Hey, tribe.
Before we get into today’s topic, I want to share an experience I had this morning. I think it’s likely that most of us have played Jewish Geography, and we know there’s rarely more than a degree or two of separation between ourselves and virtually any other Jew in the world.
Which brings me to what happened earlier today.
As we all know, internet bots are everywhere, and besides spreading disinformation, they collect info on the real accounts they manage to connect with. In this age where countless malign entities are compiling and keeping lists of Jews, we are definitely the target of plenty of those bots.
So a few hours ago, I received a friend request from a woman with a very Jewish-sounding name and a stereotypically Jewish face. Ordinarily, I would accept such a request in a flat second. One of the only good things about the last few months is the way it has broadened and deepened my Jewish community at every single level: local, national, international, in-person and virtual. I love the daily friend requests I’m now getting from Jews all over the world. Every single one of them makes my heart sing.
But I didn’t accept hers. Why not? Because we had no mutual friends. If she was a real person, this wouldn’t be impossible, of course, but it would be very freaking unlikely. So unlikely that I don’t know whether I’ve ever experienced it before. Often, Jews who friend me have over a hundred friends in common with me — this is not the least bit unusual.
So before accepting, I scanned her profile and sure enough, it’s full of images and links but no content actually generated by “her” and it doesn’t go back very far. This little litmus test of mine had not led me astray.
And I wanted to share this anecdote with all of you because it truly reflects the fact that we’re a family, and a close-knit family at that. We are all connected, all on some level related, and even though it was irritating to know this request came from a bot — a bot “smart” enough to have discerned I open my door most readily to other Jews — I couldn’t help loving the truth that Jews inevitably have other family members in common; the opposite is the very rare exception.
Anyway, let’s get into what’s happening in my neck of the woods right now. My son came home yesterday with a missive from “Students for Peace”, urging the student body throughout the Portland Public School (PPS) district to “Strike for Palestine!”
The State of Israel is committing a genocide on the Palestinian people of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The number of fatalities has surpassed 30,000, 1/3 of which were vulnerable children, it began.
Then this group of kids went on to say they had 3 primary demands:
Educate students and PPS staff members on the genocide occurring in Gaza, Zionism, the Israeli occupation, and settler colonialism. This includes mandatory training for educators where the voices of Palestinian and SWANA (Southwest Asian & North African) community members are uplifted. Anti-racist lessons about the causes of the Israeli occupation and the intergenerational trauma caused by settler colonialism in Palestine need to be incorporated into teachings in all schools and grade levels.
And the next sentence is the one I found most chilling of all: “This education needs to detach Judaism and Jewish people as a whole from the ideology of Zionism and its roots in white supremacy and imperialism.”
(It’s the words “detach” and “Jewish people” I find especially chilling. If they were trying to say we need to distinguish Judaism from Zionism so as not to be anti-Semitic but only anti-Zionist (very rarely, if ever, possible in my opinion, but we can set that aside for the moment), or differentiate Judaism from Zionism, that sentence might seem more benign. But to detach Jewish people from the ideology of Zionism reads like a wish to inter us in re-education camps until we’ve renounced our Satanic attachment to our homeland.)
The next two demands were:
Release a district-wide statement condemning the genocide in Gaza, honoring the 30,000+ civilians killed by the state of Israel in the past five months, and calling for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
Cut all current and future ties with companies and organizations complicit in the violent settler colonial occupatation of Palestine by Israel… we demand that PPS refuse future contracts with companies on the BDS Movement list, as well as products by those companies. [The FAQ section of the embedded BDS link states: “The BDS movement calls for a boycott of all the products of all Israeli — and international —companies that are involved in Israel’s violations of Palestinian rights. Virtually all Israeli companies are complicit to some degree in Israel’s system of occupation and apartheid.”
