“From the very beginning—that is, from the publication of the first book specifically for children — the intent was to mold and shape the mind to accepted standards of behavior.”
Saul Braun, The New York Times, June 7, 1970.

This article is the product of research originally conducted for a recent article titled “Jews, Obscenity, and the Legal System.” Given the significant amount of material discovered and the uniqueness of the subject matter, I decided there was enough material for an article devoted to children’s literature. During research for the obscenity essay, I consulted the American Library Association’s list of “Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000–2009” with a view to assessing the nature and extent of the Jewish presence. The first fact to become apparent was a marked Jewish over-representation in the production of books deemed controversial or perverse by parents, schools, and other institutions. Jews are notoriously shy of the census, but are probably somewhere between the 2.2% of the U.S. population suggested by the Pew Research Center and a maximum of around 5%. Even accepting a grain of truth in the apologetic argument that Jews are disproportionately attracted to literary professions (to say nothing about motive), one might very generously expect a Jewish representation of around 10 books on the ALA’s list.

However, my biographical checks on all authors on the list, some of which were indeterminate, revealed that 22 books on the ALA’s list were penned by 17 Jewish writers.^[1] Jews are thus significantly over-represented in producing contemporary literature deemed oppositional by the surrounding culture, and are even more radically over-represented when older, White-authored, entries such as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (now often opposed as ‘racist’) are taken out of consideration. Since the majority of entries on the list were children’s books, and taking into account my previous discoveries concerning Jewish manipulation of demand for ‘diverse books’ in the school system, it occurred to me that children’s literature is an important, but sometimes neglected, front in the cultural conflict we see played out daily. This article is therefore intended as a brief introduction to some of the most pertinent personalities and themes in the area of Jewish Leftist activism in children’s fiction.

A great deal of Jewish radical activism in the cultural sphere comes under the umbrella of the general relationship between Jews and the Left. This relationship can historically be understood as involving Jewish innovation of, or support for, social, cultural, and political causes likely to weaken the cultural structures of the host society and make it more amenable to Jewish interests. In the chapter titled “Jews and the Left” in The Culture of Critique (p. 50 )Kevin MacDonald cites Stanley Rothman and S. Robert Lichter, who remarked in their Roots of Radicalism: Jews, Christians, and the New Left (1982): “Whatever their situation…in almost every country about which we have information, a segment of the Jewish community played a very vital role in movements designed to undermine the existing order.” MacDonald argues that superficial divergences between Jewish religion and radical agendas are negated by the fact many ethnically Jewish radicals have persisted in adhering to a strong Jewish identity, and have often explicitly pursued Jewish interests. MacDonald writes (p. 51): “The hypothesis that Jewish radicalism is compatible with Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy implies that radical Jews continue to identify as Jews.”

> Be a Jewish children’s author
> For goys: “it’s fine to have two dads. Traditional marriage means nothing. Diversity is more important than cultural traditions.”
>For Jews: crucial to protect and promote our Jewish traditions. This book features traditional Jewish family.” pic.twitter.com/U4RK52yF4b

— Joyce (@TOQJoyce) January 6, 2018

I argue that the material presented in this essay should be seen firmly within the same theoretical framework proposed by MacDonald. For example, several of the Jewish writers under consideration here are homosexuals, radical socialists, and feminists. A common apologetic from “Jews on the Right,” is that such figures are anathema to Judaism, or that as adherents of the Reform movement etc., they are unrepresentative of “true Jews.” The contention here is that the situation is quite the opposite, and I stress that many of these writers are demonstrably committed to Jewish tradition and the Jewish group. Read more

Only the most ardent followers of the right wing nationalists, the lunatic fringe, and the most ardent of Roosevelt haters could, after reading The Double Axe, welcome the return of Robinson Jeffers.
                              St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 1948

In two previous essays I explored the nature of academic ethno-activism in the deconstruction of the cultural legacy of the Modernist poets Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot. Such deconstructions, which are ongoing, target the posthumous legacies of creative thinkers deemed by the current dispensation to have held quasi-Fascistic socio-political views. The essays on Eliot and Pound were intended as broad overviews of this process of deconstruction, emphasizing the scale of successive critiques and, to some extent, illuminating the psychology of those behind them. Analysis of the actual poetic content produced by those creatives was peripheral. This was partly because, although they have been subjected to withering criticism with the ultimate intention of consigning them to distant memory, neither Pound nor Eliot have yet disappeared entirely from view, and their works continue to be widely sold in bookshops, studied in colleges, and read in libraries. Thus, while Pound and Eliot are being “phased out” culturally, or held up as examples of “bigoted old White men,” the depth and intensity of their fame have meant that they continue to put up a spirited resistance to being forgotten.

Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962), the subject of this essay, has found this task much more difficult. Despite once adorning the cover of TIME magazine (April 4, 1932), Jeffers’s fall from grace began earlier, and has been more complete. Studied only rarely in colleges and almost entirely exiled from bookshops and popular discussion, Jeffers and his poetry are a niche literary interest at best. Even within our circles, aside from a single lecture by Jonathan Bowden (which takes the form of a brief cultural biography and glosses over the content of Jeffers’s poetry), he remains largely ignored or unknown. In part to rectify this, the focus of the present essay will be mainly on the poet’s biography and content, with the deconstructive element relegated to the background.

There are a number of reasons for Jeffers’s descent from the heights of popularity, and these reasons make both the man and his work an interesting study. Within a decade of his appearance on the front cover of TIME, Jeffers found himself pilloried as an isolationist opposed to American involvement in World War II, and even as a “fascist sympathizer” who produced “unpatriotic verse.” Jeffers had attracted increasing interest, and then suspicion, from liberals who reacted with horror to his scathing rebukes of, and deep pessimism towards, their schemes for “human improvement.” A close inspection of the reclusive Jeffers’s works revealed a man railing against the decadence of the inter-war period. Piercing that maelstrom of cultural degeneration, his poetry was a furious cry against cherished concepts like “equality,” “progressivism,” and “social justice.” In Jeffers’s unflinching vision, God and Nature were intertwined, inseparable. Man was “nature dreaming,” and the further Man distanced himself from Nature, natural instinct, and natural law, the further Man descended into weakness and decay. Violence, of a noble, natural kind, is glorified in Jeffers’s poetry, as is normal, healthy, and natural sexuality. Read more