In America, Jewish particularism is being turned on its head

Jewish history, encompassing both religious beliefs and cultural affinities, has largely been an ongoing struggle between particularism and universalism.

Particularism extols the uniqueness of the Jewish people: its covenant with God, its particular mission among the nations, and prioritizes that uniqueness as something to cherish, protect and to celebrate.

Universalism sees Judaism and Jewishness in a larger context in which Jewishness should reflect and reflect upon larger, widely held values, and in which Judaism is at its best when it is participating alongside other religions, nations and cultures.

Our beloved Hanukka, that we just celebrated, is perhaps the strongest evidence of this persistent disparity. While Jewish tradition has focused on the opposition of the ragtag Maccabees to the Greeks, the subliminal story deals with the struggle between particularist traditionalists and universalist Hellenists.

Today, the Jewish world is largely being divided by the latest iteration of these very different world views. What is depicted as the increasing alienation of Israeli and American Jewry is largely a product of the particularity of Israeli Jews and the universalism of a large segment of American Jewry.

This divide is reflected religiously, where the tikkun olam of the Reform Movement has become the defining aspect of what it means to be a practicing Jew, while Israeli society is seeing a growing interest in embracing tradition and traditional observance.

However, it is in the realm of the political that the divide has become the greatest, and threatens to become the most destructive. Israel is, by definition, particular. It is a sovereign nation, whose existence is owed to the motivating genius of Zionism, a movement of national self-determination of the Jewish people.

Zionism is thoroughly particularist, proudly so, as it seeks to chart a course for the Jewish people to live with sovereign control over its collective existence. Its singular achievement, the State of Israel, is the only Jewish state in the world.

In America, by contrast, traditional liberal affiliations of most Jews have morphed into an embrace of progressivism, especially among younger Jews. Progressivism, American style, is increasingly focused on identity politics, viewing all political and social issues through the prism of who is being impacted.

While black lives indeed matter, pointing out that all lives matter is somehow creating a smoke screen for privilege instead of recognizing that there are indeed universal values worthy of respect.

Progressive identity politics has created a strange inversion in the particularist/universalist dichotomy. The universalism of liberal American Jewry is being challenged and disparaged by progressives who have their favored groups and identities. Not only are these groups to be favored, but also, thanks to the concept of intersectionality, there is a binding commonality among them. Anointed groups must all be similarly protected because they have been the victims of the same oppression.

In the progressive pantheon of favored identities, Judaism is hardly to be found. Worse, Israel and Zionism lead the pack of hated identities.

Ironically, progressive ideology is forcing universalist-oriented liberal Jews to basically eradicate their Jewish identity and affinity in the name of maintaining ideological common cause with their progressive fellow travelers.

Israeli particularists might gloat that there is a mida keneged mida (measure for measure) aspect to all of this, as those who were inclined to dilute Judaism, to the point of non-recognition, are now being required to bury it altogether as a way to stay in the universal club of progressivism, which sees itself as the champion of human rights.

Of course, progressivism is not actually universal, or a protector of human rights, but rather a movement that particularizes oppressed groups for adulation, and particularizes privileged groups for disparagement and opposition.

Thus, young American liberal Jews are being forced to choose between being privileged Jews or being fullfledged progressives.

The result is an Orwellian situation where young liberal Jews are actually becoming particularists, but it is the particularity that singles out Israel, Zionism and increasingly Judaism itself as the incarnation of evil.

In a depressing irony of history, significant numbers of American Jews are now embracing particularism, but it is the particularism of pointing the finger, of bigotry and of turning against their very selves. It is the particularity of antisemitism.

If there is a déjà vu aspect to this, there should be. These were the same demands that Bolshevism made of Jews, and that even the Enlightenment required for Jewish emancipation.

Putting aside demographic issues, the growing embrace of an increasingly antisemitic progressive movement helps to understand the growing Israeli/American divide. More fundamentally, however, it poses an existential threat to the very continuity of the American Jewish community.

The author is chairman of the board of Im Tirtzu and a board member of the Israel Independence Fund.