The review is fine until Halkin gets to his conservative agenda, which occupies the whole last third of the review. I quote that last third in full:
I beg to differ. The Jews didn't invent democracy and the Greeks did? Neither Athens nor First Temple Judea were democracies in the modern sense. Here's a quote from Wikipedia:
And it is here that I found “How to Fight Anti-Semitism” disappointing, because nowhere in her book does Weiss indicate that — apart from its anti-Zionism — she has any problem with the deadening mental conformity of contemporary American liberalism. The question she never raises is why someone of her intelligence should want to belong to such a world. “Maintain your liberalism,” a section of her book’s last (and least convincing) chapter exhorts the reader as one of its prescriptions for fighting anti-Semitism. To what end? At what intellectual and moral price?
Weiss fails to realize that she herself is an example of the wishful thinking about Judaism that is ubiquitous among American Jewish liberals. One might call this the Judaism of the Sunday school, a religion of love, tolerance, respect for the other, democratic values and all the other virtues to which American Jews pay homage. This is a wondrous Judaism indeed — and one that has little to do with anything that Jewish thought or observance has historically stood for. “We’ve always been there,” Weiss approvingly quotes a friend of hers, hurt to the quick by the proposed banning of “Jewish pride flags” at the 2019 Washington Dyke March. Always? As if the right to define oneself sexually as one pleases were a cause Jews have fought for over the ages!
As a matter of historical record, it was Greek and Roman high society, not the Jews, that practiced and preached polymorphous sexual freedom. Judaism fiercely opposed such an acceptance of sexual diversity, against which it championed the procreative family, the taming of anarchic passions, and the cosmically ordained nature of normative gender distinctions that goes back to the first chapter of Genesis: “So God created man in his own image. … Male and female created he them.” And while we’re at it, it was the Greeks, not the Jews, who invented democracy. What mattered to Jews throughout nearly all of their history (and still does to a considerable number of them today) was the will of God as interpreted by religious authority, not free elections.
Judaism as liberalism with a prayer shawl is a distinctly modern development. It started with the 19th-century Reform movement in Germany, from which it spread to America with the reinforcement of the left-wing ideals of the Russian Jewish labor movement. As much as such a conception of their ancestors’ faith has captured the imagination of most American Jews, it is hard to square with 3,000 years of Jewish tradition. Weiss has delivered a praiseworthy and concise brief against modern-day anti-Semitism, but if she thinks this long tradition is ultimately compatible with contemporary American liberal beliefs, she might want to take a closer look. Honestly regarded, Judaism tells another story.
Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens. The percentage of the population that actually participated in the government was 10% to 20% of the total number of inhabitants......which makes ancient Athens about as democratic as the Kingdom of Poland. The truth is that both ancient Athens and the Torah contributed respective elements to modern democracy. Athens contributed rule by popular vote. The Torah contributed at least the idea of a written constitution (itself) and the idea of separation of powers. Vayikra chapter 4, as understood by the Oral Torah (which I assume Halkin subscribes to), defines separation of powers implicitly by defining different kinds of sin offerings for the High Priest, for the Sanhedrin, for the King and for everyone else. That's not Montesqieu's tripartite separation, because the Sanhedrin has both legislative and judiciary functions, but it's still a separation. Vayikra chapter 4 also specifies a limited separation of religion from government: by giving the High Priest his own sacrifice, the offices of High Priest and King are defined to keep the same person from being both High Priest and King.
With regard to tolerance, there is a difference between tolerance and approval. By requiring adherence to the seven Noahide laws, the Torah excludes approval of "the right to define oneself sexually as one pleases", but prosecution for a prohibited self definition is so difficult as to be de facto tolerance.
And liberalism isn't just social liberalism. At least it shouldn't be. It should also be economic liberalism, AKA social democracy, which Halkin says nothing about here, but this is what the codified Oral Torah of the Shulhan Arukh (Yoreh Deah 248:1, Sefaria translation) has to say about taxation for social spending:
Everyone is obliged to contribute to charity. Even a poor man who is himself [partly] maintained by Charity should give a portion of what he receives. If one would give less than his due, the Curt used to bring pressure to bear and punish him for contempt of court until he would give the amount assessed, and if he persisted in his refusal, they would seize his goods to that amount [in his presence].BTW In the original Hebrew, that punishment for contempt of court is corporal punishment. So I assume that Halkin's objection to liberalism is only to social liberalism and not to economic liberalism. He should have made that clear, to avoid giving the impression that if he still lived in the US he would be a Republican.
