Non­fic­tion

Bad Jew: A Fam­i­ly’s Quest from the Min­sk Ghet­to to Netanyahu’s Israel

  • Review
By – August 26, 2024

As the grand­son of a hero of the Min­sk Ghet­to, the son of an activist in Com­mu­nist-era Poland, and a for­eign cor­re­spon­dent report­ing from Jerusalem, French jour­nal­ist Piotr Smo­lar is unique­ly posi­tioned to write about Jew­ish real­i­ties span­ning decades, polit­i­cal ide­olo­gies, and con­ti­nents. By titling his book Bad Jew, Smo­lar sug­gests that he, his father, and his grand­fa­ther are trai­tors” to Judaism, each in their own way. His grand­fa­ther, Her­sch, was a social­ist, con­vinced in his youth that Com­mu­nism would resolve the Jew­ish ques­tion.” Piotr’s father, Alek­sander, became a Pol­ish patri­ot, and let his Jew­ish iden­ti­ty fade as he ral­lied for a home­land that would even­tu­al­ly reject him. Smolar’s own betray­al, he says, stems from his hav­ing put jour­nal­ism and its demands at the cen­ter of his life. He insists in his intro­duc­tion that he has always avoid­ed any sum­mons to appear before [his] own to sub­mit to a loy­al­ty test.” And yet the ques­tion of whether he is Jew­ish enough” runs through the book. Smo­lar pos­es it direct­ly and indi­rect­ly to a wide range of inter­vie­wees, and their answers are dis­parate, fas­ci­nat­ing, and at times very blunt: You are the most igno­rant Jew I know,” one Israeli jour­nal­ist tells him.

Styl­is­ti­cal­ly, Bad Jew draws on a num­ber of fields, includ­ing ethnog­ra­phy, polit­i­cal analy­sis, and Holo­caust his­to­ry. Smo­lar admits ear­ly on that as a jour­nal­ist, he’s loath to become the sub­ject of his own work. This may have some­thing to do with why any con­nec­tions between the var­i­ous sec­tions are drawn with a very light hand. His own sub­jec­tiv­i­ty is the link between the rich tid­bits that make up this book.

The most con­tem­po­rary and urgent of Smolar’s sto­ry­lines is his account of report­ing from the Mid­dle East in the years lead­ing up to Octo­ber 7. Strangers who’ve read his arti­cles in Le Monde have writ­ten him furi­ous, mid­dle-of-the-night emails like Your ances­tors must be turn­ing in their graves” and Your gut loathing for Jews con­firms the old say­ing that Poles suck­le anti­semitism in their moth­ers’ milk.” Even his par­ents won­der if he’s being fair to Israel in his report­ing. Smo­lar tries to explain that what moti­vates him is a con­cern not only for Pales­tin­ian lives, but also for Israel’s very soul. Israel, Smo­lar fears, has lost its bear­ings; the val­ues on which the coun­try was found­ed have been compromised.

While Smo­lar avoids facile con­clu­sions, he does offer, in the penul­ti­mate chap­ter of the book, a mov­ing sug­ges­tion as to where one may find pur­pose and belong­ing as a Jew — espe­cial­ly if one’s life, like Smolar’s, has no reli­gious dimen­sion. In a con­ver­sa­tion with Tamar Elad-Appel­baum, an Israeli rab­bi, he asks if she con­sid­ers him a Jew. The rab­bi responds, We both ask the same ques­tions. For me those ques­tions are what being a Jew is all about.” Through his friend­ship with the rab­bi, Piotr comes to under­stand that the demands of Judaism and jour­nal­ism are one in the same: rig­or­ous eth­i­cal ques­tion­ing, open­ness of mind, will­ing­ness to lis­ten, and being a stub­born dream­er for the com­mu­ni­ty of mankind.”

Basia Wino­grad, a New York City – based writer and film­mak­er, teach­es cre­ative writ­ing at Hunter College.

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