Category: Jewish News and Commentary

This section is home to everything Jewish, including my commentaries, book reviews, podcasts, books, and other projects.

Abraham Accords Could Meet Same Fate as Oslo

I don’t want to fall into a familiar trap of unwarranted optimism, then sudden dejection, in light of the so-called “Abraham Accords” between Israel and some of her Arab neighbors.

What did it for me was the killing of Muhammad al-Durrah on the Gaza Strip in September 2000. He was a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who hid behind his father as they were caught in the crossfire between Palestinian security forces and the IDF.

The world watched as the boy cried in terror, then was struck by a bullet. I was managing editor for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at the time. Shortly after this incident, which was the beginning of the larger Palestinian uprising that became known as the Second Intifada, I resigned my job at JTA, moved from New York City back to my old home in Metro Detroit, and quit writing about Jewish issues for the next 16 years.

This was not what I had signed up for.

I was among the Oslo Peace Process hopefuls. I was convinced that at JTA, I was going to help lead coverage of a new era in Israeli-Palestinian relations, a time when I could write about, and think about, what it means to be a Jew without a constant reminder of Mideast conflict. I never wanted antisemitism, or the Middle East, to define the way I write about Judaism. Today, this is unavoidable and now that I am writing again about Jewish issues, I am faced with the same frustration.

Read the rest of my commentary on the Abraham Accords in the Detroit Jewish News.

December 10, 2020
‘Armies of Enablers’ Were Complicit In Crimes

What are “Armies of Enablers?” When does silence turn into guilt? And what is the difference between a bystander and an enabler? Are both of them complicit in crimes?

I’ve looked at this problem from a number of points of view in my career, including in what I’ve written about the Holocaust. It’s why I was glad to speak to Author Amos N. Guiora, a law professor at the University of Utah. He’s broken down the various shades of complicity. He has written books about bystanders during the Holocaust and enablers of sexual assault in a modern context, including young women on the USA Gymnastics team.

As in his Holocaust book, he identified a triangle of complicity that connects the survivor with both the bystander and the enabler.

“In that sense, there is a clear connection between the two books,” he said. “I’m not focused at all on the perpetrator. I leave the perpetrator to others to write about. That doesn’t interest me. I asked the men and women whom I interviewed a question that is so obvious to me that hadn’t been previously asked. And that was, ‘What were your expectations of the neighbor?’”

And that is the reason the victims were eager to speak with him, he said. They jumped at the opportunity to talk about “the complicity of the institution” that was supposed to have protected them.

…

Guiora distinguishes between bystanders and enablers. Bystanders are physically present and have specific knowledge about a crime. “All we want the bystander to do is to dial 911,” he said.

The enabler, however, is somebody who knows the victim is in peril and either does nothing or actively discourages the victim from reporting the crime. In most of the victims he interviewed, he discovered that there were not only a few enablers, but “armies” of them.

You can read my interview with Amos N. Guiora in the Detroit Jewish News.

December 5, 2020
Push Back Against the Proud Boys in Michigan

The Proud Boys hate group is embedding itself into local Michigan politics. Back in March, the Grand Traverse County Board of Commissioners held a public hearing, a piece of local red-region political theater really, on a resolution to make the county a “Second Amendment sanctuary.”

A non-county resident wearing a “Proud Boys” T-shirt stepped up to the microphone and said he was “representing friends of mine from Grand Traverse County who couldn’t be here today.” And, with that, he waxed philosophical about his interpretations of the Second Amendment.

Well, I was surprised, and so were many in Traverse City, because the Proud Boys are designated a “hate group” by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center. Both organizations say the group is racist, antisemitic and misogynistic. Not only that, they played a large role in planning 2017’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., during which a local synagogue was terrorized and a young activist, Heather Heyer, was murdered in a car-ramming of counterdemonstators by an avowed antisemite.

Read the rest of my essay on the Proud Boys in the Detroit Jewish News.

November 5, 2020
Dr. Ruth: The Complete, Uncensored Interview

It was a pleasure to have interviewed 92-year-old sex therapist Dr. Ruth for Publishers Weekly. But that interview was for a general audience, so The Detroit Jewish News kindly ran another edit of our interview, this one with more Jewish content.

Now, though, for the very first time, here’s our complete interview. Parents, you may want to shield your children’s eyes … or prepare to have “the talk” with them after reading this. We talked about sex, the Bible, her work as a sniper for the Israeli army, and the time I first met her years ago, when I was editor of a Jewish wire service in New York. Enjoy.

Howard: Hello, Dr. Ruth! Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. The first question I always ask these days, no matter who I’m talking to, is how are you? Are you coping OK with lockdown?

