A friend of mine recently shared a blog post titled “Why you might have lost all your Jewish friends this week and didn’t even know it.” This piece has recently been shared by many liberal Jewish people in the wake of the horrific Oct 7th attacks by Hamas. It’s not presented as a logical, fact driven analysis of the situation. It’s not a history lesson on the region. It is explicitly an emotional plea. It's a call for non-Jews to have empathy and express true support for their Jewish friends and family during an undoubtedly traumatic time. My friend shared it because it articulated a profound sense of sadness and fear, not just from these recent events but over a lifetime and beyond as collective generation trauma weighs heavy on his soul.
hey, i want to read what people have already said but first respond to the piece because there is so much to hold in mind. i agree, this piece should be out in the world, it is the response the world needs to the article that instigated it. one thing that makes what's happening now so unnerving and complicated is that a lot of responses (from all kinds of people) seem partially based in unconscious feelings and reactions. and the unconscious of people who've been targets of collective brutality can contain blind spots. that's one thing you're describing here, the blind spot of feeling, my people were targeted for extermination, my people are being attacked again, we are victims and need and deserve unqualified support. you're saying yes to all of that except the unqualified. without qualifying the complexity of victimhood (how often, not always, it leads to a kind of reciprocal dehumanization. in the case of israel, the oppressor was the german government (and a lot of the german people, like here with the widespread support in the south for the apartheid of race), and the israeli government reciprocated against the palestinians whom they displaced, who were actually already THEIR victims. thus making enemies of them for the unjustified attack (not to mention the years of dehumanization since). in not seeing this displacement of punishment, it's hard for people supporting israel to see the legitimate basis for palestinians' bitter and violent feelings toward israel, and understand the widespread support for them as they are being mowed down by the many thousands.. and without seeing this legitimate basis, and feeling entitled to kill as many thousands as it takes, israel does, as you say, multiply its enemies by that many thousands, and everyone who feels in common with them. this kind of non-reciprocal retaliation is something that's pretty absent in the history of black people in this country, which is itself a story that should be told (if you haven't already), and studied.
It has been said the word "Freedom" just means that you are Free to be Dumb
Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want, but it is the ability to tell yourself that you are wrong and need to change. It is the ability to restrict yourself from causing harm to others. So who among us is really Free?
one last thing, some years ago the rwandan staff of an international NGO in Rwanda consulted me about how they could create some kind of memorial that would acknowledge that all rwandans were harmed by the genocide, though in radically different ways and to different degrees. because the annual national memorialization process established by the (tutsi dominated) government affected hutu with a deep shame and wish to hide until it was over. despite there having been hundreds of thousands of hutu who protected tutsi, or were forced to betray to save their own or their families's lives, as there were germans. we began to discuss, but nothing could work. no matter what was suggested, the reaction was an immediate, no, that wouldn't be acceptable. when you've been targeted it can be the hardest of human feats to step back enough to humanize the "other".
"does the antisemitism that can be found within leftist driven Palestinian liberation movements justify the genocidal war crimes that Israel is currently committing in Gaza?"
Outside of the ultra-orthodox, and the fanatics of Likud, I'm hard pressed to find anyone arguing this.
"when it comes to Black people, who I’m attempting to speak for here, our opposition to Israeli occupation and apartheid is rooted in our own marginalization and oppression"
Apartheid is morally reprehensible. Israel's policy of imprisoning Palestinians in cantons is morally reprehensible.
As a left-leaning Jew, and like most Jews living in Israel (those who vote against Likud, for example), I encounter few in my demographic who support the apartheid policies of Israel towards the Palestinians. Truth be told, none I know and converse with support the apartheid policies of Israel towards the Palestinians. None.
What I believe caught many of us off-guard (I'll presume that Josh Gilman would concur with this), is how many political 'fellow travelers' on a host of issues, so quickly, completely and vociferously mounted mass campaigns, many of which became host to anti-Semitic language and tropes familiar to any Jewish person (q.v., https://www.ajc.org/news/7-ways-some-anti-israel-protests-have-spread-antisemitism), and which have been recycled for centuries. This happened within days of civilians brutalized, murdered and abducted by a group that in no way aligns with the worldview of the bulk of those willing to mobilize mass protests. Hamas, and their patrons, quite literally imprison, torture and murder anyone who voices a view like that of the pro-Palestinian left. This is brute reality.
Those of us on the Jewish left also cannot help but observe the silence of these same protestors about years of oppression in say, Iran, or the genocidal actions in Syria, which have been ongoing for *years*, with a conspicuous absence of a reaction from those now eager to take to the streets.
It's difficult not to wonder about makes this moment so different, for so many.
It's why so many of us on the Jewish left are feeling betrayed and abandoned by those we assumed were friends and allies, with whom we aligned and worked with for *decades* in every civil rights struggle undertaken in the country, only to pushed to the curb while families are still waiting to hear word of those abducted, and Israelis are still dying *this week* from wounds suffered October 7th.
