The era of Social Justice Jews is over.
After spending decades of time and billions of dollars, October 7th showed us how much this strategy was an utter disaster.
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This is a guest essay written by Z.E. Silver, who writes the newsletter, “Gam V’Gam.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
“If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I? And if not now, when?” — Hillel the Elder, Pirkei Avot 1:14
But if I am only for my own self, what am I?
A single question of three that make up one verse. A single verse 18 eighteen that make up the first of six chapters known in Hebrew as Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers). A single compilation that is one of 63 volumes known as the Mishnah, a single collection of several that make up the entirety of Jewish tradition and law.
Despite how large and comprehensive our texts are, liberal Jews decided to make this singular question the bedrock of their connection and the foundation of their identity. This single question has become the escape hatch which millions of Jews use when asked what Jewish values they hold so dear in their heart. This one question is the reason why so many Western Jewish communities are where they are today.
In the early 20th century, Jews endured much of the same discrimination that Black people experienced. In the middle of the last century, Jews overcame being victims of the most evil atrocity ever performed on a distinct group of people. As we got closer to the new millennium, institutional and cultural antisemitism was pervasive, but also discouraged and considered uncouth.
Since the 1990s, Jews have rarely experienced any genuine antisemitism worth writing home to our ancestors about. For those who were not observant, the lack of any serious Jew hatred meant a defining aspect of the American Jewish identity withered away.
Western Jews decided that, if they were no longer oppressed, then they would fight for others. Culture-war issues of the 1990s such as gay rights, feminism, and racial equality grew in prominence and Jewish institutions took up the mantle as everyone’s protectors — building the road for which Social Justice Jews would strut down.
Defending against accusations of obfuscating Judaism, Social Justice Jews pulled this short verse from Ethics of the Fathers as though they were pulling Excalibur from the stone. Social Justice Jews did not demand of themselves to adhere to any other aspect of Jewish law or tradition because they were living by “Jewish values.”
With Hillel the Elder’s quote as their sword, and “tikkun olam” (Hebrew for fixing the world) as their shield, Social Justice Jews went to war with traditional Judaism. Every Jewish institution was another battlefield for which they fought to conquer: campus and community organizations, summer camps, synagogues, youth groups, day schools, and everything in between.
Swinging their magic sword, they instilled guilt and shame into those who believed in only focusing on the Jewish community. Shielding themselves with “tikkun olam,” they repelled counterattacks by traditional Judaism that they were not following G-d’s laws.
Social Justice Jews rebuked rabbis who didn’t include undocumented immigrants into their Seder1 and disinvited speakers who had the audacity of being registered to a conservative political party. For example, college students of the Social Justice Jews sect demanded their Hillel to publish a statement rejecting Trump’s “Muslim ban” in 2016, but felt strongly that “Islamophobia” be included in any responses to antisemitism.
Older folks are not free of blame either. Millennials didn’t build the Holocaust museums and Gen Z didn’t create the Holocaust curriculum taught in schools. Since the first Holocaust museum was established, we have spent the last 60-plus years educating everyone on the worst thing to happen to anyone in history to ensure it would happen … never again.
Along with every other institution, Social Justice Jews fought to universalize the Holocaust experience that can only be described as a “Mortal Kombat” fatality move. They simultaneously guilted us with this single question asked by Hillel the Elder, while also playing on our fears that society would eventually resent us if we particularized our plight.
After spending decades of time and billions of dollars, October 7th showed us how much this strategy was an utter disaster.
U.S. President Ronald Reagan (1981 to 1989) once delivered weapons to the Taliban to solidify America’s victory in the Cold War, only for the Taliban to turn our own guns against us. Like Gipper, we too delivered weapons to “allies” — only for them to turn on us with the weapons we supplied.
More than October 7th, October 8th revealed the shallowness of Social Justice Jews, and many adherents have shed its dogma to seek the depth in traditional Judaism. Former “progressives” left the presidential bubble blank or even voted for conservative candidates like Donald Trump as a form of protest against their former priests.
Congregants who remain to rebuild the strength of their church are adamant there is no flaw in their doctrine despite all evidence to the contrary. To them, liberal parties’ refusal to defend Jewish safety is due to political practicality and not because they no longer care. On the other hand, conservative parties’ actions are not only negated by their lack of sincerity, but are more harmful because people will resent the Jews for the mortal sin of protecting ourselves.
All institutions who face internal contradictions eventually fall, and Social Justice Jews are no different. After people dedicated to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) disqualified Jews as diverse, treated Jews unfairly relative to other minorities, and physically excluded them from these spaces, it was clear this manufactured form of our tradition was not long for this world.
Like all institutions that decay over time, those who have nothing but the institution will allow themselves to decompose with it. Jews who have based their entire identity on this minuscule fraction of our tradition will cling on until the institution finally crumbles.
When it does, many of these same Jews will choose to disintegrate with it, shedding any remaining connection to their heritage since it no longer “aligns” with their values.
Many of these Jews, however, will detach themselves to avoid deteriorating and will seek to reconnect with our tradition. They will appear withered and worn from working tremendously hard to save the institution for which they have spent years fighting for.
So, we have a choice: We can slap their hand away as they reach out, or we can grab it and welcome them with a warm hug. The former is a natural and understandable response. The latter is more difficult. I know what choice I will make: “…and receive all men with a pleasant countenance.”2
A traditional Passover meal and ceremony that recounts the story of the Israelites' exodus from slavery in Egypt
Pirkei Avot 1:15
Social Justice Jews continue a tradition that's existed for centuries among Western Diaspora Jews (akin to the maskilim, Reform and socialist Jews etc), which has as its fundamental belief the idea that if Jews can only just prove to their enemies that they are MORE moral, MORE selfless, MORE devoted to Justice, and that their religion isn't foreign or threatening, but actually even MORE Christian than Christianity, then they can lose their stigma and somehow end the hate always aimed in their direction—that this strategy has only ever failed only seems to make it stronger and more unkillable.
The notion that Jews can only assert their worth by claiming that the ultimate goal of their faith and traditions is a desire to "heal the world", a preposterous sentimental form of utopianism that's only ever backfired, just goes to show you how deeply embedded Jew hate is, and how deeply internalized it is by Western Jews.
Jews don't need to argue for their right to exist freely or for their right to have their own homeland (which is only painted as some sort of ethnocentric hate crime when Jews do it), and have nothing to apologize for.
Social Justice Jews are willing to sell out their own people for a bit of safety and some assuaging of personal anxiety, but they will get neither.
An analysis that cuts to the chase. Thank you for explaining why so many well intentioned Jews appear to support everyone except their Jewish family. Hopefully they will be open to joining us again.