The Dartmouth Beacon

The Dartmouth Beacon: Is there any personal or background info you’d like to start with, for a short introduction to who you are?

Prof. Meir Kohn: I’m a professor at Dartmouth, I lived in Israel for a long time, I’m an ex-leftist, I guess that’s worth noting. I was a member of a kibbutz in Israel for three years, and I would say even when I returned to Israel after graduate school in the US, I was still a socialist. It was my experience in Israel, as an economist, looking at how socialism worked, or didn’t work, that made me change my mind. I would say it’s almost the classical neo-conservative path. Socialists went in two directions: There were those who saw that their good intentions were not realized, that the ideas sounded good but they didn’t really work, and they, this reality-based group, really became neo-conservatives. The others said, forget about reality. And that’s the extreme left of today, which doesn’t want to hear about whether it worked or not.

TDB: What do you think is the reason for the left’s appeal to Jews, particularly American Jews?

MK: I think it’s generally historical. You have to understand who the Jews that came here were– the Jews that came to the United States were generally secular; they were not religious. The religious Jews were part of the religious communities that stayed in Eastern Europe and perished. So those who were not traditional, religious, there were - a small number who were Zionists, they went to Palestine, as it was called at the time - and there were a larger number who were socialists. So the Jews who came here, I think, had leftist leanings from the beginning. And Jews played a major part in the socialist movements of Eastern Europe. That was one thing – the other I think is that the right in the United States has traditionally been seen as anti-Semitic, and Jews saw the left, particularly since Roosevelt’s New Deal as their protectors, and they became part of the New Deal coalition.

TDB: You spoke in a recent presentation about "ending the Jewish love affair with the left." Can you talk a little bit about anti-Semitism that you see in the modern left, today?

MK: It’s particularly clear in Europe. You can see signs of it in the US, but Europe is the leading example. I think in Europe there is a mixture classical anti-Semitism which is becoming once again respectable in the guise of anti-Israel politics, and partly neo-Marxist ideology, which is much more pervasive in Europe than it is in the United States. Neo-Marxism, in Europe, has become the religion. I mean Christianity is gone… so neo-Marxism is becoming the popular form of religion. In my talk [about ending the Jewish love affair with the left] I said what I meant by Neo-Marxism is the idea that in classical Marxism, the workers are the oppressed, and the vanguard of the intellectuals will lead them to freedom. But the workers didn’t cooperate. So the vanguard of the intellectuals found other groups of ‘oppressed’, such as the third world, supposedly, that they could champion. Israel fits into that narrative very much as the oppressor. So being anti-Israel in Europe has very little to do with what Israel actually does and has a lot to do with what Israel is. Like the United States – They don’t hate us for what we do, but for what we are. So that anti-Israel position, which is very respectable, you know, part of their religious faith, has also allowed the classical anti-Semitism to pop up again. Hitler gave it a bit of a bad name for a while, but that is being largely forgotten.

TDB: A key issue here seems to be the distinction between anti-Israel views and anti-Semitism. I mean, obviously there are many people who are anti-Israel who are not anti-Semitic…

MK: I think that it’s hard to separate the two. I think that a lot of the separation is unjustified. A good definition of anti-Semitism is criticizing Jews for things that are human universals. Things like, “Jews lie, Jews cheat, Jews smell,” I mean all these things which may well be true, but they’re also true about everybody else. That’s anti-Semitism. So saying, “Israel violates human rights, Israel does this, Israel does that…” All that is true, but you know, Israel probably does those things to a lesser extent than most other countries, and the people who are busy attacking Israel don’t have much to say about the other cases. So it’s hard not to call that anti-Semitism at a national level. And I think that it is. But largely that comes from the left. I mean you see that clearly in the extreme left in the US. The anti-globalization movement, the extreme environmental movement, you go to the demonstrations, there are people there carrying posters, saying, “Jews to the gas!”

TDB: Do you foresee any turning of the American Jewish community toward the right as a result of this anti-Semitism on the left?

MK: It’s happening - it’s already happened. And I’ve seen a number of articles demonstrating that this is true, particularly among younger people. The older people are more rigid in their ways, but I think that among younger Jews, there’s increasing disillusionment with the left.

TDB: Even many Jews who agree with Bush on the issues feel a personal aversion to voting Republican. Was voting Republican an uncomfortable thing for you?

MK: No. I mean, I’m not a Republican and I’m not a Democrat – my views are probably more libertarian than Republican. I voted for George Bush because I believe he’s actually a very good president. I voted for Clinton – the first time, not the second time. I couldn’t stand George Bush senior; I thought he was awful. So I’m quite capable of voting for either party. I’m not a card-carrying member of the Republican Party, by any means. But I’m anti-left, so I’d love the Democrats to bring me back by abandoning their left wing and becoming more centrist, which is what Clinton tried to do But that doesn’t seem to be the way they’re going.

TDB: One thing I talked about in my article is economics, Jews’ tendency to vote for the left for economic reasons, because of the traditional Jewish concern with the poorest members of society. As an economics professor, do you feel that the Republican economics policies are consistent with Jewish economic values?

MK: Oh, very much. I think that socialism, particularly the welfare state, is catastrophic for the poor. Welfare reform in the US is a good example of how moving away from the welfare state actually helps the poor. I think the idea that the left is good for the poor is the opposite of the truth. The rhetoric is pro-poor, but the reality is very harmful to them. 