June 24, 2013

Peter Schaeffer: The history of immigration and assimilation

Peter Schaeffer writes
The history of assimilation can be looked at several ways, all of them revealing. 
1. Perhaps the single most important point is that mass immigration was ended around WWI. The restrictive legislation of 1917 (the literacy act), 1921, and 1924 (Johnson-Reed) ended the great wave of mass immigration. Immigration continued on a much smaller scale and the composition was shifted. Because the new laws were based on national quotas, some countries were de-facto unrestricted (the UK, Ireland, etc.) while other reached their annual quotas rather quickly. 
The immigration restrictions had several positive effects. Wages and working conditions improved for immigrants over time. Since most immigrants worked in manufacturing, wage gains in manufacturing were particularly positive. Sectoral differentiation (by accident) favored immigrants in this period. Manufacturing was booming and farming was in decline. Since the immigrant population was predominantly urban and employed in goods production, this was a plus. 
Living conditions for immigrants clearly improved after mass immigration ended. The horrific tenements slums of the 1900 period were largely empty by the 1930s. Without new massive waves of immigrants, the prior cohorts were able to move up the social ladder into better housing (among other things). 
The immigration restrictions of the WWI period clearly aided assimilation in practical ways (waves and living conditions). However, they also sent a very important message to the immigrant communities. America rejected ‘diversity’ and demanded that the immigrants embrace America rather than the other way around. There points were were well understood back then and it was widely understood that the immigration cutoff (substantial reduction actually) had accelerated assimilation. 
2. The America of the 1920s and later was vastly better suited to assimilating immigrants than our nation today. We had a booming job market, no welfare state, middle-class unions (starting in the 1930s), English imposition, disciplined education, no multiculturalism, no bilingualism, no victimization ideology, intact families, rigorous law enforcement, etc. Beyond that, ‘Americanization’ (assimilation) was a widely embraced ideal and promoted heavily. Now we have the pernicious and very dominant ideology of ‘diversity’. 
3. In spite of much more favorable circumstances, assimilation took time. Some groups assimilated much faster than others, but three generations were typically enough to achieve earnings party with old stock natives. The mythology is that one generation was sufficient. It wasn’t. Even well after WWII, ethnic differences in earnings, social status, etc. were measurable. 
The political assimilation of ‘Great Wave’ immigrants was relatively slow but did occur. In this context, I will use the Catholic vote as a proxy for ‘Great Wave’ immigrants. By some measures, 1928 marks the zenith of Catholic alienation from the political mainstream. Al Smith got 90% of the Catholic vote (apparently) and was still easily defeated by Hoover. Indeed, he failed to carry his home state of New York (he was a former governor or New York). By the time JFK was elected, Catholic support for the Democratic party had fallen markedly. He won the Catholic vote, but by a notably smaller margin than Al Smith. A poll of Fordham University students in 1960 showed that most of the Catholic students favored Nixon over Kennedy (the Jewish students at Fordham favored Kennedy). Students at other Catholic schools favored Nixon as well. 
Perhaps more relevantly, Eisenhower captured a majority of the Catholic vote in 1956. In subsequent presidential elections, Republicans were able to easily capture the Catholic vote (if they could win at all). 
It’s worth noting that in an earlier era, ethnics were polled separately and political differences by ethnicity were material. By the 1980s, this practice had essentially disappeared because ethnic voting patterns were no longer different enough to measure. 
However, voting patterns are not the most important aspect of assimilation in my opinion. The assimilation of American values is far more important. Once again, studies show that ‘Great Wave’ immigrants embraced the values of old-stock natives (personal responsibility, individual effort, hard work and education as the keys to advancement, national loyalty, limited government, etc.). Basically, ‘Anglo-conformity’ worked. 
It is wrong to suggest that Jewish Americans don’t like WASP America. More like they resent it. The American Jewish community remains (privately) obsessed with the efforts of WASPs to exclude Jews from elite society. The fact that many of these efforts were more than 100 years ago doesn’t appear to matter. Nor does the fact that even with Jewish quotas in place, Jews were vastly overrepresented at Harvard and other elite schools. 
The bigger picture, that America has been a wonderfully hospitable nation with immense opportunities for personal and professional advancement is subordinated to resentment of country club prejudice in the 1920s. As a consequence, American Jews define themselves as outsiders and vote accordingly. 
As these notes should indicate, America was once a much better place for immigrants and their families. The historic advantages of assimilation, ‘Americanization’, Anglo-conformity, immigration restrictions, and a strong economy are all gone (along with quite a few other historic virtues). It’s also true that the immigrants were better historically. They were much more likely to be skilled, educated, etc. The ‘Great Wave’ immigrants has much lower skill levels and the turn of American society against immigration was largely a consequence. Contemporary mythology emphasizes the role of nativism in the restrictions of the 1920s. Declining skill levels provides a different and more germane explanation. 


