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The American Jewish fairness trap

http://spme.org/spme-research/american-jewish-fairness-trap/17026/

By Alex Joffe March 6, 2014


Source: Times of Israel Originally published on 02/27/2014
Four recent incidents illustrate how American Jewish institutions are manipulated to
subvert support for Israel. Call it the fairness trap.

Vassar Hillel announced it would join its counterpart at Swarthmore and reject
Hillel Internationals guidelines prohibiting anti-Israel speakers and activities. The
Open Hillel movement represents these restrictions as unfair censorship.

Ramaz High School in Manhattan, a Modern Orthodox flagship, rescinded an


invitation from a student group to Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi, a
passionate opponent of Israel. A petition then called for Khalidi to appear in the
name of academic equitability.

The Museum of Jewish Heritage invited, disinvited and the reinvited John Judis to
speak. Judis is the author of a shallow and tendentious new book on President Harry
Truman and the origins of Israel. The museum director complained about the ugly
specter of succumbing to pressure and giving in to outside influence.

Philosopher Judith Butler canceled her appearance at a Kafka-related event at the


Jewish Museum following an outcry regarding her passionate anti-Zionism.

In all these cases leading Jewish institutions were willing to open their facilities and lend
their names to anti-Israel voices in the name of fairness, openness and dialogue.
Protests were then condemned as censorship and delegitimization. The need to invite
anti-Zionists into Jewish institutions, when these individuals and their viewpoints are
widely known and available, is simply taken for granted. Jewish institutions, whatever
their purpose or orientation must be open to even antithetical viewpoints and be seen
doing so. That is the trap. Jewish institutions are damned if they do and damned if they
dont.
What is remarkable is not that these manipulations go on but rather how transparent
and shameless they are. They take advantage of what has become a defining
characteristic of the American Jewish community, an obsession with fairness and
balance, an eagerness to listen to and internalize the narratives of others, to be other
directed, guided by external trends and standards. Sometimes this is justified as a
Jewish value, akin to the ever-malleable concept of tikkun olam, and sometimes as an

American value. And of course there are kernels of truth to this. But it is dramatically
one-sided.
Rarely are there comparable gesture by non-Jewish institutions, secular or religious. The
Friends Seminary school in New York City felt perfectly comfortable inviting anti-Zionist
and antisemite Gilad Atzmon to present his views. A few polite complaints from a
handful of Jewish students and parents were swept aside. No balance was required. The
Newton Massachusetts school system comfortably went into lockdown when it was
revealed that high school students were being taught Islamist propaganda about the
Middle East. No balance was desired. The K-12 outreach to high schools by Federally
funded Title VI Middle East Studies centers across the country presents doctrinaire
perspectives about the glories of the Arab world and Islam and either ignore or criticize
Israel. No balance is available.
The same trap exists for Jewish Studies programs at American colleges and universities.
They are expected to co-sponsor anti-Zionist speakers and events. When they do, they
give their imprimatur, and as often as not a well-intentioned scholar of Jewish literature
(or worse yet, Hillel professionals) has to debate a professional Palestinian. When they
dont, they are dismissed as bigoted, and their adversaries represent themselves as
paragons of fairness and inclusion. Middle East Studies programs often get around this
by presenting anti-Zionist Israelis.
These incidents point to an uncomfortable reality of American Jewish life. There is no
institution, no space, no conversation that is immune from anti-Zionism. At every turn
Jews in their communal homes are required, often by other Jews, to debate Israel. As
often as not the terms of the conversation are harsh and prejudicial; ethnic cleansing,
apartheid, boycott, the one-state solution. This increasingly pertains to synagogues and
communal organizations as much as to educational and cultural ones.
From the anti-Zionist side one could say that this is a curse brought about by Zionism
and Israel. But the relentless way that anti-Zionism forces itself into every space and
every conversation is indicative of something else. In some cases antisemitism is at
work in this worldview of course Jews are ubiquitous and all-powerful. But in others,
like Jewish institutional life, there is obsessiveness that suggests a pathology. Why the
absolute need to debate the place of Jews in the world everywhere, and to present the
evil of Israel, even in Jewish institutions?
Objectively this is hardly the paramount question of the day. But there seems to be an
inverse relationship at work the greater the problems of the world and the Middle East,
the greater the focus on the Jews and Israel. It is as if the more Syrians die, the greater
the demand that Israel be debated (and denigrated), in the interest of fairness. Is the
emphasis an attempt to expiate inaction there or elsewhere, a quest for moral purity, or
something else?
At the root is the problem of Jewish power. One of the great impulses to Jewish outerdirected in America has been the real and perceived need to avoid appearing selfish.
The bulk of American Jewish economic power has long been channeled into philanthropy
directed at the non-Jewish world, primarily universities, hospitals and museums.
Whether this came from a perceived need to be accepted (or tolerated), the result is

that the most visible displays of Jewish power do not benefit Jews. The periodic waves of
revulsion expressed against AIPAC are a rejection of Jewish political power that defends
a particular cause, Israel. Now whatever power that comes from having private or
protected Jewish spaces must be relinquished in the name of fairness. It seems likely
that the ultimate goal is Jewish powerless.
Much as only Israel is required to make compromises for peace, ranging from ceding
territory to self-abolition, only American Jews are required to open their institutions to
competing narratives, and only they are condemned as bigots if they refuse. With the
trap thus sprung, the future of American Jewish institutions is more fraught than ever.

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