Is it possible to convince people that the Jews aren’t so bad?
Is it possible to convince people that the Jews aren’t so bad?
When it comes to the Jewish People and Israel, folks tend to trust their (misguided) feelings over concrete facts.
Please consider supporting our mission to help everyone better understand and become smarter about the Jewish world. A gift of any amount helps keep our platform free and zero-advertising for all.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify.
What was the worst thing that the Jewish People did in your lifetime?
Of course, there are many conspiracy theories: The Jews created COVID, the Jews run the “deep state,” the Jews control the media and Hollywood, and other such speculations.
Don’t get me wrong, I genuinely love a good conspiracy theory, Jewish or not, but when you think about it, it is kind of hard to answer the question:
What was the worst thing that the Jewish People actually, indisputably did in your lifetime?
Even then, the age-old illness of antisemitism runs rampant across the world, the Jewish state of Israel can do no right, and Jews are vilified for being one of the few minority groups not just to survive centuries of persecution in many disparate places on this planet, but to do relatively well for ourselves and our communities in many countries.
Oh, and we somehow managed to successfully reestablish self-sovereignty in our indigenous homeland, after being exiled from it for some 2,000 years.
The Jews have found a way to stick around as hundreds of great civilizations in modern history withered away. We have the largest sample size of persecution and prejudice for any existing ethno-cultural-religious group — spanning multiple continents and centuries.
And yet we are still the world’s villains. Think about how insane that is.
Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the Zionist visionary, put it like this:
“Tell me, my friends, are you not already tired of this charade? Isn’t it high time, in response to all these accusations, rebukes, suspicions, smears, and denunciations — both present and future — to fold our arms over our chests and loudly, clearly, coldly, and calmly put forth the only argument that this public can understand: Why don’t you all go to hell?”
A Jewish activist who goes by the name “Unapologetic Judean” on social media, had this to say:
“You can say a lot of things about the Jews, but you cannot say that we do not try. We tried being nice, we tried being quiet, we tried hiding in basements and closets, we tried going back to where we came from, we tried donating to other groups’ causes, we tried marching in their marches, we’ve been dimming our light for centuries to not trigger other people’s inner darkness (because every time they get insecure, they start blaming us for all their problems).
We. Have. Been. Trying.
However, it does not seem to be working — and that is on us. We should have figured that out a long time ago. It does matter how much any one of us is willing to forego who we are or where we came from. People will always remind us that, ultimately, we are a bunch of Jews who were never welcomed in the first place.”1
Did you hear about the Columbia University professor (Shai Davidai) and his wife (Yardenne Greenspan) who saw their lives upended by — wait for it — their decision to denounce terrorism in Israel and antisemitism in America?
The day after giving an impassioned speech during an anti-terror vigil on Columbia’s campus, every one of Shai’s inboxes was overflowing with messages. One person said that speaking up against organizations who openly support Hamas was “not a good look.”2
“As leftist, liberal Zionists, we have always made a clear distinction between the people of Palestine and the inhumane terror organizations that falsely purport to speak in their name,” the couple wrote. “Our support for a two-state solution has never wavered.”
“This is what we got wrong. We failed to realize that for many in our ‘progressive’ circle, being a liberal Israeli just wasn’t good enough,” they added. “Our friends did not have a problem with our politics, they had a problem with our identity. Our friends were willing to overlook the fact that we were Jewish Israelis, but only so long as we shut up about it.”
Some kind of irreconcilable difference has apparently wedged between pop culture and public opinion on one side, and cold hard contextualized facts on the other. For some people in the crowd, facts are meaningless because history was merely written by “the victors” — you know, oppressive colonialist White men who simultaneously deny and preserve their privilege.
That might be true for some of documented histories, but it seems suspect to use this line of reasoning to completely discredit, say, the seven million pages of the world’s largest encyclopedia (Wikipedia).
Others will contend that the Jews wrote, designed, printed, and bounded every single history book in every library (of which we are obviously the pompous owners), so how can they possibly believe these Jews?
As a result, we Jews — with more years of history than most people on this planet — cannot even have a mature, respectful conversation with so many people who refuse to acknowledge any aspect of the past (left-wing antisemites), or who are convinced that we manufactured our history so as to discredit it (right-wing antisemites).
Then there are the Jew haters (whether in intention or outcome) who think they are so masterfully sophisticated because they label themselves as culturally trendy “anti-Zionists.” They (some implicitly, others explicitly) blame all of Israel’s imperfections on the collective Jewish People, with warped logic that includes:
Zionism (self-determination for the Jewish People) is racist, but self-determination for other groups, such as the Palestinians, is not.