66 comments:

Anonymous said...

Living conditions for immigrants clearly improved after mass immigration ended. The horrific tenements slums of the 1900 period were largely empty by the 1930s. Without new massive waves of immigrants, the prior cohorts were able to move up the social ladder into better housing (among other things).

New York was believed to be the densest city in the world at the end of the 19th century, denser even than Bombay.

Anonymous said...

We really, really need Peter Schaeffer to write more things.

Anonymous said...

A much shorter, and more succint, way of summing it up:

WASPs are nice, but ultimately naive and somewhat weak, people.

They build the greatest societies in the world but don't have the faintest clue how to defend and maintain them.

They also mistake racist hatred towards them as mere misconceptions and misunderstandings, one of many fatal mistakes.

Yet their innate strength prevents their enemies from completely destroying them, they just metamorph onwards until the zeitgeist changes.

P.S. Any fiction of "assimiliation" can be buried. It hasn't been the de facto policy since at least 70 years back.

Drunk Idiot said...

If you're still cursing King Haman each year on Purim for what he did to your tribe, you've got a long memory, and you're probably not going to just get over being shut out of elite country clubs by the WASPs in 1912.

Of course, the Irish and the Italians were shut out too. But that's not something you're likely to care about.

eah said...

This is the age of 'multiculturalism', which is seen pretty much on a par with 'diversity' -- ie an unalloyed good thing. So I'm not sure how much relevance "assimilation" has anymore. I mean, ballots are printed in sundry languages, even though sufficient knowledge of English is supposed to be a precondition for citizenship.

Steve Sailer said...

Amalekite Golf and Cricket Club

Anonymous said...

My Slavic and German ancestors never lived in slums, they went directly to small NE and midwest towns and street-car suburbs. They also Americanized their first names right away, as in Johan to John, Wilhelmina to Minnie. They seemed to reach middle class parity and marry anglos or fellow anglicized immigrants by the first US-born generation, or in some cases those who immigrated before age 10.

It is fun to read the Ellis Island ship manifests. There is a spot to disclose how much money you are bringing, and the typical amount listed was about $15 or $25.

The fact the ship over costs several years of savings and takes a month seemed to select for the best of the euro peasant classes and put a psychological wedge between immigrant and home country.

Drunk Idiot said...

I had the good fortune to play Amalekite G & CC before it closed. Unfortunately, most of my balls ended up in the sand.

Of course, the entire place was pretty much nothing but sand.

But I'm not one to make excuses.

Anonymous said...

The anglo elites feared the catholics, E. Michael Jones wrote a book that destruction of the big cities post-WWII was by design, catholics had to go to the suburbs where they could "americanized."

Anonymous said...

My ancestors literally stopped speaking German in solidarity against the Kaiser. Now that's assimilation.

James Walker said...

Schaeffer's comments on Jewish hostility to WASPs is correct. Just look at the IRS going after the Tea Party: Shulman, Lois Lerner, Steven Miller, etc. v. Middle America, egged on by Sen. Levin. And of course Schumer's relentless campaign to increase Hispanics.
These sentiments are noticed less here in the South, where Jews are completely assimilated and the Germans cannot stand the Russians.

Steve Sailer said...

The country club obsession is bizarre. I've got some good data on country clubs by ethnicity a half century ago from an ADL investigation, and it turns out that Jewish country clubs were more discriminatory than gentile ones.

