Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

The Sandy Koufax precedent

On a completely different note, why is this team so good? Arent Jews in the Diaspora supposed to be studious scholars who pore over books all day? So first, a clarification: The fact that a team of American Jews has been winning at an international baseball tournament is surprising because the team doesnt include the most successful Jewish players in Major League Baseballlike Alex Bregman, Ryan Braun and Ian Kinsler. Actually, this Israeli team is just a footnote in the glorious Jewish history of Americas pastime.

At the inaugural Jewish American Heritage Month celebration in May 2010, President Barack Obama remarked, Weve got senators and representatives, weve got Supreme Court justices and successful entrepreneurs, rabbinical scholars, Olympic athletesand Sandy Koufax.

Koufax is widely considered one of the greatest pitchers of all time, Jewish or not. He earned his place in Jewish history, though, thanks to his decision to sit out game one of the 1965 World Series game because it coincided with Yom Kippur. He later won that years World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers and was named series MVP.

David Trager, a Brooklyn judge who also taught at Tel Aviv University, succinctly explained the meaning of Koufaxs Yom Kippur act. He said, Our parents generation was religious, but they still worked on the Sabbath.In the workshops and even at respectable companies, if you didnt work on Yom Kippur you were fired. Koufax didnt justify his decision with big words about religious faith. He was a completely secular man. He simply said, The Dodgers know I dont work on Yom Kippur. He set the precedent that, like any American, Jews can tell their employers that there are days when they dont work.

But Koufax wasnt the first. Thirty years before him, Detroit Tigers slugger Hank Greenberg also sat out a crucial game on Yom Kippur, at a time when Michigan faced a wave of anti-Semitism that was fanned by industrialist Henry Ford.

Israels sports landscape

American Jews are far better at sports than Israeli Jews. Jewish-American athletes have racked up more than 100 Olympic gold medalsto Israels one gold medal. It isnt about the quality of Jewish life in America. Even the Jews of Hungary won 50 gold medals under terrible anti-Semitism. Rather, an athlete performs well when the athletes in the surrounding environment are highly skilled. No Chinese child plays soccer as well as Argentine children. Similarly, Israel wont produce American-caliber baseball stars.

Yet theres no need to bash the Israeli sports landscape, and no need to slam Israels national soccer or basketball teams for not being as prolific as this newly renowned baseball team. The players that comprise the baseball team hail from a baseball superpower, America, even if they represent a different country at the WBC, Israel, that isnt an athletic superpower of any kind.

The Israeli baseball teams American players, meanwhile, arent likely to become heroes in Israel anytime soon. But due to their achievements on the international stage, the world finally knows that Jews are good at baseball.

This op-ed first appeared in Israel Hayom, whose English-language content is distributed in the U.S. exclusively by JNS.org.

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Posted By richards on March 11, 2017

ATLANTA -- Amid a surge of bomb threats and vandalism at Jewish institutions nationwide, members of Atlanta's Jewish community have felt a familiar wave of apprehension about what might come next.

In this Oct. 13, 1958, file photo, authorities investigate the scene of a bomb blast at The Temple on Peachtree Street in Atlanta. If the blast had oc...

Because all of that -- and worse -- has happened in the city before.

Six decades ago, during the turmoil of the Civil Rights era, 50 sticks of dynamite blasted a ragged hole in Atlanta's largest synagogue. A generation earlier, in 1915, Jewish businessman Leo Frank was lynched during a wave of anti-Semitism. A variation on this story was the basis for the 1937 Claude Rains film, They Won't Forget.

Some fear history is once again arcing toward the viperous climate that set the stage for the earlier violence.

"It's heartbreaking to see the attacks and threats and desecration of Jewish cemeteries in recent days," said playwright Jimmy Maize, whose play The Temple Bombing is on stage this month at Atlanta's Alliance Theater. "I have to say that writing this play feels too much like history repeating itself."

