Is the term "Judeo-Christian" in describing America's values simply political correctness?

[HerDotness]

Call it what you want. It's just reality, and all the smear terms in the world aren't going to change that. I'm not in favor of denying the blatantly obvious in order to kowtow to some people's overtly-sensitive feelings about the subject.

Yep..."Everyone knows it's true" bigotry rears its ugly head.

 

[E. Nato Difficile]

There's always such a wealth of fertile dialogue on the moral high ground.

-Nato

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

If I've ever heard something smacking of conspiracy theories, that would certainly be one.

Just what exactly is your evidence for that statement?

As for its being a fair statement, saying that a specific ethnic group is "overrepresented in many influential areas of society" sounds like bigotry to me.

Is this a joke? It's well-known and admitted. It just seems like certain people wish to deny the obvious in order not to be branded an "anti-Semite" or the dreaded "N" word. But I don't care about people's political smear tactics.

COMMENTARY has never published a systematic discussion of one of the most obvious topics of all: the extravagant overrepresentation of Jews, relative to their numbers, in the top ranks of the arts, sciences, law, medicine, finance, entrepreneurship, and the media.
...
Disproportionate Jewish accomplishment in the arts and sciences continues to this day.

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/jewish-genius/

Some quick stats: We are reasonably certain that 139 of the richest 400 Americans are Jewish, including 20 of the richest 50. Those top 20 control some $211.8 billion in personal wealth.

At least 139 of the Forbes 400 are Jewish | The Fundermentalist | JTA - Jewish & Israel News

A study of the Pew Forum institute from 2008 found that Jews are the richest religious group in the US: Forty-six of Jews earn more than $100,000 a year, compared to 19% among all Americans. Another Gallup poll conducted this year found that 70% of American Jews enjoy "a high standard of living" compared to 60% of the population and more than any other religious group.

...


Hollywood: Many Jews
More than 100 of the 400 billionaires on Forbes' list of the wealthiest people in America are Jews. Six of the 20 leading venture capital funds in the US belong to Jews, according to Forbes.
Google founder Sergey Brin has a Jewish father, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish, as is his deputy, David Fischer, the son of Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer. The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Shalom Bernanke, is Jewish too, as is he predecessor, Alan Greenspan, and the Fed founder, Paul Warburg.
Jews are well represented in Wall Street, Silicon Valley, the US Congress and Administration, Hollywood, TV networks and the American press – way beyond their percentage in the population.

