CONFRONTING THE CONTRADICTION BETWEEN ZIONISM AND
JEWISH MORAL AND ETHICAL VALUES
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
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Recent
events in Gaza and in the West Bank have caused an increasing number of
Jewish Americans to see a dramatic contradiction between the conduct of
the Israeli government and traditional Jewish moral and ethical
values. Students of history note that this contradiction existed from
the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, but that recent
developments have made this obvious to an increasing number of people of
all religious backgrounds. Equally clear is the manner in which many
American Jewish organizations and religious bodies have defended
whatever the Israeli government did, whether it was morally right or
wrong.
Israel suffered a
grievous terrorist assault on Oct. 7, 2023. Its response has been
massive and is still in process at this writing. More than 40,000
Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign in the Gaza Strip ,
the local Health Ministry said on August 15. According to the Health
Ministry, the majority of the dead are women and children. At least
92,401 have also been injured.
According
to the Washington Post (Aug. 16, 2024), “Palestinian journalists, first
responders, international aid workers and war-casualty watchdogs, all
say the official death toll in Gaza is probably an undercount…After
months of bombardment and siege, thousands of bodies are still believed
to be buried under the rubble, according to Gaza’s civil defense force.”
Criticism Within Israel Is Widespread
Israel’s
conduct of the war has been sharply criticized within Israel itself..
The newspaper Haaretz (Aug. 15, 2024) published an editorial with the
headline, “Israel’s use of Human Shields on the Battle Field Is a War
Crime.” It declared: “The practice that Haaretz exposed of military
units forcing civilian residents of Gaza to serve as human
shields—-searching tunnels and buildings before the forces enter, while
wearing army uniforms and sometimes also protective vests to give them
the appearance of IDF soldiers—is a war crime….Many of the prohibitions
specified in the laws of war are the consequence of atrocities
experienced in wars, especially World War 11. The prohibition against
using enemy civilians as human shields is one of them.”
The
International Criminal Court is currently considering a request by the
Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, for arrest warrants for Israel’s
Prime Minister and Defense Minister. One of the conditions for the
ICC’s jurisdiction is that the Israeli justice system is unable or
unwilling to investigate and prosecute war criminals.
In
August, the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem issued a report
entitled “Welcome to Hell,” highlighting a variety of human rights
abuses in Israel. This report was largely ignored by the Israeli
media. Torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, it found, is
widespread. Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) in August
reported about one Palestinian inmate who died with a ruptured spleen
and broken ribs after being beaten by Israeli prison guards. Another
met an excruciating end because a chronic condition went untreated. A
third screamed for help for hours before dying. According to PHRI, at
least 13 Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel have died in Israeli
jails since Oct. 7. An unknown number of prisoners on the Gaza Strip
have also died.
Serious Abuse Of A Sexual Nature
Inside
Sde Teiman, a facility on a military base in the Negev desert that
holds Palestinian detainees captured in Gaza, nine reservists were
detained after “serious abuse” of a sexual nature of a detainee. Newly
released detainees say that torture, sexual abuse and deprivation of
food are widespread. A CNN investigation found that newly released
Palestinian detainees describe being beaten, denied medical care and
made to kneel handcuffed and blindfolded for days.
The
Tel Aviv-based Association for Civil Rights In Israel (ACRI) declared
that, “The conditions at Sde Teiman gravely violate both Israeli and
international law. Its continued operation is not just illegal—-it’s a
potential war crime.”
When
it comes to the West Bank, which Israel has occupied in violation of
international law for more than 50 years, its current government no
longer supports the two-state solution which the U.S., under both
Republicans and Democrats, has advocated. Indeed, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu rejects the creation of a Palestinian state and
members of his Cabinet call for annexing this territory and expelling
its indigenous Palestinian population.
Largest Seizure Of Land In Three Decades
Recently,
Israel has approved the largest seizure of land in the West Bank in
over three decades, reported the Associated Press ((July 3, 2024):
“Israel’s aggressive expansion…reflects the settler community’s strong
influence in the government…Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler
himself, has turbocharged the policy of expansion…saying he aims to
solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a
Palestinian state.”
