Alert friend Elaine Sandler read a Caroline Glick column in the Jerusalem Post which resonated with Sandler who has long been concerned with the role that the phenomenon of Jewish self-hatred plays in Jewish perspectives on Israel. Below are Sandler’s thoughts on the subject:
Jews excel at promoting aberrant pathological constructs predicated on the destruction of their own people. It is perhaps the most insidious and lethal form of anti-Semitism — a disturbing largely unconscious and unexamined depression we suffer in which we direct our long festering rage and self-loathing inward.
This hatred is one of the biggest threats we face. Jews, many powerful, both Israeli and American, manifest this disturbing phenomenon in Universities, the breeding grounds for such grotesque distortions in thinking that filter down and get absorbed in Jewish minds. Powerful Jews in Hollywood do it. We’ve become, in effect, our own enemy. It hurts the well-intentioned Jews who care deeply for the things that genuinely need to matter and we wince when we read Glick commentaries that highlight its course.
It’s a pathology that deserves a scientific name and should be taught in Universities, among its abusers, so we, and others, might learn about our own unnatural behavior. We can then ascribe it to those who do it and force introspection and self-awareness. It infiltrates politics which we see clearly in this upcoming election.
This endemic problem is the origin of Glick’s assertions and observations. Imagine a long suffering people who refuse to exact a death penalty on those who kill their mothers, sisters and children. And then to grant freedom to such killers so they might do it again. How do we make sense of such disturbing actions that will, with certainty, cause more Israeli deaths.
I see it among Jews here in Aspen. Liberal thought and flawed views nobly justified that hurt us. Most do not grasp it here in this elite bastion of Institute advanced ideas.
Perhaps the best example we know so well: The New York Times, a once venerable paper, owned by Jews, run by Jews in a city steeped in rich Jewish culture, heritage and history that maligns its own while defending brutal enemies sworn to wipe us out…..Many Manhattan Jews, mostly liberal, accept it with few questions or opposition……Elaine
Sandler sent the above to Glick whose response was:
You are certainly right. You might find Ken Levin ’s book, The Oslo Syndrome of particular interest. We are a pathological people. And, actually, we always have been which is why the bible says that our haters and destroyers will emerge from our ranks.
Thanks for reaching out.
Caroline