What so many who interrogate American Jews about their Israel views do not get is that most American Jews do not think much about Israel, because they are *Americans* with American concerns who do not define themselves by what's happening somewhere thousands of miles away.
On the right, there's a perpetual effort to assail American Jews for supporting "anti-Israel" Democrats. On the left, there's a perpetual effort to make American Jews in progressive spaces answer for Israel. These are both racist constructs that collapse all Jews into a monolith.
Like every American minority, American Jews are Americans. They spend most of their time thinking and worrying about the same things as other Americans in their social and political class. They are not cut-outs for whatever Israelis or Israel politics you support or oppose.
People do the exact same thing to Muslims as they do to Jews: attack them and hold them to account for acts of completely different co-religionists thousands of miles away in the Middle East. This is textbook bigotry and yet distressingly common even in "enlightened" spaces.
Given my journalistic profession and personal inclinations, I am one of those American Jews who thinks a lot about Israel. But I try to explain to audiences that I am unusual in this regard. Like most Americans, most American Jews have enough to worry about in their own lives.
The replies and retweets here are a mix of Jews affirming this statement from experience, and non-Jewish partisans insisting *their* side doesn't do this. Trust me, it does. Talk to some Jewish people! Some of us have been fortunate not to experience this, but others, less so.
So many folks from other minority communities responding to this thread sharing similar experiences. Whether you are held collectively accountable for people who look/seem like you overseas is one of the dividing lines between being in the majority and being a minority.
Meanwhile, in my DMs, I am currently being held collectively accountable for all Rosenbergs:
For the record, I am not responsible for the non-Jewish Nazi Alfred Rosenberg, take full credit for Melissa Rosenberg's fantastic first season of Jessica Jones, but pretend she did not also script Twilight. Happy to answer any other Rosenberg queries.
This Hitler quote is, naturally, a fake Hitler quote. One of the weirder forms of anti-Semitism out there is the need to attribute additional anti-Semitic quotes to Hitler. Like, you couldn't find a good one from him so you had to make one up?
Responsible leaders in Israel and the West Bank have quietly worked to deescalate tensions today. The problem is that Hamas has never been interested in responsible leadership, which means they're likely to try and rocket some civilians soon to try and ratchet things back up.
Hamas claims to be defending Jerusalem and al-Aqsa. But you don't "defend Jerusalem" by indiscriminately rocketing it and its Jewish and Arab civilians. That's what you do if you're a terrorist cult that doesn't care who burns in your unwinnable messianic war.
Something terrible may be about to happen in Jerusalem. There is an annual march through the city, including its Muslim quarter, that attracts a strong racist element. Every Israeli security agency has called for it to be rerouted today. They were overruled. It begins in 1.5 hrs.
This conflagration is entirely preventable, and is only happening because politicians—likely Netanyahu's toady public security minister Amir Ohana—are disregarding what the entire Israeli security apparatus, including defense minister Benny Gantz, has said.
Meanwhile, at the same time, there is a peace march going through Jerusalem right now, which will probably get no coverage or social media attention, because almost nothing non-polarizing and positive-sum in Israel-Palestine ever does. That's a choice too.
My latest: What you should know about Yair Lapid, the man just tasked with trying to replace Netanyahu. What does he stand for? Can he succeed? And what will happen if he does? All your questions answered: yair.substack.com/p/what-you-sho…
"I’ve interviewed [Yair] Lapid multiple times, in part because I hope if he’s in the news enough, people will finally learn how to pronounce my name, and in part because I’ve long thought he’s been perennially overlooked by a media in search of more incendiary Israel storylines."
It's 4 hours to midnight in Israel, which means it's four hours until Netanyahu's mandate to form the next government expires. If he can't pull a rabbit out of a hat, or get an extension, the mandate will likely pass to opposition leader Yair Lapid and we're off to the races.