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The Sotomayor Nomination: More Glimpses of Jewish Activism — and a
Warning to Republicans

Kevin MacDonald

May 28, 2009

"The campaign by some Jews with access to the media to get Elena Kagan nominated for the soon-to-be vacant Supreme Court position failed —but will probably be resurrected the next time around. VDARE.com’s Patrick Cleburne has also noted the Jewish angle to the pro-Kagan campaign — suggesting that the article by Jeffrey Rosen questioning Sotomayor’s intellectual qualifications was really an attempt to promote Kagan by default. In a follow-up article, Rosen stressed the need for the next Supreme Court nominee to be “not merely impressive but absolutely stellar.”

You can see where this is going: Kagan = brilliant — despite her less
than lackluster record of academic scholarship en route to the most
prestigious position in legal academia.

Writing in the LA Times, David Greenberg does his part, describing
Elena Kagan as “manifestly brilliant,” and also agreeing with Cleburne
that criticisms of Sotomayor were motivated by the desire to promote
people like Kagan.

Of course, Jews need not fear that Sotomayor would disappoint them in
her voting. Representatives of Jewish groups were actively involved in
consulting about the nomination. And even though they may have
preferred Kagan, they doubtless had no objections to Sotomayor.

Gary McCoy Cartoon

Indeed, Sotomayor has long been courted by Jewish groups. Part of the
full court press style of Jewish activism is that any person who is
influential or who may at some point in the future become influential
will be socialized to be sensitive to Jewish issues. And they will be
scrutinized in the process, so that when the time comes, Jews can be
confident that people of influence will be on board with their
concerns.

In 1986 Sotomayor was invited to participate in Project Interchange,
an undertaking of the American Jewish Committee aimed at providing
“current and emerging United States and international leaders with an
enhanced understanding of, and perspective on, Israel and the pursuit
of Middle East peace through introductory educational seminars in
Israel” (links in original). The people invited on these junkets are
quite diverse — including members of the US military, editors of
student newspapers in American universities, presidents and
chancellors of American universities, French Muslim civic leaders,
Pentacostal Latino clergy, and Indian-Americans.

The only thing they have in common is that at some point they may be
able to influence policy toward issues important to the organized
Jewish community, even if that time is a long way in the future.

Project Interchange isn’t the only such organization. The Jewish
Institute for National Security Affairs has long promoted ties between
the US and Israeli military establishments. JINSA pays for trips to
Israel for retired U.S. generals and admirals who then write op-ed
pieces and sign letters and advertisements championing the Likudnik
line. JINSA also has programs for sending US law enforcement personnel
to Israel and for providing speakers at US military academies.

Since her 1986 visit to Israel, Sotomayor visited Israel again in 1996
and participated in a recent U.S.-Israel forum on immigration. She is
also close friends with Project Interchange founder Debbie Berger and
her husband, Paul.

Such courting of future leaders is doubtless an important aspect of
Jewish activism. Whenever someone is mentioned for high office, Jewish
newspapers report on his or her Jewish connections. In effect, there
is a vetting process based on issues of importance to the Jewish
community. And a critical part of that process is first hand, face-to-
face relationships with Jews who are well-known and trusted by the
wider Jewish community. In effect, Debbie and Paul Berger are
vouching for Sonia Sotomayor.

The JTA article “Life story, trips to Israel tie Sotomayor to Jews” is
also of interest because it sheds light on how Jews think of
themselves and their role in ethnic politics in America.

The story of her life — the daughter of a Puerto Rican single mother
from the Bronx, N.Y., whose ambitions knew no bounds — resounded with
a community that has made the story of immigrant triumph over struggle
a template of Jewish American success.

"It was impossible not to moved by her personal story," said Mark
Pelavin, the associate director of the Reform movement's Religious
Action Center. "To see her mother sitting there and think about what
this says about her and her country -- the combination of someone who
grew up in a housing project, who has been on the bench for a long
time, but who has been a prosecutor as well, that combination is very
powerful."

"It was thrilling," said Sammie Moshenberg, the Washington director of
the National Council of Jewish Women.

