Kevin MacDonald and the Politics of WASP Resentment

My work has been embraced by Kevin MacDonald, a UC-Long Beach prof of psychology who has become controversial for his views of Jews. On his blog, MacDonald writes of my recent post on the Jewish presence in the establishment:

Jews won the culture war without a shot being fired and without the losing side seeming to realize that it was a war with real winners and real losers — where the losers have not only given up their cultural preeminence, but have failed to stand up to the ultimate denouement: demographic displacement from lands they had controlled for centuries. The new elite retains its outsider feelings toward their new subjects — a hostile elite in the United States as it was in the Soviet Union.

...Weiss seems to feel a twinge of guilt about the role of Jews as victors in the culture war — guilt stemming from his understanding that the new elite has some very glaring moral failings of its own, including its own brand of ethnocentrism that seems far deeper than anything imagined by the WASPs.   

The danger for Jews is that non-Jews will come to realize the deep wellsprings of Jewish ethnocentrism and see Jewish involvement in the displacement of European-descended peoples as resulting from ethnic conflict over the construction of culture. Ultimately, Europeans may come to realize that the conflict is really about the ethnic displacement of themselves as a people.

Speaking for myself, it would be difficult for me not to have developed something of a sense of my peoplehood after delving into the 2000-year history of Jews who were intensely concerned about preserving their people and their culture. As I’ve come to realize, preserving one’s people and culture is a virtual human universal.

I find a lot of what MacDonald has said elsewhere bracing and bold. He is alive to important sociological trends that few people are talking about out loud. When he speaks, feelingly, of the displacement of WASPs, he is giving voice to a declension and hurt that I've seen even in gentile friends of mine, and that is rarely expressed. He understands how important Jewish history is to this moment in world and U.S. history. He is concerned about Palestinian human rights and the Israel lobby's astonishing ability to remove Palestinian suffering from the American discourse. Still, in the end I reject the embrace.

What's troubling about MacDonald is that he's a racialist. Everything he says always goes back to immutable racial categories. Thus the existence of the Jewish state doesn't provoke him  to look for a more idealistic social model, no it rationalizes for him a WASP ethnocentrism. Everyone in their own ethnic corner. Stay there. All that talk of European-descended peoples in the above passage. The very ethnocentrism I found stifling in my own Jewish cultural milieu and stifling too when I encountered the WASP version at my college. He's a racialist too in that he seems always to reduce Jewish personality to certain traits. I even agree somewhat about some of these traits. For instance, I read in one of his essays that Jews are "psychologically intense." Well I'm psychologically intense, my brother is psychologically intense. But my sister isn't. Maybe it's a real tendency but it feels vague and a little vicious. Then there's his rap on Jewish ethnocentrism. I agree that Jews tend to be ethnocentric. As an assimilationist Jew, I am intensely aware of this trait. The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today's America (even Jews agree, in opinion surveys; and mad Joe Lieberman lied about these laws when he ran for president 8 years ago). As Norman Mailer observed to the American Conservative, post-Holocaust Jews are fixated on the question, "Is it good for the Jews?" Pure ethnocentrism, and grotesque-- when you consider the cultural and political power Jews have achieved in the U.S.

The problem with MacDonald's formulations, though, is that he seems to hoot (I say "seems" because I've just skimmed a few of his statements) at the idea of Jewish suffering, seems to overlook the tremendous impact of the Holocaust on Jewish life. Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet, once said that it took seven generations to overcome great historical grievances.  I'm sure I'm misremembering his lines. But the trauma of having nearly half your people wiped out--is there any empathy for the effects of that in MacDonald?

MacDonald and I agree that the reality of America today is one where Jews are incredibly empowered. And yes I feel Jewish guilt over this, especially after what the neocons did to Iraq. I am nauseated by a lot of the ways of the meritocratic establishment-- as I was nauseated by the gentile one before it. I am nauseated by the materialism that has taken over Jewish American culture, and its dehumanization of Arabs. But why does MacDonald describe America's as a Jewish establishment? This is crude and likely wrong. It's a mixed establishment, with Jews in many prominent roles. There's no precision in his statements.

More important, MacDonald's racialism removes the possibility that people can change their team, or that teams can change their character. I'm much more hopeful on this score. Cultures and tribes are changing all the time. The WASPs are a lot more attractive now, for instance, than when they were on top. They seem less materialistic, they run environmental groups, etc. I think my people are changing too. If we're so ethnocentric, then how come 62 percent of Jews under 35 are intermarrying? There's a universalist strain among young Jews that is getting deeper and wider all the time. Real events shaped the outlook and emotions of my parents' and grandparents' generation--including Russian shtetl and Holocaust. And real events--privilege and influence--will shape the outlook of the best of the next generation. 

 

Comments

[Chris]

Great post. Kevin Macdonald is an individual I am unsure how to talk about. I think that Philip Weiss's response in this blog posting and his general synthesis/cross cultural approach is a good one.

BTW did anyone catch Pat Robertson blaming recent bad weather on the Bush Administration's failure to please Israel?

http://wonkette.com/335474/just-dont-look-him-in-the-eye

[David the First]

Too important a post for a quick response, so I'll just mention a coincidence that caught my eye--

"Ultimately, Europeans may come to realize that the conflict is really about the ethnic displacement of themselves as a people."

It's interesting that this is exactly the way the necons (from Bernard Lewis up to and including Thomas Friedman) think of Islam.

So in this way MacDonald shares the same core assumption as his subjects -- that the human journey is a zero sum game (as a very wise monkey once said).

[Richard Witty]

"Jews won the culture war"???

Can you start a valid argument with a statement like that?

[anon]

Well, I suppose we can have different definitions of culture, Richard. But can you name a Hollywood movie studio which is not Jewish-run? Or a TV news network? Or a book publishing house? Or a national newspaper? Magazine? An ivy-league college without a Jewish president?

There might be one or two of each, but not more.

[cogit8]

Philip is to be commended for bringing the name of Prof. MacDonald into his discussion.

All of the participants in this discussion can be accused of 'having a fixation' with the topic of "The Jewing of America". [Not a book title you will see at Borders.]

And with good and proper reason: if the Jews succeed in provoking an immoral attack on Iran, everyone in the world will suffer for it.

On the other hand, the Iranians could stoop to the level of our moral turpitude and decide to make preemptive war on Israel. It would be a comensurate response to paranoid Jewish war-mongering and Jewish exceptionalism.

[Gene]

The culture war is over and the gentiles have lost. All we're doing now is burying the dead.

[Tony Lawless]

Why don't you read the trilogy? That way, you would know what you are talking about. I suspect you will end up thinking that MacDonald is a very important, even if very unsettling, thinker.

By the way, when you say that "The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today's America", you betray your continuing ethnocentrism. It doesn't "smack" of racism; it IS racism.

[Samarkand]

anon said:

"But can you name ... (an) ivy-league college without a Jewish president? There might be one or two of each, but not more."

Wrong. There are eight Ivy League schools. At the most there are likely three Jewish Ivy League presidents.

