MARCH 2004

Jews and gays - birds of a feather?
By Simon Jones©2004
sj958@yahoo.com <mailto:sj958@yahoo.com>

Ben Stein, noting that about 60% of the top positions in Hollywood are held by Jews, says "Do Jews run Hollywood? You bet they do - and what of it?" Well, let's look at what this spectacular freedom for Jews during the past half century has resulted in:

*Israel and America are terrorizing the entire world with unrelenting,
vicious, bloody wars and occupations.
*The collapse of the only serious attempt (if it was indeed serious) by
Israel to make peace with the Palestinians in the mid-90s and the subsequent
ascendancy of the Zionist neocons in Washington have ended any illusions
about the innocence of the Jews in all this.
*Apart from Israel, most Jews (including a half million Israelis) live in
the US; 80% blindly support Israel; many of the fanatical settlers in
occupied Palestine are American Jews; and the US government provides $6
BILLION per year to Israel in foreign aid (which is promptly used to further
persecute Palestinians). All US politicians must pass the AIPAC test before
they can be 'elected' formally (the ADL and the AJC, all basically lobbyists
for Israel, do not have to register as agents of a foreign government). A
truly vicious circle, if there ever was one.
*Meanwhile, the entire international world order, so painstakingly
constructed over the past 300 years is collapsing, as nuclear and
environmental Armageddon approach with each passing day.
While goys are equally complicit in this nightmare world order, the fact
that Jews have never had it so good and have climbed to the top of the West's
economic, cultural and political ladder with unprecedented speed cannot be
ignored. Enough with the coincidences already!


It is astounding that so few people have removed their blinkers. Mine were ripped off early for a very good reason: though not Jewish (though who really knows?), and from a well-off white family, I have the (dubious or otherwise) distinction of being a member of another persecuted minority, one
strikingly similar to the Jews, though with significant differences. Yes, gay, faggot, queer, pansy, poof, etc. Watching another prominent minority GAIN, and then promptly MISUSE its newly won freedom, I have become increasingly angry. The justified reaction against the injustices that Jews are, to a very large extent, responsible for these days is gaining momentum, and I can see it spilling over onto other groups - my own not surprisingly comes immediately to mind.

I generally resist identifying myself as 'gay', as I consider it is no business of anyone besides my sexual partner, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the work I do, or even how I relate to my friends. But the times demand that we wrestle with both the Jewish and gay issues - in a way they are key issues of modern society and must be dealt with, so my cards are on the table.

Similarities

Like Jews, gays have ancient roots of persecution and have been mostly outcasts since the rise of Christianity (though the roots of persecution, ironically, are in the Torah). This persecution complex - I know it first-hand - leaves an indelible mark on one's character - defiance of a hypocritical, unjust society, a desire for revenge, a feeling of superiority (warranted or not), a lack of patriotism./ *(i)So gays automatically empathize with Jews. At the same time, gays often crossed paths with Jews professionally - in the arts, as writers, philosophers, councilors, etc.

In Jungian terms we can say that gays function as a psychological shadow for straights (having a dominance of traits usually associated with the opposite sex), just as Jews are a kind of social shadow for mainstream society (practicing forbidden activities such as usury (updated today to include stock market fraud and the like) and fomenting revolution). Think of Jews and gays as the spice in society, giving it flavor, variety, acting as catalysts in the arts and in social relations.

.To be or to do - that is the question

Gays and Jews face a common problem of just what makes them what they are. 'Is it a breath mint or a candy mint?' Is there some genetic code at work or is a gay/ Jewish identity merely a social construct?

Jews love to attack critics by labelling them 'anti-Semites', a late 19th century construct which is completely inaccurate, as most Jews are Caucasian Ashkenazy, while Arabs and the relatively few Sephardic Jews are the real Semites. It is a term which underlines the essentially racist attitude of contemporary Jews in describing themselves, anti-SEMITE emphasizing inherent and unchangeable inborn qualities (vs anti-Jewish, emphasizing the Jew as a socio-religious construct, a reaction to the dominant society). The Jews can 't face a reasoned, rational objection to their IDEAS, and stick to the mantra "It is because of what we are, not of what we do."

