Kudos
- 2007
We
respect Brith Sholom congregants whose work and talent have earned
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Brith
Sholom Graduates - 2007
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Katie Hausman |
Emily Ain |
Samantha Shaffer |
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Jonah Bergstein |
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Noah Mayer |
Yasher
Koakh Yasher
Koakh to Norm
Kaufmann for his excellent presentation on, “America,
Israel, and the New Anti-Semitism” at Shabbat services on June
2. Norm raised a number of important points that engaged many
members of the congregation in discussions following services.
Norm also cited references that you may want to put
on your summer reading list. Norm,
thank you for keeping us informed!
Bunnie Piltch, Family Life Educator
Norm Kaufmann
June 2007
America, Israel,
and the New Anti-Semitism
I
want to mention two things that Mrs. Piltch said. First, I did
attend the AIPAC
policy
conference this year, which was a solid experience. I think the
most notably “cool” thing I had the chance to do was
that myself and two other students from the Lehigh Valley—I
was invited to this conference as part of a delegation of student
government presidents from various colleges—met with Congressman
Charlie Dent to discuss and officially agree to bolstering American
sanctions on Iran by agreeing to vote in favor of the Iran Counter-Proliferation
Act of 2007. Congressman Dent is a good friend to the state of
Israel who strongly believes in protecting it from countries who
make threats to “wipe Israel off the map.” I think
that if there is one thing on which Congress in general does agree
right now, it’s that this Iran issue is very serious and
that the world community needs to take it more seriously. When
it comes down to it, Americans care about the fate of democracies,
and America is not willing to turn Israel into the canary down
the mine like Europe is. Too many countries have taken the position
that the former French Prime Minister, Jacque Chirac, infamously
took. “Let the Iranians do what they want to do. We don’t
have to worry about Iran getting nukes! The minute they drop one
on Tel-Aviv we can wipe Iran off the map. We can go out to dinner
in Paris and we’ll all be just fine.” I don’t
think that Americans could live with that kind of thinking or with
that kind of outcome.
The
second thing that Mrs. Piltch mentioned, that I have never been
to Israel, is true, and I do think that
this makes me particularly unqualified to speak about Israel.
At a time when people tell and spread lies in order to vilify
Israel,
it becomes so important to go and visit the country, and actually
see what things are really like over there. The one thing that
I can say for sure about the AIPAC experience is that it really
kicked me into gear with regards to Zionism. For too long I think
I’ve been a passive and superficial supporter of Israel,
like most Jewish students in college. To most college students,
the idea of a “chosen people” is ridiculous, it’s
a lighthearted joke. “Why should Jews get their own country?” So
seeing how little I knew in comparison to the experts, and how
little other very-involved-students knew, really provoked me into
the issue. The trouble, though, is that the week I came back from
AIPAC it was the week after the final registration deadline for
Taglit Birthright. So, right now I find myself saying what we all
say at the end of Passover, “next year in Israel.”
For
the recent high school graduates, it might be helpful to hear
some comments on what you’re likely to see with regards to the
Israel issue when you’re in school these next four years.
I think first, though, I should mention that the title of this
discussion is “America, Israel, and the New Anti-Semitism.” And
I came to this title because the term “The New Anti-Semitism” is
a very hot issue amongst Jewish intellectuals right now. A lot
of ink has been spilled on this term in the last few years. Very
recently, in fact, Alvin Rosenfeld from Indiana University has
written his paper, “Progressive Jewish thought and the New
Anti-Semitism.” What Rosenfeld’s essay says about the “New
Anti-Semitism” is that it’s a new form of the old disease
of Anti-Semitism. What makes it new, however, is that it is prevalent
in leftist and academic circles, and it comes in many cases from
Jews themselves.
College
can be a difficult place for Jews and Zionism. It can be an environment
very hostile to Israel. On one
hand, you have places like UCLA or Stanford, where they have
anti-Israel marches with people chanting “Zionism is racism!” which
is definitely the worst of it. On the calmer side, you’ve
got this humanistic mild resentment to the idea of a Jewish State.
That’s the kind of sentiment, “if only you guys would
give up your stubborn old identity, and your particularist allegiances
to Israel, then we wouldn’t have all these problems in the
Middle East!” I had the opportunity to study in DC one semester,
at Georgetown, and there were plenty of folks in my program that
believe that Jews and their Israeli allegiances have been dictating
American foreign policy since September 11. You have respected
and accomplished political scientists , John Mersheimer from U
Chicago and Stephen Walt from Harvard, both reputable realist international
relations experts, publishing a book called The Israel Lobby, where
they write that the affinity for a Jewish state is mere ideology,
and a dangerous expression of Jewish power. Noam Chomsky and Norman
Finkelstein, who are famous leftist academics are most notable
for their complaints about the exaggeration of the Holocaust, perpetuated
for “greedy Jewish sympathy” from the world. For Jewish
students coming into the university it can be very difficult. It’s
a big problem because many of these voices come from the left,
and by and large, so do college students.
