Natural selection as applied to Jews
Natural selection as applied to Jews

The secular socialists, otherwise known as Mapainiks and Communists, made aliyah in 1900, give or take 20 years, with the intent of raising a line of “new Jews” who would work the land and eschew being middle men, as the Jews were forced to be in Eastern Europe due to various anti-Semitic restrictions. In other words they wanted to be just like the goyim. Working the land became their highest value.

While this served its purpose at the time, Israel has moved on. Labor is no longer venerated. Brains are. Ingenuity and innovation is her new ethos. The "new Jew" has become the "old Jew". Rather than wishing to be ordinary, the Jews have shown themselves to be extraordinary.

Wearing a knitted skullcap has survival value in today’s Israel.
Not only has Judaism experienced phenomenal growth in Israel, due in part to living on the land, it has experienced strong growth in America. Whereas the secular socialists and the assimilationists and the Reform Jews considered Judaism a fossilized religion, it is they who are becoming fossils while Judaism has made a big comeback.

Roger Alper, writing in Haaretz, puts it this way:

”Wearing a knitted skullcap has survival value in today’s Israel. In the evolution of Israeli society, the religious Zionist is particularly adapted to the environment in which we must forever live by the sword. It’s obvious that the increase in the number of religious-Zionist Israelis, along with a decline in the number of secular Israelis, is shaping our existence in a way better adapted to the former.

But remember that it’s easier to live by the sword when you’re equipped with a religious-Zionist worldview. When you believe in God. When you believe that the meaning of life is to be a Jew in the Land of Israel, the land promised to the Jews, convinced that one day the Messiah will come. The knitted skullcap makes the Israeli reality rational, necessary and even welcome.”

The secular Jews will have to adapt or become extinct whether they live in Israel or the diaspora. Increasingly, Europe is inhospitable to Jews and they are now making Aliya. Secular Israelis would be foolish to consider that Europe is a better climate for them than Israel.

Similarly, the progressive Jews in America, who number about 70% of the population, will in two generations be a tiny rump. Religious Judaism, is experiencing substantial growth in America not only due to their very high birth rates but also due to the influx of secular Jews who choose to become more religious. Imagine that.

Natural selection is at work here. Religious Jews, both Zionist and hareidi, were considered Neanderthals and doomed to extinction because of their inflexibility. In reality it’s the progressives who are doomed to extinction, at least as Jews, because they have no reason to be Jews.