Why I avoid the word "Zionism"

"If you would converse with me, define your terms." -- Voltaire


The word "Zionism" is used online in so many different ways nowadays -- often with totally conflicting definitions -- that I believe it has become useless for any kind of real dialogue.

The Meriam-Webster dictionary defines Zionism as "an international movement originally for the establishment of a Jewish national or religious community in Palestine and later for the support of modern Israel." The Jewish Virtual Library has a more expanded version of this definition, which is pretty standard in the mainstream Jewish community.  Zionism was, and still is, primarily a political movement.

But in addition to this positive version, urbandictionary.com adds a secondary negative definition for Zionist that is all too common online: "A substitute word for Jew used by antisemites who, for whatever reason, wish to hide their racist intent."  And I have indeed come across people who use it that way, often the same people who use expressions like "jew the price down."  But is every criticism of Israel or Zionism automatically racist?  And are Jews and Zionists always synonymous?

On the other side, there are those who argue that Zionism itself is a racist ideology.  Again, what exactly does that mean?

Hitler defined Jews as a race, but he was hardly an authoritative source.  Biologically, Jews are not a race.  Anthropologically, Jews are more like a tribal people, with the "12 Tribes" actually being 12 clans within a tribe.  Converting to Judaism is more like being adopted into a tribe than just taking on a "religion."  So many people of all races and nationalities have done that over the centuries that Jews now come in every possible race and nationality.  So what, exactly, is meant by "Zionism is racism?"  What "race" would it be promoting?

As you can see, we are already in a tangle of confusion, and it doesn't end there.  Still others talk of a conspiracy theory where a secret organization called "The Elders of Zion" or "Zionist Occupying Government" (ZOG) is supposedly controlling the world (or the media, or the banks, or Congress, or Hollywood, or whatever else people are mad about at the moment.)

So,  for my Twitter and Facebook readers who are constantly asking me where I stand on the subject of Israel and Zionism, here's a brief rundown of the various ways the word is used, and why I now shy away from using "Zionist" altogether.

Nathan Birnbaum

Where does the word "Zionism" come from, anyway?

The term Zionism was coined by Nathan Birnbaum in 1890.  Birnbaum was an Austrian journalist and freethinker who played a major role in the First Zionist Congress, but, ironically, he did not remain in the Zionist movement.  His life had three main phases, representing a progression in his thinking: 1) A Zionist phase; 2) a Jewish cultural autonomy phase which included the promotion of the Yiddish language; and 3) a religious phase when he turned to Orthodox Judaism and became staunchly anti-Zionist. (More on anti-Zionist Jews below.)

 The word "Zion" itself was taken from the name of Mount Zion, a hill in Jerusalem, but the exact location has shifted in the minds of the people over time.  (The Wikipedia page discusses three different sites.)   The Prophet Isaiah referred to Zion as being synonymous with Jerusalem, the seat of government in the time of King David, and prophesied that:

Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. God will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in God's paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. (Isaiah 2:3)

This quote and others like it in the Bible may partially account for the antisemitic idea that Jews are out to rule the world.  However, the Jewish interpretation is that A) this is something that will happen in messianic times and B) the people will voluntarily "walk in God's paths," not be forced to convert to Judaism.  Jews do not have missionaries like some other religions do.  (For more on the Jewish concept of the Messianic Age, read here. Jews also do not believe everyone must be Jewish in order to be saved. You can find God through your own religion.)

It is important to keep in mind that Isaiah was preaching at a time when the Jews had been conquered by the Assyrians and Babylonians.  So what he was prophesying was a return to self-rule, a future time of peace when the nations of the world would "beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4) 

And is that not the hope of most people on earth, to have world peace?

Is criticizing Israel always antisemitic?

Not if you are criticizing specific policies.  Israelis themselves are quite critical of their own government and society, as anybody who reads the Israeli press certainly knows.  Unfortunately these criticisms do not get much coverage in the mainstream American press, but if you follow publications like The Jewish Daily Forward, the English version of the Jerusalem Post, or Haaretz you will see a wide diversity of opinions on Middle East affairs.

