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| Millet, Gleaners, 1857 |
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that Chuck Hagel “almost had tears in his eyes” as he explained to the former Nebraska senator that the expression “Jewish lobby” is rooted in a negative depiction of Jews.
“He struck me as sincere, and you know, you have to be sitting there at the meeting obviously, but I also told him when he used the word Jewish lobby what it meant to Jewish people,” he added.
“And I told him what a double standard is. That Jewish people throughout the centuries have suffered a double standard. Everyone could be a farmer except Jewish people."
I can totally relate to complaints about how great-grandpa wasn't invited to join the Los Angeles Country Club, so he had to make do with joining Hillcrest CC instead (Hillcrest had the better dining room, but LACC had the better golf course). But, I'm fascinated by how Sen. Schumer (D-Wall Street, 1600 SAT score, Harvard BA, Harvard JD, youngest New York legislator since Teddy Roosevelt, never lost an election) is hurt that when his ancestors 700 years ago were invited by the nobles to move to Poland they weren't allowed to become serfs, but had to go into finance instead.
Jews have nothing to win by playing the ancient history game at this point. The pendulum is in their court, no need to go giving it a shove. But I think Schumer's comments do speak to a soft anti-Christian bigotry among Jews. Perhaps it is necessary to keep the flock separate in a majority Christian culture, but once one is in power as a minority, teaching your children to be bigots against the majority will not have good consequences. Certainly not when that growing majority comes from overseas and hasn't forgotten history.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lcw6xBaCaXM
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Court_Jew
ReplyDelete(Arkin, 1975; Ben-Sasson, 1976).[1] Ben-Sasson (p. 401)[2] writes: "Western Europe suffered virtual famine for many years in the tenth and eleventh centuries, there is no hint or echo of this in the Jewish sources of the region in this period." They "lived at an aristocratic level, as befitted international merchants and honored local financiers." In the first half of the high medieval period, by most parameters, the standard of living of the Jewish community was at least equal to that of the lower nobility (Roth, 2002).
An interesting study to me would be how far back in time different groups identify. I mean their strong group identity, not some loose identity back to Plato and the roots of Western Civilization.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, as a white American my group identity doesn't go back more than a couple centuries max. I have some vague notion that my ancestors came from somewhere in Western Europe in the middle of the 19th century, although I'm not sure and don't know the specifics.
When someone speaks of their group going back, say, 10 centuries or more I get uncomfortable. They seem foreign to me if only because they identify with such a foreign timeline.
Seems like we should all get together and agree upon what racial identity timeline is acceptable.
What Schumer really means I assume is that Jews often weren't allowed to own land. But saying that "Everyone could have their own Downton Abbey except Jewish people" doesn't have quite the same ring.
ReplyDeletePolitico seems to hype to death everything they touch. When I read their site it gives me pause, there are hundreds of thousands of highly paid people in N. Virginia who actually have thoughts and interpretations of reality like that.
ReplyDeleteI don't think Jews were ever prevented from being farmers in Europe. They just didn't want to.
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked that Sen. Schumer got a 1600 SAT score. He always seems like such a putz I figured he was an idiot. But stupid he ain't!
ReplyDeleteHagel almost burst into tears as Schumer "told him what a double standard is" and then went on to explain how the long suffering Jewish people invented double standards.
Then he expounded upon the concept of moral particularism with a quick reference to the writings of Kevin MacDonald...
dirk: For instance, as a white American my group identity doesn't go back more than a couple centuries max[...]
ReplyDeleteWhen someone speaks of their group going back, say, 10 centuries or more I get uncomfortable. They seem foreign to me if only because they identify with such a foreign timeline.
At least you seem realize that your stereotypically American sense of time and roots is the anomaly. Unfortunately, a lot of allegedly really smart and best and brightest Americans keep putting their foot in it because they can't see that.
Seems like we should all get together and agree upon what racial identity timeline is acceptable.
