I've been recommending a New Yorker piece by Corey Robin, "Two Paths for Jewish Politics," from August 2024 (when groups like the ADL had made clear they would align with reactionary forces to quash any dissent around Gaza), and I think it's exactly in line with Heschel's comments cited here. (You can find Robin's piece at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/two-paths-for-jewish-politics, but you may need a subscription).
His thesis is that in the old world, Jews sought protection by aligning themselves with the ruling class, using their skills to ingratiate themselves with the rulers, in hopes that they would be spared pogroms on a regular basis. As we know, that worked ok for a while, and then it didn't.
In the US, however, Jews found a new way to be safe - by supporting democracy and civil rights for minorities. Hence their allying with marginalized groups during the Civil Rights movement.
Robin's concern is that mainstream Jewish groups appeared to be slipping back into the old world strategy, and Stephen Miller is the epitome of that.
I think you can see some of Heschel's argument - or at least a variant or corollary of it - in Robin's piece. By being excluded from the mainstream and in some ways embracing that status and fighting for the rights of others also excluded, Jews insulated themselves from participation in and support for some of the horrors committed by white supremacists in America.
Of course, there have been many Jews who followed the old world strategy from the beginning and were participants in the horrors; Judah Benjamin was a slave-owner and Secretary of State to the Confederacy, for example. But during the 1930s (think Lawyer's Guild and Scottsboro Boys defense) and going forward, most obviously during the 1960s and on, mainstream Jewish groups supported the rights of minorities, in part because of "Jewish values" and in part as a strategy of mutual shared safety.
For some time now, however, there has been backsliding, almost completely because of support for Israel. And every synagogue with a "We Stand with Israel" sign out front and an Israeli flag on the bima is guilty of a betrayal of those values, and by abandoning that strategy, they are making us all less safe.
to Adam G - In no way would I equate Stephen Miller with the old world Jews who "sought protection by aligning themselves with the ruling class, using their skills to ingratiate themselves with the rulers, in hopes that they would be spared pogroms on a regular basis." Stephen Miller, who I can only assume sees himself as a small, very fearful person, is better compared to Adolf Eichmann, a similarly immoral MONSTER whose initial focus was on forcing Jewish emigration through coercion and terror, eerily similar in intent to Miller's "pogroms" on immigrants and American citizens trying to defend them.
I so admire your efforts and your courage Mr Beinart. Thank you for this thoughtful piece. I wish with all of my heart that we human beings could just love one another and treat each person no matter their color, religion or their circumstances with kindness and generosity.💔🇺🇸
This same Heschel marched with the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King at Selma (interestingly, I learned about Rabbi Heschel's presence at the march from a friend who's an Augustinian friar - he's done a fair amount of interfaith work with rabbis and imams). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel#Ideology
Excellent. Thank you for this commentary. In its thrust, it reminds me of the words of Marek Edelman, the leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. To quote (approximately, I do not have the statement in front of me): "To be Jewish is to always be on the side of the oppressed, never the oppressors."
Abraham Heschel was a wonderful man. I feel connected to him not only through what I see as shared vaues but in the fact that my uncle, who became a conservative rabbi, was a direct student of Heschel's for several years.
I see. Perhaps we're in a new era of war: war as theater, war as leisure activity, killing as casual as a round of golf at Mar a Lago, no need for rationale, no need for anything at all. War as a favor for one's friends and family, as a favor to Netanyahu and Kushner and Witikoff.
War because you can. War as distraction. War because you and yours won't be the ones to die.
This video ends with: "I can’t imagine what Abraham Joshua Heschel would say were he alive today about the people who claim to speak for the organized American Jewish community, people who have so radically repudiated his moral fervor in his belief that Jews have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people in the societies in which they live."
Did Heschel believe that Jews living in *Israel* have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people living in *Israel*?
We can try to answer that question by looking at his book ISRAEL: AN ECHO OF ETERNITY (1969).
He has a rather chauvinistic view of how Palestine belongs to the Jews and to nobody else:
"The Jewish people has never ceased to assert its right, its title, to the land of Israel. ... Whatever greatness came about in this land -- in song, in story, in human personalities, in ideas, in inspiration -- was the result of Jewish living in the land."
