A Libertarian Kahanist

Rabbi Shalom Carmy once told me a story about a student who signed up for numerous courses with both him and Rabbi Moshe Tendler. It turns out that this student was interested in Rabbi Carmy because he wanted to start a "true" Zionist club at Yeshiva University and by this he meant a Kahanist club. He wanted Rabbi Tendler because he was looking for support for his vegetarianism. So we had a vegetarian Kahanist. Who knew that right wing nationalist politics could mix with liberal culinary tastes? Rabbi Carmy ended by noting that if only the student had switched and come to him for vegetarianism and Rabbi Tendler for Kahane. Rabbi Tendler actually spoke at Rabbi Meir Kahane's funeral.

Despite the fact that I am, at least in principle, sympathetic to many of Kahane's political policies, I view myself as a strong opponent of Kahanist ideology, particularly in its modern manifestations such as Moshe Feiglin. As a classical liberal/Libertarian, I have little patience with national identity politics, particularly if religion gets thrown into the mix, and if I might not join the modern left in point blank condemning it as racism and bigotry, I still see it as a well trod path to such a downfall. I am not against nation states nor am I opposed to political Zionism. As a minority group, Jews are unlikely to ever be on equal footing with the majority culture. Therefore it is a reasonable solution to suggest that Jews immigrate to one place where they can be the majority and set up their own Jewish society and State. I will take a Jewish State in Israel over one in Uganda. This is not really any different from the Free State movement amongst Libertarians, which argues that Libertarians should move to one small State, like New Hampshire. This would allow us to get the votes to enact libertarian policies and thus demonstrate that they work. This Jewish State, while giving equal rights to all, is allowed to wrap itself in Jewish religious and cultural symbols and take an active interest in protecting Jews around the world. It is free to offer a law of return to all Jews, allowing them to come to Israel at a moment's notice if they so choose. I have yet to take advantage of this offer, but I am certainly glad of having it. This is no different then Ireland being an Irish State and the Irish government deciding to take an interest in protecting Irish people, even those who live in Boston.

That being said, the moment you come out and declare the state to be primarily about the promotion of a religious nationalist ideology then you have crossed a line. You may claim to support liberal democracy and tolerate all beliefs and cultures, but what that can that mean if such principles become secondary to national identity? To be a supporter of the free society means that you are willing to support it at the expense of nationalist sentiment.

I just found an interesting blog by Michael Makovi, who coincidently, while now living in Petah Tiqwa in Israel, comes from Silver Spring MD where I live. Michael is a Libertarian, with some wonderful stuff on John Locke. He is a defender of Kahane and offers an eloquent defense of the compatibility of Kahanist ideology and democracy. A Libertarian Kahanist; who knew.

The Libertarian Case Against Abortion (Part II)

Part I

The second issue is women's rights. While Libertarians would naturally hold members of the modern left in general in contempt for their lack of principles, they would have particularly ire for the women's movement for their betrayal of the very notion of rights. Rights mean that human rights are to be applied to all human beings or they mean nothing at all and we might as well simply go back to feudal class privileges. I believe in the right of all human beings capable of engaging in rational thought to use their bodies as they please and engage in all consensual activities with other rational human beings with the exception of causing direct physical harm to others. Besides for the recreational use of drugs and the selling of organs discussed earlier, this also would also allow me to undergo any medical procedures and have it performed by anyone I choose regardless of whether they possess a medical license. So one has the right to undergo chemotherapy, castration, sex changes, and frontal lobotomies; we would say that incidentally one of the things on the list would be abortion. In practice, abortion only applies to women, but surgery for testicular cancer in practice only applies to men. Now modern feminism has come along and claimed the existence of this manifest absurdity of "women's rights" and a "woman's right to choose." There is no such thing; there are only human rights and, as women make up fifty percent of the human race, these rights incidentally apply to women.

This is not just a matter of word games. The entire narrative of the abortion rights movement is built around the tribalism of men versus women and women as the oppressed victims of men. Libertarians recognize that for liberty to mean anything it must apply only to individuals. In order to gain rights as individuals, we must agree to surrender all extra ontological claims of group identity leaving just the individual identity.

Libertarians understand that the flip side of all rights is responsibility; I am allowed to do whatever I want to myself because I carry all the consequences. It is my right to eat all the fatty foods I like and smoke tobacco and marijuana because it is I who will have to pay for my own healthcare costs and am unable to force society to pay through any government subsidized healthcare. Feminists have no interest in paying for the consequences of their right to choose. If women have the right to choose whether to carry a fetus to term, without the interference of the biological father or the government, then they and only they are to bear the consequences, mainly child support. This would have potentially disastrous consequences for all women as men would become categorically exempt from ever paying child support. Every man would be able to claim that he never wanted the child in question to be born and that it was only the woman's choice. This would apply to one night stands as well as ten-year marriages. Every woman, before she brings a child to term, would need to get the father of the child to sign a legal document obligating himself to pay child support. As the law stands now, my theoretical girlfriend can lie to me about using birth control, get pregnant and force me to pay eighteen years of child support, hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is unjust and the Libertarian knows that the blame for this injustice lies at the feet of the morally self-satisfied feminist.

