Philip Weiss, Zionism, & the NY Observer
http://www.amconmag.com/2007/2007_06_04/feature.html
he American Conservative - June 4, 2007
Mondoweiss, Chapter One Blogging about Israel and Jewish identity raises Observer hackles.
by Philip Weiss
A year and a half ago, I resolved to become a blogger. As a lifelong =
writer, I had produced journalism through a host of technologies, =
from carbon copies on manual typewriters to e-mail, and I didn=92t want =
the world to leave me behind. Besides, I was excited by the form. The =
writers were working without filters=97editors=97and as a result, the =
writing was more immediate, genuine, and personal. I wanted to try.
I also thought there might be money in it. I had covered an antiwar =
hearing in Congress for a glossy magazine, and the only other =
reporters were two or three bloggers. It seemed to me that something =
was wrong with the economy when one guy was making $10,000 for an =
article and three guys were making nothing for providing a similar =
service. An efficient economy rewards people for their work; that =
money would have to be shared. But when I offered this analysis to =
Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist.org, he shook his head. The =
three bloggers were all getting something out of it, he said. Maybe =
one guy expected to get money down the road, so it was an investment. =
Another was getting personal satisfaction and learning something. =
=93Maybe the third guy is getting to express heretical views or =
fulfilling his idea of citizenship=85=94
My main outlet was The New York Observer, the weekly printed on =
orange paper, and I began bird-dogging the editor, who had long =
supported my work, to give me a blog on the Observer site and forget =
about print. Peter Kaplan is old-school in more ways than one: our =
friendship goes back to our Harvard days in the =9270s. He pointed out =
that readers still value what they can hold in their hands more than =
what they see on a screen. He was right, I said, but who could say =
when that paradigm was going to break?
After considerable back and forth with designers and web managers, I =
got my blog in March 2006. It was my editor=92s idea to call it =
Mondoweiss. Peter is charming, intuitive, and magisterial, a Flo =
Ziegfeld type. The way The Observer works is that editors knock =
softly on his closed door all afternoon, hoping for a minute in which =
he will deliver an inspirational note as he puffs on a metaphorical =
cigar. Peter gave me just a couple of notes as I began blogging. =
=93You=92re a writer! Be a writer, write about what=92s on your mind!=94 an= d =
=93Drive traffic!=94 He had often described his ideal of a writer to me: =
someone with complete confidence on the page, someone with his own =
special view of things and his own way of expressing it. Another time =
he told me to throw some pictures of my dogs on the blog. That=92s a =
blogging tradition, pet pictures.
It was understood that Peter couldn=92t pay me anything for the blog. =
The Observer lost money, and I figured I couldn=92t have my hand out =
when I didn=92t even know what I was doing.
Many of my early entries were indulgent or writerly. They had cute =
turns of phrase or long setups or personal anecdotes. Not for long. =
Blogging gave me a clipped style. Short sentences, little imagery, =
simple words. Hard lessons for an old belletrist.
The pressure was awful. I felt oppressed by the need to say something =
interesting every day and ransacked my life for anything that might =
entertain readers. I related amusing stories like how I=92d ruined a =
dinner party by getting into an argument and how my wife had later =
comforted me: =93I=92ll tell you a secret, there are endless social =
groups. You can burn through one and still get invited to another.=94 =
But really, what was so interesting about my life? Not much.
Borrowing time from remunerative activities, I wondered why I was =
doing it at all. Then I began to focus, writing about things I =
thought about naturally: the Iraq disaster and my Jewishness, and on =
from that to recent Jewish history, the Jewish arrival in the =
American establishment in my generation, Zionism, neoconservatism, =
Israel, Palestine. Later I noticed a commenter objecting that The =
Observer had =93assigned me=94 to write about Jewish issues. It hadn=92t. =
I=92d assigned myself.
My Jewishness has long intrigued me. I was raised in a very close- =
knit scientific family that had a sense of Jewish superiority. Being =
Jewish was the main thing I was vis-=E0-vis the world. All my friends =
were Jewish, and summers we went to a scientific community that was =
also very Jewish. Only in college did I start to break away from my =
background, even as I cast long looks back at the tribal.