Getting the UN to draw up some guidelines ought to do the trick. It's not like it's something people get irrational and passionate about.
Did you just Google this story based on the anon commentor in the Hagel thread?
ReplyDeleteSay what you want about the neo-cons but there focus really is on defending Israel/ destroying the Palestinians depending on your point of view. Israel could conquer Cairo tomorrow and Schumer is still going to be crying woe is me. Seems like I know which group of Jews I'd throw my lot in with.
A double standard is inveighing against "disparate impact" while conveniently ignoring the fact that 33% of the Supreme Court and 10% of the US Senate are jewish.
ReplyDeleteThis Letter to the Editor by the President of the U.S.-Middle East Project appeared in the NY Times on Jan. 8:
ReplyDeleteI served on one of Aipac’s committees for more than 20 years when I headed two national American Jewish organizations, the Synagogue Council of America and the American Jewish Congress.
Since the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s creation in 1951, when it was headed by Isaiah L. Kenen, the organization was referred to by everyone in the Jewish community as “the Jewish lobby for Israel.” And to this day, Jewish establishment organizations constitute virtually Aipac’s entire organizational membership.
The letter adds that "Jewish Lobby" is inappropriate only in the sense that most American Jews don't wholeheartedly back Aipac's extreme belligerence toward Arabs.
The letter was signed by Henry Siegman.
I have a big anthology of Jewish folklore, one of my favorite books, and there are surprisingly many stories in it about Jewish farmers.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, when talking about a people's disabilities and privileges you always have to ask, compared to whom. Polish Jewry had numerous legal privileges denied to the overwhelming majority of the Polish people. Sure, they could be farmers. In fact they had no other choice -- they were serfs after all -- and many of them labored under Jewish overseers, who had purchased from absentee nobilitytemporary rights to the products of their labors, as much as they could squeeze out of them, backed by the powers of the state. Google the arenda system. The reality was that Polish Jewry were tools of exploitation in the hands of the nobility. No wonder the Cossacks came after them as well as the nobility when they rebelled.
It's curious how little of their own history European Jewry knows. But then when you consider the closed world of orthodoxy -- you see it among the haredi in Israel today -- maybe it is not surprising. When you study Torah 24/7 there's not much time to study anything else.
Incidentally a curious fact about Jewish society in Eastern Europe is how oligarchical it was, ruled by a privileged class of rabbis and merchants who consituted about one percent of the population, the same ratio as that of nobility to peasantry in the gentile population. It is also telling that even though they lived in Poland for centuries Polish Jewry never learned the Polish language.
Lastly, about the Pale of Settlement to which Jews were confined: how many Ashkenazi Americans know that it was roughly the size of Western Europe?
We all could profit by clearing away a lot of myths and prejudices that are nourished by an ignorance of history.
Steve, let me explain it to you. The reason ashkenazi jews have a much higher iq than christian europeans is because the lower iq jews had many fewer children than higher iq jews. If the low iq jews had been allowed to farm they might have had better reproductive success
ReplyDeletePolish Jews were not restricted from owning property until the Russian partitions. Even then most local Polish governments were quiet lax with the restriction. In what is now western Ukraine the the grievance that the Ukrainian peasants had was that most of the land was owned by Poles and the the few acres that weren't were owned by Jews.
ReplyDeleteSo is Israel the "Jewish state" or not?
ReplyDeleteNot all Jews live there and not everyone living there is Jewish.
But those objecting to the term "Jewish lobby" don't object to the term "Jewish state" for Israel.
Pretty devastating. Reminds of James Coburn in the opening scene of Cross of Iron:
ReplyDelete"Good kill".
http://youtu.be/2-_on1wmZxI?t=7m22s
In a sane world, Hagel could have argued with Schumer about the fine points of Jewish history, but in our world, if anyone disagrees with even the slightest bit of Jewish narrative of noble Jewish suffering, it's finito!
