For decades I’ve joked about an institution I “founded” called the Spinoza Society. It’s a group of distinguished Jews who, over the ages, have been ostracized or excommunicated from their respective Jewish communities for holding views outside the mainstream. They were dissenters who chose a different path. One that took them outside the mainstream, but resulted in ultimate vindication. Of course the first, and charter member was Baruch Spinoza. He was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish Community in the 17th century for speaking heresies in which he denied the Afterlife and that God acted outside the natural order. His co-religionists deemed such views as dangerous and sent him packing.
If we look for the first Jews expelled from the community, we need look no farther than the Bible, where women who were menstruating and all who had skin diseases like leprosy were expelled from “the camp” (i.e. the community). They were seen as defiling the sacred Tabernacle and therefore must be set apart from it till their ailments were healed. Some may argue that women today continued to be viewed as ‘tainted’ and certainly less valued than men, especially in the Orthodox community. But this ostracism derived from a physical condition rather than a personal belief or expression.
Einstein was a heretic of sorts as well, because he rejected Jabotinsky’s Zionist Revisionism. He denounced Etsel and the Irgun going back to the late 1940s and called them “misled and criminal people.” He also refused to accept the honor of being Israel’s second president when it was offered to him. Einstein rejected nationalism, which was the epitome of Zionism. He too is an honored member of the Spinoza Society.
One of the most transgressive members of the club was Lenny Bruce, who was not afraid of telling all of our darkest secrets to the goyim. His provocative comedy created a love-hate relationship both with his audience and among American Jews. Here is one of his classic jokes about killing Christ:
“Yes, we did it. I did it. My family. I found a note in the basement: ‘We killed Him–signed Morty.’
“Why did you kill Christ, Jew?” “We killed him because he didn’t want to become a doctor, that’s why.”
…Not only did we kill him, but we’re gonna kill him again when he comes back.
Here’s another that drove him from the “Israelite” camp:
I was a Jew talking about Goyim. If I had just stuck to Moses, everything would have been cool. But, copping to being part of the whole Christ murder conspiracy got everyone goose-stepping again.
Speaking of great Jewish comedians commenting on being kicked out of the tribe, Groucho of course told the famous joke: “PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER.”
I was one of the early members of New Jewish Agenda, a progressive national grassroots Jewish organization founded in the early 1980s. The group advocated gay rights, the two-state solution, and social justice in America. That platform was considered extremely controversial both in the United States and Israel. I remember a group of Orthodox rabbis meeting in Massachusetts and convening a pulsa di nura, which was a strange Jewish ritual by which Jews would be excommunicated from the faith for heretical beliefs. The Washington Post asked Noam Chomsky’s response (he was another one of those excommunicated):
Linguist Noam Chomsky of MIT, another of those excommunicated, recalled that he shared the honor with the 17th century Dutch philosopher Benedict de Spinoza.
At the time, I was proud to be one of the newly-inducted members of the Spinoza Society.
Today, Israel is vastly increasing Spinoza membership with its excommunication of hundreds of Jews thousands of Jews who show insufficient fealty to Zionist dogma. Any Jew who supports BDS is immediately beyond the Pale, if not a self-hating terrorist. Such individuals are so dangerous that Israeli secret agents are right now burrowing into their homes and lives searching for ways to destroy them and their reputations: that means you, Ronnie Barkan!😉
Currently, in the UK, the Israel Lobby is mounting a scorched-earth campaign against British Jews and Palestinian activists who betray (in the case of Jews) the tribe. One of the latest members inducted into the club was Jackie Walker, who had the temerity to question whether Holocaust Memorial Day was a day that should not also embrace other ethnic groups who were victims of the Nazis. She also correctly claimed that some Portuguese and Brazilian Jews played an important role in financing the Brazilian leg of the Atlantic slave trade. For her trouble, she was suspended from the Labour party. Jackie, join us, you’re welcome to the Club.
