With lots of people coming through Jerusalem this summer, we're seeing friends and colleagues. Many of them say, "I knew, of course. But I didn't really get it until I got here."
This elongated “moment” is a hinge point in Jewish history in terms of how diaspora Jews view their place in the world and whether they unreservedly support their Israeli Jewish brethren or not. For those of us diaspora Jews in the center to center left, once we get past the disorientation that left-wing and “progressive” anti-Israel and anti-Jewish reactions have caused us to experience, we must decide where we stand. I stand with the Jewish people and with Israel and I am appalled by those Jews who do not.
Yes!!!! I just wrote about this today on my Substack. I met some visiting young Israelis and I was so grateful to be in their presence and with American Jews who are not ambivalent. And I’m not even Jewish yet. I started just as an ally who had always felt Jewish and as time goes on and I attend synagogue and Torah study and meet more worldwide Jewish friends I realize that maybe I am Jewish after all - just a bit of an accident of not being born into a Jewish family. But even if I weren’t I’d support Israel and stand against antisemitism. The other way is to support the death of civilization and all the freedoms we take for granted in the West. So many of our own want to destroy the very freedoms they benefit from. I stand with Israel and with the Jews and non Jews who stand with Israel too. No ambivalence here.
I’m here at the moment volunteering at Ichilov. It does feel relentless… but I’ve felt helplessness before I came from the relentless stream of antisemitism we’re seeing overseas. However seeing my friends dealing with kids and spouses in the army, or kids and spouses is something else. Can’t even imagine having a family member or friend held hostage or killed.
The only explanation I can give for the questions at the conference can be that maybe they’ve been so accustomed to virtue signalling as a way of “humanising” their Jewishness to fellow left wing comrades. It makes no sense to me. Regardless, I admire the way the Israelis take everything on their stride, and have little time for these delusional* apologists, with their misplaced morality (at best).
*war sucks. Needless deaths and suffering are tragic. This is all on Hamas. Return the hostages
I think you do a remarkable admirable job writing this substack. It's the first time I ever paid to subscribe to anything because like so many of us, I have no funding. This of course pales in comparison to what we are all experiencing. It's draining, we want every one to be safe and no one to be lost - the IDF is the best. In 1989 I sued the dept of comp lit under a sex discrimination class action and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. petitioned for cert. which would not hear the question and I do not even remember what that question was but I remember the nightmare. The dept. was very tiny and really antisemitic as they brought in all the fundamental texts and translated them into English for what was to become woke lit. This was the U of Minnesota. For me the identification with the aggressor (the Islamic Masse und Macht) and its antisemitism have been there all along. Academia died a long time ago and now we have this - conferences where stupid people say reprehensible things to people who are already in mourning and pain. They will never learn but despite this I remain optimistic as a Jew. To hand over joy of living is to hand over defeat.
Daniel, I can say, thankfully and unequivocally, that all American Jews - hopefully most - do not feel like those idiots you came across at this conference on literature. However, it does exist among a certain subset of Jews who believe that "tikkun olam" is all there is to "authentic" Judaism and know next to nothing about Peoplehood or history. You absolutely did the right thing in taking yourself out of there. Several years ago when I was still a Jewish professional working with Hillel professionals I walked out of a day of workshops when these young professionals, working with our college students, started talking about the Palestinian pain and terrible things that Israel was doing. And how they are increasingly having a hard time promoting Israel on campus in a positive light. I despaired and knew that I could no longer work in this environment. This constant need for "balance" and "equivalency" that we see now in the media and on campuses is so misunderstood. Do we need to present a positive viewpoint of the Holocaust to balance out the view of what really occurred? Do we really have to counter a statement about anti-Semitism every time with a statement about Islamophobia - even when it isn't really present or at least not in significant numbers? There definitely has to be a reckoning and soon. But it is not yet all or even most American Jews from what I have observed and hopefully never will be.
The obsessive coupling of antisemitism with “Islamophobia” is a way of stealing and silencing the Jewish narrative from Jews. And those few but overly spotlighted Jews who peddle in this equivocation lack the ability to think logically, critically or understand the breadth of dynamics in the world we live as well as the diversity of our micro communities and identifies.
