Jewish masculinity, Trump and college antisemitism

My father and I recently discussed the crackdown on antisemitism across American universities, because of course we did. The conversation – and the larger one surrounding the Israeli-Gazan conflict – has had a stranglehold over Jewish-American discourse for the better part of two years. I girded myself for the usual talking points. You know the ones. But when the discussion started, my father suggested, almost off-handedly, Trump’s interventions wouldn’t have been necessary “if Jews weren’t such wimps.”

I blinked.

“…wimps?”

“Weak,” he amended. “Y’know – pussies.”

My father was born in Far Rockaway, Queens in 1952. It was a more physical world. Activism was sweaty. It played out on the streets, not screens. When he was a teenager, he witnessed the rise of the Black Panthers, the political and community organization founded by Bobby Seale and Huey Newton in Oakland, California in 1966. The group was based on the notion that if you were going to mess with Black America, Black America would mess back. Members were armed to the teeth as they escorted their own down the block, protecting them from police. When the California State Assembly gathered to discuss the Mulford Act – a measure which would ban the public carrying of firearms – Seale and others stood on the Assembly steps, rifles at attention like spears.

“Why can’t we do that?” my father asked me. “Why can’t there be Jewish Black Panthers?”

Never mind the more problematic elements of the Panthers – the internal strife, the shootouts with police. What my father really suggested was a new Jewish physicality. A security not in words, but presence.

When I attended the ADL conference in New York in March, I was struck by the pride on display. Israeli actress Gal Gadot headlined the closing ceremony, bringing many to tears with her rallying cry, “my name is Gal, and I am Jewish.” Jewish college students spoke of their fears on campus to many an “Am Yisrael Chai.” When I was interviewed by Jewish comedians Judy Gold and Hughie Stone Fish, they were insistent I take out my chai necklace and show it to the world. This pride was channeled into speaking out on socials, putting pressure on colleges and other institutions to review their security protocols, and generally shed light on the antisemitic experiences faced by so many each day.

But not once, during the entirety of the proceedings, was there a call to flood the campuses themselves – no thought that perhaps all the thousands in attendance would better flex their solidarity out there, on the streets, protecting their own, shoulder-to-shoulder. The fervor was left to evaporate. A boiling pool of frustration and fear, steamed off.

“This is what they’re always accusing us of,” my father said. The they in question doesn’t matter. There’s always a they. “If someone gets in our face, we use the law. We use money. Very different from a ‘fuck you’ and punch to the teeth.”

The entire premise of my novel spirals round this idea. When our protagonist, Arthur, discovers he’s part of an ancient line of fantastical Jewish demon hunters, his first response isn’t excitement, but incredulity. “There’s something sexy about a demon-hunting priest,” he muses. “The righteous man of the collar hunting vampires and things that go bump in the night, armed only with his cross, his faith, and a precious vial of holy water. Yet you take that same religious man and call him a Rabbi, arm him with a shofar and Hebrew, and what was once a haunting tale turns comical in the telling.” Jews can’t be demon hunters because that’d mean they have to be cool first.

The current of Jewish emasculation runs deep. In his speech to the Second Zionist Congress in 1898, Max Nordau spoke of the need for a new “muscular Jew.” For too long, the Jews had held up a mirror to themselves and saw the reflection the world gave them: passive. Atrophied. We were once inheritors to the great strength of Samson and the Maccabees, but had gone soft. A new virility was needed. “We will develop wide chests, strong arms and legs,” Nordau said. “A brave look.” This, in contrast to the eydlkayt. The bleary-eyed scholar, gentle and wise. The pussy.

The Jewish story

Much has been made of the Jews as the “chosen people.” Critics use the phrase against us to suggest that we believe ourselves exalted over others. Rabbis have argued we are chosen not to rule, but that together with all people, facilitate a better tomorrow.

I believe it’s not necessarily Jews, but the Jewish story that is chosen. More than science or faith, narrative is the best tool for meaning-making that all human beings have, and ours is one for the ages. Jewish struggles teach to love the stranger. Jewish triumphs are tales of resilience and hope. For thousands of years we have offered ourselves up as the great story in the hopes others might study it and be better for it. But in the wake of October 7th, many Jews no longer have a stomach for forbearance. We have put our faith in learning and in education, in letters. Yet fresh images of our dead children pile upon the old, and we wonder: why must it be their blood that teaches? Why must it be us on the stage, in the spotlight, our tragedies performed time after time as ritual for mankind?

Historically, American Jews have supported the Democratic Party and the ideas it espouses: diversity. Tolerance. Speaking truth to power. The old wisdom held it was these values in which we could take shelter. After all, protecting minorities included ourselves; we would only ever be as safe as our multicultural democracy. It’s not that we didn’t value security, or unity, or tradition, but that those who acted in their names historically did so at our expense. Which is why Trump’s recent crackdowns on collegiate antisemitism have cast a pall of ambivalence over American Jewry. For the first time, the sword of power swings down and it’s them, not us, under its shadow. Them the immigrant. Them the Muslim. And what’s more, the sword falls in our name.

The reversal intoxicates and terrifies us. A part of us cheers when our safety is made paramount. No diverse coalition. No hiding our needs behind universalism. This is our pain – ours – and we will end it ourselves. You mess with Jews, Jews mess back. We won’t wait until we’re dead for you to love us. We don’t need your love at all. We’re done asking for it.

But of course, we’re not ending the pain ourselves. Trump is. It’s not our sword, but his. Not our voice, our judgement. We are ceding it in the hopes that the blade will never turn on us, even when the others whispering in the president’s ear are antisemites. Are we so desperate to retch up our emasculation that we would arm the man who softened Jewish experiences during the Holocaust, who says nothing of sieg heils at his party convention or assumption of power, who tells us who is and isn’t one of our own? As Wesleyan University president Michael S. Roth recently opined, “these are our defenders?”

“It isn’t good,” my father said.

“What isn’t?” I asked.

“The disappearing of these Hamas protestors. Swarming them on the street. No warrant. Throwing them down in Louisiana or wherever.”

I agreed, but played devil’s advocate to coax more out. There’s some comfort in knowing a truth, but even more in hearing it echoed back to you.

“Aren’t the President’s actions showing Jews mean business?” I suggested. “That we’re not wimps?”

My father shook his head.

“If you’re playing ball and the other guy’s frustrating you, the solution isn’t to get the bully to steal the ball. Otherwise, the game’s up. Can’t change the rules of free speech or due process just to feel safer. That’s how Democracy itself goes down.”

“Such sagely language, Dad,” I said. “Where’d you pick that wisdom up? Getting into scraps in Far Rockaway?”

He threw his hands behind his head.

“Nah. I guess that came from shul.”