Side-View Mirror

A motorist should understand the value and limitations of side-view mirrors. They’re useful for keeping an eye on oncoming vehicles. But there will always remain a blind spot.

You might not notice someone pulling ahead of you even if you adjust these mirrors, attach a convex blind-spot mirror, have an electronic sensor detection system, and/or coordinate side-view with rear-view mirror use.

The car coming from your right or left will remain visible for awhile, then disappear for a moment and reappear as it goes past.

I’ve had close calls when I didn’t pay attention carefully enough: Glancing at the side-view mirror, seeing no one in my way, I began turning into the next lane, almost crashed into a passing car, and had to swerve back into my own lane. My mother once advised that to be extra-vigilant I should rapidly (so as to not neglect focusing upon what’s in front of me) look over my shoulder before turning into a lane.

Instead of relying solely on artificial optical mechanisms when changing lanes, we should honor the testimony of our own eyes: see for ourselves.

Everyone is going at different speeds, with more or less horsepower, in vehicles of assorted sizes and curb weights. Their safety ratings vary. Awareness of or obliviousness to a rapidly accelerating automobile’s approach – the hazard close at hand – could mean the difference between life and death.

Every road we travel on has its perils. The road Jews are on is unsafe; societal traffic conditions are frightening. A terror machine (antizionism) is gaining on us and edging alongside as we steer our course down the freeway. Not seeing what’s coming could put you at risk.

People with strong ideological drive come suddenly, seemingly out from nowhere to your right and left. Heedless of your position, they power on forward. If you don’t watch where they’re coming from and what they’re doing, a smashup will ensue. Your survival requires heightened vigilance. Remember, your blind spot is a danger zone.

There’s danger on the right. Right now, danger on the left – the fast lane – warrants greater concern.

Some left-wing opinion drivers – moving through that liminal space where antizionist impulses are emergent although hard to discern, concealed or fuzzily wrapped in tropes of “constructive criticism” – mean well and wouldn’t deliberately sideswipe you. Others, arrogant scofflaws and aggressive bullies, like to intimidate – these latter, the unabashed antizionists, het up with political road rage, flooring the pedal in their armored Humvees, pose an obvious threat.

Yet, if you’re a Jew who leans toward the left while ignoring your blind spot, you’re on a potential collision course not only with overt Jew-haters who wrap their ill will in rhetoric of “resistance” and “liberation” but with nice individuals whose political sympathies and affinities you think you share: those “reasonable” progressives with whom you’re a fellow traveler.

They too, cruising at moderate pace in their Volvos, could roll over you in your Peel P50 microcar and squash you like a bug1. Look over your shoulder; pay attention.

History teaches that what’s “behind” us is not only in the past but also a present pitfall to anticipate and avoid.

A telltale marker of Jewish life especially in the Diaspora is constant anxiety over what “they” think – “they” being the surrounding non-Jewish majority. Looking back through the side-view mirror to assess the sincerity of neighbors’ neighborliness, Diaspora Jews often allay their anxiety with wishful thinking.

They don’t notice anything to worry about – they see no potential collision. The blind spot.

One of the hardest conversations I’ve had in recent years – especially after the horrors of October 7 and the never-ending war with Iran (I agree with most Israelis that Trump’s ceasefire deal won’t change this bellicose status quo2) – has been with well-meaning persons, Jewish as well as Christian, whose criticism of Israeli policies and actions bleeds into rationalization for and reinforcement of antizionist gaslighting.

I want to think of them as friends, but, amid public furor over and growing rancor toward Israel, there’s a blurry line between knowing whom to embrace as friends and whom to hold at arm’s length. The side-view mirror’s blind spot poses a hindrance for us in distinguishing merely good intentions from real supportiveness.

The ghosting of Jewish liberals, their increasing exclusion from communal spaces purportedly dedicated to engagement, their growing invisibility within the American movement for social justice (which Jews played a key role in founding!) – these are signs warning us to be cautious about turning into that left-hand lane.

Don’t just check the side-view mirror; it doesn’t factor in the blind spot. Follow my mother’s advice: look over your shoulder.