Speaking of which ….How’s this for an exam question I got in a graduate level Art Therapy program I was in (2020) and where most (not all) of the texts were written by Jews (hmmmm, I wonder why) but this Jew was the only one who said, “How is it that not a single of our required and recommended reading are written by new Canadians and/or people of colour, or people with disabilities?”
After an incident in which I realized that no one in my cohort … graduate level (!) knew much or anything about the Holocaust, including all the (non-Jewish) instructors and the Dean who said “We’ve all heard of the holocaust; there are many holocausts …”), I shared a post to our group chat commemorating Yom Hashoah with links to short documentaries and another postcommemorating Black History Month written by a Black autistic friend and mother to her autistic indigenous child (erasure we did not ever formally learn about Black or Brown lives mattering in this program even though we live in a country that is diverse in population) I was told I not to share “personal” issues. This … in a program that has several courses on Cultural sensitivity 🤦🏻♀️.
I left the program.
This was the exam question from on e of those Cultural Sensitivty courses (typos and all …. I should note that it was the only question that referenced nationality, ethnicity, war or religion:
“You have learned that your client is a former Palestinian soldier. He is suffering from PTSD and you are compassionate to his situation. However, you are an active member in the Jewish Is really community, with a strong commitment to the faith. Your family and community will be outraged if they saw this man in your private practice office. Is it ethical to refuse to see this client on these grounds? What do you do?”
“A former Palestinian soldier”? What is that? Do you mean terrorist? Becasue there are no Palestinian soldiers. And hold up … HE’s the one with PTSD? The guy who wants to kill all the Jews and who abuses his own brothers and sisters?
Not sure what the Dean (who wrote this exam question) meant meant by “active member of the [Is Really … I have to say, for a moment I wondered if her misspelling of “Israeli” was intentional] Jewish community”. There was a lot to unpack in that one. I wasn’t sure if she was suggesting that this therapy session was taking place in Israel (which would be weird on so many levels, including because, hey, we are in Canada and will be practicing in Canada) and if it was, then stop the class! We need to provide everyone a course on history, geography, religion, political and military structures, general nomenclature, etc.
Or maybe she thought Israeli Jews are somehow not affiliated with the rest of the many different types of Jewish communities in the cities and countries the live … never mind phrases like a “strong commitment to faith” (Could that be more goyish a phrase?)
And wait, what? My family is hanging around my office to see who comes and goes? And they are all of one mind and it is …. What exactly? And because I am Jewish, I’m somehow incapable of adhering to the code of ethics to which my profession requires?
And finally, that fantastical assumption that a Palestinian jihadist terrorist (I mean “soldier” would:
A) Seek art therapy … much as it is evidently needed
B) Choose an art therapist from the “active [Is really] community” who is “committed to her faith”.
I dread imagining the antisemitism at that institute in and since October 7th.
David, as you know, you can no longer generalize about American Jews. Some, like myself, are as big a zionist as you are or were when you lived here. Others don't view themselves as Jews in any sense of the word. My own view is that most of the rest have become much more aware of who they are not, and that leads them to solidarity with Israel (after a lot of soul searching). Nothing changes understanding and perceptions of people from the US, Jewish and non-Jewish, more than actually visiting Israel.
The timing of this piece is a salve, of sorts as I read and hear of more and more Jewish artists/creatives (Israeli and Diasporic) being increasingly marginalized, erased, dismissed and intentionally overlooked whether or not they have offered their political stance or shared it. (And it’s not just in the arts … but we know that the art are a source of nourishment for mainstream insights.)
