Every couple of years a pro-Israel book comes out that gets red carpet treatment in American Jewish circles. That was true for Ari Shavit’s 2013 book, My Promised Land. Now it’s happening with Yossi Klein Halevi and Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor.
Halevi appeared at the J Street conference this spring, and on an AIPAC tour, too. He did an event with David Gregory, another with Abigail Pogrebin and a Muslim imam sponsored by the Jewish Federations. Liberals adore him: Cokie Roberts gave him a fulsome blurb (“Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor offers a model… for Middle East peacemaking”). And Halevi has been hailed as a guide by New York Times editors Jodi Rudoren and Bari Weiss at various Jewish gatherings.
One thing these folks don’t seem to notice is that Halevi, who moved to occupied East Jerusalem from Brooklyn more than 30 years ago, is such a fervent Jewish nationalist that he does not consider anti-Zionists to be Jews. Halevi wants support and understanding from American Jews; but if you are against the existence of a Jewish state, or have concluded that Jewish sovereignty hasn’t worked out for Palestinians or Jews– Halevi says you’re not a Jew.
In his book he writes that Judaism cannot now be separated from Zionism.
Is it possible, as anti-Zionists insist, to separate Zionism from Judaism? Is Zionism mere “politics,” as opposed to Judaism, which is authentic “religion”?…
If by Zionism one means the Jewish attachment to the land of Israel and the dream of renewing Jewish sovereignty in our place of origin, then there is no Judaism without Zionism. Judaism isn’t only a set of rituals and rules but a vision linked to a place. Modern movements that created forms of Judaism severed from the love of the land and dream of return all ended in failure.
By the time the state was established, anti-Zionism had become peripheral in Jewish life. Aside from a vocal fringe, most ultra-Orthodox Jews made their peace with a Jewish state. Israel’s Declaration of Independence was signed by representatives of almost the entire spectrum of the Jewish community–from ultra-Orthodox to Communists. That document attests to the legitimacy, within the Jewish people, of the state created by Zionism.
In recent years, there have been renewed attempts, especially on the fringes of the Diaspora left, to create a Jewish identity severed from Israel. But with nearly half the world’s Jews living in a thriving Jewish-majority state, that debate has long since been resolved. If in the past one couldn’t separate the land of Israel from Jewish life, today the same holds true for the state of Israel.
So if you don’t accept the idea of a Jewish state, you’re not a Jew.
During an appearance at Duke University last fall, Halevi filled in the point. He said it was OK for American Jews to criticize Israel about its religious practices at the Western Wall, but not about its security practices. And again, anti-Zionists are not part of the Jewish community.
Tough love is legitimate. when the love is evident. I would make a distinction between a group like J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace. I don’t agree with J Street on a whole range of issues, especially on the Iran Deal. But J Street is part of a normative Jewish conversation. Jewish Voice for Peace, supporters of BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] to my mind have placed themselves outside the confines of the Jewish community.
Every community is defined by its red lines. I believe that in our Israel conversation we need to have low red lines. But we still need red lines, and groups, individuals, who actively support Israel’s enemies,who support effectively the destruction of the Jewish state, these are voices that should have no place in our communal conversation. And so the question of tough and love, there needs to be a balance.
Halevi also said that it worries him that more and more American Jews are opting out of the relationship with Israel, because American Jews need to be engaged with Israel right now to save Israel from the ultra-Orthodox, who have done the least to build the Jewish state but are being “anti-Zionist” in their efforts to limit access to the western wall. BTW, others have said the same thing to American Jews: Shut up about who we kill, but please weigh in on how we can pray.
You’d think Halevi’s intolerance about Who is a Jew might make him a bit too crispy for liberal audiences. But they overlook this intolerance. Halevi got a whole session to speak about his book at J Street this year. J Street obeys Halevi’s norms– inasmuch as it features a lot of center-right Zionists, including Tzipi Livni, who lied about the Gaza slaughter; but it excludes members of JVP (though Leanne Gale snuck in with some pro-BDS talk, and Jeremy Ben-Ami always says I’m part of the Jewish community).
J Street accepts Halevi’s red lines because: These are the norms of the American Jewish establishment. Being Jewish entails being Zionist. That conflation is now being undermined on a number of fronts by younger Jews who don’t like the way the Jewish state behaves in their name. But a lot of older Jews haven’t gotten the memo, or they’re in denial (“Where did we go wrong in our homes and schools?”).
P.S. Halevi reminds me of Shavit because Shavit was also heralded till his provincialism caught up with him. Nathan Thrall exposed Shavit’s rightwing Zionism in LRB; Reja-e Busailah showed that Shavit’s narration of the Lydda expulsion was insufficient and irresponsible; we did a piece about Shavit’s adoration of “sex in the toilets” in Israel.
