Bringing Back “Self-Hating Jew”
A guide for the perplexed.
June 14, 2012
The best thing about political discourse is when parties accuse one another of silencing! When it comes to the state of Israel and the Jews, we’re now at epic levels of meta-silencing accusations. Over at the Jerusalem Post,Isi Leibler has one bone to pick in particular: The decline of Jews accusing other Jews of hating themselves.
“[O]ne of the most effective accomplishments chalked up by political far-left activists was their success in eliminating the term “self-hating Jew” from the Jewish political lexicon. They are abetted by those from the extreme Right who indiscriminately label every Jewish critic of Israeli policy a self-hating Jew. Today, anyone employing the term “self-hating” in relation to Jews is summarily condemned and accused of being chauvinistic.”
Let’s just be grateful it’s a bipartisan effort.
Leibler takes care to note that the revived term “should be employed in a highly selective manner and not utilized indiscriminately against naïve, well-meaning ‘bleeding hearts’ or legitimate critics of Israeli policies with whom we may disagree.” That sounds eminently reasonable. The only problem is, who gets to decide who’s a self-hating Jew and who’s just a critic of Israeli policies when Leibler is busy? Or in another time zone?
I tried to glean what I could from the column. Herewith, a list:
Self Haters:
Not Self-Haters:
Irin Carmon is a senior correspondent at New York magazine and co-author of The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her Twitter feed is @irin.
