Diagnosing and prescribing the cure for what ails US Jews

Book Review: “Polarized: Why American Jews Are Polarized And What To Do About It”

By Roberta Rosenthal Kwall. Published by Bloomsbury Academic.  256 pages

An “old saw” laments that everyone complains about the weather, but no one does anything about it. The same seems true of political polarization among American Jews.

In fact, there are efforts to promote civility and cooperation in our community. It is just that the countervailing forces are daunting: social media, zero-sum politics, the knee-jerk replacing the contemplative, and the ever-rising stakes for our community, country, and Jewish world.

This internal Jewish acrimony did not germinate within us. For most of American history, Jewish politics were largely immune to American partisanship. Today, we too are infected by the polarization disease.

It is a super-spreader among our organizations and, painfully, our families.

In her persuasive new book, Polarized: Why American Jews Are Polarized And What To Do About It, Roberta Rosenthal Kwall diagnoses these ailments. Her prescription would alleviate several of our symptoms. Likely, many will resist taking the required hard-to-swallow pills.

A DePaul University law professor, she has published on legal and Jewish topics. Her latest is an all-too-rare combination of a multi-disciplinary academic approach leavened with insights gleaned from a lifetime of active Jewish communal experience.

Kwall details the divisive national American issues, and how they have seeped into our community. She pulls no punches on the poisonous politics of the political fringes. Yet, because Jews are, by and large, ensconced in the institutions of the left — legacy media, academics, big philanthropy, cultural arts, professional associations, the Democratic Party— it is there where the growing hostility has been most disorienting, and where her analysis focuses.

She bemoans the apparent shrinking of the American and Jewish political middle.

Surely the decibel levels of left- and right-fringe voices, as well as their worrying electoral successes, reinforce the impression of a shrinking middle. Frighteningly, the fringes are no longer so fringe.

The impact of the middle’s impotency cannot be underestimated. Amid far-right and far-left vigor, futility is a moderate’s understandable sentiment.

Kwall implores our Jewish community to set a healthy, replicable example of how America can return to civility and moderation. She outlines an eight-point platform to (re)develop a Jewish centrist consensus.

Six of the points involve Israel; the other two, antisemitism.

Those eight points merit every Jew’s (and non-Jew’s) support, wherever they are on the political spectrum. Still, as Kwall realizes, there are implementation challenges with this game plan.

It relies upon a self-defined centrist platform converting many American Jews of the left and the right to a new political holy grail, something they are exhibiting little inclination to.

About one third of American Jews self-define as moderate, the other two thirds are solidly, even proudly, in one of the other camps.

For them, that political orientation is not trivial. It is a profound part of their self-definition and deeply linked to conceptions of what Judaism teaches. A plea to join the middle is no small hurdle, especially in these days of intersectional and highly partisan politics. (Kwall’s platform is unlikely to attract the 30% of American Jews who think Israel committed a genocide in Gaza or the 63% who don’t embrace the label “Zionist.”)

Most challenging is that building a Jewish consensus on a platform of just Israel and antisemitism bypasses what American Jewish voters — even after October 7, 2023 — say matters most: healthcare, the economy, inflation, the future of democracy (including church-state separation), gun control, reproductive rights, race relations, and crime. Less than 10% rank Israel as the issue determining their presidential vote.

Kwall, appropriately alarmed by the multiple troubling trend lines, is undeterred by these and other obstacles. Her book is not merely another kvetch about the Jewish political predicament. She’s the meteorologist looking to change the weather.

Her plan merits a wide audience. And action. Our community would be wise to heed her pleas if we want to weather the current — and still gathering — storm.

Tcath and Roberta Rosenthal Kwall know one another, and Tcath is acknowledged in the book’s credits.