Dershowitz on Rehnquist

[JFN]

I thought David's post was constructive. I told him off-list that I 
thought his delineation between more religious lower and middle class 
eastern European Jews and the secular German-Jewish intellectual 
aristocracy, with Dershowitz descending from the former, made sense 
of his claim to be "Harvard's first Jewish Jew," Frankfurter 
nothwithstanding; and that it might even play a part in Dershowitz 
seeing antisemitism, apparently overlooked by Breyer and Ginsburg, at 
the top of the legal establishment. I added, and I'll repeat at the 
risk of compounding the offense:

>As for Rehnquist's hiring practices, one of the eulogists suggested 
>that his primary criteria was a good doubles partner. I think it was 
>his daughter, and she was joking, but it came in the context of a 
>broader point -- that he placed a lot value on having a well-rounded 
>life beyond the law, which I take to be consistent with your point 
>about preferring athletic, non-academic law clerks. Once you 
>eliminate the liberals and the intellectuals, I'm not sure there are 
>lot of Jews left on the law review.

Now, I was being flip because it was off-list; and maybe the 
stereotype of the Jewish intellectual is inaccurate, but it's no more 
offensive than the stereotype of the Irish romantic. Granted, Jews 
are not all like Einstein, and the Irish aren't all like Yeats; there 
were Irish philosophers (actually, I can only think of Edmund Burke), 
and Jewish athletes (I'm sure Sandy Koufax wasn't the only one); but 
no Irish drunk was ever offended by the assumption that he was a poet 
with a broken heart. So I'm not sure where you see the "vicious 
accusation" unless it's in the stereotype of the midwestern 
scholar-athlete who gets his homework done before he goes out to play 
ball, and with whom Rehnquist might have had a personal affinity 
without it amounting to antisemitism, which I think was David's point.

John Noble

At 11:53 PM -0400 9/9/05, Earl Maltz wrote:
>Ok, its time to invoke the Popeye the sailor rule--enough is too 
>much.  For all I know, Rehnquist read the Protocols of the Elders of 
>Zion every night before he went to bed. But how can ANYBODY who 
>purports to be a scholar make such a vicious accusation based on "my 
>impression....at least from the days when I was in law school." 
>David Bernstein should either produce hard data to support the 
>accusation within 24 hours, or apologize to everyone on this list 
>who is grievously offended by this entire line of discussion.
>
>At 09:37 PM 9/9/2005 -0400, David Bernsein wrote:
>>
>>
>>BTW, my impression of Rehnquist's clerkship hiring practices, at 
>>least from the days when I was in law school, is that it was not 
>>very common for Jews to get clerkships with him, either in absolute 
>>terms, or relative to other Justices, or relative to other 
>>conservative Justices.  But that may reflect what were known to be 
>>his preferences (or so I was told--or am I pulling a Dershowiz for 
>>relying on hearsay?) for athletic, non-academic (in the sense of 
>>interest in the legal academy), individuals from the "heartland," 
>>rather than any antipathy toward Jews--the profile of his clerks 
>>seemed to differ in many ways from other Justices, putting the 
>>religion issue aside completely.
>>
>>In a message dated 9/9/2005 8:07:20 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
>>jfnbl at earthlink.com writes:
>>I'm happy to surrender the point, but if Dershowitz was "Harvard's
>>first Jewish Jew," it is all the more clear that antisemitism was not
>>peculiar to Stanford; and citing evidence that J. Breyer's father
>>could not get into a Stanford fraternity to prove Rehnquist was
>>antisemitic is pathetic. If Dershowitz is on target, he's shooting
>>blanks.
>>
>>As for the strength of a Jew's ethnic identity, us Irish Catholics
>>tend to fall back on whether or not you're wearing a yarmulke, so I'm
>>not going to argue with you. But I'm curious how you measure Jewish
>>ethnic identification if a prominent leader of the Zionist
>>Organization of American, member of the Zionist delegation to the
>>Paris Peace Conference, a principal drafter of the Balfour
>>Declaration, and legal adviser to Chaim Weizman, doesn't measure up
>>to Prof. Dershowitz. I mean the question sincerely -- is there a
>>fault-line between Jewish ethnic identify and Zionist political
>>identity that I don't fully appreciate?
>>
>>
>>David E. Bernstein
>>Visiting Professor
>>University of Michigan School of Law
>>Professor
>>George Mason University School of Law
>>http://mason.gmu.edu/~dbernste
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