Few gays feel comfortable defining themselves as genetic oddities (only the militants), and apart from people born with both sexual organs, gays only begin to differentiate themselves at the earliest at 5-10 years of age. Most do not 'realize' they are gay until puberty or even as late as 30-40. In reality, neither group really has much of a claim for genetic exceptionalism.

So this similarity in the problem of even defining what 'gay' or 'Jew' means is in fact a very big difference. Unlike the Jews, who secretly or proudly relish the idea of genetic difference (read: superiority),*(ii) the gut instinct of gays is to dismiss this as the loony idea of some homophobic
genetic engineer, hoping to find the 'faulty' gene and provide an instant 'cure'. Even if we accept that being gay has some genetic basis, and while gays (likes Jews) are economically much better off than others, there has never been a serious attempt to maintain that gays are SUPERIOR in any way
to straights.

Jews will insist that they are not racists, that it is the goys that are racist, and then, without batting an eye, talk about their DNA *(iii)and defend unconditionally the only blatantly racist state - Israel, unique among sovereign states (except for Nazi Germany). Judaism is a veritable 'shell game': a religion, no - an identity, oops - a culture, wrong again - a tradition. It is a slippery fish - whatever fits the bill at the moment.

Clearly not fair, but you question it at your own risk. The standard response to the slightest whiff of criticism is "Anti-Semite!" Whatever you may think of gays (queers, faggots, etc) or whether they were found under a cabbage leaf or not, they clearly define themselves by what they DO as predominantly MSM (men-having-sex-with-men) or WSW in the case of lesbians. There's no confusion there. The buck stops here, if you'll forgive the pun.

Assimilationist or outsider

This brings me to the second important difference. While most gays are 'that way' from an early age (5-10 years old), and like Jews have had to live their lives as outcasts, gays have traditionally never had much group identity. And they have mostly (with varying degrees of success) tried to assimilate, hide themselves, marry and otherwise blend in to society. Indeed gays have almost always had sexual relations primarily with straights. The very idea of gays living in a closed 'ghetto' is a very late-20thC one, and like the Jewish ghetto (or Israel, as a monster Jewish ghetto) is bizarre, if not repulsive, to most gays, despite Greenwich village and San Francisco as 'gay meccas'. Mecca, after all, is a place of pilgrimage. Who in their right mind wants to LIVE there?

Jews, however, at least those who have not assimilated, are famous for stubbornly remaining aloof, reveling in their persecution as God's Chosen People, alienated from society. Otto Weininger, a 19thC German Jewish philosophy described Judaism as a state of mind. That's cutting to the quick. Yes, for some the focus is on the rituals, for some - the tribal solidarity, for others - the supposed superiority, etc. But while you may be born a Jew, there's nothing to stop you from NOT being a Jew whenever you like, as most have done in the past, including hundreds of thousands of immigrants to America over the past 200 years. It's as easy as (apple) pie to move, change your name, join a church and blend in. But these assimilationists are no longer Jews. As for gays, they can never REALLY stop being gay, despite bogus claims by Bible-thumping evangelicals. The gay
'state of mind' always comes up against the brick wall, the implacable, insatiable sex drive, whatever IT is.

Let history judge

Historically, wherever Jews settled and maintained their Jewish identity, they eventually gained more and more economic, political and cultural power, and then started to manipulate it for their own group purposes, inevitably inciting an angry reaction. Today's wave of revulsion in light of Israel's outrages backed by a Zionist-inspired, corrupt US government is just the tip of a huge, ancient iceberg, which despite global warming (read: holocaust worship and human rights legislation) refuses to melt.

Gays have also been persecuted - mostly by the church, though Islam and Judaism (yes, our fellow sufferers!) traditionally also forbid and punish homosexuality. But there were never any instances of hysterical, mass expulsion of gays, as there were of Jews. Why? Clearly, because gays never really posed a threat to the dominant society.

