The truth is not your enemy
It's really dehumanizing that many of my followers only want me to talk about how Jew hate is dehumanizing.
I went to Los Angeles for a day this week to do a speaking engagement for a JNF women's lunch, I found myself briefly back in the mold of Israel advocacy, which is some of the most important work I've been able to do in my 35 years. But it has been hard these past few months. It's been hard meddling with people who wanted me to speak for them and who no longer want me to say anything, while I give myself to another controversy for a moment. It's made me question some of the tenets I've been screaming from the rooftops for the past few years. Tenets such as that antisemitism is the world's oldest hatred. It's absolutely one of the world's oldest hatreds, but from the fable of Adam and Eve onwards, the world's oldest hatred is actually misogyny, and misogyny is a problem in our community.
And I remember encountering this problem too during Corbynism and the tangential explosion of the #MeToo movement, which let's face it was a marketable opportunity for society under the guise of being for women, and not a lasting one. Both felt like personal attacks, but there was very little crossover. The women's movement had armed itself against Israel, and the Zionist movement often had fingers in their ears when it came to anything that might distract from the emergency of a future leader of the UK who was enabling antizionist-based antisemitism in his political party. It was hard to do two things at once, and it was lonely, and any which way you cut it, it felt like having to compromise a part of yourself while negotiating that you should never have to compromise any part of yourself. Especially not in these arenas when – as is so often the case – you're fighting for your rights.
What is this saying about what we want Jewish advocates to be? Are we supposed to be clones of each other? Are we supposed to surrender the rest of our lives or anything else that matters to us?
Forgive me if there's something that I'm not understanding…
From the violent urges in my direct messages to stop representing Jews, to the phone calls telling me that I'm ruining my life, there is something inherently women-hating, whether from women or men, about trying to dictate to a female what she can and can't do in public, about not trusting that a woman is in control of her own decisions and is executing her own judgment and agency. When it comes to the messages I receive, I've identified as per my entire life that there is a presumption that a woman needs to be saved. What happens when a woman saves herself? When a woman didn't ask to be saved? Then she's a problem. Why do you think so many of the leaders in our community are female? It's easier for people who had nothing to lose, or who had scars from other battles, to stand up taller and speak out louder than those who have never had to do such things in their lives. It’s less of a risk when you’ve already had to protect yourself in infinite ways when nobody else would. It’s more urgent when you have a feeling in you that things must change and actions speak louder than words.
When I'm onstage, I'm often asked about online hate. I'm asked about online hate a lot. How do you cope with the amount of vitriol you receive? I do receive an inconceivable amount of hatred, but it reaches a zenith in which it's just white noise. Even today, I woke up with no knowledge that today is Shireen Abu Akleh's funeral – not until I'd registered that “human rights activists” had posted my address all over Twitter, and were encouraging other users to do the same. Even at that, what happens to me isn't nearly as bad as what happened to my Great Grandfather, for instance, when he fled the Russian Tsar in 1901. It's not anywhere nearly as bad as what has happened to so many of our ancestors. And what is in my DMs, or written in the thousands of comments on my Instagram posts is nowhere near as bad as what a woman needs to do when she's testifying to assault and abuse in a court of law.
The way I see it is thus:
Why would “human rights activists” need to dox Jewish advocates for Israel? Why would thousands of strangers online need to harass and post disgusting things on my profile pages when I simply stand up for an abuse survivor? Why would the mainstream media have to instantaneously decree that a journalist was killed by the IDF when the responsible party in a conflict was still indeterminable? Why would social media users need to drown out any serious commentary about domestic abuse with egregious and grotesque stabs at humor? Why is there a mob that seeks to attack en masse whenever a voice emerges to challenge the popular stance?
Because they stand to lose some power. Because they’re scared. Because their defense is indefensible, and in the future that will be reflected back at them. Nobody who stands on the side of freedom needs to intimidate or step on the necks of others.
There are quiet moments of doubt in which I question why I'm such a figure of hate and vitriol, and then I stop myself. I stop myself because I remember that I'm a messenger of facts. And facts are irrelevant when the mission is to delegitimize. It’s more convenient to cry and scream about unimaginable crimes than to follow due process and rely on the truth. People hate inconvenient truth, and they hate anyone who stands up for it. Especially women.
Thank-you for all that you do. I respect and appreciate your courage.
"they hate anyone who stands up for it. Especially women." This is so painfully true, and the fact that you continue to stand up and refuse to back down just makes people even madder I think. Like how dare this WOMAN not give in, GET HER. The casual misogyny in the conversation/coverage of the trial has been shocking to me, particularly from those who would otherwise be shouting their "support woman" bonafides, seems to go out the window pretty fast when the guy was in that movie they liked.