Dr. Ruth: I belong to an endangered species because I’m 92. I’m very fine and I’m up in the country with my daughter and son-in-law and, right now, four grandchildren I can count. And I’m very careful. When I’m in New York, I stay home, but I’m talking a lot on the phone. And I tell you that it will be over and not to lose hope. And I’m waiting for Gov. Cuomo to say, “Dr Ruth, now you can go out.”

Howard: I first met you sometime in 1999 or 2000, when I was managing editor for the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. We talked for only a moment, but the one thing that stuck with me was that when you spoke to me, you gave me your undivided attention. Is that part of the secret of being a good therapist? Being a good listener?

Dr. Ruth: Howard, that’s a very interesting question. I have never been asked that question. The answer is “yes.” Undivided attention. I’m sitting alone. I just had coffee. And I am not doing anything but listening to you and talking to you. I think you are absolutely right. This is one of my characteristics which comes from being a therapist. Because in my office in those days, no phone calls when I talked to people. Undivided attention is correct.

Howard: I watched the “Ask Doctor Ruth” documentary last year and learned so many things about you that I did not know. I learned that you were a Holocaust orphan and also a bad-ass sniper for the Israeli army. Do you think you, or your generation, which lived through so many horrible things early in life, made you appreciate life, and sex, a little more?

Dr. Ruth: Definitely, in my case, the appreciation of life is no question. But I’ll tell you also, since I’m one of the few children that did survive—one-and-a-half million Jewish children were killed—I knew I had an obligation to make something out of my life. But, Howard, I did not know that it would be talking about sex. That, I did not know. However, my being able to talk so openly about orgasms and erections, all of the things about sex, is because I’m very Jewish. And in the Jewish tradition, sex has never been a sin. Sex has always been an obligation from a husband to a wife.

I do believe that the book, Heavenly Sex, and I’m jumping for joy that it is going to be a classic, coming out now, and will never be out of print, by NYU Press. However, I could not have done the book without Mark from The Jewish Week because I needed somebody who can find the sources in the Jewish tradition of those things that I’m talking about.

Howard: So, let’s talk a little more about sex and the Bible. There’s a lot of it going on, and not all of it between husband and wife. Why do you think the Bible, which is supposed to contain many lessons for how to live our lives, is so filled with sex parts?

Dr. Ruth: Because sex is an important part. You and I would not be in this world without sex. However, you are absolutely right. For example, the Book of Ruth talks about how she kind of seduced Boaz. They are such interesting stories because what they wanted to make sure is that there are next generations. On Friday night, the husband says “A Woman of Valor” In that prayer, towards the end, is one sentence that I believe is the most sexually arousing in the world. The husband says to the wife, “There are many wonderful women out there who do wonderful things, but you are the very best.” And in my experience as a sex therapist, there is nothing better for a woman to hear than that. And, it’s interesting. The sages wanted people to have sex Friday night. They also wanted them to have babies. And really, that book is the best sex manual of all time.

But I want to tell you something with a hypothesis that I cannot prove. It says, in the Jewish tradition, it says that if a husband brings his wife to sexual satisfaction before he ejaculates, she will bear a son. Now, here is my hypothesis, which I cannot prove: I would like to see a scientifically validated study. It could be that if there is more wetness in the vagina, maybe the male spermatozoa has an easier time to get to the ovum. I don’t have any proof of that, but since we know that Jews wanted to have sons. It also says a man can do with his wife what he pleases, even from behind—from behind is not anal intercourse, from behind means inserting the penis into the vagina from behind, which is most interesting for a sex therapist because the clitoris is exposed and be stimulated to have the woman have an orgasm. So, many things that I’m describing in the book are very, very apropos even for today.

Howard: In other religions, sex is associated with guilt, but Judaism, as far as I know, embraces it. Is it cultural? Genetic? Or just the difference between emphases between the Old and New Testaments?

Dr. Ruth: A very important point. Never, in the Jewish tradition, is there anything prohibiting sex in any position. They wanted people to have sex. They wanted people to be married, but never is it associated with guilt. On the contrary, it is an obligation on a husband to satisfy his wife, which is fascinating if you look at other religions that have many more problems. I don’t go into these problems at all. I just say many other religions have that issue of guilt. Never in the Jewish tradition. It was always considered a mitzvah, an obligation of a husband to satisfy the wife.

Howard: How intertwined are sex and spirituality? Should sex be a religious or spiritual experience?

Dr. Ruth: That’s a very good question. I’m a sex therapist and I’m saying sex should be sex. Period. If you want to make it spiritual, make it spiritual. If you want to just make it bodily, make it bodily. The important thing is to be sexually literate, to know when there is a problem to go for help and to make sure to keep sex alive even in older age. Now, I’m not saying that everybody can have a baby, like Sarah, at the age of 90. Not likely. The Bible teaches us about relationships and about companionship.

Howard: So, I’m about to turn 55. You just turned 92. The population is aging. Are you concerned about the sex life of an elderly population?

