From an American Jew

Hey y’all, I’m back from a 4 year hiatus. I noticed some traffic to this old blog recently, so I thought I’d try and revive things. Usually, I like to be silly, but this time I figured I’d break format and try my hand at sincerity. I’ve carefully chosen a light, non-controversial topic (lol).

Let’s talk about Israel, shall we?

First, some background for you fine people. I grew up as an “only” in central Florida. The only Jew in my class at school. The only house on the block without Christmas lights. The only one who came back from winter break without a bunch of new clothes. 

I don’t say this to complain, although don’t tempt me. I do *really* enjoy complaining. In Judaism we’ve elevated complaining to an art form. The Yiddish word “kvetch” means to complain, and we use it, often.

I do say all of this to add context that I was taught by society from a young age to assimilate. Don’t advertise your Judaism. Toe the line. Just try and fit in while you shirk yet another invitation to join a friend at church, bible study, or youth group. Ignore the “friend” who says they’ll pray for you and warns you that Jesus is only going to take the good Christians back to heaven on judgment day (subtext – convert already, you silly Jew!)

I know we all have our own experiences and understanding of what organized religion does to your worldview, but in Judaism there’s a strong emphasis on education as opposed to indoctrination. We’re taught to ask questions, consider all sides, and value things like family, food, truth, giving back, and comedy.

While we do learn about Israel as young children, I’m not sure the actual origins of the conflict carries through to adulthood. At least it didn’t for me.

That brings us to present day. I started noticing a rise in Palestinian sympathizers online a couple years back, and it really came to a head this summer when I started noticing a lot of anti-Israel sentiment online. This led me to want to learn more about Israel, so I read a couple of books — Israel by Noa Tishby, and Start-Up Nation by Dan Senor and Saul Singer — and my eyes were opened, for good.

I also read Jew’s Don’t Count by David Baddiel to help me with a question I’ve long struggled with — why the hell are we always excluded from conversations about race and ethnicity? Where’s our box on forms that ask you to identify your race? Why do liberals not see standing up against anti-semitism as a worthy liberal cause? How could an educated liberal I know tell me I’m “super white” even though I’m a Jew? How did supporting Israel suddenly seem like a right-wing thing? Why do the young, hip, justice-seeking liberals stay noticeably silent on any atrocity committed by Hamas — a terrorist organization?

I noticed that even in entertainment the subject of antisemitism is often downplayed or skirted altogether. I watched You People a few months back and was confused by the omission of antisemitism as an actual plot point. Somehow the well meaning but racially clueless comments by my hero, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, made the final cut, but antisemitism was shrugged off as “well you people seem to be doing ok now.”

All of this comes with a heavy price. While Jews learn about Israel, the Jewish holidays, the teachings of the Torah etc, we also learn about our long, long history of oppression dating all the way back to when we were slaves in ancient Egypt. We learn about the Holocaust from a young age. We see the footage, we go to the museums, and we go to Israel on birthright to get a full funnel view of how the land — which has been a homeland for Jews for centuries — welcomed Jews after the Holocaust by granting citizenship on arrival. No other country in the world does that, but I digress.

When you learn about the Holocaust, you learn what propaganda looks like. You see the misinformation, the organized effort to paint Jews as money grubbing wrongdoers who were sub-human and therefore not worthy of anyone’s protection. There were board games called “Chase the Jews out of Germany” that were sold to young kids. There were comic strips and movies and tropes, many of which carry on to this day. I know someone whose best friend threw a coin to the bottom of the swimming pool in college and made a joke about how she should get it because “Jews love money.” This didn’t just appear out of thin air. This was one of many sentiments spread by Nazis to justify the Holocaust. It happened gradually. The Holocaust was a culmination of a decades long effort to dehumanize Jews.

I say all this to say — I’d really like to get the justice Democrats to take up antisemitism as a cause and recognize when they’ve bought into a ton of propaganda. And if they won’t, I’m completely fine with a coalition of Israeli supporters who include (gasp) non-Democrats. Don’t we all want to live in a less divided world anyway? If someone refuses to actually understand the history of Jews’ claim to Israel and wants to just blindly follow the talking points of some overly simplistic politicians, then I don’t want them anyway. Most people have sense. Italy was a part of the Axis powers and even they flew the Israeli flag to show their support. I’m going to choose to focus on that and stop reading the comments section altogether while we see how this progresses.

Am Yisrael Chai.