National Scholar Updates

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Beha'aloteha
 

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

For many years, we were regular customers of a local store. The proprietor always greeted us with a smile, called us by name, asked about our family. If our bill amounted to $51.10, he would often just round it off at $50. He genuinely loved his work and had a warm relationship with us and his many other customers.
 

But a few years ago, he retired and another person took over the business. The new proprietor always has a glum expression on his face, rarely greets us when we enter the store, seems to wish he was anywhere else but in the store. If our bill amounts to $51.10, we pay every cent of it, since he never rounds off the total.

We find that we now rarely shop at this store. The merchandise is the same…but the shopping experience has become unpleasant. We’ve found other stores to patronize.
 

What’s true in business is also true in religious life. When a rabbi/synagogue/community is welcoming, approachable and genuinely interested in us, we are more likely to respond positively. If a rabbi/synagogue/community doesn’t really seem to care about us—except for our membership dues and donations—we are likely to look for a more congenial religious setting.

This week’s Torah portion relates the details of the lighting of the menorah by Aaron the High Priest. Aaron’s role was not merely to provide light for the sanctuary, but to symbolically create an atmosphere of holiness, warmth, and enlightenment for the public.

In the Pirkei Avot, we read the words of Hillel: Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing them close to the Torah.  Aaron, who lit the menorah in the sanctuary, was himself a personification of the spirit of kindness; he brought light to others through his warmth, caring, and genuine desire to develop friendships among the community. He was successful in bringing people closer to Torah because they were attracted to his kindness, to his concern for them and their families.

The late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach founded a synagogue in Berkeley during the 1960s in order to reach out to the many young Jews who had drifted away from Jewish tradition. He named it the House of Love and Prayer. In the summer of 1967, he was asked to explain his vision for this synagogue.

He answered: “Here’s the whole thing, simple as it is. The House of Love and Prayer is a place where, when you walk in, someone loves you, and when you walk out, someone misses you.” (Quoted in “Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach: Life, Mission and Legacy,” by Natan Ophir, Urim Publications, 2014, p.119)

In these few words, Rabbi Carlebach expressed a profound insight worthy of immortality! He offered a vision not just for the House of Love and Prayer…but for all places of Jewish worship. When we enter a synagogue, do we feel welcomed? Does our presence mean anything to those in attendance? When we leave, does anyone miss us? Do the rabbi and synagogue officials take the time to get to know us, our needs, our concerns?

One might attend various synagogues and find the same general liturgy and customs—but in one synagogue one feels ignored or rebuffed, and in another synagogue one feels warmly received and appreciated.  Which would you choose to attend and support?

The recent Iron Swords War has highlighted many flaws with the political order in general and the international criminal justice system in particular. Attempts to indict Israeli leaders in the International Criminal Court alongside preposterous accusations of genocide have led many to conclude that the politicized system is built on a (anti-Semitic?) bias against Israel. In this article, I hope to show how these well-founded concerns were already raised by rabbinic scholars in the earliest days of the League of Nations. I further argue that these problems have continued to confound many Jews who were otherwise tempted to support a system that promised a new world order.

Jewish Internationalists and Dreams of a New World Order

On November 12, 1917, while World War I continued to rage, R. Avraham Yitzchak Hakohen Kook sent a letter to his son R. Tzvi Yehuda: God’s light has finally pierced into our dark world. The redemption has begun.[1]

What inspired this proclamation? Ten days earlier, the British foreign minister issued the Balfour Declaration establishing support for the “establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The British soon afterward conquered Palestine from the Turks, ending 400 years of Ottoman control of the Holy Land and raising hopes of Zionists around the world. 

R. Kook had been waiting for this moment. Now dwelling in London, he had been delivering Bible-laced sermons praising British patriotism and their fight against Germany.^[2] With the declaration of the world’s great power, he wrote to Seidel, the messianic process has begun! The Lord, who is “master of battles and sprouts salvations,” had delivered.[3] It’s true, he conceded, the bloody war had revealed the depravity of modernity and its European delegates. God, however, had now made it possible for people of uplifted spirit to bring about a new era. 

A few years later, the Balfour Declaration was incorporated by the newly established League of Nations into its broad mandate system that would govern territories of collapsed empires. Belgium controlled Rwanda and Burundi; the French oversaw Syria and Lebanon; and the British governed Palestine and Transjordan, to name a few prominent examples. The goal of the mandate system, at least as proclaimed by its founders, was to end the colonialist era of exploitation. At the base level, this would entail protecting the rights of the local inhabitants through a system of international law. More ambitiously, the mandate system would facilitate the founding of new states. Concomitantly, various treaties were enacted to ensure minority rights in all nation-states, new and old. Taken together, a new world order was sought to preserve peace between states and prevent persecution of minorities within them.

Many Jews, including some avowed Zionists, were deeply involved in these movements.^[4] One such figure was a rising academic star and legal activist, the Polish-born Hirsch Tzvi Lauterpacht (1897–1960). In the days after World War I, Lauterpacht had witnessed the horrible November 1918 pogrom in Lemberg, a contested city within the newly independent Poland. The war was over, yet Jews continued to be slaughtered.[5]

As borders were getting drawn anew across the globe, Lauterpacht dedicated his life to providing protections for minorities in these new states. He believed that Britain could use its imperial power to bring lasting peace, including support for both Jewish nationalism in Palestine and rights for Jews and other minorities throughout Europe.^[6] Lauterpacht would become a leading law professor at Cambridge and later a judge on the International Court of Justice. He is credited with establishing that international law prohibited territorial conquest through warfare; that’s precisely the expansionist “discretionary wars,” to use rabbinic terms, that Kook wanted to end. Lauterpacht also helped establish that those who waged aggressive warfare could be placed on trial. His advocacy directly led to the Nuremberg trials against Nazi figures after World War II. This was a deeply personal case for Lauterpacht. His parents, siblings, and extended family were all killed in the Holocaust.^[7]

Another prominent international jurist who escaped Europe before the war and worked with Lauterpacht on the Nuremberg trials was Jacob Robinson (1889–1977). Robinson was born in a small village in the Russian empire to an Orthodox Jewish family from distinguished rabbinic lineage. Like many others, he sought solutions to the “Jewish problem” after the antisemitic violence in Kishinev and elsewhere. After earning his law degree, he was drafted into the Russian army in 1914. He was captured by the Germans and spent the next three years in eight different German POW camps. Somehow surviving, he returned home to the newly independent Lithuania, where he not only led a Hebrew-language school but was also elected to the Lithuanian parliament. Robinson became a renowned advocate for national minority rights, playing critical advocacy roles in the Congress of European National Minorities and at the League of Nations. Throughout the 1920s, he promoted a “pan-Europa” transnational community that would allow minorities to peacefully live within whatever national borders they found themselves.^[8] At the same time, he was also the de facto leader of Lithuanian Zionism. Ben-Gurion even deemed him as “the most important man in Lithuania.”[9]

For many Jews, international governance presented an enticing alternative to pacifism toward achieving the prophetic visions of a new world order. We don’t need to naively declare that violence is never justified. Instead, we can work to create an institutional system that will find alternative methods for conflict resolution. If peace efforts fail, then these bodies will act to ensure that any belligerent aggressors face justice. The world can together agree upon what military actions are acceptable. They will provide direction for moral dilemmas alongside clarity for determining which sides were right or wrong. For many, this was, and is, an alluring vision of prophetic proportions.^[10] 

Yet could international governance deliver on these high hopes? Could world powers, in fact, now provide justice for the Jewish people and other persecuted groups? 

Two Excommunicated Rabbis and the Changing Self-Image of the Jew 

In August 1920, a book ban was issued by the leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community of Jerusalem. The author of the prohibited book was none other than Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who had recently returned from London to assume the position of the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem. Once settled, R. Tzvi Yehuda published his father’s major treatise, Orot (Lights), which included his reflections on the Great War from Switzerland and his hopes for a new era in international relations. 

What raised the ire of his critics to ban this book? R. Kook had equated the spiritual merits accrued by youthful physical training to those gained by piously reciting Psalms or mystical enchantments. This was not the first time R. Kook had aroused controversy for praising the ethos of self-defense. In the first years of the twentieth century, Jews—usually immigrants fleeing from the pogroms in Russia—founded different groups to build character based on physical toil and exercise. “Muscular Jews” could work the land and fight for themselves. Kook wrote enthusiastically about the importance of Jewish self-defense, viewing the phenomenon as “heartwarming.”^[11] While recognizing that these groups were led by secular Jews, he embraced their efforts. He mourned for two that were killed in 1911 as “holy martyrs,” despite the fact that both had abandoned the religious lifestyles of their upbringing.^[12] For R. Kook, physical strength was a sign of renewed Jewish vigor to develop the homeland and instill fear in its enemies.

Yet his latest expression of praise for profane labor and physical strength—comparing it to a classic religious act of beseeching God for assistance—was too much for those who viewed the Jewish hero as pious, pensive, and passive. They wanted R. Kook out of Palestine. The controversy quickly spread throughout the Jewish world, with competing images of Jews and Judaism at stake.^[13] 

Unlike several of R. Kook’s apologetic defenders, one of his most strident supporters felt that R. Kook didn’t go far enough. What’s the benefit, he asked, of simply reciting Psalms as a protective charm or incantation? 

It is unquestionable that to strengthen Jewish boys to enable them to defend themselves against their pursuers (with God’s help) is a greater mitzvah (religious deed) than reciting Psalms.… Reciting Psalms is the task of the indolent; calisthenics is the task of the industrious. 

Prayer, he added, can have a valuable role, but only alongside self-defense training. He further accused R. Kook’s critics of timidity and suggested they instead go back to Europe. Their cowardice was only causing fear among the Jewish residents from antisemitic Arabs, who looked upon diffident Jewish neighbors as “dead meat.”^[14] 

R. Kook’s defender, Rabbi Hayim Hirschensohn (1857–1935), knew something about rabbinic bans. He himself had left Jerusalem two decades earlier following controversies over his own publications. Unlike most of the prominent Zionists of this era, Hirschensohn was born in the Land of Israel. His parents were proto-Zionists (ĥovevei Tziyon) who had immigrated from Pinsk in 1847. They helped develop Jewish settlement in the cities of Safed and Jerusalem before Herzl was even born. The younger Hirschensohn followed in their footsteps by organizing the acquisition and development of properties around the country. He later became a founding member of the religious Zionist movement, Mizrachi. 

As a scholar, R. Hirschensohn aroused the ire of traditionalists in Jerusalem. This was partly because of his outspoken advocacy for reviving Hebrew as a spoken language, including his founding, with Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, of an organization toward that goal. (He and Ben-Yehuda were the first two families to enforce Hebrew-speaking in their homes). He also displayed openness toward analyzing classic rabbinic texts from a critical historical lens. These factors, among others, led to his formal excommunication by the old-school rabbis of Jerusalem. Needing to make a living, Hirschensohn was forced to leave his birthplace. 

So, in 1904, the same year that R. Kook immigrated to Jaffa, R. Hirschensohn made it to Hoboken, New Jersey, where he served as a rabbi for the rest of his life. During World War I and its aftermath, he attests, he was deeply engrossed in pastoral work with veterans and their families, for which he received a letter of commendation. R. Hirschensohn remained active in various Zionist organizations and maintained correspondence with the great rabbinic figures in Palestine. Yet he died in relative obscurity, with his writings becoming well-known only in the past couple of decades. His works remain particularly important because in the wake of the horrors of World War I and the excitement of the Balfour Declaration, he wrote several books dedicated to establishing the legal groundwork for a democratic state within Jewish thought, including addressing the dilemmas of war and conquest.^[15] 

The Jewish Legion and the Hasmonean Spirit of Self-Determination 

The 1920 excommunication controversy was not the first time that Rabbis Kook and Hirschensohn had supported Jews taking up arms. Both men had endorsed enlistment during World War I in the so-called Jewish Legion, battalions within the British army composed of Jewish volunteers from England, North America, and other countries to fight in Palestine. They were created upon the initiative of Joseph Trumpeldor and Vladimir Jabotinsky. Trumpeldor was a veteran of the Russo-Japanese War in which he lost his left arm and received four medals of bravery, making him the most decorated Jewish veteran of the Russian Army. Jabotinsky was a Russian writer who made Bialik’s poem on the Kishinev pogrom famous by translating it into Russian. More significantly, he had been an organizer of Jewish self-defense organizations and an advocate for minority rights in Europe, seeking to protect the Jewish people with both law and shield.^[16] 

During World War I, Trumpeldor and Jabotinsky sought British permission for Jews to fight the Ottomans in Palestine. After protracted negotiations, including those of Chaim Weizmann, the Legion finally formed and played a minor role in completing the British conquest of Palestine in 1918. Its fighters included David Ben-Gurion, later Israel’s first prime minister; Eliyahu Golomb, the founder of the pre-state Haganah defense force; and Berl Katznelson, a future labor leader. 

