Cyrus II the Great and the Hebrews, from Flavius Josephus’ illuminated by Jean Fouquet c. 1470-1475. Public Domain. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

by Florence Leone

mycatbirdseat.com

The reaction of Jewish leaders to  “The Inheritance of Abraham,” casts in high relief distressing characteristics of Hebrew scripture and Zionist practice.  In contrast, the history and culture of Iran are more in tune with the teaching and actions of Jesus that Christians profess to value, as well as of universal human values.

What is so special about Abraham?  Why does the Church of Scotland feel bound to the so-called Abrahamic tradition?

Look at Abraham critically:  his behavior is, shall we say, not very appealing.  His earliest public act was to destroy the religious icons of other people’s beliefs. He was likely kicked out of Ur for some outrageous offense against a civilized and prosperous community. He impregnated Hagar, then abandoned her and her child, Ishmael.  He prostituted his own wife.  He was prepared to kill his own child to serve the voices in his head.

Abraham is not MY father.  I want nothing to do with Abraham.   But Jews want to have it both ways:  they insist that Christians must be tethered to Hebrew scripture; they insist that a Christian interpretation of the promises to Abraham that view god’s promises to Abraham to be universal rather than exclusive to Jews, is “supercessionist.”  Supercessionism is defined as an attempt by Christians to supercede the special privileges granted to Jews alone. Such claims are said to be antisemitic.

German scholars led by Walther Grundmann in the Weimar, Nazi and post-Nazi eras, sought to develop an understanding of Jesus separated from a Hebrew matrix.  Susannah Heschel called this effort to find the “Aryan Jesus” anti-Semitic. The fact is, Germany is NOT Semitic.  It IS “Aryan,” in terms of its linguistic and cultural values. So is Scotland and most of Europe, and the United States. Non-Semitic is not the same as Anti-Semitic. No doubt Heschel would tag Thomas Jefferson as an antisemite as well.  Jefferson was sufficiently committed to a scholarly approach to religious concepts that he learned Hebrew in order to study the Old Testament. He concluded that the Hebrew concept of god was “morally deficient” and chose to define Christianity in terms of the “sublime morals of Jesus.”

Why should Aryans, like the Germans, and Jefferson, and most Europeans as well as Iranians, be forced to think of themselves as Semitic, as ‘children’ of the flawed character that is Abraham?  And what are the real-world present-day consequences of this Elijah-like enforcement of religious belief?

In a June 1962 article in The Commentary Reader titled “Gentile Zionism and the Balfour Declaration,” R. H. S. Crossman wrote, “The sixty-seven words of the Balfour Declaration changed the course of history.” Crossman goes on to examine “what it was that made so many British politicians susceptible to Jewish pressure” that they would acquiesce to the Balfour Declaration. He describes three different “motives of Gentile Zionism” that Weizmann discerned in Lloyd George, A. J. Balfour, and Winston Churchill. 

Of the three, Weizmann’s approach to A. J. Balfour offers insights into the ways that Jewish leaders such as Israeli ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, emulate the “maestro” Weizmann in “playing on these three species of Gentile Zionism.”  Weizmann assessed that Balfour had “strong anti-Semitic tendencies.”

“[Weizmann’s] central doctrine [was] that anti-Semitism is endemic in the Gentile world and that the justification of Zionism lies precisely in this fact.  It is because the Jews of the Diaspora must always, by definition, remain in danger of homelessness that a Jewish State is a necessity of Jewish survival.

“From this central doctrine Weizmann drew one important practical consequence.  Instead of being shocked by the fact that many of the Gentiles he dealt with felt strong anti-Semitic prejudices, he assumed that the most reliable support for his cause would be drawn from those Gentiles who were ashamed of their hostility to the Jews . . . Balfour certainly worried about anti-Semitism.”

In other words, Weizmann played upon Balfour’s inner conflict between thinking that as a Christian he is a “child of Abraham” but who is, simultaneously, excluded from the privileges the Jewish children of Abraham claim for themselves alone. Balfour was not able to claim his own identity as a non-Semite, and Weizmann used that weakness to “change history.”