So of course there is a staggering level of disinformation baked into every single line of this call to action, and just to go through it and flag each falsehood would take forever. Rather than do that here — which of course I have and will to continue to do on an ongoing basis in my substack over time — I would encourage you to engage with the young people in your own lives who are fired up with similar convictions and demands around this conflict.
Again, rather than simply attempt to educate anyone, first let them reveal — to themselves as well as to you — what they don’t know (and I am here to tell you, after doing this for years and years, that upwards of 95% of the time, they don’t know anything).
My suggestion is to play a brief and friendly game of 20 Questions.
Here are 20 questions of my own to get you started:
Do you know there’s a legal definition of genocide?
Do you know what that definition is?
Did you know it means not merely to kill a certain number of people, but to attempt to eradicate a group of people?
Are you aware that if Israel’s goal was to eradicate the Palestinians, they all would have died on October 8th?
Are you familiar with the international standard with regard to a war’s civilian-to-combatant ratio?
Are you aware that Israel’s civilian-to-combatant ratio is not only no higher than that average international standard, but in fact — in the context of modern urban warfare — it is extraordinarily low? So low that it is, in fact, unprecedented in the history of modern urban warfare, and will likely be a subject of study for military analysts for years to come?
Since you propose educating students about Zionism, do you know the definition of Zionism?
If so, how is Zionism different from the aspiration of any other indigenous group to achieve self-determination in their ancestral homeland?
Are you in favor of indigenous rights?
If so, what does that mean to you?
And if so, why are the Jews the only indigenous group in the world who don’t deserve the same support?
Do you know the definition of settler colonialism and/or imperialism?
If so, can you tell me how either definition applies to Israel?
Is there any other minority group whom you wish to “detach” from their heritage and their loyalties?
Where did you get the number 30,000?
If you traced that number back to its only origin, the claim by Gaza’s Ministry of Health, are you aware that Gaza’s Ministry of Health is Hamas?
Can you think of a single reason to trust what Hamas says?
You seem not only certain that 30,000 have died but you refer to every one of them as civilians. Why do you put Hamas militants into the same category as civilians, especially children?
Are you aware that in order to boycott all Israeli products, you’d need to start by giving up your cellphone and just about half the scientific and medical breakthroughs known to humankind? Are you serious about a boycott or do you just hope to make yourself feel better about your own country’s REAL land theft and genocide and ethnic cleansing and centuries of brutal slavery by slapping “CONTAMINATED” stickers on Sabra hummus?
If you didn’t know the answers to some or most or all of these questions, why do you feel entitled to dictate the specific forms of education an entire city-wide district should be receiving?
The goal of these questions is not to humiliate people (though depending on how anti-Semitic they are, that can be a fun perk). It’s to yield a clear reflection of how little they know about an issue they are talking about with strident authority. It’s a civil and cordial way to expose their dearth of knowledge. And the hope is that once they realize how out of their depth they are, they’re more open to hearing other perspectives.
Young Jews today, especially our kids, are feeling overwhelming pressure to turn against Israel. Regardless to what degree we are able to educate their peers, we absolutely must make sure our own kids know these truths. Please, do whatever it takes to fortify them with love for, and pride in, our people and our homeland.
This does not mean we should “indoctrinate” them — I’m furious with Israel’s leadership and extremists on a fairly regular basis, and my children have witnessed the suffering that’s brought me throughout their lives. They know Israel has made many mistakes and done many terrible things. But they also know we would be hard-pressed to find a better country on this planet, and they feel the loyalty their father and I feel to the Jewish nation for all that it has been to our people and all the marvelous gifts it has brought to the world.
Tomorrow I can (almost!) promise you a purely uplifting post. I’m going to try as hard as I can to bring you into Shabbat with the best feeling I can.
Until then, as always, fierce love to all my lions of Zion. Chazak v’ematz. Am Yisrael Chai.
Thank you, Elissa!
👏👏👏 Thank you! My daughter has friends who plan to join the walkout and I’m strugggglllliiiing. Please let me know if you are able to connect with the board. 🪬