Transcript:
Arielle Angel: Hello, and welcome back to On the Nose, the Jewish Currents podcast. My name is Arielle Angel, and I’m the editor in chief of Jewish Currents. Well, Biden is out and Kamala is in. And yet, that hasn’t slowed down the debates raging on the left about the best route forward with the Democratic Party. The uncommitted movement, which registered a protest vote against Biden in the Democratic primaries, is hoping to keep the pressure up on Kamala, advocating for an open convention where delegates in support of a ceasefire and a policy shift on Israel/Palestine can be heard. For some, the fact that Kamala skipped Netanyahu’s speech last week is a good indication that she might be susceptible to pressure. Others see little evidence that she will pursue different policies as the president.
This week on On the Nose, we’re bringing you another installment of our Chevruta column, focused on the question of voting and exploring the ethics of choosing the quote-unquote “lesser of two evils.” Chevruta, of course, is the name for the traditional method of Jewish study in which a pair of students analyzes religious texts together. For this column, Jewish Currents matches leftist thinkers and organizers with a rabbi or Torah scholar. The querent brings an urgent question that arises in their own work, and the Torah scholar will lead them in exploring their questions through Jewish text.
For this installment, contributing writer Rafi Magarik leads political strategist and first-generation Palestinian American Rania Batrice in a text study, working through Rania’s ambivalence about voting in this election cycle. While in past elections, it seemed possible to simply hold your nose and vote blue no matter who, for Rania and many others, that calculus fell apart in the face of Biden’s full-throated support for the genocide in Gaza. We recorded this conversation while Biden was still running, but the issues it discusses remain live as leftists continue to grapple with their strategy and their place in a broken system.
As always, you can find a written version of this conversation alongside a standalone study guide with texts that Rafi and Rania discussed in this episode at JewishCurrents.org/voting-chevruta and we’ll also put the link in the show notes. Thanks a lot. We hope you enjoy this installment of the Chevruta column.
Raphael Magarik: Rania, where I’d like to start is just to ask you, first of all, to tell me a little bit about yourself, and second of all, what’s bringing you to this question?
Rania Batrice: My name is Rania Batrice. I’m a first-generation Palestinian American. I’ve spent the majority of my adult life really working at the intersection of electoral politics, policy creation and advocacy, and coalition building. I was Bernie Sanders’s Deputy Campaign Manager in 2016. A lot of my work for the last several years has been vast majority federal, but I’ve also done a lot of state and local work from an electoral, and policy, and coalition-building perspective. I’ve done this work for so long, and I feel like for 24 years, I felt very, very clear—even when somebody wasn’t ideal or wasn’t my first pick—that we absolutely had to show up, we absolutely had to exercise our right to vote. And while there is still a part of me that is holding on to that, this election cycle—in particular at the top of the ticket—it just does not feel so clear for the first time in my life.
It’s a very clear existential threat that we are facing with a second Donald Trump administration. It’s really not a secret what the consequences are, and that pulled so many of us in 2020. Even if Joe Biden wasn’t my first or even tenth choice, we were like: Okay, this is our guy; we’re gonna work really hard to get him in. Because we knew what a second administration for Donald Trump would mean. We all fell in line, as we tend to do, I think, when we’re facing concurrent crises and existential threats. But it’s not that easy this cycle when we’re talking about a president who has literally been funding, and facilitating, and excusing genocide. And obviously, this is very personal. Even if it wasn’t the genocide of my people, though, I would think I would feel the same way. It’s not easy to just say: Oh, but it would be so much worse under Donald Trump. People literally say that out loud. The administration has said that out loud. And what you’re saying to us is: The genocide would be worse under Donald Trump.
RM: Yeah, thank you. And I just want to honor that that’s a lot. Very intense. When I was thinking about this question, my mind immediately went to orthodox writers, and that was because I was looking for someone who had a kind of doubled relationship to American democracy. That is to say, in the liberal world, you’ll see a lot of celebrations of America’s democratic system of government. The electoral system: Isn’t it wonderful? Everyone should vote with enthusiasm. And that’s not where I think you and I are this year: We are torn and conflicted. And so, what I looked for was a source by someone who also felt conflicted (albeit for very different reasons), someone who felt that America was a place with whom they have a vexed relationship; that there are parts they like, maybe, but parts they’re frightened about—and parts about voting that frightened them. So that’s what I was looking for.
