Living as an American Jew with Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism
Disclaimer: I have written multiple first paragraphs over the past month, which have become irrelevant a day later. The message I am about to share with you may also be irrelevant this morning. Please bear with me as we face uncertainty together.
Holy congregation of Temple B’nai Israel, remember how just one year ago Antisemitic graffiti vandalized a local structure and targeted one of us. Remember how all of you reached out to support each other, lift up the fallen among us, and embrace the incredible response of the greater non-Jewish community – our law enforcement community, our public officials, our interfaith community, and our neighbors. As we navigate through the morass and barrage of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment, let us remember that it is indeed possible to reset and reach across the table to anyone who is willing to sit there as well.
I am not a historian nor a journalist nor any kind of arbiter of reportage on social media, so I defer to Thomas Freedman who wrote in the NY Times this past September 25, who reminds us (and I quote) that “the Iranian-Hamas strategy is to ignite a ring of fire around Israel, using Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Iraq and West Bank militants armed by Iran with weapons smuggled through Jordan. The Iranian strategy is exquisite from Tehran’s point of view: Destroy Israel by sacrificing as many Palestinians and Lebanese as necessary but never risk a single Iranian life. The Iranians are ready to die to the last Lebanese, the last Palestinian, the last Syrian and the last Yemeni to eliminate Israel (and distract the world from the Iranian regime’s abuses of its own people and imperialist control over Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria).” (end quote)
It might seem like Freedman is defending Israel’s actions, but he is not in fact. He is advocating for a counter-strategy that could lead to an end to Israel fighting and her present status as a pariah state. What I share with you today is not at all meant to parse the tragedy of the present situation or the options for Israel as I simply do not know enough, but rather to voice what we are thinking and feeling, that the Israel crisis is an existential crisis. For Israel, it is existential because its adversary, Hezbollah – a Shi’ite Islamic fundamentalist terrorist organization and political party that has essentially controlled most of Lebanon since the early 1980s – has stated that its goal is the destruction of Israel. For us, Jews in America, it is also existential.
According to Rabbi Elliot Cosgrove, history will remember October 7, 2023, as an inflection point. There will be a story of all that came before and all that came afterward.
“The “post” of our post-October 7 reality continues to evolve. Our Israeli brothers and sisters struggle with how to bring home the hostages, to prosecute war, to secure peace, to maintain the country’s international standing, and to address its internal divisions.
So, too, American Jews face both new questions and old ones with new urgency, questions related to our hyphenated identities, the strings that tie us to Israel and our allegiances in America. We told ourselves that we were different from the Jews of postwar Europe or ancient Egypt or Persia. Now, after October 7, we wonder if we have become but one more case study in the annals of the world’s most ancient hatred.”
I, for one, cannot let this shattered truth end here. All my life, I have struggled to embrace multiple truths, ambiguity, personal perspectives based on our individual abilities, background, affiliations, and self-selective identities. How else can we achieve Klal Yisrael – a community of Israel, and Klal ha-olam – a united world. Just to be clear, “united” here does not mean common values, consensus, and collaboration. For a Jew, it means uniformly aimed at a vision of justice and mercy for all humanity. From a human perspective, it means reminding ourselves each and every day that we share with all humanity the same internal organs, five senses, and soul that was hatched at birth. That’s a solid baseline to build, nurture, and sustain human co-existence and mutuality.
Americans who identify as Jewish or not Jewish and who profess to be Zionists or anti-Zionists are not monolithic. American Jews today are a cacophony of many voices. Can an American Jew emphatically support Israel’s right to self-defense and self-determination and yet be critical of the Israeli government? Can that person be vigilant on Israel’s behalf and empathic on the Palestinian’s behalf? It seems that Americans in general and assuredly American Jewry have emerged as binary, choosing between one and the other only. On the other hand, remember that the hundreds of thousands of Israeli protesters against judicial reform before October 7 became Israel’s most capable defenders following October 7 as well as the impetus for Chamal, translated as War Room—in actuality, the implementation of efficient and effective distribution centers all over Israel to render supplies and support to families of hostages, innocent victims, soldiers, and displaced persons. In this scenario, those who can pivot back and forth from immediate to long term goals, from the exigencies of democracy to human survival, from supporting the defenders to outreach to Arab neighbors and friends, while maintaining a moral compass, demonstrate that we live in a complex, nuanced, and disorderly human society that demands compassion for the whims of human nature, and also the courage to confront any of those whims that can and have caused destruction and harm in any form.
These Jewish High Holydays traditionally focus on our personal sins and acts of atonement. Yet, all of humanity are the focus of these Days of Awe. As human groupings, we have become victims or perpetrators when we are beyond the confines of our homes and sanctuaries on both sides of Antisemitism and anti-Zionism. How do we understand both these terms and how are they related?
