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It's been terribly distressing to be a Jew in America since the attacks on Israel on October 7 by Hamas, but not for the reasons you might think.
I am a Jew who has supported the cause of Palestinian emancipation for decades now. I have found the American Jewish community an increasingly difficult and uncertain place ever since the war began.
It infuriates me to see many of my fellow Jews, some of whom are longtime friends, supporting Israel's seven-month attack on Gaza and the West Bank (as well as Syria and Lebanon) with seemingly no concern at all over the obscene bloodshed of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, which some scholars and experts in large-scale civilian attacks have called a genocide.
Add to that death toll Israel's bombing of hospitals, mosques and schools; as well as blocking food, water, medicine and other vital supplies from entering the territory, and the result is a hell on Earth.
How can so many of my fellow American Jews—especially those of us who are fortunate enough to have comfortable suburban lives, plenty to eat, and freedom—not speak out against this horror?
In Judaism there is a concept called tikkun olam, which is the idea of social action and the pursuit of social justice intended to repair and improve the world. This is a concept that has resonated with me in both my activism and work, and makes it impossible not to speak out to the world and to other Jews to remind them of who and what we are.
But it seems many have forgotten this key principle. This has been exceptionally painful to witness from people who purport to practice compassion as a principle of our faith. Many American Jews portray themselves on social media, blogs, op-eds in major media outlets, and on television, as the victims of this war—not the Palestinians, including women and children, international journalists, aid workers, doctors, and other civilians fighting for their very survival.
The same voices decry unfairness and antisemitism on college campuses all over the United States, because students are protesting Israel's actions. Some American Jews report feeling "unsafe" on campuses due to their support for Israel, while those protesting genocide are subjected to police violence.
Student protesters' calls for divestment and a ceasefire are not antisemitic, and it's dangerous to say they are.
Such smears blur the lines of true antisemitism, making it harder for people to identify real instances of it, and weakens the rest of the world's empathy for us.
I am not denying that antisemitism exists. Of course it does. And I'm not so naive to deny that some of the protesters on college campuses, and elsewhere, are antisemites. This is a fact and will always be a fact.
But what is happening in Gaza can only fuel further antisemitism. Supporting genocide, or ignoring it while playing the victim, does not help the rest of the world see Jews as a compassionate and empathetic people who have lived through and overcome many traumas in our history.
Likewise, the world is not seeing a fair representation of the key tenets of a religion that has been integral to making substantial change in the world. They see privileged people supporting brutal violence.
Are we no longer the compassionate, empathetic people I grew up believing we were?
I'm a Jew who does not support the 76-year occupation and open-air prison system of apartheid. Saying that does not make me a "self-hating Jew," but a thoughtful one who empathizes with people in Israel as well as Gaza and the West Bank, where illegal settlements continue to grow. Tens of thousands of Palestinians were kicked out of their homes and off their land, only to endure decades and decades of further violence.
As pro-Israel rhetoric contributes to the rise of antisemitism around the world, it also alienates Jews who oppose war and genocide wherever it may occur. It causes those who believe the arc of the moral universe needs help bending toward justice to question whether we belong in and to this culture anymore. But if we "self-hating Jews"—those who still believe in justice—abandon the faith, who remains to share the truth of the Jewish ethic and contributions to social change movements with the world?
Gary Smith has contributed essays and columns to Jewish Journal, Moment Magazine, Tricycle Magazine, Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Independent, Mother Nature Network, Elephant Journal, and to several books. He lives in Los Angeles.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
