Erev Rosh HaShanah
The Metamorphosis of Antisemitism
**Thank you to Felicia Kornbluth for helping me think through this issue.
When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect. He was lying on his back – which was hard, like a shell – and when he raised his head a little he saw his curved brown belly segmented by rigid arches atop which the blanket, already slipping, was just barely managing to cling. His many legs, pitifully thin compared to the rest of him, waved helplessly before his eyes. “What in the world has happened to me?” he thought. It was no dream……
These are the opening lines of Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. As I learned as a Comp Lit major in college, Metamorphosis, first published in 1915, reflected the growing sense of alienation in the modern industrialized and bureaucratic world. Poor Gregor Samsa – a salesman one day; the next morning, cockroach. He doesn’t understand what has happened to him but he knows there is no place for him in his society. No matter how hard he tried, or what he does, he no longer can fit in.
I was reminded of Kafka a few weeks ago. I was watching a webinar on Jews and SciFi from the Marin Country California JCC. It was a fun lecture by Jewish scifi author Valerie Estelle Frankel. It covered the well-known connections between Spock’s Live Long and Prosper hands and the Cohanic blessing, and added that the planet Vulcan was modeled after the Negev. Who knew? She covered the Jewish creators of Superman, Batman, X-men, and the Marvel universe of superheroes, all of whom were created by Jewish artists and writers who couldn’t get jobs as Jews in mainstream firms. Just think of that and its meaning in popular culture today across the world.
Frankel went on to say that these superheroes, and supervillains, were really just updated versions of the ancient Jewish myth of the golem that is created to protect the Jews against a dark threat of rising antisemitism but sometimes turns against them.
I also learned that the writing on Darth Vader’s chest plate, if you look really closely, is actually Hebrew, some of it upside down. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but there it is.
Someone then put a question in the chat about Kafka and science fiction. Frankel shared that she thought Kafka was an excellent bridge between literary fiction and science fiction, and that he blurred those lines.
She went on to say that Kafka himself had a love/hate relationship with being Jewish. He grew up in a fiercely assimilated family that looked down on traditional Jews, and Kafka hated Hebrew school. However, he got hooked on Yiddish theater and that led to a serious study of Hebrew, Jewish tradition and Jewish mysticism, and he dreamed of making Aliyah to Israel. Frankel, and others as I have since learned, see Metamorphosis as a novel that reflects the absurdity of antisemitism, the inner conflictedness of Jews trying to fit in, and the experience of antisemitism in Europe around the time of WWI.
I had never thought about Kafka’s sense of alienation and absurdity coming from antisemitism, but it immediately rang very true to me.
Kafka’s Gregor Samsa as a normal if nebbish, guy one day, trying to please his boss and meet his obligations. Then overnight, something inexplicably changes, and he is treated like vermin. He is unemployable, disgusting, and people that used to be his friends distance themselves from him, curse him, thrown things at him.
I think one of the best definitions of the experience of antisemitism is when people go from seeing you as a human being to seeing you as a bug. I think it is the unpredictability of antisemitism, the way things seem fine for years and then suddenly emerge like a virus, that is so unnerving.
I know that has been my experience several times in my life. I was actually sort of popular in high school until Í started to be actively and openly Jewish, speaking about it. Instantly, I was kicked out of the band, got disinvited from parties, and kids that sat near me moved their seats. Except for Tim.
It happened again in 2013, while I was spending a semester in Varanasi, India, teaching college religion and ethics, but also studying Hinduism myself. My circle of New York gay activist friends who were also spiritual seekers loved that I was going to India, kept up with my blog about it, Facebooked me all the time. I felt really connected even that far away.
Then I started to see some really nasty Facebook posts about Israel and Jews in general on my friends’ feed. A group of four or five friends posted a picture of themselves at a protest. Since these were people I had been to many protests with, had been in ACT-UP with, my first reaction to the photo was to smile. Then I noticed the signs they were carrying read: Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. I posted, “HAHAHA. Love the camp irony, since Israel is the only place over there you could wear that and live.”
