think he found the words catchy and used them for that reason alone. The other Jew in question is Robert Reich. He is a gnomelike academic whom the Clintons made Secretary of Labor. He did all in his power to channel goods and services away from those who produce, toward those who do not wish to produce, but still wish to consume. He is a Socialist. An obsession with money has become a major preoccupation for both Clintons. Hillary was active in the minor leagues when, in 1980, she “invested” about $1,000 in cattle futures and “made” a profit of $99,540.21 This was clearly a bribe for either services rendered, or to be rendered, in her role as wife of the governor of a small, corrupt southern state. Subsequent to that, she and Bill got into the big leagues: international money laundering. Interested readers can consult stories about James Riady, John Huang, and the role of Ron Brown in relation to the Clintons. I think one of the best comparisons I can make regarding the Clintons is to a pair of tagteam wrestlers. When Bill is in office and has to remain sort of clean, Hillary does the dirty work, such as the deferred $100,000 bride. Then Bill can say he had nothing to do with it. On the other hand, when Hillary is vulnerable, Bill can do the dirty work. This occurred during her first run for the New York Senate seat vacated by Moynihan. Bill was President at that time. He issued a presidential pardon to sixteen convicted Puerto Rican terrorists, thus ensuring Hillary the Hispanic vote. The media did note an outcry, but they soft-pedaled it, and the issue soon died. If the pardon had been made by a Republican president, we would still be hearing about it today. When Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, it cost him the White House. When Bill pardoned the sixteen terrorists, he bought a Senate seat for his tag-teammate. The early history of Hillary leads me to conclude that it was she, rather than Bill, who engineered the Jewish Left–Clinton connection. Her fingerprints are all over such Clinton appointees as Robert Reich, Madeleine Albright, and Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. If this is the case, it is her major contribution to the partnership. We cannot say for certain when the Soros-Clinton connection was made, but we can say it was firm by 1995. “I like to influence policy. I was not able to get to George Bush [Senior]. But now I think I have succeeded with my influence…I do now have great access in [the Clinton] administration. There is no question about this. We actually work together as a team” (Soros to Charlie Rose on PBS).22 Now we, too, can account for the whole team. Soros makes the classic mistake of failing to understand the uniqueness of the United States. The U.S. is not the USSR. It is not necessary to destroy the Republic for the Jew to feel safe. The tragedy is that if Soros succeeds in remaking the U.S. according to his Marxist template, he will have helped to create a tyrannical state. Despite his power and intellect, he (or his successors) will eventually lose control of that state, and there will come to power “a Pharaoh who does not know Joseph.” The same ancient and bloody cycle will repeat, needlessly. Soros does not need Bill and Hillary as such. He only needs what they represent. In fact, both could easily be replaced by one or another non-Jewish figurehead. John Kerry, Barack Obama, or John Edwards would do as well. The pink orchestra could be given new sheet music by fax, and tomorrow sing the praises of any candidate. Soros and the Jewish Left think that they can avoid this outcome by creating a supranational state under the UN. This will not happen. The closest they will come will be to create a supranational UN-sponsored Mafia. The lawlessness of individual tyrannies will be enhanced, not checked, by a supranational power. A good example is the fraud around the Oil for Food program involving Iraq. In terms of dollar amounts this may be the greatest fraud ever; curiously, the media has ignored it. Are you surprised? We have now come full circle back to Joseph and Pharaoh. What is most distressing is the failure of the Jewish community to learn from 4,000 years of past experience. Why should a ploy that did not work in Egypt, that did not work in Persia, that did not work in Rome, that did not work in Germany; a ploy that failed in Poland, Russia, and Lithuania…Why should such a ploy work in the U.S.? Repeating again and again what does not work…is this not a form of Insanity? And Tragedy…Do we not see here a fatal blindness to the
uniqueness of American experience? And Arrogance…Do we not see here a fatal conceit on the part of a
few that they alone have the wisdom to set the agenda for all? This is the last chapter of the narrative. I have related the past and brought us up to present time. The future is unknown, even to George Soros. If I can have contributed, even to the smallest degree, of preventing one more bloody reprise, this work has served its purpose. 1 Horowitz and Poe, The Shadow Party, 24-25. 9 Joyce Milton, The First Partner: Hillary Clinton (New York:
William Morrow and Co., 11 Ibid., 160. If liberty dies in the US, it will be neither violent nor sudden. It will be death by a thousand cuts. There will be no great deciding battle as at Yorktown or Gettysburg. Nor yet will it be like the battle at Thermopylae, in which brave men could die fighting for freedom, rather than agree to live under tyranny. It is a great privilege to prepare for battle the night before, knowing that tomorrow you will either live free or die. Tragically, it is not a privilege we shall enjoy, unless we fight back now. In our case, tyranny is creeping up on us on little cats’ paws, inch by inch. There is little perceptible difference from day to day, as the border between subject and citizen is intentionally blurred. We will be conditioned to accept “improvements” in our lives. Today it may be the outlawing of smoking in public; tomorrow the outlawing of “hate speech.” Next week it may be a special tax on ammunition; the next week an exaggerated concern for the handicapped. The pill is coated with sugar. But make no mistake: the Left have no real concern for our health, welfare or safety; they are slowly accustoming us to accept obedience to rules from “experts” for our own good. I repeat, it is not the specific regulation that concerns the Left; any regulation will do. The goal is to accustom us to the habit of obedience to an arrogant self-appointed elite who are camouflaged as “concerned experts” who “feel our pain.” Everywhere we see and hear the mantra of “diversity.” What is “diversity,” really? It is a weapon that is being used to dumb down standards. A clear example of such a weapon is the quota system (racial preferences) that mandates placement of less-qualified minorities in jobs and in universities. This diversity shell game does more than merely degrade standards, it also allows the Left to buy minority votes with other people’s money. Using “salami tactics,” the Left play off rich against poor, Black against white, English against Spanish, young against old. They transfer tax money taken from the public to whatever minority can be bought. In that way they will and do create coalitions of the aggrieved. These are loose and shifting coalitions, having nothing in common except cultivated envy and hatred. The Left have infiltrated the media and education at every level with a doctrine called “political correctness.” This insidious doctrine allows the resources of the people to be used to fund the machinery designed to destroy the liberty of the people itself. The Left has arranged for us to pay for our own execution. It is the ultimate shell game, demonstrating devilish ingenuity. The “diversity” game has another, less obvious use a weapon. It is also used to undermine the commonality of culture that is necessary for a nation to be a nation. It stands our national motto on its head. Instead of e pluribus unum (out of many, one), it seeks to substitute ex uno plura (out of one, many). It is the chief goal of the Left to break down all sense of nationhood in its support for an imperial UN. The biggest obstacle to one-world tyranny is the power of the United States. Sad to say, much, if not most, of the impetus and resources dedicated to the murder of liberty is provided by the Jewish Left. Being Jewish, it grieves me to say this. If you doubt my premise, examine the organizations to which multibillionaires George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, and Peter Lewis give enormous amounts of money. Look at the Membership of the ACLU. Or simply review the relevant chapters in this book. The aspect of their behavior that is the most disgusting is their undisguised arrogance. The Jewish Left believe that they alone are in possession of the Truth. The question of Pontius Pilate “What is truth” concerns them not at all. Is this not Supreme Arrogance? The words of Moses, the Prophets, and Jesus, were aimed at such as these. Then as now, they are a stiff-necked people. This leads me to my next topic: From the time of the Reformation to today, you have had a profound respect for the Old Testament. Many of you have extended this reverence to the Jews of today, and to the State of Israel. I caution you of a danger. The Jews of the Left are the descendents of line of Korah. They are the descendents of those who zealously worshipped the Golden Calf; but today they worship its modern reincarnation in the form of Communism. It is one and the same. Moses and his followers slew thirty thousand of these apostates. The Jewish Left of today are the descendents of the Hellenizers who desecrated the Temple by accepting pagan rites. Judah Maccabeus slew one of their number as the apostate approached the altar to desecrate it with an unclean sacrifice. He showed that the holy days of Hanukkah are not a “Festival of Freedom,” but rather a “Festival of Obedience.” The Jewish Left pervert the meaning of all things: the true history of the Jewish people is no exception. It is to these men and women that the term “perfidious Jews” applies, and applies rightly. They are also a danger to the existence of the State of Israel. As they hate the US, they hate Israel. And for the same reason: Israel stands as a Jewish state; they want to eliminate all sense of nationalism, or religious identification. They do this to pave the road in support of a world tyranny under a supranational government. The existence of any state with particular and distinct traits is anathema to the Jewish Left. The political homogeneity of the world’s population is their goal. Therefore I implore you, make a distinction between the Jews of the Left, that is, the Jews of Hollywood, the New York Times, CBS, and the rest of the chattering classes… and those Jews who follow the tradition of Moses. Do be deluded by the Jewish Left, which know how to trade on the camouflage of Biblical Immunity. These men and women are the enemies not only of Christianity, but of un-perverted Judaism. Give them no blank checks! Fear them, as they are truly dangerous. I know of no greater danger in the world today. The above having been said and my book having been read…now the
unavoidable question: What can we do? What’s to be Done? Here is my six-point program: By the above I mean that any and all laws passed by the Congress
