Nonetheless, it cracks me up to read that Charles Bronfman, of all people, is

worried that Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians is hurting the country’s relationship with young Jews in the Diaspora.

That’s right, Bronfman’s considering tweaking his position on Israel because might just be getting in the way of the only thing more important to him than Zionism – Jewish survival!

“We turned from David to Goliath in 1982, with the invasion into Lebanon, and the Arabs became David,” he told the Israeli daily Ha’aretz last week. “Now everybody’s worried about the Palestinians. Now we’re occupiers, oppressors, who live by the sword. That’s what you see in the media, and it festers and has effects on the general population and on Jews as well.”

Goldberg takes Bronfman’s seeming reconsideration of his position on Israeli politics as a sign that the Establishment is finally “younger Jews are more ambivalent about their ostensible birthright than their parents are [and] don’t share past generations’ automatic support for Israeli policies.” She seems to take J Street as representative of the positions of these elusive “young Jews,” which is an improvement – I suppose – but doesn’t begin to show the diversity of critiques of Zionism and of Israeli policy that exist among Jews (not all of us young, either.)

I would have liked to see Goldberg look at more grassroots, localized engagement by young Jews (since they/we seem to be her object of study) with Israeli policies and politics, and with their relationship to Zionism as a philosophy and a movement. J Street and other lobbying groups may be a useful counterweight to the efforts of AIPAC & co. in Washington, but they don’t represent the extent of the discussion, and can’t alone be the basis for political or communal change.

Michael J. Jordan has a great article over at the JTA talking about the contortions people are going through to avoid stating the obvious: Jewish and pro-Israel groups worked to undermine the Durban II conference. Although “it’s no secret who was behind the effort to discredit the 2009 Durban Review Conference in Geneva,” Jordan shows that almost everyone from U.N. high commissioner for human rights Navi Pillay on down is loathe to speak the truth out of fear of being called anti-Semitic. Jordan:

It was an ironic twist to the common storyline of anti-Semites naming Jews as the perpetrators of shadowy worldwide conspiracies. Those conspiracies typically are as true as the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — that is, to say, not at all.

This time, however, the Jews actually did conspire, albeit openly, to sabotage the conference.

Jordan also reports this ridiculous episode:

“I can’t tell you exactly who the lobby is,” Pillay said in a March 12 interview with Australia’s ABC.net. “I can just pick out that it seems to be one source putting out this wrong information and labeling this review conference as ‘hate fest.’ ”

Use of the loaded term “lobby,” however, appeared to be too much for some Jewish groups.

UN Watch, a monitoring organization, sent Pillay a letter asking her “to avoid using certain well-known stereotypes.” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said the term “fostered images of a mysterious, unnamed, powerful” lobby.

This is a joke. Spurious charges of anti-Semitism applied to those stating the obvious work to debase the meaning of anti-Semitism in general. And the irony is that while Jewish groups attack anyone who points to their handiwork as anti-Semitic, they want to celebrate it themselves as Jewish work. The Boston Globe is reporting that on Sunday night the American Jewish Committee’s David Harris, visiting the Andover Newton Theological School, celebrated the fact that the AJC “engaged successfully with the Obama Administration to consider whether to participate in Geneva.” Of course the AJC and other Zionist organizations are welcome to lobby the Obama administration; and the Durban II episode is another great example of how the pro-Israel lobby in the US was mobilized and coordinated to affect US policy (an effort that hasn’t finished). From their perspective, I understand why they would want to celebrate this. After all, it was a victory.

But why is it not okay for people to talk about it? And when they do why can’t they say that it was Jewish groups leading the charge?

There are several dangers here. First, if we’re ever going to have an honest discussion of US foreign policy we need to be able to talk about all the influences that go into setting it. Do Jews set US foreign policy in Israel/Palestine? No. Are they an important force to be reckoned with? Of course! Was that so hard?