Once, at a bris, a friend said to me, =93You know why we do this?=94 =
=93Well hygiene=97=94 I started to say. =93Bulls–t. We do it to show that = we =
are different.=94 I struggled with that idea of difference. I sought a =
wider American experience and married a Christian whose background =
and values I felt had improved me. Though I still think of myself as =
being utterly Jewish in my concerns, I recognize that I=92m =
assimilating. On good days, I think that this is the way the world is =
going. On bad days, I wonder if I haven=92t fallen between two cultural =
stools.
Some of my best blogging came out of that tension. I established a =
thread called =93the Assimilationist,=94 and when Commentary attacked the =
new Leonard Woolf biography, saying that he had lived a life of self- =
hatred in a marriage to an out-and-out anti-Semite in Virginia Woolf, =
I took the Woolfs=92 side. Sure, intermarriage presents cultural =
challenges, but Commentary was trying to validate Jewish separation =
by seeing anti-Semitism behind every bush=97and Gentile.
Blogging about such matters sometimes made me feel wicked, as though =
I was betraying my tribe. Shouldn=92t some thoughts remain private? But =
I felt that the form demanded transparency about what I cared about, =
Jewish identity.
More important, these issues had become political after 9/11. The =
towers fell in part because of our support for Israel=92s occupation of =
Arab lands. Of course, after 9/11 many Americans, myself included, =
had experienced we=92re-in-the-same-boat feelings about Israel facing =
suicide bombers. But that sympathy had been exploited to push =
aggressive, foolish policies in the Middle East. Now Israel=92s =
policies toward the Arabs were ours. On my blog, I raised the issue =
of dual loyalty=97and pointed out that anti-Zionist Jews had opposed =
the creation of a Jewish state for precisely that concern: by =
extending citizenship to Jewish citizens of other lands, Israel would =
cast into question those Jews=92 commitment to those lands. And why not =
raise that issue when Elliott Abrams, the top adviser to George Bush =
on Middle East matters, had written in 1997 that outside Israel, Jews =
=93are to stand apart from the nation in which they live.=94 I did not =
believe that such a feeling of separateness was compatible with high =
office.
As I delved into these matters, I began going to Jewish lectures and =
devouring books about foreign policy and Jewish history. My father is =
an academic; now my blog empowered me as a scholar. I soon had over a =
hundred books, marvels like Jacob Katz=92s Out of the Ghetto and Baruch =
Kimmerling=92s The Invention and Decline of Israeliness. Every night I =
looked forward to lying on the couch and opening another chapter on =
Jewish history. I found celebrations of the Israel lobby in Alan =
Dershowitz=92s work and Philip Roth=92s, too, and read how essential the =
lobby had been to the Jewish state from the start. In an obscure =
publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, I read a piece =
by Abba Eban, the eloquent UN ambassador for Israel, crowing that =
when Harry Truman =93was in desperate trouble=94 in 1948, American =
Zionists rushed to get him money and =93thereafter had fairly free =
access to Truman in times of crisis.=94
My posts became more thoughtful, and on occasion I got more than a =
hundred comments. My editor said nothing, but I ascribed Peter=92s =
silence to the fact that he had enough on his hands just to compile =
the paper every week. He has a stronger Jewish identity than I do. A =
few years back, we were sitting in his office when he said, =93You know =
what the most important question is about your wife=92s family?=94 =
=93What?=94 I asked. =93Would they hide you?=94 =93Huh?=94 =93Would they hi= de you?=94 =
he said again. Oh. He meant if there were pogroms in America. I said =
they would, even though I was a little offended by the question. Jews =
had achieved great power and privilege in America. I did not see =
pogroms as a realistic possibility.
But Peter thought that American ethnicities could turn on one another =
like Sunnis and Shi=92ites if the circumstances were right. One of his =
strongest intellectual influences was the late Eric Breindel, a =
neoconservative writer and the son of Holocaust survivors, whom we =
had met at The Harvard Crimson. I always thought Eric had a paranoid =
streak, but Peter saw him as brilliant. He took Eric=92s views of the =
Middle East more seriously than my own. One of those views was =
mistrust for the =93guys in the striped pants=94 (as Peter put it) in the =
State Department, who sold out European Jews during the Holocaust.
