"Diluting" one's Jewishness: Max Feinberg's Nazi eugenics

All your Western theologies, the whole mythology of them, are based on the concept of God as a senile delinquent.

Tennessee Williams

All religions are equally offensive, inasmuch as they cultivate fantasy, but in some respects, some are worse than others.

Islam leads the pack in fanaticism and violence, a title once held by Christians not too long ago.

But today Christianity is notable for the fear of hell that it inspires. It has, to my knowledge, no positive incentives like those 72 virgins promised to the suicide bombers.

I indict Judaism, not for its violence (though it has its share of fanatics) not for fanaticism or fear of the afterlife -- quite the opposite, in fact, since there is very little talk of heaven or hell in Judaism (though some Jews cling to the notion of a "world to come").

A lot of stuff

So Jews are made to do a lot of what George Carlin called "stuff," all for no payoff! Four sets of dishes – milk/meat for Passover/rest of year. A significant crockery burden! Thus, Judaism, in its proposed input/output ratio, is inferior to the other two Abrahamic religions.



Inbreeding and eugenics

All religions also practice an irrational form of inbreeding and eugenics, as if by marrying within the clan, one ensures “pure blood.”

But what it ensures, of course, are genetic diseases, including hemophilia and insanity -- how many truly mad people have throughout history been put in charge of entire nations! Despite abundant evidence that inbreeding produces sickness and idiots, tribes and clans insist on forbidding intermarriage.

The latest example of this is the tale of the lengthy lawsuit of the family of Max Feinberg, who died in the 1980s. In his will (Chicago Tribune, August 25, 2008), Feinberg "expressed his wish to disinherit any descendent who 'married outside the Jewish faith.'"

Divided judges

The judges were divided on how to call it. Some said that Max was entitled to distribute his personal property as he saw fit. Others thought that even the distribution of private property must be done in accordance with the customs and sensibilities of society, and if Feinberg had, say, forbidden his heirs to marry blacks or to commit some immoarl act -- say, bestiality -- courts would no doubt have overturned his will.

I think the judge who made the secular decision got it right.

Feinberg’s eugenics

Feinberg is being absolutely inhumane and abominable to his family. He is practicing primitive clan theory, as if inbreeding were good in and of itself. He himself refers to "diluting" his family's Jewishness. Feh!

But these heirs are people, and they (make that "we”) are entitled to believe what they want as individual human beings.

Back to Max

I think the court should have overturned this provision of his will because it's in direct violation of the humanistic foundations of our society: that one is a free individual and can marry whomever one wants, free of coercion -- or in Max's case, extortion -- by a government, family member, or anyone.

Further, the notion of diluting Jewishness embodies the most obnoxious aspects of eugenics: the crackpot "blood" theory that has produced so much inbreeding, so much insanity, and so much needless killing in the name of improving the human race.

My people, the Jews, have been especially victimized by this kind of psychotic thinking, so it's especially appalling to me when I see them practicing it.

Humanism and intermarriage

We’re all the same species. Humanistic Judaism is welcoming. If one's spouse chooses to identify with the history and culture of the Jewish people, he/she is welcome to do so -- or not. There's no proselytizing, no pressure. There is respect for human dignity and choice.

It's too bad that Max Feinstein, for all his supposed virtues, didn't understand this basic humanistic truth. His heirs are free agents, and he is committing an immoral act by making their loyalty to a primitive shepherd religion the basis for his financial rewards.

This is not by any means the first time I've heard of such discrimination with family members – I know that Jews regularly reward obedient children with perks…and starve secular-humanistic ones, whom they perceive as headstrong, disobedient heretics -- and it is abominable.

The Torah, in many places, directs us to help the needy, and the way Jews and members of other religions and ethnicities have systematically discriminated against family members who were apostates, who couldn't bring themselves to believe or pretend to believe…directly contradict the Torah’s teachings (unless they are trumped by the Torah’s commands to kill unbelievers: but which one is more consonant with modern thinking?).

Hypocrites!

Pious people who practice the rituals and repeat the songs and stories of a religion …and yet ignore its deeper moral teachings – these are the worst kind of hypocrites.

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Alan M. Perlman is a secular humanist speaker and author -- most recently, of An Atheist Reads the Torah: Secular Humanistic Perspectives on the Five Books of Moses. For information, go to www.trafford.com/06-0056.