That Train Is Arriving On Schedule

One of my recent hobbyhorses has been to raise the alarm at one of the single most self-destructive trends I've witnessed in contemporary Jewish political activism: the pivot away from coalitional work with allies to tackle all forms of hatred and bigotry in favor of a far narrower focus on purely Jewish concerns. 

This move is sometimes justified with the rhetoric of "put your own mask on before helping others", the idea being that the threats Jews face now are simply too acute for us to divide our attention and allocate resources to the needs of our peers. But this new Look Out For Number One strategy is staggeringly short-sighted, for a host of reasons. 

The one I've mostly concentrated on is that it fails to account for the obvious fact that Jews are a small minority, and if we're justified in ignoring the needs of others to concentrate solely on our own self-interest, others are justified in doing the same to us. In a democratic system where one needs 51% of the vote, and Jews are ~2% of the population, that is an obvious losing strategy.

But Paul Horwitz flags another problem (that again, should have been obvious from the get-go): allowing hatred for other minority groups to seep into the political mainstream inevitably ends up bolstering antisemitic hatred as well. As he puts it:

Unsurprisingly, given their opposition to anything like liberal pluralism and religious freedom, when unhinged Christian nationalists start going after one faith, it’s rare that they will stop there. A good deal of the time, they won’t have started there either.

Horwitz's hook is a recent incident involving Carrie Prejean Boller, then serving on President Trump's Religious Liberty Commission, haranguing Jewish witnesses about their views on Israel/Palestine and defending antisemitic conservative activists Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson (Prejean Boller was later removed from the commission but refused to resign herself, saying she would "would rather die than bend the knee to Israel"). There was a fair amount of conservative shock to find gambling in their establishment, but Horwitz notes that the conservative "religious liberty" ecosystem that Prejean Boller is a part of and that reflects the membership of Trump's commission has long promoted Islamophobia of the most rabid sort (see, e.g., the hearings over the "Preserving a Sharia-Free America Act"). The antisemitism that is coming further into focus now is the natural extension of the Islamophobia that has been prominent and largely unchallenged for many years now. Indeed, research has consistently found that the best predicator of antisemitic views is whether the subject holds other racist and bigoted views targeting other minorities.

Again, none of this is surprising. It is the flip side of the advice Fanon got from his philosophy teacher: "When you hear someone insulting the Jews pay attention; he is talking about you." For us Jews, we might say the same thing: "When you hear someone insulting the Muslims pay attention; he is talking about us." The point being that, if you're looking to head off antisemitism, you can't afford not to care about other tides of bigotry and illiberalism that may be cresting. The "people who sincerely adhere to these views," Horwitz observes, "are hardly going to be satisfied with one enemy or one minority to threaten and deny basic constitutional rights." Even where they didn't start by talking about Jews, they'll get there. That train, as a different wise commentator put it, is never late.

The Big 4-0

I turned 40 yesterday.

As in so many things, my emotions are a mix of "the world is a trainwreck" and "my very narrow slice of it is great." I have a great job, a great family, a great house in a great city. I'm raising a great baby. I'm financially secure. If the looming specter of fascism wasn't darkening my doorstep, I'd have no complaints at all!

My wife turns 40 later this year, and she has for quite some time now been insistent that her forties will be her best decade. I've never been quite as convinced that same will be true for me. It is cliche to say "I don't feel forty; I still feel young" -- but I do. Not, you know, in terms of being able to ski or stay out late or not have random body parts start hurting for unknown reasons. And there are plenty of areas where I've always been an old soul crotchety old man. But in terms of exuberant enthusiasm? Or in terms of enjoying feeling taken care of? Or just liking video games and Star Wars and Legos? Or feeling like an up-and-comer who will wow the powers-that-be with his fresh new ideas? I still feel very young. 

And once you're forty, you are not young. There's no getting around it. In your thirties, you can kind of futz about still being a young professional -- forty isn't ambiguous. I feel like I am constitutionally required to lose all knowledge of technology, and never voluntarily listen to a new artist ever again.

But it is what it is. Time stops for no man. I'm lucky that, with a minor false start related to a (turns out wholly unneeded) dentist's appointment, I had a very nice fortieth birthday-day. The more "official" celebrations came around the Super Bowl and this weekend, but yesterday included good food and chocolate cake and quality time with wife and baby and the Olympics. So let's go back to the basics -- I am very lucky. Here's to (at least) forty more lucky years.