Dr. Ruth: It’s not just the act of intercourse. For me, sex is also as important as a relationship, of caressing, of hugging—not only that, of showing how happy you are that your partner is in your life.

Howard: Who would you vote for as the sexiest man or woman in the Bible?

Dr. Ruth: I don’t know. But if you ask me if there is a man who is not alive anymore, who I would have liked to have spent more time with when I was in Israel, it’s certainly Ben Gurion. I don’t want to say that I would have liked to sleep with him. It’s not appropriate. First of all, he was short; second, he had that wonderful smile. When he looked at Golda Meier. I had never met him, but in 1948, when Israel was declared a state, I was in Jerusalem, dancing the whole night, when he declared the State of Israel on the radio. So, if you ask me anybody in history that I would have liked to know better, which is also interesting, Howard, the verb “to know” in Hebrew is “ladá’at” “ladá’at” is “to know.” Interesting because that’s what I’m talking about from morning to night. It’s not just a sex act.

Howard: Most of the world spent the last six months under lockdown, often with their spouses or partners, but also under a lot of stress. Do you think the silver lining in all this is that partners got to know each better in the “Biblical sense?” Or do you think the stress of the pandemic put a stop to sexual contact?

Dr. Ruth: Good relationships will survive and bad relationships will not survive. When there was a one-night blackout in New York some years ago, I could say to people, “I know in nine months there will be more babies.” Not now. Right now, this is nothing to joke about. So, I’ll only say what I’m doing is listening to the health professionals. Whoever is in a relationship, it is fortunate not to be lonely. And it says in the Jewish tradition, clearly, God did not want people to be alone.

Howard: When you began as a sex therapist, you were considered by some to be scandalous, especially among the religious. I don’t think you are anymore. Do we have better attitudes about sex in the 21st century?

Dr. Ruth: I don’t think that anybody who really listened to me more than just a sound bite knew that I never was scandalous. I talked very openly about orgasm, about erection, about lubrication, about all those things. I talked very openly about what we don’t know. I talked openly that there’s no G-spot, until I get scientifically validated data. So, I never considered myself scandalous. I considered myself very open. And, because of my accent and because of my ten years on radio and many, many television programs, it’s true that when people opened the radio or television programs, they knew it was me. In the film, it shows somebody wanting to do a citizens’ arrest because I talked about sex on a college campus. I did not like that because I came out of Nazi Germany and I certainly didn’t like a citizens’ arrest. However, there was

Howard: What is the most-important message the Bible, or Judaism, teaches us about sex and relationships?

Dr. Ruth: The most important sentence in there, in my opinion, is that God did not want man to be alone. Period. I think this is true even today, when so many people, young people and older people, have trouble committing to a relationship because they always think there’s something better out there. So, I think that is one lesson to be learned. The Bible, and certainly the Jewish tradition, wanted people to be in a relationship.

November 1, 2020
Confederate Jews Confuse Southern Narrative

I have a complicated relationship with the South, to say the least, which is why I leapt at the chance to talk about Confederate Jews with Sue Eisenfeld, author of Wandering Dixie: Dispatches from the Lost Jewish South, for Publishers Weekly.

Author Rediscovers a Nearly Forgotten Jewish South

Sue Eisenfeld finds it fascinating that when neo-Nazis and neo-Confederates shouted “Jews will not replace us” in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, they did so as they gathered around a statue of Thomas Jefferson that was created by Jewish sculptor Moses Ezekiel. The sculptor, in turn, was firmly on the Confederate side. There’s a lot to unpack in that scene—those who hate Jews rallying around a sculpture created by a Jew who was actually sympathetic to the Confederate cause. It is at this intersection of many prejudices, false historical assumptions, and the legacy of the Civil War that appeals to Eisenfeld. Read the entire feature at Publishers Weekly.

Sue’s experience of the South was different from mine, since she interviewed Jewish families that can trace their lineage back at least to the Civil War. Their ancestors were proud Confederates. She told me that she’s not judging the Jews of the Confederacy, since the norms of society were different. I’m not sure I give Confederate Jews the historical pass that she does, but I understand why she did it.

When I lived in the South, I was very much an outsider, the son and grandson of Hungarian Jewish Holocaust refugees. Years later, I remember my grandfather asking my dad how the heck we decided to live in Georgia, which is “full of anti-Semites.” I’ve written before about my experiences as a Jew in the South, including in the Jewish Daily Forward.