The Legion did not accomplish much and soon disbanded, yet it transformed the image of the Jew into someone who could fight for himself and his homeland. The chaplain of the Legion was Reverend Leib Falk (1889–1957), who grew up in Boisk and studied in the school of R. Kook and Seidel. In a Hanukka holiday sermon, Falk reflected on the significance of the first Jewish military corps that had fought in nearly eighteen hundred years: 

The whole world was watching [and] were looking on us, but they see now the Maccabean spirit revived, they see now that Israel is not only powerful with his voice, but he has also a mighty arm.... The Jewish soldier upholds now the honour of our nation. The Jewish warrior saved our national honour which was at stake.^[17]

While the troops were still in England, R. Kook visited Falk and his men. Previously, R. Kook had opposed the enlistment of yeshiva students (frequently new immigrants from eastern Europe) into the British army because of their inability to maintain a religious lifestyle.^[18] Yet he bestowed Jewish Legion fighters with blessings of strength while deeming them as the bearers of the beginning of salvation.^[19] Years later, when the Jewish Legion’s flag was brought to Palestine for a grand ceremony, R. Kook compared it to the banners that the Israelites used in the desert on their way to conquering the Land of Israel.^[20]

Yet it was R. Hirschensohn who penned the most extensive treatise in support of the Legion. Even though Jews were fighting within a foreign army, he nonetheless deemed fighting in Palestine as within the category of an “obligatory war” for the liberation of the homeland. Earlier rabbinic Zionist figures were concerned that military activity may violate talmudic oaths that prohibited the Jews during their exile period from “rebelling against the nations” or “rising up together in force.” ^[21] They thus advocated for a peaceful settlement through land acquisitions. R. Hirschensohn was not deterred by this talmudic prohibition; it applied, in his mind, only to rebellions in foreign lands, not to conquering the Holy Land. This was especially true since the British had recognized the right of the Jews to establish a state in Palestine. This was not treason, but rather a deeply honorable fight by soldiers for their homeland which had been taken from their people centuries beforehand. Most significant about his declaration was the negation of the talmudic impulses against militarism as binding on the Jewish people in the current era. It was a holy deed, in his mind, not just to settle the land, but to fight for it.^[22] 

A Temple of Peace Without Sacrifices?

Renewed Jewish warfare naturally meant that Jews would need to think about the legacy of biblical warfare. Like R. Kook, R. Hirschensohn sought to neutralize the ethos behind the Bible’s total wars, albeit more radically. First, he contended, any remnant of the Canaanite nations has long been lost, thereby making the commandments irrelevant. Second, while the commandment to conquer the land is eternal, the clause to “leave no one alive” among the land’s inhabitants was only applicable to Joshua’s generation, when such military tactics were necessary to conquer the land and remove the fears of the Israelite people. Once completed, however, no such clause existed; as such, we don’t find Kings David or Solomon fighting total wars against the local inhabitants.^[23]

Even if we could identify the seven Canaanite nations, he further argued, we would not wipe them out because such behavior is morally unacceptable in our era. “It is prohibited to violate international law that regulates the conduct of war by charter. God forbid that Israel be regarded by the nations as barbaric murderers who violate international law and the norms of civilization.”^[24] The continued history of biblical warfare—alongside our moral intuitions—proves that this biblical verse was a temporary provision, not a permanent commandment. 

Given his embrace of the norms of civilization to reject this biblical model of warfare, one might expect that R. Hirschensohn would be enthusiastic about the postwar treaties to prevent armed conflicts. Yet R. Hirschensohn expressed doubts that these proposals to resolve international conflicts would be more successful than earlier treaties. ^[25] Those rules, which governed hostile conduct, seemed utterly ineffective during the Great War. Hirschensohn was skeptical that the efforts of American president Woodrow Wilson and the League of Nations, meant to prevent the outbreak of war, would be any more effective. Ultimately, these bodies were subject to the political interests of powerful nations, which would thwart any real attempt at justice. 

Indeed, an early glimpse of this problem emerged in the aftermath of the post-war Lemberg pogrom. Wilson initially pushed hard for strict provisions of minority rights as a condition for Polish sovereignty. He pulled back when a related measure was proposed that would possibly sanction racial segregation in America.^[26] Protecting minority rights was important, but only if it didn’t endanger American interests. 

Instead of a politicized court, R. Hirschensohn desired to build, in the spirit of the prophets, a new house of worship on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. It would feature song and prayer but leave out the animal sacrifices mandated in the Bible. The Temple would serve as a “House of Peace” to advocate for each nation to thrive within its own borders without succumbing to the evil excesses of nationalism. He penned an extensive essay to resolving how Jews could walk onto the Temple Mount in light of heavy ritual restrictions against treading on its sanctified grounds. Hirschensohn sought to ensure that Zionism would have a center for religious and moral development that would guide Jewish nationalism. It would also serve as a model for nationalist movements around the world.^[27]

Yet he also had a political agenda: If the Jews did not develop the Temple Mount, it would not remain closed to all. Instead, it would be controlled by foreigners and Arab Muslims. The Jews would be left standing, as they had throughout centuries of exile, by the Dung Gate, with all that this name entails. 

R. Kook rejected this proposal. While agreeing that Jewish nationalism must be rooted in a religious spirit, he disallowed stepping on the Temple Mount, let alone building on it. He further criticized R. Hirschensohn for eliminating the use of animal sacrifices. Hirschensohn had written that the restoration of the sacrifices “would make us the object of ridicule before all the nations of the world. Instead of being a light to the nations, they would think of us as an unenlightened people who walk in darkness.”^[28] In R. Kook’s mind, this was a religious reform corrupted by the ideals of European philosophy. We should leave the Temple Mount alone and instead build a synagogue next to the Western Wall that could serve as a house of prayer and peace.^[29] 

R. Hirschensohn, in reply, accused Kook of making a religious and political error that was equivalent to the 1903 “Uganda plan” to grant the Jews a state in Eastern Africa. Just as you can’t temporarily replace the Holy Land with some other territory, you can’t replace the heart of the Temple Mount with its outer western wall! Either Jews settle their territory or someone else will. As for R. Kook’s jibe that he was overly influenced by Western norms, R. Hirschensohn replied that there is no doubt that the Great War had shown the failings of European culture. Nonetheless, the prophets repeatedly asserted that God did not truly desire animal sacrifices.^[30] With all the failings of Western culture, knowledge and wisdom would not recede backward, or as he put it, that “which is uncivilized will not suddenly become civilized!”^[31] In any case, the mission of the hour was to purchase all holy sites toward ensuring our political and spiritual future.^[32]

The Value of Treaties 

R. Herschensohn’s idyllic visions for a “Temple of Peace” are stirring yet fantastical. He also does not offer a sufficient answer as to how it would avoid the politicization that plagues other international bodies. It’s possible that this was more a theoretical exercise than an actual plan.^[33] 

Nonetheless, his writing reflects a deep ambivalence on the potential success of international bodies to execute justice in a world of competing nationalistic claims. On the one hand, there is a genuine desire to promote humanistic values that will avoid a repetition of the unnecessary bloodshed of the Great War. On the other hand, R. Hirschensohn recognizes that political interests will dominate international bodies. Therefore, to achieve equity, Jews need to take hold of what belongs to them, such as the Temple Mount, based on their own values and interests. Otherwise, someone else will decide based on their interests, not justice. 

This weariness toward international political bodies is also reflected in R. Herschensohn’s extended 1926 treatise on the standing of international treaties. Nations should be careful before signing treaties, he believed, because once they commit, they are liable to punishment for breaking their word. This is why the Israelites were punished by God for violating the covenant at Sinai and breaking His law. So too, he asserted, Germany got its due in World War I because Kaiser Wilhelm had treated the 1839 Treaty of London that granted sovereignty and neutrality to Belgium as “a scrap of paper.”^[34] The Allies were justified in resisting Germany since treaties are only binding when they are reciprocally observed.^[35] 

Yet treaties are not the only obligations that are binding on the Jewish people. So, too, are the ethical practices of “civilizations.”^[36] While he doesn’t fully translate that term, it seems that he has in mind the widespread moral sentiments of modern civilized nations.^[37] Violating these standards, in his mind, constitutes a grave desecration of the reputation of God and His people. Considering these beliefs, we can further understand his rejection of the models of fighting against Amalek and the Canaanite nations. Whether or not there is a treaty against total war or genocide, Jews must hold themselves to the highest standards of morality and build a stellar reputation.^[38] 

So what would a Jewish state do in this era of treaties? R. Hirschensohn argued that it should make accords with as many foreign nations as possible—in Europe, America, and Africa. Like R. Kook, R. Hirschensohn asserted that imperialist excursions beyond Israel’s borders had no place in contemporary Jewish law and that all wars required moral justification.^[39] Nations must stick to their own borders. As such, there was a confluence here between the religious value of international peace and Jewish national interests. 

What about Arabs living within Palestine? R. Hirschensohn claimed that permanently ceding territory in the Holy Land would violate the biblical mandate to conquer the land. He also believed that Jews should not quickly initiate negotiations that would put them in a position of weakness.^[40] Yet he recognized that despite the Jewish historical claim to the land and the Balfour Declaration, there was an Arab population who had legitimate conflicting claims to the same territory. This was primarily because they were residents in the land. At the end of the day, the strongest claim to any territory is based on settlement. Given these competing legitimate claims, he suggests that Jews should form long-term peaceful accords with their neighbors. One day, he hoped, the Jews could peacefully get full control of the territory. In the meantime, it was in the interests of all parties involved to have peaceful relations.^[41]

Independent of one’s assessment of R. Hirschensohn’s particular strategy, the framework of his analysis is particularly striking. On the one hand, he embraces positive developments in international mores. Judaism is a peace-promoting religion that should support all initiatives to reduce animosity and bloodshed, even with those competing for hold of the Holy Land. This entails integrating new values—including democracy, minority rights, and conventions to limit the horrors of war—by finding support for them in traditional Jewish texts. 

On the other hand, he understood that it was far from clear that international institutions will have the ability to promote and enforce these values. There are too many national interests at stake to make this possible.^[42] Thus, Jews must wisely develop a strategy that will endorse refined values while actively promoting their own political interests. In his time, this meant taking hold of their homeland through the purchase of holy locations and the settlement of the Land of Israel. 

Arab Riots in Palestine and the Triumph of British Political Interests 

The most pressing question, however, was whether force would also be necessary to reestablish Jewish sovereignty in Palestine. Both Rabbis Kook and Hirschensohn hoped that a combination of Jewish political initiatives and international diplomacy would be sufficient. Yet this was not meant to be. In March 1920, Trumpeldor was sent to help protect Tel Hai, an upper Galilean settlement that ended up under French control in the unstable period after World War I, leaving those Jewish settlers suddenly outside of British auspices. In a chaotic confrontation with Arab Bedouins from Syria, Trumpeldor was killed, alongside five other Jews, including a couple of other Jewish Legion veterans. His alleged dying words become immortalized as the fighting spirit of the new Jew: “No matter, it is worth dying for the country.”[43] 

Trumpeldor would become lionized by Zionist writers like Hayim Yosef Brenner, who eulogized this “symbol of pure heroism” for teaching that it is good to die for the national cause. Tamares the pacifist had opposed the Jewish Legion and saw Trumpeldor’s legacy as the embodiment of force and ultranationalism, but his views were hardly noticed.^[44] The self-image of Jews was being transformed. A few years later, Jabotinsky would break away from the Zionist Organization and establish the revisionist Zionist organization “Betar.” The name commemorated the last fighting ground of the Jewish people in the second century, but also paid homage to the fallen hero of Tel Hai, with the letters of Betar standing for “the covenant of Joseph Trumpeldor.” 

