On Being A Jewish-American Centrist
By
Leonard Zwelling
The recent assassinations of Sarah Milgram and Yaron Lischinsky outside a Washington, D.C. Jewish museum, the fire- bombing of the home of Jewish Governor Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania, and the makeshift flame-thrower incident against Jews in Boulder, Colorado have brought home yet again, the dilemma faced by Jews in the United States. We are still subject to discrimination and even murder simply because we are Jews.
In these incidents, the terrorists did not know their victims. One waited outside the museum and randomly shot the two young embassy workers and yelled “free, free Palestine” as he was being arrested. The other yelled the same as he attempted to burn Jews during a Sunday walk by Colorado Jews in solidarity with the hostages still held in Gaza.
On college campuses, the Jews are being discriminated against to the point of fearing for their safety. The focus of this is at Columbia and Harvard, two Ivy League schools, both of which have graduated hundreds of Jews who have made significant contributions to the nation. That does not matter. Both institutions have let the concept of “free speech” mutate into violence against Jews and the Trump Administration, to its credit, has had enough. Federal funds are being withheld from both schools because the leadership of the institutions did not do enough to protect Jewish students. I am not sure taking away scientific grant money as a punishment matches the crime, but I understand where the government is coming from.
And the issue causing all of this turmoil? The upshot of October 7, 2023 when Hamas spilled out of Gaza where they were the elected leadership, and crossed the Israeli border to kill Jews and capture some as hostages including infants and the elderly. The perpetrators have still not really been brought to justice although many have been killed along with thousands who supported Hamas as their government after Israel left Gaza twenty years ago.
So, what am I to think? What am I to do? Am I safe in America? Is Israel going to continue to exist? And for Israel to exist, must it kill thousands of Palestinians in Gaza? These are the quandaries of a centrist American Jew.
And will the American government’s current intolerance of antisemitism (a good thing) go the way of a previous government’s support of DEI? Will the burst of support for Jews lead to a counter-reaction against us as happened following the Black Lives Matter movement after George Floyd’s death became anathema to MAGA world and led to the reaction against DEI.
So, here’s what I think.
First, for the most part I feel safe in Houston. That doesn’t mean I am not happy to see armed guards from the Houston Police Department at our synagogue whenever we go. I am comforted to see them. The synagogue has also erected a fence around its entire perimeter. We have no illusions about the fact that there are many in Houston who would like to kill us simply because we are Jews. The incidents in Washington, Pennsylvania, and Boulder make that clear. We are safer here in America than most anywhere else besides Israel, but there are still many who hate us.
What has happened on some college campuses is disturbing, but perhaps not surprising. The young liberals, even Jews, demonstrating for Palestinian independence are both ignorant of history and blind to the fact that those Palestinians they so willingly embrace would kill them on sight in Gaza. I totally agree with the Trump position on ending antisemitism on campus. I hope it lasts.
The president of Harvard accedes to the fact that the previous Harvard leadership was too lenient on this issue. He is trying to end antisemitism on his campus, but it’s a big job given how long antisemitism, wokeness, and DEI flourished in Cambridge. As a centrist Jew, I too am appalled at the liberal agenda at these schools and even in the Democratic Party. As a centrist, I no longer have a home in either political party. There are so few centrists in either party left on Capitol Hill. There were many when I served as a Senate staffer there in 2009.
Finally, as both an American and a Jew it is getting harder and harder for me to support the current government of Israel. Thus, I believe you can oppose the Israel national policy and not be an antisemite. Much like the leadership in both the United States and at MD Anderson, the leadership of Israel is both autocratic and mostly wrongheaded.
As a centrist American Jew, it is a difficult time to find leadership to admire and policy to support. For the most part, my support for Jewish organizations is for those serving the Jewish community of Houston. That I will continue to do. I will use my limited platform to speak out against Israel’s current policy which appears to want to first level, then capture Gaza with eyes on doing the same on the West Bank. That’s the beliefs of the extreme right that has Netanyahu in a political vice as the right holds the strings to Bibi’s small majority in the Knesset. It is that majority that keeps Bibi out of jail.
This is not a good time for American Jews who believe in Israel and believe in justice. The Palestinians ought to have their own homeland, but they have to give up their tradition of killing Jews. Both sides in the region previously ruled by Great Britain and called Palestine by them, the Arabs and the Jews, need new leadership for peace to ever be reached. I hope to live to see it. I doubt I will.
This is difficult situation for a centrist American Jew.
