DAS Blog

In spite of what many lefties think, Jews used to be persecuted. Who knew?

Hanukkah commemorates the triumph of the Maccabees (not to be confused with the Macabres, which are Jews who read the New Yorker, especially Charles Addams cartoons) over the evil tyrant Antiochus Epinephres.

Antiochus sought to destroy the Jewish people by desecrating the Temple (which put a fatal strain on the building fund) and by forcing Jews to eat spit roasted whole pigs, which was horrible as all the Jewish people had to pretend they never ate pork before but were trying it for the first time. Eventually, the Maccabees rose up and, using tactics that pro-Israel apologists would, nowadays denounce as "terroristic" when today's Middle Eastern armed guerillas use them, defeated Antiochus and his armies.

What they found was a mess (and there was nothing in that building fund to pay for fixing it). In particular, there was only 1 jug of oil left with the high priest's seal that could be burnt in the menorah. But a miracle happened. We Jews, being a frugal bunch, used the remaining oil that was not left with the seal but with a bunch of shifty walruses (who assured us of the kashruth of the oil) to fry up all sorts of delicious food. Unfortunately, there was only a day's worth of heart-burn medication left. But by the miracle of Hanukkah, the medication kept the Jews free of heart-burn for a full eight days!

Further miracles ensued -- for example, enterprising bakers were able to convince Ashkenazim that jelly doughnuts were a unique, highly exotic and hence highly prized Sephardic delicacy. On Hanukkah, our hopes are kindled as we light the menorah and read from the book of Zechariah who told us of a day when the transliteration of Hanukkah would finally be agreed upon.

One interesting thing about left-wing anti-Zionism is that Zionism is in many ways a response to a situation that lefties generally seem to grok whilst righties don't get: namely that in so much of the world Judaism is not the "default identity" but rather that Jews are always "othered", historically violently so.

Zionism essentially is an ideology that says "well, if we Jews are othered in the rest of the world, let's form a state where we our identity is the default". Certainly one can debate the wisdom of this on secular and especially on Jewish grounds (viz, part of Jewish "chosen-ness" is that Judaism is not supposed to be a 'default identity' but a 'separate' -- kadosh -- one). But somehow the left seems to have a big beef with the idea that we Jews have figured out a way to get around this issue of 'othering' by going off and forming our own state. When I read posts like this (and do see the comments, in particular the responses to my comment), I sometimes wonder if so many of my fellow lefties simply feel that we Jews are condemned to be "the other" and for us to try to be "default" is a grave sin. And this condemnation (from proud "atheists" and "Deists") is certainly not theologically motivated -- one must wonder about the motivation ... and yet those same lefties wonder why we Jews consider them anti-Semitic?

OTOH, it could just be that lefties don't like the example of Zionists lighting a candle rather than cursing the darkness of being "the other" because it sets a standard that cursing the darkness is simply not the best course of action. Of course, cursing the darkness is a lot more fun than lighting a candle, so who could blame lefties here. Still, while I would consider myself a lefty in part because I agree with the analysis of "the other" vs. "the default identity" (as well as because I am a firm believer in saving capitalism from itself via strong government regulation and a solid safety-net and even a fully mixed economy), I find it odd that so many lefties, after agreeing with this analysis so vehemently object to non-default groups trying to find constructive solutions to the problem of "otherness". I guess certain lefties really are Puritans who cannot stand non-elect groups trying to claim the status of the elect.

Update: what does it say about me that whenever I hear some pro-Israel apologist touting all the good things coming out of Israel and how "Israel is so careful when it wages necessary wars" I feel "you just don't get it ... do you?". And yet when I hear anti-Zionists talk all I can respond is "you just don't get it ... do you?". I wish pro-Israel apologists would pause for just one minute to think how they'd feel if a group of people following Native American religions with some Native American identities formed a homeland here and drove them out of their homes and then bombed the locations where they were able to re-settle (even if said people were justified about the bombings and were "careful" to "target" them). And I wish anti-Zionists would pause for just one minute to think about the Jewish experience -- they seem to have empathy for everyone else, but they can't even bother to really listen to the Jewish/Zionist narrative before dismissing it? I thought the left was supposed to be all about listening to alternative narratives -- but I guess it's really about dismissing some narratives as "colonialist" while promoting others? How is that liberal? How is that anything but Puritan?

I think I may have mis-underestimated the challenges involved in both teaching of and doing research with undergrads.

First there is the general issue of training vs. doing research. One of my frustrations with getting any research done is that my research students take so long to get even the most basic tasks accomplished. But thinking of what is involved in research from their point of view, I realize that part of the difficulty is that they are not just writing the simple sub-routine I've assigned to them ... they are students and what they are doing is learning. While it would serve my research goals if they just got the work done, it's important for them to understand what they are doing (would that the majority of my general and bio-chem students were this diligent about actually understanding the material). Yes, it's frustrating that, in order to get a student to write a few lines of code to convert between ppm and increments, they need to finish working through an upper-division math text on Fourier analysis, but part of the research experience for them is learning useful concepts they don't have a chance to learn in their regular coursework (e.g. as chem/bio-tech majors).

More fundamentally though is the challenge of working with students who have difficulties with abstract thought. When you think about it, there are really three levels of abstract thought: (1) thinking abstractly about abstract things, (2) thinking abstractly about concrete things and (3) thinking concretely about abstract things.

