The African American Playbook: How Jews Can Learn To Survive Hate & Start Loving Themselves

Watch and Listen

The Jewish community is living through a

new normal. For the first time in

generations, we understand what it looks

like when a society of otherwise sane,

seemingly intelligent people are

captured by the intoxicating sweep of

anti-Jew ideology. For the first time,

we understand what it feels like to be

completely misunderstood, demonized,

hated, not by everyone, but by some. And

because most of us have never been here

before, we don't know what to do about

it. We're running around like a chicken

with its head cut off, or perhaps more

appropriately, with its neck being

broken after being whirled around by a

from woman before Yom Kipur, as is

tradition. We also understand we were

wrong in thinking these were special

times in history, that humanity had

moved beyond its susceptibility to such

choreographed and predictable strategies

to do us harm. But instead, we see this

is yet another chapter in a long saga of

anti-Jew racism rearing its ugly head.

It's here and it's here to stay. Never

left. It was only dormant. The question

is, how do we learn to live with it?

Well, good news, Yadim. There's a

playbook for surviving hate, for

thriving, in fact, despite its dark

shadow. for refusing to let haters set

the terms of our lives. And the most

successful version of that playbook was

and is being written by black Americans.

And that's who we as Jews need to

emulate. Picture in your head the men

and women of the American civil rights

movement. See them really in your mind.

See these people in their Sunday best,

back straight, heads held high, striding

towards a better future of their own

making. Not begging to be accepted. not

erasing themselves, not waiting for

permission, but standing up inside their

own skin and saying publicly,

unapologetically, we are black. We are

here and we will be respected. Or as the

legendary leader Martin Luther King Jr.

put it, I am somebody.

A simple declaration of dignity because

identity must be claimed, not requested.

As Jews, we have to begin here,

accepting that our dignity is not

conditional. It is the baseline, not a

reward to be granted by winning an

argument. No more blending in or

shrinking from our Jewishness to make

life more comfortable for those who

would reject us. As the legendary Jewish

leader, Rabbi Jonathan Sax once said,

"The cure for anti-semitism is

self-respect." It's as simple as that.

And part of respecting ourselves means

not outsourcing Jewish identity to our

critics. As the iconic writer James

Baldwin once wrote, "You can only be

destroyed by believing that you really

are what they call you." Identity must

be claimed by the community before it

will be respected outside the community.

And it begins with a single internal

line in each of us that we at last vow

to stop crossing. Think about the moment

after George Floyd was killed. People

forget George Floyd was not some

supernatural event that happened to the

world. George Floyd was just a man. The

momentous societal change we experienced

was the result of the black community as

one demanding momentous societal change.

Black dignity has always preceded and

produced black power, not the other way

around.

Black America has never waited for the

world to love them before they loved

themselves. Out loud, in public, on

stage, in print, in music, in art.

During the 1920s and 30s, the artists of

the Harlem Renaissance flooded the

public square with black excellence.

They didn't wait to be welcomed. They

built their own house and invited the

world into it. Black artists have long

translated their trauma, rage, and hope

into popular culture, music, literature,

humor, language. And these cultural

contributions aren't just commentary on

their struggle. They've humanized black

identity for the world, making it an

inescapable and irresistible part of our

wider culture. As the Harlem Renaissance

poet Langston Hughes said, "I am a negro

and beautiful." He didn't end racism,

but he broke the lie that racism tells

about its targets. Jews need to do the

same. Treat Jewish cultural production

as a celebration, a form of self-respect

of refusing to reduce ourselves to

conflictonly content about the Holocaust

or Israel. We need humanizing

contemporary work that shows full

three-dimensional Jewish life. the joy,

the infighting, the rituals, the

spirituality, politics, family, the

whole balagon. This is the only way we

introduce the world to Jewish life at

scale. So people know who and what and

how wonderful we are. So we're not only

present when something terrible is

happening. As a great political thinker,

Zev Jabatinsky said, "A Jew who is proud

of his Jewishness commands respect." By

making Jewish culture loud, beautiful,

and ubiquitous, we can radiate that

self-respect in a way that is

unmistakable and undeniable.

African-Americans have also modeled for

us the art of defanging hate. What? You

think we've solved racism? It'll always

be here. Black folks know that, but they

live their best lives anyway. Not

ignorant to the situation, not passive

in dealing with it, but empowered to

rise beyond it. As Nobel laurate Tony

Morrison said, "The function of racism

is distraction. It keeps you from doing

your work." If I had a nickel for every

social media follower who forwarded me

some reel about some random person doing

something anti-semitic, I wouldn't need

a paid subscriber community, which you

can join on our website. Friends, don't

get bogged down in the social media

hatefest. It's a distraction. Focus only

on what you can do to make things better

and then go do it. We all have to show

up in all the ways. Artists create,

lawyers litigate, teachers teach,

parents raise kids with clarity and

confidence. All of it matters and all of

it is needed now. The African-American

community has also remained united in

their shared commitment to black

dignity, which leaves space for loving

disagreement on tactics, language, and

goals that strengthens rather than

diminishes their cause. The Jewish

community is so fragmented, so

territorial, so wrapped up in our

generational and denominational

differences that we're still out here

questioning each other's basic

legitimacy as Jews when the wolves are

already at the door. When the aliens

invade Earth, if the humans don't ignore

their stupid human problems and unite,

they'll lose. And so will we if we don't

cut the crap and come together on this.

Black America didn't become lovable

before it became powerful. It became

powerful precisely because it decided it

was already worthy of being loved. We

Jews have made the opposite mistake too

many times. We've tried to be palatable

before being proud, acceptable before

being exceptional, and every time it

fails. Because hate doesn't disappear in

the presence of apology. It retreats

only in the presence of clarity. We must

see being confidently, visibly Jewish as

non-negotiable.

We must build our Jewish families,

communities, businesses, mitzvot, and

joy in a world that doesn't always love

us. We must give ourselves permission to

be proud, even when it's unpopular. We

must remind ourselves that Jewish

continuity is a positive thing, not a

defensive one. That we live Jewishly

because we choose to, because it is a

gift, not because we are under attack.

The black playbook was never about

waiting for permission to belong. It was

about acting like they already belonged

and daring the world to catch up. And it

works. It worked for a people who were

enslaved, lynched, segregated, redlined,

imprisoned, and who still produced the

dominant culture, the music, the

language, the conscience of America. Not

because racism ended, but because

self-respect outpaced it. And that same

opportunity sits in front of the Jewish

people. Now, we're told that the safest

version of ourselves is the smallest

one. Be less visible, less confident,

less outspoken, less Zionist, less

publicly Jewish. But history is

screaming back at us. That is not the

safe path. That is the path of

disappearing. And we've come too many

thousands of years to disappear. Now,

Dr. King most famously said, "I have a

dream." Well, friends, I too have a

dream that every person might live fully

and authentically as they are, and that

we might recognize and honor that

uniqueness in one another without

feeling threatened by it. That like

siblings, we can respect what makes us

different without ever losing sight of

the bigger picture. That we're all part

of the same human family, and there is

so much more that unites us than could

ever keep us apart. That is my dream.

The question is, what will you do to

help me make it come true?

This is the 51st episode of Being Jewish

With me, Jonah Platt.