In his Aug. 7 letter to Viewpoints, Alan Peres complains that I used the phrase “As a Jew” (in my July 24 letter) “to diminish the claims of alleged anti-Jewish behavior” at OPRF, “to make [my] feelings more important than the actual experiences of a group of Jewish students, their parents, and supporters,” and to imply that the alleged problems are “nonexistent.”
Mr. Peres totally misunderstands my July 24 letter.
My letter addressed assertions that the acts alleged in a complaint against OPRF and three faculty members describe antisemitic behavior that has harmed the local “Jewish community.” I, and other Jews I know, take issue with the notion of a single “Jewish community.” I referred to myself “as a Jew” to assure readers that there is no single Jewish community in which everyone has the same opinions. As I stated in my letter, Jews are like everyone else who have similar religious, ethnic, cultural, racial, and/or gendered identities — that is, not all Jews think and feel the same. This includes opinions about whether certain behavior is antisemitic.
Contrary to Mr. Peres’ assertion, I did not write, and I do not think, that my feelings and beliefs are more important than those who claim that the alleged conduct at OPRF is antisemitic. I simply wanted readers to know that some Jews disagree. To that end, I wrote as follows: “Some Jews, such as the letter’s author, might consider the acts alleged in the complaint to be antisemitic. However, I, and other Jews who I know, do not hold that same sweeping opinion.”
Mr. Peres does correctly write that antisemites usually do not distinguish over the type of Jew they are harming. However, this reprehensible behavior is no excuse for Jews or anyone else to mimic antisemites by claiming that there is a single “Jewish community” in which all Jews think alike or to claim that they speak for the entire “Jewish community.”
Jim Poznak
Oak Park