The Return of Encystment

I didn't see most of the Super Bowl ads, but one I actually did see was Robert Kraft's latest "blue square" installment addressing contemporary antisemitism. The basic narrative is pretty straightforward: Jewish kid walks down the hall, gets bumped by some bullies, who place a sticky note on his backpack that says "dirty Jew". Jewish kid is mad, but then a (presumably) non-Jewish kid, a student of color, offers his support (and empathy -- "I know how it is"). They walk off together as friends. Scene.

I thought it was okay. It's probably impossible to create a "good" ad on this subject -- it's always going to read at least in part "hello fellow youth" and be intrinsically uncool in that register -- but if we leave that aside it was pretty unremarkable.

And that, of course, means that many people are remarking on it -- particularly on the Jewish right, which over the past few weeks as taken an interesting pivot against fighting antisemitism at all (Bret Stephens' big 92NY speech where he argued for "dismantling" the ADL was the clarion call here). A couple people have asked for my thoughts on this new narrative, and now is as good a time as any.

At one level, the fact that the Jewish right is suddenly uninterested in tackling antisemitism at the precise moment where resurgent right-wing antisemitism has finally become so normalized amongst mainstream conservatives that even the usual hacks can't see-no-evil it is the most obvious convergence imaginable. Fighting antisemitism is a hoot when it's batting the left around, but now that it's Republicans whom one has to stand up to it just isn't fun anymore, is it?

It's almost tempting to leave it there, but I do think there is a little more that should be said. One pattern we're increasingly seeing on the Jewish right is a hostility to Jews being outward-facing, of the entire idea of building relationships and friendships and coalitions with non-Jewish partners and peers. Everything from the ADL's decision to abandon its historically broad-based civil rights mission to the near-reflexive cry that any attempt to situate the fight against antisemitism alongside other forms of bigotry is to "all lives matter" the former is part of this malaise. It stems from a sense that these other groups won't stand up for Jews, and if they won't do their part for us, why should we stand up for them? This wounded grievance doesn't come from nowhere -- I myself once wrote a post titled "Solidarity is for Goyim" -- but for some it has become exaggerated to the point of pathology: the entire prospect of cross-communal support is treated as so outlandish as to be offensive.

In that light, I think what most offended some people about the Kraft ad is that it showed a non-Jew (a non-Jew of color, no less) helping a Jewish peer. That prospect is what the new right-wing narrative dismisses as unrealistic, impossible, a sucker's bet. No wonder it infuriates them so. In a world where there is no hope for Jews to be anything other than hated by non-Jews, the only move is to turn to ourselves.

With that, turn back to Stephens. The narrative Stephens is pushing is that, in lieu of "fighting antisemitism", we should be investing more in the development of a positive Jewish identity -- in things like Jewish education and camps, Jewish media and Jewish religious education. On its own, I have no quarrel with any of these, though I don't think any of these priorities are in conflict with tackling antisemitism. In context, though, Stephens' call should be seen as a call for Jews to turn inward -- to stop focusing on our relationships with others (the negative things they say about us, yes, but also the positive opportunities we have to grow and cocreate together). They, the non-Jews, will never be reliable partners and it is a waste of time and money to pretend otherwise. Instead, let's self-generate our own authentic Jewish identity, without waste or taint from the outside world.

The great Jewish philosopher Albert Memmi had a name for this sort of move: "encystment". Encystment is a sort of self-ghettoization that occurs when the ghetto itself is perceived as providing a shell and shield (albeit a brittle one) against the dangers and anxieties of the outside world. Non-Jews are intrinsically untrustworthy; we have nothing to say to them except to bristle hard enough that they hesitate to attack us. We pull back from relating to others because we assume they will only hurt and endanger us; and instead rely solely on ourselves -- for who else is there to trust? (There's an obvious parallel to the more reactionary strands of Zionism here, on all fronts: the overwhelming sense that the entire world is against us, the fascinating interplay of weakness and strength, the obsession with self-reliance, the intrinsic value assigned to thumbing one's nose at outsiders, all of which generates a self-fulfilling prophecy of auto-isolation).