His play, which addresses anti-Semitism, fear and courage through the drama of the 1958 explosion, was inspired by a book by Atlanta author Melissa Fay Greene.

"We learned over several decades the power of hate speech," Greene said. "It can lead to people being harmed and killed."

Recently, more than 100 headstoneswere discovered toppled or damaged at a Jewish cemetery in Philadelphia. Jewish community centers and schools in several states also have been targets of recent bomb scares.

On March 3, federal officials said a 31-year-old man is a suspect in at least eight of the threats made against Jewish institutions nationwide, and a bomb threat to New York's Anti-Defamation League.

Atlanta has played a prominent role in American Jewish life since the late 1800s. Jewish immigrants began some of its most successful businesses, according to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

Atlanta was at the forefront of the new, industrial South, and many of its factories were Jewish-owned, said Jeremy Katz, archives director at Atlanta's William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum.

Jewish businessmen gained respect and became community leaders. But their success also led to anti-Semitism from Southerners who felt left behind by the changing economy, said Stuart Rockoff, the former historian for the Institute of Southern Jewish Life.

"There was this push and pull, and it was kind of a powder keg that ignited with the Leo Frank case," Katz said. "Before the Frank case, Jews were fairly accepted in the community because social lines were drawn by color of skin rather than religion, so Jews really flourished in the South."

Everything changed on a spring day in 1913, when 13-year-old factory worker Mary Phagan was found strangled in the cellar of Atlanta's National Pencil Co. Frank, the factory's manager, was arrested and put on trial. As newspaper articles inflamed anti-Semitic passions in and around Atlanta, he was convicted and sentenced to death.

Georgia Gov. John Slaton, convinced Frank was innocent, commuted his sentence to life in prison. In August 1915, a mob snatched Frank from the state prison in Milledgeville and drove him to Marietta, where Phagan had lived, and hanged him from an oak tree.

"The Leo Frank case showed that Jews were not immune from that type of violence and discrimination," Rockoff said.

In the following years, many Jews didn't speak of the Frank case.

But by the late 1940s, Rabbi Jacob Rothschild at The Temple in Atlanta had begun speaking out against racial injustice in Atlanta, said his son, William Rothschild. Some believe that made the synagogue a target for extremists.

The bomb exploded about 3:30 a.m. Oct. 12, 1958. A few hours later, during Sunday morning classes, "there would have been hundreds of children in the building," said Peter Berg, now senior rabbi at The Temple. But the children hadn't yet arrived, and no one was injured.

"I remember feeling emptiness," recalls Carol Zaban Cooper of Atlanta, who was 14 when her synagogue was bombed, and went on to become active with the Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta. "I felt hollow, numb."

Alfred Uhry, author of the play and movie Driving Miss Daisy, attended The Temple as a child and had just moved to New York when it was bombed. He recalls the horror he felt after seeing a photo of the destruction in The New York Times.

"It showed a side of the building blown off, and I had gone to Sunday school there," Uhry said.

A bombing suspect's first trial ended with a hung jury and the second with an acquittal.

Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield said "every political rabble-rouser is the godfather of these cross burners and dynamiters who sneak about in the dark and give a bad name to the South."

Atlanta Constitution editor Ralph McGill called it a harvest of hate. One day after the blast he wrote, "It is the harvest of defiance of courts and the encouragement of citizens to defy law on the part of many Southern politicians."

"To be sure, none said go bomb a Jewish temple or a school," he added in the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial. "But let it be understood that when leadership in high places in any degree fails to support constituted authority, it opens the gate to all those who wish to take law into their own hands."

Racial hatred put everyone in danger, McGill wrote.

"When the wolves of hate are loosed on one people, then no one is safe."

