Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

Here are two online versions of a "joke" I recently learned about from a book by Harvey Cox:

So the Hebrew school teacher asks little Johnny: "What is the meaning of most Jewish holidays?" Replies little Johnny: "They tried to kill us. We won. Let's eat." Little Johnny had a point.

--"The Horseradish Chronicles: The Pain of chrain" by
Michael Arnold Glueck in the Jewish World Review.

"They tried to kill us, we won, let's eat": so goes the world's shortest summary of Jewish holiday themes that circulated recently on the Internet.

--"Eat, Drink, and Be Merry...and Share the Wealth" by Josh Eagle,
Yosef Abramowitz, and Rabbi Susan P. Fendrick in SocialAction.com

The Jewish holidays of Purim, Passover, and Hanukkah are part of the "culture of death" and "victimization" that permeates Judaism and much of modern Jewish life, as noted by Idith Zertal in Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (Cambridge UP, 2005; pp. 1-2). On the penultimate page of her book, in reference to the assassination of PM Yitzhak Rabin by an Israeli Jew, Zertal identifies aspects of Jewish Israeli society: "the nationalist fanaticism, the messianic belief in a borderless Greater Israel, the practices of power and violence, and the rituals of blood, victimhood, and the Holocaust ... " Nearly every aspect of this culture of death, which Zertal identifies, is rooted--one way or another--in Judaism but for present purposes I'll focus on the holidays.

In the cases of Purim and Hanukkah, it would be more accurate to say, "We killed them. Let's eat;" whether "They tried to kill us" is debatable. Purim is based on the biblical book of Esther and the story is told entirely from the perspective of the victors. The author tells us that no Jews died but they did strike "down all their enemies with the sword, slaughtering, and destroying them, and did as they pleased to those who hated them" (Esther 9:5).^* After killing more than 75,000 people, the killers celebrated days of "gladness and feasting" (Esther 9).

The Maccabean civil war at the root of Hanukkah started when Mattathias, a priest and father of Judah Maccabee, killed another Jew for coming "forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice" to Greek gods. According to I Maccabees 2:

When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was stirred. He gave vent to righteous anger; he ran and killed him on the altar. At the same time he killed the king's officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the altar.

One of the other things that pissed Mattathias off was the king's decree banning the practice of male genital mutilation known as circumcision.

Of course, the joke would also have to be modified for the Passover story: "Our Lord, Jehovah, killed them. Let's eat." The Exodus narrative does not claim that "They tried to kill us;" it says:

Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. (Exodus 3:7-9).

It is commonly believed that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt (the related notion that the Egyptian pyramids were built by slaves has come under serious scholarly criticism). In any case, Exodus indicates that the Israelites routinely made slaves of one another (Exodus 21). And soon after exiting Egypt they were longing for the good old days when they served the Egyptians and had meat and their fill of bread (Exodus 14:11,12; 16:3).

The rabble among them had a strong craving; and the Israelites also wept again, and said, "If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat in Egypt for nothing, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic; but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at." (Numbers 11:4-6)

Even the holiest day of the Jewish liturgical year--Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement--has a bit of the stench of death about it. Flavius Josephus, in his Antiquities of the Jews (3.10) describes the ritual sacrifice conducted in the Temple in Jerusalem:

But on the seventh month, which the Macedonians call Hyperberetaeus, they make an addition to those already mentioned, and sacrifice a bull, a ram, and seven lambs, and a kid of the goats, for sins.

On the tenth day of the same lunar month, they fast till the evening; and this day they sacrifice a bull, and two rams, and seven lambs, and a kid of the goats, for sins. And, besides these, they bring two kids of the goats; the one of which is sent alive out of the limits of the camp into the wilderness for the scapegoat, and to be an expiation for the sins of the whole multitude; but the other is brought into a place of great cleanness, within the limits of the camp, and is there burnt, with its skin, without any sort of cleansing. With this goat was burnt a bull, not brought by the people, but by the high priest, at his own charges; which, when it was slain, he brought of the blood into the holy place, together with the blood of the kid of the goats, and sprinkled the ceiling with his finger seven times, as also its pavement, and again as often toward the most holy place, and about the golden altar: he also at last brings it into the open court, and sprinkles it about the great altar. Besides this, they set the extremities, and the kidneys, and the fat, with the lobe of the liver, upon the altar. The high priest likewise presents a ram to God as a burnt-offering.

