American anti-Jewish sentiment are worth our taking
such a risk?"
on our welfare, we, since we shall have to pay the price,,
not others, should decide what we ought to do.
I obviously disagree with those Jewish pessimists who
manage to enjoy living in the United States while
arguing that all goyim are so strongly anti-Semitic
nothing we do makes any difference. Any effort at
rebuttal is answered with "Germany,'' or,
' 'Holocaust.'' I agree that our generation must not
commit the sin of underestimating anti-Semitism. But
neither should we determine our present political
strategy out of our yearning to atone for our
transgressions during the 1930's and 40's. In showing
we are not sojewishly spineless as were our leaders then,
we may win a fantasy victory over our past but fail to
meet the needs of the present. Perhaps now that we
have proved we can be brave we can start worrying more
about showing ourselves wise.
And we surely cannot expect our American Jewish
lobbying groups to now start discriminating as to which'
issues they will or won' t put their / our full weight
behind. They exist to carry the fight for the State of
Israel and have no independent basis upon which to
evaluate or resist its demands upon us. Similarly, most
of our American Jewish organizations are by now such
hostages to the State of Israel that they can only
i
hesitantly be expected to face such serious questions as *
now need to be raised.
Our unique Jewish social acceptance in America rests on
the continuing enlargement of the American ideal of
pluralism, through attitude and law, to constrain the
variety of prejudices and selfishness which operate in
almost all people. The endless struggle to further
democracy among Americans is and should be a
primary commitment of American Jewry. Our
American democratic structure has often proved itself
strong enough to subdue our prejudices when social
progress has provoked our old hatreds by encroaching
upon our old prerogatives. But backlash also operates in
America. Wise statesmanship comes in knowing how
far to push a reluctant public. We want to gain our
ideal but not lose the social gains in the turmoil going
too far will provoke. American Jews, I hope, presently
prefer to err on the side of risk rather than be guilty of a
craven prudence. But what the AWACS decision
should now make us ponder is whether every future
significant Israeli judgment about arms sales or such,
automatically should produce a full-scale, all-out,
American Jewish pressure on our leading governmental
officials.
We Should Make Our Own Decisions
We cannot expect the Israelis to care very much about
our risks. They have their own far greater ones to think
about. More, an outburst of anti-Semitism would only
confirm their Zionist thesis about the precariousness of
galut communities. Besides it might finally motivate
American Jewish aliyah. Perhaps that is the only way
they will ever get the 1 million American Jewish
immigrants Ben Gurion dreamed about. That would
still leave here 4 million plus American Jews and some
tens if not hundreds of thousands of Israeli yordim to
lobby for their needs. When matters touch so centrally
30
However, changes have been made in the attitudes of
the American Jewish establishment, though it takes
time. The ideas of dissent and greater negotiation first
bruited about only by intellectuals and activists—to
great community abuse—have in the course of 5 or 6 i
years become the language of various organizational
personalities and community centrists. Phil Klutznick,
president emeritus of the World Jewish Congress and
honorary president of B'nai Brith International,
speaking for himself, of course, recently wrote in the
Washington Post about the P.L.O. being "the only
party qualified to speak for the Palestinians..." That
goes even further than did the Breira organization half
a decade ago, leading to its wholesale condemnation byf
the community theh. But ideas apparently can "trickle
up."
Now that we American Jews have demonstrated our
courage under fire, the time has come to probe the
limits of our always being available for a
no-holds-barred fight for Israeli political ends.
Thoughtful people ought to begin to raise now the
questions which one day are likely to arise under the
pressure of making a difficult decision. *
Reassessing Reagan after the awacs
Simcha
Krauss
This is being written on ' 'the morning after'' the
victory of President Reagan in the United States Senate
where the sale of AWACS to Saudi Arabia and, indeed,
the whole $8.5 billion deal was approved.
If these post-mortems are going to be of any value, it is
best to analyze what has happened, why we are so
angered, and why this debate about the AWACS issue
is more than just another debate about American
foreign policy.
It is best to begin with certain facts that seem to be
uncontested. The presidential election of 1980 was a
turning point in the electoral history of American Jews.
More Jews voted Republican than ever before. Jews who
generally identified with liberal positions and who
espoused liberal causes and who, since F.D.R., voted
with the Democratic Party, switched gears and helped
elect Ronald Reagan.
The ostensible cause for this switch was Reagan's
pro-Israel stance. We were impatient, disappointed
and, yes, suspicious ofjimmy Carter. We were afraid
that a second-term Carter would cajole, bully, or
threaten Israel into a position of weakness. It was feared
that without the threat of another electoral contest,
without the need for Jewish votes, Carter would force
his will on Israel. And so, on this issue alone, we
abandoned Carter and the Democratic Party and we
helped Ronald Reagan ascend to the Presidency.
This shift to the right, however, did not happen
overnight. It began with the paroxysms of the sixties.
Jews were dismayed by affirmative action, Forest Hills,
the restlessness in our big cities, and a host of other
major and minor issues. Jews, in addition, had ' 'made
it" and social restlessness resulting in social change was
something that was feared. We began to sympathize
with law and order issues, and our past classical and
traditional social concerns were superceded by the
need to feel secure, and the desire to partake of the
economic pie that was there, to be sure, but was getting
smaller and scarcer. Yet, somehow our consciences were
bothering us. How could we really weaken our support
for the needy, the destitute, the have-nots? How could
we really abandon traditional concerns for the
unfortunate, break up the liberal coalition and join
forces with parties, people, policies that were not really
to our liking?
There was, I submit, one issue that helped assuage our
conscience. That issue was Israel. Somehow, we sensed,
the liberal constituency was becoming soft on Israel.
