In The Jewish State, Hazony identifies intellectual anti-Zionism and its insidious development through the Israeli academy and leading cultural institutions. It lurked beneath the radar of mainstream Zionism as first the yishuv and then the state developed, only becoming fully apparent during the Levon Affair and then following the Yom Kippur War:

I am not, of course, speaking of an effort directed against Israel’s physical existence but rather of one leveled against Israel’s legal, political, and moral status as the state of the Jewish people…
The idea of a Jewish state was once opposed by a majority of Jewish intellectuals and civil leaders in Western Europe…Hertzl’s most gifted follower, a German-Jewish student named Martin Buber, editor of the Zionist Organization newspaper, left the ZO after a bitter quarrel with the great leader, within a few years returning to become the foremost theoretician of the opposition to a Jewish state. It was Buber who adjusted Hermann Cohen’s overtly anti-Zionist theories to fit a world in which Zionism was rapidly gaining steam…
The intellectuals of Jewish Palestine, many of who were immigrants from Germany..considered themselves disciples or allies of Martin Buber. It was this community of German-Jewish intellectuals in Jerusalem that became the backbone of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, founded in 1925 as the only university in Palestine – and whose humanities and social science faculties were to a large degree responsible for the establishment of every other academic institution in these fields in Israel. And it was these same individuals who were also at the center of the political opposition to the Jewish state within the Jewish community in Palestine…

In The Philosophy of Hebrew Scripture, the narrative is very similar. There is a core impurity, sort of an Original Sin that founds its way into the academic tradition, where it, too, metastasizes into something very dangerous.

We don’t approach the Greek texts by way of the same interpretative posture as we do the Jewish ones because we look at both through the prism of early Christian doctrine – that is, through the prism of the reason-revelation dichotomy, which teaches us to see Greek wisdom as derived from reason whereas what the Jews have to say is revelation…
The philosophers of the Enlightenment applied their formidable skills to constructing an understanding of European history that worked in just this way. Associating the texts of the Jews with ignorance and superstition, they argued that no genuine works of reason had arisen among the Jews and that nothing that was originally Hebrew had made a significant contribution to the history of ideas…Hegel explains..that the content of Christianity arose more or less ex nihilo, as if in a “Second Creation” of the world…in such passages, the leading thinkers of the German Enlightenment introduced a new twist into the history of the reason-revelation dichotomy, mixing contempt for revelation with an acid anti-Semitism to create a new view of Western history, in which absolutely nothing of worth is to be attributed to the Jews…
In the decades that followed, the German universities became an international engine for the dissemination of the Enlightenment philosophy. Tens of thousands of American and British students flocked to Germany for advanced degrees, and by the 1870s, the German model of the “research university” had been established as the standard for advanced studies as far abroad as America and Japan….it is this interpretation that is studied and taught, almost exclusively, in universities around the world today.

In both cases, there is an authentically Jewish set of ideas, whether it is about a national ideal or a philosophic tradition, that should be part of the larger conversations in the global discourse.

However, because of animus in the academy, that opportunity is lost. In both cases, modern scholars are not even aware of the history of how what they take for granted as the foundation for modern scholarship got to be the way that it is. Buber and Hertzl are long gone, but Buber’s discredited ideas continue to resonate through academia in a way that puts modern Israel in mortal danger. The reason-revelation dichotomy was, apparently, originally proposed by the early Christians, who used it to give their traditions superiority over Greek Wisdom. However, once that idea became accepted, it was twisted by the Enlightenment thinkers as a way to discredit religious writings, and actually fed into (Hazony doesn’t say this explicitly, but it is implied) Nazi-era “scientific” anti-Semitism.

Hazony is claiming that knowledge influences culture, and most people, including academics, don’t realize how corrupted their knowledge actually is. Hazony excavates and rehabilitates authentic Jewish knowledge and worldviews, restoring them to their rightful place in the Jewish and Western worlds.

The State of Israel: Good or Bad?

There are plenty of Jews who will argue that the State of Israel is a horrible thing. Many will go a step further and claim that we had no right to create an independent state of our own. These people are wrong. So long as they’re not Neturei Karta they aren’t bad people and I wouldn’t go as far as claiming they are making a “hillul Hashem”–a desecration of the name of G-d. They are misguided and uneducated. Narrow-minded, I’d argue.

