Can Jews Handle Being Different?

There are so many lessons Jews have taken on the first anniversary of October 7. These lessons reflect the shock, the grieving and the trauma that still linger in Jewish hearts from the biggest disaster in Israeli history.

But in this whirlwind of emotions, let’s not forget another ancient lesson that Oct. 7 has brought home: Jews are treated differently.

Consider just the fact that after 1200 Israelis were massacred on that Black Sabbath, a global movement began to attack…the Jews! That’s right. Before Israel launched any military activity in Gaza, the Jew-haters were mobilizing to blame the Jews for the massacre of Jews.

Blaming the Jews, of course, is old hat, but seeing it in the wake of the Oct. 7 atrocities stunned even the cynics. It’s as if Jews were not allowed to be victims, so Jew-haters doubled down on the oppressor narrative.

Meanwhile, one never heard a peep on college campuses about the Chinese government’s ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs; or Russia’s kidnapping of an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 Ukrainian children; or the nightmarish oppression of women by the Taliban; or the daily executions in Iran; or the slavery and child marriages being reintroduced by the Houthis; or the horrific massacres of Black African ethnic groups in Sudan, echoing the Darfur genocide two decades ago, and on and on.

And lest you think that pro-Hamas protesters care about Palestinians, you’ll never hear them complain about the squalid state of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Why? Because Jews are not involved. 

These campus haters take their lead from global forces of hypocrisy, most notably at the United Nations, where the Jewish state receives more condemnations than all other nations combined. Why? Because it’s the Jewish state.

Jews get special treatment. It’s as old as the Bible.

Maybe the world could never forgive us for being the first ones to talk to God, or for stubbornly holding on to our tradition for millennia, or for always figuring out ways to prevail and succeed despite centuries of persecution. 

Is it possible that the world treats Jews differently because we are, in fact, different? Sure, Jews may be incredibly diverse and argumentative, but as far as the world is concerned, they see us as one united bunch.

Jew-haters, for example, don’t care whether we’re Reform or Orthodox, Republican or Democrat, progressive or conservative, Ashkenazi or Sephardic. They hate us all just the same. They believe in Jewish unity.

This unity also applies to those who love and admire us—we are a successful and remarkable tribe that punches way above its weight.

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race,” Mark Twain wrote in 1897. “It suggests a nebulous puff of star dust lost in the blaze of the Milky Way. Properly, the Jew ought hardly to be heard of, but he is heard of, has always been heard of.  He is as prominent on the planet as any other people, and his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.

“His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in twilight now, and have vanished.

“The Jew saw them all, survived them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert but aggressive mind.  All things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains.  What is the secret of his immortality?”

We don’t need to be arrogant or triumphalist to embrace our difference. We can be engaged with the world and embrace our own diversity while still owning our Jewish identity. Just as other ethnic groups show pride in their differences, why can’t Jews do the same?

Ultimately we are all individuals with independent minds, but as Jews, we also have a shared history and a shared destiny that bring us together.

Maybe now, in the wake of a lingering Oct. 7 trauma we will never forget, it’s time to embrace the bonds that have kept us going for 5785 years.