Religion on 03/11/2017

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Posted By richards on March 10, 2017

Olive oil jar 8,000 years old

Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority

The Reward A little girl complained to her father that her chores are too difficult. The father, a chef, invited her to the kitchen and put up three pots to boil. In the first he placed a potato, in the second an egg and in the third, a coffee bean. Twenty minutes later, he showed his daughter his handiwork. You see, said the father, hard work raises your temperature, but it all depends on how you react. The potato goes in hard, but comes out shriveled and soft. The egg goes in soft, but changes into something brittle and hard. The coffee is unique. It doesnt change. On the contrary, it changes the water to create something better.

The Talmud describes the painstaking process of producing oil for the Temples candelabra. Only the first drop of oil could be used from each olive because only the purest oil was permitted. However, oil used for the meal offerings did not need to be as pure. It was permissible to use the first drop, but not necessary. One was also permitted to use the second or third drop.[1]

Producing a full cup of oil from the first drop is hard work, but good people dont shy away from hard work. It is only through hard work that we find ourselves; that we discover who we really are. It is easier to take the soft path, but the challenging path is more rewarding. The hard path gives us a chance to make something better of ourselves. It allows us to become pure.

A man once asked G-d to tell him his purpose in life. G-d replied that his purpose was to push a mountain. After months of pushing the man complained that it was a fools errand, the mountain had yet to move. G-d explained, I never told you to move the mountain, I only told you to push it. Look at how much stronger you have grown in the past few months as you exercised your muscles and pushed the mountain.

Hard work is not a means to an end. Hard work is the end.

The Talmud teaches us not to believe someone, who claims to have worked hard to no avail. [2] Many have wondered why such a claim isnt believable. Isnt it possible to fail even if we work hard? Some explain that if you failed, you didnt work hard enough. Others say the reason is much simpler. Hard work is its own reward. If you have worked hard, you are already a success. Whether you achieved or failed, you have succeeded.

Runners know that tacking on an extra minute to the end of their run is harder than the entire run put together. Do you know how they know this? Because they have tried it, again and again. If it is so hard, why do they keep doing it? Because they know that this extra minute is worth more in character and muscle building than the entire run put together.

Means and End This raises a question. If hard work is self rewarding, why do we consider the workaholic syndrome unhealthy?

The answer is as direct as it is simple. When work is a means to an end, the hard work has no value in if the end can be achieved without hard work. If the purpose of work is to earn money and one can earn enough without excessively hard work, it is wiser to work less and spend more time with family. The inability to bring oneself to do that is indicative of an obsession or illness.

But hard work that is not a means, but an end to itself, is its own reward. When it comes to Torah and G-dliness, no amount of toil is excessive because the labor is not a means to an end, the toil is its own end. When it comes to earning a living, too much toil is excessive if you can make do with less.

This is the deeper reason for why only the first drop can be used for the candelabra, but that the oil for the meal offerings can be comprised of the second and third drops too. The candelabra represents Torah and Mitzvah and you cant have a connection with G-d until you have paired down your ego and that is achieved through hard work. The harder we work, the more we pair down our ego and the closer we get to G-d. There is therefore no limit on how much hard work is enough.

Meal offerings, which represent our earning capacity and economic abilities dont have to entail hard work. If we can make enough money without working hard, it does us no good to work hard. It is permissible to work hard if it is necessary, but it is unwise to work hard if it is unnecessary. Better to use the extra time for more important things.

Learning and Learning A student once told his teacher that he learned the entire Torah. The teacher congratulated the student, but asked a probing question. I understand that you learned the Torah, but what did you learn from the Torah? What did the Torah teach you?

One can master the entire Torah and fail to be mastered by it. Fail to turn into something better. This is because the student did not apply himself to his studies. He failed to probe the personally relevant meanings and find the self-help techniques embedded in each verse. When I was a child, my teacher told us that one should bend over the Talmud, not let the Talmud bend over him. Dont sit back and tilt the large book toward you. Sit forward and lean into the book.