This is a familiar Jewish conversation, one that takes place often, =
even among affluent and prominent people. In his recent book =
Prisoners, The New Yorker writer Jeffrey Goldberg relates that in the =
1980s he came to feel that Gentile society was dangerous for Jews and =
that the Diaspora being the =93disease,=94 Israel was the =93cure.=94 So he= =
moved there. A Harvard friend who had gone on to media renown once =
related to me a visit to an ancestral village in Eastern Europe where =
no evidence remained of Jews. Not a grave, not a synagogue. He said, =
=93How can you expect to engage in discussions of Jewish privilege when =
we know how the last such conversation ended?=94
My answer is that America is different from Europe, and I thought =
journalists were demonstrating bad faith in our democracy when they =
declined to talk about real issues surrounding the power structure=97 =
say the Israel lobby or the predominance of Jewish money in =
Democratic Party giving=97out of fear that their group would suffer. On =
my blog, I made a role model of E. Digby Baltzell, the Philadelphia =
patrician who in the 1960s invented the word WASP to critique the =
Protestant establishment, his own group, as exclusive and anti- =
Semitic. Shouldn=92t today=92s elite enjoy the same sort of scrutiny?
There was another reason Peter had nothing to say about the blog: he =
was busy trying to sell the newspaper. The founding owner, Arthur =
Carter, had it on the block, and Peter, who loved his job and owned a =
small piece of the paper, was helping to shop it. For a while the =
rumor mills said that The Observer would be bought by the actor =
Robert DeNiro and his producing partner. Then the next thing I knew, =
a tall, lanky Harvard grad named Jared Kushner, scion of a New Jersey =
real-estate family that was active in Jersey politics, was buying the =
paper.
Peter mentioned that the Kushners were observant Jews, and I found an =
online video file of Kushner at Harvard dedicating the new Chabad =
House, named for the sect of Hasidic Jews that originated in =
Lithuania 300 years ago. In the video, a handsome, besuited Kushner =
turned the microphone over to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
Bad news for me. I had nothing against the Hasidim; I=92m respectful of =
them. But their position on Israel tends to be biblical and anti- =
Arab. They are even connected to illegal settlements in the occupied =
territories. And Dershowitz is, of course, a leading hardliner on =
Israel.
I spent some time with Peter during the transition, offering him a =
friend=92s counsel, and I said that Kushner and I wouldn=92t mix. =93I =
should get out now and start my own blog. This guy will never support =
me,=94 I said. =93No!=94 Kaplan replied. =93Don=92t do that. You=92re a wri= ter, =
writing about what you care about. That=92s where I draw the line.=94 It =
felt a little hollow. Peter didn=92t pay for my work, and I suspected =
that he hadn=92t been reading it enough to know how offensive my views =
might seem to the new owner.
My writing was becoming increasingly anti-Zionist. I visited Israel =
for the first time last summer, and in the West Bank, I met a South =
African who told me conditions were worse there than they had been =
under apartheid. When I got back, I posted a photograph of Arabs =
forced to worship outside the Damascus Gate to the Old City of =
Jerusalem because of heightened Israeli security, and a reader of my =
blog launched an =93investigation=94 and called the photographer, =
evidently thinking I=92d doctored the image.
I knew that Zionists were lobbying The Observer, writing to my editor =
and the new owner. Peter once said he got more e-mail about me than =
anything else in the paper. One of these e-mails, copied to me, said =
there was a =93cancer on The Observer.=94 That was mild. Others commented =
as =93Phil Weiss=94 and purported to confess my bitterness over bad book =
reviews I=92d gotten or said they had loved having sex with my =
Christian mother-in-law. One wrote that he wanted to =93cut off your =
head and s–t down your neck.=94
One day Peter mentioned that the new owner had passed along one of =
these complaints and reminded him that the pro-Israel community was =
one he cared about. Peter said that he defended me, though he asked, =
=93You=92re not a Holocaust denier, are you?=94 =93Of course not,=94 I said= . =
=93Good, I thought so.=94
I probably should have taken a more aggressive stance. I should have =
explained my belief that we were at a new point in Jewish history. =
When Jews left the ghettoes of Europe during political emancipation =
in the 1800s, they underwent a =93spiritual crisis=94 that fostered =
messianic movements, as the Jewish historian Gershom Scholem has =
written, and today the Jewish advance into the American power =
structure was setting off similar crises. The Jewish community had =
defined Jewishness as attachment to Israel, and it was not coming to =
grips with the effect of that attachment on the Arab world or the =
United States.