will apply to all citizens in equal measure. Also, why do laws involving Fair Housing and Section Eight housing select only white working class neighborhoods for sites? It is time to have Section Eight housing in the Kennedy compound at Hyannis Port. Also, Chappaqua, New York, the new home of the Clintons, should lose its Liberal Exemption and have its share of public housing. And I mean real public housing. No cherry-picking of prospective tenants to eliminate drug dealers and pimps. Let the Kennedys and Clintons share the scum also. If the “poor” cannot get to work (or the Welfare Bureau) from Hyannis Port or Chappaqua, the government can provide bussing. It has done so before. Let us not deprive the authors of liberalism of the benefits of liberalism. 2. End of Prosecution for Political Crimes. Another problem with “hate crimes” is that it may lead to double jeopardy. Someone accused of a serious crime could go to trial under state law, and be found innocent. That should end the matter. But no. He may have to go to trial again, for the same alleged offense, but under a different statute, be it state or federal. The defendant not only has to undergo the emotional uncertainty of another trial, but the enormous legal expenses involved in attorneys’ fees and court costs. Another rent in the Bill of Rights. There is irony here. The Jewish Left originated the current use of “hate crimes” as a criminal charge. It is one of the uses of the Holocaust, and it has become one more weapon in its assault upon liberty. The irony is that the original use of “hate crime” prosecutions would be the Inquisition. Under the Inquisition, one’s religious motivation could make the difference between life and death. But the Jewish Left is an equalopportunity user of tyrannical methods. (See my chapter on Marcuse’s Repressive Tolerance). 3. Flat Tax In the process of trolling for votes, campaigning on “soak the rich” plays well. Karl Marx gave this mantra a basis in political and economic theory, so it has the appearance of being less crass than it is in reality. The Marxist strategy that sets poor against rich makes the rich poor without making the poor rich. All are equal in their poverty. Visit Cuba… We must acknowledge that the primary purpose of taxation today is social manipulation. Meeting legitimate Federal financial needs is a distant second. Given this reality, a flat tax will easily meet legitimate Federal needs. Given a flat tax, for politicians to campaign in favor of raising tax rates, absent clear, present, and obvious need, would be political suicide. The “soak the rich” ploy simply cannot work when a tax hike affects everyone equally. 4. No Representation without Taxation. The real racist is the Jewish Left which have manipulated too much of the black community into an Army of the Discontent, to be used as a weapon against liberty. To the extent that limiting the franchise has disparate impact on the black community, the limitation is but a mirror of the success of the premeditated racist actions of the Jewish Left in manipulating the black community. 5. US out of UN: UN out of US A global alliance such as the UN is too unwieldy to achieve any laudable goal. Since it represents every nation, the mutually contradictory interests of individual nations will prevent any useful action on the part of the UN. In addition, sub-blocks of nations will coalesce as their common interest dictates, and these purpose-driven alliances will be much more important in shaping UN policy than any overarching common good. The real function of the UN has become to create a conduit through which to channel the wealth of productive nations to the nations which are unwilling to allow a free-enterprise economy. But free enterprise is the indispensable prerequisite for national economic selfsufficiency. Thus the petty tyrants who comprise most of the UN membership are obligate parasites. We see the failure of our own welfare state writ large as it goes global. Role of Regional Alliances 6. Rein in the Foundations Final Remark They seek to lead us down the road to serfdom. If we don’t stop
them, they will succeed. Americans, wake up before it is too
late!! Aggada: That part of Jewish Scriptural (including Talmud and
Midrash) literature that is expressed by stories and allegories. Ashkenazim: Jews whose ancestors came from Western Europe,
especially Germany. Aufklarung: The German Enlightenment of the
late eighteenth century. Immanuel Kant was its most notable
figure. Eschatology: The study of matters relating to the end of days, or end times. Gemara: Rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah; written out ca. AD 400. Grossdeutsch: Term for an empire, largely German, headed by the Hapsburg Emperors of Austria-Hungary. The Grossdeutsch state would include non-Germans such as Hungarians and Czechs. Hasidism: A term for several sects of Jews which came into being in Eastern Europe around AD 1700. They are strictly orthodox and are remarkable for their long black coats, large black hats, and flowing beards. Their religious practices stress joy in God by song, dance, and exuberant prayer. They are looked down upon by the many Jews because they are (supposedly) unsophisticated. They are a reminder and embarrassment to many Jews who wish “to pass.” Their voting patterns are very conservative, and social views are close, if not identical, with those of the Christian right. Halacha: The Code of Jewish Law. The religious, personal, and
social practices of orthodox Jews. Hillul ha-Shem: The performance of any act that would pointedly
(and usually intentionally) dishonor God. Literally “Desecrate the
Name.” Hoffaktor: Similar to Hofjude. A Jewish officer of the court of a
king or prince. The Hoffaktor’s duties were specifically
financial. Hofjude: Court Jew. Refers to any Jewish administrator in the
court of a king or prince. Usually in Germany or Austria. Kiddush ha-Shem: An act that honors God (literally “blessing the
Name”). Kleindeutsch: Term for a Germanic empire led by Prussia,
and excluding the nonGerman peoples of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Midrash: A compilation of tales and stories, probably put
together after the destruction of the First Temple. This work
gives guidance in interpreting Torah. Mitziah: Yiddish term for a good bargain. Shtetl: The term for a Jewish village in Russia, Lithuania, and Poland. They were dissolved in the Soviet Union after the Communist takeover, and wiped out elsewhere by the Nazis in World War II. Fiddler on the Roof is based on Shtetl life. Sephardic: Those Jews whose ancestors came from Spain and
Portugal. Talmud: The texts of the Mishnah and Gemara together comprise the
Talmud. Third Rome: The Principality of Muscovy. Torah: The Five Books of Moses. Yiddish: A dialect of German, spoken by many East European Jews. When the Jews were forced out of Germany at the time of the crusades and after, they took Yiddish with them to Poland-Lithuania. APPENDIX Elections Fundraising Law Economy Books [contents of “books” omitted by author] Media outlets Technology Education Citizen advocate groups I reviewed the first 199 organizations on the list, in sequential order. There are about 200 organizations that follow the first 199 organizations, but the time necessary to review the additional 200 was too great. I separated the reviewed organizations into three categories: The biggest problem was the “who is a Jew” question. This question has arisen under all sorts of contexts. In Israel, the Law of Return states that any Jew can migrate to Israel. Among orthodox Jews, the law governing who is a Jew is much more strict. The question also occurred under the Nazi state, and was addressed by the Nuremburg Laws of 1933. One criterion consisted of assigning Jewish identity to anyone whose family name is typically Jewish, such as “Cohen” or “Kaplan.” I also assigned Jewish identity to people so known in popular culture, such as George Soros, or Peter Lewis. In many instances, Jews have names that are indeterminate. I was able to determine the status of some of these individuals by on-line biographical data. In the event I could make no reasonable determination, I assigned “indeterminate” to the individual. The question has arisen in the “who is a Jew” controversy about the children of mixed marriages. According to Jewish Law (Halacha), anyone born of a Jewish mother is considered Jewish. I decided to consider anyone with one Jewish parent to be Jewish. It is a great irony that I, who do not believe in racial preferences, should have to bother about this. But I must, because the Jewish Left has used the issue of racial preferences as a tool for the last quarter century. I must deal in this absurdity because they have forced my hand. Raw data: n= number of organizations reviewed a=number of organizations assumed to be Jewish 72 divided by 72+ 54+73= 37%. Percent identified as Jewish after eliminating from the data base
organizations of undetermined status. If the list taken from Wiki is not exhaustive, there is no way of
determining why any particular organization is presented or not
presented. The direction of error in identifying organizations assumed to be agencies of the Jewish Left is most likely to be in the direction of understatement. This is because so many Jews have either Anglicized their names, or changed their names so as to sound anything but Jewish. George Soros, born Schwartz, is a perfect example. So is Peter Lewis. As a result of the limitations above, my work should be considered as a pilot study. Anyone who wishes is invited to pursue the issue further. Bibliography Ahlstrom, Sydney. A Religious History of the American People. New
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of Pure Tolerance. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Mariamne (wife of Herod I), 67-69. 228, 234, 248, 283, 304, 306,
327, 329, 337, 358, 370-371. GENERAL INDEX children: as political tools, 359; as victims, 97, 169, 237, 243, 319-320, 322; education children: as political tools, 359; as victims, 97, 169, 237, 243, 319-320, 322; education 158, 240, 285, 293. Children’s Defense Fund, 359. Christian Right, 17, 374. Hanukkah, 55, 367. class: middle, 152-153, 165, 227, 232, 234, 270, 291, 337;
peasant, 61; priestly, 44, 57, clientela, 64-65, 138, 145, 290, 292, 331 Cold War, the, 353, 371. 345. Communism: Jews and, 147, 321, 336, 367; movement, 191, 232, 236,
321; practice of, 170, 224, 235; theory, 138, 172, 221, 224-225,
230, 256, 300-301, 305, 311. Communists, 196, 222, 224, 226-228, 232, 235-236, 256, 262, 268,
313, 316, 321, 323, 325. Crusades: First, 96-97, 99; Second, 97; People’s, 96; Princes,
96, mentioned, 93-94, 98, 111, 119, 376. democracy, French, 13, 198; ancient Greek, 48, ancient Roman, 61;
United States, 267, 289; mentioned, 191, 236, 246, 305, 307, 354. Egypt: Joseph in,12, 21-23, 27, 73, 363; geography,19-20, 30, 33,
60; mentioned 22-23, 27, 30, 33-34, 57, 61, 75, 79, 87-88, 93. Ein Sof, 107. élite: intellectual, 225, 232, 244-247, 254, 257, 298, 300, 365;
Jewish, 39-40, 89; Negro, 287; Protestant, 165-168,204240,245-247,
254, 269, 291-292, 301, 303, 311, 325. Encyclopédie, 133. Enlightenment: English, 137; German, 14, 135, 193; general 13-14,
83, 117, 129, 132, 165, 286, 374. Europe: Central, 13, 81, 84-85, 208-209, 211, 229, 233; Eastern,
85, 87, 99, 122, 177, 203, 206, 217, 256, 259-260, 286, 299, 301, 312, 318,320-321, 326, 337, 355. evil, 12, 15, 18, 70, 103, 105, 109, 116, 123, 126, 141 216, 258,
293, 299, 323-326, 330, 332, 334, 343, 372. family structure: Negro, 287, 290, 358; mentioned, 14, 147,
220-222, 225, 281, 286-287, 290, 306, 358. France: culture, 124, 199; and Germany, 202-203, 208; law, 200, 236, 259, 325; geography, 62, 64, 79, 89-90; 123, 202; government, 151-152, 181, 191, 197, 198; Jews, 86-87, 96-97, 119, 158; religion, 90, 117, 152, 180, 186. Franco-Prussian War, 208. freedom: economic, 179; personal/moral; 126, 131, 143, 182, 205,
367; political, 59, 180, freikorps, 230, 232. Germany: culture, 160, 215; education, 167; and France, 202-203, 205; geography, 64, 123, 202; Jews, 207, 216, 229-230, 259, 326; philosophy and Enlightenment, 135; politics, 179, 182, 203, 206, 208-209, 227, 229-230; religion, 90, 152, 160, 183, 214. global warming, 169 Golden Calf, 15, 367. Greece: geography 48, 60, 73; politics of ancient, 52, 74. 51,
54, 59, 69-70, 73-74; and Jews, 79, 86, 115, 375; language, 204. Harvard: College, 161, 164-165; Law School, 264, 266, 268 270;
University, 142, 264, 267, 269, 289, 304, 326. Holocaust: deniers, 274-275, 325; Jews as accomplices, 18
328-329, 344-345; Museum, 237-238; uses of, 370. Hungary: Communism and, 235-236, 299; Jews of, 299, 321, 32, 342;
mentioned, 123, 234-235, 237. Israel: ancient, 17, 19, 24-25, 28-30, 36, 39-41, 45, 50-52, 55,
59, 69-72, 74, 76-79, 81, 86-87, 106; geography, 20-21, modern
state, 17; northern state, 17. Jerusalem: ancient city, 30, 32, 34-35, 39-40, 42, 46, 51, 56-57,
59, 67-68, 80-81; geography, 28; medieval era, 95-96. Jews: American, 17-18, 77, 155, 264, 267-268, 272, 281;
Ashkenazi, 13, 85, 87-91, 93, Jordan River Valley, 20, 28. Joseph to Pharaoh (paradigm), 12, 16, 21-23, 40-41, 71, 185, 207,
256, 268, 342, 362, 368. Journalism: advocacy, 277; interpretive, 277; objective, 277;
power of, 277; “value added,” 277. Judah (ancient state), 32-37. Judeofascist: def., 226; examples, 232, 297-298, 301, 314, 325,
335, 337, 339, 342. justice: administrative, 146, 182, 207, 300,
303, 316; distributive, 139, 146, 179; general, 103, 121, 140,
258, 262, 328. law: common, 48; natural, 13, 39, 139, 144, 147, 153, 258-259;
330; positive, 38, 41, 62, League of Nations, 328. liberal(s): academics, 136, 196; courts, 236; Democrats, 249; Jews, 338, 265; media, 146, 222, 273, 276, 278-279, 322; organizations, 309; politicians, 63, 138, 169, 179, 196; programs, 307; Protestant, 135-136, 243, 356; white guilt, 254, 289, 356; mentioned, 235, 265, 272-273, 276, 307, 336. liberalism (non-classical), 55, 165, 209, 228, 236, 273, 279,
