WASPs at last

[azurnoir]

The day after Chelsea Clinton's marriage to Marc Mezvinsky, the Tikvah Fund's annual seminar opened at Princeton University. There, Prof. David Novak talked about a different era, in which even the son of a former secretary of the treasury, Henry Morgenthau, had trouble getting accepted to that university because he was a Jew. And when he was finally accepted, he was rejected by all the eating clubs, Princeton's equivalent of fraternities - an important part of American student life and the key to social and economic status. Today, a seminar at which Jews discuss how to integrate Jewish thought into the study of the humanities is taken for granted on this campus.

Aside from its religious ramifications, the Clinton-Mezvinsky wedding highlights the enormous sociological changes, whose impact can scarcely be overstated, that have taken place here in the decades that culminated in the marriage between a daughter of the group that discriminated against others and a son of a group that was discriminated against. For many Jews, Mezvinsky's acceptance into the bosom of this high-toned WASP family seems to set the final seal on the sociological process that the Jews, and especially Reform Jews, have undergone in America. From now on, the fantasy goes, we are all Mezvinskys.

On the other side, for those who have been fearfully following the process of assimilation and disappearance that the Jewish people has undergone in America, and on other continents, this "culminating event" poured salt on open wounds. Some 90 percent of young Jews, according to recent polls, do not rule out marriage with a non-Jew. And the results are easy to see: Due to intermarriage, the number of Jews in the United States has fallen by more than a quarter since the 1960s.

Only 5 million Jews (a number that includes about 1 million Israelis and immigrants from the former Soviet Union ) live today in the world's second-largest Jewish population center. The numerous intermarriages attest to a desire to shake off the burden that Jewish identity entails - even in its minimalist Reform version - and assimilate into the American melting pot. (Note that the American melting pot is not the same as the American dream. The original American dream allowed people to continue adhering to their own religion and nationality, viewing this as legitimate and even desirable, not something that impedes realization of that dream. )

More than a few Jews, including Reform Jews, were hurt by the inclusion of ancient Jewish symbols, like the breaking of the glass, alongside Christian ones at Saturday's wedding. Rabbi James Ponet, who officiated over this mishmash, displayed radical conformism. That is apparently linked to the dream some Jews have of pleasing the ultimate WASP, and thereby trying to solve the identity problem that lurks deep in the recesses of the Jewish soul. But it seems doubtful that they will find peace and belonging by making like Ionesco's rhinoceroses.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/wasps-at-last-1.306106

[rocktivity]

1. At my oldest friend's wedding, I was sorely tempted to run up the aisle

and rescue the champagne bottle the groom stepped on!

The numerous intermarriages attest to a desire to shake off the burden that Jewish identity entails - even in its minimalist Reform version - and assimilate into the American melting pot.
I don't know about that--I suspect that love plays a small role as well!


rocktivity

[hedgehog]

2. I suspect that at best, the Clintons would be considered

nouveau-riche by the real high-toned WASP families. It's nothing new and nothing to do with the Clintons; the Astors looked down on the Goulds and Vanderbilts and Joseph Kennedy moved his family out of Boston because they weren't accepted in "Society".

[onager]

6. Bill Clinton is Southern white trash, same as me.

He's from Arkansas, raised by a single Mom. You can bet your ass he was not, is not and never will be fully accepted by the WASP power elite in this country. No matter how many Rhodes scholarships he won or how many terms he served as President.

That's part of the reason why GOP-manufactured scandals stuck to him so handily, even when they were as fictional as the Book of Revelation. Sometimes the NY/DC editorialists came right out and said it - "Well, what do you EXPECT?" Most of the time it was more of a nasty, ever-present undertone.

Back during Monica-gate, a female columnist wrote a dead-on sociological analysis of that...er...affair. At least IMO. She said it was no wonder those two were attracted to each other - Lewinsky was Jewish and Clinton was a former poor white cracker. Both came from backgrounds that were beyond the pale to The People Who Really Matter in this country.

You know, like those always classy, Ivy-League-educated, well-spoken paragons of society, the Bush family. Add your own "sarcasm" smiley...

(BTW, for many years I've lived in Los Angeles...where the Jews had to start their own country club because they weren't allowed to join any of the existing clubs. And that included the Jews who virtually created the whole movie industry in this town.)

[Dogmudgeon]

3. What the Clinton-Mezvinsky marriage really means

That Chelsea and Marc are in love and will at least try to stay together until they die?

I dunno ... maybe I'm just out of too many loops ... hell, I don't even hate the Clintons ...

--d!

[Burma Jones]

4. I am a WASP married to a Jew

I promised the Rabbi who married us that I would raise the kids Jewish since it was good enough for Christ.......

When people asked me in what religion we would raise our children, I would reply, "American Materialism," a few of them got that it wasn't a flip reply.

When my Wife's Great Aunt asked whether my family was uncomfortable with my marrying a Jew, I told her, "My Brother married a Catholic, that's much worse." Sounds like another flip answer, but it wasn't.

I was asked whether raising my kids Jewish was somehow betraying my heritage, I replied that we were speaking English, right? That they're going to hear a lot more about Shakespeare than Maimonides and I then pulled out a $20 bill and told the guy that my kids are descendants of Andrew Jackson on my side of the family.

My wife's Lubivitcher Cousin bears me no ill will, and for that I am happy.

The town in which I live has been referred to as the Judeo-Protestant center of power in the USA....and we all get along just fine.

Finally, if one doesn't recognize the huge contribution Jews have made toward defining the "American Identity" then they ain't looking hard enough.

Eventually, we are all going to have to mix it up.

Let's hear it for hybrid vigor!


On edit: At our wedding, we stepped on light bulbs........it works better

[rocktivity]

5. DING DING DING! Burma Jones, you're our grand prize winner!

At our wedding, we stepped on light bulbs...it works better

It definitely works better than all that champagne getting spilled when people could have drank it!

:rofl:
rocktivity

[dimbear]

7. I see the Russians are finally admitting Lenin was part Jewish.

As a wild guess, in a world where there are religions so radically different to cope with, the divide between Jews and Christians isn't so wide nowadays.