In the JTA article on the Kraft ad controversy, they quote Liel Leibovitz illustrating this pattern in typically crass fashion: "If I had ten million dollars to spend on a Super Bowl ad, I'd just show a bunch of exploding beepers, dead Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, hot Israeli girls with guns, and the caption 'F–k Around, Find Out.'"* Of course he would. The likes of Liel have no way of relating to the non-Jewish world except via extended middle finger. And so when we juxtapose Liel with Stephens or Shabbos Kestenbaum dinging the ad by saying we should invest in Jewish day schools instead, there is a connection -- don't reach out, don't try to work with others, the world sucks, curl up into your cocoon where it's warm inside.

There is, to be clear, no conflict at all between believing Jews should invest more in Jewish institutions who can help cultivate a positive Jewish identity, and in looking favorably upon the outward-facing coalitions and relationships envisioned by the Kraft ad. Indeed, for many Jews that is the foundation of our positive Jewish identity -- much of what it means to be Jewish, for us, is in how we positively relate to and affect the broader world around us. What we're seeing from Stephens and from the backlash to this ad is a longstanding frustration by the Jewish right with how American Jews have constructed their Jewish identity; a self-construction where a series of liberal values have become imbricated in the meaning of Jewishness itself.

For the likes of Stephens. this is an anathema -- it is not Judaism, it is a substitution of liberalism for Judaism. The concept of tikkun olam, both its centrality to contemporary Jewish identity and the mockery that centrality elicits amongst right-wing Jews, illustrates the point well. When Stephens calls for building positive Jewish identity, he is very much not trying to encourage those Jews who view tikkun olam as central to being Jewish to be more intentional and linking living Jewishly to, say, opposing ICE or preserving reproductive autonomy. What Stephens means is for Jews to abandon such liberal frivolities in favor of being taught how to "really" be Jewish. For Stephens, this is a matter of righting ship. But the Jews who are Jewish in the way Stephens indicts obviously disagree that our Jewishness is a false one, and we understand -- correctly -- that Stephens actually just has contempt for the Jewishness of most American Jews. He is trying to war against the predominant way American Jews have actualized our Jewishness over the past century. 

Without overstating its importance or its quality, this ad is emblematic of a vision of Judaism that has been central to the American Jewish experience for decades -- an acknowledgment of antisemitism, yes, but also an acknowledgment that we are part of a broader community that includes allies who care about us and about who we care in turn, and that this mutuality of care is part of what makes our Jewishness live. The Jewish right hates that vision and they hate the Jews and Jewish institutions who espouse it. So they are using the chaos of the present moment to try and destroy it.

* Liebovitz also wrote "it's almost impossible to imagine a more retarded ad", and I commend the JTA for not letting that slur drop unnoticed. Even better, they flag how Liebovitz's deployment of that term fits into a pattern of right-wing discourse eager to vice-signal how little they care about the equal dignity and standing of other vulnerable groups. (Specifically, JTA wrote "The epithet, which had fallen out of favor, has recently resurged on the right, dismaying people with disabilities and their advocates.").

Terry the Turtle

 

Nathaniel had a milestone this week: his first toy that he's absolutely petrified of.

The toy in question, a birthday gift from his uncle, is a plastic turtle. When you turn it on, it rolls forward and plays a little song. Then, when the music stops, the shapes on it shell pop out (the idea being the baby can put the shapes back in their slots).

The turtle has a few things cutting against it. The motor is a bit loud (particularly when the turtle gets caught on something like a rug), which clashes with the music. But Nathaniel's least favorite part is definitely the pop-out. When that happens, he instantly bursts into tears and makes a beeline for the nearest parental figure for a hug.

We're not alarmed by this -- we know "child is irrationally afraid of innocuous thing" is very normal, even for a baby as level-headed and mellow as Nathaniel. If anything, it's alarmingly cute just how scared he is of this random turtle, since it's actually quite rare anything penetrates Nathaniel's unflappable mien (in true sociopath fashion, I've decided to name the turtle "Terry", short for "terrifying").

Jill and I were wondering, though, how baby toy manufacturers deal with this sort of reaction in testing. Again, it is absolutely normal for babies to react with irrational fear towards something totally innocuous. I'm sure that for every baby that hates Terry, there are dozens who think he's their best friend. But that suggests that, like a pharmaceutical company measuring side effects, toy manufacturers probably have some maximum threshold of terrified baby that's acceptable before a product goes to market, and the idea of that metric is hilarious to me.

