The problem is that Court Jews were working the system as it were. We don't like them because they were traitors to their people, but they were also working a system that was stacked against them.
There is no reason that the likes of Butler or Feinstein have become "Court Jews." You could even say that they actually created the situation where other Jews, in order to get jobs in academia and certain professions, have to become "Court Jews." They propelled the ideology whereby Jews had to disavow their Jewishness in order to be accepted.
Court Jews would be Lander in NYC and Wiener in San Fran. But in truth they are all just garbage human beings, only worthy of mention when we discuss those who should be cherem.
Butler and Feinstein quite frankly are worse than Court Jews, because their betrayal has led to other Jews not only being expelled from professions, but have given succor to those who have murdered Jews.
I'd have to agree with that. Court Jews are getting a bad name here by having "as a Jew" types compared to them. Court Jews were careerists from the sound of it. Pappe, Chomksy and Finkelstein are another breed altogether. They are fanatics, like many Marxists, willing to betray fellow Jews and Israel in service to something else. I would say the best analogy can be found in Exodus 32: the image of the Hebrew idolaters who construct a golden calf. Antizionism has become an idolatrous faith, to which some people give their entire being; it is their raison d'etre. Scapegoating Israel is the means by which they serve this false god.
To expand on this, theologian Paul Tillich states that idolatry is faith in that which is less than ultimate. Any kind of secular political position can become idolatrous. Key 20th-century examples are Communism and National Socialism. If anti-Zionism becomes not just a policy critique, but the center of the moral universe for its adherents, it fits Tillich's definition of idolatry. It becomes a totalizing devotion for them, the lens through which all good and evil are filtered. It replaces the infinite with a finite political goal. It also promises a false salvation that can and has been used to justify terrorism: if Israel is eliminated, the world will be redeemed, they seem to believe. They start to empathize with Hitler's vision after a while, though typically in whispered tones. Eliminating Israel (which they have demonized) is seen as the singular key to global justice, taking on a redemptive quality that Tillich would call a "demonic" elevation of the finite. We see this among some Leftists and almost all Islamists. True faith recognizes its own finitude. An ideology that claims absolute moral certainty and refuses to acknowledge its own potential for harm is, in Tillich’s view, veering into the idolatrous. The harm in question is the proven potential of this ideology (anti-Zionism) to justify terrorism and genocide. An example of a failure to recognize the failed logic of anti-Zionism is undue focus on alleged harms by Israel while ignoring proven and far more egregious harms by neighbouring Arab states. Finkelstein, Chomsky, Butler, Pappe, and those like them can be likened to the Hebrews in Exodus 32 who committed idolatry.
Jewish philosopher Emile Fackenheim, in the same vein, argued that anti-Zionism is idolatrous. He argued that Jews are commanded to survive so as not to hand Hitler a "posthumous victory." Jewish survival—and by extension, the State of Israel—is a sacred response to radical evil. Melanie Phillips has more recently argued something similar in her book The Builder's Stone, stating that after October 7th, the defence of Israel is nothing less than standing up for civilization against the forces of barbarism (as represented by Hamas) that would destroy it. Fackenheim argued that many anti-Zionists (especially those who are Jewish, such as Finkelstein) fall into idolatry by worshipping a universalist Ideal at the expense of actual Jewish lives.
In Tillich’s sense, an idol is taking a partial truth (like "universal peace" or "humanity") and making it an absolute that demands the sacrifice of the particular (the Jewish people). They place abstract ideals above the lives of Israelis. For example, universalist ideals that the UN advances seem to blind its adherents to true evil. This has led to such developments as UNRWA employees participating in Oct 7th and the UN women's forum's failure to decry the terrible harms to Israeli women on Oct 7th, and the UN voting against Israel even while ignoring actual human rights violations by its own voting members. I have met many Leftists who do the same and think they stand for moral goodness. They unwittingly virtue signal for that which is evil. Idolatry blinds them.
Jewish self-abnegation is demonic in the Tillichian sense: Fackenheim suggested that anti-Zionism seeks to dissolve the Jewish "ground of being" (Jewish historical existence) into an abstract, hollowed-out moralism. Denying the Jewish right to a state in a world that seeks the destruction of Jews is a satanic inversion of morality.