Authorities
approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square
miles of land) in the Jordan Valley . It was the largest single
appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords . Settlement
monitors said the land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key
corridor bordering Jordan, a move which undermines the prospect of a
contiguous Palestinian state.
U.N.
spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called it “a step in the wrong
direction,” adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a
negotiated two-state solution. According to the U.N., more than
700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Much
of the international community condemns these settlements as a
violation of international law.
Netanyahu More Interested In Political Survival Than Israel’s Future
The
former head of Shin Bet, the Israeli intelligence agency, Ami Ayalon,
told Christine Aminpour on CNN (June 24, 2024)that Israeli Prime
Minister Netanyahu “is more interested in his own political survival
than in Israel’s future. He does not want to end the war or the
occupation of the West Bank. On this path, we won’t have democracy and,
in the end, we won’t have sovereignty. There needs to be a day-after
plan, which we do not now have.” Ayalon declared that, “Netanyahu’s
toxic leadership will lead to the end of Zionism.”
In
recent days, settlers have become increasingly violent toward
Palestinians. Nader Weiman, a former Israeli Special Forces soldier, is
now director of Breaking the Silence, an organization of former Israeli
Army veterans that advocates an end to Israel’s occupation. He said
settlers have stepped up attacks on Palestinian communities while the
world’s attention was focused on Gaza. The U.N. Humanitarian Affairs
office has recorded more than 650 attacks against Palestinians since
Oct. 7. Settlers have killed at least 9 Palestinians and Israeli
security forces have killed more than 400.
Asked
why settlers destroyed schools, Weiman responds: “Because you want
families to feel they are not safe here. With no school here, the kids
cannot return. And if you do not have kids, you don’t have life. It’s
not just about stealing livestock, it’s about destroying the sense of
being at home.”
Assault On West Bank Has No Reason Or Justification
Writing
in Haaretz (Sept. 1, 2024), Gideon Levy notes that, “Over the 11 months
of war, Israel has ripped up the West Bank…The current assault has no
reason or justification. Israel has exploited the war on Gaza to cause
turmoil on the West Bank…The Army, Shin Bet, Border Police …and violent
settler militias blend into each other…There has not been a pogrom in
which soldiers weren’t present and did nothing to stop it…Tens of
thousands of acres were expropriated and robbed over these months.
Roadblocks have also returned in full force. You cannot move from one
place to another in the West Bank without encountering them.”
On
July 19, the International Court of Justice, the top judicial arm of
the U.N., said Israel should “bring an end to its illegal occupation of
Palestinian territory, cease new settlements and pay reparations to
Palestinians who have lost land and property.” The Court said Israel is
responsible for “systematic discrimination” against Palestinians based
on race or ethnicity “and breached their right to self-determination.
In advance of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit to Washington in July,
the Knesset passed legislation opposing the establishment of a
Palestinian state.
In an
editorial entitled “Israel’s Continued Denial of the Reality of the
Occupation,” Haaretz (July 21, 2024) declared: “The opinion by the
International Court of Justice revealed nothing to Israelis that they do
not already know. The opinion shatters the lie that the occupation is
only temporary and intended only for security purposes. This is the lie
Israelis told themselves during decades of occupation while they seized
more and more Palestinian land and built settlements on it. The
opinion bursts this bubble of lies and views various acts of the Israeli
government as annexation of the territory….Israel’s working assumption
that the world will continue to ignore the occupation has been
shattered…Israel…may wake up to a reality in which it is boycotted and
ostracized like apartheid-era South Africa.”
“War On The Palestinian People”
On
Aug. 28, hundreds of Israeli troops launched raids in several areas of
the West Bank,carrying out mass arrests, and killing at least 10
Palestinians. Nabil Abu Rudeina, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas, described the operation as “a continuation of
the comprehensive war on the Palestinian people, our land and our holy
sites.” He called on the U.S. to intervene. “The world must take
immediate and urgent action to curb this extremist government,” he said.
Few
Americans of any religious background understand the harsh bigotry
which motivates leaders of the settler movement. Rabbi Meir Kahane was
expelled from the Knesset for racism and terrorism in an earlier era.