Of course, animal sacrifice is not today part of Yom Kippur, except for those orthodox Jews who sacrifice a chicken as part of Kaparot.

Last year's Israeli slaughter in Lebanon and the ongoing war against Palestinians are natural expressions of a Judaic culture of death.

Note
^* All Biblical text is from the New Revised Standard Version via The Unbound Bible.

See also:

• "Response to M."
•  "We love death": Projecting the American Culture of Death onto Islam

Labels: Hanukkah, Jewish violence, Judaism, Passover

m said:

Why look to religion to illuminate links between Judaism and Zionism when so much of Zionism has traditionally been secular? Although certainly rooted in Jewish mythology, modern Zionism is a significantly different beast than its religious antecedent.

Zionism is grounded in Judaic theology and tradition. Even before mainstream Judaism and Zionism coalesced, Zionism had a religious base. The idea that "Zionism has traditionally been secular" is a real example of "Jewish mythology." Zionism was always "overtly or specifically religious" in its goal of a Jewish state for the Jewish people.

As I indicated in my first response to you, in The Jewish State, Theodor Herzl--the key figure in the creation of the modern Zionist movement--wrote: "... we [Jews] feel our historic affinity only through the faith of our fathers ..." and the Jewish "Faith unites us." Moses Hess, in his influential "Rome and Jerusalem," wrote of the Zionist movement: We will "draw our inspiration from the deep well of Judaism." David Ben-Gurion, first prime minister of Israel, wrote in his Recollections (London: McDonald Unit 75, 1970): "Everything we are as Jews ... comes directly from the Bible. In size we are nothing as a people and never have been. Had we not been children of the Book, who would have heard of us?" (p. 16) and:

As to the Jews, I can only point to our Bible and to its sequence in the many Jewish initiatives to regain Israel stretching across the centuries since Masada and say: This is our Mandate. Come see for yourselves.

Since I invoke Torah so often, let me state that I don't personally believe in the God it postulates. I mean that I cannot 'turn to God', or pray to a super-human Almighty Being living up in the sky. ...

Yet, though my philosophy is secular, I believe profoundly in the God of Jeremiah and Elijah. Indeed, I consider it part of the Jewish heritage and the Jewish obligation to hold to this concept of God. ...

Certainly in Israel today we are Messianic. The Jews feel themselves to have a mission here; they have a sense of mission. Restoration of sovereignty is tied to a concept of redemption. This had determined Jewish survival and it is the core of Jewish religious, moral and national consciousness. It explains the immigration to Israel of hundreds of thousands of Jews who never heard of Zionist doctrine but who, nevertheless, were moved to leave the lands wherein they dwelt to contribute with their own effort to the revival of the Hebrew nation in its historic home. (pp. 120-122)

In 1936, when asked about the basis for the Jewish claim to Palestine, Ben-Gurion told the British Peel Commission: "The Bible is our mandate.''

So, if Judaism was not the unifying element of Jewish Zionist identity then will you please tell me what was? Who gets to live and rule in the Jewish state if not those recognized as Jewish?

As Mazin Qumsiyeh notes, "Israel is the only country that nationalizes any person regardless of where they live only by virtue of a religious identification (being Jewish)." Today, every major branch of Judaism is explicitly Zionist, even the Reconstructionist and Secular Humanist sects are Zionist. This is no accident.

The key religious factor is the construction of Jewish identity and, that, as an identity of innocent victimhood. The outcome Idith Zertal identifies is "the nationalist fanaticism, the messianic belief in a borderless Greater Israel, the practices of power and violence, and the rituals of blood, victimhood, and the Holocaust ... " that dominate Jewish society. Zertal is speaking specifically of Israeli Jewish society but I see no evidence that her observation is not applicable to mainstream American Jews, too. Of course, the Prophets have a somewhat contrary message but those prophetic teachings against the violent propensities of Judah aren't too popular any more with Jews nor is the orthodox position that exile was the result of sin.

In any case, to return to your question: "Why look to religion to illuminate links between Judaism and Zionism." Would you make a similar query about the religious roots of the 1979 Iranian revolution or the fighting in northern Ireland?

