From the WSJ: a tough, sobering read...

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: MJacobs240 () aol com
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 2003 23:33:13 -0400 (EDT)
To: MJacobs240 () aol com
Subject: From the WSJ: a tough, sobering read...

April 2, 2003 
PERSONAL JOURNAL 

War Revives Dilemma:
Are Jews Assimilated?

By JEFFREY ZASLOW 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Type "kill the Jews" into an Internet search engine and you'll find 5,100
entries filled with absurd accusations: that Jews forced the U.S. into
war with Iraq, blew up the space shuttle, and masterminded the Sept. 11
attacks.

In France, a poll shows that 26% of Jews are considering leaving the
country because of anti-Semitism. In Spain, 72% of people surveyed say
Spanish Jews are more loyal to Israel than to their home country. And in
the U.S., according to FBI data, even though hate crimes against Muslims
soared 1,600% in 2001, those 481 incidents were still less than half of
the 1,043 hate crimes against Jews.

For many American Jews, the news is disheartening and confusing. By a
multitude of measures, Jews are an assimilation success story in the U.S.
-- accomplished, often well-regarded by neighbors, the "luckiest" Jews in
history. And yet there is talk that American Jews are naively ignoring
the storm clouds. Historically, in times of world turmoil, Jews have been
targeted. Now again there's a confluence of issues -- America's strong
support of Israel, anti-Western rage, the familiar backlash against
Jewish achievement -- intensifying concerns about anti-Semitism.

"Some Jews are fooling themselves," says the Rev. Walter Michel, a
retired professor from the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago.
"Translate anti-Jewish writings from the Arab world -- things that a
billion people read and hear every day -- and it's venomous. It's worse
than Nazi propaganda."

In the U.S., the war has heightened rhetoric. Last month, Rep. James
Moran (D, Va.) said in a public forum that Jews were leading the U.S.
into war with Iraq. This was despite polls showing that just 52% of
American Jews favored military action, compared with 62% for Americans
overall. "If the war in Iraq goes wrong," asks Mr. Michel rhetorically,
"whose fault will it be?"

For Jewish and non-Jewish Americans alike, there are warnings here. Both
anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are driven by a fear of democracy and
modernity, by a need to find an explanation for "what's wrong," says Ruth
Wisse, a Harvard professor now writing a book on "Jews and anti-Jews."

Judaism has always been a religion focused on commemoration -- of tyrants
overcome, of the deliverance from slavery, of the tenacious survival of
the Jewish people. In the modern era, this urge to commemorate often
settles on the Holocaust, which many regard as a motivator for fighting
current anti-Semitism. Some Jews dwell on the atrocities, stressing the
lessons for today. Others have trouble dealing with the awful past, or
are embarrassed by it, or say enough already, it's time to move on.

I see this tension in my own family. As a U.S. Army private during World
War II, my father was among the liberators of the Dachau concentration
camp. At a row of cattle cars, all filled with the mangled bodies of dead
Jews, a fellow U.S. soldier turned to my dad and said, "If you're not
careful, Zaslow, that's where you'll end up."

The soldier knew my father was Jewish. Was he issuing a threat? A
friendly warning? For decades, my dad rarely spoke about the horrors he
saw that day in 1945. But lately, he's been obsessed with his memories.
He gives Holocaust lectures at schools, and discusses anti-Semitism with
anyone who will listen.

My mother wishes he'd let the topic rest. As my dad talks, she often
feels overwhelmed with emotion and asks him to stop. She keeps telling
him she is living in the present. But truth is, World War II is a painful
memory for her, too. Her brother had enlisted in the U.S. military,
saying, "I've got to go. They're killing Jews." His B-17 bomber was shot
down, his body never found.

It might be healing if more Jews moved on from the Holocaust by mastering
a middle ground: pressing forward, but not forgetting. A large new
Holocaust museum is rising on a busy street in my community in suburban
Detroit -- replacing a far-smaller museum -- and part of me is glad it's
there. Part of me wonders, though, what my non-Jewish neighbors think of
this huge, sad structure, with prison-inmate stripes worked into its
design. In the end, I was heartened to learn that most visitors to the
current museum are non-Jews.

Some Jews argue that we should focus on the bonds we've built with so
many non-Jews, rather than isolated anti-Semitic incidents. In a New
Republic article last year on "ethnic panic" among American Jews, author
Leon Wieseltier called us "the luckiest Jews who ever lived," adding:
"The Jewish genius for worry has served the Jews well, but Hitler is
dead."

Indeed, the nation's 5.2 million Jews can focus on some bright spots. Few
Americans see Joseph Lieberman's religion as a factor in his presidential
run, and polls show that most Americans support Israel, even if they
question Israeli policies. Though a 50% intermarriage rate threatens the
religion's future, it also suggests that anti-Semitism is waning: More
non-Jews are welcoming Jews into their families.

About 74% of Americans have a "favorable" opinion of Jews, according to a
2002 Pew Research Center poll. That's down from 82% in 1997.

But my father, for one, says numbers can never be the whole story. In a
letter he wrote to his parents the day he saw Dachau, he described the
crematorium, the liberated inmates beating Nazi guards, the stacks of
bodies. "Please believe me," he wrote. "I am telling you what I saw."

Fifty-eight years later, he feels it's crucial to keep repeating his
eyewitness account. A part of him is still that 20-year-old soldier,
standing by those boxcars, being told that as a Jew, he'd better be
careful.


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