Today brings news that a new member of the club is being inducted: Baroness Tonge, a member of the House of Lords. She chaired a parliamentary meeting about the Palestinian the Right of Return. At the meeting, an audience member compared Israel, with its religious fundamentalist faith to Isis, and its Islamist fundamentalism. The comparison, if made in a careful and nuanced way, is a valid one.
But not for the Israel Lobby, which screamed bloody murder in the pages of the Jewish Chronicle, the Lobby’s in-house propaganda organ. As a result, Baroness Tonge has been suspended from the Liberal Democratic Party. She has happily renounced her affiliation and become an independent member of the Lords. Her ostracism is the Spinoza club’s gain. Yes, the Baroness is not a certified member of the tribe. But in this instance, I think we can make an exception. Or perhaps declare her an honorary member of the Society.
Correction: “He was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish Community in the 17th (not 11th) century.”
@ Elisabeth: I tried orally-dictating that post. I corrected most of the obvious errors, but not that one. Thanks!
One of Baroness Tonge’s crimes was sailing with us to Gaza eight years ago. It was a joy to meet and spend time with Jenny. A remarkable woman of conscience and conviction.
“Vehement anti-Semitism in UK House of Lords
During a meeting hosted by staunchly anti-Israel Baroness Jenny Tonge and a pro-Palestinian organization, Jews were accused of responsibility for, and even inventing, the Holocaust; Tonge told attendees ‘there are Zionist ears in the room.’”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4871408,00.html
very revealing you would allow Elizabeth to praise such a person on your so-called ‘liberal zionist’ blog.
Tonge is an out and out anti-semitc/anti-zionist schtick drek.
Barbar, it is totally unclear what she said from this link, except the little quote I give below. What IS clear is that there was no reporter of the newspaper there and that the ‘report’ on the meeting is based on what an anonymous person alleges: “According to one individual present at the meeting, Tonge herself revealed her conspiratorial analysis of Zionism, warning her audience that there were “Zionist ears in the room” and urging speakers to watch their words…”
I guess she was right about those Zionist ears 🙂
Your account of Jackie Walker’s comments on Holocaust Memorial Day are incorrect. She did not claim that the day failed to include non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. What she said was that the Day should also commemorate other genocides. In fact, as she acknowledged, the Day does do this, including such atrocities as the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur. But what she objected to is that, according to her, it doesn’t commemorate genocides prior to the Holocaust, and specifically slavery.
@Homolka: No it does NOT do this. If you go to the Holocaust Memorial site it does not in fact include other genocides than the Nazi genocide. Which makes her comment perfectly reasonable. Not only that, but Zionists including the UK Israrl Lobby routinely dismiss other genocides like the Armenian or Cambodian genocides, saying the Nazi genocide is “unique” to humanity, hence Jewish victims earn a certain premium over other victims for their suffering.
She did not, in fact, in the comments for which she was suspended, mention slavery as genocide. She may believe this. But she did not raise this subject at that particular time.
I did not raise the issue of slavery directly, but I’m a well known campaigner for the recognition of the African holocaust both in the Belgium Congo and that of the Atlantic slave trade, and my comments were about the recognition and proper inclusion of all holocausts, in particular outside of, and post the Nazi era …. but thanks for welcoming me to the club. There appears to be some great members.
Richard, perhaps Raphael tried ‘orally-dictating’ his comment since he appears to have confused Elisabeth with someone else. I also couldn’t help but notice that he was unable to bring himself to name that organisation: The Palestine Return Centre. Ynet got it wrong and Raphael couldn’t even call it by its name. I wasn’t at that meeting so I have no further comment. However, I was with two people last night, one of whom is (an undesired though not, as far as I know, excommunicated) member of the tribe, who did not seem to have the same view as Raphael and Ynet News.
Apologies Richard: I too got the name wrong: It’s the Palestinian Return Centre. No need to post these if you don’t want to…:) Enjoyed the article, as always…
Lets be precise about what stated on Facebook:
“…many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean”
Jews were the chief financiers of the slave trade??? says who?
No serious historian, for sure. In fact, the American Historical Association issued in 1995 a statement condemning ‘any statement alleging that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic slave trade.’
