Identity, Politics

Is Islamophobia taking the place of the Holocaust in Constructing Jewish Identity?

Shaul Magid thinks that it is and he says so in an insightful and sure to be provocative piece just published over at Zeek. Here’s the zinger:

I’d like to suggest that what is at issue for many American Jews is not the constitutionality of Park 51 or even the Islamophobia the 9/11 attacks may have engendered. It is, rather, that the Islamophobia resulting from 9/11 (an event that was not an attack on the Jews) fills a vacuum for a Jewish community that has defined itself through the meme of persecution, a vacuum left by the diminution of the Holocaust as the key to Jewish identity.

His argument is disturbing though persuasive (at least to me).
Read the whole piece here. Then come back and discuss.

9 thoughts on “Is Islamophobia taking the place of the Holocaust in Constructing Jewish Identity?

  1. A prescient article. I agree with much of what is being said here, but I think that Magid is missing some key points. First, the renaissance of what I call New Media Judaism. Second, the rise of Open Orthodoxy. I believe that these two trends have the potential to shape the future of American Jewish identity as much as Islamophobia.

  2. He also only makes one reference to the Shoa and this new Islamic anti-semitism being used to fuel pro Israel sentiment. Surely one of the elements of whatever Magid is referring to when he says ‘Jewish identity’ is also how one views one’s relationship to Israel.

  3. Although we see a fair amount of Jewish Islamophobia (currently playing out against the background of Park51), we also see a fair amount of Jewish Islamophilia, as when the head of a liberal Muslim group spoke from the dais of a URJ Biennial. Over the long haul, though, this will not be a defining issue, because it’s too remote from the everyday lives of American Jews.
    Those who are Holocaust survivors are dying out — as are those of us who lived through it from afar. Similarly, those who remember a world without Israel tend to regard it differently from those who see it strictly through a contemporary lens.
    Meanwhile, the Jewish split on Park51 reflects a growing number of Jews whose disappointment in the President’s inability to do miracles with the mess he inherited reflects in their receptivity to Fox News and the Murdoch-incited furor.
    I am old enough to remember the battle over a Reform synagogue’s effort to move from Cleveland’s Inner City to what had been a Judenrein suburb — where a previously respected businessman spoke up at a hearing over the zoning permit and stated publicly what had theretofore been masked under talk of noise and congestion — When I moved to Beachwood, I understood Jews wouldn’t be allowed to live her, and now you’re talking about letting them build a church here! (Side note: the temple was built, the anti-Semite’s business collapsed in the wake of his anti-Semitic diatribe.) That memory is integral to my kneejerk belief that of course the center is permissible.
    Meanwhile, in an upside of the controversy, the ADL shot itself in the foot bigtime, and this will hasten recognition of its irrelevancy in today’s Jewish world.
    I agree with Eli that the new media will play a key role in defining the new Judaism, especially insofar as the new media foster individualism and weaken institutionalism. Open Orthodoxy will be a factor in this only to the extent that it works in concert with the liberal Jewish streams.

  4. 1/ Yom Hashoah services have greater attendance than Rosh Hashanah services? Nonsense (well maybe at the University of Indiana, who knows?)
    2/ Bloomberg isn’t supporting the mosque because of the anti-semitism he experienced growing up. He’s a politico and can count. Plus his news business has clients in the Muslim world.
    3/ Open Orthodoxy is simply replacing partly the disappearing Conservative movement. Since its doing the same things it will face the same fate.

  5. So I read sometimes that Jewish identity has come to require persecution, which we don’t have anymore, so we have to make it up in order to feel Jewish these days… just to examine the second part of that, can this be true? I’ve experienced a fair share of antisemitism over my life, from a synagogue burning to being threatened with job loss. I grew up in Canada but I can’t imagine it’s all that different in America.

  6. Dear Dr./Rabbi Magid,
    Persecution identity, the lens of a victim, is not flush with the primary value in Judaism and many of its texts and teachings – the stance of personal responsibility. A dose of your rabanut and text knowledge is needed here to ground your point.
    Regarding the writers who read violence and hatred in Islamic texts, unfortunately I struggle to find a modern religion with ancient texts and recorded history immune to such in its texts. I encourage those individuals to first answer for the book of Joshua for example before locating a history of violence at the ‘other’ beyond each our own tradition. Would that we each reckon with our own tradition’s past and offenses rather than avoid through projection. As many of the ancient teachers/prophets taught, this must be our focus toward the humility that can only follow and this, with much needed compassion for other and self, is the task at hand – especially at this time of year.
    Thank you for sharing this thought provoking piece.
    lstu, jsb

  7. WITH THINGS SUCH AS NEW KINDS OF FRAUD AND DISENFRANCHISED UNDERCLASSES, IT SOUNDS AS THOUGH THE UNITED STATES IS HEADED IN THE WRONG DIRECTION REALLY FAST, TODAY. YOU AREN’T THE ONLY ONES THAT FEEL THAT WAY. THE UNITED STATES IS FACING DESTRUCTION FROM WITHIN LIKE IT HAS NOT FACED BEFORE. INSTEAD OF A UNITED FRONT OR A UNITED STATES, WE HAVE A CONNECTED PEOPLE WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY DANGEROUS. OUR UNITED STATES UNDER ONE BANNER IS GIVING AWAY TO A CONNECTED PEOPLE, BASICALLY, WITHOUT A LEADER OR WITHOUT AN IDENTIFIABLE LEADER OF THESE NEWLY CONNECTED PEOPLE OF AMERICA. WE ARE WEAKENED LIKE NEVER BEFORE BECAUSE OF THIS LACK OF LEADERSHIP OF A CONNECTED PEOPLE INSTEAD OF UNION. OUR SO-CALLED FOUNDING FATHERS ARE REPLACED TODAY WITH BUILDING OF A DIFFERENT KIND. A NEW WORLD ORDER HAS TO BE CENTERED SOMEWHERE AND IT SEEMS THE CENTER IS AMERICA AS ALL EYES CONTINUE TO BE ON THIS COUNTRY AND ITS MYRIAD OF PROBLEMS. AS I LISTENED TO THE PRESIDENT’S WIFE, THE FIRST LADY, MICHELLE OBAMA, SPEAK IN THE SMALL PENSYLVANIA TOWN TO COMMEMORATE THE NINETH ANNIVERSARY OF 9/11, THE SOMBERNESS IN HER SPEECH, IN HER TONE, WHILE REFLECTIVE, IT WAS BLEAK SOUNDING FOR THE FUTURE. FOR I AM SURE SHE REALIZED AS SHE SPOKE THAT THERE WOULD BE MORE AND MORE OF THIS DEVASTATION UNTIL WE CAN AGAIN PUT SOME TRUTH BACK INTO OUR WAY OF LIFE IN AMERICA. THE DECEPTION, THE FAKE, THE FALSE IS PRESENTING ITSELF AS A DISTINCT WAY OF LIFE THAT IS ACCEPTABLE AND READILY ACCEPTABLE IN AMERICA, TODAY. IT IS AS IF WORDS LIKE FATAL AND LETHAL ARE NOW PAR FOR THE COURSE WHERE OUR PEACE AND SECURITY AS A NATION IS CONCERNED. THE WORDS, PEACE AND SECURITY HAVE GIVEN WAY TO FOOLISHNESS.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

The reCAPTCHA verification period has expired. Please reload the page.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.