My blog was frequently linked by Jewish websites and even newspapers. =
I can=92t say that I pleased them, but I had their respect. I was told =
that my traffic figures kept climbing as I stuck to my subject, =
though it was obvious that being at The Observer site helped me. At =
times I went too far, but then I didn=92t mind apologizing. =93I=92m too =
harsh on my people,=94 I headlined a post regretting my tone on a =
Jewish-identity issue.
I had smart readers, whose comments were often better than my posts, =
and I felt more accountability to them than I had to my print =
readers. The flippancies and profanities I used to go in for began to =
vanish. The Internet is not the Wild West, it is more like a great =
ballroom. Yes, it permits disguise and anonymity, but it is, in the =
end, a social space in which one=92s words have consequences. I felt a =
sense of responsibility when I finished an item and had my finger =
poised over the enter key. I stopped posting pictures of my dogs.
As the anniversary of my blog approached, I decided I needed money to =
keep working. The Observer advertised alongside my posts, and Kushner =
was rapidly moving, as well he should have been, to retool the =
website for a modern audience. His plans were covered in the New York =
Times, but no one was calling me. I was the only daily contributor to =
the site then, but I wasn=92t on the agenda.
I told Peter I needed money. =93How much?=94 he asked. I said $25,000. He =
said he needed to check with his boss.
I got my appointment a week later. Closing the door, Peter said, =
=93We=92re going to have a grown-up conversation.=94 He told me that the =
owner believed in Israel, and so did he. Israel may do a lot of bad =
things, but it was still a force for good. I interrupted, =93My wife =
said to me the other night, you can=92t expect a guy who doesn=92t =
believe in anything you=92re saying to give you $25,000 a year to put =
it out.=94 Peter nodded, =93That=92s right.=94
But Peter felt committed to me as a writer. He didn=92t want to lose me =
from the paper and offered me a biweekly column. Kushner had =93winced=94 =
at the prospect, but Peter was the editor, and he wanted me in print. =
I could write about American politics, Obama and Hillary. I could go =
around the country during the campaign and have fun.
Yes, but what about my hard-earned views? Israel and the Mideast were =
crucial pieces in American foreign policy. Jewish giving was the =
largest factor in Democratic campaign financing. Peter had never =
squelched my views, but how free would I be as a writer, knowing what =
I knew about the bosses=92 feelings?
As the meeting went on with Peter praising my talents in his =
Ziegfeldian way, I became upset. =93Peter, don=92t you see what=92s =
happening in this country? Ron [Rosenbaum] just went to Slate. He is =
pro-Israel. Slate also lately hired Shmuel Rosner, an Israeli who =
loves the neocons, to write from Washington.=94 I grabbed a galley of =
Jeffrey Goldberg=92s book from one of the piles in Peter=92s office. =
=93Goldberg works for The New Yorker in Washington and because he =
thought America was dangerous for Jews, he moved to Israel and served =
in their army, then he moved back here and pushed America to go to =
war in Iraq. Well, I=92m different. I don=92t think America is dangerous =
for Jews, and I=92m critical of Israel. And there=92s no room for me =
here. There=92s no room.=94
Peter clamped his lips. =93What you=92ve said is political. What I=92m =
about to say to you is personal, as your friend: don=92t become a nut.=94 =
I countered, =93What if someone in the MIT linguistics department went =
up to Chomsky 40 years ago and said, =91Stick with linguistics, Noam. =
Don=92t become a nut.=92 That would have been bad advice.=94 Peter said my =
talents were different from Chomsky=92s, they were literary. I =
shouldn=92t allow the political crank to crowd out the storyteller and =
humorist in me. He cited two writers who had become unhinged by =
politics in midlife: Morrie Ryskind had gone from writing Marx =
Brothers comedies to being a John Bircher, and there was John Dos =
Passos, who became a zealous anti-communist in the 1930s.