In Israel and the Jewish community at large, "Zionism" has a lot of different meanings, the same as "Americanism" means different things to different Americans.  There are religious Zionists, secular Zionists, left-wing Zionists, right-wing Zionists, militant Zionists, pacifist Zionists, Green Party Zionists --  and everything in between.

There are even non-Jewish Zionists, often Christians who support Israel as fulfillment of  the "Holy Land" prophecies in their own religion.  (Read more on Christian Zionism.)  However, not all Christian groups agree with this stance, and many actively oppose it.

As you can see, all of these different kinds of Zionists have a lot of differences among themselves --and often criticize each other quite strongly.

On the other hand, if you oppose the very existence of Israel and call for its total destruction, then you will be perceived as antisemitic as well as anti-Israel.  Calling for the destruction of any country is taken as a threat of war -- and what country would sit by and calmly let themselves be annihilated? In the same vein, what country would not fight back if people were lobbing bombs over the border? What country would not arrest people who throw stones or knife civilians on the street?  Here is not the place to go into the Israel-Palestinian conflict, but it is important to keep in mind that even in this conflict, there is a wide variety of opinions.  So the rule of thumb seems to be to criticize policies of Israel all you want, but don't deny the right of Israel to exist.

What about anti-Zionist Jews?  Who are they?

It may be hard to believe today, but Zionism was not met with great enthusiasm by most Jews in its early days.  The majority of rabbis objected to the idea of establishing a secular state, believing that to do so without the Messiah was blasphemy.  The original Zionists were, with very few exceptions, secularized Jews who no longer observed "the religion," although they felt connected to the Jewish people as a culture.

At the time, many Europeans thought of Jews as a bunch of homeless parasites, (the old "wandering Jew" stereotype) and antisemitism was on the rise.  The early Zionists believed that if Jews had a country of their own, then the non-Jews would see them as simply another nationality like Irish or French, and antisemitism would cease to exist.

Unfortunately that did not work.  Antisemites simply transferred their hatred for "the Jews" to "the Zionists," carrying over all the old negative stereotypes from one to the other.  More on that later.

Satmar Hasidim protesting the Israeli draft

After World War II, when the State of Israel became a reality, most Jews ceased to oppose it.  However, there are still some very Orthodox groups, most notably the Satmar Hasidim, who do not recognize the State of Israel as a "Jewish" state, but see it the same as any other secular government they have lived under in the past.  These groups do not object to living in Israel -- some families have been in Jerusalem for centuries -- but they are opposed to Zionism as such and refuse to serve in the Israeli army. (More on that...)

In the past these anti-Zionist groups were marginalized in the Jewish community, but since the advent of the Internet you can find them posting on Facebook and Twitter.  On March 3, 2015, 3000 Satmar Jews protested in NYC against Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech claiming he spoke for all Jews.  They do not see Israel or Netanyahu as representing them.

Some anti-Zionist Orthodox rabbis go so far as to say that Zionists are not true Jews -- a stance I disagree with, because halachah (Jewish law) does not define Jewishness according to one's politics.  According to Jewish law, if your mother is Jewish or if you have formally converted, then you are Jewish, period, regardless of your level of religious observance and/or politics.

Display of Religious Zionist yarmulkes

However, there are some Jews who practice what they call "religious Zionism," a more recent movement that combines the biblical idea of the Holy Land with the present government.  An old saying has it that "God, the Torah, and Israel are one."  The "Israel" here refers to the Jewish people, after the new name, Israel, given to Jacob by the angel. (Genesis 35:10.)  Religious Zionists re-define it as referring to the State of Israel, giving it a nationalist twist.  Some go so far as make loyalty to Israel as a requirement for being a good Jew.  The anti-Zionist Orthodox groups, on the other hand, see this as a heresy.

There are also non-Orthodox and secular anti-Zionist Jews.  These are individuals who are opposed to the occupation of Palestinian lands, and who see Israel as an extension of Western colonialism.  This is, of course, a very simplistic definition, because there are also Zionist groups that oppose the Occupation, such as J Street and others.  Opposing the Occupation does not automatically make one into an anti-Zionist.  It may, however, get you called a "self-hating Jew" by the mainstream Jewish press.

What about the "Elders of Zion" who secretly rule the world? 

