Despite a 1988 ban on the extremists Kach party, the deceased Rabbi Meir Kahane continues to influence politics in Israel, and the American Jewish community. New York City, 2002.
(Photo: (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Although the Israeli government banned Meir Kahane’s political party over two decades ago for “racism,” his followers have now officially taken his message of an exclusively Jewish state between the river and sea to the army. Over the past two years, Yehuda Kroizer, head of the Yeshivat HaRaayon HaYehudi, or “Yeshiva of the Jewish Idea,” a religious school founded by Kahane, frequently lectured to an elite military unit with official approval from the army.
has been speaking before the Duvdevan soldiers twice and even three times a month since the beginning of the year. Last year he met with the combat soldiers even more frequently. Several dozen soldiers attended the lectures, which were optional and focused on various religious issues.
Yehuda Kroizer. (Photo: Trees4yesha.org)
Kroizer is a frequent speaker in the hard-right circuit. Often he shares a stage with notables such as the National Union’s Michael Ben-Ari, and the Land of Israel Movement’s Baruch Marzel, who is well known for oddly retaliating against Jerusalem’s gay pride parade by holding an anti-Arab demonstration inside of a Palestinian village. In 2007 the settler tried to have the parade canceled and enlisted Eli Yishai, now immigration minister, to file a petition. Yishai said pride was a “vulgar event that offends and violates the sanctity of Jerusalem.” However, the court did not agree and with a lost lawsuit, Marzel rose to the national spotlight by rallying settlers in 2008 to march in Umm el-Fahem, in Wadi Ara (Northern Israel).
In 2008 Koizer supported Marzel’s anti-Palestinian/anti-pride protest when Marzel was given a platform to recruit protesters during a Meir Kahane memorial organized by Koizer. At the event, the rabbi affirmed his intent to expand the rightist movement. “Like there is a Chabad house in every city, you should make your house a ‘house of the Jewish idea’ wherever you are… and learn, even with just one study partner.” At the end of the Kahane commemoration the entire room erupted in chants, reciting their mantra, “Arabs out!”
Jewish women “saved” from inter-marriage. (Photo: Charity of Light)
Aside from indoctrinating followers, Kroizer is a mogul of Kahane-inspired philanthropy. He runs Chasdei Meir Charity Fund, which provides food to low-income settlers, Trees for Yesha, which plants orchards in settlements, and the Charity of Light Fund, which advertises to “rescue…thousands of Jewish women” from “inter-marriage.” The charity’s website indicates the fund supports a shelter where 28 women reside through donations collected in a PO Box in Illinois.
The charity’s rhetoric paints a doomsday image of droves of Jewish women enslaved by their Palestinian husbands who ultimately turn to a life of “drugs and prostitution”:
All to often-Jewish women meet their Arab counterpart in the Universities, disco, bars, and beaches. Under a disguise name Achmad becomes Avraham, Mohammed-Moshe until a relation develops, and by then for most it is to late.
Many are taken to Arab villages were the women are abused and beaten becoming to frighten to ever leave,
most are never heard from again.Girls from broken homes, some as young as 14 years old,
today tragically are left to roam the streets sleeping wherever, many turn to drugs and prostitution.The problem left un-check is unfortunately growing.
These girls, left to themselves are without hope.Shall we leave these Jewish women without hope?
Additionally the group also provides “amusement park equipment to distribute FREE of charge to the settlements on a rotating basis.”
When Kach, Rabbi Kahane’s political party was disqualified from Israeli elections in 1988, the ruling commission was making a stance against what they viewed as ”Nazi-like ideology.” Back then the New York Times alluded to a power play between Labor and Likud as a motivation to kick out the far-right party. And although the candor in Kahane’s racists diatribes certainly played a central role to end his political career, it is hard to ignore facts like pollsters indicating the extremist party had gained three seats, enough support to sway the outcome of the elections. “We understand that Likud and Labor are afraid that Kahane will take away a number of seats,” said Kach spokesman, Ikutiel Ben-Yaacov, to the Times.
Yet in the years since the party’s ban and the subsequent murder of Kahane in 1990 after a New York City lecture where the rabbi repeated his Jewish-only vision of Israel, the extremist positions of the group have remained. Now, years later top officials in the government are again calling to expel Palestinians. Avigdor Leiberman, Michael Ben-Ari, Aryeh Eldad all represent for all intensive purposes, the Kahanist view, with Ben-Ari as a former student of the deceased rabbi.