You didn’t include any of the Israeli-born “Israel Studies” professors at prominent American universities who supported the pro-Hamas encampments and repeated every genocide slander against the IDF.
Holding Left wing, or Right wing politics will not save us. Only support for the well organised defence of Jews, including from Israel, will defend us successfully. And in the final analysis this is all that counts.
Excellent commentary and the author reinforces the themes that Prof. Ruth Wisse addresses in her book “Jews and Power”. As a people we have seen this movie many times. It always amazes me when those Jews who bash Israel, bash “our people’s affinity” believe that when the mob or power of the state comes after Jews that they will be spared.
Another analogy used, this one more inflammatory, was stated by David Friedman (later U.S. Ambassador to Israel) in an op-ed for Arutz Sheva, saying that J Street, a left-leaning American Jewish lobbying group critical of Israel, is "far worse than kapos." During his Senate confirmation hearing, Friedman, under fire for this remark, apologized for making it. The logic of the remark: given that Iran and Hamas want to literally commit genocide against Israelis, and anti-Israel remarks from some Jews like Noam Chomsky help them, the "as a Jew" types are breaking Emile Fackenheim's 614th commandment. Friedman implies that anti-Israel Jews are, in essence, collaborating with those who wish to destroy the Jewish people. Historians and Holocaust survivors tend to condemn this comparison for committing a false equivalency that trivializes genocide. Because the State of Israel is the primary vehicle for Jewish survival and self-determination post-Holocaust, any criticism that threatens its existence or legitimacy assists those who wish for Jewish destruction. From this view, radical anti-Zionism might be seen as a violation of Emile Fackenheim's 614th commandment. The usual counter-argument is that ethical behaviour and justice are core to Jewish identity; thus, criticizing the state to make it more just, to align it with Jewish values, is actually an act of preserving the integrity of the Jewish people. Yes, that would be a sound argument if it were legitimate criticism of some particular state policy by someone who still supports Israel's right to exist, but when Jewish criticism of Israel is used by Israel's enemies to legitimize their calls for the destruction of Israel, then they are not supporting justice. They are supporting profound injustice.
On another note, readers may be familiar with Tucker Carlson's ugly anti-Israel diatribes, which appeal to groypers. His latest anti-Israel remarks, issued today, go so far as to side with Iran against the USA and Israel, though he does it subtly and cleverly through rhetorical questions: he asks, "How would Israel having nuclear weapons but Iran not even being allowed to have nuclear energy be remotely fair?' and "Does Iran have the right to defend itself, too?" Remarkable. There is so much wrong with the assumptions these questions are based on. First of all, Iran doesn't just want "nuclear energy"; it wants nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and to inflict even more terrorism on the USA, and to spread its brand of Islamic terrorism in the region to an even greater degree. Israel's nuclear capability is strictly for self-defense aganst hostile regional threats, namely Iran. In his second question, Carlson is deliberately conflating Iran's tyrannical mullahs and Revolutionary Guard with the Iranian people whom they have subjugated and oppressed for far too long. President Trump wants to help liberate Iranians from this tyranny. 32,000 protestors were recently murdered by the state there. Why doesn't Carlson speak up for them? Or for Christians persecuted by Islamists in Nigeria and Iran? Instead, he makes false claims that Israel persecutes Christians. Those who wish to scapegoat Jews don't care about facts. It reminds me of the first major lies against Zionists, spread by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. What a horrible person Carlson has become. I used to like his reports on Fox News. Now I find him detestable.
The most insidious and dangerous of the modern court Jews are the so-called moderates like Friedman and his elected equivalents like Charles Schumer because they seem reasonable while undermining the Jewish people at every turn. Everyone knows what Finklestein is and what Beinart is. No one persuadable takes them or Bernie Sanders or other communists seriously. Its the Schumers who truly endanger us with their betrayal.
Court Jews include many well known names here in the UK.