How did American Jews get so rich? - Israel Business, Ynetnews

MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN, owner of NY Daily News, US News & World Report and chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish American Organizations, one of the largest pro-Israel lobbying groups.
LESLIE MOONVES, president of CBS television, great-nephew of David Ben-Gurion, and co-chair with Norman Ornstein of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton.
JONATHAN MILLER, chair and CEO of AOL division of AOL-Time-Warner
NEIL SHAPIRO, president of NBC News
JEFF GASPIN, Executive Vice-President, Programming, NBC
DAVID WESTIN, president of ABC News
SUMNER REDSTONE, CEO of Viacom, “world’s biggest media giant” (Economist, 11/23/2) owns Viacom cable, CBS and MTVs all over the world, Blockbuster video rentals and Black Entertainment TV.
MICHAEL EISNER, major owner of Walt Disney, Capitol Cities, ABC.
RUPERT MURDOCH, Owner Fox TV, New York Post, London Times, News of the World (Jewish mother)
MEL KARMAZIN, president of CBS
DON HEWITT, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes, CBS
JEFF FAGER, Exec. Director, 60 Minutes II. CBS
DAVID POLTRACK, Executive Vice-President, Research and Planning, CBS
SANDY KRUSHOW, Chair, Fox Entertainment
LLOYD BRAUN, Chair, ABC Entertainment
BARRY MEYER, chair, Warner Bros.
SHERRY LANSING. President of Paramount Communications and Chairman of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN, CEO. Miramax Films.
BRAD SIEGEL., President, Turner Entertainment.
PETER CHERNIN, second in-command at Rupert Murdoch’s News. Corp., owner of Fox TV
MARTY PERETZ, owner and publisher of the New Republic, which openly identifies itself as pro-Israel. Al Gore credits Marty with being his “mentor.”
ARTHUR O. SULZBERGER, JR., publisher of the NY Times, the Boston Globe and other publications.
WILLIAM SAFIRE, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
TOM FRIEDMAN, syndicated columnist for the NYT.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post. Honored by Honest Reporting.com, website monitoring “anti-Israel media.”
RICHARD COHEN, syndicated columnist for the Washington Post
JEFF JACOBY, syndicated columnist for the Boston Globe
NORMAN ORNSTEIN, American Enterprise Inst., regular columnist for USA Today, news analyst for CBS, and co-chair with Leslie Moonves of the Advisory Committee on Public Interest Obligation of Digital TV Producers, appointed by Clinton.
ARIE FLEISCHER, Dubya’s press secretary.
STEPHEN EMERSON, every media outlet’s first choice as an expert on domestic terrorism.
DAVID SCHNEIDERMAN, owner of the Village Voice and the New Times network of “alternative weeklies.”
DENNIS LEIBOWITZ, head of Act II Partners, a media hedge fund
KENNETH POLLACK, for CIA analysts, director of Saban Center for Middle East Policy, writes op-eds in NY Times, New Yorker
BARRY DILLER, chair of USA Interactive, former owner of Universal Entertainment
KENNETH ROTH, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch
RICHARD LEIBNER, runs the N.S. Bienstock talent agency, which represents 600 news personalities such as Dan Rather, Dianne Sawyer and Bill O’Reilly.
TERRY SEMEL, CEO, Yahoo, former chair, Warner Bros.
MARK GOLIN, VP and Creative Director, AOL
WARREN LIEBERFORD, Pres., Warner Bros. Home Video Div. of AOL- TimeWarner
JEFFREY ZUCKER, President of NBC Entertainment
JACK MYERS, NBC, chief.NYT 5.14.2
SANDY GRUSHOW, chair of Fox Entertainment
GAIL BERMAN, president of Fox Entertainment
STEPHEN SPIELBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
JEFFREY KATZENBERG, co-owner of Dreamworks
DAVID GEFFEN, co-owner of Dreamworks
LLYOD BRAUN, chair of ABC Entertainment
JORDAN LEVIN, president of Warner Bros. Entertainment
MAX MUTCHNICK, co-executive producer of NBC’s “Good Morning Miami”
DAVID KOHAN, co-executive producer of NBC’s “Good Morning Miami”
HOWARD STRINGER, chief of Sony Corp. of America
AMY PASCAL, chair of Columbia Pictures
JOEL KLEIN, chair and CEO of Bertelsmann’s American operations
ROBERT SILLERMAN, founder of Clear Channel Communications
BRIAN GRADEN, president of MTV entertainment
IVAN SEIDENBERG, CEO of Verizon Communications
WOLF BLITZER, host of CNN’s Late Edition
LARRY KING, host of Larry King Live
TED KOPPEL, host of ABC’s Nightline
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN Reporter
PAULA ZAHN, CNN Host
MIKE WALLACE, Host of CBS, 60 Minutes
BARBARA WALTERS, Host, ABC’s 20-20
MICHAEL LEDEEN, editor of National Review
BRUCE NUSSBAUM, editorial page editor, Business Week
DONALD GRAHAM, Chair and CEO of Newsweek and Washington Post, son of
CATHERINE GRAHAM MEYER, former owner of the Washington Post
HOWARD FINEMAN, Chief Political Columnist, Newsweek
WILLIAM KRISTOL, Editor, Weekly Standard, Exec. Director
Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
RON ROSENTHAL, Managing Editor, San Francisco Chronicle
PHIL BRONSTEIN, Executive Editor, San Francisco Chronicle,
RON OWENS, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco)
JOHN ROTHMAN, Talk Show Host, KGO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco)
MICHAEL SAVAGE, Talk Show Host, KFSO (ABC-Capitol Cities, San Francisco) Syndicated in 100 markets
MICHAEL MEDVED, Talk Show Host, on 124 AM stations
DENNIS PRAGER, Talk Show Host, nationally syndicated from LA. Has Israeli flag on his home page.
BEN WATTENBERG, Moderator, PBS Think Tank.
ANDREW LACK, president of NBC
DANIEL MENAKER, Executive Director, Harper Collins
DAVID REMNICK, Editor, The New Yorker
NICHOLAS LEHMANN, writer, the New York
HENRICK HERTZBERG, Talk of the Town editor, The New Yorker
SAMUEL NEWHOUSE JR, and DONALD NEWHOUSE own Newhouse Publications, includes 26 newspapers in 22 cities; the Conde Nast magazine group, includes The New Yorker; Parade, the Sunday newspaper supplement; American City Business Journals, business newspapers published in more than 30 major cities in America; and interests in cable television programming and cable systems serving 1 million homes.
DONALD NEWHOUSE, chairman of the board of directors, Associated Press.
PETER R KANN, CEO, Wall Street Journal, Barron’s
RALPH J. & BRIAN ROBERTS, Owners, Comcast-ATT Cable TV.
LAWRENCE KIRSHBAUM, CEO, AOL-Time Warner Book Group

Jews In The American Media | Hollywood

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

The Disproportionate Success of Jews in America

...



