Jewish Stockholm Syndrome

David Harris Gershon for Writing by David Harris Gershon

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Sunday August 28, 2011 · 5:18 PM PDT

2011/08/28 · 17:18

I have it, according to an anonymous DK reader. But before getting into that, I want to stress that this diary is NOT a personal defense, but rather an exploration of this slur and Stockholm Syndrome itself.

When an anonymous DK reader claimed weeks ago in an email that I have this "syndrome," I ignored it at the time. (Slinkerwink and others have been training me in this art.)

However, after receiving another email today claiming something similar, I've decided it may be instructive to examine the issue of "Stockholm Syndrome" in general, and explore why such a "diagnosis" is sometimes tragically lobbed at those who have been engaged in restorative justice efforts or reconciliation efforts by individuals who have political motivations. (I will examine this later, over the fold.)

Make no mistake, this "diagnosis" is intended as a slur – as a way to delegitimize the efforts of those who choose to recognize the humanity in past perpetrators or socio-political enemies. But before we look at how/why this slur is utilized, let's first understand what Stockholm Syndrome is.

In a 2009 Time article entitled "A Brief History of Stockholm Syndrome," Laura Fitzpatrick succinctly encapsulates this so-called syndrome:

Explaining it precisely is impossible, but one of the most common theories is [that] the so-called Stockholm syndrome [is] the phenomenon in which victims display compassion for and even loyalty to their captors. It was first widely recognized after the Swedish bank robbery that gave it its name. For six days in August 1973, thieves Jan-Erik Olsson and Clark Olofsson held four Stockholm bank employees hostage at gunpoint in a vault. When the victims were released, their reaction shocked the world: they hugged and kissed their captors, declaring their loyalty even as the kidnappers were carted off to jail. Though the precise origin of the term Stockholm syndrome is debated, it is often attributed to remarks during a subsequent news broadcast by the Swedish criminologist and psychiatrist Nils Bejerot, who had assisted the police during the robbery.
No widely accepted diagnostic criteria exist to identify Stockholm syndrome — also known as terror-bonding or traumatic bonding — and critics insist its apparent prevalence is largely a figment of the media's overactive imagination. One FBI report called such close victim-captor relationships "overemphasized, overanalyzed, overpsychologized and overpublicized."

So Stockholm Syndrome, such as it exists, appears to be a victim's willingness to show compassion for or identify with the perpetrator.

Academic literature exists in which this concept is attributed to any number of individuals who are reluctant to engage in restorative justice efforts or who refuse to seek prosecution for perpetrators.

For example, academics have used this concept (absolutely erroneously, in my view) to explain the reluctance of adults who were sexually abused as children to engage in restorative justice efforts with the perpetrator. In a paper entitled "Messing With their Minds: Stockholm Syndrome, Childhood, Sexual Abuse and Frontier Issues for Restorative Justice," Ann Kerwin and Shirley Julich credit Stockholm Syndrome to "the reluctance of adult survivors...removed from perpetrators and fully aware of the horrific psychic disfigurement they...experience, who...hesitate to hold their abuser[s] to account in an apparently sheltered public way."

The idea of Stockholm Syndrome has expanded over time to mean, basically, anyone who identifies with or feels compassion for a past perpetrator.

Which brings us to "Jewish Stockhom Syndrome." Before researching the matter a few days ago, I had never once heard this slur uttered. But after reading through sites to which I won't link, I see that it seems to be gaining a bit of vernacular weight.

The charge is this: as a Jew who criticizes Israel, and who identifies with the plight of Palestinians (as well as Israelis), I suffer from such a syndrome. In my case, the charge, I assume, is meant to have added weight, given my experience in an actual reconciliation effort with the family of the terrorist who tried to kill my wife.

Regardless, the diagnosis has a specific political motivation. That motivation is to delegitimize my voice because of the political messages coming from my pen. Essentially, the slur is that I'm crazy, that I identify with my "captors," and so anything I say is to be discounted as coming from one suffering from a mental health disorder.

And this slur has been lobbed against others, in various contexts, who have tried to recognize either perpetrators or the "other" side from which a perpetrator came. (For example, one I know well: Palestinian and Israeli parents who have lost children and who have decided to meet and understand each other, rather than distance themselves from the other.)

It's important to understand what this charge means, and it's important to identify it so that it does not show up with any regularity on this blog.

By calling it out now, and by naming it, perhaps we can stop it before it begins.

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