They don't exist!  There is no secret cabal of Jewish Illuminati or ZOG conspiracy "shadow government."  The idea dates to a  book called The Protocols of the meetings of the learned Elders of Zion (called The Protocols for short) published in Russia in 1903.  The book, which claims to be the minutes from a secret meeting of these "Elders," is a proven forgery that also contains a lot of plagiarism from other non-Jewish sources.   (The Wikipedia page on this topic goes into more detail about this plagiarism.)  Nevertheless the book was promoted by Hitler, and more recently has been passed around in both Arab and white supremacist circles.

Typical ZOG cartoon implying that Jews
control the American government

Anybody who knows anything about real Judaism can immediately see that The Protocols is not only a vicious forgery, it is ludicrous in terms of style and dialogue.  Unfortunately there are still gullible people who believe anything they read, and with the advent of the Internet, a lot of old junk -- much of it long discredited -- is getting resurrected from the past and posted.  And since the Net is worldwide, people on the other side of the world who have never met a Jew and have no historical context for this bogus text sometimes mistake it for fact.

Among other things, this book is a source of the false definition of the Hebrew word goy as meaning "pig" or "subhuman" for non-Jews.  (More than ironic, since the white supremicists who distribute The Protocols consider Jews and non-white races to be inferior and see themselves as a "master race .")

The word goy simply means "nation" in biblical Hebrew and occurs 550 times in reference to both Jews and gentiles.  Genesis 10:5 uses it in a neutral way applying to non-Israelite nations.  In Genesis 12:2 God promises Abraham that his descendants with be goy gadol, "a great nation."  Exodus 19:6 refers to the Jewish people as goy kadosh, a "holy nation." The prophet Isaiah uses it universally when he prophesies that "nation (goy) shall not lift up sword against nation (goy) neither shall they learn war anymore." (Isaiah 2:4)

While it is true that in recent years goy has sometimes been used as an insult (same as "Jew" is used by some people as an insult), that is vulgar street usage and not the true meaning of the word.  However, many Jews nowadays shy away from using it to avoid misunderstanding, and prefer "gentile" or "non-Jew" instead. (Most of the time when I see it online it is being thrown at me by antisemites trying to look informed about Jews.  Again pretty ironic.)

On the other hand, the recently-coined term "goysplaining" is sometimes used, meaning when a non-Jewish "expert" explains Jewish beliefs/issues to a Jew and gets it wrong. (read more on that...)

So where do I stand on all this?

As I said above, the word "Zionism" is now used in so many different ways that it confuses more than clarifies.  Therefore I try to avoid it altogether.  But if you insist, then politically I have  called myself a "non-Zionist."  Zionism and the State of Israel simply do not play much of a role in my Jewish identity, which centers more on God, spirituality, and love of humanity, rather than on nationalism.  I have no theological objection to the existence of the State of Israel, but I do not see it as the fulfillment of messianic prophecies, either. The land of Israel is holy, but the State, to me, is a secular government.  As such it can be criticized and questioned the same as any other government.

(This article was updated on January 11, 2017 by the author)

Oy vey! I'm being cyber-bullied by IDIOTS!

In the last few months I seem to have picked up some "followers" who think it is fun to track me around the net, posting libelous insults.  At first I just ignored them, but with all the talk about bullying lately, I finally decided to confront these people and bring their stupidity out into the open.

The childish vandal(s) on Wikipedia

A lot of the bullying has been rather juvenile, such as the anonymous vandal who changed "Jewish Vegetarians of North America" to "Jewish Cannibals of North Africa" on the Wikipedia page about me.  (Whether that was intended to be anti-vegetarian or simply racist is anybody's guess.)  The bogus edit was quickly caught by a page-watcher and reverted.  The same bully made a few more equally inane edits before disappearing into the void.  Somebody else added a claim that I "wrote manuals" for NAMBLA (a pedophile/pederasty group that I have never, ever had any contact with, and I certainly would not write anything for them, not even on contract as an editor.)  This was libelous but easily removed, since anybody can edit on Wikipedia.

