In her op-ed “The wrong-headedness of the left,” in The CJN on Nov. 27, Sally Zerker presents readers with a catalogue of the villainy and tyranny of 20th-century dictators, all of them identified as being on the “left.”

For a Jew, for any Canadian, her list is astonishing. Adolf Hitler, the greatest villain of all history, certainly of Jewish history, is mentioned only in passing; that the Nazi minions were on the right of the political spectrum is not mentioned at all.

Also drawing a pass from Zerker are Mussolini, Tojo, several centuries of Russian czars, Hungarian, Romanian and Polish fascists of the pre-World War II period and beyond, the neo-Nazis of today’s Ukraine, Belarus and elsewhere, South American dictators, and a host of others.  Not to mention them is odd from a Jewish standpoint, to say the least, but it would have been inconvenient for the argument. They don’t fit the ideology of the essay.

A balanced and fair view of the historical record would note that the traditional anti-Semitism of the right accounts for much of Jews’ attraction to the left. The example of Chief Rabbi Dov Berush Meisels of Krakow, impeccably Orthodox and an opponent of modernity, is instructive. Rabbi Meisels was a Polish patriot and a champion of national rights, his traditionalist Judaism notwithstanding. In 1848, he was elected to the democratic Austro-Hungarian Parliament.   

At the first session of the Parliament, to the surprise of many, Meisels took his seat with the radicals on the left. When someone tried to direct him to the “right” of the hall, he responded with a pun. “Jews have no right,” he said, meaning that with the right, Jews had no rights.

To be sure, many leftist regimes have exacted a communal and religious price from Jews for full membership. Most, however, granted equal rights to Jews and others as individuals. Historically, they have been, at worst, the lesser of two evils.

To be sure, much support for Israel has come most recently from the religious and political right in North America and, to a degree, in Europe. That is a relatively recent phenomenon. Before 1948, it was usually the left, including union members and liberal Protestants, who championed the establishment of a Jewish state. In 1948, the support of U.S. president Harry Truman (a Democrat) was crucial; the State Department (largely conservative diplomats concerned about oil), however, vigorously opposed him. The USSR and its satellites also supported the establishment of the state, for their own reasons, to be sure, and communist Czechoslavakia supplied large quantities of arms to the beleaguered yishuv.

Whether the recent shift to the right of the Jewish community has alienated the left or the anti-Israel rhetoric of the left has sparked the shift to the right is a chicken and egg question. But if we are to learn anything from history, it behooves us to remember that it wasn’t always so.

History aside, it seems to me inaccurate, at best, to apply the notions of right and left to the economic situation of the present. “Socialist” has been made into a term of opprobrium by the ideologues of the right. But who are the greater socialists, the major banks and corporations that beg for and receive subsistence allowances from government, or the homeless and the unemployed?

And let us not be deceived. It is not only the present crisis that has brought those corporations cap in hand to Ottawa, Washington, European capitals and even Beijing. That those who seek tax breaks for the rich and prosperous and writeoffs for corporations are seen as devout capitalists, while those who seek tax breaks and other benefits for the less well off are seen as “socialists,” is a triumph of obfuscating, ideological spin.

To be sure, the left is not always right, and the right is not always wrong. But our community and the country would be best served by a fair and honest evaluation of both. A careful reading of the past and present might enable us to formulate a reasonable policy for the future.

Michael Brown is professor emeritus at York University.