Last week, the editor of this newspaper commented on the notable absence of young people at the lecture given by Daniel Pipes on April 28.
As someone in that demographic, I believe young people did not attend because we have not been taught that self-preservation is a priority for us as Jews. While I share the editor’s concern about the absence of youth in the audience, I worry more that it is merely an indicator of the greater problem of years of complacency in the Jewish community.
As Jewish youth, we seem to have spent our formative years absorbing from the organized American Jewish community the importance of community building and dialogue. However, we seldom learned of the contemporary dangers we face as Jews or how to defend ourselves and our cause.
Certainly, I believe that dialogue is important, but it must never come at the expense of self-preservation or of our basic Jewish values. We should constantly be on guard, and we have a responsibility to our children to teach them to do likewise. As we recently read at Passover, in every generation they will rise against us. Our response cannot always be dialogue.
For several decades now, American Jews, feeling no personal danger, have afforded themselves the luxury of theoretical debates. Yet these debates often affect the safety of Jews elsewhere. We rightly and frequently focus on peace making and bridge building, but we often do so naively. Moreover, we seem more embarrassed than inspired when Jews anywhere, but especially in Israel, act in the interest of self-preservation
For example, the Milwaukee Jewish Council on Community Relations (MJCCR) recently engaged in a surreal discussion over how Milwaukee would vote on two starkly different resolutions before our national parent organization at its annual plenum.
One resolution argued for seeing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as one of moral equivalence, and the other called for strong support of Israel and condemnation of the Palestinians.
As we deliberated on how our delegates to the plenum would vote, we, the members of the MJCCR, clearly perceived no tangible threat, either to ourselves or to our families and friends in Israel. Our debate centered on seeking the moral high ground and, in view of these relatively low stakes, it seemed appropriate to be conciliatory, to be critical of the beleaguered Israeli government and to be “creative” in our vision for Middle East peace. There was no sense that in our attempt to compromise we were giving aid to those who seek to harm us.
We should recognize that as we abstractly consider the moral high ground in Israel, the Jews of America, including the Jews of Milwaukee, also face dangers.
Even if those dangers do not appear imminent, our history and traditions mandate that we remain vigilant and train ourselves to identify threats and respond appropriately. Those yelling “Judaism is racism” and “#^%$ all you Jews” during Pipes’ lecture were not interested in dialogue.
At a minimum, sensing potential dangers will help us avoid complacency about ourselves and will alter our discussions about the plight of Jews elsewhere.
We have a responsibility to future generations to teach of the dangers we face as Jews in the world. We must teach dialogue, but also uncompromising self-defense. Given the behavior of the protestors Monday night, and Pipes’ predictions about the future of militant Islam, we cannot afford dialogue alone.
Inna Pullin is an attorney and co-chair of the Subcommittee on Anti-Semitism and Constitutional Law of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations.
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