Jewish-Arab tensions were also rising in Jerusalem. Jabotinsky warned the local British military governor of an upcoming slaughter, this time by Arabs against their Jewish neighbors. Jabotinsky and other founders of the Jewish Legion had been busy training the Jews in calisthenics and self-defense; it was their group, among others, for whom Kook’s praise in Orot had earned him the scorn of the local ultra-Orthodox leaders just a few months later. When the riots started in Jerusalem’s Old City, however, his men were not around. Several Jews were killed and over two hundred more were wounded. Two sisters were raped. 

Long aware of the self-defense groups, the British governor nonetheless arrested Jabotinsky and his men for carrying illegal weapons, with Jabotinsky receiving a fifteen-year jail sentence. Hirschensohn, from afar, would cite the case as an example of the ways in which a civilized justice system can become corrupt.^[45]

R. Kook joined others in demanding Jabotinsky’s release as he and his comrades threatened to go on a hunger strike. R. Kook saluted their brave efforts but warned that Jewish law strictly prohibits taking such drastic protest measures.^[46] Jabotinsky stopped the hunger strike. Soon afterward, his sentence was commuted, alongside those of many of the Arab rioters. R. Kook protested to the British high commissioner that the Arabs should be punished politically for the violence, but to no avail.^[47] 

For now, the international community stayed the course with British plans for Palestine and affirmed the Balfour Declaration in the San Remo conference a month later. Yet Arab-Jewish tensions remained high and in May 1921, riots would break out again, this time in Jaffa. Forty-seven Jews were killed, and over 140 more wounded. Among the dead was the writer Brenner, who had been busy editing the letters of Trumpeldor. 

Yet the biggest turning point was 1929. Arab-Jewish tensions over control of the Western Wall had existed for several years but escalated after a march in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tisha B’Av, Judaism’s annual day of mourning for the Temple’s destruction. R. Kook, who had protested restrictions on Jewish access to the wall for several years, supported the march, telling a local newspaper that the youth had demonstrated “national pride and Maccabean zealousness” toward defending Jewish rights to the holy site.^[48] Arab riots soon broke out in Jerusalem, Hebron, Safed, and other locations. 

The riots left the Jewish community particularly vulnerable since most of its leadership was in Zurich for the sixteenth Zionist Congress. Beyond working with the remaining Zionist authorities to secure British protection for the Jewish settlements, R. Kook sent a brief letter through the head of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “To the entire Jewish world: All of the Jewish community in the Land of Israel is in danger. Act to save us in any way you can as fast as you can.”^[49] The sense of urgency was palpable. 

Robinson and other activists organized mass rallies, sent urgent telegrams, and penned editorials to get the League of Nations to act. They called on the mandate’s commission to protect the Jewish people, noting their centuries-long connection to the Holy Land. They further demanded the removal of British officials who had not come to their rescue. No response came. In the end, more than 130 Jews were killed over two hot August weeks. 

Lauterpacht, the rising jurist now teaching at University College of London, lamented the tepid British response and its failure to ascribe full blame to the Arab side. Why did the British fail to protect the Jews? Lauterpacht’s answer was telling: even the mighty British empire had to cower before the prospect of a religious war with all of Islam. Britain cares about minority rights. But it had to take into consideration its own political interests in placating the feelings of the millions of Muslims that lived within its empire.^[50]

Lauterpacht’s conclusion was reached after the publication of the findings of the Shaw Commission that investigated the riots. The Muslim mufti, Haj Amin al Husseini, blamed the Jews for provoking the rioters. Kook forcefully retorted these claims and accused the Husseini of incitement. While expressing hope and belief that most of the Arabs wanted to continue to live in peace with the Jews, he insisted on Jewish rights to their holy sites and encouraged their settlement.^[51] A similar sentiment was expressed by Hirschensohn, who further encouraged Jews to learn Arabic so that they could build personal relations with their Arab neighbors and thereby circumvent the incitement of their leaders. 

After their investigations, the Shaw commission concluded that the Arabs were the guilty instigators. Nonetheless, they argued that the broader cause of the violence was Jewish immigration. How could the British recognize that the Arabs were guilty of violence yet punish the Jews politically? Many in Britain had concluded that the Balfour Declaration was a mistake and against their interests. The solution came in the White Paper issued by Colonial Secretary Passfield in October 1930. Britain must restrict Jewish immigration and land purchases to ensure that the Jews remain a minority and do not negatively impact the Arab economy – or broader Arab support for Britain. R. Kook, for his part, condemned Britain for its treachery. He wondered aloud if his Majesty’s government had abandoned its esteemed role in the world’s redemption. Deliverance, he asserted, would come in other ways.[52] 

It certainly didn’t come from Britain. Ultimately, after another extended period of violence later in the decade, the British would issue, on the eve of the Holocaust, an even more restrictive immigration policy (the 1939 “white paper”) which essentially undermined the Balfour Declaration and their entire mandate. Weizmann appealed to the League of Nations, but to no avail. 

Stung by the betrayal of the British, Zionists learned what R. Hirschensohn had declared several years beforehand: when it comes to international politics, interests will trump justice. 

“The Generation Is Not Ready”: The Education of Jacob Robinson 

If the mandate failed to protect Jews in Palestine, it did little better in Europe. The idea behind the minority rights treaties was a sense of reciprocity between different states: “I protect your minority; you protect my minority.” Yet as the interwar period progressed, it became clear that attempts to protect minority rights in Europe were no guarantee to help the stateless Jews. Jewish loyalty was regularly suspect in these new ethnic states, with Jews suffering discrimination and persecution in Hungary, Poland, Romania, and elsewhere. As Robinson darkly quipped about the interwar period, European reciprocity meant “I hit my Jews, you hit your Jews.”^[53] Recognizing the failure of the interwar treaties to protect Jews or other minorities, Robinson recognized that the only real solution for European Jewry was to emigrate to Palestine, or as in his case, to flee to America.

While Lauterpacht would continue to promote international legal protections as a judge on the International Court of Justice, his colleague Robinson became more skeptical of its potential efficacy. After Israel’s founding, Robinson served as a leading adviser on diplomacy and international law to the Israeli delegation at the United Nations. He was weary of the prospects of the UN providing real solutions to human rights problems. Its Genocide Convention, developed in the wake of the Holocaust, was too vague and lacked any enforcement mechanism that would make it efficient. Moreover, it and other UN initiatives would be manipulated by Israel’s Arab neighbors and minorities to attack the Jewish state, even as these countries would do nothing to respect the human rights of minorities in their own lands. 

While he remained a prominent, albeit somewhat reluctant, international jurist, Robinson understood that national interests and politics would forever play a problematic role in international law. Toward the end of his life, he would assert that while local protections for minorities remained important, the globalized system had failed. Recalling his childhood yeshiva education, he cited the talmudic expression lo ikhshar dara (the generation is not prepared) to assert that the world had been insufficiently ready to weave minority rights into its social fabric.^[54] 

In the coming decades, rabbinic scholars would collectively take a similarly ambivalent but increasingly critical view of such international bodies.^[55] Many were thankful for the essential role of the UN in the eventual establishment of the State of Israel after World War II. This was despite it coming way too late to save the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust and not preventing the Jews from still having to go to war to gain what the international community had been promising for over thirty years.^[56] Going beyond particular Jewish interests, others appreciated the attempt by international organizations to reduce warfare and limit the atrocities committed when war occurs. They further noted that despite the imbalance of power between strong nations and weak ones, the United Nations and other bodies still promote the important idea that even the smallest of nations have basic rights that should not be trampled upon.^[57]

One scholar, Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli, even went so far as to assert that Jewish law would obligate Israel to observe all international treaties limiting warfare—including a total ban on war—provided that all parties equally respect these obligations. In the meantime, he noted, lo ikhshar dara, the generation is not ready to reciprocally implement such measures.^[58] 

Aspirations are not a measure of success. The criteria must be whether treaties are loyally followed by their signatories and if international bodies prevent moral mayhems. In the years that have passed since R. Hirschensohn wrote, these institutions were entirely ineffective in preventing the continued pogroms in Europe after World War I, the horror of the Holocaust, and the forced migration of 850,000 Jewish residents from Arab countries in the 1950s and 1960s, to name just a few egregious examples. When preparing to attack Israel in May 1967, the Egyptian army demanded that UN peacekeeping forces immediately leave the Sinai area; the UN forces hastily left without even an appeal by the UN secretary-general to Egyptian leaders.^[59] In 1975, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution declaring that “Zionism is a form of racism,” with the support of the USSR, Arab- and Muslim-majority countries, and many African countries, essentially rejecting, again, the justice of the Balfour Declaration. (The resolution was repealed only in 1991.) Many observers also accuse these bodies of unfairly singling out Israel for censure in its complex and protracted struggle with Palestinians while ignoring many travesties around the world.^[60] This alleged bias has, in part, led many rabbis and Zionists to severely question whether these international bodies can ever provide justice in the Middle East and around the world.^[61] 

Rwanda, Syria, and the Education of Samantha Power

The “failure to protect” critique against international bodies has extended well beyond Jews and Israel. It has also been leveled against Pol Pot’s terror in Cambodia, Saddam Hussein’s destruction of the Kurds in northern Iraq, the Bosnian Serbs’ eradication of non-Serbs, the Rwandan Hutus’ systematic extermination of the Tutsi minority, and the systematic killing of ethnic Darfuri people in Western Sudan. There are many reasons given for these failures. Some assert that the diffusion of responsibilities to prevent war crimes absolves too many specific international players of taking the lead.^[62] Yet it’s also clear that the politics of these bodies regularly prevents them from acting. To take the most obvious example, the UN Security Council, with veto power given to its five permanent members, is helpless in addressing Chinese human rights abuses or the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea and its subsequent invasion of all of Ukraine. As historian Paul Kennedy has documented, the granting of additional privileges to great powers is inherent to the UN system and, more fundamentally, to any international body that is dependent on its member-states to provide its funding and soldiers.^[63] Despite its improvements over the League of Nations, the UN cannot circumvent the political nature of any international body.       

There was no greater critic of the Western response to these twentieth-century atrocities than Samantha Power. Her award-winning, best-selling book “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide extensively documented these cases, including the 1994 ethnic cleansing in Rwanda. Power showed how political considerations led the Clinton administration to ignore the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Tutsis who were killed and raped over four months. U.S. officials, for example, purposely avoided utilizing the “G-word” (genocide) in describing the atrocities because that might obligate them—morally, if not legally—to intervene under the 1948 Genocide Convention. This treaty, whose potential effectiveness was doubted by Robinson, as we noted, was the culmination of years of work by Lauterpacht and especially Raphael Lemkin, another European Jew who had fled Europe and became a leading international jurist. They believed it would succeed in committing countries to prevent and punish “crimes against humanity,” a term coined by Lauterpacht.^[64] It was signed and affirmed by well over a hundred nations, including leading superpowers. None of those signatures helped when the Hutus began their slaughter. 

Power singled out senior administration officials like National Security Adviser Anthony Lake, who had written a well-known critique of immoral realpolitik considerations in previous eras of American foreign policy yet had now fallen into the same trap. Power’s book helped inspire the 2005 “Responsibility to Protect” declaration of all UN member states to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity. 

Two decades later, Power became the American ambassador to the United Nations under President Barack Obama. A civil war was raging in Syria, with the UN Security Council unable to act because Russia vetoed any measures against the Syrian government. Then Syria used chemical weapons against her own citizens. Such weapons have long been banned under international law with a nearly universal and unprecedented endorsement from countries around the world. This had been a declared “red line” of Obama, even as he was wary of an unpopular excursion of American troops into another bloody Middle East conflict. According to one aide, Obama even noted, “People always say never again, but they never want to do anything.” ^[65]

Yet Power wanted to act. She declared in the UN that the international system had broken down in Syria, with one side being gassed and the other feeling it could get away with it. Claiming that all alternative options were exhausted, she called for limited military strikes. “If violation of a universal agreement to ban chemical weapons is not met with the meaningful response, other regimes will seek to acquire or use them to protect or extend their power.”^[66] At stake, in other words, was whether treaties had teeth or were just another scrap of paper. 

