Global, Identity, Israel, Religion

An Open Letter To Kumah

Dear Kumah,
Let’s dance, shall we?

Kumah’s definition of Neo-Zionism declares “the future of Israel is not only about creating a defensive haven for Jews; rather, it is about the triumphant and noble future of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel.”
Moreover: Neo-Zionism is a direct attack on Post-Zionism. Post-Zionism a subversive anti-ideology, claiming that the monumental project of building a Jewish country and unifying all Jews within its borders, has peaked and is now on the decline. While post-Zionism means that the Zionist project is over, Neo-Zionism proclaims a renewal of the Zionist spirit to build and be built in Israel.

While I, personally, do not define myself as a post-Zionist (but rather an anti-Zionist Zionist or Zionist anti-Zionist), in an age when so many Israelis are making yerida to Las Vegas, and Jewish emigration to Germany is so high that Israel has to place a cap on Germany’s immigration numbers, I think it would be foolish to claim that Zionism has not reached its peak and begun its decline.
While it is true that a record number of Jews made aliyah this year, the vast majority quite a number of these olim are French and have been the focus of an Israeli campaign which plays up fears of antisemitism in order to encourage aliyah. (Additionally, the vast majority of recent olim have been from the FSU. This poses yet another problem all together.) While I certainly will not deny the prevalence of French antisemitism, it is worthwhile to note that, in the last several months of Muslim rioting, the Jewish community has not been significantly effected.
A JTA article dated April 26, 2005, sheds some light on the subject:

The Jewish Agency for Israel would like to see the Jews of France become Jews of Israel, and in general French Jews are enthusiastic about the idea.
But a few months into an active aliyah campaign some members of the community are reacting warily, saying it plays on people’s fears and is aimed at attracting mostly Orthodox young people.
[…] Roger Cukierman, president of the CRIF, the umbrella group of Jewish organizations in France, thinks the danger to the French Jewish community has been overstated.
“France is not an anti-Semitic country, though violence from North African Muslims is on the increase,” he said. “Out of a population of about 600,000, 2,400 people making aliyah is not very many, in spite of all the talk about leaving.”
Not everyone wholeheartedly backs the Jewish Agency’s efforts.
“I think the agency is playing on the fears of Jews in France,” said Danielle Brami, a Parisian pharmacist. “Many young people especially are afraid of violence or the threat of violence from Muslim teenagers in a number of suburbs here. Many are talking about leaving – but I don’t know if it is a good Zionist act to go to Israel out of fear.”
Brami, who is active in the Cercle Bernard Lazare, a secular group linked to the leftist Yahad Party in Israel, said a majority of aliyah candidates are religiously observant.
“I think the agency should reorient its programs to focus on more secular candidates,” she said. “I don’t like people developing a religious identity out of fear here, and the agency taking advantage of that.”

When antisemitism is the axiom on which aliyah hinges, your stated premise that “the future of Israel is not only about creating a defensive haven for Jews” stands contradicted. Further, it suggests that making aliyah on the merits of Israeli citizenship alone has become an idea so unappealing that people must be manipulated and have their fears played upon in order to encourage them to emigrate to Israel. Coupled with some cold, hard cash, and an ideological fantasy “about the triumphant and noble future of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel,” the incentive is provided, albeit disingenuously.
Furthermore, we are faced with the fact that since January 2000 roughly 100,000 Israelis have emigrated from Israel, disillusioned with the Zionist dream, weary of Zionist rhetoric, and infuriated as all-hell with overzealous datim like yourselves. For every new oleh, there is a yored (or two even) willing to take his or her place in America or elsewhere abroad. The proof is in the pudding: A thriving Israeli expatriate scene and a once-again vibrant Jewish community in Germany. Germany!
So much for Zionism.
As per the rest of your remarks, I’m going to turn the floor over to Rabbi Arthur Hertzberg, who ever-so-eloquently articulates precisely my view on this subject, in his book The Fate of Zionism:

It is of the most profound importance that modern Zionism not be identified as the lineal heir to the religion of the Bible. […] It is even more important within the Jewish community that modern Zioinism not be identified as the heir and continuation of the messianic element in classic Jewish religion. If the Zionist endeavor is ever dominated by the notion that Jews have come back to Palestine as a giant step toward the coming of the messiah, there can be no peace within the Jewish camp. Such messianists are sure that they are carrying out the will of God. They can—indeed, they must—disregard Israeli governments that have put limits on or even tried to stop the actions of settlers in the West Bank. Some of these believers encouraged the assassination of a prime minister of Israel, Yitzhak Rabin. The assassin himself acted in good conscience; he was removing someone who was willing to give back to the Arabs most, or perhaps all, of the land of the West Bank. Thus, Rabin had, so the messianists insisted, put himself beyond the pale by having become an enemy of God.
This religious absolutism leads to the further conclusion that aggressive Jewish endeavors on its behalf do not have to make any rational political sense. Thus, a small but vehement group exists in contemporary Israel that calles itself Ateret Kohanim. Some members have been stopped several times from putting dynamite under the foundations on which the Dome of the Rock stands; it had been built where the inner sanctuary of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem once stood. Fortunately such attempts were aborted by the Israeli police, but members of Ateret Kohanim have never given up their certainty that this act of clearing the Temple Mount should be carried out; success in dynamiting the Dome of the Rock will evoke divine help in the immediate restoration of the Holy Temple of Jerusalem. Some associated with this group have been weaving garments for the priests who will serve in this temple and making vessels, as described in the Bible, to be used in the sacred services that will soon begin. It is of course obvious, even to these enthusiasts, that if they ever succeed in destroying the Dome of the Rock, what will follow, rationally speaking, is an unimaginably bitter war of religion. But this doesn’t worry many of the new messianists. They feel free to engage in the most dangerous provocations because they are certain that they will be forcing God to come down to earth and give them victory.
Unfortunately, these messianists do not seem to have a long historical memory. Nineteen centuries ago armed Zealots forced a revolt against the Roman masters of the land, despite the hesistancy of the most important religious leader of the day, Johanan ben Zakkai. He counseled patience and moderation and insisted that with the difference in power between the Roman legions and the Jewish revolutionaries there could be no victory for a Jewish revolt. Johanan ben Zakkai taught that the highest act of virtue was to establish peace “between nation and nation, between government and government, between family and family.” The Zealots responded that God himself could not let their cause fail. He would not let the Holy Temple fall into the hands of the Roman idolaters. The revolt held out for three years but, as Johanan ben Zakkai had forseen, it failed. He knew that the hand of God could not be forced. Today, messianic madness has seized one element of the Jewish people. Its members are small in number, but their passion and activism appeal beyond the community of the faithful. This messianism reinforces among some Jews the feeling that, by exercising power unashamedly, they are not candidates for another Holocaust.

Thus, in response to your remark:

Mobius, if you are “put off” by the Third Temple you are “put off” by spirituality. The Third Beit HaMikdash is the very essence of spirituality. Of course without any spirituality we agree you are correct – our very premise is completely off base. But it is this age-old line of thinking […] that is exactly from what Neo proclaims you must “free your mind.”

I am not put off by spirituality. I am put off by spiritual audacity: The presumptiveness of “knowing” what G-d wants.
It states in Midrash Raba, on Bereshit 42:18:

òðéï äâìåú åäâàåìä ùééê ìä÷á’’ä áìáã, éåäáèéç ìðå ùäåà áòöîå éáà åéâàìðå ëùéâéò äòú øöåï îìôðéå
åéàîø ä’ àì àáøí éãåò úãò ëé âø éäéä æøòê, éãåò ùàðé îôæøï, úãò ùàðé î÷áöï. éãåò ùàðé îîùëðï, úãò ùàðé ôåø÷ï. éãåà ùàðé îùòáãï, úãò ùàðé âåàìí
The Exile and the Redemption only belongs to G-d Himself, and He assured us that He Himself shall redeem us at the time he deems appropriate “And G-d said to Abraham: ‘You should know that your descendants will be foreigners [in a land not their own]’” (Genesis 15:12)’. Know that I will disperse them; know that I will ingather them. Know that I will make them serve as collateral, and know that I will release them. Know that I will enslave them and know that I will redeem them.

Likewise, The Zohar teaches:

âàåìä äòúéãä ìà éäéä áàîöòåú áùø åãí ëîå ùäéä áâàåìåú ä÷åãîåú, ø÷ ä÷á’’ä áòöîå éùéá àåúðå ìäéëìå áâàåìú òìåìî
The future Redemption will not be through any human intermediary as was the case in past redemptions. Only G-d Himself will redeem us with an everlasting redemption

That, my “brothers and sisters at Kumah” is ultimately a greater statement of “bitachon and emunah” than your misrepresentation of history and Torah, and your attempts to force a hand that can only be moved by a true purity of faith and a sincere trust in His Majesty.
Do not be so quick to question my trust and faith in G-d. Do, however, feel free to question your own. The modern abomination which describes itself as “the Temple faithful” subscribe to an audacious and dangerous ideology which stands to imperil the Jewish people much more than faithful patience ever could.
A sincere belief that redemption will come is all that is required to bring about The Final Redemption.