Last night, I caught yet another disturbing and insidious one-sided CBC Radio conversation (on the Canadian public broadcaster show called Commotion). The guest is a writer who supports divestment only of Israel and who, along with numerous other Canadian writers, has withdrawn from Canada’s largest and most prestigious literary prize (established by a Jewish family and which has paired, for various reasons, with a Canadian bank). The levels of hypocrisy, double-standards and disingenuous and unchallenged narration of what it means to be ethical and who the creative “victims” are was intensely frustrating. It truly did feel like a malignant toxin that continues to normalize antisemitism in ways that suggest a moral stance while loudly, violently, subversively and/or passively-aggressively silencing Jewish voices by not even addressing such tactics. In fact, few if any Jewish (Israeli or Diasporic voice) have been invited to a conversation to speak at all (and most certainly not ones who support Israel’s right to exist … who embrace the forbidden “Z” word - gasp … AND who have long held progressive stances across the board). This is true on CBC, NPR, BBC and other media environments.
Interestingly, Muslims and Arab human rights activists from Gaza to Jordan to Egypt to Toronto to Paris to NYC who recognize that Israel has a right to exist AND that they have work to do within their own communities to address antisemitism and the nihilism of extremism in their midst are also not present in these conversations.There is no challenging of the narrative. It is a topic that is never raised by media outlets that are supposed to be (and usually are) politically progressive - except when it comes to the Jewish experience. They do not recognize their own contribution to polarization, divisiveness, the affirmation of rhetoric, or anything remotely factual. (And in the face of those who wrongly couple antisemitism with “Islamophobia” as though each had the same characteristics or impact in the world and on the respective communities …)
I’ve stopped regularly acknowledging my very real grief about the impact of the war on innocent Palestinians only because I have seen, heard and feel that any grief for Israelis/Jews experience is either not regarded as legitimate or that it is dismissed for whatever reasons suits the conversation.seeking to erase the our grief, our fears, our future. It has also served - as your article notes - to make it more difficult for us to talk to each other without absorbing that external and manipulative paradigm.
Alas, not just CBC but NPR, The New Yorker, the NYTimes, WaPo, The Globe and Mail …. Basically every single longtime media outlet (except perhaps, Atlantic Monthly) that I have relied on for cogent, responsible, investigative reporting, insight, conversations and everything else thought my life. That duplicitous hateful far-right morons over at Fox, the National Post, all the Sun and Star publications, Piers Morgan (🤦🏻♀️) are being far more grounded and sane in distinguishing what is and is not antisemitism, recognizing that Zionism is not Nazism but that Johadism actually is very much like Nazism and that being anti-jihadist is not being anti-Muslim or anti-Arab. AND we can ALSO criticize those among us who are on the far right (as hundreds of thousands if not more, Israeli have in condemning Netanyahu for decades. (Whereas the Arab/Muslim/Persian world do not dare express the same degree of anger about their far right leaders … and they hav the added bonus o being allowed to have their country’s right to exist unquestioned🤷🏻♀️. But if you have the wherewithal to listen to yesterday’s episode (maybe while with a friend), I found it an important study in how insidiously normalized things are becoming; episode of Commotion (a show that fancies itself informed and progressive even in the areas of “eternal intent” or the arts, pandering to a movement mentality rather than the ability to parse out ideas/behaviours/actions/stances and examine them and themselves … with a host who, I regret to say, reflects a pattern in so many newer hosts who are dumb as a doornail and tripping over the sales to line up with the rigidity of a far left ideology. They are the left’s version of the Candace Owens and Ben Shapiros of this world.
First, a big MAZAL TOV on the arrival of your grandddaughter. Thank you for this poignant reminder of what every Israeli is going through on a daily basis. Shame on the visiting academics who are misguided enough to miss the obvious. I am so sorry they ruined the conference for you. We have folks like them in Vancouver, BC. We’re not called the “Left Coast” for nothing. There are plenty of us, however, who hold Israel and Israelis in our hearts, every single day. Please take comfort in knowing that.
