On gentiles and racism

Today I found myself browsing a website called JewFAQ.org which, incidentally, I wouldn’t recommend you spend any of your own valuable time reading. Even if you can get past the infuriating and constant use of the word ‘we’ to refer to the thoughts and feelings of an entire race of over fourteen million people, you will still be hard pushed to come to terms with the truly staggering idiocy to be found on the page dedicated to the supposed Jewish view of gentiles.

After casually brushing past the various insulting names for those not born into the Jewish side of this entirely arbitrary and meaningless distinction, you will find this gem:

“If you are offended to hear that Jewish culture has a negative term for non-Jews, I would recommend that you stop and think about the many negative terms and stereotypes that your culture has for Jews.”

I’m going to begin by ignoring the outrageously insulting notion that there is a single cohesive ‘Jewish culture’, all of the members of which share the same views and ill-considered morals of the website’s author, and also the pathetic reference to ‘my’ culture – whatever that particular claim would even mean.

Now, it’s hardly surprising that this website is willing to put forward this argument considering the incredible bias found in answer to every question, which approaches even that of London’s Jewish Chronicle, across its supposedly ‘informational’ pages. What is important is to challenge such arguments when there is any chance whatsoever of such fetid insults to rationality gaining any traction. This argument, if it so can be called, claims that we should be less offended by racist names for gentiles because of the fact that Jews have been subject to the same thing.

Of course, this is nonsense, for reasons of logic if not any other. If we presuppose that racism is reprehensible (and yes, we should, for entirely logical reasons that are beyond the scope of this post) then an attempt to reduce the offensiveness of any individual instance of racism is an attempt to reduce the morality to a numbers game; an unprincipled, context-bound matter of opinion. That is certainly not the case: if we find racism abhorrent (I shall assume, I think quite sensibly, that anybody reading this does) then we must conclude only that it is bad always, and so no one example should ever placate another. We must conclude that racism against both Jews and gentiles – or by Jews or gentiles – is equally, and inescapably wrong.

Which is not to say that this website should not be criticised. Especially in the context of David Baddiel’s excellent recent article on the fashionability of anti-Semitism it is important to remember that, as I have argued above, there can be no ‘grey areas’ of racism where “anti-Semitism isn’t quite considered proper racism”. However, it would be a grave mistake to conclude that any of this means that the Jewish religion – as opposed to the Jewish race of people – ought to be treated with the same respect as the people who choose to follow it.

One comment on the Telegraph article linked above, by Joe Bua, puts is thus: “The only thing I dislike more than anti-semitism is organized religion… Let’s assess people based on their merit and not what stories their ancestors passed down, like, say, the story of the magic guy who died but didn’t really die and could roll a giant stone away from the front of a cave.” Whether or not you like the mocking way that this is phrased, the point is strong: it’s important to respect people, but equally important to avoid the dangerous notion that ideas are ever beyond criticism.