June 11, 2009

The American-Jewish community has built an entire infrastructure dedicated to the eradication of prejudice. The premise of this principled effort is that just as anti-Semitism is wrong, so is any attempt to denigrate or characterize an individual on the basis of race, religion, gender, or, in recent years, sexual orientation.

But there are some Jews, apparently, who haven’t gotten the message. On the eve of President Obama’s speech in Cairo last week, a reliably persistent corps of e-mail forwarders pounced on the newfound ease in which the president discussed his Muslim roots. They pointed to a piece by ABC correspondent Jake Tapper, who noted that the same candidate who emphasized his Christianity during the campaign has since become “increasingly forthcoming” about the fact that his father was born a Muslim and that Obama himself spent part of his childhood in Indonesia. “I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims,” Obama said in his Cairo speech.

Of course, Tapper is sympathetic to Obama’s need to downplay his absent father’s biography — and his own middle name, Hussein — during a campaign that buzzed with “insane rumors suggesting he was some sort of Muslim Manchurian candidate.” And Tapper is hardly surprised that Obama would seek common ground with Muslims during a major diplomatic offensive in the Arab world.

But the purveyors of the “insane rumors” are not quite so forgiving. Instead, they pretend to wonder why, during the campaign, Obama’s camp bristled at the other side’s emphasis on his middle name. These same critics deny the practice was a nasty bit of faith-baiting. They pretend to be “shocked, shocked” that anyone would think there was an effort to discredit Obama on the (false, but who’s counting?) basis of religion.

Jews should know better. “Passing” was necessary to American-Jewish survival in the first half of the 20th century, when a Jewish last name or background was enough to keep Jews — even those who could count only one Jewish parent or even grandparent — out of certain professions, neighborhoods, and universities. It was only after we established ourselves in industry, academia, and the professions that all those closet Jeffreys and Kanes could live proudly as Jacobs and Cohens. Not all tried to pass, but enough did that we should realize the historical amnesia of those who would bait Obama on this issue.

And if the historical argument doesn’t hold sway, just consider our own communal outrage when anti-Semites emphasize the Jewish roots and names of our public officials. Remember our anger at the commentators who are careful to count the Jews among the neoconservatives or leaders in the financial industry. Take a look at white power and anti-Semitic websites, where the Federal Reserve chairman is regularly known as “Ben Shalom Bernanke.” We’re guessing that the Jew-haters who use this, his actual middle name, are not exactly celebrating American-style diversity.

Which is not to say that Obama is above criticism. Jewish groups and commentators found plenty to dislike in the Cairo speech, from his emphasis on the Shoa as a justification for Israel’s legitimacy to an unfortunate juxtaposition of the plights of the Palestinians and South African blacks. It’s fair to debate whether his outreach to the Muslim world is a welcome game-changer or a dangerous exercise in appeasement. The argument doesn’t rest on Obama’s biography, however, but on his words and actions.

So lay off the Muslim nonsense, or admit that you learned nothing from the history of anti-Semitism.

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