A greater danger is the conflation of Judaism and Zionism. While Zionists may have wanted to derail the Durban II conference in an effort to defend Israel’s racism, as a Jew I was ashamed of this. For a long time Jews were an important part of movements against racism in this country. Growing up, I routinely heard about the Jewish role in the civil rights movement. Now our communal leadership is working to undermine anti-racist efforts. This is shameful. While we once understood our place to be in solidarity with those who were facing persecution like us, the Jewish leadership in the US now seems obsessed with protecting its own ethno-national interests at all costs. To make matter worse, the nuance of the divisions within the Jewish community on these important issues is totally lost when no one is allowed to call out “the lobby” for its activities. Jordan demonstrates the danger of this:

Malaak Shabazz, the daughter of black rights activist Malcolm X, … blamed “Zionist agitators” for being disruptive and aggressive toward her in Geneva, and she filed a letter of protest with Pillay’s office.

“People confuse Zionism with Judaism, and that’s completely unfortunate,” she said.

“The Zionists here are making people hate Jews,” Shabazz said. “I was unfamiliar with the tactics of Zionists. But I got a crash course on it here.”

An honest discussion of Jewish power not only includes an accounting of the influence that Jewish organizations have in promoting their agenda, but what that agenda is. The agenda of the Jewish organizations in Geneva was not to fight anti-Semitism but to protect Zionism. I believe this is at complete odds with what is actually in Jewish self-interest. Not only would Jews benefit from a successful conference discussing the danger of racism, but, as the Shabazz quote shows, the work of Jewish organizations in Geneva has unfortunately placed Jews on the wrong side of an issue that used to be central to our identity.

A few years back when news about a group of secret-Jews in Belmonte, Portugal, came to light, no one really took much notice. These secret Jews were thought to be the last descendants of Sephardi Jews forced to convert to Catholicism, and who had survived the onslaught of 300 years of Inquisition. This group fought an uphill battle with the local Portuguese Jewish communities, and the acidly unfriendly maze of the Israeli rabbinate, in order to gain some recognition.

Help did eventually come, but not without more pain. What had been a very cohesive community for nearly 500 years was suddenly divided between those who begrudgingly chose conversion under the guise of “return,” and those who did not because they thought conversion as an insult to their history, customs and Jewish status. The rabbis involved did not give any credence to their stories, the Jewish customs they had maintained, nor to their endogamic genealogies and practices. They were treated as Gentiles, and now being considered Gerim (converts to Judaism), which prevents them from marrying their own as they had been doing for 500 years.

Since then, a small synagogue was constructed with much sacrifice, a couple of nominally-trained rabbis have come and gone, and many Jewish on-lookers paraded Belmonte; many articles have given them accolades. But the community remained, and remains divided, their knowledge of Jewish Law null — to the point that they still they do not know their most basic Jewish responsibilities, and last I knew a dried-up mikveh was still without repair. The two most important “Jewish” activities is to beg for money to maintain the building, serve as poster boys for Zionist propaganda, and conveniently used for guilt-trips on the Portuguese government and its Church.

None of what you have read so far you will see reported in any newspaper, and unless you know people inside this community, and who can trust you enough to share their pain and shame, spectators at large would be completely unaware of this dismal picture, and think everything is rosy. This community has been hit so hard and so-hurt by the realities of institutional Jewry that they rather retrieve in silence, and hope for a better day.

Then comes Shavei Israel, which, back when it was still called Amishav, performed the second wave of unwarranted conversions on Belmonte’s “secret” Sephardim, and who took the golden opportunity to make them the poster-child of persecuted Spanish Jews.

Ever since, Shavei Israel has been trying to spin the Belmonte “success” in other places throughout Spain, Portugal, Latin America and the United States. Wherever there are Spanish or Portuguese speaking peoples, and some claim or rumors to a manifestation of “Crypto-Judaism,” Shavei makes it its responsibility to chime in.

Shavei Israel is an Israeli non-profit organization whose mission is to help “lost Jews” find “their way home.” In reality, it is a clearing house — with ties to the Israeli rabbinate — to convert any group of people, or individuals, who has philo-Jewish leanings and claims to be part of the People of Israel, however real or far-fetched these claims happen to be.

Rabbi Birnbaum, originally from Argentina, runs the clerical side of the converting operation, with Cottage Ulpan and all (now also available in Spanish). Shavei’s underlying philosophies, besides being overtly Zionist, seem to carry a messianic tone, whose end is to “force” the coming of the Messiah.

