H. Scott Prosterman Informed Comment
On December 11, 2019, convicted felon Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13899, which declared Judaism to be a separate “race” and “ethnicity;” and all Jews of common “national origin.” The purpose was to twist Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act into a tool for speech suppression. It had the “hat trick” effect of patronizing Jews and persecuting Palestinians; and prosecuting an attack on free speech. Indirectly, this was a misappropriation of the Civil Rights Act, and it also undermines the prospects for a two-state solution between Israel and Palestinians.
Despite 1000 years of pogroms, culminating with the Holocaust, most Jews have resisted being categorized as a specific race. Jews are known to be in 99 countries, spanning the full spectrum of human ethnicity. Judaism is a religion and a culture of shared ancestry. Many non-observant Jews are fiercely proud of their culture and heritage, as well as taking a deep pride in Jewish humor; and our accomplishments in the entertainment industries, financial sectors and academia. Iconic athletes such as Sandy Koufax, Mark Spitz and Deni Avdija are also part of that equation. Judaism is not a race, nor a nationality outside of Israel. But globally, fewer Jews identify with Israel than any time since its founding.
As for Israel, a recent AP/NORC opinion poll found that “for many U.S. Jews, support for Israel remains a bedrock of their religious identity, its existence a guarantee of Jewish self-determination and safety.” Yet it found profound discomfort with the policies of the extreme-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, which many feel has perverted Zionism into a genocidal ideology that is an anathema to its founding ideals. Author Rich Forer and others argue, however, that “ethnic cleansing and genocide are the inevitable culmination of the Zionist project.”
Among Jews who are religious, about 70% of the American community, the poll discovered that around half see Israel’s actions in Gaza as unjustified, and 25% are willing to characterize them as genocidal.
About a third of U.S. Jews are not religiously observant, and fully 40 percent of this group agrees that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza. Only six percent of these secular-minded American Jews identify as Zionists. Three-quarters of non-religious Jews say that they are “not too” or “not at all” emotionally attached to Israel.
David Crary and his colleagues at AP write, “Anna Constant, 56, of Seattle identifies as culturally Jewish and says she doesn’t feel closely connected to Israel. ‘I kind of think of myself as an American version of a Jew. I do have a homeland,’ she said, referring to the United States.” Ms. Constant has been recategorized by Donald Trump as having a separate race and identity, whether she likes it or not.
The Likud Party under PM Benjamin Netanyahu has generated more anti-Semitism than any dynamic since WWII. While illegal settlements have been built in the West Bank during the tenure of every Israeli prime minister since 1967, Netanyahu’s agenda has been a steroid-fueled explosion of settlements, with a blind eye toward squatter violence.
The increasing rightward shift of Zionism and Israel has transformed the notion of “liberal Zionism” into an oxymoronic anachronism for those still holding on. American and Israeli Jews, along with Christian Zionists, are notorious for supporting human rights for all people, except Palestinians. I once heard the great singer Mary Travis essentially say that “the hammer of justice and bell of freedom” applies to everyone in the world, except Palestinians. When I spoke to her after her talk to a Zionist group in Memphis, she didn’t back down.
Trump issued that Executive Order two days after he had told the America-Israel Council, “You’re brutal killers; you’re not nice people, but you have to vote for me; you have no choice . . .” The context was the alarming rise of anti-Semitism as a result of the failure to distinguish Judaism, the religion; from Zionism, the political ideology. Worldwide, Jews are being unfairly demonized for the sins of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, which has prosecuted genocide in Gaza, as a diversion from the pogroms in the West Bank.
The unfolding tragedy of Zionism is that it has been hijacked and taken down a rabbit hole, driven by the Siamese twin criminal conspiracy of Trump and Netanyahu. The intent of EO 13899 was to require schools to declare the Boycott Divest Sanction (BDS) movement and other advocacy groups as discriminatory towards Jews. That’s a long reach with no grasp or logical traction.
Now comes California Senate Bill (SB) 1387, authored by Jewish California State Sen. Henry Stern, which exacerbates this problem in a big way. It’s another broadside against free speech, as was California Assembly Bill (AB) California AB 715, which criminalizes any criticism of Israel in a public academic setting. “Jewish California” supports both, despite those laws’ origins in the MAGA-driven agenda. Their reach of logic argues that, “SB 1387 applies the same approach to Jewish Californians as the LGBTQ+ community and Black American subgroups, and it makes California the first state in the nation to recognize Jewish identity as an ethnicity in statute.”
But this legislation plays right into the MAGA agenda to suppress free speech and academic freedom. Its sponsors try to argue that this bill protects Jews from anti-Semitism, through some ghostly, undefined mechanism. The objection is that this promotes the wrong kind of exceptionalism that will backfire. Don’t we already have too much technology gathering too much information on us, with no clue as to who is collecting it and for what application?
Writer Seth Morrison pointed out, “SB 1387 exceptionalizes Judaism over other religions by making it the only group tracked as both a religion and an ethnicity.” Thus we have another exception to “Jewish exceptionalism.”
Why is it that so many Jews are fervent advocates of the Civil Rights Movement except when it comes to Palestinians? When I posed this question to writer Steve Bhaerman (who assumes the guise of comic alter ego Swami Beyondananda), he said, “The issue boils down to three things: fear, tribalism and denial. Jewish exceptionalism. Victimhood makes you an exceptional victimizer.” SB 1387 elevates that dynamic, making Jews the only demographic to be tracked as a religion and ethnicity. It is a poorly conceived notion, similar to California AB 715, which is an attempt by right-wing elements to co-opt and misapply the Free Speech Movement (FSM), in defense of the Likud-MAGA agenda and Israel.
File photo, White House photo. Public Domain. Via Picryl
The worst elements of MAGA are already coming for the Black and Brown-skinned people on the basis of their ethnic profiles. Who is to say they won’t be coming for the Jews again, based on publishing, intellectual or academic profiles? They’re already coming for professors and students who are not Jewish, but come from majority Black or Muslim countries, because of what they write and publish. Paranoid? No, this fear and suspicion is well-founded in our MAGA-dominated political climate. Rev. Martin Niemöller said, “ . . . Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.” Are you listening Gaza genocide deniers?
Israel’s political direction under the far-right Likud Party has driven millions of Jews away from Israel, and we are less of a monolith than ever. Sen. Stern has an admirable record of progressive legislation. His introduction of this bill seems counterintuitive to his legislative history. I might condescend to him by saying, “He means well,” but ‘tis indeed a puzzlement why a progressive, Jewish state senator would introduce something that is gift-wrapped for MAGA and Likud. Haven’t we learned by now that nothing fuels anti-Semitism like expressions and manifestations of Jewish exceptionalism do? This is a provocative piece of legislation that feeds into the white nationalist agenda and reinforces anti-Semitism across the board.
Juan Cole’s Informed Comment delivers independent, expert analysis of war, the Middle East, climate change, and U.S. foreign policy. Help sustain this work
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