I fail to see the causal relationship between religious violence in the Bible and the modern state of Israel. You certainly didn't make the case in your post, except to say that they're both violent.

I'm glad you don't see that "causal relationship" because I never posited one. In the first post in this thread, I wrote: "Last year's Israeli slaughter in Lebanon and the ongoing war against Palestinians are natural expressions of a Judaic culture of death." In my last post in this thread, I wrote: "The culture of death in mainstream Judaism ... as it is practiced today is the same culture of death that energizes Zionism and its violence." See? No causality. Traditional Judaism provides the basis of Jewish identity and lends moral license to Jewish violence but it does not necessarily cause them.

Furthermore, if the bloodthirstyness of the Jewish religion was all that Zionism had, it would never have succeeded. It needed the support from the colonialist regimes of the time, and it still needs the support of the US and Christian Zionists.

Agreed, and Zionists work(ed) very diligently to create and maintain that support because it was contrary to the national interests of those imperial regimes.

I think your claim that your earlier post's purpose was to illuminate links between Judaism and Zionism is too little too late.

"Too late" for what? In any case, I made the claim in the very first post in this thread.

What if someone had posted on the violent religious heritage of Islam. Then when somebody suggested that that might be a problem in the current political climate, the original poster replied that they were trying to illustrate links between Islam and so-called Islamic Fundamentalism. I don't think that would work exactly.

Like I said, I made my claim about the relationship between Judaism and violence in the very first post in this thread. That said, the situations of Islam and Judaism "in the current political climate" are hardly comparable.

So, M., after all is said and done, do you have anything of substance to say on these matters? It's clear that you don't want to accept that there is a culture of death in Judaism and that it is related to Zionism but where I have quoted scripture, Zertal, Mezvinsky, Shahak, Horowitz, Ben-Gurion, Herzl, Hess, and others you really have very little to offer in the way of facts or reason. Can you offer a solid, reasoned refutation of anything I have written in this thread? Are you comfortable with the celebration of Purim and Passover knowing there are massacres at their cores? Do you deny what I wrote about Tikkun Olam? If you can't refute what I've written then do you at least have the integrity to admit that I may be right and you may need to rethink some of your beliefs?

See also "Zionism As Judaism" by Robert Wolfe

Last revised: 05/14/2007

Labels: David Ben-Gurion, Jewish violence, Judaism, Zionism

The nine commandments of the "Holocaust Religion" below are developed in greater detail by the award-winning Israeli journalist Shraga Elam in his article, "Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the Service of Israel."

1. Remember what Amalek has done to thee!
2. Thou shall never compare The Holocaust with any other Genocide!
3. Thou shall never compare the Nazi crimes with those of Israel!
4. Thou shall never doubt the number of 6 million Jewish victims!
5. Thou shall never doubt the Nazi Judeocide!
6. Thou shall never doubt the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish state!
7. Thou shall not criticize the leading Jewish organizations and the Israeli government!
8. Thou must never criticize Jewish organizations and the Zionist leadership for abandoning the European Jewry in the Nazi era!
9. Thou shall not doubt the central Role of Hitler in the industrialization of the extermination of the Jews!

Also, in the same article Elam cites the Israeli historian Idith Zertal, a figure known to readers of this blog. Elam writes:

According to Zertal, the spectacular actions of the illegal immigration after the war, like the famous trip of the "Exodus", were mainly part of a very effective propaganda campaign. She quotes the Jewish welfare organization "Joint" that claimed at that time, that the total number of immigrants including the illegal ones was smaller than the British quota. This means that if the Jewish refugees had been transported to Palestine legally, under normal conditions, it would have been cheaper, more comfortable and safer for them than using the shaky illegal ships and their number would not necessarily have been lower. But by using this legal way, the JA [i. e. Jewish Agency] would have lost the propaganda effects of the pictures of British soldiers using excessive amounts of force against Jewish survivors.

See also: Atzmon on Jewish Religion

Labels: history, holocaust, Zionism

The blogger M. raised some interesting questions in a comment to my post on "Judaism's Culture of Death." I reply below.

Dear M.