Big Bill said...

Jewish resentment is not irrational. It prevents assimilation. That is its function. That is why they commemorate Hitler, Chmielewski and Haman in their liturgy. That is why they call Jewish mongrelizing with Americans "the Second Holocaust". That is why they built the most effective border fence in the world and call "undocumented immigrants" "illegal infiltrators" ... at least in Israel.

You have to respect their commitment to race and tribe.

It has worked for 3500 years.

What were your ancestors doing 3500 years ago?

Hunsdon said...

Our host said: Amalekite Golf and Cricket Club

Hunsdon said: I literally snorted coffee out of my nose. (It's more painful than one might think.)

As a certain mid-century strongman might have rhetorically asked, "Who now remembers the Amalekites?"

carol said...

need Peter Schaeffer to write more things.

Sadly, he's been stuck in the Regnery ghetto.

Anonymous said...

I thought Jewish resentment was more about the U.S not opening its doors to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s, not about anti-semitic country clubs.

IHTG said...

James Walker:

Sup.

Anonymous said...

"1928 marks the zenith of Catholic alienation from the political mainstream. Al Smith got 90% of the Catholic vote (apparently) and was still easily defeated by Hoover."

One word: Prohibition. I don't believe Smith ever formally declared his position one way or the other, but it was widely known that he was privately a Wet.

"Students at other Catholic schools favored Nixon as well. Perhaps more relevantly, Eisenhower captured a majority of the Catholic vote in 1956."

As early as the 1930s, lots of prominent Catholic Democrats were not happy with FDR and the New Deal- Al Smith turned against FDR, as did MA Senator David I. Walsh, journalist John T. Flynn, and many others. Catholics were also ahead of the curve when it came to Cold War anticommunism- the Catholic Church was preaching against the evils of the Soviet Union even during WWII, when the Roosevelt Administration was working overtime to convince Americans that Stalin was our noble ally. Even the Kennedy boys became staunch supporters of Senator McCarthy when he arrived on the national scene.

The question is, if large-scale immigration had kept American Catholics fixated on tribalist struggle against the WASP ascendancy, would they have been able to see that America's prosperity and security were not being properly served at that time by the party that had historically held their loyalties? I'd like to think so, but my knowledge of fallible human nature suggests otherwise.

Anonymous said...

I didn't see it mentioned explicitly above, though I know Mr. Sailer has written about it before, but another big factor driving "Americanization" was the reduced marriage pool that resulted from the 1924 cutoff. With fewer potential brides or parents-in-law coming over from the old country, more Americans had to be willing to marry a little further outside the tribe. In this case, the "Americanization" was not just cultural, but biological. I've noticed this in my personal life- myself and my two or three closest friends are all "ethnics" baptized Catholic, but with at least some WASP ancestry (my grandmother, for example, converted from Methodism as a teenager).

Exacta King said...

How about the irony of the Hillcrest country club, the only place Jewish homeland where oil has been discovered. The first gentile they let in was Danny Thomas (Lebanese), that just about says it all

Anonymous said...

I've got some good data on country clubs by ethnicity a half century ago from an ADL investigation, and it turns out that Jewish country clubs were more discriminatory than gentile ones.


"Jewish history" is at best a selective and distorted version of actual history, and at worst an out-right fabrication. My Jewish friends "know" a lot of things which just aren't so, or which are true but completely lacking in context.

Since they possess an absurdly high opinion of their own intelligence, it's just about impossible to correct their errors.

Anonymous said...

Regarding assimilation, I found this comment about the 2008 US elections from the Israeli news site Haaretz rather odd. In discussing Ron Paul, they had this to say about why Jews would not support him:

I was following Paul (as I do with all candidates) but wasn't paying too much attention. Once in a while I would get a letter: why isn't Ron Paul of your Israel Factor? I got two-three dozens such letters. I even thought for a short while about adding him to the Factor mix, and called some of the panelists for consultation. "What for," they asked. We all know he will rank last, close to zero. This panel will not be the one to praise an assimilationist - or as the call it in Paul?s camp: A Jeffersonian Republican.