Apparently, they didn’t like my sense of humor. The blow-back was instant and fierce. In the span of 48 hours gone, I had gone from being a “good Jew” to one of “those Jews”, from being a friend to being an insect. I was Gregor Samsa, and it was disorienting, upsetting, infuriating, depressing, and exhausting.
Which brings me to UVM. I’m sure you’ve heard about the investigation of systemic anti-Jewish racism at UVM being brought by the Federal Department of Education.
I was Hillel president in college for two years, and in the 1980’s in Jerusalem, I worked training Jewish campus leaders all over the English-speaking world on ways to combat antisemitism and its thin disguise, anti-Zionism on campus. So when I started here, I made sure to connect with Hillel and they invited me a few times a year to meet with their board, do some education about Israel and Zionism, run services, or strategize with their board. Over the last two years, students began to express feeling more and more unsafe.
I have heard from students who have had coins thrown at them while people on their hall chanted “Jew” and nobody said anything.
I have heard from student survivors of sexual violence who are being accused of being partially responsible for the rape of Palestinian women by Israel soldiers.
Jews whose grandparents fled the Holocaust as refugees are being called European Colonialists and White Supremacists.
These are the ones I can share publicly. Many had language that was just too graphic, violent and/or misogynist.
I’ve heard Jewish students openly advise each other to avoid taking classes with certain professors because of the instructor’s perceived hostility toward any statement supportive of Israel or the Jewish connection to it.
Students also confess they have chosen to be silent out of fear when students or faculty make hostile statements about Jews who support Israel’s right to exist. Some students have shared with me a reluctance to display any outward signs of their Jewishness, including wearing Stars of David, Hillel t-shirts, or putting mezuzot on their doors.
UVM staff and faculty have shared similar conversations with students.
These are not anonymous allegations; these are college students, and Jewish campus leaders I know. I want to say how profoundly moved and proud I am of the student leaders I’ve worked with. They have stood up to this in ways that are thoughtful, focused on dialogue, and mature.
When I think of Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, I can’t help but thinking of these Jewish leaders and students on campus. These are great students, exactly what UVM stands for, and UVM, by the way, has a big Jewish student population, somewhere above 20%. And UVM has great courses in Jewish studies, Holocaust. UVM is a great place for Jewish life and Jewish students, but it is also really challenging at times.
It hasn’t helped that UVM President Garimella, rather than acknowledge a problem, responded to the suit by doubling down and in an Orwellian move, he blamed the Jewish students that complained for portraying UVM in a “patently false” light. Many of the largest Jewish organizations in the country, including ADL, B’nei B’rith, and the Council of President of Major Jewish Organizations signed a letter of response condemning Garimella’s tone-deaf response. I wrote a separate letter to President Garimella and the UVM Board that began:
Denying the lived experiences of Jews is itself one of the most virulent forms of antisemitism.
Having your lived experiences denied by people who don’t know you is among the most disorienting experiences a person can have. It is gaslighting. You wonder if somehow you are wrong about your own experience. You want to argue back with facts, but facts don’t matter. You want to scream, or hide, or give up.
When Gregor Samsa woke up as an insect and was treated with horror and violence by those around him, he retreated into his room and wouldn’t come out. He wouldn’t eat, and festering in his room, he got sicker and sicker until he died.
That is one way to respond to antisemitism. To hide. To duck. To avoid. To remove our Magen David’s and our Chai’s. To take the mezuzot off our doors. We can hide in fear and let our hurt and our anger fester like an infection until we, or at least our Jewishness, atrophies and drops away. My brother is like that. I know you know people like that. Think of the countless Jews that have been lost to our people for just that reason. How many of our family? children? grandchildren?
Another way to react is to join the attackers, to try and show you are the ‘good Jews’ and we are not like “those Jews”. I remember my mother telling me to always tip well, keep your house clean, be polite and wear clean underwear in case of a car accident so people wouldn’t think we were one of ‘those Jews.” Are we aware of how much we carry ``around the fear of being “those Jews.” I feel it. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but I cringe when a Jewish person says something I think is embarrassing. “What are they going to think of us?” is how the question floats around in my mind, and then the corollary, “what can I do right now in this awkward moment to make us look better, and to show we are not all like “those Jews
How much antisemitism have we internalized? How many of us when we see an ultra-Orthodox Jew getting beaten on the streets of New York have a secret second where we think, “oh, it’s one of them”? Of course, we do this sometimes. It’s human nature to worry about how our group is perceived, but I think that Reform Jews are particularly concerned about how we appear, and how those in our social circle see us as Jews.