Of course, these Jews will call me all kinds of names and tell me I’m completely wrong, or as one individual on Youtube claimed once, “deserve to be hanged.” The key in these kinds of situations (when a fellow Jew begins lamenting your birth) is to pretend like you’re not there; to ignore this person outright. This fits in with the theme of unity.

What are my claims concerning the State of Israel? Notice: I’m not alluding to the “Land of Israel.” This, everyone, besides Neturei Karta followers agree, belongs to the Jewish People and has been given to us by G-d for posterity. The State, however, is an area of contention. To me it’s fairly simple. Yehuda Ha’levi wrote about it in his “Kuzari.” It’s alluded to in some prayer books. Some congregations invoke our leaders during Shabbat services, asking the Almighty to provide them with good counsel. We pray for the safety of our soldiers standing on guard on “water and land.” Whenever trouble is brewing in Israel, we ask G-d to be merciful to His Land and People AND to counsel its leaders.

In fact, it could be said that Moses was the first Zionist. The term “Zionism” itself has been misinterpreted (with good reason) by many. They like to confuse “Zionism”, or the Jewish People’s desire to return to the Land of Israel with all kinds of beliefs foreign to Judaism such as Marxism and Liberalism but this is a separate topic to be discussed in a later piece.

I’ve sat and listened as my brethren seek to destroy the individuals who made the State of Israel a reality. I know. I’ve heard the propaganda. Hertzel didn’t circumcise his son. He sought to forcibly convert European Jews to Christianity. Only after the Dreyfus Trial, did he finally realize that the Gentiles would never allow us to peacefully live amongst them. And Zhabotinsky!? Well he was a secular journalist who was closer in spirit to Tolstoy than he was to a religious Jew. He supported Ben-Gurion’s campaign to cut off Sephardic Jews from their spiritual past. And what if hadn’t been for these men? Would there be a State of Israel today? Would this state have allowed thousands, if not millions of Sephardi and Russian Jews to have returned to Israel? Would there be yeshivas sponsored by the State?

Hertzl, Zhabotinsky, Aba-Achimeir, Trumpeldor, Stern, the Irgun and Lehi fighters hanged by the British: these were the prophets we have been seeking for two thousand years. Israel? This is the land we face while praying. The “Occupied Territories”? These are the holiest places in Israel; places depicted in the Bible.

One might think I’m coming from an entirely secular perspective while writing this. I’m not. Anyone who knows me will attest to the fact that I do my utmost to pray three times daily, observe koshrut and Shabbat. It’s not that. The only thing that separates me from my fellow Orthodox Jews is my ability to remain open-minded all the while enclosed within a cubicle. This cubicle is a lifestyle which doesn’t allow for many of the exercises of modern hedonism. I prefer to live in this cubicle and hope my children will grow up covered by an aura of purity. I do, however, remain committed to certain ideas associated with the liberal camp. One of these things is my belief that the State of Israel is mostly positive.

Notice I say: “mostly positive.” Our government and the way it governs isn’t beyond reproach. Nowhere close in fact. A lot of the things it does is not only against Halacha, but also against its own best interests. Whether it’s risking the lives of Jewish soldiers to board a ship carrying “activists” to Gaza or allowing a plane packed with terrorist supporters to land in Ben-Gurion, the Israeli government is constantly making mistakes genuinely believing that it’s serving the best interests of the Jewish People. And what about the decisions it makes that are not meant to serve our best interests? There are those as well.

When I write of loving the State of Israel, I am not referring to loving the decisions it makes. Rather, we must focus on its history and the positive influence it has on the world. The love of the Land of Israel is a component common to almost all Jews. Let’s try and make the love of the State another reason to unite.

Shabbat shalom!

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Following the offer given to Chief Zion Booster Committee Chairman Theodore Hertzl by British Lord Chamberlain in 1898
that Zionists could set up a homeland in Uganda a small but hearty band of Zionists from Fife, Scotland set off to move to Uganda but by an accident of 9,200.6 miles involving the US postal service and the Black Star Shipping Line they ended up in Lemitar, New Mexico, USA.

Upon meeting the newly arrived Lemitar Zionists local Apache red indians were appalled to find Eagles weren’t kosher and soon lodged complaints with both the Mexican and American Territorial authorities. The complaints fell on deaf ears and soon crude one stage Sioux made arrows were fired by the Apaches at the settlement. A long, low level war of marginal attrition was waged between the two sides in a conflict almost completely forgotten about by American historians.  The conflict lasted until the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

The two dozen Zionist families still in Lemitar in 1948; known to the locals as ‘Lemon Zingers’ as well several Apache Jewish converts moved to the southern Israeli City of Sderot on the border with Gaza and the Sinai Peninsula. Lemitar Leader Issac Zorathustra commented upon arriving at the city of Sderot “I feel we will be a lot more secure and prosperous here, those Red Indians could be real SOBs with their anti-Semitic arrow fire.”

