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An Israel analyst’s best- and worst-case scenarios for the new right-wing government
(JTA) — The recent Israeli elections, the fifth in less than four years, returned Benjamin Netanyahu to the driver’s seat for the third time.
The twice and future prime minister appears able to cobble together a coalition that has been called the most right-wing in Israeli history. It will include three far-right and two haredi Orthodox parties, and his partners include the far-right Religious Zionism party and its leader Bezalel Smotrich, who has sucessfully pushed for a heavier hand in controlling Israeli policies in the West Bank; Itamar Ben-Gvir, head of the extremist Otzma Yehudit party, who is due to head a new National Security Ministry that will be given authority over Border Police in the West Bank; and far-right Knesset member Avi Maoz, whose Noam party campaigned on a homophobic and anti-pluralistic platform.
These developments have cheered the American Jewish right, which has long called for Israel to consolidate its power in — if not outright annex — the disputed territories of the West Bank that are home to 480,000 Israeli settlers and 2.7 million Palestinians, of whom 220,000 live in East Jerusalem.
For Jews on the center and left, however, the results have prompted anxiety. If the two-state solution has long looked out of reach, many were at least hoping Israel would stay on a centrist path and maintain the status quo until Israelis and Palestinians seem ready for their long-delayed divorce. American Jewish leaders are worried — privately and in public — that Jewish support for Israel will erode further than it has if Jews become convinced Israel doesn’t share their democratic and pluralistic values.
I spoke this past week about these issues and more with Michael Koplow, the chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum and a senior research fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. The IPF supports a viable two-state solution, and Koplow acknowledges that he agrees with “almost nothing that I’m going to see from this Israeli government.” But he remains one of the most articulate analysts I know of the high stakes on all sides.
Our conversation was presented as a Zoom event sponsored by Congregation Beth Sholom, my own synagogue in Teaneck, New Jersey. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: What are the far right’s big asks, and what might we expect to see going forward?
Michael Koplow: There are a few issues that are really coming to the fore. The first is judicial reform. There’s a longstanding complaint among the Israeli right that the Israeli Supreme Court is perceived to be left-leaning — the mirror image of what we have here in the United States. Secondly, the Supreme Court is perceived by many Israelis to be an undemocratic institution, because it is an appointed body. In Israel, you have a selection committee for the Supreme Court that is actually composed mostly of sitting Supreme Court justices and members of the Israeli Bar Association. A common complaint is that the Knesset is a democratic body selected by the people and it’s hampered by this undemocratic body that gets to dictate to the Knesset what is legal and what is not.
And so for a long time on the Israeli right there has been a call to have a bill passed that would allow the Knesset to override Supreme Court decisions. At the moment, there’s no recourse. The ultra-Orthodox parties in Israel have long sought exemptions for haredi Israelis to serve in the IDF and the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that ultra-Orthodox members of Israeli society can’t get a blanket exemption. A Supreme Court override bill would allow the Knesset to exempt the ultra-Orthodox from serving in the IDF. For the more right-wing nationalist parties, particularly Religious Zionism, the Israeli Supreme Court has ruled on multiple occasions that settlements cannot be established on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. Their main interest in a Supreme Court override is so that they can pass laws that will effectively allow settlements anywhere in [the West Bank’s Israeli-controlled] Area C, whether it’s state land or private Palestinian land.
Is Netanyahu interested for these same reasons?
Netanyahu is to a lesser extent interested in these things, but right now he’s on trial for three different counts, all for fraud and breach of trust, which is the crime that Israeli politicians get charged with in matters of corruption. He’s also in trouble for bribery. One of the things that he wants to do is to pass something called the “French law,” which would bar sitting Israeli prime ministers from being investigated and indicted. And in order to do that, he almost certainly will have to get around the Supreme Court.
The second thing that I think we can expect to see from this prospective coalition has to do with the West Bank. In late 2019 and early 2020, there was a lot of talk in the Israeli political sphere about either applying sovereignty to the West Bank or annexing the West Bank. This happened also in conjunction with the release of the Trump plan in January 2020, which envisioned upfront 30% of the West Bank being annexed to Israel.
This all got shelved in the summer of 2020, with the Abraham Accords, when the Emirati ambassador to the United States wrote an op-ed where he said to Israelis, “You can have normalization with the UAE or you can have annexation, but you can’t have both.” Israelis overwhelmingly wanted normalization versus West Bank annexation. Between 10% and 15% of Israeli Jews want annexation, so this annexation plan was dropped. In the new coalition, annexation is back, but it’s back in a different way. Bezalel Smotrich is a particularly smart and savvy politician, and understands that if you talk about annexation or application of sovereignty on day one, he’d likely run into some of the same problems — from the United States and potentially from other countries in the region. And so the way they’re going about it now is by instituting a piecemeal plan that will add up to what is effectively annexation.
How would that work?
For starters, there is a plan to legalize illegal Israeli settlements, and when I say illegal, I mean illegal under Israeli law. There are 127 settlements in the West Bank that are legal under Israeli law, because they had been built on what is called state land inside of the West Bank, and because they’ve gone through the planning and permitting process. In addition, there are about 205 illegal Israeli outposts and illegal Israeli farms, containing somewhere between 25,000 and 30,000 Israelis. And what makes them illegal under Israeli law is that they were all built without any type of Israeli government approval. In many of these cases, they’re also built on private Palestinian land.
The first part of this plan is to legalize retroactively these illegal outposts. The coalition agreement that has already been signed between Likud and Religious Zionism, Smotrich’s party, calls for, within 60 days of the formation of the government, the state paying for water and electricity to these illegal outposts. I should note there already is water and electricity to these illegal outposts, but it’s paid for by the regional settlement councils. This would have water and electricity paid for by the Israeli government, and then within a year to retroactively legalize all of them. That’s step number one.
Step number two has to do with the legal settlements inside the West Bank. There is a body called the Civil Administration, which is the body that is in charge of all construction for both Israelis and Palestinians in Area C, the 60% of the West Bank that is controlled entirely by Israel. As part of the agreement between Likud and Religious Zionism, Smotrich is going to be finance minister, but also appointed as a junior minister in the Defense Ministry, and he will control the Civil Administration and will be in charge of all settlement construction in the West Bank. He will also have the power to decide whether Palestinians can build in Area C and whether Palestinian structures in Area C that were built without a permit can be demolished. And so this will almost certainly be increasing at a very rapid rate. The Supreme Planning Committee that plans West Bank settlement construction normally would meet about four times a year, and under the [current] Bennett/Lapid government it only met twice, but Smotrich said in the past that he would like to convene it every single month. So the pace of settlement construction is almost certainly going to grow at a pretty rapid pace.
What will Itamar Ben-Gvir, an acolyte of Meir Kahane, the American rabbi barred from Israel’s parliament in the 1980s because of his racism, gain in the government?
