The Need for Jewish Communities to Draw Lines around Israel

In recent weeks, Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History and its affiliate, the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), have been tangled in controversies involving to what extent Jewish communal institutions should support those who object to the state of Israel’s existence. Jonathan Tobin weighs in on two of these:

The problems began with criticism of the appointment of the UCLA historian David Myers as the president and CEO of the Center for Jewish History. Myers is a man of the left, a supporter of J Street and the New Israel Fund, and this prompted a furious response from the Zionist right. . . . I have little sympathy for his politics and question [his] judgment, . . . [but] so long as Myers, a respected academic, sticks to his job of promoting the study and understanding of Jewish history, there is no reason to take issue with his appointment.

But to table the kerfuffle over Myers is not the same thing as declaring that lines should never be drawn. The American Jewish Historical Society . . . illustrated this [point] by co-sponsoring a panel to commemorate next month’s centennial of the Balfour Declaration organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), where the featured speakers would be a Palestinian critic of Zionism alongside a Jewish one. When the egregious nature of this program was pointed out to the AJHS, it promptly canceled the event as well as an upcoming reading of a play by a JVP supporter.

Predictably, this [decision] prompted a new wave of criticism, this time from the left, which accused the AJHS of “silencing” Jewish dissent and overreacting to the Myers controversy. . . . That sounds reasonable to Jews who see the drawing of lines—especially with respect to debate about Israel—as unacceptable in 21st-century American life. But . . . it is a dangerous mistake to think Jewish institutions should welcome or sponsor those who effectively advocate waging war on Israel and the Jewish people.

For me the line of demarcation is easy to define. Those who may oppose the policies of Israel’s government but support Zionism . . . deserve a hearing even if we disagree with their views. Those—like JVP—who deny the right of the Jewish people to a state and its right of self-defense are on the wrong side of the line. . . . A community that believes inclusion is the only value is one that ultimately stands for nothing.

Read more at Jewish Week

More about: American Jewry, Israel & Zionism, J Street, Jewish history, Jewish Voice for Peace

 

It’s Time for Haredi Jews to Become Part of Israel’s Story

Unless the Supreme Court grants an extension from a recent ruling, on Monday the Israeli government will be required to withhold state funds from all yeshivas whose students don’t enlist in the IDF. The issue of draft exemptions for Haredim was already becoming more contentious than ever last year; it grew even more urgent after the beginning of the war, as the army for the first time in decades found itself suffering from a manpower crunch. Yehoshua Pfeffer, a haredi rabbi and writer, argues that haredi opposition to army service has become entirely disconnected from its original rationale:

The old imperative of “those outside of full-time Torah study must go to the army” was all but forgotten. . . . The fact that we do not enlist, all of us, regardless of how deeply we might be immersed in the sea of Torah, brings the wrath of Israeli society upon us, gives a bad name to all of haredi society, and desecrates the Name of Heaven. It might still bring harsh decrees upon the yeshiva world. It is time for us to engage in damage limitation.

In Pfeffer’s analysis, today’s haredi leaders, by declaring that they will fight the draft tooth and nail, are violating the explicit teachings of the very rabbis who created and supported the exemptions. He finds the current attempts by haredi publications to justify the status quo not only unconvincing but insincere. At the heart of the matter, according to Pfeffer, is a lack of haredi identification with Israel as a whole, a lack of feeling that the Israeli story is also the haredi story:

Today, it is high time we changed our tune. The new response to the demand for enlistment needs to state, first and foremost to ourselves, that this is our story. On the one hand, it is crucial to maintain and even strengthen our isolation from secular values and culture. . . . On the other hand, this cultural isolationism must not create alienation from our shared story with our fellow brethren living in the Holy Land. Participation in the army is one crucial element of this belonging.

Read more at Tzarich Iyun

More about: Haredim, IDF, Israeli society