I just arrived late last night in DC. Interstate 40 is not all of America, but it is not nothing either. I feel that I blend in a bit better on the coasts, and if anything is “home” for me it is probably California. However, I didn’t feel any anxiety about “traveling while Jewish” in the middle spaces, as I had a decade ago when I made almost the same trip in reverse.

So, “identity”. The age-old trope of antisemites is that a Jew cannot be German or Russian or Polish or American. The first loyalty is as a Jew. This was true long before the existence of the state of Israel. This obliquely fits into the rhetoric of antizionism versus antisemitism, but that is for a different time. Essentially, in Germany after WWI, German Jews, many who had lived there for hundreds of years, were suspect. German Jewish men constituted a disproportionate amount of the German military in WWI, filled with the idea of patriotism. [1] For a brief time, military service was a bit of a protection in Germany, until it wasn’t. There were Jews who served in WWII, including the fascinating story of Jews in the Finnish army. [2]

In Interwar Poland, many Jews were assimilated. The writer Julian Tuwim identified himself as a “Jewish Pole” rather than a “Polish Jew”, semantics being everything. (Among other things he was and is a beloved children’s author in Poland, He also wrote for adults. Here is a dramatization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdmZYu9Lths and translation https://iriascend.tumblr.com/post/134335415132 of a poem entitled ”Całujcie mnie wszyscy w dupę.” Two minutes long and a lot of fun.

All this was before the creation of Israel. Then there is the purported interchange between Golda Meir and Henry Kissinger;

Henry Kissinger had written her that he considers himself ‘”an American first, Secretary of State second, and a Jew third,” She replied, “In Israel we read from right to left.”

Personally, I find the question of dual loyalties lacking in nuance. My own identity (in alphabetical order, and only in part) consists of the roles of American, Attorney, Jew, Mother, Student, Wife, Woman. (Other important things lurk, like my identification with my Polish roots.)

So the creation of certain dichotomies are forced. For example, am I an American or a mother — most parents would put their children before almost anything — but does that make me less “American>,” Am I a woman first or a Jew? Of course, that sounds ridiculous.

Then, of course, we come full circle, to the issue of Israel . Can you separate Jewish identity from support of the idea of the existence Israel? This doesn’t mean lack of criticism of Israeli government or policies (something most Israelis excel at). Does criticism of American government or policies mean you are not an American? Antizionism is antisemitism when it advocates the destruction of a people, the derogation of their right to exist.

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[1] https://www.jewishpress.com/sections/features/features-on-jewish-world/the-jewish-wwi-military-contribution-to-germany/2017/02/23/JewishPress.com

[2] ‘Cast into the Lion’s Den’–Finnish Jewish Soldiers in the Second World War on JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/260956