Until they can acknowledge their own culpability and suspend their cognitive dissonance, Jewish progressives will remain lost in the weeds of their dogmatic swamp.
I recently wrote a column discussing how liberal American Jews are feeling alienated from a progressive political establishment and Democratic Party that have become increasingly anti-Israel and antisemitic. A few days after publication, the results of a survey were reported showing that 44 percent of Jews polled (presumably liberal) held favorable views of New York socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani – despite his history of inflammatory rhetoric concerning Jews and Israel and the dramatic increase in antisemitic incidents in the city since his inauguration (including a recent stabbing by an assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar”)!
In contrast, only 33 percent expressed favorable views of Benyamin Netanyahu.
If any liberals who expressed dismay about progressive antisemitism also voiced approval of Mamdani, they may well have abdicated their right to complain because they actually helped facilitate its spread by lending credence to leftist radicals like Mamdani. To New York City’s mayor, demonization of Israel and delegitimization of Jewish nationhood are core tenets.
The approval of Mamdani by many liberals suggests their alarm over leftist Jew-hatred arises only from experiential discomfort when confronted, not any real awareness that the political ideology they hold dear nurtures and encourages the antisemitic impulse.
Though they may express shock when faced with hatred from fellow progressives, they cannot seem to bring themselves to renounce a political philosophy that has always portrayed Jews derisively as capitalists, money lenders, ethnocentric chauvinists, religious obscurantists, and a collective ghost nation that refuses to relinquish its national character and assimilate. The fact that many leftist Jews agree makes these stereotypes no less antisemitic.
And until they can acknowledge their own culpability and suspend their cognitive dissonance, they will remain lost in the weeds of their dogmatic swamp.
Cognitive dissonance refers to the psychological stress that results when actions conflict with convictions, which causes sufferers to alter their conduct or beliefs to mitigate resulting mental distress. This is precisely what Jewish liberals do by insisting naively that progressivism is morally consistent with Torah and socialism is benevolent and more conducive to Jewish values, continuity and survival than modern political conservatism.
As anybody who has actually read Karl Marx knows, such beliefs reflect ignorance of the socialist-to-communist arc that is central to Marxist theory. According to Marx, revolution is supposed to ignite a transformative process starting with (a) the socialist phase, in which the working class seizes control of government and the means of production and triggers the deterioration of state institutions, followed by (b) the communist state, where there are no economic or class distinctions, personal property rights, or individual liberties. The end result is a dictatorship no less totalitarian than Nazi Germany – and no less brutal. In point of fact, communist and socialist regimes since the twentieth century have been responsible for between eighty million and 140 million deaths respectively, according to estimates.
No stage of Marxism – whether communist or socialist – has ever produced a benevolent utopia, and certainly not one where Jews could survive as a people. And in presenting it as tolerant and inclusive, today’s democratic socialists ignore its tradition of anti-progressive moral dogmatism. Communist and socialist regimes were notoriously anti-gay, for example, deeming homosexuality a sign of bourgeois decadence. Clearly, socialism was never an ideological repository for modern progressive social values.
Moreover, Marxism conflicts with the Torah’s concern for human dignity, liberty and freedom, personal property rights, national obligation, and the sanctity of life. Our tradition certainly values social justice, as evidenced in the Torah portion of Ki Teitze (Sefer Devarim, 21:10-25:19) where we are commanded to care and provide for widows, orphans, and strangers, treat workers respectfully, and pay wages punctually. But the Torah does not prescribe social justice as a means for usurping state authority, abrogating individual liberties, or outlawing belief in a power higher than the secular collectivist state.
Whether they realize it or not, Jews who embrace socialism are endorsing a process that ultimately leads to the demise of their faith, culture, and identity.
Indeed, this is exactly what happened in the former Soviet Union, where the Jewish section of the Communist party (the “Yevsektsiya”) was tasked with rooting out Jewish observance, thought, and education. It was the Yevsektsiya that attempted to destroy Judaism by informing on those who continued to observe, closing synagogues and schools, seizing Jewish communal property, and outlawing the teaching of Torah, rabbinic literature, and Hebrew.
