Better Jews. The Moral Vanity of Israel’s Leftist Jewish Critics

The author of this article is an expat American who made aliya a couple of years ago and is now my neighbour. Adam was hired to manage and write for CIF Watch. CIF stands for Comment is Free which is a part of the notorious Guardian. Why was he hired? Because he is a terrific writer. In future, I will be posting more of his excellent work. Ted Belman

by Adam Levick

Ben Murane, an American Jew and head of New Generations for the left-wing lobbying group New Israel Fund, recently wrote an essay, under his blogging pseudonym KungFuJew, titled, “Reinterpreting Jewish communal service”.

The essay attempts to “reinterpret” Jewish communal service in universal terms and represents the quintessential guilt of liberal diaspora Jews over Jewish particularism.

Writes Murane:

Accused, I was, of not caring enough for those other than Jews…of working only for Jews.

Murane has been accused of the sin of working for an organization which focuses primarily on the fate of the Jewish state and evidently felt the need to defend himself from the charge of “selfishness”.

Instead of turning the accusation back on his interlocutors, and refuting the suggestion that Jews are unique in caring more about the fate of their own community than others, Murane immediately sought to assuage his guilt about being a Jew who cares about Jews.

There are plenty Jews in my world of the predominantly young and unaffiliated who are tired of the drumming of “Jew Jew Jew” and recoil from its incessant self-centered, self-referential, selfish concerns.

Murane, distinguishing himself from those parochial Jews who, triumph “selfishness”, writes:

What I abhor about the fight “against” intermarriage is the drive to identify and then root out non-Jewishness to protect us against its invasion.

Here, Murane flirts with noxious idea that Jewish particularism is inherently chauvinist, racist, and illiberal, and distinguishes himself from those evidently unenlightened Jewish souls who champion Jewish values, Jewish people-hood, and Jewish survival.

Despite the erudition of Murane and his political fellow travelers, they fail to understand that a desire to maintain a distinct communal identity is not exceptional, but the norm throughout human history.

People throughout the world, be they Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, or any of the thousands of unique ethnic groups which make up the fabric of human diversity, similarly aspire to maintain their community – to inculcate their children with the belief that their unique culture is worth defending.

Judaism is – in its passion to maintain a thousands year old faith tradition – not unique but, rather, the norm, and thoroughly consistent with the ideals of tolerance and pluralism.

Turning to Israel, and clearly feeling the need to disassociate himself from the obtuseness of nationalism – those Jews who, unlike him, are citizens of Israel – he writes:

Israel becomes a place where the ends justify any means because we must secure safety for the Jews first, foremost and instead of all other peoples… a bitter fest of greed to hoard and preserve power for ourselves to share with no one.

Then, clearly well versed in the vocabulary of the “multiculturalist” radical left, he denounces “our [Jewish] communal infrastructure” which, has, he says, “become an entrenchment of race and class privilege.”

Yes, Jews, who make up 2/10 of 1% of the world’s population, are a privileged class: a tiny, historically oppressed minority trying desperately to survive is really only the last gasp of a powerful oppressor.

Murane’s rhetorical flourish continues:

The effort then to sort between the Jewish and non-Jewish — be it in ideas or genes — smells of what we learned at the hands of our cruelest rulers in times we’d rather forget.

Yes, Jewish particularism as racism. Zionism as the cruel embodiment of everything we suffered under countless antisemitic despots and dictators. Racial supremacy with a Jewish face.

Murane’s moral triumphalism concludes:

I am just one example of a brave new breed of Jewish communal professionals. [Emphasis mine]

I’m sitting here writing this in my home in Jerusalem – a citizen of the first sovereign Jewish state in two thousand years.

My wife and I reside in a nation surrounded by politically reactionary terrorist movements who openly seek our destruction, and who quite explicitly express ideas about Jews – and not merely Israelis – which are decidedly racist and illiberal.

Yes, of course, my primary concern is to protect my family and friends from those who wish us harm just as Egyptians, Jordanians, Greeks, Germans, Turks, Chinese, Americans (and citizens of the 193 nations in the world) care more about the safety of their own national community than that of others.

This recurring tendency of Jews, such as Murane, to pay greater attention to their own moral performance than to the necessities of survival is a trait which Ruth Wisse characterizes as “moral solipsism”.

In displaying the resilience necessary to survive in exile, many Jews have come to fetishize weakness, and believe that they could pursue their mission as a “light unto the nations” on a purely moral plane.

However, Jewish history has surely shown that such weakness only increased Jews’ vulnerability to scapegoating and violence.

Yes, with national sovereignty there is a price that has to be paid in terms of the occasional infliction of human suffering (even if unintentional) that invariably occurs as the result of even the most responsible and restrained use of national power.

But in the lives of individual adults, as in the lives of responsible nations, rarely is there the luxury of making choices that will lead to perfect justice for all concerned. Rather, with every serious decision in front of her, Israel must carefully weigh the costs and benefits of various possible acts, and try to make decisions which will likely result in the most positive outcome for the Jewish state – the only Jewish homeland that ever was and ever will be.

Unlike Murane, I don’t have the luxury of concerning myself with the fact my fierce and unapologetic determination to defend and maintain a presence in our people’s historic homeland causes some Jews discomfort, or risks alienating us from our “progressive” non-Jewish friends.

To those not willing to get their hands dirty by fighting for a Jewish democracy under siege, all I can say is please step aside and let others not as easily tempted by such moral vanity take their place.

Finally, I’ve always been one to strongly argue that the phrase “self-hating Jews” is a misnomer.

Jews such as Murane don’t hate themselves at all.

Such Jews fancy themselves a “brave” Jew – indeed, a better Jew.

So, as a lesser Jew, all I can say is that I’d rather be loathed and alive than posthumously loved.

You can think of it as the morality of Jewish survival.