Key to this promotional enterprise, we have Mr. Michael Freund, a Ba’al Teshubáh (returnee) himself of Conservative Jewry parentage. Mr. Freund, a former Communication deputy for Netanyahu’s administration, is the Director of this organization. He serves as the face and voice of Shavei Israel, who utilizes all his useful media contacts to promote his organization freely through Israeli papers, mainly the Jerusalmen Post and Arutz Sheva.

If indeed Shavei Israel is truly helping the descendants of Spanish Jews, there is not much through which one can measure this claim. Most of their “returnees” are either kept off the public eye, they do not engage with anybody else besides Shavei, or simply disappear into anonymity.

A couple years back, when I directly questioned Mr. Freund about how they determined the Jewish status of these individuals, or what process they actually put them through, he completely avoided answering the question, and his only exit strategy was to say that everything was being handled by a “panel of experts.” No reason is given as to how his team is considered experts on the subject. The matter of Iberian Anusim is very intricate, determining status a very painstaking process.

Based on his answers too, I also realized the man does not know much about Jewish Law or the history of Anusim at any considerable depth, but in all fairness, he is a man of conviction. As the Public Relations professional that he is, he knows all too well not to answer things that will reveal his weaknesses or compromise the real story of his operations.

Another lingering question is, after all the advertising expenditures, where is all the money going? The Belmonte community to this day does not have a rabbi, and this has been so for at least three to four years. After the light and glitter, where is Shavei Israel’s help when Belmonte is in need?

The most recent string of these hero-like tale stories of “Marrano” survival is one published by the Jerusalem Post, in a column entitled “Fundamentally Freund.” This particular article discusses the majestic Oporto synagogue Mekor Hayyim, where Shavei set up shop not long ago.

Congregation Mekor Hayim was founded by former Portuguese Anusim under the guidance of Captain Barros Bastos over 70 years ago, with the generous contributions of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews of London and New York. Long before they had a building, Rabbi David deSola Pool z”l himself traveled to Portugal to take them their first Torah scroll in over 400 years. If one wants to gauge the quality of Jewish charity between the Zionists and Sephardim, one just has to compare the buildings of Belmonte and Mekor Hayim side-by-side.

After a brief period of hope, Congregation Mekor Hayyim went downhill due to a scandal launched by the government against Captain Barros Bastos, the apathy of Portuguese Anusím who never found the energy to become cohesively organized, and internal congregational squabbles between recent-Ashkenazi arrivals and its former Portuguese Anusím. For several decades, Mekor Hayyim remained empty and forgotten.

Now, Mekor Hayim has regained life once again, now as the perfect stage and center piece for Shavei’s more “legitimate Sephardi” operations and claims to saving the day.

God save them!

Mr. David Ramírez, a former Counselor to the Board of Directors for Ess Hayim – the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Houston (est. 2005) – is a recognized independent researcher on Sephardic history, development of halakhic thinking in the tradition of Maimónides, comparative studies in religion and philosophy. Before his transference to Houston, TX, in 2006, Mr. Ramírez had functioned as teacher of Judaism for the Sephardic synagogue OrVe Shalom (est. 1914), in the city of Atlanta, GA. Mr. Ramírez has had the opportunity to study under Rabbi Faur; he has participated in learning projects with Rabbi Bittón, former Chief Rabbi from South-America; and recently with Rabbi Oliveira, and Rabbi Lopes via Yahdut Sefarad, an Israeli non-profit organization for the promotion of rabbinic intellectual values. As a translator, Mr. Ramírez has collaborated with professors at Bar Ilan University, Netanya College, with directors at the Centro Educativo Sefaradí (Jerusalem) and he has been featured as a poet in the “Mentalities” journal. As a writer, David has been invited for cameo appearances at the Sephardic Update Newsletter, and currently some of his work has been featured at faur.derushapublishing.com. Born and raised in Mexico, Mr. Ramírez holds a BBA from Oglethorpe University, a music degree from Escuela Superior de Música de Monterrey, and is an avid reader on the history of New Spain and Spanish literature.

If you are Jewish (I am), care about Israel’s future (I do), and currently rubber stamp everything you hear about Israel (I don’t), you might not like what you’re about to read. And if you are American, (I am) feel you are patriotic (I do) and agree with the policies of this current administration (I don’t), reading about this will make you uncomfortable. The similarities in the tools used by both the American and Israeli administrations are troublesome, to say the least.  If you’re against the Iraq war, the neo-conservatives will brand you as un-American,  as not supporting the troops that keep you safe,  and as unpatriotic. If you’re against Israel’s occupation, the same neo-conservatives will tag you as anti-semitic, anti-zionist and a hate monger.

