Over and above the incredible pain and anguish caused by the surprise attack by Hamas on Israel, there has been another kind of pain and anguish that Jews have been experiencing all over the world. I am talking about the incredible sense of betrayal that Jews have had as a result of so many of their friends and so many of the political and social groups in which they have participated, turning on them with regard to the recent events in Gaza. We are talking here primarily about some non-Jews, but also some so-called progressive Jews. (it is obviously very progressive to behead a baby). Black Lives Matter has turned against Israel and the Jews in the Hamas War. Many LGBTQ groups have done the same. The United Auto Workers have also turned against Israel. And many ordinary people – friends, acquaintances and co-workers – are also surprising us by the way they have turned against both Israelis and Jews. And what is it that Jews feel as a result of this surprising behavior? We mostly feel betrayed. The hurt is so overwhelming; it is like being in an excruciating overstimulating tension-pocket. To protect ourselves against this terrible hurt, we start free-floating in an experiential vacuum. We protect ourselves against the hurt and disappointment we feel by making ourselves numb. We go about our daily lives in an outwardly normal way, even though our social grounding has been totally upended.
What makes this different from, say, the hurt that comes from being rejected by a romantic partner is that, as painful as losing a love interest is, there is usually someone somewhere to potentially replace her. Maybe not right away, but eventually. Yet it is too difficult to even think about replacing all the categories of people that we Jews have been rejected by as a result of the massacre in Israel on October 7th. All the progressive groups for which Jews worked so insistently in the name of social justice. But where is the support for our own social justice when we so urgently need it for ourselves? All the international public service groups like the UN. from which Israel, at least, got a minimal recognition of being a valid national entity. But if all this minimal recognition gives us when we have a crisis is silence at first and then a grudging acknowledgement of our pain, then all I can say is that the U.N. recognition of Israel’s existence brings very few benefits with it. If anything, with all the condemnations of Israel in the U.N. for supposed human rights violations, it has been a source of endless aggravation.
Finally, there are all the prestigious university communities in the U.S. to which Jews have contributed greatly both intellectually and financially. Jews are beginning to exit both as donors and students from these top schools in the Ivy League and on the West Coast. Understandably, the students don’t enjoy being physically threatened or psychologically bullied. Their revenge will come when the intellectual quality of the schools as well as their reputations start to deteriorate.
Maybe what can be said and what should be said is that on a certain level this is simply a part of an ongoing pattern. Jews are the people that are never allowed to experience true social grounding whether as a minority in a country with another dominant culture, in a country with a melting-pot culture or even in a country like Israel which is their own. In their life experience, Jews vacillate between a tenuous social grounding within the larger society, on the one hand, and a total tension-pocket rejection from the larger society, on the other. The latter experience can lead to their floating off in an experiential vacuum.
Sometimes the tenuous social grounding leads to a firmer integration in the larger society than at other times, and it is precisely in situations like that, that when the rejection comes, the pain and anguish are greater, because the rejection is so unexpected. And furthermore, the firmer integration, when all is said and done, is only on the surface anyway. In other words, it is a firm integration of the Jews, but one that doesn’t go very deep. This is the way I would describe the situation for the Jews in the United States.
Something tells me that Jews are going to have to start developing a more nimble social attitude when it comes to dealing with the external social world. The ability to know when they can allow themselves a certain openness, a certain vulnerability in dealing with people outside the community. Close relationships can occur with people outside the community, but they have to be done carefully. Particularly since October 7, Jews have experienced enough hurtful surprises to last many lifetimes.
© 2023 Laurence Mesirow
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