Jews and the progressive left
My name is Daniel Radin. I grew up in Glen Rock, went to high school in Hackensack, and in 2017 I started at Stony Brook’s MD/PhD program in Long Island, where I am set to graduate this coming May.
When I arrived at Stony Brook we learned biochemistry and anatomy, and we also learned from a curriculum that was infused with a progressive bent. Over the past several years we were taught about racial disparities in medicine, how to better care for patients who identified as gay or transgender, and above all else, that we should never, under any circumstances, perform a microaggression. This is to say that we should never say or do anything that may communicate a negative attitude toward a different group.
At the time, I didn’t think much of this, nor did I believe these lessons came into conflict with my Jewish identity. After all, Jews were on the frontlines of the civil and gay rights movements. We have a good track record of looking out for the downtrodden, given that we know all too well what it is like to be oppressed.
But oddly enough, one lesson in particular stood out to me. There was an idea or underlying theme that you should remain a victim, and that to be a victim was somehow moral. This didn’t sit well with me, especially as a Jew, because regardless of what is done to us, we are taught to keep moving forward. We are taught to make something of ourselves, regardless of circumstances that, typically, are far from ideal. We are taught never to assume a victimhood mentality. This, I believe, is a truly beautiful precept of our culture.
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And then October 7 happened, and the metaphoric masks came off.
The same people who always seemed to be against bigotry and microaggressions now seemed to be calling for Jews to be excluded from campus and for the decimation of the one Jewish state. In fact, they seemed to be calling for the annihilation of the one state in the Middle East in which the gays and lesbians, people they claim to love so much, are actually accepted, and are not killed for being their genuine authentic selves. It was as if these people applied their societal victim/victimizer framework to a conflict they knew nothing about, in an effort to make sense of a part of the world that, save Israel, held the opposite social positions of everything they held dear.
I have seen Jewish colleagues in the medical and graduate schools at Stony Brook try to reason with some of these people, and point out the liberal inclusive democracy that is the state of Israel. Unfortunately, many of these progressive types won’t hear it. Progressives like Ta-Nehisi Coates believe Palestinians are the ultimate oppressed class, and with that label comes the permission to do whatever it is that they want to their Israeli oppressors – the Nazi-like nature of October 7 be damned.
Many American Jews have felt extreme political unease over the past year. They marched with Black Lives Matter, only to find that after October 7 BLM Chicago posted a picture of a paraglider on Twitter, leaving no doubt that it supported what Hamas did at the Nova Festival.
But I think in all this confusion a clear thought comes into view: We as Jews are called help victims, with the hope that one day the people we help will become victors in their own right. Many progressives, especially on university campuses today, believe in creating a permanent victim class, marked with a badge of morality. These two viewpoints simply cannot coexist.
We are Jews. We accomplish so much. It is a miracle, blessed by God, that Israel became what it is today, and we should never apologize for being extraordinary, because that’s what we are – absolutely extraordinary. We are called to be a light unto nations, to help people forge better lives, and to be wildly charitable.
And if there are those who say that we don’t belong, that we are somehow oppressive colonizers, then we should leave them to their own devices. Because at the end of the day I believe it is better to be alone than to be around people who make us feel truly lonely.
I know political recalibrations can be scary, and that many people have considered themselves progressive for decades at this point. But Jews are pretty good at adapting. After all, we have been through worse.
Dr. Daniel Radin grew up in Glen Rock, where his family belonged to the Glen Rock Jewish Center, and he graduated from the Academy for Medical Science and Technology in Hackensack. He’s now finishing his medical degree at Stony Brook.
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