Brad Lander & Norman Finkelstein: The Self-Hating Jew Hall of Fame

Self-hating Jews.

Kapos.

You see these terms thrown out very loosely online, you know, and I understand it.

And I don't think it's always accurate.

I really don't.

I think sometimes we see a lot of people out there who we disagree with politically or have the wrong idea or misinformed.

And if they're Jewish, they're called self-hating Jews, which I think is very easy to disprove.

When somebody takes the term literally and says self-hating Jew, what do you mean self-hating? Nobody hates themselves.

How could someone hate themselves? And people liken it to when, you know, they called, you know, the liberals or the far left would call black people, uncle Tom's or people who hated their own kind, things like that.

and it's not analogous and i can explain why what we're talking about i think when we correctly use the term self-hating jew it's not that a person hates themselves but they hate the part of themselves or have apathy or disregard or real loathing self-loathing for the part of themselves that's jewish to the point where they're they have to ask permission to be Jewish or they wish it to be accepted in such a way as to be completely divorced from Israel, which I'm sorry to say the land that you pray to three times a day in Judaism.

That's an integral part of our story.

That's fundamental to the Jewish story and experience to be a nation, a tribe with a collective culture, language, and land.

You can't separate that just so you can get appeasement from those who hate you and seek your destruction.

But it is possible to really hate that side of yourself.

to hate that sense of chosenness, to feel uncomfortable with it, to feel uncomfortable with Jewish exclusivity, to be uncomfortable with being part of something because you wish for acceptance over inclusion with your own identity.

You'll take acceptance over pride in your own identity, your own self, your own customs, traditions, and you just beg for it.

And so in that sense, yes, we have our candidates.

for people who hate their Jewish identity because it separates them from everyone else.

And I would say there's dignity in difference.

Everyone has their own sets of values, community, cultures, customs.

And instead of being proud of those things, a lot of these people are ashamed.

And so they will use their Judaism as cover to express basically far-left values.

Wherever Judaism aligns with them in their other progressive values is That's their primary identity, progressivism, leftism.

So ideas like tikkun olam, ideas like healing the world, social justice, they will say, oh, that's Jewish.

Everything else that's exclusively Jewish, no, we have to disregard that.