Are There Still Many Jews Who Are Hiding Their True Identity?
If we are asked what is the greatest danger to the Jewish people, we may get several answers from antisemitism to assimilation. However, one that cannot be overlooked is the loss of Jewish identity.
Many Jews do not understand the point of preserving their Jewish identity if they feel they encounter hostility from the environment they live in for being Jewish. Imagine a French person not wanting to be French and preferring to be Spanish or English so that others would like him better. Only in the Jewish nation is there such a phenomenon where other nations are preferred over one’s own.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is an example of a Jew who has openly reneged on his roots. An article published by the Forward questioned Kissinger’s record on Jewish affairs, including mocking those who defended Jews. “While accepting honors from Jewish organizations, Kissinger has also behaved and spoken in ways that estranged some of his fellow Jews,” the article stated. The former diplomat was quoted as saying, “If it were not for the accident of my birth, I would be antisemitic,” adding: “Any people who has been persecuted for 2,000 years must be doing something wrong.”
Kissinger’s first decision as Secretary of State was to cancel the standard procedure that allowed Jewish State Department employees to observe the holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Due to this, and other Kissinger actions toward Jews, Yeshiva University’s Rabbi Norman Lamm disavowed him publicly in December 1975 when he wrote,
“Let us openly disassociate from [Kissinger]. He wants not to be a part of our people — its history and its destiny, its suffering and its joys. So be it. Let us never again, in our talk or in our publications, make reference to this man’s Jewishness… A man who ‘forgets’ millions of his fellow sufferers, has lost the moral right to make use of their suffering and his own refugee status in furthering his own ends… Our Kavod (honor) ultimately will be better served if Henry Kissinger will succeed in severing whatever frail and residual bonds still tie him to the House of Jacob and the Children of Israel. Let us grant him his obvious wish to be dis-united with us.”
Some believe that the constant perception of Jews as dominating and controlling the world arouses antisemitism, so in the eyes of self-hating Jews, anything possible must be done to erase or blur any relationship with the Jewish people. In this sense, Israel is also a burden to them, a so-called brand with which it is often uncomfortable to identify.
Jews are blamed for virtually every trouble and predicament. Throughout history, Jews have been targeted as culprits: If people had no money, it was because the Jews robbed them through usury; if they were ill, it was because the Jews poisoned the wells; if conflicts emerged, it was because the Jews were warmongers; if a country lost at war, it was because the Jews were a fifth column; and on ad nauseam.
Therefore, it is no wonder that the sense of belonging to the Jewish nation is dissolving and with it Jewish identity. It is no coincidence that such questions about what it means to be a Jew arise in this generation. Life in borderless social networks and the feeling that the whole world is a global village evokes a greater universal identity among youngsters. But it is impossible for anyone to stop being a Jew, as testified in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 44a) and other sources.
In the 13th century, the wise Nachmanides explained this on the basis of Deuteronomy 29:14, “But not only with you am I making this covenant and this oath, but with those standing here with us today before the LORD, our God, and [also] with those who are not here with us, this day,” which is interpreted as the eternal covenant between the Creator and the people of Israel.
There is no way out; we are obligated to reconnect to and strengthen our common identity as a people whose existence is eternal because we were given a special role to carry out in the world. We were commanded to be “a light unto the nations,” to spread the light of unity to the rest of humanity.
This is the commitment to which Rav Abraham Kook referred in his eloquent writings:
“The genuine movement of the Israeli soul at its grandest is expressed only by its sacred, eternal force, which flows within its spirit. It is that which has made it, is making it, and will make it still a nation that stands as a light unto nations, as redemption and salvation to the entire world for its own specific purpose, and for the global purposes, which are interlinked.”[1]
As long as Jews are defined by others, instead of recognizing what is special about them and what is their purpose in life, they are left with empty adjectives or, worse, prejudice, distorted interpretations, and misconceptions in their search for self-identity.
Looking at a Pew Research Center report on Jewish Americans published in May 2021, one finds that the notion that Jewish identity is losing ground among younger generations is not a subjective impression, but a troubling fact. That survey revealed that 41% of young Jewish adults do not identify with any particular branch of American Judaism. In relation to U.S. Jews’ attachment to Israel, the same study found that six-in-ten Jews with no particular denominational affiliation (59%) say they are either “not too” or “not at all” emotionally attached to Israel.
One may say that for Jews trying to be like everyone else, to blend in and avoid making waves, is a way of self-preservation, but we see how little it helps deter antisemites. As hard as we may try to show that we are no different from any other nation, we are always treated as outsiders.
Notorious examples of Jews who refused to be identified as such to the point of hiding and changing their identity to dilute their Jewishness abound, but in most cases, the intention failed.
Karl Marx (1818–1883), a ferocious Jew-hater, was the son of Jewish parents. He was born in Trier, Germany, and was one of four sons and five daughters who were eventually baptized as Protestants, as were their parents. Marx’s grandfather from his father’s side was Rabbi Meier Halevi Marx, but he had no influence in the upbringing of the young Karl, who embraced atheism.
Even though he had no Jewish education and converted, he continued to be identified as a Jew — to be more precise, a self-hating Jew. American essayist Edward Alexander writes in his book The Jews Against Themselves, “Polish Jews were said by Marx to multiply like lice and to be the ‘filthiest of all races.’ On holiday in Ramsgate, he complained that the place ‘is full of Jews and fleas.’”[2]
One example that attracted international attention and underscored the fact that the Jew is eternal was that of Edith Stein, who was born into an observant Jewish family (1891–1942).
Stein converted to Catholicism and became a Carmelite nun with the name St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. When Nazism arose, she moved from Cologne to a convent in Echt in the Netherlands, but that did not ensure her safety. In 1942, she was arrested along with other converted Jews in the Netherlands and was taken to a concentration camp. That same year she was one of the million people executed in the Auschwitz extermination camp.
She was canonized in 1998 by Pope John Paul II. This process was not without controversy, as critics claimed she was martyred because of her Jewish heritage and not because of her Christian faith.
More recently, in a case brought to light in 2020, a George Washington University African history professor, Jessica Krug, confessed that she had pretended for many years to be of Afro-Latina descent when in fact, she was born white and Jewish. As part of her upbringing, she attended a Jewish day school and a Conservative synagogue outside of Kansas City.
Under cover of her false identity, she was an outspoken critic of the State of Israel and linked it to what she called U.S. “police brutality.” According to a report by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), she maliciously “delivered testimony virtually in a New York City Council meeting in which she criticized the New York Police Department as being trained by the Israeli army.”
After the case was revealed, Krug confessed to being in a deep state of remorse and wrote, “I have to figure out how to be a person that I don’t believe should exist.” Yet, as shocking as it may appear, Krug’s case is not an exception but a bold expression of a deeper problem from which many Jews suffer: the denial of the essence and purpose of Judaism.
[1] HaRav Avraham Yitzchak HaCohen Kook, Letters of the RAAIAH 3, 194–195.
[2] Edward Alexander, Jews Against Themselves (Routledge, 2017), 9.
(Based on the book, “Jewish Self-Hatred: The Enemy Within — An Overview of Jewish Antisemitism” by Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.)