AMERICA'S LIBERAL JEWS DESERVE TO SUFFER IN A PILE OF DEEP SHIT

American Jews get ‘tikkun olam’ all wrong 

How can you repair the world if your own house is falling apart? 

 

By Dr. Sheila Nazarian

 

JNS

Aug 5, 2024

 

A Jewish protester holds a Tikkun Olam sign while walking across the Brooklyn Bridge on Jan. 1, 2020.

 

Tikkun olam, a Hebrew term that roughly translates to “repairing the world,” has a long history in Judaism, originating in classical rabbinic literature and 16th-century Kabbalistic thought.

Historically, the phrase referred to a form of “repair” achieved through performing religious acts, thereby separating what is holy from the physical realm and leading to higher transcendence.

The term has skyrocketed in popularity today, particularly among the American-Jewish left. In fact, it is so commonly used in liberal circles that it has become something of a punchline. In one joke, an American Jew visiting Israel asks her tour guide, “How do you say tikkun olam in Hebrew?”

But this contemporary usage has little to nothing to do with the term’s spiritual origins. Rather, activist-minded Jewish liberals treat it as a synonym for “social justice,” referring to acts of civic responsibility meant to “repair” the political and social ills of the world. Tikkun olam has come to refer to things like “allyship,” “supporting marginalized communities,” “championing diverse voices” or simply just adopting progressive politics, all in the name of some alleged ancient Jewish commitment to fighting injustice and uplifting the oppressed. Some Jews even interpret it as simply “voting for the Democratic Party.”

This modern usage is a bastardization of a term with spiritual roots that calls for acts of prayer, religious ritual and meditation. It also misunderstands the originally intended scope of the term, which was meant to refer to highly specific individual instances and adjustments to how existing rules were applied within Jewish society, not to a broad expansion of what Jews must do to “repair the world.”

But much more importantly, the prevalence of this silly contemporary usage has advanced an equally silly mainstream Jewish perspective, according to which the needs and self-interest of our community are overlooked in favor of an unquestioned commitment to politics that do not serve and in many cases actively reject us.

Over the past four years, tikkun olam has been used to encourage Jews to support Black Lives Matter, Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and countless other activist-minded organizations that call on “privileged” people to devote their time and resources to unlearning their own biases and helping oppressed groups like African-Americans and the Palestinians. Countless American Jews lumped themselves in with the “privileged” and heeded these calls—but what do they have to show for all their allyship and donations?

Days after Hamas ruthlessly slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, BLM put out a statement in solidarity with the “Palestinian resistance,” saying they stand “unwaveringly on the side of the oppressed.” Jewish Voice for Peace and its counterparts have shown themselves to be fronts for a radical progressive ideology that elevates terrorists like Rasmea Odeh, finances its activities with Democratic dark money and treats a few token Jews as front pieces while calling for policies that heighten antisemitism and harm Jewish interests. 

Now, with a presidential election approaching, American Jews are using tikkun olam and its underpinning progressive ideologies to encourage support for the Democratic Party, which they view as a partner in this broader social justice project. These tikkun olam Jews wave off concerns about the party’s antisemitism, soft stance on Iran, checkered Middle East policy record and obvious de-prioritization of Jewish policy issues, arguing that these issues pale in comparison to the Republican Party’s threats to “democracy” and “basic human rights” and that anyone championing the other side is an unempathetic oppressor.

This stance is both fundamentally privileged and deeply naive. It’s easy for a Reform Jew from the Upper West Side who has never dealt with antisemitism of any kind to minimize the issue of antisemitism. But there are many Jews in our broader family from all over the globe who carry the hard lessons and traumas of history close to our hearts, and see the rising Jew-hatred in the Democratic faction as an existential threat to be battled, not a minor gripe to be shrugged aside.

Voting as if our hard-won position in U.S. society is on the line is not a rejection of “liberal values”; it is a conscious decision to repair our own house at a time when it is under attack from countless sectors in American life. Many of us understand what the tikkun olam Jews seem incapable of grasping: The present threats to Jewish life, be they from Iran or the classroom at Harvard, have the power to affect everyone in our community, not just the people with the “wrong” politics.

It doesn’t matter whether you voted for Trump or spent months championing BLM; in the eyes of our enemies, you’re still a Jew, a member of a so-called “privileged” group whose successes are unearned and need to be eradicated. These enemies are no longer abstract concepts; they are powerful forces that wield real cultural and political influence in America and show absolutely no sign of stopping.

Opposing these threats should be the way Jews choose to “repair the world” this year, not by devoting our energy to organizations and people who pay us no mind.