hite South Africans were just as afraid of being thrown into the sea as Israeli Jews are now,” writes Peter Beinart in his new book, Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza. “Perhaps more afraid since they constituted a smaller share of the population and had fewer allies overseas.”
These words, which appear in the book’s final chapter, are as hard won as they are historically necessary – they emerge, in their full comparative context, after more than 100 pages of holding Jewish supremacy to account.
The words also assume, in their appeal to the facts, that readers will agree on the basics: white South Africans were not thrown into the sea; the politics of supremacy and fear will always end in disaster; the dehumanisation of ethnic groups will traumatise everyone concerned, particularly – in the long run – the perpetrators themselves.
And so, at the very beginning of his book, as he prepares to diagnose his tribe’s malaise, Beinart lets us know that he is hurting.
As an observant Jewish journalist based in New York, he tells us, he can no longer enter a synagogue in the knowledge that he is welcome. In the book’s first paragraph, he accepts the consequences of his perceived betrayal; he is aware, he writes, that a “former friend” considers him a “risk” to the safety of his people.
“The breach in our relationship mirrors a broader schism within our tribe,” Beinart notes of this former friend, “between Americans and Israelis, left and right, young and old.”
The rift, of course, has been caused by the events of 7 October. For Beinart’s former friend, the terror of that day remains singular and all-encompassing. But for Beinart himself, who is likewise “shaken by its horror,” the day cannot (indeed, must not) stand isolated and apart.Not much later in the prologue, Beinart lays down the sentence that is our best reason to keep reading: “This book is about the story Jews tell ourselves to block out the screams.”…more