In Argentina last week, three men, Adrian Salbuchi, Enrique  Romero and Juan Gabriel Labaké, members of the MSRA (Members of the Argentine Second Republic Movement) who prepared a report for the CES (Centro de Estudios Sociales – Social Studies Center)entitled “Report on Anti-Semitism in Argentina – 2006″ sued the Jewish NGO DAIA (Delegación de Asociaciones Israelitas Argentinas – Delegation of Israeli Associations in Argentina.) What happened?

“In their Report, the undersigned are insulted and slandered by the above, as they accuse us of “virulent Anti-Semitism” because of our global and national geopolitical analyses published as press communiqués of our group, MSRA and as reports in “El Traductor Gráfico” bulletin.  “Anti-Semitism” constitutes a crime of discrimination under the Argentine Discrimination Act, Law No 23.592 (i.e., Art. 3º defines “discrimination against persons or groups on account of their religious beliefs”).

Adding insult to injury, the CES gave their report ample local and international publicity through diverse channels and the media, also translating it fully into English, and authorizing its publication on the Internet by the powerful US-based Zionist organization, Anti Defamation League (ADL), a militant Zionist organization founded and operated by the Jewish Masonic lodge B’Nai  B’Rith, whose top officers recently met with Argentine president Cristina Kirchner and foreign secretary Jorge Taiana in Buenos Aires, requiring them to be more outspoken against so-called “Anti-Semitism” in Argentina.  In addition, the”Reports on Anti-Semitism” issued every year by the CES/DAIA are used as an official source of information on our country by the US Department of State.  All of this and other actions on their part have caused Plaintiffs severe moral, professional and economic damage and injury.”

Accused of anti-semitism, the writers are litigating for the right of freedom of expression, and by extension, the freedom to express what they view as distorted and filtered rhetoric in order for American Jewish neo-conservatives and Zionists to manipulate the information regarding control over certain territories.

If I weren’t reading “The Other Israel” right at this moment, this piece of news might have slipped through my fingers. This book is a collection of essays by Israelis intellectuals who present a diametrically opposed picture of Israel and its failure at achieving peace with the Palestinians. I have gone through the preface, written by Tom Segev, and 3 separate essays. All of the authors deeply love Israel; and who better to point out the faults of a loved one than by the one who loves?

They speak of arrogant righteousness, expansionism at human cost which you’ll hopefully never hear about, racist divisions which cannot be relevant in the 21st century, – and yes, they also criticize the blank check and pat on the back which Israel receives from its greatest ally, the United States of America.  One illustration of this is the cost of $3 billion dollars in building highways in and around Jerusalem which essentially make it impossible for Palestinian neighborhoods to remain cohesive; these roads were paid for by the United States.

Thus I was ripe and receptive to this piece of news, because of its sheer chutzpah. Imagine, 3 Argentine men going against the humongous “machine”, because Israel is strong, viable, and not a bit threatened by anyone in the neighborhood, including Iran (see comments by Tzipora Livni behind closed doors ). Israel continues to use the victim card to promote its agenda, much like John McCain uses the POW card in his campaign when all else fails.

It is irrelevant that these men win or lose the case as far as I am concerned. The mere fact that this has taken place is historic. There are laws prohibiting anti-semitic language, anti-semitic acts and I see the need for them where they exist: the recent case in Paris, for instance, where 3 young men were savagely attacked and beaten just because they were wearing their yarmulkes. That is pure and simple anti-semitism. There’s no debate. But when a report is written that describes a situation in part of the world that is highly controversial by people who are in turned accused of being anti-semitic, those writers have turned around and done the unthinkable. They are suing their accusers for libel.

The following review appeared in Upping The Anti #5 (October 2007) under the title “Not Just a Smear Tactic.” The text here, the version originally submitted by the author, differs in many small details from UTA’s edited version.

