Cover Story 11/3/03
Ties That Really Bind
America is a notable exception to the new anti-Semitism. How has it escaped?
Well, for one thing, ours is a pluralistic society, the product of the Enlightenment, with a tradition of separation of church and state. Because there was no official state religion, Jews could emerge as first-class citizens unburdened by the stigma of not belonging to the "right" church. A nation of immigrants, America accepted all comers. Jews may have arrived as the eternal strangers, but they found a home in a place where all came as strangers. Finally, we have no ferocious obsession with religion. Here, if you want to hate people, there are plenty of reasons to do so, but religion certainly isn't at the top of the list. In America, race, not religion, is far more likely to be the cause of animus.
Then, of course, there's the fact that America is a meritocracy. With achievement judged far more important than almost anything else, Jewish success was not nearly so much resented here as it has been elsewhere. Indeed, Jews became a model of what an ethnic group could accomplish in conditions of freedom. Thus it is that Jews here became a core element of American society, not so much a minority seeking rights but a part of the community conferring them. Which is not to say that anti-Jewish sentiment can't be found here. It is simply that when it does manifest itself, anti-Semitism is less often directed from the top of society down than it has been, say, in Europe, from government, employers, or other powerful institutions. When it occurs here, anti-Semitism typically comes from below, from marginal elements of society.
Similarities. America is a place where many ethnic groups identify with the country from which they emigrated. It's no accident that we refer to such communities in hyphenated terms: Italian-American, Irish-American, Mexican-American. It is largely because of this habit of identification that concern within the Jewish community for the welfare of Israel seems to provoke no more anxiety over dual loyalties than that of, say, Greek-Americans for Greece.
All these factors coalesce in terms of the support America extends to Israel. It was, after all, Harry Truman who first recognized the Jewish state. Americans easily identify with a country and a people who fled oppression, for, after all, that's also a part of America's story. America identified with a country that was itself an extension of the Judeo-Christian tradition, in terms of its recognition of religion. America, most remarkably, identified with a country that boasts a vibrant democracy. And America, most of all, identified with a country that, like America, was a pickup nation, founded on ideals and built by hard-working immigrants confident of their aims and abilities.
Most recently, of course, Americans have had to grapple with the effect of terrorism on the nation's civil life. As a result, in part, we have come to understand better Israel's dilemma in dealing with a terrorism that has at its root a religious fanaticism not at all unlike that of the adherents of Osama bin Laden. But that's just the most recent chapter. Why America has avoided the poisonous mind-set of the new anti-Semitism is better explained by the shared traditions of these two up-by-the-bootstraps democracies than by terrorists so threatened by the values both nations hold most dear. -Mortimer B. Zuckerman
usnews.com |
