Widening Our Bridge

Children Of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

How is everyone mid-week? I’m getting a serious lift from the announcement of the National Jewish Book Awards.

Our own beloved Sarah Hurwitz won with As A Jew in the category of Contemporary Jewish Life and Practice.

Our equally beloved Rabbi Angela Buchdahl’s Heart Of A Stranger was a finalist in the category of Autobiography and Memoir.

The lovely and brilliant Zeeva Bukai won with The Anatomy Of Exile in the category of Debut Fiction.

And the incandescent Yardenne Greenspan, whose beautiful essay for JUDITH ran just yesterday, won with Dog in the category of Hebrew Fiction in Translation.

The most heartfelt, joyous mazal tov to them and all the other finalists and winners!

You can see the full list of these here.

This kind of treasure trove feels like a balm against all that’s going on around and against the Jewish world. It heightens my sense that — to paraphrase Walt Whitman — we are large; we contain multitudes.

And this is especially vital at a time when so much seems to be conspiring to diminish us. Lately I’ve been thinking of the first half of that Jewish mantra: the whole world is a narrow bridge.

In some ways, my own whole world has become quite narrow indeed.

It often feels as if two walls are closing in on me from opposite sides, leaving me a razor-thin path.

On one side is MAGA.

On the other is the Free Palestine movement.

And these two camps inform every single choice I make.

When I get a friend request, I search the person’s Facebook page for a series of keywords. Trump. Israel. Gaza.

If they’re a Trump voter, I hit delete.

If they’re anti-Israel, I delete.

If they nominally believe in Israel’s right to exist, but they use the word genocide about the Gaza War, I delete.

I do the same when I’m interested in a new writer or artist. If those red flags appear, I go no further into fandom.

I even do the same when giving away household items in my local Buy Nothing group. When a lot of different people want something I’m giving away, and I’m leaning toward one would-be recipient in particular, I do that same social media keyword scan.

And if those disqualifiers surface, they get nothing.

This process of elimination is far less fun when someone is very anti-Trump and also anti-Israel. Even worse is when someone is passionately pro-Israel and willing to be in bed with Trump. There’s this absolutely awful feeling that sets in — and this has happened to me a hundred times — when a new potential friend and I are bonding on our love for Israel and they say something like, “I’m not a huge fan of Trump, but…”

It always seems to start with that particular phrase. I’m not a huge fan of Trump probably means they voted for Trump. It always means I’m about to be subjected to their opinion that he’s been good for Israel. In one particularly heartbreaking case, it was a prelude to a very admired person telling me he’s not here for my Trump Derangement Syndrome.

I honestly have no words to convey the depth of my disappointment in anyone who uses that phrase about Trump haters. Even if they’re brilliant in other ways, it makes me question their judgment, moral compass and integrity.

And I feel the same way about the word genocide. It’s the brightest of red lines, an unequivocal deal-breaker. It’s the ultimate smear — worse than colonizer, worse than ethnic cleansing, worse than apartheid.

It’s the height of Holocaust inversion.

I will never forget how fast Israel’s response to the atrocities of October 7th were labeled genocide. It literally happened within the same week, and by none other than the now-mayor of New York City (among countless others), which is why I will never be able to feel a shred of warmth toward him no matter how handsome, charming or anti-Trump he might be.

But here’s a scrap of good news: some exciting things are happening here that feel as if they might be arrows to a brighter future.

I was contacted personally by a Congressional candidate in California who’s running as a pro-Israel Democrat, to talk about the possibility of marshalling support for his campaign.

And I was also approached about my potential involvement in a new PAC focused on supporting pro-Israel Democratic candidates in general.

When I started doing Jewish advocacy two years ago (nearly to the day — I launched this stack on 2/22/24), the overarching goal was to keep pro-Israel Jews on the left side of the political aisle. I can’t tell you how validating it is to be contacted by like-minded people with the same goal.

When you’re progressive and pro-Israel, you feel like a unicorn. And to some extent, we are unicorns. After all, we are assaulted daily with messages to the effect that it’s impossible to be both at the same time — whereas really, the irony is that Zionism is the most progressive of values.

At any rate, we need that pro-Israel exclusively Democratic PAC. We need it desperately. We need it now.

There can be no denying that AIPAC has lost the plot.

Their disastrous role in the debacle of a recent primary election in New Jersey is a prime illustration of how.

They wasted millions on attack ads against a pro-Israel moderate favored to win, while DMFI (Democratic Majority For Israel) — an existing pro-Israel Democratic PAC — threw its support behind a candidate with no real chance. As a result, in an overcrowded primary, the pro-Israel votes were distributed so widely that the winner was the one candidate of out eleven who’s anti-Israel and who has referred to the Gaza War as a genocide.

She won 29% of the district — a moderate, pro-Israel district. Put another way, 71% of this district is moderate and pro-Israel and now they’re stuck with a far left candidate who in no way represents them.

My friend Paige Wolf, a New Jersey resident and lifelong (until very recently) professional Democrat, breaks this down in her excellent substack, Freshly Baked Hell, here and here.

In any event, I would love nothing more than the chance to support left-leaning pro-Israel candidates in a meaningful and impactful way. If more comes of these two developments, you’ll be the first to know and the first invited to be involved.

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

Love and sustenance to you all in the meantime.

Am Yisrael Chai.