In case you are wondering, I've been spending my time trying to save Western civilization. (Yeah, I know it sounds nuts.) ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Tuesday, April 22, 2025

In case you are wondering, I've been spending my time trying to save Western civilization. (Yeah, I know it sounds nuts.)

People who follow me have noticed that lately I have been writing about Jewish ethics a great deal.

This appears to be a departure from my normal output. It really isn't.

For a long time I have been frustrated by nearly every attempt to fight antisemitism. For years, I have pointed out that nearly all thinkers and writers about antisemitism have ignored the flavors of that hate that more closely align with their own politics, and as a result the suggestions and idea to fight antisemitism have been trying to treat the symptoms, not the disease.

The Biden administration's National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism had all of the problems of previous initiatives rolled into one. It did not define the problem clearly and it only advocated lots of point solutions that are band-aids on what can become a massive internal injury.

A month ago I came up with a theory that, I believed, ties together all the forms of antisemitism: I wanted to figure out why so many disparate types of antisemitism from the Left, Right, and others were not just antipathetic towards Jews, Judaism and Israel but so actively hateful towards them. Unlike other hates, anti-Jewish hate is an obsession. Why is that?

I initially believed that all forms of antisemitism were supersessionist, rooted in the idea that Jews must be replaced to validate another identity. While this applies to many forms (particularly Christian and Islamic), it doesn’t cover all cases. What united them more deeply was a shared impulse to erase Jews, Judaism, and Israel because these stood as existential threats to their own ideologies—whether theological, political, or cultural. In other words, all major forms of antisemitism are eliminationist at their core.

They all regard the very existence of Jews or Judaism or Israel to be their main threat. I am taking them at their word. Since any philosophy that either accepts or encourages antisemitism is by definition immoral, then the best way to fight them is to help grow that very threat to their existence - to encourage the world to understand and adopt Jewish ethics.

It is not as much of a stretch as it might seem. Much of Western civilization is already based around Jewish concepts. Not coincidentally, the ideologies most hostile to Judaism often turn out to be hostile to Western civilization as well.

Modern progressive, socialist and other philosophies all sound reasonable on their own terms. Incoming students at universities or even casual readers of the media are exposed to, indeed bombarded by, these philosophies. Yet most of us do not have the tools to examine them and determine where they are weak or where they can become immoral themselves. Only by being familiar with an alternative can people see the flaws in the ideas they are being fed.

The Jewish ethical system, I maintain, is the most mature ethical model in existence. It doesn’t slot people into broad categories. Instead of reducing the world to abstractions, Jewish ethics seeks to improve the world as it really is.

I have therefore been spending my time trying to define the Jewish ethical system in a way that makes it approachable and understandable. I am defining its structure in a way that has not been done before (to my knowledge.) I'm trying to give people the tools to understand why the systems that oppose Western culture and Jewish thought are wrong. And I want to find ways to promote Jewish ethics - not Judaism, not religion, not God, but an ethical system compatible with modern secular culture that has a 2,000 year old track record.

We need to counter the modern philosophies that have normalized twisted ideas of ethics. Jewish thought is rich enough to accommodate the good ideas and reject their malign components.

So this is what I have been working on - a project to save Western civilization.

Yes, I know how outrageous this sounds. I know how small the chances are that this will succeed. But once I started working on this, no matter what the odds, I have to finish this effort. In only a month I have defined a framework that can be realistically adopted by anyone, a framework that brings common sense back into vogue.

I am not the type of person to start something this ambitious. But if no one else has thought of this after 200 years of discussing "The Jewish Question," then why not me? If it inspires one person to make a TikTok video explaining Jewish philosophy to teens, if it encourages one university professor to create a course in Jewish ethics, if it prompts one influencer to spread these ideas, then it is worth it.

For twenty years, I have been exposing and defining antisemitism on this site. This project - which I plan to turn into a book, and which I hope will encourage others to run with these ideas and spread them widely - is an extension of what I've been doing all along. Because the best chance to defeat antisemitism, and the anti-Western philosophies that come with it, is not to be defensive but to give the world an alternative philosophy that is truly ethical.

I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. But I hope to invite serious readers, Jews and non-Jews alike, into a conversation about ethics, truth, and civilization itself. Because the only way to defeat an immoral ideology is not through slogans, censorship, or defensiveness, but through a better, more honest moral system.