And here he is blaming the victims of the Nakba for their predicament:
"Arab leaders claim that the State of Israel is responsible for the Arab refugee problem. However, according to indisputable and abundant evidence, the refugee traffic was largely stimulated and encouraged by Arab leadership itself. ... Anxious as they were for an orderly and peaceful transition to statehood, the Jewish authorities did what they could to arrest the exodus. Israel's Proclamation of Independence called upon 'the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace and to play their part in building the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and permanent.' ... the Arab governments have, for twenty years, used the Arab refugee as a prime political weapon in their campaign against Israel. Every proposal for his absorption and rehabilitation -- and there have been many -- has been killed so as to guarantee that the refugee problem should live on, endlessly, as a tool of propaganda and hatred."
In that last sentence, it is clear he's talking about absorption and rehabilitation of Arab refugees from Palestine into *other* countries. He rules out repatriation back to their homes. Peter, if you are correct that Heschel believed "that Jews have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people in the societies in which they live", I think you need to add that he believed this responsibility ends when Jews expel non-Jews from land that he believed belongs to the Jewish people.
In 1969, even Heschel may have believed the propaganda that the flight of Palestinians during the Nakba was caused by the neighboring Arab countries. We know now that this idea is debatable if not incorrect.
When Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and other prominent Jews denounced the Israeli regime for its Nazism and barbarism in the Dec. 1948 New York Times, it’s hard to believe Rabbi Heschel wasn’t aware of it, enough to give him second thoughts. All the same, his point about the favor done to Jews by expelling them from the peninsula, saving them from complicity in the 16th-century genocides in the New World, is a powerful one, and I’m indebted to Peter for pointing it out.
"we’re in an era of rising antisemitism — which is true"
"we’re worried about antisemitism in the United States in 2026."
For the third week in a row, I have to ask essentially the same question: how do you measure (at least in a rough sense) the level of antisemitism in the United States, in order to judge that it is rising (or falling)? Since this is something that you are concerned about, I would expect that you'd want your readers to know how you come to this conclusion of "rising antisemitism."
You might not like this comparison, but I'm pretty sure you've looked at the Heritage Foundation's "PROJECT ESTHER: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism" (October 2024). Its stated intent is "to combat the scourge of antisemitism in the United States." Its 33 pages give detailed plans for action, some of which have been implemented by now, but here's the thing: it does not cite any evidence of any harm that has been experienced by any Jews in the United States as a result of this alleged scourge. It even gives numbers from the ADL's counting of "antisemitic incidents", but includes no hint of what happened in any of these incidents.
I have had very similar thoughts: relieved that some of my Southern relatives were too poor to have owned slaves, relieved that the one line in the family who potentially might have been slaveholders had lost their money, all of it, thus passing down none to be inherited by recent generations.
I don't think it is unusual to be either relieved that circumstances protected ancestors from participating in evil or sorrowful for its opposite.
I am not entirely sure how we are supposed to feel about the evils of our ancestors or their heroism. We are not responsible for it. I like to think they would be proud of us for correcting their mistakes and drawing strength and courage from their best traits.
Thank you for this. I see a difference that makes Heschel's remark even more painful. Had he stayed, Abravanel would have been complicit in someone else's campaign of atrocities. We American Jews are complicit in relentless atrocities by people, and by a state, that our leaders portray as our own. It's one thing to be on the side of the oppressors. It's another thing to be the oppressors, or to be part of their group. Does that distinction make sense to you, @Peter Beinart?
You say that "we’re in an era of rising antisemitism" as if it is an established fact. Unfortunately efforts by the ADL et al to obfuscate the issue make the truth unclear. On what basis do you make this claim?
Gold And Silver Freefall: The Storm Before The Calm
If there are lessons from the 2008 minicrash of the markets is that the fall in the equity markets was preceded by the fall in gold and silver Once the bottom in equities and bonds occurred the metals tripled in price with gold going from about $700 per oz to 1900 and silver from $8 to 49
The news streaming is replete with an expected equity crash now due to the Iranian war and Cheeto’s impulsive demented policy decisions The metals have taken a nosedive with gold going from $5400 to currently 4400 and silver $120 to 70 and the equity markets are moving down But there’s another wrinkle in the mix this time Bullion banks are urgently trying to close contracts at the end of the month which has put downward pressure on both metals
The lesson now is that the precious metals bull market will soon resume and new highs will be attained and for the unschooled hang tight Why are metals moving in such upward directions? One word, safety in a chaotic world
I find the argument confusing. Unusual for you Mr Beinart! It would be very helpful to clarify in your following Substack, or your comments and replies. What exactly is ADL's Greenblatt proposing, or suggesting, that is antithetical to either diminishing antisemitism or clarifying the proper role of the Jews (especially American Jews) today?