The only remaining remnants of the community in Lemitar is one very lonely looking sign.

They also say that if you don’t know your past, you can’t know who you are and where you’re going, and that you will surely lose your path.

That fills me with hope.

I wish everybody would just forget their past, from the first blink of time. No one would know who they were or where and with whom they belong, nobody would care about lands, heritage, historic rights, and all that other nonsense that makes people so miserable all over the world. Just live and let live, without pathetic attempts to imbue our, let’s face it, utterly meaningless existence with unneccesary importance and heft.

I know it’s a necessary human defense mechanism without which we would go nuts…But it’s a mechanism that backfires so often and so badly that you just can’t help but wish sometimes, that it wasn’t there in the first place.

Who knows…yesterday they forgot Hertzl, today they forget Rabin…Maybe tomorrow will bring the promise of all-out amnesia.

Πολλοί, και δικαίως, θα αναρωτιέστε ποιος είναι ο Θεόδωρος και που αναφερόταν. Η αλήθεια είναι πως ο Χερτζλ υπήρξε ο ιδρυτής του σύγχρονου σιωνισμού, αυτός οργάνωσε και διηύθυνε το σιωνιστικό συνέδριο στη Βασιλεία της Ελβετίας τον Αύγουστο του 1897. Από εκείνη τη συνάντηση σφυρηλατήθηκε η ιδέα της ίδρυσης ενός εβραϊκού κράτους, μιας ιδέας που τελεσφόρησε από σχεδόν 50 χρόνια αργότερα, το 1948. Η κορωνίδα της σιωνιστικής ιδεολογίας βασίστηκε στη φενάκη πως στους Αγίους Τόπους, η Γη της Επαγγελίας στέκει και περιμένει έρημη τον περιούσιο λαό Του.

Όλοι οι πόλεμοι και οι τραγωδίες που συγκλονίζουν τη Μέση Ανατολή εδώ και 60 χρόνια οφείλονται στην εσφαλμένη αυτή εντύπωση που διαχύθηκε στο εβραϊκό στοιχείο στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα με πρωτεργάτη τον γεννημένο στην Πέστη της Ουγγαρίας Εβραίο δημοσιογράφο Θεόδωρο Χερτζλ. Η αλήθεια είναι πως η ιδέα της δίχως λαό πατρίδας που περιμένει τον δίχως πατρίδα λαό δεν ήταν δικής του εμπνεύσεως, άλλη μια σύνθετη ιστορία στο τόσο σύνθετο παλαιστινιακό ζήτημα, αλλά αυτός είναι εκείνος που ευθύνεται περισσότερο για την μεταλαμπάδευση της.

Η ψύχωση των Ισραηλινών περί του δικαιώματος του στην αυτοάμυνα, όπου ξεπλένεται εδώ και έξι δεκαετίες το ένα έγκλημα μετά το άλλο, οφείλεται εν πολλοίς στην «έκπληξη» των πρώτων Εβραίων αποίκων της Παλαιστίνης στις αρχές του 20ου αιώνα, όταν και αντίκρισαν συμπαγείς αραβικούς πληθυσμούς στην ιερή βιβλική τους πατρίδα. Η παρουσία των Παλαιστινίων εκεί ήταν, κατά την οπτική τους, μια αντικανονικότητα που όφειλε να διορθωθεί. Σε αυτή την λογική όλοι οι διωγμοί, οι ταπεινώσεις, οι δολοφονικές επιθέσεις και οι τακτικές περιθωριοποίησης του παλαιστινιακού στοιχείου δεν εντάσσονται σε μια σταδιακή εθνοκάθαρση ή γενοκτονία αλλά στην υγιή οικοδόμηση της «νόμιμης» οικίας του εβραϊκού λαού.

