G-d’s chosen people a ‘racist notion’

MOIRA SCHNEIDER

Stern has a Master’s degree in Public Administration. He has an interest in the language of race and prejudice, and lectures management at the University of Cape Town’s commerce faculty.

Stern related that the orthodox, reform, and conservative streams of Judaism agree that we’re chosen, as do most liberal Jews. Surveys showed that 75% of Israelis believe that Jews are chosen.

“It’s a widely shared belief that we’re better than the rest,” he said. “Judaism believes in distinction, we believe in difference.”

To illustrate his point, he quoted from the end of the Havdalah service, “Hamavdil bein kodesh l’chol”, in which we bless G-d, who makes a distinction between the sacred and the ordinary.

“Are we the chosen people? It was once easier to talk about it. Today it is less so. To suggest that one nation is better than the other is not politically correct today.”

The British once believed that they were a superior race, as exemplified by Rudyard Kipling’s poem, The White Man’s Burden. “Today, they are battling not to fall over a cliff,” Stern commented.

Until Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution two hundred years ago, everyone believed in the religious explanation of man’s appearance on Earth, according to Stern. “In the Bible, the Jews were the central players. The Bible was the core of Western civilisation, and the Jews were the chosen people.”

Stern drew a parallel with the Afrikaners who embarked on the Great Trek from the Cape into the interior in 1838. They saw themselves as the chosen people, and compared their suffering to those of the Jews in the Bible.

“The idea of being chosen was a very popular idea then – today it’s less so,” he said, labelling the biblical notion of “This land is mine, G-d gave it to me” as “psychotic”.

Stern said that classical rabbinic literature was “full of racist comments against others”. Referring to the “Aleinu leshabeach” prayer, he said it was “an entirely racist statement – ‘G-d made us better’”.

And the kiddush: “Asher bachar banu micol ha’amim” (Who has chosen us from all the nations), he described as “a really radical thing. It makes me feel self-conscious. Generally, the Jewish texts say the most terrible things about goyim (people who aren’t Jewish), but only from our perspective today.”

People have prejudices about nations, as if a whole nation could be stupid or clever. “That there’s a Jewish people who are similar is a stupid idea and lazy thinking. Qualities are not associated with race.

“We share certain similarities, but when you unpack what it means to be human, there’s so much more going on. We’re very different. There are Jews in Israel who don’t like Ethiopian Jews, Moroccan Jews, Russian Jews.”

Due to advances in scientific knowledge, our understanding of race is not what it once was.

“With genetic testing today, we can find out where we came from. We’re all big mixtures – the idea of a pure race is an unbelievably stupid one. The idea that Jewish people are a race is a simply ridiculous notion.”

Referring to conversion to Judaism, Stern said, “Nothing really gets converted in your genes. The idea that the Jewish people are one people is a garbage idea, and not based on science.”

Stern referred to the former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Lord Rabbi Immanuel Jakobovits, who stated 50 years ago that Jews were chosen, not because they were superior, but as pioneers of religion and morality. “Even this couldn’t be said today,” he noted.

“The idea of being chosen is racist, and it’s best to avoid it. But, if you leave notions of superiority and inferiority out of it, I have to say I just love being Jewish!

“I like shul [in spite of the prayers mentioned above]. I love the tunes. OK, stone me, ban me – I like my team.

“I hate BDS [the Boycott Divestment Sanctions movement], which believes Israel’s bad. I say it’s a garbage idea – there’s some good, some bad.

“Yes, the concept of Jews being chosen is racist, but it belongs to a time when this was acceptable.”

In Stern’s view, culture is the binding force. “It’s okay to have associations and to feel warmly about ourselves. Attachment is the core of who we are.

“I like being Jewish. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with being Jewish, but it is wrong when you persecute people because they haven’t got the right type of conversion.

“My idea of a chosen people is that I choose to be Jewish. I’m not sure G-d chose me. I choose to be in this nation.

“Often they drive me mad, and I drive them mad, but I want to be in this disputatious, messy, noisy group of people. In that sense, it’s ok to be a chosen people.”