Whither liberal Zionism & other phenomena: My list of notable 2014 articles

So you read every single article in +972 this year? That’s great. Honestly, we thank you. But that’s not enough for Lisa Goldman. A comprehensive list of must-read articles you probably missed this year, covering everything from slavery reparations to Gaza to the crisis of liberal Zionism on the Upper West Side.

Illustrative photo by Shutterstock.com

The other night my sister and I were talking about end-of-year lists and how much we enjoy reading them — the book and cinema critics’ picks, the news and photo editors’ choices and certainly the food and restaurant reviewers’ favorite articles. The New York Times Sunday Magazine‘s The Lives They Lived is always moving and interesting, too. Then we started naming articles we’d read over the previous year that had left a lasting impression. My sister pointed out that I’d posted an awful lot of articles about Gaza on Facebook. Could I choose one or two that I thought were the best? Hm.

The following is a list of articles that stayed in my mind after I’d read them. Most of them are about Israel-Palestine, but not all. They are listed randomly, with no ranking. I’ve also put together a sub-section of articles about the crisis among liberal Zionists, for reasons explained below.

Articles that are not about Gaza (some about Israel)

The Case for Reparations, by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic

“Between 1882 and 1968, more black people were lynched in Mississippi than in any other state,” writes Coates near the beginning of this seminal, epic article for The Atlantic. But blacks were not just murdered and denied their civil rights. They were also robbed, systematically, of their property. A black person could spend his life working hard and acquiring property, only to have a white person arbitrarily take it from him — and there was no legal recourse. And even after Jim Crow, government housing and education policies have denied blacks their rights, exploited them and marginalized them. I read this article slowly, twice. And I’ll probably read it again. It started a discussion that has only come to seem more urgent over the past few months, with a series of high profile incidents involving unarmed black men dying at the hands of white police officers.

The Outcast, by Rachel Aviv for the New Yorker (alternate title: “The Shame of Borough Park”)

It’s well known that ultra-Orthodox Jews are an insular lot who keep their dirty laundry well hidden, dealing with crimes within the community via their own rabbinical court system. What’s perhaps less well known is the the extent to which leaders of Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox community have colluded with the police and prosecutors, trading votes and influence for communal self rule. This is the story of how that dirty deal ruined the lives of ultra-Orthodox boys who were sexually molested by a member of the community, and how the victims were victimized over and over again — by the community, which marginalized and shunned them, and by the New York City prosecutor’s office shameful decision to deny them justice.

Tales of the Trash, by Peter Hessler for the New Yorker

The New Yorker‘s Egypt correspondent weaves a rich, insightful tale about post-Mubarak Egypt via the life and words of Sayyed Ahmed, his neighborhood garbage collector, or zabal. This story caused a minor furor among Egyptians on Facebook, particularly those who live in the author’s Zamalek neighborhood, who concluded that the illiterate garbage man knows far, far too much about their lives. But now we might know rather more about Sayyed’s personal life than he’d like, too.

Europe’s Jewish Problem: the Misunderstood Rise of European Anti-Semitism, by Yascha Mounk for Foreign Affairs

In which Yascha Mounk, author of Stranger in My Own Country — a Jewish Family in Modern Germany and a recent Harvard PhD, acknowledges the recent rise of European anti-Semitism but disputes the conclusion that it is caused by Muslim immigration to the continent. Money quote:

Tensions between Muslims and Jews are a real problem, and one that has been swept under the carpet for too long; but an even greater problem is the tendency of wily politicians to play Jews and Muslims against each other for purposes of their own. The real question of Europe’s future is not whether Muslim immigrants will learn to tolerate Jews, but whether, in countries such as Sweden, Italy, and Poland the majority can learn to think of Muslims and Jews as true members of the nation.

The Collapse of the American Jewish Center, by Sarah Posner for Religious Dispatches

The polarization of the American Jewish community is more apparent than ever following last summer’s war in Gaza. Sarah Posner’s big picture article shows that the institutions that once represented the Jewish communal consensus, no longer speak for the secular, progressive Jews who are critical of Israeli policy.

Paying Ransoms, Europe Bankrolls Qaeda Terror, by Rukmini Callamachi for the New York Times

This, my friends, is real journalism. Rumini Callamachi’s deeply reported, carefully documented story opens with a German official bringing a suitcase full of euros to Mali. The money is officially for humanitarian causes, but in fact will be given to Islamic extremists for the release of European hostages. Callamachi’s story is not a binary, simplistic tale about the dangers of negotiating with extremists, but a nuanced, insightful tale of moral complexity and political realities. Callamachi’s personal experiences as a reporter in Mali are woven into the story, making for riveting reading.

Going the Distance: On and Off the Road with Obama, by David Remnick for the New Yorker

The New Yorker‘s editor-in-chief followed the president around for a few months and wrote this very thoughtful, insightful article about the man and the leader. This is the definitive article about the president and his presidency, I think. I was most struck by this observation, which is actually among the more prosaic bits of the article. But it made me think that Obama is not having much fun being president. Perhaps only people with what Remnick calls “near-pathological personalities” can really enjoy the job.