My reaction to such childish graffiti is to say, "Get off your mother's computer before she comes home and grounds you for life."  I mean, who in their right mind would really believe that Adolf Hitler is my "hero and inspiration"?  (Yes, some dumbkopf really did put that on the Wikipedia page.)  Luckily, Wikipedians are very vigilant about such vandalism and have reverted the page back to the original -- numerous times.

The YouTube stalker

A lot more nasty was the jerk called "mosesmaimon1" on YouTube, who certainly was no Moses Maimonides.  He started out by posting this bully-flame on all my YouTube videos:

"Yonassan Gershom is a complete and total fraud. he is no rabbi at all. rather, he is a self-hating Jew, a left wing liberal lunatic marxist islamofascist loving gay homosexual. and those are his good points."

Apparently this ridiculous contradictory diatribe was supposed to deter people from watching my videos on Judaism and vegetarianism, since that's where he put it. "Self-hating Jew" has become a catch-all in the Jewish community for belittling anybody you don't agree with.  Similarly, "Islamofascist" is now a buzzword for anybody who dialogues with Muslims or writes anything positive about Islam -- which I have done, both in a chapter about Islamophobia in Professor Richard Schwartz's book, Who Stole My Religion?  and in several book reviews on Amazon.  Dialogue, tolerance, and understanding are not words in this bully's vocabulary. 

When I deleted the comments and blocked him, he proceeded to follow me everywhere on the YouTube site, posting this same junk after every comment I had made -- even the one on the video tour of the handicapped-accessible shuttle bus at Como Park.  Go figure.  Clearly he was not watching anything I "liked" or wrote, just searching my name to spam it with insults.

Given the references to liberalism, I expected to find a lot of militant ultra-religious right-wing videos linked to his YouTube channel.  But when I went there, all I found was secular stuff, most of it meaningless drivel.  So does this guy even know enough about Judaism to understand what my books and videos are about?  Be that as it may, getting rid of this guy was easy:  I reported him to YouTube and he disappeared from my life -- and apparently off the site itself, since a search for his name today brought up nothing.

"Four legs good, two legs bad"? 

It appears these attacks are reactions to my stances on politics, vegetarianism, and, most recently, my opposition to using live chickens for kapporos ceremonies.  It saddens me to see that Judaism, once a bastion of debate and diverse opinion, has, for some people, now become an Orwellian "four legs good, two legs bad" haven for bullies with atrophied brains.  This is especially true of any criticism concerning policies in Israel.  It has gotten to the point that a Jew can say "I don't believe in God" and nobody bats an eye, but criticize Israel and they will burn you at the cyber-stake.   When I was growing up, I was taught that worshipping the state -- any state -- is idolatry.  And isn't democracy all about the right to criticize the government?  Apparently not for these guys.

The identity thief:  "rabbigershom.com" is NOT ME!

UPDATE:  I got the URL back -- and it is mine again.  So the bogus site described below is gone, gone, GONE!  But for the record, I'm leaving the story up here as a warning:  Don't mess with me, because I will fight back!

All of this could be written off as life on the Web, which is what I did for a long time.  I've been deleting hate mail for years.  But the most recent attack is an actual case of identity theft, using an old website address (that I no longer own) to create a bogus site advertising some escort service in London, which probably doesn't even exist, given that the owner of the URL lives in Russia.  The purpose of the site is to hijack searches for my name and misdirect them, apparently to discredit me.

For the record:  There once was a website called "rabbigershom.com" but it no longer exists.  I took it down when the Minnesota state legislature passed a law requiring all online "nexus" corporations to collect state sales tax if they had representatives in the state -- and that includes Associates accounts.  Amazon responded by shutting down all their Minnesota Associates accounts, including mine.  Since I had literally hundreds of Amazon book links embedded on over a hundred website pages, and since I was no longer getting paid for these referrals, I retaliated by taking the whole site down.  (It was outdated anyway, but that's another issue.)

When the time came to renew the domain name, I didn't bother, since the site no longer existed and I was now using JewishThoreau.com for my blog.  Never in a million years did I dream that some sleezeball would come along and buy "rabbigershom.com" and turn it into a page for an escort service.  But that's what happened.

