A Tale of Two Tales: Jews, Israel, and Narrative Identity
“What we have here is a failure to communicate!” — Cool Hand Luke
“ENEMY? What is enemy? You killing my own people so many miles from your home. We not the enemy! You the enemy! … My mother is dead. And my older brother, who be 29 years old, he dead! Shot by Americans! My neighbor, dead! His wife, dead. WHY? Because we’re not human to them!” — Good Morning Vietnam (an incredible film, if you haven’t seen it)
“Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics/ And the Catholics hate the Protestants/ And the Hindus hate the Muslims/ And everybody hates the Jews” — Tom Lehrer
“So much to say, so much to say, so much to say, so much to say” — Dave Matthews Band
I ask for your patience. The past few months have been the most emotionally challenging in my life. This is difficult to write about. It will be messy and incomplete. I have no answers, only stories. So many people’s stories, so many competing truths.
The hardest and most important thing to remember is that both sides of a story can be true, even when they contradict each other. There are so many true stories that no summary can encompass them all.
Narrative identity is about the stories we believe. They form our reality, even when they aren’t factual. If you grew up thinking your parents loved your sister more than they loved you, this belief shaped you, even if it wasn’t the truth. It was your experience, and that made it true for you.
We can’t understand — or resolve — the conflict in Israel/Palestine without hearing the narrative truths on both sides.
When I get sucked into “yes buts” and what-about-isms, I have to remember that multiple truths can exist, side by side. I ask you to remember it too.
Here’s one narrative I live with:
My grandmother was a professional artist.
Among her works is a simple drawing of Adolf Hitler. The caption, in her neat block lettering, reads simply:
“This man murdered my parents.”
The term “generational trauma” comes up so often in my family’s conversations that it’s practically a running joke.
Another story in my life:
Let’s call her Azmia. She’s a Palestinian-American woman, my age. We’re both very opinionated people… and have almost nothing else in common. She’s a devout Muslim, I’m an atheist Jew. Our families, background, and personalities are nothing alike. We disagree on more things than I can count.
But for the past ten years I’ve been a caregiver for her child, who has a developmental disability.
And for this, she calls me “family.”
What does it mean to be Jewish? Is it a question of culture? history? ethnicity? religion?
I’m from a secular Ashkenazi family. I’ve never attended a synagogue. I don’t speak Hebrew. I’ve never been to Israel. Our family observes Hanukkah, which is a very minor holiday on the Jewish calendar, and that’s about it.
And yet, I strongly identify as Jewish. Why?
I identify as Jewish because of cultural tidbits that surrounded me growing up. Because of stories I read. Because of where my family came from and how they got here.
Most of all, however, I identify as Jewish because I know that Hitler’s minions would have shoved me into an oven.
The core of my identity was formed around a threat to my very existence.
Azmia and I carefully avoid many of the more painful conversations we could have.
Once, though, we talked a little bit about Israel, and she asked me suddenly, softly:
“Why do your people hate mine so much?”
I was startled enough to answer her with complete honesty:
“Because we think you want to kill us all.”
She could only shake her head in pained disbelief.
(Here in America, especially after 9/11, many of us don’t realize that millions of Muslims consider their religion a peaceful one. They don’t identify with ISIS any more than your average Christian identifies with the KKK.)
I grew up with the knowledge that there are people who want me dead because of the blood that runs in my veins, because of the accident of my birth. This knowledge, and this fear, is central to Jewish identity.
[Note: There is not, of course, one single Jewish identity. There are many, widely varying identities, even within a more specific group like American Ashkenazi Jews. Any statements I make about “the Jews” should come with an implied “most/ in general/ on average.”]
You can’t understand the nature of Israel, or Jewish people’s support of it, without understanding that existential dread is part of our narrative identity.
What can I, a Jew who barely knows what it means to be Jewish, add to this discussion? What can I say that hasn’t already been said?
I think I have one valuable thing to contribute: I have seen a certain disconnect, a specific misunderstanding, that derails so many discussions between those on either “side” of the Israel/Palestine debate.
After seeing it play out in multiple online conversations, I realized it comes from a gap between two narratives. That gap inspired this article.