What is more interesting are the reasons to try and present “Jews” are having a central role in the slave trade hundred of years ago. After all, no one seems to try and talk about some kind of responsibility of contemporary Spanish, Dutch or English people to the slave trade. As this issue was popularized by Louis Farrakhan, I suspect it is merely to justify and encourage resentment to Jews that live these days.
And by the way: if there were Jews living in the Caribbeans then they for sure were dealing with “Financing” (of trade in sugar and slaves, of course). This is logical only if you believe that Jews are all bankers.
As for Tonge, it is not just the ridiculous comparison between Israel and ISIS but the statements made in the meeting about the Jews provoking Hitler to genocide them. a statement she chose to ignore (and now claims she did not hear or understand-right…). It is the same person who, few years ago, called Israel to investigate allegations that the Israeli aid hospital in Haiti the aftermath the devastating earthquake was secretly harvesting organs and selling them on the black market…
Amico,
There has been a quite extended discussion of this topic here:
https://www.richardsilverstein.com/2016/09/29/uk-israel-lobby-excoriates-leading-jewish-corbyn-supporter-pointing-jews-werent-victims-holocaust/
Read it: There are some interesting posts there.
Thanks, but to me its enough that Tonge herself stated that the sentence she wrote was factually wrong and what she meant was that at some point of time, at some places, some Jews were main fainacier of the slave trade….
Which is of course very different from what she actually posted. Her latter claim is maybe closer to reality, though I still doubt it. But it doesn’t really matter, the need to try make “Jews” collectively somwhow responsible for slavery is ridicilous.
Amico:
Now, you’re confusing us all. Jackie Walker mentioned the African slave trade, not Baroness Tonge. Can you please be clear about what you’re talking about? And Walker never said that her sentence was “factually wrong.” Why don’t you offer a precise quote to support that claim if you can?
A perfect example of the Israel Lobby red herring argument. NO ONE has made that claim. NEither Jackie Walker nor I. Jews aren’t “collectively” responsible. But they do share responsibility with all others who profited from it. And a significant number of Jews did handsomely.
You are done in this thread. Do not comment further here.
Amico:
Now, you’re confusing us all. Jackie Walker mentioned the African slave trade, not Baroness Tonge. Can you please be clear about what you’re talking about? And Walker never said that her sentence was “factually wrong.” Why don’t you offer a precise quote to support that claim if you can?
A perfect example of the Israel Lobby red herring argument. NO ONE has made that claim. Neither Jackie Walker nor I. Jews aren’t “collectively” responsible. But they do share responsibility with all others who profited from it. And a significant number of Jews did handsomely.
You are done in this thread. Do not comment further here.
@ Amico: Again, please don’t display your abject ignorance. Also, I’ve written a long post about this subject which rebuts your claims. Find it & read it.
Actually, Brazilian & Portugese Jews DID finance a great deal of the Brazilian leg of the Atlantic slave trade. The academic sources for this are quoted & linked in my post. So Walker is not wrong. Whatever statement AHA issued in 1995 has been superceded by subsequent academic research which proves that statement incomplete. Even that statement itself is questionable. What does “disproportionate” mean? Note they didn’t say Jews played no role. They didn’t even determine the extent of the role they played. They just said history should acknowledge they played some indetermined role. I don’t think they played a disproportionate role either. But they played a major role along with many others. And for playing such a role we Jews must acknowledge & repent from these sins.
And again, I never said Jews played a “central role” in the slave trade. So be careful how you characterize what I did say.
Absolutely false. There are hundreds of historians who’ve maintained entire careers in each of these countries pointing out just that. And there are social justice activists around the world who’ve dedicated themselves to precisely this task. Where are you living, anyway? Certainly not in any of these countries.
Actually, in Brazil many, many Jews were either bankers or individuals who used their capital to finance commerical transactions including slave trade. If you read athe source I quoted, he notes the names of many of the Brazilian Jewish families engaged in such activity.