In the end, Obama called off airstrikes, instead electing to work with the Russians to get the Syrians to give up their chemical weapons. Subsequently, Obama’s aides have testified about the many political and strategic considerations that led the White House to abandon this limited military action. Some have further asserted that Obama did not want to risk ruining negotiations with the Iranians over their nuclear ambitions.^[67] Whatever the reason, America, followed by others, backed away. Syria, with Russian support in both the UN and on the battlefield, continued to commit atrocities in places like Aleppo, including the repeated use of chemical weapons it hid from international inspectors. 

Power, for her part, was left to Twitter to share her indignation while delivering scathing speeches at the Security Council against the Russians. “Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later. Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica, and now, Aleppo.… Are you truly incapable of shame?” Powerful words, but international treaties were meant to be backed by more than speeches and 140-character tweets. The Russian ambassador retorted by calling her Mother Theresa and called it a day. Since then, critics of American policy have labeled Power a hypocrite and questioned whether she should have resigned.^[68] 

In her memoir, aptly titled The Education of an Idealist, Power admirably lays out her conflicting feelings. Perhaps American intervention would have failed and uselessly endangered American soldiers. Or perhaps the administration, and the entire system, simply failed. 

The ultimate result was pretty bad: the Syrian regime, with Russian and Iranian support, massacred hundreds of thousands more while causing a flood of refugees which has left them homeless and Europe politically unstable. Western inaction also left the roughly 30 million Kurds quite vulnerable to the whims of the despotic leaders of four countries in which they reside, one hundred years after the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, signed between the Allies and the defeated Ottomans, called for an independence referendum in their territory. Despite all the treaties and promises they were given over the century, they have neither a state nor minority rights. 

These examples only strengthen R. Hirschensohn’s basic claim: International laws and treaties provide no guarantee that justice will be executed or that the innocent will be protected. Sometimes they will help, which is a good thing, but many times they will not. Even people with the best of intentions like Lake and Power fall into the trap of allowing power and politics to color, if not shape, international legal bodies. 

This sad but important truth does not mean that we should simply dismiss the ethics that international law aspires to implement. While displaying great skepticism about the efficacy of the system, R. Hirschensohn affirmed many of the values of “civilized society.” He sought to prove how Judaism may incorporate concepts like democracy and minority rights in order to make them valuable to Jews on their own terms, independent of their enforcement in broader international society. If, for example, forsaking total war tactics is an upright decision, then Jews should integrate and implement those values for integral reasons, let alone for preserving our reputation as an ethical people.^[69] 

At the same time, Jews should not be naive about the prospects of international bodies providing them with support or protection. In practice, self-help is the prevailing rule of world affairs. Jews cannot wait for others to deliver justice. In an international order deeply impacted, if not driven, by interests, then Jews need to proactively do what it takes to protect themselves. 

Notes

Book Review

By Rabbi Hayyim Angel

Michelle J. Levine, Navigating Wilderness: Ramban’s Commentary on the Exodus and Numbers Narratives (Kodesh Press, 2025)

          In a book review essay I wrote over twenty years ago on a Memorial Volume for Professor Nehama Leibowitz (Pirkei Nehama), I outlined a fundamental difference that generally exists between those who study Tanakh as the primary text, and those who focus on the work of a particular commentator:

In line with all traditional exegesis, Professor Nehama Leibowitz emphasized that we must scrutinize the meaning and significance of each word and passage in the Torah, and perceive its messages as communicated directly to us. We accomplish these daunting tasks by consulting the teachings of the Sages and later commentators. In effect, they serve as our eyes through which we understand the biblical text in its multifaceted and ever-applicable glory. Of course, their opinions must be painstakingly evaluated against the biblical text...

          To those studying parshanut as a discipline, whether for methodological approaches or in historical context, Midrashim and commentators are no longer secondary to the biblical text. They are three-dimensional people living in specific times and places. Parshanut scholarship investigates how a given exegete approached the text, and what influenced him, such as Midrashim and earlier commentaries, intellectual currents of his time, and other historical considerations beyond purely textual motivations. The student of Tanakh views commentary as secondary literature, while the student of parshanut or history treats exegetes as primary sources. These contrasting perspectives almost necessarily will yield different understandings of the comments of our commentators (Tradition 38:4, Winter 2004, pp. 112-113).

          Professor Michelle J. Levine’s recently published volume on Ramban’s interpretation of the wilderness narratives in the books of Exodus and Numbers is a remarkable exception to the aforementioned dichotomy. She takes readers on a journey through the biblical narratives through the eyes of one exceptional commentator, Ramban (Rabbi Moshe ben Nahman, Spain-Israel 1194-1270). Levine’s expertise in Ramban’s commentary and the secondary scholarly literature on Ramban’s work shine forth on every page and in her learned footnotes. Strikingly, Levine provides a holistic approach on how Ramban learns the biblical texts.

          Ramban composed a three-tiered commentary, exploring the layers of peshat (plain sense, contextual meaning), derash (deeper meaning, homiletical teachings), and mysticism. Ramban navigates his own path guided by Midrash, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, Rambam, Radak, and Rabbi Joseph Bekhor Shor. Transcending the works of his illustrious predecessors, Ramban also “often groups many biblical verses together to develop a wide-all-encompassing analysis that seeks to educe their integration as a literary unit and to extrapolate their fundamental motifs and concepts” (5). Ramban stresses that while God revealed the Torah and it is true, it is vital to focus on how God, as Narrator, relates the story. The literary form of the narratives contribute substantially to the meaning of the Torah (8). These overarching premises of Ramban’s commentary remain relevant and illuminating to this very day.

          For example, Ramban observes that after Pharaoh decrees that Egyptians must drown baby Israelite boys, two Levites get married and have a son:

Then Pharaoh charged all his people, saying, “Every boy that is born you shall throw into the Nile, but let every girl live.” A certain man of the house of Levi went and married a Levite woman. The woman conceived and bore a son; and when she saw how beautiful he was, she hid him for three months (Exodus 1:22-2:2).

These Levites, whom we later learn are Amram and Jochebed, just gave birth to Moses. We also learn later that Moses already has an older brother, Aaron, and Moses’ sister (generally, but not universally, understood to be Miriam) watched over him in the ensuing narrative. From the impression given by the narrative, however, it would appear that Moses was born right after his parents’ marriage, as there is no notification of the births of Miriam and Aaron.

          One midrashic reading (Sotah 12a-13a) assumes that after Pharaoh’s evil decree to drown all baby Israelite boys, Amram and Jochebed separated since there was a 50% chance of having a boy who would be drowned. They were filled with despair and helplessness. It was their precocious daughter Miriam who persuaded them to resume having children so there would be a chance to have girls and thereby perpetuate the nation of Israel. The Torah presents Moses’ birth after his parents’ marriage since Moses was born after the remarriage of his parents.

          Ramban disagrees with this reading. The juxtaposition of Pharaoh’s decree and Moses’ parents’ marriage serves to highlight the moral courage and heroism of Amram and Jochebed who challenged Pharaoh’s decree. The Torah does not mention the births of Miriam and Aaron at this juncture, since Pharaoh issued his decree after they already were born. The Torah wants to focus the reader’s attention on the heroism of Moses’ parents and on the birth of Moses.

          Ramban notes further that Jochebed also acts courageously by attempting to save Moses. Ramban then connects this narrative to the exceptional virtue of Pharaoh’s daughter, who rescued and adopted Moses, defying her own father’s evil decree. Ramban even surmises that Pharaoh’s daughter subsequently persuaded her father to repeal his wicked decree. Levine concludes, 

Thus, Ramban’s commentary spotlights how Moses is surrounded by central personages who act with intent, purpose, and focus in order to be vehicles for salvation from a situation of oppression. With this in mind, readers can better appreciate when Moses himself initiates his own parallel actions to save others from injustices (37).

          Through this and countless other examples, Professor Levine’s volume is a truly welcome contribution, enabling readers to have a sustained focus on Ramban’s singular contributions to Tanakh learning and its religious meaning.

On Shabbat, May 10, from 10:00-11:30 am ET, Rabbi Hayyim Angel will lead the next Foundations Minyan. Foundations is a full-length service, and features explanations on the weekly Torah reading from Rabbi Hayyim Angel.

The service is free and open to the public. It is located at Congregation Beth Aaron, 950 Queen Anne Road, Teaneck, New Jersey.

            I’ll never forget what happened on my first trip to Israel.

            It was the summer I turned 25, and I had been working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. At the time, I had been invited to join a parliamentary fact-finding mission organized by the Canadian Jewish community through the Canada-Israel Committee. 

            I had joined the trip having been raised a Christian in rural Canada—a world that can feel light years away from the Jewish community, let alone the Middle East. It was my first trip overseas and, suffice to say, I would experience many “I’m not in Kansas anymore” moments in our brief but packed time in Israel.

            Of all the remarkable sights, people, and conversations I would encounter, one that still resonates took place at the Kotel. A small group of us—all Canadians who were not Jewish—were standing in the men’s section of the plaza, observing this fascinating world in which we found ourselves. An Orthodox Israeli said something to us, possibly in Hebrew, and our guide responded to him. Apparently, he had asked if we were Jewish and would like to borrow tefillin, to which our guide politely responded that the group wasn’t Jewish. 

            The Orthodox man quickly and warmly responded in English: “Welcome to Israel!”

            Three simple words in an encounter I’m sure he would forget momentarily, and one that he no doubt had experienced many times before. But for me, it spoke volumes. 

            Here we were at a site of extraordinary holiness to a man who, by all appearances, took the holy very seriously. We were tourists soaking it all in and standing out in the crowd with our awkward, cardboard kippot.

            And yet, he made us feel welcome. Like we belonged there.

            When I share my story of choosing to become Jewish, I always speak of the power of that trip—and so many other serendipitous events that would draw me to discover the beauty of Am Yisrael and the beauty of our precious Torah. Little did I know back then that an unexpected moment at the Kotel would be a milestone on a journey into Zionism, Judaism, and ultimately dedicating my career to serving the Jewish people as an advocacy and communications professional. 

            In the years that followed, my spiritual path went hand-in-hand with my career path. I took a job at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA—the advocacy agency of Canada’s Jewish Federations) and, later, UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. In a world where Jews and Israel are so often misunderstood, if not outright maligned, I was passionate to make a difference. And I felt that my personal and professional background could make for a unique contribution. 

            So, too, my training in public opinion research—developed at a consulting firm I had joined after Parliament Hill—would give me a window into how Canadians view Jews, Israel, and antisemitism. Over the years, I would have the privilege of working on the research teams conducting some of the most important studies of Canadian public opinion on these issues, uncovering data trends and messaging proven to open minds and win allies for our cause.

            Those years of research, including data gathered in the wake of the heinous October 7^th attacks, revealed a wide range of nuanced findings that are perhaps best left to another essay. But in the context of the title topic of this article, I am reminded of a few findings that offer compelling evidence of the power of the personal model—the power of Kiddush Hashem—in shaping views of Jews beyond our community.

            In Canada, home to the Diaspora’s third-largest Jewish community, Jews constitute roughly one percent of the general population. Broadly speaking, the research is fairly consistent in terms of how Canadians perceive us. 

            When it comes to views of different religions, Judaism is among the most positively regarded, with favorability scores similar to Protestant Christianity. The only religion that typically surpasses Judaism in popularity among Canadians is Buddhism. Every other religion, including Catholicism and Evangelical Christianity, enjoys lower favorability scores than Judaism.

            But to be Jewish is, of course, also to be part of a people. And when it comes to views of Canadians of different ethnic or cultural backgrounds, Jews are similarly seen in very positive terms. The proportion of Canadians who have positive views of Jews is comparable to those who have a positive view of people of British or French origin, the two groups with the highest such scores in Canada (which is no doubt indicative of their relatively large representation within Canadian demography). Across studies, there is a consistent majority of Canadians who feel that Jews make a positive contribution to Canadian society. 

