Being a Jew is Complicated. The weird experience of being a 21st…
By: Shain Slepian
Tags: Jewish, Judaism, Religion, Ethnicity, Jews

Being a Jew is Complicated

The weird experience of being a 21st century Jew

Content warning: I will, with reluctance, be touching upon the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. If this is an upsetting topic for you (as it is for me) you may wish to skip this story.

Photo by Matthew Angus on Unsplash

Es ist shver tsu zayn a yid.

Or as we’d say in the new country, it’s hard to be a Jew.

Less hard than very hard these days, mind you. I’d label the difficulty we face now as more confusion than anything else.

Being a modern Jew is about constantly being unsure where your culture ends and you begin… and possibly not liking the answer.

I’d like to give you a taste of some of the weirdness you get to think about when you’re a 21st century Jew. It’s a more nuanced and odd position than non-Jews might expect. And yes, I will be using the term “Jew,” as often if not more often than the term “Jewish person,” even though…

The name of my identity is also a slur

And I kinda feel like it shouldn’t be? Right?

When you grow up in the special education system, as I did, you’re sometimes told not to let your disorder define you: I am not “sp-ed,” I have special needs. And whatever, I can appreciate that.

But isn’t it a little odd that people consider the term ‘Jew’ to be a demeaning misuse of the identifier? I mean, I am a Jew. All that means is that I’m Jewish.

Yes, the way you say ‘Jew’ can be insulting. Especially as a verb (“it was $15, but I jewed them down to 10"). I’ve heard stories of Jewish men getting into fights with people who used the word with a certain tone. A tone I can’t emulate in writing, but I’m sure you can imagine it. The sharpness of the J, the scrunched up scowl of the mouth.

But in another way, there is something a little iffy about referring to someone as though they were merely a subject of a larger group. Consider the Roma people, who are similar to Jewish people in a few key ways. The slur “g*psy” is also used as a verb to mean “rip off” or “cheat” (“I was g*pped!”). And yet, the noun “g*psy” is still offensive in and of itself.

Well, what are you supposed to say, then? Simple. The name of the people as a whole is the Roma, and the adjective used to describe people belonging to that group is Romani.

But wait, what about a noun that encompasses who an individual is in their capacity as a Romani person? You wouldn’t say ‘a Roma’ or ‘a Romani.’ So what do you say?

The answer I’m inclined to give is: nothing. You do not need to make up a word to describe an individual solely in their capacity as a member of an ethnic or religious group.

And yet, I am a Jew.

Why? Well, because…

Es ist shver tsu zayn a yid.

I do not have faith, yet I’m still a Jew

How many religions do you know of that ‘allows’ for its members to refer to themselves as atheists?

I have never met a Christian atheist, or a Muslim atheist, or a Hindu atheist, or a Sikh atheist. But I know plenty of Jewish atheists, in fact, I’m one of them.

Well, Judaism is an ethnicity, I hear you respond. You can belong to an ethnic group without subscribing to the predominant religion of that group. And, yes, you’re kind of correct.

And yet, we accept converts. Can people join an ethnicity?

Why, yes, they can. They can learn a language, take up religious practices, assume the history and status of a group, can learn about the art and philosophy a group creates, and contribute to the group themself. I know many converts who are every bit as Jewish as I am, including the lovely women who are my mother and stepmother.

But, does that mean that you can leave an ethnicity as well?

Personally, though I do not believe in god, I find some degree of meaning from the religious practices of my youth. Sometimes I fast, or abstain from technology on Shabbos, or read religious texts. It’s all very haphazard and it’s hard to say how much of it I really agree with.

But there are self-identified Jews who were not even raised with a religion, do not practice or know any of our historical languages, who don’t particularly associate with our community. And those people are every bit as Jewish as I am too.

And to people born Jewish who do not feel a connection to the group and therefore do not wish to identify under the label of “Jew?” What about them?