Brown = gentile
Columbia = gentile
Cornell = ?
Dartmouth = gentile
Harvard = gentile
Princeton = gentile
Penn = Jewish
Yale = Jewish

[Richard Witty]

I too got a post booted.

What difference does it make how many Jewish Ivy League presidents there are.

"Winning" the culture war implies that there was some collective "intent" to win something, a ludicrous idea.

Individuals strive to succeed, personally, individually.

[Richard Witty]

From his briefs, it seems that he is asking the question:

"If cultural evolution occurs not through individual natural selection, but through the characteristics of the group that survives, how does that happen in fact?"

I first heard that discussion in relation to the Social Darwinists, in which anarchist Peter Kropotkin asserted that "MUTUAL AID", the ability to cooperate as a group, was more critical to evolutionary survival than individual strength, etc.

That it is NOT a dog eat dog world, but a dog cooperate with dog world.

Nationalism can be "community of dogs eats community of dogs" world, or it can "community of dogs cooperates with community of dogs" world.

[NOMOREWAR_FORISRAEL]

Be sure to also read Kevin MacDonald's 'Thinking about Neoconservatism' article and his 'Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement' monograph which are both linked at the top of the following URL:

http://www.itszone.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=32606

[David Habakkuk]

Philip Weiss,

I have been trying to post a comment on these fascinating and admirable reflections of yours, but am blocked by Typepad's antispam filter.

Is there anything that can be done about this?

Thanks,

David Habakkuk

[Crain]

Tony Lawless says: "By the way, when you say that "The Jewish law against intermarriage smacks of racism in today's America", you betray your continuing ethnocentrism. It doesn't "smack" of racism; it IS racism."

According to the National Jewish Population Survey 2000-01, 47% of marriages involving Jews in the United States between 1996 and 2001 were intermarriages with non-Jewish partners. Rates of intermarriage have increased in other countries in the diaspora as well. Jewish leaders in different branches generally agree that possible assimilation is a crisis, but they differ on the proper response to intermarriage.

[Crain]

All branches of Orthodox Judaism refuse to accept any validity or legitimacy of intermarriages.
Conservative Judaism, does not sanction intermarriage, but encourages acceptance of the non-Jewish spouse within the family, hoping that such acceptance will lead to conversion.
Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism do not accept the Jewish Law as binding, so technically they do not have firm rules against intermarriage. Reform and Reconstructionist rabbis are free to take their own approach to performing marriages between a Jewish and Non-Jewish partner. Many seek agreement from the couple that the children will be raised as Jewish.

Link can be found at wikipedia - search for
Jewish_intermarriage
(link removed to address spam filter)

[Oarwell]

All this teeth-gnashing and remonstration, and Asian-Americans quietly go about their lives, succeeding academically and professionally, seemingly unaffected by the great storm playing out around them.

Is ours a clash of racialist ethnicity, or, rather, a clash of culture? I would argue that there is no "WASP" culture (Richard Brookhiser notwithstanding) without Christianity. For convenience, I'll lump Catholics in that category, although it's more interesting in the context of this argument not to.
(to be cont'd, per Typepad)

[Oarwell]

Part 2:

As Belloc argued, typepad sucks.

[Kellen]

I'm sure Tony Lawless is as concerned about the 'racism' inherent in Islam

MUSLIM WOMAN AND NON-MUSLIM MAN:

..... And give not (your daughters) in marriage to Al-Mushrikun** till they
believe in Allah alone and verily a believing slave is better than a (free) Mushrik, even though he pleases you....[2:221] ** Al-Mushrikun=>Pagans, idolators, polytheist and disbelievers in the Oneness of Allah and in His messanger Prophet Muhammad SAW)
- [[6]]

Islam considers the husband head-of-the-family and therefore requires that a Muslima cannot marry a non-Muslim because she will be under the authority of a non-muslim husband. He may prevent her from carrying out her religious obligations by
either pressuring her or physically abusing her. But it is not the sole reason for imposing the restriction. The situation is
considered very damaging for the woman to practise Islam afterwards and even worse for the kids in such marriages. There
are NO conditions mentioned under which a Muslim woman IS allowed to get married or remain married to a non-Muslim husband
after she has accepted Islam. Therefore, even if she has freedom to practise Islam after marriage, she is NOT allowed to enter
into an inter-faith marriage.

from www.jannah.org/sisters/intermarriage

[Charles Keating]

"If we're so ethnocentric, then how come 62 percent of Jews under 35 are intermarrying?"

Indeed this is one of the criticisms of Macdonald's perspective. I imagine he would say something like, "Google 'Silent Holocaust' and get back to me."

During WW1 in Germany, up to fifty percent of big city German Jews intermarried, and then came the real Holocaust. I agree with Phil there's a need for a more optomistic model. But even Soros couldn't dent AIPAC.

[Halfie]

Charles - You are married to a jew. Tell us about it.

[Oarwell]

I'll try again, one graf at a time.

As Belloc argued, Europe IS the Faith; by extension, our culture was that thing called 'Christendom.' Without the Faith, culture is a vacuum, to be filled with any ephemera, any Gilligan and Britney. Neil Postman was laser-precise with his formulation, "Amusing ourselves to death." Spengler saw it coming before any of us were born. To the extent we are "failing" in the contest for "power" (quotes indicating derision) it is because we have embraced not a culture of vibrancy and hope, of community and life, but a culture of death, of despairing solipsism. Not to mention a bizarre distorting-mirror idea of what constitutes Christ's message.

[Oarwell]

(To finish)

Is it the fault of Jewish people that Christendom lost the faith (which had been handed it by a band of renegade Jews in the first place)? That notion, which I think MacDonald promulgates, is absurd on the face of it, and is exactly what Phil calls it: politics (posturings, really) of resentment.

Asian culture remains strong, although the identification with "religion" is elusive to the Western mind.

[Sidney O. Smith III]

MondoWeiss--

I noticed that a “David Habakkuk” is attempting to comment at this website.

If this David Habakkuk is the same person who contributes frequently to Col. Lang‘s website “Sic Semper Tyrannis“, then I strongly encourage you to make whatever technical adjustments necessary to allow his comments clear and free passage to this venue.

As a British journalist, David Habakkuk -- as much as anyone in the world -- has dissected one of the more dangerous manifestos to appear in the history of US strategic intelligence -- “Leo Strauss and the World of Intelligence (By which we do not mean Nous)”. You and others can read one of his initial works here:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/sspaper.pdf

An anthology of his contributions to Col. Lang’s website can be found here:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/habakkuk/index.html

Again -- assuming this is the same Habakkuk -- he will make valuable contributions to this most important debate that you (Weiss) have started. Much is at stake, perhaps more than people realize.

If this is not the same Habakkuk, then please ignore this post!

Sid

[Cal]

Well O.K.

Let's just all accept that are cycles to ethnic dominance in nations.

So who is next up to bat..hispanics?

I see an upcoming slugfest in the US...who will win? The Jews, the European gentiles, or the new hispanics. Maybe it is time the mostly European descendants of the original Americans got their dander up a bit just to restore some balance to the melting pot.