            On the other side of the ledger, the research certainly shows that antisemitism exists in Canada. Based on all of the studies I’ve worked on or reviewed, I would estimate that somewhere between ten and fifteen percent of Canadians hold clearly antisemitic views. Depending on the antisemitic trope being tested by a pollster, the numbers climb disturbingly higher than that threshold on particular questions. Most Canadians have little understanding or opinion either way when asked about antisemitic tropes. The issue is largely tabula rasa to a public that has devoted minimal consideration to a topic that appears to have no meaningful connection to their lives. However, as a general rule, when asked whether a respondent agrees with a particular antisemitic trope or conspiracy theory, for every one Canadian who agrees with such a hateful statement, there are approximately two Canadians who strongly disagree with these views. 

            A two-to-one ratio is, of course, an encouraging sign if one is marketing a product or a political party. But that’s not what we’re doing when we advocate for Jews, Israel, and—for that matter—fundamental human rights. Experience suggests that it doesn’t require a hateful majority for a society to cross an antisemitic Rubicon. It simply requires the forces of moderation to remain silent and preoccupied with other matters, while a loud and aggressive fringe dominates the discourse and shatters the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable—increasingly marginalizing and threatening Jews in the process. Of the many lessons we Diaspora Jews should urgently internalize from the post-October 7^th experience, it’s the danger posed by this dynamic. The question is: How do we combat it? 

            In 2022, I was privileged to be part of a team that conducted a public opinion study as a collaboration of CIJA, Federation CJA of Montreal, and UJA Federation of Greater Toronto. In addition to asking Canadians what they thought of Jews, Israel, antisemitism, and various related issues, we asked the question: Do you have a close Jewish friend or colleague? Nearly one in five respondents answered in the affirmative. We examined their views in depth, and the results were remarkable.

            Respondents who had a close Jewish friend or colleague were two times more likely to say that Jews make a positive contribution to Canadian society, as compared to those who did not have a personal connection to Jews. Similarly, those with a close Jewish friend or colleague were twice as likely to strongly oppose antisemitism, again compared to those without a personal relationship to a Jew.

            Prior to my conversion, I once spoke to a group of Jewish students in Ottawa, with whom I shared that they would be wise to see themselves as ambassadors for the Jewish people. Having grown up in a rural area where there are virtually no Jews, I shared with them that they may be the first and only Jew that someone meets—and that this comes with both opportunity and responsibility. Years later, I was seeing this principle come to life in the data before my eyes. The results were a stunning demonstration that, just as they say that all politics is local, the personal is powerful when it comes to how we understand people from different lived realities. 

            “Sanctifying the Name,”[i] a characteristically thoughtful essay by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, zt”l, unpacks how the principle of Kiddush Hashem (sanctifying the divine name) has been interpreted by rabbonim throughout history. He notes that martyrdom is, of course, core to our understanding of Kiddush Hashem, citing the willingness of Jews to sacrifice themselves for their faith—be it at the hands of the Seleucid Greeks, the Romans, or the Crusaders. But Rabbi Sacks goes on to cite a passage from Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, which has powerful import for our daily lives:

If a sage “speaks pleasantly to others, is affable and gracious, receives people pleasantly, never humiliates others even though they humiliate him and honors others even though they disrespect him…with the result that all praise him, love him, and approve of his deeds—such a person sanctifies God’s name. Of him, Scripture (Is. 49:3) says: “And He said to me: Israel, you are my servant, in whom I will be glorified.”

            Like most of us, I cannot credibly speak of what it means to be a sage. But as Jews who live in a free and democratic society—a society in which we can express our authentic selves to the world around us—we each have an opportunity to infuse the underlying principles of Kiddush Hashem in our daily lives. In this regard, the data seems to paint a compelling picture. By simply being openly Jewish and a good, relatable person, one has the power to strengthen the “brand” of the Jewish people and reduce antisemitism among their peers.

            To be sure, this is not to suggest a singular solution to antisemitism. Nor is it to imply that the same kindness and personal connection that creates allies among people of goodwill can somehow transform a hardened antisemite or protect our community from those who wish us harm. But it is to say that, in the fight against antisemitism, if we are solely focused on those who hate us, we are ignoring those who—with the right outreach—will stand with us and on the right side of history. 

            I would also argue that effective ally-building doesn’t begin by telling people beyond our community what they should think. Rather, as the data suggests, it begins by simply showing up as a good person—as reliable friend or colleague—who is openly Jewish, and therefore brings credit to the Jewish people.

            In today’s environment, it also seems clear that it isn’t enough to simply show up. At a time when antisemites are attempting to defame what it is to be Jewish, we need to own and define our identity—and not only for ourselves. We need to warmly share our experiences—our Passover sedarim, our Shabbat dinners, our Chanukah parties, our family histories, our photos and stories from our last trip to Israel, and so much more—because the humanization of the Jewish experience is a powerful antidote to the dehumanization of Jews. And as someone who has lived that journey of discovering the beautiful world of Jewish life, I have seen firsthand how we look from the outside in—and we need to open those windows wider than ever if we want a society of allies rather than bystanders.

            And last but not least, humanizing the Jewish experience also means humanizing the impact of the hate we’re facing. There is compelling psychological research to demonstrate the power of personal anecdotes. We can and must talk about history, hate crime statistics, and the geopolitical threats facing Israel and Jews. But if we talk in abstract terms—if we fail to share the personal impact of antisemitism on our families and communities—we risk giving the impression that this is an academic matter, rather than a threat that’s harming and hurting the people they care about: their close Jewish friends and colleagues.

            Welcome to Israel. If three simple words from a stranger can shift a paradigm and enter the heart, one can only begin to imagine the power of our personal example—through everyday acts in the spirit of Kiddush Hashem—on the lives of those around us.

On Wednesdays, May 7,14, 21, and 28, from 8:30-9:30 pm ET, Rabbi Hayyim Angel will teach a four-part Zoom series on the biblical book of Ezra-Nehemiah. We will consider the central themes of the book, and consider how strikingly relevant the book is to today's times.

The classes are sponsored by the Jewish Center of New York, and are free and open to the public.

Registration is required to join the class and receive the Zoom links, and sponsorship opportunities are available. To register and for more information, please go to this link:

https://www.jewishcenter.org/event/Ezra%20and%20Nehemiah 

            The High Holiday season—in the midst of which I am writing these words—calls on Jews to examine ourselves, to reflect on our moral and ethical shortcomings, and to seek ways of mending these faults so as to turn, or return, to the right path. Moreover, our tradition makes clear that we are to subject ourselves to this self-examination not just as individuals but collectively. The confessional sections of our liturgy are replete with verbs in the first-person plural. We, like our ancestors who came before us, have sinned. We have turned from God’s goodly laws and commandments. We have sinned against God, willingly and unwillingly. Not to mention entire piyyutim (liturgical poems) of more specific, concrete offenses to which we confess, knowing that we individually have not committed these acts but accepting collective moral responsibility for the possibility that someone in our community has.

            To be sure, Jews are not alone in being called to this effort of self-examination. The Puritans who founded my university and nurtured it in its early years likewise felt the obligation to probe their innermost consciousness, and not just once per year. Calvin wrote, "Let us … unremittingly examining our faults [and] call ourselves back to humility. Thus, nothing will remain in us to puff us up; but there will be much occasion to be cast down.” And in the same vein, “the more severe we are toward ourselves, and the more sharply we examine our own sins, the more we ought to hope that God is favorable and merciful toward us.” For Calvin, of course, and among the Puritans more generally, the emphasis on atonement and redemption that we find in our tradition is largely missing. Reflecting on one’s faults had religious value—“it could not happen otherwise than that the soul itself, stricken by dread of divine judgment, should act the part of an avenger in carrying out its own punishment,” and “those who are really religious experience what sort of punishments are shame, confusion, groaning, displeasure with self, and other emotions that arise out of a lively recognition of sin”—but when it came to possibilities for redemption, the non-elect were the non-elect, and that was that. By contrast, for Jews a large part of the motivation for self-examination is the desire to return: at the individual level to improve one’s personal behavior, and at the community level to repair the world in which it is our lot to live.

            This collective sense of moral responsibility for our world feels especially acute in the wake of the events of the past twelve months. Most obviously, for those living in Israel and in surrounding areas the past year has brought unspeakable atrocities, violence on a horrifying scale, and widespread death. But for us as Jews living in the United States, and especially in the privileged setting of a university like mine, the past year has also brought experiences no one wishes to relive, including repeated and sustained outbursts of raw bigotry of a kind rarely seen in our normally more elevated community. It is hardly surprising that this experience has brought forth a profusion of efforts to understand what has happened, and to search out the flaws in our community’s institutional make-up, and especially that of our universities, that have fostered these failings. More in keeping with the Jewish tradition than Calvinist thought, much of this effort is now devoted to considering changes for which the need is plainly urgent. 

            The twentieth-century theologian Langdon Gilkey observed that “what we believe is largely determined by where the evil seems to lie.” Over the past year we, meaning Jews but also the American polity more generally, have gained a new understanding of where the evil lies that has so devastatingly infected our lives. Although I hesitate to place too positive a gloss on this new understanding—to repeat, it has emerged as a consequence of events no one would choose to relive—there is moral value in seeking to make our world better, and to the extent that knowledge of our collective and institutional shortcomings is a necessary precursor to undertaking that improvement then it too has value. Gilkey was a theologian and I am not, and so I may well be using the word “believe” in a different sense than what he had in mind. But I am comfortable nonetheless with the notion that what we have learned has shaped our understanding in ways that signal what is to be done.

            I think we can apply this new understanding in two distinct areas. One concerns us directly as Jews. The other concerns our universities, but it turns out that we as Jews have something specific and important to bring to that effort as well.

            To begin with the Jewish world, following the events of the past year we now have a different sense of where the salient threat lies—not the armed threat to Israel, but the threat to the wellbeing and security of our own community here. Groups of fellow-citizens whom Jews have overwhelmingly supported in the past, and with whose fundamental goals we still feel resonance, have actively and aggressively arrayed themselves against Jewish interests and derisively dismissed Jewish concerns. Nor were these reactions a response to the violence of Israel’s response to the October 7 terrorist attack. Numerous groups were willing to proclaim their total lack of sympathy for the victims on the day the attack occurred, before Israel had launched any response whatever.

            What kind of values, we are entitled to ask, do these groups hold? And given whatever values they do hold, are we really obligated to support these groups? Simply seeking to promote one’s own interest, or one’s own group’s interest, is hardly a valid moral principle. That requires some broader, more universalistic basis. For all the reasons that our tradition so eloquently teaches, we sympathize and seek to ally ourselves with people who meet persecution, or discrimination, or other forms of unfair treatment. “You shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger as for one of your own country” is a valid moral principle and we are right to adhere to it, whoever is the “stranger” in question. But institutionalized groups who insist on this principle for themselves while denying it for others are not, in fact, principled. They forfeit their claim to our support on moral grounds. 

            In a similar vein, we have learned that familiar principles of civic engagement, most obviously free speech, are likewise subject not only to abuse (Jews have known this for centuries) but to misappropriation for self-serving purposes. As we look back on the past year, it is breathtaking how rapidly many in our universities have pivoted from full-throated advocacy of trigger warnings and safety zones to the notion that any verbal or written statements, even the vilest calumnies deliberately designed to provoke, humiliate and offend, are sacrosanct. Moreover, many of our students, and their supporters, now exhibit an understanding of free speech to mean not only that they are entitled to say whatever they want, about anything or anyone they choose, but, further, that there should never be any consequences to them for the content of that speech: freedom of speech somehow has come to encompass freedom from criticism for whatever one has said. Members of the Jewish community cannot help but notice that this stunning pivot from over-protection to anything-goes took place only once the identity of the people who might benefit from the protection against unlimited free speech, including hate speech, shifted from the traditionally shielded groups to Israelis, Zionists, and Jews. 

Yet more troubling at a practical level, and especially visible at our universities, is today’s invocation of the principle of free speech to defend acts that would plainly be prohibited if they were to be committed in a different context. Is someone impeding your ability to walk from one building to another? In the eyes of many of my faculty colleagues at Harvard, he’s merely exercising his right to free speech. Is someone blocking students from entering their classroom? Again, merely exercising free speech. Is someone shouting into a bullhorn so that our students can’t hear either the instructor or one another? Here too, all merely free speech. Roughly a half-century ago, as a then-young member of the Harvard faculty, I served on a committee that considered, among other questions, whether the university should have a separate disciplinary code for political offenses—in effect, analogous to the long-ago practice in Tsarist Russia. Suppose, for example, some student threw a brick and smashed a shop window on the street: should there be one penalty if he was simply drunk, and a different penalty if he meant the act as a political statement? Our committee voted not to have separate disciplinary systems; a violation was a violation, regardless of what inspired it. I thought that decision was right then, and I think it’s right now. Preventing other people from going about their everyday activities is not merely exercising free speech, no matter what the person doing the obstructing is saying.