ReplyDeleteSo, all one can do is be dopey and go weepy weepy and look all scared and sorry at the same time. Since no man wants to admit to being a coward, Hagel will want us to believe that his teary eyes were about sympathy. But we know it's all about wussiness before the real power. It's like Cool Hand Luke finally breaking and hugging the boss's leg and weeping. "Don't beat me no more, boss, I won't do it again."
That is white America for you.
@ Luke Lea
ReplyDeleteI agree and sincerely wish my landsmen would take a more nuanced, less reactive view of our own history. When ever I hear a fellow Jew speak of Spain's "golden age" or lament the expulsions of 1492, I want to scream "Dude, we picked the losing side in a multigenerational war! What did we expect? Undying gratitude?"
@ KubaNiski
True dat. The Poles actually treated us pretty well historically. If they didn't, it is unlikely that Poland would have become the center of Ashkenazi Jewry that it did. The word pogrom is Russian after all, not Polish. In fact, some of the more antiquated orthodox dress is based on the clothing favored by the szlachta hundreds of years ago. It's difficult for me to imagine such an inward looking group of people deciding en masse to dress like their mortal enemies.
It is also telling that even though they lived in Poland for centuries Polish Jewry never learned the Polish language.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean, "learned"? Jews had to know plenty of languages. How do you think they did business?
What Schumer really means I assume is that Jews often weren't allowed to own land. But saying that "Everyone could have their own Downton Abbey except Jewish people" doesn't have quite the same ring.
ReplyDeleteHe means "STFU about the Jews, unless you're saying something I want to hear." He couldn't give less of a shit about being precise or historically accurate.
Steve, let me explain it to you. The reason ashkenazi jews have a much higher iq than christian europeans is because the lower iq jews had many fewer children than higher iq jews. If the low iq jews had been allowed to farm they might have had better reproductive success
ReplyDeleteThe lower IQ Jews were encouraged or forced out of the tribe and melted into the surrounding population.
Christian poles prohibbited jews from professions in which a low iq man could support a family.
No they didn't.
"He means "STFU about the Jews, unless you're saying something I want to hear."
ReplyDeleteHa Ha Ha. A tactic that has never failed them, why ever stop using it?
Honkel Tom
ReplyDeleteIsrael is to America what Serbia was to Tsarist Russia.
ReplyDeleteAnd we all know how great that worked out for the latter...
Luke Lea is correct in what he reports, I've seen independent sources report similar. I believe the merchant Jews spoke Polish, but not many others, even after the Constitution and the Partition of Poland. Moreover, a 19th century tsar started a proto-affirmative action program-- he tried giving Jews not only farms, but farm tools and, if I recall correctly, livestock. I don't recall that the Jews were especially grateful. Read about it in Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together." Maybe one of these days it will come out in print in the anglosphere, where freedom reigns.
ReplyDelete@tartar,
ReplyDeleteI wonder : Is Solzhenitsyn the only person to ever write, other than in russian, about those back to the land programs by the Tsars in 19th century Russia ? The efforts were pretty much fruitless, in any case.
Solzhenitsyn's book is or was being translated into english by some bloggers but I don't know what happened with that project.
I got the 2 volumes in french.
Jews had better things to do than to toil the soil. It's not that they weren't involved in agriculture, but that they focused on more value added activities like turning potatoes into alcool or selling grain. I really need to sit down and read some detailed jewish history. I read recently that among the ancient hebrews, it was the tribe of Issacar that was specialized in long distance trade.
I wonder when the later hebrews and the jews in general turned to commerce and finance as the main activity for the whole people.
Disparate Impact For Thee, not for me.
ReplyDeleteI wonder when the later hebrews and the jews in general turned to commerce and finance as the main activity for the whole people.
ReplyDeleteThe Radhanite period or even before:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhanite
The Phoenicians/Carthageans also had a mercantile sea-faring culture, they spoked the same language of the jews and lived close with them.
