"It's Not About Us Right Now"
Apparently, it's never the right time to center Jews.
On April 14, 2025, like any curious student, I attended a film screening and panel discussion at my University. The screening took place in our concert hall, was hosted by the American Association of University Professors, and was co-sponsored by a number of University departments including Peace and Conflict Studies, Psychology, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies.
The film in question was called “The Palestine Exception.”
According to its website, “This film features professors and students as they join calls for a ceasefire and divestment from companies that do business with Israel and face waves of crackdown from administrators, the media, the police and politicians.”
I had heard that the film whitewashed the antisemitism and violence of the anti-Israel protests, vilified Israeli and Zionist students (and Jews who refused to join the antizionist ranks), and was an all-around misrepresentation of reality, at best. However, I did not want to judge a piece of media without having seen it, so I went to experience it for myself, with as open a mind as I could muster.
When I arrived, I sat exactly in the middle of the room for the best vantage point from which to see the film. As the seats filled in around me, I noticed faculty, graduate students, and a number of strangers, likely community members (who are always welcome at Clark events). A few undergraduates showed up, although not as many as I expected. I took copious notes throughout, which I afterwards used to recap the event for my friends, who did not attend.
The film itself exceeded my expectations, which is to say I was even more floored by its absurdity than I imagined I would be. I will not review the entire film here, although perhaps I will in the future. Instead, as a brief overview of my takeaways before I describe my experience of the panel discussion, I will provide a few bullet points here:
The film whitewashes the Western self-proclaimed “Pro-Palestine” (really anti-Israel) movement. It refuses to acknowledge any antisemitism whatsoever from within its ranks, including at the campus protests throughout spring 2024 and beyond. There is no mention of the students threatened, prevented from entering their own campus, physically and verbally intimidated, and assaulted, not even lip service paid to students who shouted “We are Hamas!” at Jewish students or held up a sign that said “Al-Qassam’s next target” in front of students who raised an Israeli flag. Not even the campus presidents’ hearing is forgotten by this film: it is used as a chance to make the Zionists look ridiculous, as though Elise Stefanik’s infamous question (“Does calling for the genocide of Jews count as hate speech?”) is an unfounded, hysterical leap in logic. In fact, the film is so intent on pretending there is no antisemitism or violence amongst its beloved student protesters that it uses a classic DARVO approach (Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender) to pin the blame on “Zionist thugs” and “Zionist mobs” who allegedly emerged unprovoked to attack the poor, defenseless pro-Palestine students.
The film provides a definition of “Zionism” that is so far removed from the Zionist mainstream, it would be laughable if it weren’t so dangerous. According to the film, "There is a basic liberal Zionist belief that there needs to be an ethnonationalist project” from which all Palestinians should be expelled or exterminated, and that “there is no obligation for other states to keep Jews safe.'“ They use those exact words.
Similarly, every mention of Zionism or Zionists comes with almost a comical level of demonization, like we are movie villains. It also holds up Bibi Netanyahu and his quote mocking Queers for Palestine as some kind of example of all Zionists and Zionism, eagerly adding further fuel to their fire. However, there is never any suggestion that violence exists in the pro-Palestine movement or that such violence in any way represents the movement. Double standard, much?
For a related example, Judith Butler in the film highlights that “From the river to the sea” was used by Netanyahu to call for one Jewish state spanning the entire area, as if this represents all of Israel and Zionism, but they neglect to highlight that “From Water to Water, Palestine is Arab” (the Arabic version of the phrase, frequently heard at US protests) is a clear call for a singular Arab ethnostate.
Everyone in the room seemed to agree with the film and its claims, laughing bitterly as Netanyahu spoke and nodding at claims that, like some of those mentioned above, were both unfounded and dangerous. I felt genuinely surrounded and afraid at various points during the screening.
In short, the film is nothing more than a circle jerk (is there a professional way to say this?) for anti-Israel fanatics who want to pat themselves on the back, absolve themselves of (or “Uno Reverse”) any accusations of wrongdoing, and excuse further violence in the name of Palestine, which in itself is hypocritical and ignorant. Activists like Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib can explain this last point much better than I can, so readers should check out his work for more.