What is wrong with an assimilationist who is a Jeffersonian Republican? I thought those were all good.

Inane Rambler said...

Maybe this is why my ancestors left the city and became (relatively speaking) wealthy farmers. Perhaps they were tired of more recent immigrants (they immigrated pretty early on themselves, in many cases well before the ARW)

They were urban dwellers at one point in time, going all the way back to New Amsterdam.

Anonymous said...

Steve Sailer:"The country club obsession is bizarre. I've got some good data on country clubs by ethnicity a half century ago from an ADL investigation, and it turns out that Jewish country clubs were more discriminatory than gentile ones."


Yeah, I've always wondered how so many Jews can whine about this with a straight face.....

James Walker said...

IHTG:

IRS harassment of pro-Israel groups means harassment of neocons who are anathema to most Democrats and anti-American types like BHO and Samantha Power. Being neocon means you must not be allowed any voice on Israel and must be cast out of the 501(c)(4) Tribe.

PropagandistHacker said...

Peter Schaeffer wrote:
"Contemporary mythology emphasizes the role of nativism in the restrictions of the 1920s. Declining skill levels provides a different and more germane explanation. "
=========================


my reply:


Wrong!

The immigration restrictions of the 1920s were because Capital, the rich folks, were afraid that immigrants were bringing in a much stronger Labor-oriented perspective than america workers had. Remember that during the 1920s, economic populism was very strong in southern and central europe. The Bolshevists, etc.

So, the rich folks in america were afraid that the immigrants from that part of europe were going to incite american workers to revolt against the rich. By the 1920s, about 25% of the politicians elected to the New York state assembly belonged to the Socialist party. All this Labor vs Capital struggle has now been shoved down the memory hole, of course.

So the rich folks who control america stopped immigration.

And unlike everyone else around here, I provide evidence.

See the political cartoons of that time:

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/redscare/HTMLCODE/CHRON/RS068.HTM


http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/redscare/HTMLCODE/CHRON/RS010.HTM

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/redscare/HTMLCODE/CHRON/RS016.HTM


http://www.dakinarchives.net/iphoto/redscare/Desktop-Pages/Image7.html

http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/library/alumni/online_exhibits/digital/redscare/HTMLCODE/CHRON/RS092A.HTM

hbd chick said...

@anonymous - "I don't believe Smith ever formally declared his position one way or the other, but it was widely known that he was privately a Wet."

vote for al smith! (~_^) (backstory here.)

PropagandistHacker said...

Anonymous said...

What is wrong with an assimilationist who is a Jeffersonian Republican? I thought those were all good.
==================



Wrong! Jefferson was a drunkard whose servants and slaves robbed him into poverty. And a "republic" is merely a propaganda word for a governmental structure that robs the majority of democracy and of its ability to control the government. America is a republic and that is why we have no control over immigration and why the elite were able to ram the civil rights 'movement' during the throats of an unwilling white majority.

Anonymous said...

First point:never make pre-Great Depression European immigrants interchangeable with post-1965 nonwhite legal immigrants. I'd rather live in an American with 500 million European Americans that an "America" of 500 million with a nonwhite majority.

Be very carefull not to rely all that much on econometric data. The much stronger economic data are the experiences of millions of Native Born White Americans in labor market competion with post-1965 nonwhites. Really, what is long overdue is ethnographic-journalistic investigations into what happened to thousands of blue collar Native Born White American Workers in California Labor Markets. The Native Born White American Victims of post-1965 immigration policy need to be interviewed extensively so as to get their real-world-real-life stories out there.

Bigger issue:never never use a severe labor scarcity as an excuse to race-replace very rapidly millions of Native Born White Americans street by street,town by town,city by city, and state by state.

Keep an eye on this summers droughts in California, Texas, and the Southeast...then tell me how a severe labor scarcity could ever be used as an excuse for importing high fertility post-1965 nonwhites...it is over-the-top-insane. Neo-classical economics is the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine.

Bill Blizzard and his Men

Anonymous said...

"The immigration restrictions had several positive effects. " - Crime think alert!

