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ENGLAND AS HISTORY AND THE FUTURE
The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra performed in London this past week. The performance, conducted by Zubin Mehta, was interrupted four times by anti-Israeli protestors who had infiltrated the audience and were seated in the concert hall. And, naturally, the spokesman for this self righteous group of artistic musicians who are seeming experts on the Israeli-Arab struggle was a Jewish woman.
In a prize winning book by Howard Jacobson, “The Finkler Question” this picture of deep seated English anti-Semitism and, even more loathsome, Jewish anti-Semitism, is addressed, analyzed and mocked. But it is a frightening picture of the past, of the 1930’s and a grim glimpse into the possible future of Anglo and world Jewry.
Jacobson has one of his heroes, who only recently discovered his Jewish ancestral origins, join a group of what the Israeli media love to call “people of intelligent and artistic spirit” (“anshei ruach”) now entitled ASHamed Jews. The ASH part is to show their contempt for Holocaust memory and memorials and the whole ashamed part is naturally because of the existence and behavior of the State of Israel.
As Jacobson so brilliantly puts it: “The logic that made it impossible for those who had never been Zionists to call themselves ASHamed Zionists did not extend to Jews who had never been Jews. To be an ASHamed Jew did not require that you had been knowingly Jewish all your life... [Discovering that he had been] born a Jew on Monday he had signed up to be an ASHamed Jew by Wednesday and was seen chanting ‘We are all Hezbollah’ outside the Israeli embassy on the following Saturday.’”
The Jewish self-haters always begin their vent of spleen against Israel by prefacing their words with the phrase, “As a Jew, I…” The flaunting of one’s Jewishness is the protective cover that allows Jewish anti-Semitism to flourish. Never attending a synagogue, never observing any forms of Jewish ritual or tradition, being completely ignorant of Jewish knowledge and values does not disqualify one from still being considered Jewish. But one would think that it would serve as a caution to any rational person to withhold judgment on life and death issues – it is usually someone else’s life or death – when one is ignorant of facts, historical background and the consequences of one’s statements and behavior.
Jews are not perfect and the State of Israel is also not perfect. That is the essence of all human existence – no perfect people, no perfect nation-states. Yet that in no way provides any justification for not allowing the existence of imperfect humans and imperfect nation-states. Calling for the eradication of Israel is racism, bigotry and hatred of the highest and most vile form.
The pursuit of human perfection should not be restricted solely to Jews and the Jewish state. The basis for the Holocaust was that Jews were imperfect and inferior and could not be allowed to exist in a world of the perfect Aryan race. The world currently is perilously close to believing such inanities regarding Jews and the State of Israel today as well.
I expect that the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israeli sports teams and Israeli professors and lecturers who venture unto international venues are guaranteed a hostile reception. The poison has already infected the world’s body politic and culture. The “old Jew” did not expect it to be different. The State of Israel is a great and miraculous achievement and precisely because of this the world begrudges its very existence. The world wants to see Jews as victims and not as victors.
The “new Jew” sought acceptance into world society but it has been rudely disappointed. There is little that Israel can do to rectify the situation. Even if it agreed in a moment of national suicide to accede to all of the demands of the Palestinians, anti-Semitism, Jewish and non-Jewish in origin, would not disappear. There will always be ASHamed Jews and Durban conferences and UN reports and resolutions.
So our task now as always is to defend ourselves to the best of our abilities, to build Jews and Israel in strength and in the spirit of our ancestors and Jewish tradition. Jewish anti-Semitism is as old as the Jewish people itself. Datan and Aviram were swallowed into the ground but they have had many successors and heirs over the long centuries of Jewish history. People who express shame regarding being Jewish or for the existence of the State of Israel cut themselves off from the grand destiny of Israel. That is truly something to be ashamed of.
Shabat shalom.
Berel Wein
