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| Congressman Ritchie Torrres and Adam Friedland (JTA) |
Truth be told, I had never even heard of this self-loathing
Jew until I came across a JTA article about an episode of his popular podcast,
where he challenged Democratic Congressman, Ritchie Torres’s strong support for Israel.
One might think that Friedland’s identification with Judaism
is genuine since, during his conversation with Torres, he said:
“The fact that I still ------- care about being Jewish is embarrassing. I should just be, like, a guy. This feels like a stain on our history, and it feels like it’s changed what being Jewish is.”
He claims to care about being Jewish. And yet in the
same breath, he says he should ‘just be like a guy’. That means he doesn’t
really care at all.
His post–high school year in Israel seems to have left the
same impression on him that it left on Bernie Sanders when he did the same. Which is a very sympathetic view of the Palestinian perspective.
Friedland was born a Jew, which makes him a Jew whether he
likes it or not. Judging from his own words, he doesn’t much like it.
That he still claims to care about being Jewish will not last
long as he continues down the rabbit hole of progressivism so typical of his
generation. This is the generation that voted for the anti-Zionist Zorhan Mamdani to be the next mayor of New York. The same Mamdani endorsed by Bernie Sanders, whom Friedland
strongly supports. It should also come as no surprise that Friedland is also anti-Zionist, and has been long before the war in Gaza.
Friedland says Israel’s conduct during the war has ‘changed
what being Jewish is’. That’s because he really has no clue about that. Jewish
identity is an embarrassment because he defines Judaism through a warped
progressive lens that equates it solely with social justice. I’d be willing to
bet that his actual knowledge of Judaism is minimal. And that whatever he does know,
he dismisses as irrelevant or even ‘evil’ for conflicting with his progressive
dogma.
Now, of course, his focus is on Palestinian suffering in
Gaza, which he blames entirely on Zionist Israel. I don’t doubt his sympathy
for Palestinians is sincere. But sincerity does not make his conclusions
correct.
One can be forgiven for being misled by the relentless
stream of selective war images and biased reporting coming solely from
Palestinians reporters out of Gaza. Who wouldn’t be moved by scenes of people
suffering like that - living in tents, victims of the ‘genocide’ and ‘starvation? All being blamed on Israel. Israel’s
explanations are mostly dismissed by the media - insinuating they are lies by a ‘warmongering prime minister’
under ICC indictment. Why should anyone believe him? But that is not critical
thinking. It is an ignorance based on biased reporting.
Friedland goes further. He portrays the ‘real Jew’ as one
who hates Zionism. And probably, deep down, he hates those parts of the Torah
that clash with his ‘superior’ progressive values. I wouldn’t be surprised if
this war secretly gives him a sense of satisfaction by confirming his
preexisting narrative: ‘See! I told you so. Zionism is evil’. To him, Zionism is
nothing more than a colonialist enterprise designed to dispossess and control its indigenous peoples. And
when they resist, they resort to genocide.
I wish I could say I felt sorry for Friedland. But I can’t. If his
podcast is truly as popular as JTA suggests, his influence is outsized. And
that influence could help undermine pro-Israel voices in Congress, like
Democrat Ritchie Torres, by replacing them with one of Friedland’s ideological ‘fans’.
Adam Friedland epitomizes what has happened to large swaths
of American Jewry since the great wave of European immigration over a century
ago. Worse, he represents the most insidious form of antisemitism: that which
comes from Jews themselves, who speak with false authority on what Judaism
really is - to audiences who know little about it.
As sad as I am about what has become of so many American
Jews who were never authentically educated in their faith and have wandered far from their Jewish roots, I cannot extend that sympathy to Friedland. Instead, he just plain makes me sick.
And that is no laughing matter.