In the beginning, they actually had my full name and title -- "Rabbi Yonassan Gershom" -- in the title of their homepage (which tells me that it really is an attack on me, not just some other guy named Gershom.)   I cried "Fraud!" and got that removed, but there is not much I can do about them using the domain name itself, since there are hundreds of people named Gershom and some of them are rabbis.  It would be like trying to copyright "Doctor Smith."  Hindsight is always 20/20, they say, and I probably should have kept the URL in my name even if I did not use it.  But such things cost money and they probably would have just gone to using dot-net or some such.  I can't afford to protect every variation of my name.

Raise your voice and stand by me!

Unfortunately, since I've been on the Web since the 1980s, there are still tons of links on various websites that supposedly go to the old homepage but now point to the bogus one instead.  I'm still getting notifications about this from intelligent readers who can see plainly what is happening.  If you find one of these phishing links, please notify the webmaster that I'm not that guy, and ask for it to point to my blog at JewishThoreau.com instead. (If you need proof of your claim, just point them to this blog post.)  And if you want to go further, go to the rabbigershom.com page and spam their contact email with protests.  (Update: Not necessary anymore, because I got the URL back and it now points here. But it was a good tactic.)  Stand up to the bullies!

I will not be intimidated!

The motivation behind all of this cyber-bullying seems to be to try to shut me up by intimidating me and/or smearing my reputation.  It is significant that none of these people actually debate issues with me or have even met me.    I highly doubt they have actually read any of my books, or if they are even educated enough to understand them.   As far as I know, none of them have ever come to this blog to discuss the things I wrote here. Of course not -- to do so would mean being confronted by people who actually read the blog, and these cockroaches can't take that kind of daylight.  So they just scurry around the Web, posting canned insults and hiding behind their computer screens like the cowards they are.   Apparently, when God was handing out morals, these people thought He said "laurels" so now they think they are some kind of heroes.  Not!

It is also interesting how many of these libels center on sexuality -- from the accusation that I'm a homosexual (not true, I've been married to my female wife, Caryl since 1980, although I do support gay rights as human rights and have done so since the 1970s), to the escort site phishing off my name and a claim that I promote polygamy (also not true, probably another slur on my dialogues with Muslims, or maybe somebody was dumb enough to actually believe the escort site was real.)

If you can't debate, just post some hate?

 This seems to be the mindset lately:  If you can't intelligently refute somebody's stance on an issue, just make up some sleeze or circulate lies and hate mail to try and take them down in the public eye.  This has become so common that there is actually a service called  Reputation.com where you can hire people to watch out for (and refute) attacks on the Web.  I can't afford that service, but I'm thankful I've got a lot of loyal readers who are doing the same thing.

As an old man in my 70s, I can often laugh at all this, but bullying is really no laughing matter.  Even at my age, it hurts, but I've lived long enough to deal with it.  However, when it happens to vulnerable teenagers, it can lead to nervous breakdowns or even suicide -- which has actually happened.  Thus my decision to come out and confront this issue, to tell these stories and reveal these lies for what they are.  Bullies are bullies, no matter where, why, or whom they attack.

* * * UPDATES * * *

See also: What does Judaism say about bullying? -- a good collection of statements by rabbis from various backgrounds and denominations, on The Free Library site.

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A ripoff report has been filed in reference to the bogus use of rabbigershom.com described in this article.  Feel free to read and respond to it.

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A number of insulting and libelous comments were also written as "reviews" of my books on  Amazon.com.  Amazon graciously removed them, as they violated their reviews policy.

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Rabbigershom.org is not me, either -- but it flips over to a website called B'chol Loshon ("in every tongue") which is a legitimate site promoting diversity within the Jewish community.  Their "Rabbi Gershom" is Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, the leader of the Abayudaya Jews of Uganda, and the first black rabbi from sub-Saharan Africa to be ordained at an American rabbinic school.

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A reader emailed me to point out that the slur referring to Hitler might have been connected to the persistent claim that Hitler was a vegetarian.  (This is a myth.  Although Hitler did sometimes refrain from eating meat for health and hygienic reasons, he also regularly ate meat and was fond of sausage and liver dumplings.  Read more...)  People who use this argument against vegetarianism base it on the classic false logic of:  "Hitler was a vegetarian.  Hitler was evil.  Therefore all vegetarians are evil."  But as Peter Singer once said, Hitler had a nose, but that does not mean everybody should cut off their noses.

