“Settler” is becoming the new “Shylock”

I

am writing here about words, not policy. I am pointing out dangerous language, not offering any opinion on the political destiny of the West Bank of the Jordan River.

Actually, not about words, but only one word — “settler.”

It has a neutral meaning, but it has become a slur. It means a resident of a newly established place. It has come to mean, in the Israeli context, a usurper, even a violent usurper.

“Settlers” are bad people, thieves. “Settlers” have not established new places of residence, they have stolen other people’s places of residence.

“Settler,” per se, is an innocent word. In the current Israeli context, particularly in the reportage of this context, a “settler” now connotes an underhanded person.

There is talk about President Trump’s statement that he did not realize that “Shylock” was a derogatory, indeed anti-Semitic term. “Shylock” connotes in Shakespeare a voracious Jewish lender who, if not repaid, demands his pound of flesh. The anti-Semitism here is the assumption that all Jews are obsessed with money, and to such an extent that they will go to any length, however cruel and unethical, to obtain it.

“Settler” is becoming the new “Shylock.”

“Settlers” connote people who live on land that is not theirs, that they did not purchase, that they occupied by driving other people off of it. To boot, all “settlers” are violent.

Possibly, there were a few Jews who acted like Shylock. There may be a few Jews who embody the “settler” slur. The thing is this: The slur becomes a stereotype. Every Jew is a “Shylock.” Every “settler” is reprehensible. The insult becomes inherent in the usage.

Once “Shylock” is out there, it persists for centuries. No matter how much the word is subjected to scholarly refutation, it keeps on biting Jews. No matter how much it is explained that Jews became moneylenders because they were discriminated against, closed out of other professions, the Shylock stereotype persists. “Settler” is becoming the same.

Try to refute the stereotype of the “settler.” Talk about Jews purchasing the land they live on, or about tracts of land being ownerless. Talk about the Jewish historical right to the Land of Israel, with proofs ranging from archaeology to the Hebrew Bible. Talk about the many instances of neighborly relations between Jewish and Arab residents of the West Bank. Talk about Jews greening the land.

All this talk, all these facts, go only so far, if they go anywhere at all. Once the cruel, thieving “settler” stereotype is out there, it persists. I fear that it is taking hold, just as “Shylock” still commands assent in many circles, which, we see today, are larger than we have thought at any time since World War II.

The exploitation of the word “settler,” transmogrifying it into a slur, is a variation on a related subversion of language, via euphemisms. The Nazis called gas chambers “bath houses” and called the murder of Jews “resettlement.” In the Nazi manipulation of language, an innocent-sounding term was employed to cover a vicious reality. With “settler,” the exploitation is different. The word itself is taken to stand for a vicious reality.

If the “settlers” of today are taken to connote land thieves, the “colonists” of yesteryear are, too. A colonist in the Land of Israel in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was nothing different from a “settler” of today.

The current connotation and widespread invocation of the “settler” legitimates and reinforces the narrative that for Jews to live anywhere in Israel today is wrong. In fact, however, Jews are indigenous to the Land of Israel, and when they returned to their land after having been driven off of it, every Jewish area in it began as a settlement. If Efrat is a “settlement,” Tel Aviv is a settlement. Both areas were empty before Jews returned to settle them.

But facts don’t matter. The “narrative” begins with the corruption of language. The chief culprit in the historical and political science literature is “colonist.” Its grandchild is “settler.”

It requires massive effort to combat the corruption of language. Words harbor their own gravitational pull. The first step is to be aware of the subtle undermining of an entirely legitimate word, “settler,” and of an entire legitimate reality, the right of Jews to live in Eretz Yisrael.

Every time “settler” or “colonist” is used as a slur, it is not only an immediate context that is distorted — a Palestinian terrorist act, an Israeli house under construction, a limited Israeli civilian’s resort to violence not in self-defense. Much more is distorted: the entire story of the Jews and the Land of Israel.

Which is worse? The Nazi-type euphemism or the outright stereotype, the “settler”? Actually, it’s not a question. The two are not distinct. The stereotype fosters the euphemism. The anti-Semitic stereotype, such as Shylock, eventually fosters devastating anti-Semitic violence against “settlers” and other Jews.

The rendering of the Jew as Other, worthy of destruction, starts with small yet powerful disfigurations of language. Words become bullets.

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg is the editor and publisher of the Intermountain Jewish News, for which he has written a weekly column, “View from Denver,” since 1972, and the author of numerous seforim about the mussar movement and other subjects.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1075)