Orders of the day

Charles Orde Wingate was a Bible-carrying British officer serving in Palestine in the 1930’s. He was politically involved with pre-State of Israel leaders and became an ardent Zionist himself. He taught the nascent Haganah troops, including Moshe Dayan, how guerrilla warfare with special night squads effectively kept the Arab marauders under control.

Because his Palestine Mandate British seniors noted Wingate’s pro-Zionist positions, it led to his reassignment away from Palestine and to Burma in May 1939.

Major General Wingate was killed on March 24, 1944, in a fiery crash of an American B-25 bomber. Because his remains were comingled with America soldiers, he was buried with eight others in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 12, Grave 288. He is one of only 75 foreigners among the over 400 thousand Americans interned in these hallowed grounds.

In modern Israel, Charles Orde Wingate, a non-Jew, is well remembered with his name placed on many institutions, at a youth village, streets and squares. Michael Oren is quoted, “Wingate was the father of the IDF. The IDF today remains Wingatean in terms of its tactics,”

On February 13, 1943, in Burma, combat leader Wingate wrote as part of his ORDERS OF THE DAY to be read to his troops, “It is always a minority that occupies the front line. It is still a smaller minority that accepts, with a good heart, tasks like this that we have undertaken.”

This long-ago insightful Wingate observation is what we know to be the 80-20 rule. It is more elegantly called the Pareto Principle: “80% of the consequences come from 20% of the vital few.”

Sadly, we observe in the Jewish world, and more specifically with the disappointingly small subset of American Jews who materially contribute effort and funding to pro-Israel causes, affiliate with Jewish houses of worship and institutions, and are politically active pro-Zionists. This is hard to imagine given the great majority of Jews do identify as “Jewish” and are affirming about Israel. Don’t they see the growing dangers here in America, around the world and especially threatened Israel?

How can the lack of concern or action by the other 80% be explained? Why the lassitude, delusion, and indifference?

An ocean of printer’s ink has been written on the evolution of the American Jewish and broader diaspora experience. The experts have chronicled the dilution of demographic assimilation, how woke politics has replaced religion, and the eroding support of Israel and even Judaism among younger cohorts. Some opine that the baby boomer generation who were the beneficiary of living in the “golden age” failed in retaining a sense of danger that had served Jews well over time.

Too many make the mistake thinking Israel isn’t important to their safety. Too many identify conveniently as a “cultural Jew” thereby ignoring the beauty and depth of Judaism. They ultimately reduce the likelihood of Jewish grandchildren with a love of Israel.

The uncomfortable joke goes, “What is the difference between a NYC Progressive Westside Jew and Donald Trump?” The punchline is, “Trump has Jewish grandchildren.”

It is evident that our adversaries have succeeded coopting the media and academia, and now most alarmingly invade the Halls of Congress with anti-Jew and anti-Israel narratives. Is the Mamdani ascent to NYC mayorship a forewarning that the 2026 and 2028 elections will undermine the bulwark of sovereign support for Israel and against antisemitism?

Jews and all pro-Israel Christians must vote sensibly and advocate aggressively. They need to support organizations like AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) to ensure good candidates run for office and that the haters who, like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, were recently defeated.

Walt Whitman reminded us, “Be curious, not judgmental.” Living in Florida’s cozy corner of the Jewish diaspora sometimes it’s hard not to be judgmental. Being called judgmental is almost as caustic, and as ubiquitous, an opprobrium as being called a racist. And it is VERY hard not to judge poorly Jews who selfishly sit back, who choose other issues as more politically correct, or who don’t acknowledge what history has taught us.

At the end of January, we read in Exodus Parshat B’Shalach chronicling the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt about 34 centuries ago. The Talmud says that despite G-d’s many miracles only 20% of the Israelites left because the 80% remainder were so steeped in Egyptian culture, they were reluctant to follow Moses in the exodus out of Egypt and to the promised land of Israel. As Aish says, “They were lost to the Jewish nation for all time.”

We see a growing shadow cast from terrible things past. The escalation of Jewish directed hate crimes plus the keffiyeh-wearing rioters who disrupt campuses and noisily rampage on American streets post October 7th should inform our ORDERS OF THE DAY.

Our ORDERS OF THE DAY should demand involvement and investment, and a broader, more animated, braver, and more engaged American Jewish community.