Everyone could be a farmer except Jewish people.
ReplyDeleteIn Alexander Solzenitschin's book "200 years together" there is a lot of detail on how the Czar tried to turn Jews into patriotic Russians by giving them land for farming. Mostly the land was either untilled, sold or leased. Obviously the jewish community was not interested b/c the returns were paltry.
A double standard is inveighing against "disparate impact" while conveniently ignoring the fact that 33% of the Supreme Court and 10% of the US Senate are jewish.
ReplyDeleteIt was 16% last time I checked.
I have a big anthology of Jewish folklore, one of my favorite books, and there are surprisingly many stories in it about Jewish farmers.
ReplyDeleteLet's see -- there's Max Yasgur and.... But most farmers toil in obscurity, so we shouldn't expect to know of many farmers,
Jewish or not.
"It is also telling that even though they lived in Poland for centuries Polish Jewry never learned the Polish language."
What do you mean, "learned"? Jews had to know plenty of languages. How do you think they did business?
A hundred years ago, 90% of the Jews in Poland could not speak Polish.
Dalits stole all the sweet gigs from the Brahmins as well.
ReplyDeleteUsury isn't all sitting on your ass, sometimes you have to break some legs and you can work up a farmer like sweat from that sort of thing.
I wonder : Is Solzhenitsyn the only person to ever write, other than in russian, about those back to the land programs by the Tsars in 19th century Russia ? The efforts were pretty much fruitless, in any case.
ReplyDeleteIIRC, there was a western monarch who tried the same thing. French, or Spanish, maybe? Or maybe central European. I just remember reading about a king who tried the same thing, and it wasn't in Russia. And that the program failed because nobody makes Jews do manual labor.
"Anonymous Tartar said...
ReplyDeleteRead about it in Solzhenitsyn's "Two Hundred Years Together." Maybe one of these days it will come out in print in the anglosphere, where freedom reigns."
The fact that it has not says alot about the realities of our cultural life, does it not? Is there a single scribbling of Dario Fo or Toni Morrison that fails to get published?
"Solzhenitsyn's book is or was being translated into english by some bloggers but I don't know what happened with that project."
ReplyDeletehttp://ethnopoliticsonline.com/archives/ais/ais%20main.html
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/08/chapter-5-of-200-years-together-%E2%80%9Cafter-the-murder-of-alexander-ii%E2%80%9D/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/10/solzhenitsyn%E2%80%99s-%E2%80%9Cthe-february-revolution%E2%80%9D-chapter-13-of-200-years-together/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/05/during-1917-chapter-14-of-solzhenitsyns-200-years-together/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/09/solzhenitsyns-during-the-civil-war-%E2%80%94-chapter-16-of-200-years-together/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/articles/MacDonald-Solzhenitsyn-200-Years-Together-18.html
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/08/alexandr-solzhenitsyns-%E2%80%9Cduring-the-soviet-german-war%E2%80%9D-chapter-21-of-200-years-together/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/07/kevin-macdonald-chapter-22-of-200-years-together-%E2%80%9Cfrom-the-end-of-the-war-to-stalin%E2%80%99s-death%E2%80%9D/
http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2010/09/chapter-23-of-200-years-together-%E2%80%9Cbefore-the-six-day-war%E2%80%9D/
I don't think Jews were ever prevented from being farmers in Europe. They just didn't want to.
ReplyDeleteIn the enormous Polish Commonwealth (where most European Jews lived during the early modern period), Jews couldn't own agricultural land but they could lease it from noblemen. So many did this that, whereas in most of Europe "Jew" was a colloquial term for moneylender, in Poland in this period it meant "farm manager".
Before the late 18th century, managing a large estate was a zero-sum game. With productivity stagnant, revenue depended on how successfully you could squeeze the peasants. Jewish managers who'd overpaid on their leases might have to choose between going bankrupt and brutalizing their surfs.