To finally get to the act of abortion itself, it is not obvious that abortion would be always legal even under libertarian law. The moment we acknowledge that fetuses are something above animals (Libertarianism would allow Michael Vick to run his dog fighting ring) and at the level of humans or near so then the right to choose goes out the window. Libertarians, despite their love of liberty, do not believe in a right to commit murder. On the contrary, our commitment to making sure that everyone can engage in all activities that do not cause direct physical harm to others is matched by our willingness to go after those who do cause direct physical harm. Furthermore, it might be theoretically plausible to assume some sort of direct state interest in the bearing of children, which might open the door to some sort of government interference. May I suggest that, considering that bodily rights are extensions of property rights, the government is allowed to interfere with the decisions of pregnant women to the same extent that they are allowed to interfere in the acquirement of oil and other natural resources found on private property?

Libertarians believe in the right to control one's own body. This would preclude a Libertarian from becoming a conventional conservative pro-lifer. We have no interest in pushing our values on other people. Any attempt to force women to carry a child to term would mean that the government must also provide social services to support that child. We are trying to get rid of government welfare and will seek to find every excuse to avoid expanding it. That being said, a Libertarian is not likely to look favorably at the modern left and the pro-choice movement as it exists today as we would reject their premises as nearly as inimical to liberty as that of the right. If conservatives are heathens who do not understand the concept of rights then the modern left are apostate traitors who have sold out on human rights for petty tribalist gain. I would even go so far as to suggest that there may be grounds to reject the left's conclusions about abortion as well.

The Libertarian Case Against Abortion (Part I)

Conservative professor Mike Adams views himself as a "Republican with libertarian leanings." In a recent article, he offers what he considers to be libertarian reasons to oppose abortion. According to Dr. Adams:

… abortion is fundamentally anti-choice because the decision to abort is only one choice. Whenever that choice is made a lifetime of choices are prevented. The average life is over 27,000 days long and we all make dozens of choices daily. Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that each abortion results in an average net loss of at least a million choices.


I find this line of argument to be both a fundamental misunderstanding of Libertarianism and an excellent example of the sort of good intentions paved path to tyranny that libertarian thought is designed to avoid. Dr. Adams would bring in the hypothetical future choices of a fetus and grant them the legitimacy and power to stand against the direct physical choices of pregnant women. Libertarianism is the belief, as John Stuart Mill argued, that people have the legal and moral right to pursue their own good in their own way as long as they did not interfere with the liberties of others. The corollary of this is the necessity of drawing a distinction between direct physical harm and indirect nonphysical harm and willingness to, at all costs, take the latter off the table as a political issue relevant to the government. As long as the government is allowed to step in and protect people from indirect nonphysical harm it is impossible to offer a coherent consistent defense of civil liberties even in the face of the Spanish Inquisition. (The presence of Jews, Muslims, and heretics cause psychological suffering to good Catholics. Therefore the state has the right to take all possible action to remove the problem, plausibly even with the rack and stake.)

While I may disagree with Dr. Adams' argument, I do believe that there can be valid reasons for Libertarians to oppose abortion and declare themselves to be pro-life. First off, we should consider the narrow self-serving use that the modern left has put the essentially libertarian concepts of the right to privacy and the right to control one's own body. Imagine that I am sitting in my basement with one of my theoretical girlfriends and, in order to convince her to engage in certain consensual actions, I offer her a birth control pill. Let us say that my theoretical girlfriend is so excited to engage in consensual activities with me that she ignores the pill and ends up pregnant. I, therefore, offer to put my licensed degree in medieval surgery to use to perform an abortion. The modern left, through Griswold vs. Connecticut and Roe vs. Wade, militantly supports the premise that the government cannot interfere and will come to the defense of my theoretical girlfriend and me. Now change the scenario a bit. Instead of offering my theoretical girlfriend a pill, I offer her a joint to help her get over her inhibitions. (My theoretical girlfriend comes from a fine Bais Yaakov Catholic school.) My theoretical girlfriend decides that she would like to be able to enjoy such wonderful inhibition removing herbs on a more regular basis so I offer to put my medieval surgery degree to use by removing one of her kidneys, thus allowing her to sell it on the open market and afford to be uninhibited more often. The modern left, as a whole, is not prepared to lift a finger to stop the government from arresting my theoretical girlfriend and me and sending us off to serve years in prison on charges of drug use and organ trafficking. Let us acknowledge that the conversation about a right to privacy and to control one's body does not even begin until we acknowledge the right to use any drug of choice and sell any bodily organ. The modern left should be called out on this as hypocrites and any claim on their part to privacy should be summarily scorned and dismissed.