Meanwhile, we've stowed Terry away in a drawer. But Nathaniel has found Terry's hiding place and has gingerly started taking him out to play with. We don't turn the power on, and so the scary pop-out doesn't happen (we experimented with it once more, but Nathaniel still hated it), but it's definitely a case of Nathaniel deciding that he is going to confront his fears, and I'm very proud of him for it.

The Nexus in the Shadow of the ADL

Last month, I read an article in the JTA which described the Nexus Project as having been "launched ... as a progressive alternative to the Anti-Defamation League." I found that description interesting, because as someone who had been involved in Nexus since almost its inception, that is very much not how I would have characterized our origin story. In part that's because Nexus' original contribution was more on the debate over defining antisemitism (with IHRA as the foil -- though even there we did not cast ourselves as anti-IHRA). But also, Nexus' original group contained many people who had past or present affiliations with the ADL -- we had no quarrel with them.

It does seem true, though that Nexus is more and more being seen as a mainstream-liberal alternative to the ADL. This wasn't a niche we really sought out directly. Rather, it was a niche that just sort of developed a vacuum adjacent to us when the ADL decided to self-immolate over the past few years (see, most recently, its self-parodically mealy-mouthed statement on ICE abuses in Minnesota, where it calls for "de-escalation on all sides"). The ADL fell apart, and Nexus just was sort of ... there, and so now all of the sudden Nexus is standing in and occupying the role that the ADL used to stand for in the eyes of the mainstream liberal Jewish community.

This arc for Nexus just became even clearer with the story breaking today that a top ADL antisemitism researcher, Aryeh Tuchman, is decamping to join Nexus' new Center for Antisemitism Research. This is a substantial coup and a major mainstream credibility boost for Nexus. It also, I think, inevitably raises questions about ongoing reports about internal disarray at the ADL, with longstanding staff members departing or looking for the exit based on frustration that senior leadership (particularly Jonathan Greenblatt) have turned the organization away from its core mission in pursuit of right-wing accommodationism.

In fairness, both Nexus and Tuchman take pains not to directly fire upon the ADL.

“If we really wanted to repudiate the ADL, it would be hard to argue that the best way to do that was to hire one of their senior researchers,” said Alan Solow, the chair of the Nexus Project’s board of directors. “Our intent wasn’t to make a statement about the ADL. Our intent was to find the best person in the field to build something new.”

[....] 

“I have great respect for the work that comes out of the ADL and the Center on Extremism,” Tuchman said. “This isn’t about repudiating anything I did there. It’s about an opportunity to ask different kinds of questions and to focus exclusively on research in a way that I hope can move the needle.”

Nonetheless, it's hard not to see this as representing a belief that the work the ADL used to do is work it no longer is doing, and that people who hold affinity for the "old" ADL no longer find the ADL the best place to see those values. For example, Solow does take aim at the ADL's recent pivot away from fighting racism and bigotry generally as part of the campaign against antisemitism -- a major shift in the organization's historical mission that has been extremely controversial:

Solow said Nexus views coalition-building with other groups targeted by discrimination — including organizations fighting racism, Islamophobia and threats to LGBTQ and immigrant rights — as central to combating antisemitism, a strategy he noted the ADL has moved away from in recent years.

“That’s a point of departure between us and ADL,” he said.  

Obviously, there are plenty of people who never liked the ADL to begin with. But amongst the Jewish community, there are a lot more who retain affinity for what the ADL used to be and the role it used to play, who are more and more frustrated that the ADL has -- for whatever reason -- elected to dramatically change direction. Those Jews are looking for something to fill the void. And it looks like Nexus is -- however intentionally (or not) -- setting itself to do it.

I even had the thought that ADL : Nexus :: Twitter/X : BlueSky. If you miss "the old place", come over here! For an organization that I (again, speaking as an insider) often gently made fun of as "the other one" between IHRA and JDA, I have to say I am enjoying this "little engine that could" trajectory we're on. Even as the JDA feels played out, outflanked by even more extreme anti-Zionist critics, here comes Nexus establishing itself as the alternative for very much establishment-aligned Jews who nonetheless feel unrepresented by hidebound legacy organizations who don't realize "Bibi or bust" doesn't even play w/their historic base (let alone the next generation).

