The truth is, however, that the term ‘self hating Jew’ does not accurately describe them. That’s because they do not have the slightest idea what a Jew really is. Their identification as Jews is based on cultural irrelevancies. Or worse - values that are anathema to Judaism – mistaking them for Jewish values.
This is the only way I can explain why there are so many Jewish groups like Jews for Justice in Palestine that – along with Palestinian protestors characterize Israel as an Apartheid colonialist state that has cruelly subjugated the indigenous Palestinian population for over 76 years. And is now committing genocide against them.
How is it possible that Jews can support a lie like that?
There are several ways in which this might be explained. Starting with the total ignorance - or even caring about their own religion. Most of these young Jews wouldn’t know a Jewish value if it hit them in the face. Nor do they know Jewish history and certainly don’t have any objective knowledge of history of the modern Jewish state.
Instead their education on many of these matters comes from radical anti American professors. Whom they respect far more than they do anyone with Jewish credentials. How pervasive are these professors? how influential? Here is what Jonathan Rosenblum said about it this week:
Many of the radicals of 1968 ended up going into the professorate, beginning their “long march” through American institutions with the universities. None were more effective than Bill Ayers, son of the one-time chairman of Inland Steel, who as a member of the Weather Underground planted a bomb in the Pentagon, but ended up as a professor of education. Ayers brought a young community organizer named Barack Obama to head the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which gave away $100 million between 1995 and 1999 to foster radical educational initiatives.
Unfortunately there are a lot of well meaning Jews who have bought into the sympathy for Palestinian suffering so pervasively featured on just about every news broadcasts of the mainstream media since the war with Hamas began.
That sympathy might be coming form a good place.. It’s hard to watch seemingly innocent people suffering the tremendous hardships foisted upon them by the inevitable consequences of a war with savages that purposely place their own people in harm’s way. They consider them martyrs (as do the all Palestinians including those that have lost their loved ones) for the cause of getting all of Palestine back .
But those with this well intended sympathy seem to bave lost sight of Israeli suffering. Need I mention again the butchery of Hamas on October 7th? Or that hostages are still being held and mistreated by those very same butchers? Who are demanding more butchers like them be let out of Israeli prisons?
What about the hundreds of thousands of Israelis that have been displaced from their homes in the north now for over 6 months? Is there no sypmathy for them?
And finally what about all the IDF soldiers killed in battle fighting for their people? Where is the sympathy for them? Is it the disparity in numbers thatbothers them? shoul we let more Jews die so that we can get more symapthy?
And what about the fact that Israel is fighting a war no less siginficnat to them than was the war with Japan was to the US in the 1940s? When a nation is fighting for it life itmust do whater it can to survive. That is why the US killed hundreds of thousand of innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagsaki ON PURPOSE! If it was OK for the US to do that on purpose then, why isn't it OK for Israel to do that now INADVERTENTLY!
The idea the rules have changed is a convenient but irelavent distinction.. Either it was right then and right now. Or it was wrong then and wrong now. How many people think that ending world war II that way was wrong?
So that even if their casualty numbers are exponentially greater than ours it shouldn’t matter since Israel has no choice if it is to survive? Going forward, allowing an Iran proxy like Hamas to survive is surely an existential threat to Israel
Mondaay is Yom Hazikoron – Israel’s Memorial Day. This is the day when Israelis mourn and pay tribute to all Israeli soldiers that have fallen in war. That toll has thus far been particularly heavy this year. And it isn’t over yet. We know what’s coming in Rafah. I doubt that there is a single IDF soldier involved in that action that isn’t proud to protect their people in this way despite its dangers.
Instead of crying over the blood of our enemies, we should be expressing our utmost gratitude to the IDF soldiers and commiserate with the families of their fallen. The time to do that is on Yom Hazikoron. I could therefore not agree more with Rabbi Moshe Hauer who said the following in last week’s Mishpacha Magazine:
(While) we may instinctively classify observance of Yom Hazikaron as a nationalistic or Zionist experience and therefore put it into the category of perennially recurring hashkafic debates that divide us, perhaps this year, when so many are grieving their raw and fresh losses, we can pull it out of that realm and place it where it now belongs: as an opportunity for pure and unadulterated empathy, nesius b’ol im chaveiro, as we try our hardest to understand the experience of those who have sacrificed their lives for us, for Klal Yisrael, whom no one in the world can approach in their greatness.
So many soldiers have given their lives this year that we struggle to remember that each of these kedoshim represents a world. They all deserve to be remembered individually by having their story told and by having Torah learned and tefillos said in their memory. Each and every one of their families deserves to know that their sacrifice is recognized as having been on behalf of all of Klal Yisrael.
Let us — the community that does not serve in the army — bridge the gap of experience and join the families of the fallen in recalling and appreciating their profound sacrifice. We at the OU plan to ensure that during this season there will be a broad and deep expression of profound ahavas Yisrael and nesius b’ol im chaveiro that crosses the ocean and the gap of experience, remembering each soldier uniquely in one of our shuls or batei medrash; and bringing uplift to their neshamos, strength and comfort to their families, and hopefully bringing the Geulah a bit closer.
Please include your shul or beis medrash in this opportunity by undertaking to memorialize one of the kedoshim. Please reach out to lanetzach@ou.org or register at https://www.ou.org/lanetzach/ to participate in this effort.
I wish I could say that the traditional animosity of the right towards anything at all to do with Zionism (even religious Zionism) will be abandon that animosity for this one act of unity in service of our appreciation of the sacrifice of others from which all of us so greatly benefit. But the skeptic in me says that very few if any will let go of their anti Zionism even now. I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m right, I can’t of anything more egregiously divisive than that.