Not included in my PW piece was a dialogue I had with Sue about the Jews of Charlottesville during the neo-Nazi march in 2017. I had the feeling they were no sons and daughters of the Confederacy. In fact, the police—largely in favor of the Charlottesville marchers—failed horribly to protect the local synagogues during the rally. It was, in part, this knowledge (and probably anti-Southern prejudice) I have that prompted me to speak out just after Charlottesville at a local rally in my hometown of Traverse City, Michigan. Here’s part of what I said:

‘I’ve Seen This Before’ — My Speech at an anti-Nazi Vigil in Traverse City, Michigan

When the Holocaust deniers in the White House tell you that there are “many sides” to the story of Charlottesville. “Many sides” to the story of a group of Nazis, feeling so empowered by their president that they feel it is OK to slam a car into a group of anti-fascist protesters and murder a young, idealistic woman, Heather Heyer, who stood up for what was right, it is an invitation for more armed Nazi thugs in the streets, killing and beating the defenseless. How do I know? Through my murdered family, I have seen this before. Read the rest of my speech here.

So, I was probably even more shocked than Sue to find there were Confederate Jews, but her book does manage to provide context and, more importantly, to try to look forward rather than backward. “Seeing Jewish culture in the heart of the South might force readers to think about what she calls ‘the two touch points between African-American history and Jewish history in the South: slavery and the Civil Rights Movement.’ And that Jews, even if in some cases they were also considered second-class citizens, were still beneficiaries of institutional racism.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that Sue sees Jews as white and benefitting from white privilege, yet my own experience in the South was very different. There are no right or wrong answers, since all these things can be experienced at once. It’s part of the baggage involved with being a Jew. And, to be a Jew in the South, the baggage becomes heavier.

April 25, 2020
Remix Judaism, But the Song Remains the Same

In my latest feature for Publishers Weekly, I interviewed Roberta Kwall, author of Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World. Kwall’s book answers, in part, a question I asked in a JTA piece I wrote last summer. Now that Jews are finding their way back to “feeling Jewish” due to a rise in anti-Semitism, how do we get them back to “being” Jewish? It’s in the “remix.” You can read “the writers’ cut” of my JTA piece here.

And, in the tradition of offering my blog readers slightly different versions of my stories, here’s the raw, unedited version of my feature on Roberta Kwall:

When sound engineers remix music, they break it down into its component parts and then recombine the pieces into something that may still be the original song, but with subtle differences. Maybe they’ll add a heavier bass line for dancing or make that screaming guitar solo pop. Well, take that idea and apply it to Judaism. Add an emphasis on lighting the candles on Friday nights, or decide to keep kosher, or follow any other Jewish ritual. Just one of them. And what you have is something author Roberta Kwall calls “Remix Judaism.” It’s still Judaism, it’s still the same old song, but with personalized features. And, more importantly, it is tied to Jewish ritual.

“There’s a lot of interest in creativity,” said Kwall, author of Remix Judaism: Preserving Tradition in a Diverse World (February 2020, Rowman & Littlefield). “But how much of it is being connected to ritual? There’s so much activity in the American Jewish community, but very little, in liberal circles, is being focused on the ritual and how to make the ritual meaningful.”

In other words, any “remix” of Judaism has to be recognizable as the same old song even when there are added emphases or flourishes.

This is a point that Kwall began to make in her previous book, The Myth of the Cultural Jew (2016, Oxford University Press), where she argued that secular Jews who claim they are “cultural Jews” only don’t realize that Jewish culture has its basis in Jewish law. “The law and the culture are inextricably intertwined,” she said.

Kwall, a law professor at the DePaul University College of Law, did her initial scholarly work in the doctrine of moral rights, under which an author has the right to preserve the integrity of their work and not have it compromised against their will. So, the question she kept asking was how much you can change the pages of a book, a piece of music, and still consider it the work of the author.

“I woke up one day and said, ‘Oh my gosh, you can ask the same question about Jewish tradition,’” Kwall said. “How much can it change and still be Jewish tradition?”

For example, Kwall said, her daughter once told her: “I just think, Judaism is about being a good person.” This is part of what many liberal secular Jews call Tikkun Olam, or “repairing the world.”

“Well, I said, sure. Tikkun Olam is a part of Jewish tradition, of course. But if you’re going to just take that and divorce it from ritual, you need the ritual as well,” Kwall said. “And that’s really what my book is trying to show. You need the ritual. It doesn’t mean that you have to practice the ritual in the way that theologically observant Jews are practicing it. You don’t have to practice it to the same level or with the same or the same amount. But you have to be doing some ritual.

Tikkun Olam is a part of Jewish tradition, of course. But if you’re going to just take that and divorce it from ritual, you need the ritual as well. And that’s really what my book is trying to show.

And sticking to the ritual is important, she said, because that is how you transmit the ritual to the next generation. “That’s really what my book is trying to do,” she said. “It’s trying to show how you can tap into personal meaning in order to get yourself to perform the ritual, and the importance of consistency.

