To the editor,
New York Times
Thomas Friedman has written a very important article, “American Jews, You Have To Choose Sides on Israel” (New York Times, March 7, 2023)
Since Israel’s creation, he points out, for many American Jews, its defense has become a substitute for “religion.” This, sadly, is reminiscent of the story of the Golden Calf in the Bible, where something else was substituted for the worship of God. Now that Israel has taken a turn to the far right and its treatment of Palestinians has been characterized as “apartheid” not only by such groups as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch but by the Israeli human rights group T’ruah as well, it is clear that it is not the liberal democracy that American Jews imagined.
Those Jewish Americans who opposed Zionism from the beginning, such as the American Council for Judaism,are looking increasingly prophetic. Judaism, most Jewish Americans believe, is a religion of universal values, not a nationality. Zionism claims that Israel is the “homeland” of all Jews. In fact, the homeland of American Jews is the United States. Zionism claims that Jews living outside of Israel are in “exile.” Most Jewish Americans are very much “at home.” They are American by nationality and Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic or Muslim.
Sadly, in the years after Israel’s creation,American Judaism transformed itself from believing in a universal God who had created men and women of every race and nation, to an Israel-centered religion in which the state of Israel often appeared to be the object of worship. Israeli flags appeared in synagogues and promoting Israel became a major goal of Jewish organizations. Ethnocentrism replaced universalism.
Before the Holocaust and the creation of Israel, Zionism was a minority view in the American Jewish community. Recent developments indicate that it is on its way to becoming a minority view once again. Those Jews who opposed Zionism have kept alive an older humane Jewish moral and ethical tradition which now has an opportunity to once again emerge.
As Thomas Friedman wrote, “The sound you hear is the start of a huge paradigm shift.” Let’s hope he is correct.
Sincerely,
Allan C.Brownfeld,
Editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal
of the American Council for Judaism,