299, 369. liberty, 11, 14, 100, 144, 179-180, 182, 189, 195, 228, 230, 240,
259, 283, 287, 290-292, 307-308, 314, 330, 365-366, 368-371. Marxism: and Jews, 117, 123, 148, 220, 256-257; as religion, 15,
136, 141, 177, 225, 332, 336, 358, 361; theory/philosophy, 15, 34,
193, 217, 237, 305, 320, 326. media: bias, 8, 132, 142-143, 146, 324, 361, 363; Jewish
influence/control of, 143, 271, 280, 295, 298, 314-315, 323; power
of, 271, 280-281, 322, 366. money: abolition of, 147, 222; credit, 119, 207; free market,
256, Jews and, 23-24, 97, mongols, invasions of, 217, 320, 363. Muslim(s): Black, 339; Conquest of Middle East, North Africa, and
Spain, 89, 93, 95; law, 74; religion, 47, 75, 93, 115; rule,
88-89, 93, 95, 73. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People: atheists and, 290; Crisis (official journal of), 276; Jews and, 269, 289-290; Niagara Movement, 288-89; Protestant elite, 269-270, 289. National Lawyers’ Guild, 360. Nazis: anti-Semitism, 225; civil rights, 179, Jews, 322, 344;
Jews as collaborators with, Negroes, self-destructive behavior, 149, 288, cultural history, 287, 290; living conditions of (historical), 287; NAACP, 289; Niagara Movement, 288-289; self-help, 287; as tools of Left/Jewish Left, 149, 254, 283, 287, 289, 290-292, 301. nervous system, 175. New Deal, agencies, 265, 268; measures, 265, 273; personnel, 243,
311; general, 266, 305, 370. New England, Calvinism, 156, 164, 264, 268; colonies, 126, 153;
Congregational Church, 164; Protestant elite, 161, 165, 167-168,
204, 240, 247, 326; Unitarian, 204, 304. Poland, Poles: under Communism, 236, 299, 312; geography, 99; and
Jews, 237-238, 321-322, 363; 237, 299, 317. Protestant: in Germany, 214, 231; mainline churches, 168-169,
269, 288, universities, 131, 136; mentioned, 47, 90, 124, 126,
156, 158, 241, 247, 251, 254, 374. Puerto Ricans, 361. Revolution: American, 165, 197; French (1789), 200-201, 286, 356;
French (1848), 272; Russian, 262, 322. revolutionary movements: in US, 165, 197, 354-355, 339-340,
mentioned, 176, 227, 229, 232, 322, 354-355. Russia: Muscovite, 76, 87; pre-revolutionary, 76, 191, 237, 289;
post-revolutionary, 142, 176, 199, 235, 262-263, 299. Socialism: Marxist/scientific, 25, 167, 176, 235; religious, 165,
170, 247, 376; state, 108, 227, 231, 242, 259, 291; utopian, 176,
361; mentioned, 145, 174, 224, 233, 305. teachers’ colleges, 244. United States: Constitution, 286; culture, 98, 132, 282, 304,
317, 342, 366; economy, University of California, Berkeley, 261. Violence: drug culture and, 293; legal context, 145-146; mob,
339; political, 299, 350; social, 305. volonté générale, see
“General Will.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Frankists and
Freemasonry Jacob Frank (1726-1791) was a Jewish Messiah from the Sabbatean tradition. Soon after Frank started his messianic career, his sect was excommunicated from Judaism in 1756.Frankists were accused of breaking the laws of morality (they were swapping wives in ceremonial nights) and of modesty (Frank claimed to be the Messiah). Apparently the Sabbatian doctrine that one should do sin in order to speed the coming of the end was accepted by the rabbinic court. Frankists were expelled from Judaism in 1756. In 1757 they disputed with Talmudists over Talmudic teachings. Notably, Frankists claimed that Talmud demands ritual sacrifices of Christians. Jacob Frabk converted to the Catholic faith in 1759. Frank was arrested on February 6, 1760, convicted of teaching heresy, and imprisoned in the monastery of Częstochowa, but he could meet his followers and remained as the leader of the sect. Frank was released from prison in 1772 after the first partition of Poland, so he benefitted personally from the partition. From 1772 to 1786 he lived in Brno. He had a court and armed guards. Frank visited the court of Maria Theresa of Austria and Paul I of Russia and Joseph II of Austria visited Frank in Brno. In 1786 Frank moved to Offenbach where he also kept a court as Baron of Offenbach. By 1790 26,000 Frankists had converted to Catholicism in Poland. Though Frankism as a visible sect disappeared soon after Jacob Frank died (under the leadership of his daughter Eve Frank, the sect bankrupted, Eve Frank died in 1816), Frankists did survive as a group in Poland still in the middle 19th century. They married only their own and succeeded in gaining some amount of power in post-Partition Poland. They were nominally assimilated, Christianized Jews. Many of them joined Freemasonry, but they did not leave their faith, which was that Jacob Frank and after him her daughter Eve Frank was the Messiah, who eventually was to restore Jews to Palestine, as a Messiah must. The most famous Frankist Freemason is Moses Dobrushka (aka von Schönfeld, aka Jacobin Janus Frey), a first cousin of Jacob Frank. Dobruschka founded what seems to be the first Masonic secret society practicing sex magic, the Asiatic Brethen. It was rosicrucian to be precise, but all rosicrucian is masonic: there were no original rosicrucians from 1603, many even believe that originally the rosicrucian maniphest was a hoax of Lutherian origin. Sex magic reappeared later in several rosicrucian lodges, e.g. in the states in Randolph’s lodges. Sex magic with incantations to spirits was a common claim against Freemasonry in the later 18th century and 19th century, and it is not without same basis: the origin of it is Sabbatean kabbalism. Frankists joined Freemasonry and brought to Masonry their kabbalah. This is shown by the kabbalah of the Golden Dawn, a Rosicrusian society in the end of the 19th century. The kabbalah of the Golden Dawn resembles Sabbatean-Frankits kabbalah more than other kabbalah traditions. In proper Freemasonry, excluding societies that are masonic in a larger sense, like Rosicrucian, Theosophy and Martinism, kabbalistic study texts were read only in Mizraim and Memphis lodges. From these two facts we can conclude that Frankists joined Mizraim and Memphis lodges. These lodges were the revolutionary ones, deriving directly from Masonry behind the French Revolution. This Freemasonry was Cagliostro’s Egyptian Freemasonry, which later become Mizraim Freemasonry. After the Bavarian Illuminati was banned, Illuminati and Mizraim created Memphis Freemasonry, which was cooperating with Carbonaries and was directly involved in socialistic revolutions throughout the 19th century. The Jacobin Club of the French Revolution was not a Masonic society. The founder of Jacobins, Maximilian Robspierre, probably was not a Freemason, but at least one leader of the Montagnards (the Jacobin fraction, which set up the terror regime), Georges Danton, was a Mason, as was and Jacques Hébert, who supported Montagnards though not formally belonging to them. Count of Mirabeau, for some time the practical leader of the Jacobin Club, was a Freemason, as were Voltaire, Marquis de Lafayette, Marquis de Condorcet and the Duke of Orléans. Quite naturally, Frankist Moses Dobruschka joined Jacobins. A link between Frankists and Mizraim Freemasonry does exist. Though it is not possibly to deny the role of Freemasons in the French Revolution, Freemasonry tries to deny the role of organized Freemasonry in the revolution. This is incorrect since document show that organized Mizraim and Memphis Freemasonry was indeed heavily involved in subversive activities. Furthermore, almost all freedom fighters of both Americas were Freemasons, in Latin America mostly from the Lauraro Lodge, and extension of the Great American Reunion. This much is known and accepted in history. Now, let us go to the direct link between Freemasonry and Jacob Frank. This is not a generally accepted fact and I will try to demonstrate it. In the web there are two versions of The Words of the Lord by Jacob Frank translated by Harris Lenowitz. The text is the same but only the plain text version [1] allows searching for parts of a word. The word one should search for is Baałakaben, but it is written in many ways: Baalakaben, Baalekaben, Baatakaben, Balakaben and so on. Therefore one should search for kaben fron the plain text version, the automatic search machine in the other version requires full words and cannot find all occurances. Freemasonry is mentioned once in [1], in the following line: “678. The gods of Framassoncy 933 will have to do that which those two did.” Framassoncy is Freemasonry and the spelling reminds of French, as it natural since revolutionary Freemasonry was under the French Grand Orient. The paragraph that preceeds 678 gives the mission of Freemasonry: “677. Even though there are many kingdoms in the world, that one which will now be revealed has not yet been in the world. But it cannot be without darkness and great deprivation. That, that is precisely what God showed Abraham, our father, at the time of the covenant which he made with him, 932 letting him know that his children would have to bear great bitterness and oppression.” That is, there will be restoration and a new Israel, but only after oppression and great bitterness. Freemasonry will have to make this oppression and great bitterness in order to realize the restoration of the Jews. This is the messianic idea of the end of the world war and persecutions. It is the central idea in Kabbalah (Zohar). In the end Esau is destroyed and Jacob restored. Esaus is Christians. The same idea is explained in many ways: ten kings of Edom are destroyed, Amalek is destroyed. For Kabbalists all of these words meant Christians: those who presently oppress them. Nobody but Christians oppressed Jews in Europe in the late Middle Ages when Zohar was written. A messianic prediction by Frank from the place 429 confirms
this: After 1772 Frank was not any more positive towards Poland: [1] The Words of the Lord [Jacob Frank], translated by Harris Lenowitz https://archive.org/stream/TheCollectionOfTheWordsOfTheLordJacobFrank/TheCollectionOfTheWordsOfTheLordJacobFrank_djvu.txt It is interesting that in many paintings and pictures of the Young Turks and others who partook in the genocide, they often diaplay the masonic hidden hand gesture, which is written in many Freemasonry books. There are various meanings for its displayed use and the rite it is suppose to pay homage to. jorma (Author) September 16, 2019 Reply xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Matrix of
Terrorism: from the Talmud to Wahhabism The French revolutionaries massacred some 260 000 Vendean
Catholics, who fought against the anticlerical Revolution.
Cromwell, who had set out to conquer Scotland and Ireland, had
foreshadowed the French revolutionaries and their methods. La
Terreur clearly came to serve as a model for the majority of
terrorist extermination wars of the 20th century: the Armenian
genocide, led by the Sabbatean Young Turks (the Donmëh), and the
messianic Judeo-Bolshevik revolution. The Vendean genocide came to
be used as reference for Lenin’s crushing of the Tambov peasant
revolt by means of chemical weapons (June to December 1921). The
death toll of this new Vendean massacre is estimated to be 240
000. “Chaos is here. Minds are awakening…May the revolution bring rebirth…May the revolution produce religion, a religion of action, life, love, that makes men happy, redeems them and overcomes impossible situations.” (9) Revolutionary terror, deployed by Cromwell in England and by the revolutionaries in France, was the model for the Bolsheviks. It was also the model for the Jewish homeland (1920) with the creation of the Yishuv terrorist organisations the Haganah and the Irgun (the foundation of the Israeli Defence Forces) whose role was to support colonial expansion in Palestine. We shouldn’t forget the famous Nakam terrorist group. In 1945, Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, former chemist and leader of the World Zionist Organisation, supplied the Nakam Group* with chemical formulas to poison the water supply in Munich, Nuremberg and Hamburg. Abba Kovner was arrested on his return from Israel where he had obtained the poison, and his commando of mass murderers were stopped from executing their plan. In 1946, however, they succeeded in poisoning the bread for the prisoners held at Langwasser. Abba Kovener is today celebrated in Israel as a hero… Terrorism on a national scale, however, is but one version of revolutionary terror. The International Brigades (Spain 1936-1938) ushered in the age of international terrorism. Wahhabi “jihadism” continues in this vein.
