What we call the Jewish Left is often just the children of the liberal Jewish establishment, taking a left-of-center & anti-occupation approach compared to their families but committed to salvaging the tikkun-olam infused bourgeois, assimilationist Judaism they were raised with.

Having went straight from modern orthodoxy to secular socialism, I sort of assumed "the Jewish Left" would be grounded in what it has been historically - socialism, unions, countercultural radicalism, etc. Because that's what I learned had existed in/around the Old and New Lefts.

It's been clarifying to me to realize that most of today's Jewish Left has more in common, & more direct lineage with the Reform/Conservative denoms, with liberal Zionist youth groups, & with progressive Jewish non-profits than w/ the old labor left or radicalism in the 60s/70s.

I've worked to undo a lot of the assumptions I was raised with - a literalist understanding of Torah, rightwing Zionism, etc. But there are a lot of assumptions in progressive Jewish spaces, where values of liberal (as distinct from leftist) Jewish life get reproduced & unchecked

Among these: bourgeois assimilationism (straight from liberal Demoms geared toward suburban upper-middle class), an automatic belief in Western notions of the superiority of liberal democracy, & classist, paternalistic opposition to traditional Jewry / poor and working class Jews

As a Jewish socialist raised in a right-wing, modern orthodox environment, I've really had to reckon deeply and seriously with the worst aspects of that community. So too, Jewish leftists from liberal/progressive backgrounds really need to do a better job at doing the same.