Nu — So Israel Is not the Jewish State?

by Rabbi Prof. Dov Fischer

We really live in a topsy-turvey world, at least the Jewish part.  If it were not for the fact that so much craziness emanates from Jews, it would be impossible to interpret each new craziness.  

But we somehow have become accustomed to Jewish craziness that emanates from the Left.

So we have the worst imaginable anti-Semites of the day to be found among Jews.  On college campuses in America, it is Jews from non-Orthodox homes who lead the effort on campuses to boycott Israel. J Street, funded by the Jew, George Soros, is made up of many such Jews and other Israel-haters.  Jewish Voice for Palestine. Teruah.  Bend the Arc.

It gets to the point that Israel needs to deport or deny entry to jews who come for free, via Birthright, to attack Israel. 

And then Reform rabbi Rick Jacobs, the national president of Reform Judaism’s national body, condemns Israel for denying entry to BDS villains.  It really is crazy.  

It took Bernie Sanders — a socialist Jew who honeymooned in Russia — to give legitimacy for the Democrat Party to start inching away from the historic bipartisan support for Israel that always saw both major American parties stand with Israel. Democrats, spurred by Bernie Sanders and now extending tentacles throughout the party, are moving away from Israel.  The old-timers among Democrats still stand with Israel, but they are dying, just as their and my heroes — Hubert Humphrey, Henry Jackson, Daniel Inouye — have died. 

The new generation of Democrats takes no sides on Israel: they are not pro-Israel, and they are not pro-Arab. 

 I personally know a Democrat who for years was a passionate supporter of Israel, lived there, has families in communities in Jewish-liberated Samaria (the northern section of the so-called “West Bank”). Recently, that person expressed publicly a sense that America needs to pressure Israel to leave the Jordan Valley. I was quite surprised. Even the Israeli Left knows how vital the Jordan Valley is for Israel’s security. That is why the Left established communities there.

How did this Democrat life-long supporter of Israel come to endorse a position that America should pressure Israel to leave the Jordan Valley? 

She came to this position because she found that there no longer is room in upper-tier Democrat circles for people like her who are unabashedly pro-Israel. So she changed her views. She also advocates America pressuring Israel to allow more construction materials into Gaza (like the raw materials that can build houses or, as the Gaza Hamas government prefers, can build attack tunnels for attacking Israel). And she now stands against Israel holding East Jerusalem. That is what the Democrats now are doing to the former Zionists in their inner circles. Yet most American Jews line up with them.

Jewish Leftist Craziness saw approximately 80% of American Jews vote for Obama both in 2008 and in 2012.  When he and his Secretary of State and U.N. Ambassador allowed the Security Council to pass a resolution denying Israel’s unique bond and right to United Jerusalem, that did not faze them.  Those Jews would have voted for Obama again.  Only America’s Orthodox Jews have found that they no longer can vote Democrat.

Israel, it now seems, is not immune from craziness, too.  Suddenly, tens of thousands of Jewish leftists are in Rabin Square marching against a Jewish Nation-State Bill that essentially declares Israel a Jewish country.  They complain that the law offends their sensibilities, their devotion to principles rooted in anything but Jewish principles — or reality.

So let us talk reality.

Israel sends emissaries to America, telling American Jews that they have an obligation to send their children to live in Israel, to move from America to live in Israel themselves, to buy Israel bonds, to support Israeli forests.   Now, why in the world should Jews in America buy bonds and move to a country that is not specifically a Jewish country?  Italy does not ask that of American Jews. France, Spain, Guatemala, England do not.  No one else does. 

If Israel is not specifically a Jewish country, then leave the Jews outside Israel alone. Close down the Jewish Agency, and keep Sharansky and Herzog at home. Stop getting American Jews all agitated over quadrennial World Zionist Congress elections. Leave the Jews outside Israel alone if Israel is simply a Hebrew-speaking Portugal.

Indeed, if Israel is not a specifically Jewish country, why did the people of Israel go to the trouble of reviving the Hebrew language?  