When I was a kid, the prospect of catching polio was terrifying. We could not dive into a public swimming pool for fear we would spend the rest of our lives in an iron lung. Two Jewish doctors vanquished that disease and removed such fears forever.
Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin are but two of the Jews we honor in celebrating Jewish American Heritage Month.
America has been blessed with many waves of immigrants from all over the world who have made our nation the most successful in history. This success has drawn these immigrants with its promise of living free and making one’s own way, and perhaps achieving and contributing great things.
During Jewish American Heritage Month in May, we honor our Jewish countrymen. Their numbers are small, roughly 5 million or 6 million in a country of more than 300 million.
The first Jews arrived in 1654 fleeing the Inquisition. They insisted on, and were granted, full citizenship. One hundred of their successors fought in the Revolutionary War and one — Haym Solomon — helped secure vital financing for George Washington’s Revolutionary Army.
Waves of succeeding Jewish immigrants helped build American industries and culture, and our way of life.
Jews built the majority of our great retailing institutions like Macy’s and Bloomingdales. Even today, more recent names such as Home Depot and Costco have their roots in Jewish merchants.
Our garment industry, with names like Levis, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan and others, changed the United States from a country in which garments were made by hand, one at a time, into the world’s leader in ready-to-wear and high fashion.
Our computers, with names like Dell, software from giants like Oracle, search engines like Google, and social media like Facebook, share the legacy just as Intel and Qualcomm chips and technologies are inside so many of our computers and cell phones.
The three largest broadcasting networks — ABC, NBC and CBS — were built from the efforts of two visionary Jewish entrepreneurs, David Sarnoff and William Paley. Sarnoff in particular saw the potential to convert wireless, then used for ship-to-shore communications, into a broadcast medium distributed via a network.
The technology for making movies was invented by the non-Jewish Thomas Edison, the Lumiere brothers and others, but it was Jewish entrepreneurs who saw the potential to create an industry, making feature-length films, distributing them internationally, and building and sustaining the studios. From that arose the vital role played by Jewish movie producers, directors and actors.
So many of the most important U.S. newspapers and book publishers came from or were shaped largely by Jews — notably The New York Times, the Washington Post, Random House, and Simon and Schuster. And in winning 51 percent of the Pulitzer Prizes for non-fiction, we confirm the importance of Jews in news reporting.
History shows that if we attend a symphony, one-third of the time the conductor will be Jewish. And if we watch the annual ceremony for the Kennedy Center honorees, we will be celebrating the fact that the same is true for more than one-fourth of our most important performing artists.
In medicine, law, science, politics and education, the leadership, innovation and hard work of Jews have benefited us all. And if they have been successful as entrepreneurs, disproportionately represented among the members of the Forbes 400 and as CEOs of the Fortune 500, that achievement is outstripped by the fact that in philanthropy — particularly for secular causes such as education, medicine and the arts — Jews are even more philanthropic than they are wealthy.
Finally, when the underprivileged in America have needed help, Jews have been there. Julius Rosenwald, who built Sears Roebuck, was responsible for the construction of more than 5,000 schools for blacks throughout the American South when he found conditions appalling.

The Disproportionate Success of Jews in America | Jewish Achievement Blog

Nobel Prizes have been awarded to over 800 individuals,[2] of whom at least 20% were Jews, although Jews comprise only 0.2% of the world's population.[3][

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates

Etc, etc. (Notice how I didn't have to use sites like Stormfront for my sources.)

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Yep..."Everyone knows it's true" bigotry rears its ugly head.

If you honestly don't know, then I apologize. But perhaps you should start paying a bit more attention to the world around you. Or you can just continue ignoring it, I don't really care. But I don't like being insulted for just pointing out a simple fact.

 

[HerDotness]

Then, I really don't understand why you would use the term "overrepresented."

Perhaps I don't comprehend how that's not a pejorative.

Why wouldn't we simply celebrate the accomplishments of the people listed as those of ambitious, talented individuals instead of associating their achievements with a particular religion? Why does their ethnicity/religion relate to their success?

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And did you look under your bed?

So, how bout them Protocols of Zion!​

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

And ...

Finally, when the underprivileged in America have needed help, Jews have been there. Julius Rosenwald, who built Sears Roebuck, was responsible for the construction of more than 5,000 schools for blacks throughout the American South when he found conditions appalling.

