May 25, 2007

MEMORIAL DAY: LEST WE FORGET

May 05, 2007

JEWISH GENIUS? WHERE HAS IT GONE?

        Recently Commentary Magazine published a fact filled sociological piece by Charles Murray, telling readers about Jewish genius and seeking to explain the origins of their intellectual superiority. Such flattering essays are bound to invite an identification, by even the least intelligent Jew, with the greats of Jewish history. It stirs ethnic pride. We're all related to Einstein, aren't we, and to all those great scientists who keep winning disproportionate numbers of Nobel prizes? If only we'd paid a little more attention to advanced calculus, no doubt we too could have captured the Prize.
        The trouble is, for those of us who care to look around, it's exceedingly hard to find evidence of this vaunted Jewish intelligence outside of a research laboratory. In fact, it is Horsefeathers' admittedly subjective impression that the collective Jewish IQ worldwide is declining at a rate of approximately 1 point per year. Apart from the mind boggling ineptitude of Israel's governing class, there is the idiotic widespread political utopianism indicating an appalling stupidity about the lessons of history. Of what consequence all those Nobel prizes if Jews are too stupid to recognize an existential threat staring them in the face? Wasn't one holocaust enough for Jews to grasp the simple fact that enemies wishing to destroy them mean what they say and need to be confronted? And what of American Jewry? How much evidence of intelligence is to be found in their lock step support for the party of Jimmy Carter, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, John Conyers, and George Soros? Do they not understand that part of the dogma of contemporary Liberalism is anti-Zionism, the delegitimization of Israel? Apparently they don't possess that kind of common sense intelligence.
        A particularly shocking example of the decline of Jewish genius is the transformation of Columbia University into the Morningside Madrassa. Since the post World War II years, Columbia has been educating many young New York Jews, often children of immigrants. Having grown up in the Bronx, in a mostly Irish, Italian neighborhood, I arrived at Columbia and quickly discovered a quality of mind I hadn't known previously. My smartest classmates were a group of brilliant Jews from high schools in Brooklyn, like Tilden, Erasmus Hall, Brooklyn Tech, and Midwood. Having finally opened its doors to Jews, many came from Brooklyn. Columbia entered an age of greatness that truly induced pride in its graduates. No wonder Jewish graduates were eager to send their children to their alma mater. Who could have foreseen the coming transformation of Columbia into what it has become, a hotbed of anti-Israel propaganda? Who knew that one of Lionel Trilling's proteges, Edward Said would open the way for Western hating 'activist' scholars? And yet, now that it is obvious, why is there so little protest from the alumni? Why do Jewish parents continue to fork out upwards of $40,000/year to such an institution? The latest outrage is reported on by Candace de Russy who describes one of Barnard's leading PoMo scholars, Nadia El-Haj, a cultural anthropologist now up for tenure. And what is the thrust of El Haj's work? It seeks to undermine the historical connection of Jews to the Land of Israel, by "deconstructing" the work of archaelogists who have unearthed evidence of the historic presence of Jews on the land, long before Islam existed. For El-Haj, there is no such thing as scientific truth, only "narratives" in service to political or economic interests. The Israeli 'narrative' is designed to sustain brutal imperialist oppression of Muslims. See the entire article here.
        What Jews need now is not flattery about their vaunted intelligence but a reminder of their self destructive stupidity. Sometimes, when survival is at stake intellect needs to be devoted to the arts of war, including the war of ideas.