This is an observation more than a
critique, but it cannot help but be addressed. The internet is
making certain inconsistencies about Jewish-American politicians
obvious. It is something I have known about for decades but have
kept quiet about, until I examined it more closely and became sure I was not
overlooking a matter.
Recently, Senator Chuck Schumer battled with President Trump to
tender protections to illegal aliens brought to the USA as
children. Now, I am not saying who is right or wrong in this
debate. In fact, I am closer to Senator Schumer's opinion, though I
was not in favor of the government shutdown to force the issue.
Senator Schumer is a strong supporter of Israel. In
fact, "Schumer says he advised Trump to declare Jerusalem Israel's
'undivided' capital[.]"
What is striking here is an obvious
inconsistency. Israel is adamant about preserving its Jewish
identity in a way that America and many European nations are
not. Israel radically favors Jewish
immigrants. Presently, Israel is trying to rid itself of African
refugees and has
threatened those who refuse to leave with imprisonment.
Now, one has to wonder why a strong supporter of Israel, such as
Senator Schumer, is not as critical of Israel's planned deportations as he is
of Trump's – or conversely, if he is accepting of Israel's deportations, why is
he critical of President Trump? Apparently, Senator Schumer sees no
problem with Israel maintaining its ethnic Jewish identity, yet somehow he
feels obliged to act otherwise concerning America's ethnic core.
And yes, America still has an ethnic core. Bluntly
speaking, that core is white European, weighted toward Northern
European. That core is diminishing, to be sure, but most of the
readers at American Thinker can remember a time when that American ethnic core
was uncontested.
After 1924, quotas
for immigration to the United States favored ethnic groups from seven
countries in descending order: Germany, Britain, Ireland, Sweden, Poland,
Norway, and France. With the exception of France, all of these
countries were clearly Northern European, and Northern France might as well
be. My chief opinion of that historical quota is that it set the
limit for Italians far too low. The Italians deserved a higher
number. By way of disclosure, I am neither Italian in ancestry nor
related to Italian-Americans, but a lot of my friends are.
The quotas were set up to maintain the approximate ethnic make-up
of the United States, which, unlike Western Europe at that time, was not
mono-ethnic, but, though poly-ethnic, comprised similar or related ethnic
groups. A South German (Munich) Catholic immigrant might be
indistinguishable from an American WASP in all but religion. A
Swedish Protestant would be even blonder than the average
American. A glib Irishman might speak English better than a
native-born cowboy.
There was room for play in the quotas, and they were modified over
time, but until 1965, those were the general ratios. No doubt, the
quotas had been pushed by Nordic supremacists like Madison Grant, who wrote
books warning against the decreasing Nordic-ness of America, such as The
Passing of the Great Race. But though Grant had some quite
distasteful, and sometimes insane opinions about certain European ethnic
groups, the quotas did maintain America's rough ethnic core for 40 years.
It was these ethno-centric quotas that upset many of America's
elite. Here is where it gets ironic: some of these elites were
Jewish, such as Emanuel Celler. Celler worked to overturn the
quotas.
Celler made his first major speech on the House floor
during consideration of the Johnson Immigration Act of 1924. ... The Johnson
Act of 1924, which Celler opposed ... virtually eliminat[ed] all
immigrants other than those from England, France, Ireland[,] and Germany.
The quotas would last until 1965. To be fair, the Kennedy
family also pushed the change.
After 1948, Israel set up an ethno-centric quota system that not
only favored, but subsidized Jewish immigrants. Contrary to what is
often declared, Israeli society radically favored Ashkenazi (European) Jews
over Sephardi and Mizrahi (non-European) Jews. There was quite a
degree of discrimination.
Discrimination against non-European Jews was bad enough that in the
1970s, groups of Mizrahi and Sephardi Jews formed a group called the Black Panthers,
taking their name from the American group. It is not that Israel did
not absorb Mideastern Jews, but rather that its national elite were Ashkenazi
Jews, and there was a social hierarchy. The Mizrahi and Sephardi
were mistreated.