Itamar Ben-Gvir is the head of Otzma Yehudit, the Jewish supremacist party that now has six seats in the Knesset. As part of his negotiations with Netanyahu, he is going to be appointed to a new position known as the “national security minister,” which is currently called the public security minister, but they’ve increased its powers and renamed it. They’ve also given this new ministry control over the West Bank border police, who operate in the West Bank. And they’re also giving this minister power over the police that normally belongs to the police commissioner. And so Ben-Gvir, who I should note has seven criminal convictions on his record, including one for support of a terrorist organization and incitement to racism, is going to be the minister who’s in charge of the police — not only inside of Israel, but he’ll be in charge of the police who operate in the West Bank and who operate on the Temple Mount.
Michael Koplow is the chief policy officer of the Israel Policy Forum and a senior research fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. (Courtesy IPF)
And this is important because Ben-Gvir is one of the figures in Israel who has talked a lot about changing the status quo on the Temple Mount, probably the most sensitive spot in the entire world, and certainly the most sensitive spot anywhere between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Which is why Israeli governments, including very right-wing governments, have not changed the status quo [allowing Jews to enter the Muslim-administered mount, but pray there], certainly not formally. He’s also talked about increasing his own visits to the Temple Mount.
And he’s also talked about changing the rules of engagement for Israeli police, whereby they would be allowed to shoot anybody on sight, for instance, who’s holding a stone or holding a Molotov cocktail. Right now the current rules of engagement are that people like that can only be shot if they present an imminent and serious threat to a soldier or police. Changing that is certainly going to have an effect on relations between Israelis and Palestinians and likely lead to the types of clashes we’ve seen in Jerusalem over the past few years.
This is all very good news for folks who want to solidify Israeli control in the West Bank. It’s not such good news for people who support more autonomy for the Palestinians and certainly support the two-state solution — and I think I can include the Israel Policy Forum in the latter camp. I want to hear your thoughts on what you’ve called the best-case scenarios and the worst-case scenarios, and on where Netanyahu fits in.
When I say best-case scenario, I mean in terms of preserving the status quo, because a best-case scenario where you’d actually have an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is nowhere. It’s not in any conceivable future.
I think the best-case scenario would be that Netanyahu understands Israel’s place in the international system and he understands how issues inside the West Bank impact Israel’s foreign relations. This is somebody who has served as Israeli prime minister longer than anybody else. He was prime minister when the Abraham Accords came into being, and that accomplishment is rightfully his. Netanyahu understands these factors and has a long history of being very cautious as prime minister. He’s not a prime minister that uses force. He’s not a prime minister under whom Israel has undertaken any major military operations outside of Gaza. I think that it’s not unreasonable to think that his history of relative caution isn’t just going to go away. And that means doing things to make sure that the fundamental situation in the West Bank doesn’t get overturned.
Netanyahu is operating in a political context in which his voters and voters for the other parties in his coalition do expect some real radical changes. Interestingly, however, part of this agreement with Religious Zionism is that everything has to be approved by [Netanyahu], and so there will be a mechanism for Netanyahu to slow some things down. I think that there is a situation in which he lets things proceed at an increased pace, but doesn’t do anything to really fundamentally alter the status of the West Bank.
I also think that voters voted for Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit not because they’re looking for big, massive changes in the West Bank or an explosion in settlement construction, but because they were voting on law and order issues. Many Israelis are still very shell-shocked, literally and figuratively, by the events of May 2021, particularly the riots that broke out in mixed Israeli cities. And despite the fact that Itamar Ben-Gvir was blamed by the police commissioner at the time for instigating some of the violence in mixed cities, he ran a very effective campaign where he said, “Vote for me and effectively I will restore order.”
That leads to the reasonable best-case scenario of plenty of things happening that will cause friction with the United States and plenty of things that will cause friction with the Palestinians, but nothing that can necessarily be undone by a different government down the road.
And the worst-case scenario, from your perspective?
The worst-case scenario is all of these things that Smotrich, in particular, wants to carry out leads to the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. Based on my own experience in the West Bank in recent months, the Palestinian Authority has fundamentally lost control of much of the northern West Bank. In many places they have chosen not to engage in many ways. They effectively operate in and around Ramallah, and have a token presence in other spots, but don’t really have the power to enforce law and order. They’re under enormous political strain.
As a very quick refresher, the West Bank is divided into three areas, A, B and C. In theory, Area A is supposed to be entirely under the PA control and where you have between 1.3 and 1.5 million Palestinians. If the Palestinian Authority collapses, that means that Israel must go in and literally be the day to day governor and mayor of Area A and all its cities, providing services to 1.3 million Palestinians. It means acting as traffic cops, dealing with all sorts of housing and construction and literally everything that municipal governments do that Israel has not done in Area A in almost 30 years.
Does Israel even have that capability?
The standard is that 55% of all active-duty IDF soldiers are currently stationed in the West Bank. If the Palestinian Authority collapses it’s not hyperbole to say that every single active-duty IDF soldier will have to be stationed in the West Bank just to run things, just to maintain basic law and order. That means not having IDF soldiers on the border with Egypt, on the borders with Syria and Lebanon. It will effectively have turned into nothing but a full-time occupation force. And that’s Option A.
Option B is that Israel elects not to do that. And then Hamas or Islamic Jihad steps into the vacuum, and they become the new government in the West Bank. And at that point, everything that you have in Gaza, you have in the West Bank, except for the fact that the West Bank is a much larger territory. It cannot be sealed off completely. This is literally the nightmare scenario not only for Israeli security officials, but for Israeli civilians. And that’s even before we talk about the impact that will have on terrorism and violence inside of Israeli cities inside the green line, let alone what happens in the West Bank.
The United States and the European Union, and the U.N., presumably, won’t stand idly by through a lot of these changes. What leverage do they have and can they use to maintain the status quo?
The U.S. and E.U. are going to have some pretty clear, very well-defined red lines. I think it’s reasonable to expect that the Biden administration and many members of Congress will put the formal declaration of annexation as a red line. The same goes for European countries. But certainly the Biden administration doesn’t want to be in a position where they are getting into constant fights with the Israeli government. The administration rightly views Israel as an ally and an important partner and wants to maintain military and security and intelligence cooperation with Israel in the region. All those things benefit U.S. foreign policy. This is not an administration and certainly there isn’t support in Congress for things like conditioning security assistance to Israel or placing new usage restrictions on the type of weapons that we sell to Israel. And so there isn’t a huge amount of leverage in that department.
But I do think we’re going to see more diplomatic and political-type measures. People remember the controversy that ensued in December 2016 at the United Nations when the Obama administration abstained from a Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements. I think that if some of these measures go ahead, on the Israeli side, there’s a good chance that we will see the United States once again abstain from some measures in the Security Council. At the moment, the Israeli government has been working very hard to get the United States to help with [thwarting] investigations into Israeli activity in the West Bank in the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. I think that those sorts of things become a lot harder if Israel has fundamentally changed the status of the situation in the West Bank.