In this context too, we as Jews do well to take notice of the different principles that many, again especially at our universities, seek to apply depending on the content of the speech. I am confident that most faculty members at most universities would sharply condemn disruptive actions by students and others calling to end affirmative action admissions while concealing their identity by placing over their heads white pillowcases marked with gold crosses. Today all too many of them, I fear, would view differently the identical disruptive acts committed by people calling for an end to the admission of students from Israel, while concealing their identity with white-and-black checkered dishtowels. 

Most urgent, I believe, is the need to prevent our public spaces, in the universities and elsewhere, from becoming areas where Jews do not feel comfortable going. In the 1930s, in Germany, Austria, Poland, and other European countries, everyone understood that urban public spaces were places where Jews were not welcome and should not go. We must not allow the public spaces of our American cities to become Jew-free zones. Here too, Gilkey was a theologian and I am not, and so all this may not constitute “evil” in the sense that he had in mind. But it constitutes an existential threat to our community, and for our purposes learning what that threat is and where it lies rightly shapes what we believe.

The second area in which what we have learned over the past year has changed our beliefs concerns our universities more specifically. At Harvard, I am glad to say, our leadership has at least voiced an intent to set the university on a path to useful reform. There is now widespread acknowledgement, as reflected in the recent report of the university’s working group on “open inquiry and constructive dialogue,” that in fact too much of our inquiry is not open and too much of our dialogue is not constructive. Many ideas that are widely held among the American population are, for practical purposes, impossible to express on our campus. The result is to circumscribe not only everyday conversation but the content of both teaching and research.

There is also now recognition that we too often fail to expose our students to ideas and even facts that challenge or extend the preconceptions with which they arrive here. In an earlier era, it was widely accepted that part of the purpose of a university education was precisely to lead students to question their pre-college perceptions. Max Weber wrote that “the primary task of a useful teacher is to teach his students to recognize ‘inconvenient’ truths.” In more recent times such notions have faded from view. In his address to our entering class at this year’s fall convocation, Harvard President Alan Garber recommended that each student make it a point to take at least one course that would likely make him or her feel uncomfortable. He likewise recommended that students deliberately place themselves in settings, either in the classroom or elsewhere, where they would encounter views with which they disagree. The contrast to the recent commitment to trigger warnings and safety zones is self-evident.

Part of the underlying problem, I believe, is the atomization of our society that our universities simply mirror. We attach enormous value to the diversity of the student body, at least in some dimensions, so much so that at my university we engage in hugely expensive and time-consuming litigation to preserve it. But once students are here, there is little effort to prevent their separating themselves into highly homogeneous enclaves. Our universities are, in microcosm, an example what my Harvard colleague Michael Sandel calls the “sky-boxification” of America—except that in this case it is not merely the wealthy and privileged who seek to separate themselves. None of this is new, and it is probably less true today than it was in the past. But it remains true nonetheless, and we now have a deeper understanding of the harm it does. Specifically, it shields our students from awareness of ideas and concerns from outside their narrow circles. It thereby blunts our efforts to educate them to become effective citizens of the republic.

Further, to the extent that views held in one circle may have as much claim to validity as those in another, this segmentation thwarts yet another aim of the education we seek to impart, namely the difficult and sometimes uncomfortable ability to cope with conflicting ideas. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” Over the past year we have seen the harm done by the lack of that ability. A building in Gaza is a Hamas arsenal? No, it’s a hospital. Jews have a right to self-determination in their own independent country? But Palestinians have a right to self-determination in their independent country. If two ideas are in tension, at most one can be right. The examples are endless.

The solution to this intellectual limitation surely does not rest on perfunctory training sessions administered to students by a constitutionally unsympathetic DEI bureaucracy. What is required is a more serious form of engagement, in which students and others do not simply hear about the value of considering competing world views but actively participate in doing so, both in the classroom and in other settings. One of the most rewarding pedagogical experiences I’ve had in my more than 50 years of university teaching was a course that for many years I co-taught with a close friend in the English Department. The object of the course was to explore how people from different intellectual disciplines view topics of common interest; I represented the social sciences, my colleague the humanities, and we had numerous guest speakers from the natural sciences. Our aim was not to cover over differences in viewpoint but instead to highlight them and explore them. Some of our disagreements were sharp. I recall, for example, that my English professor friend was (as he remains) a committed devotee of Henry David Thoreau. I find much of Thoreau not just wrong but wrong-headed. We sometimes had that debate in class, and it was a vigorous one. For the students who watched it, realizing that the two of us were, and remained, close friends was probably more educational than whatever either of us actually said.

And here I think we as Jews have a particular contribution to make to this effort. Jewish learning has always, and perhaps uniquely, emphasized the value of debate and disagreement.  The Talmud tells us that for three years the house of Shammai and the house of Hillel disagreed: these said the halakha is in accordance with our opinion, and those said the halakha is in accordance with our opinion. Ultimately, a divine voice emerged and proclaimed “both these and those are the words of the living God” (Eruvin 13b). The fact that the voice went on to say that halakha is in accordance with the opinion of the house of Hillel is almost beside the point. The Tosefta instructs us to “make for yourself a heart of many rooms, and enter into it the words of the house of Shammai and the house of Hillel.” 

The value Jewish learning places on disagreement also emphasizes the interpersonal aspect of the learning process. The education our universities provide should not be parallel play in a sandbox. We need to encourage our students to regard one another as partners in learning. The value Jewish tradition places on debate and disagreement as essential to the learning process appears perhaps most dramatically in the poignant and ultimately tragic story told of Rabbi Yohanan, one of the leading amoraim of the second generation, and his friend and study partner (as well as his brother-in-law) Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish—commonly called Reish Lakish—whom Rabbi Yohanan raised up from an unsavory background to become also one of the leading Torah scholars of the time. According to the Talmud (Bava Metzia 84a), one day, during the course of arguing a point of halakha, Rabbi Yohanan said something that offended Reish Lakish. The two men quarreled, which so affected Reish Lakish that he died. Rabbi Yohanan’s colleagues, recognizing the void left in his life, chose Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat as his new study partner. The story continues,

Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat went and sat before Rabbi Yohanan. With regard to every matter that Rabbi Yohanan would say, Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat would say to him, there is a ruling taught in a Baraita that supports your opinion. Rabbi Yohanan said to him, in my discussions with the son of Lakish, when I would state a matter he would raise twenty-four difficulties against me in an attempt to disprove my claim, and I would answer him with twenty-four answers, and the halakha would become broadened and clarified. And yet you say to me, there is a ruling taught in a Baraita that supports my opinion. Being rebutted by Reish Lakish served a purpose. Your bringing me proof to my statements does not.

Soon thereafter, Rabbi Yohanan went insane and then died.

The value of entertaining conflicting opinions, and of engaging in debate, reflects a further core principle that also belongs at the center of the education we seek to provide: The uncertainty that results from our innate human limitations. This principle, too, is essential to Jewish learning. Even for those who take the written Scriptures to be the sure words of the divine, the interpretation of these words is necessarily a human endeavor, and therefore subject to uncertainty and error. Learning about one’s own ignorance is also an important part of a university education. In Jewish learning, it is that essential human ignorance, and the inescapable uncertainty to which it gives rise, that renders disagreement and debate worthwhile. This does not mean, of course, that any claim, no matter how absurd or offensive, must be entertained. A community is entitled to rule some ideas out of bounds, and the community that gave us the Talmud did so. But disagreement and debate are key to how we learn, and not just when we are students in the narrow sense. They are also part of how we humans make intellectual progress.

The past year has been a difficult one for all of us, and unbearable for many. It has taught us some things we would prefer not to have known.  But we have lived through this experience, and we have learned from it. We now know that we can no longer count on what we thought we could count on. It is now our obligation to act accordingly. 

Op-Ed Pieces by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

Is the American Dream Imploding?

(This piece appeared in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, March 13, 2024.)

My middle name is Dwight.

That name symbolizes a great American story.

My grandparents, born in Turkey and the Island of Rhodes, arrived in the United States in
the first decades of the twentieth century. They settled in Seattle, Washington, in the emerging
community of Judeo-Spanish-speaking Sephardic Jews.

My mother’s father was a barber. My father’s father had a shoeshine stand. They arrived
in America with little money, little formal education, but great courage and hope. They left
impoverished communities in the old world to raise their families in the land of freedom and
opportunity.

Like most immigrants of that time, my grandparents wanted their families to adapt to
America. Their children attended public school and grew up as a transition generation between
the old world and the new. My generation were full-blooded Americans.

I was born in July, 1945, and named after my maternal grandfather Marco Romey. But
my mother added a middle name, Dwight, after General Dwight David Eisenhower. I was named
after an American hero. I was an organic part of American life.

In school, we pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States every day. We learned
about Washington and Jefferson and Lincoln. They were our forefathers. Our relatives served in
the American military. Our mothers and aunts knitted clothes for American soldiers. We were in
America not as guests but as equal members of society,

My generation, almost all the grandchildren of immigrants, were well educated, hard-
working and sincere believers in the American Dream. We were better educated and more
affluent than our grandparents—exactly as they had hoped would happen. Our goal was to be
constructive members of society and to contribute to the ongoing flourishing of America.

With our children and grandchildren, we thought that the American Dream would
continue to thrive and expand. But it seems that American society is increasingly marred by anti-
Semitism, racism, and violence. The virus of hatred has infected political life, universities, and
businesses. The virtues of America are often under-appreciated while the sins of America are
highlighted and exaggerated. America is undergoing a spiritual, social, and political implosion. It
has become difficult to feel that we are “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all.” The forces of hatred and divisiveness have become more brazen.

My middle name is Dwight, and I am proud to be a bearer of the American Dream. My
name symbolizes the dream of immigrants to identify with America, to become full-blooded
Americans. America is at risk of losing that dream. It needs to restore confidence and pride in
America as a bastion of freedom and opportunity, a land where people of all religions and races

can feel safe and secure, where everyone can work together for the betterment of society as a
whole.

Let us not forget the American struggles for freedom, democracy, and opportunity. Let us
build on the American Dream for ourselves and for our future generations.

I want to believe in that future, sure as my middle name is Dwight.
 
The Hatred Syndrome
(This piece appeared in The Jewish Link, April 11, 2024.)

It is a strange feeling to be hated by people who don’t know you and don’t want to know
you. It is perplexing to hear people calling for your death and the death of all your people
without ever considering your humanity, your goodness, your contributions to society.

Haters don’t see their victims as fellow human beings. They create and foster ugly
stereotypes. They promote outrageous conspiracy theories that dehumanize their targets.
Hatred is an ugly thing. It not only promotes hatred of the perceived enemy, but it distorts
the lives of the haters themselves. Energy and resources that could be utilized to build
compassionate societies are instead diverted to hatred, weaponry, death, and destruction.

We have always been aware of an undercurrent of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attitudes,
but things today seem qualitatively and quantitatively different. We witness throngs of people
throughout the United States and throughout the world who brazenly and unabashedly call for
the annihilation of Israel and the murder of Jews. The public display of raw hatred is alarming.

I suspect that many of those spewing hatred of Israel and Jews don’t even know Israelis
or Jews in person. They don’t hate actual Jews; they hate stereotypes of Jews. They are
indoctrinated with propaganda and are fed a stream of lies about Israel and about Jews. The
haters are steeped in their hateful ideology and are not interested in civil dialogue and
relationship with actual Jews and Israelis. They know little or nothing about the connection of
Jews to the land of Israel going back thousands of years, from biblical times to the present.

So why do so many haters take aim at Jews and Israel? Some of this hatred stems from
anti-Jewish religious teachings. Some of it stems from jealousy at the phenomenal success of
such a tiny group. Some people spew hatred as a way of making themselves seem important, as
though picking on Jews somehow makes them appear stronger and braver.

