Should a writer engage the haters?
Or, a peek into my mailbox
When I first started writing the Beliefs column, for The New York Times, in 2010, I read all the comments that readers left. At some point, I realized this was a completely insane waste of my time. Some readers were smart and thoughtful, and their comments appealed to my vanity; others were stupid and abusive, and they got me pointlessly upset; and most were forgettable, so why had I spend my time reading them? If I remember right, very rarely a reader would make a novel point, or give me a new nugget information that changed my mind or influenced my future writing. But that was seldom. In general, the readers who had really useful things to say would send me an email; they suspected that I would miss whatever they put in the comments (as I often would have, skimming), so they did the light lifting of finding my email address.
So I stopped reading the comments. To this day, when I write a piece for a website that takes comments, like that of The Wall Street Journal, I don’t read them comments, except very rarely, if I am very bored. I am more likely to read the comments on pieces with very low stakes, like my recent essay about the disappearance of nicknames.
But it’s harder not to respond to my email. Ironically, it’s harder to ignore the mean, stupid email than the kind, well-meaning email. I try to respond to all the nice people, and mostly I do. But why do I respond—ever—to the real haters?
Sometimes, it’s because I have a touching, if misguided faith, that I can change their minds, Because if I can’t change anyone’s mind, why am I in this business? If I don’t move people, what am I doing? The very enterprise of being a writer seems to require a belief that there are readers who are moved by writing—and therefore might be moved to change their minds.
OK, enough preamble. Here is a recent back-and-forth that, for obvious reasons, I finally abandoned. It was inspired by this Wall Street Journal essay I wrote last week, about how antisemitism is neither a left-wing problem nor a right-wing problem, but a human problem.
This dude—I’ll call him Jasper, which is not his name—wrote to me:
Dear Marc,
Do you really want to know why people feel the way they do about Jews? Perhaps it has something to do with how many people the Israelis have killed in Gaza and the West Bank. Just look at the pictures of Gaza.. these are basically defenseless people, mostly women & children and many who are Christian (eastern orthodox). As a Christian, this bothers me a great deal.
How about all the Journalists the Israeli army has killed.? How do you feel about that ?
If you wish to have a sensible conversation about these things.. I would welcome it.
Sincerely,
Jasper
I’ll pause here to note that people who read my byline and then misspell my name when they write to me are a particular pet peeve of mine. But anyway, I wrote back:
Dear Jasper:
I always value feedback from readers, and so I am grateful you wrote. And to answer your question: of course I am troubled by the killings of any journalists, or any human beings.
But I confess I am troubled by your logic, though. Do you dislike Chinese-Americans in light of the actions of the Chinese government, which is abusive and authoritarian? Do you dislike Iranian-Americans, because the leaders of Iran torture prisoners and hang gay people? If not, why do you use the same logic to guide your feelings about Jews? I am genuinely curious, and would love an answer. It seems to me we should take all people as individuals, and not make group generalizations—that was the point of my piece.
I wish you many days by the swimming pool this summer.
Very truly yours,
Mark
And Jasper responded:
Marc,
Basically, Israel could not do what they are doing to the Palestinian people without the blind support from the USA, which makes me directly responsible for what Israel does. Israel and its supporters in the US - specifically in the media - have given a distorted picture to the American people. And of course Christian Zionists, with their crazy un-Christian beliefs have provided the votes (along with Jewish money), to keep the machine going for Israel in Washington DC.
It's odd (and telling) that you ask me about Chinese and Iranian Americans. Do we give them money, arms, political cover, etc.. etc.. to kill and take land from their neighbors? ANd of course, the land. Oh yes the land.. which is at the heart of the issue. The powers that be create Israel out of thin air in 48 (with no compensation to the people that live(ed) there), the arrogance of these Zionists to say to the indigenous people, 'our god gave us this land and you will leave.' In fact Peter Beinart is correct when he says, "the Jewish people have replaced their God (of Isaac, Jacob and Abraham) with a piece of land in the mid-east." Perhaps another golden calf.? People like Peter and the Neturei Karta see things clearly. If it's between the Neturei Karta, whose life devotion is to study their scriptures - and - Political Zionists, as to who is correct.. the NK have it.
To answer your question specifically.. many, many Jews support what the Israeli government is doing, this includes any form of Zionism. And if a Jew or Christian Zionists (a false teaching if ever there was one) support the killing of so many innocent people, the complete devastation of their infrastructure, then they are fair game to hate.
Another thing that really bothers me about Israel, and this is a testimony to the top heavy influence of Israel supporters in the US media.. is that Israel is presented as a 'democracy.' OMG, apparently you can fool all of the people all of the time.
By the way, I am a Reformed Calvinist.
--jasper
Some of my best friends are Reformed Calvinists. I am sorry that they have to deal with this guy in church.