No, actually it’s quite an apt comparison in certain contexts. The religious fundamentalism, supremacism, intolerance & violence of Israel’s theocratic society is akin to ISIS. The only difference is the extent of the violence in ISIS communities compared to Israel. The latter doesn’t kill non-Jews en masse (yet).
Oh please, for all I know this was a Henry Jackson Society plant designed to smear her. Even if it wasn’t, she’s not responsible for an idiot who ranks about something in a meeting she’s chairing. Not to mention that you haven’t quoted the precise statement this individual made. If you can’t then don’t raise it again. I want documentary evidence of all claims made against her. Not paraphrases from people who weren’t there & are parroting the Jewish Chronicle.
You better have a complete quote of what Tonge said about Haiti. Because if you don’t produce it from a credible (note I said CREDIBLE) source in 24 hours I’m banning your ass. I don’t run this website based on baseless, unsubstantiated smears. If you want that, go to shmattehs like the Jewish Chronicle.
So am I “done in this thread” or am I to produce a “complete quote…in 24 hours”?
Just in case, here is what Walker (On my previous post I accidently confused her with Tonge) said:”Yes, I wrote “many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade”. These words, taken out of context in the way the media did, of course do not reflect my position. I was writing to someone who knew the context of my comments. Had he felt the need to pick me up on what I had written I would have rephrased – perhaps to “Jews (my ancestors too) were among those who financed the sugar and slave trade and at the particular time/in the particular area I’m talking about they played an important part.”
And she goes on and on…
I took this from here (credible enough?)
http://freespeechonisrael.org.uk/2346-2/
@ Amico: Look, historians have proven Portugese/Brazilian Jews played an important role as bankers/lenders for the Brazilian portion of the slave trade. I wouldn’t be surprised if they played a similar role in the Caribbean as well, though I haven’t researched this aspect as well as I have the Brazilian sector. As far as I’m concerned, she was not wrong, has nothing to apologize for & your claim that she admitted error is wrong.
Do not comment further in this thread.
@Richard : “At the meeting, an audience member compared Israel, with its religious fundamentalist faith to Isis, and its Islamist fundamentalism. The comparison, if made in a careful and nuanced way, is a valid one.”
“Careful and nuanced”, as in draining the comparison of all meaning. As in whether Zionist Jews, as a group, are marauding through vast territories and beheading and people, enslaving women and girls, who must either convert to Judaism, become a Jewish sex slave or be killed, drowning and burying people alive in mass graves, and sending sleeper Jew cells to countries outside Israel to mow down civilian heretics, all in the name of the Jewish Yahweh.
Great comparison. Congratulations, you have bought lock, stock and barrel into the anti-Zio propaganda, accusing Zionist Jews of the worst of crimes. You know as well as I do when these people compare Israel to ISIS they are not referring to fundamentalist Islam, such as what exists in Saudi Arabia or Iran or Egypt or Gaza. They are referring to Israeli treatment of the Palestinians, and therefore the analogy is totally false, nuanced or not.
I know that you folks on the far left think that Occupation is the most evil of all sins.
However there is something truly morally outrageous in comparing it to what ISIS is doing, an inability to make both moral and factual distinctions. In my mind this is the same as comparing Israel to the Nazis. Demonization.
This is not to justify an occupation, but I have proven in comments elsewhere in this blog, conclusively, with readily available objective data and facts, that even in Israel’s wars (including the Gaza wars), the civilian casualty rate is compares favorably to wars waged by Western countries elsewhere. Israel is not committing genocide against Palestinians, nor does it plan to.
Furthermore, as I have proven OBJECTIVELY in my more recent comments, that while economic conditions for many Palestinian are poor, in other measures of health, life expectancy, and rates of political violence, they are comparable to populations in other Arab countries (the ones not at war of course).
This is hardly ISIS. Hardly genocide. You need to reconsider your statement.
@ yehuda: No, the comparison isn’t drained of all meaning. It’s quite meaningful. Israel has become a backward theocratic supremacist society in which a particularly odious form of religious fundamentalism is triumphant. This country increasingly ruled by religion, engages in mass killings of non-Jews, expulsion of non-Jews, intolerance and violence against non-Jews. So you mean to tell me that murders of Abu Khdeir & the Dawabshe families weren’t gruesome enough for you? Weren’t ISIS-like? It also makes alliance with Islamist fundamentalist murderers associated with al Qaeda.
