One of the more misunderstood ethnic groups in America is my own – the Ashkenazi, or the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe. Ashkenazi refers to the concept of ethnicity – not religiosity. For example, a person can be born to two or one parents of German or Russian Jewish origin, and totally forsake Judaism by becoming an atheist or communist, or even converting to another religion – and that person will nonetheless ethnically remain Ashkenazi. When I took my DNA test back in 2015, the readout indicated that I was not primarily Jewish, but rather “Ashkenazi.”
Recent genetic studies indicate predominant European origins in Ashkenazi mitrochondrial (the female line) DNA, causing demographers to postulate that during early Middle Ages Jewish merchants in frontier outposts took European pagan wives and raised the children as Jewish. As a result of this admixture, the Ashkenazi tend to have lighter skin, hair, and eyes than Sephardic (Spanish) and Mizrahi (Middle Eastern) Jews.
Having served in the military for 20 years and having often been the only soldier in my company or battalion with any measurable amount of Jewish ancestry, I was often asked two questions, “Why are Jews so smart?” and “Why are Jews so liberal?”
The first question is simple to answer but requires delicate handling. Since Christians were traditionally prohibited by the papacy from lending money and charging interest (usury), and Jews were prohibited from joining medieval trade guilds, the Ashkenazi became the only population group in human history whose members were shunted for centuries into white collar positions – money lending, banking, medicine, and commerce – requiring a measure of cognitive ability. Ashkenazi men who could not thrive in these fields, were culled from the DNA herd, so to speak. However, the results today are most impressive. Ashkenazi are less than 0.2% of the world’s population, yet their accomplishments in medicine, science, literature, and entertainment are undeniable and unparalleled. They have won Nobel Prizes in numbers that are astonishingly out of proportion to their relatively infinitesimal population. Ashkenazi are often world chess masters and their disproportionate presence at American top schools and research institutes is mind boggling. In Israeli, where Ashkenazi are only 50% of the population, they totally dominate the political, economic, and technological landscapes of the country as well.
Some of the greatest minds of the 20th Century – Albert Einstein, Edward Teller, Niels Bohr, Max Boren, Jonas Salk, J. Robert, Oppenheimer, and Sigmund Freud, were Ashkenazi. In entertainment, the Ashkenazi did not “take over Hollywood” as some anti-Semites proclaim, but rather CREATED and BUILT Hollywood. The great directors, producers, musical composers, and screenplay writers were often Ashkenazi. Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Lowe, Leonard Bernstein, creators of the greatest Broadway musicals ever, were – you guessed it – Ashkenazi.
The second question, “Why are Jews so liberal?” is more complicated. Compared to other white ethnic groups, who vote Democratic on average about 40% of the time, the Ashkenazi support for Democrats is often around 80%. Many of my non-Jewish friends are perplexed by this, given Ashkenazi affluence and accomplishments. I tell them the answer lies in three words – “history, history, and history.”
Having been persecuted and systematically discriminated for centuries by the Christian Church and the forces of ethno-nationalism, the Ashkenazi in Europe gravitated towards what they perceived to be the liberating policies of left-wing political movements. In France and England, it was Napoleon and English liberals who granted Jews basic political rights in the early 19thcentury, while conservatives were more likely to view the European Jews as “the other” to be constrained and excluded. Eventually, as we shall see, in the late 19th century some Ashkenazi concocted their own forces of liberation.
It has been said that where there is a capacity for great good in a people – greatness in science, medicine, technology, music, literature, entertainment, and philosophy – there is also a capacity for great evil. And as I will discuss in part two of this article, the are certainly no exception. Some of their members played a disproportionate role in concocting and unleashing the forces of economic and cultural Marxism – forces sadly, which some Ashkenazi in the 20th Century viewed not as enslavement, but as liberation. How wrong they were.
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I think this is a good article, and look forward to the second part. An article on Sephardi and their role in US history would also be of interest. As regards liberalism/leftism amongst US Ashkenazim, i have found David Horowitz to be very informative.
