The Posh Policewoman of Has-been Journalism

Dathan and Abiram being swallowed by the Earth along with Korach's other co-conspirators.

Identity, whatever that may be, has been fermented for political purposes for years, and unfortunately today many are waking up to the fact that it does not constitute an idea, let alone a belief system unless well thought out. There are many people walking around claiming identities that are not theirs, and then beyond that redefining them such that they mean nothing. The Jewish identity is not unique in this regard, as it is currently being packaged as a means to promote political agendas unrelated to it in the same manner that black, Hispanic, Muslim, homosexual, and even disabled identities are being used in order to coalesce as a bloc. 

Although as a free speech absolutist and opponent of identity exploitation these efforts are a source of great frustration for me, it is difficult to propose a solution to the way such groups and individuals are ravaging the world of Judaism (and other identities) like a cancer. It is very frequent that when I'm on an uncensored internet forum others commenting will conflate identitarian progressive Jews with Zionism; however just by examining their own record it becomes clear that the relationship between is 

This afternoon I saw a public post by a friend discussing the following scenario (paraphrased): 

One thing that has been dogging me is this old/new phenomenon of people professing themselves to be Jews just so that they can better position themselves to attack other Jews (and Israel, i.e. Jews). In the past few days I have read things written or said by these so called Jews that they wrote to attack Israel but it is an attack on us, all Jews. It is above all borne of a Jew Hatred, so visceral and putrid that it scares me and frankly it leaves me speechless. And as some of you may realize, that’s no easy feat. . .

How do we defend ourselves? Politically we must realize that when these so called Jews don their “Jewish” hats just to attack Jews and Israel, it’s a veneer. It’s meaningless. It only has meaning if we allow them to give it meaning. 

She went on to discuss the Biblical story of the Israelites wandering through the desert for 40 years. One thing that should be remembered from that saga however was that there were two fellow travelers named Dathan and Abiram that went along on the journey and were burrs in Moses' saddle the entire way. They would constantly question and second guess his leadership while  pining for the days when they were back in Egypt and had ample food and water even though they were in bondage. According to  They eventually joined Korach's challenge of Moses and Aaron's leadership saying:  

"Hear me, sons of Levi. Is it not enough for you that the God of Israel has set you apart from the community of Israel and given you access to Him, to perform the duties of the Lord’s Tabernacle and to minister to the community and serve them? Now that He has advanced you and all your fellow Levites with you, do you seek the priesthood too? Truly, it is against the Lord that you and all your company have banded together. For who is Aaron that you should rail against him?" (Numbers 16:8-11) 

Lavin Complex: The Struggle is Real.

Disgraced ex-NewYorker fact-checker Talia Lavin is an excellent example of how ideological fanaticism has ruined journalism. She compounds this by claiming to represent a "Diaspora identity".

Such personalities remain within the Jewish people up until this day. I will place a caveat here that I am in no way calling Benjamin Netanyahu nor any other person the modern Jewish equivalent of Moses, but the analogy still holds given the standing of the group discussed here. As a template, let us use Talia Lavin, a former "fact-checker" for The New Yorker who was forced to resign when she slandered ICE agent Justin Gaertner as a white supremacist because she mistook a Maltese cross tattoo on his elbow for the German Iron Cross. Gaertner is a wheelchair bound combat veteran, and only serves with ICE as a computer analyst.

Notwithstanding this seemingly fatal own-goal for the journalist that is  all-the-more egregious being that she was a "fact-checker" (a journalist that polices others and wags her finger at them), Lavin was hired this March to be a lecturer at the New York University Carter Journalism Institute. This is the equivalent of a detective that deliberately railroaded an innocent defendant being placed as an instructor at the police academy. 

This week Prof. Lavin let loose this gem, presumably while away from the podium in response to the occasion of Yom Hashoah, the Holocaust Day of Remembrance in Israel: 

Netanyahu, of course, does not mask his contempt for Diaspora Jews, especially leftist ones. But the very fact that Israel speaks Hebrew comes from a contempt of the diaspora so deep that rather than using its languages, early Zionists revived a non spoken one.

