by admin
Why Anti-Semitism on the Left Hurts Me More
Someone asked me incredulously if the anti-semitism on the left really upset me more/made me feel the need for a Jewish state more than the Pittsburgh. (And then went on to describe the evils of Israel.) Oh yes, yes, the anti-semitism on the left does hurt and scare me more. Not that it’s worse. Just in terms of how I feel able to function in the world, it is much more impactful.
Trump-types’ hatred of me means there are people I do not identify with who don’t want me. But when the people who are my refuge, who I want to make a home with me (meaning a home in the world), who I long to celebrate for and with when they succeed–when these people see me, Israel, Jews (except their approved Jews, maybe, relishing this potential division from each other?) as uniquely evil and worthy of being pointed out as so, Haman-style—whether we are relevant or not to the issue at hand—I fear that I have no home in the world at large.
I will always, I pray, hold onto my values for human rights and justice and compassion and fight for them in the U.S. and in Israel, and many of those values are shared with these same people. But I fear they don’t want flawed but trying hard me, us—and in fact see us as worthy of more hatred, less deserving of existence, as anyone else in this world. As generations have not wanted us before, have seen our sins as the whole of us and uniquely powerful and cruel.
I guess I can understand, now, the disbelief we read about when Jews’ friends, neighbors, compatriots turned against us in the past. I always thought now is different. It’s not.
Please don’t respond to this with any unkindness. Right now I just need support. I don’t claim to be the first of anyone to feel this way. Or that people of other groups, especially People of Color, have not also felt this way forever, and I hope I have lived a life of empathy and sisterhood in that regard. But right now am so very heartbroken and afraid.
Susan Silverman is a rabbi and founding director of Second Nurture: Every Child Deserves a Family—and a Community, an organization focused on the fostering and adoption of waiting children and teens. She is a co-founder of Miklat Israel, to protect African asylum seekers from deportation and to create a sustainable solution for dignified lives in Israel. She serves on the board for Women of the Wall and for the International Council of The New Israel Fund. She is the author of a memoir, Casting Lots: Creating a Family in a Beautiful, Broken World. She and her spouse, Yosef Abramowitz, have five children and live in Israel. @rabbasusan
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lilith Magazine.