Daniel, I read your latest post with tears in my eyes and a pain in my chest. Like a previous commentator, your substack was the first (but not the last) essay to which I subscribed last year and the first which I open every day. My grandmother immigrated to Kiryat Chaim in the late 1920’s, leaving behind in Lita my mother and her younger sister, Tzila. My mother succeeded in getting Tzilla to Aretz and then managed to immigrate to the US in 1937, coincidentally on the same ship and the same sailing that brought my father to the U.S. In 1965-1966 I studied in the Heb. Univ. and Machon Hayyim Greenberg. I thought that I would do univ. in the US and then make Aliyah. While I’ve visited frequently, I haven’t yet made a permanent move to Aretz. Life, and now illness have intervened and I am now due for a long delayed visit to Israel. In the meantime:
For quite some time, there has been a schism here in the US, between those Jews who cannot get over their hatred of Bibi, and the rest of us. Most of the rest of us, regardless of how we feel about Bibi, (primarily from the more observant sector) empathize strongly with our brothers and sisters in Israel and their continuing pain. The ones who still can't get over Bibi, probably have not been (perhaps ever) to Israel and thereby have signified their alienation from Zion.
I would guess that the questioner you refer to was from the "Truah" crowd, of which there are many .
Your observation at the concert, of the futility of lying on the floor to protect yourself, reminded me (and now you will know my age) of the instructions we received in my grammar school to lie on the floor under our desks when the air raid siren sounded.
Can you confirm that the people prioritizing Gazan pain at the writers conference were diaspora Jews? I have trouble wrapping my head around that. Although I am not Israeli, there is no way I would have returned the following day either. Talk about deflation!
On a more positive note, mazal tov on your growing family and safe travels back to the US. Stay clear of university campuses during your visit!
There are many here (USA) who "get it" (and I would assume all over the world). Who wake up every day and the first thing they do is check what happened during their restless efforts at sleep. Who check some news source 50X per day, who wait for some good news, who ache at the incidents of dis-unity both here and in Israel. This is not a statement after a well designed reseach study, but just based on personal interaction. There is a huge, mostly silent majority who 'get it' (at least as much as those not living in Israel possibly can).
Speaking with religious, non-religious, connected and non-connected Jews; they feel it to a surprising degree, they do 'get it'. But it is the loud minority that gets the attention (and that is somewhat the fault of being a silent majority). But that silent majority would not have spoken in such a manner at the writers conference. I hope many spoke out and quieted the 'complainer'.
My unscientific view is that most can separate the politics of the situation from the national tragedy and risk to our people wherever they are. There is recognition that what we are witnessing is a removing of the veil. The new reality is the reality we did not want to recognize and in some cases did not believe possible. But even this is giving too much 'credit' to a small minority. Less than 10% of university students participated in demonstrations. Many who did were outsiders. What is more concerning is the participation and support of too large a segment of the faculty and staff. That fact has unveiled the influence of money coming from other governments and organizations (Qatar etc. )
Perhaps I am too optimistic, but the removing of the veil may clarify a path forward. It can serve to define our true position among oursleves and in the world and thereby lead us to act with the reality that exists. It can bring out that silent majority to take action - and there is some evidence of this.
Thank you so much for saying this so well. When I got to Israel in March to help and to be a witness, I felt I could finally breathe. For the first time since October 7th. I hadn't realized, however, that I was holding my breath among my diaspora circles. When I landed in Israel, when I spent time with my Israeli friends, I realized there were no barriers and no self-censorship and that it's everywhere outside of the land. I was sad to leave and to return to the ambivalence of writing circles around the world.
Daniel. I am not sure why there is a disconnect between a writing workshop and what else is going on. Both are part of The Story. When I attended a candle light ceremony at the local Jewish Center two days after October 7, the Rabbi said "you are here because G_d brought you here" and I think that is true. All the decisions we make become part of The Story. Maybe we have not yet discovered a path out of the current conflict, or maybe The Story is not what our leaders say it is. Maybe we are stuck in chapter and verse of a story told by someone who has limited vision. I wrote an Israel-Palestine Solution because people are stronger than what our leaders believe.
This elongated “moment” is a hinge point in Jewish history in terms of how diaspora Jews view their place in the world and whether they unreservedly support their Israeli Jewish brethren or not. For those of us diaspora Jews in the center to center left, once we get past the disorientation that left-wing and “progressive” anti-Israel and anti-Jewish reactions have caused us to experience, we must decide where we stand. I stand with the Jewish people and with Israel and I am appalled by those Jews who do not.
