On Wednesday, February 6th, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP) held its workshop, “Dismantling Anti-Semitism.” There were over 20 attendees, arranged in a semi circle; since we were in the Lewis Library, I was surprised to see so many people who were willing to trek out. I was also surprised to find that these people were not purely progressive Jews—other community organizers and friends of friends also came. Led by Sam Bick and David Zinman, Jewish anarchists and hosts of the Montreal-based radio/podcast TREYF, the event was a thoughtful and thought-provoking first step in building a foundation for a leftist understanding of anti-Semitism at Princeton.
This is not the first time that Bick and Zinman, in their five years together as TREYF podcasters, have hosted workshops of this nature—but it was the first time that they had condensed their four-hour program into a half-hour presentation followed by a half-hour Q&A. However, the presentation did not strike me as overwhelming. They articulated what many leftist Jews have felt for many years. Namely, they deconstructed and investigated the Jewish right’s dominance of the intercommunal conversation around anti-Semitism. Bick and Zinman emphasized that they were not about to launch into a full analysis of anti-Semitism—which would be an impossible task in a single hour—but rather, they wanted to present an overview of anti-Semitism to help the audience better understand and combat it as left-wing activists. Moreover, they explained that while they are not theorists, these ideas grew out of the many conversations they have had with each other and the activists and scholars they have interviewed and organized with.
The mainstream narrative around anti-Semitism, they claim, is based around three assumptions—“three pillars”—forwarded by the Jewish right. They are 1) that anti-Jewishness is a “natural and unstoppable” force, 2) that there is a single and stable Jewish identity, and 3) that anti-Semitism is unrelated to other forms of oppression. These are ideas that would be familiar to anyone who grew up in a Jewish community; indeed, these are ideas that are woven into the identity of a 21st century Jew. However, they are each destructive in their own right.
In contrast to the “Three Pillars,” Bick and Zinman offer “Three Principles,” or the foundation for a leftist approach to anti-Semitism. The first principle relates anti-Semitism to the broader systems of power. It is, in other words, the exact opposite of the third pillar.
On this point, Bick and Zinman brought to the workshop’s attention the struggle of Unist’ot’en activists to keep a pipeline off of their land; the RCMP, a Canadian governmental intelligence agency, made a number of arrests over the past year and have even prepared to fire on the protestors, as reported by The Guardian.
The Unist’ot’en website is https://unistoten.camp/; The Guardian’s article on the RCMP’s reaction to the protests can be accessed at https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/20/canada-indigenous-land-defenders-police-documents, and another article about the broader situation can be found at https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2019/01/08/LNG-Pipeline-Unistoten-Blockade/.
The second principle of the left makes two claims: 1) that anti-Jewishness is the result of “material conditions” (by which is meant historical contexts of politics, economics, etc. For example, the Church’s influence in colonialism, the rise of nationalism, and increasing wealth inequality have all factored into Europe’s perception of Jews.), and 2) that anti-Jewishness is spurred by specific institutional sources. At any given moment, these sources may comprise the Church, the State, etc. This second principle can then be understood to be the opposite of the first pillar. The third principle is what upholds the first two: the belief that Jewish peoples and communities are diverse, and so is anti-Semitism. This principle is, of course, the opposite of the second pillar.
The split between Jewish identities points to what “pluralistic” Jews have always known: that there is no one way to be Jewish. Even the most religious Jews disagree amongst themselves, each Hasidic dynasty fervently opposed to the other. However, the more interesting point is that as a result of the many Judaisms, there is no one anti-Semitism. And so the question arose from the audience, What does hold us together as Jews? And what does Jewish comradeship mean between the left and the right?
Bick replied that it depends what our priorities are as activists. For him, connecting the Jewish Left and the Jewish Right is not a priority. Zinman agreed, but told a story about the Bund, the largest Jewish political organization before the Holocaust. As the Fascist threat grew, these Jews, members of a radical Left organization, would mobilize to protect important places of Jewish communities—even the synagogues that were home to what we would now categorize as the religious right. As leftists, the Bund understood that solidarity in the face of danger was key.
What struck me most by the end of the night was that the workshop was successful. I have long been disenchanted by Jewish intercommunal conversations, and I was not expecting to have the source of my falling out to be articulated. Because Bick and Zinman’s discussion of right-wing vs. left-wing understandings of anti-Semitism implies two fundamentally different ideas of what it means to be Jewish, they were able to get to the heart not only of the right/left split, but also of Jewish identity. For instance, where the right sees a single “Jewish people,” the left sees many. Where the right sees us as separate from all other nations, the left sees us as part of a broader historical context.
What the workshop affirmed is that the interpretation that lends itself to the political right is the mainstream narrative—and it is suffocating. Even on an emotional level, the first signs of separation from that story felt liberating. I can only hope that this conversation not only continues among the people who attended that workshop, but also reaches a broader Jewish audience. There are other Jews who are dissatisfied with the standard notions of our identity—what we should consider is how to reach them.
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