Ariella Kimmel: The "Good Jews" will never be good enough for their haters

Ninety-one percent of Canadian Jews support the right of the Jewish state to exist. They are Zionists, and therefore, we're told, bad Jews.

By: Ariella Kimmel

The 1999 film Sunshine, produced by Robert Lantos, starring Rachel Weisz and Ralph Fiennes, is about three generations of a Jewish family in Hungary, spanning from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century.

As the world undergoes drastic changes, the family grapples with identity, assimilation, and the enduring impact of historical events such as the Second World War and the rise of fascism.

There is a pivotal scene in which the family is forced to confront the profound impact that the forthcoming Nazi laws would have on their lives. They are sitting around the living room listening to the radio, as they hear who will and won’t be affected by the discriminatory legislation passed in the parliament. The family is led to believe that because of their service in the Hungarian army in the First World War and the fact that they were Olympic champions, they were safe. It’s only the matriarch who seems to understand the reality the rest have not — that there is in fact no such thing as a “good Jew.”

Nobody will be safe.

This scene has often played in my head in the days and months since October 7th. It is amazing to me that so many people, including Jews and self-identified progressives who’d think of themselves as friends of beleaguered minorities, still seem to believe that there can ever be such a thing as a Jew so good, so on board with the correct ideological agenda, that they are spared antisemitism.

Yet I see this all the time. Whether or not they realize it, in their zeal to attack the actions of the government of Israel, so-called progressives in this country are defending their activism and attacks by defining a “good Jew” vs. “bad Jew,” and in turn perpetuating antisemitism and tokenization.

The “good Jew” is (apparently!) an anti-Zionist, someone who will be silent in the face of the antisemitism around them, and even justify the actions of Hamas on October 7th. The “bad Jew” is, very simply, a Zionist.

It doesn’t matter if you’re on the left of the political spectrum. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been vocally critical of Israel, or volunteered with organizations focused on peacebuilding between Israelis and Arabs. It doesn’t matter if you’re critical of Israeli military or diplomatic policies, or express sympathy for the plight of suffering Palestinians. The fact that you believe in the right of Israel to simply exist, and that alone, makes you “bad.”

There is no wiggle room here. To be a Zionist is to believe in Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. Ninety-one percent of Canadian Jews support the right of the Jewish state to exist. They are Zionists, and therefore, we're told, bad Jews.

This is the logic by which pro-Palestinian activists justify protesting highway overpasses in Jewish-dominated communities; screaming chants of “intifada” outside Jewish-founded hospitals; vandalizing Jewish synagogues; and shooting at Jewish schools.

We have plenty of recent historical examples of where this goes. What I wish my coreligionists defending or remaining silent about, or even justifying, these actions would ask themselves is this: do you think being a “good Jew” will save you from the hate rooted into the anti-Israel movement?

As Hamas terrorists invaded communities throughout southern Israel, they didn’t stop to ask those living there their stance on a two-state solution or on the Israeli government. When they arrived at Vivian Silver’s home they didn’t care that she was a tireless advocate for peace or that she was one of the founders of Women Wage Peace, a coalition of Jewish and Arab women seeking a negotiated peace in Israel. As they kidnapped Na’ama Levy, who has become known for the image of her on October 7th with bloody grey sweatpants, they didn’t care that she was a Hands of Peace alumna, that at the age of 19 she was a vocal peace activist, nor that as she pleaded with them, with her face covered in blood, that she “has friends in Palestine” thinking it would spare her from what is to come. They did not care that Judih Weinstein, who was out for a walk with her husband Gadi on October 7th before being murdered and her body taken (it remains in Hamas's hands), was someone who pursued many initiatives to advance peace in the region, including meditation classes for Palestinian and Israeli children together. And they did not ask Hersh Goldberg-Polin if he believed in a two-state solution before kidnapping him from a music festival celebrating peace, and then executing him after holding him hostage for 330 days. 

In the almost one year since October 7th, it has never failed to shock me how much the "good Jews" will go out of their way to prove their goodness. From joining protests in front of a synagogue and serving as a spokesman to attempt to give cover to the blatant antisemitism, to justifying protests celebrating the "resistance" against Israel just days following the largest one-day massacre of Jews in generations. One of the most egregious attacks that I have seen recently is from Independent Jewish Voices targeting Deborah Lyons, Canada's envoy on antisemitism, for wearing a dog tag which read “Bring them home now!”

You don’t have to support the war to advocate for the return of hostages. Indeed, the organization behind the sale of the dog tags, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, has been one of the strongest critics of the Netanyahu government, and continues to actively call for a deal to be made. And, shockingly, as Jews around the world mourned the execution of six hostages by Hamas just a few weeks ago, members of "Jews say no to genocide" tweeted a photo of Hersh Goldberg-Polin from when he was serving his term of mandatory military service as a means to justify Hamas murdering him. 

So many murdered on October 7th were true peace activists who worked tirelessly to promote co-existence with their neighbours. As the “good Jews” march alongside those who justify their murder, I implore them to ask themselves if they truly believe Hamas would have spared them from the horrors committed on that fateful day. Hamas is not motivated to violence merely out of opposition to the actions of the Israeli government — but also to the very existence of Israel itself, and the Jewish people living within it. Do the “good Jews” of the world believe they would be spared by Hamas, and their fellow travellers in North America? That they'd really be good enough? 

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