As Jews, perhaps due to centuries of being told we were inferior to those around us, we have mastered the art of self-deprecation and its more pernicious cousin, self-loathing. It is as though we have accepted and internalized the negativity and incorporated it into our world view. Fortunately, however, we have also been forced to develop an unparalleled sense of humor, which can – when not overdone – make good use of our recognition of our shortcomings.
Yet it is one thing to poke fun at the paucity of great Jewish athletes or our famous ability to argue amongst ourselves. It is completely another matter – and a dangerous one at that – to make common cause with those who, under the guise of protesting Israeli actions, engage in anti-Semitic tropes and even tacitly (if not openly) condone more physical manifestations of this hatred.
As someone who must now acknowledge that he is at least middle aged (I am fifty), I learn with great despair of these fellow Jews – mostly, but not exclusively, the young – who are so vehemently critical of our sisters and brothers in Israel. I was raised on what was perhaps the other end of the spectrum of views about Jews and Israel: the Jews were ceaselessly and mercilessly persecuted for centuries, they needed a homeland, they fought a self-defensive war against great odds to secure this safe haven, they out fought and outwitted the Arabs again in the Six Day War and in Entebbe and the retelling of countless other tales of heroism and victory against all odds. To me, and many like me, the notion that Israel was the bully was nothing but preposterous.
Of course, times have – fortunately – changed. Israel is no longer the weak nation, friendless in the world, fighting with World War II reject armaments. It is powerful, has a dynamic economy and a population that is many times the size of that at its founding. It also possesses the ultimate self-defense weapon, nuclear weapons. Maybe.
Yet all this progress did not come just due to the beneficence of the United States (and certainly not from other so-called “allies” of Israel). It was largely paid for with Jewish blood. And suffering. And loss. And, of course, death. Many, many deaths.
But today’s anti-Jewish Jews seem ignorant of all these matters. Today’s Jews are, candidly, spoiled. The Jews of the Millenial and Gen Z cohorts do not seem to realize that but for what can only be characterized as their blind good luck, it would be these Jews who would be currently preparing to go into the viper’s nest in Gaza to fight the very individuals who, they would tell you, “after all, have a point.” What these uninformed utopians fail to acknowledge is that but for the sacrifices and bravery of their great- or great-great-grandparents they would not be on college campuses and participating in marches so relentlessly critical of Jews and their sole state. Or, these history rewriters would be simply nonexistent, their ancestors having been wiped out in Treblinka or Auschwitz or Buchenwald. Their lack of appreciation for the sacrifices made for them to be able to exercise these freedoms is nauseating and inexcusable.
How did this happen? How did our very own children and cousins and nephews and nieces become allied with those who care nothing about our people’s sufferings much our continued survival? Clearly we have failed these younger Jews. Perhaps it is their lack of contact with Holocaust survivors or those who managed to escape the Tsar and his Cossack hordes that has made them woefully ignorant of who we are and what we have had to endure. Perhaps it is the older generation’s desire to move past the sufferings of our parents and grandparents and shield our progeny from those sufferings that has made them so sadly uninformed.
Lest I be misunderstood, I am not advocating that Jews can never be critical of Israel. To the contrary, and as noted above, for every three Jews there are four opinions, and that is generally a good thing. I am often critical of actions Israel takes, particularly those governments that encourage construction of settlements and take other actions that are quite likely to make achieving a true peace impractical or even impossible. But I do not march with those that engage in hyperbole and vitriol. I strive to understand the positions of those who feel Israel has wronged them so that together we can hopefully someday reach a true accord. And I most definitely am not so blind as to see that many that ostensibly are “only criticizing Israel” are truly engaging in anti-Semitic remarks. This is taking Jewish guilt and self-loathing to an unprecedented and illogical conclusion. Nothing about anything we have done as Jews – in Israel or elsewhere – demands that we accept criticism or hatred of us as a people.
I do not know how we reach these woefully misinformed members in our midst. Give them each a copy of Exodus to read (I am thinking of the epic story by Leon Uris but I guess the epic story ghost-written by Moses might also be instructive)? Given the similar disappearance of the written word, would a screening of Schindler’s List help to open their eyes? I fear not. I sadly believe that the only way these individuals will truly understand the consequences of their actions and the price of the dangerous alliances they are forging is when they inevitably learn that anti-Semitism is not a containable sin and that Israel and the Jews are not the villains they so ignorantly believe them to be.
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