There are probably all sorts of trade relationships with the European Union that may be at risk. One big factor here is the other states in the region, the Abraham Accords states. There’s reason to think that they may act as a check on the Israeli government, given the popularity of normalization among Israelis, and given the fact that the UAE was the party that really stepped in and prevented annexation from taking place in the summer of 2020. In a country like Saudi Arabia, where you have a population of between 25 and 30 million, or Iraq or Kuwait, [the far right’s agenda] makes normalizing relations with those countries very, very difficult, if not impossible, and it’s possible that Netanyahu will use that also as a way to try and appeal to some of his coalition partners.
Another outside partner is Diaspora Jewry. A vocal minority of American Jewry supports the right-wing government, but a majority would support a two-state solution. They connect to Israel with what they see as a shared sense of democracy and liberal values. Does Netanyahu and his coalition partners think at all about them and their concerns? Do those Diaspora Jews have any leverage at all in terms of moderating any of these trends?
The short answer is not really. The parties in a prospective coalition are not ones that historically have cared very much about the relationship with the Diaspora. Haredi parties are not concerned about the erosion of liberal values inside of Israel or the situation in the West Bank for the most part. And parties like Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit really don’t care what American Jewry thinks about much of anything. We’ve already seen demands in some of these coalition agreements to amend the Law of Return, where right now, anybody who has one Jewish grandparent is eligible to be an Israeli citizen. These parties have been requesting that it be amended so that you are only eligible if you are halachically Jewish, meaning you have a Jewish mother [or have converted formally].
North American Jewry is a real asset to the State of Israel given its role traditionally in supporting the state economically and politically. And yet over the past decade and a half there have been repeated comments [among Israeli politicians, including Netanyahu’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer] that it’s more important to be making inroads with evangelical Christians than with North American Jews, given the politics of evangelical Christians and given their size.
Many American Jews, particularly from the Reform and Conservative denominations, have already been angry that Israel doesn’t fully recognize the authenticity of non-Orthodox Judaism, and that an agreement to create a permanent egalitarian prayer space at the Western Wall has been repeatedly shelved under pressure from Israel’s religious right.
We are in for a tough time in terms of Diaspora-Israel relations. You know, it’s not just about the issues that have been on the table over the past few years that have been disappointing to Diaspora Jewry, whether it be the Western Wall arrangement, whether it be recognition of Conservative and Reform Judaism inside of Israel, whether it be things like the Law of Return, which now seems to be under threat. In general, this question of values, which has been a big deal, is going to be even more front and center. Many American Jews have looked at Israel and thought of it as a place that shares liberal values with the United States. To some extent, that’s been historically accurate. But that picture, whether it’s accurate or not, is going to be under incredible strain.
What about within Israel? Are there any countervailing powers that might moderate the far right — professional military leadership, major business leaders, other opinion-makers outside the political process?
Thankfully, there is no history of IDF leadership interfering in the political decisions of elected civilian leaders in Israel. I hope that will continue. The way the security establishment has generally dealt with these sorts of things is by presenting a united front when they speak to the political leadership and give their opinions and advice and warnings about what might happen. They tend to be very savvy at leaking those opinions to the media. I’m certain that that sort of thing will continue. We already saw some discord over the past week between IDF leadership and some of the members of the prospective new coalition over disciplinary measures that were taken against soldiers who were serving in Hebron, one of whom punched a [Palestinian] protester, another who verbally assaulted a protester. And that can be a moderating influence, but I actually do not expect to see the military leadership stepping in any way in preventing something that the government may want to do.
The biggest check will be Israelis themselves. There was something else interesting that happened [last] week: Avi Maoz, who was the single member of Knesset from Noam, which is one of these three very, very radical right-wing parties, was appointed as a deputy minister in the prime minister’s office, and he was given control over effectively everything in education that is not part of the core curriculum and Israeli schools — like culture and Jewish identity issues. And that led to a revolt from Israeli mayors. You’ve had over 100 mayors of over 100 municipalities signing a letter saying that they are not going to be bound by Maoz’s dictates on curriculum. And this includes right-wing cities. I think that the most effective check is going to be government overreach, which leads to a backlash like this among Israeli citizens and among Israeli politicians who are not members of Knesset.
We’ve covered a lot of ground. Is there something we haven’t touched upon?
It’s really important that people don’t look at what’s taking place in Israel, throw up their hands and say, “You know, there’s nothing we can do to change this and Israelis are increasingly uninterested in what we think and so we’re going to disengage.” To my mind, the relationship that American Jews have to Israel is too important to just throw up our hands and say it doesn’t matter.
If we take American Jewish identity seriously, and we take the American Jewish project seriously, we have to think about two things. First, how we build an American Jewish identity that’s uniquely American. But second, how we preserve some sort of relationship with Israel, even when we see things coming from Israel that don’t speak to our Jewish values. We’re living in a time where we have an independent Jewish state with Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish homeland. This is a historical anomaly. If we turn our backs on that, despite all of the difficulties, it really would be a tragedy and catastrophic for American Jewish identity.
If you don’t like what you see going on in Israel, try to figure out what your relationship with Israel will look like and how to have a productive one. And that doesn’t have to mean supporting everything the Israeli government does. I consider myself you know, somebody who is a strong Zionist, strongly pro-Israel. It’s a place that I love. I agree with almost nothing that I’m going to see from this Israeli government. But I’m still able to have a strong, meaningful relationship with the State of Israel, and I hope that people are able to do the same, irrespective of the day-to-day of Israeli politics.
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The post An Israel analyst’s best- and worst-case scenarios for the new right-wing government appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Author R.F. Kuang addresses backlash over Israeli character in newest book
The bestselling author R.F. Kuang has broken her silence over backlash to the inclusion of a minor Israeli character in her newest novel, Taipei Story.
The book, published last week, follows a Chinese-American student, Lily Chen, who studies abroad in Taipei hoping to reconnect with her cultural roots and perfect her Mandarin. But she quickly finds that bridging the gap between her Chinese heritage and American upbringing will be more difficult than she imagined.
In May, before the book was published, an excerpt from Taipei Story which included the unnamed Israeli character was leaked online. In a scene that lasts barely two pages, Lily attends a concert featuring a pianist “from Israel” who is described as “a big deal.” The vignette has little bearing on the plot beyond showing how Lily finds catharsis in the music.
Social media critics accused Kuang — who has previously donated special editions of her books to raise money for humanitarian relief organizations in Gaza — of “normalizing Israel” by depicting an Israeli character in a positive light. The topic trended on BookTok (for the uninitiated, TikToks about books), with some users calling on readers to cancel their preorders of the novel and bombard Taipei Story’s GoodReads page with one-star ratings. (So-called “review-bombing” violates GoodReads guidelines.)