Germany Boycotting the World Cup?

There's chatter that Germany might boycott the World Cup, as a response to American aggression towards Greenland (among other sins).

I actually don't think this will go anywhere. Certainly, even the talk of it is an embarrassment for FIFA (and so soon after delivering Trump his knock-off Nobel too!). But then, FIFA may be the single most corrupt sports organization on the planet (the only competition I can think of is the International Boxing Association -- amateur boxing's oversight body -- whose leader is a mobbed-up Russian stooge. But they're obviously smaller potatoes than FIFA). They may not be capable of embarrassment.

As a rule, I'm opposed to sporting boycotts, at least as applied to teams. I don't find the argument that participation in international sporting events is some sort of PR coup for the flag-bearer to be especially compelling (the idea that the U.S. women's soccer team is acting to glorify Trump seems ... specious). And I think there is something nice about the countries of the world "coming together in one place for the primary and fundamental purpose of doing something fun and joyous." The norm is that we don't use international sport to pass commentary on a nation's politics or policy, however destructive it may be, and so I oppose sports boycotts for any nation -- the U.S., Iran, China, Israel, Russia, North Korea, you name it.

As for hosting an event, my opinion is the same -- with one substantial caveat. I don't think we should boycott hosts because of the host nation's politics, and I don't buy the notion that hosting represents some sort of glorification of the host. The exception-caveat is where there is credible reason to suspect that the host nation will be exclusionary towards, if not outright dangerous to, its visitors and guests -- the other teams, their coaches and staff, and their fans and spectators. The Trump administration's various visa bans -- now effecting potential qualifiers Iran, Haiti, Senegal and the Ivory Coast -- represent exactly that sort of threat. They are, for me, what make the boycott calls at least worthy of consideration -- not against Team USA as a team, but against the United States as a host.

Indeed, while I assume many will associate the boycott call to various efforts to exclude Israel from international sporting competitions, the closer analogy is actually to host nations which have sought to exclude Israelis from participating in international competitions within their borders. The basic duty of hosting an international sporting event is to be a host. A nation unwilling to do that -- for whatever reason -- is breaching its most essential compact as a host, and so justifies having the privilege of hosting taken away. It is embarrassing that America may now fall into that category. But there is a lot to be embarrassed about in this day and age.

Why Should We View the JDL as a "False Equivalency"?

A few weeks ago, there was a protest in front of a New York City synagogue which was hosting a real estate event featuring, in part, properties in Jerusalem. Pro-Palestine protesters, notably, chanted their support for Hamas ("Say it loud, say it clear, we support Hamas here."), the internationally-recognized terrorist organization responsible for (among other crimes) the massacres on October 7. A smaller group of pro-Israel protesters affiliated with the far-right Jewish Defense League chanted their own racist slogans, including "death to Palestine."

The next day, NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani released a statement condemning the pro-Hamas chants: "Chants in support of a terrorist organization have no place in our city." There was some consternation about the supposed delay (of one day), but it appears that time lag occurred because Mamdani was consulting with high-level members of the Jewish community to ensure he got the statement right.

I noticed at the time, though, that the ultimate statement rightfully condemned the pro-Hamas chanting but not the equally appalling that came from the JDL. "We support Hamas here" is a despicable thing to say anywhere, but especially in front of a synagogue. No person of conscience should defend it (it is not surprising that there are several notable left-wing figures who lack any such conscience). But "death to Palestine" is equally rancid and should be equally indefensible. So why was it not included in Mamdani's condemnation?

I suspected at the time that it was left out because some factions of the Jewish community would have denounced its inclusion. Many of these figures would claim that they do not, of course, defend the JDL or chants like "Death to Palestine". But they would present including it in Mamdani's statement as "both-sidesing" or "all lives mattering" or in some other way diluting of the message condemning the pro-Hamas chants. And it seems the reporting bears my intuition out. An earlier draft of the condemnation was going to condemn the Jewish Defense League, but it was removed following protests by Jewish leaders who viewed it as a "false equivalence."