To be continued …

(I offered a version of this argument on Clarissa’s blog and she argued that women are not allowed to sell fetuses and she did not “think anybody prohibits you from cutting out any part of your body and throwing it away …” My response was that I would be interested to see how abortion rights activists would react if the government tried to stop a woman from selling her aborted fetus say to medical science. Also, we do see mothers “selling” their fetuses when they agree to carry the fetus to term and give it up for adoption in return for financial compensation.)

How to Destroy the Jewish Community

Today my Modern Jewish History students take their midterm exam. I wish them all best of luck. For an essay I have offered them the following question:


You have been hired by the new People's Democratic Multicultural Party of Tolerance government to construct a plan to destroy the Jewish community. As a civilized country we are only willing to engage in very moderate levels of violence and prefer that Jews simply assimilate out of their own free will. Based on what we have learned in class, what would you advise? Please give specific examples to your superiors who may not be as well versed in Jewish history as you are.

I throw open the question to member of classroom Izgad. How would you go about destroying Judaism?

The Screwtape Letters or Theater That is Literally Satanic

After learning that our lives if not our very souls may rest on our willingness to maintain pure Ashkenazi halakhah, Lionel Spiegel and I left Rabbi Binyamin Hamburger's lecture to Metro down to Washington DC to catch a performance of the Screwtape Letters. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the Screwtape Letters is a short novel by C. S. Lewis about the Undersecretary of Temptation, Screwtape, writing to his nephew, Wormwood, who is a field agent on earth, a junior tempter, and advising him as how to best keep his patient out of the hands of the "enemy" and deliver him to our "father down below." Basically this is a guide book how to spiritually destroy people. I consider it to be one of my all time favorite novels. Since I am not dating anyone at the moment, I decided, in the spirit of Prof. Henry Higgins, to take my best guy friend out. The tickets were out of my cheap Jewish graduate student price range so I opted to try to go for the $10 standing room only tickets. One more advantage of taking a guy out; you can get away with sitting around waiting to see if we could buy tickets to stand on our feet for an hour and a half. The theater only sold standing room tickets for sold out shows so we had some tense moments waiting. If only Screwtape would come out and offer to exchange a ticket for my soul; now that would have made things interesting. Thankfully we were able to get the standing room tickets and did not have to resort to any extreme measures.

Long ago I had this idea to adapt Screwtape for the stage of the Haredi summer camp I worked at. Obviously we would have needed to Jewify the whole thing or at least remove the explicitly Christian elements. (I can only be subversive up to a point.) We could update the story from bombs falling on England to terrorist attacks. I also had a more radical idea. The problem with presenting Screwtape in visual medium is the complete lack of action within the story. It is a demon sitting in his office writing off letters. How do you make that worth watching? I would have told the story from the perspective of Wormwood on earth interacting with his patient and the rest of the world much as Bruce Willis' character does in Sixth Sense. In between the main scenes, we would switch to Screwtape in his office dictating his advice and commenting on the situation. This would put an interesting twist on the climax. In the final letter Screwtape assails his nephew for his ultimate failure and prepares to eat him as the patient has come to see him and the role he plays in his life. In my play the patient was going to turn around and see Wormwood for the first time as the audience has seen him all along.

Max McLean's version of Screwtape also updates the story along the terrorist lines. What it does not change is the Screwtape focused story with all the difficulties that come with it. McLean, as Screwtape, is sitting around his comfy den in Hell in a red smoking jacket writing off letters. McLean's solution is to bring Screwtape's secretary, Toadpipe, into the story. While Screwtape has all the lines Toadpipe, hissing Gollum like, is at his side taking dictation, and acting out Screwtape's examples, whether as the patients mother or the different types of women that Hell has sought to encourage through their control of the fashions of the day. This is not enough to save the play from being an oral recitation of the novel. I am a big believer in the value of oral storytelling as a performance art. That being said McLean, while fun to watch, does not compare to John Cleese's turn as Screwtape for the audio book. (It seems that Andy Serkis recently performed as Screwtape for a BBC radio production. This I have to check out.) This show is certainly worth watching, particularly for fans of Lewis' work. I am still waiting for someone to take Lewis' more mature (non-Narnia) work and give it the stage or film production it deserves. McLean's company is working on a production of The Great Divorce. I will be waiting on the cheap tickets line for it.

Rabbi Binyamin Hamburger - Customs of Ashkenaz

Sunday afternoon, Lionel Spiegel and I went to hear Rabbi Binyamin Hamburger speak at the Yeshiva of Greater Washington. Rabbi Hamburger is a Haredi scholar from Israel who specializes in the culture of Ashkenazic (Germanic) Jews. This is part of a personal crusade of his to support the practice of Ashkenazic Judaism. Rabbi Hamburger has also written a book on Jewish false messiahs and their opponents. Rabbi Hamburger maintains the same sorts of biases that one usually finds in Haredi history writers. For example, his work on messianism is a rabbinic apology. The rabbis protected by their knowledge and faithfulness to Jewish tradition are capable of withstanding the siren's song of false messiahs. That being said, Rabbi Hamburger is capable of dealing with academic literature so he, while dangerous, can be interesting and worthwhile to listen to. Here are my notes from the lecture; as usual all mistakes are mine.