Raping, mutilating, maiming, beheading, and kidnapping are appropriate responses to “decolonization” (even though the Romans, the ancient Greeks, several other groups, and then the Arabs overtook the Land of Israel from the Jews several hundreds of years ago, and therefore Zionism is the world’s most successful decolonization project).
The Jewish People would be acceptable if Israel did not exist, even though the reality is that Jewish People are probably the most safe we have been in centuries precisely because Israel exists.
The State of Israel, founded in 1948, is impressive by many marks, but it is also a profoundly regular country. The title of journalist Donna Rosenthal’s 2008 book perfectly encapsulates this characterization: “The Israelis: Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land.”
As it stands, Israel has two problematic groups of people: those who hold the Jewish state to standards that are expected of no other nation, and those who justify or explain away everything that Israel does, as if it is an impeccably perfect country.
Suffice to say, Israel is not perfect, and we should not act (whether in intention or outcome) like it is. Identity politics with regard to Israel (as well as other topics) does not serve the Jewish state or the Jewish People (as well as other causes we feel passionate about).
As the British writer Douglas Murray said, people should “orient their lives not by a boring political seesaw game that no one cares about except for themselves” but instead “towards the truth.”3
Many folks will argue that there are many truths, not just one, and in my estimation this is unequivocally accurate. Correct me if you feel I am wrong, but it seems to me, then, that each one of us ought to seek out the multitude of truths, and try to piece them together, as opposed to persistently plugging into “like-minded” political factions, media outlets, activists, and influencers who regurgitate what we already know or believe.
Certainly, this requires all of us to be extra-cautious in the social media echo chambers, consume information more widely and deeply, and apply critical thinking throughout the process. It is also beneficial to engage with and truly listen to people on the front lines, from all walks of life, such as Israelis and Palestinians who have been living the world’s most beloved saga every day, for decades.
Take, for example, the issue of “Israeli settlements” or “settler violence.” Never mind that some media outlets describe every city in Israel a “settlement.” Never mind that “Israeli settlers” make up less than 10 percent of the nine million people who live in the Jewish state. And never mind that the vast majority of “Israeli settlers” are 100-percent peaceful, harmless, law-abiding, good-hearted citizens without a single blemish on their criminal records.
Yet still, politicians, bureaucrats, the media, and social media want us to believe that “Israeli settlements” and “settler violence” are almost as pertinent of an issue as Hamas, the genocidal fascist Islamic jihadist terror group whose official charter says:
The Day of Judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews, when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say, “O Muslim, O servant of God, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” Only the Gharkad tree would not do that, because it is one of the trees of the Jews.
Why are we driven to believe that “Israeli settlements” and “settler violence” are so horribly predominant?
There are two reasons, primarily. The first is that many politicians are populists, pandering to Arab, Muslim, “progressive” and other constituents who enjoy the sight of politicians berating the Jews, and they receive these constituents’ votes as such. You know, some people like their representatives to be “tough on crime” while others prefer them to be “tough on Jews.” Makes total sense, right?
The second reason is that many officials from Europe, the U.S. and other countries have been using “pro-Palestinian” NGO sources to back a controversial effort aimed at punishing the Jewish state, under the guise of “settler violence.”
In November of last year, just a month after some 3,000 Palestinians invaded Israel and murdered more than 1,200 people in a few hours’ time, a briefing took place in Washington, D.C. Some who attended hoped that the meeting would focus on the Jewish state’s efforts to defend itself from the greatest blow it had ever sustained in a single day.
Instead of focusing on Hamas or Hezbollah, the lawmakers in attendance, including senior-ranking U.S. senators from both political parties, chose to focus on the risks posed by Israel — “specifically, by roving bands of allegedly violent settlers in the West Bank. Lawmakers pressed the Israeli officials, going so far as to assert that uniformed IDF soldiers were escorting Israeli settlers to attack Palestinians,” wrote Tablet magazine’s editor-at-large, Liel Leibovitz.4
Much of the information that these lawmakers cite comes from a single, impartial source whose words carry weight in Washington, D.C. because Lieutenant General Michael R. Fenzel, a three-star general, currently serves as the U.S. security coordinator to Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC).
“The USSC is well-known for its regular, sometimes daily briefings and reports about ‘extremist settlers,’ which it provides to members of Congress, policy hands, Israel-related advocacy groups, as well as to foreign countries’ forces in Israel,” wrote Leibovitz.
“According to sources in and out of the U.S. government familiar with Fenzel’s reports and advocacy, nearly every claim presented by the USSC as fact seems to have been lifted directly, sometimes verbatim, from the websites of highly partisan pro-Palestinian organizations, including the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and the far-left Israeli NGO B’Tselem, which accuses Israel of apartheid.”