I consider them to be Brits that happen to be Jewish. Through ignorance & being ill informed about Israel, they operate from the ‘comfort of their armchairs’ through ‘rose tinted spectacles’.
Jewish people that happen to be British, like myself, follow the mantra of Denis Prager and Prager U. We support Israel which ever government Israel elects, ie centre, right or left. Criticism of Israeli government or policy is fine, but NOT so that organisations which are already biased against Israel use these ‘Court Jews’ to fan the flames of Israel and Jew hate.
Actually Jews are being barred from professions, at least in Canada. Jews unless they hide their identity and in some cases change their names, are being barred from entering Medical Schools and Law Schools, as well as Social Work, in particular, in many of the universities in the country. Academia in the Humanities and Social Sciences, other than Economics, are the worst Jew haters here, and most Jewish students find it especially difficult to deal with graduate work in these fields, due to Jew hating thesis advisors as well as other academics.
These Court Jews need to be treated as traitors to the Jewish people, and forget politeness, and the old boys' network. They need to be expelled from the Jewish communities, so others will not follow their path in working for the Jew haters in the Diaspora.
The State here in the UK maintains and supports Far Right organisations, including The re-formed Nazi Party. All Jews who identify as Jews on the National Census held every ten years have their names and home addresses collated by these organisations with the connivance of The State. This is how far things have got to here in Europe. Thus there can be no compromise with these people. The State maintains Nazism and Jew Hate. We have monitored all of this just as such. Court Jews note…It really is that simple.
"History shows that the court is never permanent. Legitimacy borrowed from power is conditional, and acceptance predicated on denunciation is fragile. The court will recalculate when the winds shift."
The Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst and the Judenrat learned that lesson too — albeit a little too late for their own good..
Excellent essay with astute discussion of the Court Jews of yesteryear with the As a Jews of today, and the purposes both serve as shields and cover for antisemites and systemic bias against Jews historically and today.
Great essay. Informative and well reasoned . It made me realize that "Court Jews" were precursors of phenomenon I long called "useful idiots" many of whom, although by far not all are Jews .
I suspect it is some pathological perversion some people develop that attracts them to enthusiastically support their eventual oppressors .
Excellent. Timely. Today's court Jews are part of the growing reghettoization of Diaspora Jews. Anti-Zionist antisemitism rells Jews "Get out of Israel! And everywhere else!" The stronger, larger and more populous the Jewish state, the weaker the negation of Diaspora Jews.-- Eric Rozenman
In a nutshell, the good Jew is the Jew who succumbs to anti-Jewish normalizing pressure. In the literature on antisimitism, this is in fact know as the normalization of the Jews (not to be confused with the normalization of antisemitism, although the two are far from orthogonal since the latter increases pressure on the former to occur). What awaits (and deserves) careful analysis is the social functionalist bases of the normalization pressure the author speaks of. For example, are most As a Jew," antizionists merely intuitive politicians minding their prospects in a world that is increasingly hostile to Jews? Or are some proportion of them also intuitive theologians who less than being strategic about minding their place in society, have acquired a moral reflex through their infusion in society, and academia in particular? Are others not intuitive prosecutors precommitted to a prosecutorial framework they no longer question? These are the three archetypes Phil Tetlock described in his 2002 Psychological Review article on social functionalist frameworks for judgment and choice. Of course, each of us has an intuitive politician, theologian, and prosecutor in us so the challenge of understanding the accommodationist Jew is not merely to select from the three archetypes, but to accurately characterize how their interactions determine judgment, choice, and behavior..
This is the article that needs to be written but with a far more extensive list, a whose who of names. Butler and Finkelsteen arent enough.
The problem is that Court Jews were working the system as it were. We don't like them because they were traitors to their people, but they were also working a system that was stacked against them.
There is no reason that the likes of Butler or Feinstein have become "Court Jews." You could even say that they actually created the situation where other Jews, in order to get jobs in academia and certain professions, have to become "Court Jews." They propelled the ideology whereby Jews had to disavow their Jewishness in order to be accepted.
Court Jews would be Lander in NYC and Wiener in San Fran. But in truth they are all just garbage human beings, only worthy of mention when we discuss those who should be cherem.
