Wasted Ballots and Towering Baseballs

It’s a good thing we have the mainstream press to thank whenever antisemitism pervades our politics and culture. When Jews are in trouble, rest assured that the media will shine a light and blare those sirens.

Okay, occasionally they miss. No major newspaper or broadcaster covered the Holocaust while the gas was ambient and the ovens were fully lit. Journalists did report on the Dreyfus Affair in France, but the coverage was mostly slanted against the falsely-accused French-Jewish officer, even discrediting Emile Zola, who came to Dreyfus’ defense.

More recently, attacks on Hasidic Jews, especially if committed by young males of color, go unreported. The flirtation of Black podcasters, rappers, athletes, community activists and fashion moguls with Nation of Islam evangelist, and Jew-hater of the first order, Louis Farrakhan—and with libelous stereotypes, generally—is never considered newsworthy. The increasing visibility of Black Hebrew Israelites, who harbor antisemitic creeds reminiscent of the Black Power Movement, is an absolute non-story.

And then there’s the antisemitism cleverly disguised as a human rights issue on behalf of Palestinians. The media doesn’t quite view it that way. Jewish students bullied on college campuses? Not notable. And the plight of Jews living in Europe who can’t go to a soccer match without feeling that they stepped into a 20th-century pogrom? Well, that’s not the goal of the press. Red cards are only handed out, if at all, to antisemites on the extremist right.

Perhaps the media hasn’t really been all that reliable, or vaguely interested, in reporting antisemitism after all. “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and “All the News That’s Fit to Print” are wonderful slogans, except that Jews often die in daylight, and Jewish lives, apparently, are unfit for headlines. 

So what a surprise it was this past week when the gatekeepers of news and information went Code Red in defending Jews from an existential enemy: Donald Trump. That’s right: the press took a break from belittling Joe Biden and instead uncommonly attacked Trump—for being an antisemite. Mainstream Jewish organizations cheered them on in reprimanding the former president for promoting canards, breeding contempt for, and threatening American Jews.

The man who courts the extreme right while playing with his Jewish grandchildren, the story goes, castigated American Jews for not showing him enough appreciation. After all, as he claimed, no other American president offered such unstinting support for the Jewish state. 

His list of grievances continued. American Jews too sparingly hold Israel in their hearts. He warned that they might one day come to regret their indifference to the one country on the planet created as an antidote to antisemitism, and would accept them as citizens the instant they deplaned from Ben Gurion Airport. Finally, he remarked that Evangelical Christians exhibit more devotion for Israel than do American Jews.

The audacity to badger Jews about how they should feel about a foreign land.

Except for one thing: He’s right, and nothing he wrote is antisemitic. 

Most American Jews give Israel very little thought, even if they tell you that they like knowing it exists. Most American Jews have never stepped foot in Jerusalem, and have no intention of ever doing so. American Jews, especially Progressive Democrats, will openly criticize Israel for all manner of moral infractions merely to snag an invite to a cool Hollywood party, or to improve their tenure prospects at any number of universities where Jew-hatred is now part of the core curriculum.

Oh, yeah, and Christians with the Rapture on their minds do, in fact, love Israel more than most American Jews.

Trump might be an awful messenger for all sorts of reasons why voting for him is unthinkable for many Americans, but he did preside over a monumental, transformative shift in American foreign policy in the Middle East. His achievements were simply stunning: finally moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem where Congress directed it be moved back in 1995; recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights; decertifying the disastrous Iran Deal; spearheading the Abraham Accords; and, perhaps most importantly, informing the Palestinians that their petulance and violence will not be rewarded, and that they are not all that relevant to regional stability.

His largesse didn’t translate into votes. Seventy percent of American Jews voted for Biden, even though it appears that Trump may have performed better at the ballot box than many Republican candidates who came before him.

No matter. The man bruises easily, his impulses can’t be curbed, and he insisted on registering his disappointment in American Jewry on social media.

And there is nothing wrong with that. Jews don’t have to vote for him, but thanking him may have been the courteous thing to do. Have Jews lost their manners, unable to behave politely simply because Trump is so exceptionally impolitic? Jewish organizations now browbeat him for invoking the sinister canard of “dual loyalty.” 

But that’s not what he charged. He wasn’t accusing Jews of placing America and Israel on an equal plane. On the contrary, his indictment was that Jews fail to show any loyalty to Israel at all!

Are Italian- and Irish-Americans required to renounce any special feelings they might possess for their motherlands? Jews, however, are expected to demonstrate that being Americans means that they must sever any affinity for their ancestral homeland. Worse still, they must denounce Israel in order to prove their moral worth.

Is there any wonder that there is no Jewish equivalent to a Congressional Black Caucus? Unlike Black members of Congress, or Asian, Arab or other ethnic elected representatives, does anyone really feel that Senators Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein and Richard Blumenthal, or Representatives Jerold Nadler, Adam Schiff and Jamie Raskin are actually representing Jewish-Americans? They are far too fearful of being primaried out of office by progressives to their left. Ferociously they cling to dwindling political capital at the expense of the moral courage necessary to stand up for Jewish interests.

For all the talk about conspiratorial Jews bent on world domination, you don’t see much coordinated efforts by Jewish leaders actually fighting for Jews.

For all the talk about conspiratorial Jews bent on world domination, you don’t see much coordinated efforts by Jewish leaders actually fighting for Jews.

Ironically, there are lessons to be learned from Jewish professional baseball players. They seem to have no qualms at all about dual loyalty. As many as one dozen Jewish Major League Baseball players have joined Team Israel in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Apparently, they didn’t require much of a sales pitch. Nor are they in anguish over Israel’s politics.

If only elected Jewish leaders could swing for the fences so willingly.