Judaism Without Borders

(Cross-posted to Jewschool by popular request.)

I used to work at New Voices Magazine, the only independent publication written by and for Jewish undergrads. It was the best (and worst) crash course in nonprofit management and journalism I could ask for. Thrown in the deep end of the Jewish philanthropic pool, it was sink or swim.

I can count myself as half-successful, since our editorial line of publishing critical student thought ran us into trouble with the David Project, who in 2007 intervened in our funding with the UJA-Federation of NY. We had to cut staff, I got the axe. This is a heretofore unreported detail which is harmless now to mention — yes, I lost my job because of the David Project’s branding New Voices, as quoted to me by a UJA official who kindly read me their email to the funding board, as “bad for young Jews, bad for the Jewish state.” There was more to that email. Needless to say, I harbor a small grudge against the David Project and some of the UJA. The first is zealotry incarnate, the other a paragon of spinelessness.

So when I read Sam Green’s opinion piece in New Voices chastising the all the Jewish anti-Zionists out there, I could only chuckle at the unintended (and likely unaware) incongruity. The misfortune of arguing a politics of exclusion in a publication that lost $30,000 and a staffer to being too open-minded diminishes his intended impact. Then again, only myself, my friends then and those involved remember that episode, so perhaps he shouldn’t expect him to know.

Then again, Sam Green is just, well, very green. New Voices isn’t the New York Times. But a part of our mission was to treat student journalists like real journalists, so I take the time here to dignify even the embarrassment of “Don’t Hate the Jewish State” by Sam Green:

I find Green’s central argument vapid, akin to yelling “Jews, stick together!” in a Hebrew school cafeteria food fight. Empty appeals to ethnicity make not a moral case. Maybe Green isn’t aware that collective identity is nosediving among the under 35 demographic, as attested to by Stephen M. Cohen, whose conclusions I dispute but not his metrics. Young Jews are seeing themselves as Jewishly flavored but not bound. Idealism, universal values and principles unite and motivate them — an appeal they find under the left-leaning social justice movement and certainly not in the racial ties-trumpeting Jewish old guard. Green, your argument is embarrassing the “new” in New Voices, please stop.

Neither does Green seem to understand his quarry. Is Green arguing against Jewish anti-Israel advocates, against anti-Zionism, or against any criticism of Israel? He attacks all three without seeming to know they are three wholly different targets. I presume it is the first. The third target unfortunately includes most Jews and definitely all Israelis.

To argue that anti-Zionists suffer a “confused ideology” reveals  a lack of understanding of his opponents’ basic premises. Ethnically-defined yet democratic states tend to breed convoluted arguments for racial preference. In contrast, I find true anti-Zionism almost alluring with it’s simplicity: nation-states are a bad idea and nationalisms tend to produce wars, thus Israel should be a state of Jews and Palestinians equally. Add a dash of “Israel as safe haven is a failure as a country perpetually at war” just to add a touch of concern for Jewish continuity, and Zionism begins to look like Thomas Hobbes and David Ben Gurion playing strip Twister drunk. I argued against that simplicity here recently. I dare say anti-Zionism is much less confusing.

Now we can get to one  of Green’s most unfortunate lines:

Israel is a place where all Jews are welcome to live and work.

Suffice it to say that the issues of inter-Jewish discrimination in Israel are quite well-documented by excellent Israeli researchers and social justice orgs which I needn’t list ad nauseum here. But his point serves to raise in the minds of readers the list of Israel’s domestic shortcomings, particularly their detriments on non-Jews. Israel is an unfriendly place for Israeli Arabs, migrant workers and non-Jewish Russian immigrants. If Green were trying to build appreciation for the state, then he fails by raising the very specter anti-Zionists claim as proof of “Zionism = racism.”

Also, Green seems to use “disaffected” as a dirty word. I would argue that many “disaffected” young Jews are effectively distant for two reasons: (1) Because Israel is pursuing disastrous policies that are often openly inimical to human rights and Palestinian self-determination, antithetical to most Americans’ democratic values. (2) Because of preachy, narrow-minded Israel defenders who delight in the politics of exclusion. I feel disappointed that in New Voices, we young free thinkers finally escaped from the balding apologists only to fall victim to a young one.

The one compelling appeal by Mr. Sam Green is unfortunately buried in a mountain of feces:

For a Jew to deny Israel’s right to exist as a democratic Jewish state is to deny that the Jews should be able to live with the same amount of self-determination as the deserving, victimized Palestinian populace.

And there we have it. If we’re arguing from a place of self-determination (though not all true anti-Zionists are) then Jews get a state and Palestinians get a state. (Thanks for the  mention of J Street, by the way, but that point too is pointless when we’re discussing Jews who disavow nation-states.)

Near the very end, Green’s already questionable understanding of the topic deflates completely with a lackluster expose when he reveals anti-Israel Jews’ motivations as…

…a strong desire to break with the past, advocate for radical change and be different from the previous generation…

If Sam Green is arguing against hope and change, then he was definitely born in the wrong generation. Both right and left desire to break with the status quo, advocate for an ideal, and change to an idealized future. The pro-Israel right-wing could gather under this banner if it also read “in Judea and Samaria!”

Listen to my pride in student journalism whimper. As I’ve detailed, there is little logic in this piece. But most regrettable over even the few bits I fisk here, Green offers no quotes, no data, no anecdotes, no supporting evidence, no surveys to support this claim. The entire article has no citations. Not even personal experience. The article is empty. Green, a word to your mother: please, try journalism next time.

An addendum: I think Sam Green’s commitment to engaging Jewish issues is what New Voices was founded for, nearly 35 years ago. Kudos also to editor-in-chief Ben Sales for empowering him. I feel a little guilty since I’m 25 and employed in progressive Israel advocacy, whereas Green has yet to graduate. It’s my values as New Voices devotee that we engage all our young writers as adults, because if we infantalize them the way David Project did UJA’s funding board, then God forbid, Green will still write like this when he’s head of JTA.