This is rotten. It's not just that complaints about "both sidesing" lack legs when both sides really did chant despicable things. It's also the choice -- and it is a choice -- by certain Jewish leaders to decide that condemnations of pro-Palestine extremists are in some way "diluted" or are less sincere when they come tied to calling out pro-Israel extremists present at the same event. Why should we feel that way? I don't feel that way. In fact, I feel rather ill at the notion that someone might think my equal standing as a Jew is threatened by condemning phrases like "death to Palestine." What does that say about ourselves? What does that say about what we are saying about ourselves, that we make such demands?

This is, I think, the end result of the tremendously destructive road too many Jewish leaders have committed to trotting down, where we have become obsessed with "all lives mattering" or "us too-ism" to the point that anything that even purports to tie Jewish safety to any sort of political universalism or solidarity is presented as an affront. It is not unrelated to the bone-jarringly stupid choice by the ADL (among others) to self-consciously cut itself off from historic allies because antisemitism must be fought alone or not at all. I don't mean to suggest that there are not serious challenges in the relationships Jews have with other communities, historic allies included. But in all of these cases, we are choosing to isolate ourselves. These are not instances where we are being forced out of coalitions or compelled to go alone. We are choosing to believe that the entire concept of allyship is a form of disrespect.

We don't have to think like this. Nobody is forcing us to hear "chants of 'death to Palestine' have no place in our city" and decide it means "Jews are lesser." There's no reason to make that inference, and there are many reasons not to make that inference. And so while at one level I am glad that Mamdani was consulting with and attentive to Jewish community concerns in the wake of the synagogue protest, it is a very bad thing that we've decided our "concerns" compel him not to condemn obviously despicable and indefensible rhetoric from the likes of the JDL. That Jewish leaders -- especially Jewish leaders who do recognize how wretched the JDL is -- think in those terms speaks to rot in our own psyche that we need to address, and quick.

What Are You Going To Do?

You know, as soon as I started reading this Paul Campos post about "respectable" conservatives who, in the event that Trump does (as he has started suggesting) try to cancel the 2026 elections, will inevitably find some way to explain why it isn't so outrageous or unlawful or norm-busting or what have you, I immediately thought "Josh Blackman".

Now, that was before I got to the halfway mark and saw that Blackman's name was, indeed, dropped. And perhaps laying a marker down on Blackman here is akin to bragging about picking a one seed to make it to the Sweet Sixteen of March Madness.

But lay down my marker I shall. I can even hear the formulation he'll use: "I can't bring myself to be mad about ....", followed by a citation to some non-analogous alleged liberal sin that supposedly demonstrates that this is all just part of the game everyone plays, and Democrats are just play-acting at crying foul.

Again, I don't pretend I deserve any credit for a bold prediction here. But Blackman really is just the archetype for this particular brand of hackishness. 

And if it feels unfair to say someone like him would really support nullifying the 2026 elections, that's part of the pattern too -- the whole point is the repeated practice of conservatives rationalizing behavior that, a few months earlier when it seemed inconceivable, they would have treated as outrageous slander to assert conservatives would ever rationalize:

Suppose the Republicans move to cancel or annul the 2026 elections.  What will be the justification from the center-right (the same people who never would’ve dreamed of annexing Greenland but now say it’s kind of a reasonable idea, the same people who never would’ve dreamed of endorsing insurrection but now say . . . the same people who never would’ve dreamed of shooting survivors on a boat but now say . . .)?

 In fact, I'd say this is the ur-story of Trumpism, dating back to his first arrival onto the political scene. As I wrote back in 2016, shortly after his first election: "Much of the conservative movement has spent the last two years slowly transitioning from 'it's an outrageous slander to say that a racist cartoon character like Donald Trump represents the conservative movement' to 'it's an outrageous slander to say that the American conservative movement is "racist" or "cartoonish" just because it adopted Donald Trump as its representative.'" It was not, in the scheme of things, too long ago that "supporting Donald Trump" fell into the category of "something so outrageous of course I, the reasonable conservative, would never do it and only a crazed partisan would contemplate otherwise." Blackman, after all, was on the "Originalists Against Trump" letter, urging that we "deny the executive power of the United States to a man as unfit to wield it as Donald Trump." But once Trump's presidency went from impossibility to reality, well, some people will make their peace with Hitler himself if it keeps the inside the inner circle.