Why Don't Jews Like Christians Who Like Them?

And interesting question indeed, asked by Dr. James Q.Wilson, a celebrated professor at Harvard and Pepperdine, a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a prominent evangelical.

In the United States, the two groups that most ardently support Israel are Jews and evangelical and fundamentalist Christians. Jewish support is easy to explain, but why should certain Christians, most of them politically quite conservative, be so devoted to Israel? There is a second puzzle: despite their support for a Jewish state, evangelical and fundamentalist Christians are disliked by many Jews. And a third: a large fraction of African-Americans are hostile to Israel and critical of Jews, yet Jewish voters regard blacks as their natural allies.

The evidence about evangelical attitudes is clear. In 2006, a Pew survey found that evangelical Christians were more favorable toward Israel than the average American was—and much more sympathetic than either mainline Protestants or secularists. In another survey, evangelical Christians proved much likelier than Catholics, Protestants, or secular types to back Israeli control of Jerusalem, endorse Israeli settlements on the West Bank, and take Israel’s side in a Middle Eastern dispute. (Among every religious group, those who are most traditional are most supportive of Israel. The most orthodox Catholics and Protestants, for instance, support Israel more than their modernist colleagues do.)

Evangelical Christians have a high opinion not just of the Jewish state but of Jews as people. That Jewish voters are overwhelmingly liberal doesn’t seem to bother evangelicals, despite their own conservative politics. Yet Jews don’t return the favor: in one Pew survey, 42 percent of Jewish respondents expressed hostility to evangelicals and fundamentalists. As two scholars from Baruch College have shown, a much smaller fraction—about 16 percent—of the American public has similarly antagonistic feelings toward Christian fundamentalists

I can sympathize with Dr. Wilson's puzzlement in his excellent and mostly accurate piece.

Here's the missing part of the puzzle.

For centuries, Jews were demonized and locked in ghettos in Europe (literally - the gates were often chained and guarded after dark). That ended with Napoleon, and as Jews for the first time experienced civil rights, a number of them decided that the best way to be `real Frenchmen' et al was to throw away their ancient culture and become totally secular. Many of them found out what a fallacy this was around the time of the Dreyfus case and the Chelminitsky Pogroms, but by then it was too late.

Some went back to traditional practice of their religion, especially in Eastern Europe. Many emigrated to places like the United States, Australia and South Africa.

Others took the Dreyfuss case and similar incidents as a clear sign that Jewish assimilation in Europe was a lost cause, among them a totally secular Jewish journalist from Vienna by the name of Theodore Herzl, who witnessed the French mobs in Paris howling 'Death to the Jews' during the Dreyfuss case, concluded that the Jew, the Eternal Stranger could only have self-determination in his own country and helped form the Zionist movement.

A third group, having already given all or most of their Jewishness in favor of assimilating ended up migrating to the Left, which promised an end to ALL religion - and thus would remove the stigma of being Jewish. They could, in a sense finally be 'normal' again in that milieu.

Prejudice over centuries can easily warp human beings into self-hatred. This can result in some strange twists in the human psyche.

While Jews were never treated with the kind of genocidal hatred here in America that they experienced in Europe, many of the Jews here in America who emigrated went through the same process, coming from the shtetls of Eastern Europe and experiencing normal life for the first time.

Again, some reveled in the opportunity to practice their traditions and culture. Others did exactly what some of their fore bearers in Europe did and dropped their traditional religion and culture with the idea of becoming 'real Americans.'

There was never the equivalent of a Dreyfuss case here in America, but there was enough classical anti-Semitism in the 1920's, `30's and `40's to make a substantial number of Jews identify with the Left, a process that was accelerated by Soviet penetration into various areas of American life. On the extreme end of that scale, many of the so-called Red Diaper Babies were Jews born into devoutly Leftwing and communist families who went on to indoctrinate their own children in 'the faith.' David Horowitz's book `Radical Son' is a superb examination of how this worked.

There's a spectrum here, of course, but many of the anti-Christian Jews Dr. Wilson is talking about remain ethnically Jewish, but are almost entirely divorced from their religion and have embraced a new one - leftwing politics.

As the Left has distanced itself from Israel, so have many of these Jews. And why not? Israel is no longer really part of their religion any longer. They are merely conforming with the tenets of their new faith as part of a broader anti-Americanism, although many of them would never admit to it as such. To get an understanding of how this works, imagine if Israel, instead of allying itself with the US had proceeded even further along the secular socialist path and allied itself with Russia. Were that the case, I guarantee you that the Left would have embraced Israel from the beginning, the dinosaur media would now be totally supportive of Israel and would not be running the pro-Arab garbage it does now, and Israel would be as celebrated in Hollywood as Cuba.

Given a choice between supporting Israel and supporting the Leftist agenda, it's no contest for these people.

Other Jews whom identify with the Left but still consider Israel important temporize and rationalize. They ignore the anti-Israel part of the Left's agenda so they can embrace the broader part of the agenda, especially if a Leftist politician is savvy enough to give them a few general statements or gestures that could be taken as pro-Israel. Or they co-opt it, embracing chimeras like Oslo even when their common sense revolts at the reality of what that means.

To many of these Jews, Christians are part of the Evil Right. They might even be *gasp!* Republicans and therefore must be shunned and vilified, no matter how philo-semitic they may be. Believe it or not this attitude doesn't merely extend to Christians but to religiously observant Jews and Jews with conservative political views as well . Screwy, I admit, but there it is.

Dr. Wilson and those like him will wait a very long time if they expect a significant amount of reciprocity from Jews on the Left for their support of Israel. They may take comfort in the satisfaction of doing the right thing and in the words of the prophet Isaiah and the Gospels. Righteousness still has some meaning, after all.

On the other hand, the situation may actually be improving. When one looks at the demographics, the Jewish population in the US has actually increased, and it is increasing in an interesting direction. While many secular leftist Jews are mostly having few children and intermarrying, religious Jewry has had something of a renaissance. It's the Orthodox and observant Jews who are expanding synagogues, funding Jewish day schools and most of all, having the kids. And as Dr. Wilson has no doubt observed personally, most of those Jews by no means shun Christians, but welcome them as people of faith and allies.

I would expect this trend to continue and even to accelerate, given the common threat both Jews and Christians face.