Jews Don't Commit Suicide

(And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves to Get Through the Day)

“Jews don’t commit suicide.”

I couldn’t tell you when or under what circumstance I first heard this dark, pithy aphorism, or some equivalent variation. But I swear I heard it many times throughout my life.

While it was usually tossed off casually or whispered conspiratorially like a yenta outing her friend’s diabetes, it was still presented as if it were an empirical fact or some bit of decided law, entrenched in the statute books by centuries of stare decisis.

If you ever grew up in Deerfield, Great Neck, Calabasas, or Bloomfield Hills, attended an Oneg Shabbat, seen a Bette Midler auditorium tour, played in a Beverly Hills rec basketball league, had cool-down time at Orange Theory, discussed the “Red Tent” in your book club or had to follow your mom into the Loehmann’s changing room, you’ve probably heard it too.

Mind you, we are not talking about rabbinic law here. Yet. We’ll get to that in a minute.

I’m talking more about oral tradition, about shetl to city to gated suburbs judgementalism. These are unwritten rules, like how a baseball player is supposed to know not to swing at a 3-0 pitch with a seven run lead. I’m speaking to you, Fernando Tatis Jr.

Obviously, in this case, I’m discussing things more serious than baseball. And no, I can’t believe I just typed those words.

If you haven’t heard this specific dictum about suicide, odds are high you’ve heard similarly structured ones. Frequently, they are whisper-couched in veiled euphemisms like “these things don’t happen in Encino.”

More often, they are directly spelled out. That’s because Jews, especially on the older side, love to speak with supreme confidence and evident moral authority about things that “Jews do” and things “Jews do not do.”

Yes we have a Torah.

Yes we have a Talmud.

We even have our own Testament and centuries upon centuries of scholarly rabbinic interpretations.

But this is more inherited wisdom that somehow manages to travel all the way from the gin rummy room to the mahjong table to the pickleball court.

The list of things that Jews supposedly don’t do, includes but is not limited to Jews don’t: get tattoos, join the Coast Guard, drink whiskey, pay full retail, fight MMA, become a car mechanic, marry a car mechanic, order clams, play polo, drink a Boilermaker, have affairs, marry someone named Christine, have an affair with someone named Christine then marry her, vacation in Daytona Beach, drive a Camry, drive a pick up truck or eat at the Olive Garden. (You may replace “Olive Garden” with “Chili’s” or “Applebee’s” depending on how snooty you wish to sound.)

I have no idea why such lists haven’t been offered as an official addendum to the Pentateuch. Maybe people assume they go without saying.

Okay, I’ve tried avoiding painful feelings long enough. Let’s get back to the topic at hand.

Jews and suicide. And what folks really mean when they say that “Jews don’t commit suicide.”

Two quick caveats, literally because I’m stalling again.

One, I’m aware that “commit suicide” may no longer be the preferred nomenclature of survivors or health providers. But I’ll use the slightly anachronistic term here, since that’s how the perceived wisdom was always passed down to me.

Two, you may be wondering what right someone named “Behar” has speaking at all about American Jewry. And it’s true, Behar isn’t traditionally what you must think of as a traditional Ashkenormative Jewish name. Like Lipschitz or Goldfarb or Jewstein.

But Behar is a Sephardic name dating back to Turkey and to Spain before that. Additionally, I am half Sephardic, half Ashkenazi, and, thus, all kinds of Jew.

If I’m not jewish, someone forgot to tell my sinuses in May. Or my digestion after some tres leches cake.

Now, when I said that the concept of “Jews don’t commit suicide” is an unwritten law passed through oral tradition, I was half right.

Because it is that. But it’s also one of those rare unwritten rules that also happens to be written. That’s correct, the rarely seen “written unwritten rule.”

I am not a theologian. Clearly. But I believe as there are in all world religions, there are specific strictures in the Talmud that forbid the taking of one’s own life. Suicide is considered illegal. Not just frowned upon like wearing white chinos after Labor Day.

Then again, there are lots of things that are declared illegal in Jewish texts that no longer require death by stoning. These include marital infidelity or ordering a bacon cheeseburger on Yom Kippur.

