By Ethan Ard
first published March 1998
A few months ago, I wrote an article on the Jiang protests. The thrust of my argument was that our attitude towards China was colored at least as much by race and ideology as by human rights. Moreover, I argued, there’s little reason to believe that our toothless outrage would positively affect the behavior of China’s government: "It strikes me as obvious that leaders as a rule will stick to what they feel is morally acceptable, or in their national or personal interests, not necessarily what the world at large condones. Ask Kissinger. Ask Netanyahu. Ask Hitler."
Upon opening my in-box over winter vacation, I was greeted with a letter to the editor. It began: "I must take strong exception to Ethan Ard’s Jew-baiting comments in his editorial on China… By placing these three individuals together, Ard equates Messrs. Kissinger and Netanyahu with the Fueher himself. In other words, in Ard’s opinion, Jews are no different from their persecutors, Nazis. What sickening, asinine Jew-baiting!"
I was a bit taken aback by the whole thing: my piece was on China, not Israel or Judaism or even Kissinger, so his Ethan-baiting e-mail left me unsure of where to begin. I tried to explain that I didn’t even know Kissinger was a Jew, and that his only resemblance to Hitler and Netanyahu was, in my opinion, a lack of concern for world opinion. It was because these three individuals differed so sharply, from friend to foe to Nobel laureate, that I mentioned them alongside each other. This individual seemed to think that by mentioning Netanyahu and Kissinger alongside Hitler, I was insinuating similarities between them, beyond the one that I explicitly mentioned. If so, he was in error: naturally, I dislike the former two far less, and for far different reasons, than Hitler. Had I wished to say, in the words of my angry friend, "inherently ignorant things like Jews = Nazis," I would have. Moreover, I wrote, I am Jewish—this ought to put the debate to rest, I thought.
I was badly mistaken. Evidently, he had known I was Jewish. As if the name Ethan hadn’t given it away, he had discussed my article with a friend, a Jew in Good Standing. She concurred that I must have been Jewish, for "No one else has the baitzim to make anti-Semitic comments." It suddenly came to me, like a sickness, that this man was calling me a self-loathing Jew.
A What?
I have no idea when the term was coined, but I first came across it in a New York Times book review, in which Noam Chomsky was called, famously, America’s most prominent self-loathing Jew. The term "self-loathing Jew" is typically applied to those, like Chomsky and myself, who for some reason or another don’t ally themselves with the State of Israel, any more than most Moslems ally themselves with Iran. The idea is that if a critic of Israel is, ipso facto, an anti-Semite, then a Jewish critic of Israel must be an anti-Semitic Jew. While there is a certain amount of paranoia at work here, this actually makes some sense, as long as we don’t think too hard. For what could be more emblematic of Judaism than Israel? Isn’t hostility toward Israel (or uneasiness, which is of course masked hostility) a sure sign of hostility toward Jews? I’ve fallen prey to this relaxed logic myself: just a week ago, I saw an Arabic woman speaking ill of Israel at the Democracy Teach-Ins, and I immediately—albeit fleetingly—grew suspicious of her intentions.
This is, I think, little more tenable than the proposition that African Americans who don’t support affirmative action, or women who don’t call themselves feminists, are by necessity uncomfortable with their identities. It may be true of some, but not of all. It’s certainly not true of me—I spent many a weekend with the Jewish youth group NFTY (National Federation of Temple Youth), and many a summer at camp Kutz. I’m every bit a Jew. But I don’t want to focus on the "non-Zionists are anti-Semites" argument, basically because I view it as constitutionally absurd. Such a notion is dumb, it is dangerous, and it is the brainchild of a smug, insulated individual, ignorant of what real anti-Semitism is and whom it has killed. Anti-Semitism is, and ever will be, a force to be reckoned with. What good, exactly, does it do to trivialize it by including non-Zionists in the mix?
It would be salutary to explain here just what I mean by non-Zionist, for the term is vague almost to the point of meaningless. I have seen Zionist used in two different senses, first to refer to someone who believes that Israel should be a Jewish state (not just a state most of whose residents are Jewish, and where Jews can feel safe), and second, to someone who supports the hawkish side of Israel’s foreign policy wing (e.g. was probably in favor of the Lebanon invasion). Some believe only the former, and still call themselves Zionists. I, for one, believe neither—although I agree with the former in principle—and thus cannot with good conscience call myself a Zionist.
Is a Jew a Zionist?
But even if we don’t believe that a non-Zionist is necessarily an anti-Semite (although some no doubt are), mightn’t we say that someone who doesn’t fully "support" Israel is less Jewish than some one who does? The Torah does, after all, instruct us that the people Israel must remain faithful to the land Israel.