Obama can be a dynamic speaker before large audiences and charming in very small groups, but, like a normal human being and unlike the near-pathological personalities who have so often held the office, he is depleted by the act of schmoozing a group of a hundred as if it were an intimate gathering.

Re-learning history: A tribute to North Africa’s Jewish artists, by Ophir Toubul for +972 Magazine

This is a wonderful overview of the Jewish artists who were stars of the North African music scene up until the 1960s, by which time most had emigrated. But there was a time when their performances defined both the classical and the contemporary canon. The post includes video clips and some smart observations.

Why Russian Jews Don’t Want to Hear About Being Saved, by Lea Zeltserman for the Forward

When I was a child in the 1970s, saving the Soviet Jewry was the leading cause for the diaspora Jewish community, uniting us all. We were taught about heroic Jews who had sacrificed their jobs and their freedom to advocate for the right to practice Judaism or immigrate to Israel. Then the communist regimes collapsed and the Jews who wanted to leave, could. And did. Lea Zeltserman was one of them, immigrating to Canada with her family as a child. In this article she explains why Jews from the former Soviet Union don’t identify with the movement to rescue them. Money quote:

I’m going to just say it: Many Russian Jews feel patronized and condescended to when it comes to the Soviet Jewry movement. There is a sense that the harder part of their own lives’ journeys — the immigratzya itself — does not seem to matter to those who now own the story. After all, countless ordinary Russian Jews endured the real struggle, the trauma, the risks. Not surprisingly, Russian Jews are apathetic or uninterested in the movement as it is now presented.

So Long Israel; Hello Berlin, by Sally McGrane for The New Yorker

Finally, a nuanced and observant article about the wave of Israeli immigration to Berlin. No cliches about the hummus restaurant, the gay-Israeli disco or the Hebrew radio station. This is real insight about what draws Israelis to Berlin, and it’s not sentimental.

A Family’s Journey from Armenia to Syria and Back Again, by Alia Malek for Guernica

I’m cheating a bit because this article was actually published in 2013, but it didn’t receive enough attention at the time and that’s a huge pity, because it really is one of the most beautifully written, insightful articles about Syria I’ve read. Alia Malek focuses on an Armenian family that came to Syria to escape the genocide at the beginning twentieth century. They settled in and ultimately became prosperous Syrians, part of the fabric of that diverse country. Now they are uprooting themselves again to escape Syria’s civil war – but this time they are returning to Armenia. And somehow, going home has come to mean going into exile.

Feeling Good About Feeling Bad, by Nathan Thrall for the London Review of Books

Nathan Thrall wrote so many excellent articles about Israel-Palestine this year that it was difficult to choose just one (see, for example, his piece on the “delusions” of U.S. diplomacy toward Israel-Palestine that was published in the New York Review of Books). But I think his review of Ari Shavit’s much-praised book, “My Promised Land,” is really the best of the lot. The title sums up exactly why I disliked the book so intensely, but the body of the article explains in detail both its flaws and its errors, as well as why the very nature of its appeal to so many diaspora Jews exposes their tragic blindness to reality.

Articles about Gaza

Never Ask Me About Peace Again, by Asmaa Alghoul for Al Monitor

Asmaa Alghoul is a Palestinian journalist in Gaza, a mother and a feminist. She is worldly, open, conciliatory and openly critical of Hamas. During last summer’s Gaza war she, like so many people I know and/or follow on social media, suffered extreme personal loss that destroyed, or all-but destroyed, their interest in conciliation. Quote:

My father’s brother, Ismail al-Ghoul, 60, was not a member of Hamas. His wife, Khadra, 62, was not a militant of Hamas. Their sons, Wael, 35, and Mohammed, 32, were not combatants for Hamas. Their daughters, Hanadi, 28, and Asmaa, 22, were not operatives for Hamas, nor were my cousin Wael’s children, Ismail, 11, Malak, 5, and baby Mustafa, only 24 days old, members of Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or Fatah. Yet, they all died in the Israeli shelling that targeted their home at 6:20 a.m. on Sunday morning.

On the Slaughter, by Peter Cole for the Paris Review

During the third week of the war on Gaza, Peter Cole wrote an erudite, subtle response to the manner in which Benjamin Netanyahu had interpreted a famous poem called “On the Slaughter,” by Haim Nachman Bialik (Bialik later became the poet laureate of Israel). Netanyahu quoted a line about revenge, using it as a means of justifying Israel’s military operation against the Palestinians. But Cole points out that the poem, its context and the word “revenge” meant something entirely different (not revenge!) from what Netanyahu implied. The poem, Cole points out, was not even Israeli. Quote:

…it was written long before the state was founded and very far from it. “On the Slaughter” was the thirty-year-old Odessan Hayim Nahman Bialik’s immediate response to the April 1903 pogroms in the Bessarabian town of Kishinev, where some forty-nine Jews were slashed, hacked, and cudgeled to death, or drowned in outhouse feces, and hundreds were wounded over the course of several days. Women and girls were raped repeatedly. The Jewish part of town was decimated. Netanyahu quoted just two lines, carefully avoiding the one preceding them: “Cursed be he who cries out: Revenge!”