In July 2006 Bluestockings bookshop in New York City announced that it was going to host a workshop for social justice activists on “opposing antisemitism in the movement.” The announcement touched off a heated online discussion on New York’s Indymedia. Some people asked if the workshop was going to be “some Zionist bullshit” and why it wasn’t going to address other forms of discrimination, particularly “Zionist anti-Semetism” [sic] against Palestinians. Critics doubted there was any real antisemitism on the left, or suggested that it was caused by “right wing jews” having “cried wolf too many times.” One charged that “whining about anti-semitism is like whining about ‘anti-white’ ‘reverse racism.’ Jews are one of the wealthiest groups in the world with the most privilege.”

Other participants in the Indymedia discussion countered with accounts of anti-Jewish comments from leftists: “I’ve seen accusations made that Jews control the US government, media, economy, and so on.” One person wrote, “I’m Palestinian, and for some reason every freakin Tom Dick & Harry I meet thinks he can bitch to me about ‘the Jews.’“ Another commented, “The virulence with which critics have attacked this workshop illustrates how needed it is.”

As this discussion suggests, talking about antisemitism on the left is a complicated business. One one side, the Zionist right has systematically misused the charge of antisemitism to smear all critics of Israel, while glossing over anti-Jewish attitudes and policies among some of Israel’s allies – and even within the Zionist movement itself. On the other side, some leftists have trivialized or dismissed concern about antisemitism. This stance bolsters real anti-Jewish tendencies and feeds the myth that Jews’ true friends are on the right.

For confused leftists who want help in navigating this mess, a useful starting point is April Rosenblum’s pamphlet The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements. Rosenblum, a Philadelphia activist, was one of the panelists at the Bluestockings workshop, and she is familiar with both the reality of antisemitism and the ways the term has been abused. Far from focusing on Jewish concerns in isolation, she emphasizes that countering anti-Jewish oppression should be integrated with other struggles and “has to come from a perspective of justice for all people” (1). (Full disclosure: April Rosenblum is a friend, and I was one of many people whose suggestions and comments she solicited while writing the pamphlet.)

Antisemitism is a serious issue for two main reasons. First, because it’s dangerous for Jews. Rosenblum cites vivid recent examples of anti-Jewish propaganda and violence in many parts of the world, from a kidnapping and murder in France to a wave of street assaults on rabbis in the Ukraine; from a hate-filled speech by the Malaysian prime minister to police coverups of an anti-Jewish bombing case in Argentina. Second, anti-Jewish scapegoating represents a major kind of fake radicalism – “the socialism of fools” in August Bebel’s classic phrase – that has a poisonous effect on leftist analysis and is central to neo-fascist visions of right-wing revolution.

Rosenblum argues that the left needs to do a much better job of fighting antisemitism, both in society at large and within its own ranks. Although “the number of Leftists with real anti-Jewish beliefs is tiny,” voicing concerns about antisemitism often elicits “silent, uncomfortable, defensive, and even accusatory” reactions by people and organizations on the left (12). To counter this avoidance, Rosenblum breaks down common myths about Jews and outlines some of the history of antisemitism and the left’s mixed record of responding to it. Sometimes this discussion focuses on antisemitism to the neglect of other historical dynamics, but for many readers it offers a helpful corrective and guide for further study.

Above all, The Past offers a radical take on the dynamics of anti-Jewish oppression. Whether fomented by elites or bubbling up from below, “antisemitism’s job is to make ruling classes invisible” (1). Scapegoating Jews deflects popular anger away from the real systems of exploitation and power. In medieval Europe, where antisemitism as we know it took shape, this scapegoating was rooted in a structural dynamic:

Rulers used Jews for ‘middlemen’ jobs that put Jews in direct contact with the exploited, disgruntled peasantry, shielding rulers from the backlash for their unjust policies. A peasant might live a lifetime without seeing the nobleman who decided her fate; it was Jews [who] were the face of power at her door collecting taxes and rent, Jews who seemed in control, and Jews who faced the violence when peasants in poverty decided to resist (9).

