The Storm Ahead
Daniel Gordis, THE JERUSALEM POST, MAY 28 2010
In October 1994, several days after kidnapped IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman was killed in a failed attempt to save him from his terrorist captors, I was scheduled to teach my weekly graduate seminar at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. But given the horror of what had just transpired, I couldn’t even imagine simply teaching as planned. I no longer recall what had been scheduled for that day. But what I do remember is that I decided to scrap the usual fare and that I taught a text in memory of Wachsman.
As the seminar drew to a close, it was obviously quiet in the room. But just as the students were preparing to disperse, one looked at me and asked, “What does any of this have to do with us?”
More than 15 years later, I can still picture that moment, frozen in time. I remember exactly where she was sitting. I recall the looks of discomfort on the faces of some of the other students, but the nods of agreement with her question from others. And I remember that I had no idea what to say.
And I remember feeling unbearably lonely and wholly out of place. Lonely because it was clear that she was not the only one wondering why in the world we were thinking about Nachshon Wachsman, when my own heart was breaking, and out of place because I had no idea how to engage those students in a conversation about why he mattered to me. I didn’t know where to begin.
What I didn’t know then, of course, was that a question that seemed to me an aberration would soon become the norm.
BUT IT has. Among young American Jews today, the public discourse has been captured by the intellectual and emotional heirs of that graduate student. Today’s is a generation of young American intellectuals and communal leaders without the instinctive bond to Israel that my generation possesses, even when Israel infuriates or embarrasses us. This is a generation of people like the talented writer Jay Michaelson, who wrote in The Forward, “I no longer want to feel entangled by [Israelis’] decisions and implicated in their consequences… count me out.”
Even in the moments of our greatest frustration with Israel, the people that I grew up with could never utter the words “count me out.”
Michaelson is but part of a massive wave. Prof. Jack Wertheimer, in presenting some preliminary findings from his newest study of American Jews (the specific figures are still being processed), noted a few weeks ago that most young American Jewish leaders (yes, leaders) “do not see Israel as central to Jewish identity and peoplehood.”
The evidence is virtually limitless. We’re witness to a tectonic shift in American Jewish life, but many people would rather ignore it than face the serious work that lies ahead. Thus, when I pointed out (“If this is our future,” Jerusalem Post, May 7) that following Brandeis University’s invitation to Ambassador Michael Oren to be its commencement speaker, the public discourse was captured by those opposed to his invitation, some people responded by pointing out the (obvious) fact that many Brandeis students (and probably the majority) supported the invitation. A petition in favor, signed by 5,000 people, was also reported. And a small number of articles in the Brandeis paper, opined one faculty person in a response to the Post, ought not be taken out of context. “Imagine someone telling you it’s pouring rain outside and you stick your head out the window and see there are just a couple of clouds in the sky,” he wrote.
But what we’re facing would be “just a couple of clouds in the sky” if the story that mattered was about Brandeis, which it obviously is not. Everyone knows that Jewish life on campus doesn’t get better than Jewish life at Brandeis. So why pretend that Brandeis is the issue? What is significant is that even at Brandeis, one of the crown jewels of American Jewish academe, as of the publication of my previous column, there had been four pieces in the student newspaper about the Oren invitation. The Justice’s official editorial and the head of the campus J Street chapter weighed in opposed. So, too, did a member of the computer science faculty. And a student representative to the Board of Trustees aimed to defend the invite by suggesting that Oren was being asked to campus not as a representative of the State of Israel, but as an academic.
WHY DOES any of this matter? Because in not one of these pieces did any of the four writers have a single positive thing to say about Israel. That, not Brandeis, is the story.
So instead of circling our wagons, seeking to convince ourselves that it’s not really raining and that there are only a few clouds in the sky, I propose that we ask ourselves a few basic questions: (1) Do we believe that the future of the Jewish people depends on what happens to Israel? (2) Do we believe that Israel can survive without strong and consistent support from the American Jewish community? (3) Given today’s younger generation, does a serious problem loom? (4) If we are facing a challenge, how did it arise? (5) And perhaps most importantly, what should be done?