These are the marks of fundamentalists everywhere, including ISIS. Of course, Israel hasn’t yet done what the Nazis did: mobilize the entire power of the state on behalf of genocide. ISIS too, is on the extreme end of this spectrum. But Israel, just because it’s not on the extreme end, doesn’t mean it’s not on the spectrum. It’s just at an earlier stage.
I don’t accuse all Jews or even all Israeli Jews of these crimes. And Zionism, in my opinion, has nothing to do with it (except in the fact that they believe they are fulfilling a twisted, sick version of the ideology). But the fact that the state countenances crimes against non-Jews indicates the state is guilty of aiding & abetting such hatred.
If Palestinians, Iranians & other Muslim countries can be routinely likened to Nazis by your own leaders then Israel certainly may suffer the same fate. Tell Bibi to cut that shit out & we’ll all do the same. Deal?
I have gone over this issue with you & others before you & you won’t bring it up again or face moderation. The true comparison is not to other Arab countries, but to Israel itself. Israeli Palestinians are Israelis, not Arabs & not living outside Israel. Palestinians living in Palestine are under Israeli Occupation. Therefore their living conditions are the full responsibility of Israeli authorities. Their entire economy is dominated by Israel. Therefore, their living conditions must be compared to those of Israelis. By all measures, Palestinians both in Israel & Palestine fall far below Israeli standards.
As I said, if you expand upon your lame claim again in this thread or anywhere else in the comment threads you face moderation. I have no tolerance for having to repeat myself over & over again ad nauseam.
groucho did not say the quote “”PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER” as a response to being kicked out of judaism. It was a Telegram to the Friar’s Club of Beverly Hills to which he belonged, as recounted in Groucho and Me (1959), p. 321
@ miriam smith: I never said what you claim I said. I think you need to expand your literary imagination and develop a taste for irony & satire, which I often use. If you’d followed the link I posted to the Groucho quotation you’d find that it clearly says he made the statement to the Friar’s Club. But the reason the quote has so much resonance is that it has much wider meaning than a joke invoked among comedian friends. You appear to have missed that…
Mr. Silverstein:
You wrote in this article:
“Speaking of great Jewish comedians commenting on being kicked out of the tribe, Groucho of course told the famous joke: “PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER.”” Your comment to Miriam said “If you’d followed the link I posted to the Groucho quotation you’d find that it clearly says he made the statement to the Friar’s Club. There is no link in your article to this anecdote
there is an interesting website that has the history of your quote http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/04/18/groucho-resigns/
Erskine Johnson said it was a response to the Friar’s club which btw is not a Jewish organization even though it had huge Jewish membership. The LA Sentinel said it was the Lamb;’s Club
In the book Groucho and me he said “In 1959 Groucho presented a humorously fictionalized account in his memoir “Groucho and Me”. The comedian described an event at the Delaney Club during which he was unhappily seated next to a “barber who had cut me many times, both socially and with a razor” [GMGR]:
At one point he looked slowly around the room, then turned to me and said, “Groucho, we’re certainly getting a lousy batch of new members!”
I chose to ignore this remark and tried talking to him about Chaucer, Ruskin and Shakespeare, but he had switched to denouncing electric razors as a death blow to the tonsorial arts, so I dried up and resumed drinking. The following morning I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.”
In 1988 Groucho’s son presented a third recounting of the episode. This time the identity of the club is changed from the Friars to the Hillcrest Country Club. n the late thirties, when our whole family was very much into tennis, Groucho decided to drop out of the Hillcrest Country Club, because he didn’t want to have to pay dues to two clubs, the other one being the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. But he found he just couldn’t phone the Board of Directors and tell them he was quitting. They insisted he write an official letter of resignation. This request resulted in one of his most oft-quoted lines:
`Dear Board,
I don’t want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.
Sincerely yours,
Groucho Marx.’