“Every community is defined by its red lines. I believe that in our Israel conversation we need to have low red lines. But we still need red lines, and groups, individuals, who actively support Israel’s enemies,who support effectively the destruction of the Jewish state, these are voices that should have no place in our communal conversation. And so the question of tough and love, there needs to be a balance.”
Channelling his inner Donald Trump there. Or is it just translated from the original Klingon?
Halevi misses the point that if Israel was not running an illegal and criminal occupation and running around murdering hundreds of Palestinians and destroying their homes,villages and stealing their land that people would not dislike Israeli’s as much as they do. Halevi is just another Israeli in total denial.What Israel has to offer no one in the majority globally wants as its cost is far too high.
The chasm between a Yossi Klein Halevy and a Phil Weiss is self apparent. Halevy declares Weiss to be outside the community and Weiss says, “You don’t get to define the community.”
Seems like this is not an argument anyone will win. All you can do is ask, Whose side are you on. if you are closer to Max Blumenthal than to Yossi Klein Halevy you will find yourself in one crowd and if the opposite, the other. I suppose there are some who feel equidistant to both, but probably very few.
I think there are visions of the future that are more peace oriented than Halevy’s. (the anonymous military officer who spoke off the record about “now is the time to make a deal with Hamas”, is not something that Halevy mentions in his noncritique of the policy towards Gaza.)
I read the quotes given in this article, and I didn’t find the sentence in which Yossi Klein Halevi says that anti-Zionist Jews aren’t Jewish. I also noticed that the headline didn’t place the statement in quotation marks either, indicating that the editor is aware that there isn’t such a quote.
What did Mr Halevi say (based on the quotes given in this article)? For example, he said that “there is no Judaism without Zionism”. Moreover he claimed that supporters of BDS “have placed themselves outside the confines of the Jewish community”. Now, obviously, one can argue with Mr Halevi, claiming that there is Judaism without Zionism or that BDS supporters are part of the Jewish community – but, still, it is simply untrue that he said “if you don’t accept the idea of a Jewish state, you’re not a Jew”. What misleading reporting.
It’s an old trick of the anti-Zionists to pretend that the word “Judaism” means “Jews”. If you read the website of the American Council for Judaism, you can see there their silly claim that “Judaism is not a nationality”. Yes, we know that Judaism is a religion. But what about the Jews? Do they define themselves as a national community? Well, that’s the debate.
Mr Halevi spoke about Judaism, and he spoke about Zionism’s being mainstream in the Jewish community. He did not say that the anti-Zionists are not Jews.
In this article, we learn that Mr Halevi moved to “occupied East Jerusalem”. Ordinarily, one would conclude that West Jerusalem is therefore not occupied territory, right? However, since this is an anti-Israel website, there might be different rules of logic. In the article of Tom Suarez, for example, he complains that Jaffa doesn’t appear as part of the Arab state in the Partition Plan on some propaganda poster, and you would naturally think that such a complaint indicates that he supports the Partition Plan (and therefore Jaffa should be marked clearly as part of the Arab state). But, strangely, he rejects the Partition Plan. Anyway, I’d be curious to find out if “occupied East Jerusalem” means that Mondoweiss recognizes West Jerusalem as part of Israel (i.e. not occupied) – or if “occupied East Jerusalem” means that everything else is also occupied.
YOSSI KLEIN HALEVI- “In recent years, there have been renewed attempts, especially on the fringes of the Diaspora left, to create a Jewish identity severed from Israel.”
Not at the New York Times! Those folks are steadfast and loyal to Israel.
Theologian Jacob Neusner also contends that support for Israel is the basis for a Zionist restructured Judaism. “Just as the Judaic tradition had formerly told Jews what it meant to be Jewish – had supplied them with a considerable definition of their identity – so does Zionism in the modern age. Jews who lost hold of the mythic structures of the past were given a grasp on a new myth, one composed of the restructured remnants of the old one.” (p176, “Stranger at Home: “The Holocaust,” Zionism, and American Judaism,” Jacob Neusner)
Neusner’s description of a reinvigorated, Zionized Judaism is entirely consistent with Israel Shahak’s contention that Zionism was a retreat to Classical (medieval) Judaism in secular form. In short, Zionism has provided a new basis for Jewish tribalism in a multicultural world. Jewish “peoplehood” used to be understood as a religion based solidarity. Now, it is based upon Zionist solidarity. Both Classical Judaism and Zionism see Jews as a people apart. Israel represents the physical separation of Jews from non-Jews, the Diaspora entails a psychological separation from non-Jews who are seen as intrinsically anti-Semitic. Full assimilation represents dejudaization, the reduction of Judaism to the status of just another religion rather than the basis of birthright solidarity and kinship. The perception of a shared common fate looms large along with an exaggerated sense of ongoing victimhood not supported by empirical reality.