To me it seems patently obvious that the secure, confident and creative Diaspora community that many American Jews now take for granted is directly dependent on a vital and flourishing State of Israel. Today’s young American Jewish leaders can neither recall nor imagine the days in which Jews hesitated to march on Capitol Hill, or the days in which one could not get a job on Wall Street wearing a kippa. That confidence is the product of Israel, and of the formative experiences that many American Jewish leaders have had in the Jewish state. The image of the Jew, no longer one of victim, but of utter confidence, was born in June 1967. In Israel.
Though many will disagree, it seems equally clear to me that were the State of Israel to be vanquished, the vibrant American Jewish life that we now too easily take for granted would wither away within a generation. And if that were to happen, the two great centers of world Jewry – Israel and America – would each essentially be gone.
And I believe that Israel’s military might, cultural flourishing, strength of spirit and more, important though they all are, are not sufficient to sustain the country. America’s support – financial, military and in the increasingly hostile court of international public opinion – is critical. Yet that support would be much endangered without an American Jewish leadership that instinctively feels deeply connected to Israel, that doesn’t ask, “What does any of this have to do with us?”
Today, we have that leadership. But the future is not as secure as many would like to believe. Nor is that future very far away.
SO HOW did this come to be? To be sure, Israel is partly at fault. It is notoriously horrendous at telling its own story, and has allowed those sworn on its destruction to capture world opinion. Nor has Israel been blameless in the interminable conflict with the Palestinians, of course. Israel alienates American Jewry with an anti-intellectual and often intolerant religious establishment. And the government still refuses to see the gradual distancing of young American Jews as a serious existential challenge, which it could become, if it isn’t one already.
But the responsibility for this widening fissure in world Jewish life cannot be attributed solely to Israel. Too many young American Jews have not been taught what they need to know to evaluate the conflict fairly. They know that they are opposed to the occupation, but they are much less clear on how the occupation began or what Israel has done in the past 43 years to seek to end it. Largely illiterate in Jewish texts or language, they are increasingly unaware of the cultural renaissance that Israel has made possible for Jews the world over.
Yet the problem is actually far more complex. At its core, the issue isn’t really Israel, or even American Jewish education. The real issue is the larger world in which today’s younger American (and Israeli) Jews live. Responding to Wertheimer’s study and the concerns it raised, Noam Pianko, a professor of Jewish history at the University of Washington, denied that there is a problem. As Gary Rosenblatt of the Jewish Week recently wrote, Pianko insisted that “boundaries don’t match the moment” of 21st-century America. His America, Pianko says, is “‘post-ethnic,’ symbolized by President Barack Obama, who he said represents racial fusion rather than division.”
Obama did not create this worldview; this Weltanschauung elected him. But Obama is perhaps the most eloquent spokesperson for this orientation, insisting, as he did in Cairo, that we ought not be “defined by our differences.”
Even if we set aside the obvious fact that it is precisely by pointing to differences that we define most things, Obama reflects the worldview that is shaping both young Americans and increasingly, young Israelis: Difference is not an ideal, but an unfortunate reality, best transcended whenever possible.
In such a world, it is no surprise that a successful young nation-state, which breathes new life into an ancient language, which fosters Jewish ingathering from across the globe and which enables a cultural regeneration unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed – a state which, in other words, celebrates difference – would be uncomfortable for many, and reviled by some.
All of which makes the challenge even greater. Because engendering the instinctive passion for Israel that many of us feel, and miss, requires swimming against the current of an intellectual culture now pervasive in America and much of the Western world. But Jewish history in general and Zionism in particular are proofs that the trends of Western civilization can be withstood, and even altered at times. The question facing us now is whether we plan to capitulate, or whether we’re willing to lace up our boots and enter the battle.
