Zydokomuna are Real Jews Biale

Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought, by David Biale. 2010

The Commonly-Condemned Polish Cardinal August Hlond Was Right About Jews and Freethought

This book presents a good overview of its intended subject.

SECULAR AND ATHEIST JEWS ARE FULLY JEWS

The author cites the “non-Jewish Jew”, Polish Jew Isaac Deutscher, and his heroes: Spinoza, Heine, Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Trotsky, and Freud. Like Deutscher, Biale sees these Jews as connected to the tradition they had rejected–a sort of alternative Jewish identity. (p. 1). So let us hear no more exculpatory nonsense about Jewish Communists (Zydokomuna) being “not really Jews.”

JUDAISM IS TAILOR-MADE FOR THE REJECTION OF GOD

To Biale, a descendant of Polish Jews, secularism does not necessarily mean atheism. Belief in God can be retained while stripping God of his Biblical personality and authority. (p. 15). According to Biale, Judaism emphasizes orthopraxy (correct practice) over orthodoxy (correct belief), and the Jewish concept of God, unlike its Christian counterpart, is not heavily endowed with dogma. This, according to the author, makes it easier to imagine a world without Him. (p. 15; see also p. 103).

THE JEWISH FLIGHT FROM GOD: A SHORT HISTORY

Maimonides and Spinoza are credited with anticipating the later rationalistic and allegorical view of the Bible, especially when it conflicted with science. Instead of abandoned as outdated and mythological, the Bible eventually became transformed into a Jewish cultural icon. Spinoza is reckoned a pantheist, although he seemed to believe that God, although in no sense like the God of the Bible, was something more than just a personification of the universe. (p. 43). Albert Einstein’s view was similar, which made him neither a theist (in the traditional sense), nor a crude materialist. (p. 43).

The author devotes much attention to Zionism, and its creation and reinforcement of a secular Jewish identity. Many Zionist personages and their philosophies are elaborated.

NATURE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

On another subject, Joseph Hayim Brenner was a militantly secular Jew who lived in Palestine before being murdered by the Arabs in 1921. Unlike those who consider anti-Semitism necessarily irrational, Brenner did not. Biale comments: “Brenner goes so far as to express understanding for anti-Semites who accuse the Jews of using blood for ritual purposes…Brenner argues that the accusation is not the cause of anti-Semitism but its result. Hatred of the Jews is a response to their foreignness and to their negative qualities, particularly their economic behavior.” (p. 160).

NO BLACK AND WHITE IN JEWISH-CHRISTIAN HISTORY

Chaim Zhitlovsky (1865-1943) was a very interesting Russian Jew. The author identified him as “one of the leading ideologues of the secular Yiddishist movement.” (p. 163). Zhitlovsky supported the premise that Christian-Jewish antagonisms went both ways. Biale thus characterizes Zhitlovsky: “Since Enlightenment universalism was the secular product of Western Christian culture, Jews must overcome their instinctive hatred of Christianity if they wish to join the modern world. The paradoxical path to Jewish secularization led through the Christian religion, not by conversion but by renouncing the Jewish religion’s teaching of contempt. Yet, by reclaiming Jesus as one of their own, the Jews might argue that their culture was a key source for Western civilization.” (p. 163).

WHO QUALIFIES AS A JEW?

Unlike contemporary Judaism and the State of Israel, which deny Jews for Jesus and other Jesus-believing Jews as valid Jews, Zhitlovsky did not. His Sukkot big-tent concept of Judaism envisioned an inclusion of Orthodox Jews, atheist Jews, Spinoza-style pantheistic Jews, Islamic Jews, and Christian Jews. (p. 167, 192).

POLISH CARDINAL AUGUST HLOND WAS CORRECT

The author focuses on eminent Jews, and spends little time on secularism amidst everyday Jews. However, he remarks, “That Jews throughout the world today are disproportionately more secular than their Gentile neighbors in all of the ways articulated in this book is one piece of evidence of the ongoing nature of this legacy.” (p. 181). In addition: “The majority of Jews in the world today are, in some sense, secular. They either doubt the existence of God or consider the question superfluous.” (p. 192). [Were he alive today, would Polish Cardinal August Hlond feel vindicated for his much-maligned 1936 “Jews are freethinkers” statement?]

THE SHOAH AND MODERN JEWISH SELF-IDENTITY

What about the cult of the Holocaust? Biale agrees with those who suggest that the Holocaust has become a kind of secular religion among American Jews. (p. 189).