Don't write off the Ashkenazim

But let’s be clear about what Ashkenazi Jews have achieved in the world, in medicine and media, physics and psychoanalysis, politics and philosophy. Ashkenazi Judaism was born in Eastern Europe, but it did not die there. The culture of learning and ambition came with those who left. Other qualities, adaptability, a strong sense of community, an independence of mind, all travelled with the Ashkenazim out of the ghetto and helped them shake the world.

Ashkenazi Jews helped build New York, where I’m writing this, perhaps the greatest metropolis of modern times. They raised its towers, wrote its novels and sang its songs.

In Williamsburg, Crown Heights, Flushing and Monsey, Charedi communities to rival those of the old country flourish, untouched by pogroms and Cossacks.

Ashkenazim also built Hollywood, the most powerful dream factory in history, still the capital of world cinema. And if you think those are all 20th century achievements, then look no further than Google, Facebook and Snapchat, all the creations of Ashkenazi Jews. In Silicon Valley, they have built the future.

And, of course, they also built much of modern day Israel, forging a remarkably resilient and forward-looking nation state out of the ashes of the 20th century.

Elsewhere in London, Toronto, Cape Town, Chicago, Manchester, Miami, Buenos Aires, Mexico City; Ashkenazim exist at the fulcrum of many great modern societies. You only have to look at decrepit Vienna, which exterminated its own Jewish bourgeoisie, to realise how important a role Jews play in the societies where they are allowed to flourish.

Again, I’m not a fan of Jew-bragging, but Ashkenazim have the highest IQ of any large ethnic group in the world. Consequently they will continue to achieve extraordinary things.

Ben is right to point out that Judaism has become far more Middle Eastern since the creation of Israel. And as the years pass, the Poles and Russians who helped create Israel will become ever more Middle Eastern. Increasingly it is a Mizrachi nation.

But the most important thing about Ashkenazi culture is how resilient and durable it is. Israel will always, on some level, be an Ashkenazi country, with a European history to informs its present.

What this really comes down to is how you view the future of the diaspora. In a world where the Jews finally have a flourishing nation state, what purpose does living anywhere else have? Is the state of Israel our eventual destiny? Will the irrepressible logic of Jewish history take us all there eventually?

I think not. The state of diaspora is not just an exilic one. We are not just passing time before eventually returning home: it’s been too long for that. Jews have been in a state of diaspora since the Romans destroyed the second temple. And here’s the thing: we’ve got really good at it. Given our history, life in the diaspora today is a bizarrely safe, comfortable and advantageous way of living

I think there will be Ashkenazi — and indeed Sephardi — communities flourishing in the Western world for as long as Israel flourishes in the Middle East. This duality is, I believe, essential to the thriving of the Jewish people. We must be among the nations and not just a nation on our own.

In the grand sweep of Jewish history, Europe didn’t work out so well in the end. It’s deep-rooted Christianity, ethnic homogeneity and capacity for tribal violence ultimately made it a hostile soil for the Jewish people to take root. But the seeds that were germinated in Poland and Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, Lithuania and Hungary, have scattered around the world and grown into a mighty forest.

Ben is right to celebrate the history of Middle Eastern Judaism and its renewed centrality in the Jewish story. But in celebrating that we mustn’t overcorrect. You never write off the Ashkenazim.

 

Josh Glancy is the Sunday Times’ New York correspondent