Two stories in the news today lead me to ask my fellow Jews:  why is it that we keep bugging our Christian neighbors?  Should we not treat them the way we would like to be treated, that is, with tolerance?  The case in point:  a local Christian group put up a Nativity scene downtown on city property.  While we did not complain or threaten to sue, we also expressed privately our sensitivity about separation of church and state.  The Christian group encouraged us to put up a Menorah, but we declined.  The local Muslim Public Affairs group issued a statement supporting the Christians in their desire to express themselves in a religious way.  This led to a column in the local paper by Dennis Rogers complimenting the Muslim group on their “tolerance”.  On the same day nationally, there is a story that a rabbi forced an airport in Seattle to take down all their Christmas trees.  While this seems to be an oversimplification (the rabbi apparently just wanted the right to put up a menorah, but was turned down, and then he threatened to sue. The airport felt threatened and took the path of least resistance.)  But the public relations effect could not be worse. An American Christian would tend to believe from these two stories that Jews object to Christmas celebrations, but Muslims do not and that Jews are intolerant and prone to sue when they don’t get their way. There have been too many instances over the years of lawsuits against Christian symbols and they usually are instigated by Jewish groups or the ACLU.  In many people’s minds, the ACLU exists mainly to complain about the majority culture, and they don’t like it.
Which brings me to the real question: are American Jews simply tone deaf when it comes to public relations?  Or are we simply so self-righteous that we see no need to consider other people’s feelings and beliefs?  Or do we perhaps on a subconscious level want to be despised, to live up to the stereotype of the touchy victimized Jew?  I don’t know.  This is one of those questions that troubles me deeply as a Jew-by-choice.  It occurs to me that there are aspects of my adopted people that are not easy to understand.  Maybe it is because I did not grow up as a member of a small minority, because I do not remember hearing the complaints or the worries of family members.  I did not experience the taunts, slights, insults, disparagements, or insensitivities of Christian neighbors, acquaintances or co-workers.  I do not remember hearing jokes about Jews, and even if I did they would not have applied to me, so their effect would have been minimal.  My identity was formed without this psychological burden.  I have always tried therefore to be understanding of my fellow Jews, who probably did experience these things.  I know, for example, that my husband did experience some anti-Semitic comments as a child in school.
The problem is, American anti-Semitism of the mid-twentieth century is gone, but the psychological reaction to it lingers, and is now counterproductive.  There is still anti-Semitism, of course, but it is now much more political in origin.  The anti-Semitism in America today comes for the most part from the radical left and the Muslim community, not from the conservative and Christian community.  Yet the knee-jerk negative reaction of Jews to expressions of faith by Christians is still very strong.  I can only conclude that this is a neurotic fixation, and I think it needs to change.  The trouble with these automatic reactions based on old stereotypes is that it does not allow for change. Christians really have changed.  The Father Coughlin types are gone and the Vatican has urged Catholics to reconcile with the Jews.   The Protestants have mostly rejected their previous stance of replacement theology, the notion that Jews had been replaced as the Chosen People by the Christians.  This idea, once so widespread among Catholics and Protestants, is now believed by only a very tiny minority of Christians.  Most Christians also do not claim the Jews killed Jesus, Mel Gibson notwithstanding.  In fact, many large Protestant churches have taken positive steps to root out those ideas in their churches over the last generation.  And many are extremely supportive of Israel, at a time when Israel has very few friends and many enemies.  That is a big change that has taken place in our lifetime, and we must acknowledge it.
When I point out this decrease in Christian hostility to Jews and Israel to my fellow Jews, most of the time I hear is a succession of “yes, but” arguments.  Yes evangelicals support Israel but they only do it hasten the Second Coming and they believe that Jews will have to convert for Jesus to return.  Yes, Christians support Israel but they are trying to take over America and turn it into a theocracy.  That is a whole lot of paranoia, worrying that Christians are trying to run your life both now and in the world to come!  The second point seems to me an overblown paranoid view of American society today which gets more secular and less religious every day.  The first point is more troubling based on the statements made by some evangelical leaders in the past.  However, I believe most evangelicals are not trying to use Israel to force the end of days.  If an evangelical Christian believes that helping Jews is a good thing, he is only following the literal interpretation of Genesis, in which God explicitly states that “I will bless those that bless you, and curse those that oppress you.”  To those who believe that helping Israel is going to hasten the end of days, all I can say is I disagree, but you are welcome to help Israel, as long as you don’t try to start a war to hasten the end of days.  Since most Christians today believe that God will choose the time and place of the Second Coming, not Christians, it would be illogical for them to try and force God’s hand.  I would say to the evangelicals:  you are free to believe what you want, and I will believe as I do, and we will both see who is right when the time comes.  But right now, Israel can use all the friends it can get.  At the same time that Christians have turned away from anti-Semitism, other groups have adopted a new and virulent form of anti-Semitism, namely, the left wing groups and the Muslim world.  If we continue to focus our attacks on Christians, we are in effect attacking our friends.  And a group that numbers only 13 million out of 7 billion definitely needs powerful friends.
I remember a conversation with one of my children’s elementary school teachers.   This teacher was a Catholic, and she taught secular subjects to the third graders in a Jewish day school.   She was a very fine teacher and she had let it be known she was leaving the school.  I asked her why.  She had a pained expression.  There were multiple reasons, but one troubling reason was that some of the students in class had made disparaging remarks about Christianity.  She felt that their comments reflected the parents’ attitudes, and it hurt her deeply.  I also remember one year a comment from my own son while we were driving through our neighborhood on the way home from afterschool activities.  He saw a large Nativity scene on the front lawn of a neighbor and said he “hated” it and further expressed the opinion that it “shouldn’t be allowed.”  He was a little young to understand in depth the U.S. Constitution and various “separation of church and state issues”, but apparently he was old enough to have heard something about Nativity scenes.  Since he did not attend public school, I thought it unlikely he had experienced any anti-Semitism up to that time.  However, he already had this default sensitivity.  I wondered why.  I think it had more to do with anxiety.  Overt expressions by the Christian majority brought home to him at Christmas that we are a minority, that we do not share in the majority culture at least when it comes to Christmas.  Needless to say, we had a talk that day about religious tolerance.  But it taught me to question whether my fellow Jews were overreacting to Christmas.  After all, in our neighborhood there is a religious Hindu family that decorates the house for Diwali, and puts up a special covered walkway to greet guests at this time of the year.  We often notice it, but I have never detected anything but simple excited curiosity at the sight.  It is different with Christmas.  It is almost as if some American Jews experience the sight of a large Church display, or Christmas lights, as somehow an affront, or as threatening.  I think we Jews have succeeded well enough in this country, and it is now time to let go of our fears of the pogrom that is not coming.  David Mamet argues that converts to Judaism can help to rid self-hating Jews of their negative attitudes since the convert does not feel the shame felt by many non-observant Jews.  I think the convert can also help to point out when fears and anxiety expressed towards the Christian majority has been blown out of proportion.  Maybe when we can overcome this psychological reaction, we will be able to see our neighbors and relate to our neighbors in a more open and tolerant way, and that might prevent another public relations fiasco.