by Jonathan S. Tobin
That only a few brave souls have stood up to antisemitic mobs tells us that something is very, very wrong. Are we capable of uniting and fighting back against anti-Zionists?
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| Jewish and pro-Israel supporters attend a vigil at Union Square in New York City to mark the one-year anniversary of the Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel, Oct. 7, 2024. Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images. |
On Yom Kippur, there will, as there is every year, be a lot of collective breast-beating in the American Jewish community for all that we’ve done wrong. And, then, as usual, we generally go back to doing many of the same things as soon as the fast is broken and our stomachs full. That this will happen is human nature and no different from innumerable times in the past when we have made collective promises.
But this past year was different. So is the one that is about to unfold. As such, our willingness simply to move on from our failures is insufficient.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas and Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel, Jews in the United States witnessed an unprecedented surge in antisemitism. Mobs on the streets of major cities, and especially on the campuses of universities, made manifest the new intellectual and cultural orthodoxy in which woke ideology deems Jews and Israelis to be “white” oppressors who must be resisted “by any means necessary,” as goes the popular phrase on the political left.
Students were harassed and shunned if they weren’t willing to renounce their communal affiliations or join those chanting “from the river to the sea” and “globalize the intifada”—in effect, assenting to the idea of the genocide of the Jews of Israel. A generation of students and professors who had come to believe that “microaggressions” in which alleged slights towards minorities should be treated as the moral equivalent of violent crimes took part in activities whose only real purpose was to support those engaged in a campaign of the murder of Jews and the destruction of the one Jewish state on the planet.
Jews show fear and not outrage
Just as tragic is the fact that the reaction from most American Jews was shock and fear, rather than outrage and a willingness to confront those seeking to intimidate them.
While some believed that the new academic year would be different, what we’ve already seen, especially on the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7, was more of the same. The most memorable images from that day were not of ceremonies mourning for those lost in the Palestinian assault on Israeli communities but of lone Jewish students in places like Columbia University trying to stand their ground against mobs who—whether violating rules that would have forbidden their conduct or not—were brazenly chanting support for the murderous goals of Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists. Equally memorable were the images of pro-Hamas mobs assaulting a single man—a leader of a Democratic Party pro-Israel group—for having the temerity to hold up an Israeli flag in the face of their curses, physical harassment and anti-Jewish threats.
Why has none of this provoked mass outrage from American Jewry? Why have there been no comparable pro-Israel marches or organized counter-demonstrations that would attempt to show the antisemites that they—and not the Jews—were the isolated extremist minority?
The answer lies mostly in the fact that many American Jews have been happily swimming in the same cultural sea of hostility towards Zionism, and until recently, never suspected that its venom could drown them. They were sure that the hostility to the canon of Western civilization inherent in the myths of critical race theory and intersectionality had absolutely nothing to do with them. Their willingness to endorse the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, despite its close ties to antisemitism—along with their liberal-leaning and cultural views as well as fealty to the woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)—should have exempted them from any connection to the oppressor class that these toxic theories singled out for opprobrium.
But they were wrong about all of that. As much as many on the Jewish left considered concerns about these issues to be indications of racism or right-wing extremism on the part of those who raised them, it was, of course, the Jews who were the first and easiest targets for the woke left.
It’s true that most Jewish institutions rallied behind Israel in the first weeks after Oct. 7 and then helped organize a mass pro-Israel rally in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 14, 2023. But the facade of unity soon faded.
Why?
In no small measure, the problem was politics.
Support for Israel after the terror attacks became an issue that impacted President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Beset by the Democratic Party’s anti-Israel activist left-wing base, the president soon wavered on his position and spent the next year talking out of both sides of his mouth on the topic. Pressing him or Vice President Kamala Harris (who replaced him on the Democratic ticket in a party establishment coup three months before the election due to Biden’s incapacities) to resist the pro-Hamas and antisemitic activists within his own party and even administration was something many pro-Israel Democrats were reluctant to do. That’s because they viewed defeating his opponent—former President Donald Trump—to be a higher priority, despite the latter’s historic support for the Jewish state.
As much as they resented and feared the way how the mobs on campuses were targeting Jewish students, the notion of helping organize more counter-protests seemed beyond their capabilities and something they were inclined to avoid. The instincts of liberal Jewish Americans were very much in sync with those who urged Jews to “shelter in place” or to avoid confrontations with supporters of Hamas.
As a result, the message sent to the hard left organizing these outrages was that the Jews were as isolated and weak as they imagined. The message from the broader cultural milieu only reinforced the belief on the part of the anti-Zionists that they had the wind at their backs.
The fact that the week of the Oct. 7 anniversary was marked by the celebration of a new book by a literary celebrity calling for Israel’s destruction was no accident.
Celebrated African-American author Ta-Nehisi Coates was feted throughout the mainstream media for writing an ignorant book libeling Israel as a new version of the “Jim Crow” American South based on a 10-day tour, his first trip to the region. The one reporter from a mainstream outlet that challenged him was publicly shamed by his organization for doing so. Meanwhile, other outlets became his shameless collaborators, such as The New York Times, which provided him with new platforms from which to spew his libels against the Jews and his justifications for the atrocities of Oct. 7, and even immoral speculations about whether he would have the personal strength to have joined in the orgy of mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction carried out by the Palestinians.
While Coates’s disturbing speculations are of little importance, the fact that they are trumpeted by the very outlets that many liberal Jews still venerate is deeply troubling.
All of this requires a clear course correction on the part of American Jewish institutions, though it’s likely that such an effort is something that most national legacy groups, like the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee, are unlikely to accomplish.
Stand with other pro-Israel supporters
What’s needed most now is a new commitment to put aside partisanship or any inclination to rerun the same sterile debates about Israel that American Jews have been engaging in for decades. Instead of pretending that the possibility of liberals losing power in Washington will bring on a new reign of fascism or Nazism, the majority of the community must wake up to the reality that the mobs on campuses and in the streets—and more importantly, what they represent in terms of a new woke cultural orthodoxy that rules our educational system, cultural institutions and even the corporate world—is very much a clear and present danger to Jewish life in this country.
In the coming months, they must find the courage to put aside their partisan differences and inclinations, and unite to fight the anti-Zionists and antisemites, even if they thought of these groups as allies in the past. And they must do so in as loud and public a manner as possible. They must also be willing to call upon non-Jewish supporters of Israel, including evangelical Christians who have stood by Israel through this difficult year, even if their political opinions don’t always mesh with their own. They must act to send the message that Jew-haters are the ones who should be shamed and marginalized. And they must stop apologizing for Israel and openly support the Jewish state’s efforts to defend its borders and defeat its enemies.
Jews and Israel aren’t alone. But American Jews are isolating themselves with a communal consensus that sometimes seems to be based on false priorities and sheer cowardice. If they don’t change their ways, they will have more to account for next Yom Kippur.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him @jonathans_tobin.
Source: https://www.jns.org/american-jews-failed-themselves-and-their-children-after-oct-7/
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