Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie begins her TED Talk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” with a story about a young man named Fide who was her family’s house servant when she was growing up in Nigeria. Her mother continually reminded her that Fide was poor. One day, she visited Fide at his home and she was shocked when his mother showed her a beautifully woven basket that his brother had made. It never occurred to her that someone who had been described uni-dimensionally as poor should be capable of such competence. Her story about Fide serves as a warning of the danger of seeing a person’s victimhood as the totality of their identity.
The Jewish people have learned this lesson the hard way. In recent decades, our victimhood has been our shield. After experiencing millennia of persecution at the hands of both Christians and Muslims, we received a brief respite after the Holocaust. The Christian world in particular was so shocked by the end product of centuries of its own hateful teachings that it dramatically rejected antisemitism. The newly formed State of Israel benefited from that sympathy as long as Israel was perceived as a nation of vulnerable victims, struggling to survive against the bullies of the world.
All of this began to change in 1967. When Israel proved quite capable of defending itself, it lost its victim status, and with it, the world’s sympathy. So, when American Jews were attacked by a mass shooter in Pittsburgh, expressions of sympathy poured in from all over the world. But, when recently Israeli civilians were killed by Hamas rockets that were aimed directly at them, the world was silent.
It’s not hard to see why. In Pittsburgh, the Jewish community was helpless to defend itself. But the Israeli army was able to inflict great damage on Israel’s attackers. The message is quite simple. Seventy years after the Holocaust, the world is still not ready for Jews who can fight their own battles.
This is an old story. For centuries, Christians taught that Jews must be subservient. We had rejected the true God, and any suggestion that Jews were equal to Christians would be a sacrilege. Jews fared better in Muslim lands, but that is a low bar. Jews were often given the choice of conversion or death, just as in Christendom. Even in the best of times, a synagogue was never permitted to be the same height as a mosque.
Don’t talk to us about the Golden Age of Spain. Jews were tolerated as long as it was clear that Muslims were superior. There is no precedent in Muslim history for viewing Jews as equals. And that is why Arab and Muslim countries have found it so hard to accept a strong, independent Jewish state in their midst. The American Jewish community has struggled to respond to the loss of world sympathy. Some of us have doubled down on our victim status, pointing out (not inaccurately) that we are still plenty vulnerable. Others of us apologize for our success as if the only alternative to not being oppressed is being the oppressor. Neither of these responses is psychologically healthy.
And, not only for Jews. As the election of Donald Trump made evident, nothing is as infuriating to a white supremacist as a black man leading the free world. Slavery was evil. But the successful black community of Tulsa was unforgivable. It is Asian American success that has earned them hate in America. It’s one thing not to persecute your Asian American neighbors. It’s another thing for them to outperform you in school.
Rawabi is a model for brilliant Palestinian entrepreneurship on the West Bank. But the world is not interested in successful Palestinians. Is it any wonder that Palestinians have concluded that the only way to get the world’s attention is through the death of its children? But it is easy to love a child. It is much more challenging to love an equal.
This doesn’t mean we should back away from telling the truth about oppression. America still has a lot to learn about its cruel treatment of African Americans from slavery to the present. Holocaust education is still vital. And we’ve barely begun to tell the story of America’s indigenous peoples.
But no community should have to be defensive about its successes. The goal of correcting the wrongs of the past should be to ensure that formerly marginalized peoples live meaningful, fulfilled and productive lives. What does it say about us if we abandon them when they flourish?
The writer is rabbi emeritus of Herzl Ner-Tamid in Mercer Island, Washington.