Final Tuesday, I used to be purported to have launched my first guide, Tablets Shattered: The Finish of an American Jewish Century and the Way forward for Jewish Life, with an occasion at a bookstore within the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo—a dialog between me and the well-known Reform rabbi Andy Bachman.
The occasion didn’t occur. About an hour earlier than the meant begin, I heard from my publicist that the bookstore had “issues” about Rabbi Bachman as a result of he was a “Zionist.” I acquired one other name whereas in a automotive on the best way to the shop: The supervisor was now refusing to host the dialog with the rabbi. Once I arrived, I requested her why she wouldn’t allow the occasion to go ahead as deliberate. Her response: “We don’t desire a Zionist onstage.”
I used to be greatly surprised. Rabbi Bachman is an outspoken social-justice advocate and a supporter of the institution of a Palestinian state (and my former instructor). My guide is a historical past of American Jewish life within the second half of the twentieth century, and offers critically with Israel’s therapy of Palestinians. Due to my evaluation of the Israeli-Palestinian battle, in addition to my reporting about and public opposition to Israel’s navy occupation of the West Financial institution and siege of Gaza, I had feared that synagogues could be reluctant (and certainly some nonetheless are) to host occasions. I didn’t anticipate that the difficulty would come from a bookstore in Brooklyn.
Then once more, maybe I shouldn’t have been shocked in any respect. Since October 7, the general public discourse on Israel and Palestine has curdled. Some right-wing supporters of Israel have turn into cheerleaders for violence. In sure areas that decision themselves progressive, intolerance has turn into endemic and conspiratorial pondering is on the rise. The end result throughout the board: Nuance has evaporated, and humanity is in brief provide.
My would-be guide launch additionally exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face. We’re caught between elements of an activist left demanding that we disavow our communities, even our households, as an entrance ticket, and a mainstream Jewish institutional world that has lengthy marginalized critics of Israeli coverage. Certainly, Jews who’re dedicated to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who’re additionally outraged by Israel’s brutal conflict in Gaza, really feel like we’ve got little room to maneuver.
On the one hand, we will no extra surrender our households, buddies, and communities than we will ourselves, and the demand that we achieve this is unsuitable. It’s straightforwardly anti-Semitic to ask, because the bookstore supervisor did along with her blanket ban on Zionists, that Jews assist Israel’s dismantling as a criterion for participation in mental life. This can be a situation that the majority Jews, who when surveyed describe robust attachment to Israel, couldn’t meet. And it’s a type of litmus check that shouldn’t be requested (and customarily just isn’t) of every other group of individuals.
However, we can not ignore Israel’s devastation of the Gaza Strip, and ought to be afraid of shifting consideration away from the human disaster unfolding within the territory. Mates on the left have warned me that making an excessive amount of of final week’s deplatforming has already had this impact. I fear about bolstering tribalist pondering, which is exactly the mentality that for many years has blinded so many in mainstream Jewish establishments to the grinding, day by day injustices of the occupation of the West Financial institution and siege of Gaza—and, extra not too long ago, inured them to the horrific proven fact that this conflict has killed tens of 1000’s of Palestinians, most of them civilians.
However silence concerning the pitfalls of the left carries its personal dangers—together with dangers to the left itself. My expertise final week was so demoralizing partly as a result of such episodes make transferring the mainstream Jewish neighborhood a lot tougher. Each time a left-wing activist insists that the one method to actually take part within the combat for peace and justice is to assist the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) concept that opposing the established order requires Israel’s destruction. Rhetorical extremism and dogmatism make it simpler for right-wing Israel supporters to dismiss what ought to be reputable calls for—as an example, situations on U.S. navy support—as past the pale.
The brand new left-wing norm that insists on one-state maximalism just isn’t solely an ethical mistake. It’s also a strategic one. If there’s one factor that the previous yr of cease-fire activism has illustrated, it’s that altering U.S. coverage on Israel requires a broad coalition. That huge tent should have room for individuals who imagine in Jewish self-determination and are dedicated to Israel’s existence, whilst they work to finish its domination over Palestinians.
Many on the precise, not simply the far left, scoff at the opportunity of such a coalition. For the previous a number of days, my inbox has been full of hateful crowing that the cancellation of my guide launch is the bitter fruit that I and different left-wing Jews deserve. What did I count on? Hadn’t I written greater than 100 articles documenting Israeli human-rights abuses and the occupation’s quotidian cruelty? Didn’t I advocate for insurance policies, together with boycotts, that may stress Israel to vary its insurance policies? So how might I now complain that comparable ways had been getting used towards me? The ejection of Zionists and Israelis from well mannered society was on my palms.
To those critics I need to insist on a distinction between boycotts of total teams of individuals based mostly on their id or the concepts they’re assumed to carry, and boycotts of products produced in unlawfully occupied territories. The previous are antithetical to democratic public life—because the proprietor of the bookstore argued in his assertion apologizing for the cancellation. The latter, against this, are a staple of nonviolent resistance, essential instruments for reaching real democracy.
Little doubt, I remorse sure sentences and even articles I’ve written about Israel previously, which at present I’d phrase in another way. The October 7 assaults painfully resensitized me to the truth of Israeli Jewish vulnerability, which exists regardless of the large energy imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians. I used to be too typically keen to miss this reality. Opening one’s eyes to the dehumanization of Palestinians doesn’t require closing one’s eyes to the dehumanization of Israelis, and vice versa. If Rabbi Bachman and I had been in a position to have our dialog final week, we might have mentioned what is perhaps the one immutable reality about Israel and Palestine lately: Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anyplace, and each peoples have the precise to equality, dignity, and self-determination. No motion that ignores this actuality has any hope of success.