The Panel: “It’s Not About Us Right Now”
The panel was moderated by a respected Psychology professor at my University with whom I have studied and researched in the past. The speakers on the panel were all anti-Israel activists in some way (or, as they would describe themselves, “Pro-Palestine”): a professor from a nearby Worcester university, a current undergraduate student at Clark University, two graduate students from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies (at Clark), and a professor from Emerson College who was allegedly fired after October 7 because she chose to screen the film “Israelism.” I have already written a response to that film, which you can read here. As a side note, I also want to mention that in responding to a question near the end of the panel, this Emerson professor described the Emerson encampments as loving, beautiful places of community and learning, while Emerson students I know personally had a very different experience of the whole thing and of the speaker herself.
After the speakers introduced themselves and the moderator asked a number of prepared questions, the audience was invited to ask our own. I raised my hand. My seat directly in the middle of the hall must have made me quite visible, so thankfully, I was selected.
The first three questions were asked in succession, and then the moderator asked the panelists to answer one of the three, in a sort of disorganized fashion. I’m not sure why the first three questions were done this way, but I digress.
Mine was the third question, for which I drew a parallel to a statement made by the undergraduate panelist about self-censorship and restricted academic freedom. I asked (and I paraphrase here):
Many of my fellow Israeli students and I have experienced many of the same things you recount, such as self-censorship and fear of academic or other repercussions for the expression of our values and beliefs. How can we make sure that all students have academic freedom, and that none of us experience this?
The undergraduate student was not the first to respond to my question. Instead, the moderator directed one of the graduate students to answer me.
She said: “When it comes to Jewish safety…as a student of the Holocaust…it’s not about us right now. We’re not the victims of this genocide.” (Ellipses indicate a pause on her part, not omissions on my end.)
It’s not about us.
We’re not the victims.
I was speechless. I could not believe that among five panelists, in the crowded hall, at an event hosted by the AAUP and multiple university departments including the center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, attended by faculty and community members, she was allowed to say this to me as if it constituted an appropriate answer.
And then everyone moved on.
A minute later, the undergraduate student volunteered his own answer to my question by listing Hamas-reported casualties in Gaza. Then, he digressed to emphasize that this is all about community and that “we” need to be there for each other. Based on my experience with this student, of course, they do not mean Israeli or “Zionist” students, which tends to be a pattern on the purist far left: community is reserved for those who pass our tests and meet our metrics. For those who don’t? They’re hardly human anyway, so what do they need community for?
The undergraduate’s answer, however, did not surprise me. I know who this person is and what they represent. What really took me aback was the graduate student’s terse proclamation and the response from the crowd and the rest of the panel: silence, tacit agreement, no indication that anyone took issue with the way I was treated.
Post-Event
At the end of the panel discussion, I stood to follow up with a woman who had asked a nuanced question that I had appreciated. I was intercepted by a community member who began to tell me a story. I closely paraphrase here.
“Your question reminded me of something.” — This piqued my interest, so I invited him to continue. He barely waited for my assent.
“When I was in college, I was with some friends, deciding what to do that night. One person said, let’s climb up to the top of the clock tower. Another person said, let’s chill out and play board games. A third said, let’s go smash all the windows of the Jews’ houses.
Obviously, we couldn’t vote on these options because one was inherently unacceptable. There was no balance there.”
In short, what he meant was that Zionists deserve no academic freedom, deserve to be censored and attacked because our position is inherently unacceptable. He compared us to people who might be in favor of South African apartheid. No amount of explanation of Zionism or of my experience could sway him. He claimed to support Jewish self-determination in the ancient homeland as long as all people could live there with rights and justice, and I agreed wholeheartedly. I tried to explain to him that this was a form of Zionism, but he was on his own wavelength. I am not certain that his “story” was even true, despite the fact that he framed it as such.
