Praise the ‘NYT’ for exposing an American Jewish family’s argument over Israel/Palestine

A Palestinian man overlooks a school in a refugee camp, 1948. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)

It’s finally happening, in the New York Times no less. An editor named Jim Schachter is sharing emails that members of his wife’s family sent back and forth, arguing about whether to give family charity contributions to Palestinians refugees. I’ve always called for an onstage fight inside a Jewish family, so that Jewish identity can change; and this is tremendous progress. And how great that Schachter quotes an 88-year-old retired dentist member of the family saying that Palestinian refugees are “Hitler youth.” People say this stuff all the time and they are never called out inside the Jewish community; it is a huge moment that such deluded racist ideas are exposed, in the New York Times! In large measure because when the Jewish-identity-monolith is fractured, other Americans will feel liberated to speak out about… human rights. 

I haven’t read the actual emails yet, which Schachter posts, but this is from his article, in which the family reckons with a young member dedicated to Palestinian solidarity (thanks to Richard Witty):

Zoë’s 22-year-old sister, Mahaliyah Ayla Oppenheim, wrote that she had been granted a kind of special standing by activists at the University of California, Berkeley, after she returned to school from a 2009 visit to the West Bank.

“I had seen two farmers, both of whom were near the same age as my grandparents, shot at by settlers as they were picking grape leaves; I had been pistol whipped in the face by a young I.D.F. [Israel Defense Forces] soldier before he stood on my neck with his boot (in this moment he had mistaken me for one of the daughters of a Palestinian family from the village),” she explained.

“I had lived with a man who had been imprisoned for 7 years of his life without ever seeing trial — he had been charged with throwing stones; he had also taught me — through his example — that there are Palestinians who genuinely want peace, who look to the words of Martin Luther King Jr. for nonviolent inspiration. I had also been sitting with a farmer, who, after having been shot at with me, felt comfortable enough to tap me on the shoulder, point at a group of soldiers and say, ‘I wish Hitler had got them all.’ ”

Zionism is truly coming to an end. And you wonder why a friend at a Jewish organization once said to me, We can’t sell Zionism anymore. Or why the Forward captioned a photograph from the Zionist Organization of America, “Three Zionists” as if it pictured 3 Martians (Mort Klein, Glenn Beck, Michele Bachmann).