Most smart students are actually decent at level (1): they wouldn't have gotten 'A's in there general education courses if they were not able to analyze abstract literary concepts in a conceptually rigorous way. But (2) really is a challenge. For students to even take abstract thoughts and come up with concrete examples of those concepts really is difficult. Hence so many student complaints about "well I understand the concepts but I have problems applying them in solving problems on a test". But (2) goes even beyond Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive learning outcomes and most students can't go beyond that. For me, this was not a challenge: which is why I was able to find upper-division math courses so easy. Once you are able to think abstractly about numbers, upper-division math, for example is a breeze. But most students just can't get there.

Of course the real challenge is thinking concretely about abstract things. I am starting to realize that you just can't expect most undergrads to do this, even though it is necessary to get actual results in quantitative research. I was spoiled dealing with the best of the best undergrads in research settings both at Rutgers and at FSU. But as I think back to where I was as an undergrad, I certainly wasn't capable of taking abstract concepts and really thinking through them to get concrete results.

Indeed, when you think about it, it (literally) takes an Einstein to reach level (3) in some cases. E.g., the abstract concept of relativity is very old: Kant had conceptually figured out special relativity and Poe figured out general relativity. But to take those abstract concepts and translate them into a concrete language from which the applied mathematicians could generate models, thus turning (abstract) philosophical thinking into (concrete) science (e.g. testable hypotheses), took the genius of Einstein. I certainly never even mastered level (3) enough to make any progress in applied math (although my Ph.D. should be evidence that I could do such a thing well enough to have a career in scientific research).

So I guess I should be more patient that my undergrads, even my best and brightest research students, cannot make this leap?

(when I should be writing finals and grant applications)

To the President [will be sent as soon as the White House website is able to connect to captcha again]:

Recently you addressed the need for us to get small businesses hiring again and have indicated a desire to have tax credits and other incentives to ensure small businesses hire new employees.

However, due to the compromises "necessary" pass much needed health care reform, it is likely that whatever health care bill reaches your desk will contain a mandate for small businesses to provide health insurance coverage for all employees but will also (in the name of "fiscal responsibility") provide little in the way of subsidies to ensure small businesses can afford to pay for that health insurance.

Moreover, it now seems that health care reform will lack a "public option", effectively allowing the oligopoly of private insurance companies to charge whatever they want without fear of real competition to keep health insurance costs low. Considering that any mandate will render demand for health insurance completely inelastic, we can anticipate in an open market, even an "exchange", health insurance costs will skyrocket.

While health care reform is important, I urge you therefore to not allow bills to become law that interfere with your also much needed proposals to ensure small businesses hire again. We need health care reform that ensures increased access to health care. We don't need a "compromise" that will only make health care more expensive.

If you want small businesses to hire more people, propose a bill that will pay for small businesses to provide health coverage for said employees so they don't have to worry about. Don't, in the name of health care "reform", sign into law a bill that makes it even more expensive for small businesses to hire new employees.


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To Senator Schumer,

Recently President Obama addressed the need for us to get small businesses hiring again and have indicated a desire to have tax credits and other incentives to ensure small businesses hire new employees.

However, due to the compromises "necessary" pass much needed health care reform, it is likely that whatever health care bill passes through Congress will contain a mandate for small businesses to provide health insurance coverage for all employees but will also (in the name of "fiscal responsibility") provide little in the way of subsidies to ensure small businesses can afford to pay for that health insurance.

Moreover, it now seems that health care reform will lack a "public option", effectively allowing the oligopoly of private insurance companies to charge whatever they want without fear of real competition to keep health insurance costs low. Considering that any mandate will render demand for health insurance completely inelastic, we can anticipate in an open market, even an "exchange", health insurance costs will skyrocket.

Health care reform is important. I urge you to keep up the good fight to truly reform the health care system. However the current “compromise” does not represent a step in the right direction but rather is an overly complicated bill that, when implemented, threatens to make health care coverage worse for enough people to jeopardize future progressive reforms as people, whose coverage will get worse under the so-called reforms being proposed, will say “why should we support any progressive reforms – look what happened when they tried to reform health care?”

I urge you in particular to vigorously oppose any bill that interferes with, e.g., much needed proposals to ensure small businesses hire again. I also request that you make these concerns known to Sen. Majority Leader Reid who somehow seems to think its more important to have a broadly supported health care reform “compromise” than a bill which will actually provide much needed reforms to our health care system. We need health care reform that ensures increased access to health care. We don't need a "compromise" that will only make health care more expensive.

If we as a society want small businesses to hire more people, we should be willing to help pay for that by paying for small businesses to provide health coverage for said employees so they don't have to worry about that expense. Don't, in the name of health care "reform", support a bill that makes it even more expensive for small businesses to hire new employees.

In general, it may be that true health care reform is something that simply cannot pass Congress. If that is so, it is disappointing. But we should then push for bills that expand coverage so we can evolve toward a better health care system. Let’s not, in the name of reform, push through shoddy “compromises” that only make matters worse and undermine support for future progressive reforms. It’s time for us Democrats to stop shooting ourselves in the foot by attempts to make everyone happy and actually work toward the progressive change we say we believe in!