It is difficult to talk about Ashkenaz. German Jewry is the kernel of the vast majority of Jews in the world. Ponevezher Rav was once going to a non-religious community to speak. He wanted to talk about Shabbos, and Kosher, but was told that he could not speak about these things because many in the community were not religious. So he asked what he could speak about. He was told to speak about Judaism. We can start with the origins of Ashkenaz. We know that the two centers were Israel and Babylon. Babylonian Jews went to Spain and Israel Jews went to Italy. The two main cities were Bari and Trento. "Ki miBari tetzei Torah udevar Hashem me'Otranto" was what they said then.  From there they went to Lucca. Here is where we get R. Moshe b. Kolonymous, who was brought by Charlemagne to Mainz. There were very few Jews during the early Middle Ages maybe 10,000-20,000. We consider Germany to be the biggest anti-Semites. In truth, we never see a complete expulsion from Germany. Pockets of French Jewry had some influence on Eastern Europe and Central Europe, not the Rhineland.

R. Moshe Isserles, living in sixteenth-century Poland, in general, goes with Ashkenazic customs, though at times he has more recent Polish customs. An example of the difference between Old Ashkenaz and New Ashkenaz is Shofar. Saadiah Gaon had a wavering tikiah. We have a straight tikiah, this comes from Spain. Old Ashkenaz has a circular shevarim. New Ashkenaz was influenced by other countries. There were pockets that held on to the Old Ashkenaz. Skver Hasidim still go with the Old Ashkenazic way. There was a major controversy over prayer in the eighteenth century. Hasidim brought in their own text based on Lurianic thought. Rabbi Ezekiel Landau attacked such changes. Many Hasidim, today, claim that they come from Spain. This is absurd. R. Judah the Pious claimed that people can die because they change a hymn even to change one hymn for another. There is a story among Vishnitz Hasidim that they stopped saying piyyutim for a while. A plague broke out and they sought spiritual causes and decided to bring back piyyutim, based on the teachings about dangers of stopping/altering piyyutim. This was in the time of the 'Ahavas Yisroel' of Vizhnitz (past Rebbe). Worms had a custom not to eat dried fruit. They were concerned about worms. (No pun intended.)

Why is it important? There is a strong claim of tradition defended by rabbis from one generation to another. Even Maimonides, from Sephard, sticks up for Ashkenaz. He attacked the order of calling people up to the Torah. He notes that one would expect Sephardim to be messed up, but Ashkenazim should know better. Rabbeinu Ashur (Rosh) became a rabbi in Toledo after fleeing from Germany and influenced Sephardic Jewry. He attacked the traditions of Sephard and only trusted the tradition from Germany. Rabbi Yitzchak b. Moshe Or Zaruah was a leading sage in Central Europe. He was questioned as to why one should make Kiddush in shul Friday night. He defended this custom by appealing to Ashkenazic tradition of the Rhineland and attacking his opponent for daring to question that tradition.


Q&A

The custom of cutting the hair of three-year-old boys comes from Arabs. It does not come to even the Hasidim until the twentieth century. We have evidence from the Middle Ages of cutting the hair after just a few weeks. Ashkenazim were never into beards but were very careful with peiyos. This is the exact opposite of Chabad. They were not so concerned about beards for people who were out in the world (as opposed to religious functionaries within the Jewish community). But they did have something with peiyos, see e.g. depictions of Wolf Heidenheim.

I asked Rabbi Hamburger about the debate between Dr. Avraham Grossman and Dr. Haym Soloveitchik about the origins of Ashkenaz. Dr. Soloveitchik argues that Ashkenaz from the beginning was Babylonian based. Rabbi Hamburger responded that Dr. Soloveitchik is a genius and that he has not seen his evidence. Perhaps if he saw this evidence he might be convinced. That being said everyone seems to assume that Ashkenaz comes from Israel. Dr. Soloveitchik might be a genius but the Rosh was pretty big too.

Articles of Interest (My Captain, Hebrew Science Fiction, Conversion, Muslim Fathers, and Selling Out the Humanities)

My uncle, Rabbi Dovid Landesman, has another article, this time on Emes Ve-Emunah, on the concept daat Torah (religious authority). He has a great story about my late grandfather going to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein ztl about some issues with the mikvah (ritual bath) that he built in the side of his garage for his community in McKeesport PA.

Lavie Tidhar, an Israeli science fiction novelist, writes about the implications of writing science fiction in English as opposed to Hebrew. Apparently the slang term in Hebrew for science fiction is madab, short for mada bidyoni.

Rabbi Marc Angel, in the Forward, throws down the gauntlet against the Haredi rabbinic establishment in terms of handling conversions. He uses the example of Rabbi Ben-Zion Uziel, who argued for the legitimacy of converting people who were not yet ready to take on fully observant lifestyles.