Narrative #1
When non-Jewish Americans look at Jews in America, they see the ultimate immigrant success story. We came, we settled in, we made good money, we rose to the top of multiple industries and academic fields. The golden age of the American Jew saw us profoundly influence American popular culture — movies, music, comic books — in addition to finance and politics. We excelled in science and literature and medicine.
To outsiders, we look like a disproportionately powerful minority group, with nothing much to complain about and little cause for worry. Ashkenazi Jews have white or white-passing privilege, especially in the 21st century.
Sure, there’s a bit of antisemitism here and there, the occasional act of vandalism or violence, and a handful of people who believe conspiracy theories. But on the whole, we’ve got it good, right?
The people who see us this way don’t understand why we’re so defensive, so prickly, so obsessed with the Holocaust, so unreasonably emotional about Israel.
And many Jews don’t understand that this is your narrative about us.
Narrative #2
The Jews see it very differently.
Many times throughout Jewish history, we’ve moved into a country and done well for a time. A few generations of peace and respect, maybe even prosperity. Sure, there were extra taxes, or we were restricted to certain professions, but these were minor inconveniences. We had it pretty good in the Ottoman Empire. In much of Europe. In Russia. In Morocco. At least sometimes.
But eventually, things always got bad. A famine or a plague, and they’d turn on us. Jews were kicked out of some countries (Spain, for example). Or we were told to convert to Christianity or Islam, on pain of death. Someone would decide that Jews couldn’t own property, or had to live in ghettos (ghettos existed long before Hitler). Sometimes we weren’t allowed to wear shoes or defend ourselves if attacked (several Muslim countries). We could be killed if we were caught outside the Jewish district after dark (America didn’t invent Sundown towns).
And so, many American Jews (especially millennial generation and older) see our success here as a temporary calm in the storm. We don’t trust it. We’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Our grandparents and great-grandparents learned the hard way that the Jews are never safe. Assimilation will not save us. My grandmother’s family considered themselves more German than Jewish. That narrative cost them their lives.
From early childhood, we are taught this: no matter how well things seem to be going, we cannot afford to let down our guard. Elderly people with haunted eyes and numbers carved into their skinny arms told us: “We thought it couldn’t happen to us, but it did. They can come for you too.”
A future Holocaust is part of our narrative — less as an “if” than a “when.”
This, above all, is why so many Jews — regardless of our other politics, regardless of whether or not we are religious or which branch of Judaism we might follow — support Israel’s existence as a nation. Because many of us have an underlying (perhaps even subconscious?) belief that Israel is the first, last, and only line of defense… against our complete annihilation as a people.
This is why we see criticism of Israel’s nationhood as antisemitism, even if we hate Israel’s politics or military decisions or current leadership. Because when you say “Israel shouldn’t exist,” I hear “I’m ok with the possible extermination of the Jews.” I hear it even when I know that’s not what you mean. It took me quite a while to realize that.
Is it true that a Jewish majority nation is the only thing standing between us and destruction? I have no idea. It may be a false narrative, but it’s a powerful one. Whether or not we should believe it, most Jews do… and it never even occurs to many non-Jews.
This is what I’ve seen shut down so many conversations in the past few months.
Leftist American Jews like myself — who want peace and safety for the Palestinians, who don’t think the Jews are any better or more deserving than anyone else, who are devastated by the ultra-right-wing nationalistic direction Israel has taken as a country — we are in a very difficult position right now. Having conversations about the wrongs Israel has committed is both necessary and agonizing. I want to talk about a future that works for everyone, one of freedom and equality in the Middle East. I want to talk about Israel making reparations to the Palestinians it displaced in order to exist.
But I’m afraid. We’re afraid. We’re always afraid, and that fear has a powerful impact. Please keep this in mind when you have these discussions with us. Please help us feel safe enough to have these conversations. Tell us you believe we deserve to survive. You take that statement for granted — we don’t. We need to hear that before we can open up about this and look for a way forward. And we need to do that before this insanity destroys us all.
I’ve written more. Pages and pages more. But I’m stopping here for now. I hope this article helps bridge some gaps in understanding, on both sides. I hope it makes Jews and non-Jews alike stop and think about the assumptions we make, the narratives we live by. I hope it lets you ask, “what if…?”
What if we’re wrong? What if there’s a better way?
“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” — Leonard Cohen
Got this far? Please consider leaving a tip or supporting me on Patreon! Any amount is appreciated
