If there are no consequences for bad behavior, everything doesn't stay the same

It gets worse.

May I share a lesson I’ve learned from teaching, especially substitute teaching?

If there are no consequences for bad behavior, you don’t just get more of the same bad behavior. You get worse.

It has been my experience that kids grades 5 and up are a lot more like adults than most people give them credit for… or that adults are a lot like kids, in ways that people try to overlook. Everyone wants what they want when they want it, it’s just that kids make that a lot clearer than some adults.

What does this have to do with what I usually write about?

Yesterday I read a piece in The Free Press in which historian Simon Sebag Montefiore urged Jews to be aware of the danger that the end of an unprecedented 75 years of peace has brought. I don’t really enjoy listening to podcasts so I read the transcript. It’s worth your time to read it.

I’ve also read a lot from my Jewish online friends and allies discussing their reaction to various things Trump is doing, and to the ongoing hostage for ceasefire/release of hundreds of terrorists exchange process.

Wow, folks are really moving right or left. Some of my friends have drifted right. Some have slammed right (that was one Jewish friends’ description of his shift.) Others are progressives or liberals who are heading back into being progressives or liberals after a bit over a year of criticizing the Left for stabbing us (Jews, Allies and people who favor Western civilization) in the back or between the eyes, depending on the day.

I can understand why many of my friends want to make common cause now with progressives. The need to fight some of the things Trump either is doing or may do or maybe maybe will do just in case, and to ally with people who claim to be fighting those things, may seem like the right thing to do. It is also a habit. After spending my life as a Democrat, a labor organizer, and an activist on many issues that trend left (like harm reduction), it’s downright weird to not immediately jump to joining with progressives.

But a few things give me pause, and I think you should take a moment to think about them too.

(If you are able, while you are taking a pause, go find someone with paws who is willing to let you pet said paws, and pause while you pet paws. It is meditative and illuminating for all.)

1. The Left threw Israel and the Jewish people of this country and the world under an extraordinarily fast moving bus. This was happening before October 7 but reached the speed of an Acela train after, and before the IDF fired a shot. They haven’t changed. They only want you to the extent you’ll hide your Jewish identity or play the “As a Jew” role like Bernie Sanders and Amy Goodman.

2. Democrats, for the most part, continue to insist that the problem with this country is that the voters are racist and misogynist, even though the same folks were not going to vote for white male Joe Biden either. They seem to still be unable to take responsibility for failing to present a message that speaks to ordinary Americans who need to put food on the table.

3. There is a radical leftist/anarchist force in this country, led by some people with a lot of experience at disrupting the peace in support of their various causes, filled up with discontented Gen Z kids, and infiltrated by radical Islamic jihadists. These people are fine with violence and are the ones repeating “by any means necessary” while burning both the Israeli and the American flag. They are the ones who break windows in cities and graffiti “Abolish Israel” in the subway station. I know them very, very well. I practically grew up with some of them. The leaders are not idiots. They are very smart, and they do not play by the rule of law.

There were consequences to the Democrats for failing to run a decent campaign that connected with the majority of voters, but they seem not to connect those consequences with any of their actions. It reminds me of kids who fail classes refusing to connect that to not showing up in school, playing or fighting in class, and ignoring their work.

If liberal Jews run right back to the progressives to join together to fight Trump, the Right, or anything else, without demanding some kind of reckoning for the Left’s behavior in the last sixteen months (let’s not even bother going back before then, though I now remember how these folks were spouting anti-Israel slogans long, long before), then we can expect them to take us for granted, use our time/energy/talent/contributions, and continue to throw us under public transit of various kinds at every opportunity.

If they think they can get away with wearing keffiyehs (the symbol of a terrorist organization, may I remind us) and chanting “River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” in the streets for the sixteen months since October 7, they will do worse in the future. My guess is they will start to openly demand loyalty tests of Jews, the way on some college campuses the chant “Jews on campus, pick a side!” has rung through the air.

My liberal Jewish friends got very uncomfortable after October 7, and some have written absolutely brilliantly about it, especially Jill over at The Liberal Jew. The energy of liberal Jews coming together and voicing that antisemitism is not okay, that murder of babies and brutal rape and hostage taking is not a valid form of “resistance,” and that Israel should, in fact, exist, has been amazing. I hope it continues.

I love the sense of solidarity we’ve built, the community that has sustained us when it seemed like the world was against us. Because the world was against us.

It still is.

If children get away with stealing something small, they will go on to steal something larger. If they get away with harming an animal, they will often go on to hurting people. If they get away with hitting their classmate, they will move on to beating up that classmate or another. If they get away with that, and get their hands on a gun, they will become yet another statistic in the sad story of the gun violence epidemic.

If there are no consequences for the manifestations of antisemitism, it will get worse.

Forgive, if your religion or your conscience demands that you do. But please don’t forget.