{"id":34484,"date":"2011-09-21T17:15:34","date_gmt":"2011-09-21T17:15:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=34484"},"modified":"2011-09-23T08:38:49","modified_gmt":"2011-09-23T08:38:49","slug":"progressive-choseness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=34484","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Choseness"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 style=\"text-align: center;\">Gilad Atzmon \u2013 gilad.co.uk September 21, 2011<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/kol-hadash-humanistic-congregation\/id395436465\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Some Palestinian solidarity campaigners are excited this morning about Rabbi Eric Yoffie&#8217;s\u00a0pearls of wisdom.\u00a0The outgoing President of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote in a\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/rabbibrant.com\/2011\/09\/20\/rabbi-eric-yoffie-i-prefer-to-live-with-jews\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">recent blog post for the Jerusalem Post<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cI care about humankind,\u00a0<strong>but I love my own group a bit more. I am more comfortable with them.<\/strong>\u00a0I care more about them, just as I care more about my family than other families.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">People who understand the full extent of\u00a0Jewish tribalism shouldn\u2019t be taken by surprise.\u00a0Rabbi Yoffie is genuine and coherent. Consequently, his support of The Two State solution is consistent with his Jewish belief system.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cWithout a two-state solution.\u201d Says Rabbi Yoffie, \u201cIsrael will not longer be a state for my group; it will be a bi-national state without a clear Jewish identity. That is not the kind of place where I, or most Israeli Jews, will want to live.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">As a supporter of the One State Solution I myself explored this exact issue at the Stuttgart One Democratic State Conference last year.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><object classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/MlvaN2c-Oto?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><embed type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/MlvaN2c-Oto?version=3&amp;hl=en_GB&amp;rel=0\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\"><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MlvaN2c-Oto\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MlvaN2c-Oto<\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Needless to say, that the five German \u2018progressive\u2019 Jews who attended the\u00a0 conference insisted on my removal from the Conference\u2019s protocol.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">I believe that truth must be said &#8211; there is a clear unfortunate discrepancy between Jewish Ideology and the One State Solution. This discrepancy must be addressed rather than be swept under the carpet.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Sadly enough, Judeo centrism and racial orientation is inherent to any form of Jewish political setting. It isn\u2019t just the Zionists,\u00a0 Israelis and the odd Rabbi who wants to live in a mono-cultural ghetto.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">The Jewish Left follows exactly the same problematic\u00a0mantra. J-BIG,\u00a0for instance, is a UK\u00a0 \u2018Jews only\u2019 Israeli boycott\u00a0campaign.\u00a0 For some reason they operate as a Judeo-centric\u00a0 segregated\u00a0group\u00a0apart from\u00a0the general BDS movement.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ijsn.net\/home\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">The International Jewish Anti Zionist Network (IJAN)<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/strong>would\u00a0also take into their\u00a0ranks activist<strong>s\u00a0<\/strong>who are ethnically\u00a0and racially qualified. Like Rabbi Yoffie they claim to care about humankind, but somehow, they probably\u00a0\u2018love their own group a bit more.\u2019\u00a0 They are just slightly \u2018more comfortable with them\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">A few months ago, the progressive blogger\u00a0Philip Weiss\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gilad.co.uk\/writings\/gilad-atzmon-jews-their-self-interest-an-interview-with-phil.html\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">wrote to me<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">:\u00a0 \u201cI believe that\u00a0all people act out of self-interest. And Jews who define themselves at some level as Jews &#8212; like myself for instance\u00a0<strong>&#8212; are concerned with a Jewish self-interest<\/strong>. Which in my case is: an end to Zionism.\u00a0\u00a0<strong>A theory of political life based on altruism or concern for victims purely is doomed to fail.<\/strong>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Philip Weiss and Rabbi Yoffie must agree then. Rabbi Yoffie cares more about his people just as he \u2018cares more about his family than other families\u2019, Weiss seems to be slightly more succinct, he actually explores the true meaning of Jewish non-altruistic political existence.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">So here we are, many Jews believe in Zionism, a few\u00a0Jews believe that Zionism is actually \u2018bad\u00a0for the Jews\u2019 (as opposed\u00a0to bad for humanity or the Palestinians).\u00a0 But all Jews who identify themselves politically\u00a0 as Jews act out of \u2018Jewish self interests. They all prefer to operate in \u2018Jews only cells\u2019 \u00a0I guess that this is the true practical meaning of \u2018choseness\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">As it stands, universalism, humanism and altruism are still\u00a0foreign to Jewish culture and\u00a0Jewish political thinking. Those amongst\u00a0us who dream of peace in the Middle East\u00a0better address\u00a0this crucial issue and find an adequate solution. As far as I can tell, this is a grave problem.\u00a0Also, as long as progressive Jews keep\u00a0 operating\u00a0 in \u2018Jews only\u2019\u00a0 political cells, they won\u2019t be part of a solution but just another aspect of the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gilad.co.uk\/writings\/gilad-atzmon-progressive-choseness.html\">Source<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #c0c0c0;\">Gilad Atzmon\u2019s New Book is available on <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Wandering-Who-Gilad-Atzmon\/dp\/1846948754\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1312891740&amp;sr=8-1\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Amazon.com <\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u00a0or <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.co.uk\/Wandering-Who-Jewish-Identity-Politics\/dp\/1846948754\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1312891884&amp;sr=8-1\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Amazon.co.uk<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It isn\u2019t just the Zionists,  Israelis and the odd Rabbi who wants to live in a mono-cultural ghetto<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34484"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34484\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34577,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34484\/revisions\/34577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}