And similar to the 1980s, these government coalitions are supported by settler voting blocs, which now have the lobbying might to overturn court rulings. This was made clear earlier this year with Migron, an illegal outpost earmarked for demolition, was protected by a right-wing bloc inside of Knesset. Ben-Ari and Eldad, among others, facilitated the deal between the settlers and the government, overriding the high court and the rights of the Palestinian landowners.
Focusing narrowly on the current right-wing political parties without attention to their ideological and spiritual masters sidesteps the greater point; today’s context is a period of normalized extremists views. That is, despite banning Kach and the language of peace that accompanied two-decades of negotiations, there never was a sea change in Israeli politics.
These people are Nazis. Every single one of them.
@ Woody
Yea, I was going to be trite and ask how they are any different from the nazi mentality.
Can it happen? Can Israel do a real ‘transfer’ on the Palestines? Would the world stand by and let it happen?
I’m schizophrenic on it…..will they won’t they, could they couldnt they?
First you think ..well this couldn’t happen in todays world, then you think it happened before in the modern world, it’s happened over and over.
under the cover of a regional war, especially if zionist/israeli agents can further ramp up fascism and islamophobia in the “west”? and if they can carry out, provoke, or aid in some “islamic” terrorist events concurrently?
you betcha.
and i bet al aqsa would be destroyed at the same time as well, perhaps blamed on a stray hezbollah or iranian missile or some nonesense. or perhaps, israeli “extremists” would destroy the mosque first, to spark off the regional war (which will draw us all in).
i think at least 10%+ of israelis realish the idea, and many more of the political elite… “normal” secular israelis have told me their desires along the lines of transfer. sounds crazy, but hell, israel is crazy.
I think that if their leadership decided to, they would. The problem with arming psychotic parnoiacs with nuclear weapons is: who would stop them? If they herded the Palestinians into cattle cars and shipped them to the East is Abdullah going to let them die in the Jordan Valley, or will he be forced to admit them? No one’s going to go to war, because if the israelis were crazy enough to do this, they wouldn’t hesitate for a second to murder millions of Arabs with their nuclear weaponry.
And they’re on the precipice of winning. Terrific post Allison
“the Charity of Light Fund, which advertises to “rescue…thousands of Jewish women” from ‘inter-marriage.’”
I once tried to post a comment on a Ynet story about Jewish-Gentile intermarriage. I said something to the effect of “Even if the children won’t be considered officially Jewish, they will still be human beings.” Of course the comment wasn’t approved.
I am watching with interest while my younger (WASP) cousins marry or have children by people of Mexican/Latino, Lebanese, Armenian, Navajo, Jewish, Barbadian, Antiguan, Greek, Italian, etc. descent. The kids won’t have to worry about WASPs becoming a minority in America, they will be part of the new majority.
Why don’t more people celebrate this phenomenon? It can only lessen racism. Tribalism is not good for anyone.
Kahne’s radical views, words, actions have become main stream. Jewish state from the river to the sea by whatever means.
Yes, that is what the State of Israel is. A Nazi state.
Hence the boycott.
RE: “Ynet News reported Kroizer has been speaking before the Duvdevan soldiers twice and even three times a month since the beginning of the year.”
FROM WIKIPEDIA [Duvdevan Unit]:
SOURCE – link to mondoweiss.net
P.S. This might be a bit off the subject, but I’m thinking about becoming a Whirling Dervish for reasons that I will not go into here. However, one concern I have is that I’m a bit susceptible to getting dizzy whilst whirling aggressively. Does anyone know whether if by taking Dramamine® before I begin my whirling I can avoid getting that dizzy, ‘punch drunk’ feeling?
I will greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.
Thanks for your indulgence(s).
• Dervish – link to en.wikipedia.org
• Whirling Dervishes [VIDEO, 01:47] – link to youtube.com
• The Sufi Whirling Dervishes of Istanbul [VIDEO, 03:45] – link to youtube.com
P.P.S. A CUTE FILM FROM ITALY: Mid-August Lunch (Pranzo di Ferragosto; The Ferragosto Dinner), 2008, NR, 75 minutes
As the Italian holiday of Pranzo di Ferragosto approaches, cash-strapped Gianni (Gianni Di Gregorio) gets help from his landlord, his friend and his doctor, who offer financial relief in exchange for Gianni looking after their elderly relatives over the holiday. Four mismatched Italian mamas at the same table make for an awkward, hilarious and touching mid-August lunch in this film festival favorite from Di Gregorio, who also writes and directs.
