On August 30, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is Jewish, made the following statement in a private speech to Jewish Democrats.
" We have a moral imperative to place the needs of the world above even our own self-interest and, yes, even our own survival."
Dana Nessel
To me, this sounded disturbingly familiar.
"We have always held the well-being of the German people and the Fatherland, to which we feel inextricably linked, above our own well-being. Thus, we greeted the results of January 1933, even though it has brought hardship for us personally."
Max Naumann, leader of the Association of German National Jews (Jews for Hitler)
Let me make something abundantly clear: I do not believe Dana Nessel is a Jew for Hitler or a Nazi.
But I do have to wonder where her Jewish education went wrong, because she also proceeded to say the following...
"It is perhaps up to us now to follow in [Queen Esther’s] path and sacrifice the comfort, safety and security and even the very future of our own people in exchange for the opportunity to save the rest of humanity."
Dana Nessel
Nessel repeatedly brought up “Jewish values” and Queen Esther in her speech, but the idea that a Jew is to sacrifice themselves to save the rest of humanity is not a Jewish value. (Not to mention, Queen Esther saved Jews, not humanity).
She’s talking about Christianity.
A FUNDAMENTALLY ANTI-JEWISH CONCEPT
"We do not set aside one life to save another."
Mishnah Oholot 7:6
The idea that Jews should collectively sacrifice the Jewish people if it means saving another keeps coming up again and again in progressive circles, including among progressive Jews, and has increasingly gained traction in the aftermath of October 7th.
Proponents of such a philosophy (incorrectly) throw Jewish terms and expressions like “Tikkun Olam,” “justice, justice, you shall pursue,” and “if I am only for myself, what am I?” to support their arguments.
So let this be abundantly clear: the very idea that Jews should self-sacrifice to save the lives of everybody else is fundamentally antithetical to the most basic values in Judaism.
Any form of human sacrifice (including, in almost all contexts, self-sacrifice) is gravely prohibited in Judaism.
A FUNDAMENTALLY CHRISTIAN FRAMEWORK
Jews form 0.2% of the world population and are primarily concentrated in Israel and major urban centers in the East and West Coasts of the United States. The majority of the world population has never met a Jew.
But the majority of the world has heard of Jews. That’s because a third of the globe is Christian and another fourth is Muslim. Both religions used the Tanakh, or the Hebrew Bible, as its theological foundation. And both groups, particularly Christians, have assigned a particular role to the Jewish people. Namely, Jesus, a Jew, died on the cross to absolve the world of its sins.
In the West, Christianity is no longer the supreme authority on morality and social order the way that it once was. But today’s West inherited Christianity’s framework. Jews continue to be perceived as a vehicle for the West’s projections and absolutions. That’s why it’s so easy for Western progressives to call for the dismantling or destruction of the Jewish state or call on Israelis to “go back to Poland” on account of accusations of “settler-colonialism” while making no serious effort to remove themselves from stolen indigenous land.
WHAT ACTUALLY IS A JEWISH VALUE
"All of Israel is responsible for one another."
Shevuot 39a
The idea that all Jews are responsible for the well-being of other Jews is a core Jewish value.
Judaism teaches that, spiritually, every Jew is a mutual guarantor for the physical wellbeing, spiritual health, and fate of all other Jews.
According to Rabbinic tradition, the Jewish people function like a single organism, where the actions, transgressions, and safety of a single Jew affect the actions, transgressions, and safety of all Jews.
If Dana Nessel and other Jews proposing self-sacrifice for the wellbeing of everybody else disagree with this core Jewish value, then that’s their prerogative. But dressing up a fundamentally Christian concept – the idea that a Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, died for the world’s collective sins – in Jewish terminology doesn’t make it any more Jewish.