From Revolutionary Terror to Wahhabi Terrorism The French Revolution of 1789 was, from the outset, a project to establish a “Universal Republic” (10) by violent means. Gustave Le Bon, anthropologist and sociologist, had understood this perfectly: The violence of the Revolution, its massacres, its need for propaganda, its declarations of war against all kings can be explained only if we consider that it was the establishment of a new religious belief in the soul of the masses. (11) Wahhabi terrorism, as is known, has been used by the US ever since the late 1970s (12). Zbigniew Brzezinski (1928-2017), who was national security adviser to president Carter at the time, supervised the coordination between the CIA and the Pakistani and Saudi intelligence services with the objective of financing future terrorists, including Bin Laden. The idea was to lure the Soviet Union into the Afghan graveyard. This strategy was again used in the late 1990s in Chechnya, in order to trigger the disintegration of the Russian Federation. It was then later deployed in Iraq, following the 2003 war. Since 2011, it has been applied to Libya, Syria, Yemen and elsewhere… Indeed, in an interview with the Nouvel Observateur (15 January 1998), Brzezinski explained why and how he had financed Bin Laden in Afghanistan. In response to the question “Do you not regret having promoted Islamic fundamentalism, having given weapons and advice to future terrorists?” he answered: What is most important for world history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? Some Islamic hotheads or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war? And when the journalist remarked: “Some hotheads?” But it has been said time and time again: today Islamic fundamentalism represents a world-wide threat… Brzezinski replied: Rubbish! It’s said that the West has a global policy regarding Islam. That’s hogwash: there is no global Islam. Let’s look at Islam in a rational and not a demagogic or emotional way. It is the first world religion with 1.5 billion adherents. But what is there in common between fundamentalist Saudi Arabia, moderate Morocco, militaristic Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt and secularized Central Asia? Nothing more than that which connects the Christian countries… (13) What Brzezinski is explaining here is that Wahhabi terrorism is an artificial creation and that the extent to which it spreads across the globe depends on Western policy. And history testifies to this. Indeed, Saudi Arabia would not have been established without British support during and after the First World War. In 1945, Ibn Saud and Franklin Roosevelt made a pact aboard the USS Quincy: in exchange for Saudi oil, the kingdom of Saudi Arabia would from now on be protected by the Americans, who took this opportunity to drive out the British. With the American dollar linked to Saudi oil, the Wahabbi doctrine, funded by petrodollars, expanded beyond Saudi Arabia. Wahhabism has since sought to conquer Islam via various institutions, such as the World Islamic Congress (1949-1952), the Islamic Congress of Jerusalem (1953), Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (1969), the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (1969), the Muslim World League, (1962) and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (1972). The Saudi Wahhabists also finance university chairs at Harvard, California, Santa Barbara, London and Moscow. In addition, Saudi Arabia holds 30 per cent of the total Arab satellite budget, controls fifty TV channels and almost as many newspapers and magazines (14). All this is done with the support of the Anglo-Saxon powers which lead the “free” world. This support was recently renewed by president Trump who, with his Riyadh speech and the very large arms contract which he signed with Saudi Arabia, has tacitly approved the continuation of Wahhabi military aggression in the Middle East. * Known in English as “The Avengers”, from the Hebrew Nakam, meaning revenge, this group belonged to the Bricha movement, and was led by the Zionist Abba Kovner. * Youssef Hindi is a writer and historian of messianic eschatology. Born in Morocco, he emigrated to France at a very young age, and followed a path that led him to develop a reflection on the necessary reconciliation of the North and the South shores of the Mediterranean. Two worlds whose destinies have always been intimately intertwined. Here’s his Twitter account: https://twitter.com/youssef_hindi?lang=en Translation reposted from https://geostrategieblog.wordpress.com/2017/08/16/the-matrix-of-terrorism/ (typos were edited out by Transnotitia) Link to original article in French Notes: [1] Quoted in Michaël Lowy, Messianisme juif et utopie libertaires en Europe centrale, Archives de sciences sociales des religions. N. 51/1, Persée, 1981, pp. 6-7. [2] In Gershom Scholem, Aux origines religieuses du judaïsme laïque, de la mystique aux Lumières, Calmann-Levy, 2000, p. 212. [3] Charles Novak, Jacob Frank, le faux messie, 2012, l’Harmattan, p. 56. [4] Cité par Michaël Lowy, op. cit., p. 8. [5] Michaël Lowy, op. cit., p. 11. [6] See : Youssef Hindi, La mystique de la laïcité, chapter IV, 2017, Sigest. [7] Michaël Lowy, op. cit., p. 12. [8] Michaël Lowy, op. cit., p. 36. [9] Michaël Lowy, op. cit., p. 22. [10] See Anacharsis Cloots, La République universelle, 1792. [11] Gustave Le Bon, Psychologie des foules, 1895, Presses Universitaires de France, 1981. [12] Regarding Wahhabism, see : Jean-Michel Vernochet, Les Égarés, le wahhabisme est-il un contre islam ?, 2013, Sigest. [13] http://lavoixdelalibye.com/2014/09/… [14] See the list in Al-Farsy, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques : King Fahd ben Adbul Aziz, Chanel Islands : Knight Communication, 2001, pp. 220-228.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Frankism subverts Islam as well as
Christianity We are reprinting this interview because it provides a gentle introduction to the idea that Sabbataean Frankism was devoted to the subversion of Islam as well as the subversion of Christianity. Its geopolitical strategy has been secularized and promoted as “the clash of civilizations.” Interview by Youssef Hindi in Patriotic Algeria: Reformists want to bring their poison as a remedy for Wahhabism Independent historian, writer and researcher Youssef Hindi advocates a return to “a sound study of the texts of Islam, beyond reformism and Wahhabism” and to “use the Islamic corpus to understand the meaning of history and make a critique of modernity.” For him, one should not “submit Islam to the modern world” but “propose an alternative to the globalist, totalitarian and destructive project.” Interview AlgeriaPatriot: In your book Occident and Islam: Sources and Genesis of Messianic Zionism; From Medieval Europe to the Clash of Civilizations, you speak of the roots of kabbalistic messianism and its influence on the three monotheistic religions, from the thirteenth century onwards. What role did Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood play in the subversion of the Muslim religion by the kabbalistic tradition? Youssef Hindi: It is impossible to understand the historical role of Wahhabism and the Muslim Brotherhood without recounting the genesis of Islamic reformism (from which comes frerism) and its historical and ideological link with one of the kabbalistic movements of Sabato-Frankism. The two founding pillars of the Kabbalah — from its formation in the first century — are, on the one hand, the study of the end of time (the apocalyptic) and, on the other, esotericism and mysticism which encompass a reflection on the world of here and beyond, to which we must add the purely kabbalistic notion of evolution towards the revelation of hidden knowledge, inducing the idea that the Kabbalah progresses and with it history. A historical advance in successive stages leading straight to the messianic times, towards the end of time and the climax of the chosen people. In the second chapter of my book, I retrace the history of Wahhabism, Islamic reformism and Christian reformism, highlighting their common roots: Sabbato-Frankist antinomic messianism. Born in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the false messiahs Sabbatai Tsevi and Jacob Frank (one falsely converted to Islam and the other to Catholicism), this apocalyptic messianism opposed God and the natural law, through the massive conversions of the Sabbatians to Islam and the Frankists to Catholicism, will promote atheism at the heart of these two worlds, especially via masonic lodges. Jacob Frank The first principles of a historical movement determining its ends, the foundations of the Kabbalah conditioned the form of messianism from which it sprang, and subsequently gave Sabbato-Frankism its character. Sabbato-Frankism was the inescapable consequence of the evolution of the Kabbalah, the fruit of the history of Jewish mysticism at the ideological, intellectual, political and moral levels. In the same perspective, the apocalyptic program of the clash of civilizations is an integral part of the Jewish messianic design. The project of destroying Christianity and Islam found in the thirteenth century in the Zohar led several centuries later, following attempts to lay the foundations for it, to Sabbato-Frankism towards this goal. Islamic reformism had as its anchor the Sabbatean regions, and its expansion took place via the masonic lodges infiltrated by the Sabbatarians. From the eighteenth century, the lodges spread to Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, Egypt and Syria. Sabbatai Tsevi For his part, the father of Wahhabism, Muhammad Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab (like reformers ranging from Afghani to Hassan Al-Banna, via Abduh and Rashid Ridha) claimed to return to Islam by massacring Muslims, with the help of the Saud, to impose its ideology. When Cromwell, who in the seventeenth century, with the Old Testament in his hand, made a parallel massacre of Irish and Scottish Catholics, destroying the churches, massacring prelates, men, women and children, in order to impose a new religion, and Mohamed Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab a century later, there are more than a few similarities. It’s exactly the same pattern. Abd al-Wahhab claimed to return to the Islam of origins, like the Protestants who presented themselves as fundamentalists, true supporters of Christianity, by renewing the Old Testament. In fact, Abd Al-Wahhab and his followers of yesterday and today show a devastating hatred of Islam, the Prophet and his companions, whose fervent efforts they have made to systematically destroy the tombs and both religious and cultural heritage. Islamic reformism forms with Wahhabism two sides of the same project, completing each other under an apparent opposition, namely a heresy with two faces according to what I call an infernal dialectic. Since the appearance of Abd Al-Wahhab, Malkun Khan (the first great reformist), Afghani and Abduh, and their followers up to the present day, Wahhabism and its liberal reformist slope, whose ultimate avatar are the Muslim Brotherhood, acted as corrosive agents and factors of material and spiritual decomposition of Islam; and we are now witnessing the final stage of this historical process of subversion. The Wahhabis and the Muslim Brothers play an essential role in
this great geopolitical chessboard in which the strategy of the
clash of civilizations applies: the fanaticized Wahhabi troops
destroy the Muslim cities and states guided by preachers and
pseudo-Wahhabi scholars and Brothers Muslims, while the Muslim
Brotherhood piloted, financed by the Western Arabs as well as
European and American, are brought to power as in Egypt and
Tunisia. In your two books West and Islam and The Founding Myths of the Clash of Civilizations, you describe the clash of civilizations as a programmed doctrine. Who is at the origin of this strategy which aims to confront the civilizations? My research shows that this strategy was developed by a Kabbalist by the name of Solomon Molcho — following the rabbinical and eschatological interpretations of the Bible — which in the 16th century attempted to launch the Church and then the Holy Roman Empire into a war against the Ottoman Empire, in order to expel the latter from Palestine and rebuild the Kingdom of Israel. This is precisely what the British did after the First World War, by the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of the Jewish home in Palestine (1919-1920) following the promise made by the British to Zionists in the Balfour Declaration (1917). Molcho’s project took four centuries to complete, but it was finally realized. This is one of the proofs I offer as a demonstration of the permanence of the messianic project and the intrinsic link between Zionism and the strategy of the clash of civilizations, the second being the prerequisite for the realization of the first. In 1957, Bernard Lewis, the master of Samuel Huntington, “secularized” this messianic strategy by giving it a scientific cladding to erect it in theory. Lewis, worthy heir of Molcho, with the aim of fomenting wars between the (post) Christian world and the Muslim world, decrees then that these two great religions would be ontologically vowed to confront. It was this same Bernard Lewis, a Jewish and Israeli, British and American nationalist, who worked in the early 2000s to convince Dick Cheney, then vice president of the United States, to send America to war against Iraq. This clash of civilizations fabricated from scratch is at bottom merely the false nose of what I call a “world ideological shock” opposing the Old Testament world — covering the Anglo-Thalassocratic bloc, its formerly Catholic vassals of the Old Continent, Wahhabi petrarchies and Israel — to the rest of humanity. Wahhabi ideology, Daech and Western propaganda have largely contributed to distorting non-Muslim perceptions of Islam. What distorting myths rests on this false perception? The myths fabricated over the centuries around Islam are very numerous, but in my second book The Founding Myths of the Clash of Civilizations , I deconstruct the main ones on which the strategy of the clash of civilizations is based. I have chosen five myths, which I think are the most important, that I have covered in five themed chapters. These myths and accusations relate in particular to the relationship between Islam, violence and war. My study starts with a historical contextualization of the birth and expansion of Islam, combined with a careful exegetical study. There is a focus on the often unrecognized or forgotten relationships between Christianity and the Muslim world and the place of women in the Muslim religion. My work ends with a fundamental reflection, namely, what is the true place of God and religion in human societies, this being directly related to the notion of sovereignty. For it is assumed that the fundamental problem of the Muslim world and its delay would be due to the fact that it would not have carried out an aggiornamento, a complete separation of the religious and the political. You affirm that if Islam is rejected in the West, the