[Chris]

Cal wrote: "Let's just all accept that are cycles to ethnic dominance in nations. So who is next up to bat..hispanics?"

You are right there are cycles. In Europe, the fear is of Muslims. In America, Hispanics are likely to gain more political clout. Hispanics though are way underrepresented in the Upper Middle and Elite classes though, thus they are likely not to be anything near dominant in influence as their raw numbers suggest. There is likely to be a lot more pandering at election time to Hispanic hot button issues, but the nature of the influence is likely to be qualitatively difference because of the non-participation of Hispanics in the primary national discourse. Hispanics are less assimilative than Jews because of the language differences allows them to develop a parallel cultural sphere. Or at least that is my rough opinion.

[David Habakkuk]

Sidney Smith

Good to see you here. I am glad to see you share my great admiration for Philip Weiss's blog. As well as, of course, basking in the compliments!

It puts me in mind of a song my Calvinist ancestors sang: 'He who would valiant be, let him come hither'!

[Ed.]

What is most important for America is that its inclusive Christian ethos prevails and rules over the various tribalists (Jewish Zionists, Evangelical Christian Zionists, Mormons, LaRaza Hispanics, money-worshipping monopolists etc.). Looking back to the Christian-raised Founders, they instilled the country with the inclusive spirit of Christianity by preventing any one faction from assembling too much power through strictly limited, divided government, and in doing so undermined humanity's tribalistic instincts to the benefit of us all. [contd]

[Ed.]

[condt] The problem with the Jewish elite, quite frankly, is that it doesn't subscribe to the inclusive Christian ethos because it is, well, Jewish. It has no problem with seizing as much power and money as it can for itself. Democracy may well be the heir to Christianity, but it still needs the Christian-ethos glue to hold it together. Otherwise, we are merely a nation of tribes living in proximity to one another. And what do tribes do? They go to war.

[Oarwell]

WASP robber-barons (Frick, Morgan, Vanderbilt, Harriman, Dupont, Rockefeller) were just as avaricious as, say, Marc Rich.

We need a level playing field, where special interests don't, can't, rule. Pop the bloated Fed beast, return the eternal Hobbesian struggle to the state and local level. Defang the totalist central government before it devours us all. Resentments fester when Big Money rigs the game.

We are Balkanized: deal with it. Ward Cleaver has left the building.

[Protest I]

Seriously disturbing, and disturbed.

From wikipedia:

"John Hartung, the associate editor of the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology and an associate professor of anesthesiology at the State University of New York said that MacDonald's The Culture of Critique was "quite disturbing, seriously misinformed about evolutionary genetics, and suffering from a huge blind spot about the nature of Christianity."[18]"

Case closed!
=====================================
You all are welcome to read the books of Geza Vermes, to learn more views on history of Christianity, and partially on Judaism, and to acquire civilized views on Jewish and Christian people.

[Oliver Frank]

I know far too many Jews and Christians who have no compunction with seizing as much power and money as they can for themselves. Neither seems to be doing it for Jews or Christians. They are doing it for themselves and their loved ones.

You can blame Jews all you want for the problems in Captialism, Communism, etc., but even if you kill off all these Jews (again) you are still going to have to deal with the human condition. Good luck with that Ed.

[David Seaton]

The Wasps have realized, with Iraq, that the Jews have eaten their lunch.
MacDonald is just a very articulate exponent of the "new" antisemitism or perhaps that is not the real word for it in the USA. Maybe the Marxist term "contradiction" would be better.

The "contradiction" with the Jews expresses it better. This is not the old cossacks shit, this is going to be a reasonably clean fight... I hope

[Sitting Bull]

"What's troubling about MacDonald is that he's a racialist."
You call MacDonald a 'racialist', but fellow Jews 'ethnocentric'. Whatever word you use, you should be using the same for both.

[Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt, Germany]

__________
NONSENSE: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal" Kevin MacD.
_______________________________________________

First off: there is no such gene.

Second: Statistically speaking - looking back over 3000 years - assimilation and the dissolution of peoples and cultures is the universal norm, NOT the preservation of 'one's people and culture' as MacDonald says.

Look at the Old Testament or the history as recorded by the ancient Greek, there are countless peoples mentioned that no longer exist.

That the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France still exist (both claim to be older than 3000 years) is statistically speaking an anomaly, not the norm.

The norm over thousands of years has been:

1. A people gets defeated in battle and conquered.

2. By the ancient logic the Gods of the victors must have been the right ones otherwise they would not have been victorious.
3. The loosing people adopts the Gods/and the culture of the victors.

As everyone knows the Jews - when loosing a battle - were particularly stubborn to admit that their God must have been the wrong one.

[Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt, Germany]

__________
NONSENSE: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal" Kevin MacD.
_______________________________________________

First off: there is no such gene.

Second: Statistically speaking - looking back over 3000 years - assimilation and the dissolution of peoples and cultures is the universal norm, NOT the preservation of 'one's people and culture' as MacDonald says.

Look at the Old Testament or the history as recorded by the ancient Greek, there are countless peoples mentioned that no longer exist.

That the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France still exist (both claim to be older than 3000 years) is statistically speaking an anomaly, not the norm.

The norm over thousands of years has been:

1. A people gets defeated in battle and conquered.

2. By the ancient logic the Gods of the victors must have been the right ones otherwise they would not have been victorious.
3. The loosing people adopts the Gods/and the culture of the victors.

As everyone knows the Jews - when loosing a battle - were particularly stubborn to admit that their God must have been the wrong one.

[Mark]

"What's troubling about MacDonald is that he's a racialist."
You call MacDonald a 'racialist', but fellow Jews 'ethnocentric'. Whatever word you use, you should be using the same for both.

Posted by: Sitting Bull | December 19, 2007 at 01:19 PM

Jews come in all races.

[americangoy]

Ugh I had my typical gigantic post but typepad thinks it is spam and so no joy.

And it was a good one too...

[americangoy]

Mr. Weiss

Again, thank you for being brave enough to make a post about MacDonald and being smart enough to write about the issues intelligently.

I read the web site of Kevin MacDonald and some of his statements and viewpoints are...difficult for me to swallow. I am not sure that I am either for or against saying that certain races are better or worse than others.

That is being a racist.

On the other hand, I am not sure if there ISN'T a kernel of truth in such. After all, evolution tells us that organisms adapt, and humans certainly progressed in various stages to homo sapiens. I am not qualified to say that certain races are not also, speaking evolutionary lingo, better than others at different things. Perhaps a kernel of truth.

So, on some levels I tend to agree with some of MacDonald's viewpoints, on the other, I find his racial viewpoints akin to Nazi pseudo science.

However, re: the Jews being cleverer, better organized than us (dumb) goyim. Now, it seems to me certainly the case, at least in the country of the United States. But that is not due to the superior racial characteristics, in my opinion.

My view is that historically, the Jews were always an alien element in different countries and different times (whether they lived under Moslem or Christian rulers).

What helped them was the fact that both Islam and Christianity deplored usury (and lending in general), and so Jews found a niche in banking and finance sectors, from the Middle Ages on.

