Dueling Holocaust imperatives: Never again vs. Never ever

By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO — As I focus on the debate among Jews about the relationship our community ought to have with the Black Lives Matter movement, I realize that discussion is driven by how traumatized our entire Jewish people have been by the Holocaust and its aftershocks.

In my view, both the Jewish Right and the Jewish Left have patterned their behavior on what they have learned — and suffered — as a result of the Nazis’ slaughter of our Six Million ancestors, relatives, and friends.

For the Jewish Right, the lesson, in two words, is “Never Again.” We Jews should never again be in the position of being victimized. We must be strong, smart, and prepared to fight off any enemies. Further, according to the Right, we can’t trust anyone else to help us Jews; we were deserted during the Holocaust; we will be deserted again. Only our own strength and our own resolve can protect the Jewish people.

For the Jewish Left, the lesson, in two words, is “Never, Ever.” We Jews should never, ever be like the Nazis. We must never, ever demonize, oppress, rule over, control, imprison, or kill another people. Further, we should befriend other peoples who have been victimized, marginalized, or made to feel devalued, and work with them for the common good of humanity.

So, let’s see how these two Holocaust-derived points of view mesh with the Black Lives Matter movement. For the Jewish Right, on guard against being victimized again, the anti-Semitic rhetoric, sometimes dressed as anti-Zionist, rhetoric, tells them everything that they need to hear. The Black Lives Matter movement, in the Right’s view, is as dangerous to Jews as the Nazis were during Hitler’s early years. Bring them to power, and Jews will be the first to suffer the effects of BLM’s hate. Better to oppose the movement now.

For the Jewish Left, wanting to make friends with other people who have been victimized, the desire is to somehow persuade those in the Black Lives Matter movement that we Jews really are their allies; that their rhetoric against us is misguided; that the looting of our stores and desecrating of our synagogues in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles were unfortunate excesses that we can get past once there is real dialogue, aimed at mutual understanding, between the Black Lives Matter movement and the Jewish community.

You can also see the same philosophical differences among Jews in the debate over the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians. From the standpoint of the Jewish Right, being tough and firm is the only way to deal with the Palestinians. Let them know that however much they dream about killing us, or “liberating” Palestine from the river to the sea, it’s not going to happen. Never again!

And among the Jewish Left, we see the tendency to believe that if only the Israeli government were nicer, more forthcoming, less authoritarian toward the Palestinian Arabs, then surely they would come around. Clearly, there are reasonable people among all groups. If only we were more reasonable, they would be more reasonable. We should never, ever be like the Nazis, and the more people say that we are, the guiltier we feel.

Of course, there is a wide swath of the Jewish population who position themselves somewhere in the middle of this debate. In the United States, they might argue that Jews by all means should ally with the goals of Black Lives Matter — that is, work hard for racial justice — but at the same time should be wary of strengthening the hands of people whose hatred for us is implacable. In the Middle East, they might argue that, of course, Israel should be strong, but given that it is strong, it should try to find a way to come to a mutually beneficial agreement with the Palestinians.

The middle position is not an easy one to uphold. The Jewish Right dismisses those in the middle as naive and too squishy in their perceptions of the Palestinians. The Jewish Left views those in the middle as temporizers, people who don’t have the courage to come to a proper moral decision.

“Never again!” shouts one side. “Never, ever!” shouts the other.

I believe that we Jews need to keep talking to each other. I believe that we should try to give each other the benefit of the doubt. I believe that all sides in this debate want what is best for the Jewish people. I believe that all sides do not want to see another Holocaust, neither as its victims nor as its perpetrators.

Where should we begin this kind of conversation?

In my view, identical questions could be put to members of the Jewish Left and to the Jewish Right, whether they be in the United States or in Israel.

The Jewish Left can be asked how they came to trust people that those in the Jewish Right fear. Do they come to this sense of trust because that fits with their ideological world view, or do they come to this sense of trust because they have had heartfelt conversations with BLM advocates in the United States, and with PLO and Hamas members in the Middle East?

The Jewish Right can be asked if they ever could imagine trusting people who are not their fellow Jews. When they visit Yad Vashem in Jerusalem or the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., are they not moved and impressed by the stories of the Righteous Gentiles? Isn’t it true that many non-Jews risked or sacrificed their lives for us? Do they believe that in our time, our generations, there are similarly kind-hearted non-Jews with whom we can work cooperatively for the sake of a better, more secure, and more just world?

Civility, common every-day courtesy, should be the basic ground rule for this type of discussion. No matter how determinedly you adhere to your world view, and no matter how passionately you believe the Jew on the other side of the table is desperately wrong, we must maintain civility toward each other. We must be able to debate like Hillel and Shamai, for the sake of the Jewish people. We must banish from our minds and our lips any temptation to belittle, or call the people on the other side by derogatory names, because that only hardens the positions while widening the gap.

Both sides in this fraternal debate should adapt a saying I learned one year while attending a conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in a discussion about how to approach members of Congress who clearly are unsympathetic to your point of view.

The saying is that among members of Congress, there are only two types of people: “Friends and potential friends.”

That is how we should regard every single Jew, regardless of whether he or she agrees with us, or seems to be our polar opposite. If they are not our friends, then they are our potential friends.

And if not now, when?

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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com