Kuang did not comment on the social media-fueled controversy for months.
But in an interview with USA Today and at a book tour stop last week at Sixth & I, a historic Washington, D.C. synagogue, Kuang pushed back on her critics, saying the backlash reflected a misinterpretation of the passage. Video from the event was posted to TikTok, and the Forward independently confirmed with Kuang’s publisher that the recording accurately captured her remarks.
“I want to read charitably the person who’d seen the words ‘Israeli pianist’ and immediately been so afraid that this book was condoning these practices,” said Kuang, who didn’t specify what “these practices” referred to in the clip. “But the fact of the matter is that’s just not what that scene does. That’s not how it was intended, and that’s not how it reads.”
Kuang seemed to say that the scene, which takes place as Lily is in the midst of a personal cultural identity crisis, was actually commentary on the political dynamics underlying cultural encounters.
“I instead wanted to invite the reader to ask questions about what’s going on in this scene, what is this character noticing based on what we know about where she comes from, in the position of an arrogant American study abroad student,” Kuang said. “This scene raises a lot of questions about who gets to move through the world, who is received in what ways, what are geopolitics that undergird something as innocent as a concert.”
The subtext
Kuang, a PhD student at Yale in East Asian Languages and Literatures, has made a name for herself writing critiques of colonialism, imperialism and racism. She has also engaged politically beyond her written work, participating in the charity auction “Unbound for Gaza” in Sept. 2025. A few months later, she withdrew from a literary festival in the United Arab Emirates, citing her support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement’s call to boycott the UAE for allegedly supplying weapons to paramilitary groups in the brutal Sudanese civil war.
Kuang’s historical fantasy novels, Babel, or the Necessity of Violence and The Poppy War trilogy, take on British imperialism and the legacy of the Second Sino-Japanese War. Kuang’s foray into literary fiction, Yellowface, critiques cultural appropriation through a satirical account of a white author who passes off her dead Chinese friend’s manuscript as her own.
Taipei Story is an inner monologue that toggles between the narrator’s mundane problems — boy trouble, mosquito bites, unbearable heat — and her musings on colonialism and geopolitics.
Lily notices the “ghosts of Japan everywhere” — remnants from the Japanese occupation of Taiwan following its defeat in the First Sino-Japanese War.
Yet Lily also acknowledges Taiwan doesn’t fit neatly into the framework she learned in history class that “colonialism was bad,” noting that Taiwan never experienced a “decolonial transition” and remains caught between the influence of China and the U.S.
“Taiwan had only ever been passed from occupier to occupier — indeed, to Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, the Han Chinese themselves were occupiers,” Kuang writes. “So who was I to say any occupier was better than the last?”
Lily is also grappling with her own sense of being an outsider in Taiwan — a country her parents, who are from mainland China, have never visited. She hopes that learning Mandarin will help her reclaim a connection to her family’s past, but her grandfather’s death forces her to confront how much of that past she never really knew.
It’s against this backdrop that, roughly three-quarters of the way through the book, the unnamed Israeli pianist comes on stage. The reader is given only a few details about him: It was “his first time in Taiwan,” and he was “a dour-faced man who did not so much as crack a smile as we applauded.”
Later, Lily returns to the concert hall. She remarks that “the audience was not always as well behaved as they had been for the Israeli pianist. That had been a special occasion, it turned out. I rarely saw foreigners in the concert hall after that. Never again did I see a full house.”
Some online have suggested that the scene is “an allegory for the issue of watching Israeli occupation unfold.” Others read it as a commentary on the prestige afforded to foreign artists while Taiwanese artists are overlooked — and, by extension, on which conflicts around the world command our attention. Or perhaps the pianist’s nationality is significant simply because the narrator has a habit throughout the novel of identifying people by where they are from: “an Italian undergraduate,” “a German girl,” a “Hong Kong director.”
If the scene is meant to carry a hidden meaning, Kuang isn’t spelling it out.
Kuang told USA Today she was getting more comfortable moving away from “didactic” modes of storytelling, leaving room for readers to interpret for themselves.
“The risk of that,” she said, “is somebody runs away with the total opposite conclusion of what you’re putting on the page.”
The post Author R.F. Kuang addresses backlash over Israeli character in newest book appeared first on The Forward.
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How can Yiddish fans in Israel benefit from the growing Yiddish scene abroad?
דער הינטערגרונט
די באַציִונגען צווישן ייִדיש-אינסטיטוציעס אין ישׂראל און אין אַמעריקע איז אַ בכּבֿודיקע, אַקטועלע טעמע וואָס דאַרף הײַנט באַהאַנדלט ווערן מיט אַ פֿרישן צוגאַנג. אויף אַלע אַנדערע געביטן ווי זיכערקייט, ווירטשאַפֿט, געזונט און אַקאַדעמיע קאָן מען פֿעסטשטעלן אַז די אָ באַציִונגען זענען ברייט פֿאַרנעמיקע און מ׳קאָן אַפֿילו צוגעבן אַז די שטיצע פֿון אַמעריקאַנער ייִדנטום לטובֿת ישׂראל איז אין אַזאַ מאָס, אַז מ׳וואָלט זיך נישט געקאָנט פֿאָרשטעלן ווי אַ סך פֿון די אינסטיטוציעס וואָלטן פֿונקציאָנירט אָן דעם ריזיקן פֿינאַנציעלן אָנשפּאָר אויפֿן אַמעריקאַנעם ייִדנטום.
און ווי אַזוי זעט עס אויס אויפֿן געביט פֿון ייִדישע קולטור-באַציִונגען? וואָס שייך אַקאַדעמישע אויסטוישן און צוזאַמענאַרבעט אויף וויכטיקע אונטערנעמונגען אין אַמעריקע און אין ישׂראל איז דער מצבֿ אַ נישקשהדיקער. מע קאָן צוגעבן אַז דער תּחום נעמט אַריין אין פֿאַרלויף פֿון די יאָרן אַ פּאָר הונדערטער אַקטיווע אַקאַדעמיקער און אַוואַנסירטע סטודענטן.
