The Encamped Jewish Students
On Jewish Uncle Toms
The following is a guest column from Rabbi Adam Cutler of Adath Israel Synagogue in Toronto. We at Catch are always looking for new voices to contribute and strengthen the idea-base of Canada’s Jewish community.
If interested in contributing, please contact Adam Hummel at adam@catchnews.ca
“To Uncle Tom and Other Such Jews”. Thus begins an open letter from Jewish undergraduate M. Jay Rosenberg.
The letter though isn’t new. It’s dated 1969. And the intended readers are not the Jewish participants of today’s anti-Israel encampments, but rather Jewish students involved in the Black liberation movement of the late 1960s – a movement that only a few years prior had deep ties with the Jewish community, but by 1969, as Rosenberg puts it, promoted “Zionist conspiracies” and called for “the liquidation of Israel”.
Echoes of Rosenberg are heard in a brave open letter, now circulating, signed by over 600 Columbia Jewish students. “In Our Name: A Message from Jewish Students at Columbia University” calls to task “our Jewish peers who tokenize themselves by claiming to represent ‘real Jewish values,’ and attempt to delegitimize our lived experiences of antisemitism.”
I don’t know whether the authors of “In Our Name” are aware of “To Uncle Tom and Other Such Jews” and I cannot imagine current Columbia students openly accusing their peers using Rosenberg’s terminology. Yet, the accusations levelled against their Jewish peers are remarkably similar.
The other Jews
How should liberal Zionist Jews understand these (other) Jews? Political correctness aside, could “Jewish Uncle Toms” be a fitting descriptor for Rosenberg’s contemporary analogues – the Jews who today set up camp among the anti-Israel (or pro-Palestinian, or anti-war, or pro-ceasefire, or anti-Zionist) crowd?
These Jews are significant beyond their numbers. To use voguish lingo, today’s protesters foreground the Jews who camp among their ranks. It is the Golds, the Slutzkys, and the Steins to whom journalists are gently escorted and it is encampment seders and Shabbat dinners about which these Jews speak.
And/But their numbers are significant. Fifteen of the initial eighty-five Columbia students arrested identify as Jewish. This overrepresentation is likely found at many other campuses.
Rosenberg saw in his co-religionists a paucity of “Jewish pride”, a contempt, even, for their own heritage. “[T]rapped by your Long Island split-level childhood”, he wrote, these “self-hating Jews” were eager to forego their own identity in favour of acceptance into the progressive mainstream.
Though resonating still today – these words do not suffice. Surely, there are Jews whose activism is unrelated to their Jewish self. Surely as well there are Jews who were raised on Judaism as "tikkun olam”, who, however hazily, understand their activism as connected to their faith. Yet, equally as sure, there are serious Jews – learned Jews, Jews who observe Shabbat and kashrut, Jews for whom Judaism isn’t one aspect among a multivalent identity but rather the defining feature in their sense of self – who pitch their tents among the anti-Zionists (and who themselves may be openly anti-Zionist or non-Zionist), who erect their temporary homes next to signage calling to “Globalize the Intifada” and to divest from “apartheid” Israel, and who – some quite publicly – do so because of their Jewish identity.
Precedents in history?
Trying to conceptualize these (other) Jews within the framework of our tradition, this past Shabbat I shared insights into the behaviour of Aaron’s sons Nadav and Avihu and what they did that resulted in God burning them alive.
The Torah tells us that they “drew near” to God. But why? One midrashic position sees them as drunk. Inebriated, they simply didn’t know any better.
Today’s Jewish malcontents may not have consumed alcohol, but they have certainly drunk the Kool-Aid. Whether righteously indignant or merely fitting in with the progressive crowd, many of today’s Jewish protestors might not indeed know any better.
But another midrashic perspective understands the catalyst for Aaron’s sons’ actions quite differently, arguing that Nadav and Avihu wanted nothing more than to express their love for God and, in their eyes, the best way to do so was by giving a voluntary burnt offering.
Some of today’s Jewish student anti-Israel protestors see their actions similarly. They protest Israel as an act of service to Judaism. They protest because they love their Jewish self.
My colleague Joanna Samuels put it well when she wrote, “I don’t know how to understand [Jewish student] participation in these events. My yetzer ha-ra (bad inclination) makes me furious at these students -- do they not understand what they are doing, how they are being used? My yetzer ha-tov (positive inclination) tries to engage my curiosity -- what are these Jewish students getting from being part of this movement? What are they fighting for? What are they fighting against?”
Whether referred to as “Uncle Toms” or regarded as “tokenizing themselves”, these Jews are certainly being used. I have to imagine that they know this and are indeed happy to play the part. I share Rabbi Samuel’s fury and similarly find myself curious about motivations – especially among the Jewishly knowledgeable and committed.
God though didn’t express curiosity with Nadav and Avihu. Even if their intentions were pure, these two sons of Aaron, more so than most Israelites, should have known better. Growing up in the home of the High Priest, Nadav and Avihu knew that there is a system in which one must operate, that there are boundaries to our actions; and if one operates outside of that system, intentions become meaningless.
They should know better
There is a Jewish camp. Those participating in today’s anti-Israel encampments are outside of it. Some actions simply cannot be tolerated.
Rosenberg, interestingly enough, was vocally supportive of Black liberation; but he understood that it could not come at the expense of his people’s own. Would that such a position be more visible today.
Whatever terms we use to describe them, Jewish history will not be kind to these Jewish student protestors.
A coda: Hitler’s Jewish supporters (yes, even Hitler had Jewish fans – see under “Association of German National Jews”), desired an end to the Jewish people through assimilation. The Nazis agreed with the goal, but ultimately went about achieving it through different means. With the benefit of hindsight, these Jews were far, far outside of the Jewish camp.
Today’s Jewish contrarians support (or participate in encampments that support) anything from targeted university endowment divestment to the complete dismantling of the Zionist enterprise. Many of their friends are already clear that such goals may be attained “by any means”. The encamped Jewish students, by virtue of their mere presence, let alone active participation, are working toward the destruction of Jews and Judaism.
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