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The Socialism of Fools: Anti-Semitism on the Left
Book by Lerner, Michael
- GenresJudaism
148 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
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68 people want to read
About the author
Michael Lerner
56 books20 followersMichael Lerner was an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
May 30, 2016
The quote from which the book takes its title is, I suspect, as good a place as any with which to start this review. And so, to p. 20: “(o)ne of the most destructive consequences of the ‘ally of the ruling class’ strategy is that it generates popular anger at the Jews. Jews appear not only to be benefiting from ties to the ruling class, but in the eyes of the ill-formed, they appear to be the ruling class. Popular discontent then can be swung against the Jews. Thus, anti-Semitism becomes the socialism of fools.”
And then on the following page, we find “(t)hus, to the extent that the Jewish community makes itself the ally of the ruling class, it simultaneously empties into a series of rituals and mythic stories that have little to say to contemporary reality. Survival at this price is a subtle form of destruction of the Jewish people.”
I must confess that, until this book, I never really understood why more Jews didn’t leave Europe (and particularly Germany) until it was too late. Perhaps the following, on p. 35, provides some rationale—at least for those Jews whose sympathies lay with the Proletariat: “(m)any Jews had rejected the overtures of Zionism, believing that when push came to shove, the security of the Jewish people would best be defended by the development of class consciousness in Europe.”
But then, Michael Lerner makes this equally interesting observation on p. 54: “(j)ust as a certain kind of principled antinationalism, when applied universally with equal fervor, can lead to an anti-Zionism that is not anti-Semitic, so too there is an anti-Zionism that emerges from the Jewish religious tradition. Some of the haredim, the so-called ultra-Orthodox, are religiously opposed to Zionism. These haredim believe that the attempt to rebuild a Jewish state substitutes human action for divine, and that such attempts are necessarily sinful and likely to lead in a disastrous direction. Many of these people took a similar approach to the Holocaust and to other events in Jewish history, seeing them as punishments from God for not fulfilling God’s will. Many haredim felt it would have been useless to organize resistance to the Nazis, and many of their community were led ‘like sheep to the slaughter’ during the Holocaust.”
In any discussion of the State of Israel, the “state” of Jewishness, and the staus quo (or, indeed, the status quo ante) of anti-Semitism, the Palestinian question necessarily arises (just as “the Jewish Question” first arose over two centuries ago). Lerner states categorically at the start of Chapter 7 (“Israel: Legitimate Criticisms vs. Israel-bashing and Anti-Semitism”) that “Israel should not be ruling over one-and-a-half million Palestinians who wish to have national self-determination.” If you read nothing more in Lerner’s treatise, this chapter (pp. 87 – 107) will be well worth your time and effort—particularly in understanding the factual history of the State of Israel, starting with its founding.
As Lerner says on pp. 89 – 90 about Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank, “(t)he point of this historical picture is that it is totally unfair to allow the Occupation to be described, as it sometimes is by various groups on the Left, as ‘Israeli expansionism,’ ‘Israeli imperialism,’ ‘Israeli colonialism,’ or the like. Israel did not occupy the territories out of some inner drive for expansion or to satisfy religious or Zionist aspirations, but rather in response to a real military threat. It is inconceivable, for instance, to imagine the United States, Russia, France, or any other state in similar circumstances not taking military action to protect itself.”
As one who’d always (until now) understood “Next year in Jerusalem” to be a Zionist-tinged sentiment, I was enlightened by Lerner’s elucidation of the phrase on p. 133: “…the struggle against racism in all forms is an absolute religious and moral necessity, just as from the standpoint of Jewish self-interest the elimination of racism is a political necessity. And that goal is certainly what we Jews intend when we say, ‘Next Year in Jerusalem,’ next year in a world in which all forms of oppression and hatred have been eliminated.”
The Socialism of Fools is as much a manifesto—a call to action, with a suggested rule-set—as it is a treatise, and the subtitle (“Anti-Semitism on the Left”) suggests the object of Michael Lerner’s manifesto in no uncertain terms. But even for those of us who’ve lost most of our erstwhile fervor* for politics and political organizations, I think it quite a worthwhile read—and highly instructive on the history and current reality of anti-Semitism.