Leaning into the book means that we mold ourselves to the Torah rather than mold the Torah to us. We humble ourselves and become the Torahs student. We seek to be mastered by the Torah rather than become its master. We work hard and apply ourselves and then the Torah will help us grow.

True Torah scholars are devoted to their studies. Nothing is more important to them. They constantly push themselves to study more, to apply themselves more. Each day a little more than yesterday because as it is with runners, so it is with Torahthe more you push yourself beyond your norm, the more personal barriers you will break and the more you will release your true potential.

We dont emerge from the hard work of Torah study hardened and brittle. We dont emerge from the hard work of Mitzvah observance, broken and soft. We emerge with joy and alacrity prepared to make this world a purer, holier and better place.[3]

[1] Babylonian Talmud,Menachos 86a & 86b.

[2] Babylonian Talmud, Megilah 6b.

[3] This essay is culled from commentary by LTorah Ulmoadim by Rabbi Yosef Zevin on Exodus 27:20.

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Posted By richards on March 10, 2017

Devin Naar says Ladino connects Jews with Latinos and Muslims, two communities he considers marginalized in Trumps America. (Meryl Schenker Photography/The Stroum Center for Jewish Studies at Washington University)

(JTA) One-year-old Vidal doesnt know the significance behind the lullaby his father sings him at bedtime. He knows it helps him fall asleep, but notthat the Ladino song is part of an effort to teach himwhat served asthe lingua franca of Sephardi Jews of the Ottoman Empire for over 500 years.

And he doesnt know that whenhe says his first words, he will join a shrinking cadre of Ladino speakers, most of them elderly, who hold the keys to a culture that is on the brink of extinction.

To lose a language is to lose a world, and were on the cusp of that,his father, Devin Naar, told JTA.

Naar, a professor of Sephardic studies at the University of Washington, is deeply passionate about preserving Ladino which is also known as Judeo-Spanish, Judezmo or Judio the language his grandfathers family spoke in their native Greece. By teaching Vidal Ladino, Naar hopes to fulfill a longtime dream of transmitting itslegacyto his son.

In recent months, theres something else at stake too. The 33-year-old Seattle resident sees the linguistic roots of Ladino, which include Hebrew, Spanish, Turkish and Arabic, as providing a way to connect Jews with Latinos and Muslims.Preserving Ladino is a specific political act of resistance in Trumps America, Naar said.

Its a language of linguistic fusion that is based in Spanish but really brings together a lot of other linguistic elements that I think give it a special resonance, especially in todays world, because it serves as bridge language between different cultures between Jewish culture, between Spanish culture and between the Muslim world, Naar said.

President Donald Trump has signed executive orders to builda wall between the U.S. and Mexico and to banimmigrants from some Muslim majority countries.

If Trump is interested in building a wall, Judezmo serves as a bridge, and I think that we need bridges such as this in our time, Naarsaid.

Naars grandfather came to the United States with most of his familyin 1924 from Salonica, Greece, in the midst of discriminatory measures being passed against Jews there. Family members left behind later perished inthe Holocaust, along with 95 percent of the citys Jews.

In the U.S., there were other difficulties. Naars grandfather heard anti-Semitic slurs and other insults from bigots who mistook him forSouth American or Middle Eastern.

Speaking Ladino serves as a method of reclaiming that heritage and activating that heritage not only for personal and family reasons but for political reasons, Naar said.

Devin Naars grandfather, far right, in Salonica, Greece, in the early 1920s, before they moved to the U.S. (Courtesy of Naar)

Ladino emerged following the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, when the communitydispersed throughout the Ottoman Empire and came in contact with local languages as well as different Iberian dialects. At its height in the beginning of the 20th century, the languagehad abouthalf a million speakers, Naar estimated.

Estimates of current Ladino speakers vary widely, from between 160,000-300,000 people with some familiarity withthe language to around 50,000-100,000 speakers. Most of the population today is elderly, but there is renewedinterest in the language in some universities in the U.S. and Israel as well asamong Sephardi Jews.