Will the real Chosen People please stand up?

Indeed, in many pre-Christian cultures (including the native American), gays were often respected as special people and made shamans, priests, artists, musicians etc. Ironically there is a much stronger argument in the million-odd years of human existence that the 'Chosen People' are in fact GAYS rather than Jews. But even if this is true, you will never find gays creating a state and migrating en masse to live there (kicking out the natives in the process). A (brave) Jewish comedian recently commented to the effect that 'Jews are like spice, a little is good. Putting them all together in one country is a recipe for indigestion.' The same goes for gays - living on the edge of the mainstream society, they provide that 'je ne sais quoi' for the social stew. No wonder Jews and gays have produced so many great comedians, able to stand back and poke fun at mainstream society.

Effects of freedom for gays and Jews

How many parallels, coincidences there are! The most significant, of course, is the WWII holocausts against BOTH gays and Jews, and the subsequent post-WWII process of creating TOTAL freedom for both Jews and gays. Not only the ADL can take people to court for perceived slights these days, but gays can too (though it's much harder). Painting swastikas on Jewish grave and gay-bashing are both grounds for violation of hate crimes (again, much harder for gays, and there is much more gay-bashing than Jew-bashing). We can both publicly flaunt what many perceive as antisocial behavior and not suffer any consequences. Books about the holocaust are part of children's curricula, just as story books where 'Susie has two daddies' (at least in
the most 'progressive' schools).

Look at the effect of Jewish freedom, the triumph of the Jewish idea, on the modern world: the eternal torment of war in the Middle East, the collapse of the Soviet Union (a largely Jewish intellectual elite - a million people - up and left in the 1970s-90s), the rampant commercialization of the entire world, the accelerated destruction of nature ('And God made Man to have dominion over
the Earth')... Within US politics, where Jews have gained control of the main levers of power, we see total cynicism and corruption, blind support of one Israeli outrage after another, an all-out war against Islam. Why? It is not all the fault of the Jews of course, but their prominence in all facets
of Western society means they have to account for themselves. Freedom implies responsibility for one's actions.

I would phrase it as 'They want to have their cake and eat it.' They have full, equal rights now in the advanced countries, have gained unprecedented control of these societies, and yet continue to support their own racist, outcast state, persecuting and displacing millions of Muslims. Any criticism
of them and this 'shitty little country' is simply dismissed as anti-Semitism; they refuse to recognize that they are in fact to blame.*(iv)

What of the effect of gay freedom? Gays, lacking a cohesive tribal identity, have no clout economically (except maybe as consumers of expensive toiletry and clothing). Politically, true, gays have successfully lobbied and won remarkable changes to laws in their favor. The crowning achievement (the equivalent of the creation of the state of Israel for Jews?) is/ will be marriage rights. The icing on the cake after decades of pushing the loosening of morals from the 1960s on.

But it is culturally and socially that gays have had the most influence, and the results are mixed at best. The past 40 years have witnessed a sustained crisis in the traditional family - divorces up, single-parent families up, teens much more openly rebellious, the rise of the 'metrosexual' .

Why? Just as the Jews are not solely to blame for the world's political problems, it is not fair to blame gays for the virtual collapse of the family in the West or the perceived castration of men. It is a result of the long-term decline of western societies, the invasion of the family by commercial media, with its questioning of traditional values and its manipulation of sex in the promotion of consumption. However, equally crucial have been post-WWII liberal social reforms, including equal rights for women and the legalization of homosexuality. In claiming our rights, gays played an important role in rebelling AGAINST the traditional family and the male/ female stereotypes. Unfortunately, what is replacing them - serial parents, one-parent families, now gay families, and the wimpy metrosexual - are poor substitutes. I am the first to acknowledge that our society is in crisis, just as is our world, and my fellow gays and my sometime Jewish allies have a disproportionately large role in this.