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February 26, 2014:  Now that I've written this protest, Google's stupid robot is flagging the insult I quoted above in searches for my name.  By defending myself, I'm spreading the libel.  Can't win for losing.  I suppose this is happening because this is a new post that is getting a lot of traffic -- and it's on a Google blog, so of course the Google search engine plays favorites with its own apps.  (A Bing search did not bring up that quote.)  But since the link brings people to this page where people can read the truth, maybe that's not so bad.  Make lemonade out of lemons...

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June 20, 2014:  Absurd as it may seem, some of this bullying may really be directed at my vegetarianism!   Rabbi Eliezer Melamed, a rosh yeshiva (head of a Jewish seminary) in Israel, has gone on a  vehement campaign against the entire vegetarian movement.  He believes that teaching vegetarianism leads to terrorism and cruelty to people.  Yes, I know that is bizarre, and I have written a challenge to  it on this blog:  Vegetarianism leads to Terrorism, says Rabbi Eliezer Melamed,  in which I analyze and refute that stance. His real agenda comes out of Israeli politics and the right-wing settler movement (which he supports.)   I doubt that Rabbi Eliezer himself is bullying me but, given the vehemence of his rhetoric, I would not put it past his followers.

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March 19, 2015:  The latest bully is a guy who goes by "Jacob" on Amazon and has demanded that I remove "rabbi" from my profile there and -- get this -- he also suggested I remove my photo!   He thinks my appearance misleads people because, in his words, I am "fringe beyond fringe" and not a "mainstream Orthodox rabbi."  (Whatever that is.  Orthodoxy is so splintered into different groups that everybody is "fringe" to somebody somewhere.)   Exactly what would he suggest I put up there instead of my own face?  At least I'm honest enough to be myself and not some troll named "Jacob" who could be anybody -- he has no photo or other info on his profile page.

Hoodies Up for Treyvon in Minnesota

The verdict is in -- and although we must abide by the rule of law, acquitting George Zimmerman of murder or manslaughter in the death of Treyvon Martin just does not ring true for me.  On the one hand, having followed the trial pretty closely, I can see why the jury was not able to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.  There was indeed some doubt as to exactly what happened that night.  Who threw the first punch?  Who was on top?  Who called for help?  There were conflicting testimonies, with parents on both sides each claiming  it was their son on the tape, etc.  So maybe it was not possible to say "beyond a doubt" what really happened.

But an acquittal does not necessarily mean the accused is morally or ethically innocent.  It seems clear to me that none of it would have happened at all if Zimmerman had not followed Martin in the first place.  Deep in my heart, I still feel that he provoked the tragedy.  It might not have been premeditated murder by legal definition, but it was no accident, either.

Rabbi Gershom in a hoodie

Tonight at the Minnesota State Capitol there is a rally called "Hoodies Up for Treyvon."  I live 100 miles away and can't be there in person, but I do raise my hoodie to say that the conversation cannot stop here.  Beyond the details of this particular case is the greater question of racial profiling in general, as well as the wisdom of those "stand you ground" laws.  This verdict sends a disturbing message that says if you feel threatened by the way somebody looks or dresses, you can justify stalking and violence against them.    

When I was growing up, "self defense" meant that you could use force to save yourself, but only as much as was necessary to either subdue your assailant or escape.  It did not automatically mean you could use deadly force just because you felt threatened.  And even in the Old Wild West, you simply did not shoot an unarmed man.  There was a sense of fairness, even in self-defense.  

Since Treyvon was unarmed, the original "threat" must not have seemed all that deadly -- unless we assume that Zimmerman felt a personal threat beyond just seeing a teenager walking home.  What did he see?  A black kid he did not know, wearing a hoodie in his gated neighborhood.  I believe it was that profile that initially caused Zimmerman to feel threatened -- and I'll bet that if Trevon had been a white guy with an umbrella (it was raining that night, hence the hoodie up), he would not have been stalking him that night.