This will be no simple battle. But as Joshua said to the angel (Joshua 5:13), you are either with us or against us. Left versus Right, or Orthodox versus Reform are now secondary issues. What matters now is whether or not each individual, organization, movement, etc. sees defense of Israel’s absolute right to exist as a Jewish state as its foremost responsibility. Let all our differences abide. But let both leftists and hard-liners understand that today, they are not opponents, but rather partners, assuming that both are committed to Israel’s survival and to making the case for that survival day in and day out. The rest we can deal with down the road. For the moment, especially when any substantive chance for a peace deal seems remote, changing the Jewish conversation about Israel, and then the international conversation, is what matters most.
That will not be easy, but first we have to decide that that’s what we want to do. So let’s begin with honesty. We delude ourselves if we pretend that there are but a few clouds in the sky. The Jewish people will survive, and thrive, not by pretending that everything will magically work out, but rather by acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead, and by then bonding together and resolving to meet them head-on.
Felix you are speaking in generalities again!! A lot of gibberish.
Try to be specific so I can respond intelligently.
Yamit82
I read above
“there is no speech, nor are there words….
If only that were true in your case.
I have made the point in a newer thread, the one about the film that I liked so much, and said so, that you are indeed not only an imbecile, but are approaching senility with your very ownbrand of madness.
You can read it if you like, but I really personally couldn´t care less.
As far as I am conccerned you are history. If only Ted Belman would take the same view!
Ditto Shy!
“The woman said to him, ‘Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain; and you say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.’ Jesus said to her,
‘Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for Salvation is from the Jews.'” (John 4:19-22)
you’re right then, Yshar Koach
I reply for the sake of others reading these comments.
“The heavens declare the glory of G-d,and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world…”
yamit and shy, you’re wasting your time with this person who wants to be blessed because of poorness in spirit.
if one analyses well, the disciples of the religion of love do actually not believe in G-d. the way they overturn and belittle G-d’s Word as written down in the Tanakh and follow their personal ideas, and the need to bow before a MAN-god, means actually nothing but that those disciples do not accept the idea of transcendence, but are instead immanent materialists.
the days of the religion of love are counted, it will eventually be replaced by the Noachide Movement. if a goy wants to have a part in the world to come he has no other option than to abandon idolatry and accept the Noachide Laws, as are doing more and more gentiles in recent times.
“A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time of wailing and a time of dancing.”
– Kohelet (Ecclecisates) 3:4
RASHI comments:
“A time to weep: on the ninth of Av.
and a time to laugh: in the future, as it is said (Ps. 126:2): “Then our mouths will be filled with laughter.”
a time of wailing: in the days of mourning.
and a time of dancing: with bridegrooms and brides.”
King David said:
“Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with quaking.”
– Psalms 2:11
RASHI comments:
“and rejoice with quaking: When the quaking, about which it is written (Isa. 33:14): “Trembling seized the flatterers,” comes, you will rejoice and be happy if you have served the Lord.”
No. G-d called for it. Yonah proclaimed G-d’s prophecy and warning.
Sorry to speak on Yamit’s behalf, but do you think that only you are privy to the Prophets’ numerous verses of a unified and enlightened world at the end of days?
Yamit, I don’t really have a problem with most of what you said. Certainly we all should yearn for justice. And God (in the Tanakh) says we should hate evil.
Still, the words of Moses might give us a little hesitation in our calls for justice for others – lest some of that judgment come our way:
Yikes! Or Isaiah:
I’m reminded of Jonah when he was sent to the gentiles in Nineveh. He was calling for fire and brimstone against those people and couldn’t understand why God would even bother with them. In the same way, I don’t think you appreciate that while God’s plan for salvation starts with Israel, it doesn’t end there.
As you rightly point out, God has placed limitations on humanity. But we can’t put limitations on Him.
