George Soros and the Problem of the Radical Non-Jewish Jew What do Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Noam Chomsky and George Soros have in common?
They were/are all radicals, born to Jewish parents, had no Jewish identity and hurt Jews (not to mention non-Jews).
The term "non-Jewish Jew" is generally attributed to the Jewish
historian Isaac Deutscher, who wrote an essay by that name in 1954. The
term describes the individual who, though born a Jew (Judaism consists
of a national/peoplehood identity, not only a religious one),
identifies solely as a citizen of the world and not as a Jew, either
nationally or religiously.
Once the walls of Jewish ghettos broke down and European Jews
were allowed to leave Jewish societies, many Jews became non-Jewish
Jews. In most cases, either they or their children assimilated into the
societies in which they lived. However, a small but significant
percentage became radicalized. They came to loathe "bourgeois," i.e.,
traditional middle class, values and Judeo-Christian society; Western
national identities (though they generally supported anti-Western
national identities); and they particularly loathed Jewish religious
and national identity. Karl Marx, the grandson of two Orthodox rabbis (and, to be
entirely accurate, son of parents who converted to Christianity), wrote
one of the most significant anti-Semitic essays of the 19th century,
"On the Jewish Question" (1844). In it one finds such statements:
"Money is the jealous god of Israel, beside which no other god
may exist. . . . The god of the Jews has been secularized and has
become the god of the world. . . . The social emancipation of Jewry is
the emancipation of society from Jewry." Leon Trotsky, born Lev Bronstein, may be regarded as the
intellectual father of Russian, later Soviet, Communism. He along with
Stalin and three others fought to succeed Lenin as leader of the
Communist Party after Lenin's death in 1924. In 1920, when Trotsky was
head of the Red Army, Moscow's chief rabbi, Rabbi Jacob Mazeh, asked
him to use the army to protect the Jews from pogromist attacks. Trotsky
is reported to have responded, "Why do you come to me? I am not a Jew."
To which Rabbi Mazeh answered: "That's the tragedy. It's the Trotskys
who make revolutions, and it's the Bronsteins who pay the price."
Noam Chomsky has devoted much of his life to working against
America and Israel. He is alienated from the very two identities into
which he was born. Indeed he has vilified both his whole life. To cite
but one example, he traveled to Lebanon to appear with Hizbollah leader
Sayyed Nasrallah and lend his support to a group that is committed to
the annihilation of Israel and is officially listed as a terrorist
organization by the United States.
George Soros is the fourth example of an individual born
Jewish who has become a radical world citizen who is alienated from
America and from his Jewish origins, and damages both. As described by Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New
Republic, "George Soros is ostentatiously indifferent to his own
Jewishness. He is not a believer. He has no Jewish communal ties. He
certainly isn't a Zionist. He told Connie Bruck in The New Yorker --
testily, she recounted -- that 'I don't deny the Jews their right to a
national existence -- but I don't want to be part of it.'"
Writing in The Wall Street Journal, writer Joshua Muravchik reported that Soros has publicly likened Israel to the Nazis.
Of course, Soros supports Palestinian nationalism, but that is
a consistent feature of radicals -- anti-Jewish and anti-American
nationalisms are good, Jewish and American nationalisms are bad. Thus,
as reported in the Jerusalem Post, "Soros and his wealthy Jewish
American friends have now decided to aim their fire directly at Israel
. . . to form a political lobby that will weaken the influence of the
pro-Israel lobby AIPAC."
How to explain such Jews? People with no national or religious
roots who become politically active will often seek to undermine the
national and religious roots of others, especially those in their own
national/religious group. It is akin to the special animosity some
ex-Catholics have toward the Church. Non-Jewish Jews are far more
likely to work to weaken Christianity in America than Jewish Jews,
especially religious Jews. Religious Jews celebrate religious
Christians.
Jews with no religious or national identity do not like Jews
who have those identities, and Americans who have likewise become world
citizens do not much care for Americans who wave the American flag.
Just as chauvinism -- excessive and amoral nationalism -- can
lead to nihilism, so, too, the absence of any national or religious
identity can lead to nihilism. The radical non-Jewish Jew loves
humanity, but hurts real humans, especially his own.
By Dennis Prager
Tuesday, February 27, 2007



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