fault lies with the Westerners who have not understood this religion. Can we blame them for the fact that the alternative discourse to the extremist and violent Wahhabi ideology is totally inaudible? I did not say that. I explain that the rejection of Islam is largely due to its demonization by the major Western media, ideologues and intellectuals as well as politicians. This demonization is achieved through the dissemination of old myths forged in historical, political, and geopolitical contexts from the Middle Ages, combined with the propagation of Wahhabi ideology in the world — via several channels and financed by petrodollars, media, university chairs, mosques — which began after World War II and the Quincy Pact (February 1945) between U.S. President Roosevelt and Saudi Arabian King Abdelaziz Ibn Saud, with the aid and the blessing of the Western world, the United States in the lead. Without the petrodollars and Anglo-American support for Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism (and its terrorist avatars) would not have become Muslim orthodoxy in the eyes of Westerners and a number of Muslims. Wahhabi and Western media propaganda make the speech of traditional scholars and scholars who have studied the history and role of Wahhabism utterly inaudible. Thinkers agree that we must go to a refounding of the theological thought of Islam in order to thaw all the theological glaciations. What is your opinion on this issue? These Muslim thinkers, whose speeches are accompanied by ideologues who want to bring down Islam, are the heirs of the Freemason reformers (Malkun Khan, Afghani, Abduh and their pupils) who began this work of diluting Islam in modernity. Reformers are jostling themselves today, in the logic of this dialectical movement between Wahhabism and reformism I have been talking about, taking as a pretext the atrocities of Daech and other terrorist groups, to bring their poison as a cure for a disease they never name: Wahhabism. My opinion is that we must return to a sound study of the texts of Islam, beyond reformism and Wahhabism, and use the Islamic corpus to understand the meaning of history and criticize modernity; not to subjugate Islam to the modern world, but to propose an alternative to modern ideologies and to the globalist, totalitarian and destructive project, under the guise of progressivism, that they have generated. According to you, Eric Zemmour, Bernard-Henri Levy and Alain Finkielkraut obey the same movement that exists in the Jewish tradition, namely the assimilationist or “Haskalah” movement. What is this movement? What are its objectives ? In a recent conference, I explained that Eric Zemmour is part of this movement (Finkielkraut can also be included to some extent), but not Bernard-Henri Levy. The Haskalah is a movement initiated in 1780 by the German Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786). It proposes to the Jews of Europe to assimilate in appearance to the European cultures, but while preserving their identity. The Haskalah belongs to the Frankish movement, which advocates assimilation by conversion to Catholicism and/or by the dissimulation of belonging to Judaism, to destroy the Christian world from within. Moses Mendelssohn In my first book, I quote the historian Gershom Scholem, who is the greatest scholar of Kabbalah and its history, and who writes about the doctrine of Jacob Frank and his purposes (and the Haskalah): “The conception of Jacob Frank assumed a resolutely nihilistic aspect. Under the seal of silence, the true believer (that is, Frank’s partisan), who possesses God in the secret of his heart, can pass through all religions, rites and established orders without giving his adhesion to, No, on the contrary, by annihilating them from within and thus establishing true freedom. Constituted religion is only a mantle that must be endorsed and then rejected on the path of ‘sacred knowledge,’ the gnosis of the point where all traditional values are annihilated in the current of life. He propagated this nihilistic cult under the name of ‘the way to Esau’ or ‘Edom’ (the Western Christian world), inciting assimilation without really believing it, hoping for the miraculous rebirth of a messianic and nihilist Judaism emerging in the Pains of the birth of a universal upheaval. These conceptions opened the way for the fusion between the last phase of messianism and the Sabbateic mysticism on the one hand, and on the other, contemporary rationalism and secular and anticlerical tendencies. Freemasonry, liberalism and even Jacobinism can be seen as other ways of striving for the same goal.” The destruction of Christianity by the Frankists on the one hand, and that of the Sabbatarians by Islam, on the other hand, were carried out in parallel via similar channels: Integrating the kabbalistic concept of redemption through evil, that of the clean slate, to destroy in order to rebuild, penetrated the Christian and Muslim worlds by passing through kabbalistic masonic lodges. It is by understanding the origin of this movement and its ends, which are summarized in the total destruction of the West (spiritually and physically), that one can understand the discourse of a Zemmour, who presents himself as a patriot assimilated, more French than the French, and which paradoxically has for years fanned the flames of civil war in France, just as BHL works like his co-religionist Bernard Lewis for the destruction of the Muslim world. Interview by Mohamed El-Ghazi Hirschfeld , EPHRAIM JOSEPH (c. 1758–1820), author and active Freemason at the end of the 18th century. Hirschfeld was born in Karlsruhe, the son of the learned cantor Joseph Hirschel Darmstadt. In his youth his talents came to the attention of Prince Charles Frederick of Baden who enabled him to study in the high school of Karlsruhe and then to study medicine in Strasbourg. Hirschfeld did not complete his studies but acquired a wide general background in addition to his traditional education. From 1779 to 1781, Hirschfeld was a tutor in the house of David *Friedlaender; he frequented the home of Moses *Mendelssohn and was in contact with the Haskalah circles of Berlin. His sensitive character and his quarrelsome nature were conspicuous in his relations with others. In 1782 he worked in Innsbruck, where he met with the founder of the order of masons of a theosophic bent, the Asiatic Brethren, an order organized by the cooperation among monks with theosophic tendencies, Freemasons, and aristocrats. One of its founders was an important Frankist convert to Christianity, Franz Thomas von Schoenfeld (see *Dobrushka), who introduced into the writings of the order portions of Shabbatean literature in German translation. Hirschfeld was received into the order and for several years was secretary to its founder, Hans Ecker von Eckhofen, who opened the order to Jewish financiers, members of the Enlightenment who wished to form closer ties with Christian society. As was customary in mystical orders of Freemasons, he took a pseudonym, Marcus ben Binah. Hirschfeld occupied an important position in the order, especially after the departure of Schoenfeld. Until 1786 he lived in Vienna where he first assumed the name Hirschfeld, and later, until 1791, in Schleswig, which had become the center of the order. Because of a quarrel with Ecker, Hirschfeld was expelled from the order and in 1790, placed under house arrest for several months. However, several important Jews in the organization came to his defense. During those years, Hirschfeld was active as translator of the mystical writings of the order, making it seem as if they had been originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic, and he interpreted the mystical teachings of the order. In 1791 his former friend Schoenfeld took him to Strasbourg, but Hirschfeld left him and returned to Germany. From 1792 until his death he lived alternately in Frankfurt and in nearby Offenbach and maintained close contact with the Frankists who had their center there. His aspiration toward a religious fusion of Judaism and Christianity within a kabbalistic framework was close to the spirit of Frankism. But Hirschfeld never converted to Christianity and died a Jew. In 1796 he and his brother Pascal published Biblisches Organon, a kabbalistic-theosophic translation and commentary on the beginning of Genesis, intending this to be the start of a large work elaborating mystical insights on biblical topics. Hirschfeld moved away from the Haskalah spirit and lived in the intellectual milieu of the order, dreaming of its reestablishment after its decline around 1791. He was close to the Catholic professor Franz Josef *Molitor, later a distinguished student of Kabbalah in Frankfurt, who was greatly influenced by Hirschfeld. In the lively disputes in Masonic circles over the acceptance of Jews into their organizations Hirschfeld was prominent and he was attacked vehemently by opponents of their admission. Even after his death, important persons in these organizations attempted to obtain manuscripts rumored to be in his legacy. He was completely forgotten in the 19th century because his mysticism was not to the taste of the Jewish Freemasons of that period. Much material on Hirschfeld is preserved in the archives of the Freemasons in The Hague and Copenhagen. He was a unique figure at the beginning of the Emancipation, both because of his many-sided personality and because of his activities as a Jew in organizations which then generally were inimical to Jewish membership. bibliography:J. Katz, Jews and Freemasons in Europe 1723–1939 (1970), index; idem, in: Zion, 30 (1965), 171–250; idem, in: blbi, 28 (1964), 295–311; Scholem, in: ylbi, 7 (1962), 247–78. add. bibliography: K. Davidowicz, "Zwischen Aufklaerung und Mystik," in: G. Biegel and M. Graetz (eds.), Judentum zwischen Tradition und Moderne (2002), 135–47. [Gershom Scholem] HIRSCHFELD was born the son of the Talmudic cantor Joseph Hirschel Darmstadt and his wife Rachel Hirschl and was originally called Ephraim Joseph Hirschel. With the support of Johann Georg Schlosser , Goethe's brother-in-law , he attended high school in Karlsruhe from 1773 and then the university in Strasbourg to study medicine, but did not complete his studies. He spoke French, Latin and German and had a broad general education. Between 1779 and 1781 Hirschfeld (at that time still under the name Hirschel) stayed in Berlin, where he worked as an accountant and steward of David Friedländer through Schlossers and maintained close contacts with Moses Mendelssohn and the circle of Haskala . In 1782 he moved to Innsbruck, where he worked as an accountant for the Jewish owner of the Tyrolean salt defeat Gabriel Uffenheimer. Initiated by the founder of the Masonic Order of the Knights and Brothers of Light and the Asian Brothers , also open to Jews , Freiherr Hans Heinrich von Ecker and Eckhoffen , he went to Vienna , where later his brother Pascal came from Maastricht. There both brothers dropped their previous name Hirschel , changed their name to Hirschfeld and worked for the order. After the Asian brothers were banned in Vienna in 1785, Ecker and Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld, with the support of the Masonic Landgrave Karl of Hesse, moved to his property in Schleswig , where a group of Asian brothers also existed. In 1790 Hirschfeld got into legal difficulties due to disputes with Ecker and was placed under house arrest, from which Franz Thomas von Schönfeld (born Moses Dobruška or Dobruschka ), with whom he had joined the Asian brothers , released him in 1792 by paying 550 thalers , Hirschfeld followed Schönfeld on his way to Paris - where it was finally guillotined - to Strasbourg, but then went to Frankfurt am Main and Offenbach; there he lived from 1792 until his death. He kept in touch with the Offenbacher Hof der Frankisten , with the " Christian Kabbalist " Franz Joseph Molitor and with the Freemasons. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx DOBRUSCHKA, MOSESDOBRUSCHKA, MOSES (1753–1794), Frankist and French revolutionary. Dobruschka was born in Bruenn into a family that belonged to the small circle of rich tax-farmers who largely controlled the tobacco administration during the regime of Maria Theresa. His mother, Schoendel, was the first cousin of Jacob *Frank, and her house served as a meeting place for the secret adherents of the sect. It was apparently this connection which caused Frank to settle in Bruenn (1773–86) after his release from prison in Czestochowa. Dobruschka received a talmudic education and was also initiated into the kabbalistic teachings of Shabbateanism. He began to study German literature and foreign languages as an adolescent. In 1773 he married the adopted daughter of Ḥayyim (Joachim) Popper, one of the richest Jews of Prague, and about the same time began writing in Hebrew and German in the spirit of the early *Haskalah, producing, among other books, Sefer ha-Sha'ashu'a (1775), a commentary on the Beḥinat Olam of Abraham *Bedersi. Dobruschka later engaged in business and amassed a considerable fortune as one of the chief army suppliers in the preparation of the war against the Turks. In 1778 he was ennobled by Emperor Joseph ii, with whom he enjoyed some favor and to whom he dedicated enthusiastic poetic eulogies, taking the title of Franz Thomas Edler von Schoenfeld. He became active in the mystic circles of freemasonry, into which he introduced elements of Kabbalah, particularly of a Shabbatean nature, but retired from active participation in 1784. In the late 1780s he lived as a wealthy man with wide connections in the upper circles of Vienna and established contact with the famous writers of Germany, continuing to enjoy the favor of Leopold ii, the successor of Joseph ii. On the death of Jacob Frank in 1791, Dobruschka's name was mentioned as his possible successor as head of the Frankist sect. Dobruschka (or Schoenfeld) became an ardent admirer of the ideals of the French Revolution, and his career is henceforth closely connected with it. Arriving in Strasbourg in March 1792, he changed his name to Gottlob Junius Frey, joined the Jacobin club, and immediately involved himself in French politics. He moved to Paris in June, joined the Jacobin club there, took part in the storming of the Tuileries, and wrote a philosophical and constitutional book Philosophie sociale, dediée au peuple français (1793), which was a spirited defense of Jacobinism and included a strong attack on Moses and Mosaic legislation. In January 1793 he made the acquaintance of François Chabot, a Jacobin demagogue who married his sister Leopoldine in October of that year. Shortly after he was denounced by Austrian and German émigrés as an Austrian agent and this, combined with a financial fraud in which he was involved, brought about his arrest, together with that of Chabot. He was charged with corruption and espionage, found guilty, and executed on April 5, 1794. A few months after his death some of his Austrian friends spread a rumor that he had been engaged on a secret mission to liberate the former queen, Marie-Antoinette, from prison. bibliography:G. Scholem, in: Zion, 35 (1971), v–vii, 127–81.