I left stunned, but the conversation was clarifying. Peter and I both =
love Hitchcock films. In the best of them, there comes a dramatic =
psychological moment=97=93the reveal=94=97when a piece of information is =
disclosed that is key to the entire action. When Peter said, =93We=92re =
going to have a grown-up conversation=94 and spoke openly of Israel, =
there could not have been a more genuine moment. I suppose I could =
have kept blogging on The Observer site, but I didn=92t want to lift a =
finger for people who saw me as a nut not worth spending money on. I =
looked on my shelves of books as a wasted enterprise.
A couple of weeks went by, and I began getting e-mail from readers =
who wondered where I was. One came from a guy at the Forward, Gabriel =
Sanders. I told him I was setting my blog up on my own. =93Why=97may I =
ask?=94 he wrote back. I replied that The Observer had declined to pay =
me and that the paper =93was uncomfortable with my politics.=94
Sanders promptly e-mailed Peter, who called me that night. He told me =
there was nothing censorious about our meeting. He wanted me to do a =
column. We had worked together for years; when had he ever expressed =
discomfort with my politics? He said I could keep doing the blog =
forever, and of course the column was my free realm.
It was clear to me that Peter was afraid of how the Forward story =
would look at a time when he was working out the separation of =
business and editorial concerns with a young boss. Tough. The one =
thing I=92d gotten out of the deal was reputation=97the Forward wasn=92t =
calling about my dogs=92 pictures=97and now I was supposed to fall on my =
sword and negate the attention I was being given, even as The =
Observer got puffy coverage for its website? When Sanders called the =
next day, I told him that over many years of often provocative work, =
Kaplan had never censored me. But every signal I=92d gotten about the =
blog had been less than supportive. I didn=92t mention the Holocaust =
denier bit.
All this happened a few weeks ago. I choose to write about it because =
my editor is not alone. Many Jews with strong feelings about Israel=97 =
many of whom, like Peter, have never been there =97are helping to shape =
public perceptions. Almost all these opinion-makers are self- =
described secular Jews who get worked up about separating church and =
state when it=92s evangelical Christians trying to change laws on stem- =
cell research, abortion, and gay marriage. Yet these seculars are =
often invested themselves, without being aware of it, in a religious =
ideology=97a Jewish nationalist claim on the Holy Land inscribed in the =
Old Testament.
Having witnessed this sort of blindness often in my career, I want to =
open the conversation. Several of my friends in the media went to =
Israel on youthful tours that gave them feelings of religious =
attachment to the country that they would never be open about in =
print. And if you read the memoirs of liberal writers Joseph =
Lelyveld, Daniel Schorr, and Max Frankel, it is evident that Zionism =
was an important part of their upbringing. Lately John Judis of The =
New Republic has joined my camp by writing bracingly that “dual =
loyalty ” is an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which =
a Jewish state exists.=94 It=92s time these attitudes were openly discussed.
I=92ve relaunched my blog on my own website. At The Observer site, I =
often felt that I was getting away with something, that it was more =
fitting for me to peddle my unconventional opinions from my own cart. =
And now that my blog is separated from a mainstream media address, =
I=92ve noticed that the pro-Israel sirens, who care so much about =
influencing American leadership, don=92t care so much about me.
Just in the last week, I=92ve gone back to my shelf of books. I=92ve been =
reading Steven B. Smith=92s work on Leo Strauss and shaking my head at =
the idea that Jewish identity involves a =93particular providence=94 that =
is at odds with Enlightenment ideals of citizenship.
Together with Peter, I=92ve come up with an answer to the question I =
posed to Newmark a year back. I=92ve gained a lot from my blog: =
knowledge of myself and the world, a feeling of service I=92ve rarely =
had as a journalist. It is too much to ask the traditional media to =
provide such re-wards, and yet they are so significant that it is =
only a matter of time before all serious journalists will also be =
bloggers.
Philip Weiss is at work on a book about Jewish issues. His blog is =