He proposed legislation that was very much like the Nazi Nuremburg Laws,
making marriage between Jews and non-Jews illegal. Now, he is a hero to
the settler movement. Beyond Meir Kahane, heroes of this movement
include the former Sephardic chief rabbi of Israel, Ovadiah Yosef. In a
weekly sermon to the nation, he declared that the “only reason for the
existence of non-Jews is to serve Jews.” His funeral in 2013 was
considered the largest ever in Israel with crowd estimates reaching
800,000. He is a hero in Israeli society, with his picture on postage
stamps and many streets carrying his name.
Another
rabbi widely admired by the settler movement is Rabbi Kook the Elder,
who said: “The difference between a Jewish soul and the soul of
non-Jews—-all of them in all different levels —-is greater and deeper
than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
Bigotry In The Settler Movement
Few
Jewish Americans are aware of the bigotry which characterizes the
Israeli settler movement and is to be found in much of ancient Jewish
literature. Consider this statement from Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
who headed the Chabad movement: “The difference between a Jewish and a
non-Jewish person …We have a case between totally different species.
The body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality than the
bodies of (members) of all nations of the world…A non-Jew’s entire
reality is only vanity…The entire creation of a non-Jew is only for the
sake of the Jews.”
Mordechai
Nisan, a lecturer at the Hebrew University, wrote in an official
publication of the World Zionist Organization, that a non-Jew permitted
to reside in the land of Israel “must accept paying a tax and suffering
the humiliation of servitude…Non-Jews must not be appointed to any
office or position of power over Jews.”
Reform
Judaism, at its beginning, abandoned the bigotry to be found in the
Talmud and other Orthodox religious writing. It looked to the God of
the Prophets , who was not a God for Jews alone, but the Lord of all
creation. Second Isaiah proclaims God the God of all people. In
chapter 56 of the Book of Isaiah we find the passage epitomizing
universalism: “My house will be called a house of prayer for all
peoples.”
One God For All People
The
idea of one God for a particular people was not the unique contribution
of the Jews. There had been other peoples who promoted such ideas.
Judaism’s unique contribution was the idea of one God for all peoples,
representing a single standard of morality with one set of moral values
applying universally. This was the revolution in religious thinking the
Hebrew Prophets brought about.
The
Prophet Amos helped to move Judaism away from being a narrow tribal
religion to that of a universal faith open to all believers. The
Prophet Hosea called for justice tempered with love. In Hosea’s view,
God was always ready to pardon his people as soon as they repented. In
his book “Meet The Prophets,” published by the American Council for
Judaism, Rabbi David Goldberg writes, “…the transition from the clerical
to the prophetic—which finally crystallized Judaism into a religion
centered on ethical monotheism.”
As
Zionism emerged in the late 19th century, it was rejected by the
leading religious figures of the day. For Reform Jews, Zionism
contradicted their belief in a universal prophetic Judaism. The first
Reform prayerbook eliminated all references to Jews being in exile and
to a Messiah who would restore Jews throughout the world to the
historic Land of Israel. The distinguished rabbi and author Abraham
Geiger declared that the essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism. The
Jewish people were a religious community destined to carry on a mission
“to serve as a light to the nations , to bear witness to God and His
moral law.” The dispersion of the Jews was not a punishment for their
sins, but part of God’s plan whereby they were to disseminate the
universal message of ethical monotheism.”
Rejecting Nationalism “Of Any Variety”
In
November 1885, Reform rabbis meeting in Pittsburgh wrote an eight point
platform which emphasized that Reform Judaism “rejected nationalism in
any variety.”
In the wake
of growing antisemitism in Russia and Eastern European at the end of
the 19th century and the rise of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s, many
Jews began to look positively upon the idea of creating a Jewish state
in Palestine as a refuge for those being persecuted. Jewish groups in
the U.S. that had always opposed Zionism, slowly began to view it more
favorably. They ignored the fact that Palestine was already populated.
The
early Zionists not only turned away from the Jewish religious
tradition, but Jewish moral and ethical values as well. They launched a
campaign of terrorism in Palestine to remove as many of the indigenous
population as possible. In April 1948 the Zionist Irgun and Lehi forces
launched an attack on the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin.