Now, being an idiot goy, even I realize that in modern times, cash rules everything around me (sorry for the rap quote, I am trying to be cool again). Those who have the money, make the rules - the old golden rule again. And so the Jews as a minority became extremely powerful, especially in Poland from the Middle Ages to pre 1939.

[Charles Keating]

RE: "Charles - You are married to a jew. Tell us about it.
Posted by: Halfie"

Halfie, so what do you want to know?

[J. Martillo]

Ahmad Jabril on the Death of Arafat

Sorry to back track to a previous thread, but I got a response from a Palestinian friend.

Ahmad Jabril explicitly says that Abu Mazen told him that the Israelis killed Arafat.

When Jabril says one of Abu Mazen's group (min jamatu) told him that Arafat died of AIDS, Jabril is being cagey because the phrase does not refer to the official team but to anyone that was there with Abu Mazen, and Jabril could have been referring to a driver, a guard, or someone of that order.

It is a level of nuance that I do not catch in Arabic, but if I had a government back translation institute and did nothing but translate texts and broadcasts all day, I would certainly have noted this shade of meaning directly in the subtitles or in an accompanying text.

[Charles Keating]

Is this to somehow produce bricks without getting any straw? I heard Kennedy was killed by Mossad to prevent transparency in Israel getting the bomb. If nothing else, the timing is not far-fetched.

[Halfie]

Charles - Are your kids half-breeds like me? Do they feel comfortable with jews and non-jews like I do?

[Charles Keating]

Halfie: Yes

[J. Martillo]

For American Goy, the claim that Jews became involved in usury or banking because of exclusion from other trades is a misleading half-truth. From late antiquity and through until the Reformation, Jews were heavily involved in the Slavic slave trade and associated businesses with included finance, medicine, tax farming and estate management.

Please take a look at either

http://tinyurl.com/ypxuvm

or

http://tinyurl.com/yocyqd (If you understand French. This version has more documentation.)

[Klaus Bloemker, Frankfurt, Germany]

Kevin MacDonald 'a racialist'? - No, an ignorant.
_________

He writes: "preserving one's people and culture is a virtual human universal"

There is neither a gene nor a sociological axioms that says: 'preserve your people and culture'.

To the contrary: Looking back some 3000 years, assimilation is - statistically speaking - the norm. Preserving a particular people and its culture is a statistical exception/anomaly as in the case of the Jews and for instance the Basque people in Spain/France and a few others.

Look at the Old Testament or the Greek historical records: They mention countless peoples that are all gone for good.

Kevin MacDonald's "human universal" is nonsense.

[Ed.]

Oarwell wrote: "We are Balkanized: deal with it."

Oliver Frank wrote: "You can blame Jews all you want for the problems in Captialism, Communism, etc., but even if you kill off all these Jews (again) you are still going to have to deal with the human condition. Good luck with that Ed."

I guess you guys would rather refight the wars of the 20th Century and watch America go to ruin than concede that there's redemptive value in the Christian ethos (something very different than convert-or-die or even liberal Kumbaya-Christianity). In fact, Christianity as philosphy may be the one last thing that a majority of Americans can agree upon. But hey, you guys know better. Just hold your whining when the Gestapo, Statsi or KGB (or whatever Homeland Security calls itself in the future) shows up at your door and says "It's time." Obtaining mercy from a merciless world you helped construct? Good luck with THAT.

[Bookie]

10:1 odds Ed is one of the jack botted thugs at the door gleefully dragging Halfie and Charles Keating's kids out for their killing.

[Kevin]

Are a paleo-conservative jew?

[lala]

I am relieved to finally be reading those who are grappling with the issue of the astonishing intellectual dishonestly of the neocons and, I hate to say this, the so-called 'liberal hawks' and zionists. The links to Habakkuk's articles for Pat Laing were very helpful

[Shem_Shelkha_Kan]

Phil, c'mon. He wasn't "embracing" you, and you don't have to "embrace" him - let alone do the comic "distancing" from MacDonald that you do in this post. If you find some of what he says "bracing," as you say you do in your hemming and hawing "yes but" prelude to your rejection-of-MacDonald-and-all-he-stands-for punchline, "embrace" that, OK? No one's gonna mistake you for an evolutionary psychologist, let alone a Gentile one. Really, this post reveals a pusillanimity that I didn't think you had.

[Anonymous]

As befits a gentleman The One David tries to cheer me up after my comment asking for a "shut up day" was received with a magnanimous chorus of "we surrender!" spanning from right to left.

So my surrender monkey cousins have swam the Atlantic ocean after all. Probably the alluring flavour of freedom fries was too much for them to offer... resistance...

[Anonymous]

I wish I had your good disposition in accepting a new leadership, but instead of sharing your optimism I understand you are bound to deal with a very aggressive and overbearing hostile elite. You may talk the suck-up talk of suave transitions, but your fellow fuck-ups will not be thrilled in enduring multimillion dolar bar-mitzvahs of little Jeffrey Epsteins while sitting in the cold and remembering the good ole days of their very own robber barons...

[Anonymous]

I remind you that the greatest crimes commited by the core of your new elite happened before they had their formidable excuse of the holocaust. There was once the quest for a "more just" world. It ended in horrible tragedy. What you will have now is a paranoid narcissistic entity living inside the walls of a false historical account in it's quest for absolute security and pleasure.

[Anonymous]

Commenting here has become an ordeal.

[anon]

Phil:

Interesting essay, as usual. But leaving aside for a moment the discussion of Jewish vs. Gentile ethnocentrism and the various merits and flaws of each, this episode raises again an important issue. What is the proper response to being trumpeted by a racialist/ethnocentric type? Didn't David Duke praise Mearsheimer and Walt? And didn't their critics immediately seize upon this and use it to bludgeon them?

Since criticism of Israel or the Israel lobby is apt to be met by praise from or comparisons with David Duke it's essential to formulate a clear and cogent response to this sort of thing.

Tony Judt quotes Koestler which is a good general response but we need to be more specific. Isn't it the case that people like David Duke don't have a disagreement in principle with a state where citizenship is based on race/religion? Wouldn't they like to do the same thing in the US if they could? If so, their criticism of Israel is sour grapes--they're just suffering from apartheid-envy.

[andy]

In a way you're probably right, anon. But I'm pretty sure the right wing is more angry with the jews for what they are doing to the U.S. on behalf of Israel, than for what Israel is doing to the Palestinians.

[Sandra]

Philip - As a rugged individulist who grew up in a Jewish home I find you and MacDonald both annoying. I refuse to be defined by my ethnicity and I refuse to define others by their ethnicity. I judge others by their individual actions not those of their fellow religionist or countrymen. My God, if we were to judge others by their kinsmen we would be justified in killing everyone on the planet.

[Charles Keating]

Why did two of my short posts and one by Halfie get deleted? All werve short and sans urls...

[Who is spamming here?]

We're sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad's antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam. It has been held for review by the blog's author.

[Who is spamming here?]

Incredible! The only words the spam filter appreciates are it's own.

We're sorry, your comment has not been published because TypePad's antispam filter has flagged it as potential comment spam. It has been held for review by the blog's author.

