Answering Yosef Hirsh

On the topic of hostility towards Jews

In the most recent episode of The Deceneus Review, Historical Illiteracy, one of the topics discussed by

Phisto Sobanii

,

Prester John's Revenge

, and myself, was the recent interview given by

Darryl Cooper

on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, and the subsequent hysterical reaction from the media. Cooper caused such a stir that the White House put out a statement. My opinion on the topic is laid out in our episode, but in this quick piece I want to answer one of my listeners

Yosef Hirsh

, who wrote a very good reply on the episodes page. I felt that his question deserved more than a quick reply response so I decided to write it out here.

Great episode!

I know I am going to get crap for this but I want to play devil's advocate on the whole Tucker/Cooper situation. From a purely historical perspective, evil exists on both sides of every conflict and Cooper is technically right.

As an Orthodox Jewish person, I am noticing that the issue my community has with Cooper isn't about the facts per se. It is with the overall pattern of people (especially Tucker, Candace, Dan Bilzerian etc.) highlighting and popularizing narratives that are negative for the Jewish community despite being factually correct. It is easy to paint millions of people with a broad brush by highlighting the actions of a few rotten apples that may be powerful.

some examples

While facts are amoral, it is frightening to see those facts being focused on. Our community agrees that Hollywood and many banking institutions are run by Jews (albeit secular, Jews in name only libs aka Soros. None of the Rothschilds are considered Jewish anymore according to Jewish laws of genealogy).

There was a certain amount of comfort that we felt when we were protected by a one-sided WW2 narrative that painted the Nazis as monsters.

Every repression and genocide that was perpetrated against us used convenient picked facts to justify them

Not everyone that notices these facts hate Jews but everyone who hates Jews points out these facts.

Would love to hear your take.

Without a doubt, there is a growing hostility towards Jews in online circles, specifically from the new post-neocon, young, online right. Still, there is also a significant, if not larger hostility coming from the young left, and even the urban black Americans I’ve known. Where this is coming from, why it is increasing, and how we talk about it is historically interesting. I think we must divorce it from juvenile Marvel movie-tier good vs evil binaries.

Before we begin, I feel like I have to elaborate on my background. I’m not Jewish. As far as I know, I have no Jewish ancestry and even my DNA results on Ancestry do not show any ancestry. I’m fully Romanian from my mother’s side and part Russian from my fathers, who was born in Moscow. Growing up my maternal Grandmother, who was a Romanian History teacher, would tell me stories about her grandfather who was a watchmaker and during WWII hid several families of local Jews in his store. My grandmother had letters that one of the families sent him from Israel once WWII ended and they were allowed to immigrate.

As for myself, I don’t have much experience with Jews and Judaism. The city I grew up in, Long Beach California had a significant Orthodox Jewish community. Jewish men in Hasidic Garb were a common sight but the majority of that community was separate from us because they went to private religious schools and besides friendly pleasantries our interactions were limited. I did have several secular Jewish acquaintances, but overall, I don’t think I could name more than five right now. This of course is understandable because the Jewish population in the US is somewhere around 3% of the whole population and the majority of those individuals tend to be concentrated in places like Los Angeles and New York. There is also a significant class element. Most secular Jews tend to be middle-upper class and higher, while I grew up working class, so even being raised in Southern California, twenty minutes from Hollywood and a traditional Jewish-dominated industry, my exposure to Jews was almost non-existent.

Now, I think the above factor of exposure has a significant impact on the perception of Jews in the current zeitgeist. I think it’s safe to say that if someone like me, growing up in a cosmopolitan cultural center had such minuscule exposure, the majority of non-costal Americans most likely have never met a Jew their entire lives. Their only exposure to Jews and Judaism comes from History classes and media. For example, I’ve spent years with the Navy and Marine Corps and during that entire time I’ve never encountered a Jewish enlisted or officer in the military, but I’ve come across multiple Romanians, Slovaks, Zimbabweans, Laotians, Ganans, and other even smaller and more obscure nationalities.

So, it’s important to understand that the majority of middle Americans have little to no exposure to Jews on an everyday level. What they do have, is an oversized exposure to Judaism through conservative Born Again Protestantism. The Conservative Baptist, Evangelical, and other Protestant denominations have been wedded to an Israeli-chosen tribe ideology, Judeophilia, and obsession with Zionism and the Holy Land. Anglo Philosemitism has a long history in the United States going back to the early Puritans and is a topic that deserves its historical breakdown from a religious and historical perspective, one that I have very little experience with being an Eastern European non-Protestant. This historical Philosemitism is at the core of the Conservative support for Israel and in my opinion the cause of recent online discussion.

What must be understood is that the majority of Americans of my generation who were raised in Conservative households and churches were exposed to constant Protestant Evangelical and Baptist Philosemitism. Not to mention a lifetime of World War II media from Schindler’s List to Inglorious Basterds. Jews, Judaism, and support for Israel held a special unrivaled, and undisputed place in the hearts of Moral Majority Evangelical political Christian Americans. I must also add the caveat that even the New Atheist left, a group of people completely and virulently antagonistic towards religion held a special soft kid-glove approach towards Judaism. Sam Harris, an ethnic Jew himself, and Christopher Hitchens both had little to say about Judaism but plenty about Christianity. Hitchens, in his main work, The God Delusion, goes out of his way to profess his love of Jews and Judaism, calling himself a Judeophile.

It is my theory that keeping the above in mind while looking at the post-2016 political online world will explain today's increasing hostility, or to be fairer, noticing of things. The Conservative Christian element, wholly enamored by Israel and the philosemetic Evangelical ideas, post-2016 smacked face first into the reality of contemporary secular upper-class Jews. Here we have white conservative Christians who love Jews, are proud of the myth-level liberation of the Jews in WWII, and accept and support Israel come face to face with ultra-liberal upper-class New York Jews who do nothing but show disdain towards them. It’s not hard to notice that almost all anti-Christian, anti-white male rhetoric written on the internet has a byline by a Jewish journalist. There is a reason that the “early life” Wikipedia joke lands because almost 9/10 times it’s undeniably true.

The white working and middle-class Christian normie con, fond of Jews, fond of Israel, and proud of his grandfather's service fighting Nazis in the Second World War got smacked in the face during the online age of shitposting by the reality that the majority of the Jewish laptop and media class despises him.

In the post-war 20th Century the Jewish people in the Western world enjoyed a cultural place where they remained above reproach from the normie conservative American crowd. In the last few years, the secular Jewish media crowd did tremendous damage to that relationship through its incessant attack on middle-class White Americans and Christians. They created cognitive dissonance in the Evangelically raised Christian who loves the idea of Jews in Israel and the vitriolic ultra-liberal Hollywood and New York secular Jews who despise him.

It was only a matter of time before this was noticed and once somebody noticed something they started asking questions about everything that came before.

Do I think this is a good development? In a way, yes, removing historical mythology and religious mysticism from a historical topic allows us a measured understanding of the situations at hand. The Jews are not beyond reproach. Being born in a closed, historically oppressed religion, does not automatically absolve one from cultural and historical scrutiny. At the same time, Jews, like Christians are individuals. My Jewish neighbor, a long-haul truck driver and conservative, father of five, and one of the nicest dudes on my street has nothing to do and no responsibility for the crimes of Epstein and Weinstein or anything to do with Gaza, in the same way I have nothing to do with the crimes of countless Christians and the war crimes of the Nazis or Soviets.

Ish Yehudi

I hope I answered your post adequately. Keep in mind that this is a personal opinion on a topic that I don’t usually think in depth about, but feel is necessary to address in the light of current discussion.

Everyone feel free to comment below.