Pinko Magazine Hedonism + Activism

Editors note: This piece was posted briefly last night with most of it missing and with comments disabled, because of anti-semitism a problem with Wordpress. Please read in full! 

Everyone wants a piece of the Jews these days. In two separate articles in the Oct 27th issue of The New Yorker, various Gentiles try to claim the Jewish people as their own. First, Adam Brickley, the “draft Palin for VP blogger” whose 15 minutes are nearly up, tells how the hand of God played a role in Palin’s nomination, and how his family are, what he calls, Messianic Jews. ”Jesus was Jewish, so to be like Him you need to be Jewish, too,” he told the writer. Then, in an even stranger twist, during Jon Lee Anderson’s wonderful piece on the tragedy in Zimbabwe, Mugabe’s nephew, Leo, calls Zimbabweans the new Israelites and Uncle Bobby the new Moses. The last straw for me was this little gem, a Republican Party email comparing the rise of Obama to the rise of Hitler. 

It seems whenever someone wants to engage Jewish activism, whether to get out the conservative vote, or to oppose peaceful dialogue (as in the recent anti-Ahmadinejad protests), they draw on the Holocaust. What this accomplishes is something very dangerous: desensitizing everyone to the very real fact of the very real Holocaust that occurred only a few decades ago, making it no more than another rhetorical flourish.

Everyone (Jews and non-Jews included) wants to tie their cause to the Holocaust, assuming it gives them some sort of gravitas by association. What they miss is something fundamental about jews and about mass murder. The Jewish vote cannot be won by fear, and fear does not define the Jewish people. Our history is far richer than that. Stop telling us otherwise!

First of all, to address the problem of the Holocaust as a brand, we need to insist that mass murder is always specific. To constantly equate one mass-murder with anything else is to rob that event of its reality, and, rob its victims of their specificity. The cynical and self-serving use of the Holocaust has to stop. Why is the rise of Hitler always alluded to, and not the rise of the Hutu Power movement in Rwanda? The death toll is huge, the genocide equally undeniable, and the effects still ravaging that region. Why does no one try to call on the specter of the Armenian genocide either? Why? Because neither the Rwandan nor the Armenian genocide work as a short-hand reference for fear. The Holocaust as a brand needs no explanation, and therefore, can be used to invoke a gut reaction of fear, just as this latest McCain campaign stunt has done. This email campaign–though half-heartedly repuidated by them– is part of the McCain campaign’s larger fear-mongering strategy, but it won’t work with the Jewish vote, because Jews are no longer defined by the Holocaust, a reality to which politics has yet to catch up.

A recent Gallup poll shows that nearly 75% of Jewish voters favor Obama. That’s generally in line with previous democratic tickets, which shows that this suggestion that a vote for Obama will bring on the next Holocaust just doesn’t work. The sine qua non of Jewish existence right now is not fear of Jewish survival as it has been in the past, nor is it unquestioning support for Israel, especially among younger Jews.

Right now, I believe, the Jewish community, which is by no means one monolithic group, is motivated by a commitment to service and what are seen more broadly as “Jewish values” and by tikkun olam, a duty to heal the world. Look at the Jewish community’s response to the devastation of New Orleans, or the Tsunami in Southeast Asia, or to Cyclone Nargis. Look at Jewish responses to the genocide in Darfur.

Activism has a long tradition among Jews, and Obama’s call to service resonates with those ideals. Obama’s personal narrative, his pastiche of ethnicities and his unifying message, resonate with many Jews’ experiences in America. In short, calling on Jewish fear of the Holocaust is both an insulting strategy and a failing one. Calling on all of the best instincts of Americans–our drive to serve, our commitment to our communities, our unity as one country that has long welcomed people of all backgrounds and been a haven for newcomers and a place of opportunity–that is a winning message and one that promises a future where ethnic violence–against anyone–will never happen again.

Those who run on fear bring that fear to life, and Jews know all to well where this kind of politics leads. You want the Jewish vote? You can’t scare us into it. You have to earn it.

About The Author - I was a librarian and now I write books. I used to write about children and now I am writing about Jews. I'm also working on an NGO that helps connect children to each other across cultural, geographic, political, religious, and military divides. - Visit Charles's site.