Not Only for Ourselves

Earlier this month, author Matt Stoller waded into the already-simmering waters of Jewish discourse with an incendiary assertion: that antisemitism is not a political problem in America and community safety concerns can be dismissed as “whining.” It is easy for reasonable people to condemn these statements, and everyone should, because they are wrong morally and factually. What’s more challenging is to reject his subtler, underlying view, that our community is falling apart under the weight of “the internal contradictions of trying to be both liberal humanists and ethnonationalists.” This view assumes an oversimplified moral dichotomy that is much more pervasive in the Jewish community than outright denial of antisemitism, one that is often shared by the political left and right and more dangerous for its superficial appeal.

To be sure, there is a real clash of perspectives dividing our people, especially within and with regard to Israel. Some of this is inevitable when it comes to contentious issues of geopolitics, government policy, and political ideology. But the more general moral dichotomy, and many of its other manifestations, does not need to be this way and should not put us so at odds with each other.

If we are not only for ourselves, who are we?

In many ways, the question of how we should think and act as Jews begins with the question of who we are. The contestation of our ethical conceptions often reflects tacit assumptions about our identity and position in modern society, and when these assumptions fail, the result is deficient or even absurd normative conclusions.

We often talk past each other by asserting, on the one hand, that Jews are (globally) a vulnerable, persecuted minority group in need of protection, or on the other, that we are an economically and socially successful group with many privileges as well as resources we can contribute toward the betterment of the world, especially in the United States. It’s well known but under-appreciated in our community that both of these are true to a great extent, but also simplistic and incomplete, both on their own and taken together. Making matters even messier is that both of these claims have elements of truth and, at the same time, both contribute to age-old, ugly antisemitic tropes that make it difficult to turn down the emotional temperature of the conversation and sort out what’s true and what it means for us.

In practice, this binary conception of Jews’ position in modern societies – that we are either a targeted minority with substantiated concerns about physical safety and social acceptance, or else an influential, privileged class whose focus should be on using our power wisely – gives rise to a false choice between protecting ourselves, serving our own community interests, versus participating in secular social causes, maintaining a broader perspective about large-scale issues in the world. Essentially, the stale dichotomy of Jews as vulnerable victims versus privileged agents corresponds all too neatly with a moral dichotomy of parochial self-regard versus social justice campaigning. Although this has not always been the case, today’s advocates of the former view tend to align with an ethical position known as particularism, while the latter align with the contrary position, known as universalism.

The problem with either extreme view is readily apparent in the Stoller episode: Jewish economic success (let alone the existence of a handful of billionaires) does not imply antisemitism is invented or exaggerated, as he claims. Conversely, the alarming trend of growing antisemitism does not negate the reality of our community’s success, the resources and standing many of us possess, or their relevance to our moral responsibilities. It is much easier to make sense of the obvious and troubling growth of antisemitic politics and violence alongside indicators of high status among much of the Jewish community if we abandon the expectation that all Jews occupy a single, monolithic position, or that an individual person’s entire range of experiences can be understood as a homogenous mass amenable to a crude categorization of “oppressed” or “not oppressed.” Few communities in the world exemplify the irreducible complexity of social status and identity better than the Jewish people, and it is unfortunate that even many in our own community fail to appreciate this complexity.

Instead of clinging to an unworkable simplistic dichotomy, we should replace it with an understanding that Jewish experience is simultaneously precarious and generative, multiple truths hold at the same time, and we can reflect those multiple truths in our real world activism and philanthropy. The dichotomous attitude is a dead end that divides and embitters our community while leading to misguided real-world action, whereas this richer understanding can point the way to a better, wiser future.

A particular kind of universalists

Fortunately, the Torah and our tradition provide ample support for this shift. In Leviticus chapter 19 we are famously commanded to love our neighbor as ourselves (where “neighbor” is often, but not always, interpreted to mean fellow Jews), but also, several verses later, to love the stranger who resides with us, because we were strangers in Egypt. These obligations exist side by side in the text just as they must in life.