Which brings us back to the original question:  Are we now going to say it is OK to stalk somebody just because you feel their appearance threatens you?  I certainly hope not.  That would be a terrible step backward in society that claims to value diversity.   This is an important discussion, and if anything good can come of the Treyvon Martin tragedy, let it be this:  that we all take a long, hard look at our own prejudices, and take steps to correct them.

Autism epidemic -- or a bunch of EQ normies in a panic?

A recent study by the CDC now indicates that 1 in 88 American children has autism -- a 20% increase in the past two years.   Some of this increase is no doubt due to better diagnosis.  The CDC study does note that autism seems to be more prevalent in U.S. states with better medical care, and that autism prevalence is also higher in areas where doctors are better at diagnosing autism in kids with relatively high intellectual ability.

But  I find myself wondering if there might also be another reason.   Is it only coincidence that the apparent rise in autism over the past couple decades parallels the social shift from valuing IQ to stressing EQ -- Emotional Quotient?  It's not what you know anymore, it's how well you can  function in a group.  So -- are high-functioning kids who prefer doing loner projects getting labeled as autistic now, because they do not fit the EQ team-oriented needs of the corporate social environment they are being groomed to fit into?

This is not the first time that changes in society's expectations have affected how we define what is "normal."  In a 1975 essay called "Thinking about Thinking," Isaac Asimov wrote:  "It used to be Latin that was the mark of intelligence, and now it is science. I am the beneficiary. I know no Latin except for what my flypaper mind has managed to pick up accidentally -- so without changing a single brain cell, I would be dumb in 1775 and terribly smart in 1975." The point being, that “intelligence” is often defined by what a culture values. 

Today's culture, it seems, values meaningless chit-chat and boring, drivel-filled texting over in-depth discussions (which you can't even post directly on Facebook or Twitter, you have to blog it somewhere else and then do a link.)   This EQ trend could be why the US education system is failing.  Last time I looked at a chart, we were 48th in science worldwide.  If we no longer value intellectual subjects, then of course our children won't bother studying them.

My own IQ is quite high by current testing standards. I said my first word at nine months of age, could read before I got to kindergarten, and by fifth grade was devouring college-level biology books. (My father was always deeply disappointed that I did not become a scientist.) I can think, analyze, do library research, and comprehend complex theories. By that measure, I'm a genius. 

But in recent years, with the rise of the EQ movement's focus on socializing rather than analyzing, I am rapidly losing my niche, because in addition to a high IQ, I also have Asperger's Syndrome.  Which means, among other things, that I give poor eye contact, don't socialize very well, prefer to work alone, and really hate team sports.  Every EQ self-test I've ever taken, I have flunked royally.  So, without changing a single brain cell, the EQ movement has rendered me a complete idiot. Which only goes to prove Asimov's point: intelligence and learning are relative concepts.

This is not to say I had no social problems when I was a kid.  Like a lot of Aspies, I was teased and bullied for being an "egghead," which was what people back then called a nerd.  But significantly, I had fewer problems related to my (then undiagnosed) autism when I lived on the East Coast than I do now living here in the land of "Minnesota Nice."  (I once got reprimanded by a Minnesota boss for banging my fist on the table -- once -- to make a point during a heated conference discussion.  Ironically, that same week, President Clinton did the same thing at the podium on national TV -- and nobody saw him as "threatening" for doing it.) 

Scientists are looking for genetic and environmental factors like chemicals and pollution as causes for autism, but once again I must ask: What about social expectations? Are autistic behaviors more acceptable in some cultures than others?  For example, I function very well in the Orthodox Jewish community, where things are highly structured and ritualized.  When I visit a Hasidic home, I know exactly what is expected of me at the Sabbath table, and if, after dinner, I bury my nose in a book instead of chatting, people praise that behavior as "always studying Torah."  In addition, eye contact is not as important among Hasidim, and between the sexes it is considered downright rude (as is also true in many Native American Indian communities.)

On the other end of the spectrum,  I can remember sitting across the table from a non-Jewish social worker who stared at me constantly, to the point that I began to feel as if we were two dogs squaring off for a fight.  I find myself wondering if phrases like "he wouldn't look me in the eye" have contributed to the negative stereotype of Jews as dishonest.  It certainly contributes to mis-reading autistic people.  If I had a dollar for every time I was asked, "Why do you always look at the ceiling?" I would be a millionaire. 
 