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) May 11, 2019

It was the beginning of a long and obviously angry tweet thread attacking the idea of Hebrew as the national language for Jews, and evoking the objection of a fictional coalition of anti-Zionist and non-Zionists ranging from the far-left intersectional feminists to the ultra-Orthodox and Hasidic sects that object to the Zionist portrayal of Israel as "the beginning of the flowering of our [the Jews'] redemption". The topic of Yom Hashoah is expressed very differently on an individual basis. I personally tend not to have a very deep connection to it, largely due to the overuse of cultural and political metaphors to the Holocaust that has desensitized the topic to me to such an extent that it's honestly jaded. This has been a source of heated debate with my dad and others that feel that their personal Jewish identity is intrinsically linked to the murder of 6 million Jews. Yet in that tweet storm Lavin was making it clear that she has no objection to politicizing the Holocaust, so long as she can as a would-be journalism professor.

There are those of us who celebrate the fierce joy and creativity and multifarious ideology of the Diaspora, both before the Holocaust and after. The bundists, socialists, communists, Hasidim, mitnagdim, prostitutes and pickpockets and poets. They fought. Loved. Died. Lived.

— Talia Lavin (@chick_in_kiev) May 11, 2019

Lavin's contention is that there is a cohesive arc that connects the Diaspora Jewish identity, one that stands diametrically opposed to Zionism not only in its insistence on not seeking to leave the Diaspora but furthermore claiming the mantle of a real moral leadership that will redeem the Jews from the perils of a nationalist identity. In this position Lavin is in no way unique or rare,  although it is difficult to estimate how pervasive her point of view is among American Jews. 

Community parted like the Red Sea

In the past two years there has been a polarization of the Jewish community along ideological lines between the #Resistance left that would include Lavin and a counter-movement that includes the new pro-Zionist Jexodus group as well as various ardently right-wing supporters of President Donald Trump like his strategist Stephen Miller, talk radio hosts like Dennis Prager and Steve Malzberg, and Hollywood outcast comedienne Roseanne Barr. In the latter's instance the metamorphosis has been especially extreme given that she was once the presidential nominee for the far-left Peace and Freedom Party as recently as 2012 and was endorsed by the party's anti-Israel former Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the previous nominee. 

The leftist element claims that there is a pulsing undercurrent of anti-Semitism that has burst onto the surface thanks to Trump's election and triggered by subtle messages that he encodes in his statements and his mannerisms. The phrase "dog whistle" is tallied as appearing on 3.68 million web results when correlated with the name "Trump". The right wing element by contrast sees the growing anti-Israel movement that has for years taken root among academia and campus groups and now has a solid foothold in the the US Congress and in other elected positions as a greater threat than Trump and his supporters. Since the 2018 midterm elections the rightist groups have started to mobilize in response to the election of the two new pro-Palestinian congresswomen Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as well as a number of sympathizers like Betty McCollum (D-MN) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Avoiding the bipolar delusion

The reaction to Tlaib and Omar's outrage at American policy in the Middle East has been itself an outraged response. Many indignant observers that I meet among the Jewish community grumble and can't believe that these too are undermining the "special relationship" as they call it between the USA and Israel. I try to explain to them in vain that not only are Tlaib and Omar elected just like any of their favourite politicians, but in fact their seats are safer given the overwhelming advantage of Democrats in their urban Detroit and Minneapolis area districts. It should not be too hard to understand, as supportive as one might be of this relationship, that in those constituencies it is either looked at apathetically or with hostility. 

Indeed, I have tried to argue for years from a non-interventionist perspective that it would behoove the United States and Israel alike if the American government was less involved in the region and therefore the parties to the Israel-Palestine conflict would be able to deal with one another on a bilateral basis rather than be captive to foreign demands and imperatives. This was a realization that came to me not long after being discharged at the end of my IDF service in 2008 and watching Ron Paul debate Rudy Giuliani on the Republican presidential debate stage. As odd as it may sound, it was an epiphany to me at the time that there was a significant surge in the number of Americans that were coming to doubt America's role as "policeman of the world". So while I support Israel as a result of personal ties and beliefs, this change in perspective has placed me outside of the orbit of political Zionism.