These comments are quite similar to what Jews say when asked about why
they support African Americans. As noted by historian Hasia Diner,
Jews “believe that Jewish concern for black people was ‘natural,’
growing out of parallel experiences of suffering and oppression.”

There is an element of self-deception in this. The Jewish rise from
immigrant poverty to elite status has virtually nothing in common with
the rise of people like Sotomayor who are the beneficiaries of the
post-1960s affirmative action culture of America. Whatever Jewish self
conceptions of their role in American ethnic politics, the only
consistent thread has been to oppose the interests of the White,
European-derived majority. In addition to favoring massive non-White
immigration and promoting programs that pathologize White identity and
interests, making alliances with other minority groups has been a
critically important part of that effort.

The main Jewish organizations taking a leadership role in building
alliances with non-White groups are the American Jewish Committee, the
Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington, and the Foundation for
Ethnic Understanding. For example, the FFEU was cofounded by Rabbi
Marc Schneier, president of the North American Boards of Rabbis;
Russell Simmons of hip hop fame is the Chairman of the Board of
Directors. The FFEU is closely tied to the World Jewish Congress,
which cosponsors the Foundation’s Washington, DC office and several of
its programs.

These Jewish organizations have sought close relationships with Latino
organizations such as the National Council of La Raza and the League
of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC). For example, one project of
the FFEU is to organize an annual meeting of the NAACP, the National
Council of La Raza, the World Jewish Congress, and the National Asian
Pacific American Legal Consortium.

Quite clearly the various non-European ethnic groups are developing
close ties, and Jewish organizations are taking the lead in this
effort. As Paul Gottfried said about minority groups opposing dominant
cultures (and I agreed), it’s not that Jews are unique in playing this
game. They are just better at it than others.

I point out this rich tapestry of Jewish ethnic activism to give some
idea of what those who advocate for White identity and interests are
up against. Like the Obama presidency, the nomination of Sonia
Sotomayor is exactly the sort of thing favored by the activist Jewish
community because it is yet another marker in the march toward the
dispossession of Whites in America.

Finally, it’s interesting that the standard line from some party
strategists is that Republicans need to be very cautious in their
opposition to Sotomayor because Latinos are an emerging political
force. Of course, this is the same advice that these strategists give
on immigration: Don’t do anything to anger the Latinos.

But of course, the reality is that Latinos are never going to be
attracted to a Republican Party that is in any sense conservative,
much less oriented to the interests of Whites in a way that is
comparable to how the Democratic Party is oriented to the interests of
non-Whites. Polls in California show that Latinos favor high levels of
government services and are willing to raise taxes to get them.
California is now in a historic budget crisis in which government
services to its ever-expanding population of poor and uneducated —
fueled massively by legal and illegal immigration — simply cannot be
sustained without huge increases in taxes. But massive tax increases
will drive out businesses and White taxpayers in droves — indeed they
have already done so. White people might be willing to pay higher
taxes if the beneficiaries were people like themselves. But Whites are
not going to vote for higher taxes when the main beneficiaries are
Latinos and other non-White poor — a straightforward result of our
evolutionary psychology, as Frank Salter (see also here) and J.
Philippe Rushton have shown.

Like all the great social trends, the Third Worldization of America
begins in California.

A far better strategy for Republicans is to realize that their only
long term hope is to become a party that explicitly (or at least
implicitly) favors White people and their interests. A critical part
of that process is to acknowledge that ethnic identity politics is not
just for people like Sotomayor (who is a member of La Raza), Obama,
and the Democratic Party.

Nate Beeler Cartoon

Sotomayor is quite blunt about the role of ethnic identity in
influencing judicial temperament, famously stating “I would hope that
a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more
often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't
lived that life." This is from someone who owes pretty much her whole
career to her ethnic identity and the willingness of American elites
to ease her path into Princeton, Yale Law, the Circuit Court of
Appeals, and now the Supreme Court of the United States.

We have to adopt the same explicit sense of White identity and
interests. The Republicans seem bent on committing suicide rather than
abandoning their principled hostility to ethnic identity politics for
Whites. But, as Peter Brimelow notes, if that is the policy of the
Republican Party, another party must and will be formed that do
exactly that."

Kevin MacDonald is a professor of psychology at California State
University–Long Beach. Email him.

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