Thanks for your thoughtful comment. The point of my post was to help illuminate some of the important links between Judaism and Zionism. The culture of death in mainstream Judaism (but which does not characterize the full depth, breadth, or potential of Judaism) as it is practiced today is the same culture of death that energizes Zionism and its violence. My purpose is the same as the prophets who railed against injustice and violence--to stop the injustice and violence! Here's one of my favorite passages from Isaiah:

The prophecies of Isaiah son of Amoz, who prophesied concerning Judah and Jerusalem ...

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth,
For the LORD has spoken:
"I reared children and brought them up--
And they have rebelled against Me!
An ox knows its owner,
An ass its master's crib:
Israel does not know,
My people takes no thought."

Ah, sinful nation!
People laden with iniquity!
Brood of evildoers!
Depraved children!
They have forsaken the LORD,
Spurned the Holy One of Israel,
Turned their backs [on Him].

... Trample My courts no more;
Bringing oblations is futile,
Incense is offensive to Me.
New moon and sabbath,
Proclaiming of solemnities,
Assemblies with iniquity,
I cannot abide.
Your new moons and fixed seasons
Fill Me with loathing;
They are become a burden to Me,
I cannot endure them.
And when you lift up your hands,
I will turn My eyes from you;
Though you pray at length,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood

Source: Isaiah 1:1a, 1:2-4, 1:12b-15; see note 2 to Word to Chuck W. on the translation of this text.

It is a commonplace that modern political Zionism was founded by secular Jews but that is not the whole truth. Even Theodor Herzl, in his Zionist manifesto, The Jewish State, had a definite, positive role for rabbis--"on whom we especially call"--and synagogue in the movement. Herzl argued that Jews "feel our historic affinity only through the faith of our fathers" and the Jewish "Faith unites us." The influential Moses Hess, in "Rome and Jerusalem," wrote of the Zionist movement: We will "draw our inspiration from the deep well of Judaism."

To turn to a more contemporary source, in Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years, the late Israel Shahak writes:

The ideological defence of Israeli policies are usually based on Jewish religious beliefs or, in the case of secular Jews, on the "historical rights" of the Jews which derive from those beliefs and retain the dogmatic character of religious faith.

... close analysis of Israeli grand strategies and actual principles of foreign policy, as they are expressed in Hebrew, makes it clear that it is "Jewish ideology," more than any other factor, which determines actual Israeli policies. The disregard of Judaism as it really is and of "Jewish ideology" makes those policies incomprehensible to foreign observers who usually know nothing about Judaism except crude apologetics.

The existence of an important component of Israeli policy, which is based on "Jewish ideology," makes its analysis politically imperative. This ideology is, in turn based on the attitudes of historic Judaism to non-Jews, ... Those attitudes necessarily influence many Jews, consciously or unconsciously. Our task here is to discuss historic Judaism in real terms.

Although the struggle against antisemitism (and of all other forms of racism) should never cease, the struggle against Jewish chauvinism and exclusivism, which must include a critique of classical Judaism, is now of equal or greater importance [emphasis added].

Like Shahak, I am interested in going beyond "crude apologetics" to discuss the influence, conscious and unconscious, of Judaism on Jews and non-Jews. I cannot help but think the celebrations of death-victory at the heart of some Jewish holidays, esp. Purim and Passover, have deleterious effects in the world today. I know I'm not alone, in my "Reflection On Passover," I quote Aaron J. Tapper and Jacob Pinnolis who have wrestled with violence in the Jewish tradition. In "3 "Ex-Terrorists"; UM Cops Suppress Free Speech Again (Part 1)" I cited Elliott Horowitz and his book, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence.

You asked about my choice of images to illustrate the post. The article is about a culture of death, hence my choice of the Grim Reaper. You wrote, "you claim that the 'real story' behind many of the major jewish holidays is one of death and murder." I encourage you to examine the narratives behind those holidays on your own. A common joke about those holidays was my point of departure and my claim is that the underlying narratives are not congruent with the joke or the common interpretation of those holidays as simple, noble struggles for liberation and, further, that these holidays actually are part of the "culture of death" and victimhood identified by Idith Zertal. Although, as I hope I have made clear, my use of those concepts expands upon Zertal's use.

As for Yom Kippur, I think the main thrust of my argument remains intact without it. Its inclusion as part of a culture of death could be easily defended, I think, but I am also open to treating it sui generis. In short, I don't think it should be a stumbling-block to grappling with the broader issue raised.

