Trump, "Antisemitism," and the Jews

Are Jews responsible for what Trump is doing in our name? Yes.

This latest column (about the Trump administration using Jewish safety as an excuse to attack higher education and abduct foreign-born critics of Israel) was tricky to write, both presenting the dire facts straightforwardly and getting the tone right. I don’t particularly like the jeremiad style of political writing, nor the self-lacerating call to action. (“We can do better! We must do better!”) In the writing of leftist Jews in particular — and here I’m implicating myself — there is a certain idiom of anguished moral beseeching, usually alluding to our sorry history of suffering, which comes off as too precious and, frankly, narcissistic on the page.

Recognition of a shared experience with oppression can be a starting point for solidarity. But too often, I find, if there is not first an acknowledgement of who has power and what sort, the result is not solidarity but solipsism, a play for moral absolution rather than implication or risk-taking. People who have been oppressed are not natural experts on the oppression experienced by others. Far from it. Harm begets harm; victims become victimizers every day. The assumption otherwise has created a great deal of suffering and license in the world. (The history of the state of Israel is, alas, case in point.)

The problem is, in the case of Trump’s putative war on antisemitism, progressive Jews want simultaneously to insist “It’s a ruse; this is not really about us!” and “This will eventually make us less safe too!” In other words, we are not implicated in the gruesome actions undertaken for our sake AND, actually, when you think about it, we’re the real victims. This is an evasion. And, again, vanity. We are implicated, and we are not the victims. Insofar as we allow the administration to undertake its crackdown on our behalf — without speaking out vociferously against it — we are worse than bystanders; we are collaborators.

In the column, I write:

The plain fact is that our discourse about antisemitism is broken, divorced from reality, at once pedantic and illogical, a vehicle for smallness, moral narcissism, and confusion. Or else, perhaps, it is working exactly as designed. The concept of antisemitism in American political life now exists to demonize critics of Israel; it is what it does. And what it is doing is fueling authoritarianism.

I am sometimes astonished to observe how often people’s political arguments and ideologies are built on the need to avoid shame. It astonishes me because I am constantly ashamed. When something bad happens, my first assumption is usually: this is my fault. What have I done wrong? What could I have done differently? This is a form of narcissism too, of course. Neurotic, obviously, as well. But as a consequence, I have learned to dwell in shame without immediately looking for a way to abdicate responsibility, recriminate, or act out.

What if it is your fault? What if you owe others more than you can possibly fathom? What if our responsibility to act morally is without limit — and when we make apologies for ourselves and others, as we inevitably will, we should do so with shame, because the alternative, to err shamelessly, is necessarily a step toward cheapening, changing, or betraying our principles?

In a recent argument (on X.com) about these matters, someone accused me of making “special demands” on the Jews — and thereby engaging in antisemitism. Why should the Jews be any more moral than anyone else? Why should we shoulder the blame? My response: special moral burdens on the Jews?? Heaven forbid. Imagine if someone made a whole religion based on that idea!

Chag Sameach!