A Tension in Cultivating Allies

One of the primary modes for combatting antisemitism and advocating for Jews and Israel is cultivating non-Jewish allies, individuals who can support, stand beside, and speak up with us. One rationale for this is a recognition of our community’s limitations: There aren’t that many Jews in the world, and if only Jews advocate for Jews, our voices will likely be outnumbered and drowned out. In addition, non-Jews can often be more effective advocates, in part because they’re perceived as more neutral and less self-interested; Jews advocating for Jews may be seen as promoting their own causes, while a non-Jew – someone without an identity-based personal stake – has no obvious bias.

Cultivating allies can tap into a variety of strategies, some more relational and some more transactional. We can seek out those with whom we have overlapping and aligned interests or values. We can join interfaith and intercultural dialogue groups whose express purpose is to bridge differences. We can bring our Jewish identities, perspectives, and opinions into our existing social relationships with non-Jews.

Here’s where things can get complicated: In many cases, the people best situated to cultivate allies are those who have the most tenuous connection to Jewish community or identity.

As an archetypical (and superficial) example, let’s take two hypothetical individuals.  The first grew up in and lives in the proverbial “Jewish bubble”: They have a robust Jewish identity, a wealth of Jewish knowledge, and a strong connection to Jewish community. At the same time, their social circle – and sometimes even their professional circle – is almost entirely Jewish.  

Because they don’t interact frequently with non-Jews outside of specific contexts where advocacy would be inappropriate, they might not be confident or comfortable sharing about Judaism, Jewishness, and Israel to cultivate allies. These skills certainly can be learned, but they’re not modes of engagement that necessarily come naturally. Moreover, to the extent they know how, they often lack an interest in doing so or would find outreach to be awkwardly transactional.

In contrast, our second person is quite comfortable navigating the non-Jewish or secular world and has plenty of non-Jewish friends, regardless of the milieu in which they grew up. At the same time, they aren’t well connected to the Jewish community currently and don’t have strong, positive feelings about being Jewish or Israeli. In addition, they lack a strong motivation to share Jewish perspectives and serve as advocates.

To be clear, these are caricatured tendencies and illustrations, not absolute, and these backgrounds and skills aren’t entirely mutually exclusive. Slews of individuals, whether students or other community members, have strong connections to the non-Jewish world and have a strong sense of Jewish identity coupled with a desire to advocate for the Jewish people and Israel. 

That said, the overlap is uncommon, creating a tension between having the skills and network to connect with non-Jews and having Jewish content and confidence to share with them. Those who have both of these abilities and motivations are rare, which both makes cultivating allies challenging and should push us to nurture and support those who can walk and work in both of these areas.