States of Exile

1918 – Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, left, and Emir Faisal I of Iraq. See: Faisal-Weizmann Agreement . We feel that the Arabs and Jews are cousins in race, having suffered similar oppressions at the hands of powers stronger than themselves, and by a happy coincidence have been able to take the first step towards the attainment of their national ideals together. - Emir Faisal I of Iraq, letter to Felix Frankfurter, President of the Zionist Organisation of America In a post entitled The Impotence of the Pan-Semitic Front , Jeffrey Goldberg writes: It turns out that the Jewish lobby wasn't even the main lobby working to bring about an attack on Iran. It was, according to the treasure trove of State Department cables released by Wikileaks, the Arab lobby -- whose lead lobbyist is, by the way, the King of Saudi Arabia (which is a big job, since he's also in charge of the world's oil supply) -- that was at the forefront of an intensive, even ferocious, anti-Iran lobbying effort.

I recently uncovered a Facebook group called Aryan Jews . Very provocative title, although it is really just a group for Persian, Bukharan, Kurdish and other Central Asian Jews. Iran does indeed mean "Land of the Aryans," and Iranian Jews tend to look very much like their classically Aryan countrymen. See for instance Persia Pele , Iranian-Jewish porn star (note Hebrew tattoo): Are Semites and Aryans so different after all? I once read the two countries with the highest rates of nose jobs are Israel and Iran. I'd like to make Ashkenazi-Semitic-Aryan Jewish children with Persia Pele.

The Viennese press, noting that his original first name, Samuel, was a favorite among Jews, and that his nose was rather large and crooked, dubbed him der Jude Mark Twain . - Michael Oren, Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to Present

Even when the land is conquered and settled, it is unsettled from within by prophetic threats of exile aimed at a people that prefers to steep itself in nativity. - Zali Gurevitch, "The Double Site of Israel" Kevin MacDonald is right, to a point. Israel invented "the culture of critique" by canonizing the words of the prophets. Yet the prophets critiqued Israel itself . And their critique is the ferment that ensures its survival.

Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? - Jeremiah 13:23 Are American Jews responsible for alleviating the plight of poor inner city blacks? David Simon thinks so . Appearing just after a major speech by Vice President Joe Biden at the opening plenary Nov. 7, Simon, best known for his graphic depictions of crime and poverty in prime-time network shows like “Homicide,” “The Wire” and “Treme,” made a plea for more Jewish philanthropic dollars to go toward poor blacks in major urban areas suffering from what he called “a Holocaust in slow motion” of neglect. Racism is opposed to the theology (mythology if you will) of Judaism, according to which Shem (Semites), Japeth (Indo-Europeans) and Ham (Africans) are brothers. Yet is Simon's way helpful to the beleaguered sons of Ham? Philanthropy of the kind Simon is proposing only breeds resentment and an unhealthy cycle of dependency. A better way to help the sons of Ham would be to open the door to converts. Rapper Shyne

Like all nations at the lowest step of civilisation, the Jews gave expression to their thought and feeling merely through the medium of song and poesy; their language remained always to the end of their power in the state most convenient to the poet, highly figurative and vague. - Johann Gottfried Eichhorn, Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament Often to pass the time on board, the crew will catch an albatross, one of those big birds which nonchalently chaperone a ship across the bitter fathoms of the sea. Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space, as if embarrassed by its clumsiness, pitiably lets its great white wings drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars. How weak and awkward, even comical this traveller but lately so adoit - one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak, another mocks the cripple that once flew! The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds riding the storm above the marksman's range; exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered, he cannot walk because

Of all the extreme fanaticism which plays havoc in man’s nature, there is not one as irrational as anti-Semitism. . . . If the Jews are rich [these fanatics] are victims of theft. If they are poor, they are victims of ridicule. If they take sides in a war, it is because they wish to take advantage from the spilling of non-Jewish blood. If they espouse peace, it is because they are scared by their natures or traitors. If the Jew dwells in a foreign land he is persecuted and expelled. If he wishes to return to his own land, he is prevented from doing so. - Lloyd George, British statesman, 1923 Tim Wise is a self-made strawman adept at the art of Chillul Hashem . I do not like the man's views, but he is allowed to consider himself Jewish, as do the Black Hebrews and the Christian Identity movement. Halakhically, however, he is not Jewish. Racially, which is the definition the Judeo-obsessives focus on , he is half-Jewish. Yet weirdly enough, his Scottish background does not get thrown

To be a Christian is to not be alone, no matter the solitude that surrounds us. - Nicolás Gómez Dávila To be a Jew is to be alone, no matter the babel that surrounds us.

Adam Kirsch reviews The Jews of San Nicandro in Tablet Magazine: According to Davis, a professor of Italian history at the University of Connecticut, the Jews of San Nicandro represent “the only case of collective conversion to Judaism in Europe in modern times.” . . . What Manduzio read in the Old Testament amazed him. He became convinced “that Jesus had been a prophet but not the Messiah” and that the fallen state of the world—so full of poverty and suffering—was proof that the Messiah had not yet arrived. When he read that God had established the Sabbath on Saturday, he could not understand why Christians celebrated it on Sunday. Salvation, he now decided, “lay in following the Law of the God of Israel as it had been given to Moses on Sinai. … Those seeking salvation and comfort must therefore learn to observe the Law of the God of Moses, forsaking other gods and idols, and following the path of the righteous.” This is exactly the kind of conversion experience that led so many Pro

You will know them because they know more about the Jewish religion than you do. As soon as you meet one of those, and think, by God they’ve got a lot of quotations, by God they know everything about Jews—then that’s what they are. And what cheers me about all this, is that your true anti-Semite, like your true Holocaust denier, is doomed to a kind of Dante-esque hell of living among Jewish things, Jewish books, Jewish artifacts. You can see them in the library, they’ve got the Talmud up here, and they’re burrowing away to find more and more evidence against the Jews. Few Jews live a more perfect scholarly Jewish life. - Howard Jacobson, Denying Israel's Deniers I despise anti-Semitism. A cursory overview of the blog should make that clear. Yet I confess my encounter with anti-Semites on the Internet, more than any Hebrew school lesson or summer camp experience, has encouraged my exploration of Jewish identity. Kabbalah teaches there are sparks of the divine even in ugliness. There

The enemies of Gnosis were and are triumphant, but only in the organizational and political sense. Historically they [Babylon, Rome] seem to have won, but all victories over the spirit remain forever equivocal, and the spark or deepest self is never quite snuffed out. - Harold Bloom, Omens of the Millennium The history of the Jewish people is God's metaphor for Gnosis.