* As a former activist whose “erstwhile fervor” is now little more than a flickering flame in this American Presidential election year of 2016, I can only hope that Senator Bernie Sanders will succeed in disemboweling the political party establishment such that much of what Michael Lerner has written in The Socialism of Fools will begin to gain a real and incontrovertible foothold in American—and, ultimately, Western—society.
A vain hope?
RRB
30 May 2016
Brooklyn, NY
And then on the following page, we find “(t)hus, to the extent that the Jewish community makes itself the ally of the ruling class, it simultaneously empties into a series of rituals and mythic stories that have little to say to contemporary reality. Survival at this price is a subtle form of destruction of the Jewish people.”
I must confess that, until this book, I never really understood why more Jews didn’t leave Europe (and particularly Germany) until it was too late. Perhaps the following, on p. 35, provides some rationale—at least for those Jews whose sympathies lay with the Proletariat: “(m)any Jews had rejected the overtures of Zionism, believing that when push came to shove, the security of the Jewish people would best be defended by the development of class consciousness in Europe.”
But then, Michael Lerner makes this equally interesting observation on p. 54: “(j)ust as a certain kind of principled antinationalism, when applied universally with equal fervor, can lead to an anti-Zionism that is not anti-Semitic, so too there is an anti-Zionism that emerges from the Jewish religious tradition. Some of the haredim, the so-called ultra-Orthodox, are religiously opposed to Zionism. These haredim believe that the attempt to rebuild a Jewish state substitutes human action for divine, and that such attempts are necessarily sinful and likely to lead in a disastrous direction. Many of these people took a similar approach to the Holocaust and to other events in Jewish history, seeing them as punishments from God for not fulfilling God’s will. Many haredim felt it would have been useless to organize resistance to the Nazis, and many of their community were led ‘like sheep to the slaughter’ during the Holocaust.”
In any discussion of the State of Israel, the “state” of Jewishness, and the staus quo (or, indeed, the status quo ante) of anti-Semitism, the Palestinian question necessarily arises (just as “the Jewish Question” first arose over two centuries ago). Lerner states categorically at the start of Chapter 7 (“Israel: Legitimate Criticisms vs. Israel-bashing and Anti-Semitism”) that “Israel should not be ruling over one-and-a-half million Palestinians who wish to have national self-determination.” If you read nothing more in Lerner’s treatise, this chapter (pp. 87 – 107) will be well worth your time and effort—particularly in understanding the factual history of the State of Israel, starting with its founding.
As Lerner says on pp. 89 – 90 about Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem and the West Bank, “(t)he point of this historical picture is that it is totally unfair to allow the Occupation to be described, as it sometimes is by various groups on the Left, as ‘Israeli expansionism,’ ‘Israeli imperialism,’ ‘Israeli colonialism,’ or the like. Israel did not occupy the territories out of some inner drive for expansion or to satisfy religious or Zionist aspirations, but rather in response to a real military threat. It is inconceivable, for instance, to imagine the United States, Russia, France, or any other state in similar circumstances not taking military action to protect itself.”
As one who’d always (until now) understood “Next year in Jerusalem” to be a Zionist-tinged sentiment, I was enlightened by Lerner’s elucidation of the phrase on p. 133: “…the struggle against racism in all forms is an absolute religious and moral necessity, just as from the standpoint of Jewish self-interest the elimination of racism is a political necessity. And that goal is certainly what we Jews intend when we say, ‘Next Year in Jerusalem,’ next year in a world in which all forms of oppression and hatred have been eliminated.”
The Socialism of Fools is as much a manifesto—a call to action, with a suggested rule-set—as it is a treatise, and the subtitle (“Anti-Semitism on the Left”) suggests the object of Michael Lerner’s manifesto in no uncertain terms. But even for those of us who’ve lost most of our erstwhile fervor* for politics and political organizations, I think it quite a worthwhile read—and highly instructive on the history and current reality of anti-Semitism.
* As a former activist whose “erstwhile fervor” is now little more than a flickering flame in this American Presidential election year of 2016, I can only hope that Senator Bernie Sanders will succeed in disemboweling the political party establishment such that much of what Michael Lerner has written in The Socialism of Fools will begin to gain a real and incontrovertible foothold in American—and, ultimately, Western—society.
A vain hope?
RRB
30 May 2016
Brooklyn, NY
Displaying 1 of 1 review