Why ‘Jewish Unity’ — Even at Passover

“The right-wing government is in danger. Arab voters are coming out in droves to the polls. Left-wing organizations are busing them out.”

So wrote Benjamin Netanyahu in a Facebook post on March 17, the day of Israel’s elections. Since then the words have been a cause célèbre among critics of Israel—and not least, American Jewish liberals.

The Jerusalem Post reports that a “yawning divide has opened between liberal US Jews and the right-wing Jewish Israeli majority that reelected…Netanyahu,” and that:

Among many other responses, Netanyahu’s words have sparked calls by American Jewish liberals Peter Beinart and Jeremy Ben-Ami (president of J Street) for the Obama administration to “punish” Israel and boycott its presence in lands captured in the 1967 Six Day War.

Now that Passover is here, we hear the usual calls for Jewish unity: we’ve all been in it together a long time, and continue to face challenges. But is unity really a possibility? Is there a way to bridge the “yawning divide” between Israel and liberal American Jews who are convinced that the Jewish state has lost its way?

To begin with, Netanyahu’s words weren’t lovely. He could have softened them by substituting, perhaps, “Arab citizens who oppose me” for “Arab voters.” He was indeed playing on fears; he wanted to make sure complacent people went out and voted for his Likud Party.

It’s been pointed out, though, that such things have been known to happen in bitterly contested campaigns. In the 2012 U.S. campaign, Joe Biden’s statement to a largely African-American audience that the Republicans would “put you all back in chains” was a clear case of racial fear-mongering.

It didn’t, however, evoke horror among American Jewish liberals—let alone calls to punish America, or declarations that they were disengaging from it as a country.

It can also be pointed out that Netanyahu’s remark was atypical of him, and that a few days later he apologized to Israeli Arabs. And it may also be worth pointing out that Israel’s Arab minority indeed “votes in droves,” has full rights, and sees Israel as a “good place to live.”

But it’s not enough to impress Jewish liberals of the Beinart and Ben-Ami stripe. They say they can no longer “identify” with an Israel that—in their view—no longer makes the grade morally.

Apart from Netanyahu’s Facebook post, their bitterest complaint is that Israel’s 2015 elections have returned two ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties to the governing coalition—parties that take a dim view of the Conservative, and particularly Reform, Judaism that many American Jewish liberals practice.

Here, though, it seems that Israel can’t win. Ultra-Orthodox Jews form about 10 percent of the Israeli Jewish population and are entitled to political representation. It’s known as democracy. Real friends of Israel admire its democracy and are prepared to respect the results of its elections. But for American Jewish liberals, Israel only gets credit if the election results are to their liking.

Confession: I normally don’t pay too much attention to American Jewish liberals or read much of what they write. My own impression, though, from some Facebook disputes with some of them is that Netanyahu’s “Arab voters” indiscretion didn’t so much cause them dismay, but something more like schadenfreude—or even, deep down, celebration.

In other words, they’ve been looking for an excuse to disengage from Israel, and Netanyahu’s words gave them one. Their real problem with Israel is that, when they look at it, they don’t get the sensation of looking into a mirror; they don’t see themselves.

In the closed cultural, moral, and political world of what is now called “liberalism” — of which American Jewish liberals are very much a part — a hawkish Israeli electorate that views its environment as threatening is not acceptable. Environments are not threatening by nature; one makes them threatening by creating grievances among people — in Israel’s case, by “denying the Palestinians a state.”

Here, objections about Hamas, or the violent outcomes of previous Israeli concessions, will get you nowhere. In the comfortable world of Israel’s “liberal” overseas brethren, one resolves threats by making deals and goes on with one’s comfortable life.

The antagonism to religion’s role in Israel similarly disregards the fact that Israel is a Middle Eastern country where religion is not just a marginal phenomenon but a key source of identity and values, and yes, a significant political player. For most American Jewish liberals, religion has to be quarantined from public life. Israel follows a different historical trajectory; its sense of self, symbols, commemorations, and even language have grown from a substrate of Judaism. Again, it doesn’t fit the “liberal” box.

If Israel and part of Diaspora Jewry are in different orbits of values and ideology, how much should it concern us here in Israel? That some Diaspora Jews adopt a general mindset that weakens their bond to specific Jewish nationality or religion is actually, from a Zionist standpoint, inevitable. One could wish it otherwise, but it’s in the cards that some Disapora Jews drift away from us.

