To the Editor,
The International Jerusalem Post,
In the International Jerusalem Post of Aug. 19-25, 2022, is an article headlined, “Particularism , Universalism and advocacy for Israel.” It is a report about a new organization, the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition, which is calling for rabbinical seminaries in the U.S. to only admit students who are committed to Zionism. This came after rabbinical students signed petitions and letters sharply critical of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and lamenting its record concerning human rights, which has been described as “apartheid,” by B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization.
It is sad to see this politicization of Judaism, a religion of universal values, meant to advance a dedication to God and the Jewish moral and ethical tradition, not to any state. It is a form of idolatry to make the State of Israel the virtual object of worship, much like the Golden Calf in the Bible. The rabbinical students being criticized in this article were simply applying Jewish values to Israel, as they do to their own country, the United States.
In America men and women of every religion have complete religious freedom. In Israel, on the other hand, Reform rabbis cannot perform weddings, conduct funerals, or have their conversions recognized. Israel’s prime minister has admitted that non-Orthodox Jews have fewer religious rights in Israel than do Jews anyplace else in the Western world. American rabbinical students believe in separation of church and state, while Israel has an ultra-Orthodox, taxpayer-supported chief rabbinate. Its concept of religious freedom has no relationship at all with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. If people of different religions wish to marry in Israel, they must leave the country to do so.
The rabbis cited in the article seem not to understand the difference between Judaism and Zionism. In 1929, Orthodox Rabbi Samuel Tamarat wrote that the very idea of a sovereign Jewish state as a spiritual center was a “contradiction to Judaism’s ultimate purpose.” He noted that, “Judaism is not some religious concentration which may be localized or situated in a single territory. Neither is Judaism a ‘nationality,’ in the sense of modern nationalism, fit to be woven into the three-foldedness of ‘homeland, army, and heroic songs.’ No, Judaism is Torah, ethics, and exaltation of spirit. If Judaism is truly Torah, then it cannot be reduced to the confines of any particular territory, for as Scripture said of Torah, ‘its measure is greater than the earth.’”
Sadly, the rabbis of the Zionist Rabbinic Coalition want to penalize idealistic American rabbinical students for applying Judaism’s highest moral values to Israel, as they do to their own country. As we can see, among younger Jewish Americans, it is becoming increasingly clear that they have come to understand that the values which seem dominant in Israel at the present time are radically different from their own. Seeking to force Zionism upon idealistic young people,
who find ethno-nationalism to be contrary to the Judaism to which they are committed, is not an enterprise which is likely to succeed.
Allan C. Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American