"2. The America of the 1920s and later was vastly better suited to assimilating immigrants than our nation today." - And it still didn't happen. All that did happen was that the immigrants from the left end of the bellcurve saw their children and grandchildren regress to mean.

"America was once a much better place for immigrants and their families. " - And as we let more and more of them in...

Aaron Gross said...

The American Jewish community remains (privately) obsessed with the efforts of WASPs to exclude Jews from elite society.

But Schaeffer's just completely wrong about that, I think. My evidence is just anecdotal, but I've never known any Jew that was obsessed with that. I've heard it mentioned maybe a handful of times in my life, each time flowing from the conversation. For instance, someone explaining why my father was in a Jewish fraternity in college in the 1950s - because most frats didn't allow Jews. The bit about "more than 100 years ago" makes Schaeffer's credibility even more doubtful. I've never heard anyone complain about that.

If Schaeffer has some real evidence, I'd like to see it. Maybe my experience isn't typical. More likely, he just hangs out with much more Jewy Jews than I've known.

I think he's way overstating the intensity of resentment, too. Jews do look upon that anti-Jewish discrimination negatively (Hannah Arendt being an exception), but I've never heard anyone get really worked up about it. I was just a kid back when that was still legal, but my impression is that Jews just accepted it as a mildly unpleasant fact of life. That's the feeling I get from Woody Allen's classic moose joke, too.

Dutch Boy said...

Catholics have been rejected by the Democrats (unless Catholics knuckle under to their degenerate social agenda a la Biden, Pelosi, et al) and played for suckers by the Republicans.

Anonymous said...

All Jews should be as emotionally resilient as Reebok founder and CEO Paul Fireman. When he couldn't beg, borrow or steal a membership to The Country Club (the original WASP haven, now surrounded by the Jews of Brookline), he built Willowbend CC on Cape Cod, a beautiful course where he was The Man who decided everything, including doing unto others what was done unto him.

Which is more rampant, WASP or Jewish discrimination?

Anonymous said...

(numbers * difference) / time

Svigor said...

If you're still cursing King Haman each year on Purim for what he did to your tribe, you've got a long memory, and you're probably not going to just get over being shut out of elite country clubs by the WASPs in 1912.

Of course, the Irish and the Italians were shut out too. But that's not something you're likely to care about.


As Bill points out, I think Schaeffer's whole frame is backwards. If yours is the kind of tribe with a 3,000 year tradition of finding a way to resist assimilation, you work with what you've got. So you cling to country club exclusions, and ignore the 95% of American history that was better to you than any other.

Anonymous said...

"If you're still cursing King Haman each year on Purim for what he did to your tribe"

He hadn't actually done anything. According to the story he was planning to do something.

Anonymous said...

I think the greatest coup that could be achieved by the dissident right would be to get a non-trivial fraction of Jews on board.

That American Jews, in the generality, are awful on the National Question is undeniable. And yet, I remain a philosemite. The contribution of Jews to civilization is hugely disproportionate to their numbers.

The aversion of Jews (outside Israel, anyway) to nationalism is as understandable as it is regrettable. Nationalism among the goyim has not, historically, been kind to the Jews.

I think the key is to be understanding of this while pointing out that such an attitude is deeply anachronistic. Jews in America today are comparatively prosperous and successful. Moreover, as Steve said recently, most Americans recognize Jewish exceptionalism and respect the success it produces in a meritocratic society. So, in so many words, the Cossacks aren't going to come rampaging through the Upper West Side anytime soon.

"Noblesse oblige" is the operative concept here. It would be pretty obnoxious if I were to hop in my Lexus and drive down to West Virginia to lecture some downscale Anglo about, say, the condescension of the British toward my Indian ancestors.

Whether such claims are valid or not is beside the point--when you enjoy a privileged and comfortable position in society, you don't get to wave the bloody shirt anymore.



Anonymous said...

"The country club obsession is bizarre. I've got some good data on country clubs by ethnicity a half century ago from an ADL investigation, and it turns out that Jewish country clubs were more discriminatory than gentile ones."

Misdirection is a general pattern - and an infallible guide if you always look directly back in the opposite direction to the one being pointed at.

