What Can American Jews Do?

Last month in Mosaic I wrote about Jews who were giving up on America and moving to Israel because they saw the “handwriting on the wall”: auguries that this country was failing to fulfill its promise and could no longer protect its Jews. As strongly as I share the draw of Israel for those inspired to undertake aliyah, I wrote that, as equal partners in this great experiment, we Jewish citizens bear our share of responsibility—no more and no less—for the republic whose benefits we reap. Among the predictably thoughtful responses to my argument by readers of Mosaic, some agreed with me that we do indeed have to join the fight “to keep America, America.”

I’d like to return to the same issue now from another angle, and to ask whether Jews have any special responsibility as Jews to lands of settlement where they are accorded the equal rights of citizens. The question is pertinent because, more so than other U.S. citizens, Jews are ill-advised to take their good fortune simply for granted. Our badly scarred history in other people’s lands has made us a thermometer for how wisely a majority can coexist with its minorities and harness their skills for the greater good.

In our case, America’s exceptionalism has been manifested in its exceptional ability to house Judaism and Jews. This record is all the more impressive when compared with the fate of the Jews in Europe, the cradle of Western civilization. Yet guarantees that American Jews have so far enjoyed are now being threatened by cadres in powerful institutions, especially the media and the academy, that embrace and promote ideological concoctions with disturbing anti-Jewish effects.