J. David Bleich's terrible anti-abortion essay

J. David Bleich has a reputation for being an intellectual. It's hard for me to see how that reputation will survive the publication of this paragraph:

 "Craven political correctness is no defense for the indefensible. We should not seek to curry favor with, or the approbation of, the so-called intelligentsia. I daresay that no Jewish woman died as a result of legal restraints prior to Roe v. Wade. No Jewish woman is likely to die in the wake of its repeal. Abortion for medical need will continue to be available in most, and probably all, jurisdictions. If any lives are lost it will be because of inability to afford the expense of travel, not because of constitutional impediment."

Let's take it apart line by line

Craven political correctness is no defense for the indefensible. 

Craven sucking up to evangelicals is also no defense for the indefensible. Most Orthodox Jews who oppose abortion are just taking cues from Christians about morality. They don't consult authentic Jewish sources. They listen to whatever the preachers say on Fox News.  

We should not seek to curry favor with, or the approbation of, the so-called intelligentsia.

We should also not seek to curry favor with  or the approbation of the Catholic church as Bleich himself does in an earlier paragraph. Why is seeking a smile from the Pope any better or worse than seeking a smile from intelligent people?

I daresay that no Jewish woman died as a result of legal restraints prior to Roe v. Wade. 

I daresay Bleich completely wrong. If no Jewish women died as a result of legal restraints before Roe (extremely doubtful) it was only because abortion was legal in the states where almost all of the Jewish women lived. 

No Jewish woman is likely to die in the wake of its repeal. 

Read that one again. This reassurance that "no Jewish woman is likely to die as a result of its appeal" (almost equally doubtful as the previous claim) is an unbelievably chauvinistic statement. Jewish blood is not cheap but the blood of poor women is?

Abortion for medical need will continue to be available in most, and probably all, jurisdictions. 

Abortion for medical need will not continue to be available in most red states; many plan to allow it for emergencies only - with "emergency" being defined as narrowly as possible. And the fact that abortion doctors will need to hire lawyers to prove in court that the emergency was real after they are sued by state empowered vigilantes will only make doctors less willing to deliver this sort of medical aid. 

If any lives are lost it will be because of inability to afford the expense of travel, not because of constitutional impediment.

If any poor women die its not society's fault for making medical abortions extremely difficult to obtain. It's her own fault for being too poor to afford travel. Just terrible. Imagine saying that about food: If the poor woman dies its her own fault for not being able to afford the food.  Or about any other medical procedure: If the poor woman dies its her own fault for not being able to afford an appendectomy. Does that fly? If you can see clearly why the food example and the appendix example are both morally obtuse, why can't you see it about the abortion example?

 

Believe it or not, there is a liberal approach to reducing abortions:

Believe it or not, there is a liberal approach to reducing abortions:

1) minimum wage that keeps pace with productivity or at least the cost of living.

2) expanding Medicaid.

3) affordable day care,

4) student loan relief

5) Robust public education.

6) Free birth control

7) Paid family leave

Why don’t allegedly pro life people want to do any of these things? Why is criminalizing a medical decision or imposing on everyone else their extreme Christian idea on when life begins their answer to everything? (because they're not pro-life, they're pro-birth. Once the baby is born then its life is worthless to them)

Consider a more sympathetic understanding of the anti-woke people.

On Twitter, I was urged to consider a more sympathetic understanding of the anti-woke people.

I tried, but I admit I'm stumped.

Maybe you can help? Here are three little sketches of how the anti-woke people look to me.

If you have a better way of understanding it, please let me know.

TRADER SAM.

Here is my POV:

1. Disney sees that Trader Sam offends people and perpetuates stereotypes that hurt people. "Why," Disney says to itself, "should we be in the business of helping people think that minorities are X,Y, and Z.?"

2. Out of compassion, Disney removes Trader Sam

3. People who value their own nostalgia over everything else in the world scream "woke!!"

TRANS PEOPLE

Here is my POV

1. People see suffering in the world

2. People try to mitigate that suffering with compassion. Some examples of that compassion may include using words that make people experience less suffering.

3. People who are insecure in their own identities and value nostalgia over everything else yell "woke!!"

DR SUESS.

Here is my POV

1 The owner of Dr. Suess sees illustrations that perpetuate stereotypes that harm people. "Why", the owner asks itself, "should we be doing anything to help small children accept stereotypes about Asians and Africans?"

2. The owner takes the books out of publication

3. People who value their own nostalgia over everything else in the world scream "woke!!"

Do you see this differently? Great. Give your POV

What's so great about being UOJ?

What's so great about being UOJ?

"In our country, they say that he who wishes to tell a lie has his witnesses live far away." That's the Ramban at the Disputation explaining why the claims of Christianity mean nothing to him.

What good is it, he continues, to say that Jesus has saved us from sin, or given us eternal salvation? These claims are impossible to falsify. What you say may be true, or not, but who can tell?

An identical charge, alas, might be made against some of the claims of Ultra Orthodox Judaism.

Go to a BT seminar, or question your local Haredi believer, and you'll be told that there are three primary reasons for living the Ultra Orthodox lifestyle.