I am not aware that Celler, who protested American quotas, ever
criticized Israeli immigration policy.
Now, I am not opposed to any nation wanting to keep its ethnic
center, provided that minorities are treated with equal rights. I
see no problem if France wants to remain European and stops any further Muslim
immigration, provided that the Muslims already among them are treated fairly
and encouraged to assimilate. The same for Germany, Spain,
Italy. In this, I do not see a problem with much of Israel's
ethno-centric immigration policies.
However, Israel takes this a bit farther. Israel does
not allow mixed marriages among religions, nor does it allow civil marriage –
and rabbis get to determine one's Jewishness.
From The
Guardian:
Reut T, a 28-year-old Israeli secretary, regards herself as
a traditional and observant Jew, attending synagogue each week. So
having her Jewishness questioned when she wanted to marry was shocking and humiliating.
The news, delivered in a summons to a rabbinical court,
came out of the blue. Not only could she not be married by the
rabbinate, she was told, but her very status as Jewish was being questioned[.]
From the Jerusalem
Post:
The Chief Rabbinate is adding hundreds of people every year
to two blacklists of citizens that will prevent them, their children[,] and
their maternal relatives from ever marrying in Israel, newly available data
show.
A questionable Gentile ancestor could be as damaging to an Israeli
Jew hoping to get married in Israel as the possibility of a "negro"
great grandparent could be to an otherwise white person in the Deep South
during the Jim Crow era – as this blue-eyed
woman (at the 24:22 mark) had to explain. While laws have
eased up in the United States, they are apparently getting more
rigid in Israel as the rabbis seem to be getting
stricter.
Members of the Jewish community in America – even liberals like
Chuck Schumer – rarely mention this, while at the same time, they attack those
who would defend America's core ethnic identity like Donald Trump. I
find this inconsistent, and it has to be addressed.
I am not asking for marriage to be theocratically monopolized in
America. Nor am I saying America should be as white as is
possible. Nor would I forbid intermarriage. I do not see
anything racist if our immigration laws were to prefer that 75% of all
immigrants be Western European in origin, provided the other 25% of immigrants
were treated equally. This would not be racist. It would
be preserving our ethnic core, just as Israel does, and given the secular
nature of our Constitution, it would almost certainly be applied less
rigidly. I do not want America to define itself as a white or
Christian state, even if Israel defines itself as a "Jewish state,"
but I do think preserving that ethnic core is still valid. One
cannot accuse me of racism unless one also accuses Israel of an even more
severe racism, which I do not.
Probably the most atrocious example of this double standard came
in 1973, when the popular TV show Bridget Loves Bernie was canceled because
some Jewish pressure groups were furious that American
TV approved of Jewish-Christian intermarriage.
Meredith Baxter said, "We had bomb threats on the
show. Some guys from the Jewish Defense League came to my house to
say they wanted to talk with me about changing the
show." Threatening phone calls made to the home of producer
Ralph Riskin resulted in the arrest of Robert S. Manning, described as a member
of the Jewish Defense League. Manning was later indicted on murder
charges, and fought extradition to the U.S. from Israel, where he had moved.
Needless to say, the quite popular show was
canceled. Ironically, soon after that, the CBS network didn't mind
featuring an interracial couple on the The Jeffersons–
historically, more controversial – after dodging the issue of Jewish-Christian
marriages, which did not bother the public at large and actually had
large-scale approval.
Again, I support Israel, and have no problem with a nation that
wants to maintain its ethnic core, whatever that core is. But I do
have a problem with the double standard demonstrated by some, quite powerful,
members of the Jewish-American community. They should be called out
on this.
This is not racism, but self-respect.
Mike Konrad is the pen name of an American who wishes he
had availed himself more fully of the opportunity to learn Spanish better in
high school, lo those many decades ago. He runs a website about the
Arab community in South America at http://latinarabia.com and
a website about small computers at http://thetinydesktop.com.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/02/american_jews_and_inconsistency_on_immigration.html