Being Jewish and being politically liberal almost go
hand-in-hand. On average, 75% of Jewish voters have gone Democrat since 1928. That’s
higher than any other distinct ethnic grouping. Judge Jonah J. Goldstein
(1886-1967), the 1945 Jewish Republican candidate for Mayor of New York City,
once quipped, “The Jews have three veltn (worlds): di velt (this world), yenne
velt (the next world) and Roosevelt.”
The beginnings of Jewish liberalism can be traced back to a
brainy, humble, and influential Sefardic philosopher by the name of Baruch
Spinoza (1632-1677). Spinoza is sometimes referred to, not inaccurately, as the
father of modern Judaism. He was certainly a champion of freedom of thought,
freedom of worship, and freedom itself, the value above which there could be no
other. He rejected the idea of Jews as the chosen people, or that the Torah was
authored by God, or that the prophets were any more than powerful men with deep
insights, sometimes correct and at other times wrong. So much of what he
believed in, we as liberal Jews, embrace without question. But in 1656, the
Talmud Torah Congregation of Amsterdam excommunicated him, forbidding anyone to
speak with him, associate with him or help him in anyway. He was ostracized by
the Jewish community and in spite of many attempts to lift that ban since, it
never was.
Being influential and being right are not the same. Spinoza
influenced us for better or worse, and within the “worse category” is the idea
that Jews are no better than anyone else. Granted, some among us have used this
doctrine as proof of our superiority—intellectually, socially, etc.,—a shallow
rendering of an otherwise healthy concept. Chosen-ness is not superiority over
others, but is mission among others. We have a mission, dictated some might say
by God, to pursue justice and fill an otherwise cruel world with compassion. Denying
Jews their chosen-ness is mean-spirited. It is akin to telling proud Americans
that their pride is mere arrogance. It’s like telling a child—You’re not
special; you have no unique talents. The only one who benefits from lines like
those are the psychiatrists who will be earning thousands off your offspring’s
future therapy.
Today Jewish liberals pursue a host of causes: advancing
the rights of African-Americans, homosexuals, the LGBT community, women, the
elderly, the disabled, etc. But if you look closely, another afflicted
demographic draws the attention of liberals—Palestinians, who apparently are
choking within the stranglehold of Israel. The intermingling of the Palestinian
issue with the others caught my attention one day when an impromptu Minneapolis
Black Lives Matter demonstration was televised on CNN. Among the signs
prominently displayed at the gathering was “Free Palestine.” Free Palestine? What
did that have to do with the unarmed black man that a police officer had shot
and killed? But such is the new philosophy of the Left: all the oppressed,
wherever they are, whatever the cause, must unite for they fight a common
enemy—the wealthy and the empowered. Wealth and power are virtually always
synonymous with oppressors and despots. The one with authority is the enemy. Of
course the Palestinian cause must be championed. Israel is wealthy and empowered,
ergo, the enemy. The blithe logic of this equation is so off-base, it is
amazing that anyone would fall for it. But Jews do.
Michael Lerner, an American political activist and editor
of Tikkun magazine, has long been an exponent of the Left, and in particular,
the American Jewish Left. Following the death of Elie Wiesel, he wrote a
scandalous piece about Wiesel—a Jewish saint if ever there was one!— in which
he exposed the true sine qua non of the Jewish left:
Indeed,
Wiesel, though receiving universal fame and honors was no prophet nor someone
who really understood the Jewish prophetic tradition. A prophet doesn’t only challenge the
errors of other peoples, s/he challenges the distortions and faults of their
own people or nation. Wiesel
was largely silent about the War in Vietnam, and more importantly, the
oppression of the Palestinian people. (The
bold print is the publication’s, not mine; Tikkun, A Variety of Perspectives on
Elie Wiesel, July 4, 2016)
According to Lerner, the true “prophet” must take on “the
distortions and faults of their own people and nation.” What Lerner is really
saying here is self-promotional. He is identifying himself as the great prophet
of this generation for he, more than anyone else, has earned his reputation by slamming
the Jewish American establishment and Israel in particular. It’s his way of
saying my credentials are impeccable because I can oppose my own people. Lerner
thinks he is being courageous and noble. But Jews who too eagerly scold Israel
are playing goody two shoes to a world that does not want an Israel and does
not like Jews who are too Jewish. If Lerner were truly speaking to power, he’d
try speaking to the powers that want Israel dismantled. But it was the likes of
Lerner whom Robert Frost had in mind when he wrote, “A liberal is a man too
broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.”
If I sound dismayed with the Left it’s because I am. I am
as dismayed with the Left in the teens as I was with the Right in the sixties. The
Israel bashing of the left, it’s refusal to assign responsibility to the
Palestinians for their own plight, their whitewashing of Palestinian violence
as political protest, even blaming the police shootings in America on Israel, is
their contribution to helping maintain a conflict that should have been
resolved decades ago. Sometimes the rich and powerful are just and the poor and
powerless are criminals. That’s not always the case, but the inverse is equally
false. Simplistic formulas do not reflect reality.
Not to worry. I would never ask anyone to abandon their
liberalism or pursuit of justice. That would make no sense. But should someone
tell you that you’re not a true liberal until you demand freedom for Palestine
from the hand of the oppressive Zionists, tell them three things: 1) Palestine will
free itself when its leadership consents to peaceful co-existence with Israel;
2) people who cherish free thinking don’t tell others what to think; and 3) denying
one’s own interests is not proof of objectivity, but the absence of self-esteem,
the effects of generations of anti-Semites and Jewish reformists blathering
about the evils of chosen-ness, as if feeling special about oneself or one’s
people was some moral wrong.
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