Kwall gives the example of lighting Shabbat candles every Friday night because the candle holders might have belonged to a deceased relative; or decided to refrain from eating pork out of concern for the conditions under which farm pigs live. Both of these actions conform to Jewish custom or law, even if they did not come by these rituals or actions for Jewish reasons.

Kwall said she felt her book was necessary because as she speaks at synagogues and listens to concerns over whether their kids will continue Jewish traditions, she hears very little about how the Jewish community arrived at this place. Instead, the dialogue in Jewish communities have become polarized politically between right and left. Conservative or liberal politics, though, does not transmit to younger people in a way that sustains Jewishness. To Kwall, that is “unacceptable.”

“To me, there’s just so much beauty in Jewish tradition, that it can’t be the property of just any one sector of the Jewish community. And it shouldn’t be. But I think a lot of people don’t really have enough guidance for how to own it and how to make it their own.”

Kwall hopes her book can trigger a dialogue in Jewish communities over transmission of ritual to younger generations. No matter how the rituals are remixed, it will still be recognizable as Judaism.

“Think about how much stronger American Jews would be if every Jewish family were at least coming together on Friday night. If every American Jewish family we’re just sitting down together even for one hour on Friday night with no technology, lighting a candle, saying a quick bracha (blessing) over the wine and talking to one another even for an hour., Think how much thicker our cultural religious tradition would be here.”

March 12, 2020
My Family’s Holocaust Story

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, here is my family’s Holocaust story. This story is based on memories passed on to me by my grandfather and by my great-uncle Charles, who went back to Hungary after the war, but changed his name to Lukacs, which sounded less Jewish. Charles became a journalist in postwar Hungary, and many relatives said that I take after him. My grandfather helped Charles get out in 1956 during the Soviet invasion, and he Americanized his name to Lucas. I spent a lot of time with my great-uncle Charles before he passed away in his 90s. It’s where I get a lot of my firsthand information about the Holocaust.

It was in 1939 that Charles put a four-year-old Andrew Lovy—my father—on a train heading west out of Budapest. He was accompanied by my grandmother Elza. They both later joined my grandfather, who had gone on ahead to America to establish a life there. My grandparents didn’t have to see the crematoria to know that they were waiting for them. I owe my existence to the far-sightedness of my Grandpa Joe, who got out in time. But, his is a different story to tell. Here is where it begins.

Hungarian Jews sat out most of the war in relative peace, although with increasingly draconian anti-Jewish laws passed. Hungarian ruler Admiral Horthy was allied with the Germans, but would not do the Nazis’ bidding when it came to the Jews. At least, not yet.

But toward the end of the war—when Horthy knew it was lost—he tried to make a separate peace with the Russians, who were already on Hungary’s doorstep. So, on October 15, 1944, the day Horthy was to announce his surrender to the Russians, the Germans stepped in and installed a Nazi puppet regime run by the viciously anti-Semitic Arrow Cross. Yes, this is the same Arrow Cross that Donald Trump adviser Seb Gorka idolizes. They has been my family’s tormentors since before the war.

Then the familiar pattern began. First, influential Jews were stripped of their government and teaching positions. Next, Jewish businesses were smashed, looted, burned, or confiscated. Then Jews were stripped of all their possessions, rounded up and, starving, forced into cramped and disease-ridden ghettos. Entire villages in the Hungarian countryside were drained of their Jews, who were transported to Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, or Mauthausen.

Already, most of European Jewry had been murdered. The world knew that Hungary was next—including Franklin Roosevelt. There were formal protests, and attempts to make secret deals to save the lives of a few Jews here and there, but the Allies—by then firmly superior in the air and on the ground—did nothing to save the Hungarian Jews.

The world watched.

Death-camp deportations and mass executions of Hungarian Jews were recorded matter-of-factly on the inside pages of the New York Times.

Sometime in the summer of 1944, my great-grandmother—a deeply religious woman who came from a long line of rabbis and Jewish scholars—was placed in a cattle car, taken to Auschwitz, and murdered in a gas chamber.

In Czechoslovakia, the word came out that it was now safe for the surviving Jews to come out of hiding. My great-aunt Hedwig, her husband, and two children believed it. They, too, were handed over to the Germans and murdered.

They were taken to the border of Austria and made to dig anti-tank trenches to try and slow the Russian army. The conditions were appalling, as sadistic German guards murdered Jews at random and threw their bodies in the trenches dug by the victims.

My uncles Andor and Charles were able-bodied men, so they were used as slave labor. By the end of 1944, they were marched from one camp to another, just a few steps ahead of the advancing Allies. They were taken to the border of Austria and made to dig anti-tank trenches to try and slow the Russian army. The conditions were appalling, as sadistic German guards murdered Jews at random and threw their bodies in the trenches dug by the victims.

