(Part 1) Leftist Jews: Jewish Uncle Toms?

...Leftist Jews sincerely believe that they are acting in Israel’s best interests. They are, in their opinion, trying to raise the ethical and moral standards demonstrated by leaders of the country so that Israel corresponds to their image of a just and tolerant society. In some cases, leftist Jews may believe that they are successors of those who fought for civil rights in the USA and against apartheid in South Africa. They draw some kind of equivalency between the Palestinian Arabs in Judea & Samaria and the Blacks of the States/South Africa.....However, they are aligning themselves with those who seek Israel’s destruction and not simply redress for crimes they accuse Israel of committing against Palestinian Arabs.

Sheri Oz..
Israel Diaries..
26 July '16..

Credit for inspiration for this two-part piece goes to both Diane Weber Bederman and to Sarah Tuttle-Singer. Diane wrote that J Street Jews (and I suppose others like them) can most accurately be understood as Jewish Uncle Toms. Sarah wrote about privilege. In Part I, I will expand upon Weber Bederman’s application of the term Uncle Tom to leftist Jews; in Part II, I will discuss how Uncle Tomism interacts with a (false) sense of privilege leading to Jewish leftism.

By Jewish leftism I am referring only to the issue concerning attitudes to the Israeli-“Palestinian” conflict, or political leftism. I am not a political leftist. Political leftism stands in contrast to economic leftism with which I do concur to a large extent.

Jewish leftists engage in behaviours that non-leftists see as directly or indirectly harming Israel, whether in the short term or the long term. Harming the Jewish state (either intentionally or unintentionally) can be seen as a form of self-harm. Some critics of the Jewish left call the leftists antisemitic Jews or self-hating Jews.

Defining Self-Hating Jews

Many of us struggle trying to understand the apparent willingness of certain Jews to operate against the Jewish state all the while proclaiming that they are concerned with the well-being of the Jewish state. Many of those, like me, do not feel that calling leftists self-hating Jews is either accurate or really captures the phenomenon.

Surely there are those who hate the fact that they were born into The Tribe. But that is likely not the majority. I am certain that those who act in ways that I see as being against the better interests of Israel, in fact believe that they are trying to save Israel’s soul.

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