Inhabitants of the peaceful village were lined up against the wall and
shot. More than 100 victims, mostly women, children and older people,
were killed. As the Zionists had planned, news of the massacre spread
rapidly and helped prompt the flight of hundreds of thousands of
Palestinians from their homes. Irgun leader Menachem Begin, a future
Israeli prime minister, issued this message to his troops after the
attack: “Accept my congratulations on this splendid act of conquest…As
in Deir Yassin, so everywhere, we will attack and smite the enemy. God,
God Thou hast chosen us for conquest.”
The Goal Of Removing Palestine’s Indigenous Population
The
Zionists admit that removing the indigenous Palestinian population was
their goal. As early as 1937, Israel’s future prime minister, David
Ben-Gurion, told the Zionist Assembly: “In many parts of the country it
will not be possible to settle without transferring the Arab fellahin
(peasants)…With compulsory transfer we would have a vast area for
settlement..I support compulsory transfer.” What the Zionists
committed, declares Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, was “ethnic
cleansing.”
Since
Israel’s creation, much of the organized American Jewish community has
transformed itself into a defender of whatever that state pursues.
Israeli flags fly in many synagogues and Israel and “the Jewish people”
often appear to be the object of worship, not God. This becomes a form
of idolatry, much like the Golden Calf in the Bible.
Now,
as Israel’s war in Gaza has cost the lives of more than 40,000
Palestinians and as settlers in the West Bank continue their assault
upon its Palestinian residents and the Israeli government rejects the
creation of a Palestinian state, more and more Jewish Americans are
expressing dismay with Israel and the American Jewish institutions which
support and defend it.
Jewish Demonstrators Arrested In U.S. Capitol
In
July, U.S. Capitol Police arrested Jewish demonstrators protesting U.S.
weapons sales to Israel inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office
Building, a day before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
addressed the Congress. The protest, organized by Jewish Voice for
Peace, included rabbis, students, and descendants of Holocaust
survivors. The group is “horrified and dismayed “ that elected
officials would meet with Netanyahu, said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, a group
spokeswoman.
The
Washington Post (July 24,2024) reported that, “…hundreds of protestors
sang ‘Let Gaza. Live’ and ‘stop genocide’ and sat in a circle around a
banner which read ‘NO ONE IS FREE UNTIL EVERYONE IS FREE.’ They wore
red shirts that read ‘JEWS SAY STOP ARMING ISRAEL’ and clapped as they
sang ‘Not In Our Name.’ Protestors unfurled banners, including one that
said: ‘TIKKUN OLAM=FREE PALESTINE,’ referring to the Hebrew phrase that
means to repair the world. Several protesters wore hand-made prayer
shawls…and the words ‘NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE.’”
Rabbi
Linda Holtzman, leader of the social Justice community Tikkun Olam
Chavurah in Philadelphia said there is a “mass murder” happening in Gaza
and believes the path to a cease-fire includes an end to U.S. military
aid to Israel. Holtzman said that there needs to be a political
decision about the future of Israel and she hopes to see a future that
Palestinians and Israelis can decide together.
Sanctity Of Life At The Heart Of Jewish Tradition
Rabbi
Holtzman said that, “It’s incredibly important for me to be here as a
rabbi and as a Jew because at the heart of Jewish tradition is the
sanctity of life. We can’t sit back and watch people being killed and
not stand up. That feels, to me, like a serious anti-Jewish thing to
do.”
An American Jewish
military intelligence officer has resigned to protest U.S. support for
Israel, saying that what is happening to the Palestinians there reminds
him of the Holocaust. According to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (June
6, 2024) ”Major Harrison Mann submitted his resignation to the military
and to the Defense Intelligence Agency…He said, ‘As the descendant of
European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral
environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for
ethnic cleansing…My grandfather refused to ever purchase produce
manufactured in Germany—-where the paramount importance of ‘never again’
and the inadequacy of ‘just following orders’ were oft repeated,’ Mann
wrote in the letter.”