... we seem so much better at this sort of thing than is your typical psychonaut.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Then, I really don't understand why you would use the term "overrepresented."

Perhaps I don't comprehend how that's not a pejorative.

It's the same as saying they're "disproportionately represented". Don't tell me that you don't find it at least a little bit odd that such a tiny group of people with their history of victimization has had and has so much success and control in so many fields, especially recently. It's not a big mystery why many people wonder about this stuff.

Why wouldn't we simply celebrate the accomplishments of the people listed as those of ambitious, talented individuals instead of associating their achievements with a particular religion?

Because individuals don't exist in vacuums.

Why does their ethnicity/religion relate to their success?

You tell me.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

And ...... we seem so much better at this sort of thing than is your typical psychonaut.

Excuse me, but do you know me? No, you don't.

 

[HerDotness]

And did you look under your bed?

So, how bout them Protocols of Zion!
​

Indeed.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

And did you look under your bed?

So, how bout them Protocols of Zion!​

Nah. I know about that being a hoax.

 

[-Peacemaker-]

No, nor would I have labeled it antisemitic tripe had he said that the country was founded on pizza. But the spectre of people cowering before and currying favor with a powerful yet insignificant Jewish minority that is driving the national narrative from behind the scenes is a well worn and disgusting antisemitic theme.

You have to understand that if the assertion in the OP about term "Judeo-Christian" is correct, then it represents an attempt to rewrite the history books to include something that wasn't originally a factor in this country. My family has been in this country a very long time. You can't try to rewrite somebody's history and expect no pushback.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Is the term "Judeo-Christian" simply an attempt to appease the small but very powerful Jewish minority in America?

No, it's a not a matter of appeasing the Jewish minority; it's a matter of co-opting them to portray the viewpoint of a fairly narrow subset of Christians as reflective of some sort of common cultural values and traditions.

I think it is absurd to think you can separate the "Judeo" from the "Christian" given the fact that the majority of the Christian Bible is the Hebrew Bible. The theology, mythology, and ethos of Christianity comes directly from Judaism. To separate them at this point (or at founding of the United States) is just impossible.

As to why someone would want to try to separate them, I think Jay hit the nail on the head.

Well, no - while Judaism and Christianity use a fair bit of the same raw material, I think their theological takes on that material are quite different.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

You have to understand ...

I understand both you and the history of antisemitism quite well.

 

[HerDotness]

Don't tell me that you don't find it at least a little bit odd that such a tiny group of people with their history of victimization has had and has so much success and control in so many fields, especially recently.

No, I don't find it the least bit odd. It makes a good deal of sense to me that the descendants of Holocaust victims in particular might be much more highly motivated to make something of their lives than are those of other ethnic and religious groups.

And the obligation to explain why anyone's religion makes the person far more likely than the norm to succeed in life and to become influential is yours not mine.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You have to understand that if the assertion in the OP about term "Judeo-Christian" is correct, then it represents an attempt to rewrite the history books to include something that wasn't originally a factor in this country. My family has been in this country a very long time. You can't try to rewrite somebody's history and expect no pushback.

Yes - your country and mine both have a long history of discriminating against Jews. There are public parks in Toronto that had signs saying "gentiles only" as late as the 1920s. There are private clubs here that barred Jews from membership until this was made illegal (in the 1960s, IIRC). While most of the people behind this discrimination were Christian, I question how "Judeo-" their religious values were.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

No, I don't find it the least bit odd. It makes a good deal of sense to me that the descendants of Holocaust victims in particular might be much more highly motivated to make something of their lives than are those of other ethnic and religious groups.

And other people aren't "highly motivated"? After all, they certainly aren't the only group to be disadvantaged. In fact, other groups had and have it far worse.

That's bordering on an idea of supremacism.

And the obligation to explain why anyone's religion makes the person far more likely than the norm to succeed in life and to become influential is yours not mine.

I wasn't being sarcastic. I merely present facts. You can make of it what you wish. I really don't care. All I said was that they're overrepresented in highly influential areas of society, relative to their numbers, and I provided evidence for that fact. I never made a case for why that may be.

I don't see a refutation for what I posted, so as far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over.

 

[Quiddity]

A resurgence and focus on end time prophecies within the Christian right led to it's popularity. The exegetical work on said verses has resulted in millions being donated to Israel and Jewish organizations.

 

[Flankerl]

No, it's a not a matter of appeasing the Jewish minority; it's a matter of co-opting them to portray the viewpoint of a fairly narrow subset of Christians as reflective of some sort of common cultural values and traditions.

Its funny that its still being used while most jews completely reject the term.





Also what Levite wrote is spot on.