Thomas Friedman writes about the father of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the attempted Christmas Day suicide bomber, who tried to warn authorities about his son. Friedman hits the nail right on the head when he writes:

Unless more Muslim parents, spiritual leaders, political leaders — the village — are ready to publicly denounce suicide bombing against innocent civilians — theirs and ours — this behavior will not stop. … Every faith has its violent extreme. The West is not immune. It's all about how the center deals with it. Does it tolerate it, isolate it or shame it?

This is a point I have tried to make in regards to the Haredi world. There is no moral difference between those who openly endorse extremist behavior and those who piously, with nods, excuses and winks, say it is wrong and then make excuses for it. If anything the latter is worse; at least those who do the former have the moral spine to openly say what they believe in their heads and their hearts.

Kate Zernike writes about attempts by colleges to make the humanities relevant to students and turn it into something that will help them get jobs. Allan Bloom must be turning in his grave at this sellout of classical education.



Then again maybe this is a vindication of his attack on the liberal university establishment? Our humanities departments are lining up and confessing that they have nothing of value to teach, no reason for students to come to them instead of going to business school. Thus, they have no choice but to surrender and destroy their departments in all but name.

Some Other Reactions to My Comments About Kupat Ha’ir

My post about Rabbi Marc Angel and his criticism of Kupat Ha'ir drew a lot of reactions and sparked some good conversations. Thank you to Hirhurim and Luke Ford for putting up links to it. Not everyone was offended by my calling Haredim and Catholics idolaters. A good friend of, who is a self-declared pagan, opened his arms to these new potential brothers in arms and sent me the following IM message:

You and I will be in different hells, I hope.  Mine will be full of Gods and impressively adorned priests, bishops, and bearded theologians arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. I'm far too sympathetic with the Catholics and fundamentalists like the Haredim to agree with anything ever say.  But I very much enjoyed reading your discussions about those things.



On a less positive note, another person, a complete stranger, sent me the following message on Facebook: "You are a hypocrite. You are as strange as any one man can be. Yet you are judgmental of others. I wish you failure in your life. Shame on you Benzion Chimp."

There is the obvious irony here; how is it not judgmental to send messages to people you have never met, call them hypocrite other rude names and wish them failure in life all without trying to get some word of explanation? (Note that in our post-modern world being judgmental has replaced being rude as the Original Sin.) I do take it as a compliment to be called "as strange as any one man can be." At least he got one thing right about me. I would wish to be able to say the following to this person:
 
Hello


My name is Benzion N. Chinn and I run the blog Izgad. I have lived my life with the awareness that I was different from other people. In more recent years that difference has been given a name, Asperger syndrome. Because I was different I have long been very sympathetic to those people who are different whose lifestyles are outside the mainstream. This goes for blacks, homosexuals, prostitutes, drug users, polygamists and even gun touting Confederate flag-waving white males. As long as you are not causing direct physical harm to other people then the government should leave you to pursue your own good in your own way. In terms of society, I believe in cultivating a space for people I may disagree with, but who have something to contribute to the greater social discourse. A large part of my professional work deals with medieval Christian and Islamic thought. I may be a nice Jewish boy, but my soul is still fed by Augustine, Aquinas, Averroes, and Avicenna. My theology is more complex than simply saying there is the group of people who are like me and everyone else is walking in darkness on a path to eternal damnation. As someone who believes in creating a non-coercive social community around certain specific ideals, I have to be willing to put my foot down and say that those people who do not fulfill these ideals cannot be part of this social community. I have the right to say that you cannot be part of my club. God knows that I have been told many times by people that I was not welcome in their club. Also, there are people that I believe are not just wrong, but insane, wicked or otherwise ignorant. These are people who hold beliefs that, by definition, make it impossible to have any sort of meaningful and rational discussion with. For example, people who do not accept Occam's razor, the validity of the scientific and historical methods. I do not believe these people should in any way be harmed by the government, but I have no reason to take them seriously and allow them to take part in the discourse of the open society. If this makes me intolerant and judgmental then please provide me with the guidance of real live reasonable and rational people, living functional lives while being less judgmental of other people than I am.

Wine According to John Cleese

I often make the analogy between the sort of beginner lectures in history that I have taught these past few years and an introduction to wine tasting. I am not much of an expert on wine, but if I were to ever be put in charge of a wine tasting class I would center the curriculum on making the case for wine. If students come away with one thing it should be an understanding of why your basic five dollar bottle of Manischewitz or Kedem Cream Malaga is grape flavored cough syrup and not actual wine and that it is worthwhile ten or twenty dollars to purchase a basic Merlot or a Chardonnay wine.



Similarly with history, if my students, whether or not any of them become professional historians or even amateur enthusiasts, understand one thing it should be what a professional historian is and does and how this is different from the History Channel or Rabbi Berel Wein. My students may never actually practice history, but the will know what real history looks like and they will hopefully be willing to invest the extra time and money when confronted with a historical issue. This is important for the cause of reason and truth and also so that people like me can have jobs.

