I try to keep up on official Jewish claims about the oneness of Judaism and Zionism, and here is an important statement on that score from last May that I just saw.
Days after Israel’s war with Gaza sparked unprecedented outrage in the west, Rabbi Wendi Geffen gave a sermon to her Reform congregation in suburban Chicago about the “new antisemitism” in which she said that anti-Zionist Jews are “Jews in name only” who must be kept out of the Jewish “tent.”
There are boundaries to that tent. And those begin when a person engages in word or action that seeks to destroy Israel or the Jewish people. Or enables or condones violence in support of extremist ideology or theology. There is no place for any of that in the big tent.
The rabbi went on to explain that “the vast majority” of Jews support Israel and that anti-Zionist Jews who say that Zionism and progressive values are a contradiction are “more dangerous” to the Jewish people than the rightwing antisemites who shoot up synagogues.
But within the vast majority of those in that tent, we must as individuals and a community reject the assertion that you either care about the Jews in Israel, or you care about others in the world, and that you cannot be both.
This is a false dichotomy. It belies the core of what it means to be a Jew. I am a Zionist and I want Palestinian suffering to stop. I am a believer in the possibility of coexistence. I am a person who has built my career and my life on the foundational assumption that a diversity of viewpoints can be held and sustained in one community, and at the very same time I can build alliances and friendships across all sorts of other diverse groups. This is not a betrayal to either.
And to suggest as such is no less and perhaps even more– if we’re honest– dangerous to the Jewish people than any external antisemitic threat.
During a 15-minute sermon, the rabbi had nothing to say about a matter that has caused great disaffection among Jews: the lopsided conflict that ended a week earlier, in which Israeli missiles leveled office buildings and killed 256 people in blockaded Gaza, while Palestinian militants killed 13 in Israel.
That onslaught helped fuel a survey last summer showing that 38 percent of young Jews believe that Israel practices apartheid, and 20 percent say Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state. Those are Geffen’s “Jews in name only.” Though here’s a new book all about such Jews!
Geffen is the senior rabbi at a congregation that prizes diversity. She opened her sermon to North Shore Congregation Israel by quoting the rightwing Israeli leader Natan Scharansky saying that while classic antisemitism targeted Jewish people or the Jewish religion, the “new antisemitism” is aimed at the Jewish state. And this hatred “is advanced in the name of values most of us would consider unimpeachable, such as human rights.”
Geffen said that while the new antisemitism may be “dressed up differently… underneath, it’s the same insidious old hatred.”
It always finds a way to slither itself into our lives and into our world.
Right and leftwing antisemites get along with each other.
Despite whatever hatred each side has for the other, We must remember that those extremes find alignment and agreement over their shared hatred of the Jew…. Both revolve around the utter devaluation and negation of the Jew.
Geffen said criticism of Israel was merely the cloak for leftwing Jew hatred.
A word about Israel related antisemitism. Whether or not a Jewish person loves or hates Israel, the antisemite sees no difference. Just ask our college students who’ve been asked whether or not they are Jewish before they can participate in a social justice activity on campus, and if they answer yes, they are then asked to take a loyalty oath disavowing Zionism in all its forms. No one else is asked that question.
Geffen asserted that leftwing antisemitic influencers online “equate Jews– not the Israeli government, not Israelis– but Jews, with Hitler.” She said that her own 12-year-old daughter, who follows fashion and arts & crafts on Tiktok and twitter, asked her days before, “Why does everyone she follows hate the Jews and call us murderers?” (I am sure that many leftwingers made such assertions about Israel, but if Israel = Jews, you can see why Geffen’s daughter reached that conclusion.)
Geffen said with emphasis that antisemitism deserves the same “sole and full attention” that other forms of hate receive.
When some politician or pundit disavows antisemitism and then follows it up with ‘and all other forms of hate’, it’s the very same thing as claiming ‘All lives matter’ in the face of African Americans! It’s just one more way of denying the Jews our full agency and claim.
Reaching her conclusion, the rabbi said that Jews need to have new ways of discussing antisemitism. And here she branched into Jewish identity and exalted the idea of Jewish particularism.
We need to remember that the very best way to fight antisemitism is to be proud Jews and Jewish families. Not Jews in name only! Not Jews who disavow their particularism in the name of universal. But rather Jews who embrace particular Jewish thinking and practice it– and they practice that not just within their Jewish community but outside of it in the communities with which and with whom they engage as well. To be a Jew in its fullest sense is to be both of these things….
Yes, we have to look out for ourselves. You always look to your own house first. But we are called upon to do more. And that involves upholding our particular Jewish mission, as Elie Wiesel taught, Not to make the world more Jewish but to make this world more human.
I agree with Geffen that people are tribal, and that particularist ethnic/religious communities give people comfort and meaning. We see it everywhere. But many anti-Zionist Jews I know have come to reject the particularism because they weary of seeing it invoked to insulate Zionism and Israel from accountability for serious crimes, from apartheid to persecution, in the name of the “nation state” of the Jews. When these Jews are forced to choose a community based on such values or excommunication, they readily choose excommunication, and seek out other communities for shelter, communities that include many Jews.
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“It is also important to remember that Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law; all of the settlements, and not just the ones considered illegal by the Israeli government. The Peace Now report documents that the most extreme settler violence comes from those settlements that even Israeli law considers illegal. Even though they are illegal under Israeli law, they are hooked to Israeli infrastructure such as electricity, roads, and water and most importantly, are protected by the Israeli army. I have witnessed this violence first hand and many friends and fellow activists have been the victims of the settlers’ violence. What seems quite clear is that the violence is not random and not by chance – this is policy. The aim of the policy is to facilitate additional illegal land confiscation in order to expand Israeli settlement control of large areas of the West Bank.