[LeaNder]

Richard: "Jews won the culture war"???

Can you start a valid argument with a statement like that?"

Peculiar use of "culture war", I'd say.

Besides, the paragraph reminds me of basic Nazi propganda: parasite-among-the-nations

[Michael Santomauro]

Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish.

Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is "nothing more than a screen to present chosen views." The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually "think outside of the (Jewish) box."

[roommate hunter]

Hey Mike - Tell everyone how the holocaust is just a myth.

[lala]

The idea that there are "wars" between ethnic or cultural groups in America seem to be stretching a point to absurdity. In any case , the WASP elite, didn't "lose" a "war", it listened to it's conscience and decided to widen the boundaries of inclusion,

[Charles Keating]

Who codes Typepad?

[MichaelSantomauro]

Most of us are mentally trapped to think Jewish.

Actually, it is safe to say that virtually every mainstream publication or or other type of media organ is "nothing more than a screen to present chosen views." The great battle over the last century has been a battle for the mind of the Western peoples, i.e., non-Jewish Euros. The chosen won it by acquiring control over essentially the complete mainstream news, information, education and entertainment media of every type, and using that control to infuse and disseminate their message, agenda and worldview, their way of thinking, or rather the way they want us to think. Since at least the 1960s this campaign has been effectively complete. Since then they have shaped and controlled the minds of all but a seeming few of us in varying degree with almost no opposition or competition from any alternative worldview. So now most of us are mentally trapped in the box the chosen have made for us, which we have lived in all our lives. Only a few have managed to avoid it or escape it, or to even sometimes see outside of it, and so actually "think outside of the (Jewish) box."

[mnuez]

Not a terrible post.

I think your general understanding of history and science leads you to conclusions almost as imprecise, and wrong, as Old Macdonald, but this particular post wasn't terrible.

;-)

mnuez

[Protest]

Protest. Kevin MacDonald is the statue of old fashioned Anti-Semitism.

======================================

Can he give us an intelligent account on the failure and crimes of many Christian people?

======================================

The are 3-5 million Jews in America.

Non Jews recognize a few Jewish people they do not like, and presto, we all Jews are inferior.

This is intellectual and mental failing.

We have got extremists on the right, on the left, and in the middle.

Silly, to incite the world against all innocent Jews. It is a Shylock affair.

The opposite would be correct, to unite all decent people and fight the tyrants in Cuba, Iran, Venezuela, Russia...

Let the USA live for the time being. There is no better system.

[nmd7]

Sadly, there is no real 'politics of WASP resentment' but there damn sure should be.

The slow process of race replacement thru immigration is no less harmful to a people's interests in the long term than a partial physical-genocide.

As long as every 'acceptable' American and European politician endorses "Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state," and the legitimacy of Jewish ethnic lobbying, yet rejects every corresponding claim by European peoples and white Americans, the victims of these racist policies have much to be resentful about.

If self-interest is legitimised for Weiss by Hitler and Heaney for those who already enjoy the ultimate security of an ethnic-state and special-status, while self-interest continues to be attacked and smeared for those without any such advantage (the very opposite in fact), then whole peoples are threatened.

If today's Jews can reasonably care about the deaths of Jews unrelated to themselves 60 years ago, how can caring for ones own contemporary co-ethnics be wrong for today's European peoples?

[nmd7]

lala said: In any case , the WASP elite, didn't "lose" a "war", it listened to it's conscience and decided to widen the boundaries of inclusion.

The 'boundaries of inclusion' now include ethnic activists (for every group except WASPs) whose programs and legitimacy go pretty much unchallenged.

The elite 'WASP' might just as well be Jewish or Black or Chinese for all the interest he has in his low-status co-ethnics; not so the elite Jew, Black, or Chinese.

The European's unilateral disarmament among so many warring 'cultures' does not bode well for the societies he created, and which he alone owes primary allegiance to.

[nmd7]

anon said: Isn't it the case that people like David Duke don't have a disagreement in principle with a state where citizenship is based on race/religion? Wouldn't they like to do the same thing in the US if they could? If so, their criticism of Israel is sour grapes--they're just suffering from apartheid-envy.

No - when this right is denied to them but permitted to others, they are the dispossessed of an apartheid-like system.

Further, the politicians who defend this right for Jews but deny it to their own peoples are Uncle Toms.

And Jews who defend 'Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state' but who would object if Duke said Jews would be unwelcome in his state are objectively more 'racist' than he is; and yes, that means most Jews are more racist than David Duke.

[Heebster]

nmd7 - Heil Hitler!
Just kidding. Sort of.
If you are your merry band of Saxon Supermen want to go off and create a small White only state somewhere, go right ahead. If you don't want me there, since I've got some Jooo blood in me, no problem. I won't take any vacations there. Seriously - more power to you man. Get thee on a the next boat to Saxonland and get to work on the new reich.

While I'm a heeb and I support Israel's right to exist, I'm not a real big fan of Jew-only events (a little boring for my taste) and one of the things I've really liked about Israel is how incredibly diverse it is. Between the Sabras, Russians, French, Yemeni, Ethiopian, Indian, Iraqi, and western Jews, and the Druze, Bedouin, and Palestinian citizens of Israel, there is some crazy diversity there. This is also one of the things I love about the USA - it's diversity. That being said, I'm sort of partial to the country's European historical and cutural roots, and I'm pretty much an anglo-phile. I'm for secure borders and for controlled immigration. While I have compassion for those who come here to seek a better life, I think we need to decide who gets to come in to our country, and rule breakers shouldn't be given precedent over those who are trying immigrate legally. I also have compassion for those in our country who are trying to survive financially and need first crack at jobs that normally go to immigrant workers.

I'm also very sympathetic to the Europeans who find themselves at the losing end of a birth war with their immigrant populations. Frankly, I don't know what they are thinking over there.

Most Jews want there to be one state in the entire world of nations where Jews are the majority. Israel is incredibly diverse and has vast amounts of non-jews living in it. When the rest of the world has given up its tribal identifications and people are no longer persecuted for their ethnicity or religion, than a jewish state will have lost is reason for being a Jewish state.
Thanks to people like you, however, that time doesn't seem to be imminent.
Seriously, please take me at my word that I wish you only the best in creating your racially pure Saxonland and hope you take all of your Oi-listening brothers with you to this new magical kingdom. Just don't try to force the USA to become that place for you. It's never been the white man's land to decide who comes and goes. All of us together make the USA a great nation.

[heebster]

That should read - If you AND your merry band of Saxon Supermen want to go off and create a small White only state somewhere, go right ahead.

[anon]

Heebster wrote "Israel is incredibly diverse and has vast amounts of non-jews living in it."

What are you talking about? It's got 20% non-Jews -- the descendants of those Palestinians who they failed to drive out in '48 and '67 -- and even that 20% is openly talked about as a "demographic problem" by Israelis. The deputy prime minister talks of "transporting" them out of the country.

Some crazy diversity there indeed.

[nmd7]

See what happens when someone objects to clear double standards harming non-Jews and argues only for equality between peoples even Jews and non-Jews - a 'heebster' smears them with Heil Hitler!, Oi!, supremacist talk.