Previously I used Monty Python to teach us a lesson about historical thinking. Here John Cleese comes to serve as our Maimonides with his "Wine for the Confused" program. Gentiles seem to approach wine somewhat differently. Cleese has to defend himself more against the top to bottom attack and not the bottom up.

The Alan Brill (Not Saadiah Gaon) Book of Doctrines and Opinions Blog

During my five years at Yeshiva University, one of my favorite teachers was Dr. Alan Brill. I took him for Philosophy of Maimonides. (So I guess he carries at least part of the blame for my bullheaded Maimonideanism.) His was the most rigorous class of my undergraduate career, with a final that was literally a two day affair. That being said he was also a remarkably generous grader. (This model of demanding course work coupled with a generosity in grading is something I seek to emulate in my teaching.) A. N. Wilson notoriously labeled the late Sir Isaiah Berlin as the "Dictaphone Don." By this Wilson meant to attack Berlin's willingness to create elaborate structures to categorize wide varieties of intellectual figures and his casual reductionist method of writing his way through intellectual history, a style of writing that brought him to the status of academic celebrity. Not to get into the justice of Wilson's claim, but this label would also suit Dr. Brill. In this I mean it in every positive sense. Dr. Brill brought to the table an overpowering command of the literature to the table, the likes that few of us undergraduates had ever seen. His class was a running meditation on everything from Greek philosophy to medieval Islamic thought (mostly consisting of thinkers that I, up to that point, had never heard of) to post-modern philosophy, presented in an intoxicating and exhilarating whirlwind. I doubt he seriously expected us to read let alone comprehend the vast amounts of material he assigned us. I suspect his motive was so that we could comprehend how much there was out there, how little we knew, and to what extent he was making a compromise in teaching non-specialists like us. Dr. Brill could engage in this method of teaching and make it work because he was also a master systemizer. There were the esoteric radicals like Averroes, Moshe Narboni and Leo Strauss. They are in conflict with divine supernaturalists like Isaac Abarbanel and Marvin Fox. Yes there was something reductionist about this style of teaching and Brill had a way of putting down and mocking various thinkers as it suited him. Particularly memorable was his "Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch is bourgeoisie Judaism." I suspect that this was done if for no other reason than to challenge a favored idol of his students. (In a Modern Orthodox school one is hard pressed to find a closer equivalent than Hirsch to patron saint.) It would not take too much of a stretch of the imagination to envision a group of self confident and self righteous undergraduates arrogantly mouthing off Brill's lines as Gospel truth and deciding that if Brill dismissed someone then one could afford to move on and not bother reading. For me Dr. Brill was just the opposite, a key into a world and a directive to go read. Yeshiva University in its great wisdom decided to not grant Dr. Brill tenure and let him go. He now teaches at Seton Hall.

Now Dr. Brill has graced us with a blog of his own so anyone with an internet connection can gain from him. I am particularly fond of his analysis of modern trends within Christian thinking and their implications for Orthodox Judaism. There is also his musings on the passing of John T. Elson and the rise of popular mysticism where he notes: "And finally we have a variety of Jewish based kitchen deities, where one prays for everyday miracles, prosperity, and that the kugel comes out OK."

Dr. Brill is still looking for a name for his blog. I am up for "Dictaphone Mystic." It would be really something if readers of Izgad could come up with a name.

Izgad and the Elders of Zion

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an anti-Semitic classic, dealing with a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. It was endorsed by that great American hero Henry Ford, who helped publish a translation of the book in this country. More recently there was an excellent documentary, Protocols of Zion, by Marc Levin on the book and its continued influence, particularly in the Arab world. Levin was inspired to make this documentary after having an Egyptian taxi driver explain to him that the Jews were behind the 9/11 attacks.

I was perusing the Wheaton Public Library this evening through their Judaic section when, to my surprise, I came across a copy of the Protocols. Naturally I was greatly offended to see this compendium of falsehoods. Long ago I appointed myself, with unanimous approval, as High Comrade of the Young Elders of Zion and I can assure you that we are absolutely nothing like what you read about in the Protocols (and if we once were then we have certainly reformed our ways and eliminated all Protocol Jews.)

As you can see I do not have a bulbous hooked nose. Our organization offers nose jobs, as part of our health package, to all our Jewish employees. We are also far better dressed. Taking over the world, like mathematics, is a young man's game, no one older than thirty. We are not an exclusively Jewish organization; we have a proud gentile faction, the Shabbos Goys, for the gentiles who run around and do stuff for us in an unstoogelike fashion. It should be noted for the record that the Protocols is a Czarist forgery, plagiarized from several earlier anti-Semitic works.

