Yotam, I admire the thought and effort that went into this soul-searching piece. It could not have been easy to write, finish, and publish — and judging by several of the responses I’ve read, it’s evident that anti-Semitism is alive and well, among not only members of “the Movement” (of which I am not one) but among readers of other political stripes as well. Sad but not surprising.
It occurred to me as I came to the middle and end of the essay that if you accept Aurora Levins Morales’ premise when you quoted her as follows — “The whole point of anti-Semitism has been to create a vulnerable buffer group that can be bribed with some privileges into managing the exploitation of others, and then, when social pressure builds, be blamed and scapegoated, distracting those at the bottom from the crimes of those at the top” — then perhaps you haven’t fully internalized it. After all, the very people you’ve been associating with in the Movement consider themselves, by and large, “those at the bottom.” Should we be surprised that they would be “distracted” by claims that all the world’s ills are the fault of the Jews?
Personally, though, I find Ms. Morales’ explanation of anti-Semitism a bit too simplistic, and inconsistent with thousands of years of Jewish history. There is some validity in her analysis, particularly dating from the time of the European monarchies, but the term “anti-Semitism” itself is of relatively recent vintage compared to just plain old persecution of Jews for their refusal to worship idols, their refusal to bow down to human kings as though they were God, their refusal to accept Jesus Christ as their Savior, and any number of other religion-based “offenses.” The economic and political manipulations cited by Ms. Morales came later, but beneath it all, even today, what lies at the root of this hatred is our people being “other-fied.” You may want to read “A Convenient Hatred” by Phyllis Goldstein, a lengthy but interesting book on this subject.
Like your Sabba and Savta, my own father was an Auschwitz survivor, and coincidentally he also spent some post-war time in a DP camp in Italy (Bari). He elected to join his relatives in America rather than go alone to Palestine. And just as your grandparents’ experience obviously affected you, his experience affected me deeply. That, and my own experience as as an American watching us bungle multiple wars and foreign ventures during my lifetime, are in many respects the reason I cannot bring myself to join either AIPAC on one hand, or J Street (or an organization like If Not Now) on the other.
I explain it to my friends this way (warning: not for tender ears): “When I was a student during the Vietnam War, anti-war protesters would be verbally and sometimes physically attacked with slogans like ‘America, Love It or Leave It,’ or ‘My Country, Right or Wrong.’ If I didn’t buy that then for my own country, and wouldn’t buy it for our invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, why on earth would I support AIPAC, which essentially brings the same philosophy to Washington on behalf of the current Israeli government? On the other hand, much as I long for a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, I’m not gonna pull down my pants and get circumcised a second time to achieve it.”
Somewhere between those two poles, there is dialogue. Hopefully, you’ve begun a healthy one. But it has to begin with other Jews, like yourself, “coming out” and refusing to indulge “socially acceptable bigotry,” whether it comes from the right or the left.