The main downside is that some of these “liberal” brethren, endorsing an anti-Israeli government of their own, are going to be hitting us hard in public. It doesn’t make for much “unity.” But Passover tells us that, since the days of the Book of Exodus, we’ve survived worse things.

In case anyone who doesn’t remember, Franz Haber, the child of Jews went so far as to develop Zyklon B for the Nazis to use in their camps. There are people who were technically Jewish by lineage, but were viciously seeking to help others destroy the Jews anyways.

The idea of that post - which I ask now be deleted please - ias I meant to send it only as a private message - is that we need to recognize straight-,out that the Enrmy seeking to destroy Israel is an enrmy and not just someone who will put out some bad publicity about her. If the author of the article and other well- intentioned folks don’t recognize the face of haman or Satan — if they dont wake up to the very real evil intentions of their enemies — they will very likely wind up dead.

Soros comes to mind too. You know, the guy who ( along with middle- eastern and chicago islamonazis ) bankrolled obama. Thanks for helping clarify the point I was so ineptly striving to make. Much appreciated. All good Christisns, Jews, and other people of good will must face the reality of the islamoNazis’ murderous intentions for what they are — and not let their “liberal “ media apologists whitewash them into merely nice folks with some minor political differences that can be “negotiated” if we “stubborn right-wing extremist hardliners” would only be willing to “comptomise” (all of our survival— here in America as well as in Israel. Just “give them what they want and they’ll be nice to you”. BS. What they want is exactly what they keep saying they want - all of us infidels put to the knife. Period. Pretending otherwise and “negotiating” and “compromising further” or “giving them what they want” is NOT a winning strategy for USA, UK, Europe, Israel, or anyone else who wants to stay alive

Ben Shapiro of Front Page Magazine had a recent column on why so many American Jews are democrats/liberals, which helps explain the chasm between them and Israel and its current government.

I think that is extremely unfair to Franz Haber. He did pioneering research into chemistry, and millions of people are alive today because of processes he discovered. He did not work on Zyklon B, he just discovered some chemical processes that led to others developing Zyklon B. Blaming him personally for this is like blaming the Wright Brothers for aerial warfare.

Franz Haber just had the bad luck to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Before he died, he came to realize what the Nazis were, and he regretted his contributions which were being misused by them.

Synthetic Ammonia is a good thing, I agree on that wholeheartedly, however, what Haber did to his family and others to try and appease the Nazis was still pretty bad.

My recollection is that the bad things he did to his family didn't occur during the Nazi period. They occurred during the Kaiser and World War I. His wife killed herself out of protest to his development of gases for warfare. Again, I think this was during world war I.

He had another wife and children. He ditched them when he fled to Britain. The Nazis slaughtered them. He did try to give Zyklon B as a development to save his life and prove he wasn’t Jewish, but despite his attempts to appease, Hitler made it clear that Haber still shouldn’t be trusted since Judaism was in his blood. Haber abruptly left Germany, and his family was summarily executed after he suddenly left them there without a notice of the fact that he was leaving or that they were going to die.

I was unaware of any of this. I believe I learned what I learned of Haber from a documentary, and I don't believe it mentioned any of that. Either that, or I didn't see all of it.

In any case, Haber turns out to be a tragic figure with nothing but misery at the end of his life.

Yes, definitely so, he died of a heart attack in 1937. I will admit that it was tough to swallow all the information about him myself back in the day. I will admit, it wouldn’t be easy to do things completely right when the hatred of the Nazis was as extreme as it was either.

Fritz Haber...BTW not Franz..had already developed chemical warfare for WW1. Zyclon was already used. then....and he certainly didnt do so with the idea of exterminating Jews.

Rudolf Hoss, Commodant of the Concentration Camp had learned of Zyclons uses and in fact arranged for it to be first used on Russian Prisoners to see how it would work.

Gas warfare in World War I was, in a sense, the war of the chemists, with Haber pitted against French Nobel laureate chemist Victor Grignard...... Regarding war and peace, Haber once said,.... “During peace time a scientist belongs to the World, but during war time he belongs to his country.”... This was an example of the ethical dilemmas facing chemists at that time.

Haber had converted to Lutheran I believe sometime during his studies or soon after...and his second wife divorced him...Before they were married she had converted to Christianity....they had issues thereafter, ( as with his first wife), regarding his development of chemical warfare. Still, he was buried with his first wife.

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