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‘Israel is the home of all Jews,’ declares a right-wing official

Two news reports from that clueless Jewish democracy in the Middle East.  Is this kind of messaging really appealing to American Jews?

Danny Ayalon
Danny Ayalon

This morning, the deputy foreign minister of Israel, Danny Ayalon, tweeted out a story about a Nigerian woman’s decision to move to Israel and serve in an Israeli uniform.

Reading the story of Tobi [Cohen] from Nigeria, it is once again clear for all to see: Israel is the home of all Jews,… http://t.co/wZtTF3mYK7

— Danny Ayalon (@DannyAyalon) April 18, 2014

I’m not sure that’s clear to all of them. Especially coming from a member of Avigdor Lieberman’s nationalist party, who has endorsed the idea of a loyalty oath for non-Jews seeking to become citizens.

And this nugget is from Ambassador Ron Dermer’s Passover message, earlier this week. It suggests that Jews everywhere are safer because of having a state in Israel:

 As Prime Minister Netanyahu works to secure the future of the one and only Jewish state in the face of great challenges, Jewish people across the world are privileged this Passover, as they have been for the past 65 years, to celebrate the rebirth of a free, sovereign Jewish people in our ancestral homeland.

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>> … Israel is the home of all Jews …

Israel is the home of Jews and non-Jews who live there, and of Jews and non-Jews who are permitted to immigrate there.

It should also be the home of all non-Jews who were ethnically cleansed from there. Sadly – and shamefully – it’s not.

Large numbers of Ethiopians have relocated in the US over the past several decades. Apparently they could call themselves Jews, and “return” to Israel as a matter of rights?

Reading the story of Tobi [Cohen] from Nigeria, it is once again clear for all to see: Israel is the home of all Jews

Not really. Tobi Cohen may or may not be Jewish. She is an Israeli citizen because her father is one, but I guess something like “Israel is the home of all Israelis” just doesn’t do it for Ayalon.

Jewish people across the world are privileged this Passover, as they have been for the past 65 years, to celebrate the rebirth of a free, sovereign Jewish people in our ancestral homeland.

Or embittered (yet another reason to eat bitter herbs) that so many of their fellow Jews have forgotten what it feels like to be a slave and how precious freedom is to all who are oppressed. Becoming Pharaoh is not freedom.

Ancestral homeland is such a crock. Nobody else uses it. Home of all the Jews. I thought there were more in Galut. Perhaps that is g-d’s message.

I can’t help being reminded of Rudolf Hess’s words at the 1934 Nuremberg party rally, as shown in Triumph of the Will:

Dank Ihrer Führung wird Deutschland sein Ziel erreichen, Heimat zu sein… Heimat zu sein für alle Deutschen der Welt.