Dear Mr. Klein,
Since I’ve been having trouble understanding some of my Jewish friends, I was eager to read your recent essay in the New York Times, “Why American Jews No Longer Understand One Another” (July 20). At first, I was put off by unfair criticisms of Israel, some explicit and some tacit, which are too familiar these days. Thanks to insights from an especially close bud, and personal experiences shared by others, I now appreciate that you were alerting us to arguments roiling the Jewish community, more than telling us where you stand or where we should. Your premise is moving and worth studying:
I’ve watched the experience of rising antisemitism polarize young Jews into two camps. Some have moved closer to Israel, convinced that their elders were right and their standing in the West was more tenuous than they had believed. Some have moved into a deeper alienation, horrified at what is being done in their name and angry at the way their safety has felt compromised by the actions and politics of a state in which they do not live.
Leaving aside what may or may not be your own views, I’m going to comment on some of the big issues you raise, mostly in the form of questions.
The Mamdani syndrome
The New York mayoral candidate is excused by some people because, although he “does not use the slogan ‘globalize the intifada,’ [he] does not condemn those who do…” Would Mamdani and friends also support candidates who don’t use—but don’t condemn—slogans like “White Lives Matter!” and “Jews will not replace us!”? And what about the candidate’s other “banally liberal” arguments, that “Israel has a right to exist”—thank you—“but [only] as a state with equal rights,” and his disapproval of “any state that has a hierarchy of citizenship on the basis of religion or anything else…”? Do economic inequality and democratic “backsliding” compromise America’s right to exist? Is Israel’s policy of preferential admissions for Jews wishing to immigrate so special? Is the support Mamdani enjoys from Brad Lander, Jerry Nadler, and others reminiscent of other times when Jewish loyalty to certain political movements didn’t pan out so well?
The occupation
You argue that, for many Jews, the “vision [of a two-state solution] now lies buried beneath the settlements of the West Bank, the rubble of Gaza, and the expansionist ambitions of Israel’s right-wing government.” In strolling at that gravesite, though, let’s be careful to not trip on another large pile of rubble: accumulated documents chronicling persistent Arab rejection of peace offers and proposals for territorial solutions. After October 7, most rational observers (left, right, center, but not the extremist fringes) agree that this isn’t the best time to revive hope in the old two-state idea (although other options are worth exploring). Is that so hard to understand? Should Israel ignore recent events and take the risk that yet another neighbor will have less than neighborly plans? Maybe “those angry at Netanyahu [do not] want his successor to seek a Palestinian state, or even Palestinian rights,” but it’s not clear who the “those” are and whether their reticence is minimally understandable. Following Fania Oz-Salzberger, one of Bibi’s staunchest opponents, I would ask Mamdani and his followers this “single crucial question… do you support Israel’s right to exist—alongside a peaceful Palestine?”
Expulsion and other bad ideas
I was taken aback, as I’m sure most American Jews are, by “polls [showing that] a majority of Israeli Jews are open to the expulsion of Palestinians…” But the same Ha’aretz article you cited cautions that “a deeper dive into the data reveals a far more complex and divided public opinion…” The authors (writing in a newspaper known for relentless opposition to Netanyahu and all prior governments who didn’t end the occupation) list problems of sampling and item construction that should raise caution flags. And, even if some part of the population is “open” to the idea, that’s a far cry from whether the idea is enacted, as it was elsewhere: Jews expelled from Arab and Muslim lands, Greek-Turkish population exchange, eight million ethnic Germans kicked out of Poland after WWII. I’m not advocating for expelling Palestinians, but do the survey data indicate a uniquely Israeli brand of evil? And what about deportation, which, under Presidents Obama and Biden and now Trump, is more real and more abhorrent than whatever some extremist Israelis may be “open to” but which are not (and never have been) official Israeli policy? (Isn’t deportation another word for expulsion?)