Teaching VidalLadino has its challenges there is no complete English-Ladino dictionary and most speakers are older.Naarwas recently reading Vidal a childrens book about a dinosaur with slippery flippers and found himselfat a loss for how to translate that expression into Ladino. He consulted a scholar in Israel and a local Ladino speaker to get it right.

Its a learning process for me, both speaking to him and recognizing the limits of my vocabulary and trying to expand my vocabulary, Naarsaid.

But he isnt alone. Naar enlisted the help of a Seattle-basedgroup of elderly Ladino speakers, who translated Little Red Riding Hood into the language as a gift to Vidal. And his wife, Andrea, speaks to their sonin a mix of English, Spanish and Ladino.

Rachel Amado Bortnick, the founder of an online community for Ladino speakers, told JTA thatshe had only heard of one other casein the last decade of a child being taught to speak Ladino.

Theres no community that uses it daily its very challenging, to put it mildly, to actually pass on the language in the way that a person like me grew up in, said Bortnick, who learned Ladino as a child in her native Turkey.

Naars interest in the language goes back to his family history. He grew up hearing his grandfather and older relatives speak the language.

But by the time he started college in 2001, he had only learned a few words: greetings, curses, food-related words and liturgical passages. Questions from classmates about his last name, which did not sound like the Ashkenazi Jewish names they were familiar with, motivated him to dig deeper into his heritage.

He started studying Sephardi history and asked his grandfather to teach him Ladino.

A year later, Naar was able to read letters detailing the fate of family members who had perished in Auschwitz. The letters, written in Ladino by a family friend after World War II, had been tucked away in a closet, and some of Naars family members had been unaware of their existence and the details they provided ofthe deaths of family members.

The older generation, they couldnt believe it. They hadnt heard somebody speak like that in years, so that was very powerful for me, Naar said.

Now hes doing his part to pass the language on to the next generation and with it, a set of values.

One of my goals in trying to teach Vidal Ladino would be so that he has a sense of connection and awareness, not only of where he comes from, but also how the culture that he is connected to is connected to many other people, so that if he sees that immigrants in general or Spanish-speaking immigrants or Muslims in America are being maligned, I hope that he would be inspired to stand up.

Devin Naar is reading his son, Vidal, childrens books in Ladino as well as translating books from English into the language. (Courtesy of Naar)

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Posted By richards on March 10, 2017

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Posted By richards on March 10, 2017

Israel Hayom

Friday March 10, 2017 Israel Hayom At the inaugural Jewish American Heritage Month celebration in May, 2010, Obama remarked: "We've got senators and representatives, we've got Supreme Court justices and successful entrepreneurs, rabbinical scholars, Olympic athletes -- and Sandy ... and more »

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Email a copy of "Yes, Churchill Really Was a Friend of Jews and Zionism" to a friend

Winston Churchill. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Revisionism is a long-standing cottage industry when it comes to Winston Churchill. Now Michael J. Cohen, Professor of History Emeritus at Bar-Ilan University, has contributed the contention that Winston Churchills support for Jews and Zionism is a myth.

Cohen has a book devoted to thissubject:Churchill and the Jews. His argumentsclash with much of whatis presented in the late Sir Martin GilbertsChurchill and the Jews: A Lifelong Friendship, and Michael MakovskysChurchills Promised Land: Zionism and Statecraft all three of which Ireviewedin detail for theJewish Political Studies Review.

Having contributed to the discussion on this subject (twice on theHistory News Network,hereandhere), it has been surprising to see Cohen pressing his view in the face of the evidence that emerged in Gilberts and Makovskys books.

March 10, 2017 8:34 am

In 2009, Cohendescribed Gilbert as the mythmaker of Churchills pro-Jewish and pro-Zionist reputation in a lengthyarticle inModern Judaism (May 2006, vol. 26, no. 2). Now, he has reiterated his charges in an opinion piece in Haaretz, (The Truth About Churchill and the Jews, January 27).

