These have not been two optimal years for Jewish Americans. Hatred of Jews as people who stay separate dates back perhaps to Pharaoh, who addressed his perception of our communal power by implementing a slavery system, one created by our own successful immigrant ancestor Joseph. Most of our history has us as a successful subset within a larger dominant population. We created internal institutions in response to our circumstances. Places of worship, a religious court system for internal disputes, economic wealth, enduring literature, effective educational systems. Selected individuals or families would periodically gain prominence amid the majority culture. But we experienced expulsions and massacres when prevailing cultural values shifted.
While America affords Jewish people our free exercise of religion, recently individual intruders have entered sacred spaces or targeted individuals at worship. My congregation, and most others, have entrance monitors, often in police uniform, limiting access. Doors are heavier, reinforced, and fitted with locks to enhance security. We have had drills during worship, guiding us through a safety procedure for an active assailant. When I travel, I email my intent to attend a synagogue as a visitor. I miss the more open-door era, one where a synagogue welcomed all comers without challenge. Though my personal encounters as a Jewish target have been nil, I know people who were victims, including the doctor killed at Tree of Life.
The American Jewish Committee released the results of its survey on anti-Semitism, seeking opinions of Jews and a broad representative sampling of Americans. I was one of the Jews surveyed. I do not recall my individual responses. There seems to be not only more American anti-Semitism, but it has been repackaged as anti-Zionism. And they know who the Zionists are and how to recognize us. Have I ever personally experienced an incident? No. Or really Not Yet. Do I behave differently? In a minor way. When I keep my tallis bag on the back seat of my car, I place it with the Jewish insignia side face down on the cushion. Anyone passing by can only see a maroon velvet pouch. I still wear my kippah wherever I want. While I conceal my tallis bag to protect my insurance carrier, who would have to pay a vandalism claim, I do not hide my person. If I need to wear my kippah, indeed want to wear my kippah, I do it without reservation. Most of my sports coats have a lapel pin with American and Israeli flags adjacent to each other. I've never been challenged, even at receptions where people in the gathering might start taunting me if I wore the same jacket to a university campus.
I adamantly control my social media platforms, divesting myself of most of them. As I try to be helpful to the participants of the r/Judaism forum, younger people post their own harrowing experiences pretty much daily. They know no life without Facebook and its competitors. Divesting carries a price for many. Or maybe Twitter is the new nicotine, an intervention designed by experts to create and exploit addiction. None of this will predictably ease off. "Doc, they are tormenting me. They have to change." The introduction to many a Dear Therapist query. And any skilled psychologist would advise that you only have the ability to change how you respond. The discussion in the Jewish community has shifted to a blend of personal responses and communal responses to an adversity that, over a short time, has established a measure of predictability.
Our advocates exist, amassing ample resources and expertise. I attended a local seminar, a class for seniors via Zoom at my state university. The guest speaker was the regional director of the Anti-Defamation League. As she used her time to extol her organization's legacy and educational efforts to minimize anti-Semitism, two questions from the electronic audience stayed with me. One viewer asked something to the effect of, "if you are so good at this and have been doing it for a hundred years, why haven't your results been better than what we encounter?" Her agency and another of similar mission had each named new directors. The previous CEOs had been statesmen of long tenure. The new heads came from Democratic Party high profile backgrounds. A Zoom viewer asked her how that shift from diplomacy to political bona fides had changed the agencies. She did not have an answer to either question that would satisfy a room of retired successful professionals and executives. Maybe they aren't so good at it. Maybe our philanthropic representatives have tunnel vision. Maybe they own the approaches that created their comfort zones. That online meeting took place during the Covid pandemic, 2000 when people could no longer meet in a classroom or auditorium, places where we could poke the guy in the next seat to express our skepticism as the speaker displayed her Power Point Slides. In the ensuing five years, we are now back in person, to be harassed as Jews even more mercilessly, both in person and through our electronic global media.
People in that audience and much of the American Jewish public have been through college. We took courses in psychology and sociology, some requiring independent term papers. Many of us have careers where we had to assess what the public might find appealing and what they would reject. We assess efficacy commonly in our business activities, the medicines the doctors among us prescribe, how well our elected officials perform. Failures and rebound are part of our experience, part of Jewish communal resilience that we grasp as our heritage. If pouring massive donor funds into educational programs leaves us worse off, it does not take a lot of saichel to explore other options. But that might mean schecting some very Sacred Cows. One that cannot be removed is the centrality of Israel to our Jewish narrative. It appeared in our daily prayers for all the centuries when we lacked sovereignty. With sovereignty, we made that territory prosperous. Ownership cannot be negotiated away. Conquest has been attempted. We not only have economic prosperity through effort but and effective military as a high priority of that sovereignty.
As Americans, we watch mostly from afar. Like the Israelis, American Jews have built an imposing presence from very little, but mostly through a combination of staying within the bounds of American rules. NY Times editor Bret Stephens recently offered an assessment of the situation. In his highly publicized presentation, he basically advocated writing off the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QMTjVuo9dE The communal parallel to putting our own masks on first in popular American travel culture. We've already done the experiment. Major cities have hospitals with Jewish names that medical students rank as top choices for their residencies. They exist from an era when Jewish doctors of similar talent could not get appointments at the flagship university centers. Our mega law firms carry the names of Jewish founders, as do brokerage firms. People seek out entertainment of Jewish creation. Cities have Jewish museums, or even secular ones with wings named after Jewish donors. His theme, we have the talent, we have the track record of offering opportunities to Jewish people when others begrudged us. More controversial than strengthening our own offerings to our people, was his suggestion to use the resources from ineffective, futile efforts to marginalize anti-Semitism through public education to expand our own communal growth.
Are we ready to write off our most enduring advocacy groups as ineffective? Perhaps not. While anti-Semitism in America, from tacit slurs to deadly shootings, has not disappeared, it was also those agencies that helped bring us entry beyond the niches we created for ourselves into the mainstream. Jews have representation today in those academic centers, international corporations, and private clubs that once impeded our access. Making anti-Semitism disappear through education may be a financial boondoggle. Keeping us mainstream and prosperous, the people that other groups may envy as they promote their own prosperity gospels, still has immense importance. Making Jew hatred less publicly acceptable remains a laudable undertaking. Holocaust programs in public schools, Jewish donor names on cultural magnets, and public rallies have not accomplished this. One track might be to see what efforts have better efficacy. Faculty at several highly respected universities now have departments that study which initiatives have the most impact.
Ultimately, The Times editor set a correct priority. The successes that Jews have had in America came from projects of self-help. Seminaries, summer camps, Jewish schools from pre-school to university, synagogues based on denominational structure, publications of superior quality issued to Jewish audiences, Workmen's Circles at a time when Jewish laborers had vulnerability. Some thrive today, others succeeded so well as to make their continuance obsolete. He suggested day schools as a foundation, which nobody would dispute. But within the structure that we have now, a Big Tent model, not everyone finds a welcome. We have significant attrition, too much of it for adverse experience or other cause. We have to take great pains not to target our own as expendable, or worse, unworthy.
What the editor did not include in his remarks is the untapped public goodwill that already exists. Isolation with internal development offers a lot, but partnerships need a place in the communal agenda. Can we make anti-Semitism crawl back under the rocks? Our global platforms, where any malcontent can post with little adverse consequence and find adherents in the thousands makes that unlikely. Refocus our resources, for sure. Treat everyone as valuable no matter how challenging, a bit more of a project but within possibility. Think fundamentally differently than a one-hundred-year ingrained legacy, big challenge. Possible, high payoff. High priority.
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