Buzz Words
In a recent podcast my teacher Yossi Klein-Halevi, referring to the war of narratives in social media, use the concept ‘buzz words’ as opposed to telling a story. Words as triggers.
In a recent, different article in an English edition Israeli newspaper I read about the ‘O’, the ‘G’, and the ‘A’ words: Occupation, Genocide, Apartheid, spoken by Israelis or Jews. I hardly use these words, if at all, but let me add a new one I would also rather avoid: the ‘T’ word, as in Traitor. It has become a ‘buzz word’ to the inside of the Jewish world.
My fellow Uruguayan blogger Rafael Porzekanski wrote a piece on his blog dated August 5 titled ‘Choose your own Jewish traitor’. Uruguay is a very small country; our Jewish community is hardly 12000 souls, if that much…
However small as a country and as a community, we are not isolated nor immunized against the virus that is spreading and eating the flesh of Judaism all over the globe: ‘unjustified hatred’, another ‘buzz word’ created by ‘The Rabbis’ more than two millennia ago.
Our community will not allow nor forgive ‘traitors’. Our identity as Jews, in general terms, is based more on Zionism than in Judaism as a ritual, religious experience. Any discourse dealing with justice and sensitivity towards ‘the other’ is read with suspicion.
In fact, what Uruguayan Jews mostly read and talk about is related to antisemitism, biased press, and the overwhelming prejudice against the Jews that has taken over global public opinion. As if just recently removed from Auschwitz, Uruguayan Jews feel our fate only, and always, as victims.
We believe the war in Gaza is a just war. Whether it is being fought justly is a whole different issue. It will not be discussed in open forums lest you be called a ‘traitor’. Perhaps that is why Rafael chose to write his piece in his blog in English. I assume he is feeling the consequences of his recent posts regarding Israel and Gaza.
I can assume as much because, without saying what he says, the semantic depth of the ‘T’ word looms over the work I try to do inside our community. I’ve been called names, and it does hurt.
But although I can empathize with Rafael, I cannot agree with him.
He ends his text quoting Hillel and assuming Hillel would have revealed THE moral truth and thus be included in the list of traitors. May be he was indeed called a traitor by the zealots of the time…
The relevant point is that there is not a Hillel without his Shammai. Torah is not only a moral imperative, it is a way of life: in war, in distress, or in any small, insignificant situation that one must confront. Halacha is according to Hillel, but ALL opinions of are registered for the record.
Morality might trump Halacha. But morality is not exercised in a vacuum. We act within reality.
Which leads to another disagreement: the way facts are presented, and not only in this specific blog. Without any shred of a doubt, I state that #Oct7 ALWAYS comes first. Then comes the war in Gaza, the wars on the proxies, the 12-day-war, and whatever is happening now. #Oct7 is the mother of all evil.
In language, the choice in the order of words or paragraphs is relevant. If you start your idea by placing ‘forceful criticism of Israel’s military actions in Gaza’ or ‘the Gaza catastrophe’ BEFORE ‘the massacre perpetrated by Hamas’, you are making a point. Maybe not plainly justifying the reaction to that massacre but certainly showing more empathy than your enemy deserves.
My personal position regarding all that has been going on for the past thirty-two months of civil confrontation in Israel and the Jewish world and then #Oct7 and war is clear: let’s deal with our inner shortcomings. Let’s have a Jewish conversation about how we deal with our own crisis.
When I say a ‘Jewish conversation’ I mean Jewish values and Jewish context; a conversation among Jews. Not one meant to feed our supporters or haters. Le Shem Shamaim, for heaven’s sake. This option avoids the noise and pain that derive from confrontation.
Because at first we think we are confronting our haters but sooner than later we realize we are confronting each other. When we start to use the ‘T’ word we have crossed that threshold, we are stepping out of the borders of our Judaism. We stop being our ‘brother’s keepers’ or ‘responsible for each other’ (arevim ze-la-ze).
‘Symbolic excommunication’, as Rafael so well expresses it, can happen to anyone. You don’t have to be a celebrity. The responsibility is double-fold: it is in those who risk open criticism of our moral lapses and in those who rush to judge any kind of moral critique by a fellow Jew. We are feeding the birds of prey. ‘There is an eagle in the sky’ (Arik Einstein). Indeed there is.
#Oct7 opened a Pandora box of issues we thought were long ago left behind. We knew antisemitism was still around. What we did not expect is the will of a people (Hamas, the Gazans, the Palestinians, however you want to define it) to really exterminate us. What we did not expect, either, was their capacity to do so. The harm done will last generations, no matter how resilient we are.
We need self-criticism. We need self-demand. We need honesty and confrontation of difficult issues. This is a turning point in Jewish history. I never thought I’d live to witness this. But we must.
What we do not need is self-hate or self-destruction. We have enemies for that. Our aim is to build from within: our values and our moral standards. But for that, first we have to be, to stay alive, to eradicate the forces that want to exterminate us as individuals and as a people.
Judaism is too wide and diverse to have ‘traitors’. While some Jews should avoid trying to please ‘the other’ all the time by pointing out our moral shortcomings, other Jews should refrain from calling names to their fellow Jews. It’s a bad habit.