Also, it’s amazing how deep in this guy is. Very few humans, Jews included, know about Neturei Karta, who are pretty obscure. They are a fringe haredi sect beloved of anti-Zionists, including some pretty antisemitic anti-Zionists (NK has worked with the Iranian government in Holocaust denial, for example). So the fact that his guy reaches casually for the NK reference is … telling? Anyway, I wrote back:
Thanks for the note. I am still unclear if you still think generalized bigotry is okay—are you mad at all Jews, just the ones that you think support the current Israeli government, just the ones who identify as Zionists? People who say “I dislike blacks because...” are known as racists. People who say “I dislike Jews because...” are no better. There is a huge difference between “if /a/ Jew supports...” and “why people feel the way they do about /Jews/” — the distinction is at the heart of liberal society and liberal values. Do you think anti-group hatred is wrong, or don't you?
Also, it’s a curious thing for a Reformed Christian to write “fair game to hate”—I’ve never heard a Christian use that kind of language. But hey, I don't know everything. Coming out of my (Jewish) tradition, I don’t believe in hatred like that. I wish we agreed that hatred is wrong.
I wish you a good summer with much time with your family.
Regards,
Mark (note spelling)
Was I wrong to tweak him about misspelling my name? Perhaps. It was petty of me.
Jasper wrote back:
hate, hate, hate.. is your skin that thin that a word upsets you ? If you're a Zionist and believe a Palestinian lives on land yoru god gave you.. do you hate them? The hatred Jews have for Palestinians is extraordinary. What have Jewish 'settlers' done to Palestinians in the West Bank.? Or perhaps you 'dislike' them but either way it's ok to kill them.? I have a hard time understanding why any rational thinking person can believe the killing of over 55k people with the most advanced weaponry the world has ever known against basically a defenceless people is justified.? WHat kind of people shoot into a crowd of people waiting in line to get food. What kind of people kill medics, dig a grave, put them all in there along with the van? What kind of people bar journalists from entering the war zone and when they do kill them (over 200).
The great irony here is that Jews normally would never stand for this were it to happen in any other country.. but when it comes to them and theirs.. all bets are off..
Does worldwide Zionism think the Palestinians will go the way of the American Indian? If they do, they better think again. The American Indian didn't have the help of 100's of millions of Arabic people and their governments. There's a limited amount of bribes the US can pay Arabic governments to make peace with Israel.. it will not be forever. And Christian Zionists, at some point, will realize their thinking is wrong.
Off to play golf.
--jasper
A golfer! I should have known.
At this point, I decided to reclaim my precious time on earth and cut off contact.
Her parents lied to her
If you haven’t yet, please go listen to my interview with Ana Levy-Lyons, ex-minister to a large Unitarian church in Brooklyn, who left her pulpit and is now pursuing ordination as a rabbi. It’s a fascinating conversation for many reasons—go listen!—but here I’d like to say more about one detail, which is that her parents withheld from her the fact that she was Jewish. They lied to her until she was in college, when a cousin spilled the beans.
This is the second time in my life that I have spoken with a woman whose parents had lied to her about being a non-Jew. The other was a woman I had known slightly in college, who reached out to me in her thirties, after reading something I had written about religion, to ask if I would talk to her on the phone. I agreed, and she told me this remarkable story about how she had always been led to believe that they were Episcopalians, through her years at a very Waspy boarding school, into college, and beyond. I think (if I remember right) she learned about her actual heritage through a DNA test. When she asked her parents and siblings (at least one of whom had also figured out the truth), they were angry with her for kicking up the dirt! They demanded she never speak of it again.
This kind of thing is incredibly sad, on multiple levels. First of all, there is the simple lying. There is the denial to a child of her true heritage. But also … in order to uphold a lie like this over the decades, the parents clearly cannot be telling stories of the ancestors. They aren’t telling stories about Grandma and Grandpa, or Nana and Pops, or Bubbe and Zaydie, or Meemaw and Poopaw, or whatever you call them (or are they telling stories about fictionalized versions of them?). They aren’t reminiscing about childhood, or family reunions, or that crazy cousin Lou.
Because if they were, the truth would come out somehow. In our world, ethnicity and religion are really not that far from the surface. They come up in stories of immigration, school matriculation, dating and marriage, and so forth. To preserve for your children a false family religious identity, I have to think that the parents aren’t giving them much of a family identity at all. They are cutting them off.
And also, how do the kids not know? On the one hand, I am aware that children, up until a certain age, have a touching faith that their parents speak truth. It’s inconceivable that they have affairs, or secret families—or secret religions. On the other hand, aren’t there warning signs? Things unexplained? Do they not suspect? I never believed that Madeleine Albright didn’t know her family—Czech refugees who left Europe in the 1930s!—were Jews, as she claimed. I believe Ana, and this college acquaintance; but I still find it all mysterious.
Anyone got stories like this? Write to me!
Reading, watching, listening
I’m reading these books:
and watching this:
and this:
and listening to this:
He’s alive!
Finally, I’m glad that my friend Jay Michaelson survived a fall that fractured his pelvis, and lived to write about it. He’s always worth reading. In his honor, I asked ChatGPT to create “a picture of jay michaelson recovering in bed from a fractured pelvis while typing on his laptop.” I hope he is as comfortable as AI thinks he looks:
You think Jay would sit with a laptop *on his lap* with a broken pelvis?!
(I have no idea what position would work for someone with a busted ilium, I just wanted to say hi and agree that Jay is always so good to read and listen to)