Dancing and singing? Oh sure we dance and sing at the drop of a hat and celebrate almost everything both spiritual and not spiritual:
On Passover every Jew recites this prayer.
I guess that would include you “crazy Yeshua-freak”
An open prayer and call for the Almighty to avenge Himself upon the nations, to destroy them for what they did to Israel! Is this Judaism?
YES!
Let the high praises of G-d be in their throat and a two-edged sword in their hand—to execute vengeance upon the nations…” (Psalms 58).
“The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked.” (Psalms 58) And why? For it is only vengeance that proves that there is indeed a G-d in the world, that there is good and evil and punishment for that evil. When the wicked kill and injustice reigns, surely the wicked cry out: “There is no G-d, for if there was He would punish me.” And the victim in his agony, agrees.
When there is no vengeance and punishment and the wicked reign, G-d is pushed from his throne; it is the greatest Hillul Hashem—desecration to G-d’s Name, it is “proof” that there is no G-d.
And again, “The Lord hath made Himself known through the judgment He executes.” (Psalms 9) And of course, the Psalm that is read before the weekday Grace after meals, a Psalm that sends the gentilized Jews rushing from the table in horror:
“O daughter of Babylon that art to be destroyed; Happy shall he be that repayeth thee as thou hast done to us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.” -(Psalm 137).
And the Jews of Ashkenaz who created a prayer of vengeance in memory of the Jews massacred during the Crusades, a prayer that we read each Sabbath and that says: “May He avenge the blood of His servants which has been shed, as it is written in the Torah of Moses, the man of G-d: “O nations, make His people joyful! He avenges the blood of His servants, renders retribution to His foes, and atones for His land and His people…” And in the holy writings it says: “Why should the nations say, Where is their G-d?
Passover is the holiday that decrees the death and destruction of wickedness, and not coexistence with it.
The Torah recorded for posterity the song of Moses and Israel as the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea. Yes, collective punishment against the Egyptians, even the Egyptian maids and servants perished because they were happy with the oppression of the Jews. What can be said of the Arab masses in Israel who danced on the rooftops as Jews endure rockets and missiles?
You see Calvary we Jews sing and dance 🙂
I don’t know what the Zohar is. It sounds extra-Biblical, and thus I give it little weight. (well, in truth, I give it no weight.) Actually, I’m a little surprised you would cite it – and the Kabbala. Seems a little liberal and new-age’y for you. 🙂
I guess I’m old school. I’ll stick to the prophets of the Tanakh who I know are ordained by God. Needless to say, my interpretation of the Tanakh prophets differs a little from yours. Big surprise!
But, at least we are speaking the same language. Gog and Magog mean something to me too. 2/3rd of humanity being wiped out is also a truth I accept. As is a time when the gentiles of the world will come to Jews and Israel to worship God. …all things I accept. (Christianity is a sect of Judaism I often say…)
My larger question was: where is the joy! Where is your joy, yamit!? David, who God said is a man after His own heart, sang and danced for God. The Psalms of the Tanakh instruct us likewise to sing and dance in joy and celebration and praise for what God has done. For His love and faithfulness to us.
You depict (maybe not intentionally) Judaism as rote law-following. An academic, philosophical exercise. Or, at least that’s what your description sounds like in my ears. That’s what Islam is. A joyless exercise in law.
But Judaism is different. Unlike all the religions before and after, God isn’t distant or uncaring or unknowable. He gets personally involved. (Likewise, the crazy Yeshua-freak cult I belong to is, at its roots, intensely personal.)
I just can’t help think that if this aspect of Judaism was emphasized more, the synagogues would fill up with enthusiastic seekers.
Calvary the gentiles will come to the truth of our G-d only after the war of Gog u Magog, when 2/3rds of all the Gentiles will be destroyed and ten men from all the nations of the world take hold of the skirt of a Jew and say” Take us with you as we know you have the truth. Zachariah
The Zohar says that the final war will be between Islam and the Christians who will essentially destroy ea. other.