And boy, did I find it. The rabbi whose work we’re gonna study is named Rabbi Menashe Klein, and let me tell you a little bit about him. He was born in 1924 in Czechoslovakia. He was a Holocaust survivor—he was interned in Auschwitz Birkenau. He lived a long time, died in 2011, and he helped recreate the Hasidic community of his childhood in Brooklyn, in Borough Park—the Ungvar Hasidic dynasty, and he was the Rebbe. Now, Menashe Klein was an intense, pretty radical figure, who was probably best known for his sharp rejection of American public culture. So for instance, some of his other legal decisions are that he didn’t permit his Hasidim to serve on juries. He didn’t permit them to testify in a secular courtroom, and he absolutely forbade secular learning in the yeshivas that he helped create in Borough Park. So this is a guy who has a lot of anxiety, nervousness, fear, and a desire to create borders around secular culture. This response, this legal answer that he wrote in response to a question from one of his followers (I don’t know exactly when it’s brought, but it’s sometime in the 1990s). So without further ado, let’s jump into it. And I’ll just say, obviously, as we’re learning this text, we’re not treating it as an authoritative legal source. That would be ridiculous for all sorts of reasons. But we’re hoping that by learning it together, we can deepen our thinking about the problem that you already articulated so sharply. So why don’t you give me just the question, and let’s chew over that question for a moment.
RB: “Does one who votes in an election for government have a portion of responsibility for the actions of the elected?”
RM: What is that question—can you paraphrase? What is the question we’re asking Klein?
RB: Seems like they’re asking: If I vote for somebody who ends up doing horrible, awful, atrocious things, do I, as the individual who voted for them, hold some responsibility?
RM: What I jumped to is: I did vote for Joe Biden in 2020. Are the 40,000 dead people in Gaza—how many of them are on my hands because I voted for him? I think that would be one version of this question. But we vote for elected officials; neither of us gets to vote for AIPAC, or Christians United for Israel, or any number of other organizations, structural forces, historical legacies, and all of these other forms of dysfunction that shape outcomes. And so there might be limits on how responsible we are because we’re not voting in a vacuum.
RB: So often, people will run for office, going in with the very, very, best of intentions. That slippery slope of justifying giving up your moral compass—I’ve watched it happen, there’s that reality, too. Somebody really, truly, might go in with a steadfast ideology and not come out that way.
RM: Yeah, and one thing that’s also implicit in what you’re saying, I think, is that there are different ways of thinking about how we’re responsible. Are we responsible for the person’s character? Are we responsible for their overall ideology? Or are we responsible for each and every single thing that they do? And those will produce different answers.
All right, I’m going to ask you to read the paragraph, and I’m just going to preface it by saying towards the end of the paragraph, you’ll see him use this funny expression: Haters of Israel. Haters of Israel is a euphemism for the Jewish people. It’s a way of saying “the Jewish people” in a context when you’re gonna say something negative about them; there’s a superstition about saying something bad about the Jewish people, so you kind of use this contranym, or euphemism, where you refer to them indirectly. Just to set up that little detail. So without further ado, give us the first paragraph of his answer.
RB: “When one participates in an election, it seems as if he were joining and becoming part of all the activities, the policies, and the country as if he were a part of them and their masses. The candidates and the government claim that every citizen in the state is, generally and particularly, part of the state, and that by means of the election, he shows a sense of commitment with respect to the entire country, and is a good citizen, and a fellow to everyone. But we are obliged, as much as possible, to separate from them. As it is written: “I’ve set you apart from other peoples to be mine” (Leviticus 20:26); “You shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6), and not to be part of the nations, “even when they are in the land of their enemies” (Leviticus 26:44). On the contrary, in the land of the nations, one needs additional distancing, so as not to draw close to them, or God forbid, to mingle with them. Go and see what has happened in our great sins to them and their children. The memory of the haters of Israel”—there’s the euphemism—“has almost, God forbid, been wiped away by assimilation, and everything has been through the approach to them.”
RM: What would you say his fears about voting are?
