Airing Our Dirty Laundry

🧺 And Why We Avoid Doing It... 🧺

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”
-George R.R. Martin

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Senior year of high school, I studied with a wonderful journalist named Phil Jacobs, then the editor of the Baltimore Jewish Times (what Baltimoreans refer to as “The Jewish Times”).   

At the time, I was not aware that Phil did incredible reporting on issues of sexual abuse in the Jewish Community, even producing a documentary entitled Standing Silent. In a 2013 interview with Mark Oppenheimer of The New York Times, Phil gave an incredible quote that stuck with this to this day:

“When I started in 1982…there was an 11th commandment [in the Jewish Community]— ‘Thou shalt not air thy dirty laundry’...When I started calling people [about sensitive topics], they said, ‘You’re not going to put this in the paper, are you?’ So I found out Jews didn’t get AIDS, didn’t get divorced, didn’t abuse their wives or children.”¹

In a vacuum, none of us want to believe that Jews commit heinous crimes, that Jewish professionals can be abusive bosses, or that Jewish philanthropy can come from problematic origins. But regrettably, time and time again, we witness a disheartening recurrence: when confronted with the pivotal decision between willfully ignoring the truth or remaining steadfastly vigilant, both others and ourselves consistently choose paths that leave us disillusioned.²

Several cognitive biases lie at the heart of this tension, some that we’ve explored before, including moral licensing and gaslighting. But these biases are primarily associated with bad behavior we want to avoid ourselves, as opposed to how we might judge whether or not accusations against someone else are credible. This week, we are going to explore a logical fallacy that leads too many of us to turn away when others need us to pay attention.

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Review: Fallacies vs. Heuristics

If you feel you need a review on the difference between a fallacy and a heuristic, read below. If not, feel free to skip this section.

While I’ve used both these terms somewhat interchangeably since I started Moneyball Judaism, it’s important that we clarify definitions for this article:   

1. Fallacy: The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (IEP) defines a fallacy as an “error in reasoning,”³ where one makes an argument that might appear strong at first glance, yet quickly falls apart upon even a cursory examination. The more a person strengthens their reasoning muscles, the less likely they are to fall guilty of a logical fallacy.

2. Heuristics: Heuristics are hardwired into brains; as such, when a heuristic trips us up, our brain is functioning exactly as it is designed. Thus when learning about the brain, when we fall guilty to a heuristic, our brain is not functioning “wrong”; it is functioning “right.”⁴  

At the same, fallacies and heuristics are both errors in thought, quickly assuming that something is true without putting that alleged truth under close scrutiny.  

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No True Scotsman Fallacy

I’ve never liked Pinhas.

In fact, I’ve gone out of my way to find something, anything (!), in the Torah or rabbinic texts that state unequivocably that God did not condone Pinhas’ actions. Alas, and David Bernat outlines this in great depth,⁵ biblical and rabbinic sources almost uniformly go out of their way to approve of what Pinhas did, even if they wish to discourage others from following his example.

But to probe deeper, why do I want so badly for Pinhas to be “wrong”? I suppose it’s because I do not want to imagine a scenario where Judaism approves of someone committing an act of religious zealotry. And my desire is not limited to Pinhas. Tell me if this line of argument sounds familiar:

1. Person 1: “Jews do not do X.”

2. Person 2: “But I know Ploni.  Ploni is Jewish and he/she/they have done X many times. So you’re statement cannot be true.”

3. Person 1: “Well, maybe that’s true about Ploni.  But no true Jew would ever do X. Therefore, Jews do not do X, and Ploni is not a “true” Jew.”

The IEP argues that this is an “appeal to purity,” where “the reasoner re-characterizes the situation solely in order to escape refutation of the generalization.”⁶ Once we’ve identified an appropriate counter-example to a broad statement, we cannot maintain the accuracy of that broad statement by making an appeal to purity. Either Ploni is a Jew or not a Jew; if they are a Jew, then Person 1’s statement is false. The “purity” argument has no validity.

What this has to do with being a Scotsman, I have no idea, but you could replace “Scotsman” with almost any group, including a Jew/Hebrew/Israelite like Pinhas, and run into the same logical fallacy. 

Returning to the present day, sexual abuse is one of the worst, if not the worst, examples of how this fallacy plays out in our Jewish institutions, but I suspect we can think of many other examples. And when we do not catch ourselves in this fallacy, we can allow behavior ranging from bad to dangerous to go unchecked.