To Greenblatt, anyone who will agree to offer Israel unconditional support is on his side, even if they are outspoken anti-Semites.
From the Nation:
"Neither the ADL nor Greenblatt saw fit to offer so much as a word of denunciation for Trump’s praise of Hitler’s generals. When President Trump said he would blame American Jews if Harris wins the election, the ADL stumbled over itself to laud Trump before offering a mealy-mouthed critique of the former president’s phrasing. In recent years, Greenblatt has praised Elon Musk, given an award to Jared Kushner, and continued to insist that students on college campuses are just as big a threat as torch-carrying white nationalists."
I've been recommending a New Yorker piece by Corey Robin, "Two Paths for Jewish Politics," from August 2024 (when groups like the ADL had made clear they would align with reactionary forces to quash any dissent around Gaza), and I think it's exactly in line with Heschel's comments cited here. (You can find Robin's piece at https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-weekend-essay/two-paths-for-jewish-politics, but you may need a subscription).
His thesis is that in the old world, Jews sought protection by aligning themselves with the ruling class, using their skills to ingratiate themselves with the rulers, in hopes that they would be spared pogroms on a regular basis. As we know, that worked ok for a while, and then it didn't.
In the US, however, Jews found a new way to be safe - by supporting democracy and civil rights for minorities. Hence their allying with marginalized groups during the Civil Rights movement.
Robin's concern is that mainstream Jewish groups appeared to be slipping back into the old world strategy, and Stephen Miller is the epitome of that.
I think you can see some of Heschel's argument - or at least a variant or corollary of it - in Robin's piece. By being excluded from the mainstream and in some ways embracing that status and fighting for the rights of others also excluded, Jews insulated themselves from participation in and support for some of the horrors committed by white supremacists in America.
Of course, there have been many Jews who followed the old world strategy from the beginning and were participants in the horrors; Judah Benjamin was a slave-owner and Secretary of State to the Confederacy, for example. But during the 1930s (think Lawyer's Guild and Scottsboro Boys defense) and going forward, most obviously during the 1960s and on, mainstream Jewish groups supported the rights of minorities, in part because of "Jewish values" and in part as a strategy of mutual shared safety.
For some time now, however, there has been backsliding, almost completely because of support for Israel. And every synagogue with a "We Stand with Israel" sign out front and an Israeli flag on the bima is guilty of a betrayal of those values, and by abandoning that strategy, they are making us all less safe.
to Adam G - In no way would I equate Stephen Miller with the old world Jews who "sought protection by aligning themselves with the ruling class, using their skills to ingratiate themselves with the rulers, in hopes that they would be spared pogroms on a regular basis." Stephen Miller, who I can only assume sees himself as a small, very fearful person, is better compared to Adolf Eichmann, a similarly immoral MONSTER whose initial focus was on forcing Jewish emigration through coercion and terror, eerily similar in intent to Miller's "pogroms" on immigrants and American citizens trying to defend them.
Thanks for this link Adam g.
Important context..
I remember that piece.
I so admire your efforts and your courage Mr Beinart. Thank you for this thoughtful piece. I wish with all of my heart that we human beings could just love one another and treat each person no matter their color, religion or their circumstances with kindness and generosity.💔🇺🇸
This same Heschel marched with the reverend Dr. Martin Luther King at Selma (interestingly, I learned about Rabbi Heschel's presence at the march from a friend who's an Augustinian friar - he's done a fair amount of interfaith work with rabbis and imams). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Joshua_Heschel#Ideology
Excellent. Thank you for this commentary. In its thrust, it reminds me of the words of Marek Edelman, the leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. To quote (approximately, I do not have the statement in front of me): "To be Jewish is to always be on the side of the oppressed, never the oppressors."
