Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten - How Leftism Supplanted Judaism and Subverted Israel and Zionism Under 'Tikkun Olam' -- Social Justice with a Perverse and Baseless Religious Veneer

How Leftism Supplanted Judaism and Subverted Israel and Zionism Under 'Tikkun Olam' -- Social Justice with a Perverse and Baseless Religious Veneer

08/15/18 • 40 min

Jonathan Neumann has written perhaps the seminal book on how modern Jewry has supplanted its traditional values and principles with Leftism, based on a perverse, sophistic reading of the concept of tikkun olam , "healing the world," that demands devotion to social justice as the highest good and organizing principle of the Jewish religion.

By way of background, Neumann is a graduate of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. He has written for various American, British, and Israeli publications, was the Tikvah Fellow at Commentary magazine, and has served as assistant editor at Jewish Ideas Daily

I had Neumann on the podcast to discuss the triumph of tikkun olam-based Leftism as central to modern non-Orthodox Judaism, why Jewish social justice renders Jews qua Jews meaningless, the systematic debunking of this ideology, the ramifications for Israel and U.S. politics and much more.

What We Discussed

Defining tikkun olam, and its link to social justice, leftism and Kantian ethics
How tikkun olam became the predominant ethos of non-Orthodox Jewry in the U.S. in a mere 40 year period -- and its radical roots
The inextricable link between tikkun olam theology and the evolution of the Reform Jewish movement and its relation to the Social Gospel
The perversion of Jewish values and principles by those who have supplanted the religion with Leftism -- based in a textually unsupported, fabricated concept of tikkun olam that Neumann systematically debunks
Why Neumann argues that "Jewish social justice effectively has no need for Jews qua Jews"
The correlation between tikkun olam ideology and anti-Zionism, in contrast to American Jewish leftism's historical affinity towards Israel
Why and how Israel in U.S. politics has become effectively a one-party, Republican, issue -- and the conflicting trends of the growing Orthodox Jewish community and the declining non-Orthodox Jewish community
Why Jews have historically gravitated toward the political Left

Previous Episode

undefined - Michael Ledeen on the Potential Collapse of Iran's Khomeinist Regime and America's Role, the False Sunni-Shia Jihadist Split, IC and Law Enforcement Sacking of Pro-Israel Political Opponents, Why Gen. Flynn Was Targeted and May Have Falsely Pled Guilty

Michael Ledeen on the Potential Collapse of Iran's Khomeinist Regime and America's Role, the False Sunni-Shia Jihadist Split, IC and Law Enforcement Sacking of Pro-Israel Political Opponents, Why Gen. Flynn Was Targeted and May Have Falsely Pled Guilty

Michael Ledeen (@michaelledeen) is a historian, longtime think-tanker currently serving as the Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State and consultant to the National Security Council during the Reagan administration and author of 38 books.

Perhaps most pertinent to today, Ledeen is an expert on Iran, with deep ties to dissidents and countless individuals in the diaspora cultivated over many decades, dating back to the fall of the Shah and the Revolution of 1979.

I had Ledeen on the Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast to discuss a variety of topics including his views on how long the current Khomeinist regime will survive, what America might do to help topple it, the phony Sunni-Shia split, the nature of Iran's dissidents, what happens the day after the regime falls and more. Tangentially related, Ledeen and I also discussed the targeting of those who challenge the national security and foreign policy establishment, including regarding both Iran and Israel, and the sackings of Larry Franklin and Gen. Michael Flynn -- the latter of whom with which Micheal co-authored a book, The Field of Fight . Ledeen shares his take on Gen. Flynn's guilty plea -- which he believes was given falsely -- and explains why he believes Gen. Flynn was targeted in the first place.

What We Discussed

The false narrative about alternatives for Iran being either appeasement or war
The impending collapse of the Khomeinist regime and what the U.S. can do to accelerate it
The history of U.S. intelligence failures in Iran
How secular and liberal Iran's dissidents actually are
Whether there is a wedge that can be exploited between Iran and Russia
What will become of Hezbollah if the Iranian regime collapses
The allegedly political witch hunt against Iran hawk and Israel supporter Larry Franklin as an illustration of historic anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the foreign policy and national security establishment
Ledeen's theory that Gen. Michael Flynn falsely pled guilty, and the real reason why Gen. Flynn was targeted in the first place

Next Episode

undefined - Former CIA Operative Charles Sam Faddis on Disastrous Politicization of the Intelligence Community, How China's 'Eating Our Lunch' in Intel and NatSec, The Grave (Ignored) Narco-Hezbollah-Failed State Threat on America's Southern Border

Former CIA Operative Charles Sam Faddis on Disastrous Politicization of the Intelligence Community, How China's 'Eating Our Lunch' in Intel and NatSec, The Grave (Ignored) Narco-Hezbollah-Failed State Threat on America's Southern Border

Charles Sam Faddis (@RealSamFaddis) is a retired CIA operative, where he spent decades serving abroad in the Middle East, South Asia and Europe, culminating in his heading CIA’s Counter Terrorism Center’s Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMD) unit, which was charged with pursuing terrorist WMD programs worldwide. It was Faddis who was responsible for leading the first CIA team into Iraq, in advance of the 2003 invasion.

Faddis left the CIA when he had the chance to continue advancing up its senior ranks because he saw a bureaucracy that like much of our administrative state had grown sclerotic, heavily politicized, politically correct and thus subversive of its main objectives.

He wrote about his experience in a simply breathtaking 2009 book titled Beyond Repair: The Decline and Fall of the CIA, in which Faddis called for recasting CIA in the mold of the more dynamic, risk-oriented, and arguably effective Office of Strategic Services (OSS), CIA’s predecessor.

That book has only become more relevant in a time now when vital areas from law enforcement to the intelligence community and the national security apparatus more broadly are daily being exposed at their highest levels as nakedly political.

Faddis has been one of the few longtime CIA officials to condemn those such as former CIA Director John Brennan for their words and actions, citing a massive disconnect between rank-and-file analysts and operatives in the field, versus intelligence leaders in Washington D.C.

In light of the outcry over the revocation of former Director Brennan’s security clearance and Faddis’ contrarian position, his deep knowledge of and solutions to the rot in our national security apparatus – which has real-world consequences for our safety – and his keen, clear-eyed vision as to the threats facing us, I had Faddis on the Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast to touch on all of these areas, and many more.

What We Discussed

Why Faddis supports revoking John Brennan's security clearance -- and the bureaucratization and politicization of the leadership of the intelligence community versus the rank-and-file analysts and operatives in the field
Whether politics dominates over merit in the ranks of intelligence and the national security apparatus more broadly
What members of the national security establishment really mean when they talk about "protecting the institutions"
Why President Trump has been deemed a threat to the power of the political leaders within the national security establishment in a qualitatively different way than any of his predecessors -- and that's a positive thing
What Faddis would do to reform intelligence
The poor state of America's counterintelligence capabilities
The lessons of Iraq regarding U.S. intervention and the national interest
Whether America has the capability to use intelligence to engage in ideological warfare and bring down Iran's Khomeinist regime
How China's liquidation of our spy network reflects the problems plaguing America's intelligence apparatus
The long-term ramifications of China's OPM hack
The implications of China's attempt to infiltrate Senator Dianne Feinstein's office
The threat to the U.S. homeland of a collapsing Venezuela and Mexico, combined with drug cartels, organized crime groups and Hezbollah in our hemisphere
Faddis' optimistic assessment of the Trump administration's North Korea policy
Why China poses the greatest long-term threat to America of all, and our willful blindness towards it