The British mandate assured easy acquisition of the best-connected and most universal vernacular language of our day, English. What is wrong with English? It is a fun language.  It has great expressions, wonderful word play. Like the pirate who sold corn for a buccaneer. Or the dentist and manicurist who married and now fight tooth and nail.  Or the ailing guy who fell into a couch at the reupholstery store and is now fully recovered. What was wrong with English? Alternatively, why not use Arabic, a lovely guttural language that already is in use in dozens of countries, half the United Nations, and is the favorite language of choice for terrorists on six continents?

Why revive Hebrew if Israel is not a uniquely and specifically Jewish country?

And a flag with a Jewish star?  What is that all about?  Why not a big Christian cross like the flags of dozens of European countries? Or Islamic symbols — or just a big beautiful sword like the Saudis?  What other country uses a Star of David on its flag, along with a white background, with two blue stripes, the colors of traditional tzitzit fringes that specifically are worn by Jewish men when they pray every morning with their tallit prayer shawls?

And if Israel is not specifically a Jewish country, what’s with that national anthem about the “Jewish soul” yearning: “the hope of two thousand years to be a free nation in our own land, the land of Zion-Jerusalem”?  Whose hope?  Have the Druze been dreaming two thousand years for a national home in Zion for the “nefesh Yehudi” — the Jewish soul — to be satisfied? Have the Arab Muslims?

Reality check:  

The Arab Muslims’ yearning and hope for the last fourteen centuries — that’s as far back as they go — has been for the Jews to disappear from the world (and to take the Christians with us).  That’s their Hatikvah — The Hope: no more Jews . . . and certainly none in the Middle East.

So of course, for goodness sakes — News Flash! — Israel is a specifically Jewish country. And if Druze and Arab Muslims in Israel want civil rights protections, there is no better protection in the world than their now knowing unequivocally that they live in a Jewish country. Israel — by Jewish definition — is kind to all strangers who recognize the country’s legitimacy and sovereignty. Jews protect all people who simply keep their hands off us. 

Thus, Arab Muslims collect the same stipends for having babies that the Jews get.  The same health care.  The same retirement pensions. They have political parties that compete freely in elections, Knesset members, judges and Supreme Court justices.  Compare that to England’s history.  That of France. Of Italy. Of Spain. Of Portugal.  They are going to hold themselves out as models for treating minorities?

 The Draggonades saw France massacre nearly a milllion Huguenots.  The British Massacres at Wexford — just the Battle of Vinegar Hill.  The Spanish Inquisition.  The Italian ghettoes.  The Portuguese Inquisition.  Better yet, how about This, Arab Muslims collect the same stipends for having babies that the Jews get.  The same health care.  The same retirement pensions. They have political parties that compete freely in elections, Knesset members, judges and Supreme Court justices.  Compare that to England’s history.  That of France. Of Italy. Of Spain. Of Portugal.  They are going to hold themselves out as models for treating minorities? The Draggonades saw France massacre nearly a milllion Huguenots.  The British Massacres at Wexford — just the Battle of Vinegar Hill.  The Spanish Inquisition.  The Italian ghettoes.  The Portuguese Inquisition.  Better yet, 

Even America — what America did to the Native Americans (the “Indians”) is beyond shameful.  The treaties upon treaties that America broke and tore up.  The people whom America force-marched on the Trail of Tears from North Carolina to Oklahoma. The thousands of subjugated Indians whom America killed, and the reservations on which America condemned their future generations. Not to mention the forced incarceration of thousands of Japanese Americans within the past century.  Not pretty — and America’s story is the finest of the bunch.

So it takes a unique dimension of dementia — see how great English can be? — for tens of thousands of Jews to congregate in opposition to declaring Israel a specifically Jewish country, with Hebrew the official language, Hatikvah the official anthem, the Jewish calendar and its holidays the official calendar. 

If Israel decides that is not a Jewish country, then stop sending emissaries to American Jews, stop encouraging aliyah, stop promoting Jewish National Fund forests and Israel Bonds, stop inviting non-Israelis to vote in the World Zionist Congress, change the national anthem to something sweet about maple leaves or about milk and honey and hummus, and just recognize Israel as a Hebrew-speaking Portugal bereft of Judaism and rich in intersectionalist multi-culturalism.

And enjoy the support of J Street and George Soros, Bend the Arc and  Teruah, Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama. And when the Day of Reckoning comes, see where they stand.