One problem with this religious argument in favor of Zionism is that not all Jews follow the Torah that closely. I know a homosexual Rabbi, I know female Jews who have never visited a mikvah, and I know Jews who don’t keep Shabbat. And although I have never met such a blaspheme, I have even heard mention of Jews who regularly flaunt the laws of Kashrut (keeping Kosher)!
What I like most about Judaism is not its scriptural requirements, but that it allows Jews to cut Judaism to their own measure. Lacking a formal Church, or even an organized clergy, people can choose which aspects of Judaism they hold to, and which to deny, without fear of censure. One can flatly reject the suggestion, for instance, that homosexuality is a sin, or that the massacre of the Canaanites should be celebrated, not because another passage in the Bible permits this reading but because intuition suggests that the Torah is just really, really wrong in this regard. Times have changed since the writing of the Torah, as have our attitudes toward sexuality, war and nationalism. What I love about Judaism is that it has kept up. I, for instance, don’t believe in God in any sense that can be articulated—nor, some say, did Maimonides. I still call myself a Jew, though, because it feels right: I’m smart, I’m funny, and most of my friends have names like Lani and Aviva.
Modern Judaism has been following a trajectory of increasing liberalization and decreasing fundamentalism. While the famous "Yale five" practice a variety of Judaism which is in every way valid (indeed, it is more in keeping with tradition than modern brands), it is every bit the prerogative of a Jew to follow Judaism more liberally. Some Jews have pre-marital sex, others are homosexual, others don’t keep Kosher, others work on Shabbat. Some, the Orthodox, do none of these, and while I think their Judaism will always have a certain scriptural authenticity and beauty that mine lacks, it is not, for all that, more Jewish.
There are no guard-dogs telling us what is and is not Jewish. Or to be more precise, there always have been and always will be Jews debating the essence of Judaism, each of whom fancies him or herself the final arbiter, but really isn’t. We listen to each other’s arguments, and then make up our minds as to what is truly Jewish. There is, for instance, a well-known story of a man who sneeringly told Hillel that he would convert to Judaism if Hillel could explain the Torah to him while standing on one foot. His elegant reply, "Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you. The rest is commentary," really epitomizes Judaism for me. Judaism lies not in its rules, or its prayers, but in this simple and obvious moral code. The problem I face as a Jew is that this moral code is at loggerheads with what Zionism has come to mean in practice.
Of course I support a Jewish Israel in the abstract, idealistic sense. In the same vein, I have nothing against a Catholic Vatican, since its being Catholic has caused no one any harm, lately. But today’s Israel was thrust into an impossible situation, a victim of the terror from which Jews were fleeing, and a British government who had no love lost for the Jews or the Palestinians. Surrounded by hostile neighbors and inhabited by a large number of justifiably angry gentiles, Israel can only remain a Jewish state by violent means. My core Jewish hatred of violence simply outweighs my Jewish support for a Jewish Israel. It is not so with other Jews, and I cannot blame them—I simply ask that they treat me with the same dignity. I think that the concept of a Jewish Israel is as precious and as impossible in today’s world as the reconstruction of the Holy Temple.
I’m not trying to abolish the relationship between Judaism and Zionism. I am—what’s the fancy word?—problematizing it. My correspondent kindly explained to me that, "any Jew who tries to argue that Israel is not necessarily part of a contemporary Jew’s Jewish identity is deceiving himself." I agree with him. Whenever we read the Torah, recite the Shema or open up a newspaper, we are constantly reminded that Israel and Judaism are interwoven threads. Israel claims me as hers, and I cannot pretend that I never think about it. As should be clear by now, I do, and often. But this is where she and I part company. You see, I am a dissident to the core. The fact that a Jewish Israel and I belong to each other does not mean that we always agree. When I read of Israeli troops firing upon Palestinian teenagers, my anger is of a wholly different and sadder kind than when I read similar allegations against other militaries.
Why? I hate to sound like a nationalist, but Jews should know better than that. Our rituals remind us of our past suffering, and as a result make us sympathize with those who suffer everywhere. Again it was Hillel who said it best: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am for myself alone, who am I?" Yes, Jews will always have a Masada complex; we will always worry for our own survival. But we must take care so as not to be so paranoid and self-centered that we crush others in our paths. The lesson of our history is not that Jewish suffering is intolerable. It is that human suffering is intolerable.
So, dear Sir, I hope I hope this meets the demands you laid out when you concluded, "If Ard has issues with Jews or with Israel, he should argue them in an article devoted to those issues, not through flippant and ignorant remarks." You can call me an anti-Semite, you can tell me I’m not a real Jew all you like. But no amount of millennia-old scripture and no amount of castigation will ever convince me that shelling women and children, invading sovereign nations, and torturing prisoners is what God meant in telling us to be a light unto nations.