Conference taveng::bagels

    In re LaRouche:
    
    "Crazy", yes; "Right-wing" no.  "Right" and "Left" are insufficient
    for separating political beliefs, as there is more than one axis.

    Given that he wants anti-AIDs/anti-drugs witch-hunts and show trials,
    and blames Milton Friedman and the Queen of England for most of
    the evil in the world, I'm amazed that he has any followers.
    
    
    In re Jews in cults:
    
    I think it's a matter of marginal cost.  A person who is already
    out of the mainstream religiously (e.g. Jewish) already knows how
    to be deviant.  Becoming a Moonie is just more of the same.  A
    more ordinary WASP has to learn how to be deviant from scratch,
    with no previous experience.
    
    			-John Bishop

    
    John,
    	I'm not really sure I understood what you mean by *deviant*
    	and *out of the mainstream*. I'd like to comment on that but
    	I don't want to jump to any wrong conclusions.
        Please clarify your point (if you don't mind).
    
    David,
    	Your question can really be split into two.  The first is
    	that, some of LaRouche's followersmight have jewish sounding
    	names, that is entirley possible.  Keep in mind that assimilation
    	in this country continues at an alarming rate, and among the
    	people who could be most actively anti-semitic is one who has
    	renounced and shuned his heritage. (please, I'm not speaking
    	about someone who is just not religious, I'm speaking about
    	a person violently opposed to anything his heritage stood for-
    	so please no flames on that point.)
    
    As for the second point, why so many Jewish youths find a haven
    in some of the more exotic cults around.  Unfortunately most of
    mainstream judaism today has not had the same type of elementary
    education that had been available only up to a few generations ago.
    It is not an unknown fact that most of the kabbalists of modern
    juadaism were wiped out during the holocaust.  Compounding that
    fact with a sudden transplant of our people to the United States
    which offerred to us radio, baseball (on Sat. Afternoons), movies
    etc.. .  It was a far cry from the shtetl (jewish comm. of E. Europe)
    That the younger children often resented the 'superstitious legends'
    in place of modern living.  Those two factors created and continued
    a void in spiritual judaism in place of practical laws.  Yeshivahs
    were more concerned with teaching about me lending you my ox for
    your donkey ......, than in exploring the mysteries of the divine
    name (for example).  Most people don't realize that Judaism is more
    like an eastern religion than it appears, one of our problems was
    being in exile amongst the western barbarians for so long.
    	To get to the end of my point, Jewish youths these days are
    being brought up based on ritual and not spirituality, hence they
    are getting turned off to one and thirsting for another way.
    One of these ways usually seems to be the an eastern based religion
    (Hare Krishna, Moonies, Buddhist).  I hope the trend continues and
    that mainstream orthodoxy continue it's resurgence of spiritualism
    as I would hate to see 5000 years of a people boil down to "but
    if my cow stepped in your ditch....".
    
    Good Night 
    Bruce
    
    
    

    First to respond to John re: Jews in "deviant" movements, etc. 
    When I was at the University of Arizona in the '60's(oh no he's
    one of those people!), another Jewish student and I were called
    into a vice-president's office.  Both of us were fairly active in
    a student group of the time, very political in nature (I'll leave
    it to your imaginations).  This official asked us outright why Jews
    tend to be found in politically active organizations, more so than
    other ethnic groups.  My answer to him was that our tradition demanded
    it.
    
    Bruce: I personally oppose romanticizing the eastern european shtetl.
    There wasn't hardly anything redeeming about the life, despite the
    surfeit of Torah scholars and Kabbalists.  It was a life of
    deprivation,injustice to our people, unrestrained violence at the
    hands of Cossacks, etc.  The fact that there were outstanding
    spiritualists existing in those areas only attest to the indombinable
    will of the Jews to survive.
    
    I agree that life here in this Diaspora is a vacuum, but to turn
    to the Orthodox movement as our only alternative is not right. 
    If that what serves as your answer to this ball of wax, then I respect
    you for it.  Personally I don't see Orhtodoxy as the enlightened
    alternative, up till now they have proven to be extremely fragmentary,
    ready to go Conservative and Reform bashing at the drop of the hat.
    That to me is promoting divisiveness, as much as the Reform movement
    making up their own rules as to "who is a Jew", etc.
    
