The Standing to Criticize: Loyal, Disloyal, and Unaffiliated Jewish Critics

• In Event: Ambivalent, Critical, Self-Divided: Perspectives on Jewish Self-Appraisal from Literature and Philosophy

Abstract

Those charged with Jewish self-hatred (e.g., J. Rose, A. Lerman) respond commonly by trying to discredit the concept altogether as a mechanism to silence Jews who criticize Judaism and Jewry. My essay on Jewish self-hatred (Key Concepts in the Study of Antisemitism, 2020) tries to rescue the concept’s use as a description of internalized racism (i.e., antisemitism) among Jews from its increasingly common and often problematic use as an accusation of betrayal by Jews against Jews. While this response about abuses of “self-hatred” has merit, as my earlier argument concedes, it skirts entirely the question of whether the charge’s substance still applies, namely, that these critics have betrayed their fellows Jews, the Jewish community, or Judaism’s fundamental ideals and principles.
In this presentation, accordingly, I pursue this other aspect of (mislabeled) “Jewish self-hatred.” With the help of philosophical literature – both Jewish (Walzer, Margalit) and non-Jewish (Rorty, Moody-Adams) – on social and moral criticism, I distinguish three kinds of Jewish critics: the loyal, the disloyal, and the unaffiliated. The charge of betrayal, I explain, is made inaccurately but not inappropriately against the loyal Jewish critic; accurately and appropriately against the disloyal Jewish critic; and inappropriately hence inaccurately against the unaffiliated Jewish critic. These distinctions matter because communities owe it to themselves collectively and to their members as individuals not only to allow and even accept some internal criticism, but also to justify limits on the criticisms that they allow and accept by denying the standing of some critics to criticize. (Needless to say, while the topic is always important for Jewish and other communities and their critics at all times, it has assumed greater urgency since October 7.)

Author

• Sol Goldberg, University of Toronto