For centuries, Christian Europe forcibly marginalized Jews, subjecting them to the constant threat of expulsion from towns and whole countries, barring them from most trades but allowing a few to prosper as bankers or as “Court Jews” close to the king. These patterns fed stereotypes that persist today. Antisemitism portrays Jews as perpetual outsiders disloyal to the larger society, and as a mysterious, superpowerful group of greedy evildoers who manipulate events from behind the scenes.
Rosenblum highlights two distinctive features of anti-Jewish oppression that sometimes make it hard to see. First, unlike many oppressions, antisemitism doesn’t necessarily mean keeping Jews in poverty or otherwise “at the bottom” of society. “Because the point of anti-Jewish oppression is to keep a Jewish face in front, so that Jews, instead of ruling classes, become the target for people’s rage, it works even more smoothly when Jews are allowed some success, and can be perceived as the ones ‘in charge’ by other oppressed groups” (8). The carrot of success and relative privilege – coupled with a deep longing for safety from popular violence and hatred – has seduced many Jews into collaborating with the rulers.

Second, antisemitism operates cyclically, with waves of persecution alternating with periods of calm and relative safety for Jews. “In some of the most famous examples of anti-Jewish expulsion and mass murder (ie, medieval Spain or modern Germany), just prior to the attacks, Jews appeared to be one of society’s most successful, comfortable, well-integrated minorities” (8).

This is a good basic model of anti-Jewish oppression. But like any theoretical model, unless we combine it with other pieces of the picture it simplifies history and sometimes distorts it. For one thing, antisemitism sometimes takes on a life of its own that has nothing to do with protecting the ruling class. German Nazism didn’t just scapegoat and persecute Jews; it made the extermination of European Jewry an overriding priority that trumped all other political, economic, and military considerations. Today, many of the leading proponents of antisemitism are far rightists who want to overthrow global capitalist elites, not make them invisible.

Rosenblum’s model of antisemitism is also inadequate when applied to the United States. Rosenblum notes in passing that Jews in the U.S. “have had 200 years of exceptional physical safety” (3), but never addresses the key question of why this is so. The omission implies that U.S. Jews have just been lucky, and that we’ve simply experienced an unusually long down-turn of the antisemitism cycle that could swing upwards at any time. That’s weak historical analysis, and it leaves Rosenblum open to attack by some leftists, such as Matthew Richman, who counters that Jews in the United States sometimes face antisemitic prejudice but are not oppressed as Jews. I don’t agree with his claim that U.S. antisemitism has no structural dimension, but Richman has a point when he writes that “judeophobia never served as an ordering principle for American society and politics in the way that racism against Black Americans has for hundreds of years.”

A fuller analysis would integrate arguments from both sides of this debate. The United States inherited antisemitic traditions from Europe but refracted them through the lens of white supremacy. As a system of social control, the combination of white skin privilege for European Americans and terroristic subordination for people of colour has been highly effective in defusing class struggle. In this context, Jews’ traditional role as scapegoats for the rulers has been less important.
In the United States, the severity of antisemitism has depended above all on Jews’ shifting status within the larger racial hierarchy. The U.S. racial order has usually mitigated anti-Jewish persecution by defining most Jews as white. The only exception was the period roughly from the 1880s until the 1940s, when millions of southern and eastern Europeans temporarily formed an intermediate group in the racial hierarchy, above people of colour but below native-born whites. During this time, and none other, Jews in the U.S. faced a wave of systematic discrimination in jobs, schools, and housing, and anti-Jewish propaganda, organizing, and violence reached record levels.

But white supremacy never completely subsumed antisemitism. Right-wing Jew-hatred has been a fixture of U.S. politics for more than a century, and it’s experienced a resurgence in recent decades. In the 1980s, many Ku Klux Klan-style groups shifted toward a neo-nazi ideology that defined Jews as the main enemy. After the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989-1991, parts of the conservative right moved from Cold War anticommunism toward Pat Buchanan’s racial nationalism or the Patriot militias’ anti-government conspiracy theories – both of which had strong anti-Jewish undertones. Meanwhile, the Christian right, which has gained tens of millions of followers since the 1970s, has used pro-Zionism to mask its anti-Jewish ideology: a drive to “Christianize” every area of life and an apocalyptic vision in which all Jews and others who don’t embrace Christianity will be destroyed.
Also important, U.S. society has replicated some of the structural dynamics that have long fueled anti-Jewish scapegoating. Although White Christians still dominate the capitalist class, a few Jews have risen to prominent high levels in some industries such as media, entertainment, and investment banking. Overall, Jews have been concentrated in middle-level roles as shopkeepers, landlords, white-collar workers, administrators, or professionals, which to many poor and working-class people represent the most visible kinds of status and power. Seeing Jews in these roles – like tax collectors or moneylenders in medieval Europe – can reinforce the myth that Jews are the main oppressors. In public policy, the mostly Jewish neocons have served as highly visible agents for a section of the mostly non-Jewish ruling class. Dependent on patrons such as Rupert Murdoch, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the Olin and Smith Richardson foundations, the neocons have been useful not only for their skills but also as expendable scapegoats in times of need.