Despite the Yevsektsiya’s enthusiasm in persecuting those who remained faithful to their heritage, Stalin dissolved it in 1929 and ultimately ordered many of its members killed (including chairman Semyon Dimanstein) during the “Great Purge” from 1936 to 1938. That purge, in fact, was deemed necessary for eradicating the threat of Jewish “cosmopolitanism.” Clearly, oppressing their own people at Stalin’s behest did not save them from execution because of their ancestry.
Those who claim Marxism is tolerant are ignorant of its history. However, they seem guided by its same hateful impulse regarding Jews. Indeed, the left misses no opportunity to disparage Jewish tradition, delegitimize Israel, displace Jewish history with a false Palestinian Arab national myth with no historical foundation, and engage in revolutionary violence. Though not all Jewish liberals today are so extreme, they nonetheless tend to express affinity for ideological paradigms that, at the end of the day, are antithetical to the continuity of Jewish culture and belief.
And because they have for generations conflated Jewishness with liberalism and the Democratic Party, they remain blind to progressivism’s innate hostility toward Jews, Judaism, and the State of Israel. Perhaps that’s why so many are fond of quoting progressive fathers like Voltaire, Diderot, and Baron d’Holbach concerning the nobility of the human spirit, while paradoxically ignoring the profound antisemitism contained in their writings.
Many of them argue that antisemitism is caused by Jews themselves, for example, by Israel’s military response to the unprovoked barbarity of October 7th. Or that the tidal wave of Jew-hatred across North American cities and college campuses since then was instigated by Israel’s “disproportionate response” and “genocide” in Gaza (both antisemitic blood libels). Or that Jews nefariously control American foreign policy. The fruits of Qatar’s financial infiltration are no secret anymore.
They continue to validate leftists like Mamdani, who disparages Netanyahu as a “war criminal” subject to arrest (wrong on both counts), demonizes AIPAC as “monsters” who spend “millions in dark money” to “turn us against one and other,” and refuses to acknowledge Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish state.
Jewish liberals who countenance Mamdani despite tropes echoing the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” are a case study in dissonant thinking – or worse.
Those who engage in such polemics may be acting out of ignorance, malice, or cowardice. But it is difficult to blame lack of knowledge when access to truth today is a finger-click away. Thus, the ability to plead ignorance has a limited shelf life; and if they have access to knowledge but fail to engage it, their ignorance becomes willful or malicious. And if they know the truth but refuse to deviate for fear of repercussions from the partisan herd, they cross the threshold to moral cowardice.
Do Jewish members of Congress who distance themselves from AIPAC similarly dissociate from all organizations that advocate the interests of foreign nations? Do they accept gratuities, for example, from any of the lobbying firms that represent Qatar (a nation with proven links to both Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood)? Do they accept campaign contributions from influence peddlers representing the diplomatic interests of Iran or the Turkish government under Erdogan? Do they have relationships with any of the sham charities that channel funds to Islamist terror groups like Hamas?
Though many US lobbyists shill for foreign governments with anti-American interests, why is pro-American AIPAC singled out not just by radical leftists, but by supposedly moderate liberals as well? The only possible reason is their desire to placate the anti-Israel wing of their party, for whom AIPAC is the boogeyman at the center of a global Jewish conspiracy – without articulating such stereotypes themselves.
Whether motivated by partisanship or moral cowardice, they are facilitating antisemitism through their actions.
They also do so by demonizing Netanyahu as an “enemy of democracy”; for example, validating the popular lie that his desire for judicial reform is anti-democratic; when in fact, the Israeli court system has given itself non-mandated powers, shields itself from checks and balances, controls its own succession, and would not pass constitutional muster in the US. And they further do so by ascribing qualities to Netanyahu that evoke archetypal antisemitic cliches.
What the progressives and DSA promoters have done through such conduct is bring antisemitism within the Overton window of acceptable political discourse, which is not so different from that of 1930s Germany. The only difference today is the active complicity of politicized Jews who have lost any real connection to their traditional past or empathy for their prophesied future.
Matthew Hausman is a seasoned trial attorney and adjunct professor of law and criminal justice with nearly forty years’ experience as a journalist and editor. A former correspondent specializing in science, health and medicine and a legal affairs columnist, Mr. Hausman now writes and speaks about constitutional and international law, foreign policy, Israel and Jewish affairs, and his work has been published throughout the US, Canada, Israel, and Australia.
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