Στην βάση αυτής της ιδεολογίας κάθε αντίδραση του θύματος εισπράττεται ως τρομοκρατία και τροφοδοτεί τον φαύλο κύκλο που ζητά περισσότερη επιθετικότητα εναντίον όσων επιβουλεύονται την ασφάλεια του κράτους του Ισραήλ. Σε αυτή τη βάση οι Ισραηλινοί σήμερα σφάζουν αμάχους και προωθούν σχέδια εξόντωσης κάθε μορφής αντίστασης στο γκέτο της Γάζας, την μεγαλύτερη φυλακή του κόσμου, όπου οι τρόφιμοι αναμετρώνται σε ένα μάταιο αγώνα με τον ατσαλένιο δεσμοφύλακα τους. Και για αυτό τον λόγο δεν έχουμε μαζικές λιποταξίες στον ισραηλινό στρατό και για αυτό η κοινή γνώμη στο εβραϊκό κράτος υποστηρίζει μετ’ επιτάσεως το νέο έγκλημα.

Για τους Ισραηλινούς οι κάτοικοι και τα παιδιά της Γάζας είναι ενοχλητικοί παρίες που θα προτιμούσαν να μην υπάρχουν και για αυτό ελάχιστα ενοχλούνται από τις πολιτικές οικονομικής, πολιτικής αλλά ακόμα και φυσικής εξόντωσης των «Τρομοκρατών». Κάθε εγκληματίας που δεν έχει συναίσθηση των πράξεων αναμφίβολα έχει ελαφρυντικά όταν οδηγείται ενώπιον της δικαιοσύνης, αλλά όταν ένας τέτοιος εγκληματίας κυκλοφορεί ελεύθερος είναι διπλά επικίνδυνος και σαφώς μερίδιο της ευθηνής για το αίμα αθώων που χύνεται έχουν και οι Αρχές που δεν τον συνετούν.

Στην προκειμένη περίπτωση οι συνένοχες «Αρχές» είναι η διεθνής κοινότητα, δηλαδή όλοι εμείς, και το εμείς δεν εξαιρεί και εκείνον τον νέγρο ευαγγελιστή της «Αλλαγής» που άκουσα ότι παίζει γκολφ στη Χαβάη.

Τα λέμε την επόμενη Δευτέρα και κάθε Δευτέρα

Θεόδωρος Χερτζλ

My husband and I attended the festivities at Park Ra’anana last week as Israel celebrated her Day of Independence, or Yom Haatzmaut. It is always preceded by somber days of remembrance – for the Holocaust and for the fallen soldiers. The Independence Day celebrations are festive, boisterous and joyful – not despite the days leading up to the birthday of the nation but because of them. The whole country remembers the sacrifice and goes through a process of reflection that leads the people of Israel, especially the younger generation, to remember what this freedom and national holiday cost. 

There seemed to be a million and one families at the park, with children everywhere. Energetic music pumped through the park and a smorgasbord of food stands filled the air with the aroma of flame grilled meats that seems to accompany every event worth attending. The Mayor of Ra’anana, whom I like very much for his frequent visits to programs at the Absorption Center where I took ulpan, opened the evening with a moving prayer and then the residents of Ra’anana were treated to a ten-minute display of fireworks.

I caught something out of the corner of my eye that made me regret leaving my camera at home. In the swarm of Israeli flags and patriotic anthems sat a small group of Muslims. It isn’t strange to see Muslims in Park Ra’anana, but it was interesting to see a Muslim family at an Israeli Independence Day celebration. The women wore headdresses, and one of the men pulled out a rug and began praying – toward Mecca, I imagine, since it is not Jerusalem Muslims consider their most sacred location.

My husband and I had a brief conversation about whether the man was thanking Allah he was in Israeli territory where his wives and daughters had more freedom and protection and where he has more opportunities and government services, or whether he was he pleading with Allah to cast the infidel nation into the sea. Who knows? We didn’t try to ask. But we did take an additional moment to marvel at the nation we were celebrating.

Thousands of Israelis were commemorating the birth of their nation after 2,000 years of exile. Each Israeli is evidence of prophecy fulfilled, hopes realized and freedom found. There, in the middle of it all, sat a group of people who espouse a religion that, for the most part, seems to hold that Israel has no right to exist. Still, they are welcomed, they are undisturbed and they have the same freedom to dance, eat, buy and even cast down their prayer mats and pray as does any other Israeli. I find it extraordinary and exceptional here in Israel, where there are daily threats of terrorist attacks monitored by the Israeli military. A few weeks ago a Palestinian sniper shot at a car on road number 443. Still the Muslims are welcome to attend Israeli Independence Day celebrations.