It was by chance that Andor, in a separate death march, met up with his brother Charles. They marched together for a while. But soldiers of the nearly defeated German army were firing random machine-gun volleys into the marchers. My uncles decided it would be best if they split apart, so one of them would have a better chance of surviving until liberation.

They were right. Andor fell when one of his German guards opened fire. He would have been killed, but the Germans were in a hurry at this point. He heard one of the say, “Don’t waste a bullet on him. He’s dead already.”

Charles found Andor critically wounded, but alive, among a heap of bullet-ridden bodies. Charles picked his brother up and helped him continue to the march to the Mauthausen concentration camp. There, despite horrible deprivations and abuse, he was able to nurse Andor back to health and wait it out until Americans came six months later.

After the war, Andor testified against one of his Mauthausen guards, who was hanged for his crimes.

A few relatives survived Auschwitz and were sent to displaced persons camps. Many immigrated to Israel, but the trauma continued. An uncle could not cope with the memories of Auschwitz and committed suicide. My brother is named for him.

The Holocaust story involving my family is both unusual in its cruelty, but not so unusual in the context of the Holocaust. Many families suffered worse. Life-and-death decisions that would impact the existence of future generations were made in split seconds. There is more to my family’s story, and it is very much intertwined with my own.

January 26, 2020
College Anti-Semitism: My Personal Connection

The Jewish Daily Forward asked me to write a commentary on Trump’s executive order designed to combat college anti-Semitism. My piece was not so much about the (as it turned out, misreported by the NYT) proposal that Jews be defined as a nationality rather than religion. It has more to do with why, exactly, Trump is so nice to Israel. It has nothing to do with such an insignificant voting block as Jews, who don’t support him, anyway. You can read all about it in my Forward Op-Ed here.

But that’s not what I want to talk about in this post. I want to include below one reason why I am paying close attention to the issue of campus anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. I experienced it myself in college. The paragraphs below are the parts that were cut from my original too-long draft of my Forward commentary. I’m not complaining. It was beside the point and the editor was right to cut it. But here’s the personal part of the story:

At the risk of revealing how ancient I am, let me tell a brief story about what happened to me in 1985. When I applied for editor of my student newspaper, The South End, at Wayne State University in Detroit, hundreds of Arab students turned out at a hearing to denounce me … one by one … because of my commentaries about Israel. I stood there, stone-faced, while I was denounced for not being “objective” about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict for the simple reason that I was Jewish and did not call for the destruction of Israel.

This was more than just a disagreement over Israeli policy. I felt a gut punch every time another speaker, who did not know me at all, denounced me. At the time, there was nobody I could turn to for support. I remember well the sense of isolation, this horrible feeling in my stomach that this had nothing whatsoever to do with Mideast politics. I was targeted because I was an outspoken Jew. I was more than qualified for the job. I had been writing for the paper, living and breathing for the paper, for the previous two years. But the Student Newspaper Publication Board decided I was “too controversial” after the protests. My application was rejected.

My coverage of these controversies in college, getting into the thick of the argument with Palestinians students, and forming friendships with some, taught me an important lesson about who I was as a Jew and who I wanted to be as a writer.

That was in the mid-’80s, and the problem has become exponentially worse. So, yes, I understand that Jewish students need to be protected from anti-Semitism. It seems that all you have to do is claim you’re anti-Israel at any university campus, and you can get away with targeted harassment, even violence, against Jewish students or visitors.

Believe it or not, Jewish students will survive college. The story ended well for me. One story the Arab student body complained about was my coverage of the Muslim Student Association’s sale, in the student center, of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. I suggested in my coverage that it was, in fact, an anti-Semitic forgery. Strangely, my coverage of the issue would earn me an internship at The Detroit Jewish News and my unexpected later career as a Jewish journalist. It would lead, eventually, to the managing editor’s office at JTA in the early 2000s, when I put into practice many of the lessons I learned in my mini-Mideast wars in college

My coverage of these controversies in college, getting into the thick of the argument with Palestinians students, and forming friendships with some, taught me an important lesson about who I was as a Jew and who I wanted to be as a writer.

The way to combat anti-Semitism on campus is to continue to host speakers of all points of view and change minds the old-fashioned way. Make sure students are safe, of course, but college is where you are allowed to be loudly, boldly wrong along the way toward adulthood.

December 12, 2019
Q&A: My Full Interview with Author Bari Weiss

I recently wrote a feature for Publishers Weekly after my interview with Bari Weiss about her book, How to Fight Anti-Semitism. While I really enjoy my gig with PW for letting me go out and interview some fascinating Jewish authors for their religion section, sometimes I have to leave great material on the cutting-room floor. The most-important part of the story that did not make it into the piece was Bari’s assertion that tracking anti-Semitism is not just about the Jews. Anti-Semitism is a bellwether for a dying society. For that reason, we all should be paying attention to the rise in anti-Semitism—all of us, Jews and non-Jews. Below is a transcript of my interview with Bari Weiss.