Abraham Heschel was a wonderful man. I feel connected to him not only through what I see as shared vaues but in the fact that my uncle, who became a conservative rabbi, was a direct student of Heschel's for several years.
I see. Perhaps we're in a new era of war: war as theater, war as leisure activity, killing as casual as a round of golf at Mar a Lago, no need for rationale, no need for anything at all. War as a favor for one's friends and family, as a favor to Netanyahu and Kushner and Witikoff.
War because you can. War as distraction. War because you and yours won't be the ones to die.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2026/04/09/signifying-absolutely-nothing-iran-war-otoole/
Not to “spend your $” Neil but a subscription is pretty inexpensive and goes to support independent journalism, which is at a premium these days
I just heard Trump on the radio, if the Iranians don't concede, "we [US] will just keep bombing our little hearts out... "
Thx Roberto-hadn’t yet gotten to that article but was excellent
Except you have to be a subscriber to read the article in its entirety.
This video ends with: "I can’t imagine what Abraham Joshua Heschel would say were he alive today about the people who claim to speak for the organized American Jewish community, people who have so radically repudiated his moral fervor in his belief that Jews have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people in the societies in which they live."
Did Heschel believe that Jews living in *Israel* have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people living in *Israel*?
We can try to answer that question by looking at his book ISRAEL: AN ECHO OF ETERNITY (1969).
He has a rather chauvinistic view of how Palestine belongs to the Jews and to nobody else:
"The Jewish people has never ceased to assert its right, its title, to the land of Israel. ... Whatever greatness came about in this land -- in song, in story, in human personalities, in ideas, in inspiration -- was the result of Jewish living in the land."
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=FFdUjvVbdGUC&pg=PT33
And here he is blaming the victims of the Nakba for their predicament:
"Arab leaders claim that the State of Israel is responsible for the Arab refugee problem. However, according to indisputable and abundant evidence, the refugee traffic was largely stimulated and encouraged by Arab leadership itself. ... Anxious as they were for an orderly and peaceful transition to statehood, the Jewish authorities did what they could to arrest the exodus. Israel's Proclamation of Independence called upon 'the sons of the Arab people dwelling in Israel to keep the peace and to play their part in building the State, on the basis of full and equal citizenship and due representation in all its institutions, provisional and permanent.' ... the Arab governments have, for twenty years, used the Arab refugee as a prime political weapon in their campaign against Israel. Every proposal for his absorption and rehabilitation -- and there have been many -- has been killed so as to guarantee that the refugee problem should live on, endlessly, as a tool of propaganda and hatred."
Source: https://books.google.com/books?id=FFdUjvVbdGUC&pg=PT131
In that last sentence, it is clear he's talking about absorption and rehabilitation of Arab refugees from Palestine into *other* countries. He rules out repatriation back to their homes. Peter, if you are correct that Heschel believed "that Jews have a profound, fervent responsibility to take moral responsibility for all of the people in the societies in which they live", I think you need to add that he believed this responsibility ends when Jews expel non-Jews from land that he believed belongs to the Jewish people.
In 1969, even Heschel may have believed the propaganda that the flight of Palestinians during the Nakba was caused by the neighboring Arab countries. We know now that this idea is debatable if not incorrect.
When Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt, and other prominent Jews denounced the Israeli regime for its Nazism and barbarism in the Dec. 1948 New York Times, it’s hard to believe Rabbi Heschel wasn’t aware of it, enough to give him second thoughts. All the same, his point about the favor done to Jews by expelling them from the peninsula, saving them from complicity in the 16th-century genocides in the New World, is a powerful one, and I’m indebted to Peter for pointing it out.
Thank you Peter for your thoughts today and for sharing this powerful statement from Rabbi Heschel. It gives me clarity and i no longer feel alone.
Peter Beinart, once again you’ve shown that you are part of a great lineage of humane thinkers and courageous voices. 🙏🏼
From this video:
"we’re in an era of rising antisemitism — which is true"
"we’re worried about antisemitism in the United States in 2026."
For the third week in a row, I have to ask essentially the same question: how do you measure (at least in a rough sense) the level of antisemitism in the United States, in order to judge that it is rising (or falling)? Since this is something that you are concerned about, I would expect that you'd want your readers to know how you come to this conclusion of "rising antisemitism."