ווען מיר טראַכטן זיך אָבער אַרײַן אין דער פֿראַגע, וואָס געשעט מיט דער ברייטערער געזעלשאַפֿט, איז דער מצבֿ אַ גאָר סטאַטישער. דאָס איז אַן אויסדרוק פֿון אַ גאָר באַגרענעצטער, לאָקאַליסטישער באַציִונג צו דעם פֿענאָמען פֿון ייִדישער קולטור אין אירע פֿאַרשידענע אויסדרוקן. אָט די פֿעסטשטעלונג איז גילטיק נישט נאָר לגבי אַמעריקע און ישׂראל, נאָר אויך לגבי אַ סך אַנדערע ייִשובֿים איבער דער וועלט. אין ישׂראל, אויסער דעם אָרטאָדאָקסישן סעקטאָר, זענען מסתּמא כּמעט אַ מיליאָן תּושבֿים אין די לעצטע פּאָר יאָר אַרײַן אינעם קרײַז פֿון ייִדיש-טעטיקייט אַ דאַנק דער אַקטיווער מעדיאַ, פֿייסבוק, פֿילמען און ייִדיש-קרײַזן. אַ ביסל אונטער דעם ראַדאָר, געניסט מען פֿון קונסט, הומאָר, כּלי־זמר-מוזיק. און די צאָל וואַקסט פֿון יאָר צו יאָר. קיין אַנקעטעס האָט מען ביז איצט, צום באַדויערן, נישט געפֿירט — דער עסטאַבלישמענט האָט קיין אינטערעס נישט אין אָט דער דערשײַנונג — און ס׳איז אַ שאָד, ווײַל אויב מ׳וואָלט געקאָנט באַקומען אָביעקטיווע באַווײַזן דערפֿון וואָלט מען געקאָנט נאָכפֿאָלגן די אָ פּראָצעסן און פּרוּוון ווירקן אויף זיי.
דער ברייטער, שוואַך אָרגאַניזירטער ציבור וואָס איז גענייגט צו ייִדיש, ווייסט אַפֿילו נישט, אַז אין 1996 איז אין לאַנד אָנגענומען געוואָרן דאָס געזעץ אויפֿצושטעלן „די נאַציאָנאַלע אינסטאַנץ פֿאַר ייִדישער קולטור“ וואָס איז גאָר טעטיק הײַנטצוטאָג, כאָטש, צום באַדויערן, מיט אַ מינימאַלן בודזשעט. דער דאָזיקער ציבור איז גלײַכגילטיק און כּמעט אין גאַנצן אומבאַוווּסטזיניק פֿון וואָס עס קומט פֿאָר אויפֿן געביט פֿון ייִדיש אין אַמעריקע און אַנדערע לענדער. ספּאָראַדיש, ווען די מעדיאַ גיט איבער וועגן אַ פֿעסטיוואַל, אָדער וועגן אַ קינסטלער וואָס האָט אַרויסגעגעבן אַ קאָמפּאַקטל, הערט מען עפּעס. אָבער דאָס איז אַ טראָפּן אין ים און מען ווייסט גאָרנישט פֿון דער וואַקסנדיקער, קוואַליטאַטיווער ייִדיש-טעטיקייט אין אויסלאַנד. ס׳איז לײַכט זיך פֿאָרשטעלן אַז אַזוינס געשעט אויך אין אַמעריקע און איבער אַנדערע קהילות. גאָר אַנדער איז דער מצבֿ לגבי דער טעמע פֿון חורבן, אָבער דאָס דאַרף נישט גערעכנט ווערן, ווײַל מיטן לערנען די געשיכטע פֿונעם חורבן באַנוצט מען זיך מיט אַ צאָל שפּראַכן ווי ענגליש, רוסיש, שפּאַניש, דײַטש וכדומה אָן זיך אָפּשצוטעלן און אַרײַנקלערן אין דער ראָלע פֿון ייִדיש, ייִדישער קולטור און אַשכּנזישן באַוווּסטזיין.
וואָס טוט מען כּדי צו פֿאַרבעסערן די לאַגע?
היות ווי כ׳בין אַ תּל-אָבֿיבער איז מיר לײַכטער אָנצוהייבן פֿון מײַנע אייגענע קאַנטן און פֿאָרלייגן אַן אַרבעטס-פּלאַן כּדי משפּיע זײַן אויפֿן ענגן, היגן לאָקאַליסטישן ייִדישיזם און פּרוּוון עס אויפֿלעבן. און די לייזונג איז אַ פּשוטע. וואָס מער די אינסטיטוציעס אין וועלכע כ׳בין טעטיק וועלן פֿאַרשפּרייטן ידיעות פֿון וואָס ס׳קומט פֿאָר אין דער ייִדיש-וועלט אין אַמעריקע און אַנדערע לענדער דורך אַלע קאָמוניקיר-מיטלען וואָס מיר האָבן, וועט דער עולם אין ישׂראל, דווקא דער טייל וואָס איז שוין נאָענט צו ייִדיש, אַנטפּלעקן פּלוצעם אַז מיר זענען אַ טייל פֿון אַ ברייטער און רײַכער ווירקלעכקייט. עס וועט אָפּשאַפֿן ס׳געפֿיל פֿון איזאָלאַציע און פֿאַרשטאַרקן ס׳געפֿיל פֿון אָנגעהעריקייט צו אַנדערע קהילות מיט טיפֿע אַשכּנזישע וואָרצלען (נישט נאָר דורכן חורבן.) תּכלית הייסט עס, מיר זאָלן אין ישׂראל פֿאַרשפּרייטן דעם פֿאָרווערטס, ווי אויך די פֿילצאָליקע פּראָגראַמען פֿון ייִוואָ, אַרבעטער-רינג, ייִדיש-בוך-צענטער אאַז״וו, נישט ווי עפּעס וואָס איז ערגעץ-וווּ ווײַט פֿון אונדז, נאָר ווי אַ ווירקלעכקייט וואָס געהערט צו אונדז. מיר נעמען אויף אַלע ייִדישע איבערלעבונגען פֿון אויסלאַנד און מיר ווילן אַז דער ישׂראלדיקער ציבור זאָל אויך געניסן דערפֿון.
שטעלט זיך די פֿראַגע, אין וועלכער מאָס וועט אָט דער צוגאַנג נישט זײַן אויפֿן חשבון פֿון אונדזערע אייגענע טעטיקייטן און ידיעות וואָס מיר מוזן כּסדר פֿאַרשפּרייטן כּדי צוציִען אַן עולם? מע דאַרף געפֿינען דעם גלײַכגעוויכט און לייזונגען כּדי דעם ים פֿון ידיעות זאָל זײַן אויסגעסדרט און דינען די אינטערעסן פֿון יעדן איינעם. צומאָל דאַרף מען זײַן אויסקלײַבעריש און געפֿינען די ריכטיקע מאָס און דעם ריכטיקן ווינקל פֿאַר יעדן תּוכן. דער פּועל-יוצא פֿון אַזאַ שפּאָגל־נײַער סטראַטעגיע וועט העכערן די נײַגעריקייט, די בילדונג און אַקטיוויזם פֿון אונדזערע אָרטיקע מענטשן. זיי וועלן וואַקסן אין צאָל און זיך אַנטוויקלען אויף אַ מער שעפֿערישן אופֿן. ס׳איז אַ סך עפֿעקטיוועער ווי זאָגן „ישׂראלים, זײַט נישט קיין פּראָווינציעלע ייִדישיסטן. ווערט גלאָבאַלע ייִדישיסטן.“ נאָר דאָס קאָן נישט זײַן. ס’קאָן נישט זײַן געצוווּנגען. מען דאַרף ברענגען אין מויל אַרײַן פֿון פּובליקום די אַלע צוציִענדיקע דערשײַנונגען וואָס קומען פֿאָר אין אַמעריקע און איבעראַל. אַזוי אַרום וועלן די ישׂראלים ביסלעכווײַז לאַנדן אויפֿן באָדן פֿון רעאַלן, לעבעדיקן ייִדישיזם פֿון אונדזערע טעג.