A DEMAND MADE OF JEWS -- AND NOBODY ELSE
Beyond theological or philosophical arguments over what does or does not constitute a Jewish value, I’d like to consider why so many people – including both Jews and non-Jews alike – feel so comfortable suggesting that Jews should put their most basic personal interests (like our survival or safety) aside for the sake of everybody else.
I have never once, in all of my years participating in left-wing, progressive spaces or observing activists for a long laundry list of other causes, seen anyone suggest to another minority that they should put their personal survival aside. Ever.
Could it be that, for 2,000 years, our society has internalized ideas about Jews’ role in society that are ultimately rooted in Christian hegemony? When did we consent to become a vehicle for the rest of humanity to cleanse themselves of their sins?
Here’s the truth: self-survival is the most basic human instinct. We have a right to that instinct as much as anybody else does.
BUT WAIT...WHAT ABOUT COLLECTIVE LIBERATION?
For the past several years, antizionist Jews have talked about the concept of “collective liberation” ad nauseum, suggesting that Jews will be self once everybody else is safe.
“Collective liberation” has become a default response to Jews who advocate for their own self-interests (like safety or survival), with the suggestion being that Jews must place the needs of others above our own to find true safety. It has always felt like gaslighting, because I don’t see how placing the interests of those who want to hurt me above my own is going to save me.
Now, Nessel seems to have admitted in her speech that it never really was about Jewish liberation by way of collective liberation, but about Jewish self-sacrifice. Those are two contradictory ideas.
Which makes me wonder: does Nessel not see a major, glaring red flag in the fact that so many regard Jewish safety as inherently contradictory to everybody else’s?
THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF OCTOBER 7TH
This is a Facebook post from a self-described antizionist Jew just days after the October 7th massacre.
To me, this is emblematic of the world’s response to October 7th (and the Israeli capture of Adolf Eichmann...and the Entebbe raid to free Israeli/Jewish hostages...and the list goes on): the idea that there is absolutely nothing Jews can do in self-defense that could ever be considered morally acceptable. That it’s better for us to let them kill us than to take up arms. That the only appropriate Jewish response to getting murdered would be to turn the other cheek (also a Christian concept, not a Jewish one).
It explains why, within a couple of days of October 7th, before Israel even launched its ground invasion of Gaza, activists were already accusing Israel of genocide.
I AM NOT THE FIRST TO MAKE THIS OBSERVATION
Generations of Jews before me have noted that Jews who are eager to earn universal acceptance, or Jews who are eager to be regarded as righteous and humane, are the first to abandon the needs of their own community in favor of supporting the needs of everybody else.
Which makes me wonder: when and why did some of us decide that the “humane” or “righteous” position is for Jews to self-sacrifice? Why is this not demanded of other groups seeking social justice? And why should Jews continue playing a role non-Jews assigned to us 2,000 years ago, to our own detriment?
"But lest we should justify the taunts of our opponents, lest we should become "tribal" and narrow and Judaic rather than humane and cosmopolitan like the antisemites of Germany and Jew-baiters of Russia, we ignore and repudiate our unhappy brethren as having no part or share in their misfortunes — until the cup of anguish is held also to our own lips."
Excerpt from An Epistle to the Hebrews by Emma Lazarus, 1883
PUTTING THE QUOTES BACK INTO CONTEXT
"Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and inherit the land which the Lord your God is giving you."
Deuteronomy 16:20
"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?"
Pirkei Avot 1:14
Tikkun Olam literally translates to “repairing the world,” through good deeds and mitzvot (commandments), and though many progressive Jews now interpret the concept as equivalent to the pursuit of social justice, that is not quite its original meaning. The phrase first appears in early rabbinic literature and references legal adjustments the rabbis made to protect vulnerable people and maintain social order. Kabbalah further expanded on it, suggesting that divine light shattered during creation, trapping holy sparks in the physical world. Good deeds and mitzvot are what help release those sparks back to heaven. Its association with social justice and activism traces back to Reform and Reconstructionist ideas in the mid-20th century.
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