RB: Well, I think he really names it. He says the fear is the assimilation and the commingling of people and ideologies. And if you’re assimilating in this way, you are automatically, even by participating, giving those things up. I feel a little bit conflicted, even by this thought process. Because I remember growing up—as happens in so many immigrant families, I think—the generation that immigrated went through something. Some kind of fear or some kind of persecution, some kind of danger. And then they make it to this country, and it’s like this mentality of; We’re here, and we’re safe; keep your head down, blend in. It’s sort of the idea of “don’t rock the boat”; my parents are convinced that I’m going to be killed in the street at any moment because I have strong thoughts, and beliefs, and feelings, and I don’t hide them. And I’m a Palestinian woman, and I don’t hide that either. So it’s this constant fear that they live in, for me and my safety—and I don’t like it, because I do believe assimilation is how we lose our traditions, and our culture, and our art, and our music, and language, and all the things. So there’s part of me that feels connected to that, in what he’s saying. But then there’s the other side of me that also is saying: If we remove ourselves from all of these things, then we literally have no representation, we have no voice in the process, we have no part to play in any of the decisions that are made. So I don’t know, I think I exist with a foot on each side of that line.
RM: One thing that strikes me as important is that it’s certainly right that one of his fears is cultural, religious, linguistic assimilation. But I also think he’s naming something a little different than that, which is political assimilation. That is to say, the candidates and the government claim that every citizen in the state is intimately connected to the state. Right? When you vote, you might have whatever intentions you want, but Biden or Kamala Harris are going to construe your vote as you endorsing American imperial policy. They’re going to construe your vote as: You support the civic religion of American elections. And so that is related to but is also somewhat separate from the question of just cultural or religious assimilation. It’s that you are being brought in to a state project (as a junior partner) when you vote.
RB: Gosh, I think there’s something to that—if you participate, that you’re cosigning it. We actually hear this from politicians. I mean, even just recently, we heard Joe Biden say “All these people voted for me in this primary.” He’s the incumbent, there is no primary! Come on.
RM: That’s such a wonderful example to flag this problem of your intentions and voting, and then the construal that will be given to your vote by somebody else. What question I want to pause and ask is: If you just had this paragraph, how would you guess that he was going to come down?
RB: My guess is he’s gonna say: No, no voting.
RM: Certainly seems so. Okay. If you would give us this second paragraph.
RB: “But on the other hand, in the cities of Europe, the righteous and the leaders of the generation would vote, make efforts, and participate in elections. Also, if we come out against everything, there’s a concern of provoking enmity, which they”—i.e., the rabbis—“were very concerned about, and especially in a country which, to its credit, gives freedom to all Jews and which, as it currently exists, is a government of kindness. And thus, everyone needs to take a position according to the need of the moment.”
RM: Great. So now he seems to pivot. What are the reasons so far that he gives for voting?
RB: It’s interesting, because he did seem, in the previous paragraph, very clear, and almost unwavering on the issue. But then here, he’s talking about: We live in the society, so we can’t come out against everything. It’s almost like we’ve been given this freedom, and this is the thanks we’re gonna give.
RM: I think in the last paragraph, you have a real sense of someone completely traumatized by his experience with a secular government in Europe and a state that became genocidal with respect to the Jews. And here, we get a sense of someone who is now able to distinguish between, say, Nazi Germany and the United States, and actually sees the United States as, at least for the moment, a decent place,
RB: Which he says, basically: For now, as it stands.
RM: Yeah. And there was a wonderful sense of him giving credit to America but in a completely disillusioned way—who knows, tomorrow might be a different thing. So he started to pivot. And now he’s going to try and lay out his theory of how this might work.
And again, I want to set the stage before you read it: It’s prohibited for Jews to eat on Yom Kippur. There’s a carve out if there’s a health risk—no one is supposed to get sick and die, God forbid, on Yom Kippur—you eat, but the little twist is that you eat as little as possible. You eat as little as is necessary to keep you healthy. So you eat little by little. And he’s going to take that as an analogy for something in terms of voting. So now, give us this next paragraph, if you will.
RB: “There is no way to judge this matter generally. Rather, everything depends on the place and time. Choose the lesser evil. The matter hinges on each particular slate that has been set to vote for according to the government’s laws. It is analogous to someone who was sick on Yom Kippur, who is fed little by little, i.e. as little as necessary for their health. So too, if there are before us two slates, one must weigh between them and choose the less evil. Certainly, if there is a slate which will walk in the ways of the Torah, it is preferable to the one that will not walk in the ways of the Torah. As was said, such a matter really belongs to the leaders of the generation to determine. Thus, in the states of Europe, the leaders of the generation would determine exactly how to behave. One needs to judge this matter according to the needs of the moment.” And quote, “It is a moment to act for God. And everything is for the sake of heaven. And not every person is able to judge such a case.“
RM: How does Rebbe Menashe Klein think that you should vote?
RB: It’s interesting because I think a lot of us feel this way. Lots of cycles, you hold your nose and you vote for the lesser of the two evils.