Director: Gianni Di Gregorio
Language: Italian (English subtitles)
Format: DVD and streaming
• Netflix listing – link to dvd.netflix.com
• Internet Movie Database – link to imdb.com
• Mid August Lunch Official Trailer – link to youtube.com
• Cinemonde Soiree #9: “Mid-August Lunch” [VIDEO, 04:47] – link to youtube.com
P.P.P.S. The Whirling Dervishes are a sect of Islam taught to love everything. They dance while the musicians play.
Whirling Dervish motto: Better Living Through Whirling!™
Technical problems with this post: The commission that forbade Kahane from running in the 1988 elections may indeed have called his ideology Nazi-like (I have no way of knowing), but the link provided is not to the commission’s words, but rather to an article from the NY Times which dealt with the political advantages of eliminating the Kach party from the elections.
Correct English, I believe, is not “for all intensive purposes” but “for all intents and purposes.”
(Kahane’s alleged murderer (acquitted of the murder charge and only convicted on gun charges) was tied directly to those who attempted to bring down the World Trade Center in 1993. The FBI’s disdain for Kahane led to a dereliction of duty in refusing to investigate Sa’id Nosair’s connections and thus made life easier for those who terrorized New York City and killed 6 in that incident.)
Note: I think it ridiculous and horrible that the army allows Kroizer to address the IDF’s soldiers.
This is why the FBI didn’t care about Kahane’s murder. His JDL was a terrorist group. Not a lot of interest who killed a terorist.
Terrorism
In 2004 congressional testimony, John S. Pistole, Executive Assistant Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) described the JDL as “a known violent extremist Jewish organization.”[14] FBI statistics show that, from 1980 through 1985, there were 18 terrorist attacks in the U.S. committed by Jews; 15 of those by members of the JDL.[15] According to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs,
In a 1986 study of domestic terrorism, the Department of Energy concluded: “For more than a decade, the Jewish Defense League (JDL) has been one of the most active terrorist groups in the United States…. Since 1968, JDL operations have killed 7 persons and wounded at least 22. Thirty-nine percent of the targets were connected with the Soviet Union; 9 percent were Palestinian; 8 percent were Lebanese; 6 percent, Egyptian; 4 percent, French, Iranian, and Iraqi; 1 percent, Polish and German; and 23 percent were not connected with any states. Sixty-two percent of all JDL actions are directed against property; 30 percent against businesses; 4 percent against academics and academic institutions; and 2 percent against religious targets.” (Department of Energy, Terrorism in the United States and the Potential Threat to Nuclear Facilities, R-3351-DOE, January 1986, pp. 11-16)[16]
In its report, Terrorism 2000/2001, the FBI referred to the JDL as a “violent extremist Jewish organization” and stated that the FBI was responsible for thwarting at least one of its terrorist acts.[17] The National Consortium for the Study of Terror and Responses to Terrorism states that, during the JDL’s first two decades of activity, it was an “active terrorist organization.”[6] The JDL was specifically referenced by the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director Counterterrorism/Counterintelligence, John S. Pistole, in his formal report before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States.[6]
Initially, the League was connected to a series of terrorist attacks against the Soviet Union’s interests in the United States, protesting that country’s repression of Soviet Jews, who were often jailed and refused exit visas.[15][18] The JDL decided that violence was necessary to draw attention to their plight, reasoning that Moscow would respond to the strain on Soviet–United States relations by allowing more emigration to Israel.[18] On November 29, 1970, a bomb exploded outside the Manhattan offices of the Soviet airline, Aeroflot. An anonymous caller to the Associated Press claimed responsibility and used the JDL slogan “Never again”.[citation needed] Another bomb attack, on January 8, 1971, outside of the Soviet cultural center in Washington, D.C., was followed by a similar phone call, including the JDL slogan. A JDL spokesperson denied JDL involvement in the bombing, but refused to condemn it.[1] In 1970, Soviet agents forged and sent threatening letters to Arab missions claiming to be from the JDL to discredit it. They also were ordered to bomb a target in the “Negro section of New York” and blame it on the JDL.[19] In 1971, a JDL member allegedly fired a rifle into the Soviet Union’s mission office at the United Nations.