Have you ever secretly been flattered when someone you know is surprised to find out you are Jewish?
Have you smiled on the inside when someone said, “you don’t look Jewish?” (I have never had that opportunity)
How much internalized antisemitism is wrapped up in saying of Israelis, “we are not those Jews.”?
Here on Rosh Hashanah, as we face growing antisemitism on many fronts, I want us to do some heshbon nefesh, some soul-searching and reflection on the antisemitism we carry right here inside. If we are to face this as a united community, we must first do the internal work of building our Jewish self-esteem, our pride, and our sense of solidarity with other Jews, including those with whom we strongly disagree on core topics that matter deeply to us.
There is a better way of responding to the antisemitism we feel rising around us, both here and in Europe with the rise of right-wing nationalist parties with historical roots in Naziism and Fascism. It is what Civil Rights leaders have shown us. It is what feminist activists have shown, and LGBT activists. It is what the early Zionists also showed us:
Stop hiding. Stand up. Claim your Jewishness and show pride, not shame, in being “one of those Jews.” We must find the strength to share our experiences with others we know. We can’t keep laughing it off. We are sitting here with guards, crash barriers, bullet-resistant glass, and silent police alarms. Our silence, as Audre Lorde famously said, will not protect us. We have to take action.
That is what we must do if we are to show real solidarity to the students at UVM, and with Jews around the world. It is what the leaders of French Jewry have been telling American Jewish leaders for a decade.
To that end, in the coming months, we will be rolling out plans to do our part to stand up and push back against antisemitism in our area, antisemitism we saw all too clearly at City Hall one year ago. We will be working with other organizations to bring speakers, introduce legislation, offer classes and trainings, and to have a more public voice. I want to have a visibility week, a “chalk against hate” action on Church Street and in Montpelier, a wear a yarmulke to work day. If that idea makes you very uncomfortable, that is a good mirror to look into on Rosh HaShanah.
I know that this won’t always easy or comfortable. Neither was coming out as a gay man in the 70’s, but coming out was the key to fighting homophobia. Finding a willingness to share with friends how antisemitism feels and why we are proud of our heritage is the best tool we have to fight antisemitism. As Bari Weiss has said, “sure you will lose invitations to dinner parties and you might not get that promotion at work, but that is a small price to pay for having dignity and solidarity. If we don’t tell the people around us how this is making us feel, how are they supposed to know? How can they possibly be allies if we are only talking amongst ourselves?
So we must take antisemitism seriously. At the same time, it is important to say the we must not to let ourselves be manipulated by our fear of rising antisemitism. The sky is not falling. I was fighting some pretty awful antisemitism as Hillel president in 1981. When I taught South African students in the 1980’s, they reported that anti-Zionist marches with tens of thousands of people would march through their campus. Students weren’t allowed to march or protest against Apartheid, but they were encouraged to march against Israel and redirect their rage against Apartheid toward Jews and Israel.
That is not what is happening here. Small groups of passionate people take up most of the oxygen on social media, on campus and in the Jewish press, as well
And we need to remember that there are organizations, political parties and even nations like Russia that amplify incidents of antisemitism in order to split the Jewish community, and use us as pawns in their propaganda and fundraising schemes. If you are watching Ken Burn’s new series “The US and the Holocaust”, you know this is not new.
We need to be aware that when we are afraid or angry, we are particularly susceptible to this sort of manipulation.
For progressive Jews, we must not abdicate social justice spaces, but rather insist on having our place and our seat even if that means fighting and being uncomfortable. We must speak up and push back when the rhetoric crosses the line from critical of Israel to blood libel. Like the Zioness movement, our activism must be to insist on being both Jewish, Zionist, and progressive, no matter how many eyerolls, nasty comments, or obnoxious retweets we get. No matter how many friends we lose.