Well…

Some older Jewish people would label this kind of person a “self-hating Jew.” But this is a phrase used, not so much to accurately reconcile the contradicting notions of what they believe a Jew to be, so much as a way to silence such a person from speaking about whatever the older Jew does not approve of.

“Netanyahu? Bad? You must be a self-hating Jew.”

“Checked the ‘atheist’ box under religion? Oh dear, that’s a self-hating Jew.”

“Don’t want to be called a Jew? Oh yeah, self-hating Jew, big time.”

So is a Jew a thing you’re born as? Something you become? Something you must be? Why do I feel like a Jew?

I don’t know my answer, but you better figure out yours because…

Jewish oppression is often hidden

There was a time in the world where antisemitism manifested as pogroms, the burning of cities, forced conversions, public torture, and systematic extermination. Something you don’t see happening to Jews as much since we have a state with a huge army and a seat at the UN at our backs.

And yet, the growing plague of White Nationalism in the western world has demonstrated just how fragile that safety is. The Catholic church did not reject “the accusation that Jews are collectively responsible for deicide in the form of the crucifixion of Christ” until the Second Vatican Council from 1962–65. Today, Traditionalist Catholics reject the Second Vatican Council, implying that they do hold Jews “collectively responsible for deicide.”

And some produce documentaries with Lawrence Krauss in them.

Jews have disagreed about how best to combat antisemitism for centuries. (We also disagree on basically everything else too. Two Jews: three opinions.)

But the question of how to best deal with such veiled and seemingly harmless antisemitism is baffling. How do you ask for help and civil protections when on the surface of it, you’re doing as well as everyone else is?

And we are. At least in the US, Jews are often middle class, have access to decent schooling and other facilities, and find themselves well-represented in a variety of industries.

(Yes, including banking and the media. What can I say? We’d hate to disappoint the conspiracy theorists.)

But, I don’t know. I wish my safety were a little less precarious than that.

It’s hard to complain: I belong to the first generation of Jews in my family to not experience a hate-crime, or worse. And yet, I know that this feeling of safety and comfort can be ripped away in an instant, and that my response to antisemitism today might affect the experience of Jews in the future.

Consider the early Jewish anti-Zionists: the ones who believed that the best way for Jews to fight antisemitism was with assimilationism. These people:

a) were patently incorrect, because the Holocaust proved that the eastern European hatred of Jews was based on race rather than religion, and

b) completely missed the damn point. The point of eliminating targeted violence of marginalized people is not merely to make the violence itself go away. The point is to eliminate the biases that cause people and institutions to perpetuate this violence in the first place. Not just because that’s how the world ought to be. But because until the world is that way, there will always be a marginalized group to take the place of the group that has ascended such treatment.

My distaste for airing my fear of antisemitic violence is not just about my anxiety of not having my concerns taken seriously, though. I am aware that the traumatic experience of the Holocaust led to a sharp sling-shot effect in the other direction.

In an attempt to ensure “Never Again” for Jewish people, we have denied this right to another group.

While the generation of Zionists who advocated for their claim to Palestine should have opted to create a constitution where all ethnic and religious minorities are protected, as the Kurds of Northern Syria have today, there was a pervasive terror that if anyone but the Jewish people controlled the state, its actions would undoubtedly turn to oppression of the Jews all over again.

What is happening to the Palestinian people is ethnic cleansing, and in any just society, the whole Knesset would be rotting in prison for its crimes against humanity.

