If a Jew puts leftism before Judaism, he will work more for left-wing causes than Jewish ones. If he puts his Jewish identity first, he will do more Judaism than leftism. The more left a Jew goes, the more likely he is to be uncomfortable with Israel as a Jewish state.
Jews are a key part of the Coalition of the Fringe in America, but in many respects, they don’t have much in common with other members such as blacks, latinos, and Muslims. Indeed, these groups often have clashing interests. Witness the easy hostility between blacks and latinos, between blacks and Jews, between Muslims and Jews. What unites these groups is hatred of white power.
A Barnard College sophomore recently articulated the sad choice many progressive Jewish students face on campuses around the country. In a Columbia Spectator op-ed, she called on Barnard’s student government to not support a sexual assault prevention group — a group she herself had once helped lead.
She took this stand because the group had “officially taken on an anti-Israel stance… publicly denounc[ing] Israel on social media and collaborat[ing] with anti-Israel student groups, such as Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine.” By choosing to condemn Israel, the group had “effectively politicized anti-sexual violence work on this campus,” she wrote. “Doing so is detrimental to the cause and unfair to pro-Israel survivors.”
Much has been written about the rise of intersectionality, and how the academic theory claiming that all forms of oppression are connected, when applied to the real world, has encouraged the formation of coalitions between American progressives and pro-Palestinian activists. But it has also led to the erosion of traditional ties on which Jews have long relied.
For the first time, American Jews are beginning to see real ripples of BDS — the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — take hold off campus. National conferences of Presbyterians, Methodists and Quakers have considered BDS resolutions. Jill Stein, who, in this wild election year, has received more attention than might ordinarily go to the Green Party candidate for president, proudly touts support for BDS on her website.
And perhaps most prominently and provocatively, the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of 50 Black Lives Matter groups, released a platform calling Israel an “apartheid” state guilty of “genocide” against the Palestinians, and endorsing BDS — giving Israel the dubious distinction of being the only foreign country called out by name in a document that otherwise focuses on racial discrimination in the United States.