For example: Mormon temples are too white!!!

Erm...?

Anonymous said...

"The immigration restrictions of the WWI period clearly aided assimilation in practical ways (waves and living conditions). However, they also sent a very important message to the immigrant communities. America rejected ‘diversity’ and demanded that the immigrants embrace America rather than the other way around."

This is such a key point, by the way.

So much of the diversity-mania of politicians is less a reaction to the demographic situation today than it is an embrace of the projected demographics of the future. Hence the Republican Party's panic over a Latino vote that has not yet proved to be decisive in a federal election. They're extrapolating demographic trends.

The implication is that immigration restriction, if it gathers momentum, can bring about a new equilibrium in our politics. The more we can check future demographic trends, the more the politicans will realize that the traditional nation is not obsolete, and the more power it will have to further impose restrictions in the interest of self-preservation.

So there's a window of opportunity if the nation can mobilize enough to displace the Diversity Narrative in the minds of the politicians and strategists.

blogger said...

"The American Jewish community remains (privately) obsessed with the efforts of WASPs to exclude Jews from elite society."

Of course, Jewish clubs weren't open to Muslims, Arabs, Chinese, Mexicans either.

Btw, I don't think today's Jews really feel strongly about wasp clubs in the past. Jews cling to the complaint cuz it props up the narrative of their victimhood in America.

America has been nice to Jews. While Europe turned to hell for Jews--and Eastern Europe was turned into hell BY Jewish communists--, American Jews rose and rose. And America helped defeat Nazism.
Also, many groups were treated far worse than Jews in America: blacks, Asians, and even Italian American garlic eaters. Also, Jews took part in the 'oppression' of non-whites and certain ethnic groups. Jews in Hollywood made many movies mocking blacks and other ethnic groups. Jews traded with cowboys who done whupped the Indians. Jews in the South benefited greatly from segregation, indeed more than most southern whites.
Jews rose fast in America and became the elite. But that would mean Jews have been part of the privileged 'oppressor' class in America. Uh oh!! So, Jews need to peddle this narrative of how the truly privileged wasps kept Jews out of certain clubs. They were victims like everyone else too. I mean boo hoo hoo.

Btw, if Jews were so into equality and inclusion, why did they want to belong to clubs that were exclusive in the first place? Why did they wanna join clubs that excluded blacks, Asians, Arabs, Mexicans, and etc?

Anonymous said...

In retrospect, I wish America had been more open to Eastern European immigrants during the 20th century. The 1924 restriction was a bad idea in keeping them out. It would have meant more whites here and less population pressures in Europe, thus less economic pressures that might lead to war.

Anonymous said...

I think that claiming country-club exclusionary principles as the basis of Jewish outsider self-definition is a little far-fetched. It's more a confluence of a few other factors:

1) Persecution of Jews in Europe in the pre-immigration age, as well as the Holocaust, leading to a more-or-less justifiable paranoia.

2) The gradual alignment of Reform and Conservative Judaism, together the dominant stream of American Jewish practice in the 20th century, with liberal causes.

gwyatt said...

"WASPs are nice, but ultimately naive and somewhat weak, people."

WASPs are (generally) nice and they are certainly naive. Weak? Tell it to America's enemies. Read the first hand accounts of soldiers who have fought America. With the notable exception of the Vietnamese, they weren't amused by the experience.

Of course, the core of the American war machine has always been the Scotch-Irish who (to split hairs) are not WASPs. They have been ferocious fighters for our nation, long before 1776.

Even putting war aside, American WASPs have demonstrated vast strength and character across every realm of human endeavor.

My intent here is not to slight any other group, but simple to reject the 'WASPs as weak' thesis. Naive? Sure. Sorely lacking in the self-confidence that enabled them to build a great nation? Of late, yes. Weak? No.

Anonymous said...

Big Bill asked:

What were your ancestors doing 3500years ago?

Answer: building Stonehenge. It still looks good.

candid_observer said...

" The first gentile they let in was Danny Thomas (Lebanese), that just about says it all."

From Wikipedia:

At the time, Jack Benny quipped to Thomas that the least the club could have done was to admit a member who looked like a gentile.

