The Blogs: Reform Jews: “Zionism & Defeating An Idea?”

Day 3 Hanukkah Letter to Reform Jews & Reform Rabbis

My wife, Tara, and I recently returned from a month of 15 gatherings with Reform Jews on the East Coast – adults, young professionals and university students – and one of the most common questions was this: “What is Israel doing in Gaza!? You can’t kill an idea. Hamas is an idea. Everyone knows that you can’t kill an idea.”

Reform Jews, for 2 reasons, this is deeply confusing. On this Day 3 of Hanukkah, let’s think about one of the most essential questions and values in our daily lives and in our Jewish tradition. Here is the question. Do we believe that it’s possible to kill an idea, particularly a horrible and violent idea?

Killing The Idea of Zionism

Anyone can see that outside of Israel, Hamas is succeeding wildly at badly damaging if not destroying the idea called “Zionism”. Outside of Israel, the central goal of Hamas’ ideology, of Palestinianism – is one thing. It’s sole goal is to destroy the idea called Zionism, which is simply – the universal idea that the Jewish people, and every people on the planet, has a right to self-determination, to be sovereign in their ancestral home. (More to come in these Hanukkah posts on ‘Palestinianism’.)

Does it make sense for us to watch Hamas work so hard to defeat the idea of Zionism and at the same time to claim that the idea of Palestinianism (Hamas’ idea) cannot be defeated? Many of our own university-aged children and grandchildren (much less non-Jewish students) believe that the Hamas-idea cannot be killed, even while Hamas is actively working in America and Europe to kill the idea called Zionism.

How clever of Hamas to convince so many people of two opposite thoughts – you cannot kill the idea of Palestinianism but you can kill the idea of Zionism. How clever to spread an ideology that makes two opposite claims – you cannot kill an idea and you can kill an idea.

And maybe some are confused just by the claim itself – that Hamas is trying to kill the idea of “Zionism”. Think about protests on college campuses and busy street corners around the world. Zionism equals so many evil things – racism, apartheid, white oppression, colonialism, ethnic cleansing, naziism, genocide etc. Aren’t these horrific Czarist-Nazi-Soviet-Islamist attacks, precisely toward the goal of destroying the beautiful, progressive, inspiring idea called Zionism? (To be clear, killing an idea is a separate, but related, project from killing the evil people who commit their lives to enforcing and spreading the evil idea.)

Practical Goal of Palestinianism

Reform Jews, let us consider the practical goal of Palestinianism. We will so poison the idea of “Zionism” that the UN will eventually decide (by November 29, 2047, the 100 year anniversary) to reverse Resolution 181.

Sure, UN Resolution 181 reminded the world of the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the land of Israel and the universal right of every people to self-determination in their ancestral home. ‘But just watch,’ many Palestinians are whispering quietly to each other. ‘In the coming days, the nations of the world will declare that Zionism is pure evil and they will vote to reverse Resolution 181. Israel will no longer exist in the eyes of so many peoples’ and the manifestation of Zionism will die right in front of our eyes. That is their theory of change. What is your view of this?

You Can’t Kill The Idea Called Hamas

So, goal one – kill the enlightened, progressive idea of Zionism. Goal 2 – convince very educated people that the world cannot defeat a death-cult of an idea, an idea must be destroyed. For me, this is so confusing even though we have heard the opinion many, many times from liberal Jews.

Reform Jews, isn’t a central pillar of our children’s education based on the premise that ideas have the power to bring heroic progress and horrific harm? Didn’t many of our American grandparents go to war, risk their lives, solely for the purpose of defeating an evil idea – the Naziism of WWII Germany? Don’t we invest massively in our children’s education and upbringing precisely on this premise?

But even more, isn’t one of the central claims of Judaism that we humans can defeat old ideas and give birth to new ideas?!? Isn’t it true that as a result of Judaism, as a result of the TaNaKH, the Bible, much of the western world has come to:

Reject the pre-biblical idea that creation was a result of gods battling it out with each other – there is a creator, one creative force behind all of life;
protest the institution of slavery, the right of the powerful to enslave the weak;
embrace the Book of Exodus’ original and daring claim at Mt. Sinai that no human being can lord himself over another;
Introduce the never-seen-before moral and religious claim, born in the Garden of Eden, that every human being is endowed with infinite worth – is an “image of G-d”;
Bring us to Mt. Sinai and inspire us to adopt a powerful, new guide for protecting human life – the 10 Commandments;
Despise and reject the murderous values of barbarous rulers and cultures, from Pharaoh in Egypt, to Amalek in Canaan, to Antiochus of the Greek-Syrian lands, Haman (Amalek’s descendant) in Persia, and to Hitler in Nazi Germany and the many who have lost their lives in more recent days.

