Although comedian and talk-show host Bill Maher was lambasting the Democratic Party when he said it is fine with religion “as long as that faith isn’t Jewish,” his paradigm can be applied to the new version of anti-Zionist Jews of a revived Diaspora mentality. Even Brad Lander, Democratic Party nominee for New York’s 10th congressional district, now knows. Of them it could be said, “As long as that Judaism isn’t theirs, those Jews mean very little to them.”
Ever since the days of the sixth-century BCE Babylonian exile, Jews have chosen two paths. There were those who chose to “ascend” to the land, and throughout the centuries, Jews did that, despite the difficulties traveling to Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, Tiberias and other places, and continuing to reside therein.
The second path, of course, was to remain in the lands of dispersion but hope to “ascend” to the Land of Israel, identify with it, support it and those living there financially, and see it as the eventual ultimate realization of Judaism’s redemption.
A third path was always available—to simply drop out completely through assimilation or conversion; in other words, to thoroughly “un-Jew” oneself.
Until the late 19th century, connections between the Land of Israel and the Diaspora were strong. Travel took place between the two concentrations of Jews; economic support came from abroad; and Torah learning was shared between scholars.
This framework of Jewish existence remained at the foundation of Jewish identity.
Israel is the Jewish homeland, and while most Jews choose to live elsewhere, they continued to declare “Next year in Jerusalem” at the annual Passover seder. The Haskalah Movement of enlightenment, emergence of the Reform Movement and appearance of Chassidic antipathy of Chabad’s Rebbe Rashab and the Satmar-cum-Neturei Karta ultra-Orthodox in negating any human interference in God’s presumed plan for Redemption set in motion the rise of an unnatural principled antagonistic opposition, actively interfering with an organized return to the land.
Today’s continuing attempts by Jews who deny Jewish nationality and refuse to accept Israel as a homeland to which a Jew should feel both a historical connection, as well as the defining framework of the Jewish people, remain unfathomable.
You don’t want to live in Israel, you don’t like the food, the atmosphere of its political, cultural and religious character, you fear for your security or livelihood … OK, Israelis will understand you distancing yourself.
But at this moment in Jewish history, that a minority of the Jewish people—one very visible and extremely audible—insists not only in distancing themselves from any identification with Zionism, but in denouncing and disavowing the very idea of a Jewish state is serving the forces of antisemitism.
I don’t think there is any other example among the nations of the world of a tiny portion of their population so intent and persistent in castigating their roots and engaging in twisting their people’s history, religion, shared ethnicity and culture in such a ferocious fashion as those who wave about their Jewishness “As A Jew,” but tell those around them saying “that’s not me!”
They will recite Kaddish for Hamas terrorists. They will demonstrate on the Sabbath and blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah in the streets of Brooklyn, N.Y. They will volunteer on behalf of sick Gazans, but get repaid by the Nukhba invaders. They delight in seeing the commandment to dwell in the Land of Israel redefined as an act of genocidal colonialization and tolerate, willingly, the obscenest and most virulent anti-Jewish expressions since the fall of the German Third Reich.
They are willing to demand that Israel shed its statehood and sovereignty, and become a “home,” à la journalist Peter Beinart, to campaign against extending Israel the support any other state under siege would deserve, à la Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). Or to disengage from the core elements of Jewish peoplehood, as comedian and talk-show host Jon Stewart did in his podcast with Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), distinguishing as he did between the Jewish “community” and Israel (here at 50 minutes).
It’s simply going out of your way to sanctify a Diaspora existence.
They have revived a neo-Bundism as Mary Crabapple’s new book is attempting to achieve and as various groupuscules have been doing in Britain and elsewhere who define themselves as “Diasporist.” There is even now a Jewish Diaspora Movement (a nonsensical oxymoron as they wish to remain where they are) that “embrace[s] life-affirming, vibrant, diverse expressions of Jewishness and a commitment to all peoples’ liberation.”
Shaul Magid writes a book on the necessity of exile, although, as the name of the publishing house is Ayin, which, if written in Hebrew with an alef, means “total negation,” would seem self-abnegating. David Kraemer has published Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora, which, among other aims, “corrects the imbalance of many modern Jewish histories and ideologies, which assume that Jews have always put Zion first.”
They have crossed a line
At this time, we witness Jews falsely deriding Israel as an entity of murderous terror that commits a (failed) genocide and fully identifying with its enemies—those who for more than a century have attempted to kill as many Jews as possible, no matter where they resided in the Land of Israel. And they aim to weaken Israel’s security, lending cover to outrageous propaganda campaigns and excusing those who wish Israel harm, and that spills over to Jew-hunting in streets, halls and restaurants.
They have crossed a line in their promotion of Diaspora over homeland. Can we dismiss them as being antisemitic or providing assistance to antisemites?
I would suggest that without antisemitism and without an undercurrent of disliking Jews, anti-Zionism is ineffective. It provides the platform for non-Jews to join in accepting anti-Zionism. I further believe that the leading Jewish anti-Zionists and pro-Diasporians know that.
As Alexandre Journo recently published on the K-Larevue website, a psychological urge is at work. The “anti-Zionism [of Jews],” he formulated, “consists of cherishing total irresponsibility in order to consolidate a sense of moral comfort.”
Unlike the Jews of Babylon who remained in exile, we witness Jews who not only consecrate the Diaspora and intellectuals willingly blinding themselves to vicious prejudices, but who actively assault, in league with antisemites, those Jews living in the Jewish homeland.
Although Maher was lambasting the Democratic Party when he said it is fine with religion “as long as that faith isn’t Jewish,” his paradigm can be applied to the new version of anti-Zionist Jews of a revived Diasporism. Of them, it could be said: “As long as that Judaism isn’t theirs, those Jews mean very little to them.”
Jewish anti-Zionists should know that without antisemitism, that of the Marxist left and of Islamist ideology, anti-Zionism is ineffective. And after these past three years, I dare say, surely they do.