פֿון אַ שלל ידיעות ביז אַ בשותּפֿותדיקן הויפּט-באַגריף
אינפֿאָרמאַציעס און פּראָגראַמען זײַנען נישט גענוג. מע מוז אײַנפֿירן פֿרישע באַגריפֿן וועלכע סדרן אויס די אַלע דערשײַנונגען און גיבן זיי אַ ווערט פֿאַרן יחיד. ווען די אָפּנעמערס פֿון אַזוי פֿיל אינפֿאָרמאַציעס אין אייגן לאַנד און אויך פֿון אויסלאַנד וועלן באַגרײַפֿן די ברייטע דימענסיע אין וועלכער זיי טרעטן אַרײַן, וועלן די באַגריפֿן אַשכּנז, איר געשיכטע און ווערטן, פֿאַרוואַנדלט ווערן אין אַ ממשותדיקן יש וואָס יעדער איינער, וווּ נאָר ער געפֿינט זיך, קאָן פֿאַרקערפּערן אין דער טאָג־טעגלעכקייט. ס׳דאַרף פֿאָרקומען אַן אידענטיטעט-מעטאַמאָרפֿאָזע; אַנדערש וועט דער רעזולטאַט בלײַבן גאַנץ כאַאָטיש, אַפֿילו קאַרנאַוואַליש.
למשל, ס׳איז שיין וואָס דער ייִוואָ און אפֿשר אַ געוויסער אוניווערסיטעט לייגן פֿאָר דעם סטודענט און דעם אַלגעמיינעם ציבור פּרטימדיקע פּראָגראַמען וועגן דער אַשכּנזישער ציוויליזאַציע. פּרעכטיק! נאָר וואָס? די אָ פּראָגראַמען באַנוגעגען זיך דערמיט און ציִען נישט צו צו דער עיקר־פֿראַגע, וואָס טוט מען הײַנט מיט אָט דער ציוויליזאַציע? וואָס איז די אַחריות פֿונעם יחיד, פֿון דער משפּחה? ווי אַזוי גיט מען איבער דעם ייִדישן לשון צוזאַמען מיט אַ ברייט-פֿאַרנעמיקן געדאַנק וואָס ענטפֿערט אויף אַ סך פֿראַגעס, גיט אַ געפֿיל פֿון אָנגעהעריקייט און אינספּירירט צו נײַע, שעפֿערישע מעשׂים.
נאָך אַ ביישפּיל. דער אַרבעטער-רינג אין ניו-יאָרק, מיט אַלע זײַנע פֿיליעס אין פֿאַרשידענע שטעט, פֿירט דורך ערנסטע פּראָגראַמען זיך צו לערנען מאַמע-לשון, פֿײַערן יום-טובֿים און אויך, לויט זייער וועלט-אָנשויונג, אַנטוויקלט אַ געזעלשאַפֿטלעכן אַקטיוויזם וואָס שפּיגלט אָפּ די ווערטן און בירגערלעכע התחייבֿות כּלפּי דעם לאַנד וווּ ייִדן געפֿינען זיך. די דאָזיקע שטעלונג ווערט ליידער נישט דערגאַנצט מיט אַן ערנסטן אַקטיוויזם לטובֿת דער אייגענער ייִדיש-אַשכּנזישער אידענטיטעט. דעריבער איז זײַן השפּעה אויפֿן אַלגעמיינעם אַמעריקאַנער ייִדנטום זייער אַ באַשיידענער. אויך דער פֿאָרווערטס, וואָס שפּילט אַ צענטראַלע שליחות אין צונויפֿברענגען ענגלישע און ייִדישע לייענערס פֿון אומעטום, טוט עס אָן דעם ציל צו אַקטיווירן די רײַכע קוואַלן פֿון דער אַשכּנזישער אידענטיטעט. עס באַקומט זיך, ווי אַ האַלבע אַרבעט און מען מוז טראַכטן וואָס דאַרף דרינגענדיק געטאָן ווערן כּדי איר השפּעה זאָל וואַקסן און ווערן מער רעלעוואַנט.
אַ לעצטער בײַשפּיל. וואָס קאָן זײַן שלעכט, אויב דער YBC אין אַמהערסט וועט זיך פֿון צײַט צו צײַט דערלויבן איבערזעצן אויף ענגליש אויסגעקליבענע ווערק פֿון הײַנטיקע ייִדישע פּּאָעטן און שרײַבער פֿוֿן פֿאַרשידענע לענדער? פֿאַראַן אַ חשש צוליב די האָנאָראַרן וואָס מ׳וועט די מחברים דאַרפן צאָלן? כ’מיין אַז דער YBC איז שוין גובֿר געווען אויף מער ערנסטע, פֿינאַניעלע פֿאַרמעסטן. ס׳וועט אויך זײַן יושרדיק כּלפּי די מחברים וואָס זייערע ווערק ן זענען נישט זוכה צו קיין סטימול אָדער וועלכע-עס-איז סטיפּענדיע.
אויסווירקונג אויפֿן אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישיזם
אין מאָמענט ווען ייִדיש-אינסטיטוציעס אין אַמעריקע וועלן עפֿענען אַ פֿענצטער צו דאָס וואָס געשעט אויפֿן געביט פֿון ייִדיש אין ישׂראל און אין אַנדערע לענדער, וועט עס בהדרגהדיק פֿאַרבעסערן דעם מצבֿ און באַרײַכערן זייער אייגענע טעטיקייט. ס׳רעדט זיך נישט וועגן פֿאַרקלענערן איין פֿאָקוס אויפֿן חשבון פֿון צווייטן, נאָר גיכער וועגן שאַפֿן אַ נײַעם פֿאָקוס וואָס וועט נערן דעם נײַגער פֿון די אַמעריקאַנער ייִדישיסטן. דאָס וועט עפֿענען אַ ריזיקן פּראָצעס פֿון קעגנזייטיקייט. אַנדערש באַקומט זיך, אַז די הײַנטיקע ייִדיש-טעטיקייט באַקומט אַן עליטיסטישן פּראָפֿיל, און ווען מ׳ווענדט זיך שוין יאָ צו ברייטערע קרייזן פֿון דער באַפֿעלקערונג איז עס על-פּי-רובֿ מיטן פּנים צו דער פֿאַרגאַנגענהייט. הײַנט רעדט מען אָפֿט אין אַלגעמיינע, כּוללדיקע באַגריפֿן, נאָר ס׳איז נישט פֿאַראַן אַ קלאָרער אַדרעסאַנט, דאָס הייסט די אַשכּנזישע-אַמעריקאַנער ייִדן און וואָס דערוואַרט מען פֿון זיי.
