When I meet a Jewish college student who has encountered some of the anti-Jewish and anti-Israel venom spreading through many campuses, I have a favorite line of questioning:
Did you miss any final exams because of the protests?
Did you miss any assignments?
How did you do this semester?
In most cases, the answer is that the ugly protests, however annoying and frightening, have not hurt their academic performance. This is encouraging. It doesn’t mean, of course, that Jews should stop fighting the forces of hate and focus only on their education.
What it does mean is that sometimes the best way to fight haters is to focus on improving ourselves. Throughout our checkered history of facing hate and persecution, Jews have prevailed by playing the long game, never abandoning the essential values of learning and personal growth.
It wasn’t easy to focus on ourselves during the ten days of repentance. We entered Yom Kippur consumed with the multiple dangers of a post-Oct. 7 world; naturally, many of the sermons we heard dealt with those dangers and how to confront them.
But those exterior threats, as urgent and consequential as they are, have little to do with the intimacy of our lives.
I can fight for Israel all day long but forget to call my mother to bring her a little joy.
I can join an activist group but fail to visit a sick uncle in the hospital.
I can follow current events but fail to attend an important event for a friend.
No matter how loud and urgent the outside noise, we can’t allow it to stifle our inner selves. The hostility toward Jews is bad enough; when we allow it to interfere with our personal growth is when we lose.
I have a dark theory about Jew-haters. It’s not just the Jews they hate — it’s also what Jews represent. They hate the aura of success that surrounds Jews.
For all I know much of their anger may be rooted in their wanting what Jews have.
Just as the extraordinary success of Israel has attracted resentment among its hostile neighbors, the perennial success of American Jews has attracted envy among those disinclined to admire people who work their way up.
A woke movement that has turned “success” into “white privilege” has only made things worse for Jews, most of whom are conditioned from childhood to strive to constantly improve.
The answer is not to seek sympathy by playing for victim points. We’ve learned the hard way that Jew-hatred is flexible enough to adapt to any condition — whether Jews are weak or strong, rich or poor, left or right, and so on.
The point is this: Since the haters will hate Jews no matter what, we might as well win in the game of life.
Let the protesters win the yelling game. Let them damage their vocal cords to show support for Hamas. Let them invest thousands of hours playing wannabe Che Guevaras. The returns on that investment are bound to be illusionary, like gorging on cotton candy.
Jew haters must know deep down how safe and predictable it is to side with the Palestinians, the world’s most coddled victims. The true rebels today, those who go against the grain, are the Zionists. That is the courageous choice.
It’s also the winning one. Losers define winning by how much noise they make. Winners define winning by how much they accomplish. By that metric, Jews have been humanity’s winners since time immemorial.
No other group in America has contributed more to the country than the Jews, in fields ranging from science, literature and social justice to culture, comedy and journalism.
The winds of hate that have accelerated since Oct. 7 have cast a shadow on this image of the winning Jew. Faced with the need to defend ourselves, we’ve tended to look weak and defensive. And given that victims are America’s new power brokers, we’ve also been made to feel guilty about our success.
This is neither good for the Jews nor for America. An America that elevates victimhood over success is a nation headed for the abyss. Jews shouldn’t hide their success. Indeed, they should resuscitate and revalorize the very notion of success, walking not just as proud Jews but as proud successful Jews.
An America that elevates victimhood over success is a nation headed for the abyss. Jews shouldn’t hide their success. Indeed, they should resuscitate and revalorize the very notion of success, walking not just as proud Jews but as proud successful Jews.
In the long run, success is our strongest weapon in the fight against antisemitism. Let the haters scream on the streets and play victim. Jews have better things to do, like going to class and learning how to win.