But again there are differences


While there were no pogroms of gays, I would suggest that gays have taken more of a beating on a day-to-day basis, even in this age of Political Correctness. In most of the world, it is much more dangerous to be openly gay than openly Jewish. And historically, despite occasional outbreaks of anti-Jewish anger, Jews have traditionally had much greater freedom. Compare the infamous Oscar Wilde trial with that of Dreyfus - coincidentally at about the same time. Dreyfus, an obscure officer, became the cause celebre of Victor Hugo and other prominent figures and was rehabilitated, while Wilde, the greatest 19th c playwright, died broken and abandoned. Ironically, these historic trials were a kind of swan song for civilization' s overt repression of Jews AND gays.

Of course, the barbarian holocausts of Hitler against Jews AND gays were yet to come, but again, look at the difference. The Jews (at least the Zionists and the 80+% of Jews that actively support them) have used this tragedy to reap billions of dollars in reparations and, by creating their own racist state, inflict an equally tragic fate on the Palestinians. No gays (or relatives) received reparations for their suffering (let alone communists or Roma). Gays have not used their new freedom to inflict suffering on others claiming that it is justified because of Hitler's holocaust. Perhaps gays are just wimps, unlike the more aggressive, self-promoting Jewish tribe. But then, perhaps being a wimp is not such a bad thing.

Gays and Jews - cool

I have traditionally felt sympathy for Jews, knowing what it feels like to be an outsider to society. My upbringing taught me to respect education and economic success, much like Jews do. My doctors, dentists, musician friends, quite a few profs were all Jews - perhaps my strongest influences growing up, though just as I never spoke about being gay, they never spoke about being Jewish. It was always assumed that we were basically assimilationists, that being Jewish or gay was something secondary, spicy, if you like. Something that made life interesting but that was not essential.

But that seems to have changed over my lifetime (since the '67 war?). Jews are now much more up front about their Jewishness. In the US, it is now 'cool' to be 'Jewcy', as some young Jews flaunt on their t-shirts. Israel has no small part to play in this. God knows, it has been ITEM NUMBER ONE on news and in the deluge of holocaust films and museums for decades now (since the '67 war?). The once staunchly ant-racist assimilationist Jews have disappeared or been drown out. Increasingly, Jews are casting aside their quiet assimilationism, promoting themselves as a race both in their host countries and as supporters of Israel, their second or even first loyalty (since the '67 war?).

Consider what it is like for a child growing up in Israel, where little Ariel is taught that he is superior to other races, especially the 'darkies' living in excruciating poverty in concentration camps close by because Ariel 's parents kicked them out of their homes. Imagine growing up with a political role model like Netanyahu or Sharon - bloodthirsty, cynical, corrupt, soulless, lying but clever leaders. Imagine being brought up by parents, BOTH of whom, otherwise traditional mommies and daddies, have killed dozens of innocent, defenseless Palestinians in cold blood. Imagine the children in your country loathing the children a few kilometers away, considering them animals to slaughter when they grow up, with nuclear bombs in necessary. Brrr. It's ice cold down in Dante's Inferno.

It is now 'cool' to be gay now, too. There are now many people who identify themselves first and foremost as gays, rather than as, say Canadians or socialists, though being gay by itself means very little when it comes down to it. Some have taken the 'battle' to another level, demanding the right to
marry and adopt children. WHAT?! I always thought being gay meant liberation FROM the nuclear family. Enough with all this irony, PULLEASE!

Call me a social conservative if you like, but I don't much like the idea of 'two daddies' or 'two mummies'. It's a way of forcing complex issues of sexual identity on children who just aren't ready or interested in such things, and makes their own difficult process of growing up more difficult than it already is. Children need to grow up in fairly conventional arrangements where they can love and learn from both male and female role models. Yes ROLE models, so they can experience first-hand, while their own sexual identities are forming, how 'standard' adults relate. Being gay will always be the exception that proves the rule. By all means, provide some alternatives - collective child-rearing, day care. OK, even the odd gay 'families' (God knows there are thousands of children in dysfunctional hetero families who would be much better off with 'two daddies'), but the rule of thumb should be to provide a mainstream hetero blueprint.