    David  

    Let us not confuse LaRouche people with cult people.
    
    LaRouche is simply a political opportunist who, consciously or not,
    is taking advantage of cruel people (those who most likely have
    read Ayn Rand in their 20's rather than at age 14) to forward a
    political enterprise.
    
    Cultists (political or spiritual) promise an end to existential
    angst.  
    
    Herb

  
  	Re: 4
  
  		I would like to see the discussion limited to the
  question I posed.
  
  		A separate note on LaRouche might be in order.
  
  Thanks,
  David

    It's not surprising that I got some responses to what I said, as
    it's easy to read a derogatory meaning into "deviant".  None was meant.
    
    Mainstream	= standard, the default pattern
    Deviant	= non-standard
    Standard 	= accepted as normal/default (not necessarily the majority
    		  pattern, but the one that requires least explaination)
    
    The mainstream American family celebrates Christmas and thinks Sunday
    is the day to go to church (though they often don't go, that is
    the the day they would go if they did go).
    
    A family that does not celebrate Christmas is deviant.  The children
    learn that this will require explaination, or cause notice.  In
    that respect, they are learning to be deviant, to be different from
    other people.

    Once you have learnt how to be different (and paid the costs in
    social acceptance), it is much easier to be deviant in another way.
    
    LaRouche and Ayn Rand are properly subjects for FORUM, but I wish
    to mention that I disagree with the "Ayn Rand reader = cruel" and
    the "Rand reader = LaRouchite" equations in a previous note.
    
    			-John Bishop

    in re .2:
    
        It's been noted that oppressed peoples (ones often robbed of
    their goods and lives) often put more effort into learning, music
    speach or other skills than into objects.  It's more practical:
    If you spend ten years making your house nice, someone can kick
    you out and take it; if you spend ten years learning the Talmud,
    nobody can take that from you.
    
         Economics is wonderfully apt when applied to cultural habits:
    it keeps making sense of what initially is merely odd. 

    			-John Bishop

    	 Re .0
    
    	 If many Jews are attracted to cults, and I'm not saying they 
         are, it probably goes with the territory. Why are there so 
         many Jewish doctors considering the size of our population? 
         How about Jewish lawyers, engineers, teachers, and other 
         professions? This is in no way deviant behavior. I would even 
         say that the mainstream of the American population also 
         strives for success in their chosen field.
    
    	 Re .7
    
    	 Your observation is on the stereotype Jew that has been 
         created by the non-Jewish community. In our religion it is a 
         mitzvah (commandment) to study Torah. Most Orthodox Jews will 
         study various aspects of the Torah as part of their daily 
         ritual. As for myself I study four times a week. My 
         spirituality has absolutely no economic motivation.
    
    	 Perhaps, John, you should examine what baggage you are 
         bringing with you. Your views of Judaism seem to be based on 
         stereotypes that have been passed along to you rather than 
         what is taking place in the real world.

				Fred

    

    David C.,
    Believe me I'm not romanticizing the shtetl life,  but don't be
    under the misconception that all of European Jewery lived like
    Tevya (Fiddler on the Roof) in shtetls.  The foremost yeshivahs
    were in places like Vilna, Prague, Frankfurt (Ahr Mein), Vienna
    etc.  Remember that the origional hasidic movement was a grass-roots
    spiritual rebirth among a peasant group which had largely been shunned
    by mainstream judaism of their day.
    	I will say again that I feel the losing of a large chunk of
    our scholars (and population for that matter) created a spiritual
    void to which a soul nuturally thirsts.  How you quench that thirst
    is the body and minds job.  I'm not advocating orthodoxy for everyone
    and I also get disgusted a some of the goings on in my own community.
    It just so happens that the path I choose to follow falls within
    the limits of what today is known as Modern-Orthodox.
    
    Bruce Cohen