The 90`s

Tribal fear and loathing amongst Jews

Note: Written by Howard Barbanel, Published Week of July 14th - July 20th, 1993

"There is the white one who doesn't like the black one who doesn't like the rich one who doesn't like the poor one...different strokes, for different folks..." so go the lyrics to an old pop tune from Sly and the Family Stone.

Lately, the Jewish community has started to resemble the old Indian caste system or the Victorian English class system.  The community is polarizing with each end spinning into an opposite orbit as though they were molecules in a laboratory centrifuge or one of those scary rides down at the amusement park that test G-forces to the limit.

The latest example is right on the Dine - Tom Dine, that is.  you may recall that until two weeks ago, Dine was the $175,000-plus a year executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby.  Here is a guy who couldn't leave a good thing alone. There is a tendency among the very successful and very visible to sometimes self-destruct. 

His act of self-destruction came a couple of weeks ago when comments Dine made to a book author four years ago finally saw the light of print.

Just what is it that Dine said that resulted in his summary dismissal from such a lofty perch? He called Orthodox Jews "smelly" and "low class."  Here's just what Dine said in David Landua's book, Piety and Power: The World of Jewish Fundamentalism.

"In nine years on the job he's never been to Brooklyn... The Congressmen from there are so pro-Israel anyway, there is no need to work on them."

This is nothing.  The really "great stuff" is:

"I don't think mainstream Jews feel very comfortable with the ultra-Orthodox.  It is a class thing I suppose. Their image is 'smelly'. That's what I'd say now you've got my thinking about it. Hasids and New York diamond dealers."

Dine went on to assert that, "UJA people have told me several times they don't want to fly El Al because of it's direct...but it's low class, like the Orthodox."

The disdain by many secular and non-observant Jews toward the Orthodox manifest itself everywhere, from a London neighborhood nixing an eruv (a community board comprised primarily of Jews) to New York City community boards leading vociferous opposition to building permit applications to expand yeshivot to places like Westhampton Beach (a town with plenty of churches) initially opposing the construction of a synagogue in the tony resort.  Who leads the opposition? Primarily Jews.

Here's another case in point: The Hebrew Academy of Long Beach (HALB) purchased the former building and grounds of the now-relocated Lawrence Country Day School in fancy Hewlett Bay Park.  The neighborhood, mostly comprised of wealthy non-observant Jews, let loose a hue and cry that was deafening. Big stories about the village's opposition to HALB's plans for a girl's yeshiva high school filled the daily papers, the Jewish papers and even spilled-out onto TV.

Now, the HALB people spent $2.2 million for a facility that had been a school for decades, in fact, a school that for a great deal of time restricted Jews from its enrollment.  The village still is threatening to condemn the property via eminent domain to block the Yeshiva from opening for business this coming fall. Negotiations have been going on for over a year now between the village and the yeshiva to reach an accommodation.  Could you imagine Itailans in Bensonhurst or Polish-Americans in Ridgewood opposing the construction/expansion/location of a Catholic high school in their neighborhood? Only Jews possess such fear and self-loathing.

Examples of Jewish self-hatred and inferiority complexes abound.  Crown Heights. Where were the major Jewish organizations? No where.  Who was the Hasid's biggest supporter? Sen. Al D'Amato.

More example of indifference, arrogance and chauvinism? Ashkenazic discrimination against Sephardim, espeially as was institutionalized by the Labor Party in years past; Lubavitch disdain and non-recognition of Ethiopian Jews as Jews; Satmar fraternizing with Arab terrorists in their aim to destroy the "Zionist entity" because they don't belive in a state of Israel before the arrival of the messiah; The old Litvak-Galiciana non-sense; the German Jewish denigration of the "ost Juden;" The ancient enmity between the Pharisees and the Saducees.  Enough all ready!

For the Jewish community to thrive we must recognize that we are all descendents of the many sons of Jacob - one family - one people - we are all the Children of Israel and we can't afford to have any orphas or stepchildren and longer.