 |
| Sunset over the Roaring Fork River in Basalt, Colorado |
I think for myself. Certainly, this also is true for anyone I count as a friend. What is occasionally unclear is whether others expect that we do so.
When I travel, work and live overseas, people I meet often engage
me in conversation about the United States, what goes on here, what I think
about our government or the current administration, and how I feel about
it. I always take it as a complement
that they view me as someone with whom they can chat about issues related to
America and our actions and place in the world.
I am cognizant that the willingness of people around the
world to approach me with their questions and concerns belies an essential
underlying belief: in a republic, the actions of the government do not
necessarily reflect the beliefs or values of the nation or its people. To be
clear, it is possible that my presence overseas, on the ground, trying my best
to order lunch or simply be friendly in a foreign language that I may or may
not speak, and my lack of white tennis
sneakers, an American flag polo shirt, and cartoonish American nose-first voice
may single me out as someone to whom people may safely and respectfully seek
out answers. This is particularly striking in our case as Americans given the
outsized attention our Republic receives around the world and the impact of our
economy, our media, and our political and military strength. There is one other
nation and its people in particular who suffer considerably from the opposite
treatment.
A substantial issue affecting British post-war politics has
been thoroughgoing antisemitism on the political left. This is not new. Digging
deeper there are several factors that make liberal British antisemitism thorny:
a long history of anti-Jewish violence in England, true antisemitism among the
elite of the former British Empire, the nuances of Middle Eastern politics and
the British role in directly creating those conditions, the ease with which the
Jewish people are convenient scapegoats (a term taken directly from the Hebrew
Bible), and the inability of the media and public figures to distinguish
between actions of the Israeli government and the hearts and minds of the
Jewish people and individual Jews worldwide. It’s become common in the UK, here
in America, and around the world for people to sympathize with the legitimate
plight of the Palestinian people on every level by taking overtly antisemitic
positions, sometimes with violent effect. “From the river to the sea” chanted
by crowds is an overt expression of the desire to wipe all Jews from the planet
– it is not an expression of the desire to restrain or reform Israeli
government or military actions towards Palestinians, and it is not an
expression of the Palestinian people’s longing for their own state. Secular
Westerners adopting that chant and or other similar positions in their
meme-filled ready-for-social-media simplifications is a victory for Hamas and
their similarly a-moral, hyper-violent, unapologetically extremist brethren.
Period.
I do not apologize for Israeli actions. I do believe that
after millennia of hoping, enduring, surviving, and suffering at the hands of
the enemies of the Jewish people, the Jewish state is a miracle. With that as
historical context, I expect better of the it - I expect the State of Israel to
be humanist in a way that belies our experiences as the historical other. Nonetheless,
I do indict the people who fail to give the Israeli nation and the Jewish
people the same respect we Americans and the Brits receive from others around
the world as individuals. I am confident that American tourists in Vietnam do
not have to suffer the indignity of being shouted-at about the My Lai massacre
while traveling there, and I do not qualify my commemoration of Veterans’ Day
with its memory. I do not take the time during Christmas or Easter to tell my
Christian friends that their holiday observance should be tempered because of
the litany of horrors inflicted on my people throughout the last two thousand
years in the name of Jesus or with the complicity of institutionalized
Christianity.
Yom Hashoah in April is the Israeli national remembrance day
for the victims of the Holocaust (the “Shoah” in Hebrew). This is distinct from
International Holocaust Remembrance Day which is in January and was established
by the United Nations General Assembly to coincide with the anniversary of the
liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp
in 1945. On both occasions this year, a popular meme that generated notable
amounts of attention on social media espoused the position that any Holocaust
remembrance should be qualified because of Israeli government actions in Gaza.
A few people with whom I am friendly and who are prone to meme-i-fying their
political views shared this idea widely. When I politely suggested that they
are conflating Israeli government actions and conduct with the Jewish people,
our religion, our culture, and our history, they responded angrily. When I told
them that their anger reflected antisemitism rather than anti-Israel sentiments
and that doing so was a victory for Hamas, they were still more angered. Why
these people do not afford the same latitude and respect to the difference
between Jews around the world and Israeli state actions that they expect to
receive as American or British people is between them and their consciences. It
pains me to say so, but these people who so easily apply this most ancient and
durable double standard are no longer my friends. I expect better of my friends
in the same way I expect better of the State of Israel. For every complex
question there is a simple answer that is wrong, and sometimes that simple
answer becomes hate or violence.
One of my favorite places to be on Planet Earth is the table
of an exceptionally dear friend in New Zealand who is an ex-pat American and is
Muslim – everyone should be so lucky. Although on paper we are as different as
you can imagine, she is family to me, true mishpocha. We have dissected and
made progress on a long list of vexing issues over the years, usually while
preparing, eating, or recovering from some shockingly amazing meals. Politics,
capitalism, gardening, gastronomy, skiing, fart jokes, you name it, nothing is
off the table and all of it with the constant underpinning of love for each
other and for humankind, and of our shared desire for peace. Our friendship and
our common bonds are never, ever reduced by the actions of others or of any current
or historical government claiming to act on our behalf. This is what a friend is to me and going
forward I shall endeavor to be more careful and that particular. With love in
my heart. Inshallah; shalom aleichem.
