I just read two recently published books, one about the UK (Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel) and the other about the US (Woke Antisemitism by David Bernstein). I highly recommend them both. Perhaps the most notable thing about them, is that they are both written by avowedly “liberal” authors, self-described as “leftist”. But, both, in spite of this, have become completely disillusioned and alarmed by the woke (Progressive) agenda, not least because of its inevitable anti-semitic element.
Baddiel is a well-known British-Jewish comedian/public intellectual. Bernstein is an eminent American-Jewish communal leader. Both became disillusioned over time, especially Bernstein, as they began to realize that the woke folk were not the traditional friends to the Jews that “liberals” had always been. Further, they came to the realization that following the well-worn path of Jewish-liberal alliances would no longer work with the latest brand of “liberalism”. In fact, and this is key, the vigorous attempt by Jewish organizations to curry favor with the organizations adopting one woke principle after another, was not only undermining traditional Jewish values of tolerance and open-mindedness, it was not even working to maintain the alliances regarded as valuable. Instead, these efforts were rebuffed and treated with contempt (for chapter and verse read Bernstein).
In the woke worldview Jews cannot be victims, notwithstanding the evidence to the contrary. The Holocaust was terrible, but it is not relevant to the current environment of “systemic racism” in which Jews are “white adjacent” – part of the privileged white class. (Whiteness has been mystified to go beyond skin color to include a state of being). In fact, Jews, because of their relative success as a group, are an obvious and easy target when it comes to attacking white privilege. They have used their “whiteness” to garner disproportionate numbers in the institutions of power. As Baddiel points out when it comes to anti-semitism, “Jews don’t count” as victims, because they are way down on the hierarchy of racisms. And, by the way, Asians are, likewise, white adjacents, who have benefitted by their token whiteness. They are not included in the club of the oppressed. Indeed, the world is divided into oppressed and oppressor and if you are not part of one you are part of the other.
An important aspect of this anti-Jewish animus is the uncompromising anti-Israel rage that characterizes the woke folk. Criticism of Israeli government policy absolutely need not be anti-semitic, but, upon close examination, most of it in social media turns out to be grossly anti-semitic. To wit, the distortions that characterize the reporting, the historical misinformation, the singling out of Israel for human rights violations far less egregious than those of its neighbors or, indeed, numerous countries around the world, the insidious allusions to the Jewish character of the Israeli nation and so on. The association of Jews with the demon Israel has done much to make left-wing anti-semitism respectable.
You need not take my word for it. In a short essay I cannot provide the kind of evidence necessary to document the character of wokism and the implications of it for Jews and for Jewish organizations. For that you should read especially Bernstein. Anyone in any position of Jewish leadership should read that book. But, if this is right, if Bernstein is right, then Jews in America and everywhere that wokism is a factor, should understand the fundamentals of wokism and why it is necessary for Jewish organizations to distance themselves from it, and to combat its blatantly illiberal precepts. Those precepts are essentially anti-liberal and anti-Jewish in nature.
Conclusion
Recently, the problem has gotten worse. Jewish students on many campuses are at pains to hide their Jewishness. Jewish organizations have to have security at their events. University administrations have caved to the demand of woke student organizations to adopt their agendas and strike anti-Israel poses. None of this comes from the right-wing.
As I write, as evidenced by the two books referenced here, awareness is growing, but slowly. An effective policy to combat this new anti-semitism, on campus and elsewhere, will depend on a fundamental change in the typical American Jewish mindset. It is a big change, but, one that I actually feel is possible, even likely, given the growing impossibility of denying the obvious.
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