Oy yoy yoy

Torah breastplate - Touro Synagogue - Newport, Rhode Island - circa 1810

Karel De Gucht, the Belgian European Trade Commissioner, is under fire for certain remarks he made recently about my tribe, the jewish people. In an interview with radio station VRT on the eve of Mideast peace talks, he had the audacity to say, "There is indeed a belief—it's difficult to describe it otherwise—among most Jews that they are right." He goes on, "And it's not so much whether these are religious Jews or not. Lay Jews also share the same belief that there (sic) are right," he said. "So it is not easy to have, even with moderate Jews, a rational discussion about what is actually happening in the Middle East."

As one would expect, there was the typical hue and cry from the typically aggrieved parties, Abe Foxman, Moshe Kantor, the ADL, etc. His statement comes on the heels of a similar statement from German banker Thilo Sarrazin that landed him in considerable heißes wasser.

The only problem is that leaving the problems of mideast politics aside, the commissioner, Mr. De Gucht, is probably right. I brought this up at dinner with my wife last night, a magnificent affair she concocted from sushi grade opah and ono prepared mojo de ajo and served with pesto. "Honey, this Belgian guy thinks that jews think that they are always right." She looked at me, after swallowing a bite of her incredible caesar salad. "Well of course, he does. We do." "Exactly," I said, going back to my entree with gusto.

The truth is that we hebrews are the quite possibly the most intellectually narcissistic clan on the entire planet. Big shot hebrews, little pisher hebrews like me, we all think that we are right. We started the whole megillah that god was speaking to us personally and then it went on from there. We love to argue, it is possibly the closest thing to a contact sport that we practice. Spent several hundred years in the yeshiva arguing, a give and take known in yiddish as "pilpul."

If you doubt the veracity of Mr. De Gucht's appraisal, one only has to seek out any multiple of jews engaged in conversation and watch the fur start to fly. We were bred for intellectual combat and we all think that we are right.

We will argue about the best rye bread (Langers), about who among us is the brokest and has the most tsoris (me), about geopolitics on this and every other planet, actually just about anything. We are usually the aggrieved party but it is not a prerequisite.

Now some people will tell you that judaism is a religion and not a tribe. While there is some truth to the fact that we would once go out on raiding parties and nab the stray hittite, I am afraid that our warring days are long over. Now we kill them with kreplach and chicken soup. And the reality is that we share a very common genetic ancestry. I am a ydna E1-b1-b1-c1* -d1 M-35, mdna k and recent studies show clearly that I am closely linked to all of my tribal cousins.

That is why I always looked at conversions with some suspicion. Try as you might, all the fancy yiddish you have picked up, all the intellectual firepower that you think that you might possess, it just ain't going to cut the spicy mustard. But it is something that we in the tribe have agreed not to ever openly discuss.

So not to belabor this post, I ask that we cut the good belgian a break. You know in your heart that the goyim is right this time.

La shana tova!