As I mentioned in a previous blog, I don't hate anything (although Bill Gates comes close—thanks to Office 2003). As a person who was born and raised Jewish (and did one heck of a job at his Bar Mitzvah, I should add), but who is now an atheist (though I'm still considered Jewish—right Adolf?), I always find it amusing when people accuse me or any other Jew who does not toe the "party line" (and the "party" I'm referring to here is NOT a Bar Mitzvah) as being a self-hating Jew. (A variation of this is "self-loathing" Jew—much more fancy schmancy, wouldn't you say?)

The "party line" is that you should never say anything bad about the Jews. So I guess if I don't support the achievements of such "stalwart" Jews as Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, or Bernie Madoff, this makes me self-hating? Or the achievements of such "righteous" Jews as Arthur Burns, Alan Greenspan, Ben Barnanke, the Rothschilds, or the Warburgs, for that matter? (You just knew I was going to get that "self-hating" dig in there, didn't you?)

You get the point.

Here is a thought-provoking article by Antony Lerman (“Lerman"—could he be, dare I say?)

THE TROPES OF 'JEWISH ANTISEMITISM'

The concept of the ‘self-hating Jew' has been dignified with a pseudo-psychopathology by those keen to suppress dissent.

Read it and—as we say in New York Jewish—enjoy!!