You wrote, "you include a quote from numbers to claim that the jews didn't really appreciate being freed from slavery ..." The point was that the biblical Passover story is far from being a case of "They tried to kill us." If that added information "further discredit[s] the story of passover" then I'm totally fine with that. The only way--and it's a stretch at that--I can see to salvage Passover is to change it to an Exodus holiday and to eliminate or repudiate the Passover i.e. the divine slaying of the Egyptian first-born by the Destroyer. But, hey, that's not up to me but I will critique it as it is. By the way, my interpretation of the text from Numbers and the related verses from Exodus is the mainstream Jewish reading.

You talked about "other cultures within judaism." It's fine to talk about those and there is no shortage of people willing to promote (often dishonestly, e.g. the Zionist Michael Lerner) them. However, the truly progressive expressions of Judaism are by no means representative of, or grounded in, mainstream Judaism. To focus on them is to "disregard ... Judaism as it really is" and to fail to go beyond "crude apologetics," to quote Shahak.

In closing, I'll take a whack at the much-hyped tikkun olam. Steve Bhaerman is typical when he tells us "the heart essence of Judaism" is "Tikkun Olam-- the healing of the world." Now, you would think that the "heart essence of Judaism" would merit some explicit mention in the Tanakh (Christians usually call it the Old Testament)--it apparently doesn't. Tikkun olam doesn't even merit its own entry in the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia (1906). So far as I know, the concept appears in only one chapter in the Mishna.

Its source, in reference to repairing a broken world, is in the Lurianic Cabbala, named after Isaac Luria, who lived in the Middle Ages. According to Lawrence Fine ("Tikkun Olam in Contemporary Jewish Thought"), the first evidence of its migration from Hasidic mysticism to liberal Jewish American thought comes not until the 1950s.

Here's a quote from Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky (Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel, 2004, p. 58) on Cabbala and Luria:

Yesaiah Tishbi, an authority on the Cabbala who wrote in Hebrew, explained in his scholarly work, The Theory of Evil and the (Satanic) Sphere in Lurianic Cabbala (1942, reprinted in 1982): "It is plain that those prospects and the scheme [of salvation] are intended only for Jews." Tishbi cited Rabbi Hayim Vital, the chief interpreter of Rabbi Luria, who wrote in his book, Gates of Holiness: "The Emanating Power, blessed be his name, wanted there to be some people on this low earth that would embody the four divine emanations. These people are the Jews, chosen to join together the four divine worlds here below." Tishbi further cited Vital's writings in emphasizing the Lurianic doctrine that non-Jews have satanic souls: "Souls of non-Jews come entirely from the female part of the satanic sphere. For this reason souls of non-Jews are called evil, not good, and are created without [divine] knowledge." In his illuminating Hebrew-language book, Rabbinate, Hassidism, Enlightenment: The History of Jewish Culture Between the End of the Sixteenth and the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (1956), Ben-Zion Katz explained convincingly that the above doctrines became part of Hassidism. Accurate descriptions of Lurianic doctrines and their wide influence upon religious Jews can be found in numerous other studies, written in Hebrew. In books and articles written in other languages, and thus read by most interested non-Israeli Jews and non-Jews, such descriptions and analyses are most often absent. The role of Satan, whose earthly embodiment according to the Cabbala is every non-Jew, has been minimized or not mentioned by authors who have not written about the Cabbala in Hebrew. Such authors, therefore, have not conveyed to readers accurate accounts of general [National Religious Party] or its hard-core, Gush Emunim politics.

So, it is quite conceivable that tikkun olam, in its original Lurianic sense, referred to a world where Jews ruled and everyone else obeyed, if they existed at all. Now, I'm in favor of appropriating and reinterpreting things as much as the next person but let's be honest about the very negative aspects of "classical Judaism" and knock off the "the heart essence of Judaism" nonsense.

See also:

• "Another Response to M."
•  "The Rise Of Tikkun Olam Paganism" by Steven Plaut for a Right-wing, Israeli perspective on the subject of liberal Jewish appropriation of the concept.