RM: I just like to give an analogy, which is: I think he’s describing voting as harm reduction. And in essence, what he’s saying is: Look, methadone is a terrible drug, and no one would ever choose to take methadone. But you know what? It’s better than heroin. And in fact, heroin at a state facility with a clean needle is a lot better than heroin on the street. And that is, I think, Rebbe Menashe Klein’s view of voting. Voting is not a wonderful, beautiful thing you do. Voting is a form of methadone. It’s a form of harm reduction, of avoiding something worse.
RB: Yeah, I also appreciate that he’s leaving open this space for what is happening at that moment in time in history. It’s up to the leadership in that moment.
RM: One of the things that I’m only now realizing about this text is usually what a legal responsum does is deliver a clear cut answer to a question. And what you’re highlighting, in the language of “it all depends on the time and place and the circumstance,” is this is a responsa that refuses to give an answer. This is a responsum that tells you: This is not, in some sense, a question that can be answered in the ordinary way. I can’t tell you: Here are the rules, now follow the rules. This is a subtle problem of judgment and circumstance. And just because, for 20 years, you’ve been holding your nose and voting for the lesser of two evils, it might not mean that you do that in this circumstance. Everything is circumstantial. So this is almost that weirdest of things. It’s the law saying that there is, so to speak, no law. That there is no rule; that everything as a matter of judgment. If you had to guess, what do you think that Klein wants you to think while you’re voting? What does voting mean?
RB: He says it’s up to the leadership to determine how you, the voter, behave. I do find that a little bit hard to swallow. I was raised Catholic, and I went to school Catholic school for 10 years, and it was not good. I have an issue when any sort of religious entity does that. And it also feels a little bit offensive to me, too. It’s sort of like: You don’t know any better; I’m going to pat you on the head and tell you what to think, and how to believe, and you just go pull the lever that I tell you to pull. So there’s that side of it. But then there’s the other side of it: Everybody doesn’t always have time to do the deep dive research. And so when you have somebody like a faith leader who is giving you advice, I think it is human nature to say: Well, I trust this person, so I can take their advice without question.
RM: And of course, in New York, in the second half of the 20th century, this is how Hasidim actually voted. That is to say, they generally voted in blocs on instructions from the leadership, and the leadership would make specific transactional deals with elected politicians. And so part of what I think we’re getting here is a description, in Jewish religious language, of what we might call machine voting, bloc voting, right? It’s really different from the idea that we vote to express our conscience; the idea that voting is a way that we make our deepest commitments visible in the world. The idea here is: Voting is an act of discipline by the individual, where they join into a group to achieve some very specific end, to get some benefit from the state in return.
RB: In fairness, voting blocs are commonplace; they are a way to consolidate power across many, many, many communities, where it gives a group of people—whether it’s based on religion, or race, or anything else—it gives them that power to demand attention, and demand resources, and demand that these politicians spend time with them. So there is something to that—you can’t get too mad about it.
RM: One thing I honestly like about this text is that part of his answer to the worry that by voting you are going to be assimilated into an American state project, an American civic religion, is that he wants you to vote and feel alienated while you’re doing it. That is to say, he wants you to experience voting not as an expression of your core being but as an impersonal thing; like going to the dentist or going to get your car repaired. And I think there actually is a certain power in thinking about voting that way; not as something that relates to my deepest self but as something I do because the alternative is worse. Why don’t we read the last paragraph, if you would.
RB: “In truth, if a person does not participate in the election, maybe by means of this one will elect a destroyer, who is even worse than the person one was considering voting for, one should choose the lesser evil, as it is written in the Talmud, “to nullify one before the other.” Both are not good, but nonetheless, one should choose the less evil and nullify the worse, until gradually, the requirement was nullified. Thus, one needs to ask a sage in these matters, and not to decide for oneself.”
RM: What do you think about this idea that if you sit out 2024, you’re voting for a destroyer?
RB: This one felt like a gut punch to me. I’m kind of fixated on the word destroyer, because it really elicits a very vivid picture in my mind. Thinking about this specific moment in time—the destruction of the planet, the destruction of humanity, the continued dehumanization of people based on race, religion, sexual orientation, gender—it’s very real. I feel that in a very deep way. And then I feel conflicted at the same time because I’m also thinking of the destruction that Joe Biden is continuing to implement, the dehumanization that he is responsible for. Is he the only one? No, of course not. But he absolutely took that ball and ran with it and repeated lies from behind the seal of the president. It could get worse, obviously, and yet, the destruction is happening. It’s not theoretical. It’s not like: Oh, this could happen. It’s happening right now, actively. And our president, the president that I worked so hard to help elect, is, again, funding, and facilitating, and excusing that destruction.