You have no doubt all heard rhetorical questions like:
What is the true definition of Antisemitism?
What is the line between a legitimate anti-Zionist protest and a verbal assault on the Jews? Is the latter Antisemitism through words and sentiment, or is it Antisemitism when words devolve into physical violence?
Are Antisemitism and Anti-Israel sentiments inevitably connected because the infinitesimal percentage of Jews on the planet and the dot of the state of Israel on the world map provide an easy and enduring scapegoat for economic, social, and political ills?
Who gets to decide whether a given incident or experience is antisemitic under what conditions?
The stakes of categorizing an incident as antisemitic or not has deep implications beyond any one given event, as it holds the power to define and contour reality for Jews and the broader population alike, ultimately affecting not only if and when we feel safe, but even more critically, ensuring that we are safe.
Rabbi Shira Milgrom cautions us to beware of living in the mindset that thinks the whole world wants the Jews dead. And yet, the war with Hamas has exposed the painful truth lying dormant in too many corners of the world: that tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people are vocalizing against Israel and against Jews.
Editor in chief of the Forward, Jodi Rudoren, writes that the blurry line between anti-Zionism and Antisemitism is particularly hard to see when someone is shouting at you, defacing your car or spitting in your face. She has always seen antisemitism and anti-Zionism as a Venn diagram — each its own thing, but with a decent amount of overlap. That overlap has clearly grown since Oct. 7, if only because there is so much more — and much more visible — anti-Zionism. Huge protests that shut down city streets and public-transit centers last fall, tent encampments that disrupted college campuses this spring, vitriol exploding across social media.
Overlap is one thing. What’s concerning is how Jewish institutions and pro-Israel advocates increasingly conflate the two. The Anti Defamation League, for example, changed its criteria for its tracker of antisemitic incidents to include rallies that feature anti-Zionist chants. Rudoren continues: “I wish, of course, that there was no antisemitism for the ADL to track. But I also wish everyone would remember that there is a critical difference between the rampant stereotyping seen online, and the kind of discrimination our ancestors dealt with. And while I have some concerns about the kind of environment my children might find at college when they go next fall, I am not at all nervous that they might not get in because they celebrate Hanukkah.”
That was Jodi Rudoren ruminating on the confluence of Antisemitism and Anti-Zionism.
Donniel Hartman of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, a mecca for studying about Jewish identity on the deepest level, taught a seminar on the very same topic this past July to a group of North American Rabbis. Hartman does not accept one definition of Antisemitism. Instead, he argues it is challenging to combat any ill, big or small, without a substantive understanding of the social processes of a particular historical moment or era, and the ways in which the stakeholders are experiencing that moment. In short, he sees the source and manifestation of antisemitism change throughout the ages as Jews stood out in their unique beliefs and behaviors, which looked like a brazen challenge to the status quo. For example, when Jewish monotheism emerged in ancient pagan times, especially under Roman rule, Jews were targeted for their adherence to one God. In the Middle Ages, Christians targeted Jews for not converting. And in modern times, Jews are targeted because we wanted the same rights as other nations, enlightenment and a political sovereignty. For Hartman, an Israeli, anti-Zionism is the profile of Antisemitism right now.
As American Jews, we see Antisemitism in the guise of anti-Zionism, but also in the guise of right-wing fanaticism. We see and feel exposed, vulnerable, and in danger when speakers publicly identify with right-wing extremist groups, their ideologies branded onto their skin, displayed on their clothing, performed via their rituals, and explicitly attack those who do not share their beliefs. Extremist ideology, and white supremacy in particular, is about hate, and Jews are among those most commonly assigned blame for the disenfranchisement and sense of threat that these groups feel.
What do we do with what we know and what we feel? How do we move forward in our confusion, fear, and emotional paralysis when verbal vitriol is spewed at us, either at our person or at our people? We continue to stand proud (show my shirt under my robe). We continue to reach out rather than run away. If we sit across the table or stand across the room or across the street of those who would bully or attack us, consider asking them, “what do you want, and why?” In other words, start a conversation. It may only be in a letter, text, or email in the beginning. I know that most of us are in the habit of not asking the questions to which we do not want to hear the answers. That strategy is supposed to keep us in our comfort zone. But today, friends, we have no comfort zone. We have no choice but to choose to activate the Judaism that offers us a truth to live by, and teaches us to open our hearts, and make every attempt to understand and co-exist with our neighbor, even when our neighbor is not neighborly.
The great sage, Hillel, said: (Bamakom she’ein anashim, tishtadel lihiyot ish) “In a place where no one behaves like a human being, you must strive to be human” (Mishnah, Pirkei Avot 2:5). May we heed the words of Hillel, never sinking as low as the Antisemitic speech and behaviors that surround us.
May we find ways together in the year ahead to elevate our resilience and our pride in who we are, no matter what. . . .Am Yisrael Chai!