Good question and as usual wrong conclusions.
Two things: From Sinai The Jewish People became a collective insofar as G-d relates to them and how they relate to G-d. Every Jew is responsible for every other Jew for good and bad. When G-d punishes the Jewish nation he punishes the whole nation even for the misdeeds and sins of the few.
Racial pride? No we Jews are not a race or racial group but we do believe we are more ethical and moral than anybody else ( Those Jews who still practice Judaism)> We have a higher standards bar than you do and many many more laws to obey and many more restrictions.
Judaism has no abstracts only truths and purposes. Everything has a g-d given function and purpose even if it is not apparent to us today.The
Limits are a basic concept in Judaism. Things in their chaotic origin are unlimited, formless. Man is lost in infinite time and space. What can he grasp? But Judaism gave the world Bereshit, Genesis, the “beginning,” with which the Torah opens. This is the first concept of limits in space and time. Thought is by nature circular, without beginning. The Torah opens with the letter bet, not with a definition of God. We know G-d only from His creation. The land was chaos, and G-d set limits: oceans, order, instead of infinity. There is an order and an intention in history. If the world had been created by accident, it would have no meaning. But if it has a beginning, a creation, it is no accident, rather an intention, with purpose. This direction is another basic concept, in addition to limits.
No history of any other nation is as clear and defined as ours. Everything that happens to us already appears in regard to our three Patriarchs. Abraham stands under the banner: Lech lecha, “Get thee from thy country…” and under the banner of chesed, charity. Isaac is the passive, tragic image among our Fathers. The Bible refers to the Pachad Itzhak, the “fear of Isaac.” That is also part of our history. Again and again we are bound, and again and again saved.
The Kabbala says of Jacob that he is Tifereth, glory, a compromise between or mixture of the chesed of Abraham and the din of Isaac. He is known by his name Israel, one who struggled with G-d; and also famous for his ladder.
No other symbol so expresses the principles of the outlook of Israel. Plato divided the world into the world of ideas and the world of being. There is no connection between the world of metaphysics and the world of physics. Jesus divided the authority of Caesar from the authority of G-d. Judaism stands under the banner of unity, of the One, and the ladder symbolizes this. Non-Jewish philosophy is metaphysics. It begins by defining the concept God. Jacob’s ladder is planted firmly in the ground, with angels ascending and descending on it; first, they ascend. Tradition tells us that the entire land of Israel was enfolded under Jacob when he slept and dreamed, and the stones he set under him became one as well. This is the third basic concept. It is a symbol that more than symbolizes, it legislates, orders, commands. The Hebrew word for “ladder” is sulam. In Hebrew, sulam is an anagram of semel, the word for symbol; and it has the same numerical value as Sinai.
That’s a cold reduction! Is there any wonder young Jews wander from the faith?
Are you just offering cold adherence to laws – ‘religion’. Isn’t Judaism more than that? …a path to an intimate relationship with the living God? It should be.
But God does make promises to Israel (and the larger world) in the Tanakh. They may not be ‘rights’ like we know them in the secular world. But God has made covenants with his people. Promises of salvation – both physical and spiritual.
I don’t know what the Rabbi means by this. Is it an expression of racial pride? An expression of contempt for gentiles?
If it is, then it is not in accordance with the teachings of the Tanakh. The Law, the Prophets and the Writings make clear that God will eventually reach out to gentiles.
I wouldn’t go there Felix as all of your primary beliefs upon which you claim to support Israel can easily be debunked and shown to be fallacious. When that happens what happens to your non emotional non feeling rational for supporting Israel? This is the reason as opposed to Ted, ayn and others why I always attempt to understand what motivates some people to support Israel whilst most don’t. I have come up with as many reasons as there are supporters when they try to explain why they support Israel.
