I think we have to be careful when we loosely label a person a “self-hating Jew.”
That label was given over the airways Tuesday night by a Jewish community spokesman in reaction to the recent anti-Semitic graffiti painted by Jewish vandals.
In a time and place where this community holistically is fighting a battle against substance and alcohol abuse, where in just over a year, we’ve literally buried eight young Jewish adults who overdosed, “self-hating Jew” is a bit much.
Indeed, we buried on Tisha B’Av a 16-year-old who was out at 5 in the morning and on the way home died when the driver of the car he was in crashed the car.
We live in a time when many young Jews are using heroin because it’s readily available now. Even the weed, according to experts, is so much more potent than anything a teen’s parents ever tried.
We’ve got a large contingent of kids who say they have nothing to do. How do I know? Many of them, following the death of the above mentioned teen, told me. And the only way we give them attention is when they die or when they act in an over-the-top way a la spray painting swastikas.
And is the first time for this? Hardly. It’s just that the spray paint happened on synagogue turf. Last spring while houses were being constructed in the Strathmore and Cross Country area, the Jewish volunteer anti-crime group Shomrim was called to a similar scene in a house under construction. There were swastikas, the letters KKK, and even satanic symbols. The difference, the vandalism happened on private property inside instead of outside. The city police sent an investigative team. I photographed the symbols. Turned out the perp was a Jewish kid from the neighborhood.
Years ago I was sent to West Hartford, Conn. because a Conservative synagogue’s chapel was set on fire as was the study of an Orthodox rabbi and the home of a Jewish state legislature. Guess who? A yeshiva kid who studied here in Baltimore.
Wasn’t there a similar story about the fire that brought the former Etz Chaim building down.
Troubled Jew.
Detached from the community Jew.
Needing help Jews.
But self-hating Jews?
I don’t think so. Do you?
Here’s a self-hating Jew for you. I had an uncle who is now deceased. He worked for years for corporate America and became an executive. When he was a young man he couldn’t nail down one of these jobs. Then came the magic decision. He changed his last name. It went from Eastern European shtetl sounding to baseball and apple pie, American sounding. Here’s where it gets worse. He never told his children that they were Jewish. My aunt and uncle’s beautiful home was something out of an early American furniture catalogue with no hints of anything Jewish anywhere. My late sister told my oldest cousin that she was a Jew in a conversation 11-year-old girls might have sitting on the stoop and brushing each other’s hair. When my cousin heard this, she called my sister a “liar” and ran in the house crying. My aunt firmly asked my mother to talk to my sister that this story shouldn’t be brought up again.
Many years later, we were having a family Thanksgiving dinner when my other cousin, started complaining that he was being edged out of medical school possibilities because of quotas he complained were in place for Jews.
This was coming from a Jew.
This is an example of a self-hating Jew.
No, when a kid vandalizes property, it’s easy to use the swastika. A swastika gets attention, a swastika is the mother of oppositional graffiti. Do you think we’d care if those signs had flowers spray painted on them. Don’t think so.
But here’s the real definition of “self-hating” Jew.
When we don’t act to help our Jewish teens and young adults feel part of something bigger, that they are important in the puzzle we call Judaism, than that’s a community in hatred of itself.
When we don’t show people patience, love and validation, that’s a community in hatred of itself.
Yes, these people who vandalized should face the consequences for their actions.
But you know what? We need to do the same thing so maybe venting or a need for attention can be gleaned in another way, a Jewish way.
Before the Jewish part comes in, these guys need to go from just plain “self-hating” to “self-loving.”
Then, we can add the Jewish component.

Any chance that those who defamed the buildings were abused as children? Could they be survivors of clergy abuse?