These Columnists Doth Protest Too Much

Two progressive Jewish New York Times writers defend Mamdani against Jewish critics.

Note to readers: And plenty more don’t: Since when does voting for someone mean you love them?

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks,” Queen Gertrude says in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” variations of which have come to mean that denying something vigorously may well indicate hiding the truth.

The classic line came to mind this weekend while reading New York Times Opinion pieces by two progressive Jewish women columnists who aggressively defended Zohran Mamdani against those who believe his candidacy for mayor of New York presents a threat to Jews.

At the crux of both pieces is the insistence that one can be anti-Israel without being anti-Semitic. This is certainly true in principle, but in practice the great majority of American Jews feel their identity is inextricably tied to the people and land of Israel, the home of the Jewish people since biblical times.

Younger, progressive American Jews are the exception. A relatively small but growing number of these primarily Gen Z Jews are far less engaged in Jewish religious and communal life than their elders and are more critical of Israel in terms of its relationship with Palestinians. The tension between generations is playing out in Democratic politics today.

The full-page piece in Friday’s paper by Masha Gessen, who goes by “M. Gessen” as a Times columnist, was titled “The Story of Antisemitism Needs To Be Rewritten.” Gessen asserted that it is unfair to call Mamdani anti-Semitic because of his strong views against Israel, and notes that he “chokes up” emotionally at times when accused of Jew hatred. “It’s hard to keep defending yourself against a false accusation,” she writes.

Gessen cites statements from Mamdani of his commitment to protect Jews in New York if he is elected mayor in November. She claims that statistics indicating an enormous spike in anti-Semitism in the U.S. may be misleading because those who track such incidents “often thwart the effort to get hard information because they insist on conflating criticism of Israel with anti-Zionism and anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.”

“Violence that looks anti-Semitic may … be something else,” Gessen argues.

The most troubling example she offers, by applying twisted logic, is the murder of the young couple shot repeatedly in the back after leaving an American Jewish Committee event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington in May. Gessen suggests the shooter’s motive may have been political because: he yelled “Free Palestine,” the victims worked at the Israeli Embassy, and the shooter’s “900-word manifesto didn’t contain the word ‘Jew’ or even ‘Zionist.’”

The simple and horrifying fact, though, is that the killer didn’t know where his victims worked. He chose to shoot them because they had attended a Jewish event in a Jewish space. That’s anti-Semitism.

On Sunday the Times published an Opinion by columnist Michelle Goldberg entitled “Plenty of Jews Love Zohran Mamdani.” (Note to the headline writer: Since when does voting for someone mean you love them?) Goldberg acknowledges that she understands “why Jews who see anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as synonymous find Mamdani’s rise alarming.” (In fact, that’s most Jews.) She goes on: “There’s no question that he sympathizes with Palestinians over Israelis.” Later in the piece she writes, “one needn’t even be an ardent backer of Israel to have reservations about Mamdani,” noting his lack of political experience and radical economic views, and adding that she thought “it was a terrible mistake for Mamdani to try to justify the phrase ‘globalize the intifada’ on a podcast this month.”

But Goldberg is taken with the candidate’s “magic,” his energy and inspiring message of optimism, suggesting that many progressives, frustrated with older Democratic politicians’ lack of effective resistance to Donald Trump’s autocratic agenda, are prepared to take a leap of faith in candidates with more vigor than know-how – even if that means offending and perhaps endangering much of the Jewish community in the city with the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

Applying ‘The 3 D’s’

Zohran Mamdani is an example of “the new anti-Semtism.” Unlike classic anti-Semitism that targets Judaism or Jewish people, the new form takes aim at Israel, the Jewish state. In seeking to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, Natan Sharansky, the most famous of Jewish refuseniks, applies “the 3 D’s”: delegitimization, demonization and double standards, each of which, he says, indicates anti-Semitism.

Mamdani appears to qualify in all three categories. He has long been an anti-Israel activist, and on the day after the October 7, 2023 barbaric Hamas attack he posted on X: "The path toward a just and lasting peace can only begin by ending the occupation and dismantling apartheid.” No mention of Hamas for murdering 1,200 men, women and children, and taking 250 people hostage, tortured in tunnels. Instead, the onus is on Israel, labeled an apartheid state, though 20 percent of its citizens are Arabs, including those who serve on the nation’s Supreme Court.

Most recently and tellingly is Mamdani’s refusal to back off of his defense of the call for “global intifada,” which many Jews interpret as an endorsement of violence against Jews anywhere and everywhere. That’s a clear example of double standard and demonization in citing Israel as the only country in the world whose right to exist is continually questioned and challenged.

(Does anyone speak of being “pro-Italy, pro-Portugal or any other country?)

In the end, I agree with Masha Gessen’s statement that “the story of anti-Semitism needs to be rewritten.” But I come to the exact opposite of her conclusion. The point isn’t to distinguish between classic anti-Semites and those who delegitimize and demonize Israel among all the nations, it’s to, davka, put them in the same category. And call them out.