RM: Yeah, the language is so poignant: a destroyer. I’m not sure exactly what to do with this, but it seems to me that it resonates with this word, the Hebrew word “hamashchit,” the language used for the destroying angel during the 10 plagues who kills the firstborn in Egypt. And something about that kind of quasi-apocalyptic image of a society being dismantled, of people dying en masse, is so poignant and powerful. And of course, what you’re saying is exactly right. What do you do when one candidate is very clearly a kind of destroyer, but the other one is not not a destroyer, so to speak? If they’re both destroyers. Stepping back, do you think that Rebbe Menasha Klein has answered the initial question?
RB: I think he has, but in a way of speaking out of both sides of his mouth. In the early part of this answer, it’s like this vehement: Do not assimilate. And then we end with: Hold your nose and just do it, but do what I tell you to do.
RM: Yeah, and even though some of this may be the genre—that is to say, Jewish legal writing often has this kind of torturous back and forth—I think you’ve helped me see how part of it reflects the sense that this is not an ordinary legal question. This is not a question that can be answered straightforwardly. I also think that part of how he’s answering the question is saying: If you vote the way I’m suggesting, you don’t have to bear responsibility for your vote; give me the responsibility. That is to say, you vote and you’re just doing your job. It’s not on you—the leader of the community will take the responsibility, and it’s on them.
RB: It just popped into my head that if we were having this conversation in 2020, this would feel much more black and white. And it’s so interesting because we’re looking at the exact same two candidates four years later, and it’s completely gray, and mushy, and confusing, and torturous. If I can think about it from a strictly academic and not emotional sense, it’s really interesting. But then when I tap back into my humanity, it’s devastating that we’re in this moment.
RM: And part of what you’re highlighting is, of course, you and I don’t have a rebbe that we’re comfortable outsourcing our decisions to. So in some sense, whatever else is useful in this text (and I hope something is), that particular answer isn’t completely accessible to us. I wonder if there is anything from the text that you are taking with you?
RB: Yeah, I think it’s a reminder that despite how confusing this top of the ticket situation is, there are these other pieces to consider: the down ballot races, ensuring there are good people that get elected into different offices. Part of the conflict I’m feeling is the thought of our democracy only being a form of harm reduction. I think that’s the reality. My deep urge is for that not to be the place where we are, for it not to just be about harm reduction but to actually dismantle and rebuild a system which actually is in service of, rather than just trying to put our finger in all the leaky points. Obviously, it’s incredibly aspirational, especially as we’re looking at this cycle. But I do know, for a lot of people, especially young people, there’s this idea of like, complete exit, burn it all down. And I understand that urge, I feel it like every other minute of the day. But when we completely exit—and I think he actually kind of says this—we have no impact, we have no influence, we have no part in what is that harm reduction, and also what is being hopefully built in the future.
RM: Part of what makes things work for Rebbe Menashe Klein is he can be cynical and pessimistic about the electoral system because he has this other sphere of life, namely the religious world of the synagogue, and the yeshiva, and household that he is incredibly idealistic about and believes are salvific and redemptive. I’ll just say, for myself, I’m sort of pessimistic about elections, but I’m optimistic about social movements outside of the voting booth. I hope, for instance, that my union will grow and flourish and will make a difference in the world. Another way of saying this is: You can’t be pessimistic and cynical about everything; you can only possibly manage to be a kind of cynical voter if there’s something else you care about. And on the other hand, part of what I hear from you is that you’re someone with a deep yearning and hope that the electoral system could be something different; that this is not the limits of what are possible for American elections. This is not the limits of what are possible for American democracy. And part of the pain of this election is that aspiration and that set up in not wanting to just give up on this system.
RB: That’s exactly right. And that’s the struggle. There is still a big part of me where I feel very idealistic, and I feel like it can be better. It’s honestly it’s why I’m still here doing this work that that makes me want to crawl under a rock or bang my head against the wall most times. But I am still here doing the thing because I don’t believe it has to be this way. Those more nefarious powers-that-be would love nothing more than for us to exit, but it’s an act of resistance to continue pushing forward, and demanding change ‚and banging on the door and saying, “This is not enough.”