Howard Lovy: You have a connection to The Tree of Life Synagogue. Tell me about the connection.

Bari Weiss: Yeah, so, as I write in the book, I was Bat Mitzvahed in 1997 at Tree of Life. We’re promiscuous, religiously, and my parents pay dues at several synagogues, and that’s one of them. The beauty of Pittsburgh is that we’re really small enough and close to each other enough that we’re really not separated along denominational or political lines in the way that happens in a big city like New York or LA.

Tree of Life became home to three different congregations. There’s a lot happening there on a given Shabbat morning. My dad often goes there, so when I heard the news I was actually in Phoenix because I was giving a speech the next day to a Jewish group. My immediate thought was “Please, God, I hope my dad is not there.”

I was supposed to have been on a flight to Israel the next day for a reporting trip, but it became very clear to me that there was nowhere else I could be in the world that week. So I changed my flight, I came home to Pittsburgh, and I just sort of spent the week bearing witness to my community. And, of course, to what the killer did, but also the way that the Jewish community and the broader Pittsburgh community responded. I don’t know if I’ve had a more transformative week in my life.

I was supposed to have written a broader culture book, which I’ll turn to after I’m done being on the road for this one. But in in the ten months following, I found myself again and again drawn to writing about this topic and felt like there was nothing else that I needed to write. I went back to my publisher and basically begged.

Howard: There are a lot of books coming out about anti-Semitism now. I recently interviewed Deborah Lipstadt about her book. What made you also decide to say, “well okay I’ll write about anti-Semitism, but also how to fight it.” Where does that come from?

Bari: I think that if you even take a cursory look at history, it’s clear that societies in which anti-Semitism flourishes are societies that are dying or dead. One of the reasons I think it’s so important to a expose the nature of the new anti-Semitism is not just for the sake of the Jewish people, or not even primarily for the Jewish people, but for the sake of this country. Societies in which anti-Semitism thrives are societies in which truth has given way to conspiracy thinking. I think it’s clear that we’re living through a moment in which our grasp of truth is just very, very tenuous, and in moments of deep uncertainty and anger people reach for anti-Semitism. I think that’s what we’re seeing here. So, the reason I want to fight it, I hope it’s obvious.

About Omar and Tlaib

Howard: I almost felt like I was reading recent headlines as I went through your book. Had your deadline been a couple weeks later, there might have been other things in the book, too, so at some point you have to you have to cut it off.

Bari: Exactly. I mean, at a certain point, because there was just so much unfolding as the book was in copyediting and I really felt the need to address Trump attacking members of Congress, saying that they needed to go back to the places they came from, you know to the crime-infested countries from which they came. That, to me, was just such an obvious reappropriation of the idea of provisional belonging that has been weaponized so often against the Jews. I was very happy to get that in, but of course had it closed a few weeks later, there would have been a whole other story about Bibi barring Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from visiting Israel. And this bullying request of Trump.

But also, and this is I think is very important that I point out in the book, that someone can be both a target of bigots and racists and lunatics, as Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are, and they can also believe deeply disturbing things themselves. I think we saw the perfect encapsulation of that this week with the fact that they were being barred from visiting the democratic State of Israel, that Israel was barring democratically elected members of Congress. Then when you look deeper into the trip they had planned to Palestine, as they called it, it was being sponsored or underwritten or connected with a group that has literally republished medieval Christian blood libel, not to mention glorified suicide bombers. You know, only one of those stories was told.

On Social Media

Howard: I think a lot of progressives are worried about being labeled as white supremacist and at the same time there’s a problem on the other side, too. There’s this question over is Trump an anti-Semite or does he just encourage anti-Semites. But I think Jews on social media are having a hard time trying to explain themselves and not doing a very good job of it. I guess maybe this is where we transition to the “how to fight it” part. Do we need to have to, with every tweet, with every Facebook post, explain the last seventy years of history?

Bari: Seventy? How about, like 2,000?

Howard: Well, seventy in the context of Israel. There are a lot of short memories about things like that. You wrote in your book, “Call it out especially when it’s hard.”

Bari: Right. I think that there’s just a tremendous amount of misunderstanding about what anti-Semitism is and I hope it will clear that up for people.

‘Left vs. Right’ Anti-Semitism

Howard: People say, “anti-Semitism on the left” and “anti-Semitism on the right.” But, to me, there just doesn’t seem to be a huge difference. Maybe it comes from different ideological points of view, but the same tropes are there of Jews, money, power, exerting undue influence over politicians. Do you do you think there really is a difference between anti-Semitism on the left and on the right?

