P2 Amcha Yisrael – real Jewish pluralism

In Part One, I described how struck I was to see Druze guests at the Chug Bayit. It brought to mind a line from Rabbi Sacks: “Non-Jews respect Jews who respect Judaism, and they are embarrassed by Jews who are embarrassed by Judaism.”

Ofer Winter is unapologetically Jewish and religious. He is often dismissed as a “messianist,” but as someone who lives in the same community, I can testify that he is no more messianic than any other Orthodox Jew. Sadly, those who throw that label around are usually trying to write off someone who doesn’t think like them or fit their predefined idea of an “acceptable leader.” Watching the respect the Druze guests showed him, I was struck by how an unapologetic Judaism can create a genuinely wide tent, one that includes the Druze and many others.

It was especially moving to hear one of the Druze guests stand up and speak about his community’s sacrifice for the country, and then about the discrimination and lack of opportunity they still face in Israel. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 59b) counts 36 times that the Torah warns us about how we treat the stranger. Those verses aren’t speaking about enemies who work to undermine the state from within, or who wait for the day the forces of Islam overthrow the Jewish state. They speak about these remarkable “strangers” who join the Jewish story and accept what Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in Kol Dodi Dofek, called the Brit Goral, the covenant of shared destiny. They live here in the Land of Israel, with all the dangers and enemies that surround us, and still stand tall beside the Jewish people, shedding their blood alongside ours.

In Part 3, I will go into some more specifics regarding the party platform and its core ideas.