Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, director of European affairs at the National Security Council, arrives at the Capitol for his deposition as part of the House’s impeachment inquiry, Oct. 29, 2019. (Bill Clark\/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images); Headline from La Libre Parol on the Dreyfus affair: “The Traitor Convicted,” “Down with the Jews!” (Wikimedia Commons)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Zola demanded justice for Capt. Alfred Dreyfus, a Frenchman of Jewish descent who was accused by the military of being a German spy, and subsequently suffered imprisonment and public humiliation.<\/p>\n
Throughout the so-called Dreyfus Affair, the French public remained split between those who believed in the captain\u2019s honor and honesty and those who stuck to the age-old prejudice that a Jew can never be trusted, especially on matters of national security.<\/p>\n
Suspicions of dual loyalty and treachery have followed the Jews over the centuries along the path of their migration and exile\u2014from North Africa to Spain, from Spain to France and Germany, from Germany to the Russian Empire and beyond. Those of us who hail from the former Soviet Union know all too well what such suspicions often entail.<\/p>\n
Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is a naturalized U.S. citizen, whose family emigrated from the Soviet Union when he was still a toddler. A decorated army veteran and White House official, he was one of the aides listening in on President Donald Trump\u2019s phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, in which Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. And now, as a result of his congressional testimony, Vindman enjoys the dubious distinction of being just the latest Jew in history to be accused of dual loyalty by political enemies.<\/p>\n
In an Oct. 28 Fox News panel, host Laura Ingraham and guest John Yoo launched into a freewheeling attack on Vindman, entertaining the idea that he could be guilty of espionage. On Oct. 29, former GOP Rep. Sean Duffy told CNN\u2019s John Berman that Vindman seems to be more concerned with Ukraine\u2019s military defense than with America\u2019s foreign policy interests.<\/p>\n
Many Democrats and Republicans swiftly and strongly spoke out against this vilification of an American patriot. But as praiseworthy as these condemnations were, Jewish Americans \u2014 regardless of their political affiliations \u2014 should understand the added danger of the smear campaign against Vindman: It not only represents an attack against immigrants, but fuels contemporary anti-Semites looking to breathe new life into tropes of Jewish dual loyalty.
At the height of Stalin\u2019s postwar anti-Semitic campaign and on the eve of the infamous \u201cDoctors\u2019 Plot,\u201d my father, a young aspiring engineer, was suddenly fired from his job and denied employment until after the tyrant\u2019s death; his duties were deemed too sensitive to be trusted to a Jew. He barely survived on his tiny disability pension and the experience, which included an expectation of imminent arrest, scarred him for life.<\/p>\n
My own experiences during the waning years of the Soviet empire were far less dramatic, but the feeling of being an outsider, someone whose loyalty could be questioned and right to belong revoked, was certainly part of it. I\u2019ll never forget passing the newspaper stands on my daily walks to and from school. The newspapers decried the evils of Zionism and depicted nefarious-looking hook-nosed creatures who were plotting to spoil the party of \u201cprogress-loving humanity.\u201d The creatures\u2019 noses looked like mine.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of thousands of Soviet Jews arrived in the United States during the Soviet Union\u2019s last two decades, and it seems fair to suggest that most of them liked what they found in this country. They were now free to be Jews without any apparent stigma attached to their identity. Their politics tended to be rooted in the unequivocal rejection both of the Soviet past and of any political movement deemed or imagined by them to be aligned with the abandoned empire.<\/p>\n
Transplanted to U.S. soil and, for the first time in their lives, faced with political choices, many of them discovered that they were conservative. They became proud and loyal U.S. citizens and often voted for those who shared their distaste for \u201csocialism\u201d and their passionate attachment to Israel. They hardly saw themselves as Russian or Ukrainian or Moldovan but rather as Russian-speaking Jews who emigrated from the Soviet Union. Which is not to say that they had no affinity for Russian culture and language\u2014many of them did, and sometimes with vengeance.
For decades, he has been a figure of admiration among former Soviet Jews. A close friend of the legendary refusenik Natan Sharansky, Dershowitz was one of the most active and influential figures in the movement to free Soviet Jewry.<\/p>\n
That is why it was so shocking and disappointing to see the prominent Harvard Law professor stay silent during the now infamous Fox News panel and Ingraham and Woo\u2019s free-wheeling defamation of Vindman. I could not wrap my mind around the uncomfortable fact that someone who had done so much for so many Soviet Jews could sit calmly while the loyalty and integrity of one such Jewish immigrant was being questioned by those who are not worthy of approaching his record of service and excellence.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, Dershowitz did eventually speak. In an October 30 opinion piece for the NY Daily News, Dershowitz wrote that he remained silent because he \u201chad never heard of Vindman and had no idea why he was being attacked,\u201d adding that after he \u201clooked up Vindman and found out that he was a great patriot, an American military hero and an immigrant from the Ukraine,\u201d [he] immediately tweeted, \u201cI don\u2019t believe that Vindman is guilty of espionage or other crimes\u2026Vindman is a patriot who served his country. I\u2019ve long opposed the criminalization of political differences.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his opinion piece, Dershowitz added that \u201cthe unfortunate attack on Vindman is a symptom of a deep malignancy which threatens our body politic.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Woo has since backpedaled as well, writing in USA Today that he has \u201cno reason to question Vindman\u2019s patriotism or loyalty to the United States,\u201d but that he \u201cthought the Ukrainian contacts sounded like an espionage operation by the Ukrainians.\u201d
By all available accounts, Vindman is a profile in courage and civil service par excellence, a military man and self-effacing but efficient civil servant. He was also part of the third immigration wave that washed thousands of Soviet Jews onto American shores during the late 1970s and early 1980s.<\/p>\n
As was typical of that cohort, he grew up an American patriot, which was not all that difficult considering that his family moved to the United States from Soviet Kyiv when Vindman was 3 years old. While most Soviet Jewish immigrants encouraged their children to follow predictable and safe career paths (medicine, engineering, computer science, law, etc.), the Vindman boys dedicated their professional lives to the military and civil service.<\/p>\n
Even if it was not Ingrham\u2019s intention, in the Fox News segment, this wounded war vet and a recipient of the Purple Heart ceased to be an American patriot and became, in the words of Zola (and the ears of today\u2019s anti-Semites), a \u201cdirty Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a crime,\u201d Zola wrote in J\u2019Accuse, \u201cto poison the minds of the meek and the humble, to stoke the passions of reactionism and intolerance, by appealing to that odious anti-Semitism \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
Are the attacks on Vindman just another case of the ends justifying the means? The joy of being close to power? The attractions of contrarianism?<\/p>\n
As a historian, I believe in our ability to connect with the past. I can easily imagine Alan Dershowitz transported to Paris in 1906 and meeting Alfred Dreyfus soon after his exoneration. I see the two of them taking an unhurried walk together along the Seine. It seems to me they would have a lot to discuss.<\/p>\n
(Maxim Matusevich, Ph.D., is a professor and director of the Russian and East European Studies Program at Seton Hall University in New York.)<\/em><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/10-31-19-Alexander-Vindeman.jpg\")