Erich Fromm has written of the syndrome of decay that “prompts men to destroy for the
sake of destruction and to hate for the sake of hate.” Many people poison their own lives with
hatred and only feel truly alive and validated when they express hatred of others.

When societies allow hatred to flourish, they are sowing the seeds of their own
destruction. When universities, media, and political forums condone blatantly anti-Jewish
intimidation and violence, the infection spreads well beyond Jews. Civil discourse is threatened.
Respectful dialogue is quashed.

All who stand for a civil society must not be intimidated by the haters, bullies, and
supporters of terrorism. The syndrome of hate eats away at the foundations of society. It must not
be allowed to prevail.

Rav Nahman of Bratslav taught: The whole world is a narrow bridge (precarious), but the
essential thing is not to be afraid, not to be afraid at all.

Thoughts on Israel and the Jewish Future
(This piece appeared in The Jerusalem Post, April 30, 2024.)

In the short term, things look very difficult. Israel is in the midst of military
confrontations with Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. In spite of the remarkable achievements of the
IDF in Gaza, the war lingers on with no clear end in sight. Israel faces increasing international
censure from the United Nations, the International Court, and from political leaders around the
world. American college campuses are rife with anti-Israel activity. Radical Hamas supporters
unashamedly call for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews.

We all feel the pain and the pressure. We are going through a protracted nightmare. And
it won’t likely get better in the short term.

But the crisis will pass, sooner (hopefully!) or later. How can things change for the better
in the long term?

Israel must conclude its war in Gaza as quickly and effectively as possible. It must work
with allies to put into place a responsible Palestinian leadership that will eschew ongoing warfare
and that will work peacefully with Israel for the benefit of all. It cannot ignore the Palestinian
issue or let it fester endlessly. 

Israel has taken great strides forward through the Abraham Accords. The more Arab and
Muslim countries recognize Israel, the more secure Israel becomes. Formal diplomatic relations
with Saudi Arabia would be a potential game changer in the Middle East. Aside from the
political and economic benefits, it would undercut the hateful voices that call for Israel’s
destruction. It would make it clear that Israel is strong, creative, and a genuine partner with other
nations seeking a harmonious region.

While short-term challenges must be faced courageously, we need to focus on long-term
resolutions of problems. It isn’t realistic to expect that the deep hatred of our enemies will
dissipate overnight. The ugly anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism that have exploded in recent
months will not suddenly cease. But visionary leadership can help us move gradually and
intelligently beyond the problematic status quo. In spite of all the battles and threats, we need to
formulate sensible strategies to bring us to a lasting peace.

We need to be strong to defend ourselves from our enemies; but we need special strength
and blessing to work for and attain peace. Indeed, it may well be more difficult to achieve peace
than to win wars. 

“The Lord gives strength to His people, may the Lord bless His people with peace.”

Beyond Victimhood: A Positive Jewish Message
(This piece appeared in The Jerusalem Post, May 29, 2024.)

The Holocaust, understandably, haunts the Jewish people. We can never forget the
millions of Jews who were tortured and murdered by the Germans and their collaborators.
Whenever a crisis erupts that threatens Jews, there is an almost visceral reaction to call up the
memory of the Holocaust.

After the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, the Jewish media were quick to report
that this was the highest number of Jews murdered in a single day since the Holocaust.
In attempting to combat anti-Semitism in New York, a program was initiated to bring all
eighth-grade students to the Museum of Jewish Heritage, where they could learn about the

Holocaust. When international leaders visit Israel, a visit to Yad Vashem is almost always part of
the itinerary.

The prevailing wisdom is that when people—especially young people—learn about the
horrors of the Holocaust, they will become more sympathetic toward Jews and aware of the
dangers of religious and racial hatred. With more knowledge about the Holocaust, it is assumed
that people will be less prone to anti-Semitic attitudes and behaviors.

The various efforts at Holocaust education have had a positive impact on many. And yet,
Holocaust education—unless handled very well—can have negative consequences. For those
steeped in anti-Jewish hatred, the Holocaust may actually encourage their anti-Semitism. They
view Jews as a despised minority group that is an easy target for hatred and violence. They see
that millions of Jews were systematically slaughtered while much of the world stood aside. In the
minds of rabid Jew-haters, the Holocaust is an ideal, not a disaster.

While maintaining the memory of the Holocaust is surely very important, we need also to
project a positive image of Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. Much of the anti-Semitism we face
today is directly related to anti-Zionism. We need to focus on conveying the historical
connection of the Jewish people to our land going back to biblical days.

Even after being exiled from the Land of Israel several times over the millennia, in the
last instance at the hands of the Romans in 70 CE, the Jewish People have continued to live in,
pray for, and dream of a return to their historic homeland.

After nearly 1,900 years, the Jews gained sovereignty over their land with the
establishment of the modern State of Israel. This is one of the most amazing adventures in
human history. For an ancient people to return to their historic homeland and build a dynamic,
democratic society is an unprecedented story of courage, faith, and persistence.

Our story is truly inspiring and full of hope, spirituality, creativity, courage, and
resilience. Despite all the hurdles we have had to face—and still face—the Jews are a strong and
vibrant people. We need to tell our story in a confident voice—not as propaganda, not in sound
bites, but in a sophisticated and intelligent way that will convey the power of the Jewish
experience.

The re-emergence of a sovereign Jewish state is a remarkable historic achievement. Yet,
as we know, it has not been received with love or understanding by many in the Arab world. In
particular, we face those who foster the Hamas ideology that negates the Jewish right to our own
land.

The goal of the haters, by their own admission, is the destruction of Israel and the Jewish
people. And while wars on the battlefield can achieve military victories for Israel, ultimate
victory will come only when the ideology of hatred is defeated. Just as Israel devotes so much
courage and brilliance to its physical defense, it needs to devote equal—and more—courage and
brilliance to fighting the murderous ideology that has infected many beyond Hamas.
To combat this ideology of hatred, we need more than Holocaust education.

We need a powerful, positive presentation of Jewish history, Jewish connection to the
land of Israel, Jewish idealism, and Jewish striving for peace and mutual understanding.
We would do well to remember the prophecy of Isaiah (42:6), who relates God’s
wondrous promise to the people of Israel that they will become “a light unto the nations.” We
need to focus on the light; on what we have given, are giving, and can give to the world.
Isaiah (51:3) foresaw a time like ours when the wasteland that was Israel turned into a
beautiful and thriving country: “For the Lord comforts Zion; He comforts all her waste places

and makes her wilderness like Eden, her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness will
be found in her, thanksgiving and the voice of song.”
That is Zionism, that is Judaism, that is the aspiration of the Jewish people.

 
Refining Our Messaging on Anti-Semitism
(This piece appeared in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, August 20, 2024.)

 We are rightfully concerned with anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, and we are quick to
publicize every instance of malice and injustice against our people. Our media decry the spread
of Jew-hatred. Our various spokespeople lament the increase in anti-Semitic acts, especially
since October 7.

It is important to expose and combat anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism with all our might.
But is our messaging unwittingly actually leading to an increase in Jew-hatred?

In his book, Subliminal, Dr. Leonard Mlodinow discusses a surprising phenomenon.
Public service announcements sometimes backfire. For example, some ads urge visitors to
national parks not to litter. In one controlled study, an ad denounced littering—and this resulted
in less littering. But another ad included the phrase “Americans will produce more litter than
ever.” This ad actually led to an increase in littering. Dr. Mlodinow points out that the subliminal
message of the latter ad is that it’s really okay to litter; everyone is doing it! (pp. 170–171).

When people are constantly told that anti-Israel sentiment is rampant, subliminally at
least some of them will think: It’s okay to hate Israel, lots of people do. If people are given
statistics that anti-Semitic or anti-Israel acts are increasing dramatically, at least some of them
will conclude that if so many people hate Jews and Israel, it’s okay for me to do so also. 
Publicizing anti-Israel and anti-Jewish behavior can be a double-edged sword. We need
the world to know what’s happening and rally good people to fight the injustices against us. But
by highlighting how many people hate us, we actually may be encouraging closet anti-Semites to
come out into the open with their venom. The more visibility anti-Semites have, the more they
create a snowball effect drawing others into the hatred syndrome.

In another of his books (Emotional), Dr. Mlodinow writes about psychological contagion.
Research is being done about “the spread of emotion from person to person or throughout an
organization or even an entire society” (p. 184). When crowds get fired up against Israel and
against Jews, the hatred can become “contagious.” It is difficult to combat this type of
psychological contagion; but just condemning it will not make it disappear.

We fight the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists by strengthening our own communities; by
insisting on prosecution of hate crimes; be electing pro-Israel officials; by working with good
people to foster civil society. But we also have to promote positive messaging to the general
public.

Instead of constantly publicizing the increase in anti-Jewish words and deeds, we ought
to be emphasizing the many millions of people who admire and support Israel and Jews. Instead
of giving front page attention to anti-Israel “celebrities” we ought to highlight the pro-Israel
voices and reserve the bad actors for the back pages. 

The overwhelming majority of the public abhors terrorism. They resent “activists,” i.e.,
haters who block highways, disrupt college campuses, vandalize businesses, attack innocent
individuals on the basis of religion, race, nationality, or other reasons. Instead of the media

showering so much attention on the haters, we should be demanding even more attention on
those who promote civility, mutual respect, and intergroup cooperation.
We certainly must condemn and fight anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. But our
messaging must be positive and must draw on the goodwill of millions of people who appreciate
the values of Israel and the Jewish People. 

An Israeli Peace Initiative
(This piece appeared in The Jerusalem Post, August 25, 2024.)

 Maimonides described messianic times as an era when Israel would simply be left alone
in peace. In his Mishneh Torah, in the “Laws of Kings and Wars” (12:4), he writes: “The Sages
and the prophets did not yearn for the messianic era in order to have dominion over the entire
world, to rule over the gentiles, to be exalted by the nations, or to eat, drink, and celebrate.
Rather, they desired to be free to involve themselves in Torah and wisdom without any pressures
or disturbances, so that they would merit the world to come.”

Imagine a time when Israel—and the Jewish People as a whole—would not be subject to
hatred, violence, terrorism, or war. Imagine a time when we could devote all our energies to our
minds and spirits, to maintaining a righteous and prosperous society. Unfortunately, we still live
in an unredeemed world, and the messianic dream seems further away than ever. But we must
not give up on this goal.

At present, Israel is engaged in conflict with Hamas, various Palestinian terror groups,
Hezbollah, the Houthis, and, of course, Iran. The Jewish State is also confronted with a growing
number of countries that are choosing to recognize a Palestinian state without due concern for
Israel’s vital interests. Jews in the Diaspora are facing anti-Semitism in the media, on college
campuses, and by pro-Palestinian mobs.

How can we dream of a time of peace when our current reality is very far from being
peaceful? The answer is that we must not abandon our dream, regardless of all the negative
elements in our world. We must envision and work for a new era of peace.

However, it appears hopelessly naïve to speak of peace at a time like this. The haters are
not interested in peace, unashamedly calling for the annihilation of Israel and the murder of
Jews. Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian nationalism fan the hatred. Iran uses its power and
money to foster violence against Israel. The animosity seems intractable.

Does it make sense to plan for the “day after” when that day seems so remote? On the
other hand: Does it make sense not to plan for the “day after”?

Our real enemy is hatred. 

It is hatred that fuels Iran, Palestinian terrorists, and anti-Semites in general. It isn’t likely
that we’ll be able to eradicate all hatred, but we can make inroads and turn the tide.
Dr. Leonard Mlodinow of Cal Tech, in his book Emotional, discusses “psychological
contagion” through which attitudes are transmitted. He reports on research regarding “the spread
of emotion from person to person or throughout an organization or even an entire society” (p.
184). A psychological climate emerges that draws people into the “contagion.” Certain ideas and
attitudes take on a snowball effect. The contagion cannot be staunched unless a powerful
“counter-contagion” takes hold.

When crowds get fired up against Israel and against Jews, the hatred is “contagious.”
Haters are emboldened when others are drawn into their group. The more haters, the more people
are driven to commit violent acts and speak malicious words.

Israel needs to undertake a serious peace offensive. 

It has demonstrated its amazing military prowess and must continue to be as powerful as
possible. At the same time, it can help create positive “psychological contagion” that will draw
people to its vision for a peaceful future.