Yes!!!! I just wrote about this today on my Substack. I met some visiting young Israelis and I was so grateful to be in their presence and with American Jews who are not ambivalent. And I’m not even Jewish yet. I started just as an ally who had always felt Jewish and as time goes on and I attend synagogue and Torah study and meet more worldwide Jewish friends I realize that maybe I am Jewish after all - just a bit of an accident of not being born into a Jewish family. But even if I weren’t I’d support Israel and stand against antisemitism. The other way is to support the death of civilization and all the freedoms we take for granted in the West. So many of our own want to destroy the very freedoms they benefit from. I stand with Israel and with the Jews and non Jews who stand with Israel too. No ambivalence here.
Well said.
I’m here at the moment volunteering at Ichilov. It does feel relentless… but I’ve felt helplessness before I came from the relentless stream of antisemitism we’re seeing overseas. However seeing my friends dealing with kids and spouses in the army, or kids and spouses is something else. Can’t even imagine having a family member or friend held hostage or killed.
The only explanation I can give for the questions at the conference can be that maybe they’ve been so accustomed to virtue signalling as a way of “humanising” their Jewishness to fellow left wing comrades. It makes no sense to me. Regardless, I admire the way the Israelis take everything on their stride, and have little time for these delusional* apologists, with their misplaced morality (at best).
*war sucks. Needless deaths and suffering are tragic. This is all on Hamas. Return the hostages
Well said.
I think you do a remarkable admirable job writing this substack. It's the first time I ever paid to subscribe to anything because like so many of us, I have no funding. This of course pales in comparison to what we are all experiencing. It's draining, we want every one to be safe and no one to be lost - the IDF is the best. In 1989 I sued the dept of comp lit under a sex discrimination class action and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. petitioned for cert. which would not hear the question and I do not even remember what that question was but I remember the nightmare. The dept. was very tiny and really antisemitic as they brought in all the fundamental texts and translated them into English for what was to become woke lit. This was the U of Minnesota. For me the identification with the aggressor (the Islamic Masse und Macht) and its antisemitism have been there all along. Academia died a long time ago and now we have this - conferences where stupid people say reprehensible things to people who are already in mourning and pain. They will never learn but despite this I remain optimistic as a Jew. To hand over joy of living is to hand over defeat.
Amen to that!
Daniel, I can say, thankfully and unequivocally, that all American Jews - hopefully most - do not feel like those idiots you came across at this conference on literature. However, it does exist among a certain subset of Jews who believe that "tikkun olam" is all there is to "authentic" Judaism and know next to nothing about Peoplehood or history. You absolutely did the right thing in taking yourself out of there. Several years ago when I was still a Jewish professional working with Hillel professionals I walked out of a day of workshops when these young professionals, working with our college students, started talking about the Palestinian pain and terrible things that Israel was doing. And how they are increasingly having a hard time promoting Israel on campus in a positive light. I despaired and knew that I could no longer work in this environment. This constant need for "balance" and "equivalency" that we see now in the media and on campuses is so misunderstood. Do we need to present a positive viewpoint of the Holocaust to balance out the view of what really occurred? Do we really have to counter a statement about anti-Semitism every time with a statement about Islamophobia - even when it isn't really present or at least not in significant numbers? There definitely has to be a reckoning and soon. But it is not yet all or even most American Jews from what I have observed and hopefully never will be.
Yes … toda for this.
The obsessive coupling of antisemitism with “Islamophobia” is a way of stealing and silencing the Jewish narrative from Jews. And those few but overly spotlighted Jews who peddle in this equivocation lack the ability to think logically, critically or understand the breadth of dynamics in the world we live as well as the diversity of our micro communities and identifies.
Speaking of which ….How’s this for an exam question I got in a graduate level Art Therapy program I was in (2020) and where most (not all) of the texts were written by Jews (hmmmm, I wonder why) but this Jew was the only one who said, “How is it that not a single of our required and recommended reading are written by new Canadians and/or people of colour, or people with disabilities?”