Mann
continued, “I am haunted by the knowledge that I failed those
principles. But I also hope that my grandfather would afford me some
grace, that he would still be proud of me for stepping away from this
war, however belatedly.” Mann told the JTA that he was not saying that
the war in Gaza was the same as the Holocaust: “I think there’s no
benefit in weighing tragedies against each other, and it’s not what I’m
trying to do. Obviously, the Holocaust was much bigger, but that
doesn’t mean that smaller massacres of innocent people (also) shouldn’t
happen.”
Recalling Jewish Prayer At Buchenwald
Mann
also said his thinking was inspired in part by his experience visiting
Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, while participating in training
for U.S. intelligence officers. He recalled seeing the photograph of
Jewish U.S. soldiers leading a prayer service for liberated prisoners at
Buchenwald. He recalled, “That was the most proud I ever felt to be in
the same Army as these men. It’s hard not to think back to that when
we are seeing —-again—-photos of starved, emaciated children and burned
corpses. I am now contributing to that instead of being the ones who
liberated them.”
Mann’s
resignation came thirteen years into his military career, which began
after he graduated from the College of William and Mary. The first
Jewish government staff member to publicly resign was Lilly Greenberg
Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff of the Department of the
Interior. She said, “there are so many others who feel this way.”
Professor
Emeritus Yakov Rabkin of the University of Montreal, author of the book
“What Is Modern Israel?,” provides this assessment: “The new state of
Israel placed Palestinian Arabs under military rule, which lasted nearly
two decades. Refugees and exiles who tried to return to their homes
were killed, expelled or arrested…the murderous attack of Oct. 7, 2023
obviously enraged most Israelis. But instead of taking pause, military
and political leaders immediately subjected Gaza to massive bombardment
followed by a ground invasion. This caused a humanitarian crisis.”
Demonization Of Palestinians Is Common
In
Rabkin’s view. “vengeful demonization of the Palestinians has become
common. Even the soft-spoken president of Israel claimed that there were
no ‘innocent civilians’. In Gaza. Meirev Ben-Ari…said in reference to
thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli bombardment , ‘The
children of Gaza have brought this upon themselves! We are a
peace-seeking , a life-loving nation’…Many Jews…have been trying to come
to terms with the contradictions between the Judaism they profess to
adhere to and the Zionist ideology that has taken hold of them. A new
variety of Judaism has taken root in Israel: National Judaism…Among its
most fervent followers one finds the assassin of Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin, who had attempted to find an accommodation with the
Palestinians, and prominent members of today’s Israeli government.”
A
letter signed by more than 1200 alumni and current members of the Union
for Reform Judaism addressed to the organization on Dec. 16, 2023,
declares, “We grieve for the 1,200 killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7th attack
and the more than 18,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli
military—-almost half of whom have been children—-since then. Israel
has cut off water, electricity, fuel and supplies to Gaza. We are
deeply concerned that tax dollars have been so easily provided to
support Israel’s military assault on Gaza, while we struggle for the
basic needs of our communities.”
At
the same time, a letter was released from descendants of progressive
rabbis and leaders to express “our horror at the URJ’s failure to call
for a cease-fire in Gaza. We are alarmed that the leadership of our
community has not demanded an end to Israel’s devastating violence
against Palestinians in addition to the safe and immediate return of the
hostages…A decades-long campaign to dehumanize Palestinians has
hardened the American Jewish community’s hearts. Atrocities are being
committed in our name . We do not consider the killing of thousands of
innocent civilians to be a justifiable consequence of ensuring our
community’s protection.”
“Uncompromising Zionist Rhetoric”
The
letter concludes: “The URJ continues to actively alienate alumni with
its uncompromising Zionist rhetoric…We will reconsider our and the next
generation’s membership and support of the URJ unless there is a public,
dramatic shift in the way the movement addresses Israel. It is not too
late to listen, to open your heart, and to make your children proud.”
Among
the original signatories of this letter are Zippy Janas, a descendant
of Rabbi Julius Rappaport, Chana Powell, daughter of a current URJ
rabbi, Talia Yudkin Toffany, daughter of Rabbi Marjorie Yudkin,
Zachariah Sippy, son of Rabbi David Wirtschaffer and Hafanyah Perluss,
daughter of Rabbi Emily Feigenson.