Labels: Israel, Jewish supremacism, Jewish violence, Judaism, Passover, tikkun olam, Zionism

As I pointed out two weeks ago on this blog, Arun Gandhi is under the gun for speaking truth to power and holding up a mirror to the Jewish community. Echoing the remarks of Idith Zertal and other Israeli Jews, Gandhi said "Jewish identity in the past has been locked into the holocaust experience ..." and "We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity." I closed my post by saying: "Let's hope he stays strong and keeps speaking truth to power."

Now, comes news from The Telegraph of Calcutta, India that "America’s omnipotent Jewish community has forced Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, to resign from the institute he founded in the US 17 years ago to spread the message of the Father of the Nation." The Telegraph goes on to note the global aspects of the row:

New Delhi cannot afford to even tangentially annoy the American Jewish community because successive Indian governments have relied on this community for at least 15 years to bring Indo-US relations to its present health. The nuclear deal between India and the US would not have got to its present phase of implementation without the active involvement of the American Jewish community in its favour.

Arun’s offer to resign follows several days of grovelling apologies by him, by the moderators of the online discussion on the Post website and defensive statements by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman for having associated with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence.

Hundreds of messages assailing Arun and The Washington Post were posted on the website, most of them clearly by Jews. The powerful American Jewish Committee’s executive director David A. Harris pre-empted any Indian reaction by hinting in a statement that India was being ungrateful for all that his organisation did for New Delhi.

“We are proud at the American Jewish Committee to have played a vital role in nurturing the India-Israel bilateral relationship, as well as strengthening the bonds between American Jews and Indian Americans,” Harris said.

Sadly, the AP confirms yesterday that Gandhi's resignation was accepted and that he has capitulated to the Shylocks clamoring for a pound of his flesh.

Labels: Arun Gandhi, holocaust, identity, Jewish violence, Zionism

Click here for a gallery of Gaza images.

About a year-and-a-half ago I wrote:

The Jewish holidays of Purim, Passover, and Hanukkah are part of the "culture of death" and "victimization" that permeates Judaism and much of modern Jewish life, as noted by Idith Zertal in Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (2005; pp. 1-2). ... The Maccabean civil war at the root of Hanukkah started when Mattathias, a priest and father of Judah Maccabee, killed another Jew [sic] for coming "forward in the sight of all to offer sacrifice" to Greek gods. According to I Maccabees 2:

When Mattathias saw it, he burned with zeal and his heart was stirred. He gave vent to righteous anger; he ran and killed him on the altar. At the same time he killed the king's officer who was forcing them to sacrifice, and he tore down the altar.

I concluded that post by noting, "Last year's Israeli slaughter in Lebanon and the ongoing war against Palestinians are natural expressions of a Judaic culture of death." The recent murderous onslaught against Palestinians in Gaza by the Jewish state only confirms this. As the pro-Israel Matzav.com reports:

Israel has given its Gaza assault the codename "Operation Cast Lead." Where did this rather poetic title come from? Most people don't know that it actually comes from a poem. Specifically, a Chanukah poem by Israel's national poet, H.N. Bialik. The operation began on Shabbos, the sixth day of Chanukah. According to Eli Isaacson, a spokesman for the IDF, the codename comes from a line in "For Chanukah" referring to "a dreidel cast of solid lead."

The Jewish Telegraphic Agency simply notes: "The name of the operation, Cast Lead, is a Chanukah reference: The dreidel originally was manufactured by pouring molten lead into a mold. It has a double meaning, because that is how bullets are manufactured."


See also:

• "Hanukkah Games in Gaza" in the Palestine Chronicle
• "Why Israel Named Its Gaza War After a Hanukkah Poem" by Ethan Perlson
• "Shtulman, Jewish Federation on the Hanukkah Massacre"
• "Readers Respond to 'Israel's Hanukkah Massacre & Judaism's Culture of Death'"
• "95% of Israeli Jews Support Hanukkah Massacre"

Labels: Hanukkah, Israel, Jewish violence, Judaism, Palestine, Zionism

All of the reader responses to Israel's Hanukkah Massacre & Judaism's Culture of Death discussed below came to me by e-mail.

Here's the first one I got from a Muslim friend:

I'm emailing you from Arizona. Weather is perfect over here.

