Rion Cobb

As a general matter, non-Jews don't see it. They listen to their Jewish friends, they nod along, they think to themselves, You sound hysterical -- where are the roving bands of Cossacks? (They may even say as much, but usually not. They don't want to offend.) For the most part, the young, progressive Jews who speak the language of contemporary progressivism are unhelpful. They talk about "safety" and "trauma." All you have to do is watch five minutes of Fauda to know how out of touch they sound. The progressive Jews are not exactly wrong, but they're also confused: They're not unsafe; they're excluded. Or, their inclusion is contingent; it comes with the demand that they denounce the Jewish state, that they demonstrate, repeatedly, that they find the whole idea and history and heritage behind it reprehensible. That Israel is irredeemable. That the only just solution to the "genocide" and "apartheid" is a Palestinian right of return -- the end of Jewish self-rule. They have to out-anti-Zionist the non-Jewish anti-Zionists. In the back of their head, many (most?) know they're lying. They have family or friends in Tel Aviv. How many times have they heard "Israel" chanted in synagogue? What about the tallit their grandmother bought for them in Jerusalem? And why are they the only ones who have to distance themselves from the land of their people? Why don't we ask Chinese Americans to do the same? Or Russian Americans? Why is it only them? This is the part that many non-Jews, including many thoughtful people, seem not to grasp. The double standard. The double standard is the antisemitism. The non-Jews kind of see it, and then they say, "Right, but look what they've done to Gaza," which means: "The haters aren't that wrong to hate you." They rarely, if ever, delve deeply into the accusations lodged against the Jewish state; they assume the very worst charges are more or less correct. (Why wouldn't they? Who benefits these days from saying, over drinks or dinner or at the kids' soccer game, "I suspect your news diet is rather slanted.") Nor do they think much, if at all, about the meaning of the double standard -- the ghettoization of Jewish life, experience, anger, dislocation. They do not see that we are slipping back, gradually or not so gradually, into the world of our grandfathers and great-grandfathers -- the world of gentleman's agreements and exclusive country clubs and Yale chins. The world before the meritocracy. Their blindness is hard to stomach. Obama campaigning for El-Sayed. The online gushing about the "bluenami." The posters looking forward to the lawfare, the investigations. I, too, look forward to the investigations; I want to see the corruption brought to an end, and I want the wrongdoers brought to justice. It's a very good thing that Americans were repulsed by the apparent crimes and excesses of the Trump Administration, and it's a very good thing that the midterms reflected as much. But still, I wonder: Why the blind enthusiasm? Why can't they see that, to so many Jews, their blindness means apathy. It means: "I care deeply about every microaggression under the sun except the hurt people hurt people guy, the guy who tried to rationalize the attempted slaughter of Jewish children." That's the thing that bothers me most. They seem unaware of the fear behind the fear: the potential for violence. They seem unfazed by what comes next. This is what I wonder about constantly -- when I'm making dinner for my children or late at night: What comes next? Is the marginalization a preamble to something else? It doesn't just end with this, does it? It gets worse, I imagine. It always gets worse.