Tsvi Bisk – The Criminal Negligence of American Jewry
Israel’s slow but steady decline into a 3rd world theocratic state is, to a large degree, attributable to American Jewry’s indifference to religious and political extremism in Israel. Reform and Conservative Jewry’s obsequious approach to fighting for their rights has deprived Israel of alternative religious identities that might have mitigated the growth of political and religious fanaticism. Amazingly, non-Orthodox individuals contribute more to Orthodox Yeshivas than to their own Israeli institutions. Yeshivas that teach that the Holocaust was God’s punishment for Reform Judaism; that ‘goyim’ are inferior to Jews; whose students throw human feces on Conservative groups praying at the Western Wall and abuse non-Orthodox women attempting to pray there. None of this seems to offend the self-respect of non-Orthodox donors.
Muslims and Christians have more religious freedom in Israel than non-Orthodox Jews. Ten different Christian denominations are recognized by Israel. Several Muslim denominations are recognized, including the Ahmadis who are persecuted in every Muslim country in the world. The only Ahmadi Mosque in the entire Middle East is in Haifa. Only one Jewish denomination is recognized. As Israel discriminates against the majority of world Jewry it might accurately be called the most anti-Semitic country in the democratic world.
There are times in history when fighting for one’s selfish interests contributes to the common welfare. The European bourgeoisie fighting for their economic interests contributed to the development of Constitutionalism. The Black civil rights movement contributed to the ongoing constitutionalization of American civilization. European Jews were important constituents of bourgeoisie civilization and many American Jews supported the civil rights movement. Yet, regarding Israel, non-Orthodox American Jewry has been morally AWOL.
If the Conservative Movement had fulfilled its historic task and made serious efforts to establish itself in Israel’s non-Ashkenazi communities, as I advocated in the Conservative Judaism magazine in 1983, some of the racist developments of recent years might have been avoided. Given that Israel’s Ashkenazi religious establishment discriminated against non-Ashkenazis, I perceived a vacuum of resentment that could be filled by Conservative Jewry. My suspicion was confirmed several years later when the Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox helped former Sephardi Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef establish the SHAS party, which quickly became a mirror image of Ashkenazi fanaticism, first in religion and then increasingly in politics. How would Israel look today if the Conservative Movement had taken itself seriously and filled this vacuum when it had the chance?
The excuses given were that American Jews shouldn’t interfere in Israel’s internal affairs. An absurdity, given that they were quite content to interfere in the Soviet Union’s internal affairs regarding Soviet Jewry, as well as in South Africa’s internal affairs regarding Apartheid. This “principled” non-interference has had consequences; religious fanaticism has increasingly morphed into political fanaticism and overt racism.
For example, Rabbi Giora Redler of the Eli IDF Preparatory Yeshiva teaches future officers that, and I quote: “The logic of the Germans was right. Hitler said a calamitous race for mankind must be eliminated. Hitler was definitely right. His ideology was correct. There is a male world which fights, which deals with honor and the brotherhood of soldiers. And there is the soft, ethical feminine world which turns the other cheek. Secular Jews carry on this feminine heritage, making them the real enemy. Hitler is 100% correct, aside from the fact that he was on the wrong side.” Readers may infer what the Rabbi has in mind for Palestinians and secular Jews – “the real enemy”.
Rabbi Eliezer Kashtiel head of Bnei David IDF Preparatory Yeshiva teaches his future officers, and, again, I quote: “Yes, we’re racists. We believe in racism. There are genetic traits inherent in nations. There are differences among races. There are nations around us with genetic defects. The Arabs want to be under occupation because they have a genetic defect.”
Rabbi Dov Lior, head of the “Council of Rabbis of Judea and Samaria”, endorsed a book advocating killing Palestinian children because they will grow up to kill Jews; that Jewish women should not use sperm donated by a non-Jewish man since the resultant baby would have the “negative genetic traits that characterize non-Jews” because “Gentile sperm leads to barbaric offspring”. He advocated using captured Arab terrorists for medical experiments. His rabbinic rulings implied that Rabin should be killed and was rabbinic advisor to Rabin’s assassin. When he was arrested for incitement, Israel’s chief rabbis condemned the arrest as a “grave offense to an important rabbi’s honor,” and 25 members of Knesset signed a petition denouncing it as “shameful”. He still walks free “teaching”.