I don't know enough about Jewish law and Israel's history to know about this, but is it possible that Israel is to Jewish law what Saudi Arabia, for example, is to Islam? So Saudi Arabia gives a bad image of Islam by misinterpreting Sharia and prohibiting women from driving etc. There is no shortage of Muslims who misapply Sharia law i.e. Al-Qaeda types who take a verse from the Quran to mean that Muslims should kill "infidels" wherever they find them. And Taliban types who find in Islam a justification for prohibiting girls from attending school. Or Christians who find justification in the Bible for attacking abortion clinics or burning witches at the stake. You know what I mean. The examples are countless.

As the Neturei Karta would argue, Zionism and Judaism are polar opposites, so is it also possible that Israel misapplies halacha and that "authentic" Judaism is innocent from Zionism's crimes?

Here's the response I sent a couple of days ago:

It's about 25 degrees here--happy? ;-)

As to your question, to an important extent I think religion is as religion does and religion says. So, I don't think I can tell anyone what "authentic" Judaism is nor can the Saudi family tell us what "authentic" Islam is nor can the Neturei Karta tell us what "authentic" Judaism is. Ditto for Christianity. What I think we have to do is consider what is actually being done by the adherents of those religions. Thus, when I have written about Judaism I never insist that I am writing about "authentic" Judaism. I may quote someone else who makes that claim but it is up to the reader to evaluate such claims.

To get more concrete, let's look at Zionism and Judaism. As you have noted, Neturei Karta would argue they "are polar opposites" but the evidence suggests that the vast majority of adherents of Judaism disagree. The main bodies of Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism have all explicitly endorsed Zionism in practice, if not in name, that is they all support Israel as a Jewish state in Palestine. The same is true of the smaller Reconstructionist and Secular Humanist movements. But it is not for me to say whether or not that represents "authentic" Judaism.

You ask, "is it ... possible that 'authentic' Judaism is innocent from Zionism's crimes." My short answer is yes but what is "authentic" Judaism? Who gets to decide? What are the consequences of absolving/obscuring Judaism as it is actually practiced here and now by most of its adherents because some small minority insists that Zionist Judaism or Judaic Zionism are not "authentic"? As Paul Eisen writes:

The present, too, is full of ambiguities. Zionism is not Judaism; Judaism is not Zionism has become an article of faith, endlessly repeated, as is the assertion that Zionism is a secular ideology opposed, for much of its history, by the bulk of religious Jews and even now still opposed by true Torah Jews such as Neturei Karta. But Zionism is now at the heart of Jewish life with religious Jews amongst the most virulent of Zionists and Neturei Karta, despite their impeccable anti-Zionism, their beautiful words and the enthusiasm with which they are welcomed at solidarity rallies, etc., may well be just Jews in fancy dress, a million miles from the reality of Jewish life."

I think Ludwig von Mises was on to something when he said "To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war." And that is why it appears as an epigraph to my blog and why I as an, anti-Zionist, write about Judaism. In this, I am trying feebly to follow in some of the footsteps of Jews and former Jews like Benedict Spinoza, Moshe Menuhin, Israel Shahak, Norton Mezvinsky, Paul Eisen, Gilad Atzmon, and Israel Shamir.

I don't try to write for Jews in particular but I aim for others in the peace movement because I think the Zionism of so many Jews in the peace movement is connected to their Judaism even when they are not conventionally devout/observant. Zionism must be understood and challenged and I don't think that can be adequately done without understanding its Judaic roots. Any way I hope I respectfully and thoroughly answered your question.

A less friendly response appears next:

what crap! Trying to wrap an entire Jewish culture into one of death is NOT a way to comprehend today's issues. This old anti-antisemitism has no answers, only bullshit!

Here's how I responded:

No one is trying to "wrap an entire Jewish culture into one of death." The point is that there is a "culture of death" within Judaism and Jewish society. The phrase "culture of death" comes from an Israeli Jew, Professor Idith Zertal of Hebrew University, in her book Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood (Cambridge University Press, 2005). But you probably don't need to bother with such books because you already have all the answers, right? So answer me this: The timing of the current Israeli assault on Gaza was of the IDF's own choosing, if it has nothing to do with a Judaic "culture of death" then why did the IDF choose to start it during Hanukkah and why did they choose to give it a name associated with Hanukkah?

Labels: Benedict Spinoza, Israel, Jewish violence, Judaism, Palestine