There are some anti-Semites on the right, but there are many more on the left in my experience. To me this makes little sense. Michael Savage espouses Paleocon themes with regularity, and there are also some Paleocons of Ashkenazi background such as Paul Gottfried, who has had a large,but underestimated influence. It is also worth noting that jews fought and died at a disproportionate rate for the Kaiser, and i think Jakob Schiff opposed US entry into WWI.
I’d like to see this “Understanding” series continue with, “Understanding the Establishment”. I would suggest that instead of Einstein at a black board, use a picture of a power company or drug company lobbyist wearing a mask, holding a gun on a sick or elderly person, telling them to “give me all your money or I’ll turn your lights off and take your healthcare away”.
Maybe have Trump, Speaker Ryan, and Mitch McConnel standing in the background smiling.
I would like to see one on understanding the white, christian, radical right. Especially how they(you) can complain when you run the world
We just had a black president for 8 years. Blue Virginia is down the hall on the left. Oh, and being far left or far right is what brings in the most money. I guess the center people don’t like to write checks…..
Are you out of your mind? The white Christian radical right does not run Hollywood or the national media. You libs are truly delusional. I am not being cute either. Those conservatives may be right when they say that liberalism is a mental disorder.
Are you blind? Deaf? Af course you don’t realize that you are the problem here. Why would you. You get everything you want and more. Stop trying to convert people to Christianity and claim that what privilege doesn’t exist. For once.
I’ll tell you what a mental order or delusion is;
1) Those who think paying nearly $1 BILLION everyday in interest on $20 TRILLION of debt is normal.
2) Those who think PAC’s and campaigns are not being funded by lobbyists with checkbooks bribing elected officials at all levels.
3) Those who think the establishment will ever let this country have affordable healthcare.
4) Those who believe anything anybody in the House, Senate, White House, or media tell you.
These are just a few.
Don’t forget that a large number of Ashkenazi were Russian and that the Tsars were anti-semitic. The Jews had hoped that the Communists would change that, so they sided with the Communists. Unfortunately many stayed Communist.
I prefer to use the term Ashkenazi vice Jew as there is nothing Jewish about Ashkenazi communists. The “Jews” did not side with the Communists. The Communist leaders were overwhelmingly Ashkenazi, as Putin here discusses. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pDtgWUtdUM
Oh yeah, Putin is a reliable source of information 🙁
I think when it comes to this, he knows what he is talking about.
Thanks for the nomenclature ‘lesson’. This helps to clarify WHY so many people get mad when we TRUTHFULLY say that Mary and Joseph – and therefore, genetically certainly Jesus of Nazareth – were NOT WHITE, but rather brown(ish) skin, perhaps dark brown, dark eyes, dark kinky hair, including their pubes (oooh! … you KNOW that racist White People go ‘OOOOH!’ when they see kinky dark pubes in the urinal or toilet). SO MANY White People resist this truth-telling. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus were ANCIENT MIDDLE EASTERN HEBREW ISRAELITES, they were NOT WHITE People, NOT Henry Kissinger, NOT Leonard Bernstein, NOT the ‘White’ Jewish ladies in your garden club, etc. THE HOLY FAMILY were the same sort of people so many White People loathe and want out of the country.
The last thing I believe Jesus would want is for his followers to argue over his ethnic features. But here is a little bit of Anthropology 101 for you. All whites are Caucasian – but not all Caucasians are white. Just as there is a great variety of skin color and hair texture among the East Asian population groups with Koreans being considerably darker than Laotians and Philippinos, but nonetheless the same race, Europeans and the vast majority of Semitic peoples are Caucasian. Capish, Paisan?
