September 3, 2013

A rabbi's appeal to Jewish American citizenists

A long-time reader who is a rabbi sent me the following statement on immigration policy. 

Originally, he was bravely intending to publish it under his own name and seek the endorsement of other Jews like him of some public standing. 

I cautioned him to think carefully before going public with such a moderate manifesto. He eventually decided, prudently, to remain anonymous, but gave me permission to post it.
Jewish American Citizenists

While being strong supporters of human rights for all, we believe that the benefits of American citizenship are being diluted by our present inundation of immigrants, whether documented or otherwise.  
Particularly in precarious economic times such as our own, we believe that the financial wellbeing and concerns of lower and middle income Americans needs to be of greater concerns to our policymakers than the financial wellbeing and concerns of non-citizens. 
This would appear to be the view of the majority of the American public and of little controversy. 
We add our names here, as Jewish Americans, to make explicit the fact repeatedly proven in polls, that assumed Jewish support for increased immigration is vastly exaggerated and that any prominent Jewish supporters of such policies speak only for themselves rather than for the Jewish community as a whole. 
We, ourselves, share the sensible talmudic view that "the poor of your own city take precedence" and that increased immigration tends to depress wages and increase job competition for those Americans who have been hardest hit by the painful economic downturn of this past decade.  
The overwhelming majority of Americans oppose increased immigration to the United States and we proudly concur with that view.

38 comments:

Anonymous said...

OT, Sweden's suicide continues:
http://www.thelocal.se/50030/20130903/

Anonymous said...

So if the petition is anonymous who will be the first to sign ?

AKAHorace

Mysterio said...

Allow me to be the first to affix my signature.

- X

Anonymous said...

God (G-d?) bless this rabbi, but the fact remains that a majority of American Jews, and virtually all powerful Jews, favor mass immigration (to white countries).

This is like Walter Williams writing an oped against affirmative action or black-on-white crime. He deserves credit for his integrity, but it doesn't change anyone's view of the black community.

SFG said...

I wouldn't do it here, on a site on the ADL's hatewatch. Probably the poor guy's into your stuff and doesn't know where else to go.

JJ Careerist said...

Shtetl of Mettle nominee, right there.

Assuming he's real, of course.

Luke Lea said...

I applaud the rabbi. May his kind be fruitful and multiply.

Harad said...

If this is true, why in the hell would you encourage him not to go forward with it? These guys are about the only ones who can get away with criticizing anything. And given his position, he could add some serious weight to it. It would at the very least open a serious crack in the debate by allowing someone who cannot be labeled 'evil' by the press and media to speak the truth.

Anonymous said...

Harad:"If this is true, why in the hell would you encourage him not to go forward with it? These guys are about the only ones who can get away with criticizing anything. And given his position, he could add some serious weight to it. It would at the very least open a serious crack in the debate by allowing someone who cannot be labeled 'evil' by the press and media to speak the truth."

I wouldn't be so sure of this fellow's immunity; I suspect that there are a fair number of elite Jewish leftists who wouldn't mind organizing a "hate week" around an immigration reductionist rabbi....For the encouragement of others, examples must occasionally be made...

SFG said...

He won't get in legal trouble, but his career and livelihood might be seriously threatened. Word gets around.

I buy him being real. It's hard to get 100% of Jews to agree on anything, except Hitler being bad.

Corn said...

Like Luke Lea, I applaud this rabbi

Anonymous said...

I'm not a rabbi, but my late father was a rabbi. I'd be happy to sign onto this statement, if it were available for signing somewhere.

The rabbi was well-advised to publish the statement anonymously. If he's nonOrthodox, his career would probably be over. Even if he were Orthodox, he would be screwed in any future dealings with nondenominational Jewish institutions (which help fund Orthodox institutions). There's just about zero tolerance in the organized Jewish community for deviation from the leftist party line on social issues.

Unpersoned at iSteve said...

The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy, Stephen Steinlight, October 2001:

I say all this merely to remind us that we cannot pretend we are only part of the solution when we are also part of the problem; we have no less difficult a balancing act between group loyalty and a wider sense of belonging to America. That America has largely tolerated this dual loyalty — we get a free pass, I suspect, largely over Christian guilt about the Holocaust — makes it no less a reality.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't count on Christian guilt over the Holocaust being relevant for long. Survivors are dying every day and before long no one alive will have had anything to do with it. Like white guilt over Jim Crow Holocause guilt has a natural shelf life. Of course almost no one will publicly admit to not caring but the attitude will be there just the same. Which will mean more and more gentiles sacrificed in Two Minute Hate rituals. At least the future won't be boring.

