Customer Reviews

The Jewish Mystique

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I enjoyed this book, mostly because of the fascinating subject matter. Especially chillling were the last two chapters where the author tries to prophesize about the state of american judaism in the year 2000. we are left to judge for oursleves whether he was right or wrong. I reccomend it!

This is an insightful work about Jewish history and character by a non- Jewish author. Van den Haag like Paul Johnson and Thomas Cahill later writes from outside the Jewish experience with real appreciation and understanding. Having read the book many years ago I will simply give one small insight of his. According to Van den Haag the intelligence involved in disproprotionate Jewish contribution to scientific and cultural creation came in part because among the Jews the most intelligent the learned were encouraged to have large families, while in the Christian world the most intelligent were priests and encouraged to be celibate. A counter- argument could be made pointing out the relatively small size of the families of the non- Hasidic Jewish leadership. In any case this is one small example of a book rich with insight and certainly worth reading.

FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN JEWISH CULTURE AND THE ROLE "THE CHOSEN PEOPLE" HAVE PLAYED IN WORLD HISTORY, THIS LITERATE, WRY AND AMUSING OVERVIEW IS FASCINATING. I FIRST READ IT IN THE '60'S AFTER HAVING MOVED INTO A PREDOMINATELY JEWISH COMMUNITY AND WANTED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MY NEIGHBORS. THIS WAS THE PERFECT CHOICE AND ITS AUTHOR WAS A PROFESSOR IN NEW YORK CITY NEAR MY HOME. I TRACKED HIM DOWN AND TOLD HIM HOW MUCH I HAD ENJOYED IT AND WE HAD A DELIGHTFUL CONVERSATION THAT ENRICHED WHAT I'D ALREADY LEARNED. IT'S A BOOK OF ITS TIME IN SOME WAYS, BUT, SINCE IT CHRONICLES THE PAST AND PRESENT OF OVER 5,000 YEARS, THAT'S JUST AN INTERESTING FOOTNOTE. THIS COPY REPLACES ONE THAT GOT LOST IN A SUBSEQUENT MOVE.

In today's politically correct culture, 'The Jewish Mystique' might be considered inappropriate. Written almost fifty years ago, it attempts to give insight into the commonly held beliefs, tendencies, quirks and stereotypes typical to the Jewish people.

For instance, it examines the Jewish reverence for education, how they feel about and interact with non-Jews, their belief systems, their fears and obsessions, their general hangups and pet peeves......Since a work such as this would be unthinkable in this day and age, the glimpse it provides into the collective psyche of this great but tortured people is rather rare.

This work was also written before the curse of Zionism took general hold of the Jewish diaspora. The Israel-centric obsessionism, the virtual hysteria created by Zionist fear-mongering, the rise of holocaust religion and industry, the anti-Palestinian racism, the ethnic cleansing, the massacre of civilians, the Apartheid Wall.....All of this was to come in the years after this book was published but it is somewhat easy to see, after reading 'The Jewish Mystique', how the Zionists were able to capture the Jewish heart and soul by exploiting many of that people's hopes, fears and dreams.

The Jewish people remain an enigma. Obviously very great and gifted, prone to tortured introspection and self-doubt, capable of giving so much but also taking it away, with a habit of clinging tenaciously to myth and legend about both its history and its adopted homeland, forever at the centre stage of world history, what a people this is! Admirable at one time, disgusting at another, religiously zealous but also doggedly atheistic, The Jewish Mystique provides an attempt at understanding this dynamic and very formidable people.

An educating and interesting read.

Why are Jews smarter than Catholics ? Because Catholicism is a religion of Pork-Barrel-Sacrifice, while among Jews the-best-have-more-babies. Anyway Haag makes this point up-front in the first few pages of the book, and the review-author knows of no more concisely elegant description of this distinction, having stumbled across the book via Google, but not claiming exhaustive literacy on this.

The first part of the argument is that in primitive times, religious study was a primary way of expressing intelligence - there being no technology as of yet. Among Catholics, the best students became celibate priests. Among Jews, the best students became rabbis, AND RABBIS WERE ENCOURAGED TO MAKE BABIES.

This basic theme of course continues today. A lot of bright folks choose to become doctors, but medical school is a lengthy process - therefore doctors don't seem to have especially many babies themselves. Garrett Hardin's commonism, the doctrine of outcome-equalization, that an indiscriminate nation-or-world-wide-pork-barrel should in particular redistribute the benefits of medicine - this makes medicine or at least the doctrine of a universal-medical-insurance-pork-barrel analogous to Catholicism, hmm ? The review-author belongs to no church, is not Jewish, not a Doctor, parents were Unitarian.