Rosenblum does a better job of addressing complexity in her discussion of Israel and Palestine. As she points out, “in an issue where some Jews do have real power, it can get hard to tell what’s an accurate observation of unjust actions they have done, and what’s antisemitic thinking.” She offers some helpful guidelines, such as “critique actions and policy as unjust – not people or nations as evil,” and a chart that delineates clear criticisms of Israel (example: “Israel has a repeated & ongoing record of human rights offenses”), antisemitic ideas often repeated without anti-Jewish intent (“Israel is a worse human rights violator than most or all other countries”), and lines directly peddled by neo-nazis and other antisemites (“Israel is the root of the world’s problems”). She argues it’s legitimate to criticize Zionism but cautions that many people do so in simplistic ways that unintentionally play into antisemitism (20-21).

Although she supports Palestinian self-determination, Rosenblum herself is pointedly noncommittal about Zionism, a position I disagree with. She acknowledges that “Zionism as a whole has had racist & oppressive results for the Palestinian people” but claims that Zionism “stands for a huge range of beliefs and believers,” from those who call for mass expulsion of all Palestinians to those who are “open to living in a binational, Palestinian-Jewish state” (21, 22). This is misleading. Sure, there are important differences between right-wing and left-wing Zionists, but virtually all Zionists agree that Israel is and should be the state of the Jewish people. That core principle is incompatible with binationalism and inherently discriminates against non-Jews – including those who hold Israeli citizenship. It is embodied in Israel’s system of legal racism that spans everything from immigration to development funding to the ownership of land. The Past makes no mention of this.

Rosenblum is also silent about the strong, deep anti-Jewish current in Zionism itself. The Zionist movement’s leading forces have repeatedly attacked Jewish cultures in terms that vividly embody internalized oppression – starting with Theodor Herzl, founder of political Zionism, who denounced Yiddish-speaking Jews as cowardly, profit-hungry, treacherous, scheming, dirty, and repellent. The Israeli state has developed close ties with antisemites such as the U.S. Christian right and, most notoriously, Argentina’s former military junta, which conducted systematic terrorism against Jews in the 1970s and 1980s. Far from offering Jews an escape from antisemitism, Zionism has simply internationalized the scapegoating dynamic. Many Arab governments, for example, have used Israel to draw popular resentment away from their own role in imperialism, capitalism, and even anti-Palestinian repression.

My other major beef with The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere is about Jews’ relationship with revolutionary politics. Rosenblum says little about the history of leftists combating Jew-hatred, and she focuses one-sidedly on antisemitism as a factor driving Jews away from the left. She mentions 1950s revelations about Soviet persecution of Jews but not the Communist movement’s struggles around destalinization, the New Left’s “ignorance of Jewish oppression” but not its overall fragmentation and decline after 1969, “tolerance of anti-Jewish rhetoric” in recent movements but not the general ups and downs these movements have faced for many reasons (16).

Even more troubling is Rosenblum’s claim that antisemitism makes Jews “a reserve of revolutionary potential – in all classes, at all times.” Put more fully, “Jewish oppression…cannot be ended without fighting and transforming social injustice as a whole,” and any Jew who understands this “cannot help but become a radical” (17).

But why should we think that (awareness of) antisemitism trumps all of the complex and intangible factors that shape a person’s political outlook? The idea that all Jews as a group have some kind of special affinity for revolutionary politics sounds like a leftist version of the chosen people myth. It also ignores an important lesson of the antisemitism model Rosenblum herself presents – that people can be both privileged and oppressed at the same time, and political consciousness often blends contradictory impulses. The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere is much stronger when it remembers this lesson than when it forgets it.

Matthew N. Lyons is a writer, parent, and archivist living in Philadelphia. Many of his writings can be accessed via his online bibliography.