Some thoughts on antisemitism

On August 11, far right activists marched by torchlight through Charlottesville, Virginia. Their action, which was explicitly antisemitic, threatened worshipers at the small synagogue there that my brother and his family belonged to until very recently. Far-rightists marching by torchlight past a synagogue has traumatic historical resonances for any Jew. It led to a spate of “why do they hate us?” articles and a reminder from even the most progressive Jews that antisemitism is not a thing of the past.

And yet - I'm in my mid-50s and I can safely say that antisemitism has never played a major role in my life. There have been maybe half-a-dozen incidents of name-calling, but that's pretty much it. I have never lost a job opportunity or an apartment because of it, never been excluded from a social event or public accommodation, never been targeted by police. Even today, when I travel around parts of Kansas with few or no Jews and am explicitly political, there's remarkably little anti-Jewish feeling, and what there is, is oblique. (People's personal hatreds don't matter so much as long as they're too embarrassed to share them publicly and have no power over the lives of those they hate.) I have never feared to wear a kippah in public. Most rightwing political and religious figures in Kansas are Israelphilic, which, whatever it may be, is not traditional Jew-hatred.

In the eyes of America, I'm white. I know this is so because, inter alia, I never get unduly hassled at traffic stops. Most white Jews can “pass” with no effort at all, and many jettison their Jewish identities completely. It hardly needs to be said that this is an option that American blacks don't have.

So in a way, antisemitism is a hatred of imagined, mythical “Jews,” while little affecting most real Jews in our daily lives. The odd torchlit march notwithstanding. 

Yet there is a kind of privileging of antisemitism in the Jewish community which I find uncomfortable. A neo-Nazi shot three people (non-Jews) at Jewish institutions in Overland Park, where I live, and we remember that quite prominently, as an indication of how tenuous our place in America is. Yet that is only one of many incidents of racially, ethnically, or religiously motivated violence in the United States. In the years since, two men of Hindu heritage were shot, and one killed, in Olathe by someone who thought they were Muslims. There was a plot to blow up a community center used by Somali immigrants in Garden City, Kansas. And in Wisconsin, 8 Sikhs were killed in their house of worship by someone who thought they were Muslims. This doesn't even count the everyday acts of violence faced by African Americans, such as the mass murder in the church in Charleston, SC. Muslims in particular face far more daily prejudice and potential violence in these United States than white American Jews do.

This is not to say that antisemitism doesn't exist or that it isn't a problem; it does and it is. But it is to say that it is neither unique, nor worse, than other forms of prejudice. I see these forms of bigotry as interrelated – fruit of the same poisoned tree – which is why I spend so much of time organizing solidarity with the Muslim community.

What bothers me even more are the political purposes to which antisemitism is sometimes (often?) put. The major rationale for the establishment of the state of Israel was that the rest of the world was so poisoned by antisemitism that a refuge was needed, and even today when you ask American Jews why there needs to be a state of Israel they will say, as a refuge, in case things go bad. Antisemitic incidents are then pointed to as evidence of the necessity, not only for the state of Israel, but that it must exist as the Sparta it has become. Because “they” – whoever the “they” is in any particular situation – will always have it in for “us.”

The conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism is therefore political, and purposeful. It is quite common for mainstream Jewish opinion to accuse someone of antisemitism because they are anti-Zionist. (Or, in some cases, simply anti-Occupation.) An illustrative case of this right now is Linda Sarsour, a prominent Muslim-American progressive who, among other things, helped to organize the Women's March in January. She also raised money for the refurbishment of a damaged Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, and tweeted this in the aftermath of Charlottesville: 

So however she feels about Zionism, and however strongly Jews feel about that, she is clearly not an antisemite.

One thing that's worth keeping in mind is that, however dearly American Jews hold their Zionism, however important it is to them, Zionism is actually not intrinsic to the Jewish religion. The way I think of this now is that Judaism is an identity, while Zionism is a politics – a political opinion. They may often go together, they may often seem indistinguishable, but opposing the religion or ethnicity is antisemitism, while opposing the political opinion is not.

To restate: Jews often seem to want to overstate antisemitism, to privilege it, in part because of painful historical memory, and in part because of Israel-related politics. Yet most white Jews in America don't face antisemitism in anywhere near the intensity, regularity, or consequence as American Muslims face Islamophobia or African Americans face racism.

Antisemitism is a thing, and it's an important thing. It is also all-too-often forgotten, as when Charlottesville is seen solely as an incidence of racism, with the explicit antisemitism of the organizers, and the specific threat to the synagogue, left out. Yet it is but one hatred among many, not unique, or worse in cause or kind than, say, racism or Islamophobia. Antisemitism should make we Jews see ourselves, not as uniquely threatened, but as part of a whole, the whole America of immigrants and minorities, of diversity and e pluribus unum. That's what the haters hate. We Jews should also see ourselves as uniquely placed, by virtue of our success and political access, to address not just the hatred that targets us, but all the many forms of hatred and bigotry that America is home to.