Does this mean Zionists are nazis, racial supremacists, and skinheads? Of course not - the same rules do not apply to Jews.

To what end do you pursue these double-standards heeb? And what will be the consequence for peoples rendered unable to defend themselves or even acknowledge themselves when your attitudes are made govt policy and even law - as across Europe? Are you proud of your racism?

[Anonymous]

nmd7 - you should spare us your feigned sense of aggreivement for being called a racist as that is what you argue for in your earlier posts. Not gonna work here pal.

anon - my guess is you have never been to Israel and that is why you mock Heebster's comments. You should visit it sometime so you can see that it is far more diverse than any other country in the region and more racially and ethnically diverse than many nations the world over.

The division of Jewish Israelis into ethnic groups is primarily a legacy of the cultural diversity and far-flung nature of the Jewish Diaspora: it is said that Jews have come to modern Israel from 103 countries and speak more than 70 different languages.

Some 1.6 million people, comprising some 24 percent of Israel's population, are non-Jews. Although defined collectively as Arab citizens of Israel, they include a number of different, primarily Arabic-speaking, groups, each with distinct characteristics.

Muslim Arabs, almost one million people, most of whom are Sunni, reside mainly in small towns and villages, over half of them in the north of the country.

Bedouin Arabs, also Muslim (estimated at some 170,000), belong to some 30 tribes, a majority scattered over a wide area in the south. Formerly nomadic shepherds, the Bedouin are currently in transition from a tribal social framework to a permanently settled society and are gradually entering Israel's labor force.

Christian Arabs, some 117,000, live mainly in urban areas, including Nazareth, Shfar'am and Haifa. Although many denominations are nominally represented, the majority are affiliated with the Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches.

The Druze, some 113,000 Arabic-speakers living in 22 villages in northern Israel, constitute a separate cultural, social and religious community. While the Druze religion is not accessible to outsiders, one known aspect of its philosophy is the concept of taqiyya, which calls for complete loyalty by its adherents to the government of the country in which they reside.

The Circassians, comprising some 3,000 people concentrated in two northern villages, are Sunni Muslims, although they share neither the Arab origin nor the cultural background of the larger Islamic community. While maintaining a distinct ethnic identity, they participate in Israel's economic and national affairs without assimilating either into Jewish society or into the Muslim community.

Jews are a racially and ethnically diverse people—and always have been. The historical home of the Jews lies at the geographic crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe. Jewish origins included a multitude of languages, tribes, and skin colors. The essence of the Jewish story is based on the Exodus from Egypt, where Jews sojourned for 400 years. The Exodus story is not only a metaphor for the escape from slavery to freedom; it is also a geographic journey that took the Hebrew people across the Sinai and the Red Sea from Asia to Africa and back again. At the same time, ancient Palestine, Judea, Samaria, Israel and the land of Canaan were conquered by the Greeks, Romans, Turks and others, and interacted fully with other Mediterranean and European cultures. Jews are an amalgam of so many different types of people.

Diversity characterizes the American Jewish community, some through its historical antecedents and some through contemporary social forces that are at work, as well. Today, we estimate that there are about 400,000 Jews of color in the United States. This includes individuals who have converted to Judaism, individuals who have been adopted into Jewish families and raised as Jews, the multiracial children of partnerships between Ashkenazi Jews and people of color, and those who are themselves the generational descendants of Jews of color. Another 600,000 people are “connected non-Jews.” These are individuals who might be practicing another religion as well as Judaism, people who are living with Jews (and sometimes as Jews), but who have not yet converted. There are yet another 700,000 people of color who are not currently Jewish but have a Jewish grandparent or great-grandparent. In other words, about 1.7 million people of color in the United States are currently Jews, have a familial or ethnic connection to Judaism, or an ancestral connection. At least 400,000 of these would be defined as currently Jewish, even by the most conservative sociologists, demographers, or other social scientists.

Be'chol Lashon (In Every Voice)
We are many cultures, languages and colors, yet we share Israel, Hebrew and Torah
We are pleased to report that the Institute held the first annual think tank on diverse Jewish communities around the world called Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue). It was held in San Francisco over five days from Friday, December 6, 2002 through Tuesday, December 10, 2002. Be’chol Lashon included community leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe, South America, Israel and the United States. This was an historic meeting, providing the framework for many years to come.

We learned from our study on ethnic and racial diversity in the Jewish community (report to be published in Fall, 2003) that many Jewish communities exist in isolation, separated from one another by geography, knowledge, and experience. Our research has revealed a longing for people to meet others who share their commitment to building a vibrant and diverse Jewish people.

Our goal was to provide an on-going international forum for conversation, networking, and partnerships. This conference brought together a community of scholars, activists, and leaders who previously did not know each other. Our relationships with the participants were built over a period of four years. It took perseverance and faith to build trust, especially since some Jews of color are suspicious, carrying the legacy of generations of rejection by the white Jewish community. We limited the number of participants in order to achieve productive conversation (45 attended and another 20 were interested but unable to attend). The think tank allowed for an extraordinary exchange of information, projects (planned or envisioned), and most of all, the opportunity to develop networks and friendships. We learned from each other — about our particular cultures and beliefs. We discussed ideas, explored our deepest concerns and feelings about respect, hope, and fear.

The non-Jewish--almost entirely Arab--population of Israel in the mid-1980s comprised 18 percent of the total population (these figures refer to Arabs resident within the pre-1967 borders of Israel). More than three-fourths were Sunni (see Glossary) Muslims. Among Muslim Arabs the beduins, concentrated in the Negev, were culturally and administratively distinctive. They numbered about 29,000, divided among about forty ethnically based factions. There were approximately 2,500 (non-Arab) Sunni Muslim Circassians, concentrated in two small villages in Galilee. Among non-Muslim Arabs were Christians of various affiliations: Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Protestants of different sects; the Greek Orthodox community being the largest of the Christian groups. In addition, there were Armenians who belonged to several Christian churches (see Population , this ch.).

Another tiny minority group was that of the Samaritans, of whom about 500 remained in Israel in the late 1980s. The Samaritans are thought to be descendants of the Jews who lived in the area at the time of the Exile in Babylon beginning in 722 B.C. and who intermarried with the local inhabitants. Their religion resembles the form of ancient Judaism.

In addition, Israel contained a small number of adherents of Bahaism, an offshoot of Shia Islam. They are followers of Mirza Husayn Ali, known as Baha Ullah (the glory of God), who claimed leadership of a community founded by an Iranian spiritual leader known as the Bab (the way), in the 1850s, after the Bab was executed as a heretic. Bahais have a syncretistic faith that incorporates elements of Islam, Christianity, and universal ethical principles. Their governing body, the Universal House of Justice, which consists of elected representatives from various national spiritual assemblies, acts as supreme administrative, legislative, and judicial body for Bahais, and is located in Haifa.