[citation needed] In 1972, two JDL members were arrested and charged with bomb possession and burglary in a conspiracy to blow up the Long Island residence of the Soviet Mission to the United Nations. The two pled guilty and were sentenced to serve three years in prison for one, and a year and a day for the other.[citation needed] In 1972, a smoke bomb was planted in the Manhattan office of music impresario Sol Hurok, who organized Soviet performers’ U.S. tours. One of the secretaries died of smoke inhalation,[20][21] and Hurok and 12 others were injured. Jerome Zeller of the JDL was indicted for the bombing.[citation needed] JDL activities were condemned by Moscow refuseniks who felt that the group’s actions were making it less likely that the Soviet Union would relax restrictions on Jewish emigration. On April 6, 1976, six prominent refuseniks — including Alexander Lerner, Anatoly Shcharansky, and Iosif Begun — condemned the JDL’s anti-Soviet activities as terrorist acts, stating that their “actions constitute a danger for Soviet Jews… as they might be used by the [Soviet] authorities as a pretext for new repressions and for instigating anti-Semitic hostilities.”[1] During the 1980s, past-JDL member Victor Vancier (who later founded the Jewish Task Force), and two other former JDL members were arrested in connection with six incidents; a 1984 firebombing of an automobile at a Soviet diplomatic residence, the 1985 and 1986 fire and pipe bombings of rival JDL members’ cars, the 1986 firebombing at a hall where the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra was performing, and two 1986 detonations of tear gas grenades to protest performances by Soviet dance companies.[1] In a 1984 interview with Washington Post correspondent Carla Hall, the JDL leader Meir Kahane admitted that the JDL “bombed the Russian mission in New York, the Russian cultural mission here [Washington] in 1971, the Soviet trade offices.”[18][22]
In 1975, JDL leader Meir Kahane was accused of conspiring to kidnap a Soviet diplomat, bomb the Iraqi embassy in Washington, and ship arms abroad from Israel. A hearing was held to revoke Kahane’s probation for a 1971 firebomb-making incident. He was found guilty of violating probation and served a one year prison sentence.[1] On December 31, 1975, 15 members of the League seized the office of the Permanent Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in protest for Pope Paul VI’s policy of support of Palestinian rights. The incident was over after one hour, as the activists left the place after being ordered to do so by the local police. No arrests were made.[23] On October 26, 1981, after two firebombs damaged the Egyptian Tourist Office at Rockefeller Center, JDL Chairman Meir Kahane said at a press conference: “I’m not going to say that the JDL bombed that office. There are laws against that in this country. But I’m not going to say I mourn for it either.” The next day, an anonymous caller claimed responsibility on behalf of the JDL. A JDL spokesman later denied his group’s involvement, but said, “we support the act.”[1]
JDL members had often been suspected of involvement in attacks against neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and antisemites. On March 16, 1978, Irv Rubin said about the planned American Nazi Party march in Skokie, Illinois: “We are offering $500, that I have in my hand, to any member of the community… who kills, maims or seriously injures a member of the American Nazi party.” Rubin was charged with solicitation of murder but acquitted in 1981.[24] In 1995, when the Toronto residence of the Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel was the target of an arson attack, a group calling itself the “Jewish Armed Resistance Movement” claimed responsibility; according to the Toronto Sun, the group had ties to the Jewish Defense League and to Kahane Chai.[25] The leader of the Toronto wing of the Jewish Defense League, Meir Halevi, denied involvement in the attack, although, just five days later, Halevi was caught trying to break into the Zündel property, where he was apprehended by police.[25][26] Later the same month Zündel was the recipient of a parcel bomb that was detonated by the Toronto Police Service’s bomb squad.[27]