Finding oppression within one's skull

Jews for Racial and Economic Justice is a progressive militant group that purports to represent "Jews of Colour"
in their attempts to gain equity within the Jewish community and society at large. However, it is largely just a sectarian
offshoot of Black Lives Matter.

Yet addressing their left-wing counterparts is much more hopeless. Whereas Zionism is often a passive reflex identity position that entails nothing more than sitting on an inflatable pool float in an IDF t-shirt while screaming at one's friends at the shore to take the picture, anti-Zionism is a conscious belief system calling for the negation of a nation's very existence. In recent times the Jewish activists among them have conjured up a number of activist organizations for social justice such as If Not Now, J Street, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ). These groups have often aligned explicitly with the Women's March, an astroturfed organization that was exposed last year by a former insider to have naked anti-Jewish sentiment at the very top as expressed by its leaders Carmen Perez, Linda Sarsour and Tamika Mallory. In addition there are the progressive groups Torah Trumps Hate and the Zioness Movement that have ineffectively attempted to chart an anti-Trump path for left-wing Zionists. The irony of such groups calling for the USA to help defend Israel while simultaneously calling its president a racist demagogue is apparently lost on them. 

While the Jews as a people do not have a Moses-like figure in the modern era that is acknowledged by the secular and religious as the generational authority, is it not laughable how seriously the pro-Diaspora activists take themselves? Regardless of one's view of Benjamin Netanyahu, who depending on who one asks is either an inspiration wonder or squandering failure, is there any doubt is who is more representative of Jews as a people between him and Talia Lavin? Consider the fact that Netanyahu has formed six coalition governments elected by proportional representation since 1996, whereas Lavin is a disgraced media wallflower who now abides by the sarcastic idiom "those who can, do; those that can't do, teach" at NYU.

Indeed, if Lavin thinks that her lot as a Diaspora Jew is so difficult, why is it that at the very university where she teaches the pro-Israel advocacy side is treated as a red-headed step-child. Here are just a few events from the Greenwich Village university that illustrate the trend: 

• A recent Israeli Independence Day event in Washington Square Park was marred by the physical assault of participants by members of Students for Justice in Palestine. In the same article a representative for SJP stated that their goal was to make"being Zionist" uncomfortable on campus.
• SJP had earlier in the semester received the Service Award from NYU president Andrew Hamilton. In response Judea Pearl, the father of Al Qaeda terror victim Daniel Pearl and a noted electrical engineering professor renounced his own Distinguished Alumnus award.
• A faculty committee of the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis recently voted for "non-cooperation" with NYU's own Tel Aviv campus. Thanks to an opposing campaign faculty members of other departments denounced the resolution. Among those opposing the Department resolution is business professor Jonathan Haidt, a renowned scholar on cultural and political divides.

Meanwhile Lavin and her ilk are wont to comment on the brazen street assaults against Orthodox Jewish pedestrians such as one where four men apparently assaulted one middle-aged man this past Saturday. The reason these attacks are seldom condemned by progressives is because the perpetrators are typically urban black males rather than the caricature of the far-right skinhead that is hyped by people like Lavin in the media. In fact, according to the Daily Caller all but two documented cases of such street assaults were alleged to have been committed by black assailants and were caught on CCTV, and that the exceptions were ones where the race was unknown. This phenomenon may be more specific to Brooklyn as opposed to a general trend around the country, yet does it not at least merit some discussion as to why there is such an adversarial attitude between these two groups?

