By Michael B. Snyder
Physical and psychological antisemitic violence has again become the daily news narrative, with the Diaspora responding with a clear desire to be accepted, liked, or at the very least to distinguish their Judaism from Zionism. Rather than making this mistake again, it is time to adopt a different strategy, based on the fact that American Judaism has fallen into a pattern of accepting or even joining with organizations that either reject Jews outright (i.e., the Women’s March, Black Lives Matter, BDS, Students for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace, etc.), otherwise distance themselves from being Jewish, religiously and culturally, and reject Israel’s right to self-defense. As antisemitism has again come out of the closet, it has never been clearer that regardless of how Jews view themselves and attempt to be part of the American melting pot, they are used and discarded, depending upon the always-changing political landscape.
Truth be told, Jewish suffering continues, as reflected in American psychoanalytic psychiatrist
Elvin Semrad’s blunt assessment that, “The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” Just two examples of the countless difficult truths: America’s beloved President Franklin Roosevelt famously kept the borders closed and allowed his bombers to ignore the railroad tracks delivering Auschwitz victims, yet 90% of Jews gave him their vote despite the acknowledgment that the Final Solution had been successfully implemented. Just this year, within days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day (invented by the proudly antisemitic United Nations) commemorating the “liberation” of Auschwitz after the death of close to one million Jews, America released $29 billion to the Iranian regime vowing to destroy Israel. Examples abound as America perpetrates against the same Jews that believe they will be accepted and welcomed as equals if only they clear the unattainable, undefined next hurdle. The collective with closed eyes and impeccable placement thereby ignores the Torah creed not to place a stumbling block before the blind.
Bessel Van der Kolk, a second-generation survivor, and a psychiatrist who is considered the “father of PTSD” wrote extensively of generational Shoah responses. He formulated the accepted credo that victims either seek to join with the perpetrators or continue to reengineer scenarios in order to remain close to trauma. If one considers the incessant antisemitic drumbeat a form of chronic, wear-‘em-down victimization, it is not surprising that American Jews have done both. Further, there is evidence that intergenerational trauma passes generationally through genetic changes to DNA.
Regardless, Jewish history is steeped in brave leaders literally and figuratively splitting the waters while forging freedom. While some believe another historical flood has commenced, revisiting hope and taking responsibility to break the cycle must begin with bitter realities that cause American Jews to turn those whose words can lead change.
Emerging from President Woodrow Wilson’s fear presents an appropriate starting point for healing: Jews, he declared, were “forced to frame excuses for their birth” in an ingrained morality that failed to recognize the possibility of self-determination. Freedom’s path opens with Jewish values becoming public and steadfast, with the boldness that others’ judgments can neither define nor victimize. After thousands of years of continued reliance on others’ messaging and definitions that continue to place the so-called victims of antisemitism in retreat, Hannah Arendt’s chilling words must act as a creed: “If one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. Not as a German or a world citizen, or an upholder of human rights.” The inevitable “dual loyalties” response to this sentiment must be appropriately ignored, replaced by the realization that “crypto-Judaism” – an ancient term describing the practice of Jews who hid their Judaism to survive – be placed under the Never Again heading. To paraphrase Israel’s Foreign Minister Abba Eban regarding the 1967 war, the choice is to live or perish; to defend existence or to forfeit it for all time. Paraphrasing Eban, Jews are too large to be dominated, too self-reliant to be confined by tutelage, and too ferociously resistant to be thwarted. As David Ben Gurion said in his declaration of independence: it “... is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate... .”
Rather than accepting or aligning with those that flaunt antisemitism as a platform while operating generally free from real consequence, the harsh truth of American Jewry’s collective failure must be accepted in order to stop victimization. Rather than supporting antisemitism through joining with other minority groups who fight for their own civil rights while denying those of the Jews, Theodor Herzl’s impassioned plea for alliance should be the siren, his lament that without unity Jews achieve nothing. As he said when the Jews of Russia walked out of the Sixth Zionist Congress, “These people have a rope around their necks, and still refuse!” The Jewish collective today must answer the question of why such a failed chasing of those who would harm us is still pursued. Craving self-determination, not the forever-elusive acceptance, creates space for, rather than retreats from, Jews’ historical need, if not their clear desire.
When Israel was transformed from David into Goliath overnight by overcoming the existential attacks in 1967, Eban foresaw the future in the past when he said that Israel “had committed the dark sin of survival.” Debate of legitimacy will end by overcoming the American Jewish form of PTSD when French philosopher and historian Ernest Renan’s definition is met: “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle. To have a common glory in the past, a common will in the present. To have done great things together, to want to do them again -- these are the conditions for the existence of a nation.” As long as diaspora Jews frame excuses for their birth, seek approval from others to be who they are, and hold on to the essence of crypto-Judaism, Jews will not be safe or be one... and victimhood will be self-perpetuated, again.
Michael B. Snyder is a publishing contributor at The MirYam Institute, he is an attorney with over 35 years of experience in the areas of children’s rights, human rights and Non-Government Organizations in the United States, Israel and Africa. Read full bio here.