After an incident in which I realized that no one in my cohort … graduate level (!) knew much or anything about the Holocaust, including all the (non-Jewish) instructors and the Dean who said “We’ve all heard of the holocaust; there are many holocausts …”), I shared a post to our group chat commemorating Yom Hashoah with links to short documentaries and another postcommemorating Black History Month written by a Black autistic friend and mother to her autistic indigenous child (erasure we did not ever formally learn about Black or Brown lives mattering in this program even though we live in a country that is diverse in population) I was told I not to share “personal” issues. This … in a program that has several courses on Cultural sensitivity 🤦🏻♀️.
I left the program.
This was the exam question from on e of those Cultural Sensitivty courses (typos and all …. I should note that it was the only question that referenced nationality, ethnicity, war or religion:
“You have learned that your client is a former Palestinian soldier. He is suffering from PTSD and you are compassionate to his situation. However, you are an active member in the Jewish Is really community, with a strong commitment to the faith. Your family and community will be outraged if they saw this man in your private practice office. Is it ethical to refuse to see this client on these grounds? What do you do?”
“A former Palestinian soldier”? What is that? Do you mean terrorist? Becasue there are no Palestinian soldiers. And hold up … HE’s the one with PTSD? The guy who wants to kill all the Jews and who abuses his own brothers and sisters?
Not sure what the Dean (who wrote this exam question) meant meant by “active member of the [Is Really … I have to say, for a moment I wondered if her misspelling of “Israeli” was intentional] Jewish community”. There was a lot to unpack in that one. I wasn’t sure if she was suggesting that this therapy session was taking place in Israel (which would be weird on so many levels, including because, hey, we are in Canada and will be practicing in Canada) and if it was, then stop the class! We need to provide everyone a course on history, geography, religion, political and military structures, general nomenclature, etc.
Or maybe she thought Israeli Jews are somehow not affiliated with the rest of the many different types of Jewish communities in the cities and countries the live … never mind phrases like a “strong commitment to faith” (Could that be more goyish a phrase?)
And wait, what? My family is hanging around my office to see who comes and goes? And they are all of one mind and it is …. What exactly? And because I am Jewish, I’m somehow incapable of adhering to the code of ethics to which my profession requires?
And finally, that fantastical assumption that a Palestinian jihadist terrorist (I mean “soldier” would:
A) Seek art therapy … much as it is evidently needed
B) Choose an art therapist from the “active [Is really] community” who is “committed to her faith”.
I dread imagining the antisemitism at that institute in and since October 7th.
You gotta love the supposed typo. What a completely idiotic exam question. Thank you for sharing the story
David, as you know, you can no longer generalize about American Jews. Some, like myself, are as big a zionist as you are or were when you lived here. Others don't view themselves as Jews in any sense of the word. My own view is that most of the rest have become much more aware of who they are not, and that leads them to solidarity with Israel (after a lot of soul searching). Nothing changes understanding and perceptions of people from the US, Jewish and non-Jewish, more than actually visiting Israel.
The timing of this piece is a salve, of sorts as I read and hear of more and more Jewish artists/creatives (Israeli and Diasporic) being increasingly marginalized, erased, dismissed and intentionally overlooked whether or not they have offered their political stance or shared it. (And it’s not just in the arts … but we know that the art are a source of nourishment for mainstream insights.)
Last night, I caught yet another disturbing and insidious one-sided CBC Radio conversation (on the Canadian public broadcaster show called Commotion). The guest is a writer who supports divestment only of Israel and who, along with numerous other Canadian writers, has withdrawn from Canada’s largest and most prestigious literary prize (established by a Jewish family and which has paired, for various reasons, with a Canadian bank). The levels of hypocrisy, double-standards and disingenuous and unchallenged narration of what it means to be ethical and who the creative “victims” are was intensely frustrating. It truly did feel like a malignant toxin that continues to normalize antisemitism in ways that suggest a moral stance while loudly, violently, subversively and/or passively-aggressively silencing Jewish voices by not even addressing such tactics. In fact, few if any Jewish (Israeli or Diasporic voice) have been invited to a conversation to speak at all (and most certainly not ones who support Israel’s right to exist … who embrace the forbidden “Z” word - gasp … AND who have long held progressive stances across the board). This is true on CBC, NPR, BBC and other media environments.