Cohen wrote in the epilogue of his book that there is a glaring anomaly between Churchills wartime expressions of sympathy for the Jews, and the absence, almost, of any practical measures on their behalf. This strikes me as a false, defective verdict. I would argue that Churchills reputation as friend of the Jews and Zionism withstands scrutiny.

Despite some undoubted inconsistencies, the pattern is clear: Churchill admired the Jews, believed they contributed to Britain and Western civilization and sought to support their national aspirations. Cohens contrary case is marred by the neglect of important pieces of evidence that have emerged in recent decades, while emphasizing only selected ones of his choice.

Consider the following facts, none of which appear in Cohens book or latest opinion piece:

In January 1939, Churchill urged Albania to accept Jews fleeing Germany and Austria. Unfortunately, promising developments in this effortwere abruptly ended by Mussolinis invasion and occupation of the country in April 1940.

As First Lord of the Admiralty (1939-40), Churchill instructed Royal Navy vessels not to intercept ships suspected of bringing illegal Jewish immigrants to Palestine.

In February 1942, Churchill argued successfully in the War Cabinet andin the face of opposition from the new Colonial Secretary, Lord Moyneto release from internment approximately 800 Jewish refugees from theDarien II,who had reached Palestine.

That same year, Churchill overrode Foreign Office objections to a proposal for permitting 5,000 Bulgarian Jewish children to travelto Palestine. (The War Cabinet approved, but the move was blocked by German pressure applied on Bulgaria).

In April 1943, Churchill pressured the Spanish ambassador to have the Franco regime reopen its border to Jewish refugees fleeing the Third Reich, something that occurred within a few days.

In July 1943, in the War Cabinet,Churchillvigorously opposed plans for British naval searches of ships to find illegal Jewish immigrants.

After the War Cabinet overrode Churchill by deciding to discourage illegal Jewish immigration to Palestine, Churchill devised a policy that bypassed it, by permitting all Jews who might arrive in Palestine to stay there. One result was that, in early 1944, 6,000 Jews from Romania and Bessarabia were permitted to proceed to Palestine on British passports.

In 1943, Churchill succeeded in having the War Cabinet approve continued Jewish immigration to Palestine beyond the 1939 White Papers cut-off date March 1944 up to the full limit of the 75,000 immigrants permitted by the White Paper. (Due to the Nazi success in cutting off escape routes, this quota was not filled until after the war ended).

In early 1945, Churchillmade abortive efforts to create a Jewish state within a larger Arab federation by unsuccessfully seeking to enlistthrough financial inducementsand other things the support of Saudi King Saud.

In short, during the war, Churchill sought many avenues to provide refuge for Jews fleeing the Nazis, including in Palestine, despitegreat opposition from virtually all of his officials. It is true that the results of Churchills record of persistent, often lone, activism on behalf of Jews and Zionism were relatively meager, but this was not for lack of effort.

Indeed, such was the perception of Churchills solicitude for Jews among officials that, on at least two occasions, callous members of his own inner staff withheld from him Jewish requests out of fear that he would respond positively to them.

Some of the charges in Cohens latest opinion piece go even further than those leveled in his book.

For example, Cohen convincingly demonstrated in his book that, while immediately authorizing the aerial bombing of the railway lines leading to Auschwitz in July 1944, Churchill failed to follow up and ensure that his directive was implemented. Now, however, Cohen insists that Churchill also rejected the bombing project something not borne out by the Churchill letter he cites.

Without doubt, Professor Cohens research on Churchill has produced some compelling evidence that attenuate Churchills record. But Cohensprosecutorial persistence in advocating his case, despite the contrary evidence that is so evident, remains a mystery.

This article was originally published by the History News Network.

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Posted By simmons on March 10, 2017

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The DC Womens March.