Gloria

Anonymous said...

This is great. I fully support this Rabbi. I have only a small fraction of Jewish blood, so speaking as a Gentile I would like to see more of this. Thank you.

Aaron Gross said...

I cautioned him to think carefully before going public with such a moderate manifesto. He eventually decided, prudently, to remain anonymous....

What a pussy. The views expressed in the manifesto - "manifesto"?! - are what you hear all the time from guests on Fox News and in other mainstream media. Sign your name, coward.

I liked the bit about the public opinion surveys. That's one thing the anti-Semitic retards are always missing: Jewish Americans are basically anti-immigration, though not as strongly as non-Jews. (And I'd still to know how much ethnicity is an alias for socio-economic status.) The Jewish-American elite doesn't speak for the Jewish-American masses.

My main objection is rhetorical. He says we should consider current citizens' well-being over that of potential immigrants. But what pro-immigrationist argues or believes that mass immigration harms Americans? Virtually all argue, and presumably believe, that immigration is a win-win for immigrants and for America. That's the belief that has to be addressed, not a straw argument that potential immigrants should be counted the same as Americans.

About his use of the word "citizenism": I won't criticize the whole "citizenism" idea here. For a change, I'll let it be. But even if it were a great idea, it would still be bad to use an unfamiliar, private-language word in a message - oops, I mean a "manifesto" - addressed to a general audience. Using words like that sounds kooky, even if they were right.

But yeah, sure, the more statements against mass immigration the better. Not that a little "manifesto" like this is going to noticed, but sure, why not?

Anonymous said...

I don't know about the rabbi's career "finished" if this rather meek manifesto were to be signed. Just to give a well-known example: David Mamet got a lot of flak after he, guided by the L.A. rabbi Mordecai Finley, turned around to become what appears to be paleocon. But Mordecai Finley is doing just fine.

Simon in London said...

If he's right about the non-insanity of most Jews (and polling seems to support him)then he should be able to publish under his own name *unless* for some reason he is in a particularly vulnerable position vis-a-vis the pro-immigration Jewish elites.

If he's wrong, then there's no point publishing it here, or anonymously.

If it's a marginal case, well the best advice is always to behave like Starkey, not Watson. Never apologise, never back down.

Anonymous said...

Steve, you have a much larger Jewish readership than you will ever know. Particularly right here in Los Angeles. You did a real mitzvah preventing this man from destroying his career

Anonymous said...

David Mamet is a Paleocon on most issues but has he ever come out forcefully against immigration?

Titus Didius Tacitus said...

May the righteous rabbi live long and prosper.

He was very well advised to remain anonymous. Not even a rabbi is safe saying things like that.

AMac said...

@ Aaron Gross 10:59 pm:

> But what pro-immigrationist argues or believes that mass immigration harms Americans? Virtually all argue, and presumably believe, that immigration is a win-win for immigrants and for America.

Kinda-sorta. Read any of Tyler Cowan's posts and their comments. Libertarians don't engage with the claims that mass immigration harms the left-side-of-the-bell-curve Americans. By any definition of "engagement" that includes consideration of relevant facts and reasoned argument.

Through some combination of universalist utilitarianism and Asperger's, they just don't care.

Kon-Takt said...

It's always good to get Tel Aviv's views on the issues of the day. Thanks, Aaron.

Anonymous said...

I'd like to know just who Aaron Gross is hearing on Fox News "all the time" talking about restricting legal immigration? Even there, you'd be safer in your career speaking up for NAMBLA.

Anonymous said...

I've never heard Mamet speak on immigration. Has he? He chickened out in his play "Race". But I did once read, can't recall where, him say one truth that impressed me: The Left is destroying Western Civilization. IMO with Republicans, Western Civilization is like women and children in Iraq--ya know, collateral damage.

Does It Matter? said...

Aaron,

Easy for you to say, in Israel. This guy's career *would* be over were he to sign his name to this manifesto, mild as it is.

Having said that, I sympathize with your feelings because....

Steve,

Nothing matters if you don't sign your own name to it. This goes for me. I'm a coward, too. I'm a Jewish-American who favors immigration sanity, and a bunch of other non-PC things.

One day, I look forward to saying how I really feel about immigration and other matters. But I can't now. So what I say doesn't matter.

What the rabbi said is nice, but it carries no force if he isn't willing to sign his name to it.