Interestingly, Muslims and Arab human rights activists from Gaza to Jordan to Egypt to Toronto to Paris to NYC who recognize that Israel has a right to exist AND that they have work to do within their own communities to address antisemitism and the nihilism of extremism in their midst are also not present in these conversations.There is no challenging of the narrative. It is a topic that is never raised by media outlets that are supposed to be (and usually are) politically progressive - except when it comes to the Jewish experience. They do not recognize their own contribution to polarization, divisiveness, the affirmation of rhetoric, or anything remotely factual. (And in the face of those who wrongly couple antisemitism with “Islamophobia” as though each had the same characteristics or impact in the world and on the respective communities …)
I’ve stopped regularly acknowledging my very real grief about the impact of the war on innocent Palestinians only because I have seen, heard and feel that any grief for Israelis/Jews experience is either not regarded as legitimate or that it is dismissed for whatever reasons suits the conversation.seeking to erase the our grief, our fears, our future. It has also served - as your article notes - to make it more difficult for us to talk to each other without absorbing that external and manipulative paradigm.
The CBC is a shonda and I repeatedly send them letters telling them so. It is just as well I missed that broadcast.
Alas, not just CBC but NPR, The New Yorker, the NYTimes, WaPo, The Globe and Mail …. Basically every single longtime media outlet (except perhaps, Atlantic Monthly) that I have relied on for cogent, responsible, investigative reporting, insight, conversations and everything else thought my life. That duplicitous hateful far-right morons over at Fox, the National Post, all the Sun and Star publications, Piers Morgan (🤦🏻♀️) are being far more grounded and sane in distinguishing what is and is not antisemitism, recognizing that Zionism is not Nazism but that Johadism actually is very much like Nazism and that being anti-jihadist is not being anti-Muslim or anti-Arab. AND we can ALSO criticize those among us who are on the far right (as hundreds of thousands if not more, Israeli have in condemning Netanyahu for decades. (Whereas the Arab/Muslim/Persian world do not dare express the same degree of anger about their far right leaders … and they hav the added bonus o being allowed to have their country’s right to exist unquestioned🤷🏻♀️. But if you have the wherewithal to listen to yesterday’s episode (maybe while with a friend), I found it an important study in how insidiously normalized things are becoming; episode of Commotion (a show that fancies itself informed and progressive even in the areas of “eternal intent” or the arts, pandering to a movement mentality rather than the ability to parse out ideas/behaviours/actions/stances and examine them and themselves … with a host who, I regret to say, reflects a pattern in so many newer hosts who are dumb as a doornail and tripping over the sales to line up with the rigidity of a far left ideology. They are the left’s version of the Candace Owens and Ben Shapiros of this world.
First, a big MAZAL TOV on the arrival of your grandddaughter. Thank you for this poignant reminder of what every Israeli is going through on a daily basis. Shame on the visiting academics who are misguided enough to miss the obvious. I am so sorry they ruined the conference for you. We have folks like them in Vancouver, BC. We’re not called the “Left Coast” for nothing. There are plenty of us, however, who hold Israel and Israelis in our hearts, every single day. Please take comfort in knowing that.
Daniel, I read your latest post with tears in my eyes and a pain in my chest. Like a previous commentator, your substack was the first (but not the last) essay to which I subscribed last year and the first which I open every day. My grandmother immigrated to Kiryat Chaim in the late 1920’s, leaving behind in Lita my mother and her younger sister, Tzila. My mother succeeded in getting Tzilla to Aretz and then managed to immigrate to the US in 1937, coincidentally on the same ship and the same sailing that brought my father to the U.S. In 1965-1966 I studied in the Heb. Univ. and Machon Hayyim Greenberg. I thought that I would do univ. in the US and then make Aliyah. While I’ve visited frequently, I haven’t yet made a permanent move to Aretz. Life, and now illness have intervened and I am now due for a long delayed visit to Israel. In the meantime:
אני במערב ולבי במזרח.
