On The (Immigration Policy) Conversion Of A Jew

Mark Krikorian's Center For                          Immigration Studies is to be congratulated in eliciting                          from Dr. Stephen Steinlight, an official with the                          American Jewish Committee, a truly remarkable document:                         The Jewish Stake in America's Changing Demography:                          Reconsidering a Misguided Immigration Policy. Steinlight basically argues that, post 9/11, current                          immigration policy must be seen as Bad For The Jews.

He also continues the amiable CIS                          tradition, seen earlier in its paper on ethnic politics                          by Tufts political scientist                         Tony Smith,                          of triangulating against us rabid nativists at VDARE.COM                          while coming to essentially the same policy conclusion.                          (This tradition dates back to Mark's                         review of Alien Nation - we're going to start charging a                          commission.)

On this occasion, Dr. Steinlight                          expresses determination that

The white "Christian"                          supremacists who have historically opposed either all                          immigration or all non-European immigration (Europeans                          being defined as Nordic or Anglo-Saxon), a position                          re-asserted by Peter Brimelow, must not be permitted to                          play a prominent role in the debate over the way America                          responds to unprecedented demographic change.

This seems to be an hysterical                          caricature of my demonstration, in Alien Nation, that America has historically always had a very specific                          ethnocultural core - white, slowly evolved from British                          and Protestant - rather than being the atomistic,                          kaleidoscopic, infinitely malleable "nation of                          immigrants" of post-World War II intellectual fantasy.                           Interestingly, Professor Kevin MacDonald has                         argued that the claim that the immigration reformers                          of the 1920s were motivated by "Nordicism" was a                          similarly slanderous "agitational analysis" by opponents                          who were projecting their own ethnic preoccupations.

VDARE.COM bears Steinlight's smear                          with what might be called a patient shrug. And we                          strongly recommend Steinlight's essay. It bears careful                          study - not least for its frank, even brutal,                          ethnocentrism.

Of course, it is impossible to                          avoid the question: if it's OK for Steinlight to ask if                          immigration is "good for the Jews" – what's so wrong                          with others asking if it's good for "Nordics,"                          "Anglo-Saxons"… or even "Americans"?

November 11, 2001