Alex Odeh was an Arab-American who was killed on October 11, 1985, in a bombing at his office in Santa Ana, California. Odeh was regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Shortly before his killing, Odeh had appeared on the television show Nightline, where he engaged in a tense dialogue with a representative from the Jewish Defense League.[28] Irv Rubin, chairman of the JDL, immediately made several controversial public statements in reaction to the incident: “I have no tears for Mr. Odeh. He got exactly what he deserved.” Rubin also said: “My tears were used up crying for Leon Klinghoffer.”[15] The Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee both condemned the murder. Four weeks after Odeh’s death, FBI spokesperson Lane Bonner stated the FBI attributed the bombing and two others to the JDL. In February 1986, the FBI classified the bombing that killed Alex Odeh as a terrorist act. Rubin denied JDL involvement: “What the FBI is doing is simple…. Some character calls up a news agency or whatever and uses the phrase Never Again… and on that assumption they can go and slander a whole group. That’s tragic.” In 1987, Floyd Clarke, then assistant director of the FBI, wrote in an internal memo that key suspects had fled to Israel and were living in the West Bank urban settlement of Kiryat Arba. In 1988, the FBI arrested Rochelle Manning as a suspect in a mail bombing, and also charged her husband, Robert Steven Manning, whom they considered a prime suspect in the bombing. Both were members of the JDL. Rochelle’s jury deadlocked, and after the mistrial, she left for Israel to join her husband. Robert Manning was extradited from Israel to the U.S. in 1993.[15] He was subsequently found guilty of involvement in the killing of a computer firm secretary Patricia Wilkerson in another, unrelated bomb blast.[29][30] William Ross, another JDL member, was also found guilty for his participation in the bombing that killed Wilkerson.[29] Rochelle Manning was re-indicted for her alleged involvement, and was detained in Israel, pending extradition, when she died of a heart attack in 1994.[29]
On February 25, 1994, Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli member of the JDL, opened fire on Muslims kneeling in prayer at the revered Cave of the Patriarchs mosque in the West Bank city of Hebron, killing 29 worshippers and injuring 125. On its website, the JDL described the massacre as a “preventative measure against yet another Arab attack on Jews” and noted that they “do not consider his assault to qualify under the label of terrorism”. Furthermore, they noted that “we teach that violence is never a good solution but is unfortunately sometimes necessary as a last resort when innocent lives are threatened; we therefore view Dr. Goldstein as a martyr in Judaism’s protracted struggle against Arab terrorism. And we are not ashamed to say that Goldstein was a charter member of the Jewish Defense League.”[31][32][33]
On December 12, 2001, JDL leader Irv Rubin and JDL member Earl Krugel were charged with planning a bomb attack against the office of Arab-American Congressman Darrell Issa, in the wake of the September 11 attacks.[34] The two also planned attacks on the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California. Rubin claimed that he was innocent. On November 4, 2002, at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, Rubin slit his throat with a safety razor and jumped out of a third story window.[12][35] Rubin’s suicide would be contested by his widow and the JDL, particularly after his co-defendant pleaded guilty to the charges and implicated Rubin in the plot.[12] On February 4, 2003, Krugel pleaded guilty to conspiracy and weapons charges stemming from the terrorist plot, and was expected to serve up to 20 years in prison. The core of the evidence against Krugel and Rubin was in a number of conversations taped by an informant, Jewish pride activist Danny Gillis, who was hired by the men to plant the bombs but who turned to the FBI instead.[12][36] According to one tape, Krugel thought the attacks would serve as “a wakeup call” to Arabs.[12] Krugel was subsequently killed in prison by an Aryan Brotherhood affiliated inmate in 2005.
At least two of the suspects in the 2010 murder of a French Muslim Saïd Bourarach appeared to have ties to the French chapter of the JDL.[37] In 2011, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had launched an investigation against at least nine members of the JDL in regards to an anonymous tip that the JDL was plotting to bomb the Palestine House in Mississauga.[38]
@ jonah fredman
RE: “…The commission that forbade Kahane from running in the 1988 elections may indeed have called his ideology Nazi-like (I have no way of knowing)”
It takes a few seconds to discover that Kahane was forbidden to run under an amendment to Israel’s election law, which amendment barred, inter alia, anyone found to have incited racism. That’s a start, towards a way of knowing, eh?
Citizen- Kahane was a Jewish supremacist and therefore the term racist can easily be applied to him. I don’t make the jump from “racist” to “Nazi-like” as easily as some others here do, eh?
@ yonah fredman
Name a Nazi ideology or platform that did not incorporate racism as a fundamental principle. Like means similar to, and in this case, it’s not a big jump, is it?
