Luke Ford

Gabriel Schoenfeld writes: J Street is an organization that describes itself as “pro-Israel” and proclaims itself “devoted and committed to Israel’s future.” Yet, as Edward Alexander observes in an important new book, J Street “misses no opportunities to blacken Israel’s reputation and very few opportunities to encourage campaigns to delegitimize it.”

And J Street is not alone. Similar Jewish organizations, some without J Street’s pretensions to Zionist commitment, have been proliferating in recent years both here and abroad. In the United States, they include, among others, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Jewish Voice for Peace, Jews against the Occupation, Jews for Free Palestine, Jews for Justice in the Middle East, and a multitude of local chapters, offshoots, and branches.

In Jews against Themselves, Alexander takes up the curious and disturbing phenomenon of his volume’s title. A professor emeritus at the University of Washington, Alexander is a distinguished student of American and English literature and an essayist whose erudition is ornamented by a coruscating wit. Among his highly regarded books is The Jewish Idea and Its Enemies (1988), an examination of the various intellectual strands—liberalism, rationalism, relativism—that, emerging from the Enlightenment, have long been in tension with, or in outright opposition to, central tenets of the Jewish tradition.

In Jews against Themselves, Alexander engages in a related project but one that entails turning over a rock. His inquiry examines the disfiguring yet critical subject of Jews who defame their own people. Over the centuries, Alexander writes, there has been “fruitful interaction” between Jewish apostates and the world’s anti-Semites, making for a distinctive Jewish contribution to “the politics and ideology of anti-Semitism” itself.

J.J. Goldberg publishes much of the smartest commentary out there on Jews.

He writes Sept. 24:

You don’t have to be paranoid to sense a new strain of anti-Semitism surfacing in American politics of late. Paranoia helps, but it’s not required.
We sense anti-Semitism when a media personality of Ann Coulter’s stature tweets about “f—king Jews” looming too large in Republican thinking. When The New York Times runs lists of Congress members with Jews marked in yellow. When President Obama and his allies speak loosely of big money and foreign influence while debating Middle East policy. When these things start happening almost weekly, it doesn’t require paranoia to sense an ancient prejudice rearing its head.

Paranoia helps, but it’s not necessary. All that’s really needed to see this as a wave of anti-Semitism is a very short attention span, or a willful obtuseness about the fast-changing nature of Jewish activism in the American political arena.
The change is tectonic; it affects not only the Jewish community, but also the larger American public square. This past summer, the organized Jewish community — that is, the major Jewish advocacy organizations, backed by much of the most militant grass-roots — plunged headlong into an intensely partisan battle against the administration. It landed some punches and drew some blood. That’s changed the rules in several important ways that most of us have barely recognized, much less adapted to.
For anybody keeping score in the Iran debate, how the Jews match up against their political foes is too important an issue to ignore. Unfortunately, it’s an issue nobody knows how to talk about. Tradition and instinct tell us there’s a special name for foes of the Jews: anti-Semites. Individual Jews may be good or bad, but the Jews as a collective are, we insist, on the side of the angels. If the Jews — the collective — are in a fight, someone must be picking on them. It can’t be a fair fight.
But what should we call it when the organized Jewish community plunges willingly, en bloc, into a pitched battle — White House vs. Congress, Washington vs. Jerusalem — and gives as good as it gets? Observers don’t know how to keep score when all the normal political calculations end up sounding like anti-Semitic tropes: How much money is on the table, What factors are influencing lawmakers’ decisions? What role do other countries play? What’s the likelihood failure will lead to war?

…The change has a number of causes. One is the growing comfort and affluence of American Jews. It’s easier than previously to throw one’s weight around. There’s less caution. Jewish advocacy is thus a more unabashedly visible political force, prompting more comment — and pushback.
Another factor is the nature of this fight. Past disputes usually concerned issues of primal urgency to Israel but of only secondary importance to Washington. On Iran, both governments are defending their own fundamental national security. That’s raised the stakes, and the heat.
Yet another is Washington’s toxic partisan atmosphere. Jewish community advocates used to stay above the partisan fray and maintain good ties with all sides, even when they disagreed. That’s much harder in today’s atmosphere…

Finally, Netanyahu has tinkered with some long-standing assumptions about Israel-Diaspora relations. Since Israel’s founding, its leaders have sought to avoid actions that might suggest dual loyalty among Jewish citizens of other countries. Netanyahu, reared largely in America, seems to consider that caution anachronistic. From defiant actions like denouncing White House policies before Congress, to subtler signals like appointing to Washington successive ambassadors who are former Americans now loyal to the Jewish state, he’s shown repeatedly that the old diffidence is gone, shame replaced by pride. In his view, there’s no reason to fear sending American Jews into battle against their own government.
The trouble is, changing the rules of Jewish advocacy, as Netanyahu is doing, brings consequences, and it’s not clear that American Jews understand or welcome those consequences. As the Jewish community’s representative bodies enter the swamp of Washington partisan politics, the Jewish community as a whole comes to be seen as part of that swamp and subject to its rules, including the insults and dirty tricks that other partisan factions are used to.
Ordinary Jews, mostly liberals and Democrats, find themselves reviled for positions that they don’t support, and in brawls for which they never signed up. Many will walk away.