The Self-Flagellation of the American Jew

Unfortunately, many Jewish communal organizations in the United States have been at the forefront of a particular ritualized expression of guilt and self-doubt, a vidui, if you will, that focuses on the real and imagined ills that affect others to the exclusion of the self. You have heard it before too. V’al chet . . . antisemitism and Islamophobia and xenophobia and racism and misogyny and all forms of hatred.

Whether originating from fear, uncertainty, or a rejection of particularity, the inability to speak plainly against Jew hatred is as pervasive as it is confounding. These penitential prayers are often issued not with analytical detachment but with a kind of moral fervor, as if to prove that the penitent is not complicit in what they now see as a collective moral failure. And, it has resulted in a weakening of Jewish identity, which was already waning among the many young unaffiliated American Jews.

In a climate where identity politics dominate the discourse and where politics destroys friendships and families, many in this demographic have chosen to lean into their progressive bona fides over their Jewish roots. They have redefined their Jewish identity almost entirely in social justice terms, reducing an ancient, multifaceted tradition to a kind of moral performance, which distances oneself completely from the particularistic practices and aspirations of a people and reduces Judaism to a pablum of bagels and tikkum olam.

Others have responded by becoming extreme critics of Israel – not merely of its specific policies, but of the very legitimacy of Zionism. They reject it both as Judaism’s raison d’être, rooted in millenia of longing for a return to Zion, but also as the universal right of self-determination enshrined in international law (which they otherwise love to cite).

Building heavily upon the “Zionism is Racism” ideology promoted by the Soviets in the 1970s, they see the existence of Israel as the root cause of all evil “isms” and “phobias” in the world today. Thus, the now Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani can freely posit that “when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it’s been laced by the IDF.” The Jew used to be the international boogeyman. Now the boogeyman is a nation founded by Jews. (That’s not antisemitic at all, I swear!) Emboldened, rather than chastened, by the horrors of terrorist attacks on Jews across the globe, these fanatics have joined forces with many proponents of this worldview across all walks of life and use their as-a-Jew “status” to lend weight to their denialist positions. Extra brownie points if they can point to a grandparent or two who was affected by the Holocaust! They trot out various vast conspiracy theories about Jewish money and “political influence” and express shock and dismay when Jewish institutions align themselves with Israel. They wield the label of “genocide” as an allegedly established fact only against Israel, but they are nowhere to be found when human rights abuses are alleged elsewhere.

We have now begun to see this ideology bear its poisonous fruit, especially in local elections. But we do know that “all politics is local” (h/t Tip O’Neill). I certainly hope that this is not a harbinger of things to come for the Jewish community, but it is certainly deeply troubling that the political ascendancy of the so-called socialist Democrats comes on the heels of a renewed massive global effort to minimize the effects of Jew-hate (or blaming Jews themselves for its existence), hand-wave away Hamas atrocities, and deny the legitimacy of Jewish self-determination.

Meanwhile, even as organizations and politicians reflexively decry “all forms of hate,” physical attacks on Jews have exploded, and antisemitic hate-crime incidents dwarf all other categories tracked by state and federal governments. Anti-Zionism is now a litmus test.  You cannot be a member in good standing of the Democratic Party or a college campus unless you disavow your support for Israel.

Self-flagellation is not a sustainable strategy. The answer to this political moment is not to flay oneself in public and throw oneself on the sacrificial altar of all-sides-ism, but to stand upright – unafraid to wrestle with contradictions, yet unwilling to disappear into them. Because, in the end, they will always remind you of your Jewish heritage – even if you reject it yourself.