"Join the club"

In a thread in which compromise seemed impossible, I (thank you, thank you very much) made it happen: it's been decided that we're going to retain the expression "Jewish self-hatred" to refer to that multifaceted phenomenon, but abandon its use as a term to describe (or, worse, be hurled at) individual Jews. Point being, there are many ways in which Jewish self-hatred expresses itself (from the classics - name-change, nose-change - to the "cringe," to the claim some "I'm-the-exception" Jews will make that they and they alone stand apart from those materialistic/warmongering/disgusting masses known as "the Jews"), so to scrap the term altogether makes it impossible to explain those phenomena. But in individual cases, the accusation is pointless-bordering-on-offensive, because it reads as being about telling someone their behavior fails to match up, in Jewiness, with their name or physical appearance. Given that a key part of anti-Semitism is not letting Jews define Jewish identity for themselves, it's a bit much to claim to be fighting anti-Semitism by telling those who don't identify strongly (or in one's preferred ways) as Jews that they're traitors to their true selves.

Also - and this can't be emphasized enough - telling someone he's a self-hating Jew will if anything encourage someone who already thinks he's telling-it-like-it-is to The Jews, all of whom (save him) lack the courage to tell it like it is about (typically) Israel. Case in point. Roger Cohen would obviously like nothing more than to hear from other Jews that he's a self-hating Jew. And given that he writes an opinion column for the New York Times, and allows comments, he's no doubt been called every name under the sun, so it's far from inconceivable that Cohen is, "to self-styled 'real Jews,' not Jewish enough, or even — join the club — a self-hating Jew."

Meanwhile, the actual irritating thing about Cohen's writing on Israel isn't that OMG horror of horrors someone named Cohen is a traitor to Our Kind and has dared to say that the Israeli government does some crappy things. It's that when Cohen writes about Israel, it's always in this cringe-inducing - yes! cringe-inducing - way, where it's obvious beyond doubt that all the man wants, all he wants commenters to affirm (and many always do), is that he's not like those other Jews, that he stands bravely alone and dares tell truths no other Jews will.

It's irritating, because if there are a handful of old-timer sorts who hurl "self-hating Jew" at anyone who thinks being a Jew means something other than 110% support of Israel, there are precisely a trillion zillion younger and more plugged-in Jews - Israeli and Diaspora - who also see Israel as fallible and speak up about it. Recognizing this would, alas, mean that Cohen is - wait for it - just like many other Jews after all, which isn't what he wants to hear.

Given the chunks of his own biography we get from his columns, especially this latest one, it's not all that surprising that Cohen would be on some level have been deeply impacted by the "whisper" (aka "cringing") phenomenon he denounces but apparently grew up with. Thus, even though I'm totally fine with someone named Cohen being a pro-Palestinian activist, becoming Pope for all I care, I do see the temptation to call Roger Cohen a self-hating Jew, simply because one gets the knock-you-over-the-head sense, from his writing, that what he hopes to achieve in criticizing Israel is some kind of official recognition that he's an exception. Some kind of "You're a Good Jew!" plaque. But as tempting as it is, I won't, because R.C. will interpret that as proof that The Jews can't handle his refusal to think the settlements were/are a fabulous idea. There's nothing to be gained from telling Roger Cohen that maybe he suffers from Jewish self-hatred and should have that checked out. There is, however, something to be gained from recognizing that this is a phenomenon, and knowing it when you see it.