Oren
Kroc-Zeldin, whose grandfather Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin headed Los Angeles’
Stephen M. Wise Temple and whose mother Rabbi Leah Kroll was one of the
first women rabbis ordained by the Reform movement, is director of the
program of Jewish Studies and Social Justice at the University of San
Francisco. He went to Jewish Day School and on Birthright trips to
Israel. Now, he says that, “Jewish liberation in Israel was predicated
on the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” He said he
rejects “a monolithic pro-Israel identity.”
Reform Jews For Justice
An organization called Reform Jews For Justice(
https://reformjewsforjustice.com)
has also been established . It declares that, “As Reform Jews we stand
together for Justice, in solidarity with Palestine. We unite in our
values to call for a ceasefire, the release of hostages and an end to
U.S. military aid to Israel…We have come together to call on our
movement to engage in Solidarity with Palestine. We envision a Reform
Jewish movement that…rejects a conflation of anti-Zionism with
antisemitism…The URJ’s leaders have unabashedly demonstrated shameful
tactics of ethno-nationalism and tribal political priorities over simple
ethics and the illegitimate and dangerous conflation of Zionism and
Judaism. We have been alienated from the movement that raised us to
ask, ‘If I am only for myself, what am I?’—-through binary language
suggesting that our affiliation is conditional on Zionism. WE will not
stand idly by.”
It has
been pointed out by many scholars and others that the Palestinians are,
in fact, the final victims of the Holocaust, in which they played no
role. Deena Dallasheh, a historian of Israel and Palestine who has
taught at Columbia University and N.Y.U. notes that, “The Holocaust was a
horrible massacre committed by Europeans. But I don’t think the
Palestinians figure that they will have to pay for it. Yet the world
sees this as an acceptable equation. Orientalist and colonialist
ideology were very much at the heart of thinking , that while we
Europeans and the U.S. were part of this massive human tragedy, we are
going to fix it at the expense of someone else. And the someone else is
not important because they are Arabs. They’re Palestinians and thus
constructed as not important.”
As
American Jewish groups which previously opposed Zionism changed their
position in the wake of World War II, the American Council for Judaism
was established in 1942 to maintain the traditional philosophy of a
universal Judaism free of nationalism and politicization. In his
keynote address to the June 1942 meeting of the Council in Atlantic
City, Rabbi David Philipson declared that Reform Judaism and Zionism
were incompatible: “Reform Judaism is spiritual, Zionism is political.
The outlook of Reform Judaism is the world. The outlook of Zionism is a
corner of Eastern Asia.” The first pledge of major financial backing
was made by Aaron Strauss, a nephew and heir of Levi Strauss of blue
jeans fame. Attending this meeting were six former presidents of the
Central Conference of American Rabbis, the president of Hebrew Union
College and a former president of B’nai B’rith.
Jewish Nationalism Is Secular, Not Religious
Judah
Magnes, chancellor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, wrote a
letter endorsing the Council’s statement of principles saying, “It is
true that Jewish nationalism tends to confuse people not because it is
secular and not religious, but because this nationalism is unhappily
chauvinistic and narrow and terroristic in the best style of Eastern
European nationalism.”
On
Dec. 4, 1945, hours after the first meeting with Zionist leader Chaim
Weizmann, President Harry S. Truman received Lessing J. Rosenwald, the
first president of the Council, in the Oval Office. He called for the
admission of both Jewish and non-Jewish displaced persons to Palestine,
and urged that Palestine shall not be a Muslim, Christian or Jewish
state but a country in which people of all faiths can play their full
part,” and that the U.S. take the lead in coordinating with the U.N., “ a
cooperative policy of many nations in absorbing Jewish refugees.”
Rosenwald
testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Jan. 10,
1946 and urged that large numbers of Jews be admitted into Palestine on
the condition that “the claim that Jews possess unlimited national
rights to the land, and that the country shall take the form of a racial
or theocratic state, were denounced once and for all.”