At first, I was ready to hear an interesting account that might spark a rich discussion, whether we agreed with each other or not. However, I quickly realized that he had only approached me to talk at me, not with me. When we were talking about Israel and Jewish safety and he brought up the alleged Shin Bet operations designed to drive Jews out of SWANA countries into Israel, I finally understood that the conversation was not going to be productive, and I politely extricated myself. Thankfully, I found the aforementioned woman afterwards, along with her friend, and we shared a cathartic, rich conversation that almost made the whole thing worth it.
It’s Never About Us
I began this piece weeks before the murder of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington, D.C. outside an American Jewish Committee event. Unfortunately, their murders and the overwhelming response by internet activists, including many Jews, quickly became an illustration of my point taken to its most extreme conclusion, so I incorporated these ideas, which are below, into a conclusion to the present essay.
Then, after I edited this article to discuss the murder of Yaron and Sarah, two days before the publication of this piece, a man firebombed a group of Jewish Zionists in Boulder, Colorado at a “Run for their Lives” march to raise awareness to bring home the hostages still held in Gaza. I couldn’t incorporate this event in detail into the present article, but it weighed heavy on my mind and heart as I finalized this piece, and I hope it weighs on yours as you read it.
A number of self-proclaimed Jewish influencers and organizations posted immediately after Yaron and Sarah’s murder to warn us that it’s actually Israel’s fault or that we are prone to islamophobia and racism because of the attack. Some activists claimed that the shooting was a reasonable response, a final straw of sorts because peaceful means had not been effective in promoting the cause. Even the anti-Israel activists who ostensibly condemned the attack did so by lamenting that it hurt the pro-Palestinian movement (an example here). Many of these same groups and individuals have fanned the flames for years, contributing to rhetoric that led to this violence — but they would never acknowledge that fact.
Jewish-Italian-American comedian Gianmarco Soresi even decided to chime in on the social media app Threads, saying, “If you think it’s scary being an American Jew right now wait til you hear what it’s like to be a Palestinian.” As many Threads users immediately pointed out, this was a callous attempt at performative activism, using the false lens of an oppression olympics, where the suffering of one must necessitate that we ignore the suffering of another. I should commend him for his ability to multitask: he simultaneously gained brownie points on the far left for his performance, told the world that American Jews don’t matter, minimized and erased the very real violence that we face, and made the murder of Yaron and Sarah about something other than the victims themselves.
Curiously, (I say with sarcasm), the people most loudly condemning the attack — besides Jewish Zionists - were Palestinian activists like Hamza Howidy, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, and their organization Realign for Palestine.
We should absolutely call out islamophobia and racism wherever we see it, and many of us do. However, a single day after two people were murdered because the killer flew across state lines with a gun in his checked luggage specifically to show up to a Jewish event at a Jewish museum and shoot at random, then followed up with more bullets as Sarah tried to crawl away and was only prevented from killing others because he ran out of ammunition — this is not the time to make a point about something else.
Lest we lose ourselves in this conversation, I will remind us of what we forget. In our grief, fear, frustration, anger, and resilience, we forget that as Jews, we are never allowed to center ourselves. It’s never supposed to be about us. A man can shoot up an event at a Jewish museum, and we are not allowed a single day to mourn. Every antisemitic event becomes an excuse to explain why we deserved it or why we should be focusing on something else instead.
Another tragic example of this was the response to the shooting in a Kosher grocery store in 2019. Instead of about antisemitism, the media response was about how the shooter was disgruntled about Hasidic Jews in the area asking to buy people’s homes. Dara Horn astutely unpacks the issues here in her book, “People Love Dead Jews,” but I bring up the example in this context to demonstrate that antisemitism, anti-Jewish hate, and violence against Jews are never allowed to be about Jews.