All joking aside, the proposition of a public library openly having a copy of the Protocols on its shelves posed an interesting challenge to my liberalism. As a good old fashioned fighting nineteenth liberal, the notion of censorship is completely odious to me. I recognize the sort of Pandora's Box one opens with censorship. If I exercise my liberal indignation against the Protocols, other liberals might choose to come after Ann Coulter's books (not that I would consider this a bad thing). Next on the chopping block could be the Bell Curve, which argues that blacks really do have a problem when it comes to performing in standardized tests, and before long the mobs might be coming for this humble blog. As a historian, I see the Protocols as one of the most important primary source documents relating to modern anti-Semitism and the perfect history 101 lesson on how to turn texts against their authors. I wish for young aspiring historians to be able to easily be able to get a hold of this book. (Internet editions are also in abundance.)

That being said I recognize the danger of having this book on display as if it were just a regular book. By allowing this book on the shelf, the government of Montgomery County is saying that this is a book of opinions alongside other opinions. You can be pro health care or against it, pro the war in Iraq or against or believe that there is a secret cabal of Jews pulling the strings behind all of this. If I am to engage in the public discourse of free citizens then I need you to give me the benefit of the doubt about my beliefs and intentions. I may be wrong in my beliefs (As I tell my students, much of history is the story of very smart people with really bad ideas.) and it may be that what I propose will lead to utter disaster. You must still assume that, despite my wrong ideas, I came by them honestly and that I mean them for the best. I cannot prove that I am not part of some sort of dark conspiracy. You just have to give me the benefit of the doubt and let my ideas stand or fall in the free marketplace of ideas. At the very least hate literature like the Protocols should not be treated any better than pornography. If the library is not going to leave pornographic material out where the young and impressionable can easily find it and form their own opinions about it then they should not be leaving hate literature out on the open shelves.

I took this copy of the Protocols over to the two librarians at the side desk to show them what they had. The two ladies were very kind to me. To my shock, neither of them had ever heard of the Protocols. (I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing.) I politely explained to them that I was opposed to censorship and did not want the book removed. I suggested a number of possibilities. The book could be put on some sort of reserved section for anyone who specifically asks for it. (Much the same way that stores keep their pornography behind counters and people have to ask for it. No, I have never tried to ask for some.) Another idea would be to create a separate section for hate literature and put the Protocols there. (Whether this entire section should be behind lock and key is another issue.) It turns out that the book was cataloged under the Dewey decimal system under anti-Semitism and therefore ended up right next to Judaics.

Rabbi Marc Angel Takes on Kupat Ha'ir

With the scandal of Rabbi Leib Tropper still falling around us, I thought I would put in a word about Rabbi Marc Angel. I just finished reading Rabbi Angel's Maimonides, Spinoza and Us: Toward an Intellectually Vibrant Judaism (Thank you Miss. S. for the excellent book recommendation.) and am now a fan. If only Orthodox Judaism was the sort of religion that had people like Rabbi Angel running conversions and had not sold its soul to Haredi fanatics, we might not be in this Tropper mess. (I give credit to Daniel Eidensohn of Daas Torah for being one Haredi blogger who is serious about taking on Rabbi Tropper and his defenders within the Haredi community.) Rabbi Tropper was one of the major forces behind the Slifkin ban. For me these issues are connected. We have to deal with rabbis who put bans out on anyone who believes that the earth is older than six thousand years and feel that it is their right to destroy Judaism for their own personal profit because we choose to grovel at the feet of Haredim and beg them to accept us. If we are going to win the battle for Judaism we are going to have to turn the tables on our opponents and make the issue about their legitimacy. Instead of the issue being whether conversions of people (and their rabbis) who believe that the earth is older than six thousand years are valid, the issue has to be whether we accept the validity of conversions of people who do not believe that the earth is older than six thousand years. Evolution needs to be not just something that one can accept if one needs to do so for outreach purposes; the acceptance of the scientific process that has led us to evolution needs to be at the bedrock of our faith and no one who has any doubts to it can be allowed to serve in a position of responsibility in our community. Rabbi Angel's book is such a defense of Judaism. It is unapologetic in its support of Maimonides and is even willing to put in a good word for Baruch Spinoza. (I doubt an Orthodox rabbi could be much more pro Spinoza and still remain Orthodox.) More than that, it is willing to turn the tables on the opposition and say "not only is our Maimonidean understanding a legitimate understanding of Judaism, it is the legitimate understanding of Judaism. If you do not operate within the Maimonidean framework than you are the one who is not a true believer in Judaism.