Thank you, but, certainly, you KNOW that individual, social, and community ‘eyeball’ analysis of race considers phenotype (the ‘look’ of skin color, type of hair, language, etc). rather than genotype (designation as ‘Caucasian’). Since it is likely that the Holy Family would ‘look like coloreds’ to a plurality of any large general audience of Virginians, they would be treated like ‘coloreds’. We in Virginia have 400 years of practice ‘seeing’ and behaving and controlling people in that way. If the Holy Family had been born in Virginia where might they have fled to keep Jesus alive and away from the racist massacres of chattel slavery, ‘Jim Crow’, Massive Resistance, mass incarceration/felonization/deprivation of civil/voting rights?
I deal in science and not “eyeball analysis.” The ancient Jews were not black Africans like the delusional Afro-centrists contend. I know your game and your Jedi white guilt mind tricks will not work on me. This is not college where Afro-centrists get to bully everyone else. This is the public arena where truth matters – not wishful thinking or guilt mongering. And by the way, I have seen ancient frescos of blue eyed Semites. They were Caucasian and not “coloreds.” That designation was reserved to those of black African ancestry and those of mixed black African and European ancestry. BTW, here is a little clip highlighting the Mizrahim in Israel. They don’t look “colored” to me. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAakeI0ftIg
Chew on this as you meander around sociology and anthropology of what it means to be ‘colored’ or ‘White’:
Very early immigrant Irish were considered ‘coloreds’ in America in a White Supremacist system established primarily by English standards. Of course the Irish knew how abusive and oppressive the English were to the Irish and hoped to get away from that. A shame that the Irish decided to ‘become White’ and adopt White Supremacist ideology.
”
Irish and Africans Americans had lots in common and lots of contact during this period; they lived side by side and shared work spaces. In the early years of immigration the poor Irish and blacks were thrown together, very much part of the same class competing for the same jobs. In the census of 1850, the term mulatto appears for the first time due primarily to inter-marriage between Irish and African Americans. The Irish were often referred to as “Negroes turned inside out and Negroes as smoked Irish.” A famous quip of the time attributed to a black man went something like this: “My master is a great tyrant, he treats me like a common Irishman.” Free blacks and Irish were viewed by the Nativists as related, somehow similar, performing the same tasks in society. It was felt that if amalgamation between the races was to happen, it would happen between Irish and blacks. But, ultimately, the Irish made the decision to embrace whiteness, thus becoming part of the system which dominated and oppressed blacks. Although it contradicted their experience back home, it meant freedom here since blackness meant slavery.
“
Again, ENV, I deal with SCIENCE – not the perceptions of the 17th Century English. The Irish “embraced whiteness” because they are were white. Like all good Marxists, you are fixated on class warfare.
Not at all. I am not AT ALL concerned about class. I’ve known delightful wealthy and delightful poor, awful poor and awful wealthy. To spin your phrase: LIKE ALL GOOD CHRISTIANS, I AM FIXED on routing SATAN and all SATANIC powers that ‘corrupt and destroy the creatures of God’ (as is stated in the Baptismal Covenant of all Christians coming to baptism, in the Book of Common Prayer). IF YOU, if a government, if a corporation, if a law, etc is trying to ‘corrupt and destroy the creatures of God’ … God has judged it and Christians must confront it.
I suggest you do a bit of studying when it comes to history. The mid-east, and the areas around Egypt, Israel, and Jordan were constantly at war with tribes from Europe, lower Africa, and Persia. Interracial mixing was constant and continued with the islamic facilitated slave trade. The lower African tribal slave trade involved mainly blacks but upwards of three quarters of white European migrants to America were indentured slaves.
HELLO, FAKE NEWS! …. there was no Islam in the time of the Holy Family.
I am saddened by your inability to comprehend what you read. I suggest you have a neurological work up including MRI.
oh, so will Trumpcare pay for that? …
he promised a health care reform that EVERY AMERICAN WOULD LOVE, WITHOUT ANY CHANGES THAT WOULD HURT ANYONE. AND EVERYONE – EVERY AMERICAN! – would have coverage. Every MEANS ‘EVERY’. HE PROMISED THAT WE WOULD ALL ‘LOVE IT!” …. that it would be as golden as the golden fixtures in Trump Tower. But it seems that his promises are ‘golden’ – not like the precious metal – but ‘golden’ like the nasty shower he allegedly had with the Russian whores. Wonder if he was grabbing their p-words while they were p-ing?
