A few years back I had an argument with one of my journalistic mentors, who is Jewish (almost all of 'em were). I was naming Jewish names in power and he bridled. "But are they Jews qua Jews?" Why call attention to their religion when it has no significance next to the fact that they are: smart, hardworking, and have attained high status. It was a fancy Latin way of saying what Martin Luther King said, Don't judge them by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. He was implying that I was anti-semitic.
Last night on NBC Nightly News they did a piece on Proposition 8 in California, the anti-gay-marriage measure. And the reporter said that Prop 8 passed in good measure because of blacks and Hispanics, who tend to be more church-going than educated whites. (That was the thrust of the statement, not verbatim.) There were fotos of the aforesaid blacks and Hispanics going to church.
This was of course a sociological generalization. I doubt that it applies to Barack and Michelle Obama. But it is a true and acceptable generalization. No one is accusing NBC of racism. We know there is some truth to the statement. There is something predictably black and Hispanic about this behavior, and so the modifier is accepted.
When I look at the five or more Jews who joined Obama on stage last week for his first press conference (of the 20 people on stage) I follow my friend's counsel and ask, Are they Jews qua Jews? Who am I to point out their religion, any more than say John Podesta being Greek-American or Eric Schmidt of Google being German-American. And the answer for me is that in the case of Rahm Emanuel and Larry Summers, Jewish means something; it means an identification with the state of Israel, which other Americans do not share (Did you notice all the Christian Zionists playing a large role in the late campaign? No). This generalization probably applies to Penny Pritzker too, and to Robert Rubin; I'm not sure, don't know. Maybe even Robert Reich.
Some weeks back Ralph Seliger said that my non-Zionism is merely expressive of the "diversity" in the Jewish community. This was a misrepresentation. Yes, there is diversity on this issue. There are many Jews like me who don't go in for Zionism. We are marginalized and not welcome, by and large. Anna Baltzer, a good Jewish girl, has been invited to one synagogue in her years of talking about Palestine at hundreds of venues. This blog was shunned by an old friend, a good liberal Jewish editor. Muzzlewatch is devoted to the blacklisting and censorship within the Jewish community, all aimed at creating an orthodoxy around the issue: We support Israel. This makes Jews different by and large from other Americans. I venture that the percentage of Jews who feel very strongly about Arabs is higher than the percentage of blacks and Hispanics who feel very strongly about gays. That's why Joe Klein spoke of "Jewish" neocons. And this Jewish feeling is more important than that black and Hispanic one. For the issue that is so important to Jews is merely tearing the moral heart out of American foreign policy in the most dangerous region in the world.
