I Thought You Were My Friends

Antisemites to the Left of Me, Antisemites to the Right, Here I Am Stuck in the Middle With No One

My son goes to a small, progressive, private school in Los Angeles. He learns nice things from nice teachers. The head of this school, who seems terrific, was in my graduating class from Stanford. These are my people. We have potlucks where 90 percent of the parents bring kale salad and no one comments on it.

On Monday, the very nice head of this very nice school sent out a very nice email about Indigenous Peoples' Day and the very nice project they’re working on to help bring back the language of the tribe that once lived on the land the school sits on. I enjoyed this email. It made me feel good about myself and momentarily forget that I’m damaging the already hurting public school system by taking my son out of it.

The third paragraph of the head of school’s email, however, took a weird turn.

“As we confront struggle, past and present, we are mindful of those of you affected by the brutal escalation of conflict in the Middle East.”

This was two days after Hamas terrorists went house to house, slaughtering more than 1,000 Israeli civilians. This was not an “escalation of conflict.” An “escalation of conflict” is when you say that your wife is acting just like her mom.

We were also not confronting struggle past and present. People had just been killed. If I went to a funeral and made a speech about other dead people, I’d get whatever punishment people dole out at funerals, which is probably just side eye.

This is also not the kind of thing you bring up in the third paragraph of a school email. Third paragraphs are for gentle reminders about not being tardy. Third paragraphs are, at most, for warnings about bringing another goddamn kale salad.

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I do not tell a lot of people this, but I’m Jewish. So, for the last few days, I’ve been feeling, as per our people’s tradition, unsafe.

I don’t mean physically unsafe, because being Jewish is about 15^th on the list of reasons even the most virulent antisemites want to beat me up.

I mean something more like “untrusting.” It’s not that I thought people on the far left supported Jews. Or people on the far right. Or people in general. I just didn’t know that the people who didn’t like Jews were those I considered my people.

Harvard student groups, an NYU law student organizations, a Yale associate professor, New Yorkers in Times Square, leftist politicians who are part of the Democratic Socialists of America, Black Lives Matter leaders, Australians outside the Sydney Opera House who chanted “gas the Jews.” They publicly stated that the massacre was an act of justice. Some danced in celebration. Some drew a heroic-looking image of the motorized parachuter who helped kill more than 260 people at the music festival celebrating Sukkot.  

These are people who live in the cosmopolitan centers of our country. Who belong to elite liberal organizations. What I’m getting at is: These are people who know a lot of Jews. If Jews aren’t comfortable in the Democratic Socialists of America, then where is left besides Broadway theater?

The head of my son’s school in no way said anything awful. But it was cautious. It withheld specific sympathy for those suffering. It’s similar to the wording in the email my lovely wife Cassandra got from the small, liberal, Northeast college she went to. This college felt the need to tell the members of their community, including alumni, this:

“I write as the horrific events in Israel and Gaza continue to unfold. I share the anguish many of you are feeling and condemn the violence and hatred that we are witnessing.”

These were not the vague sentiments issued after Ukraine was invaded, after George Floyd was murdered, or after 9/11. It’s not that a debate over the Middle East can’t be nuanced. It just can’t be nuanced two days after 1,300 civilians are murdered. Al-Qaeda had a point too. But I’m nervous about typing that last sentence 22 years after 9/11. On Substack.

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You know what Mr. Richardson, the principal of my New Jersey public high school, said when he gathered us in the auditorium after the Space Shuttle Challenger blew up? Nothing. Because he didn’t gather us. Neither did my elementary school principal when Reagan was shot.

Schools and companies are trying to fill a void they weren’t built to fill. They’re not churches. They’re not families. They suck at this. There was nothing about the devastating earthquake in Afghanistan in my son’s school’s email about the K-12 Health & Wellness Zoom, which makes me wonder if they don’t care. The “Homecoming Dance – Volunteers Needed” email had no mention whatsoever of the Armenians driven out of their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh. And I am still waiting to hear what the administration thinks about the struggle, past and present, that led to the brutal escalation of events in Congress that cost Kevin McCarthy his job as Speaker of the House.

Am I glad to know what my friends really think about Jewish people? No. I want to go back to last week.