Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger died this week at the age of 100 to the silent tune of resolute celebration.
Reviled for war crimes committed in Vietnam and Cambodia, a warmonger and an architect of the exploitative US-Israel relationship, few mourn the death of the centenarian.
While these things are all true, Kissinger also embodied the American Jewish experience following World War II.
Kissinger’s early life was one steeped in horrific trauma. A refugee fleeing Nazi Germany, Kissinger’s personal professional trajectory would mirror that of many resilient Jews who arrived in the US seeking safety. He put on the uniform of the US military as Adolf Hitler’s Nazis murdered 30 members of his family who had remained behind.
Kissinger became a professor at Harvard, teaching political science before exploring a political future with the Kennedys, Lyndon B. Johnson and ultimately Richard Nixon. Kissinger’s appointment to head the state department for the Nixon administration was evidence of the American exceptionalism Kissinger would promote throughout his tenure. An exceptionalism parroted by the broader organized Jewish community.
Kissinger himself faced explicit anti-Semitism in a White House that would forever taint the tune of the Republican party. Nixon would remind Kissinger in his frequent outbursts, the Jews in America had to remember that they were Americans first and only then Jews, a quip that would later be referenced by Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, reminding him that Hebrew is read in the opposite direction as English – right to left.
In order to maintain the false sense of security and comfort, Kissinger would go out of his way to protect the interests of the US empire against those of his own people. For him, and indeed a generation of Jews, proximity to power was the only insurance of safety.
From a Jewish perspective, Henry Kissinger was a tragic figure. He personified the “court Jew” who made himself indispensable to powerful gentiles in the service of the US empire. With his death should end not only his pain but also the phenomenon of Jews seeking to gain a sense of security by assisting in the exploitation of others.
Barukh Dayan HaEmet