Gays and Jews have a common choice

I understand why some gays are so eager for these hetero trappings: they WANT to assimilate, really! They want to be accepted as upstanding, patriotic, even right-wing citizens. They don't relish their (God-given?) special status and want to paper it over, to take comfort in their two-car garage and their Big Macs, their X-Files and Calvin Klein. They like the commodity fetishism that has replaced the straight-laced asceticism of Christianity, with its suspicion of all sexuality and indulgence.

As for this pathetic attempt by gays to totally assimilate, count me out. I EMBRACE my role as outcast, gadfly, the 'other', much like Jean Genet. 'Gay is good' but in small amounts and on the fringe. It curdles the milk of straight society if it becomes too in-your-face. It is boring if it becomes
your raison d'etre. In small quantities, gays are great. En masse, they are insufferable.

The same goes for Judaism. Assimilate OR remain an outcast. But there's an added caveat with respect to the Jews: you can't have your cake and eat it. You can be an assimilationist, like the 'two mommy' gays, and blend into goy society (much more successfully), or live in a secular Palestine side-by-side with the original population if you have a thing about the Bible, the 'Promised Land' etc (IF that's OK by the natives). OR you can choose to stay a Cohen, a Jew, an outsider, staying aloof, amassing economic, political and social power (that certainly seems to be the historical record), and taking the risk that goes along with this wherever you happen to be born (with your basic rights protected, of course). But take note: you can't at the same time promote another, outcast country and call it your REAL homeland. Trust the eternal outsiders to reinvent themselves on a international level as a rogue state. If there's a hell on Earth, it's got to be present-day Judaicized America and Israel.

And, non-assimilationists, be prepared: as Shylock found out to his dismay, your daughter may up and marry a goy, and if you try to take your 'pound of flesh', you've got to be prepared for a backlash of some kind. Hopefully not a holocaust, but control of goy society by an alien tribe is just not in the books. You should have learned at least THAT much from history. Take it from a fellow sufferer. As the Russians say 'The farther you go, the quieter you should proceed."

The outsider

So why choose to stay an outsider at all then? I suggested my own reasons as a gay. There is another very good reason: It's already clear our present capitalist nightmare is lurching towards an Armageddon of some kind or another, whether it be nuclear or environmental.

PROGRESSIVE Jews and gays as natural outsiders have traditionally played a vital revolutionary role with respect to society, a role which is lost when a loudly proclaimed pro-gay, pro-Jew agenda is promoted. There is an old saying: 'I don't live to eat, I eat to live.' Well 'I don't live to be gay, but I am gay in order to be alive.' Ditto, I should think, for Jews. I suspect that this is the real reason that the post-WWII anti-communist West seemed to change overnight from Jew-hating and gay-bashing to Jew/gay-loving. It WANTED to assimilate the gays and the Jews as a kind of protection against radical social change. After all, the Russian revolution and the Communist movement were inspired by Jews, and homosexuals and Jews first gained freedom in Russia in the 1920s.

From revolutionary to reactionary

Maybe THAT'S why I feel so angry about Jews today (and sorry for the boring assimilationist gays) - I feel betrayed. I learned Russian and socialism from a wonderful old Polish Jew, who was married to an Irishman, had no use for a racist Israel, and was generous and open-hearted to a fault. For all intents and purposes an assimilationist, she nonetheless nurtured her outsider role in a nonracist way and was proud of her Jewish heritage till she died at the age of 90. But Jews today have largely lost this positive outsider role. They invariably support Israel and in alliance with the so-called neocons pursue unbridled self/ tribal-interest. Progressive non-Zionist Jews are as rare as hen's teeth (as, I fear, are progressive non-Zionist gays).

The post-WWII strategy to neutralize the revolutionary outcasts - Jew and gay - worked! Jews (and to a lesser extent gays) have become bedrocks of reaction. And, because of the power that the Jewish lobby wields in the West now, unless a Jew speaks out clearly against Israel, s/he must now share responsibility for Israel's crimes. The successful co-opting of the world's Jews by the Zionists ensures that. (Thank God there is no gay Israel.) On the other hand, a Jew who protests will not experience the growing 'anti-Semitism' or rather anti-Jewish sentiment. On the contrary s/he will be treated as a courageous progressive, as indeed s/he is.