Crossman goes on to discuss the political situation that brought Weizmann and Balfour into contact. The short story is, Balfour needed the Jewish vote, and to get it, he needed the support of an influential Jew like Weizmann to “reduce Jewish hostility.” A conversation between Balfour and Weizmann took place in which “by playing on Balfour’s uneasy conscience, Weizmann converted him to Zionism . . . Feeling within himself the emotions from which the pogrom rises, Balfour dedicated himself to removing the cause of anti-Semitism by creating a Jewish state.”

In “The Great Transformation,” Armstrong describes the earliest value system of Aryans:

The Aryans took the spoken word very seriously.  Like all other phenomena, speech was a god. . . Aryan religion was not very visual.  . . .  Instead, they found that the act of listening brought them close to the sacred.  Quite apart from its meaning, the very sound of a chant was holy; even a single syllable could encapsulate the divine.  Similarly, a vow, once uttered, was eternally binding, and a lie was absolutely evil because it perverted the holy power inherent in the spoken word. The Aryans would never lose this passion for absolute truthfulness.” Armstrong, p. 4-5.

At a conference in New York City recently, Giandomenico Picco was a member of the audience.  Picco negotiated the accord that ended the eight-year long Iran-Iraq war that cost millions of lives.  Picco also negotiated the release of hostages in Lebanon.  In that role, he was blindfolded, placed in the back seat of a car and taken to the negotiating site, “not a strategy I would recommend,” Picco observed.  “But,” he said, “the negotiation was successful because first I had talked with Hashemi Rafsanjani . . . Rafsanjani’s experience is as a merchant . . . and Rafsanjani kept his word.” Compare Rafsanjani’s behavior to the behavior of Israel’s leaders in the “peace process” over the past 40 years.

The Cyrus Cylinder was on display at the Sackler Gallery in Washington, DC, recently, as part of an exhibit titled, “A New Beginning.”  As several books of the Old Testament document, Cyrus, king of Persia, liberated Hebrews from Nebuchadnezzar in ~537 BC.  On the Cyrus Cylinder Cyrus wrote:  

I am Cyrus, King of the globe, great king, mighty king, King of Babylon, king of the land of Sumer and Akad, King of ……, king of the four quarters of Earth, son of Cambysis (Kambujiye), great king, king of Anshan, grandson of Cyrus (Kurosh), great king, king of Anshan, descendant of Teispes (Chaish Pish), great king, king of Anshan, progeny of an unending royal line, whose rule, The Gods, Bel and Nabu cherish, whose kingship they desire for their hearts’ and pleasures.

 When I well disposed, entered Babylon, I had established the seat of government in the royal palace of the ruler, amidst jubilation and rejoicing. Marduk the great god, induced the magnanimous inhabitants of Babylon to love me, and I sought daily to worship him when my numerous soldiers in great numbers peacefully entered Babylon and moved about undisturbed in the midst of the Babylon, I did not allow anyone to terrorize the people of the lands of Sumer and Akad and ……

I kept in view, the needs of the people and all their sanctuaries to promote their well being.

I strove for peace in Babylon and in all his other sacred cities.

As to the inhabitants of Babylon who against the will of the gods were enslaved, I abolished the corvee which was against their social standing, I freed all slaves.

I brought relief to their dilapidated housing, putting thus an end to their misfortunes and slavery.

Marduk, the great lord, was well pleased with my deeds, rejoiced and to me, Cyrus, the king who worshipped him, and to Cambysis, my son, the offspring of my loins, and to all my troops he graciously gave his blessing, and in good sprit, before him we stood peacefully and praised him joyously.” 

To my mind, Cyrus beats the tar out of anything Abraham offered the world. 

We have to stop being afraid of Jews. That’s not the same as expressing hatred of Jews, though that is surely how it will be cast.

We must empower ourselves to affirm our own identity, whether as Christians who seek to emulate the “sublime morals of Jesus,” or as Muslims, or as universalists like Cyrus or ethicists like Zoroaster.  We must empower ourselves to treat Jews just as we would any other person or group with whom we live, negotiate, or have a conflict.