Anonymous said...

Big Bill wrote:

Jewish resentment is not irrational. It prevents assimilation. That is its function. That is why they commemorate Hitler, Chmielewski and Haman in their liturgy. That is why they call Jewish mongrelizing with Americans "the Second Holocaust"

Only the Orthodox consistently come close to the views and behavior you describe. Many Reform rabbis will now officiate at intermarriages under certain conditions. That may seem restrictive, but is a huge change compared even to 30 years ago when the official position of the Reform rabbinical assembly was to discourage any such officiation at all. The U.S. Jewish community debates the implications of intermarriage, and some quarters are more hostile to it than others. Yet you write as if the most stridently hostile viewpoint is normative. That is inaccurate.

Bob Loblaw said...

That may seem restrictive, but is a huge change compared even to 30 years ago when the official position of the Reform rabbinical assembly was to discourage any such officiation at all.

Is that racial or religious? I'm pretty sure if the non-Jewish spouse converts there's no problem.

Bertram Noone said...

The 1920's immigration restrictions were because of dire economic problems in the early 20's and serious problems with the immigrant themselves, examples:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacco_and_Vanzetti

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone

I these cases, many of the new immigrants sided with the criminals, making worse the ethnic tensions the mass immigration caused.



Hunsdon said...

Elliot Abrams---all around neocon and good guy insider!---thinks that Jews should
sit shiva for those who marry out. (I.e., "mourn as dead.")

Anonymous said...

The new position allows officiation even if the non-Jewish spouse doesn't convert. Most Reform rabbis ask for a promise that the children will be raised Jewish, but there are a few who don't even demand that.

David Davenport said...

Just look at the IRS going after the Tea Party: Shulman, Lois Lerner, Steven Miller, etc. v. Middle America ...

Yes, there's something about the ethnicity of those IRS executives.

There's probably some parallel here to the U.S.S.R in the 1920's.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Solzhenitsyn also published a two-volume work on the history of Russian-Jewish relations (Two Hundred Years Together 2001, 2002). This book stirred controversy and caused Solzhenitsyn to be accused of anti-Semitism.[56][57][58][59]
The book became a best-seller in Russia. Solzhenitsyn begins this work with a plea for "patient mutual comprehension" on the part of Russians and Russian Jews. The author writes that the book was conceived in the hope of promoting "mutually agreeable and fruitful pathways for the future development of Russian-Jewish relations".[60]

There is sharp division on the allegation of anti-Semitism. From Solzhenitsyn's own essay "Repentance and Self-Limitation in the Life of Nations",[61] he calls for Russians and Jews alike to take moral responsibility for the "renegades" from both communities who enthusiastically supported a Marxist dictatorship after the October Revolution. At the end of chapter 15, he writes that Jews must answer for the "revolutionary cutthroats" in their ranks just as Russian Gentiles must repent "for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for...crazed revolutionary soldiers." It is not, he adds, a matter of answering "before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God. ...

Aaron Gross said...

Hmm, I thought it was just that one kook mentioning the Purim thing, but other people jumped on it, too. So:

1. Haman was not "King Haman," as everyone calls him here. He wasn't the king. Come on, get at least some clue about what you're talking about.

2. Haman didn't exist, nor did any of the other characters. The Book of Esther was a fairy tale. Unlike the events in the Torah, I don't think even religious Jews are supposed to believe that it really happened. Unlike some other stories in the Bible, it's not a retelling of real events. Most Jews in America don't believe it really happened.

3. Most Jewish Americans don't celebrate the massacre in the Book of Esther; they don't celebrate the drowning of the Egyptian soldiers in Exodus either. They're liberals. Purim is mostly just an excuse to wear costumes and get drunk.

Anonymous said...

"In retrospect, I wish America had been more open to Eastern European immigrants during the 20th century. The 1924 restriction was a bad idea in keeping them out. It would have meant more whites here and less population pressures in Europe, thus less economic pressures that might lead to war. " - America had the very same problems, so all you're doing is shifting Hitler to the west.

Dr Van Nostrand said...