The international news focuses mainly on the fact that Netanyahu’s government will not stop construction in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem, while ignoring the fact that Hamas and hostile neighbors like Hizbullah still refuse to acknowledge that Israel has a right to exist. My home country, under the leadership of Obama, is now pushing to move Israel behind the 67 cease-fire lines and insisting on the establishment of a tolerant Palestinian state free of any Jewish presence and most likely bound for a government built upon Sharia law.

All this while Israel, inside the 67 borders, has multiple thriving Muslim villages and allows freedom of worship, benefits and employment. There are Arabs in Israel’s government and High Court. The narrative on Israel around the world is skewed and unjust. I love this country and am proud that one day I will have dual citizenship for two of the greatest nations in the world. Israel and America have been shining beacons of hope and strong bastions of freedom for immigrants around the world.

US presidents of both parties have expressed the deep convictions that bind the nations together. John F. Kennedy stated, “Israel was not created in order to disappear – Israel will endure and flourish. It is the child of hope and home of the brave. It can neither be broken by adversity nor demoralized by success. It carries the shield of democracy and it honors the sword of freedom.”

Ronald Reagan conveyed with conviction that “the people of Israel and America are historic partners in the global quest for human dignity and freedom [and] will always remain at each other’s side.”

William Clinton declared, “America and Israel share a special bond. Our relations are unique among all nations. Like America, Israel is a strong democracy, as a symbol of freedom, and an oasis of liberty, a home to the oppressed and persecuted.”

And George W. Bush, while visiting Israel, stated, “Our two nations both faced great challenges when they were founded, and our two nations have both relied on the same principles to help us succeed. We’ve built strong democracies to protect the freedoms given to us by an Almighty God. We’ve welcomed immigrants, who have helped us thrive. We’ve built prosperous economies by rewarding innovation and risk-taking and trade. And we’ve built an enduring alliance to confront terrorists and tyrants.”

The affinity for and fraternity with the Jewish nation was felt not only by recent presidents, but also by those who served before the state of Israel had been reborn.

Calvin Coolidge expressed his “sympathy with the deep and intense longing which finds such fine expression in the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine.”

And in a letter to Mordecai Manuel Noah in 1819, The second president of the United States, John Adams, wrote, “I could find it in my heart to wish that you had been at the head of a hundred thousand Israelites … & marching with them into Judea & making a conquest of that country & restoring your nation to the dominion of it. For I really wish the Jews again in Judea an independent nation.”

The values shared by the two nations are deeply and fiercely held, in a way that made it not so very strange that many Israelis would hang the Stars and Stripes right next to their beloved flag on Israeli Independence Day. A significant number of Israeli drivers would put an Israeli flag on one window and an American flag on the other. I always appreciated it, though never quite understood it until it was conspicuously absent this year. I did not see one American flag on a car, apartment or business this year, and I began to ask myself why it had been there in the past and why it was not there this year.

Without going into a list of political fall-outs between the two nations this year, I think it is obvious that America has pressured Israel in a way it has never done in the past. While Iran is threatening to “wipe Israel off the map” and Syria is allegedly sending Scud missiles to the region that can target any place in Israel, the president of the free world is scolding Israel for allowing “natural growth” in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem while Arabs in West Jerusalem have full rights to rent, buy, build and expand.

Something is awry and it is deeply disturbing. I know the decision by Israelis not to fly American flags means, in no way, that they are anti-American. I think it is more of a statement that they are prepared to go it alone if the United States fails to support the ideals and values upon which both nations were founded. They are exhibiting the same revolutionary spirit that once gripped America, and every American should be proud… this one is.

Netanyahu stopped just short of making such a bold announcement. He opened the cabinet meetings this week with a quote by the founder of modern Zionism, Theodore Herzl: “Don’t rely on the help of foreigners, nor on benefactors. And do not expect stones to become soft because benefactors give humiliating donations. A nation that wants to stand upright must rely on itself alone.”

I wish to encourage the prime minister for his stand and direct the nation of Israel on her 62nd birthday to this quote from one of the great American founders and voice of true classical liberalism, Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

I am on my way to obtaining Israeli citizenship, but I have always considered myself an American first and Israeli second. However, thinking through this Independence Day has made me feel differently. I am a citizen of freedom first – wherever the boundary lines are drawn. I love America deeply, but I love the values that shaped her more. I hope the two nations will always stand shoulder to shoulder on the worldwide battlefront for freedom, but if not I refer again to Benjamin Franklin, who wrote in a letter to Benjamin Vaughn in 1783, “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.”

Here’s hoping that I’ll always hold the passports of both countries!

This article first appeared on Travelujah.com.
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