This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
Skyped with Isaiah last night. He’s glad to be out of his summer doldrums and on his own. We chatted about our Nazi Zen archer and his chat with his teacher. It turns out that his teacher knows the score. A teachable moment all around.
What more is there to be said about the Zen arrow, become a Nazi salute, now read in Empire America? That’s everyone’s question. For Isaiah, the question resonates on another level. Since he’s looking for his life’s path and is drawn to Asian religions partly as his Jewish exit strategy, the Zen Nazi connection isn’t a “who cares” moment. But, then, since the Jewish community is mobilized against others, the Jewish Israel connection can’t be a “who cares” moment either. Isaiah knows he can’t read Jewish writers innocently either.
Our Zen Nazi archer went through the deNazification process and received his certificate. He was retired, so his fellow traveler status was judged to be of some significance. Nonetheless, in real Nazi time, our Zen Nazi archer’s career was enhanced by his Nazi membership card.
I think now of our Jewish Studies types gathering in convention after convention and even my Society of Jewish Ethics colleagues. They’re all kippahed up and ready to ride. Will they one day have to go through a deZionfication process? Perhaps most of them have already, at least internally. Their internal deZionification process has more to do with washing their hands of the accusing images pointed at them by others than any solidarity they might have with Palestinians. This, too, should be seen as a career move. They’ve seen the future handwriting on the wall. Israel isn’t very popular anymore.
On the academic front, and by extension deep into other parts of Jewish professional life, I’ve encountered very few Jews who figure Palestinians into their ethical calculations. Just the opposite, almost to a person, Palestinians are looked down upon. Typically, they are relegated to an inferior status as part of the “Arab problem.”
Most Jewish intellectuals are more or less where Romney is on Palestinians – ignorant and racially charged. Isaiah has a mountain to climb in his lifetime. He’ll need to become his own archer.
Rabbi for Human Rights isn’t going to be of much assistance. I’ve known this ever since I ran into the founder of the group, Rabbi David Forman. Some years ago he camped out in Central Texas for the High Holidays to make some big bucks. Now deceased, Forman contacted me in advance of his arrival, asking to speak at my Center for Jewish Studies. I agreed. Then the locals informed him that I invited Palestinians to speak at the Center, the sin of all sins. So Forman sent me a nasty email withdrawing the invitation he had solicited.
Of course, Rabbis for Human Rights have done some good work. Some of the Rabbis went in with the best of intentions and left. Others have stayed but their views have moved beyond the organizational framework. Nonetheless, what needs to be said should be stated, because our Rabbis for Human Rights are in the news again.
The “lynch” incident in Jerusalem’s Zion Square is still making the rounds. There a group of Jews gathered around a few Palestinians, shouting, “Death to Arabs.”Several Palestinians were beaten. One was rendered unconscious and brought to the hospital. It wasn’t the first time. It won’t be the last.
Shocking? Not really.To really know where we are as Jews, check out the Rabbis for Human Rights, North America, website for their response:
In the wake of a violent attack by Israeli teenagers on Palestinian youths, Rabbis for Human Rights-North America calls on rabbis, cantors, Jewish educators, and community leaders to teach our children that hate is not a Jewish value.
Today, a mob of dozens of Israeli teens attacked three Palestinian youths in Jerusalem’s Zion Square. One of the victims was beaten so severely that he required resuscitation and remains in critical condition. Witnesses described the scene as a “lynching” and said that the perpetrators shouted “death to Arabs” and other racist epithets.
As rabbis and cantors, we are shocked and embarrassed by the behavior of these teens. Regardless of our political opinions or our desired resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have a responsibility to teach our children that Judaism condemns the shedding of blood, as all people are equal creations in the divine image.
We applaud the swift action of the Acting Jerusalem Police Chief, General Menachem Yitzhaki, in already setting up a special investigative team for the case. We urge the police and prosecutors to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of this horrific hate crime. And we praise the Magen David Adom rescue team who administered first aid, and the doctors and staff at Hadassah Hospital who continue to care for the victims. These medical personnel embody the Torah’s command, “You shall not stand against the blood of your neighbor.”
On this Shabbat, as we enter the reflective period of the month of Elul, we ask rabbis, cantors, and educators to spend a few minutes speaking with our children and our communities about today’s incident in Jerusalem. These conversations should emphasize that political differences are no excuse for bigotry. We pray that our children will help us to realize a world free of hatred or violence.
“Hate is not a Jewish value.” Nonetheless, it has become a value in the Jewish community, just as long as you don’t express it openly.
“The Rabbis and Cantors are shocked by the behavior of these teens.” Instead, they should be shocked by the behavior of Jewish adults, themselves included, as perpetrators and enablers of this kind of behavior. Who sets the structure that encourages and sanctions this behavior on a systemic level? Not the teenagers. They’re just acting out the system.