"If you're still cursing King Haman each year on Purim for what he did to your tribe"

If you still kept cursing the Barbary pirates,Ottoman Sultans and Mongols for what they did to your peoples like the Eastern Europeans did, you would have a stronger social and racial cohesion.

A historical boogeyman does wonders for bostering solidarity.

If werent for the presence of Turks a few miles away(Northern Cyprus), Greeks would be far more chaotic and quarrelsome than they are now.

Ditto for Israelis and the wide Arab world.

Chinese and Japanese. India and West and Central Asian Muslim states and so on

Interestingly from the late 1800s till the First World War, it was Spain that loomed large as vicious predators. Wars in Phillipines,Cuba and Mexico left an indelible impression

This latest Mestizo export courtesy the white Hispanic(no not THAT white Hispanic) mother country loving elites in Mexico is another battle in the Anglo Hispanic wars.


Who will rid me of this troublesome indio!

Dr Van Nostrand said...

What were your ancestors doing 3500years ago?

Answer: building Stonehenge. It still looks good"

Why are you assumingly a Nordic Anglo or Celt type taking credit for the achievements of the darker Iberian Neolithic peoples?

Dr Van Nostrand said...

t the end of chapter 15, he writes that Jews must answer for the "revolutionary cutthroats" in their ranks just as Russian Gentiles must repent "for the pogroms, for those merciless arsonist peasants, for...crazed revolutionary soldiers." It is not, he adds, a matter of answering "before other peoples, but to oneself, to one's consciousness, and before God. ..."

actually that sounds very fair.Gentiles have done their share of self flagellation , a little introspection from Jews would go a long way towards cordial relations

peterike said...

A historical boogeyman does wonders for bostering solidarity.

True enough. But whites in America don't need a "historical" boogeyman. They have real ones, fully active today, robbing, raping, beating and murdering them. All the time. Yet this does nothing for white solidarity. Hell, whites won't even acknowledge they are a target because they are white.

Hunsdon said...

Aaron Gross: Do you know any Jews who are, in Phil Weiss' formulation, PEP? That is, progressive except for Palestine? Or are they all (forgive me) monolithic liberals?

I can understand and, well, sympathize with the concept of a homeland under siege, and how that can cause otherwise deeply held political opinions, nay, political beliefs, to fall by the wayside.

Do all of your Jewish acquaintances reject, say, the frothy-mouthed rantings of Jennifer Rubin against the Palestinians?

Anonymous said...

American jobs

Anonymous said...

"The U.S. Jewish community debates the implications of intermarriage, and some quarters are more hostile to it than others. Yet you write as if the most stridently hostile viewpoint is normative. That is inaccurate."


This issue is another good example of Jews attacking White people for something as a way of distracting attention from themselves.

Anonymous said...

Without the '24 immigration act, America would have been much whiter, and as a result much less crime and other problems. In fact the '24 immigration act was the first attack on white America. WASPs betrayed other whites, and have continued to do so.

Jason Wells said...

That's the nice thing about India there is nothing anyone wants to take credit for so instead people spend all their time lying about what caste they are.

Dr Van Nostrand said...


That's the nice thing about India there is nothing anyone wants to take credit for so instead people spend all their time lying about what caste they are."

You continue to prove that you are a goddamn idiot.

Dr Van Nostrand said...


Amalekite Golf and Cricket Club"

Wrong analogy , Amalekites were just an ahole predatory tribe in the wilderness. They had nothing the Jews were seduced by.So they never wanted anything to do with that tribe

A more apt analogy would be the Babylonian Croquet Club or Egyptian Tennis Club

Interestingly Greek and Romans never held in such awe by the Israelites as these more ancient but (relatively) less powerful peoples

Hunsdon said...

DVN said: So they (the Israelites) never wanted anything to do with that tribe (the Amalekites).

Hunsdon clarified: Except exterminate them.

Anonymous said...

"All Jews should be as emotionally resilient as Reebok founder and CEO Paul Fireman"


Paul Fireman was not the founder of Reebok. He was merely the person who brought the Reebok brand to America.

Reebok was founded in 1895 in Bolton, Greater Manchester, UK, by J.W. Foster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reebok