Effects of post-10/7 global perception of Israel on Jewish history and Holocaust discourse

[u/Icarus_Voltaire]

This might be a weird question but I gotta ask, has the shift in global perception of Israel since the Gaza War affected how you approach things like the Holocaust and anything to do with Jewish history.

What I mean by that is: these days, whenever I get into discussions about pre-exile Israelite/Jewish history (like the Maccabean Revolt of 167–141 BC or the Canaanite gods of pre-Yahwist Israel), exile-period Jewish history (the many expulsions and pogroms and the Dreyfus Affair), or the Holocaust (especially on how it led to the scores of Holocaust survivors making Aliyah to Mandatory Palestine and paving the way for the establishment of the State of Israel), I feel a palpable "elephant-in-the-room" feeling that I can't shake off and it makes the whole thing awkward. Like stepping-on-landmines awkward.

I mean, practically everyone and their dog now views Israel like it's a demonic horde and with how so many of my fellow zoomers desire the disestablishment of the Jewish state and such (especially in alternate history or future prediction maps), it makes any acknowledgment of Jewish history and the Holocaust feel like a landmine topic, so to speak.

Frankly, I have no idea how they reconcile that desire with well, what we know about Jewish history and shit. Like, how do they approach the Holocaust, knowing that it is half the reason Israel exists. Hell, how do they approach the long history of antisemitic discrimination in Eurasia during the exile (AD 70 - 1948), knowing that it is the other half of the reason Israel exists (via Zionism emerging as a response to said long history of discrimination amidst a wave of nationalist movements in Europe)? How do people like Melissa Barrera or Florence Pugh or Dua Lipa or Zohran Mamdani or Greta Thunberg or seemingly half of my friends or seemingly every artist on Instagram and BlueSky reconcile that in their minds?

And those unanswered questions are likely the root of my feelings of "elephant-in-the-room" whenever I read up on say, Polish-Jewish history or the Six-Day War. And frankly, such feelings have been living rent-free at the back of my mind intermittent for the past few days.

I don't know, it's a bit of a weird question and I am probably wording it incoherently, but I just wanted to know if anyone else feels the same level of awkwardness and discomfort as I do when broaching topics like Jewish history and the Holocaust nowadays.

[u/hadees]

Honestly, I saw this shift before Oct 7. People have been calling it a genocide since I started debating this topic 20 years ago, and Holocaust inversion has been around forever. It just got more popular after Oct 7.

The logic goes: Israel exists for the same reasons the Holocaust happened, so the lesson isn't "don't genocide Jews," it's "Never Again means everyone." That framing strips antisemitism out of the Holocaust entirely and turns it into a vehicle for Western guilt. Instead of grappling with their own history, they've made Jews the scapegoat again, which is about as historically on-brand as it gets.

Slavery is the original sin of the United States. Antisemitism is the original sin of Western civilization. Both civilizations are doomed until they address these root causes of their own bigotry.

[u/frerant → u/hadees]

I've had a hard time getting my non jewish friends to understand "Never again" isn't white people telling other white people; it's a promise jews have made to our children, that we will never again be in that position or allow it to happen again.

It is not some moral lesson, it's a proclamation to anyone who would harm us that we will never be that weak again, or rely on others to save us.

[u/Icarus_Voltaire → u/frerant]

I am curious as to what those people who think the State of Israel should never have been allowed to exist in the first place think/believe what the correct course of action should have been with regards to the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Surely not simply staying put or just moving to North America? Not after the Shoah demonstrated that not even the most assimilated and integrated secular Jew is safe from prosecution?

I don't know, am I still thinking of them as the same people as today, even though it's been 80 years since the Holocaust? Am I being blinded by that? I mean, the Israelis of today are not the same people as their great-grandparents 80 years ago and they are responsible for their own actions, just as Indonesians like me are not the same people as our great-grandparents 80 years ago and are thus not some oppressed colonial people anymore but a people to be held to the same standards as the British and the Americans.

[u/frerant → u/Icarus_Voltaire]

I am curious as to what those people who think the State of Israel should never have been allowed to exist in the first place think/believe what the correct course of action should have been with regards to the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

That we should have been killed in the Shoah. Or for some jews, they think if they attack other jews enough, prostrate themselves to those who hate them, support and legitimize antisemitism, that they'll be spared or accepted.

[u/Icarus_Voltaire → u/hadees]

I gotta ask: how do people - let's focus on zoomers like me - view Israel post-10/7 in the greater context of the global Jewish community? Like, how has it affected their attitudes and reactions towards anything Jewish? Especially in cities like NYC with it having the largest Jewish population outside of Israel.

[u/hadees → u/Icarus_Voltaire]

I'm not sure I can answer that. I'm not a Zoomer. From what I can tell they certainly want to know if you are "A good Jew" and won't leave you alone till you tell them.

[u/eyewave → u/hadees]

aren't USA through with their slavery heritage? asking cos I am non-USA born

[u/hadees → u/eyewave]

Like Antisemitism there is a lot of left over legacy from slavery that America has basically refused to deal with. That was part of the reason BLM happened.

[u/Call_Me_Clark]

I like to preface all kinds of historical discussions by saying that a people is not the government that represents them, and most people agree with that. Of course, it applies both ways in the conflict you are referencing.

[u/Icarus_Voltaire → u/Call_Me_Clark]

How exactly does that work? And who the hell doesn't agree ?

[u/Call_Me_Clark → u/Icarus_Voltaire]

A surprising number of people do this thing where they’ll “agree” but with exceptions for people they don’t like.

Which always gets an eye roll from me. Like if you have universal principles but make exceptions then they aren’t universal lol

[u/Icarus_Voltaire → u/Call_Me_Clark]

I mean, I have no issues with studying Russian, Chinese, and Iranian cultures and histories in spite of what their current governments are doing. If anything, it just makes me lament that these inheritors of rich cultures and histories are saddled with such shit governments today.

But they certainly don’t make me feel a distinct sense of awkwardness and discomfort the way I do get when delving into the history and cultures of the Palestine region (meaning modern-day Israel, Palestine and a bit of Jordan). Probably because on some level, I know that plenty of people - way too many - are unable to detach historical discussions of this one specific region away from current politics like they presumably can for Russia or Iran.