Often enough the nobility were the beneficiaries of this squeezing, though the Jews got the blame. It's a bit like the relationship between the publicly beneficent (but privately avaricious) Casby and his rent-collector Pancks in Dickens' Little Dorrit.
Everyone's seen the anti-Semitic caricature that illustrated the Nazi's "Ewige Jude" exhibition. As expected, the evil-looking Jew holds a handful of gold coins, befitting his role as a usurer. But why does he have a whip under his arm? That's for use on the peasants. Of course no-one defends that image as an accurate or fair portrayal of Jews, but the harms it evoked had a basis in reality.
A hundred years ago, 90% of the Jews in Poland could not speak Polish.
ReplyDeleteOne hundred years ago there was no country called "Poland". Jews learned the languages of power - in the parts of Poland that were under German and Austrian rule Jews learned German. In Russian Poland they learned Russian - or German. In Russian Polish cities like Warsaw, Lodz or Wilno the business elite was still dominated by ethnic Germans. Jews really had very little reason or motivation to learn Polish after the 18th century.
Before the late 18th century, managing a large estate was a zero-sum game. With productivity stagnant, revenue depended on how successfully you could squeeze the peasants. Jewish managers who'd overpaid on their leases might have to choose between going bankrupt and brutalizing their surfs.
ReplyDeleteAre surfs related to smurfs?
Yeah, whenever I think of Jews, I think "more prone to overpay." The whole point of Jews making themselves available to the nobility throughout Europe as tax farmers (and to the commie overlords inside the curtain, etc.) was that they squeezed the serfs under their control harder than the native elite would. Jewish bailiffs cared little for non-Jews, as a result of Judaism's ingroup morality, and so were willing to squeeze them harder than the native nobility, who had more sympathy for their own kind. Dovetails nicely with the Jews' unwillingness to learn Polish; what did they care to assimilate with "gentiles" for whom they had no fellow feeling? When the local sentiment turned against them they'd have to move on to another set of freiers anyway.
Everyone's seen the anti-Semitic caricature that illustrated the Nazi's "Ewige Jude" exhibition. As expected, the evil-looking Jew holds a handful of gold coins, befitting his role as a usurer. But why does he have a whip under his arm? That's for use on the peasants. Of course no-one defends that image as an accurate or fair portrayal of Jews, but the harms it evoked had a basis in reality.
Poor overseer me!
P.S., I defend it as based in fact. Caricatures always leave "fairness" behind in favor of artistic license, but Jews seem to be the only ones who can get away with the "poor overseer/banker me" routine. Power has its privileges, I guess.
One hundred years ago there was no country called "Poland". Jews learned the languages of power - in the parts of Poland that were under German and Austrian rule Jews learned German. In Russian Poland they learned Russian - or German. In Russian Polish cities like Warsaw, Lodz or Wilno the business elite was still dominated by ethnic Germans. Jews really had very little reason or motivation to learn Polish after the 18th century.
ReplyDeleteTranslation: no need to learn the language of the freiers we settle among unless we're selling them something. Gosh, I wonder why Jewish expulsion hit pretty much every country in Europe? They made such good neighbors, put down such deep roots!
My apologies , I wrote "surfs" instead of the correct "surfer dudes".
ReplyDeleteThe IQ article is all fine and good in speculating with some evidence about reasons why 1 group of Scots-Irish are brighter than others, but given how much brighter Germanics (those whom this brighter group interbred and lived around for a number of centuries), then isn't at least a major part of the IQ puzzle that it comes from the Germanic Heritage? Seems like the most reasonable, and also the Occam's razor answer. Particularly if you want to say assign an IQ of 110, since this is around what was found when studying Germanic school children.
ReplyDelete@ Stewie Jones --
ReplyDeleteThe genetic studies indicate that there isn't much northern European admixture in Ashkenazim.
