One of the signal events of the Gaza slaughter in the U.S. was the brave statement by "J Street" against the disproportionate violence, and the subsequent attack on J Street by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, which for some reason the Forward saw fit to print. Here Yoffie belittled the new Israel lobby group as "morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment and also appallingly naïve."
The article was titled "On Gaza, Sense and Centrism." Jews are "commonsensical," Yoffie said. And you will see that his teaching lacked any religious mumbo-jumbo:
unwelcome but inevitable, carried out by a reluctant Israeli government
doing what it must to end rocket attacks against its citizenry. In
short, American Jews are, as usual, sensible and centrist, and
supporting Israel in her hour of need.
Well I was just in the bathtub reading I Am Jewish: Personal Reflections Inspired by the Last Words of Daniel Pearl. It includes a selection from Eric Yoffie:
I am convinced, to the depth of my being, that Jewish destiny is a collective destiny. And I believe as well that the concept of the Jews being one people is a religious idea and not an ethnic, political, or cultural one. The foundations of peoplehood are not to be found in nostalgia, gastronomy, or a shared sense of vulnerability, but in the covenantal relationship between God and the Jewish people. It is the covenant at Sinai that links all Jew, including nonobservant ones, in a bond of shared responsibility…
I am Jewish. This means that the State of Israel has a special hold on my soul. Jewish life, I believe, cannot be sustained without Israel at its core. The Torah that spells out for us a way of life and a religious destiny also binds us to a land… The religious significance of the Jewish state lies in the fact that it provides a framework in which Torah is to be observed and a holy community is to be created. But barely half a century old and located in a hostile neighborhood, Israel until now has focused its attention on saving Jews and ensuring the security of its citizens. Yet the day will come, I know, when Israel will not only save Jews but will also save Judaism. The day will come when the State of Israel will become the classroom of the diaspora, providing ongoing seminars in Jewish identity and restoring to Jewish life its public dimension and collective pulse. And to be Jewish means not only to support Israel's security concerns…
I think you get the picture. This weekend I saw Sarah Silverman's great comedy video, called Jesus Is Magic. She makes fun of Christians and other religious crazies the way a lot of secular Jews do. Well if you believe that a 5000 year old deal with God means that you are now bound to a land whether you like it or not, and that there is a collective responsibility of a special group of people to watch out for the people who are bound to that land, say, when they slaughter 400 children, in part because you believe in the depth of your soul that those people are going to save you later, then there's a ready description of you in the American political vocabulary: you are a religious crazy.
We want religious crazies out of our politics. Or when they're in there, we would like to know they're religious, also what visions they've been having lately. It would have been nice if Rabbi Yoffie had spelled out some of these beliefs in Jewish collective responsibility for saving our ancient bond with the land of Israel to preserve Jewish life when he lectured J Street. For that matter, when any Jew in public life holds forth about Israel, it would be nice to know where they stand on these religious ideas. Because believe me, they're not helping.
(Phil Weiss)