On the Torah’s command, well, Rabbis and Cantors, the learned of our community, the “authentic” Jews of the world, be wary of the slippery slope you enter. Because if Palestinians are our neighbors, then they have to be accorded equal political rights.
Human rights without political rights is the non-starters of all non-starters. It leaves individuals and communities helpless. It’s not about being rescued after you’re beaten because the political and ethical system sponsored by Israel and Judaism relegates Palestinians to the nether world of human rights. It’s about justice which is nowhere to be found in a self-righteousness condemnation of others.
Entering the Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur season, the Rabbis and Cantors appeal to Jewish educators to spend a few minutes with the children they teach. Emphasis: “Political differences are no excuse for bigotry.” A more apolitical discrimination enabling message I can’t imagine. I think it would be more honest to say that the Rabbis and Cantors of our community and Rabbis for Human Rights support the ethnic cleansing and segregation of Palestinians to small enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza as our right and as our destiny. But, as with our household help, we are reminded to be respectful of the humanity of the Other.
The message from the Rabbis for Human Rights reminds me of Yitzhak Rabin’s description of Baruch Goldstein, the murderer/martyr of recent Jewish history, as an “errant weed” who grew up in the swamps of Jewish life, by which he meant New York, I believe. The real lesson of Goldstein was that he wasn’t errant at all. Nor was he a weed, at least a weed that flowers. Goldstein was a totally predictable outgrowth of Israeli state policies and Jewishness as it is taught and embodied in the Gold Age of Constantinian Judaism. Of which the Rabbis for Human Rights, like Tikkun, is its Left-wing.
What a Golden Age. Where we spend a few minutes with our children. To wash away our sins.
Wouldn’t it be more accurate to call them Rabbis for Jewish Human and Political Rights? When things get too outrageous or, better, when things are too obvious, then we must talk to our children about hate.
Rabbis for Jewish Human and Political Rights. Speak the truth to our children.
Nobody is supposed to notice, especially we American Gentiles. Goldstein was born and reared in America, and massacred the praying Arabs as a dual citizen I imagine. Or did he declare his intent at some point to the US government to drop his American citizenship? Do tell.
Prof. Ellis,
In my message about your article from yesterday I wrote that I thought the term “Constantinian Christianity” should better be termed a “Christian State” or “State Church”, since by “Constantinian Christianity” you refer to the linking of the state and the religion.
The term “Constantinian Christianity” or even “state Christianity” would mean the beliefs of Christianity as affected by its relationship to the state. However, Christianity’s beliefs in Constantine’s time did not set as a goal or orient itself to the state in a political sense. Putting aside the fact that some argue Constantine did change Christianity’s theological beliefs, those beliefs did not link it to the state.
Furthermore, I remember hearing that Constantine primarily legalized Christianity, and it was only later that it became “the” official religion of the empire. So I think this very strong political “linking of the state to Christianity”, which you refer to as “Constantinian Christianity” did happen, but it was not the case in Constantine’s time.
I am thorougly relieved. If you now could use pseudo-Zen-archer, instead of Nazi Zen archer, I would be even more. Although I admit, it was an interesting running gag.
Everyone should carry their own burdon. Don’t you think? Again, Herrigel’s teacher/master wasn’t a Zen scholar, no matter how many copies of Herrigel’s book are sold as Zen, it thus can’t be a book about Zen.
RE: “Goldstein was a totally predictable outgrowth of Israeli state policies and Jewishness as it is taught and embodied in the Gold Age of Constantinian Judaism.” ~ Marc Ellis
ALSO SEE: “Brothers go on trial in beating of black teen in their neighborhood”, By Associated Press, 4/22/12
SOURCE – http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/22/11337920-brothers-go-on-trial-in-beating-of-black-teen-in-their-neighborhood
P.S. AND SEE: “Eliyahu Werdesheim convicted in Md. neighborhood watch beating case”, By CBS/AP, 5/04/12
LINK – http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57427908-504083/eliyahu-werdesheim-convicted-in-md-neighborhood-watch-beating-case/
Judaism condemns shedding blood? Yet in occupied Palestine how many Palestinians were martyred just last month, not to mention the 1400 Palestinians that the IDF killed 4 years ago during its war upon Gaza, nor the 17,000 Palestinians and Lebanese that the IDF killed in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon? By all means condemn hate, but how can this be effective without condemning Zionism, the ideology which fosters the hate for arabs which begets the shedding of arab blood? about as effective as condemning Germans for their hatred of Jews in the last century would have been without simultaneously condemning the Nazi ideology which introduced industrial scale mass murder to the world. which means that suggesting that judaism abhors murder without condemning zionism, not only is an exercise in futility, it’s some sort of hoax, because if zionism = judaism, as its adherents claim, then either our religion has been hijacted by ethnosupremacists or those of us who base our identification as jews on the belief that the essence of judaism is social justice and equality are mistaken.