“Faith Matters” is a column that features pieces written by local religious figures. Have you ever felt picked on within your family? Have you ever felt like there’s a special focus on you in which you can’t do right? If you protest, you’re being defensive. If you assent, you’re p roving the point. If you’ve felt like this, then you’ve felt like what is known as the “identified patient.” It’s a concept in therapy that I deal with a lot as a rabbi. Sometimes parents come to me and say: “My youngest is a real problem child.” Or: “My oldest can’t get their behavior right.” And every time, what is actually going on is more complicated. There’s a system in which the focus is constantly put on that child, as a way of maintaining the otherwise dysfunctional system. It doesn’t mean that the child doesn’t have their issues, but it means that the issues are actually throughout the system. Sometimes as a Jew these days I feel like the identified patient in the dysfunctional system of modernity, and honestly, it’s really disheartening. I’d like you to read this to get an understanding of a perspective I have. In his book, “Colonising Egypt,” Timothy Mitchell tells a story of the World Exhibition in Paris of 1889. At that event, a street was set up to look like Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The people organizing the exhibition brought in “real Egyptian dirt” to make the space feel authentic. It was a way of treating non-Western people like they were in a zoo. Mitchell illustrates this problem by citing a comment by another writer (Rifa’a al Tahtawi) in 1883: “The Europeans are of the opinion that the gaze has no effect.” The opinion that the gaze has no effect. When someone is looking at you, when someone is gawking at you, when someone is watching you, you are absolutely affected. Growing up in an interracial home (I’m half Jewish, half Chicano), I’m aware of how often you can feel like you’re being watched. It doesn’t feel good. These days, it feels like Jews are being watched. There is room for robust criticism of Israel – as a rabbi, I’ve often made these criticisms myself. And I believe in the importance of giving others the benefit of the doubt, even when they have very strong anti-Zionist criticism that I might disagree with. But I think we all know, and have seen, that on the Internet, scroll one or two comments down and really disturbing anti-Semitism appears. We know this about other groups, too. Any post even slightly about minority groups brings out the worst in people. I’ve seen these dynamics play out in our New Haven community, and they are destructive to our city’s social fabric. But we aren’t stuck with them. There are things we can do to improve this. To help, don’t make Jews or Israel the identified patient. This doesn’t mean you have to soften or give up your criticism of Israel’s behavior. But what I want to ask is that you don’t put Israel in the center of everything. That you don’t make everything about Israel. Here’s an example. I was recently at a Board of Alders budget meeting to testify about the importance of expanding food aid in our city. Many people testified on this cause. One person got up, spoke about the cause, and then said, “The elephant in the room here is that the city is supporting Israel’s genocide,” and there was broad applause. Now, I do not begrudge this person’s freedom to have strong feelings about the horrific situation of the Palestinians in Gaza, or to call it genocide. And I understand that for many people this brings about feelings of moral emergency. But this feeling was not “the elephant in the room.” This was not something looming over everything else or remotely relevant to the topic. This was an elephant to the speaker, but not an elephant that stood in the room. Making everything about Israel harms our community. It alienates Jews, because it creates a permission structure for people to say that there are the “good Jews” and the “bad Jews.” I am old enough to remember a book by Mahmood Mamdani, father of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, titled, “Good Muslim, Bad Muslim.” The book is about how problematic it is to pick and choose the “good Muslims” (who play ball with U.S. interests) from the “bad Muslims” (who are “fanatics”), and that the act of picking and choosing is the mode of a hegemonic oppressor. Likewise, if our politics goes down the road of labeling “good Jew” (who serves as a native informant) and “bad Jew” (who is a “Zio”), this too is the mode of the dominating oppressor. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be an anti-Zionist, or that you can’t have strong opposition to Israel’s behaviors, or that you can’t have strong opinions on the legitimacy of the state. What I am asking you to do, for the sake of our community but also for the moral coherence of your own opinion, is to refrain from making Israel and the Jews the identified patient of all political discourse. The Jews in my ancestry have never benefitted from being a symbol of anything. Likewise, I know too well – from stories in my family and from our political world today – the way that my Chicano ancestors and cousins today suffer as well from being a symbol of the “great replacement.” I know that other groups don’t like this, too. I have seen an increase in this sort of rhetoric from Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) supporters in particular. I know you are better than this and am writing this with a spirit of reaching out, not of calling out. I understand that feelings of moral emergency can cause us to act loudly and broadly, and to constantly center those feelings of emergency. I know that you know of other emergencies right now, too, regarding healthcare, immigrant persecution, and white supremacy. Casting Israel as the “identified patient” in even local political activism makes Jews feel isolated and attacked. And insofar as it is a way of generating energy and activating the base, it makes Jews feel even worse. Jews are part of the family in this country. Good Jews, bad Jews, left Jews, right Jews, rich Jews, poor Jews. None of us like, though, feeling as if we are an exhibit at the zoo, an elephant, to be judged or viewed, with real Jewish dirt imported to tarnish us, as in the Paris Exhibition of 1889. The lesson in therapy of the “identified patient” is that the problems a family faces are bigger than any one individual. They take the whole family working them out. The more we can deemphasize an identified patient, the more we can face the actual complicated problems that confound us. Rabbi Eric Woodward is the rabbi of Beth El – Keser Israel Synagogue and chair of the New Haven Board of Rabbis and Cantors. Previous ​“Faith Matters” columns: • Gaga, I Think We Have A Problem• What A True “Christian Nation” Looks Like• Faith Matters: Uncertainty Bears Possibility• Faith Against Evil• A “Faith Matters” Pilgrimage: The Camino de Santiago• God’s Greatest Work• After The Resurrection: Now What?• Let’s Join A Love Revolution• From Redemption to Revelation • Self-Restraint In The Age Of Distraction• Faith Matters: Will You Cross The Road?• Faith Matters: Jesus Remembered Immigrants• Faith Matters: 17 Steps To Self-Care• Extreme Compassion• Put A Shovel In The Ground• Start With The Foundation• True Sanctuary• Kingdom Questions• Faith Matters: Faith Over Fear• Faith Matters: Scar Glory• Faith (Still) Matters• Missions Ride on Faith• Why I’m Called To March• Faith Matters: Not Moonwalking• My Prayer For Peace Unity• Faith Matters: Belief In Action• Faith Matters: Gaza  Ramadan• Faith Matters: On Passover  Redemption• Faith Matters: Freedom Struggles  Holy Week• Faith Matters: Welcome The Stranger• Faith Matters: Beyond Neutrality• Faith Matters: The Lightened Yoke Is Love• Faith Matters: Combat Negativity With Compassion• Faith Matters: In The Middle• Faith Matters: Three Scandals• Faith Matters: The Three Hounds Of Hell• Faith Matters: In Praise Of Empathy• Faith Matters: Focus On God• Faith Matters: How To Say Goodbye• Missing Catherine• Faith Matters: Divine Light In Times Of Darkness• Jesus Islam• Faith  Famine• A Stick Of Faith• Faith Matters: For All The Saints• Waters That Unite Us• Jumping To Conclusions• Faith Matters: The Miracle The Message The post It Doesn’t Feel Good Being Watched appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less