The Voice of Diaspora Judaism

Itamar Ben Gvir is Israel’s minister for national security. He was recently invited to be guest of honour at Woodmere’s Young Israel in New Jersey. After an outburst of indignation, his invitation was promptly rescinded. What was the fuss about, and what might the Jewish  tradition have to say about it all?

Ben Gvir’s ideological roots lie in the Kach movement, which is a racist, fascist organization, proscribed by Israeli law. So extreme were his views that the Israeli army didn’t allow him to serve in its ranks. Ben Gvir claims that he has moderated since his youth, but I don’t see much reason to believe this. As an adult, he has been convicted for incitement to racism and supporting a terrorist organization. His claims to have moderated have never included anything resembling an apology for this behaviour.

If I had been a fascist in my youth, I wouldn’t merely claim that my views have “evolved” since then. I would, in addition to that, express sincere regret and shame at my past behavior and views.

Ben Gvir once had a picture of Baruch Goldstein hanging in his living room. Goldstein, lest we forget, was the man who walked into the burial place of the patriarchs when Muslims were at prayer, killing 29 people. Ben Gvir is the thug who appeared on Israeli television, threatening Yitzchak Rabin with assassination. Ben Gvir has never apologised for these behaviors. Instead, to all appearances, he continues to be a gun-totting thug.

Much more could be said about Ben Gvir’s history of violence, extremism, and low regard for law and order, but I hope that I’ve said enough to explain why his invitation to a large American synagogue might spark consternation.

Despite these facts, a number of respectable voices in the religious Zionist community, especially here in Israel, have publicly lamented Ben Gvir’s disinvitation. They tend to levy two arguments. The first is that, whether we like it or not, Ben Gvir is a minister of the Jewish State. His position is therefore worthy of respect, even if we do not like the person who occupies it. The second is that Jews who live in the comfort of wealthy diaspora communities do not have the moral ground upon which to condemn Israelis for their extremism, since they don’t have to live under the constant threat of mortal enemies in the Middle East, or to send their children to the army, to fight against the evils of Hamas. As an Israeli, I feel the emotional force of that second argument. But, in actual fact, both arguments are rebutted by the weight of the Jewish tradition.

I would be the first to admit that early Zionist thought contained a certain disdain for the Jew of the diaspora and the timidity for which he stood. Even to this day, certain viewpoints are disparagingly dismissed as hopelessly galuti (i.e., diasporic). To this mindset, the diaspora speaks of Jewish powerlessness, whereas the new Jew of the state of Israel is strong and military minded.

But we shouldn’t forget the words of Rabbi Kook – one of the founding fathers of religious Zionism – who wrote:

In other words, we didn’t want to lose our power, but we also never wanted to be corrupted by power. So central to his thinking was this thought that Rabbi Kook didn’t envisage that there would ever again be a Jewish army to protect a future Jewish state, with the bloodiness of warfare. “It is not fitting for Jacob to engage in statecraft,” he wrote, “at a time when it must be full of blood, at a time that demands the ability to be wicked.”

Of course, the miraculous world-order of messianic global peace is yet to materialize, such that we would be crazy, in the current climate, not to have an army. We are a small country facing implacable and bloodthirsty enemies. We cannot be naïve about the challenges that we face and must be ready to embrace the necessary evil of military power. But, to remain faithful to the Jewish intellectual tradition, we must never forget that military power is nothing more than a necessary evil. Ben Gvir, by contrast, the leader of a party whose name is literally Jewish Power, doesn’t relate to political and military power as a necessary evil but as the summum bonum, the highest good.

In the aftermath of Goldstein’s ghastly murder spree, Rabbi Sacks wrote that it was not by accident that the Jewish people had to be “born in exile, forged in slavery, and made to suffer brutal oppression.” It was all designed by providence to teach us the lesson that: “You have been victims, therefore you may not be oppressors. You have been murdered, therefore do not join the ranks of the murderers.” Rabbi Sacks insisted that this is not “‘galut mentality’, nor is it the ethic of a timorous minority. It is Judaism plain and simple.” Rabbi Sacks was right. Judaism never sought power as an end in itself, but always as a means to an end. Anything else should be distasteful to Jewish sensibilities.

If Israel wants to be a country that diaspora Jews would want to emigrate to, then we cannot afford to ignore the experience of the diaspora Jew. And that’s why it’s wrong to shame such people into silence. It might be true that only by living here can you fully appreciate certain elements of the challenges that we face, but if we ignore the sensibilities of the diaspora altogether, then we will fail to build a country that they might want to join. And thus, if they have red lines that they will not cross, such that they will not give a platform in their synagogues or communities to Jewish supremacists and fascists, then it is the job of Israeli Jewry, not to complain, but to take heed and to consider what has become of us. Moreover, as religious Jews who believe in the hand of providence, we should be eager to learn from, rather than to disdain, the experience of the galut (the exile), because only then can we ensure that God won’t see fit to exile us again (God forbid).

But shouldn’t Ben Gvir be treated differently because he is a minister of the State of Israel? No. I don’t see why that should be. The state, despite its centrality to the safety and the future of the Jews, is not sacred. The timeless messages of Judaism, by contrast – over which Ben Gvir runs roughshod – certainly are sacred and inviolable.