In a New York Times op-ed, Does Feminism Have Room for Zionists?, Emily Shire writes that she is troubled by the portion of the International Womens Strike platform that calls for a decolonization of Palestine as part of the beating heart of this new feminist movement.

Shire concludes her piece by noting that she does not believe she needs to pick one belief or the other: I will remain a proud feminist, but I see no reason I should have to sacrifice my Zionism for the sake of my feminism. But she writes that she not certain there is a place for pro-Israel feminists in the womens strike.

Shires piece speaks to a larger predicament: Many Jewish women, myself included, identify as feminist and Zionist. Explicitly anti-Zionist stances woven into mainstream feminist platforms a phenomenon that, as Shire notes, extends beyond the upcoming strike pose an intersectional obstacle to feminist activism. This is an issue Jewish women face, but that doesnt pose much of a problem for men, or non-Jewish women. How can feminism be inclusive if Jewish women who care about the Jewish state are unwelcome?

I believe its possible to support the larger mission of the strike drawing attention to the value of womens labor without endorsing (and indeed, while challenging) all specifics of its platform, or all views (or histories) of individual organizers. Those on the left should show up even at events that make us uncomfortable. But I can well understand particularly, in this case, given organizer Rasmea Yousef Odehs terrorist past why others who share my politics come to different conclusions.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at bovy@forward.com. Her book, The Perils of Privilege, will be published by St. Martins Press in March 2017.

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Posted By simmons on March 10, 2017

A central point of contention during #IsraeliApartheidWeek is the allegation that being anti-Zionist means one is necessarily anti-Semitic. While there are no doubt examples where one may be both, its unclear whether, and how, the two are necessarily linked.

In order to get clarity on this, The Daily Vox spoke to Professor Antony Arkin, chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal Zionist Council and the Treasurer of the South African Zionist Federation, and Allan Kolski Horwitz, an activist for National Coalition for Palestine, trade unionist, and writer.

While both are Jewish, Arkin identifies as a progressive Zionist, while Horwitz is strongly anti-Zionist.

Are Judaism and Zionism the same thing? Are all Jews also Zionists and are all Zionists Jewish?

Arkin: No, Judaism and Zionism arent the same things, but Zionism is a major component of Judaism in the sense that Zionism believes that all Jewish people are a single people with a single history and destiny. Its a large component of Judaism but you can be Jewish without being Zionist, and there are people who certainly believe that you dont have to be Zionist to be Jewish but its a very small minority. You also have all sorts of other people a large number of Christians, for instance who are ardent Zionists.

Horwitz: Not in the least. We have to make a distinction between Judaism as a religion, a way of life, and Zionism as a political movement. Zionism is a recent phenomenon and has led to an apartheid society in *Palestine. But Judaism is not responsible for Zionism: it was a response of largely secular Jews not religious Jews to the problem of anti-Semitism. It is, in fact, borne of European nationalism.

What is the fundamental difference between Judaism and Zionism? If there are core tenets or principles of each, what are they?

Arkin: The key of Judaism is a belief in a single God, that all humanity is created by God, that you have a responsibility to what they call Tikkun Olam, repair the world to work with God, and that the Jews have been specifically called serve Gods will. Judaism is based on this belief system going back something like three and a half, four thousand years. While Zionism is a large part of the practice of Judaism and is centred in the land of Israel and that its a responsibility to rebuild the land and prepare for the time of the Messiah, or the end of days.

Horwitz: The fundamental tenets of Judaism is the belief in one God and do unto others as you would have done unto you. Theres a short saying that Jewish people say every morning is Shma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Ead Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. There is the monotheistic tradition as well as the tribal identification. Zionism was simply to say that the Jews need a country of their own because they cannot live in exile from Palestine that there shouldnt be diaspora. The idea is that Jews cannot live outside of Jewish communities and should thus become inward looking and protect themselves physically from alien cultures and societies, by creating their own society in their own territory.

Whats the connection between Zionism and Judaism thats led to the situation where many people see them as intrinsically linked?