@ yonah fredman,
“But commission members, all of them members of or candidates for Parliament from other parties, said they had voted to ban Kach because it espoused ”Nazi-like ideology” and ”racism.” Kahane Favors Separation.” link to nytimes.com
The FBI knew about the 1993 WTC bombing and their failures on that extend far beyond anything involving the El Sayyid Nosair trial; just see the infamous situation involving the FBI and their informant Emad Salem (and his tapes). Also I’ve heard some fascist “JDL” terrorist apologists, claim that El Sayyid Nosair was supposedly only acquitted because of “black people on the jury”!!! As Martin Gilbert Kahane had a history of bigotry and racism directed at Puerto Ricans and African-Americans in New York (on top of his genocidal bigotry and racism against Arabs).
“Kahane was right”
No, he was far right. Border line Nazi..But since in Israel the word”border” doesn’t exist…
The final two sentences in the NYT article, Yonah:
‘Recognizing that, Ikutiel Ben-Yaacov, a Kach spokesman, said today’s vote ”was a political decision made by politicians,” adding, ”We understand that Likud and Labor are afraid that Kahane will take away a number of seats.”
But commission members, all of them members of or candidates for Parliament from other parties, said they had voted to ban Kach because it espoused ”Nazi-like ideology” and ”racism.”’
Matthew- Sorry I didn’t see the entire article.
American- The FBI ought to have been interested in who killed a terrorist, especially when he was killed by a terrorist, Sa’ed Nosair, whose associates eventually killed 6 innocents while attempting to kill thousands. The FBI was clearly derelict in their duties.
“The FBI was clearly derelict in their duties.”
Well it wouldn’t be the first time. But you have to admit the Kahane murder was about like some mobster getting knocked off by another mobster so they weren’t going to fall over themselves to do anything about it.
Yonah: I’m surprised at your hostility towards the JDL. Here’s a statement of their beliefs and principles.
“The JDL upholds five fundamental principles, which as of July 2007 were listed on its website as:
“LOVE OF JEWRY, one Jewish people, indivisible and united, from which flows the love for and the feeling of pain of all Jews.”
“DIGNITY AND PRIDE, pride in and knowledge of Jewish tradition, faith, culture, land, history, strength, pain and peoplehood.”
“IRON, the need to both move to help Jews everywhere and to change the Jewish image through sacrifice and all necessary means—even strength, force and violence.”
“DISCIPLINE AND UNITY, the knowledge that he (or she) can and will do whatever must be done, and the unity and strength of willpower to bring this into reality.”
“FAITH IN THE INDESTRUCTIBILITY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE, faith in the greatness and indestructibility of the Jewish people, our religion and our Land of Israel.”
The JDL encourages, per its principle of the “Love of Jewry”, that “…[I]n the end…the Jew can look to no one but another Jew for help and that the true solution to the Jewish problem is the liquidation of the Exile and the return of all Jews to Eretz Yisroel — the land of Israel.”[48] The JDL elaborates on this fundamental principle by insisting upon an “immediate need to place Judaism over any other ‘ism’ and ideology and…use of the yardstick: ‘Is it good for Jews?’”[48]“
What do you find objectionable in that?
Colin W.- I do not believe in the transfer of the Arab/Palestinian residents of the West Bank and Israel out of Israel and the West Bank and this is the primary political goal expressed by Kahane during his Israel career and expressed by his supporters since his murder. They believe in confrontation with the Palestinian Arabs and I believe in reconciliation. (My belief in reconciliation is threatened at times by the impracticality of this wish/hope/prayer and I am too passive to turn myself into a Jeff Halper type and even too passive to make any personal progress in this direction, but it is still my hope.) I think Judaism is an important yardstick when trying to determine the direction of the future of the Jewish people in the Diaspora and Israel, but it certainly is not the only yardstick. I am in favor of civil marriages in Israel, which would include the marriage of Jews and nonJews. I do not believe in the liquidation of the Diaspora: I think presence in a variety of countries is not only prudent for survival sake, it is also one way to ensure a flow of ideas and perspectives. I think the image of the Diaspora Jew (the golus Jew) is not my ideal Jew, but I think there is something to be learned from the realism and humility of the golus Jew and to replace it merely with a gun and a fist without taking reality and morality into consideration is an overreaction and dangerous both physically and morally.
Alright. I stand corrected.