1938 all over again...
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
I am not predicting that American Jewry is immanently in danger from the imposition of the Nurenberg Laws or that the U.S. foreign policy toward Israel is destined to become overtly hostile overnight. We are, however, faced with foreboding winds of change. Let us not blind ourselves to that possible reality. In my opinion American Jewry may be living in a fool's paradise, much like the German Jews before the rise of Hitler.Dr. Irving Kett
I do urgently believe that the Government of Israel should assiduously be investing great capital on planning the future of the Jewish State without U.S. military and diplomatic support. Do I believe that is possible? I absolutely do which is why my children and grandchildren are living in Israel.
Colonel, U.S. Army, Retired
Professor of Civil Engineering
California State University, L. A.
from his essay:
HOW SECURE ARE JEWS IN THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD?
Baruch haShem. Kett spends a great deal of time in his introduction exploring the destructive power of Jewish self-hatred. He cites Melanie Phillips's The Jewish Enemy Within, which discusses the far-left anti-Zionist Jews, those about whom Kett writes, "To these so-called liberal Israel haters, Jewish victim-hood is the only authentic moral Jewish existence. To them the most spiritually elevated moral Jew is the dead Jew. The real crime of Israel in their eyes is that Israel represents Jewish power."
Kett also cites a book titled Jews and Power by Ruth Wisse, which discusses the ambivalence, and even dislike of power and self-governance exhibited within Jewish culture. This "moral solipsism," as Wisse terms it, has an extremely negative impact on the psyche and survival of the State of Israel, as Bret Stephens notes in his review of the book in Commentary magazine, "Even so, as this salutary book insistently warns, misgivings about the exercise of power in self-defense retain a neurotic and damaging grip on the Jewish imagination."
Kett argues that Israel must become totally and completely self-reliant, and stop nursing at its now (or, at least, soon to be) dead American pacifier. He's right. If the sudden "peace agreement" drawn up by America and France to end the War in Lebanon FOR Israel in 2006 wasn't clue enough, if Annapolis wasn't clue enough, if Bush's declarations of a "palestinian" state by the end of '08 aren't enough... Kett argues that we are in the same place Europe was in 1938. You be the judge.
Israpundit linked up to an article by Israel National Radio correspondent Yehudah HaKohen, The Zionist Revolution. He concludes with:
Instead of downplaying Zionism’s radical essence, we must employ it and direct it towards reigniting the fire that once drove Jewish teenagers to drain malaria-filled swamps, fight wars of liberation and make the desert bloom. The revolutionary spark that stirred our youth to become builders and farmers and fighters in our land can surely lead them to take up the cause of Jewish liberation in our own times. By utilizing the full scope and immeasurable beauty of the Zionist Revolution, we can educate our children to see themselves as participants in the great historic drama unfolding in our days.To me, "the full scope and immeasurable beauty of the Zionist Revolution" is found in Ezekiel 36:24-27
For I will take you from among the nations,And Ezekiel 37:11-14
gather you from all the countries,
and return you to your own soil.
Then, I will sprinkle clean water on you,
and you will be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your uncleanness
and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart
and put a new spirit inside you;
I will take the stony heart out of your flesh
and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put my Spirit inside you
and cause you to live by my laws,
respect my rulings and obey them.
Then he said to me, "Human being! These bones are the whole House of Israel; and they are saying, 'Our bones have dried up, our hope is gone, and we are completely cut off.' Therefore prophesy; say to them that Adonai Elohim says, 'My people! I will open your graves and make you get up out of your graves, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am Adonai-- when I have opened your graves and make you get up out of your graves, my people! I will put my Spirit in you; and you will be alive. Then I will place you in your own land; and you will know that I, Adonai, have spoken and that I have done it,' says Adonai."Back in the 1880s, young Jews from Europe and Russia travelled to Zion to clean out swamps because they had to-- they were being persecuted in pogroms and simply had nowhere else to go. Now, however, the majority of the diaspora population is in America, and as Kett testifies to in his article, American Jews have, by and large, convinced themselves that America is their own promised land. We are not being beaten on the streets; American synagogues are not being burned down like the ones in France. In short, life is good, and because life is good, most Jewish Americans don't see the need for G-d, let alone Israel in their lives. Most American Jews do not even attend synagogue, and if they do, the majority do so for social reasons. Jewish America has buried itself in a spiritual grave.
No, for Zionism to succeed, it must be motivated by more than desperation. It must be motivated by passion-- a passion for and from HaShem. And this spiritual awakening has already been written about! Many correlate the prophesy of the Dry Bones with the horrors of the Shoah--and I don't doubt this to be true. But, I also acknowledge that history is cyclical. If we are, indeed, in the 21st century's own '1938' I pray that, this time, we heed the prophesy of our G-d before yet another six million of us perish.
I dislike people who grandstand before audiences and tell them what to pray for and how to pray for it. I am not the writer of a Siddur. But, I do know that now is the time for us to turn to our G-d and cry out to Him in prayer for the things we lack as a nation: strength; courage; passion; conviction. A nurse once told me that there are 613 bones, muscles, and ligaments within the human body--exactly the number of the mitzvot in Torah. Torah, the document that guarantees forever our tenancy in the land of Israel, is what we need to live by. But, as the prophesy says, to do so we must cry out for the Spirit of G-d, the Ruach haKodesh, to cancel out all of that fear and self-hatred that plague us as Jews.
Zionism began with Torah: Israel began with HaShem. Just as the prophet writes, to live in Zion, we need Torah, and to live Torah, we need HaShem.
Bevakasha, HaShem, hear our cry...
Labels: aliyah, Diaspora, Israel, Jewish, Jewish American, Jewry, Judaism, Messianic Judaism, Torah, United States, Zionism
posted by Shoshana @ 7:04 PM