Arkin: I think, a fair component was, after the Holocaust when a lot of the Jews in Western Europe, certainly, believed they were Germans of the Mosaic persuasion rather, so they were Germans or British or French, and after the Holocaust it certainly was a feeling that that was unlikely to be the case, given the persecution they faced. So then a great deal after that was the Six Day War and thereafter it convinced the Russian community to come to Israel, and that had a tremendous impetus in the state.

Horwitz: I think an important turning point in Jewish history was the Nazi holocaust when Jews were physically exterminated simply because of their identity as Jews. That very profound trauma led people to think that for Judaism to survive, as a religion, its also necessary for Jews to have a physical territory where they can physically survive. So after the second World War, there was an uneasy relationship between Judaism and Zionism.

To what extent is Judaism a political ideology? And to what extent is Zionism linked to religion and faith?

Arkin: Judaism is not a political ideology, its one of the original core religious civilisations. Zionism is a political ideology in the sense that its based on religion but [its based on] the development of a Jewish and democratic state for the Jewish people. So its argument basically is that, as any people is entitled to a land, a country, so are the Jews. Yet Zionism has always been a part of Judaism in the sense that you pray towards Jerusalem and numerous other religious practices centre on it Jews generally hope for the rebuilding of the great country. As a political movement, it developed, much as the rest of the European political movements, and certainly the modern Zionist movement, from about the 1895 or so.

Horwitz: Today, most religious Jews accept Zionism as necessary, and unfortunately have blurred their moral sense such that Israel becomes an exception to every moral precept in Judaism. Given the practice of the Israeli state, no Jewish person whos truly moral could accept it. But theres been this historical expediency that Israel has to be exempted from moral judgement because of the Holocaust and the threat for physical survival. Up until the second World War, the Zionists as a secular movement didnt have the support of the Jewish religious authorities, or the vast majority of Jews either. So the reality of it is that the Palestinians have become the victims of European history. Where Jewish people, I think, wrongly decided that in order to survive, there was a legitimacy in inflicting dispossession on other people. Jews for themselves cant claim the right to overrule their own religious and moral precepts in order to create a state which can give a haven to Jews all over the world.

Whats the view on Israel as a nation state from the perspective of Judaism? And is there a difference in how its viewed from a Zionist perspective?

Arkin: Originally when the Zionist movement was established, much of the Orthodox establishment was against it as a political movement, arguing that it was only at the time of the Messiah can you have this belief in the reestablishment of the [Jewish] state. But as I said, by the 1930s and 1940s, that idea changed completely and possibly even earlier than that. Nowadays within Orthodox belief, its seen as very much in line with mainstream Judaism. With Reform Judaism was a slightly different viewpoint, again right from the 1860s to 1870s it was argued that we are a religion rather than a people. This drastically changed also in the 1930s to 1940s and today certainly in the Reform and Conservative movements, Zionism is a significant and major component of all streams of Judaism.

Horwitz: Judaism has a great link, a cultural and religious connection, with Palestine. But the existence of Jewish communities in Palestine became secondary for 1800 years until Zionism as a political movement espoused a return of the Jewish people to Palestine. And that was initially opposed by religious Jews who said there could only be a return under the auspices of the Messiah. The messianic tradition placed Jerusalem at its apex, but that the return could only be through the agency of God not through human political agency. There are a few remaining religious sects that still believe in that and they counter Zionism and see Zionism as a something almost heretical that human beings are trying to take the place of God in terms of this return. Zionism must be seen as a political movement that arose in Europe at the turn of the 19th century, as a result of anti-Semitism, and the Palestinian people have paid the price for this.

*Horwitz does not acknowledge the existence of Israel as a legitimate state and thus refers to the entire region as Palestine.

We previously wrote that Arkin held this view. We apologise for this error.

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Judaism and Zionism: What is the difference? - The Daily Vox (blog)

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