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GENOCIDE, TRAUMA, AND JEWISH IDENTITY  
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Paul Von Blum
May 5, 2025
The Progressive
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_ Peter Beinart’s ‘Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza’
offers an incisive perspective on Zionism and Jewish identity. _

, Knopf Publishers

 

Peter Beinart begins _Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A
Reckoning
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provocative and incisive book about trauma and Jewish identity after
October 7, 2023—with a note to an unnamed former friend whose
fanaticism about Israel he’d come to view as unacceptable. The note
reflects the painful divisions that have deepened within Jewish
communities in the aftermath of Hamas’s horrific attack on Israel,
and Israel’s subsequent, grotesque destruction of Gaza. In deeply
felt, achingly personal terms that will surely resonate with millions
of Jews in the United States and throughout the world, Beinart argues
that far too many Jews are so committed to that with which they
identify—the Israeli hostages, Israel, and Zionism itself—that
they have somehow neglected, or even cavalierly dismissed, the lives
and suffering of millions of Palestinians. His note concludes with a
plea: “I hope the rupture is not final.”

But it very well might be final. Israel is the touchiest subject among
Jews—almost a taboo topic in many circles—and the state’s
genocidal campaign in Gaza will likely destroy long-standing
friendships and family relationships, perhaps even permanently.
Tensions are enormously fraught. I’ve seen it first-hand in my
encounters with friends, associates, and my students at the University
of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), many of whom are Jews whose
perspectives mirror those that Beinart’s book sets out to critique.

_Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza _mounts a righteous
assault on the present state of contemporary mainstream Jewish
identity. In the book’s prologue, Beinart is forthright: “We Need
a New Story.” He calls out Jews who have concluded that protecting
themselves requires subjugating others, even if they are personally
pained by Gaza’s agony. He demands a new narrative, one that is
based on equality rather than supremacy. This is an extremely
difficult proposition for many Jews; the blinders of conquest,
domination, oppression, and moral indifference are now deeply
ingrained in the minds of millions of Jews in Israel and throughout
the Jewish Diaspora. In many cases, this is even an unconscious
process, because it emerges from family, religious communities, and
social groups. Regrettably, this dynamic has been reinforced in the
United States by powerful institutions and organizations such as the
American Jewish Congress (AJC), American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC), the Anti-Defamation League, and other advocacy
groups, as well as many campus chapters of the pro-Israel Jewish
student organization Hillel.

The origins of Jewish supremacy in Israel trace back to long before
the country’s official formation. Before the United Nations voted in
1947 to partition Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, Jews made up
about a third
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of its population. To create and maintain a Jewish majority, Zionist
forces expelled
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750,000 Palestinians—an inconvenient and highly disconcerting truth
for many Jews today. As a result, Beinart persuasively argues, far too
many Israelis and Diaspora Jews have relied on euphemisms, vagueness,
and even outright lies to conceal the egregious human rights abuses
that underlie the creation of the modern Israeli state.

Israel controls the entirety of the land between the Jordan River and
the Mediterranean Sea, including the occupied West Bank and the Gaza
Strip, though it withdrew
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from Gaza twenty years ago before reinvading it after October 7, 2023.
Israeli soldiers can arrest and torment whomever they want—they have
free rein, and they exercise it with brutal efficiency, with little or
no regard for the dignity of their Palestinian captives. 

Beinart notes that Amnesty International and other human rights
organizations have labelled
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Israel’s governance of the region as apartheid. It’s an unsavory
designation, but an accurate one, practiced in this case by the
descendants of those murdered by Nazis during the Holocaust. No amount
of verbal acrobatics can conceal this ugly reality. 

Beinart understands perfectly the trauma that Hamas’s October 7
attack wrought for Jews in Israel and elsewhere. It would be both
foolish and morally grotesque to downplay the impact of that day on
Jews throughout the world: I felt it personally, especially as a
second-generation Holocaust survivor. But despite what Benjamin
Netanyahu and the standard Jewish establishment, including pro-Israel
lobbying groups throughout the world have claimed, it was not a crime
comparable to the Holocaust. 

Beinart notes that Jews in Israel enjoy legal supremacy while
Palestinians lack basic freedoms. This is a significant distinction,
and while making it in no way absolves Hamas for its carnage, it’s
important to note that Israel has its own deeper responsibility for
the historical oppression of Palestinians, including those effectively
imprisoned in Gaza. Insisting on this truth can result in the loss of
relationships within Jewish families and communities, as was the case
in Beinart’s own family. 

It’s much harder to be Jewish after the destruction of Gaza. Beinart
notes that in the aftermath of October 7, many Jews, including
educators, rabbis, and community leaders, have made a point to speak
out about the Israelis who were killed or kidnapped during Hamas’s
attack. They’ve spoken at length about the victims’ personalities,
their hopes and dreams, and their entire family histories. Who could
be unmoved by these heartfelt and emotional expressions of grief and
sorrow?

But this communal outpouring of grief was also distressingly tribal,
and often came without mention of the Palestinian casualties in Gaza
or the stories of those victims. The Palestinian lives shattered by
Israeli bombs and bullets—women, men, children, grandmothers,
grandfathers, disabled people—were regarded as little more than
statistics to be disputed. In taking stock of this chilling reality,
Beinart laments that Judaism has been redefined into a purely selfish
creed, devoid of any genuine notion of universal love and empathy.