Also instructive is the foundational element of Jewish particularism. Our people is set apart from other nations (Deuteronomy 7:6 and 14:2) because of the particular covenants our ancestors Abraham and Moses made with God (Exodus 19:5-6) that impose special responsibilities on Jewish people and impart meaning to our identity as a group. Surprisingly, though, this particularity does not mean we should turn away from the rest of the world, but the opposite: one aspect of our particular identity and responsibility is a mission with respect to humanity as a whole. The prophetic tradition makes this clear. Isaiah (42:6 and 49:6) teaches us that we are meant to serve as “a light of nations.” Our particularity, then, partially consists of universalism, rather than conflicting with it. The uniqueness of our Jewish identity serves as the foundation and motivation for a universally oriented mission of service.

The sage Hillel captured this well in his famous series of questions: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, who am I? And if not now, when?” (Pirkei Avot 1:14) In these questions, Hillel captures the necessity and urgency of balancing consideration for the internal and the external, one’s own as well as others. There are many ways to interpret his questions, but they remind us that Jews have been wrestling with questions of how to weigh these competing interests since the early days of the rabbinic tradition.

Furthermore, for all the heated rhetoric, a balance of particular and universal is already the way Jews have tended to live out their values in practice in recent history. A 2022 study from Indiana University and the Ruderman Family Foundation found that 74% of American Jewish households donated to charity that year, with 67% of households giving to secular causes and 53% donating to religious causes. Together, these imply that around half of American Jewish households donate to both Jewish and secular causes in a given year, and that roughly two-thirds of donor households split their donations across the particular and the universal. According to a Jumpstart report in 2014, about 60% of the money donated by American Jews went to Jewish organizations while 40% went to non-Jewish organizations, though there was some overlap in their causes and activities.

Our ability to balance multiple priorities extends beyond just financial contributions. In the early twentieth century, Jewish immigrants organized across ethnic and religious lines to build the American labor movement while simultaneously establishing the major institutions of Jewish self-defense, including the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, in response to the antisemitism and nativism of the era. Generations later, while fighting to free Russian Jews from the oppression of the Soviet Union, the Jewish community advocated for a universal right of emigration. This advocacy culminated in the passage of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment in 1974, which limited trade with countries that denied this right to any of its citizens.

In each instance, Jews did not wait for their own troubles to be resolved before attending to the world’s, nor did they neglect specifically Jewish issues while acting on universal moral demands. They understood, as our tradition teaches, that the two obligations are not mutually exclusive. In the present day, the same moral spirit can still inspire us and renew our commitment to helping others, Jewish or not.

If not now, when?

It’s time to align our narratives and community discourse with the realities of our behavior and the depth of our tradition. As we do this, we have an opportunity to develop a modernized working theory of our ethical commitments in today’s world and how we act on them. That project will be the subject of this newsletter going forward.

It’s also worth noting that the stakes of this debate extend far beyond the confines of the Jewish world. In future posts, I plan to examine the version of this discourse happening at the national and global levels as one of the defining conflicts of our time. But the Jewish debate deserves to be understood first on its own terms.

The balance between particular and universal that is central to the liberal tradition has fostered the flourishing of the Jewish people more than any other system in history. It would be a mistake to allow ourselves to see this balance as conflicting with who we are and our ability to preserve our tradition. The Torah, and the intellectual history it has engendered, teaches the importance of balancing multiple worthy moral considerations. In moments of crisis and upheaval, we would be wise not to retreat from that task.

Author’s note: I lead the Jewish Social Impact Network (JSI), which helps people improve the world by connecting Jewish values and tradition with a practical vision of social action focused on impact. To support JSI’s work, please subscribe and share this newsletter in your network. You can get in touch with JSI by commenting or by visiting jewishsocialimpact.org.