The only support I deem credible is support by those who do have emotional strong feelings for the survival of the Jewish State and upon which their emotion and feeling is based upon Jewish scripture and beliefs. All else is non-truth based and at best transcendental.
All secular ideologies have historically short life spans and most don’t stand the test of longevity and certainly not revealed truth. What ever motivates you today to support Israel can change or be changed in an instant when and if your world view, personal circumstances and ideology changes anything less than support of Israel not scripturally based cannot be depended upon over time.
That’s deep!! so what, I believe in motherhood and apple pie. Humanity as an ideology or belief is non existent but while we’re at it there are many of your humanity I wish would never live to see another dawn.
Felix if any commenter on Israpundit uses generalizations it’s you. If you don’t agree with Fistel me or anyone debunk their positions in kind not your fascist ideology cloaked in humanism and Zionism, it’s neither in fact. I see a lot of positive things about fascism more so than I do universal revolutionary communism.
You know and I know that some pigs will always be more equal than others and justice except in a biblical sense is meaningless an empty shell used by those in power to exploit and suppress the great unwashed.
It is better to be rich than poor.
It is better to be health than to be sick
If you’re sick it’s better to be sick and rich than sick and poor.
what is the difference If I drive 65 mph or 68mph? The law which in your world are arbitrary, to be broken and risk punishment if caught or laws derived from a supreme being which are not arbitrary?
Stop dealing in generalities and be specific in less than 200 words.
Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai’s clear and brilliant formulation: “You are called man, and the nations of the world are not called man.” Note: the first word, “you,” in the Hebrew is atem, not atah – it is in the plural. “You” means the whole nation as a collective. The term “humanity” is a foreign word. In Hebrew we say umot haoloam, the “nations of the world.” The abstract concept “humanity” is Platonic; it is an abstract idea. It doesn’t exist in original Hebrew texts, where we encounter only the nations of the world. Unlike “humanity,” the “nations of the world” is a limited concept; according to the Jewish worldview, nothing abstract exists.
Wrong, Judaism is not Christianity or anything like it. Our G-d is the G-d of History who manifests himself through nature and natural events.
Judaism affords no rights to an individual only obligations. Here Islam is more akin to Judaism than is Christianity. Since we are promised no rewards for obeying the Laws We differ from the platonic understandings which Christianity is mostly based upon. Jews must without giving up Hebrew sovereignty and modern tools find the Archimedean point from which we can hold the entire globe. We must do in our philosophy what Descartes did in modern philosophy. He initiated individualistic European philosophical terms for European thought.
“I think therefore I am.” We Jews must find our “I,” the root of our self- consciousness, on which we can build our ideas – in and with our own terms. Not “I think,” which is typically European. Thought is not our ground. Our ground is: “In the beginning G-d created.”
Maimonides, who tried to build a bridge between Torah and Aristotle, set as the principle of his system the words: “I am the Lord your G-d,” based on which he expounded the meaning of G-d and all it obligates.
Rabbi Judah Halevy uses the same Biblical verse in his book The Kuzari, but he quotes the full verse: “I am the L-d your G-d who took you out of Egypt.” This is the fundamental concept of our Divinity. Maimonides cut the verse in half and built his philosophical system on it. Judah Halevy said: History is our philosophy. This is our Archimedean point: G-d, and national activity in history. This is our starting point.
We relate to the “G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” but not to the “G-d of Moses,” even though Moses reached the highest level of knowledge of G-d.
The Jew always talked of G-d “who has chosen us”;
OK Folks
I go on my experience which does need testing
Joseph, Jared, Francisco, myself, some others I know, were won to supporting the jewish and Israeli side most definitely. This does involve feeling and emotion, but the most primary was theory, was ideology, was finding a way through the lies of “Palestinianism” through research
There is absolutely nothing unusual about us. Not brainier or anything else.
