J Street's "Haggada" Criticises Israel Even While the Virus Rages On!

Recently, many Jewish organizations have been sending out emails about the coronavirus. 

On March 19 J Street sent out a very different sort – they used their email to pitch their version of the Haggadah: A booklet that attacks Israel with the narrative of the alleged "occupation."  

While the email appears to be about the coronavirus crisis and Passover, 

J Street's intention was made clear by linking their Haggadah – which concentrates its focus on criticism of Israel over the "occupation" rather than the story of the Exodus from Egypt.

Shaina Wasserman, J Street's Director of Rabbinic and Community Engagement, signed the email. 

The email stated:

 "For Jews around the world, this will be a very different Passover than what we're used to. Because of the COVID-19 crisis, many of us are downsizing seders or attempting to do them virtually." Wasserman's email also provided a link to a 20-plus-page Haggadah where the word "occupation" was used twenty times.

Kindly Support Our Blog by Browsing the Ads

Thanks so much, it means a lot especially in these difficult times!

The Haggadah introduction lays out its purpose: 

"We still have to…combat xenophobia and bigotry, to promote peace, to defend democracy and to end occupation" and "J Street has compiled this Haggadah to apply the themes and lessons of the Passover seder to what it means, in 2020, to be pro-Israel, pro-peace and anti-occupation." 

There's just a slight problem here. 

There is no occupation and you should be let in on a little secret: 

J Street knows it.

Can we be expected to believe that J Street's experts have forgotten that back in 1995, Israel withdrew from the cities in Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank) where 98% of the Palestinian Arabs reside? Or that in 2005, Israel withdrew from 100% of the Gaza Strip?

Virtually all of the Palestinian Arabs live under Palestinian rule. They are governed by the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, and by Hamas in Gaza. They run their own affairs, pay taxes to a Palestinian ersatz government, and vote in their own elections. They enjoy self-rule in every significant respect but two: They do not have total control of their borders, and they do not have a full-fledged army. 

Unless J Street believes that Arab citizens of Israel are living under occupation, they have produced a 24-page Haggadah containing the word "occupation" twenty times because of a so-called occupation of 2%. 

J Street's Haggadah concludes with a page authored by Wasserman herself. She writes 

"At the end of the seder we say: Next Year in Jerusalem! 

It is an aspirational idea. May we all be together in Jerusalem – the land of peace.  But in our reality, Jerusalem is also a symbol of conflict and confusion. Whose Jerusalem? Municipal Jerusalem? The Old City? The Arab Quarter? East Jerusalem? Ben Yehuda Street?"

As Wasserman hints in her piece the very name Jerusalem means "city of peace." But it also means "city of completeness," and "city of perfection." In fact, there is no "eastern" or "western" when we talk about Jerusalem. There's just one Jerusalem. And the original, anonymous authors of the classical Haggadah text knew that. Let there be no "confusion" about that fact. 

So how could J Street's Haggadah editors include the pledge

 "Next year in Jerusalem!"? 

It is very curious because, after all, let's remember that "East Jerusalem" that Wasserman mentions is what the Haggadah means when it refers to Jerusalem in toto. 

In the Torah and in the Haggadah, in every single instance when a specific location in Jerusalem is mentioned, it refers to an area that J Street is labeling "occupied." The term "East Jerusalem" cannot be found in an authentic Haggadah. And that is because "East Jerusalem" is a very modern distortion. 

In the Haggadah when the ancient Temple in Jerusalem is referred to, this is exactly what Wasserman is talking about when she writes "Old City." The UN sees the Temple Mount as included as part of this mythical creation of "East Jerusalem" in the future Palestinian state it works so hard to forcibly create. There is no "East Jerusalem" in Judaism. 

 Historically there has never been an independent municipal entity known as "East Jerusalem." 

And, for the record, there has never been an independent national entity known as "Palestine." 

J Street could not release a Haggadah without "Next year in Jerusalem!" because everyone who has ever been to a seder would know it was missing and that their Haggadah wasn't kosher.

For Zion's sake I am not silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I do not rest, relates the prophet Isaiah. 

For Jerusalem's sake, do yourself, the State of Israel, and the Jewish People a favor and avoid J Street's Haggadah. Avoid it like the plague.

Kindly Support Our Blog by Browsing the Ads

Thanks so much, it means a lot especially in these difficult times!