James Besser asks why the major Jewish groups have responded to J Street with so much more fury and fear than, say, the formation of Americans for Peace Now, or the Israeli Policy Forum. One Jewish leader, speaking off the record, confides to Besser that he feels "Israel is particularly vulnerable and isolated at this time and therefore needs a unified American Jewish community as a critical element in its security." For reasons I don't totally understand, Besser discounts this reply. But I don't. The amendment I'd offer is that a more accurate articulation of the concern may be that major Jewish groups feel vulnerable and isolated at this time, and so are particularly fearful of competition. But the fact that I -- and many of the young Jews I know -- think that there's such a stark distinction between the interests of Jews, Jewish groups, and Israel, is part of the reason for J Street's quick fame and similarly rapid infamy. My sense of the situation -- and this is substantially informed, and thus biased, by the reaction to my commentary -- is that there's a lot of generational anxiety in the Jewish community. The experience of Jewishness for older Jews -- the generation of Jews that endured the Holocaust, or was directly descended from that generation -- is substantially different from my generation's experience of Jewishness. The sense of continued threat and acute vulnerability that is the abiding companion of older Jews is increasingly absent from younger Jews. The reason is fairly simple: To use Karen Brodkin's terminology, not only are American Jews white, but in general, they're privileged.
