I’ll admit to a recent mistake. It was on social media, specifically, X, the platform formerly known as Twitter that was purchased by Elon Musk for $44 billion in 2022. (The tech gazillionaire soon allowed the previously banned accounts of Donald Trump and a cohort of neo-Nazis back on the site.)
Editorial
Anyway, I foolishly engaged with a Republican Party operative on the topic of Israel. This person of a right-wing political persuasion held forth on various calumnies, in his view, being leveled at Israel and suggested that the Jewish state might as well live up to its villainous reputation and act out in some barbaric way.
In the way of a corrective, I posted a link to B’Tselem, the Israeli group that monitors human rights in the Palestinian territories. The Republican guy responded that B’Tselem was a traitorous outfit that “should be kicked out of the country.” And he added, “They’re a 5th column there just like progressive Jews are here.”
The colloquy quickly escalated, or plunged into the depths, and the Republican suggested that I was not really Jewish — just someone who believes in “social justice.”
To which I commented that this was a low and slimy rhetorical tactic — and un-Jewish. I provided a link to a JTA story about the notorious “Jewish letter,” which was circulated in our community by the Sen. Rudy Boschwitz reelection campaign, in 1990.
To refresh your memory, the JTA postmortem election story explained that a “letter sent by supporters of Rudy Boschwitz questioning the Jewishness of challenger Paul Wellstone may have contributed to the incumbent senator’s political downfall.
“Boschwitz, a Minnesota Republican, was the only incumbent senator in the country to lose his seat in the Nov. 6 elections. His Democratic successor is a scrappy Carleton College professor, known for his offbeat campaign commercials and devotion to progressive causes.
“The Nov. 1 letter, which made headlines in the state’s major newspapers and news broadcasts, criticized Wellstone, the son of a Russian Jew, for raising his children as non-Jews and having ‘no connection whatever with the Jewish community or communal life.’
“The letter, signed by 72 prominent Minnesota Jews, rocked the local Jewish community.”
I’m not running for political office, so a charge that I’m not Jewish only lives and dies on the X platform. However, my folks, of blessed memory, likely would be surprised to learn of my un-Jewishness. They gave me a Hebrew name, which became my nom de plume. And I recall being elected by my Talmud Torah of St. Paul class to deliver a speech at our graduation ceremony. Before a large crowd in Temple of Aaron Synagogue’s Stein Hall, I declared that Israel was like the biblical David bringing down Goliath, in the form of the combined hostile Arab states. You can look it up.
The back and forth on X/Twitter does strike at current attempts to close the flaps on the Jewish big tent in the Diaspora. The conflict, as usual, is over Israel: specifically, what kind of criticism is kosher and what’s treif, so to speak. The controversy has sharpened as the brutal Israel-Hamas conflict drags on and Palestinian casualties in Gaza pile up. Surveys find that Americans generally support a cease-fire; that sentiment is shared by a faction of Israelis that are furious with their government over the hostages languishing in captivity in Gaza.
In the Diaspora, it seems that there’s a generational conflict over Zionism. Many young Jews are opposed to the policies of the right-wing Netanyahu government — some characterize their viewpoint as “anti-Zionist.”
A lucid essay on this situation by David Klion was published in late January on the website of The New York Review of Books. Klion wrote that one sign “of this generational divide is the increased visibility of young, left-wing, anti-Zionist American Jews—a cohort to which I and many of my friends belong. For months our most prominent representatives have been two activist groups calling for a ceasefire in Gaza: IfNotNow (INN) and Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP). Broadly speaking, these groups reject Israel as the central focus of American Jewish life, and do so explicitly as Jews. They draw on language, symbolism, and values rooted in the rich and at times suppressed history of left-wing Jewish radicalism, which peaked before the State of Israel was founded and Zionism became central to diasporic Jewish identity.”
Klion mentions that these young Jewish activists have staged disruptive protests in places like Liberty Island and Grand Central Station and have blocked roads and bridges.