“Israel is an occupying power in the West Bank. The legal sovereign according to international law is the commander of Israeli forces in the occupied territory. Under international law, known as the Fourth Geneva Convention (Convention IV relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War – Geneva, 12 August 1949), the occupying power is directly responsible for the security and safety of the occupied people. The Israeli army is supposed to protect the Palestinian civilian non-combatants under international law.”
Hey, Rabbi Geffen, maybe a word on the steadily increasing violence the settlers are visiting on the Palestinians?
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211123-israel-activist-calls-for-weapons-to-protect-palestinians-from-settler-violence/
Israel activist calls for ‘weapons to protect Palestinians’ from settler violence…Left-wing Jewish Israeli activist, Haim Shadmi, asked the Knesset on Sunday to allow him to bear arms to protect Palestinians from Jewish settler violence which they experience on a daily basis, the Jerusalem Post reported.
The zionists are willing to attack their own for not supporting their crimes against humanity.
They have attacked journalists, politicians, activists, celebrities, international human rights agencies, the UN, leaders who dare to criticize their endless crimes , so why not their own people who do not toe the line?
They threaten, harass, demonize, and make examples of those brave enough to speak out. It is ugly, but then the zionists have always played these ugly games, trying to control anyone that disagrees with their tactics. This Rabbi should be ashamed of her attitude.
In the real world, the statement, “I am a Zionist and I want Palestinian suffering to stop,” is a contradiction. In some alternate universe, where Zionists made aliyah intending to become loyal members of existing Palestinian society, such a statement might make sense. That has not been the reality since the First Zionist Congress in 1897, when “political Zionism” took over the movement. Such Jewish nationalism, the desire for political power as a group identity within Palestine (and elsewhere), caused Nathan Birnbaum (who had originated the term “Zionism”) to distance himself from the Congress and eventually the movement itself. He later became a fervent anti-Zionist.
Thus, Jewish tribalism and the contradictory goals of “democracy” and Jewish political power within a land already heavily populated with non-Jews has dominated the Zionist movement since 1897. For many years, Zionists hid this contradiction by publicly claiming they desired to treat the indigenous people as equals while secretly planning to replace and deport them. This lie has been the core of Zionism ever since 1897. Benny Morris exposed it on pages 21-22 of Righteous Victims by comparing a letter Herzl wrote to an Arab notable in 1896, “that Zionism did not pose a threat of displacement for the Arab inhabitants of Palestine,” with Herzl’s diary entry from 1895, “We must expropriate gently.. . . We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country…. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.” Ze’ev Jabotinsky exposed the deception in the 1930s, but Israeli “leftists” kept it alive for another half century.
The fundamental contradiction of “democracy” and Jewish rule in Palestine has led to confusion among Gentiles and Jews alike. Albert Einstein, who thought of himself as a “cultural Zionist” and humanitarian, secretly lobbied Nehru to vote for the 1947 partition plan that established a Zionist state in Palestine, then was “shocked, shocked” by the new state’s treatment of the Arab population and subsequently declined the presidency of Israel. Palestinians, who found themselves the objects of discrimination in Mandatory Palestine and of ethnic cleansing in 1947-48 have never been confused.
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Zionism is proving to be Judaism’s curse!! No surprise!!
West Bank settler violence is terrorism, a form of apartheid – opinion – The Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)
“West Bank settler violence is terrorism and a form of apartheid – opinion””If Israel is a state of law, then the only conclusion one can reach is that the law of the territories is a form of apartheid.” The Jerusalem Post, Nov. 25/21, by Gershon Baskin.
EXCERPT:
“Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and Israeli peace and human rights activists is on the rise. Not only are there more incidents of settler violence, the intensity of their attacks against innocent Palestinians and Israeli activists has resulted in death, serious injuries and a lot of damaged property. The violent settlers attack Palestinian shepherds, farmers, olive trees, homes, water wells and cars. They descend from the hilltops of their illegal communities, faces covered with masks, carrying stones, clubs, pepper spray and guns and attack with viciousness and malicious intent to cause pain.
“This violence is terrorism and is meant to terrorize the Palestinians all over the West Bank. Settler violence is carried out under the protection of Israeli soldiers. The soldiers stand by and watch and if they intervene, it is against the Palestinian victims and Israeli peace and human rights activists who come to protect the innocent Palestinians. The behavior of soldiers is a clear indication that they are there to protect the Israeli settlers, regardless of their provocations and violent attacks against Palestinians and their property. The behavior of the settlers and the army seems to be a clear expression of Israeli policy – the purpose: to induce Palestinians in area C of the West Bank to leave their homes and property.
“On Monday this week, MKs Mossi Raz (Meretz), Ibtisam Mara’ana-Menuhin (Labor) and Osama Saadi (Joint List) convened an important hearing in the Knesset on the rise of settler violence against Palestinians and Israeli human rights and peace activists. The sharp rise in settler violence is clearly documented in three very detailed reports issued by Peace Now, Breaking the Silence and Yesh Din. It is important to remember that the entire settlement enterprise is an expression of violence against the Palestinian people. In fact, the Israeli military occupation which is now 54 years old is state-sponsored violence. (cont’d)