די וואָרצלען פֿון אָט דער פּראָבלעמאַטיק ליגן אין דער טראַדיציאָנעלער אידעאָלאָגיע פֿון ייִדישיזם. היסטאָריש האָט זיך די אָ אידעאָלאָגיע אַנטוויקלט צוזאַמען מיטן באַגריף פֿון וועלטלעכקייט. די פֿירנדיקע כּוחות פֿון ייִדישיזם — בכלל, נישט נאָר אין אַמעריקע — האָבן זיך דערווײַטערט פֿון דער אָרטאָדאָקסיע און אויסקריסטאַליזירט אַן אידעאָלאָגיע וואָס שפּיגלט אָפּ ס׳ייִדישע לעבן זינט דער השׂכּלה ביזן סעקולערן ייִדישיזם וואָס הערשט הײַנט. און דאָס איז זײַן שוואַכקייט. דער כּוח פֿון דער אַשכּנזישער וויזיע שטעקט אין דעם, וואָס עס ברענגט צוזאַמען רעליגיע און וועלטלעכקייט, און שטיצט זיך נישט נאָר אויף מאָדערנאַ. דאָ ליגט דער הויפּט-מכשול וואָס באַשווערט די ייִדישיסטן זיך באַוועגן אויף די גאָר ברייטע שליאַכן פֿון אַשכּנז. אמת איז, אַז עס הערשט נישט הײַנט צווישן די ייִדישיסטן די אַקטיווע אַנטי-רעליגיעזקייט ווי אַ מאָל. אָבער דאָס מיינט נאָך נישט אַז ער האָט דערגרייכט די רײַפֿקייט צו אַקצעפּטירן אַלע טיילן פֿון ייִדישן קיום ווי זייער אייגענע קולטור־ירושה. אַ ייִד קאָן דערקלערן אַז ער איז אַ סעקולערער און דערצו אויך אונטערשטרײַכן די וואָגיקייט פֿון רעליגיע אין דער ייִדישער געשיכטע און אין זײַן הײַנטיקן באַוווּסטזיין.
דער ייִדישיזם אין אַמעריקע פֿאַרמאָגט שטאַרק אײַנגעפֿונדעוועטע אינסטיטוציעס. דאָך פֿעלט אים אַ ברייטער געוועב מיט פֿעדערלעך וואָס זאָל אים פֿאַרבינדן מיט ברייטע ייִדישע קהילות, סײַ אין אַמעריקע און סײַ איבער דער וועלט. ווען דער ייִוואָ איז אין ווילנע געשאַפֿן געוואָרן אין 1925 האָט ער פֿאַרמאָגט די העכסטע אינטעלעקטועלע כּוחות פֿון ייִדישיזם און גלײַכצײַטיק איז ער געווען געקניפּט און פֿאַרבונדן מיט הונדערטער קהילות איבער אייראָפּע. כּדי עפּעס ענלעכס זאָל איצט אויפֿקומען, מוז דער ניו-יאָרקער ייִוואָ אָנהייבן באַטראַכטן דעם מצבֿ אַנדערש, און צו דעם וואָס ווערט שוין געטאָן אויף די געביטן פֿון פֿאָרשונג, לימוד, השׂכּלה און קונסט, אַנטוויקלען אויך אַ סענסיטיווקייט צו אַלע געזעלשאַפֿטלעכע- און קולטור-דערשײַנונגען וואָס קומען פֿאָר אויפֿן געביט פֿון ייִדיש אין ישׂראל און איבעראַל.
לאָמיר האָפֿן אַז אַ נײַע דינאַמיק וועט זיך אין דער נאָענטער צוקונפֿט אַנטוויקלען און פֿון אַלע מעגלעכע ריכטונגען וועלן מיר זײַן עדות צו אַ גרויסן צונויפֿגאָס פֿון שטרעמונגען, און אַ מער אָנזעעוודיקער שעפֿערישקייט פֿון דער ייִדיש-קולטור אין אַ וועלט-מאָסשטאַב.
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The cancellation of Macklemore: A Yom Kippur reflection
In the Jewish calendar, this week is dedicated to reflection, introspection, and review of one’s thoughts and actions. The shofar has been sounded on Rosh Hashanah; Yom Kippur is on its way. Whether in traditional, theistic forms or less traditional, psychological ones, the Jewish tradition invites us to look inward.
It is in that spirit that I am reflecting on the latest tempest in the American Jewish teapot: the decision of billionaire Robert Kraft to ban the rapper Macklemore from performing at his stadium because of a statement he made onstage in support of Palestine — a decision echoed by other politically conservative stadium owners, which in turn caused superstar Ed Sheeran to boot Macklemore from his latest tour.
To be sure, this is hardly the most important chapter of the Israel/Palestine story. Just this week, bombs are still falling on Gaza, B’Tzelem released a must-read new report on Israel’s eliminationist policies in the West Bank, and an actual neo-Nazi is likely to win a seat in the Florida house of representatives. If anything, Macklemore’s cancellation will probably have a net-positive ‘Streisand Effect’ on his well-past-its-prime career.
But this relatively small controversy is nonetheless a fascinating prism on how we see differently, hear differently, and talk past one another on moral, political and ultimately spiritual matters of importance. And that has much to do with the themes of the Days of Awe.
My focus is not on who was right. Ultimately, I think Macklemore’s comments were lacking in depth and sophistication, but clearly not “hate speech,” which is how Kraft — the self-appointed macher of the widely-mocked ‘Blue Square’ anti-antisemitism campaign — described it. And I will explain why I believe that to be the case.
But I also don’t believe Kraft’s actions to be in bad faith. It is possible that he is simply using his wealth and power to ban political speech that he doesn’t agree with. And in practice, that is what he has done. But reviewing his comments, and those of friends of mine on social media, I am inclined to take Kraft and my friends at their word: that they experience Macklemore’s words as hateful. And because I disagree with that, I’m interested in why.
The rapper’s entire statement took two minutes. I encourage you to watch it now, since the tone and context are important, and since it’s faster to watch than to read:
A full transcript is here.
Two other bits of context, not present in the vieven if no such threat was present in that moment, video are relevant: First, images from the Gaza war were projected on a screen behind him, and second, back in 2014, Macklemore once wore a costume that looked, to many of us, like an antisemitic caricature, though he issued a persuasive (to me) and detailed apology, saying that this was not intentional.
In response, Kraft issued a (longer) statement saying that his venue, Gillette Stadium,
has a longstanding commitment to providing a welcoming environment for all guests and ensuring that events held at our venue do not provide a platform for hate speech. Based on Macklemore’s recent actions, material shared from the stage during Ed Sheeran’s shows in New Jersey, and a broader history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery that we believe has been deeply offensive and hurtful to the Jewish community, we determined that his participation in the September 25th and 26th concerts at Gillette Stadium would cross that line.