Shifting blame, assessing risks
You observe, correctly, that “debates about Israel often circle the same, strangely posed question: Does Israel have the right to exist?” I applaud you for trying to immunize readers from the double-standard virus that infects so much popular discourse: no one seems to be calling for the dismantling of Hungary or Italy, not to mention China, Russia, and God knows how many other countries, because they don’t like their current leaders. But then we’re into rougher terrain: “…Hamas could perpetrate the murders of Oct. 7 only because Israel had … allowed its attention to basic questions of security to lapse” (italics added). Why should a lapse in basic security—whether due to hubris, technological and organizational meltdown, or normal balagan (a friendly euphemism for chaos)—be enough to ignite a firestorm of unimaginable depravity? It seems that Jews are sentenced to an eternity of high alert because indulgence in even momentary nonchalance can spark (and legitimate) existential calamity. Who is more to blame for October 7? The barbaric perpetrators or the people they massacred? You then alert us to another misconception: “Hamas did not then, and certainly does not now, threaten Israel’s existence.” Wait: do other countries respond onlywhen their existence is at stake, but not when their people and property are “merely” violated? In any case, if there is still any doubt that Hamas (along with Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, maybe even China) seeks to destroy the Jewish State, language in their charter should settle the matter: “Israel will… continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.” It seems Israel is blamed for foolishly ignoring the threat and being lulled into a false sense of security, but also for overreacting to what was not a real threat in the first place. Why is Israel the only country in the world to face these damnable “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” criticisms? (Students of anti-Semitism will recognize the motif: Jews as foolish weaklings, Jews as omnipotent masters.)
Devastation is real
For many Jews—including a growing number in Israel—the legitimate need to respond militarily to the invasion of October 7 no longer justifies carnage at a scale that is increasingly hard to fathom. Reports of devastation and famine—contested as they are—exacerbate the problem you have surfaced, namely the erosion of allegiance to Zionism among Jews who keep hearing that Israel perpetrates unconscionable crimes. Regardless of the validity of the casualty numbers thrown around carelessly and maliciously on mainstream and social media (in what Matti Friedman aptly calls a “blizzard of ideological fiction”), and the dispute about who is to blame for the delay in unloading thousands of food trucks (yes, Netanyahu has explaining to do…), there is no denying the magnitude of the suffering, which no Jew—no one for that matter—should brush off. Still, the anguish felt by the overwhelming majority of Israelis, who want the war to end and the remaining hostages freed, is confounded by impolitic pronouncements of politicians and intellectually dishonest scholars who throw around words and phrases like “genocide” and “war crimes” that alienate even Netanyahu’s most ardent opponents.
Jewish clergy join the chorus of anger and, in their signaling of high virtue, ignore complexities in the data that should at least temper their effort to make Israel’s choice look obvious. What’s missing from too many of these one-sided critiques is the simple fact that release of the remaining hostages—the living along with remains of the dead—would bring an immediate end to the war. That “simple fact,” though, is not so simple, because ending the war is not enough for Hamas, which demands also the release of thousands of its heroic “freedom fighters” from Israeli jails. If the American Jews you write about are unsure how to balance the moral imperative of rescuing civilians from Hamas tunnels against the moral imperative of preventing future tunnels, they are in good company: Israelis cope with that dilemma every day. Infused in these debates are allegations that the IDF could do more to save lives. Maybe, but how many warning leaflets did the Allies distribute to the good citizens of Dresden before fire-bombing their city to smithereens and killing 35,000 people in two days? How much food was trucked in to feed the enemy in the Battle of the Bulge? Did Egypt bring medical supplies to treat injured Israelis in the surprise attack of 1973? The judgment of serious military historians who study such questions is often missing or muted in these discussions.
Who is more to blame for October 7? The barbaric perpetrators or the people they massacred?
The company we keep
I was relieved that you corresponded with Deborah Lipstadt and shared her wisdom on the dubious distinctions between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, a semantic distraction helpful to people who believe the Jewish People would be better off without the encumbrance of a state (but who seem flummoxed when asked what will happen to the seven million Jews living there today). But Peter Beinart? You quote him as saying “the question is not whether Israel has the right to exist,” a curious bit of sophistry from someone whohas been raising exactly that question for years—and answering it in the negative. With respect, quoting Lipstadt and then Beinart on Jewish affairs is like citing Francis Collins and then turning to R. F. K., Jr. for insights about vaccines. On the other hand, the fact that Beinart and others of that ilk influence public opinion amplifies the urgency of your message.
