Left, Right and in Between
Michelle Goldberg will speak at our Kumah Festival on May 15th
Dear friends,
On May 15th we’ll be opening our sixth Kumah: Rise Up festival, where we find ways to bring together artists, thinkers and ritual leaders to highlight the space where The New Shul lives: in the converging worlds of faith, art and politics. Our opening evening, which will include new music written by our Kibbutz NYC members, will center around a conversation with New York Times columnist and New Shul member Michelle Goldberg. Michelle is a good friend and neighbor of ours, and in recent years has been one of the voices of clarity that consistently holds up truth and nuance in a chaotic world, especially around the topic of antisemitism.
There is a type of honest simplicity that often shines through her brilliance. I’ve seen her a hundred times weigh in her mind competing factors and then lay out in straightforward terms that rare foundational block of truth: logic.
In March of 2024, in the midst of war and intense polarization and accusations flying in all directions, Michelle decided to respond to the many Jews who wrote to her with feelings of confusion or disappointment or rage over her refusal to blankly state that Anti-Zionism is antisemitic. She wrote about her complicated feelings toward Zionism: “I’m a secular Jew with no particular attachment to Israel, spiritual or otherwise, though I also recognize that my ability to hold myself aloof from the country is enabled by the great privilege of an American passport. I think the idea of Israel as a colonial entity that will eventually be dismantled is a malign fantasy — most Jewish Israelis don’t have anywhere else to go — but I also recognize that the country’s creation can’t be disentangled from the dispossession of the Palestinians."
She went to write: "I could never blame a Palestinian for thinking it obscenely unfair that I have a right to “return” to a country to which I have no family connection, while Palestinians who lost their homes in 1948 do not." To be able to write a piece in the Times directed at those who want to argue against you, that is so honest and so hard to argue with, about the one topic that seems to rile everyone up the most is an incredible feat. I still remember her writing immediately following October 7th, where she somehow both called out the left for being indecent, and in some cases antisemitic, while at the same time raising the alarm that major Israeli government officials are openly calling for a second Nakba as the pro-Israel camp in the US cheers. Hate is hate, the reader understood, and racism is racism no matter who it's directed at.
Recently, she has been identifying frightening antisemitic trends on the right. When everyone got excited because Tucker Carlson came out against Trump, Michelle wrote a brilliant piece explaining how his views and words about Trump reveal a deep-seated antisemitism. A year ago, she flagged again the despicable antisemitism of many Christian Zionists. She decried an upside culture where “ultra-Zionist gentiles get to lecture Jews about antisemitism even as they lay waste to the liberal culture that has allowed American Jews to thrive.”
Antisemitism is a confounding problem that is, sadly, a permanent element in our world. But it is also constantly in motion. In order to understand it, and the way it morphs and appears in new forms, we need people like Michelle whose hearts are good and minds are bright and clear. I can't think of anyone better equipped to help us understanding where things stand right now on this issue, and where we might be heading. I hope you can join us to hear her speak and answer questions. And if you can’t, that you read or re-read some of her articles that bring light to this dark topic.
In the meantime I wish you a happy May Day and hope to see you tomorrow morning at the Soup Kitchen to chop vegetables and celebrate Oscar's Bar Mitzvah!
Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Misha