The Jewish Question and the Quarrel between Religion and Reason

Although he was an advocate of religious toleration, the French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, like his counterparts in Germany, fervently opposed religion altogether in the name of reason. He was thus no friend of the Jews, believing that their “impertinent fables,” which were at permanent odds with reason, might one day make them “deadly to the human race.” Tracing the history of Enlightenment attitudes toward the Jews through the lens of attitudes toward religion, Gertrude Himmelfarb explains why, by contrast, Jews have fared so well in America:

If Americans can take any comfort in [the history of European philosophers’ anti-Semitism], it is in the thought of how exceptional (as we now say) American history has been—among other things, how different the American Enlightenment and Revolution were from those of the French. Far from seeing reason as antithetical to religion, American thinkers and statesmen, before and after the Revolution, believed reason to be entirely compatible with religion and religion an integral part of society. It was just eight years before Bruno Bauer’s [essay] “The Jewish Question,” [which also took Judaism as the most pernicious example of the evils of religion], that Alexis de Tocqueville decisively refuted it, at least with respect to America.

Unlike the philosophes, he wrote, who believed that “religious zeal .  .  . will be extinguished as freedom and enlightenment increase,” Americans thought religion an ally of both freedom and enlightenment. The first thing that struck Tocqueville on his arrival in the United States was the religious nature of the country. “Among us [the French] I had seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom almost always move in contrary directions. Here I found them united intimately with one another; they reigned together on the same soil.” The country where Christianity was most influential, he noted, was also “the most enlightened and free.”

Tocqueville, without ever mentioning Jews, may have had the last word on the Jewish question, as he did on so many others.

Read more at Weekly Standard

More about: Alexis de Tocqueville, American founding, Anti-Semitism, Enlightenment, History & Ideas, Religion, Voltaire

Why South Africa Has Led the Legal War against Israel

South Africa filed suit with the International Court of Justice in December accusing Israel of genocide. More recently, it requested that the court order the Jewish state to allow humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip—something which, of course, Israel has been doing since the war began. Indeed, the country’s ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC) has had a long history of support for the Palestinian cause, but Orde Kittrie suggests that the current government, which is plagued by massive corruption, has more sinister motives for its fixation on accusing Israel of imagined crimes:

ANC-led South Africa has . . . repeatedly supported Hamas. In 2015 and 2018, the ANC and Hamas signed memoranda of understanding pledging cooperation against Israel. The Daily Maverick, a South African newspaper that previously won an international award for exposing ANC corruption, has reported claims that Iran “essentially paid the ANC to litigate against Israel in the ICJ.”

The ANC-led government says it is motivated by humanitarian principle. That’s contradicted by its support for Russia, and by [President Cyril] Ramaphosa’s warmly welcoming a visit in January by Mohamed Dagalo, the leader of the Sudanese-Arab Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia. Ramaphosa’s smiling, hand-holding welcome of Dagalo occurred two months after the RSF’s systematic massacre of hundreds of non-Arab Sudanese refugees in Darfur.

While the ANC has looted its own country and aided America’s enemies, the U.S. is insulating the party from the consequences of its corruption and mismanagement.

In Kittrie’s view, it is “time for Congress and the Biden administration to start helping South Africa’s people hold Ramaphosa accountable.”

Read more at The Hill

More about: International Law, Iran, South Africa