We somehow had the chance to study these issues, especially the history that the “palestinians” were involved in the Holocaust and that there is an unbroken line
I believe in us 4 because i believe in humanity, we are not unusual.
The issue is to how to make this exception the rule.
The analysis of Samuel is not right. These are generalizations Samuel and only of limited use. What they leave out i the conscious factor
You could say that francisco was a Mexican infected by catholicism. But that is too incomplete, too limited.
He also was a principled man and when he learned about the lies then he changed his political outlook
the conscious factor has to be the party, the organization, the intervention. Samuel please tell me what you do in your daily life (I wrote fife this screen is a horror, excuse) that is geared towards this conscious intervention or do you leave out the human factor, the conscious factor, is your method religion that is awaiting on something outside lof us.
Laura it is easy for you to say you would rather have Christian Zionists, and that is fine, but have you given up on the Jewish youth of America, or the youth in general of America, and if you have then you accept the status quo, same as i am talking about
At least Ted is active, he is putting forward articles.
Fistel, I’m sympathetic to what you’re saying. But you make your case so impersonally:
Shouldn’t you be saying that Jews are ambivalent toward God? lost to God? turning their backs on God? I mean, Judaism isn’t the goal, right? God is the goal and Judaism is the means to that end.
Moses says, ‘This is what God commands’. Not, ‘this is what Judaism’ commands.
It seems like a certain directness is missing. A boldness. Rabbis (and believers) should be shouting from the rooftops that God relates to both the nation of Israel and individual Jews personally.
Then they have no business identifying themselves as Jews, let alone Jewish leaders. I’ll associate with Christian Zionists any day over leftist Jews.
That’s just the point. Jewish liberals are not committed to Israel’s survival, they are committed to preserving their own personal status within leftist intellectual circles. Israel is an ongoing embarrassment for these “Jews” and they would have no problem with its dismantlement, albeit peacefully if possible.
Samuel
While reading your correct observations I kept thinking of the advice of Chaucy Gardner. He always recommended pruning to reinvigorate the tree.
Do Jews want Judaism enough?
The original idea for the State of Israel was that it be a modern european state of Jews who are Jewish in name only, similar to France, which is catholic in name only, or Germany, which is christian in name only.
The catholic christian german hitler stopped that by slaughtering most of europe’s Jews. That left a small Israel dominated by leftists, a communist Russia trying to wipe out the practice of Judaism from its Jews, and the American Jews.
American Jews were about 20% Torah-true. The rest had left europe to escape a rigid, coercive rabbinate. They were ambivalent towards Judaism, and most opted for slow-motion, guilt-free assimilation in the form of conservative and reform judaism.
This slow-motion assimilation has now come home to roost. The original reform Jews have died of old age, and their grandchildren have few remaining Jewish values or Jewish education. They are turning their backs on Israel the same as they are turning their backs on Judaism.
All these American Jews (80% of the total) are lost to Judaism forever. They were doomed the moment their grandparents opted for conservative and reform “judaism”. And because they are liberals who are Jewish in name only, they vote for Obama just like the white liberals who are christian in name only. Similarly, they have everything in common with white christian liberals, and nothing in common with Israeli Jews. Insulting them and shaming them now is as futile as yelling at the fanatic leftist Jew-hating Jews in Israel.
So the real problem is not how to make the majority of American “Jews” more Jewish. That is hopeless. They have abandoned Israel and now are turning on it. What is necessary is to make Israeli Jews more Jewish.
I defend the right of Tar Yag to hold his views and I see this as part of the right of Jews to be alone, to have a Jewish Homeland where they can practice their ancient rites unmolested by the world antisemites.
Yet there is a bitterness and a disorientation in his views above. His attack on this true Jewish patriot is bound to be disconcerting-
Perhaps Freud did say this, perhaps he did not. Would Tar Yag therefore tells us about this word “rationalisation” and in what context freud used it?
