We’re Responding to Antisemitism All Wrong

We are neck-deep in a global epidemic. We should add to the DSM a new psychological diagnosis: Pathological Antisemitism.
We Jews are shocked. Mortified. Justifiably enraged.
Rightfully scared.
But shock, rage and fear cannot be our only response. That reactivity is not serving us, or anyone else for that matter.

The question is not only how to fight this hatred, but also how to heal it.
The classic Jewish mission statement is to be an ‘or l’goyim’ – a light unto the nations, and a priestly people. A divinely-designated people of service.
Global Jew hatred is not some wrench in that biblical calling.
It is a function of the calling itself.

We are mandated from time immemorial to encounter the world’s shadow and to be the light-bringers….serving this deluded world as a priestly people, not just in spite of the hatred, but via the hatred itself.

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As a Jerusalem psychotherapist, I want to offer a core psychological framework that can show us how to do exactly that.
It is called PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION.

Most people have heard of projection; that classic Freudian defense mechanism where a person attributes their own unbearable thoughts/feelings onto someone else.
Yes, this is certainly a part of what is occurring with antisemitism. Societies disown qualities/impulses that are too hard to bear and project them upon ‘the Jews’. Scapegoating on steroids.

But the idea of Projective Identification takes it one step further and reminds us Jews how to be the healers in the room; not the victims.
(Note that this term comes from Melanie Klein, another aptly Jewish pioneer of psychoanalysis).

Projective identification happens when a client takes an unbearable thought/feeling and unconsciously INDUCES that same feeling within the therapist themselves.
They feel shame, and so unconsciously make the therapist feel ashamed.
They feel confused, and so unconsciously make the therapist feel confused.

In R.D. Laing’s words, “The one person does not use the other merely as a hook to hang projections on. He/she strives to find in the other, or to induce the other to become, the very embodiment of projection”.
They feel helpless, enraged or morally contaminated, and recruit the therapist into carrying those feelings.
And then they watch to see how will the therapist metabolize those feelings…how will the therapist bear the unbearable weight of all that shadow material? They watch….

Every experienced therapist knows this moment.

You are sitting with a client when suddenly you begin to feel strangely overwhelmed, ashamed, helpless or confused.
This is where the healing alchemy of therapy begins…
If the therapist can tune in to what is happening within the client…and within themselves, then they can metabolize the feeling and offer it back to the client in a new rectified form.
Healing ensues…

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So what does this actually ask of us?
When we find ourselves flooded by the latest accusation, atrocity denial, inversion or eruption of Jew-hatred, we can follow the same basic process a therapist uses in the face of projective identification.

1. RECOGNIZE THE PROJECTION

Before reacting, recognize what is happening.
Ask the therapist’s essential question: Is this mine or is it a projection?
Name the projection before you become it.
(Hint: The world is projecting shame on the Jews…Apparently, humanity is feeling unbearably ashamed of itself.)

2. GROUND IN OUR TRUTH

We are an ancient people living in our ancestral homeland. We have an inalienable right to exist, to protect ourselves and to live in that homeland. We MUST NOT allow the relentless accusations hurled at us to dislodge us from what we know to be true.
Get grounded. Literally, grounded into the land of Israel.

3. REGULATE

If someone induces panic, shame or rage in us and we immediately respond from panic, shame or rage, we have botched the therapeutic formula.
Pause. Ground. Regulate your own nervous system.
It will get triggered. Take deep breaths. Pray. Sing. Stretch. Learn.

4. SET FIERCE BOUNDARIES

Being a healer does not mean becoming a punching bag.
A good therapist has boundaries. She names distortions. She does not collude with delusion. She does not tolerate abuse.
Neither should we.
Fight lies with truth. Protect ourselves fiercely. Walk away when engagement is useless.
Defend yourself when defense is necessary….and it will be.
Fight when necessary…and it will be.

5. LOCK IN TO THE MISSION

Our task is not merely to survive the projection, but to metabolize it: to encounter the world’s shadow without becoming shadowy ourselves. To bear what is projected upon us without accepting it as our identity.

Put this on repeat: We are a mamlechet kohanim, a priestly people. An or l’goyim, a light unto the nations.
This is our calling and we must not lose sight of that, even and especially when we are singed by the burn and burden of a globe full of shadow.

It is no mistake that the world’s largest religion is built upon the idea of a Jewish man ‘dying for the world’s sins’.
The new paradigm is not the crucified Jew who dies for the world’s sin…Rather it is the priestly Jew who encounters the world’s shadow, metabolizes it…and laboriously generates healing in the process.

We are not here to die for the world’s sin…We are here to help heal them.…not just in spite of the hatred, but via the hatred itself.

REMEMBER,
YOU ARE THE HEALER,
NOT THE VICTIM.

THE PRIEST,
NOT THE SACRIFICE.

THE LIGHT
THAT WILL HEAL THE DARK.