And before I forget:

OPPOSE WAR IN SYRIA
ABRAHAM FOXMAN COMPARING SYRIA TO HITLER IS AN OBSCENITY

and

No matter how hard I scream, if it's done behind an anonymous screen name, it's meaningless.

Anonymous said...

I don't get this "Christian guilt" thing about the holocaust. The Nazis were inventing a new neo pagan belief system, Jesus had Jewish blood, I have not come across any material where they were invoking the name of Jesus.

Anonymous said...

David Mamet did not become a paleocon, he became a conventional, post-9/11 Fox News/Weekly Standard/Commentary/WallStJournal-editiorial-page "mainstream" conservative (and not a terribly interesting one). He even got a puff piece in the Standard, which evidences the cookie-cutter nature of his views. I very much doubt that Rabbi Finley (whom I'm not familiar with) is an open immigration restrictionist. Politically "conservative" Jews tend to be establishment conservatives, i.e., hawkish on foreign policy (good luck with that), pro-Israel, and pro-Gang of Eight. On social issues, Orthodox Jews for the most part keep their heads low.

The Jewish American "masses" to whom Aaron Gross refers voted nearly 70% for Obama in the last election. Does that really indicate a desire to see immigration restricted?

Does It Matter? said...

Just wanna say one more thing. Jerry Nadler, Jewish congressman from a heavily Jewish district, has been one of the good guys here:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/319387-nadler-says-obama-needs-congresss-approval-for-syria-strike

Maybe he'll wimp out in the end, but he did the right thing here in calling for a debate in Congress.

I wrote him an email strongly opposing US intervention in the Syrian civil war.

I suggest everyone here do the same, even if it does no good.

SAY SOMETHING.

Anonymous said...

Where can I sign up?

Anonymous said...

Where can I sign up?

Dave Pinsen said...

"But what pro-immigrationist argues or believes that mass immigration harms Americans?"

Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute argues that it only hurts a small minority of Americans (high school dropouts, for example), but those Americans can be compensated by the economic juice provided if we enact more libertarian policies. Something to that effect. He really seems to believe that indigent third world immigrants will vote for Cato-approved economic policies (such as cutting welfare) when they become citizens. He also believes that those policies will actually help the poor.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous:"The Jewish American "masses" to whom Aaron Gross refers voted nearly 70% for Obama in the last election. Does that really indicate a desire to see immigration restricted?"

Voting for or against Obama has very little to do with immigration; on that issue, Romney was Tweedledee to Obama's Tweedledum.Or vice versa.

Harry Baldwin said...

Alex Nowrasteh of the Cato Institute argues that it only hurts a small minority of Americans (high school dropouts, for example), but those Americans can be compensated by the economic juice provided if we enact more libertarian policies.

Did you read Mickey Kaus's recent exchange with Nowrasteh? Nowrasteh's comments about the troubles of unemployed American high-school dropouts were of the "Let them eat cake" variety, though I believe Marie Antoinette had more genuine sympathy for others than Nowrasteh displays. Hope he shows as much aplomb as that lady did when the tumbrels come for him and his ilk.

Anonymous said...

David Mamet is more of a neocon, not a paleocon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_mamet#Other_media_.2F_political_views

"Since May 2005 he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post, drawing satirical cartoons with themes including political strife in Israel.[10] A conservative, Mamet has spoken in interviews of changes in his political positions,[11][12] highlighting his belief in free market theorists such as Friedrich Hayek[13] the historian Paul Johnson, and economist Thomas Sowell, whom Mamet called "one of our greatest minds.""

Luke Lea said...

If this is true, why in the hell would you encourage him not to go forward with it?

Better to have this conversation in private until a certain minimum level of consensus is reached. One guy sticking his head out in public may not be the best way to begin.

Luke Lea said...

Virtually all argue, and presumably believe, that immigration is a win-win for immigrants and for America.

Only because they define America by the size of its economy (GDP per capita) and not by the welfare of its people. Immigration, like trade, grows the economy as they like to say. Nevermind that the redistribution of income (from labor to capital) swamps the increase in the size of the economic pie. The way you tell is by the decline in real hourly wages, the only metric that counts.

Luke Lea said...

Virtually all argue, and presumably believe, that immigration is a win-win for immigrants and for America.

Only because they define America by the size of its economy (GDP per capita) and not by the welfare of its people. Immigration, like trade, grows the economy as they like to say. Nevermind that the redistribution of income (from labor to capital) swamps the increase in the size of the economic pie. The way you tell is by the decline in real hourly wages, the only metric that counts.