Enlightenment, Kabbalah and Freemasonry [ Edit | Edit source ]The role of Hirschfeld as a Jewish Kabbalist and Freemason in the Enlightenment environment still awaits further investigation. As the three defining stages of his intellectual work, his stay in Berlin with contact to Haskala , his membership in the Masonic Order of the Asian Brothers in Vienna and Schleswig and finally his contacts with the Frankists and newly emerging Masonic lodges accepting Jewish or Jews in Berlin may well be rightly so Frankfurt and Offenbach apply. The educational elements of the Enlightenment, which were initially assessed as positive in the first stage - also through contact with David Friedländer - gradually turned into a rugged rejection at Hirschfeld, since in the Haskala and the Enlightenment he generally lacked knowledge of the Bible and turned away from the Bible Belief in God - an indispensable element of a justified existence - he saw as he later made it clear: "One preaches dry morality according to reason, and what we call faith is a fanciful dream in their eyes." [1] The second stage reveals him as an active co-creator of the Order of the Asian Brothers , on whose knowledge and influence the formulation of the Kabbalistic content in the religious rituals can be attributed. What is also important here is the openness of the order to Judaism, promoted by Hirschfeld, on the one hand, and the opening of Masonic teaching content of this high-grade system to Kabbalistic interpretative patterns. - The reasons for his dispute with the religious master Hans Heinrich von Ecker and Eckhoffen and his exclusion from the order in 1790 in Schleswig are lacking in-depth insight. The final stage in Frankfurt and Offenbach focuses on the publication of his Kabbalistic textbook Biblical Organon , which he wrote together with his brother Pascal, as a summary of his mystical beliefs; it shows Hirschfeld's path from Haskala to mysticism. Despite his commitment to Freemasonry as well as his contacts to the Frankists (probably promoted by his converted religious brother Thomas von Schönfeld and still to be disclosed) for a religious amalgamation of Judaism and Christianity by the Kabbalah, he never converted to Christianity. Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld belonged - not unlike the Pietism adherent Freemasons - to a branch that is understood in today's Freemasonry as "apocryphal", at least not representing the main educational direction, which sought to connect mystical "yesterday" with the enlightened "tomorrow". Works [ Edit | Edit source ]
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The Influence of Sabbatian Frankism on the WorldBy Thomas Müller of The New NationalistOne of the most hidden aspects of the history of the last 350 years is the impact of the Shabbetian Messianic movement. It was led by Shabbetai Tzvi starting June 6, 1666 (6666). Tzvi convinced, perhaps, half of world’s Jewry at its peak that he was the true messiah. A vast Sabbatian movement promoted the Messianic ambitions of Tzvi, who only recognized the sacred book of Kabbalah, the Zohar and rejected the Torah and Talmud. The Sabbatian Luciferian phenomenon was kept alive through the centuries with great help. In the 18th century, Jacob Frank reintroduced Sabbatianism to Europe en route to America and Palestine. Although Jewish scholars have dissected Sabbatianism and Frankism, little of it is known to the outside world. Rabbi Marvin Antelman believes the movement lives on at least in spirit and refers to today’s believers as “satanic Sabbatian Frankists.” The article that follows uses Antelman’s book, “To Eliminate the Opiate,” as the primary source to document these events. Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem attempts to answer this question of why Sabbatianism has been swept under the rug in his book “Holiness of Sin,” as follows:
“Sabbatian cults are well documented in the ‘Encyclopedia Judaica’ and in the writings of Israeli academics, including the late professor Y. Tishbi, Yehuda Liebes and Yaacov Katz. In a nutshell, these groups sexually practiced incest, pedophilia, adultery and homosexuality and were otherwise depraved. The Talmud states that the Messiah will come only in an age that is completely guilty or completely innocent (Sanhedrin 98a). From this epigram, the Frankists would declare, “Since we cannot all be saints, let us all be sinners.” One has to wonder what insanity was inside the minds of Jews that would cause so many to buy into this nihilist cult. In addition Sabbatians and Frankists practiced inbreeding which surely didn’t help with any tendency towards psychosis and neurosis. In his day, over a million Jews from every walk of life proclaimed and hailed Tzvi as their deliverer. The movement rejected the Talmud, and completely rejected the ethics and morals of Torah Judiasm. They conspired with the Illuminati with goals of destroying all religions and fusing all nations into one. Gershon Scholem has traced the incestuous practices of the Sabbatians to that of Earth Mother worship. After a forced conversion to Islam by the Sultan, the cult died down. Then, Jacob Frank, one of history’s nastiest men, encountered the Sabbatian Dönmeh while he was a traveling salesman in Turkey in 1750. He refined the concept of the Messiah, declared himself so, and urged members of the movement to sin as the means to salvation. It was called the “cult of the all-seeing eye.” The Frankist “believer” had an inverted, deceptive belief system. One must not appear to be as they really are. The last belief justified its followers’ pursuit of the double lives they led. One could appear to be a religious Jew on the outside and, in reality, be a Frankist. The Dönmeh officially converted to Islam but remained (hidden) crypto-Jews. Similarly so, the many Frankists who officially converted to Catholicism. The great majority of Frankists who outwardly appeared to embrace Judaism integrated themselves into the Jewish community. Despite the fact that they were all outwardly religious, they still cherished as their goal “the annihilation of every religion and positive system of belief,” and they dreamed “of a general revolution that would sweep away the past in a single stroke so that the world might be rebuilt.” For the Frankist, anarchic destruction represented all the Luciferian radiance, and “great is a sin committed for its own sake.” The Frankists taught that their Four Godheads represented the major religions that needed to be destroyed: Elijah represents the ultimate Messiah, which is reached by starting with Judaism, represented by Jonathan Eibeschutz; going on to Islam represented by Shabbetai Tzvi; a the last portal represented by Frank in Christianity. After the revolution, comes Big Brother, who rules the earth. The Frankists enticed women to leave their husbands and to join their orgies. Families were broken up by the hundreds. This is even more amazing considering the strong family life that characterized the Jews in the communities of Podolia, Moravia, Poland, Hungary and Romania at that time. The Encyclopedia Judaica states that Frank’s considerable wealth and income “was a constant source of wonder and speculation, and the matter was never resolved.” In 1752, Frank married a Bulgarian Jewish woman named Channa. She was very beautiful, and he utilized her, as was the custom among members of his sect, to ensnare hundreds of men who had licentious affairs with her to build up the strength of his sect. In 1755, Frank returned to Poland, where he associated with the Sabbatian leaders of Podolia and visited and expanded Jewish communities that had been known for their heretical leanings since the beginning of the 18th century. Rabbis Crack Down After Frankists burned copies of the Talmud and accused Jews of ritual murders, the rabbis had seen enough. In 1756 in the city of Satinow, rabbis formally excommunicated Frank and all of his followers. They prohibited intermarriage with any members of the sect. Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697- 1776) wrote in a letter that it was forbidden for anyone to have mercy on them. Divorced from traditional Judaism, a group of Frankists in Europe converted to Catholicism in 1759. But a year later, Frank was accused of heresy and was thrown into the Citadel of Czenstokova. Frank lived comfortably at the monastery for 13 years. Frankism was coined in early 19th century and was initially a slur directed at the descendants of Frank’s followers who converted to Roman Catholicism and attempted to conceal their background. According to contemporary accounts, the Warsaw Frankists were at 6,000. It was put at 24,000 in the whole of Poland. The cultists were said to monopolize certain trades and professions, including lending, brothels and alcohol. This factor led to many conflicts between Polish burghers and the Frankists. In Polish brochures and pamphlets published in Warsaw in the 1790s, the Frankists were portrayed as neither Jewish nor Christian (religious chameleons) and were characterized as managing to escape the control of both Jewish and Polish authorities. After the rabbis succeeded in reducing the sect some, Frankists turn up in Moravia and Vienna. There was already an influential clan in Prague that pre-dated Jacob Frank. For reasons not adequately explained by Rabbi Antelman in his book, many of the Frankist families at this time were wealthy elites. Our theory is that their low morals and evil intent allowed them to move aggressively into the lucrative vice trades which more traditionally religious peoples avoided. Additionally, because many were now “officially” Catholic, they were able to join or form Masonic lodges where they liked to plot and conspire. In particular, the elite Frankist inbred families operated out of the Mason Order of Asiatic Brethren in Vienna. More lodges were opened in Hamburg and Berlin. Even gentile Masonic lodges were very amenable to Jewish converts to Christianity, especially among men of means (crypto-Jew Frankists) who could grease palms and provide sexual favors. This led to a path of infiltration and of course compromising control. The Elite Frankists After his release from the citadel, Frank moved to Brno, Moravia, to hang out with his brother, who was the head of the large Dobrushka family. Jacob Frank even adopted that name. They were Frankist loyalists. The family included eight sons. Two who changed their name to Frey were leading Jacobins in the French Revolution and were guillotined when the Jacobins were removed. Frank resided for 13 years in Brno. His brother Solomon (1715-1774) held both the lucrative potash and the tobacco monopolies in Moravia. Though they had a tendency to inter-marry and inbreed within their own group, the elite Luciferian Frankists had no problem strategically assimilating with select wealthy Catholic families. Indeed, by all accounts, they were gold diggers and seductresses who also had money in their own right. Frank’s own daughter Eva slept with Crown Prince and future Emperor Joseph II in Vienna, where for a time Frank was welcome within the court. Besides the sexual servicing of Joseph II, the Hapsburgs thought he could be useful in converting and assimilating Jews. Frankists also freely held both Jewish, Catholic or Islamic names. Sabbeatians and Frankists epitomize the term “crypto-Jew.” As time went on, Frankism became more of a predatory psychopathic belief system and excuse to sin and indulge than anything else. Eight Dobruskas “officially” converted to Christianity and six were ennobled. One of Solomon’s granddaughters, Francesca Dobrushka, married into the Hoenig family, later ennobled as the von Hoenigsbergs. The Hoenigsberg family acquired most of its wealth as descendants of Loebel Hoenig who, during the Austrian secession of 1740-1748 and the Seven Year War of 1756-1763, accumulated a fantastic fortune as a supplier of the Austrian army. Loebel’s eldest son, Israel Hoenig (1724-1808), achieved control of the Austrian tobacco monopoly. Other prominent Sabbatians were the Wehles family of Prague. One, Gottlieb Wehle, came to the United States with a large constituency of Frankists from Bohemia and Moravia after the Revolution of 1848. One member of this clan was Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), the Supreme Court Justice and ardent Zionist who was instrumental in promoting the Federal Reserve Bank. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter is reported to have received a copy of Eva Frank’s portrait from his mother, a descendent of a Prague Frankist family. Isaac Daniel Itzig of Berlin also had Frankist familial connections. He ran the Press of the Jewish Free School, which in 1796 changed its name to the Oriental Printing Office, considered to be a powerful instrument of “cultural reform” and intellectual precursor to the Frankfurt School. Rabbi Antelman labels Itzig as an earlier Communist. In fact, Antelman documents a theory that holds that proto-Frankists were the vanguards of the Marxist-Communist philosophy. Itzig’s father Daniel aka Daniel Yoffe was financial adviser to King Frederick William II of Prussia who, when he was crown prince, was a member of the Berlin llluminati. Itzig (1750-1806) was a purveyor of silver to the Royal Prussian mint. Along with banker-merchant H. Ephraim during the Seven-Year War, he issued debased coinage that not only contributed to inflation but helped the Prussian government fight the war. These two powerful Frankist families were later joined in marriage. Frankist Mayer Arnstein married Theresa Wertheimer, granddaughter of banker and chief rabbi Samson Wertheimer of Austria. Rabbi Wertheimer (1658-1724) was considered to be the wealthiest Jew in Europe between 1694 and 1704. He was financial administrator for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI and supervised their diplomatic missions. This earned him the nickname Judenkaiser, or Jewish Emperor. Arnstein in turn financed the Tyrolese peasant revolt against France and Bavaria. The same pattern continuously emerges. Brilliant, wealthy Luciferians addicted to power, anxious to superficially assimilate, to destroy religions, to indulge in radicalism, shady ethics and to live cryptic, two-faced lives, sometimes posing as religious Jews, Catholics, Protestants or Muslims but indulging their revolutionary radicalism in secret. Even as Frankism itself diminished, at least on the surface, as a large and organized sect, its belief system received a strong toehold even within the Catholic faith through Frankist “conversions.” Rothschild Connection Near the end of his life, Frank lived in Offenbach, just outside Frankfort. He lived in regal style and maintained a militia. He died in Offenbach on August 10, 1791, having settled there in 1786. When the Frankists established themselves in 1786 in the Frankfurt suburb of Offenbach, they were patronized by “unidentified philanthropists” of the Frankfurt community. But during the Frankfurt Masonic Lodge’s formative years, the three most active members of the Frankfurt Judenloge were Frankist-influenced: Sigmund Geisenheimer, Michael Hess (1782-1860) and Justus Hiller, who were also leaders in the liberal Jewish Reformist movement. Michael Hess was hired by Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) as a tutor for his children. Geisenheimer was Mayer Rothschild’s head clerk. Thus the spirit and mentality of Frankism received a large boost from the richest family in Europe. Incidentally, 29 of 58 of Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s grandchildren married first or second cousins. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Moses Dobruška, Moses Dobruschka, alias Junius Frey (12 July 1753, Moravia – 5 April 1794) was the first cousin once removed of Jacob Frank, the founder of the Frankist sect who claimed to be the Jewish messiah. Dobruška was an alchemist , writer, and poet. In 1775 he converted from Judaism to Catholic faith and took the name of Franz Thomas Schönfeld.[3] On 25 July 1778 he was elevated to nobility in Vienna becoming Franz Thomas Edler von Schönfeld. Together with Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld , who did not convert, he became one of the main conspirators of the “Knights of St. John the Evangelists for Asia in Europe,” which was much talked about in Germany and Austria between 1783 and 1790, not least because it was the first German-speaking fraternal order to accept Jews. In 1792, in the wake of the French Revolution, he traveled via Strasbourg to Paris and became a Jacobin changing his name, once again, to Junius Frey. The new name derived from Junius from the Roman Junii family that fostered the famous tyrant slayers the Brutus', and Frey being the German transliteration for "liberty". He was arrested for treason and espionage and executed by guillotine on 5 April 1794 in connection with the case against his brother-in-law François Chabot xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Albert Moll was one of the most influential sexologists 1900-30... In contrast to his rivals Sigmund Freud and Magnus Hirschfeld, his achievements have not yet been recognised adequately. developed preFreud psycoanalysis...racial improvment through eugenics ... As scientific theories, Freud's psychoanalysis represented the unconscious, fantasy, experience and latency, while Moll's sexology represented consciousness, ontological reality, behaviour and manifestation. they all showed extreme animosity towards each other. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Order of the Asiatic Brethren An Advanced group of Freemasonry specialty Lodges which integrated Qabalistic teachings as well as true Masonic Brotherhood without regard to Religion. While one of the basic tenants of Freemasonry is the Brotherhood of Man under the All-Seeing Eye of God, “Let a man’s religion or mode of worship be what it may, he is not excluded from the Order, provided he believe in the glorious Architect of heaven and earth, and practice the sacred duties of morality. Freemasons unite with the virtuous of every persuasion in the firm and pleasing bond of fraternal love.” In practice, social divisions of Race, Creed, Nation and Religion have all been barriers to be overcome, and in every age new barriers are identified and torn down that Masons may meet On The Level, as Equals. The Order of the Asiatic Brethren was specifically set up as German conservatism waned and the American Revolution set the stage for a new world order where all would be equal in opportunity, regardless of the accident of Birth. At the same time, Moses Mendelssohn was reforming the tribal attitudes of the Jews of Europe and a more “European” cultured Jew was appearing in the cities. This social upheaval was influenced by the French Revolution, it's Reign of Terror, Napoleon's invasion of Germany, the establishment of Masonic Lodges under the Grand Orient of France Grand Lodge. While the (all too brief) lesson of Religious Tolerance in Germany is of social significance, it's influence on Magickal thought in Europe immense. Under the organizational guidance of Hans Heinrich von Ecker und von Eckihoffem such Qabalistic scholars as Baron Thomas von Schoenfeld (born a Jew, Moses Dobruška later to become a Monk, Junius Frey), Ephraim Joseph Hirschfeld and his technically better brother Pascal translated many Qabalistic texts by hand, and assisted von Eker with creating advanced Masonic Rites based on those teachings. These were shared with Esoteric Freemasons in France, Russia and England. Carried by Traveling Men such as Count Apponyi and Johann Friedrich Falk to Magicians in both England ( Frederick Hockley, Kenneth R H Mackenzie) and the Continent Éliphas Lévi and through him to Papus. When the American Magician Paschal Beverly Randolph brings it to the New World in the mid 1800's it has already been mixed with the Magic of Cornelius Agrippa and Francis Barrett into an Occult Philosophy recognizable today. The Order of the Asiatic Brethren was the Masonic side of the academically minded Magical Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross (Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreutz) in Germany. It's influence on the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis AKA the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross in it's various disguises in France seems recognizable in it's degree system and mix of teachings. Both seem likely influences on the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and all it's descendants. That the French and English Orders that follow are more focused on Qabalah and Solomanic (Ceremonial) Magick than practical alchemy indicates their primary source was the Asiatic Brethren than the Golden and Rosy Cross itself, where practical, medicinal results in laboratory experiments and patenting the results was the focus. It organized Melchisedeck lodges to perform the 1st 3 degrees of Freemasonry for non Christians so they could join this advanced Freemason society. In addition to Alchemy, these Qabalists studied instructions how to rule spirits, by breaking the seven seals. Although mixing Christian and Jewish symbolism, 3rd degree initiates were called “True Rosicrucians.” It was structured with two Informational degrees, the Seekers received lectures, then 2nd degree “Sufferers” did physical experiments in Alchemy. The First Chief Degree of “Knights and Brother-Initiates from Asia in Europe“ has many Masonic elements and an oath of Secrecy. The Second Chief Degree, Wise Masters taught qabalistic secrets. The Third, or Chief Degree was called the Royal Priests, or True Rosicrucians, or the Degree of Melchisedeck. Hints indicate it may have been instructions on the Holy Names of God and their uses in both Meditation and Magick. The highest degree, the Sanhedrim, a term taken from Rabbinical literature, ran the Order. Duke Charles introduced it into Sweden in the 1780s, followed up by C A Boehman in the 1790s, who, after fighting with both the Golden and Rosy Cross (Orden des Gold- und Rosenkreutz) in Germany and Adam Weishaupt's Order of Illuminati in Bavaria, formed a masonic-magical society called DELU in Denmark with Prince Carl of Hessen. Among it's practitioners was Johann Caspar Lavater, author of Aphorisms of Man, 1788, a hero of William Blake; Sir Ralph Hamilton; Carl Boheman; Resources xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Rabbi Marvin Antelman (193?-2014) deserves credit for revealing that the Illuminati originated in a “heretical” Cabalist Jewish movement — the Sabbatean Frankists — named after its progenitors Sabbatai Zvi (1626-1676) and Jacob Frank (1726-1791.) This mostly Jewish movement, which garbs itself in Gentile Freemasonry, assumes the identity of the target population and subverts it from within. A Jewish authority, Gershom Scholem, describes them as “demonically possessed.” These are the Satanists behind Communism, Nazism, Zionism and the NWO. Trump no doubt is one. So is Obama, Soros and the satanic secret society behind Hillary Clinton. They are behind the destruction of Christianity, the attack on gender, and the general spiritual malaise afflicting the West. (Editor’s Note: I realize we have been over this territory before. But a lot of new people are realizing that the conspiracy is not a theory. I see my role as keeping this vital knowledge alive and current.) “The Influence of Sabbatean Frankism on the World” by Thomas Muller One of the most hidden aspects of the history of the last 350 years is the impact of the Shabbetian Messianic movement. It was led by Shabbetai Tzvi starting June 6, 1666 (6666). Tzvi convinced, perhaps, half of the world’s Jewry at its peak that he was the true Messiah. A vast Sabbatian movement promoted the Messianic ambitions of Tzvi, who only recognized the sacred book of Kabbalah, the Zohar and rejected the Torah and Talmud. The Sabbatian Luciferian phenomenon was kept alive through the centuries with great help. In the 18th century, Jacob Frank reintroduced Sabbatianism to Europe en route to America and Palestine. Although Jewish scholars have dissected Sabbatianism and Frankism, little of it is known to the outside world. Rabbi Marvin Antelman believes the movement lives on at least in spirit and refers to today’s believers as “satanic Sabbatian Frankists.” The article that follows uses Antelman’s book, “To Eliminate the Opiate,” as the primary source to document these events. Jewish scholar Gershom Scholem attempts to answer this question of why Sabbatianism has been swept under the rug in his book “Holiness of Sin,” as follows:
“Sabbatian cults are well documented in the ‘Encyclopedia Judaica’ and in the writings of Israeli academics, including the late professor Y. Tishbi, Yehuda Liebes and Yaacov Katz. In a nutshell, these groups sexually practiced incest, pedophilia, adultery and homosexuality and were otherwise depraved. The Talmud states that the Messiah will come only in an age that is completely guilty or completely innocent (Sanhedrin 98a). From this epigram, the Frankists would declare, “Since we cannot all be saints, let us all be sinners.” One has to wonder what insanity was inside the minds of Jews that would cause so many to buy into this nihilist cult. In addition, Sabbatians and Frankists practiced inbreeding which surely didn’t help with any tendency towards psychosis and neurosis. In his day, over a million Jews from every walk of life proclaimed and hailed Tzvi as their deliverer. … JACOB FRANK After a forced conversion to Islam by the Sultan, the cult died down. Then, Jacob Frank, one of history’s nastiest men, encountered the Sabbatian Dönmeh while he was a traveling salesman in Turkey in 1750. He refined the concept of the Messiah, declared himself so, and urged members of the movement to sin as the means to salvation. It was called the “cult of the all-seeing eye.” The Frankist “believer” had an inverted, deceptive belief system. One must not appear to be as they really are. The last belief justified its followers’ pursuit of the double lives they led. One could appear to be a religious Jew on the outside and, in reality, be a Frankist. The Dönmeh officially converted to Islam but remained (hidden) crypto-Jews. Similarly so, the many Frankists who officially converted to Catholicism. The great majority of Frankists who outwardly appeared to embrace Judaism integrated themselves into the Jewish community. Despite the fact that they were all outwardly religious, they still cherished as their goal “the annihilation of every religion and positive system of belief,” and they dreamed “of a general revolution that would sweep away the past in a single stroke so that the world might be rebuilt.” For the Frankist, anarchic destruction represented all the Luciferian radiance, and “great is a sin committed for its own sake.” The Frankists taught that their Four Godheads represented the major religions that needed to be destroyed: Elijah represents the ultimate Messiah, which is reached by starting with Judaism, represented by Jonathan Eibeschutz; going on to Islam represented by Shabbetai Tzvi; the last portal represented by Frank in Christianity. After the revolution comes Big Brother, who rules the earth. The Frankists enticed women to leave their husbands and to join their orgies. Families were broken up by the hundreds. This is even more amazing considering the strong family life that characterized the Jews in the communities of Podolia, Moravia, Poland, Hungary and Romania at that time. The Encyclopedia Judaica states that Frank’s considerable wealth and income “was a constant source of wonder and speculation, and the matter was never resolved.” In 1752, Frank married a Bulgarian Jewish woman named Channa. She was very beautiful, and he utilized her, as was the custom among members of his sect, to ensnare hundreds of men who had licentious affairs with her to build up the strength of his sect. In 1755, Frank returned to Poland, where he associated with the Sabbatian leaders of Podolia and visited and expanded Jewish communities that had been known for their heretical leanings since the beginning of the 18th century. RABBIS CRACK DOWN After Frankists burned copies of the Talmud and accused Jews of ritual murders, the rabbis had seen enough. In 1756 in the city of Satinow, rabbis formally excommunicated Frank and all of his followers. They prohibited intermarriage with any members of the sect. Rabbi Jacob Emden (1697- 1776) wrote in a letter that it was forbidden for anyone to have mercy on them. Divorced from traditional Judaism, a group of Frankists in Europe converted to Catholicism in 1759. But a year later, Frank was accused of heresy and was thrown into the Citadel of Czenstokova. Frank lived comfortably at the monastery for 13 years. [The term] Frankism was coined in early 19th century and was initially a slur directed at the descendants of Frank’s followers who converted to Roman Catholicism and attempted to conceal their background. According to contemporary accounts, the Warsaw Frankists were at 6,000. It was put at 24,000 in the whole of Poland. The cultists were said to monopolize certain trades and professions, including lending, brothels and alcohol. This factor led to many conflicts between Polish burghers and the Frankists. In Polish brochures and pamphlets published in Warsaw in the 1790s, the Frankists were portrayed as neither Jewish nor Christian (religious chameleons) and were characterized as managing to escape the control of both Jewish and Polish authorities. After the rabbis succeeded in reducing the sect some Frankists turn up in Moravia and Vienna. There was already an influential clan in Prague that pre-dated Jacob Frank. For reasons not adequately explained by Rabbi Antelman in his book, many of the Frankist families at this time were wealthy elites. Our theory is that their low morals and evil intent allowed them to move aggressively into the lucrative vice trades which more traditionally religious peoples avoided. Additionally, because many were now “officially” Catholic, they were able to join or form Masonic lodges where they liked to plot and conspire. In particular, the elite Frankist inbred families operated out of the Mason Order of Asiatic Brethren in Vienna. More lodges were opened in Hamburg and Berlin. Even gentile Masonic lodges were very amenable to Jewish converts to Christianity, especially among men of means (crypto-Jew Frankists) who could grease palms and provide sexual favors. This led to a path of infiltration and of course compromising control. THE ELITE FRANKISTS After his release from the citadel, Frank moved to Brno, Moravia, to hang out with his brother, who was the head of the large Dobrushka family. Jacob Frank even adopted that name. They were Frankist loyalists. The family included eight sons. Two who changed their name to Frey were leading Jacobins in the French Revolution and were guillotined when the Jacobins were removed. Frank resided for 13 years in Brno. His brother Solomon (1715-1774) held both the lucrative potash and the tobacco monopolies in Moravia. Though they had a tendency to inter-marry and inbreed within their own group, the elite Luciferian Frankists had no problem strategically assimilating with select wealthy Catholic families. Indeed, by all accounts, they were gold diggers and seductresses who also had money in their own right. Frank’s own daughter Eva slept with Crown Prince and future Emperor Joseph II in Vienna, where for a time Frank was welcome within the court. Besides the sexual servicing of Joseph II, the Hapsburgs thought he could be useful in converting and assimilating Jews. Frankists also freely held both Jewish, Catholic or Islamic names. Sabbatians and Frankists epitomize the term “crypto-Jew.” As time went on, Frankism became more of a predatory psychopathic belief system and excuse to sin and indulge than anything else. Eight Dobruskas “officially” converted to Christianity and six were ennobled. One of Solomon’s granddaughters, Francesca Dobrushka, married into the Hoenig family, later ennobled as the von Hoenigsbergs. The Hoenigsberg family acquired most of its wealth as descendants of Loebel Hoenig who, during the Austrian secession of 1740-1748 and the Seven Year War of 1756-1763, accumulated a fantastic fortune as a supplier of the Austrian army. Loebel’s eldest son, Israel Hoenig (1724-1808), achieved control of the Austrian tobacco monopoly. Other prominent Sabbeatians were the Wehles family of Prague. One, Gottlieb Wehle, came to the United States with a large constituency of Frankists from Bohemia and Moravia after the Revolution of 1848. One member of this clan was Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), the Supreme Court Justice and ardent Zionist who was instrumental in promoting the Federal Reserve Bank. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter is reported to have received a copy of Eva Frank’s portrait from his mother, a descendant of a Prague Frankist family. Isaac Daniel Itzig of Berlin also had Frankist familial connections. He ran the Press of the Jewish Free School, which in 1796 changed its name to the Oriental Printing Office, considered to be a powerful instrument of “cultural reform” and intellectual precursor to the Frankfurt School. Rabbi Antelman labels Itzig as an earlier Communist. In fact, Antelman documents a theory that holds that proto-Frankists were the vanguards of the Marxist-Communist philosophy. Itzig’s father Daniel aka Daniel Yoffe was financial adviser to King Frederick William II of Prussia who, when he was crown prince, was a member of the Berlin llluminati. Itzig (1750-1806) was a purveyor of silver to the Royal Prussian mint. Along with banker-merchant H. Ephraim during the Seven-Year War, he issued debased coinage that not only contributed to inflation but helped the Prussian government fight the war. These two powerful Frankist families were later joined in marriage. Frankist Mayer Arnstein married Theresa Wertheimer, granddaughter of banker and chief rabbi Samson Wertheimer of Austria. Rabbi Wertheimer (1658-1724) was considered to be the wealthiest Jew in Europe between 1694 and 1704. He was a financial administrator for emperors Leopold I, Joseph I and Charles VI and supervised their diplomatic missions. This earned him the nickname Judenkaiser or Jewish Emperor. Arnstein in turn financed the Tyrolese peasant revolt against France and Bavaria. The same pattern continuously emerges. Brilliant, wealthy Luciferians addicted to power, anxious to superficially assimilate, to destroy religions, to indulge in radicalism, shady ethics and to live cryptic, two-faced lives, sometimes posing as religious Jews, Catholics, Protestants or Muslims but indulging their revolutionary radicalism in secret. Even as Frankism itself diminished, at least on the surface, as a large and organized sect, its belief system received a strong toehold even within the Catholic faith through Frankist “conversions.” ROTHSCHILD CONNECTION Near the end of his life, Frank lived in Offenbach, just outside Frankfurt. He lived in regal style and maintained a militia. He died in Offenbach on August 10, 1791, having settled there in 1786. When the Frankists established themselves in 1786 in the Frankfurt suburb of Offenbach, they were patronized by “unidentified philanthropists” of the Frankfurt community. But during the Frankfurt Masonic Lodge’s formative years, the three most active members of the Frankfurt Judenloge were Frankist-influenced: Sigmund Geisenheimer, Michael Hess (1782-1860) and Justus Hiller, who were also leaders in the liberal Jewish Reformist movement. Michael Hess was hired by Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812) as a tutor for his children. Geisenheimer was Mayer Rothschild’s head clerk. Thus the spirit and mentality of Frankism received a large boost from the richest family in Europe. Incidentally, 29 of 58 of Mayer Amschel Rothschild’s grandchildren married first or second cousins. Thanks to Clifford Shack for sending this. — Related: Incest Survivor Exposed Illuminati Satanists The Sabbatean Frankist Origins of the Illuminati The Satanic Cult that Rules the World Gershon
Scholem- Background on Sabbatean Frankists xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Chamish -
Rabbi Antelman Is Back
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