And so, for the sake of Israel, we abandoned long held
positions, we weakened traditional alliances, and we,
ourselves, made a sharp turn to the right. We were
silent, even when our better part told us to speak out,
i.e., Vietnam. We, at least many of us, many more
than before, embraced right wing positions on a host of
social issues almost uncritically. All this expressed itself
in the larger than usual Jewish vote for Reagan in 1980.
The Cost of Punishing Carter
But there was a catch. Things were not so simple. We
not only helped elect Ronald Reagan, but we also
helped defeat Frank Church. In punishing Carter we
helped elect a Republican Senate that did not really
have our interests, nor our concerns, at heart. In the
31
process of the turn rightward, we became enamored
with Christian fundamentalist clergymen who in their
heart knew that the deity does not listen to the prayers
ofJews, though publicly they denied such knowledge of
divine interest. I remember how chagrined I was when
Orthodox colleagues who, in the heyday of the
ecumenical movement correctly opposed interreligious
dialogue, and yet, in the climate of the late seventies,
they adopted right wing Christian fundamentalist
positions on many issues. I never quite understood the
magnetic attraction of the moral majority. Somehow,
we have helped to foment this right wing climate.
And then came the AWACS debate. The AWACS
debate was more than just an issue on what turn United
States foreign policy should take. The AWACS debate
was fundamentally a debate about the place of
American Jews, about their meaning, their power, yes,
their AMERICANISM. It was in the AWACS debate
that the fundamental error of American Jews embracing
right positions was revealed. For in the AWACS
debate, the President himself initiated a barrage of
anti-Semitic statements which, we had hoped and
prayed, had ceased on this continent a long time ago. I
do not accuse President Reagan of being anti-Semitic.
But I do accuse President Reagan of unleashing the
rhetoric of anti-Semitism, of injecting anti-Semitic
rhetoric into the public forum - something which has
not happened in America for a long time. And here, I
believe, we are unfortunately reaping the bitter harvest
of our own making.
Anti-Semitism Spans the Spectrum
Anti-Semitism is a universal phenomenon. It knows no
distinction between left and right. The Halacha quoted
by Rashi that Esau soneiet Yaakov (Esau hated Jacob) is
applicable to both sides of the political spectrum. But
the rhetoric of anti-Semitism, the language that speaks
ofjewish conspiracies, and Jewish power, and Jewish
wealth, and the Jewish lobby, and of the choice
between ' 'Reagan or Begin,'' the shrill and ugly
rhetoric of anti-Semitism finds hospitable soil, a
friendly climate, an atmosphere in which to grow—in
the backward, vulgar, reactionary, obscurantist world of
the right. The rhetoric of anti-Semitism which was
unleashed by a United States President, and which was
picked up by the ugly soul who left us the legacy of
Watergate and who, despite all attempts to whitewash
him and put him into the overgrown shoes o f ' 'elder
statesman," revealed himself in his tapes as a person
who uses anti-Semitic images of the Jew in their most
vulgar form—that rhetoric is, more often than not, the
legacy of the right.
The AWACS issue and its outcome was more than just
a turning point in American-Israeli relations. In the
AWACS issue our objectivity was questioned, our
judgment was questioned, our Americanism and
patriotism were questioned. We were beaten by the
right on that very issue which we used as a justification
for embracing the rightist position—Israeli.
emergency measure justified by a reasonable fear of
invasion. If our Eastern shore had been endangered by
an imminent Nazi invasion, I hope you would agree
that some drastic steps would have to have been taken
to insure that German Americans, among whom the
German American Bund was popular, were
neutralized.
We are warned in the Torah that when we turn aside
from the right path and worship other gods "and the
anger of the L-D will be kindled against you, and He
will shut up the heaven and there will be no rain, and
the land will not yield her fruit..." In other words the
worship of the heavenly objects or the soil will not result
in mere punishment. Rather, idolatry is punished by
making the very object of your false worship punish
you. The land that was worshipped will not yield fruit,
the heavens that were worshipped will not give their
rains. Likewise, the right wing that we embraced
rejected us in one of our most critical moments. It is
truly time for tshuvah.it
Seymour Siegel
New York, N.Y.
...but others say about the nisei...
National Survival before Citizens' Rights
Eugene B. Borowitz's piece on the Japanese (Sh 'ma,
12/222) was to say the least, unfair to both Mr. McCloy
and to the United States Government. The treatment
of the Japanese in WWII was motivated by the
legitimate fears of the country following the attack on
Pearl Harbor, of an imminent invasion by the enemy.
The Japanese Americans who apparently have suffered
no permanent privation were interned, not because
they were "dissident, troublesome, disliked or
otherwise provocative citizens.'' Their treatment was an
We would like to identify the rest of our Contributing
Editors (continuedfrom Sh'ma 12/223).
STEVEN SCHWARZSCHILD, Professor of Philosophy.
Washington U., Editor, Judaism, 1960-69SEYMOUR SIEGEL, Professor of Theology,
Jewish Theological Seminary, who has recently edited
the collection of papers Conservative Judaism and
Jewish Law. SHARON STRASSFELD, one of the
editors o/The Jewish Catalog, I, II and III. . .andmost
recently, The Jewish Family Book. ELIE WIESEL,
author and lecturer, whose latest book is Five Biblical
Portraits. ARNOLD WOLF, Rabbi, K.A.M. -Isaiah
Cong., Chicago, Illinois Editor, What is Man?..
.MICHAEL WYSCHOGROD, Professor of Philosophy,,
Baruch College, author o/Kierkegaard and Heidegger.
EUGENE B. BOROWITZ, like all other Editors of this
journal, speaks only for himself when he writes in theset
pages.
SIMCHA KRAUSS is rabbi of Young Israel ofHillcrest
in Flushing, N. Y.