It is ironic. As the majority of American Jews continue to distance themselves from the tribe, I find that the most appropriate way to describe them is by using Yiddish terminology. The English language simply does not provide a fitting term that conveys the intrinsic nature of their behavior.
Nokhschleppers are people who tag along where it is clear that they are not wanted. They are either too stupid to too desperate to take a hint.
So it is for most Jews these days in America—the ordinary folk, as well as the leadership. Rather than have self-respect, and stand strong against Jew-hatred, they declare their support and align themselves with anti-Jew organizations such as Black Lives Matter, as well as with anti-Jew politicians. It is a pathetic and desperate attempt to curry favor with the very people who not only scorn them, but also incite pogroms and support virulent anti-Israel measures.
Some may empathize with the nokhschleppers, reasoning that they are in a knee-jerk survival mode, a trait that is deeply embedded in the DNA of the Diaspora Jew after nearly 2,000 years of persecution. I do not. There is no explaining away this disgraceful behavior. The display of zero self-respect is shameful and cowardly. Likewise, there is absolutely no justification to throw your own people under the bus. Full stop.
Affording them any iota of respectability or judging them with leniency empowers them further, as if they represent any segment of our nation. They do not. They have chosen their side and it is not with their people.
Take Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League who joined forces with Al Sharpton to fight hate speech on social media. To clarify, their idea of “hate speech” is anything that is not in line with the current leftist mob insurrection and Democratic policies. It does not seem to matter to Greenblatt that Sharpton has a long history of Jew-hatred. Black lives matter. Jewish lives? Not so much.
What is important to Greenblatt is his perceived self-relevance. To achieve this relevance, he needs to prove that he is not “too” Jewish. He’s just like one of the guys, and they should therefore like him. Standing up for Jewish lives would not fit into his agenda. What matters to him is his placement on center stage with Sharpton, as if Sharpton needs him. He can now show all the Jew-haters that he is really one of the good Jews, and thus attain their acceptance.
Classic nokhschlepping on the part of Greenblatt.
Even the Orthodox crowd is jumping on the nokhschlepper trend. The popular Orthodox-Jewish singing group, “The Maccabeats,” dedicated a song to “their brother” George Floyd. The first line of the song is, “You were the brother I didn’t know.”
Their brother? George Floyd? The one with the mile-long rap sheet? The one who pointed a gun at a pregnant woman’s womb? He’s “The brother they never knew”? Was there a special tearful song from them for Ari Fuld, or for any of their actual brothers and sisters who were murdered by our enemies?
And, what of Yosef Neumann in Monsey, who recently died from his wounds after being hacked by presumably another one of “their brothers they never knew”? Do they have a song for him? Did none of our murdered qualify as their brothers and sisters? Clearly, not. But, George Floyd, he was their brother. The brother they never knew.
Moreover, it is almost comical how leaders of a Jewish community in Los Angeles, for example, proclaimed their support for Black Lives Matter, while at the same time scurrying to hide their Torah scrolls from BLM “protesters” targeting Jewish communities and synagogues, destroying property and leaving graffiti that spewed hatred for Israel. Yes, almost comical. It is actually sad and pathetic.
Hundreds of American-Jewish organizations and synagogues across the board are ignoring the Jew-hating platform of BLM, and have declared their support for the movement. In addition, to further show their self-contempt and absence of Jewish pride and loyalty, they join the many Jew-hating politicians of the Democratic Party and support all anti-Israel efforts. Now they really can be one of the boys. So they think.
AIPAC, too, joined the fools’ parade of nokhschleppers. Its members fashion themselves as a pro-Israel lobby group that has Israel’s back on Capitol Hill. However, just recently, AIPAC informed Democratic politicians that they are, for all intents and purposes, invited to criticize Israel’s plan to extend its sovereign rule of law over Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and in the Jordan Valley. One would think that AIPAC understands that having Israel’s back does not mean shoving a knife into it. Then again, in this “woke” age that we are in, the definition may have changed somewhat.
Jewish leftist groups among the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations are calling for the ouster of Mort Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, because he spoke the truth about BLM’s having an anti-Jew and anti-Israel platform. In the current atmosphere, at what appears to be the height of the nokhschlepping trend, they may well succeed.
Of course, I just scratched the surface. The list of desperate American-Jewish efforts to brown-nose those who can’t stand the sight of them, while betraying their own people, is too long to incorporate into this one missive. The number of Jewish groups and organizations involved is just as long. I will end, however, with an outrageous anecdote concerning the World Jewish Congress, which occurred well before the current race of the absurd.
Less than a year ago, the WJC had succeeded in rendering the prestigious annual Herzl Award to a measure of value equal to pond scum. The organization bestows this award on figures who “act to promote Zionist visionary Theodor Herzl’s ideas for the creation of a safer and more tolerant world for the Jews.”
Ronald Lauder and the rest of the nokhschleppers at the WJC patted themselves on the back for their decision to present German Chancellor Angela Merkel with the Herzl Award in 2019. Merkel, who opposed the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, whose country is the highest European donor to the Palestinian Authority’s terror infrastructure, whose representative at the U.N. and the Security Council consistently abstains from anti-Israel votes, in effect supporting them. She, of all people, at least according to the WJC, deserved the Herzl award.
It is pitiful to watch most American Jews humiliate themselves as they grovel for acceptance from those who barely tolerate their existence—genuinely and deeply despising them. How do they expect to gain any modicum of respect, when they have no respect for themselves and no regard for their own people?
A word of advice to these American Jews: It never ends well for nokhschleppers.
This article was originally published in JNS.