I hope the Scottish clergy are willing and able to take a principled stand that says, “We will not be bullied by your appeals to “antisemitic guilt,” or holocaustiana.  That’s over.

I hope the Scottish clergy take an affirmative, not defensive, posture, and refuse to be browbeaten by Taub and those who think and act as he does.

The Church of Scotland has a unique opportunity to take a “new beginning” for the Christian church, and to “pivot” toward their original first cousins, the sons and daughters of Zoroaster, the Aryan people, the people, culture, and values of Cyrus and Iran.

ed note–So,  one of the  first  official  acts of the VERY Judaicly-friendly Pope is to canonize several hundred Christians who lost  their lives fighting Muslims, and next is to present a Judeo-centric art exhibit that  extols  the Jews as  ‘God’s Chosen people’ rather than centering on Jesus Christ, whom the Jews killed.

It just keeps getting better and better… 

Times of Israel

For its first pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale international art festival, the Vatican is presenting an exhibit inspired by the first book of the Torah, rather than by a New Testament theme.

Called “Creation, Un-Creation, Re-Creation,” the three-part show in the Vatican’s pavilion will draw on the first 11 chapters of Genesis, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, told reporters Tuesday at a news conference presenting the concept.

Three international contemporary artists were chosen to explore the three themes: the Milan-based multimedia group Studio Azzurro was commissioned to produce an interactive video inspired by Creation; the Czech photographer Josef Koudelka explores Un-creation with a series of black and white images; and the Australian-born artist Lawrence Carroll evokes Re-Creation with multi-media works.

Genesis, Ravasi said, “is fundamental for culture and for Church tradition. It is also a source of inspiration for many whose works have left a mark on the history of art: the story told in the Book of Genesis. Specifically, the first eleven chapters have been chosen, as they are dedicated to the mystery of man’s origins, the introduction of evil into history, and our hope and future projects after the devastation symbolically represented by the Flood.”

The 55th edition of the Biennale opens June 1 and runs until Nov. 24 and features pavilions from more than 80 countries.

The increase in hate speech, which the community links to a Jewish politician’s presidential bid, among other factors, was documented in an annual report on anti-Semitism.

JTA

The Jewish Community of Prague documented a tripling of online instances of anti-Semitic hate speech last year.

The increase, which the community links to a Jewish politician’s presidential bid, among other factors, was documented in an annual report on anti-Semitism published Tuesday.

The community documented 82 instances of online hate speech on Czech websites in the last year, compared to only 26 the previous year.

According to idnes.cz, a news site, the report attributes the increase to the presidential campaign ahead of elections last January. Jan Fischer, a Jewish politician, was considered a leading candidate but did not make it past the first round.

“The presidential elections have revealed a degree of latent anti-Semitism in some groups, but certainly did not indicate anti-Semitism in the majority or mainstream political speech,” the authors of the report wrote.

Other causes listed were a strategic shift in extreme-right circles to online activity; escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and warm relations between the Czech government and Israel, idnes.cz reported.

The authors recorded no physical assault or threats due to anti-Semitism in 2012, but did register six attacks on property and ten instances of harassment, mainly via email. The report further states that the overall prevalence of anti-Semitism is lower in the Czech Republic than in other European countries.

How do the political attitudes of parents influence those of their children? AsElias Dinas notes, a common assumption is that children from more politically engaged families are more likely to retain their parents’ political views. Taking issue with this perspective, he finds evidence that while young people from politicised homes may be more likely to acquire an initial partisan orientation from their parents, they are also more likely to abandon that preference as they enter adulthood and experience politics for themselves.

How do we end up supporting a specific political party? Why do some people in the UK, for instance, call themselves Labour or Conservative supporters, whereas others fail to identify with any individual party at all? One of the most oft-cited explanations alludes to the role of parents. Through family socialisation, young individuals get to know about the `goodies’ and the `baddies’ of the political world. Accordingly, they form their partisan preferences before they develop a sophisticated understanding of politics. These attachments may not be strongly felt, but children rarely declare a party identification with the main rival of the party to which parents are loyal.