You might not like this comparison, but I'm pretty sure you've looked at the Heritage Foundation's "PROJECT ESTHER: A National Strategy to Combat Antisemitism" (October 2024). Its stated intent is "to combat the scourge of antisemitism in the United States." Its 33 pages give detailed plans for action, some of which have been implemented by now, but here's the thing: it does not cite any evidence of any harm that has been experienced by any Jews in the United States as a result of this alleged scourge. It even gives numbers from the ADL's counting of "antisemitic incidents", but includes no hint of what happened in any of these incidents.
This really resonates with me!
I think of the story of Purim and how Esther used her influence with Modechai to save the Jews
It gave me the chills to hear what Herschel may have felt in regards to Steven Miller. His role is unfathomable to me
We must take moral responsibility for others
Very disappointing that too many Jews publicly and in my own orthodox family do not agree
I have had very similar thoughts: relieved that some of my Southern relatives were too poor to have owned slaves, relieved that the one line in the family who potentially might have been slaveholders had lost their money, all of it, thus passing down none to be inherited by recent generations.
I don't think it is unusual to be either relieved that circumstances protected ancestors from participating in evil or sorrowful for its opposite.
I am not entirely sure how we are supposed to feel about the evils of our ancestors or their heroism. We are not responsible for it. I like to think they would be proud of us for correcting their mistakes and drawing strength and courage from their best traits.
Thank you for this. I see a difference that makes Heschel's remark even more painful. Had he stayed, Abravanel would have been complicit in someone else's campaign of atrocities. We American Jews are complicit in relentless atrocities by people, and by a state, that our leaders portray as our own. It's one thing to be on the side of the oppressors. It's another thing to be the oppressors, or to be part of their group. Does that distinction make sense to you, @Peter Beinart?
You say that "we’re in an era of rising antisemitism" as if it is an established fact. Unfortunately efforts by the ADL et al to obfuscate the issue make the truth unclear. On what basis do you make this claim?
But do you think, too, that Heschel believed that EVERY human being has a moral responsibility towards every other human being?
Gold And Silver Freefall: The Storm Before The Calm
If there are lessons from the 2008 minicrash of the markets is that the fall in the equity markets was preceded by the fall in gold and silver Once the bottom in equities and bonds occurred the metals tripled in price with gold going from about $700 per oz to 1900 and silver from $8 to 49
The news streaming is replete with an expected equity crash now due to the Iranian war and Cheeto’s impulsive demented policy decisions The metals have taken a nosedive with gold going from $5400 to currently 4400 and silver $120 to 70 and the equity markets are moving down But there’s another wrinkle in the mix this time Bullion banks are urgently trying to close contracts at the end of the month which has put downward pressure on both metals
The lesson now is that the precious metals bull market will soon resume and new highs will be attained and for the unschooled hang tight Why are metals moving in such upward directions? One word, safety in a chaotic world
I find the argument confusing. Unusual for you Mr Beinart! It would be very helpful to clarify in your following Substack, or your comments and replies. What exactly is ADL's Greenblatt proposing, or suggesting, that is antithetical to either diminishing antisemitism or clarifying the proper role of the Jews (especially American Jews) today?
I'm not Mr. Beinart, but I'm happy to weigh in on this. Greenblatt has been running cover for the actual nazi's in the Trump administration, whether it's excusing Elon Musk's (then of DOGE) nazi salutes (https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/22/adl-faces-backlash-for-defending-elon-musks-raised-arm-gesture), or the general fascism of Trump and his supporters (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/adl-trump-rally-fascism/).
To Greenblatt, anyone who will agree to offer Israel unconditional support is on his side, even if they are outspoken anti-Semites.
From the Nation:
"Neither the ADL nor Greenblatt saw fit to offer so much as a word of denunciation for Trump’s praise of Hitler’s generals. When President Trump said he would blame American Jews if Harris wins the election, the ADL stumbled over itself to laud Trump before offering a mealy-mouthed critique of the former president’s phrasing. In recent years, Greenblatt has praised Elon Musk, given an award to Jared Kushner, and continued to insist that students on college campuses are just as big a threat as torch-carrying white nationalists."