SO, will Trumpcare pay for that?
It will pay for dementia and other neurological diseases. It should not pay for your condorms or birth control. See, that is real healthcare with real health issues.
Hmm. If so many white people loathe non-white people as you claim, then how come a very white country in 1965 threw its borders open to predominantly non-white people? Answer that one genius. And by the way, what do you know about the immigration polices of our non-white neighbors and allies, such as Mexico and Japan? Did you know that it is just about impossible for a YOUNG white couple to take up permanent residence in Mexico and that the Mexican constitution explicitly states an immigration policy based on race?
let’s see …. what does the Encyclopedia of Virginia tell us about 1965:
QUOTE
Not until 1964 did a U.S. Supreme Court ruling finally reopen the public schools in Prince Edward County. In the state as a whole, school desegregation proceeded at a very slow pace for almost a decade after the state officially dropped Massive Resistance. Only after the 1968 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Green et al. v. County School Board of New Kent County, Virginia, overturned the “freedom of choice” plan did large-scale desegregation take place.
UNQUOTE
So, it seems that HISTORICAL FACTS tell a story of a highly racist, segregated – and violently, oppressively racist Virginia at that! – around 1965.
And that old ‘straw man’, ‘paper tiger’ sleight ot hand – ‘look over there!’ …. that is to seduce foolish gullible people with weak minds. DEAL with what’s at home, in Virginia. IF you move to Mexico, then you DEAL with their racism. If you move to Japan, then you DEAL with their racism. You DEAL with this place where you live, if you are not a coward.
By 1965 segregation was on its way out and massive non-white immigration was on its way in. But we will take this up some other time. This article is about Ashkenazi, and shame on me for allowing you to divert away from that. But then again, racists like you always inject race into an argument. BTW, according to FBI stats blacks commit far more hate crimes (24%) than their percentage in the population (13%). “Physician” heal thyself.
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Jews in Israel do not feel the pressure to be the flaming liberals that they do here in the U.S. in order not to offend anyone. There politics runs the gamut from ultra-conservative to socialist, and with everything in between, and Bibi Netanyahu has been reelected multiple times as PM.
I appreciate this writer’s nice
column, as I am a Republican Jew. MY
THEORY ON WHY JEWS ARE LIBERALS: It hearkens back to the days of
oppression in Europe and rampant discrimination, and all too many of our
brethren were captivated by Marxism and socialist ideals. They escaped
from monarchies and reactionary governments like Czarist Russia and came
to America, where the control of the rabbis in the shtetl was broken and
we were now in a free nation, whose Constitution guaranteed our rights to
practice our religion and speak freely, but did not yield the “gold on the
streets” we were promised. Like other European ethnic groups, we felt
taken advantaged of by the shop stewards and slum lords and saw in the
progressive, labor and socialist movements a means to achieve greater
freedom and acceptance. As if constitutional democracy was not
sufficient. I guess we’re just a
bunch of complainers! So, like the other lower class ethnic groups, we
supported the Democrats and FDR, in particular, despite the fact he did
little to save millions of European Jews from extinction. But the die was
cast with the Rosenberg case and McCarthyism. That pretty much killed Republican
chances to get Jewish votes — even though it was a Jewish judge that
sentence the spies to death. Even
having a half-Jew on the presidential ballot in 1964 _- Goldwater – we did
not vote for him. Reagan managed to get 36% of the Jewish
vote in 1984, according to exit polls, but because of the Republican Party’s
growing embrace of Christian conservative causes (notably anti-abortion)
we started to drift more and more to the Democrats. . Because Jewish discomfort with
hard-core Christians, and reliving the stories we heard from our
grandparents about Christian oppression in Europe, a large number of American Jews see a Nazi or Skinhead
behind every Evangelical – which is so ironic since Evangelicals and
Republicans are so pro Israel. But
As we went up the economic ladder, we assimilated and started dropping our
religion. Today, I think fewer than 40% of jews are members of a
synagogue. Unlike other European ethnic groups, we remained liberal even
if it meant voting against our best interests (i.e. supporting israeli
security and not having our hard
earned money thrown away by government). Warmac9999 makes good points! Norman Podhoretz wrote a book
“Why are Jews Liberal? ” and he basically said that liberalism has
replaced Judaism as the religion of the Jews, and he’s right. He feels it
has nothing to do with Tikkun Olam (heal the world) or Tsedakah (our
tradition of being charitable). Reform, Reconstructionist and some
Conservative synagogues have turned almost every service into a means to
rally the troops around whatever liberal cause is de jure – -LGBT being
the most recent – just to keep folks as members. I look forward to Mark’s
Part II. It’s an important topic to discuss among Republicans as we are the Pro Jewish Party.