Israel has already made dramatic strides forward with the Abraham Accords. It would be
significant if Israeli leaders would publicly meet with the leaders of the Arab countries included
in the accords. The world needs to see that Israel and Arab nations respect and cooperate with
each other. 

People need to sense that a wider network of peaceful relations is possible.
The world also needs to hear from Israeli Arabs who are demonstrating allegiance to
Israel and working with Israeli Jews to build a better society. Israeli Arabs are successful in so
many ways. Their stories are very important.

Israel and Saudi Arabia have been considering a path toward mutual recognition. If this
can be achieved, it will be a dramatic step on the path to a wider regional détente.
At present, the ayatollahs have firm control in Iran, but it is possible that, at some point,
the opposition will rise and topple the regime. If Iran can be freed of Islamic fundamentalist rule,
there can be an opening for civil relations with Israel. We must make it clear—loudly and
often—that we have no interest in war with Iran.

As Israel promotes a serious peace initiative, it will need to relate to the Palestinian
people. The status quo of ongoing terrorism and war is certainly not in the interest of Israel, and
not in the interest of the Palestinians. It does seem almost impossible at this time to find a
responsible Palestinian leadership that will negotiate reasonably with Israel; there have been so
many failed attempts in the past. But our long-term vision must transcend the current realities
and plan strategically for a long-term détente with the Palestinians.

A serious peace initiative is in Israel’s interest. It will help turn back the anti-Israel and
anti-Semitic psychological contagion and replace it with a growing respect and support for Israel
and the Jewish people.

Maimonides taught that our goal for messianic times is simply to be left in peace, to be
free of hatred and wars. We need to keep this goal in mind—and work to bring this vision into
reality.
 
Blessings and Curses

(This piece appeared in The Jerusalem Post, October 31, 2024.)

“And I will bless them that bless you, and anyone who curses you I will curse” (Bereishit
12:3).

God called on Abram to move from his birthplace and to set off for a new land. Abram
was to lay the foundations for a righteous society that recognized the One God and that
repudiated all forms of idolatry. God promised Abram that he would be a blessing to all the
families of the earth.

Setting new standards of faith and morality, Abram would attract followers. But he would
also be the target of enemies who resented his teachings. So God reassured Abram that God will

bless those who bless him and curse those who curse him. God’s promise is echoed in the
blessing later given to the Israelites by Bilam: “Blessed be everyone who blesses you, and cursed
be everyone who curses you” (Bemidbar 24:9).

 Throughout the history of our people, surely there have been many who have been
blessed by their blessing us. Many millions of people have led happier and more meaningful
lives by their attachment to the Hebrew Bible. Many have blessed, and have been blessed by, the
many contributions of the Jewish People to civilization.

Likewise, throughout history, there have been many who have cursed us and have
committed every sort of atrocity against us. But in what ways have they themselves been cursed
by God? It sometimes (often?) feels that the haters are not subjected to the wrath of God. In our
own times, we see anti-Semites/anti-Zionists eagerly cursing and threatening us. Although we
are blessed with a strong State of Israel and a robust diaspora community, the enemies are
relentless. We wonder: In what way is God cursing those who curse us?

Perhaps God’s blessings and curses are not externally imposed, but are consequences of
people’s own choices in life.

The Torah presents two paths for humanity. The positive essence of Judaism teaches us
to choose life, love our fellow human beings, serve the Lord faithfully. All who attach
themselves to these ideals are themselves blessed. They live constructive, love-filled lives. Their
faith strengthens them in good times and bad.

But those who curse us and our teachings are thereby choosing a destructive way of life.
Their hatred poisons their lives. By cursing us and what we represent, they actually bring a curse
upon themselves.

When the State of Israel was established in 1948, the Arab world exploded in hatred of
the Jewish State. In all these years, Palestinians and supporters have invested billions of dollars
in weaponry, tunnels, anti-Israel boycotts. What is the result of all this hatred? Instead of having
a peaceful and prosperous Palestinian society, the Palestinians are cursed with an ongoing legacy
of hatred, violence, and loss of life. They have raised generations of haters rather than
generations of those who choose life, who bless Israel as a partner in peace and prosperity.
More generally, those who curse and hate Israel thereby undermine their own lives.
Instead of devoting their energies, talents and resources in constructive ways, they embrace a
negative way of life.

When God assured blessings for those who bless Israel and curses for those who curse
Israel, these were not idle promises. They are fulfilled every day of the week.
We surely would like the haters to re-think their destructive ways and free themselves of
the curses they have brought upon themselves and others.

Those who choose blessing and life are themselves blessed. Those who choose cursing
and death are themselves cursed.
 
Reclaiming Bible Zionism

(This piece appeared in The Jewish Link, December 12, 2024.)
 

What is Zionism after all?

The term seems to have originated in the 1890s by Nathan Birnbaum, founder of the
Kadimah nationalist Jewish students’ movement. Theodor Herzl popularized the term as the
expression of the Jewish People’s national aspiration to return to their historic homeland in Zion.

The term “Zionism” is often used by friends and enemies of Israel without proper
reference to its historic roots in biblical times. Zionism didn’t just pop up in a vacuum, as though
it was a new and artificial framework for Jews to return to their land. Although the term as a
political movement dates from the late nineteenth century, it in fact encapsulates thousands of
years of Jewish attachment to their historic homeland.

Zion is mentioned over 150 times in the Hebrew Bible. While originally referring to
Mount Zion, it came to refer to Jerusalem and then to all the land of Israel.

Rabbi Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes, who was associated with the historic Spanish and
Portuguese Synagogue of New York from 1877 to 1937, advocated what he called “Bible
Zionism.” He was proud of the fact that Theodor Herzl asked his cooperation in organizing the
Zionist movement in the United States. Dr. Mendes was elected vice-president of the Federation
of American Zionists and a member of the actions committee of the World Zionist Organization.
He believed that Zionism had the goal of establishing a Jewish State founded upon the principles
and ideals of the Jewish religious tradition. In a letter to Haham Gaster of London (July 21,
1903), Dr. Mendes wrote: “Here is true work for Zionists: to keep Hebrews true to Jewish life,
Jewish law, Jewish sentiment.”

Dr. Mendes taught that “Bible Zionism” aspired to go beyond simply providing a
homeland for Jews. It had a universal message and goal: “Peace for the world at last and the
realization of reverence for God by all men. These are the essentials for human happiness.
Zionism stands for them.”

We rarely hear about “Bible Zionism” from Israeli political leaders, media, or the various
Zionist organizations worldwide. But wouldn’t it be nice if leaders and opinion makers reclaimed
“Bible Zionism” and reminded the world at every opportunity of the biblical roots of Zionism?

“Bible Zionism,” as Rabbi Mendes pointed out, has a dual agenda. It stresses the national
aspirations of the Jewish People to live in their own historic homeland and foster their religious
and cultural traditions. The prophet Isaiah foresaw that Jews will “come to Zion with songs and
everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing will
flee away” (Isaiah 35:10). He taught that “Zion will be redeemed with justice and those that
return to her with righteousness” (1:27).

But “Bible Zionism” also points to the ultimate victory of justice and righteousness for
Israel and the entire world. Isaiah taught that many people shall come to Zion “for out of Zion
shall go forth Torah and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem” (Isaiah 2:3). Isaiah looked to the
day when “the nations shall see your righteousness and all kings your glory” (62:1–2). The
prophet Zechariah (8:3) taught that the Lord has returned to Zion and that “Jerusalem shall be
called the city of truth and the mountain of the Lord of hosts the holy mountain.” Zion was to be
a bastion of truth, justice and wisdom for the entire world.

Recent months have seen ugly manifestations of anti-Zionism throughout the world. The
haters have distorted the meaning and mission of Zionism. We need to embrace “Bible Zionism”
in every forum to set the record straight.

 The Psalmist sang (122:6): “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they who love you will
prosper; peace be within your walls, prosperity within your palaces.” Just as those who love and
support Zion will be blessed, the Psalmist warns (129:5): “May all who hate Zion be put to
shame and turned back.”

As for us, we must heed the words of Isaiah (62:1–2): “For the sake of Zion I will not
hold my peace, and for the sake of Jerusalem I will not be still, until her righteousness goes forth
like radiance and her salvation like a burning torch.”

Surprised by Anti-Semitism/Anti-Zionism? Yes and No

(This article appeared in The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, December 23, 2024.)

Although Jews have faced anti-Semitism from time immemorial, it always comes upon
us as something new. It surprises us. We don’t understand it.

We strive to be good people, good citizens; we are kind-hearted and generous. We devote
ourselves to the education of our children, to the betterment of society, to justice and
compassion. We have our share of faults along with all other human beings; but by and large, we
are a good, responsible, hard-working community.

And yet, no matter what we do, people hate us! They don’t see us as individual human
beings but as a vast stereotype. They don’t care if we are religious or not religious; if we are
liberals or conservatives. If we are Jewish, they are against us and want to hurt us.
It was once thought that the establishment of the State of Israel would bring anti-
Semitism to an end. After all, Jews would then have a feeling of security in the world, a safe
haven where no one would bother us.

But the Jewish State has simply become a new target for the anti-Semites. They now
couch Jew-hatred for hatred of “the Zionists.” Anti-Semites don’t have a problem with Hamas
firing thousands of missiles at civilian centers in Israel; but when Israel responds by bombing the
enemy, Israel is immediately condemned and vilified by the haters. For the anti-Semites, Israel is
always wrong regardless of what it does or doesn't do.

Happily, there are many millions of people who feel warmly toward Jews and the Jewish
State. Happily, many millions of people admire the accomplishments of the State of Israel in the
face of so many obstacles; they respect Israel’s right—and obligation—to defend its citizens.
But when we see outbreaks of blatant anti-Jewish violence, anti-Jewish rhetoric, anti-
Israel demonization—it surprises and pains us!  In spite of thousands of years dealing with anti-
Jewish hatred and persecution, we still are not used to it. We somehow think that humanity will
improve, will judge us fairly. We grow optimistic at any sign of peace and understanding, mutual
cooperation, and solidarity.

We keep telling ourselves that most people are good and that reason will ultimately
prevail. The haters will eventually overcome malice and violence; they will realize the value of
peaceful and respectful cooperation. In a world of over seven billion human beings, surely there
must be room for the infinitesimal presence of 15 million Jews. In a world with so many
countries, surely there must be room for one tiny Jewish State that wants nothing more than to be
able to live in peace and security.

But the anti-Semites and anti-Zionists don’t really care. They don’t want to be reasoned
with; they don’t want to listen. They have their agenda of hate.

Saul Bellow, the American novelist who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1976,
wrote in his book To Jerusalem and Back: A Personal Account: “…There is one fact of Jewish
life unchanged by the creation of a Jewish state: you cannot take your right to live for granted.
Others can; you cannot. This is not to say that everyone else is living pleasantly and well under a

decent regime. No, it means only that the Jews, because they are Jews, have never been able to
take the right to live as a natural right….This right is still clearly not granted them, not even in
the liberal West.”

Bellow’s complaint is not new. Jews throughout the generations have had to face the
same stark reality: Jews, because they are Jews, cannot take the right to live as a natural right.
That’s the sad part of the story.

But that’s not the end of the story. Even if there has long been hatred and violence
directed against Jews…we are still here! We continue to live, to thrive, to hope.
The late Jewish thinker, Simon Rawidowicz, wrote an essay about “Israel: The Ever-
Dying People.” He noted that Jews have often felt that theirs was the last Jewish generation.
Jewish survival seemed hopeless. But although we were “ever-dying,” we were in fact ever-
living! We often felt despair; but hope and persistence prevailed. Jews found ways to overcome
all who would decimate us.

Although current manifestations of anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are ugly and painful,
we must take the long view of things. This isn’t the first period of Jewish history where Jews
faced viciousness and violence. It likely won’t be the last period either. But long experience has
taught us to stay strong, stay confident, stay positive. The challenge to our generation is to stand
tall as Jews, to stand strong on behalf of Israel.

And we do look forward to a time when humanity will overcome the disease of anti-
Semitism. Meanwhile, we recall the words of Rav Nahman of Bratslav: All the world is a narrow
bridge; the essential thing is not to be afraid, not to be afraid at all.