Don't get me wrong:  I'm not against giving kids help that they actually need.  I certainly could have used some coaching in how to read facial expressions and pick up on subtle nonverbal cues.  But what would be the purpose in forcing me to make eye contact when it makes me so uncomfortable?  Wouldn't it be better to simply accept that even though I'm not looking you directly in the eye, that doesn't mean I'm not paying attention?  If I prefer working alone, why not train me for a job where I can do that successfully, instead of insisting that I learn how to function on a committee?  In other words, why not focus on what I can do rather than what I can't?

Before society goes off on a crusade to make everybody fit the EQ mold, perhaps we should consider what Temple Grandin, the best-selling author and animal scientist who is also autistic, wrote in her book, Thinking in Pictures: “After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.”
 
We Aspies might not mix very well, but we can often be highly focused innovators. I would have been the guy chipping rocks.

Rabbi in a Hoodie: I know what it's like to be stereotyped

My heart goes out to the family of 17-year-old Treyvon Martin, who was gunned down while walking home from the store in a hooded sweatshirt -- which apparently caused self-appointed neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in a gated neighborhood to see him as "very suspicious" and possibly on drugs.  And did I mention that Treyvon was black?  Never mind that it was raining and he probably put his hood up to keep dry.  That combination of factors -- young black guy at night in a hoodie -- somehow made Zimmerman "fear for his life" even though Martin was unarmed.   Reports of what happened are conflicting at this point, but one thing is clear: the 911 operator told Zimmerman not to follow or confront Treyvon and he did so anyway.   So who was really threatening whom?



Rabbi Gershom in a hoodie



One has to ask -- as protesters across the nation are doing -- whether Zimmerman's fear was based on any kind of reality or a stereotype in Zimmerman's head.  In solidarity with those protests, I post this pic of myself in a hoodie -- one that I wear all the time while doing outdoor chores here in northern Minnesota. 



Now, as an old white guy, I can't claim to know what it is like to be a black youth in America.  But I do know what it is like to be stereotyped.   When I'm not wearing a hoodie, I usually wear a large knitted yarmulke (skullcap).  That, along with my full untrimmed beard, makes me look like a "terrorist" to some people.  There are also those here in rural Minnesota who do not know what payos (Orthodox sidecurls) are, and see them as something effeminate.  So it's hard to tell sometimes if I am being profiled as a Muslim or a gay male.  Or, for that matter, maybe they do know I'm a Jew and don't like me for that. 

What I know for sure is that ever since 9/11, if I travel outside my local area where I am a familiar sight, I find myself being followed by security people in stores, stared at by strangers on the street, or trailed through small towns by police cars.  I have also been pulled over by cops for things like a burned out tail light a whole lot more often than ever happened before 9/11.   I haven't had any occasion to fly lately, but I have no doubt that I'd be seen as suspicious.  Would I be kicked off the flight -- or worse -- because some passenger "felt uncomfortable" with me on board?

Geraldo Rivera wants to blame the death on the hoodie implying that if Treyvon had not been wearing one outside his own neighborhood, the whole thing would never have happened.   Does this mean I should never "look Jewish" outside of an Orthodox Jewish community?  Does it mean that if I get harrassed, it's my own fault for wearing a yarmulke in public and looking like someone's idea of a terrorist?

In fact, I do admit that there have been times when I have tied my payos at the back of my neck like a ponytail and worn a stocking cap or a baseball cap -- precisely because I did not want to be bothered with stares at some public event.  As a white Jewish guy, it is relatively easy for me to pass as a gentile.   But a black guy can't change his skin color.  About the only thing we can both hope to do is change people's attitudes.  We all need to take a long hard look at how we treat each other. 

The commandment "do not oppress a stranger" occurs, in one form or another, more than any other commandment in the Bible.   Maybe the reason for that is because this is one of the hardest things for human beings to do, to trust someone who is different from themselves.  With Passover coming in two weeks, we should all give some serious thought to Exodus 22:21, "You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."