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Decolonizing Wealth

Just as a person can use this fallacy about an individual, a person could employ this fallacy when reasoning about donors, donations, and entire organizations.  Tell me if this sounds familiar:

1. Person 1: “The Jewish Community supports X issue.”

2. Person 2: “But I know Y, which funds many Jewish organizations, actively works against X issue.”

3. Person 3: “Well, maybe that’s true about Y. But no person who truly gives “Jewishly” would do that. Therefore, Y is not a “true” Jewish giver.”

This line of reasoning falls apart in the same way it falls apart when referring to individuals. To be fair, I am fortunate that a number of philanthropists and senior staff at large Jewish philanthropies subscribe to this newsletter, and this is one of many reasons I’m not going to delve into making specific claims. Additionally, a number of giving entities fund certain projects precisely because they recognize that they have to deal with a problematic history about the origins of their wealth. But either way, this is a perfect time to give a shout to Decolonizing Wealth by Edgar Villaneuva.

Villaneuva spent a number of years working for major philanthropies, and Decolonizing Wealth is a tour de force about “a virus that has pervaded every aspect, every cell, every interaction [of philanthropy],” specifically the lack of “frank conversations about where…[philanthropic] wealth came from.”⁷ However, while one might assume that Villaneuva’s natural take would be that we not accept money from nefarious sources, he argues that while money can be a source of problems, it can also be a source of solutions:

“Money is like water.  Water can be a precious life-giving resource.  But what happens when water is damned, or when a water cannon is fired on protests in sub-zero temperatures?   Money should be a tool of love, to facilitate relationships, to help us thrive, rather than to hurt and divide us.   If it’s used for sacred life-giving, restorative purposes, it can be medicine.”⁸

The rest of Decolonizing Wealth focuses on the key action steps Villaneuva prescribes for those who wish to accept his challenge for money as a source of healing. Rather than run away from the problematic roots of some philanthropy, Villaneuva wants us to run toward it. The rest of us can learn from his example.

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The Future of Philanthropy

(Now) Governor Wes Moore interviews Edgar Villaneuva

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Weekly Links

1. The Transgender Family Handbook: New York Magazine has a fantastic primer on key information for transgender families and allies. A must-read.

2. Inside the AI Factory: The second article from New York Magazine, it’s important to remember an entire group of people is working to sustain the emerging world of artificial intelligence, and many of these people are invisible to us. Read more.

3. Behavioral Economics Guide 2023: If you want to take a deep dive into trends in behavioral economics, read the annual guide. The people published in this guide have forgotten more about behavioral economics than I’ll ever know.

4. The Most Confusing Jargon in the World: Buzzwords are as annoying as they are ubiquitous (and perhaps unavoidable). I loved this article from Duolingo on the most confusing buzzwords of the bunch.

5. Rating Foundations Without Their Permission: A challenge in the nonprofit world is the inability of grantees and organizations to provide candid feedback about what it’s like to work with specific funders. Here is a case study from the Stanford Social Innovation Review on how to make this possible.

1. Mark Oppenheimer, “No Religious Exemption When It Comes to Abuse,” The New York Times, 4 January 2013.

2. Full disclosure: I struggled with this sentence, so I asked ChatGPT to rewrite the following sentence:

"However, what we see time and time again is that when faced with the choice of turning a blind eye or being vigilant, we are often disappointed at the choices that others make, including ourselves."

3. Bradley Dowden, “Fallacies,” in Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

4. Not to be too glib, but to paraphrase Dan Patrick, absent thousands of years of evolution, we cannot stop heuristics, we can only hope to contain them.

5. David Bernat, “Pinchas’ Extrajudicial Execution of Zimri and Cozbi,” TheTorah (2018).

Bernat cites one source from the Yerushalmi Sanhedrin 9:7 that offers the most negative portrayal of Pinhas’ actions:

“It was stated: [Pinhas did] not [act] with the agreement of the Sages. Would Phineas act against the Sages? Rebbi Jehudah bar Pazi said, they wanted to excommunicate him had not the Holy Spirit jumped on him and declared that an eternal covenant of priesthood shall be for him and his descendants after him, etc.”

That said, if one is looking for a completely negative portrayal, one will be looking for a long, long time.

6. Footnote 3, “No True Scotsman.”

7. Edgar Villaneuva, Decolonizing Wealth: Indigenous Wisdom to Heal Divides and Restore Balance (Oakland: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2021).

8. Ibid.