“Emphasis On Blood, Race And Descent”
One
of the speakers at the Council’s 1945 conference was Hans Kohn, a
one-time German Zionist associated with the University in Exile in New
York. He declared, “The Jewish nationalist philosophy has developed
entirely under German influence, the German romantic nationalism with
the emphasis on blood , race and descent as the most determining factor
in human life, it’s historicizing attempt to connect to a legendary past
2,000 or so years ago, its emphasis on folk as a mythical body, the
source of civilization.”
In
the face of the 1947 partition of Palestine, the Council wished the new
state well and declared its determination to resist Zionist efforts to
dominate Jewish life in America. Rabbi Elmer Berger, the Council’s
executive director, outlined the challenge presented by Zionist plans to
foster an “Israel-centered’ Jewish life in the U.S. He wrote, “The
creation of a sovereign state embodying the principles of Zionism, far
from relieving American Jews of the urgency of making that choice,
makes it more compelling.”
After
Israel’s creation, much of the American Jewish community focused its
attention upon Israel. Israeli flags appeared in many synagogues,
Jewish day schools promoted the idea that Israel was the real “homeland”
of all Jews. Israel, rather than the worship of God and the
advancement of Jewish moral and ethical values, seemed to dominate
Jewish life. As Israel engaged in repressive treatment of Palestine’s
indigenous population, Jewish institutions rose to its defense. More
recently, with the assault upon civilians in Gaza and the growth of
settlements in the West Bank, defending Israel’s behavior, not advancing
the moral and ethical insights of Judaism, have dominated much of the
established Jewish community. But it has also produced a growing
reaction,particularly among younger people, who see a contradiction
between Judaism’s moral worldview and narrow nationalism of any kind.
The Council Was Prophetic
In
his history of the early years of the American Council for Judaism,
“Jews Against Zionism,” Prof. Thomas Kolsky concluded that the Council
was prophetic in its warning about where Zionism would lead: “…many of
its predictions about the establishment of a Jewish state did come
true…For example, Israel became highly dependent on support from
American Jews. ..the creation of the state directly contributed to
undermining Jewish communities in Arab countries and to precipitating
protracted conflict between Israel and the Arabs. Indeed, as the
Council had often warned…Israel did not become a normal state. Nor did
it become a light to the nations…The ominous predictions of the ACJ are
still haunting the Zionists.”
Jonathan
Sarna, a Brandeis University historian and author of the book “American
Judaism,” says that, “Everything they (the ACJ) prophesied—-dual
loyalty, nationalism being evil—-has come to pass.” In his “On
Religion” column in The New York Times (June 26, 2010), Samuel Freedman
noted that, “The arguments that the Council has levied against
Zionism…have shot back into prominence. ..The rejection of Zionism
…goes back to the Torah itself. Until Theodor Herzl created the modern
Zionist movement…the biblical injunction to return to Israel was widely
understood as a theological construct rather than a pragmatic
instruction…The Reform movement maintained that Judaism is a religion,
not a nationality.”
Since
that was written, and in light of recent Israeli government actions in
Gaza and the West Bank, it seems that Israel, and those in the American
Jewish community who defend whatever policy Israel sees fit to pursue,
have turned away from traditional Jewish moral and ethical values.
Beyond this, while Jewish Americans believe in religious freedom and
separation of church and state, Israel is a theocracy with a
state-supported ultra-Orthodox religious establishment. Non-Orthodox
rabbis cannot perform weddings, conduct funerals or have their
conversions recognized.
Zionism Represents A Major Wrong Turn
For
those who have never abandoned the vision of a universal faith of
moral and ethical values for men and women of every race and nation,
which the Prophets preached and in which generations of Jews believed,
Zionism represents a major wrong turn. We are now entering a new era in
which that wrong turn can be reversed. The humane Jewish tradition can
finally be restored. Those who kept it alive during the years in
which nationalism seemed to replace the unique Jewish contribution to
world civilization, which also influenced the development of
Christianity and Islam, can be viewed as having been indeed prophetic. A
new and more hopeful era lies before us.
(6143 words)
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Allan
C. Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and serves as editor
of ISSUES. The author of five books, he has served on the staff of the
U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and the Office of the Vice
President.