The Zionist-coopted Jews are betraying their God-inspired role as catalyst for progress (the 'Chosen People', if you must). They are misusing their freedom, not only to their own, but to everyone's detriment. In the same vein, quasi-assimilationist gays are also rejecting their special spiritual role and misusing their new freedom to indulge in silly hetero-aping and narcissistic commodity fetishism. (Give me a job as shaman over a two-car garage any day.)

This is not a call for a return to good ol' straight-laced Christianity as conceived by Bible-obsessed evangelicals. Institutionalized Christianity in many ways deserves its present state of collapse. Leaving aside its genocidal role in the spread of imperialism over the past 5 centuries, it long ago adopted the Judaic oppression of gays and promoted the persecution of Jews themselves, until this reached a nightmarish peak in the 13-14th cc, not to mention the unspeakably brutal Crusades of the 11-12th cc against the Muslims.

There are lots of benign alternatives to the nuclear family, just as there are lots of benign alternatives to a racist Israel. The Soviet Union, as an attempt to build an alternative civilization, sadly just didn't make the grade for a host of reasons. However, we haven't reached the 'end of history' just yet. The good fight to try to make 'heaven on Earth', to achieve a just society with freedoms, alternatives - oh, and don't forget the spice - goes on. But there is no room in society for racism and vengeance, a lesson I hope the Jews (and their goy sidekicks) learn soon (you don't have to teach this to gays) before we are all burnt to a crisp in a US/ Israeli-inspired nuclear (or merely) environmental holocaust.
***************

*(i) The gay writer CM Forster: "If I had to chose between betraying my country or a friend, I hope I would betray my country." For Diaspora Jews, if it is a choice between Israel and their host country, there is no question which is more important.
*(ii) It is even argued that Hitler merely took the Zionist racist agenda as set out by Moses Hess and Theodor Herzl a few years earlier, substituting German for Jew. Considering what the Zionists have done since they have gained ascendancy first in Israel and now in the US, this looks uncomfortably close to the truth.
*(iii) Charles Bronfman, a main sponsor of the $210 million "Birthright Israel" project which attempts to deepen the commitment of American Jews: "You can live a perfectly decent life not being Jewish, but I think you're losing a lot - losing the kind of feeling you have when you know [that] throughout the world there are people who somehow or other have the same kind of DNA that you have." (Bronfman is co-chairman of the Seagram company and brother of Edgar Bronfman, Sr., president of the World Jewish Congress.) Washington Post, Jan. 17, 2000
*(iv) Some critics argue that attacks against Jews are actually part of the Zionist strategy to justify further repression of Palestinians and to encourage Diaspora Jews to emigrate to Israel. The 'shitty little country' reference is an unfortunate slip by the now former French Ambassador to the UK at a 'private' party.

Illustration by Niall McCormack http://www.niallmc.com/

MY STATEMENT AS AN ARTIST, Niall McCormack

The austere stark style of my paintings is informed by surrealist and minimalist movements. My work is a response to my take on architectural structures and their surroundings and shows an exploration of diverse architectural forms: monastic, romanesque, classical and minimalist modern and the institutionalised setting.

I am particularly interested in how people are influenced and affected by these forms in both urban and rural environments. As a young man, I was deeply affected by the monastic environment in which i found myself placed. This made a rich mystical impact on my life intermingled with the feelings of silence and austerity which is and was at that time integral to my young deaf identity and my particular way of seeing things.

Since childhood I have experienced many disharmonious things and the joy and pain that a diverse life brings. These experiences inform my ongoing engagement and fascination with the institutional setting and this imagery continues to work on an unconscious and subconscious level for me.

In conclusion, I feel my artistic responses to these things in my life and work are positive, aesthetic and evocative.

Niall McCormack