Butler and Feinstein quite frankly are worse than Court Jews, because their betrayal has led to other Jews not only being expelled from professions, but have given succor to those who have murdered Jews.
The Court Jew par excellence is Charles Schumer. His photo would be next to the definition in the dictionary.
I'd have to agree with that. Court Jews are getting a bad name here by having "as a Jew" types compared to them. Court Jews were careerists from the sound of it. Pappe, Chomksy and Finkelstein are another breed altogether. They are fanatics, like many Marxists, willing to betray fellow Jews and Israel in service to something else. I would say the best analogy can be found in Exodus 32: the image of the Hebrew idolaters who construct a golden calf. Antizionism has become an idolatrous faith, to which some people give their entire being; it is their raison d'etre. Scapegoating Israel is the means by which they serve this false god.
To expand on this, theologian Paul Tillich states that idolatry is faith in that which is less than ultimate. Any kind of secular political position can become idolatrous. Key 20th-century examples are Communism and National Socialism. If anti-Zionism becomes not just a policy critique, but the center of the moral universe for its adherents, it fits Tillich's definition of idolatry. It becomes a totalizing devotion for them, the lens through which all good and evil are filtered. It replaces the infinite with a finite political goal. It also promises a false salvation that can and has been used to justify terrorism: if Israel is eliminated, the world will be redeemed, they seem to believe. They start to empathize with Hitler's vision after a while, though typically in whispered tones. Eliminating Israel (which they have demonized) is seen as the singular key to global justice, taking on a redemptive quality that Tillich would call a "demonic" elevation of the finite. We see this among some Leftists and almost all Islamists. True faith recognizes its own finitude. An ideology that claims absolute moral certainty and refuses to acknowledge its own potential for harm is, in Tillich’s view, veering into the idolatrous. The harm in question is the proven potential of this ideology (anti-Zionism) to justify terrorism and genocide. An example of a failure to recognize the failed logic of anti-Zionism is undue focus on alleged harms by Israel while ignoring proven and far more egregious harms by neighbouring Arab states. Finkelstein, Chomsky, Butler, Pappe, and those like them can be likened to the Hebrews in Exodus 32 who committed idolatry.
Jewish philosopher Emile Fackenheim, in the same vein, argued that anti-Zionism is idolatrous. He argued that Jews are commanded to survive so as not to hand Hitler a "posthumous victory." Jewish survival—and by extension, the State of Israel—is a sacred response to radical evil. Melanie Phillips has more recently argued something similar in her book The Builder's Stone, stating that after October 7th, the defence of Israel is nothing less than standing up for civilization against the forces of barbarism (as represented by Hamas) that would destroy it. Fackenheim argued that many anti-Zionists (especially those who are Jewish, such as Finkelstein) fall into idolatry by worshipping a universalist Ideal at the expense of actual Jewish lives.
In Tillich’s sense, an idol is taking a partial truth (like "universal peace" or "humanity") and making it an absolute that demands the sacrifice of the particular (the Jewish people). They place abstract ideals above the lives of Israelis. For example, universalist ideals that the UN advances seem to blind its adherents to true evil. This has led to such developments as UNRWA employees participating in Oct 7th and the UN women's forum's failure to decry the terrible harms to Israeli women on Oct 7th, and the UN voting against Israel even while ignoring actual human rights violations by its own voting members. I have met many Leftists who do the same and think they stand for moral goodness. They unwittingly virtue signal for that which is evil. Idolatry blinds them.
Jewish self-abnegation is demonic in the Tillichian sense: Fackenheim suggested that anti-Zionism seeks to dissolve the Jewish "ground of being" (Jewish historical existence) into an abstract, hollowed-out moralism. Denying the Jewish right to a state in a world that seeks the destruction of Jews is a satanic inversion of morality.
You didn’t include any of the Israeli-born “Israel Studies” professors at prominent American universities who supported the pro-Hamas encampments and repeated every genocide slander against the IDF.
Let's make it simple: For the many named, their LEFTISM TRUMPS THEIR JUDAISM
I am not a biblical scholar like many of you but as I read this my thoughts went to Esther and Mordechi. Today we have many Hamans in high places.
