The Different Kinds of Jews
‘Settler Gothic:’ spoof of American
Gothic in Anti-Semitic Cartoon
Contest (cartoon: Avi Katz)
Photo Credit: Tikun Olam
Readers of my article Not All Jews Believe in God were informed that I consider myself a cultural Jew. Although I am not a member of the Society for Humanistic Judaism, I identify with many of their principles. Some may call me a secular Jew although I do not identify myself with the majority of secular Jews in America.
So how many different kinds of Jews are there?
At the least, there are two kinds of Jews: those who believe in God and those who do not.
Of those who believe in God, there are at least four kinds: Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, Orthodox Jews and those who do not identify themselves as any of the above.
Of those who do not believe in God there are at least two kinds: Jews who respect Jewish traditions and beliefs and identify with Jewish culture (as I do) and those who do not.
Then there are the Jews, who may or may not believe in God, but do not not respect Jewish values and beliefs. Evan Sayet calls them “The Plopping Jews,” (1) they are only Jewish because they plopped out of a Jewish womb.
These are the Jews who voted for Obama. These are the 78% of the American Jews who are blindly liberal, mostly anti-Semitic (yes, yes) and mostly anti-israel. I call them self-loathing Jews, and I even have a category of archives called Idiot Jews to contain them.
When I first arrived in Israel to study I learned quickly that if you put three Jews in a room they will form four political parties.
How many different kinds of Jews are there? How many do you want?
ENDNOTES
(1):
FrontPage Magazine, Why Jews Support the Democratic Party
But, to be called a Jew you don’t have to believe anything. To be called a Jew, all you have to do is plop out of a Jewish womb. Because these Jews – I’ll call them here “The Plopping Jews” – do not believe anything particularly Jewish. Indeed, there’s absolutely no reason to expect them to vote in a way that reflects Jewish values and beliefs. Since a Jewish person’s Judaism is not of his own choosing or a reflection of his beliefs, his Jewishness is nothing more than an accident of his birth. Therefore, to expect him to choose to support Jewish causes is actually a form of bigotry. People’s behaviors are predicated on their beliefs, not on the circumstances of their birth.
In fact, not only is there no reason to expect the Plopping Jew to support Jewish causes, one might even argue that the folks who Dennis Prager calls “Non-Jewish Jews” and are more generally known as “Secular Jews” (note that it is almost unheard of for someone to call themselves or be called “Secular Christians” or “Secular Muslims”) are less likely to support Jewish causes and to be antipathetic to Israel and other Jewish issues than are others since we can assume, having been born to a Jewish mother, they were at least exposed to Judaism and chose to reject it. Put simply, the Plopping Jew is more likely to be an anti-Semite than your average American.