Jews are largely now well versed in their own history. I mean especially the way that the Holocaust was engineered, and all the events surrounding Hajj Amin el Hussein i.
Francisco Gil White has made this very point, or was it jared Israel, whoever is not the main poiont, which is that the story of Hajj Amin el Husseini, and his role in the creation of this curse “Palestinianism” is not at all well known.
Maurice Boland is one Jewish man that I know in the sense that he owns a radio discussion programme, based on commercial adverts, in most of the coastal southern area of Spain.
Boland I am fairly certain knows nothing of this history of Hajj Amin el Husseini. Boland has some kind of attachment to Israel, but he was ready to join with the BBC in attacking the houses issue during Biden´s visit.
Boland it was who defended Islam when I was raising the issue of Muslims in Egypt killing Coptic Christians just after Christmas and attacked me in the most vicious manner on air, a little like the physical attack made by a Rabbi on Anne Bayevsky, friend of Gil White.
Gil White is a great warrior for Israel.
So is Joseph Alexander Norland.
So am I and I know that I am.
But we all startyed not understanding the situation and all confused about the situation. None of us are Jewish.
The issue is not at all where you live (and this is a complicated argument for me to make because I support Israel) but is really what are the ideas inside a person´s head.
The issue of ideology is what tar yag leaves out and the role of education (or theory) in what these ideas are.
Like Fistel Tar Yag divides the world between Jews and “Goyim” and when I challenged Fistel he never did answer.
Leon Trotsky was the best Zionist that the world has ever known. This is because he was a Zionist even though he was confused about the terminology, because he wanted the Jews to have a Jewish home, a Homeland, in Palestine, and he fought for this from the standpoint of being an atheist and a socialist revolutionary.
There is movement from Ted towards this understanding. But there is no movement at all from a section of the Jewish religious folk-.
Too bad for them. That is where the future lies.
What these kids in this article were ALSO expressing is that traditional Zionism has not been able to reach them , and this is because the history and role of Trotsky has been hidden from these kids, and all they see is old fogies like this tar Yag, whose attack on this lecturer chap is so nmon understanding of what the guy was trying tio say.
And one thing that he is saying runs right through all of the recent articles on our site, http://www.4international.wordpress.com
(Yes I do write here on Israpundit but I am building our Trotskyist site so I want people to read it as well, and I have that right)
And this theme that is allthe time on our site is the need to build a large movement and leadership based on the defence of Israel. There is absolutely buggert all extraordinary about Francisco, Jared, Joseph or myself.
If people hav ethe chance then they can be won to Israel. Give them the chance Tar Yag. You are a stony edifice, nothing ever moves in your world.
YOU HAVE ALL THER ANSWERS in your closed dogmatic world.
You are the other side to the antisemites and you spell big disaster for all Jews.
Now I know that Ayn Reagan will take up the reference to trotsky but do so in orderr to create an evasion on the issues behind, so not argue with the real future of the Jews in mind.
of course he had no idea what to say since he too is living in diaspora and hence has no legitimation to reprove her.
were he to study Talmud he would have known. besides lofty and upright individuals, one cannot live in diaspora and remain an authentic Jew, this rule holds also for religious Jews. that’s the reason it is FORBIDDED by Jewish Law to dwell outside of Eretz Yisrael except if you have no choice, but since 62 years this illustrious professor has the choice and he did a clear choice against Israel. and that’s the reason he does not know “where to begin” in order to answer the student, he should begin with leaving exile, but he does not want, and so he remains paralysed.
sigmund freud created a name for this kind of thought: rationalisation. Israel does not need amerika, and we have exactly proven this in 1948 when we WON ALTHOUGH america was AGAINST US. but the illustrious professor — who rejects firmly the idea to quit his miserable existence of being a host in a foreign country — is in need to justify his miserability: by turning Israel miserable, i.e. dependent of him.
But Israel is flourishing because of the Divine promiss to our fathers. There is no better place in the world for a Jew.