The Soros conundrum

I want to get this in the system before I continue my contemplation of whether J Street is a factor in the elections — it will allow me to link without interrupting a flow.

I’m going to be focusing on a Republican Jewish Coalition ad that makes legitimate hay of J Street director Jeremy Ben Ami’s obfuscations about the group’s ties to billionaire George Soros.

It quotes a JTA story from 2003 by Uri Heilman, now JTA’s managing editor, which was headlined: "Soros blames Israel for anti-Semitism."

In it, Uri paraphrases Soros as follows:

When asked about anti-Semitism in Europe, Soros, who is Jewish, said European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.

The RJC ad makes it appear as if it was a direct quote, which it was not. More saliently, I don’t think it’s a fair paraphrase.

I’m not blaming Uri — Soros had until that occasion more or less been silent on matters Israel and Jewish, and hearing what he did say would have been a shock to the room. Here’s what he did say:

"There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that," Soros said. "It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies. If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish," he said. "I can’t see how one could confront it directly."

Let’s unpack this: There was once a fraught, horrible generational argument between Jews who came of age before the State of Israel’s founding, and those who grew up afterwards. (The lines drawn hewed generally to when and where — inside or outside Mandate Palestine — one was born, but not exclusively.) The argument has receded as the world has aged, but I’m old enough to remember it, to have engaged in it with my elders.

It went like this, and I’m reducing it to its crudest form to make the point quickly. The older generation: Jews should not draw undue attention to themselves. Making a show of Jewishness will attract unwanted attention from very bad people. Believe me, I know. And you won’t change those people. Younger generation, or those born in pre-state Palestine: This is not a way to live — it is neurotic. We can be as proud of our Judaism as any Frenchman or Indonesian. We have nothing to hide. These people will change like all bullies change once they are confronted with strength, steadfastness and vigor.

The argument has faded because the younger generation has prevailed, as has the normative existence of Israel. It still crops up here and there: My first feature assignment for AP, when the agency moved me to London in 1994, was a controversy over plans for an utterly unobtrusive eruv in northwest London (Golders Green, Hampstead, etc.). The main opposing faction was composed of garden variety British anti-Semites ("It’s just not British!"), but there was a — to me — surprisingly vocal protest from a number of politically and religiously conservative Jews in the area, of a certain age, who simply did not want to attract trouble.

But here’s the thing: That duck-and-hide reflex is not anti-Semitism. It is a reaction to anti-Semitism. It is, perhaps, not a healthy reaction (and the fact that it has faded would reinforce that perception), but it is a perfectly natural reaction among Diaspora Jews who spent lifetimes repeatedly having to pay in emotional, societal, and, most devastatingly, physical coin for just being Jewish.

It is especially a reaction that would be typical of a man who spent his teen years pretending not to be Jewish as a matter of survival, as Soros did. He evinces it, at length and more coherently, in this 2007 article for the New York Review of Books, and — stung, from what I’ve heard, by Uri’s 2003 story and the follow-up — concludes by saying explicitly:

Anticipating attacks, I should like to emphasize that I do not subscribe to the myths propagated by enemies of Israel and I am not blaming Jews for anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism predates the birth of Israel. Neither Israel’s policies nor the critics of those policies should be held responsible for anti-Semitism. At the same time, I do believe that attitudes toward Israel are influenced by Israel’s policies, and attitudes toward the Jewish community are influenced by the pro-Israel lobby’s success in suppressing divergent views.

Soros thought in 2003 that the policies of Bush and Sharon contribute to a resurgence of anti-Semitism. In 2007, he extended that indictment to AIPAC’s perfectly normative lobbying. He did not say that the policies create anti-Semitism. Sharon’s very Israelism — and Bush’s pro-Israelism, and AIPAC’s advocacy — were drawing out the haters, and Soros seemed spooked.

More heartbreaking, for me, is his follow up quote, in Uri’s story: "I can’t see how one could confront it directly." There’s no way to stand up to the bullies. This is a man who can’t imagine living a life without stigma, and whose policy is to let it define him.

There’s another reason, I think, that the generational argument faded, that the shouts and the tears at the Shabbat table subsided: As my generation aged, we matured enough to see our elders’ duck-and-hide reflex not as an embarrassing affront, but as a condition, and one that afflicted people we loved dearly. Why make an issue of it?

Of course, relationships matter in different ways in the political and personal arenas, and if someone with Soros’ influence and money insists on continuing to make normative Jewish behavior an issue, it needs confronting. It’s legitimate to argue, from a modern Zionist perspective, that ducking and hiding is No Way to Live.

What I would propose, though, is that the sensitivity that usually informs political debate regarding loaded terms like "anti-Semitic" and "anti-Israel" intensify when applying it to a Jew of Soros’ generation and experience.

To take a recent example, no serious person has accused Rich Iott, the Man Who Lost Topeka by spending weekends dressed in SS garb, of being an anti-Semite or anti-Israel. Monumentally insensitive and ignorant perhaps, but not a Jew hater.

At a minimum, the same courtesy should be extended to Soros.

UPDATE: I’m not saying here that all of Soros’ critiques of Israel, or of the Jewish community, are neurotic. Some may be borne of fact-based objections. I’m saying that when he veers from criticizing the substance of an Israeli policy — say, the security barrier, which he addresses in the NYRB article — into saying that Israeli policies, right or wrong, draw out haters, he appears to be giving into the old Diaspora reflex to keep one’s head down.

It is fair to argue that it’s a posture that doesn’t give Israel the room to make mistakes enjoyed by every other nation, and that inhibits a free-flowing debate about what constitutes a mistake; my point here is that it does not merit labels like anti-Semitism or anti-Israel.