Jews had better things to do than to toil the soil. It's not that they weren't involved in agriculture, but that they focused on more value added activities like turning potatoes into alcool or selling grain.
ReplyDeleteFarming is boring, quite frankly. It is not an occupation well-suited to high-IQ populations who need mental stimulation, economic "value-added" or not.
"Peter the Shark said...
ReplyDeleteOne hundred years ago there was no country called "Poland"."
There was still a polish nation. Peoples are not the same thing as governments. Perhaps you are a statist who doesn't understand that.
Farming is boring, quite frankly. It is not an occupation well-suited to high-IQ populations who need mental stimulation, economic "value-added" or not.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they should have thought of that before they drove the lower-IQ segments out of their population, then. Nobody forced them to make feeding themselves and taking out their own trash into something beneath them, thus pushing them away from true nationhood and toward parasitic (and thus dependent) "nationhood."
Stewie Jones said...
ReplyDelete... but given how much brighter Germanics (those whom this brighter group interbred and lived around for a number of centuries),...Occam's razor answer...IQ of 110, since this is around what was found when studying Germanic school children.
===
110 is a modern measurment of germanic ( specifically deutschland you mean ?) IQ but there is no reason to think that the germanics of 1000 to 1500 years ago were that bright. Certainly their civilisational achievements at the time, compared to those of the southern europoeans doesn't suggest that.
In any case, genetic studies suggest that the european jews are pretty much a mix between southern europeans and middle easterners.
Off topic but maybe interesting :
ReplyDeletehttp://ww
w.lesinrocks.com/2013/02/24/actualite/la-france-a-cesse-etre-centre-vie-intellectuelle-11363692/
This is an interview in french of some italian historian who's part of the postcolonial studies universe. As with many of those people, he's anti-zionist but is in thralls with jewish cosmopolitanism. There is an interesting paragraph towards the bottom where he readily admits that jews have been the "citical voice"for 200 years in the West! He also laments neo-conservativism and feels that it's some kind of betrayal of true jewish activism.
I've noticed that when far left jews (and friends) are speaking in a perceived "safe" environment, they just freely acknowledge their subversive heritage.
The origins of European leftism go back at least to the French Revolution and possibly much farther if we consider the English Peasants' Revolt and the Jacquerie of the 14th century. Jews had nothing to do with the medieval peasant rebellions and almost no role in the French Revolution. Maybe if the Italian historian had limited himself to the last 150 years, which would include the writings of Karl Marx, he would have been on firmer ground.
ReplyDeleteCosmopolitanism and leftism have never been universal traits among the Jews. There have always been holdouts, the most stalwart and numerous of whom have been found among the Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox religious groups. But there have always been more secular Jews who don't find Marxism or socialism congenial.
No, Aule. Ogunsiron is correct. The data from the whole-genome studies thus far is most consistent with both Ashkenazim and Sephardim being predominantly a mixture of southern European and (northern) Middle Eastern ancestry. For this and other reasons, the admixture is though to have occurred in ancient times before Jews had moved north of the Alps to establish permanent communities in significant numbers. That doesn't exclude the possibility of a small amount of northern European admixture, but it is not a large ancestral component.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDelete...
Maybe if the Italian historian had limited himself to the last 150 years...
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One of the outcomes of Napoleon's reign was the emancipation of jews all throughout Europe, so by that 1815, a lot of the legal restrictions on jews had been lifted. Also, the Haskalah (?) movement had been happening among jews so they might have been ready to dive right into the european mainstream as soon as the legal obstacles were removed. Jews have such a long and unbroken tradition that they possibly had done this before ( rapid insertion into a host society)and had written about it. But that I don't know.
===
Cosmopolitanism and leftism have never been universal traits among the Jews...
===
There is definitely a significant proportion of the jews for whom leftist or proto-leftist ideas have resonated with for a very long time. Reform judaism, for instance, is pretty much spiritualized leftism. I think you don't even need to be a believer in God to be a reform jew. You just have to agree that you should do all you can to "make the world better" and that it's your duty as a Jew.