For quite some time, there has been a schism here in the US, between those Jews who cannot get over their hatred of Bibi, and the rest of us. Most of the rest of us, regardless of how we feel about Bibi, (primarily from the more observant sector) empathize strongly with our brothers and sisters in Israel and their continuing pain. The ones who still can't get over Bibi, probably have not been (perhaps ever) to Israel and thereby have signified their alienation from Zion.
I would guess that the questioner you refer to was from the "Truah" crowd, of which there are many .
Your observation at the concert, of the futility of lying on the floor to protect yourself, reminded me (and now you will know my age) of the instructions we received in my grammar school to lie on the floor under our desks when the air raid siren sounded.
Can you confirm that the people prioritizing Gazan pain at the writers conference were diaspora Jews? I have trouble wrapping my head around that. Although I am not Israeli, there is no way I would have returned the following day either. Talk about deflation!
On a more positive note, mazal tov on your growing family and safe travels back to the US. Stay clear of university campuses during your visit!
There are many here (USA) who "get it" (and I would assume all over the world). Who wake up every day and the first thing they do is check what happened during their restless efforts at sleep. Who check some news source 50X per day, who wait for some good news, who ache at the incidents of dis-unity both here and in Israel. This is not a statement after a well designed reseach study, but just based on personal interaction. There is a huge, mostly silent majority who 'get it' (at least as much as those not living in Israel possibly can).
Speaking with religious, non-religious, connected and non-connected Jews; they feel it to a surprising degree, they do 'get it'. But it is the loud minority that gets the attention (and that is somewhat the fault of being a silent majority). But that silent majority would not have spoken in such a manner at the writers conference. I hope many spoke out and quieted the 'complainer'.
My unscientific view is that most can separate the politics of the situation from the national tragedy and risk to our people wherever they are. There is recognition that what we are witnessing is a removing of the veil. The new reality is the reality we did not want to recognize and in some cases did not believe possible. But even this is giving too much 'credit' to a small minority. Less than 10% of university students participated in demonstrations. Many who did were outsiders. What is more concerning is the participation and support of too large a segment of the faculty and staff. That fact has unveiled the influence of money coming from other governments and organizations (Qatar etc. )
Perhaps I am too optimistic, but the removing of the veil may clarify a path forward. It can serve to define our true position among oursleves and in the world and thereby lead us to act with the reality that exists. It can bring out that silent majority to take action - and there is some evidence of this.
Mazal tov on the new granddaughter! May she have a long and meaningful life full of mitzvot and happiness!
Thank you so much for saying this so well. When I got to Israel in March to help and to be a witness, I felt I could finally breathe. For the first time since October 7th. I hadn't realized, however, that I was holding my breath among my diaspora circles. When I landed in Israel, when I spent time with my Israeli friends, I realized there were no barriers and no self-censorship and that it's everywhere outside of the land. I was sad to leave and to return to the ambivalence of writing circles around the world.
Mazel tov on the new grandchild!!!!
I’m so glad there is cause for joy in the middle of all the pain. Supporting you and all of Israel 🇮🇱 from Philadelphia.
mazal tov on your new grandchild
this was one of your most moving posts 💔
btw ChatGPT4 (the free version) provides much better translations than Google Translate.
Daniel. I am not sure why there is a disconnect between a writing workshop and what else is going on. Both are part of The Story. When I attended a candle light ceremony at the local Jewish Center two days after October 7, the Rabbi said "you are here because G_d brought you here" and I think that is true. All the decisions we make become part of The Story. Maybe we have not yet discovered a path out of the current conflict, or maybe The Story is not what our leaders say it is. Maybe we are stuck in chapter and verse of a story told by someone who has limited vision. I wrote an Israel-Palestine Solution because people are stronger than what our leaders believe.