To
understand what exactly is new about “New Anti-Semitism” and where it comes
from I think you have to consider how Jew hatred has changed in
the last 3 centuries or so. Now “Jew hatred,” this
kind of classic dislike of Jews, originally comes from the right.
There’s the old sort of Christian traditionalism which says
that “Jews are a threat to traditional society and they don’t
have a place here.” There’s the old Roman and Christian
form of it: “Why don’t they just worship with us once
a year in the pantheon? Why are they making so much trouble?” The
clearest example of this old conservative form would probably be
in both Czarist and early communist Russia where Jews were used
as political scapegoats and put in institutionalized pogroms. This
is the time in Russia when The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
is publicized, which was the pamphlet published numerous times
by the Russian, French, and German governments during the early
20th century. There are many different versions of Protocols, but
the general outline is that there is a secret council that are
the heads of a Jewish world conspiracy whose declared aim is to
overthrow all states; and to alter them into a Jewish world empire.
To achieve these ends, Jews will use all kinds of secret organizations,
and their main tools are democracy, liberalism, and socialism.
This conspiracy is still suspected widely today. In the form of
the 20th century, those pulling the strings had been rabbis and
bankers; and the leading figures in the newer form of the conspiracy
are professors of philosophy and neoconservative Zionists. This
myth is revived time and time again, and we see it most currently
espoused by the Mersheimers and the Walts of academia.
Then
I think it is fair to call Anti-Semitism a specific kind of Jew
hatred.
Anti-Semitism is the Jew hatred of the radical right
and the likes of Hitler, and refers to the right-wing movement
with which we’re
most familiar. It was started by men like Houston Stewart Chamberlain
and Richard Wagner. This Anti-Semitism is pseudo-scientific, racist,
nationalistic, and had its heyday between 1845 and 1945. The very
essence of Anti-Semitism, Anti-Semitism properly named, is Jew
hatred. And we all know this form from 20th century history. This
was the voice that called Jews “rootless cosmopolitans,” and
said that Jews are destructive parasites who make no positive contribution
to our society. This was the Anti-Semitism that revived the blood
libel, and asserted things like, “there’s nothing left
of Judaism except usury.”
So
now we come to the idea of the “New
Anti-Semitism,” which, as I’ve stated, comes from the
left. It resembles previous forms of Anti-Semitism in its suspicions,
but it sprouts out of the notion of what we call liberalism. Now,
to clarify, with regards to American liberalism, there is absolutely
no connection whatsoever with American liberalism and Anti-Semitism.
Traditional American liberalism is, “you go to your church
and I’ll go to mine, then we’ll all have an interfaith
breakfast in the morning and we’ll get along fine.” There
is no connection there with anti-Semitism whatsoever. But there
is a European form of liberalism that wants everyone to be secular.
It’s the liberalism of Europeans who saw Judaism as a narrow,
selfish and tribal religion. It’s the kind of liberalism
that says, “if you’re truly going to be liberal, then
you can’t pursue “Jewish nationhood,” you’ve
got to be human beings, and join mankind.” And this gives
rise to a movement that has, in fact, a lot to do with what’s
being called “the New Anti-Semitism.” So it’s
no longer liberalism, then, let’s call it “progressivism.” Progressivism
seeks out the humanization and secularization of all countries
and peoples. It seeks out a perfect moment, or an end of history,
in which mankind becomes one global society at peace with itself.
Because of this, progressivism today, the progressivism of the
left, the progressivism in universities, tends to be anti-Jewish,
and it’s a sentiment among both Jews and non-Jews. It’s
not necessarily Anti-Semitic, because it’s not nationalistic
and it’s not racist. It’s something completely different
that is critical of the idea of a Jewish state. It’s an enlightened
and secularized response. And that seems to be where the problem
is coming from today. After World War II, the world saw that Hitler
represented the exact opposite of this ideology.
This
all changed back around the 1967 war. Up until that time, the
left in America
had been pretty much pro-Israel. And after the 1967
war, Israel began to look like the big guy on the block, the
strong guy. And
there was a conference in Chicago at which the Black
Panthers and the New Left decided that they were not going to
be pro-Israel
anymore. “Instead, they sought to be in favor of third-world
solidarity, and decided that Palestinians represent the third-world.
