Final Tuesday, I used to be presupposed to have launched my first ebook, 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 supposed begin, I heard from my publicist that the bookstore had “considerations” about Rabbi Bachman as a result of he was a “Zionist.” I obtained one other name whereas in a automobile on the way in which 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 bowled over. Rabbi Bachman is an outspoken social-justice advocate and a supporter of the institution of a Palestinian state (and my former trainer). My ebook 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 mustn’t have been stunned 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 considering is on the rise. The outcome throughout the board: Nuance has evaporated, and humanity is briefly provide.
My would-be ebook launch additionally exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face. We’re caught between components 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 warfare in Gaza, really feel like now we have little room to maneuver.
On the one hand, we will no extra resign our households, buddies, and communities than we will ourselves, and the demand that we accomplish that is improper. 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. It is a situation that almost all Jews, who when surveyed describe robust attachment to Israel, couldn’t meet. And it’s a form of litmus check that shouldn’t be requested (and customarily will not be) of some other group of individuals.
Alternatively, we can’t ignore Israel’s devastation of the Gaza Strip, and must be frightened of shifting consideration away from the human disaster unfolding within the territory. Pals 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 considering, 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 just lately, inured them to the horrific proven fact that this warfare 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 partially as a result of such episodes make transferring the mainstream Jewish group a lot tougher. Each time a left-wing activist insists that the one strategy to really take part within the battle 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 must be authentic calls for—as an example, circumstances on U.S. navy assist—as past the pale.
The brand new left-wing norm that insists on one-state maximalism will not be solely an ethical mistake. It’s also a strategic one. If there may be one factor that the previous 12 months of cease-fire activism has illustrated, it’s that altering U.S. coverage on Israel requires a broad coalition. That massive tent should have room for individuals who consider in Jewish self-determination and are dedicated to Israel’s existence, at the same time as they work to finish its domination over Palestinians.
Many on the best, not simply the far left, scoff at the potential of such a coalition. For the previous a number of days, my inbox has been stuffed with hateful crowing that the cancellation of my ebook 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 will strain Israel to alter its insurance policies? So how might I now complain that related ways have been getting used towards me? The ejection of Zionists and Israelis from well mannered society was on my fingers.
To those critics I have to insist on a distinction between boycotts of whole 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, in contrast, are a staple of nonviolent resistance, essential instruments for reaching real democracy.
Little question, I remorse sure sentences and even articles I’ve written about Israel up to now, which as we speak I might phrase otherwise. The October 7 assaults painfully resensitized me to the truth of Israeli Jewish vulnerability, which exists regardless of the huge energy imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians. I used to be too typically keen to miss this truth. 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 capable of have our dialog final week, we might have mentioned what could be the one immutable fact about Israel and Palestine nowadays: Neither Israelis nor Palestinians are going anyplace, and each peoples have the best to equality, dignity, and self-determination. No motion that ignores this actuality has any hope of success.