The Acceptable Jew

Rabbi Menachem Margolin, Chairman of the European Jewish Association and one of Europe’s most prominent Jewish leaders, was right to be outraged. When CNN’s Elex Michaelson said Jon Ossoff “may not read as Jewish” as Josh Shapiro, he wasn’t making a mistake; he was stating a premise the political world has been operating on for three years. The apology came quickly, but the remark was not a gaffe. It was the public version of a quiet practice: grading Jewish identity for political usefulness.

Josh Shapiro performs his Jewishness publicly, kosher, Shabbat, day school, a recovered Torah at his swearing-in and presents a curated, J-Street-aligned Zionism that fits comfortably inside Democratic politics.

Jon Ossoff carries his Jewishness quietly, the ship’s manifest, the Tanakh, the family in Israel and his support for Israel are unadvertised enough that cable news can’t read them. But politically, they are identical: J-Street safe, two-state, Netanyahu-critical.

One performs a politically correct Zionism that has no relationship to Israeli reality; the other carries his identity quietly and never has to justify it.

The difference is not belief but legibility, how easily each man fits the narrative of the “good Jew.”

Now here is where I must be honest in a way that nobody else this week has been willing to be.

Neither Ossoff nor Shapiro is what I would call a deeply Jewish Jew. I say this not as an insult but as a description.

Judaism is not a political position. It is not a kosher kitchen, nor is it the word Zionist said on camera. It is an adherence, or at least an acknowledgement, of a deep covenantal relationship with our Father in Heaven, with Torah, with the people of Israel across three thousand years. It is a deep, transcending love of the land we inherited, a love that we will never allow to be framed for us. By that measure, both men are operating at the margins.

Which is unfortunately what makes them acceptable Jews to begin with.

The only remaining distinction is usefulness: Shapiro’s loud, camera-ready performance makes him deployable; Ossoff’s quietness makes him politically identical but narratively expendable. Michaelson simply said this out loud.

Since October 8th, 2023, a clear political taxonomy has been operating. Jewish public figures are sorted by how loudly they distance themselves from Israel.

Those who condemn it are treated as acceptable; those who defend its right to protect its citizens are treated as suspect. Even Shapiro’s home being firebombed earned only a moment of sympathy before the conversation returned to whether he fit the preferred narrative.

In this taxonomy, acceptability is defined by usefulness. Jewish enough to provide cover, distant enough from actual commitment to be politically safe. Michaelson did not invent this logic. He simply exposed it.

And the taxonomy has an enforcement mechanism. AIPAC is singled out in a way no other ethnic or national lobby is.

Condemning AIPAC has become a ritual performance, proof that you fit the preferred narrative.

Qatar bundles money for politicians. Turkish Americans bundle money. Arab Americans bundle money. None of them has a watchdog with half a million followers devoted to publicly shaming politicians who accept their support. Only the pro-Israel Jewish lobby has become the bogeyman whose touch contaminates.

Denouncing AIPAC is now the entry ticket. The gesture expected from those who wish to be seen as the acceptable kind of Jewish public figure.

Neither Ossoff nor Shapiro created that logic. They are simply navigating a system that has decided what the right kind of Jew looks like. And by accepting the terms of that system by performing acceptability rather than refusing it they have quietly given it legitimacy.

So thank you, Mr. Michaelson. You exposed on camera what the political establishment has been doing in private for three years.

Jew gradings are a thing. And if you had done it like everyone else and graded along the lines of Zionism, you could have said whatever you wanted.

No one would have blinked an eye.