The Jewish activists “have kept demands for a ceasefire in the headlines and on the minds of the public,” Klion wrote. “Momentum is slowly growing. As of this writing, sixty-five members of Congress, all of them Democrats, have called for a ceasefire — a position a majority of Americans support. Earlier this month the progressive Zionist group Americans for Peace Now called for ‘an immediate cessation of hostilities,’ and … J Street, the leading ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ organization, finally demanded ‘a negotiated stop to the fighting to bring freedom to the hostages and relief to the people of Gaza.’ INN and JVP can plausibly claim some credit for moving the needle.”
A segment of the organized Jewish community and mainstream pundits have declared that the young Jewish activists have removed themselves from the Jewish community. Of course, there’s no pope in Judaism, so one can wonder what authority these individuals and groups draw on to read people out of the Jewish community.
In his article, “The American Jewish Left in Exile,” Klion allowed, “Nearly all mainstream American Jewish institutions remain powerfully tied to Israel, from the well-funded lobbying groups that represent Jewish interests in the political arena to the major organized Jewish religious denominations, including the Orthodox Union, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, and the Union for Reform Judaism.
“The young, non-Zionist Jewish left has been able to protest the collective punishment of Gaza at the cost of often painful alienation from the American Jewish mainstream those organizations represent. Aside from a few relatively small magazines, activist groups and scattered individual anti-Zionist congregations, there seem to be few institutions where we can congregate as Jews, and few occasions for us to speak and to be counted as fully welcome members of the Jewish community. In the eyes of most elected officials, meanwhile, that community is the sum of its major denominations and donor-funded institutions, virtually none of which reflect the feelings of the Jewish left toward Israel. For all the progress anti-Zionist Jewish activists have made, they have yet to win over the sitting Democratic president or the majority of Democrats in Congress, let alone any Republicans.”
I’ll admit to not fully understanding the radical left-wing critique that ends up as “anti-Zionism.” I have taken some verbal abuse over the years by publishing editorials critical of Israel, including its many bombardments of Gaza going back to 2008. I’ve also written about myriad depredations by the U.S. government — particularly in reporting for American Indian press outlets — but I don’t consider my dissident views to be “anti-American.”
The recent warfare triggered by the horrific Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack inside Israel has been of a different nature and has sharpened simmering disputes among Jews in the Diaspora. The Gaza Strip has been pulverized by the Israel Defense Forces. In addition to more than 20,000 dead, mainly civilians, as per the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, relief groups declare that there is a humanitarian catastrophe, with a lack of the basics of survival, including water, food and medical care. It’s a hellish scene.
As I write this, there are press reports about attempts to negotiate a two-month cease-fire and gain the release of some 130 Israelis hostages that would be exchanged for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. The pause also would allow for shipments of humanitarian aid to reach civilians suffering in the coastal enclave.
Apart from anti-Zionism, I have been puzzled by recent remarks made by Pres. Joe Biden, who declared during an Oct. 11, 2023, gathering with Jewish leaders in Washington: “I truly believe, were there no Israel, no Jew in the world would be ultimately safe. It’s the only ultimate guarantee. The only ultimate guarantee. The only ultimate guarantee.”
Biden repeated this sentiment at a Hanuka reception in the East Room of the White House, Dec. 11, 2023: “Folks, were there no Israel, there wouldn’t be a Jew in the world who was safe — were there no Israel.”
Is this really the case? Jews in the U.S. are only safe because the modern State of Israel exists? Doesn’t the U.S. government provide security for all of its citizens? Why is the safety of Jews conditioned on the existence of the Jewish homeland, which is 6,190 miles away from Minnesota as the Delta airliner flies?
I know that Jews in Minnesota and the U.S. have an emotional tie to Israel. I guess that most Jews here consider themselves to be Zionists. And they are disturbed by the upsurge in pro-Palestinian demonstrations since last Oct. 7, along with the recent resolution passed by the Minneapolis City Council that called for a cease-fire in Gaza and a cut-off of U.S. military aid to Israel.