Zwei Urwähler im Gespräch, Adolph von Menzel (Public Domain)

Research in social psychology confirms this view. In what probably constitutes the most influential critique to the long-standing notion that children’s personalities are shaped by their parents, Judith Harris suggests that what matters for the formation of an adult is genes and peers. Still, she acknowledges that her `nurture thesis’ does not hold for the development of political preferences. During childhood, political attitudes are not defining features linking peer groups. Thus, political views acquired at home are not undermined by conformity within these groups. Eventually, however, adolescents become adults and they leave their parents’ home. For some, the partisan affiliation expressed in childhood persists and for others it does not. What explains this variation?

If one pictures parental influence as a form of partisan legacy, we are led to conclude that the more vivid parental politicisation has been during childhood, the more likely its footprints are to persist during adulthood. Parents who provide unambiguous partisan cues are those parents who talk more about politics. These parents, according to the established wisdom, should then be more successful in transmitting an enduring partisanship to their offspring. It turns out, however, that this logic is partially wrong. The reason is that it considers the strength of the initial socialisation, but neglects the strength of the change-inducing circumstances individuals confront later in life.

Once leaving their parental home, young adults frequently encounter new political stimuli, some of which may contradict their parental partisan lessons. Political learning may be prompted by mass media communications or through experiences in college, in the workplace, and in newly formed social networks and families. Although the partisan direction of these cues will depend on the time period and the specific social locations of individuals, the magnitude of their influence on young people’s partisan outlooks should vary according to the individual’s latent predisposition to receive such cues, which in turn will depend on their level of political involvement. Although selective exposure will shape some information flows, others can be thought of as operating exogenously. People do not tend to opt for colleges or jobs on partisan grounds. And while sorting is strong in the selection of spouses, it is much weaker when it comes to the people a young person interacts with in college or in the work environment. Exposure to political discussion in such contexts may lead to instances in which prior views are challenged.

Here again, political socialisation enters in, since a person’s attentiveness to public affairs is shaped by experiences during childhood and adolescence. Although not the only agent of socialisation, the family plays an important role in inspiring the child to take an interest in the political world. Politically interested young adults are likely to have grown up in politicised families. An adolescent acquainted with political discussions within the family will probably continue to talk about politics in their new social contexts. A person whose early socialisation promoted knowledge of and interest in politics will likely continue to be attentive and interested as they move through their adult years. This contact will bring them closer to external influences that might induce them to revise their political worldview.

Political engagement on the part of parents, thus, plays a dual role in the political socialisation of the young. It boosts the intensity of pre-adult political learning, strengthening the transmission of political attitudes from parent to child. It also makes children more politically engaged themselves. Taken together, a seemingly counter-intuitive pattern arises. Young people from politicised homes may be more likely to acquire an initial partisan orientation from their parents, but they are also more likely to abandon that preference as they enter adulthood and experience politics for themselves. Evidence from the US and Britain confirms this perspective, as shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Parent-child political convergence for politicised and non-politicised families in the UK (1991-2008)

Notes: Each dot represents the average difference in the probability of party similarity between parent and child between children from more politicised families and children from less politicised families. The black solid curve summarises the pattern, showing how the passage through early adulthood is shaped by decreasing levels of convergence among offspring from more politicised homes. The analysis is based on the British Household Panel Study.

The evidence shows that young Americans and Britons from highly politicised homes are more likely to deviate from their parents’ partisan preferences. Moreover, the evidence helps to shed light on the mechanisms. A typical context within which many young adults find themselves is the university – a left-leaning institution. Consistent with the argument presented here, it turns out that offspring from right-wing politicised homes are more likely to shift towards a more left-wing direction than children that stem from less politicised right-wing families. Furthermore, when an important political event takes place, be it a war or a scandal, young adults from more politically active families are more likely to update their partisan preferences accordingly. The evidence shows that parent-child divergence is not confined to instances in which the political context prompts young people to develop more liberal stances. For instance, during the 1960s, the civil-rights movement led the American South away from the Democratic party. Consistent with the hypothesis advanced here, it was the young Southerners growing up in politically engaged homes who primarily drove the shift away from the Democrats.

