A Torah scroll. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Nothing triggers a collective sense of repugnance like the sentence that starts with the words, “As a Jew.”

Regardless of one’s particular brand of Judaism or political affiliation, we have developed a Pavlovian reflex every time we hear those dreaded three words. If someone feels the need to qualify their unsolicited opinion with a heritage claim, it is quite likely that what will follow will be a diatribe of unimaginable bile and self loathing.

Over the past two years, we have been subjected to a barrage of this abuse. This phrase has become a moral shield, a rhetorical weapon, and a dime-store claim to authority. This empty prejudice disclaimer is as vacuous as it is vapid. They presume that this will somehow immunize them when in reality it exposes their cowardice and cheap attempts at using their Judaism as an alibi.

In America this has become politically endemic. While the Jewish community should have been proud of our Jewish representatives in government, we have grown accustomed to them using their “as a Jew” card at every politically expedient opportunity.

Obviously, there is a whole slew of influencers, journalists, and even comedians, who firmly believe that those three magic words, are a “get out of racist jail free card.”

Being a “Jew,” however, doesn’t make you an expert on Israel if you know absolutely nothing about what is happening there.

In fact, when these vapid celebrities claim to have a reasoned opinion on Gaza because they are Jewish, they prove that Israel is seen as a representative of the Jewish people. And they prove that when antisemites claim to only hate “Zionists,” this is nothing more than a convenient lie.

We rightly take offense when an antisemitic polemic is prefaced with “some of my best friends are Jewish,” but somehow the insolence is far more stinging when it comes from someone Jewish (or someone who was born Jewish, but does not identify with being Jewish anymore).

This is not a new phenomenon. In fact, there is a checkered history of Jews desperate for acceptance into gentile society, abandoning their own.

As an example, in Paris 1240, a former yeshiva student, Nicholas Donin, encouraged King Louis IX, to put the Talmud on trial. He argued to the King that as a Jew, he was personally aware of inconsistencies that contradicted and blasphemed New Testament scriptures. The result was dire for the Jewish community.

It happened again in 1263 in Barcelona, when Pablo Christiani — another former Jew — convinced King James I of Aragon of a similar fallacious premise, which resulted in a public debate with the Ramban (Nachmanides). Again, the results for the Jewish community were catastrophic and the Ramban ended up exiled, despite his victory in the debate.

This was a fairly regular pattern in our European history and continued straight through the Enlightenment era.

Karl Marx, another famous “As a Jew,” authored the famous “On the Jewish Question,” which equated Jewishness with material greed. Same story with a secular gloss — repudiation disguised as virtue. The list goes on and on.

To complicate matters further, Judaism today spans an incredibly broad, fragmented, and diverse spectrum and there is little agreement within the tent as to an actual definition of membership.

Ironically for the first time in our history, we have people clamoring to substantiate the most tenuous of claims to Jewish heritage.

Take the current Prime Minister of England, Keir Starmer. Before last year’s general election, in an effort to cleanse the stench of antisemitism that clung firmly to the Labor Party, he surprisingly discovered his “Jewish roots.”

Fast forward little more than a year and he is hugging Mahmoud Abbas on the steps of Downing Street, threatening to arrest the democratically elected leader of Israel and recognizing a Palestinian state. This virtue signaling “As a Jew” Prime Minister set the tone and tempo for the open displays of antisemitism that are now a feature of British Jewish life.

Once upon a time, to speak “As a Jew” was to shoulder the weight of history, and to defend the vulnerable even when it lacked popularity.

What this crowd is lacking today, is another essential Jewish virtue: pride. Jewish pride is a defining factor of our survival and is the antidote to this epidemic of pseudo moral vanity that has rampaged public life.

Jewish identity is not determined by your grandparents, but by your grandkids. It is easy to declare that you are Jewish, but it is far more difficult to actually walk the walk. Being Jewish means a lot of things to a lot of people, but ultimately it boils down to bearing the weight of our history, enduring the ostracism in the present, and ensuring the continuity of our values for the future.

You can be antisemitic and be Jewish. If you have absolutely no knowledge about what’s happening in the Middle East, it doesn’t matter that you start a sentence with, “As a Jew.”

The world will always tell Jews to start every sentence with an apology. Our task is to end every one with pride.

Philip Gross is a Manhattan-born, London-based business executive and writer. He explores issues of Jewish identity, faith, and contemporary society through the lens of both American and British experience.