As a result of a high birth rate and improved health and sanitation conditions, the total number of Israeli Arabs in 1988 (exclusive of those in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) was about equal to (and was expected soon to surpass) what it was in 1947 Palestine under the British Mandate. During and immediately after Israel's War of Independence, approximately 600,000 Arabs left the country of their own volition or were expelled; most went to Jordan's West Bank or the Gaza Strip, and some to Lebanon and the Persian Gulf states. In 1948 many had expected to return to their homes (or to take over abandoned Jewish property) in the wake of victorious Arab armies. Instead, they have come to constitute the Palestinian diaspora, whose disposition has proved fateful to the history of many states in the modern Middle East.

Israel's Arabs are guaranteed equal religious and civil rights with Jews under the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel. They have voted in national elections and sent members to the Knesset since 1949; following the 1984 elections, seven Arabs sat in the Knesset. Nevertheless, until the end of 1966, Israel's Arabs lived under a military jurisdiction that severely limited their physical mobility and ranges of permissible political expression. They have also lost much land to the Israeli government, a good deal of it expropriated by the army for "security purposes," but much more turned over to Jewish settlements in attempts to increase the Jewish presence in northern and western Galilee, the centers of Arab population.

In social and economic terms, the state has sought to dominate its Arab minority by encouraging dependence. This aim has been achieved, for example, by providing funding for the separate Arab (Muslim, Christian, and Druze) school systems, as well as access to Jewish institutions of higher learning, and by providing funding for health facilities, religious institutions, and courts. Many of these institutions have encouraged the maintenance of Arab spheres of interaction segregated from Jewish ones. But the real dependency has resulted from the integration of Arab labor into Israel's economy. This has entailed an acute deemphasis on agriculture (abetted by government expropriations of arable land) and a funneling of labor into industry, especially construction, and into services. Under the British Mandate, for example, about two-thirds of all Arabs worked in agriculture. By 1955, this figure dropped to 50 percent of Arab labor employed in the agricultural sector, 36 percent in industry and construction, and almost 14 percent in services. By the early 1980s, less than 12 percent were engaged in agriculture, 45 percent in industry and construction, and close to 43 percent in the service sector. Along with this proletarianization of Arab labor--the loss of its agrarian base--has come the urbanization of its population. In 1948 less than one-fourth of the Arab population lived in cities or towns; by the 1980s more than two-thirds did.

Yet another way in which the government has related to its Arab minorities has been by encouraging internal segmentation, primarily along religious lines, in the Arab communities. Thus Muslims, Christians, and Druzes have been differentially treated. (So have the beduins, who are Muslims but are culturally distinctive as pastoralists from Muslim Arab village and town dwellers; and so have the Circassians, who although Muslims are not Arabs. Like Christians, beduins may volunteer for service in the army, and some do; like the Druzes, Circassians are conscripted.) Differential treatment almost always has favored Christians and Druzes over Muslims; at least this has been the semi-official "policy." Some ethnographic and sociological studies of Arab villages, however, indicate that other Israeli policies have had the effect of weakening the Christian and Druze position and strengthening that of Arab Muslims.

In the past, Christian dominance, for example, was based on the control of agrarian resources in villages. The dismantling of the agrarian bases of the Arab economy and the proletarianization of Arab labor led to Arab dependence on the Jewish economy. But it did so at the expense of the wealth, and thus the political standing, of Christians. Similarly, the building and support of village and town schools open to all created an educated (and underemployed) Muslim cadre whose intellectual energies have tended to flow into antiestablishment politics.

Data as of December 1988

The Christian communities may be divided into four basic categories: Chalcedonian-Orthodox, Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox (Monophysite), Roman Catholic (Latin and Uniate) and Protestant. These communities consist of some 20 ancient and indigenous churches, and another 30, primarily Protestant, denominational groups. Except for national churches, such as the Armenian, the indigenous communities are predominantly Arabic-speaking; most of them, very likely, descendants of the early Christian communities of the Byzantine period.

The Chalcedonian-Orthodox Churches

The Chalcedonian-Orthodox (also termed Eastern Orthodox) churches are a family of self-governing churches that follow the doctrines of the seven Ecumenical councils, and acknowledge the honorary primacy of the Patriarch of Constantinople. Historically, these churches developed from the four ancient patriarchates of the East: Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople and Jerusalem.

The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem considers itself to be the "mother church" of Jerusalem, to whose bishop patriarchal dignity was granted by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It sided with the other Eastern Orthodox churches in the schism with Rome in 1054. Much of the dispute was a matter of mutual misunderstanding, and the historic meeting in Jerusalem in 1964 between Pope Paul VI and the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Athenagoras, marked the beginning of reconciliation.

At the time of the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, the (Orthodox) Patriarchate of Jerusalem, already in exile, was removed to Constantinople. Permanent residence in Jerusalem by the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was not reestablished until 1845.

Since 1662, direction of Greek Orthodox interests in the Holy Land has rested with the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher, which has sought to safeguard the status of the Orthodox Church in the holy places and to preserve the Hellenic character of the Patriarchate. The parishes are predominantly Arabic-speaking, and are served by married Arab priests as well as by members of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulcher.

Two historic Eastern Orthodox national churches have representation in Israel: the Russian and the Rumanian. Being in communion with the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, they are under its local jurisdiction.

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Mission was established in Jerusalem in 1858, but Russian Christians had begun visiting the Holy Land in the 11th century, only a few years after the Conversion of Kiev. Such visits continued over the next 900 years, eventually growing into the great annual pilgrimages of the late 19th century, which continued until World War I and ended with the Russian Revolution. Since 1949, title to Russian church properties in what was by then the territory of Israel has been held by the Russian Orthodox Mission (Patriarchate of Moscow); title to properties in areas then under Jordanian control (1948-67) remains with the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission representing the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile. The two missions are each led by an archimandrite, who is assisted by a number of monks and nuns.

A mission representing the Rumanian Orthodox Church was established in 1935. It is led by an archimandrite and consists of a small community of monks and nuns resident in Jerusalem.

The Non-Chalcedonian Orthodox Churches

The non-Chalcedonian Orthodox churches are churches of the East (Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian and Syrian) that refused at the time to acknowledge the decrees issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. One of the decrees concerned the relationship between the divine and human natures attributed to Jesus. Today, however, it is widely recognized in both the Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian churches that the Christological differences between them were merely a matter of verbal formulation and not of substantial doctrinal variance.

The Armenian Orthodox Church dates from the year 301 and the conversion of Armenia, the first nation to embrace Christianity. An Armenian religious community has been present in Jerusalem since the 5th century. Armenian sources date the first Patriarchate to a charter given by the Caliph Omar to Patriarch Abraham in the year 638. The Armenian Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem was already established by the beginning of the 14th century. From the end of the 19th century, and particularly during and immediately following World War I, the local community increased in size.

The Coptic Orthodox Church has its roots in Egypt, where most of the population became Christian during the first centuries CE. According to Coptic tradition, members of the community arrived in Jerusalem with St. Helena, mother of the Emperor Constantine (beginning of 4th century). This church had an early influence on the development of desert monasticism in the wilderness of Judea. The community flourished during the Mamluk period (1250-1517), and again with Mohammed Ali in 1830. Since the 13th century, the (Coptic) Patriarch of Alexandria has been represented in Jerusalem by a resident archbishop.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Church has had a community in Jerusalem since the Middle Ages or even earlier. Early Church historians mention Ethiopian pilgrims in the Holy Land as early as the 4th century. What is certain is that during the centuries that followed, the Ethiopian Church enjoyed important rights in the holy places, but lost most of them during the Ottoman period, prior to the declaration of the Status Quo.

