Attention Jews!

Time for A Serious Think

Well, I was thinking of calling this post, “Achtung Juden,” but that would have been foolishly melodramatic—and while we Jews can do melodrama with the best of them, it’s usually the better part of valor for us to write elegant sentences rather than excessive ones. We are flagrant enough, all 2% of us. We bother people. We bother ourselves.

I’ve spent my life trying to avoid this conversation. I’ve spent my life trying to pass. I’ve spent my life in luscious tweed jackets, rep ties and tassel loafers; I shudder at tefillen and kashrut. I’m a secular Jew, embarrassed by the ultra-orthodox. Do they really have to throw it in everyone’s face like that? But the rare times I go to synagogue, certain prayers, especially kaddish, touch a very deep place in my soul.

I once had a fight with a rabbi over intermarriage. I was for it; he thought it diluted the gene pool. “That’s good!” I said. “We should be willing to share our incredible cultural wealth and gene pool with the goyim. Anyway, mutts are the strongest dogs. E pluribus unum, baby!”

“Oh,” the rabbi scoffed. “You’re an American.” You betcha. But a Jew, too, inescapably.

It really is just a bit too much being Jewish, isn’t it? You can’t pass; I certainly couldn’t. We are a throbbing welt on civilization’s bum. Everyone notices us—hard not to when we dominate Hollywood and Academia and finance (formerly: money-changing) as we do. Those are the real three branches of Judaism: Business, Show Business and Academic/Professional (especially medicine and law). We may want to go unnoticed, to be conservative and responsible—but we are too flagrant for that—and even when we attempt austerity, they find us out and hunt us down.

We spent some decades, late in the past century, as Just Another People, but that was never going to last, especially after the creation of the State of Israel, which thrust the Jewish question deep into every sentient Yiddische and Mizrahi heart. The Jewish dilemma made manifest: to stand on our own or assimilate (or try to).

Tom Friedman, who has been smarter on the Middle East than any other journalist, divides Israeli Jewry into two camps:

There has been a deep struggle in the Jewish tradition between those who believe that all humans are created in the image of God, and therefore there is something called “humanity” — and that part of the Jewish covenant with God involves protecting all of humanity — and a minority view that argues there is no humanity, per se; there is just “us” and “them.” For the Jewish people to survive and thrive in this region, according to this line of thought, Jews must overcome their humanism, not be guided by it.

I beg to differ just a bit. I’ve got a foot in both camps, and I think Tom does, too. I’m an American, as the rabbi accused. I believe all humanity is made from the same cloth, that there is a collective consciousness. But there’s a part of me that also says: the rest of humanity may not agree with that. A Jewish security blanket is needed. It is called Israel. My need for that ethnic backup is compromised by reality, though. Israel is real, but so is Palestine. Over the course of nearly 50 years visiting the region, I have come to love and appreciate the Palestinians—there is a significant DNA overlap—who tend, like the Jews, to produce inordinate numbers of professionals and business people. They have been led astray too often, by a militant minority. Now, the Jews are too. Friedman, again:

How did we get here, where a Jewish democratic state, descended in part from the Holocaust, is engaged in a policy of starvation in a war with Hamas that has become the longest and most deadly war between Israelis and Palestinians in Israel’s history — and shows no sign of ending?

My answer: What makes this war different is that it pits what I believe is the worst, most fanatical and amoral government in Israel’s history against the worst, most fanatical, murderous organization in Palestinian history.

Let us not put too fine a point on it: Netanyahu’s current governing coalition is pockmarked by Jewish racists. At times, Bibi acts as one of them: in the days before any given election, he unleashes his snarl and trashes the Arabs, even the Arab Israelis. His need for power has brought Israel to the brink of disaster. Oh, I’m confident it will survive—but as a pariah state. Which is asking for trouble. The world has turned on Israel, even the United States has according to the latest Gallup poll:

Americans’ approval of Israel’s military action in Gaza has fallen 10 percentage points since the prior measurement in September, and it is now at 32%, the lowest reading since Gallup first asked the question in November 2023. Disapproval of the military action has now reached 60%.

This, to coin a phrase, is not good for the Jews. And what is to be done? We American Jews are envied and scorned by Israelis; they love our country and its values, but they consider us, well, chickens. We refuse to live our ethnicity and defend it against the barbarian hordes—though some of us, in turn, tend to overreact, supporting the Israeli government even when it does horrific things. I’m looking at you, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). We feel guilt; we feel powerless to make difference; we have chosen not to live there. But we American Jews do carry some weight in Israel; we helped build the place, with our near unanimous support for everything from planting trees to sending armaments.

But now is time for another sort of unity: against the Netanyahu government. This should begin with every Jewish elected official. Chuck Schumer, yes that guy, was courageous in criticizing the brutal IDF overreaction in Gaza. Now, our opprobrium needs to be more dramatic. In August, AIPAC sends its annual delegations of American pols to Israel. They are usually a bit too respectful. This time, they should stand and deliver: they should make it clear—in public, in Jerusalem—that they oppose the policies of the Netanyahu government in Gaza and on the West Bank. Also in August, there should be a call from every Jewish pulpit in the land that starvation and displacement are not acceptable ways of warfare; they are the rudiments of genocide. There should be unanimity on this. August is often a slow news month; this should be a big, big story. It should be debated and then proclaimed in every synagogue. American Jews should send the message to the world. We find the behavior of the Israeli government unacceptable. And the American government should stop sending offensive weapons to the Israelis. As Steve Erlanger quotes University of Maryland professor Jeffrey C. Herf in the New York Times:

“The backlash now is a sign of Israeli incompetence, falling into the trap of Hamas’s cynical and long-term strategy to use the suffering of Gazans for its own advantage,” he said.

After World War II, the Allies aided German civilians, arguing that they had freed them from a mad dictatorship, Mr. Herf said. “Israel should have come to Gaza to liberate the people from Hamas, the way the Allies liberated the Germans from the Nazis,” he said. “But now the world hates Israel.”

The stupidity of this policy is obvious. It comes at a moment when the Arab world has tired of Hamas. A glaring headline in the usually fusty Telegraph:

Arab world tells Hamas to lay down arms and end rule of Gaza

Unprecedented move as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Egypt urge terror group to disband to enable a Palestinian state

This could be the moment many of us have been waiting for. Unanimity on the evil of Hamas. Unanimity on the excesses of the Netanyahu government.

There is an overpowering truth that Jews need to acknowledge: If it comes to us v. them, them will win. We need more than our flagrant humanism, more than Tikkun Olam—to heal the world. We need the world. An Israel that is a pariah state is just too convenient for the anti-semites. We need to be strong—the last year has demonstrated the value of that in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran—but decency is integral to real moral strength. The last year has demonstrated that, too.