There is a major subversive effort, in my opinion, to weaken traditional Jewish culture which viewed authentic Halachic standards as values to be respected even if not practiced; to supplant mainstream Democratic party parameters with radical progressivism; and to subvert the tenets of Jewish nationalism, Zionism, to the extent that Israel’s security, standing and legitimization is truly threatened with Jewish opponents starring as the prime underminers.
We are facing, it would seem, the ‘J Generation’ of Diaspora Jewry (no, not this J). A new ‘League of Trembling Israelites’ has mutated into existence.
As Dani Dayan mentioned in his remarks at the President’s Conference panel (which I blogged here), the Bund, fiercely anti-Zionist, is long gone, and the Movement for Reform Judaism abandoned its own anti-Zionism in 1937, eventually joining, excuse me, coming into the communal tent, as ARZA in 1978 . He could have added the unique American Council for Judaism (actually still a web presence), which was still around in the form of Alfred Lilienthal (also virtual now) when I first joined a Zionist youth movement in 1962.
All the passionate commitment to “liberal values” which, in very practical terms promotes moral relativism that, at the end of the street, sorry, road, removes the underpinnings of what it is to be Jewish.
The latest whimpering on the Internet is a piece about a failed childhood experience at a summer camp of one Allison Benedikt, who even learned about Jabotinsky(“Weird names like Jabotinsky and Herzl float through the air,” she writes, as if Bednedikt is normal in Latinized Baruch, and later notes that “I am a Jewish leader! I''m still not really sure who Jabotinsky is, but the important thing is that the kids don''t know that I don''t know. It seems a little late for me to ask a friend”). It really is pitiful reading, I think.
But, I must presume that her education, her Israel trip and her Zionism is not so untypical. If Brandeis students, a minority, true, can be so compelled to demonstrate against Israel’s ambassador well, something is wrong. Taking a J Street turn will lead nowhere.
In fact, those looking for a refuge from big, bad Zionism and Israel could do no better than learn this lesson:
Western political leaders have acquired a concern for ''Arab-Palestinian homelessness,’ which is selfishly economic rather than humanitarian. At the same time they ignore that three quarters of the original Palestine Mandate area is now under Palestinian-Arab rule. The sooner Diaspora Jews and the Hebrew nation recognize these new realities, the stronger they will be.The Hebrew renaissance offers a painful choice to Jews. They can live in the Diaspora, often facing isolation, persecution and ambivalent identities, or they can return to their ancient land and face perils, but with a chance for honorable self-fulfillment and an end to wandering...
The writer of those lines was Yitzhaq Ben-Ami, father of Jeremy Ben-Ami, on page 544 of his book, Years of Wrath, Days of Glory. Think about that.