Breaking the fake progressive yoke

Returning to the issue of my friend and her predicament, the trend of identitarian anti-Zionist Jews is a worrying trend that does deserve a worthy response. This is regardless of whether one is a devout AIPAC supporter or an unaffiliated outlier like myself. The agenda of people like Talia Lavin is not limited to opposing the Netanyahu government, occupation of the West Bank and blockade of Gaza, or a would-be contempt for her Diaspora identity that she feels is such a threat. As evidenced by her career at The New Yorker as well as her current gig at the left-wing corporatist inquisitor watch-dog Media Matters for America, she is committed to silencing the voices that offend her. In one blog post for MMFA she played defense for international mega-billionaire George Soros by alleging that attacks against him are "anti-Semitic". Meanwhile Soros himself was willing to pump billions of dollars into the economy of Ukraine, a country that employed literal neo-Nazi militias in its conflict with Russia. By aligning with MMFA and defending Soros, Lavin positions herself not as a defender of the oppressed but rather as the comforter of the corrupt establishment that seeks to protect its interests regardless of the validity of the Russian or Ukrainian side.

The same lack of logical or moral clarity applies to their approach to Judaism and Israel. Yes, we all are creatures with free will and may choose to embrace or reject certain values for one reason, many reasons, or even no reason. But the free choice of rejecting the mandates of the government in Jerusalem, of embracing an atheistic progressive political ideology, and of making league with the most gleeful enemies of them should at least entail a degree of humility. It certainly creates a comical irony when the same person issues a Tweet diarrhea that sobbingly attacks the use of the modern Hebrew language as a national language. Oddly enough last year around the time she was losing her job with The New Yorker Lavin wrote a list of 24 Yiddish Curses for Jared Kushner now that he has a Security Clearance. Is this not a bit eurocentric for a progressive like Lavin? Like many secular far-left Jews Lavin clings to Yiddish as the alternative to Hebrew, because they prefer its benign cultural harmlessness as opposed to nationalist aggression. It doesn't matter to them I guess that Yiddish terms have become tacky colloquialisms that even the most definitely non-Jewish public figures use for their snappy conversational value. Example: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) claiming the media kibitzes over Donald Trump's weight. Are they going to complain soon that the gentiles are appropriating "our language"?

(Side note: I once did have a conversation with a local rabbi where we agreed that either Russian or Arabic would have been fine as Israel's national language).

The way to confront the sufferer of Lavin Complex is to adopt the very approach that they find most threatening. This has nothing to do with Zionism. Here are some important principles to remember when speaking against, writing in response to, or otherwise dealing with one:

• Never sacrifice facts. Always be accurate when portraying their side. Remember that the uncommitted members of the audience may never forgive a lie. Haidt wrote in 2012 that conservatives and moderates are able to understand the motives of leftists, but the reverse is not true. See Tim Pool's video discussing this phenomenon.
• Peace is only for the willing. When the opponent is confrontational do not attempt to respond with an olive branch. In the example of the Washington Square Park assault the Realise Israel group pleaded to have a dialog with the SJP, an offer that apparently was never answered. As would-be revolutionaries the very action of undertaking dialog with an enemy they view as diabolical is seen by many progressives to be an act of self-betrayal. 
• Never censor. Do not respond to threats of censorship with counter-threats in kind. To the broader public the specter of censorship of controversial opinions is becoming more threatening as the culture of political correctness continues to silence not only political beliefs, but also edgy comedy and even progressive anti-racism advocates deemed too careless with their speech.
• Burn bridges if necessary. This does not mean cause unnecessary fights. Rather as in the example of Judea Pearl at a certain point one must cut bait and renounce an institution that ignores your side of the debate. Beyond Pearl's decision there should be a willingness to withhold alumni donations to colleges that promote views and behaviour like described at NYU. Moreover, the response to incidents of physical assault should be to demand expulsion of the offender, or failing that filing a lawsuit against the school or institution.

The reason that there are so many Talia Lavins out there is due to the lack of accountability and the willingness to foster viewpoints like hers as examples of the coming generation of young people within the Jewish community. She has had the opportunity to spread her prattle that masquerades as news reporting with multiple Jewish outlets. Originally, with the JTA and Times of Israel it seemed to be simple reporting but with time she has evolved into a rabid she-beast of illogical self-assurance.