In 2010, a magazine associated with Chabad (attention Reform donors) published an article attacking liberal Orthodox rabbis (yes, there are a few) who had condemned extremist rabbis urging Jews not to rent to Israeli Arabs. Their response: “It will be interesting to see whether they leave the congregating of the Amalekites into extermination camps to others, or whether wiping out Amalek is no longer relevant.” The settlers have a long tradition of calling Palestinians Amalek. Amalek is also false leaders, such as Rabin, Amalek is secular Jews (for the more tolerant Orthodox we are the ‘mixed multitude’). Amalek must be killed.
Rabbi Ovadia Yosef preached: “The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews. Why are gentiles needed? They will work, plow, and reap. We will sit like an effendi and eat. That is why gentiles were created”. Also “If a gentile [is] injured in a car accident during Sabbath, and he is brought to the hospital Israel must not treat him as the Torah forbids violating the Sabbath for gentiles. All religious physicians who treat gentiles on the Sabbath are violating the Sabbath”.
The Chief Rabbi of Safed, Shmuel Eliyahu, recommended hanging the children of terrorists from trees. He contributed to a pamphlet published by the Israeli branch of the American Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations (OU) asserting that the Pope helps organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to eliminate Jews. The OU’s American headquarters subsequently distanced itself from the pamphlet, claiming their Israeli staff published without approval from senior management. That their Israeli staff had no qualms in publishing does not seem to have been an issue.
These rabbis are state employees whose salaries derive from the Israeli taxpayer. Even the most fervent supporter of First Amendment rights in the US would demand that a clergyman (or anyone else) employed by the state be fired immediately for such views. Imagine the outrage of Jewish organizations if, for example, the chaplain of the Alabama state legislature preached it was forbidden for Christians to rent to Jews.
Gender Jim Crow is spreading. Bus lines through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods require women to sit at the back of the bus. Secular women who refuse are harassed, abused and even physically attacked. On some campuses women are denied access to the library on certain days so ultra-Orthodox men can study. Elementary school girls have been stoned by ultra-Orthodox men because they were not dressed modestly enough. A girl in one school was expelled because she did summer work in a restaurant alongside boys. Another was barred from singing at a municipal sponsored Independence Day event because Orthodox men are forbidden to even hear women sing.
Official American Jewry has turned its back on young Israelis and American Jews alienated from this reality, labeling them post-Zionists or even capos. America’s rightwing Orthodox Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, declared they are “worse than capos”. This policy has contributed to the moral decline of the Zionist project, which from its very inception has been characterized by ruthless self-criticism – the primary survival mechanism of the Jewish People throughout the ages. It has also contributed to the estrangement of growing numbers of young Jews and consequently American Jewry’s loss of vigor. Obsequiousness regarding Israel’s treatment of non-Orthodox Jews has earned them the contempt of political Israel: useful idiots, financial milk cows; complimented when advantageous but discarded when not. By withholding their financial and political support until treated equally, Reform and Conservative Jewry might have caused temporary inconvenience to Israel. But at the grand-strategic level this might have been their greatest contribution to Israeli society and the future survival of the Jewish people. Now it might be too late; political Israel thinks it has the Evangelicals and doesn’t need American Jewry anymore. American Jews, of late, seem to have responded in kind – the further you go down on the demographic age scale indifference to Israel is on the increase. We are losing young non-Orthodox Jewry. “You don’t need us; we don’t need you!” This is catastrophic for Israel and the Diaspora.
I want to make something very clear. I am not a Jewish supporter of BDS and I believe J Street is hopelessly romantic and naive in its attitude towards the Palestinians. I place more blame on the Palestinians for the present impasse than on Israel; as Abba Eban once famously said: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. I have even become convinced, as crazy as it might sound, that some Palestinian leaders still harbor an ambition to destroy Israel rather than make its peace with the very existence of Israel. This doesn’t scare me one bit; their stubborn pose of romantic honor, and their failed attempt to isolate us, is simply pathetic. I honestly feel sorry for their children. But what does scare me is that Israel’s present moral deterioration poses a greater danger to Jewish survival that the Iranian bomb, Hamas or BDS.
Tsvi Bisk is author of The Suicide of the Jews