Holding Left wing, or Right wing politics will not save us. Only support for the well organised defence of Jews, including from Israel, will defend us successfully. And in the final analysis this is all that counts.
Excellent commentary and the author reinforces the themes that Prof. Ruth Wisse addresses in her book “Jews and Power”. As a people we have seen this movie many times. It always amazes me when those Jews who bash Israel, bash “our people’s affinity” believe that when the mob or power of the state comes after Jews that they will be spared.
Another analogy used, this one more inflammatory, was stated by David Friedman (later U.S. Ambassador to Israel) in an op-ed for Arutz Sheva, saying that J Street, a left-leaning American Jewish lobbying group critical of Israel, is "far worse than kapos." During his Senate confirmation hearing, Friedman, under fire for this remark, apologized for making it. The logic of the remark: given that Iran and Hamas want to literally commit genocide against Israelis, and anti-Israel remarks from some Jews like Noam Chomsky help them, the "as a Jew" types are breaking Emile Fackenheim's 614th commandment. Friedman implies that anti-Israel Jews are, in essence, collaborating with those who wish to destroy the Jewish people. Historians and Holocaust survivors tend to condemn this comparison for committing a false equivalency that trivializes genocide. Because the State of Israel is the primary vehicle for Jewish survival and self-determination post-Holocaust, any criticism that threatens its existence or legitimacy assists those who wish for Jewish destruction. From this view, radical anti-Zionism might be seen as a violation of Emile Fackenheim's 614th commandment. The usual counter-argument is that ethical behaviour and justice are core to Jewish identity; thus, criticizing the state to make it more just, to align it with Jewish values, is actually an act of preserving the integrity of the Jewish people. Yes, that would be a sound argument if it were legitimate criticism of some particular state policy by someone who still supports Israel's right to exist, but when Jewish criticism of Israel is used by Israel's enemies to legitimize their calls for the destruction of Israel, then they are not supporting justice. They are supporting profound injustice.
On another note, readers may be familiar with Tucker Carlson's ugly anti-Israel diatribes, which appeal to groypers. His latest anti-Israel remarks, issued today, go so far as to side with Iran against the USA and Israel, though he does it subtly and cleverly through rhetorical questions: he asks, "How would Israel having nuclear weapons but Iran not even being allowed to have nuclear energy be remotely fair?' and "Does Iran have the right to defend itself, too?" Remarkable. There is so much wrong with the assumptions these questions are based on. First of all, Iran doesn't just want "nuclear energy"; it wants nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and to inflict even more terrorism on the USA, and to spread its brand of Islamic terrorism in the region to an even greater degree. Israel's nuclear capability is strictly for self-defense aganst hostile regional threats, namely Iran. In his second question, Carlson is deliberately conflating Iran's tyrannical mullahs and Revolutionary Guard with the Iranian people whom they have subjugated and oppressed for far too long. President Trump wants to help liberate Iranians from this tyranny. 32,000 protestors were recently murdered by the state there. Why doesn't Carlson speak up for them? Or for Christians persecuted by Islamists in Nigeria and Iran? Instead, he makes false claims that Israel persecutes Christians. Those who wish to scapegoat Jews don't care about facts. It reminds me of the first major lies against Zionists, spread by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. What a horrible person Carlson has become. I used to like his reports on Fox News. Now I find him detestable.
He has sold his soul for the golden calf of celebrity. He will reap his reward.
The most insidious and dangerous of the modern court Jews are the so-called moderates like Friedman and his elected equivalents like Charles Schumer because they seem reasonable while undermining the Jewish people at every turn. Everyone knows what Finklestein is and what Beinart is. No one persuadable takes them or Bernie Sanders or other communists seriously. Its the Schumers who truly endanger us with their betrayal.
Yes 1000%. You framed it very well.
Court Jews include many well known names here in the UK.
I consider them to be Brits that happen to be Jewish. Through ignorance & being ill informed about Israel, they operate from the ‘comfort of their armchairs’ through ‘rose tinted spectacles’.