In the past year, 13 Israelis were murdered by Palestinians in Jerusalem and 17 in the West Bank — not including those murdered on October 7th, 2023 — while doing nothing more than driving home or stopping for gas. The number of Palestinian civilians who were killed by Israelis over the same time period is, you guessed it, zero.
This is not to say that “settler violence” does not exist. It does, and it is unacceptable in any form, amount, or frequency. But it is beyond the pale to overemphasize “Israeli settlements” and “settler violence” for socio-political leverage, to act as if the Palestinians do nothing to incite or contribute to problems in the region (and not hold them to the same accountability), and to paint all of Israel with terms like “colonialists” or “colonizers” or “oppressors” because of a few hundred people’s actions.
If we judged every country by their most extremist elements, the entire world would be despicable.
For now, the bottom line is that Israel has made peace with every single Arab country which has desired it. While the Israelis have taken plenty of missteps in their history with the Palestinians, it is nothing short of antisemitic to expect Israel to do more while Palestinians continue to get a free pass for decades of virulent, systemic Jew hate and terrorism aimed at Israel.
(And no, Antony Blinken, asking the Palestinians to simply “revitalize” the deeply kleptocratic, disgustingly antisemitic Palestinian Authority is not going to cut it.)
The repetitive cycle of victim-blaming the Israelis (i.e. the Jews) for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict undoubtedly plays a role in people’s psyche, and seriously contributes to antisemitic thoughts, feelings, and actions.
To add insult to injury, the Biden administration, as well as those in England, France, Australia, South Africa, and other “liberal democracies” have been infiltrated by a sick and twisted group of people who consider Israel the “oppressors,” and thus whose gross incompetence drives even more antisemitism in their countries.
That folks hate other groups of people is nothing new. But although many people know that Jew hatred exists, the way they understand the phenomenon is demonstrably different from the way Jews experience it — and that alone may explain why Jews across the world are understandably fed up by having to answer for a war that Israel did not start, but surely has to do the ugly and dirty work of finishing.
When people speak about antisemitism, they are often referring to hateful acts against Jews. But many Jews that I have spoken to in Europe, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S. told me that, while they have not personally experienced an act of antisemitism since October 7th, they are excessively anxious whenever they leave their homes.
The irony is that, while most Jews will never directly experience antisemitism as an act against them, more and more Jews feel it every day. If Muslims and their friends want to preach that Islamophobia is real and we should be ashamed to be scared of people whose religion appears to inspire the majority of terror attacks across the world, then we ought to also empathize with and be there for Jews who have virtually nothing to do with the Israel-Hamas war, but are bearing a lot of the brunt for it.
There is another story you can tell about antisemitism today, however one that has less to do with what’s happening in Israel and more to do with the peculiarities of tribal identity, which the media and social media freakishly amplify. Liberals, for instance, make a big deal about right-wing antisemitism, and conservatives do the same about left-wing antisemitism.
The reality is that both right-wing antisemitism and left-wing antisemitism are equally significant, worrisome, and dangerous — yet many Jews I know fail to realize or acknowledge that people in their political party are antisemitic (if not in intention, then in outcome). And this decision to overlook antisemitism in one’s own political party, or pretend like it is trivial, is an enormous cause for concern.
Have we reached the peak stage of absurdity where some people are willing to tolerate hatred against themselves and their own people, so long as it comes from those with whom they politically align?
Douglas Murray, who is not Jewish but has been intensively covering the Israel-Hamas war mostly from within the Jewish state, was recently asked how people can “balance” their support for Israel with their political views. His response: “It is a serious moral defect of a person to think that their membership in a political tribe should override anything else.”
Amen.
Unapologetic Judean on Instagram
“What Happens When You Teach at Columbia and Reject Hamas.” Tablet.
J-TV on Instagram
“The Fraudulent Case Against ‘Violent Settlers’.” Tablet.
Probably not. In Gothamist, an NPR online newspaper, there's a black guy who takes every chance he gets to badmouth what he calls the "juus." Here in Substack, there's a white guy whose hatred of Jews is palpable and his language execrable. How Bari Weiss doesn't install at least a few filters so that we're not treated to obscenities is beyond me.
And so from the very liberal who call Jews racist white colonizers to the very reactionary who blame Jews for all things liberal -- civil rights, immigration, and the like -- we have a sizable bunch of antisemites who cannot be convinced they're wrong.
Somehow the country club set who made fun of Jewish noses back in the 1960s has morphed into a diffuse movement of cretins spanning extremist political creeds. I'm not Jewish, but I gotta say, we're in trouble.
Oh yes, and the Jabotinsky quotation is to die for!!