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The
American Jewish fairness trap
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Four recent incidents illustrate how American Jewish institutions are
manipulated to subvert support for Israel. Call it the fairness trap.
- Vassar Hillel
announced it would join its counterpart at Swarthmore and reject
Hillel International's guidelines prohibiting anti-Israel speakers
and activities. The "Open Hillel" movement represents
these restrictions as unfair censorship.
- Ramaz High School
in Manhattan, a Modern Orthodox flagship, rescinded an invitation
from a student group to Columbia University professor Rashid
Khalidi, a passionate opponent of Israel. A petition then called for
Khalidi to appear in the name of "academic equitability."
- The Museum of
Jewish Heritage invited, disinvited and the reinvited John Judis to
speak. Judis is the author of a shallow and tendentious new book on
President Harry Truman and the origins of Israel. The museum
director complained about the "ugly specter of succumbing to
pressure and giving in to outside influence."
- Philosopher Judith
Butler canceled her appearance at a Kafka-related event at the
Jewish Museum following an outcry regarding her passionate
anti-Zionism.
In all these cases leading Jewish institutions were willing to open
their facilities and lend their names to anti-Israel voices in the name
of 'fairness,' 'openness' and 'dialogue.' Protests were then condemned as
'censorship" and 'delegitimization.' The need to invite
anti-Zionists into Jewish institutions, when these individuals and their
viewpoints are widely known and available, is simply taken for granted.
Jewish institutions, whatever their purpose or orientation must be open
to even antithetical viewpoints and be seen doing so. That is the trap.
Jewish institutions are damned if they do and damned if they don't.
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Ramaz
High School in Manhattan, a Modern Orthodox flagship, rescinded an
invitation from a student group to Columbia University professor Rashid
Khalidi, a passionate opponent of Israel. (Image source: Wikimedia
Commons/Thomas Good/NLN)
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What is remarkable is not that these manipulations go on but rather
how transparent and shameless they are. They take advantage of what has
become a defining characteristic of the American Jewish community, an
obsession with fairness and balance, an eagerness to listen to and
internalize the narratives of others, to be "other directed,"
guided by external trends and standards. Sometimes this is justified as a
Jewish value, akin to the ever-malleable concept of "tikkun
olam," and sometimes as an American value. And of course there are
kernels of truth to this. But it is dramatically one-sided.
Rarely are there comparable gesture by non-Jewish institutions,
secular or religious. The Friends Seminary school in New York City felt
perfectly comfortable inviting anti-Zionist and antisemite Gilad Atzmon
to present his views. A few polite complaints from a handful of Jewish
students and parents were swept aside. No balance was required. The
Newton Massachusetts school system comfortably went into lockdown when it
was revealed that high school students were being taught Islamist
propaganda about the Middle East. No balance was desired. The K-12
outreach to high schools by Federally funded Title VI Middle East Studies
centers across the country presents doctrinaire perspectives about the
glories of the Arab world and Islam and either ignore or criticize
Israel. No balance is available.
The same trap exists for Jewish Studies programs at American colleges
and universities. They are expected to co-sponsor anti-Zionist speakers
and events. When they do, they give their imprimatur, and as often as not
a well-intentioned scholar of Jewish literature (or worse yet, Hillel
professionals) has to debate a professional Palestinian. When they don't,
they are dismissed as bigoted, and their adversaries represent themselves
as paragons of fairness and inclusion. Middle East Studies programs often
get around this by presenting anti-Zionist Israelis.
These incidents point to an uncomfortable reality of American Jewish
life. There is no institution, no space, no conversation that is immune
from anti-Zionism. At every turn Jews in their communal homes are
required, often by other Jews, to debate Israel. As often as not the
terms of the conversation are harsh and prejudicial; ethnic cleansing,
apartheid, boycott, the one-state solution. This increasingly pertains to
synagogues and communal organizations as much as to educational and
cultural ones.
From the anti-Zionist side one could say that this is a curse brought
about by Zionism and Israel. But the relentless way that anti-Zionism
forces itself into every space and every conversation is indicative of
something else. In some cases antisemitism is at work – in this worldview
of course Jews are ubiquitous and all-powerful. But in others, like
Jewish institutional life, there is obsessiveness that suggests a
pathology. Why the absolute need to debate the place of Jews in the world
everywhere, and to present the evil of Israel, even in Jewish
institutions?
Objectively this is hardly the paramount question of the day. But
there seems to be an inverse relationship at work – the greater the
problems of the world and the Middle East, the greater the focus on the Jews
and Israel. It is as if the more Syrians die, the greater the demand that
Israel be debated (and denigrated), in the interest of
"fairness." Is the emphasis an attempt to expiate inaction
there or elsewhere, a quest for moral purity, or something else?
At the root is the problem of Jewish power. One of the great impulses
to Jewish outer-directed in America has been the real and perceived need
to avoid appearing selfish. The bulk of American Jewish economic power
has long been channeled into philanthropy directed at the non-Jewish
world, primarily universities, hospitals and museums. Whether this came
from a perceived need to be accepted (or tolerated), the result is that
the most visible displays of Jewish power do not benefit Jews. The
periodic waves of revulsion expressed against AIPAC are a rejection of
Jewish political power that defends a particular cause, Israel. Now
whatever power that comes from having private or protected Jewish spaces
must be relinquished in the name of "fairness." It seems likely
that the ultimate goal is Jewish powerless.
Much as only Israel is required to make compromises for peace, ranging
from ceding territory to self-abolition, only American Jews are required
to open their institutions to "competing narratives," and only
they are condemned as bigots if they refuse. With the trap thus sprung,
the future of American Jewish institutions is more fraught than ever.
Alex Joffe is a historian and archaeologist. He is a
Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow of the Middle East Forum.
Related
Topics: Jews and Judaism
| Alexander H. Joffe
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