Courage Is A Muscle

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

They say you should do something that scares you every day.

Well, yesterday I did something that scared me.

I finally spoke out about progressive darling, literary megastar and Pultizer-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen who is almost universally adored by the left.

He just announced his retirement from teaching (and his position as department chair at USC), and he posted the syllabus of the last class he taught, titled The Question of Palestine.

Of course it included all the usual pick-me Jews: Peter Beinart, Ilan Pappe, Gideon Levy, Judith Butler, M. Gessen.

But where I really hit the wall on my own longtime silence re: Nguyen was seeing Susan Abulhawa and Mohammed El-Kurd among the names — the former not only as required reading, but also invited as a special guest to address the class via Zoom, and thanked warmly for her willingness to do so afterward.

In case you’re unfamiliar with these fine folks, here is a recent tweet by Abulhawa, the most popular Palestinian writer alive:

And here is El-Kurd speaking at a terrorist rally in the UK after October 7, saying that “we have to normalize massacres as the status quo.”

Nguyen’s Facebook post came to my attention because a friend in a private Jewish group wrote that the fawning comments beneath this syllabus — many from friends of hers — filled her with despair.

And this of course is what induces fear.

Yes, it’s bad that such a formidable progressive figure could think nothing of platforming and elevating such violent eliminationist voices.

But it’s worse that so few of his friends and followers are troubled by that.

Often when I choose not to wade into a Jew-hating cesspit, I feel as if there’s an invisible elastic band constraining me.

But there are days when that band just snaps and yesterday was one of them.

Beneath his syllabus, I posted this response:

And here is what I posted on my own page:

Adam Louis-Klein posts often about the necessity of speaking up in such situations, but he cautions Jews to heed our own personal safety at the same time. He advises posting as part of a coordinated group action, and he recommends a burner account concealing one’s real identity to avoid doxxing and personal harassment.

I’m not disparaging this counsel, but it’s not for me. It’s very important to me to stand and be counted as my authentic self, and to assume the risks that come with that. On my best days, I’m willing to nail my flag to the mast and twist in the wind all by myself if I have to.

But here’s one redemptive aspect of that choice: to my profound gratitude, I find that in these situations, I’m rarely as alone as I think I’ll be, once I’ve stepped out on that limb.

I’ll never forget a similar decision to speak out in opposition to the left’s cancellation of Al Franken.

As I read over that post from nearly a decade ago, I can recall the fear in the most visceral way. As you can see, I wrote a million pleading and placating things before and after daring to write my real opinion. My stomach was roiling. My hands were shaking. I was so afraid of being a persona non grata by the following morning: hated, cancelled, dragged, my progressive card revoked.

No one was more surprised than me by what happened next. There was dead silence for a little while, then a tentative agreement, then another, and then a landslide. There were 442 positive emoticons. There were almost 200 (!!!) comments, almost all of them in agreement, including many famous names.

In a way, it was a formative experience. When one person dares to say the emperor has no clothes, it becomes easier and easier for others to say what they’re really thinking.

During the height of public cancellations, I was often struck by how fast and how far a person who’d seemed universally adored, mobbed by panting sycophants, would fall.

It was the dark side of the emperor’s clothes. Many secretly resented that person all along but were too afraid to say so. When one person finally flipped that switch and it became safe to follow, it suddenly emerged that countless people hated them all along.

I have to tell you: this spectacle was almost as depressing to me as the former silence of all those folks. Mob mentality is frightening and distressing on either side of the divide.

I understand staying silent when it’s frightening to speak up, and I understand the joy of piling on once it’s no longer dangerous.

I’ve done both of those things.

But I like myself much better when I speak out in spite of my fear.

And here’s the thing: it gets easier. Look at that skittish, scared post about Al Franken almost a decade ago: I’m not that person anymore.

I’m not saying I feel no fear. I do. I’m as afraid as anyone else of a formidable figure like Nguyen.

But what makes it easier is the knowledge that there is nothing, really, to lose. Anyone who could or would defend the inclusion of those figures, set in a positive light, in a college classroom is no friend of mine, to put it mildly. They’ve already signed my (and my children's) death warrant. So what does it matter to me what they say or do?

Yesterday I got several non-Jewish responses that surprised and gratified me.

Two were from non-Jewish friends of Nguyen. With no identifying details, I’m posting each below:

And one non-Jewish friend with whom I’ve experienced a lot of tension around the I/P conflict even commented publicly — which meant a lot to me because she’s a pretty high-profile literary figure herself. And she’s no fan of Israel but she is still appalled by the gleeful and murderous Jew hatred teeming on the progressive left.

So here’s the takeaway I’m hoping to leave you with, fam: I’m not saying to wade into every antisemitic swamp on the internet. None of us have the time, bandwidth or masochism for that, I devoutly hope.

I’m saying if the person endangering Jews is of consequence, if they have a lot of impressionable followers, if you think they aspire to be a decent human being (unlike, say, a Nick Fuentes or a Shaun King) and if they are actively putting regular Jewish citizens at risk, I believe it’s often worth taking a stand.

Especially if the issue is as cut-and-dried as platforming figures urging lethal violence on random citizens.

And courage is a muscle. Every time you stand up, you make it easier for yourself the next time and you make it easier for everyone else.

Okay, Yidden. I’ll be back with you very soon.

As always, I’m sending you love and fortitude in the meantime.

Am Yisrael Chai.