Reform Gen Zrs And the Fight To Defeat An Evil Idea and Reclaim An Inspiring Idea

American Jews often wax eloquent about Israel’s ability to give Gen Zrs the responsibility to do amazing work for their people, and to know how deeply they are needed. Israel has built a system of national service (Army of course) and also of Mechinot (post-High School pre-Army programs) that enable High School grads to do important work and thereby to see and feel very personally: “I matter. My people need me. I am making an important difference – for my people and for the world.” (I highly recommend The Genius of Israel by Dan Senor and Saul Singer on this precise subject.)

Reform Jews – what we see on college campuses reminds us of the terrible price we are paying for a failure of vision. JVP, SJP – the anti-Zionists, pro-Palestinians, pro-Hamasniks are giving our youth a sense of righteous purpose. The haters of Jews and Jewish sovereign existence, are applying the science of helping young Jews feel needed – that they matter and can make a powerful difference in the moral and spiritual battles of our times. This is tragic for us and brilliant for those who seek to destroy Zionism and the Jewish people in the diaspora.

Reclaiming Zionism Fellows – Generational Investment

But with laser-focused purpose, we can live up to the Maccabees and launch a powerful vision, a post-high school, multi-year program in America, with one mission: Reclaiming Zionism, the word and the wonder. With a clarion call, North American Reform Jewry can build a transformational Reclaiming Zionism Fellowship – young Reform Jews who feel a calling and a confidence, a courage and determination to serve as emissaries, ambassadors for the Jewish people – to Jews and non-Jews in America. The mission, the purpose for every Reclaiming Zionism (RZ) Fellow is nothing less than to protect Judaism, Jewish identity and Israel, for young liberal Jews in America. (Of course, this is a massive, 25 year initiative including all parts of North American Jewry.)

RZ Fellows will build relationships with – schools, synagogues, churches, civic organizations at college campuses and God-willing, at mosques too. They will help to defeat the evil idea of Hamas and reclaim the beautiful and progressive idea of Zionism. This is a generational investment, one after the next, without end. Just as we have prevailed for the last 25 centuries over so many who sought our demise, we will prevail as well over JVP, SJP and all the other haters of Zionism, Israel and the Jewish people. Let’s remember Mark Twain’s powerful observation.

“If the statistics are right, the Jews constitute but one percent of the human race. . . The Egyptian, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed, and made a vast noise, and they are gone . . . The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is . . . exhibiting no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

Reclaiming Zionism (RZ) Fellows will teach Americans the definition of Zionism — the right of all peoples to self-determination, to sovereignty in their ancestral home. They will inspire Americans to demand of Palestinians an answer to the question- do Palestinians want a state next to the Jewish people or instead of the Jewish people? Do Palestinians believe that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination, like all other peoples, in their one and only ancestral home? Or not?

In addition, RZ Fellows will inspire Americans to demand of Palestinians an answer to the other question – do you, Palestinians, really believe that millions of you possess a right of return that was never acknowledged to 50 million other refugees? Do you, Palestinians, believe that you are entitled to both states of a 2-State solution?

Reclaiming Zionism & Hanukkah

Hanukkah is a testament to the beauty and power of Zionism. 14 empires have tried and failed to destroy the Zionist dream – a sovereign Jewish people in their ancestral home. 14 empires tried and failed to colonize the only people who ever saw Israel as their ancestral home. 14 empires are whispering to us today – the murderous Ayatollahs of Iran and their proxies will fail too.

May it be that the Jewish people and the lovers of Zion the world over will come together with a powerful clarity of purpose to defeat the death-cult idea of Palestinianism and to celebrate the enlightened idea of Zionism.

Come back for Hanukkah Day 4 – But what about the West Bank? Hear a painful rabbinic confession directly tied the holiday of Hanukkah.