Apart from highlighting the multi-dimensional role of family socialisation, the overall results also shed light on the origins of political change over time. Period forces give room to the formation of generational units only when they are infiltrated through one’s own active involvement. New political climates are only a necessary condition for political change. The sufficient condition is political engagement, at least in part originating in family socialisation. Thus, if knowledge of parental partisanship is important in explaining continuity, knowledge of parental politicisation may be more vital for our understanding of partisan and attitudinal change.

NOVANEWS

Demonstrators appear to have been mainly young, left wing supporters of Scottish independence

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he has resigned his papacy because he is gay and “could no longer live a lie.”

In a statement released to Italian news media the 85-year-old departing pontiff says he is relieved to be coming out after eight decades in the closet and urged the Catholic Church and other faiths to accept homosexuality as a natural part of God’s creation.

“Like many gay Catholics, I have been forced for too long to choose between my faith and my identity,” the statement reads. “My profound love for my beloved church compelled me to lie to myself and to my fellow believers about a basic component of my humanity.

“I deeply regret that deception. I have not been honest with the Church, and for that reason I decided that I could not continue my role as leader of the world’s one billion Catholics.

“Now that I have been liberated of this secret, I wish to express my belief that homosexuals are equal in the eyes of God. I beseech the Catholic Church to reconsider its ban on gay clergy and become a leading force in the struggle for gay rights.”

Gay the Pray Away

Pope Benedict XVI announced his resignation on Feb. 11, becoming the first pontiff since the Middle Ages to resign his post. His stated reason was to retire before the ravages of old age left him unable to complete his duties.

Yet rumors have been swirling in Rome since the announcement that the decision instead had something to do with homosexuality at the Church’s highest levels.

There have been newspaper reports of a secret “gay conclave” within the Vatican that visited local prostitutes and was thereafter blackmailed.

But there has been no indication that the scandal touched the pope himself, and today’s news has come as a surprise to most following the story.

Benedict resigns his papacy today, and will technically cease his duties as pope at 8 p.m. Central European Time. It had been anticipated that he would continue on as a “Pope Emeritus,” but given the Church’s ban on homosexuality his future role is now unclear.

Say it Ain’t So Joe

Reaction to the Pope’s statement has ranged from shock to excitement to despair. Some conservative figures in the Catholic Church have even expressed outrage at the move, suggesting Benedict should have remained in the closet.

“Look everyone knows that the only people who sign up for a lifetime of living in all-male dormitories with no possibility of marriage are gay men,” says Phyllis Gates, a conservative Catholic blogger. “But why did he have to actually say it? Denial was working so well for us.”

However for Rick Santorum, one of America’s most prominent anti-gay Catholic politicians, denial is still alive and well.

“I don’t believe him,” Santorum says from his home in Washington, D.C. “Homosexual activists have clearly compromised Pope Benedict through blackmail or brainwashing or some sort of queer subterfuge.

“He’s not gay. He can’t be gay. That’s just not possible. He’s just pretending for some reason. And it’s my job to figure out what that reason is.”

Pride and Joy

While Santorum is looking for evidence of a gay conspiracy, however, LGBT activists are celebrating the Pope’s pro-gay rights message.

“It’s heartening to see a leading person in the Catholic Church finally take a stand for equality,” says Chad Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign. ”The church has hitherto been one of the most powerful anti-gay rights organizations in the world.

“Although it’s a shame that he was forced out because of his orientation, we’re all hoping that Pope Benedict’s words of tolerance will resonate with people of faith around the world.”

Gay Catholic blogger Andrew Sullivan, who speculated yesterday about a homosexual relationship between Pope Benedict and his personal aide, was phlegmatic towards the news.

“I wish I could take some credit, but honestly anyone could have predicted this. No women, fabulous hats, and Prada shoes? This is the gayest institution in the world.”