Meanwhile, the carnage in Gaza has slowly but unmistakably developed
into outright genocide. Yet far too many Jews in America and elsewhere
pay scant attention. Some blame Hamas itself:_ They brought it on
themselves; What did they expect?; They hide among civilians; Israel
has to defend itself before the terrorists destroy it.” Israel’s
utterly e_gregious and often lethal attacks on hospitals,
universities, journalists, and helpless civilians have shocked the
conscience of the world, yet many Jews have maintained indifference
and outright callousness toward Palestinian suffering through these
rationalizations for its disproportionate aggression.

One of the most insidious methods by which the Israeli government and
its enablers have avoided responsibility is claiming that any
opposition reflects the new antisemitism. The ADL, AIPAC, the AJC, and
their rightwing allies, including so-called Christian Zionists, have
been effective in labelling anti-Zionism, or really any criticism of
Israel, as antisemitic. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
depiction of American campuses as awash with Nazi-like antisemitic
mobs, Beinart  writes, is both cynical and absurd. But he also
acknowledges elements of anti-Jewish sentiment and action that have
arisen within parts of the Palestine solidarity protest movement. 

Here, I feel compelled to add my own addendum to Beinart’s
observation. Like many other schools, including Columbia University,
Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and the University of
California, Berkeley, UCLA has been a prominent site of anti-Israel
protests. Having personally witnessed many, participated in some, and
written about the overall phenomenon, my conclusion is that
antisemitic incidents associated with these protests were relatively
minor, regrettable, and largely perpetrated by overzealous young
knuckleheads. Every instance of antisemitism is unacceptable and
should be vigorously condemned. 

But to make the leap to claiming that UCLA is a hostile environment
for Jewish students, faculty, and staff strikes me as preposterous.
The most significant act of violence during the protests at UCLA
occurred on May 1, 2024, when a group of “pro-Israeli”
demonstrators destroyed
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the peaceful Free Palestine encampment, whose ranks contained a
substantial number of Jewish participants. I would label these
demonstrators “Zionist thugs,” and I’m not going to retreat from
that designation.

ADL National Director Jonathan Greenblatt has insisted
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that Zionism and Jewishness are inseparable: Reject Zionism and
you’re no longer a Jew. But as Beinart makes clear, Greenblatt and
the ADL have no mandate to define who is a Jew. The notion that they
could do so is as insulting and offensive as the boorish audience
members who have occasionally called me a “self-hating Jew” when I
have criticized Israel during presentations.

This tendentious redefinition of antisemitism—“the new new
antisemitism,” as Beinart calls it—is part of a concerted pretext
to blunt any serious critique of Israeli atrocities. At present, the
Trump Administration is misusing the label
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of antisemitism to coerce colleges, universities, and businesses into
adhering to regressive educational and commercial policies. These
actions have nothing to do with actual antisemitism. Indeed, the vast
majority of those engaged in 2pro-Palestinian protests join
progressive Jews in combating all forms of racism, including
antisemitism and Islamophobia. 

At the conclusion of his book, Beinart notes that being Jewish means
liberating himself and his fellow Jews from the logic of racial
supremacy in order to partner with Palestinians. This is a significant
assertion, and one which strikes at the heart of far too much of
contemporary Jewish consciousness. _Being Jewish After the Destruction
of Gaza _is at its core a profound indictment of Zionism itself.
It’s a call for Jews to return to a longer tradition of social
justice and a universal ethical principle of dignity for all people.
Doing so, Beinart argues, requires repudiating the racism that is
embedded in the entire foundation and practices of Israeli history. 

This is not an easy task for any Jew who grew up believing in Israel
as a beacon of Jewish culture and of Jewish safety and refuge, even a
deeply flawed and imperfect one. It is also probably easier for the
millions of Jews who, like Beinart and myself, are not religiously
observant. The destruction of Gaza and the genocide of its people has
forced me to rethink my own views: I now see Israel as a rogue and
criminal state, akin to apartheid South Africa, North Korea,
Afghanistan, Iran, and the like. Likewise, I now totally support
boycott, divest, and sanction efforts against Israel, despite some of
my previous ambivalence.

But while I no longer care if Israel survives as a Jewish state _per
se_, I still care profoundly about the lives and wellbeing of the many
Jews living there. I have visited Israel in the past, have purchased
various Israeli products, and enjoyed my relationship with some
Israeli friends. I will continue to pursue the latter, however
fraught.

I have no idea whether Beinart has managed to repair the tensions with
the former friend to whom he addresses his note at the beginning of
the book. In my own life, I intend to express my anti-Zionist views
forcefully, regardless of the personal consequences. The time has long
passed for walking on eggshells around supporters of Israeli racism
and genocide, Jewish or not. I’ll tell my own vision of the truth,
and I’ll live with the consequences. These are traumatic times, for
Jews, for non-Jews, and for the world—and ones which will endure, I
fear, for decades to come.

Paul Von Blum is senior lecturer in African American Studies and
Communication at UCLA. He is a longtime civil rights and political
activist and the author of many books and articles on political art,
expressive culture, education, and law.

Since 1909, _The Progressive__ _has aimed to amplify voices of
dissent and those under-represented in the mainstream, with a goal of
championing grassroots progressive politics. Our bedrock values are
nonviolence and freedom of speech.

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