Those of us who are in conservative spaces must also push back when the rhetoric crosses the line from critical of government to blaming Jews for secretly running everything, or to blatant racism or conspiracy. Conspiracy theories will eventually settle on Jews. You can’t laugh it off, or hide.
If we are not for ourselves, who will be for us?
Another person who one morning woke to find himself feeling he had changed into an insect was Eitan Chitayat, an Israeli marketing exec who in 2015, was shaken by the violent attacks against Jews in France, and by the antisemitism on social media during Israeli military operations in Gaza. Seeing posts accusing him and all Jews of being “those Jews” he had the brilliant idea of pushing back with a viral video called “I’m That Jew.” When you get home tonight, a link to it will be in your inbox and it will be posted on our webpage. But tonight, as one small act of Jewish solidarity and pride to push back against those who would divide us, I wanted to share my Vermont edition of “I’m that Jew”.
I’M THAT VERMONT JEW (with thanks and apologies to Eitan Chitayat)
I’m that Vermont Jew.
That Green Mountain Jew.
That Brave Little State Jew
That honk every time I drive into the state Jew
That leaf-peeper driving 30mph with a line of cars behind me visiting Jew
That “the foliage was so much better when I was a kid” Jew
That skiing Sugarbush Jew
Mad River Jew
Jay Peak Jew
That “the snow used to be so much better when I was a kid” Jew
That “I hate Vermont winters” Jew
That Winter is my favorite season Jew
That “I hate skiing Jew” but apres ski is the bomb as long as the wine’s good Jew
That Ben and Jerry’s loving Jew
That I won’t ever eat Ben and Jerry’s Again Jew
That Ben and Jerry’s was better when I was a kid Jew.
That woodchuck Jew
That just moved here from Boston Jew
That had to escape the fires out west Jew
That first woman governor of Vermont Jew
The “when is the Sinai trip to Israel” Jew
That “why would I go to Israel?” Jew
That living in the Old North End trans Jew
That Esther has two mommies in Winooski Jew
That Jew by choice mikveh-in-Lake-Champlain Jew
That Phoenix book store Jew
That back to the land lesbian separatist at OWL Jew
That I didn’t move to Vermont for Jews Jew
That Destiny Radical Faerie Jew
That drag-ball Jew that still remembers Cherie Tart.
That Reproductive Freedom Amendment to the Vt Constitution Jew
That Bernie loving Jew
That Bernie is why we elected Trump Jew
That Bernie was better when I was a kid Jew
That I voted for Trump Jew
That I don’t vote or go to town Meeting Jew
That vegan Stone Soup eating Jew
That Great Brisket Bakeoff Jew
That Feldman’s Bagel Jew
That only Myer’s Montreal Bagels for me Jew
That living in the woods poet Jew
That social justice Black Lives Matter flag raising over CVU Jew
That Black Lives Matter is antisemitic Jew
That VPR on-all-day Jew
That contra-dancing in the barn Jew
That I hiked all five of Vermont’s highest peaks in one day Jew
That geocaching in the the Green Mountain national forest Jew
That Trapp Lodge Mountain Marathon running Jew
That snowbird Jew,
Boca in the winter Jew
Corpus Christi Jew
That I’m making Aliyah from Underhill Jew
That I got beaten up for being Jewish in St. Albans Jew
That I’m the child of Holocaust Survivors Jew
That I’ve never experienced antisemitism in Vermont Jew
That I’m just exploring my Jewishness Jew
That I found out from a DNA test that I’m half Jewish Jew
That Sisterhood Mahjong Marathon Jew
That Vodka and Latkes Jew
That OZ Jew
The Chabad Jew
That Ruah haMaqom Jew
That Temple Sinai Jew
That UVM Hillel student standing up against Jew-hate Jew
That writing this to all my Vermont Jewish brothers and sisters Jew.
And to Vermonters who aren’t Jewish but get this and show me love – I’m that writing this to you too with utmost respect Jew.
I’m that believer that we’re going to be okay because Vermont is filled with decent people and there’s no other choice Jew.
That hang in there and keep your head up Jew.
Not a wishful thinking Jew.
Just true, proud, Vermont Jew.