Three Men, a Tent and Some Shrubs: The Backstory of our Hamas Report, by Sreenivasan Jain for NDTV

At the tail end of the war last summer, an Indian reporter named Sreenivasan Jain and his team became famous in Israel for being the only reporters in Gaza who saw and filmed Hamas militants in the act of setting up a mobile rocket launcher from a civilian area. In fact, they were setting up the launcher right outside Jain’s hotel room. The video report went viral, becoming Exhibit A for the Israeli government because it lent support to their narrative — i.e, that the heavy civilian casualties in Gaza were unavoidable, because Hamas was using civilians as “human shields.”

In his response, Jain takes everyone to task. He wonders, for example, how he and his team were the only reporters who noticed the rocket launcher from their hotel room, which was in the same hotel where so many other foreign correspondents were staying at the time. And while he does not shy away from criticizing Hamas’s military tactics, he rejects proportionality between Gaza and Israel: “The death toll – close to 1800 Palestinians killed to about 60 Israelis – hardly needs restating. We know that compared to Israel’s firepower, Hamas’s rockets are a minor threat…The rocket we saw, in all probability, must have been the one of the 1000s that landed in open areas.”

Jain was upset at seeing his report used by Israel for propaganda purposes, and that is one of the main reasons he wrote his response, but of course it went almost unnoticed. The original narrative was too appealing to the propagandists.

Fairly soon after it aired, it was distressing to find that the story had become Israel’s ‘I told you so’ moment, an independent endorsement proof. In their eyes, that the media has finally acknowledged Hamas’s dubious military tactics (the video was shared on the Israel Defense Force’s social media platforms; it was also featured as a brief clip at a Netanyahu press conference). In turn this provoked sharp reactions from (some of) those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, who accused us of ‘betrayal.’ Just four days back, they praised us for our report from Rafah in south Gaza where the hunt for a so-called missing Israeli soldier had unleashed carnage. (The IDF did not re-tweet or ‘like’ that report)

In Fatal Flash, Gaza Psychologist Switches Roles, Turning into a Trauma Victim, by Anne Barnard for the New York Times

Anne Barnard did some of the very best print reporting from Gaza during the war. In this piece, she profiles Dr. Hassan al-Zeyada, a Gaza psychologist who specialized in PTSD and related trauma. Then on July 21 he became one of those victims. His mother, three brothers and two additional members of his family were killed when their family home was demolished in an Israeli air strike. Quote:

He took a mental step back, to diagnose the hallmarks of trauma in himself: He was exhibiting dissociation, speaking in the second person to distance himself from pain, as well as denial. When he heard about new shelling near where his family lived in the Bureij refugee camp, he picked up the phone to call his oldest brother there. He had forgotten that the house was already gone, his brother already dead.

Whither Liberal Zionism?

The Gaza war sparked an anguished outpouring from Jewish journalists who identify with liberal Zionism, which basically advocates for a two-state solution along the 1948 demarcation lines — one for the Jews and one for the Palestinians. My feeling is that liberal Zionists, who are mostly English-speaking diaspora Jews living in North America, England and Australia, need to ask some more difficult questions pertaining to ethnic particularism and Jewish privilege, but that is a separate issue.

It seems that liberal Zionists are now having a very serious identity crisis, as it’s becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the reality — that there will probably never be a negotiated two-state solution. But I’ve been impatient and not very compassionate with their identity crisis, because they’ve been ignoring that reality for far too long. And I often think they’re just upset now primarily because the gang around Netanyahu is so vulgar, and so rude to Obama. I wish they had spoken up a long, long time ago. And that they were less upset about their own identity crises and more about the people who are suffering on the ground from living without any basic civil rights, ground down under the boot of military occupation or reduced to second-class citizen status in the state of the Jews.

Following is a very partial list of articles about the much-ballyhooed death of liberal Zionism. Most are by distressed liberal Zionist journalists, who seem to be primarily Ashkenazi men in their 40s and 50s. But some are by critics of those who embraced the ideology in the first place. I list them in no order and without commentary. They really speak for themselves.

Zionism and its Discontents, by Roger Cohen for the New York Times

Liberal Zionism: It can’t be dead because it never existed, by Asher Schechter for Haaretz

Israel’s Move to the Right Challenges Diaspora Jews, by Antony Lerman for the New York Times

Can Liberal Zionists Count on Hillary Clinton, by Jason Horowitz for the New York Times

Israel’s One State Reality, by David Remnick for the New Yorker

The Perennial Dilemma of liberal Zionism, by Ran Greenstein for +972 Magazine

Is Liberal Zionism Impossible? by Bernard Avishai for the New Yorker

So You Really Think Liberal Zionism is Dead? by J.J. Goldberg for the Forward

Liberal Zionism after Gaza, by Jonathan Freedland for the New York Review of Books

Tragedy or Political Correctness? Ari Shavit and the Confusion of the Zionist Liberal Left, by Omri Boehm for the L.A. Review of Books

Israel’s Big Question, by Thomas Friedman for the New York Times

The Community of Expulsion: For Israel, a Time of Self-Scrutiny, by Roger Cohen for the New York Times