So, clearly, I’m not just talking about what is legal or illegal by Jewish law.

I’m talking about what’s condoned, unofficially, anecdotally, by “the Community.” And trust me, that sometimes carries even more weight than an engraved tablet from Mount Sinai.

So when folks say, “Jews don’t commit suicide,” they’re really saying two things.

We don’t condone it. And we don’t talk about it.

Because, as is obvious, Jews do commit suicide.

The rates at which they do so are perfectly consistent with the rates of other Americans. 

This is not a surprise based on my people’s seeming propensity for depression and anxiety.

So, it’s not that Jews don’t kill themselves. It’s that Jews don’t want to talk about it.

We buy into the stigma. We persist in preserving it as a secret shame that the sufferers should endure in silence and without recognition for their special brand of pain.

We’re expected to keep our interior lives private and suicides are supposed to be like skeletons tucked away out of sight like a well-hidden afikomen. 

Yes, it’s forbidden by the Talmud. And that matters. Obviously.

But sometimes it seems that survivor families give more weight to not wanting to be whispered about at the Gelson’s hot food station, than in sharing their stories that could potentially help others seek treatment before a suicide or learn how to cope after one.

Jews do commit suicide.  They just don’t talk about it.

The irony being the more we talk about it, the less likely it is to happen. 

The other irony being, is there a topic we don’t talk about? Maybe rugby. And that’s only because we don’t know enough to form a strong opinion.

Don’t get me wrong. I am in no way contending that Jews are alone in stigmatizing mental health issues. In fact, I don’t think there is a religion or ethnic group or organization that doesn’t, whether by design or omission.

No group wants to be actively associated the perception of weakness or suffering.

I’m sure that someone with more knowledge than myself could have written this article as “Marines don’t commit suicide” or “Filipinos don’t commit suicide.” How about the Mormons?

Maybe the Phoenicians or the Visigoths or the Philistines shared similar stigmas.

I’m certain that someone, somewhere wrote “Freemasons don’t kill thee selves” or something of the like.

But Jews are what I know. As are the specifically Jewish reasons for wanting to downplay any history of self-harm.

We say “Jews don’t commit suicide” because it doesn’t elegantly flow out of the prevalent Jewish-American narrative of gutty underdogs and the one-way road of upward mobility.

Suicide doesn’t re-enforce the Pesach tale of gritty up and comers defying the Pharaoh and the odds through our superior resolve and embrace of monotheism.

Talking about people we know taking their own lives undercuts the story we tell each other. About each other.

The story of taking down Haman. The story of the Warsaw Resistance and surviving the camps. The story of Maccabees turning one night’s worth of oil into a miraculous eight nights.

These are our origin stories and our current narratives. They make being Jewish, even on our hardest days, feel like we’re part of a milleniums-old continuum of survival.

And Jews taking their lives doesn’t fit with that narrative.

Truth be told, I accepted that prevailing narrative right up until the moment I couldn’t. Right up to the second my mom called me to inform me that my dad had taken his life. Right until arriving at my family’s home to find an ambulance and a fire truck and police out front.

I fully comprehend why people say “Jews don’t commit suicide”— it’s far too painful to admit the opposite. This is the last topic anyone wants to talk about. I get it.

But every time we say “Jews don’t commit suicide,” we negate the pain that thousands before us have suffered.

Every time we bury the truth or perpetuate the stigma, we only serve to ensure that it will keep happening.

I have no magic wand that will cure the acute, unbearable pain that leads one to take their life. But the only known panacea is talking about it. Openly and honestly.

The more we acknowledge that suicide occurs in our community and all communities, the better the likelihood that someone will not be afraid of coming forward when they are suffering.

We need to stop whispering “Jews don’t commit suicide.” We need to transparently declare that “Some Jews do.”

And who knows? Perhaps by making such an open-throated declaration that speaks honestly about the human condition, maybe the next person considering the ultimate irreparable act will think twice and seek help and counsel.

I don’t know a ton about the Talmud. But I’m fairly sure there’s nothing more “Jewish” than that.

If you or someone you know is experiencing a suicidal crisis, please dial 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.