The Maimonidean understanding of God, with its insistence that any notion of God having physical attributes, even emotions, or that one can use an intermediary for prayer of any sort is idolatry, is important to how I operate. It allows me to point blank dismiss all Haredi authorities as either being idolaters themselves or conscious enablers of idolatry. One of my favorite examples of Haredi idolatry is the organization Kupat Ha'ir. This organization offers donors specific blessings to be given by prominent rabbis. Recently I saw a brochure offering to send rabbis to pray at the tomb of the matriarch, Rachel, in Bethlehem. I was reading the descriptions of Mother Rachel acting on behalf of her children and desiring to hear from them and could not find a meaningful difference between that and my medieval and early modern Catholics beseeching the Virgin Mary. Traditional Jewish thought (as well as Protestant thought) looks at such actions as idolatry. (It is an interesting question how one gets around having to kill these idolatrous Catholics and can be allowed to live with them in a liberal and tolerant society.) As part of my Asperger nature, I am brutally consistent even to the point of what other people might see as insanity. If Catholics are going to be idolaters than those Haredim behind Kupat Ha'ir also should be deemed idolaters. Rabbi Angel, in his book, comes after Kupat Ha'ir in a similar vain.


A significant Orthodox charitable organization provides assistance to needy individuals and families. On a regular basis, it sends glossy brochures to potential donors, soliciting contributions. These brochures include abundant pictures of saintly looking men with long white beards, engaged in Torah study and prayer, and signing their names on behalf of this charitable organization. The brochures promise donors that the Gedolei haDor (the great sages of our generation) are official members of the organization. One of the rabbinic sages associated with this charity is quoted to say, "all who contribute to [this charity] merit to see open miracles." Moreover, donors are told that the Gedolei haDor will pray on their behalf and are actually given a choice of blessings they would like to receive from these prayers: to have pleasure from their children, to have children, to find a worthy mate, to earn an easy livelihood. "Urgent request are immediately forwarded to the homes of the Gedolei haDor."

…

Is it appropriate for a Gadol haDor to assure contributors that they will be worthy of open miracles? Can anyone rightfully speak on behalf of the Almighty's decisions relating to doing open miracles? Doesn't this statement reflect a belief that prayers uttered by so-called sages (similar to incantations uttered by shamans!) can control God's actions, even to the extent of making God do miracles?

Moreover, why should people be made to feel they are not qualified to pray to God directly? Why should religious leaders promote the notion that if people will pay money, some pious individual will recite a prayer at the Kotel – and that the prayer uttered by such an individual at the Kotel is more efficacious than our own prayers? How tasteless and contrary to religious values is notion that a minyan of outstanding talmidei hakhamim will pray if you pay enough, but that only one will pray for you if you choose to contribute less than the recommended sum?


In this brochure, dressed as it is in the garb of Torah-true religion, we have a blatant example of superstitious-tainted Judaism. The leaders of this organization assume: (1) Gedolei haDor (we are not told who decides who is a Gadol haDor, nor why any Gadol haDor would want to run to the Kotel to pray every time a donor called in an "urgent request") have greater powers to pray than anyone else; (2) a Gadol haDor can promise open miracles if we send in a donation; (3) a prayer uttered at the holy site of the Kotel has more value than a prayer uttered elsewhere, that is, the Kotel is treated as a sacred, magical entity; and (4) A kvitel placed in a crevice in the Kotel has religious value and efficacy. This brochure relies on the public's gullible belief in the supernatural powers of Gedolei haDor and the Kotel. (pg. 107-08)

Articles of Interest (AJS, Georgia, Conversos, Brooks, Catholic Anglicans, Female Male Novelists)

I was not able to attend the recent AJS conference in Los Angeles. Thankfully Menachem Mendel and Drew Kaplan both posted on it. A pity we could not get something more extensive. This just goes to show that someone needs to fly me out to the next conference so I can blog on it properly.

My uncle, Rabbi Dovid Landesman, has Georgia on his mind over at Cross Currents as he talks about his recent trip to the Former Soviet Union and meeting Jews who have returned to Judaism after seventy years of Communism.

The Jews of the Former Soviet Union may be the modern day conversos, but Sandee Brawarsky gets to meet up with some modern old time conversos from Mallorca Spain, returning to Judaism after five hundred years.

For plain old converts to Judaism, Jennifer Medina writes in the New York Times about converts to Judaism and Christmas. The article features Aliza Hausman of Jewminicana, who criticizes the article for its mistakes.

David Brooks once again offers a principled conservative defense of the Obama administration, this time on their failure to foresee the recent attempted terrorist attack. To expect the government to be able to stop all terrorist attacks means that we have to invest more and more in expanding government programs. Conservatives who believe that government is imperfect, and should be limited, need to be careful what they say about this administration.

George Will discusses the recent offer by the Catholic Church to allow Anglicans to join while maintaining their particular traditions. Back in Elizabethan England you could still be Catholic as long as you did not attend a Catholic mass and recognized Queen Elizabeth I as the head of the Church of England. So now can you be an Anglican Catholic who holds on to the old traditions of believing that the Pope is the anti-Christ, trying to destroy the true English Church, the right to burn papist "spies" (Jesuits) and celebrate the Oxford martyrs?

Julianna Baggott advises women who wish to succeed as novelists to be men or at least write like them. Good thing I am a man writing about an eleven-year-old man with guns, blood, medieval surgery and Talmudic dialectics to boot.