JNS editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin wants to know what the bigger problem is: the global surge of antisemitism, the passivity of some Jews who recoil from active defense against their attackers or the willingness of others to actively collaborate with those who seek their destruction?
He is joined in this week’s episode of “Think Twice” by Tablet magazine editor-at-large Liel Leibovitz, who answered by speaking of his outrage at the reaction of American and European Jews to efforts to harm them. He was particularly incensed by the fact that when a deranged man entered a New York City synagogue, disrupting services and attacking a congregant, not a single person present attempted to restrain him or defend the person who was assaulted. Instead, they simply waited for security to rush in and save them.
He believes this is symptomatic of Diaspora Jewry’s inadequate response to their current dilemma. “If that’s all you’ve got, then what you have isn’t a congregation. What you have is a hospice.”
“If Zionism taught us anything, and indeed, if Judaism taught us anything, it’s that our expectation should never ever be to be safe,” he continued.” Our expectation should always be to be free.
“Free people have the door wide open. Free people welcome everyone that wants to come in. Free people are armed and trained and ready to defend themselves against their haters. This is a very normal state of being, applicable everywhere, it seems, except for the mainstream American Jewish community, which still harps on about risk management. Well, you know, that way lies doom.”
Leibovitz discussed Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s advice to Jews that they should prioritize the interests of the Democratic Party over their own safety and even the existence of Israel by supporting an antisemite like the party’s U.S. Senate candidate, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. She was, he asserts, “speaking the quiet part out loud.” That is something, he says, that most of the leadership of American Jewry has failed to do.
According to Leibovitz, “the inconvenient truth is that by deed, if not by word, every single one of our so-called communal leaders practice the same thought process” as Michigan’s attorney general.
He says that when it comes to “the most pressing issues that actually affect the well-being of Jews today,” such as supporting the Trump administration’s effort to root out DEI policies that enable antisemitism in academia, enact strong immigration policies and counter the threat from Islamists, they act like Nessel. They prioritize liberal partisan political stands, not the interests or even the defense of the community.
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