Today the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Israel is a small community led by an archbishop and consisting mostly of a few dozen monks and nuns living in the Old City of Jerusalem and at the Ethiopian cathedral monastery and in the western part of the city. There is also a small resident lay community. Since the renewal of diplomatic relations between Israel and Ethiopia in 1989, there has been an increase in Christian pilgrimage from Ethiopia, especially for Christmas and Eastern Holy Week observances.

The Syrian Orthodox Church is a successor to the ancient Church of Antioch, and one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East. Among its traditions is the continued use of the Syriac language (Western Aramaic) in liturgy and prayers. Its members are also known as Jacobites (after Jacob Baradaeus, who organized the Church in the 6th century). Their patriarch is resident in Damascus. There have been Syrian Orthodox bishops in Jerusalem since 793; permanently, since 1471. Today the local Church is headed by a bishop, who resides in Jerusalem at the monastery of St. Mark.

The Roman Catholic and Uniate Churches

Church of the Holy Sepulcher

Church of the Annunciation, Nazareth The Roman Catholic and Uniate churches are churches that are in communion with Rome and recognize the primacy and spiritual authority of the Pope (who as bishop of Rome holds the ancient patriarchy of the West). In matters of liturgy, the Eastern churches in communion with Rome follow their own languages and traditions.

Whatever the early relations between Rome and Constantinople, there was no attempt to establish a Western Church in the Holy Land independent of the existing Orthodox Patriarchate until the establishment of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem during the Crusader kingdom (1099-1291). The office of the Latin Patriarch was reconstituted in 1847. Until then, responsibility for the local church rested with the Franciscan Order, which has served as custodian of Latin holy places since the 14th century.

Today the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem is headed by a bishop who has the title of patriarch. He is assisted by three vicars, resident in Nazareth, Amman and Cyprus. In popular parlance, local Roman Catholics are referred to as "Latins", in reference to their historic liturgical language. Since the Second Vatican Council, however, the Roman Catholic liturgy is generally celebrated in the venacular, except at some of the holy places, such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Church of the Nativity, where the mass and other services are still celebrated in Latin.

In 1997, Israel and the Holy See signed an agreement which deals with the legal personality of the Catholic Church in Israel.

The Maronite Church is a Christian community of Syrian origin, most of whose members live in Lebanon. It has been in formal communion with the Roman Catholic Church since 1182, and is the only Eastern church which is entirely Catholic. As a uniate body (an Eastern church in communion with Rome, which retains its respective language, rites and canon law) it possesses its own liturgy, which is in essence an Antiochene rite in the Syriac language. Most members of the Maronite community in Israel reside in the Galilee. The Maronite Patriarchal Vicariate in Jerusalem dates from 1895.

The (Melkite) Greek Catholic Church came into being in 1724, the result of a schism in the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch. (The term "Melkite", literally "royalist", is derived from the Syriac, Western-Aramaic word malko, which means "royal" or "king". Its use dates from the 4th century and refers to those local Christians who accepted the "Definition of Faith" of the Council of Chalcedon and remained in communion with the Imperial See of Constantinople.)

A Greek Catholic archdiocese was established in the Galilee in 1752. Twenty years later, Greek Catholics of Jerusalem were placed under the jurisdiction of the Melkite Patriarch of Antioch, who is represented in Jerusalem by a patriarchal vicar.

The Syrian Catholic Church, a uniate breakaway from the Syrian Orthodox Church, has been in communion with Rome since 1663. The Syrian Catholics have their own patriarch (resident in Beirut), and since 1890 a patriarchal vicar in Jerusalem has served as spiritual leader of the small local community there and in Bethlehem. In July 1985, the community consecrated the new patriarchal church in Jerusalem dedicated to St. Thomas, apostle to the peoples of Syria and India.

The Armenian Catholic Church separated from the Armenian Orthodox Church in 1741, though previously an Armenian community in Cilicia (in southern Anatolia) had been in contact with Rome since the Crusader period. The Armenian Catholic patriarch is resident in Beirut because at the time, Ottoman authorities forbade residency in Constantinople. A patriarchal vicariate was established in Jerusalem in 1842. Though in union with Rome, the church has good relations with the Armenian Orthodox Church, and both cooperate for the benefit of the community as a whole.

The Chaldean Catholic Church is a uniate descendant of the ancient (Assyrian) Apostolic Church of the East (sometimes called Nestorian). Its members still preserve the use of Syriac (Eastern Aramaic) as their liturgical language. It was established in 1551, and its patriarch is resident in Baghdad. The community in the Holy Land numbers no more than a few families; even so, the Chaldean Catholic Church retains the status of a "recognized" religious community. Since 1903, the Chaldeans have been represented in Jerusalem by a non-resident patriarchal vicar.

The Coptic Catholic Church has been in union with Rome since 1741. In 1955 the uniate Coptic Catholic Patriarch of Alexandria appointed a patriarchal vicar to serve the small community in Jerusalem.

* * *

Of major significance for the Catholic churches in the Holy Land was the signing, on 30th December 1993, of a Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel, which led to the establishment of full diplomatic relations between them a few months later.

The Protestant Churches

The Protestant communities in the Middle East only date from the early 19th century and the establishment of Western diplomatic representations in Jerusalem. The intention of these missions was to evangelize the Muslim and Jewish communities, but their only success was in attracting Arabic-speaking Orthodox Christians.

In 1841, the Queen of England and the King of Prussia decided to establish a joint Anglican-Lutheran Protestant bishopric in Jerusalem. The scheme came to an end in 1886, but the office was continued by the Church of England, which in 1957 elevated its representative in Jerusalem to the rank of Archbishop. This was ended in 1976, with the creation of the new (Anglican) Protestant Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East and the election and consecration of the first Arab bishop in Jerusalem. It is the largest Protestant community in the Holy Land. The Anglican bishop in Jerusalem has his seat in the Cathedral Church of St. George the Martyr, which is maintained by the Church of England through an appointed dean.

With the dissolution of the joint Anglo-Prussian venture in 1886, the German Lutheran Church established an independent presence in Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This community attracted an increasing number of Arabic-speaking members, many of them former pupils of schools and other institutions maintained by German Lutheran churches and societies. Since 1979, the Arabic-speaking congregation has had its own bishop, existing independently of the small German-speaking congregation and the Lutheran Church in Germany, which is represented by a propst (dean). Both clerics share the premises of the Propstei on Muristan Road in the Old City of Jerusalem.

There are also small Danish, Swedish and English-speaking Lutheran congregations with representative clergy from the parent churches for the benefit of members who are visiting or resident in Israel. In 1982, the Norwegian Mission to Israel transferred authority and administration of its two mission churches in Haifa and Jaffa to the responsibility of the local congregations.