In the old testament there is the tradition of anti-establishment prophets who railed against the rich and the powerful.
It seems like in the late 19th century in the russian empire, almost all the jewish youth was into anarchism or socialism, even though their roots were in orthodox communities.
I'm not sure that cosmpolitanism was very much a feature of the grassroots, european populisms.
I think that one thing that unites unites secular (*diaspora) jews from both the left and the right is the sense that they have to lead the world in some fashion.
The far left jews see themselves as the *moral and cultural* leaders of the world. Like Douglas Rushkoff (please google his name + corrosive + judaism), they see themselves as the bearers of a light that will deliver the gentiles from the moral shadows in which they dwell.
You then have another type of jew, more likely to be zionist, who feels that his people should be the political and financial leaders of the world. Those kinds of jews are most likely to see non jews as expandable donkeys and they care little about wether the donkeys dwell in shadows or not.
Farming is boring, quite frankly. It is not an occupation well-suited to high-IQ populations who need mental stimulation, economic "value-added" or not.
ReplyDeleteFarming is boring? Not compared to practicing law. Lawyers' minds are tied up with tedious and boring stuff, while a farmer's mind is free to think about important things.
Farming today, which often means picking the same vegetable day after day or driving an air-conditioned machine back and forth while a GPS tells it what to spread on the soil, may be boring. But traditional farming is far from boring, because you're doing something different every day. One day you're building a fence; the next you're castrating bulls; the next you're harvesting a crop. There are a fair number of emergencies to deal with: cattle get into the neighbor's corn; a big rain wipes out a creek crossing. The seasonal variations affect not only what you do, but also how hard you work: you work sunup to sundown, so very long hours in the summer, but in the winter, when you're mostly reduced to daily chores like feeding livestock, you have a lot of downtime to read and reflect.
ReplyDeleteIt may not be the most intellectually demanding work in the world -- though it's not for the simpleminded either -- but it may be one of the least boring.
Ogunsiron,
ReplyDeleteAfter Napoleon was defeated, a lot of the anti-Jewish restrictions went back into effect. In some German states, Jews did not obtain full civic rights until the unification of Germany in 1871. Napoleon's emancipation policies had minimal effect on Jews in the Russian Pale of Settlement.
The Haskalah started in Germany but was slow to penetrate farther east. The Eastern European secular Jewish radicals are a late 19th and early 20th century phenomenon. You're right, they started off in Orthodox communities because there was almost nowhere else to come from. Orthodox practice was the only option in Eastern Europe. If you were a Jew born in Eastern Europe before 1875, you were almost certainly born into an Orthodox family. Reform Judaism is very much a German and American phenomenon. It had almost no presence in Poland or the Pale as late as the early 20th century.
American Reform Judaism has transformed into "spiritualized leftism" as you call it, but it was not always like that. The New York City German-Jewish bankers of the late 19th century tended to affiliate Reform. The real radicals went for atheism. The transformation to political liberalism has followed the drift of the descendants of Eastern European Jewish immigrants into Reform congregations. Many are not believers but don't feel entirely comfortable endorsing atheism. Others are "spiritual but not religious" types. Both probably affiliate with Jewish religious congregations as much due to inertia as to any other cause. Non-Orthodox Jews don't attend services regularly enough for the congregations to be of much networking value.
"The IQ article is all fine and good in speculating with some evidence about reasons why 1 group of Scots-Irish are brighter than others, but given how much brighter Germanics (those whom this brighter group interbred and lived around for a number of centuries), then isn't at least a major part of the IQ puzzle that it comes from the Germanic Heritage? Seems like the most reasonable, and also the Occam's razor answer."
ReplyDeleteAnother possibility is that the Ashkenazi and Sephardim were the same but some other factor created the gap e.g. adopting or at least partially adopting the north european attitude to repeated close cousin marriage.