It sounds like the ashkenazi are stuck in the past and incapable of the intellectual honesty and flexibility needed in the rapidly changing modern world. They have allied themselves with global totalitarian forces, and said forces will eventually destroy them. I look forward to part two to see if there is real hope of change.
My dear Warmac. The Ashkenazi have not allied themselves with global totalitarian forces – many Ashkenazi helped to create them.
I appreciate this writer as there are so few Jews who are Republicans, me being among them! He answered the 2 questions in a nutshell. Yes, Jews do vote overwhelmingly for Democrats, even if there is a Republican on the ballot who is “palatable” to them. MY THEORY ON WHY JEWS ARE LIBERALS: It hearkens back to the days of oppression in Europe and rampant discrimination, and all too many of our brethren were captivated by Marxism and socialist ideals. They escaped from monarchies and reactionary governments like Czarist Russia and came to America, where the control of the rabbis in the shtetl was broken and we were now in a free nation, whose Constitution guaranteed our rights to practice our religion, but did not yield the “gold on the streets” we were promised. Like other European ethnic groups, we felt taken advantaged of by the shop stewards and slum lords and saw in the progressive, labor and socialist movements a means to achieve greater freedom and acceptance. We supported the Democrats and FDR, in particular, despite the fact he did little to save millions of European Jews from extinction. But the die was cast and we turned increasingly hostile toward Republicans. The Rosenberg case and McCarthyism pretty much killed Republican chances to get Jewish votes — even though it was a Jewish judge that sentence the spies to death. The GOP’s embrace of christian conservaive groups in the 1980s sealed it – -despite the fact these groups are so gung ho Israel and pro Jewish, and do not kill Jews or advocate our destruction the way Muslims do. Unfortunately, all-too-many American Jews still live with the :”bubbe meises” (grandmother’s stories) of how Christians oppressed us that they see a Nazi or skinhead behind every evangelical. As we went up the economic ladder, we assimilated and started dropping our religion. Today, I think fewer than 40% of jews are members of a synagogue. Unlike other European ethnic groups, we remained liberal even if it meant voting against our best interests (i.e. supporting israeli security, a fair tax system and not having our hard earned money thrown away by government). Norman Podhoretz wrote a book “Why are Jews Liberal? ” and he basically said that liberalism has replaced Judaism as the religion of the Jews, and he’s right. He feels it has nothing to do with Tikkun Olam (heal the world) and our tradition of being charitable. Reform, Reconstructionist and some Conservative synagogues have turned almost every service into a means to rally the troops around whatever liberal cause is de jure – -LGBT being the most recent. I look forward to Mark’s Part II. It’s an important topic to discuss among Republicans who are now the pro-Israel pro Jewish political party, that gets no credit or votes from Jewish voters we;re going to bat for. Well, that’s politics.
Um.. Following..