Kraft added that his decision “is not about diminishing the suffering of innocent Palestinians or denying anyone the right to advocate on their behalf… but only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate… I would welcome the opportunity to sit down with Macklemore and discuss the facts, because ultimately our goal is the same — peace for all people, an end to suffering, and an end to all hate.”
I admit, my first response was amazement that any reasonable person could find what Macklemore said to be antisemitic. He spoke only about Israel’s actions, not its existence. He didn’t attack Zionism. He specifically distinguished between Israel and Jewish people. What more could he do?
Sure, the statement had its shortcomings. It didn’t mention Oct. 7 or condemn Hamas. It didn’t forcefully condemn antisemitism, or emphasize that strong criticism of Israel should not be taken out on Jews. The guy is a rapper, not a politician — even when he says nice things (e.g. the 2012 song “Same Love”), he’s often been clunky about it.
But hate speech?
Kraft didn’t really elaborate into what, exactly, ‘crossed the line’ for him. The best I can find in his statement is “only sharing selective information and ignoring the actions of Hamas is not honest and only advances more divisiveness and hate.” That seems preposterous to me. Maybe Macklemore’s statement was incomplete, but that doesn’t make it hate speech.
Others, in my own social media feed, have been more articulate. Echoing the statements of several prominent rabbis, some said that Macklemore’s uses of ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ are themselves so inaccurate, extreme and vitriolic as to themselves be antisemitic. Others referred to the 2014 incident. Some even argued that saying ‘Free Palestine’ is equivalent to saying ‘Destroy Israel.’
To me, the most trenchant criticisms focused on context. Imagine, one person said, what it would be like to be a Jewish person in the stands, suddenly confronted with political speech that has been used to incite violence against Jews; even if no such threat was present in that moment, it’s easy to imagine being scared by it. One friend of mine pointed out that this wasn’t even Macklemore’s show; it was an opening act for Ed Sheeran, who is relentlessly apolitical. The comments would’ve been a surprise, even a shock.
These comments point to the real issue here, which is American Jewish pain and fear. And there are many sides to this experience.
On the one hand, I get it. I have personally experienced this sense of unsafety and exclusion in queer spaces where I have been confronted with much farther-left statements than Macklemore’s. I’ve heard calls for Zionists (whatever that word means) to be banned from my queer community, even expelled from queer spaces. I’ve heard (and written about) the most incendiary possible rhetoric directed at Israel, full of self-righteousness, certitude and rage. And I’ve seen a lack of accountability for the stochastic terrorism that language represents, including from the mayor of New York City.
On the other hand, I also know that the censure is one-sided. At the recent ‘Jewish American Summit,’ a speaker made wildly bigoted, anti-Muslim comments and was applauded by the crowd; no condemnation followed, even from the ADL, which cosponsored the event. Pro-genocide minister Itamar Ben Gvir shared an AI video of Palestinians being marched, concentration-camp-style, into an Israeli jail, where they emerge starved an emaciated; mission accomplished, Ben Gvir crowed. Crickets from the Jewish Establishment.
Mayor Mamdani was criticized for not marching in the Israel Day Parade, and then Bezalel Smotrich, who has unambiguously called for genocide against the Palestinian people, was welcomed by it. A relatively anodyne pro-Palestinian statement by a rapper is grounds for national cancellation, but calls for mass expulsion (or murder) by people without actual power are part of the ‘big tent.’
Some in the community have been clear on this: They are going to support the Jewish state because that is what good Jews do. So, yes, there’s a double-standard, they might reply, because one person is attacking us and the other is not.
Admittedly, there is ample Jewish textual support for this position. But there are plenty of proof-texts I can bring for the opposing point of view: that we must judge people fairly, that all humans are created in the image of the Divine, that being biased toward our own group is a shortcoming, not a virtue. And that when injustices are committed, even by those who are in our community, it is our duty to oppose them.
The Torah doesn’t say “justice, justice shall you pursue — except when it comes to Jews versus Palestinians.”
Most importantly, just because words can make us feel scared, angry, attacked, or unsafe does not mean that they constitute hate speech. This is what Kraft and others like him seem unwilling to see: that we can feel attacked without actually being attacked. That words can be painful but not hateful.
Admittedly, the ‘wokeness’ of the early 2020s has played a role in this confusion. At the peak of that period, we were told that impact mattered more than intent — that even if a comment were made innocently, if it caused someone to feel unsafe, it was deserving of censure. And then, in 2023, many Jews picked up the same thread. Sure, “From the River to the Sea” could be interpreted in a benign way (e.g. as wanting freedom for all people in the area) but if I hear it as a call for annihilating Israel and/or the Jews, then the phrase is hate speech.
But this principle was always misguided. People can say difficult, disagreeable, and wrong things without those things being actual hate speech. People may perceive threats without there being actual threats.
This is not unique to Israel/Palestine, or to politics. Fear and anger can block the better angels of our nature. I struggle with this every day; if there is one theme that recurs every Yom Kippur, it is working with anger and reactivity in my own life. Might that not apply to our public as well as our private lives? Is what seems like ‘righteous indignation’ sometimes just… indignation?
In fact, maybe some of the reason I feel unsafe is that I know that Israel has behaved in appalling and immoral ways, and I feel implicated by it. I grew up loving Israel, and it has been painful to watch its decline into vulgar, jingoistic and often racist ethno-nationalism. But that pain might not be a bad thing. On the contrary, it merits some reflection on the Day of Atonement.
As Yom Kippur insists, we can do better than reacting, half-unconsciously, to our emotional perceptions. As Viktor Frankl famously said,
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.
Teshuvah, the Jewish practice of ‘repentance’ and return, is designed to enlarge that space, to grow our capacity for freedom. We can do better, teshuvah insists.
I believe Robert Kraft, and many of my own friends, sincerely feel threatened by statements like Macklemore’s. I have felt similarly, at times, myself. But without more evidence (and one idiotic act in 2014 is not that), we owe it to one another and to the hope of a civil society to pause in that space between stimulus and response, and reflect on what is really being said.
What I see is a celebrity championing the cause of an oppressed population. He is misguided in various ways, but he is coming from a place of genuine concern, not bigotry. Would not the better response have been for Kraft to invite him into a conversation first, rather than campaign to have him banned across the country? Had Kraft done better here, might Macklemore also have done better in the future, even if the two continue to disagree?
This incident will likely not be remembered much in the future. It is less important than a single life lost in Gaza or Israel. But it is a window into how our human capacities and failings perpetuate cycles of conflict and miscommunication. On Yom Kippur this year, I’ll be reflecting on how I am part of those cycles myself, and how I can do better. I invite you to join me.
The post The cancellation of Macklemore: A Yom Kippur reflection appeared first on The Forward.