I'd say there is a lot of 'just not getting it' going around these days, and Jews on the left once again find ourselves asking 'why is it always different when it involves us?'.
You should submit this to a publication or find a way to disseminate this essay to a wider audience. It's too good to keep behind a paywall
hey, i want to read what people have already said but first respond to the piece because there is so much to hold in mind. i agree, this piece should be out in the world, it is the response the world needs to the article that instigated it. one thing that makes what's happening now so unnerving and complicated is that a lot of responses (from all kinds of people) seem partially based in unconscious feelings and reactions. and the unconscious of people who've been targets of collective brutality can contain blind spots. that's one thing you're describing here, the blind spot of feeling, my people were targeted for extermination, my people are being attacked again, we are victims and need and deserve unqualified support. you're saying yes to all of that except the unqualified. without qualifying the complexity of victimhood (how often, not always, it leads to a kind of reciprocal dehumanization. in the case of israel, the oppressor was the german government (and a lot of the german people, like here with the widespread support in the south for the apartheid of race), and the israeli government reciprocated against the palestinians whom they displaced, who were actually already THEIR victims. thus making enemies of them for the unjustified attack (not to mention the years of dehumanization since). in not seeing this displacement of punishment, it's hard for people supporting israel to see the legitimate basis for palestinians' bitter and violent feelings toward israel, and understand the widespread support for them as they are being mowed down by the many thousands.. and without seeing this legitimate basis, and feeling entitled to kill as many thousands as it takes, israel does, as you say, multiply its enemies by that many thousands, and everyone who feels in common with them. this kind of non-reciprocal retaliation is something that's pretty absent in the history of black people in this country, which is itself a story that should be told (if you haven't already), and studied.
https://youtu.be/Edaz7CUAZg8?si=ADrNlaaZ9mg5wZN_
It has been said the word "Freedom" just means that you are Free to be Dumb
Freedom is not the ability to do anything you want, but it is the ability to tell yourself that you are wrong and need to change. It is the ability to restrict yourself from causing harm to others. So who among us is really Free?
one last thing, some years ago the rwandan staff of an international NGO in Rwanda consulted me about how they could create some kind of memorial that would acknowledge that all rwandans were harmed by the genocide, though in radically different ways and to different degrees. because the annual national memorialization process established by the (tutsi dominated) government affected hutu with a deep shame and wish to hide until it was over. despite there having been hundreds of thousands of hutu who protected tutsi, or were forced to betray to save their own or their families's lives, as there were germans. we began to discuss, but nothing could work. no matter what was suggested, the reaction was an immediate, no, that wouldn't be acceptable. when you've been targeted it can be the hardest of human feats to step back enough to humanize the "other".
"does the antisemitism that can be found within leftist driven Palestinian liberation movements justify the genocidal war crimes that Israel is currently committing in Gaza?"
Outside of the ultra-orthodox, and the fanatics of Likud, I'm hard pressed to find anyone arguing this.
"when it comes to Black people, who I’m attempting to speak for here, our opposition to Israeli occupation and apartheid is rooted in our own marginalization and oppression"
Apartheid is morally reprehensible. Israel's policy of imprisoning Palestinians in cantons is morally reprehensible.
As a left-leaning Jew, and like most Jews living in Israel (those who vote against Likud, for example), I encounter few in my demographic who support the apartheid policies of Israel towards the Palestinians. Truth be told, none I know and converse with support the apartheid policies of Israel towards the Palestinians. None.
What I believe caught many of us off-guard (I'll presume that Josh Gilman would concur with this), is how many political 'fellow travelers' on a host of issues, so quickly, completely and vociferously mounted mass campaigns, many of which became host to anti-Semitic language and tropes familiar to any Jewish person (q.v., https://www.ajc.org/news/7-ways-some-anti-israel-protests-have-spread-antisemitism), and which have been recycled for centuries. This happened within days of civilians brutalized, murdered and abducted by a group that in no way aligns with the worldview of the bulk of those willing to mobilize mass protests. Hamas, and their patrons, quite literally imprison, torture and murder anyone who voices a view like that of the pro-Palestinian left. This is brute reality.
Those of us on the Jewish left also cannot help but observe the silence of these same protestors about years of oppression in say, Iran, or the genocidal actions in Syria, which have been ongoing for *years*, with a conspicuous absence of a reaction from those now eager to take to the streets.
It's difficult not to wonder about makes this moment so different, for so many.
It's why so many of us on the Jewish left are feeling betrayed and abandoned by those we assumed were friends and allies, with whom we aligned and worked with for *decades* in every civil rights struggle undertaken in the country, only to pushed to the curb while families are still waiting to hear word of those abducted, and Israelis are still dying *this week* from wounds suffered October 7th.
I'd say there is a lot of 'just not getting it' going around these days, and Jews on the left once again find ourselves asking 'why is it always different when it involves us?'.