Bari: I don’t think it’s different in its ultimate form. I’ll say that I think that they look different in the sense that—and I’ll give you what I think is the perfect example, which is that organization I mentioned that was going to sponsor Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar’s trip that was canceled. They republished a medieval blood libel that was originally written by national Vanguard, which is a neo-Nazi group, and they repurposed it, as you know, on their anti-Zionist site and billed themselves as an initiative for the promotion of global dialogue and democracy. I think that is such a powerful example.

Anti-Semitism from the right announces itself without hesitation. You know, it’s the Pittsburgh killer who screams “kill the Jews.” It’s Hamas, it’s Iran, you know it’s the guy that was arrested yesterday in Ohio—you know, whatever his name is. But anti-Semitism, when it comes from the left, often cloaks itself in language that is very seductive not just to progressives but especially to progressive Jews that want to see themselves on the right side of history. It cloaks itself in the language of social justice and liberation and all the rest. So, sometimes I think, because of that clothing it wears, it’s a little bit harder to see.

Where I agree with you is that the roots of it are, of course, the same and the conclusions of it are the same; the packaging of it often looks really different. So that’s why I structured the book the way I did.

‘Revisiting Our Judaism’

Howard: It sounds to me like even Jews who are hardly religious or never really felt Jewish before are feeling more Jewish now because of anti-Semitism.

Bari: They are, and I think that’s always the case when you’re a minority, or if any person is under attack, it’s like a punch to the gut and there is a very emotional reaction to that. The question is can we make use of that by revisiting our Judaism and our Jewish identity. By learning Hebrew, which is the common language of our people that so many people don’t know. After this book tour—and I know I should be fluent at this point, given the amount of education I’ve had—but I’m terrible at languages. One of my goals for myself is to learn Hebrew, like really being much more fluent in it.

So I think that we’re in a precarious moment, but in a way really a moment with tremendous potential and opportunity.

I’ll say that my dad was talking to this really incredible man who lives in Pittsburgh. He was a partisan and a Holocaust survivor and was asking about my book. He said to my dad: “There’s a very simple answer to how to fight anti-Semitism. It’s called ‘be a better Jew.’” And I think that there’s a lot of wisdom in that.

Possibility of Change

Howard: You mentioned “allow for the possibility of change” and you give the example of Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, who was a member of the KKK, but ended up one of the greatest justices. Is that what we should be doing now? I mean, should we look at someone like, well Louis Farrakhan is beyond redemption, but other people who can be changed and educated?

Bari: First of all, I think it is an anti-Jewish idea to suggest that anyone is irredeemable. I think that it’s always possible. Do I think that Louis Farrakhan has revealed himself? There’s a long history of him showing us who he is. Is it possible? I just I always want to hold on to the possibility of change. I wouldn’t be in the business that I’m in if I didn’t think we could change people.

Nurture Your Jewish Identity

Howard: That’s a good answer. I think one of the last pieces of advice you give is not only to nurture your Jewish identity, but to tell your own story and I think that’s probably what you’re doing with this book.

Bari: Yeah, I think that’s a big part of what I’m doing, but I think what I’m trying to do— and I sort of leave bread crumbs throughout the book for people to go and Google and read more about because it’s a short book and I needed to be pretty economical. And people tend to read short things. But I hope I’m leaving bread crumbs for people to go and understand more deeply their own history.

I feel like one of the amazing parts about the American Jewish experience is that we’ve sort of forgotten a bit of our history and maybe who we are. I think that revisiting where we come from can be enough. The long history of anti-Jewish pogroms and everything else, you know I think that’s one part of it, we are but also an incredible civilization with world-changing ideas. I don’t think Jews have a sense of that and I really hope that they will come away with more appreciation and, frankly, pride in it.

November 7, 2019
Rep. Rashida Tlaib Should Be Building Bridges

I enjoyed writing this piece for The Forward, largely because I think (or, hope) that it went beyond the usual knee-jerk Jewish criticism of two freshman congresswomen, particularly Rep. Rashida Tlaib of my home state of Michigan.

I’ll have more to say in a future article in Publishers Weekly about the progressive Jewish dilemma when it comes to criticizing Muslim politicians. We’re often misunderstood as, God forbid, Trump supporters or Islamophobes. But we need to call out anti-Semitism wherever it’s found, including Rashida Tlaib, whom I really want to support, but cannot because she has not risen to the occasion.

You can read the whole thing at the link below, but I’ll give you a spoiler alert, and quote from the ending:

But, OK. I’ll say it: “As a Jew, I am pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.”

What does that mean? It means understanding the nuances of the conflict, of retaining historical memory of lost chances for peace. It means recognizing the pain of the other, and acknowledging that there are voices lost.

Rep. Tlaib could be building bridges between the Muslim and Jewish communities of Metro Detroit, and she’s failing. I urge her to reconsider her approach.

Read my opinion piece in The Forward: Tokenism Is Racism – Except For Jews

August 27, 2019