ewish America, circa 2019/2020, can be divided into two distinct groups. There are those who care and those who do not care.
By MICAH HALPERNWORKERS RIGHT toppled Jewish headstones after a weekend vandalism attack on Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery in University City, a suburb of St Louis, Missouri, in 2017(photo credit: REUTERS/TOM GANNAM)
Antisemitism is a blight on society, and it is enveloping American. Antisemitism has become so virulent and so acceptable in America that it has found its way onto the public stage – even in national politics and certainly on American campuses.For years it was the Republican Party that was known as the antisemitic party. It was accepted that the Republican Party was not a home for Jews, but that has changed. Today, antisemitism has infiltrated the Democratic Party and with such force and such venom that it makes the former bias of the Republican Party look like child’s play. Under the hijacked leadership of the four, first-term Democratic congresswomen, bouts of antisemitic rhetoric have become commonplace.But even before their rise to power, as far back as 2012, during the Democratic National Convention, support for Jerusalem was removed from the Democratic platform and then mysteriously reappeared.Antisemitism, particularly under the cloak of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, has infiltrated university campuses and colleges. Universities are teaming with BDS and antisemitic activity. Many students who once-upon-a-time would have casually worn their kippot and even tzitzit on campuses do not. And now, for those students, when deciding upon which courses to take, the list of questions is no longer limited to interesting or not interesting, easy grader or hard grader. Now it is just as crucial for a student to ask about the professor’s political bent as it is about their educational philosophy. Will they hold my kippah against me?And yet, there seems to be synapse between the antisemitism spreading throughout the United States and many of the Jews living in the US: Jews who refuse to see what is happening, who refuse to address the issue.Jewish America, circa 2019/2020, can be divided into two distinct groups. There are those who care and those who do not care.Not very long ago the groups differentiating Jews were the affiliated and the non-affiliated. That is a misnomer today. Affiliation is almost irrelevant. Being a Jew used to be about belonging – to a synagogue or Temple, to a society, to Hadassah or B’nai B’rith or Jewish War Veterans. Today, few and fewer American Jews care about belonging to, or identifying with, the Jewish community. The essential trait of “belonging” is as simple as it is crucial. It determines whether a person, of their own volition, is part of the Jewish world.THE BRUTAL truth is that the number of American Jews who do not care about anything at all connected to Israel or the Jewish people far outweighs those who do.Those who do care are also divided into groups. The largest group is the Orthodox. This group loves Israel – and by Israel I mean not only the nation-state but the people of Israel. For Orthodox Jewry in America, the Jewish people are a priority. True, some Orthodox Jews might be ambivalent about the nation-state, they may qualify themselves as non-Zionists (not to be confused with anti-Zionists) but they are still deeply connected to the Jewish state.The next, smaller, group is those Jews – call them old-fashioned – who connect to being Jewish and proudly so through the organizational route. They are dues-paying members of Conservative or Reform congregations or they connect through organizations, even some new grassroots organizations. This group is waning. Its business model is flawed and it is more and more difficult for the organizations to recruit and maintain themselves. Sadly, they continue to shrink.
Now it gets interesting. Most of the Jews who care, members of both groups, do it online. Amazing, but true. They follow the news and watch videos. They probably even peruse the JPost.com website daily, or even several times daily. Websites become their lifeline to something they care about dearly.These people connect virtually and they do it on their own. And the result is that they really don’t have need for much of a community.Most everyone else simply does not care. They are not bothered by the antisemitism around them. They avoid it rather than face it, let alone combat it. They walk right by the demonstrations on campus. They scroll quickly past the stories of antisemitic attacks, either verbal or physical. It does not bother them. It does not activate them!Not too long ago antisemitism was a tool that stimulated Jewish actions, activity and affiliation. It certainly was a vehicle to raise money. Today, if it does not actively impact their lives, it is ignored. Those who do not care are not threatened by antisemitism. They are, obviously, Jewish but only peripherally. They’ll acknowledge that antisemitism is out there, but it does not touch them.The situation is not good. We – those of us who care – must move the rest of American Jewry into our camp. We must redirect the priorities of political parties and we must entice young adults. It can be done. It won’t be easy. Not only must we battle antisemitism, we must bring more people under our tent. We must make people care.
