Jewish Anti Semites – Israel’s Worst Problem
Week of January 20, 2006

Jerusalem, Israel: I landed in Israel about a week ago. The initial reaction to Prime Minister Sharon’s serious stroke quieted down. The media and conversations across the country turned to Israel’s political future. Politics was not the only concern discussed. Iran’s scheduled conference on the holocaust intended to support its President’s denying that millions of Jews were ever murdered and that it was all a hoax, coupled with Iran’s resumption of nuclear research and development rose to the top of Israel’s agenda.

The stabbing of eight Jews in a Moscow Chabad synagogue evoked the ire of many Israelis, most especially olim from the former Soviet Union. Chaos in Gaza and the emergence of Hamas as the primary political voice of the Palestinians leaves many wondering about future negotiations and the possibility of increased terror.

After each of my discussions with Israelis which included some in the highest political echelons as well as people in shops, restaurants and on the street, I had posed what would appear to be a foolish question. Do we really need a Jewish state, I asked. From the left and the right came the same rapid reply, “Now more than ever.” And almost in the same breath, “Israel at this time needs a very great leader.”

Most Israelis will tell you that Ariel Sharon is a very strong leader. Some referred to his illness as an historic Jewish calamity. The sad fact remains that Sharon’s physicians give little hope of his returning to Israel’s leadership. Polls at this time show Kadima, headed by Ehud Olmert and campaigning as Sharon’s party substantially ahead of Likud, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu and Labor lead by Amir Peretz both losing large numbers of Knesset seats. Israelis are now asking if Olmert can measure up to Sharon. My answer to them was, “there was never another Ben Gurion, Golda, or Begin, and there will never be another Sharon but with G-d’s help, the democratically chosen new leader of Israel can be just as great.” More often, the position makes the leader.

Some of Israel’s most respected academicians and intellectuals spent several hours with me the other night. The evening began with a question. Rabbi, “What would you consider to be Israel’s most serious problem?” I thought for a moment and I came to what this group considered a surprising response. We will overcome Iran, Hamas, Nazis in Russia and elsewhere, and the holocaust revisionists but the Jews who question Israel’s right to exist, who morally equate Arab terrorism against Jews and offer books spewed with self-hatred and motion pictures such as “Munich” endanger Israel. Even more so, they poison the minds of a vast Jewish population steeped in assimilation and ignorance. They threaten the physical existence of the Jewish people everywhere. Jews hating themselves give license to the millions of anti-Semites to join Iran and Hamas in a new genocidal plan against our people. The Israelis expressed disagreement at first. Some said that the Jewish anti-Zionists are but a few so why worry about them, but it did not take very long for them to recant. One cited a Jewish Adult Education program held annually in England where thousands attend. Anti-Zionists presented a trade of anti-Israel propaganda. They bashed Israel and questioned its right to exist. Israel bashing, we all concluded was the most vexing problem facing world Jewry.

We need not go very far. New York’s intellectual salons today are ripe with those who consider Israel the ‘failed Zionist experiment.” We spend time being critical of each other. Some are obsessed with those they think fight anti-Semitism too much. Others are chained to political advancement and personal agendas but we are all guilty of permitting the emergence of the worst post-holocaust malaise, Jews how lie and hate. Who would have believed that Jews would regurgitate the words of anti-Semites and Arab propagandists? While every decent mortal on earth considers the terror at Munich where eleven Jewish athletes were brutally murdered. A crime perpetrated by crazed beasts, here comes a celebrated Jew and a member of an orthodox synagogue and raises these criminals to a human level, an insult to humankind.

I have much more to share with you and will, G-d willing, do so in the next column.

Shabbat Shalom