I’m not a hero. Not a soldier, not an aid worker, not a member of any rescue team or tunnel demolisher or medic. I’m just a secular Jew on his way to get tattooed in Israel at what can (charitably) be called “not the best time to visit.” But this is the final project in my three-year long tattoo tourism journey, and the art will feature commemorative portraits honoring Jewish heroes (left arm) and Jewish victims (right arm). Despite the circumstances, and over the loud objections of family and friends, this work is too important to me as a Jew either to postpone or cancel.
What is a secular Jew? Does that term even make any sense?
I can count with my fingers the times I’ve been in a Synagogue; I’ve never had a Jewish girlfriend; I don’t speak Hebrew; I'm heavily tattooed; my kids have no Jewish identity. But, even so, I call myself a proud Jew: 23andMe assures me I am 100% Ashkenazic, with a bonus of being a Tay-Sachs carrier; yes, I’m circumcised, for what it’s worth; I regularly donate to Jewish charities; and I’m going to Israel at a dicey time because it’s important to me both to show my support and also not let any Ayatollahs rain on my tattoo parade. (Even Nasrallah would likely concede it could be a real bitch to reschedule a block of four straight days with three terrific tattoo artists.)
No single one of my Jew-points is enough, in my opinion, to be a Jew. Judaism is not just a religion, else I could make little claim to be a member of the Tribe. One has to have the identity, meaningfully, and at least one other check-box—genetics or conversion, I should think. So count me in.
One year ago today I was on my way to Tokyo to start my leg sleeve tattoo adventure with Machida Horiken. Japan is an ethnostate that nobody complains about being an ethnostate. The Japanese have a long history, have fought many wars, speak a difficult language, and are more collectivist than we are in the States. They don’t have an Iron Dome, however, for the simple reason that they don’t need one: nobody is massacring them, nobody rains down rockets on them daily, no hostages are currently languishing in captivity, they suffer no constant sanctioning from the U.N., nor hostile and defamatory press, nor billions in aid money lavished to rivals completely uninterested in spending same in productive and humane ways.
Jews in the Diaspora—especially here in the U.S.—have benefitted immensely from the (relative) lack of antisemitism here. When my father applied to Penn in 1936 he knew there was a quota against Jews, and not a single Jewish professor in the English Department, but he was a prodigy and nonetheless got accepted. He graduated at nineteen and shortly thereafter published two short stories in the most prestigious anthology of the day. Jews like my father worked harder to get ahead in an America that wasn’t quite antisemitic enough to keep people like him down.
By the time I got to Yale, less than fifty years later, Penn was nicknamed “the Jewish Ivy.” I knew no antisemtism in college; there were protests and tents but they were all about South African apartheid (which is laughably compared to Israeli society by many today). I didn’t need to band together in solidarity with anyone, and this freedom from persecution permitted me to wander from my Jewish roots with abandon.
Things are a little different today, though. There aren’t any pogroms here (at least not yet), but there’s a sense that something is gushing to the surface now that is ugly, misinformed and dangerous—from both the hard right and the hard left. Finally, they can agree on something—Zionism is evil! The logic and facts behind the notion that Jews do not merit a homeland are so deficient that no one well-informed on the subject can be against Zionism unless they are also antisemitic. Intersectional academics may scream otherwise, but not only are they totally in the wrong, but their misguided support for Islamist movements does nothing but drag out the war in Gaza and increase the number of civilian casualties, analogous to the virulent antisemitism at the UN which has fueled the “river to the sea” fantasy and created almost a century of professional refugees in Palestine. Consistent and strong support from the West would have aided a swifter Israeli victory; Hamas likely wouldn’t hold on like they have were it not for American college kids lapping up the “white colonist” narrative and daily casualty figures from the war. The only possible road to victory for Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran runs through the elite campuses of America and Western retreat from Israeli support. Running up the casualties is turning out to be a very evil but also successful strategy, so why not keep it going as long as possible?
Imagine the dismay of the beleaguered Israelis, especially a freed hostage like this one who laments: “I’m sure my kidnappers still hate me, but when American students call for 'intifada' or chant in praise of Hamas terrorists 'Al-Qassam, you make us proud,' I’m reminded that many other people do, too."
But not this American. I’m back on the team. The Israeli struggle is my struggle, and I’m heading to Tel Aviv to work with three amazing Israeli tattoo artists. Shai Davidai, the brave Assistant Professor at Columbia standing up against rampant antisemitism there puts it well: “October 7th made every American Jew just a little bit more Israeli. They realize that the connection is not a connection of convenience.”
So I’m heading overseas to support my Israeli brothers and sisters and be honored to have bestowed upon my skin the portraits of Jews much more worthy of recognition than I could ever hope to be.
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