** FATHER FRANK’S RANTS Rant Number 784 - 6 September 18 THE LABOUR PARTY & ANTISEMITISM

THE WAR ON LABOUR LEADER JEREMY CORBYN. IS HE AN ANTISEMITE? A RACIST LIKE ENOCH POWELL?
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Is that crusty old leftie, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, an antisemite? Don’t believe it! But certainly the Left’s greatest icon and superhero, Karl Marx, was one.

In 1843 Marx, then a radical journalist, wrote a tract, The Jewish Question. A virulent, sustained critique of the Jews, their character, their religion and the role they played in finance and the economy. Oddly, Marx was himself of Jewish origins. A sad example of a self-hating Jew?

Karl Marx wrote: ‘Money is the jealous god of Israel before whom no other god can stand…the chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general…What was the essential basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need, egoism…the god of the Jews has been secularised and become the god of the world. Exchange is the true god of the Jew…What is the secular cult of the Jew? Haggling. What is his secular god? Money…we recognise in the Jew the presence of a universal and contemporary anti-social element…the social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society from Judaism’.

Marx certainly was no vulgar Jew-baiter like Nazi rabble-rouser Julius Streicher but his remarks are classic antisemitic tropes. Were he alive today the founding father of communism would be arrested, prosecuted and convicted of hate crime. And Lord Sachs, former Chief Rabbi, would demand that Marx repented and showed ‘remorse’, as indeed he requested Corbyn should. He absurdly compared the Labour leader to that bête noire of the Left, Enoch Powell! I guess Karl Marx, descended from a line of rabbis yet a fierce atheist, would heartily laugh at Sacks.

To explain. The Jewish Question was the critique of a pamphlet by the Left Hegelian thinker Bruno Bauer. As German Jews demanded religious freedom, just as Christians enjoyed, Bauer thought that a mistake. Why should Jews agitate to be equal to Christians when the latter were in fact unfree? Servants or slaves of the authoritarian state? The Jews, in their sectarian religious belief to be ‘the chosen people’, refused to participate in the wider struggle for a totally secular, religion-free state. Bauer would not support them in that.

Bauer missed the point, Marx countered. Religious, moral, legal, commercial and political ideas all belong to the superstructure of a society. They are like bubbles on the surface. In fact, they are expressions of the deep structure, the economic basis of a community, its modes of production, i.e. capitalism. True liberation, the suppression of all religious forms that alienate man from his real essence will only be attained when the economic basis is changed. Hence religious and political emancipations are not enough. Belief with churches, synagogues, mosque and temples will fade away when communism will replace the capitalist economic system and so also abolish the inner estrangement and guilt entailed by the rule of money.

Many Jews have embraced Marxism. They never meant to incite violence or racism towards fellow Jews but, insofar as they shared Marx’s views, they worked for the eventual extinction of their people as such. Were they then Masochists, self-haters, as Zionists claim? Not necessarily. As a Jewish correspondent of mine once scoffed at such accusations: ‘Self-hating? You ought to listen to my girlfriends. They say I am in love with myself!’

The Marxist ‘solution’ to faith has been tried and found wanting. The defunct Soviet Union tried hard but religion did not evaporate. Instead, bolshevism has. Christianity is now resurgent in Russia. Jews have the state of Israel, where the influence of more orthodox religionists is growing. Islam appears so strong, vibrant and militant that the secular rulers of the West are scared stiff about it. Christianity may be declining in Europe where the economy is essentially capitalistic but it flourishes in Africa and Asia. Marx’s analysis was flawed, it seems...

British Labour was never a thoroughly Marxist outfit. Created by the Trade Unions, it is a broad church. Its recent ‘antisemitic’ troubles go back to Naz Shah, MP, and veteran leftie Ken Livingstone, former London mayor. Shah posted an offensive image on FB. As to Ken, his calling Hitler a Zionist was foolish. (The Greeks believed that ‘the Gods first drive mad those whom they wish to destroy’.)  Corbyn’s lifelong, deep-rooted radicalism naturally leads him to back the Palestinian cause and some mildly insensitive gestures. Not quite tantamount to Hitler-style antisemitism. Methinks the relentless campaign against him aims at destroying Labour’s chances of unseating the Tories. (NB The priest is NOT a devout Labour supporter.)

Why does antisemitism exist? Christians – are they behind it? The old accusation of ‘deicide’ or Christ-killing supposedly being the origin. But, as George Orwell pointed out, modern people no longer ‘care enough for doctrinal questions to want to persecute another people merely because they are not Christians’. Also, prejudice towards the Jews predates Christianity – among the Romans, for example. And why should the Jews especially have been singled out, why were they scapegoated and not other minority groups, Orwell asked? The economy? Pace Marx, antisemitism existed even among prosperous people who suffered no financial disabilities. Or maybe it’s envy of a superior, highly gifted people?
Or do Israeli PM Netanyahu’s ruthless policies towards the besieged people of Gaza and his refusal to allow a Palestinian state play an unfortunate part?
It is a mystery.

Revd Frank Julian Gelli

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