Yesterday I said that the Burg event at the New York Public Library Monday night was special for a statement that Avraham Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset, now an author, made about the relationship of American Jewry to Zionism. I just relistened to the statement. Burg said his English isn't great; I think it is, but I may have misheard a couple words. Here is the statement [a few minutes in on that MP3], in all its glory:
For me Zionism was the scaffolding… that was supposed to help the Jewish people to rebuild, to restruct [sic] itself from an exilic reality to sovereignty. And the structure went on and on and on and on, and and now 150 and 100 and some years later, when you look around the Jewish existential reality, you realize that actually the Jewish people built two structures. One is the semi-autonomous American Jewry, which was not here 150 years ago-- powerful influence, access to the corridors of power, impact on the culture, and civilization… plus the infrastructure of the community of solidarity and fraternity and support system and education etc and also the sovereignty over there in the Middle East.
I ask myself-- the only people in modern history who succeeded to rebuild itself twice--we have two beautiful structures. Isn’t it time we removed the scaffolding and look at the beauty of the building and the beauty of the structure? And my answer is this. For me, Zionism is a chapter, a glorious chapter in my past, but not the only chapter. It was written, it’s a launching pad, it’s a starting point, but it’s about time to move forward… What is the next landscape?
Couple comments. Burg's book is blurbed by Mearsheimer. These are not fearful men: Burg was a paratroop officer, Mearsheimer a captain in our Air Force. Mearsheimer said something of what Burg said in his and Steve Walt's important book of last year, and no one has invited him to the NY Public Library. I must say honestly that I never saw my Jewish-American life as being part of that structure. Maybe that was my mistake? I thought, we built this city on rock and roll. But, if you think about it, Doug Feith had Theodor Herzl's picture on his wall and he got a lot further than me, all the way to Baghdad, and he's about the same age as me and Burg. So here we are. The idea that Jews have to reimagine their future is a beautiful one. I guess that makes me an assimilationist.
"I guess that makes me an assimilationist."
What do you mean by assimilation? Do you mean being selectively Jewish, or adopting the traditions, culture and norms of the majority and traditional America?
The faction of the Jewish American community that accepts the semi-autonomous theme about Zionists may want to observe how another ethnic community has been treated the past few years. Much of the criticism, unfounded, about Hispanic immigrants is they do not assimilate. If there truly is a semi-autonomous Zion nationalist community in America, which at this time I do not accept, it threatens the immigrant weave that made our nation so great.
Individual Americans who support Israeli military aggression and militant territorial acquisition, either through service to Israel's defense forces or settler groups, deserve the same punishment as John Walker Lindh received. But each case should be judged individually in a court of law without accusing the rest of the Jewish community for complicity in the crimes.
Burg: "One is the semi-autonomous American Jewry, which was not here 150 years ago– powerful influence, access to the corridors of power, impact on the culture, and civilization"
Weiss: "if you think about it, Doug Feith had Theodor Herzl's picture on his wall and he got a lot further than me, all the way to Baghdad"
This is the kind of "influence" in their "access to the corridors of power" that Jewish American Zionists have brought this country–almost wholly negative. But at least Burg is acknowledging the existence of the Jewish Zionist nation within a nation, with its own interests, values, loyalties, and even its own shadow government, all coddled, pandered to and protected by the two-party regime.
Man, its hell when your own government flings the doors wide open to a criminal enterprise that couldn't care less about the long term survival of the American people. To my mind, that's treason.
Tommy, let me guess: you're a card carrying member of La Raza. Hey, the racist Zionists were allowed to set up their own nation in America, why not racist Hispanics? Didn't both McCain and Obama pander to your group, too? But you guys should really be less obvious about your ambitions and operate with more stealth, like the Zionists. That way it will be easier to stick the knife in at the opportune time.
The consolidation of Judonia preceded the transfer of its operations center to the USA.
Didn't Herzl propose an African Zion? That's change *I* can believe in.
Interesting, Joachim. I still think you could use a different title and wording.
Ed, let me guess: you are the descendant of European immigrants, like me, with the difference that you oppose other immigrants from coming to America, especially descendants of Native Americans, whose ancestry in the Western Hemisphere exceeds yours, and mine, by thousands of years.
@Tommy,
I don’t oppose “other immigrants,” just those that want to set up a nation within the nation like the Jewish Zionists and La Raza, both of which you apparently support. Maybe you enjoy getting lied into war by shadow governments, and the increasing balkanization of America. Maybe you’re not La Raza, and merely another nation-smashing Marxist. Either way, those ideas spell the death knell for America.
And the Native Americans, who are really long ago Eurasian immigrants (or perhaps you never heard of Kennewick man)? It’ll be hard for them to collect all that casino money when America breaks up because of you left-wing socialists and your open-border partners, the right-wing, cheap labor corporatists.
The significance of "built by Zionism".
While Phil considers the status of Jews in America to be separate from the Zionist emergence, MANY holocaust survivors think differently.
Many attribute their rise in potential and status, TO the presence of Israel, that there was a demonstrated place where Jews were not pariahs, but actually built a society of merit.
There are great wrongs in Palestine, that continue, and can be righted.
But, the presence of Israel is an accomplishment.
If it morphs into a subsequent great accomplishment that is somewhat different than its recent past, wonderful. Change is inevitable.
If it is only taken down, in agitated resentment, that would be a tragedy of a millenia, a moral disaster of pettiness.
Ed, if I misunderstood your position on immigration, I apologize. However, I am unfamiliar with La Raza having much influence on any establishment policies. I do like the nation-smashing Marxist designation. Thanks. Nationalism is so Nineteenth Century.
Burg holds a French passport and lives in France much of the time, he is only disingenuously holding on to his Israeli citizenship in hopes of becoming PM. Like most members of the "Branja" ("The Guild") he finds justice and truth in that which empowers him. Born in the privilege of Rehavia in the 50s, he has no consciousness of the war waged against Israel, of its permanence or of its goals–only that the passé Jewish nationalism make Europeans glance askance at his circumscribed mini-state, still "too Jewish" by far. He is an odd man, rising to the heights of influence only to abandon everything that previously gave his life meaning–Judaism, Israel, Zionism, Hebrew–becoming an atheist French non-Zionist who gives all his important interviews in English, and who has since stopped speaking to his countrymen who have no interest in his exhortation to sell out.
He was a lieutenant in IDF paratroops. Wore a kippa while active in Israeli peace movement.
Caught a few grenade splinters next to Emil Grunzweig and thinks he's the post-Zionist Messiah. I can't think of anyone farther from real political and social power than him in Israel, except maybe Matzpen or the former Black Panthers. He makes Uri Avnery look like the head of the Knesset Defense Committee.