I’ll mention that the majority of Jews in the Twin Cities have never been to Israel. (I had never visited Israel until I began working at the Jewish World, in 1995, and was offered a place on a 1996 tourism junket. Since that tour I’ve visited Israel six times but haven’t been back since 2013.) The 2019 Twin Cities Jewish Community Study, which was commissioned by the local Jewish Federations, found that 48 percent of Jewish adults in the Twin Cities had “been to Israel at least once.” Around a quarter of “age-eligible adults” have visited Israel through the Birthright program, including my three sons. So, the other 52 percent of Jews in the Twin Cities know about Israel from what they see in TV news reports, books and movies.
***
I attended the JCRC’s Jan. 25 community forum on antisemitism at Temple Israel. And I was somewhat surprised by the sparse crowd, perhaps 300 people in the sanctuary. Given the emotionally fraught situation with Israel at war, I thought the place might be packed. (Editor’s note: Following publication of the February issue, several people notified the Jewish World that they had watched the event via the livestream.)
Rabbi Marcia Zimmerman, the shul’s senior rabbi, welcomed the audience members and said, “We’re going to hear a lot about security today.” And she noted that in the discourse over Israel of late, “words matter, words can be hurtful.”
Adding to the rabbi’s preface, JCRC Executive Director Steve Hunegs said, “Our community has made a major investment in security.” And he noted that the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas was “sharply critical” of the anti-Israel resolution passed by the Minneapolis City Council just a few hours earlier.
Next up on the bima was Andy Luger, who is in his second stint as U.S. attorney for Minnesota. He was previously put in place by Pres. Barack Obama. During his previous tenure, when ISIS was in the news, Luger said, “I spoke out against Islamophobia.” And he criticized pro-Palestinian protests that have focused on Jewish businesses, including a demonstration that targeted a Jewish-owned restaurant in Philadelphia. “Antisemitism is a growth industry,” Luger commented, “and business is booming.”
Luger, who has been active in the local Jewish community over the years, acknowledged that Jews have varied views about Israel and Palestine. “On this, the threat of antisemitism, the Jewish community must be united.”
Rob Allen, the JCRC’s director of community security, showed Powerpoint slides and discussed the upsurge in antisemitic activities. Since Jan. 1, 2023, there have been more than 700 bomb threats directed at Jewish organizations across the country. More than half of those have occurred since Dec. 16, 2023.
Joy Hess, supervising special agent for the local FBI office, explained how threats go to her agency and on to local police agencies. She delineated the different kinds of speech that fall either under the rubric of constitutionally protected free speech or a hate crime.
“Nonthreatening hate conduct is protected by the First Amendment,” Hess said. Federal laws define what constitutes a “serious communication of a threat to commit violence against a person or a group.”
As the discussion of political speech and hateful speech rolled on, I noted my skepticism about the seriousness of the current crisis. Hess mentioned that the “vast majority” of violent threats are “from actors abroad.” And another batch of threats are emanating from teenage knuckleheads sitting at computer keyboards.
Perhaps, the sky is not falling.
Over my 28 years at the Jewish World, there has been a constant drumbeat of antisemitic threats, vandalism and some ghastly carnage, in particular, the 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue. But if one takes a long view of U.S. history, we are living in a kind of golden age of American Judaism.
Contrast the situation of Jews in this country with what transpired in the 1930s, when Hitler’s acolytes organized and gathered in large numbers. I recommend watching the PBS documentary Nazi Town, USA. There actually was a “Nazi town” on Long Island, N.Y., with streets named after Hitler, Göring and other top officials of the Third Reich. In 1939, a crowd of 20,000 pro-Nazis packed Madison Square Garden for the “Pro-American Rally,” which was addressed by the wannabe U.S. führer Fritz Kuhn.
There’s the old joke about the Jewish telegram: START WORRYING. DETAILS TO FOLLOW.
I think it’s wise to keep our eyes and ears open, but it’s not the time to panic. It’s also unwise to cast out Jews from the community over disagreements about Israel. We need both interfaith and “intrafaith” dialogue.
Mordecai Specktor / editor [at] ajwnews [dot] com
(American Jewish World, February 2024)