Jewish people that happen to be British, like myself, follow the mantra of Denis Prager and Prager U. We support Israel which ever government Israel elects, ie centre, right or left. Criticism of Israeli government or policy is fine, but NOT so that organisations which are already biased against Israel use these ‘Court Jews’ to fan the flames of Israel and Jew hate.
Actually Jews are being barred from professions, at least in Canada. Jews unless they hide their identity and in some cases change their names, are being barred from entering Medical Schools and Law Schools, as well as Social Work, in particular, in many of the universities in the country. Academia in the Humanities and Social Sciences, other than Economics, are the worst Jew haters here, and most Jewish students find it especially difficult to deal with graduate work in these fields, due to Jew hating thesis advisors as well as other academics.
These Court Jews need to be treated as traitors to the Jewish people, and forget politeness, and the old boys' network. They need to be expelled from the Jewish communities, so others will not follow their path in working for the Jew haters in the Diaspora.
The State here in the UK maintains and supports Far Right organisations, including The re-formed Nazi Party. All Jews who identify as Jews on the National Census held every ten years have their names and home addresses collated by these organisations with the connivance of The State. This is how far things have got to here in Europe. Thus there can be no compromise with these people. The State maintains Nazism and Jew Hate. We have monitored all of this just as such. Court Jews note…It really is that simple.
"History shows that the court is never permanent. Legitimacy borrowed from power is conditional, and acceptance predicated on denunciation is fragile. The court will recalculate when the winds shift."
The Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst and the Judenrat learned that lesson too — albeit a little too late for their own good..
You lost me when you painted Finklestein and Beinart with the same brush as Friedman.
Friedman in his own way is worse.
Yes, because he is not seen as so extreme and he has the imprimatur of The New York Times, which is the Bible to most liberal Jews.
That's the point I made in my first comment
You are easily bewildered.
Excellent essay with astute discussion of the Court Jews of yesteryear with the As a Jews of today, and the purposes both serve as shields and cover for antisemites and systemic bias against Jews historically and today.
Great essay. Informative and well reasoned . It made me realize that "Court Jews" were precursors of phenomenon I long called "useful idiots" many of whom, although by far not all are Jews .
I suspect it is some pathological perversion some people develop that attracts them to enthusiastically support their eventual oppressors .
Excellent. Timely. Today's court Jews are part of the growing reghettoization of Diaspora Jews. Anti-Zionist antisemitism rells Jews "Get out of Israel! And everywhere else!" The stronger, larger and more populous the Jewish state, the weaker the negation of Diaspora Jews.-- Eric Rozenman
In a nutshell, the good Jew is the Jew who succumbs to anti-Jewish normalizing pressure. In the literature on antisimitism, this is in fact know as the normalization of the Jews (not to be confused with the normalization of antisemitism, although the two are far from orthogonal since the latter increases pressure on the former to occur). What awaits (and deserves) careful analysis is the social functionalist bases of the normalization pressure the author speaks of. For example, are most As a Jew," antizionists merely intuitive politicians minding their prospects in a world that is increasingly hostile to Jews? Or are some proportion of them also intuitive theologians who less than being strategic about minding their place in society, have acquired a moral reflex through their infusion in society, and academia in particular? Are others not intuitive prosecutors precommitted to a prosecutorial framework they no longer question? These are the three archetypes Phil Tetlock described in his 2002 Psychological Review article on social functionalist frameworks for judgment and choice. Of course, each of us has an intuitive politician, theologian, and prosecutor in us so the challenge of understanding the accommodationist Jew is not merely to select from the three archetypes, but to accurately characterize how their interactions determine judgment, choice, and behavior..
A long-winded way of describing the actual psychological transaction of the court Jew: Cowardice. And the stupidity of shortsightedness.
A succinct summary, Dan, which is at once, inaccurate and unhelpful. Well done! (I trust you at least understand sarcasm.)
So subtle that your intelligence has to be pointed out. When you have nothing to add why not just say nothing and move on?
Ah. Successfully sarcastic: a deliberately Long-winded parody of Sociological claptrap. You got me there! Best wishes.