I don’t like using comparisons from communities I am not a part of, so I will refer to one in which I am a proud member: the LGBTQ+ community. When a queer person is attacked, such as Nex Benedict, who outside the alt-right has the gall to make their murder about anything else? When TERFS (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) attack trans women on Twitter and elsewhere, who besides the far right would dream of pontificating about how we need to be careful because this could lead to more misogyny? This is not an erasure of queerphobia — of which I am painfully aware, and which I fiercely fight against — but a comparison to demonstrate that it is only Jews who are never allowed to center ourselves amongst a left wing who are normally all about centering those most affected by injustice. What could be more an injustice than slurs, physical assault, and cold-blooded murder?
The Strassler student who answered my question was no different than Soresi, than IfNotNow, than Matt Bernstein, than a trans woman claiming that anti-trans attacks by TERFS might lead to a rise in misogyny. That is, if she was Jewish. If not, she joins the ranks of the millions of non-Jews looking for excuses to justify anti-Jewish harm and absolve themselves of guilt. Yes, even a “student of the Holocaust” can be an antisemite.
This is a left wing who claims to care so deeply about centering the voices of the marginalized, but as we have seen over decades and certainly over the last few years, Jews don’t count. There’s even a book about it.
Even right wing antisemitism isn’t about us anymore, even when the left calls it out. When Elon Musk allegedly threw up a Nazi salute, it was about fascism, not antisemitism. When Kanye’s anti-Jewish tweets went viral (multiple times) and neo-Nazis hoisted large banners reading, “Kanye is right,” it was about hatred, not antisemitism. Kanye’s most recent song, “Heil Hitler,” barely made the news, which is shocking to me only because I would expect left-wing activists to be excited to spin that one to avoid talking about antisemitism, too. Even the Shoah is no longer allowed to be about antisemitism; we must always be reminded of all the other things it was, indeed, about, even when Jews try to discuss our experiences of the Shoah in appropriate contexts that are for us. “Nazi” has become a synonym for anyone we disagree with, or for any racist or homophobe. “Nazi” means the utmost evil, while being completely divorced from the antisemitism required to actually be a Nazi.
And so it goes. We have been political footballs for a long time, but it’s almost like we’re not even footballs anymore; we simply don’t exist.
“It’s not about us right now,” they said, when Australians coordinated a mass doxxing and threatening campaign of “Zionists” in spring 2024.
“It’s not about us right now,” they hissed, as Jews were physically assaulted on campuses, prevented from entering spaces to which they are entitled such as campus buildings and dorms, and targeted with the k-slur.
“It’s not about us right now,” they insisted, when a Jewish child experienced attempted kidnapping on the streets of New York and a man was shot in Chicago on his way to synagogue.
“It’s not about us,” they continue to cry, as Jewish women are manipulated and discriminated against by employees and managers at a prominent franchise.
As Jewish girls and women are assaulted both sexually and physically in Europe, whether they are preteens or adults.
As Israeli Jews are physically threatened, assaulted, beaten, forced into canals in Amsterdam, and coerced into saying slogans like Free Palestine in order to be spared.
As synagogues are set on fire, bomb threats abound, and bodies pile up. Paul Kessler wasn’t the first, and I’m afraid Yaron and Sarah won’t be the last.
But it’s not about us. It will never be about us. Because to give us the space to center ourselves would be to confront us. To look at us, and to actually see us. It’s difficult, even scary, to look at something you don’t understand, and Jews are among the most poorly-understood peoples on Earth, evading all attempts at categorization and simplification. Then, if they made it so far as to confront us, they would have to confront themselves and that internalized antisemitism they have tried so hard to justify and ignore. Just as racism in the United States is ingrained in every person, so is antisemitism — worldwide. That’s scary. It requires coming into conflict with your sense of self, which creates the most painful cognitive dissonance human beings can experience. It gets worse before it gets better, and most people are not ready for that, despite their preaching and pontificating.
Therefore, they can’t look at us. It’s too much. So instead, they erase us. We don’t exist, or we only exist in ways that soothe their egos and reinforce their self-perception. We exist for them, or we don’t exist at all.
It’s never about about us. It’s always about them. And don’t forget it.
Beautifully Written!