But there is no denying that there is a fabricated narrative perpetuated in such a way as to make Israel, and I’d argue Jews by extension, the unambiguous villain of the conflict. Consider the phrase “stolen land.” Many people imply that the Zionists working to achieve a Jewish state by the end of World War II stole Palestine from the Arabs, or more accurately the Muslims, to whom the British had previously promised the land. Except:

To say ‘steal’ implies that it was taken away from a people with sovereign claim to the land by these early Israelis, which is inaccurate. The UK had taken sovereignty of this land after the fall of Ottoman Syria in 1920, and the Ottoman empire had been persecuting Jews in the region for centuries. I note this because the idea that the conflict began in 1948 is absolutely ludicrous. The tension between the Muslims and Jews in the area is nothing new, nor is the fight over the sovereignty of the land. As stated above, it implies that there hadn’t been Jews living in Palestine already: Jews who really needed the protection of a state due to regular massacres like the 1929 attack on the previously Jewish city of Hebron. Truthfully, Jews have continuously been present in Palestine/Canaan/Judea/Israel for 4,000 years. Some remained in the region after the diaspora, and many waves of migrations returned to the land following the Spanish exile in 1492 and the scourge of pogroms in Russia following the assassination of Czar Alexander II. Can you steal a land in which you have lived for 4,000 years?

Again, the idea of an ethnostate is not ideal, and the fear instilled into Jews (particularly, but not exclusively after the Holocaust) is no excuse for settling in Gaza and the West Bank, nor the heinous and foolish manner by which Israel has attempted to fight Hamas, with indiscriminate missile strikes in civilian areas.

But those things are heinous on their own: there is no need to construct a narrative that vilifies the generation of Zionists that succeeded in securing a state.

Okay, pause. Catch your breath, and I will too.

Now, do you see why modern antisemitism is so frightening to me?

Whether you agree or disagree with my understanding of the conflict — and bearing in mind that all ‘narratives’ are false anyway by their very design —

Whether or not you agree that Jews are in any imminent danger of violence —

Can you understand why I find this a bit, to put it mildly, complicated?

And this is only made more complex by our last point:

Some of us are real assholes

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about the Jews who fit the stereotypical failings of our people. I’m not talking about the Jews that are actually pretty cheap, or the ones who are shrewd and rude business people, or the ones that complain endlessly in restaurants in a shrill, nasally voice.

Because people like that exist across all groups. For any stereotype of a group, you can find people who happen to fit the mold. With seven billion people on the planet, it’s bound to happen. And for every Jew who I wouldn’t want to have a beer with, there are a couple who are pretty cool. As cool as people are capable of being, that is.

I condemn those stereotypes wholly, and to everyone who has ever blamed a Jew for adhering to a stereotype, could you kindly stop believing in the validity of the very tropes you're expressing hatred for? That’d be great.

No, I’m talking about a different kind of person.

I hate to return again to the question of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (and I mean really, really hate to) but Jews are not the only party with a pernicious narrative being directed at them in the struggle. Personally, when this topic comes up, I tend to bow out of a conversation. Not only do I find it a source of deep personal distress, but I find the strident absolutism with which people regard this conflict to be infuriating and repulsive.

I think I can sum up what I mean best with this simple fact: I know multiple Jews, some of whom are liberal, who voted for Donald Trump in 2020 because they believed that he would be better for Israel than Joe Biden.

Y’know.

Because…

JerUSEleM.

I’m gonna need a drink after writing this.

Now, even if it was true that Trump is better for Israel… though I do hope you agree when I say it’s not…

How spineless, myopic, credulous, insecure, selfish, callous, and fucking cruel do you have to be to vote for an administration that has contributed nothing to this country but racialized violence, attacks on protestors and the press, threats to womxn’s reproductive rights, the curtailing of trans and queer rights and protections, withdrawal from the Paris agreement, and the deaths of a quarter-million people to a deadly pandemic, for the slimmest chance of mere symbolic jerk-offery being chunked at a country you do not live in?

And this is what I want to leave you with. To be a Jew today is to inhabit bizarre extremes. Emotions like fear and anger and embarrassment are constantly bubbling up in unexpected and even contradictory ways.

It’s punctuated by inner turmoil and external steadfastness, if for no other reason that to save face. Indeed, the name of our nation is “Yisrael,” which means “struggle with god.” Whether god be literal or an embodiment of justice, peace, pride, or even just safety, it’s a struggle.

And hey —

Es ist shver tsu zayn a yid.