So gradually the left has become more and more, not anti-Semitic
or anti-Jewish, but stridently anti-Israel. This is the weird phenomenon
that we deal with today. The problems the Jews have with non-Jews
have taken many forms: The Romans, the Christians, the enlightenment
form, the fascist form, but this is a new one. And it’s one
that we are peculiarly unable to deal with because we share the
most fundamental premises. “We should care about everyone,
not just Jews.” And “things that may be justified because
of war we should feel guilty about them even if they are necessary.” That’s
very powerful. The left that is the “peace now” movement
is extraordinarily powerful.
So
progressivism aims at universality and humanity rather than the
particular or a “chosen people” and
it has made this alliance with 3rd world solidarity. And that never
admits that it is anti-Jewish. So how do you actually know when
something is anti-Jewish or anti-Israel? When it starts acting
and picking Israel as the only place to denounce, you know that
something’s rotten in the state of Denmark. You can’t
get a resolution against Darfur, but you get a thousand about the
terrible crimes that Israel is committing. When Israel is picked
out, when it’s the only country that is denounced, and done
so simply through lies, you can begin to ask, “gee, is this
really about Israel?” And so, you can see that you can never
call it out on the carpet. The response to all these observations
is always: “What! You’re gonna equate anti-Semitism
with criticism of Israel? Terrible! Some of my best friends are
Jews!” It’s built to deal with that accusation.
So
what can a student do when facing something that
smacks of anti-Semitism, but is rhetorically capable of overcoming
this reality? For those
of you who are moving on to the university, or
those of us who deal with these kinds of arguments, the solution
is one that requires
a lot of us if we really care about Israel. Very
recently, a professor of mine from school, pointed out to me
something about this whole
issue. And it’s actually a point that forces me to end up
retracting the whole title of this discussion. It’s that
you can’t use the word anti-Semitism, or New anti-Semitism
at all. As I’ve said, the current complaints about Israel
are built to deal with accusations of Anti-Semitism. It doesn’t
help at all to worry about motives. What matters is what people
are saying. As a Jew who cares about Israel you can’t care
about motives. I want to know what someone is saying about Israel,
I want to know when a lie is being told about Israel and to refute
it. It’s important to leave the question of “are they
anti-Semites?” out of it and just argue the facts. When someone
makes a statement or accusation that isn’t true, let’s
correct it. This is where it’s really important for me, and
anyone else who cares about Zionism to read about the issues and
of course to visit Israel. In order to be able to refute the lies
that get slung: that it’s a pariah, it’s an apartheid
state, visiting the land, and seeing it for yourself is probably
the only way to fight the vilification of Israel.
So
allow me to end here with three questions that have guided me
and encouraged
my investigation of the Israel issue:
1)
Firstly, “what is
Judaism?” In studying the history of Zionism in the last
few months, I have found that Judaism is not just a religion. It
is, in fact, a nation. Jews have always behaved like a nation.
Even before the word “nation” they have been behaving
like a nation. 3000 years of transnational persecution will turn
you into one, and lead you in need of a homeland before you’re
dissolved or exterminated. Jews have been the homeless nation in
the history of the world, and now in the 20th century, we have
finally begun to defend ourselves.
2)
Secondly, “what is
anti-Semitism?” It is a hatred that will always adapt to
the prevailing climate. There’s the Christian hatred, the
ethnic hatred, the pseudo-science of the Nazis, the enlightenment
hatred of particularism, and from that for there is now the Liberal
form of it that is in denial of itself. This new form is the first
to be incapable of admitting it to itself. New anti-Semitism is
can’t stand to be called anti-Semitic because it’s
supposed to be tolerant of everyone.
3)
And lastly, “What
is Israel?” Israel is a liberal democratic country, much
like the United States. It now treats its minorities better and
more progressively than any of the countries that have waged war
on it. There is an inclination of the left to support the 3rd world.
It was the only replacement for the proletariat after the romantic
image of socialism deteriorated. Now, in actuality, the latest
form of the 3rd world is not progressive at all. They are simply
the means by which you can oppose “the evil capitalist West.” “It’s
the fault of America, it’s the fault of Israel that these
countries are mad.” This does not appear like it’s
about the real world. This is about people who want to be and want
to know themselves to be just. And there is a theatre play going
on in their heads about “punishment of hubris,” and “punishment
of arrogance,” and who is the instrument of that punishment?
People about whom they don’t agree with a single thing, instead
of a liberal democracy that must defend itself in order to exist.
It’s the psychodrama of the left who are guilt-stricken on
our behalf for a culture and people with whom they have nothing
in common.
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