Are You There, Jewish Identity? It's Me, Elena

We’re living in interesting times - to say the least.

Times which have led me to question many things since 2016: my sanity, my patience, my willingness to accept that I know people who believe the earth is flat - just to name a few. But unexpectedly, I began questioning something else: my Jewish identity.

It had never been something I sat down and defined for myself, in permanent marker, on my proverbial drawing board of an inner self. It was simply a part of my identity that I had always understood, almost innately. I had felt it, I knew it. It was part of who I was. Maybe that stems from growing up in a Jewish household. Shuttling to shul on Saturdays, then back for Hebrew school on Sundays. Being happily and proudly Bat Mitzvahed at 13. Or maybe it was continuing to take Jewish classes well into high school, exploring things like Jewish philosophy and appreciating that I was blessed with a religion that not only allowed, but encouraged me, to question everything.

But then 2016 happened, and the tectonic plates of my religious confidence were shook.

Not because of what I believe in, or because I stopped believing in something. It was because of the astounding behavior and hypocrisy I began to see from people with whom I had always felt some sort of connection, and in whom I had always felt a community. Suddenly, they were launching into posts and articles and conversations fully supporting an administration that was ugly and hateful, and I felt the rug pulled out from under me. After Charlottesville, when their support grew only more fiery and intense, their sourcing of Fox News and Breitbart became only more prominent, I felt myself pulling even further away.

I was totally unable to understand.

But for me, I needed to. I ran down the list of all the possible reasons why they could support what they were supporting. No, these were not devoutly religious people, they were reform, maybe Conservative at best. No, they were not single issue voters in regard to Israel, a plethora of issues determined their political stance. No, they were not of boomer age, they were my age. No, they were not raised with extreme privilege, they were of middle class backgrounds. No, they were not from secluded communities, they were from the five boroughs. No, they were…I don’t know what they were, or who they even are, apparently. Because the parallels between myself and them seem countless in number, and yet here I stand, and there they do.

I supposed, ultimately, it’s not that important for me to understand. Live and let live, right? They want to read their right-wing publications and bend at the knee of Ben Shapiro, I mean…I’ll vomit a little bit thinking about it, but sure, go nuts. And, to be fair, they probably feel the same way about me listening to Pod Save America and watching The Young Turks. However, there was a recent “scandal” in the news where the hypocrisy was taken to new levels, and made me want to write something where I could ask: how can this one be explained? How can this be justified in Jewish people’s minds? And in a conversation from just yesterday, I was shown: it can’t.

This conversation was with a good friend, a Jewish friend. She is someone I love very much, and she was begging me to reconsider my admiration for the new, progressive members of this Congress’ class. I wasn’t sure why, not at first, but as the conversation began to open up and reveal itself to me, a sinking suspicion crept across my gut. Yeah, I knew why. Because of that “scandal”. Because of Ilhan Omar, and that tweet.

The tweet criticized the clout of AIPAC in regard to policy. In other words, the problem of money in politics. I had read the tweet (now deleted), I understood what Omar was talking about (policy, not the Jewish people), and I was fine with it. However, the media apparently, was not. The tweet blew up. It’s still blowing up. It’s been in the news for over a month. One tweet. Over a month.

Now. I am sure all of you have opinions about this tweet. Have scrounged up whatever about Omar’s past, read into her other tweets and quotes, etc etc. But I am not here to write about her (in my opinion, completely misinterpreted) tweet. I’m writing about my inability to grasp how the Jewish community – including my very, very upset friend - and the whole goddamn news media could rally behind that one tweet. And yet, not around other things. Countless, actual anti-Semitic things, that the Republicans have demonstrated over and over and over again. I’m writing this piece to try to understand why Omar was so quick to be deemed an anti-Semite, an enemy, someone who needed to resign, while:

Steve King has been in the House, is still in the House, yet he has voiced repeatedly his white supremacist views. How many times, over the course of his career, has the Jewish community been up in arms about him, and what he stands for?

Republicans, Fox News, Breitbart, and countless right wingers have cited George Soros, a Jewish liberal donor, as an enemy. (And when it comes to money in politics, btw, I am not disagreeing there.) However, his Jewish faith is often the basis of the hatred towards him, and his name has become a rallying point for the Alt-Right. So how many times, over the course of all of those mentions, have the Jewish Community called for resolutions against those news sources, and those Republicans?

Right wingers just love using the term “globalist”. It’s a noted anti-Semitic slur, by the way. How many Jewish people have been outraged over that?

David Duke has come out, on multiple occasions, lauding President Trump. David Duke. Former Grand Dragon, or whatever LARPer term the KKK uses, leader of the KKK, known for their hatred and desired wiping out of the Jewish population. David Duke and the KKK endorsed, and still endorse, Donald Trump. Funny. Didn’t hear much from the Jewish community then, nor did or have the Jewish community recoil an inch from Trump.

Kinda odd, isn’t it, that this time, this tweet, it just happens to be involving a woman who wears a Hijab. It just happens to be over a woman who isn’t white.

Now, to be fair to this dear friend of mine, and to all of the Tribe, my friend did admit that both sides are guilty, that Jews have the hate coming from both the left, and the right. But my question to her then was, well, if it’s the same, then where was this text to me about Steve King? Where were these vocalized fears when Trump made his infamous “both sides” remark? Where’s this concern when I hear people on MSNBC defending leaders who claim to be pro-Israel yet support White Nationalists? In one hand we have a Congresswoman stating her disagreement with lobbying power and power of money in politics. And in the other is a man vocally, publicly, supporting a group who chants “Blood and Soil” in the streets. You say that, because of that one tweet, Omar and all of her fellow freshman congresspeople on the left “wants us gone”. But what about the man who outright says he supports a hate group who actually does want the Jewish people gone?

Well, I still don’t get it, not as a Jewish person (nor as a rationally thinking human being, for that matter). And maybe it’s not important that I do. Like I said, we’re living in interesting times. So, what I have to hold on to - if I’m going to come out of this mess of a time with my Jewish identity still intact - is what I loved about it from the beginning. That being Jewish is what you make it for yourself. And that just because many of your own community is far removed from where you are, doesn’t mean it’s no longer a community where you can feel at home.