In this post, I attempt to discuss them with the bombastic lack of nuance for which I am quite unjustifiably famous.

First up, the claim that **This is God Wants.** Oh, really? And how exactly do you know that? How do you propose to prove that God wants you to wear strange headgear, mutter old poems three times daily, and gorge yourself on meat and potatoes on the weekend? The only proofs are circular (the book says so and the book is true because the book says its true) and far too many UOJ behaviors that are considered essential and original are really nothing of the sort. None of these more recently added Ultra Orthodox affectations can honestly be said to be what God wants, not when perfectly spectacular Jews did otherwise for thousands of years. Did the Rambam say Kabbalat Shabbos? Did he know from upshurin? Where was his kippa? In fact, a halachic conservative Jewish lifestyle -- one that features scrupulously ethical behavior together with non-glat kashrus, regular mikva trips, and the contours of an observant shabbos - is just as plausibly What God Wants, but with none of the accoutrements, and a tenth of the difficulty. Why not do that instead? (Answer: Superstition, ignorance, fear of neighbors)

Second, **It Will Make You Happier. ** Yeah, says who? Admittedly most of my social contacts are Orthodox Jews, so I don't have much basis for comparison, but my cronies don't seem especially joyful. Many are downright miserable. Working extra hard to pay exorbitant tuition bills, and feeling forced by society to pay for obscenely lavish smachot will do that to you. As for the UOJs as a whole, well, lets play amateur sociologist: Ultra Orthodox Jews are less educated, make less money and have larger families. None of these factors are traditional indicators of happiness.

If UOJs are happier, perhaps it is a result of the smugness/sense of certainty that comes from thinking of yourself as God's Special Guy, or from the satisfaction acquired from completing our daily maze of religious rituals and obligations. The former is available to the LWCJ/OJ, too; indeed its available to anyone - Jew or gentile - who lives right, according to his or her own standard of right. As for the latter, well, I agree the real world offers nothing quite like the satisfaction of making it through Yom Kippur, or starving through a flight when no kosher food is available, but this isn't necessarily an indictment of the real world.

Third, **It Will Make You Smarter**. At the BT seminars, this claim is too often backed up with bogus bible codes. Your local heredi true believer is more likely to say that everything scientists know is contained in the Torah, and attempt to prove it via the famous, but undocumented, Chazon Ish anecdote, or by pointing to some medieval commentary who, when read in just the right light, seems to presage Einstein.

I agree that UOJs generally have much more candlepower than most, but too many of them just don't seem to know anything. Is it because their schools teach them nothing, or are they just not taught modern modes of thinking? My friends who practice medicine in Lakewood and Williamsburg have a new story every month about some cockamamie treatment plan that everyone seems to swear by. Once it was crystals, another time garlic in the ears. The fact that these methods don't work, and are endorsed by no one save the neighborhood yenta seems not to matter. Over and over again, we see UOJ people falling for scams like segulot, and blessings for money. Over and over again we see UOJs shutting off their brains once it seems clear a "Rabbi said so". And of course I've acquired countless grey hairs, stress lines and stomach ulcers attempting to explain to the so-called smartest of the smartest how history works, what midrashim are, and why blindly relying on authority is a lousy way to acquire knowledge. These are all things that ordinary non-UOJ creatures of the 21st century just seem to know, in the same way that ancients just seemed to know that dragons were real. So why are the UOJs lagging so far behind?

Zionists be like...

Them: CANCEL CULTURE IS TERRIBLE AND THE WORST. The woke people are RUINING America! 

Also, them: Heyyyy.... I don't like how Jews or Israel were depicted in that media!! HOW OFFENSIVE. WE MUST BOYCOTT THEM NOW!!

Points of disagreement between me and the Orthodox Jews

Points of disagreement between me and the Orthodox Jews

• I don't think Zionist Israel is special
• I don't think hasidut is special
• I don't accept any kind of witchcraft
• I don't accept any kind of magic
• I think the reward for a mitzvah is the mitzvah (and I try to embrace all consequences thereof)
• I reject ATM Judaism*
• I reject gold star Judaism*
• I refuse to treat God like a hired hand
• I refuse to treat our great Rabbis like Catholic saints
• I think the call for us to "storm the heavens with our prayers" suggests some rather awful things about God
• I realize it's blasphemous to suggest God enjoys listening to us chant and sing and wave around our arms
• I think Uman is a joke
• I think what Israel is doing in the West Bank is disgusting and immoral
• I don't think we're ever obliged to believe Midrashim
• I think were often obliged to accept that the authors of midrashim believed exactly what they said
• I think education is more important than chinuch
• I don't think black hats or Zionism or sitting and learning is michaper kol avonot

ATM:
You go up to God with a card and a pass code (=zechuyot) and you get cash and prizes

Goldstar

Mitzvoth have no intrinsic value. They don't make you better. They just add to your collection of gold stars which you can sell to other people in things like a zevulen/yissacher deal or trade in (hey God here are ten gold stars, please save Moshe from cancer)