(RNS) — Here is one of my favorite jokes:
A well-dressed man is leaving a Broadway theater when an ill-clad, visibly poor man approaches him and asks him for some spare change.
To which the well-dressed man says: “‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be.’ Shakespeare said that.”
To which the ill-clad man responds: “‘Go f— yourself.’ David Mamet said that.”
Welcome to the ubiquitous f-bomb. On the street, in private life and in popular culture, you cannot go more than five minutes, it seems, without encountering it. I remember watching “Succession” with some friends, and we counted the number of f-bombs in one particular episode. I lost count at about a hundred. Likewise, the movie “Uncut Gems,” which makes “Succession” seem like “Heidi.”
Judaism has its own share of elegant sort-of f-bombs. Toward the end of the Passover Seder, there is a reading: “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You. … ” It is a medieval addition to the haggadah, in which Jews curse murderous antisemites. When you consider that those were the words of a people that had no power, whose only power was in their words, it is quite understandable.
As for me, in a rabbinical career that spanned more than four decades, I never used the f-bomb from the pulpit or in a teaching setting. There is a reason for that: The f-bomb is high linguistic treif. It is nivul peh — which is as close to “potty mouth” as my ancestors could conjure.
OK, so let’s work on not saying it.
But, as for thinking it …
Hmmm.
Speaking at a conference on the future of Zionism, New York Times columnist Bret Stephens suggested we can divide modern American Jewish history into two eras.
The first era, roughly 1950 to 2000, was the era of ingratiation. I call it the Sally Fields era of American Judaism: “You like me, you like me!”
During that era, Jews sought to win admiration from other Americans. We touted the achievements of American Jews: Jonas Salk inventing the polio vaccine; Irving Berlin writing “White Christmas”; Jewish comedians and entertainers. When it came to Israel, we stressed the harmony of the American agenda and the Israeli agenda. When it came to antisemitism, we were eager to append “ … and all other hatreds and bigotries” to the conversation, lest others see our focus on Jew-hatred as special pleading (that tendency is alive and well). Please like us, we said.
But, around 2000, we entered a second era — and that is the era of respect. It is not only about getting respect from others; it is about having self-respect.
In this current era of self-respect that demands respect from others, Jews should stop apologizing for themselves. Stephens notes that many Jews instinctively add, “To be sure, we deplore all human suffering” when speaking of Gaza. Depending on context, I have done that myself. But, he notes the relative paucity of Palestinians who will say, “To be sure, Israel was attacked mercilessly on Oct. 7 … ”
Bret reminded us of the time when the Israeli politician Tzipi Livni spoke at Harvard Law School. During a panel discussion, a law student pointedly asked her, “How is it that you are so smelly? … A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I was just wondering.”
That is a theme out of classic antisemitism: that Jews have a particular smell. Some students came to his defense, saying he only intended to criticize Israeli policy, which presumably had given Ms. Livni a particular stench.
Bret continued: Imagine if the speaker had been Anita Hill. Imagine that a white student had asked her: “Why are you so smelly?” What would have happened?
You know what would have happened. Black students, and others, would have gone ballistic on him — with a cacophony of, well, f-bombs.
Bret asked the rhetorical question: Why was the Black community so successful in the Civil Rights Movement, in changing the terms of the debate and the culture? How did they make racism so toxic to the vast majority of Americans?
They stood up and called racism out — wherever they saw it. It worked. Self-respect is the quickest and most effective way to gain respect from your neighbors.
Jews need not, and should not, seek the approval of people who do not like us. Jews need not, and should not, seek to hang out with people who don’t want us. Jews need not, and should not, rush to prove our own acceptability to those who themselves are unacceptable.
So, with my new-ish attitude toward the haters, I will say: “If you want to have a reasonable discussion based on facts and the pursuit of shared values, great. But, if you only want to denigrate my own experience and my people’s history, it is beneath my dignity to engage you on these matters.”
Which is a far more eloquent way of putting it than what I might want to say.
Rather than try to convince those who can never be convinced, let’s try another strategy. Let’s seek out and build relationships with those people who support us, and/or who are curious about Jews, Israel and Zionism. Engage them in conversation, not debate. Find those Venn diagrams of shared values, history and experiences.
Because here is the good news: There are far more of them out there than you think.
And I would like to think they outnumber the haters.
To whom I might say (in the quiet places of my mind) …
Well, you get it.