Diagnosis and treatment
Reading you brought to mind a quip I heard on a recent visit in Jerusalem: there are only two places in the world unsafe for Jews—Israel and the diaspora. Most American Jews have been comfortable in their dual identities, thanks to the hospitable environment they found in America compared to European and other temporary safe zones. Some have always been troubled (embarrassed?) by the Zionist project; and an increasing number, especially younger ones, struggle between fealty to social justice causes and crass right-wing extremism in Israel they neither understand nor abide. That schism is nurtured by demagogues who capitalize on Jewish affinity for universal humanism to sow seeds of doubt about allegiance to Israel. In the spirit of “nothing new under the sun,” we’ve been dealing with betrayal by traditional allies for a long time, with what my friend Mitchell Cohen wryly observes is a “left that doesn’t learn.” After October 7, though, things worsened, with American Jews (and others worldwide) pummeled by waves of anti-Semitism crashing from right and left. Some Israelis, still digging out of their physical and emotional trauma, apologize that this momentary failure of the Zionist project on October 7 may have compromised the safety of Jews everywhere. Talk about empathy!
What to do? It’s always easier to chop down really dumb ideas, such as exile as an alternative to sovereignty, than to come up with good ones. But I’ll offer some guiding principles in hopes you might help us move the discussion toward rectifying the problem you wrote about.
I’ll start with three assumptions, admittedly straining for optimism:
1. Most American Jews want the war in Gaza to end—conditional on release of the remaining hostages and the hostages’ remains—but underestimate how many Israelis share that wish. On the other hand, those who advocate for unilateral and unconditional ceasefire tend to overestimate the popularity of that view among Israelis, even those on the hard left. You can help correct these misunderstandings.
2. Beyond the specifics of the current war, most American Jews want to connect with Israel, even if they are reticent about self-identifying as Zionists. With some slippage, survey data affirm that, for the majority, with variation by age and religious affiliation, identification with Israel grew after October 7. These data are encouraging, and should be flagged if you continue working on these issues.
3. Incomplete knowledgeof Jewish, Zionist, and Middle Eastern history, more than foundational hostility to Jews or Judaism, fuels American Jewish ambivalence about Israel. Among those who lean “banally liberal,” too many are unschooled about the moral grandeur and historical significance of Zionism and Jewish national self-renewal. But at least they’re not opposed to the whole project. (For a crude analogy, the fact that some U.S. college graduates have trouble naming their two senators doesn’t mean they reject our grand democratic experiment.) If you continue on this topic, please help readers with a balanced set of references for further reading.
From those assumptions and requests, I’ll proceed with my top five more specific recommendations to educators in all disciplines, in and out of schools, including journalists and other “influencers.” We should:
a) challenge hyperbolic anti-Israel reporting that blurs people’s capacity to know what is going on and contributes to incessant degrading of Israel’s legitimacy;
b) question the bizarre notion that the Jewish people don’t need sovereignty, a fad unburdened by evidence showing why the diaspora (except possibly in America) has proven to be not a viable alternative;
c) acknowledge that external criticism of Israel’s government is fair play (God knows it’s the national sport there)—if it’s done honestly, humbly, and with at least a modicum of respect for the democratic ideals of the Zionist project;
d) push back against popular narratives (such as “settler colonialism” as the driving force in establishment of the Jewish state), derived from fanciful utopian visions that indict the West in general and Jews in particular; and
e) reclaim our commitment to evidence, logic, and moral clarity that distinguishes liberal education from the uncurated claptrap and conspiracy mongering of social media.
We need more journalists, politicians, and scholars joining the fight against the global epidemic of “banal liberalism” generally and its unholy alliance with anti-Semitism specifically.
A version of this article originally appeared on the author’s Substack. Reproduced with permission.