10 thoughts on “An Open Letter To Kumah

  1. While it is true that a record number of Jews made aliyah this year, the vast majority of these olim are French.
    The article you linked to says that 23,000 immigrants arrived in Israel in 2005 — of whom 9,124 from the former Soviet Union, 3,052 from North America, and 2,980 from France. Thirteen percent isn’t usually considered a vast majority
    It is worthwhile to note that, in the last several months of Muslim rioting… To be frank, this is a racist caracterisation that has no place on Jewschool. Most Muslims did not riot, and many rioters were not Muslim. This was rioting by people living in specific neighbourhoods, within specific age groups. Many happened to be Muslim.

  2. Dear Mobius,
    This is what you write on your facebook entry:
    “Judaism has always been revolutionary. It seems though that every few decades the tradition becomes ensnared in a rigidity and conservatism which defies its radical roots. Jewschool is an open revolt. ”
    We at Kumah are for a real revolution. Not a revolution that goes against the rabbis or the establishment. Not a revolution that feels a great need to insult others or to curse to get the message across. Our revolution is a simple one: to break free of the galut, to break free of the trap of materialism, and to choose Israel.
    Your long winded diatribes about how everybody is leaving Israel are meaningless because of one simple fact: the majority of Jewish people will be living in the Land of Israel within the next few years. Yes, this is due in part to Diaspora assimilation, but it is also due to a higher Jewish birthrate in Israel, and of course Aliyah. Israel is the home of the Jewish future.
    Ezekeiel 37:
    21 Tell them: Thus speaks the Lord GOD: I will take the Israelites from among the nations to which they have come, and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land.
    22 I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.
    Two Kingdoms will be reunited! What are these two kingdoms? The two great centers of Judaism today – USA and Israel.
    Where will they be reunited? On the mountains of Israel.
    Jeremiah 31
    8 Behold, I will bring them back from the land of the north [AMERICA]; I will gather them from the ends of the world, with the blind and the lame in their midst, The mothers and those with child; they shall return as an immense throng.
    9 They departed in tears, but I will console them and guide them; I will lead them to brooks of water, on a level road, so that none shall stumble. For I am a father to Israel, Ephraim is my first-born.
    10 Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, proclaim it on distant coasts, and say: He who scattered Israel, now gathers them together, he guards them as a shepherd his flock.
    11 The LORD shall ransom Jacob, he shall redeem him from the hand of his conqueror.
    12 Shouting, they shall mount the heights of Zion, they shall come streaming to the LORD’S blessings: The grain, the wine, and the oil, the sheep and the oxen; They themselves shall be like watered gardens, never again shall they languish.
    The best part is that our revolution is not just talk, it’s real, it’s happening. Our movie’s climax are the pictures of new immigrants, real people arriving. They are not running away from anything – they are choosing Israel.

    Yes – I am a Zionist and I believe Hashem is recalling the family back home. The birth of the State of Israel following the Holocaust, the return of the Jewish people to their Biblical homeland, miraculous wars, amazing success – with all the challenges – I LOVE Israel, I love its air, I love its people. I see PAST THE CYNICISM which seems to be in vogue on this site.
    We’re done with galut, and we are going to build an amazing Israel.
    Mobius, I invite you to help spread the message of the real Revolution.

  3. Kumah’s Pinchas writes: Or meet Kathy who blogged as follows: “I’ve seen it three times. It’s made me cry three times. I hope you enjoy it as well”.
    Ummm… I ‘met’ Kathy. So how does Messianic Judaism / Jews for Jesus figure into Kumah’s neo-Zionist philosophy? Does Jesus help “free your mind”?
    http://kathykeller.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-i-changed-religions-part-i.html
    Oh, and ‘hum’? What a whitewash (no pun intended). Those slums were predominantly of people of North African descent. Ergo, mostly Arab Muslims. What, were they white French Catholics? I loved how ultra-PC the news was when they were reporting on those riots. They wouldn’t state what the rioters were rioting about, nor would they describe them, for fear of knee-jerkers like ‘hum’ whipping out the race card, even though Islam is not a race, last time I checked.

  4. We at Kumah are for a real revolution. Not a revolution that goes against the rabbis or the establishment. Not a revolution that feels a great need to insult others or to curse to get the message across.
    You want to be revolutionary? Acknowledge that halakha is non-binding and that the Torah was written by mortals over a millenia. Acknowledge that it is possible to believe that and still recognize the divinity of Torah’s teachings and the value of a halakhic practice. Acknowledge that a strong belief in G-d and a committed practice of Judaism does not require you to check your critical eye and nor knowledge of history and science at the door. Otherwise you’re not being revolutionary, you’re being dogmatic.
    Our revolution is a simple one: to break free of the galut, to break free of the trap of materialism, and to choose Israel.
    And that’s why, as new shopping malls crop up in every corner of the country, we’re moving all of these upper class Modern Orthodox families into luxury condominiums with their JAP matriarchs who come with expensive taste and give them subsidies so that they can buy cars, dishwashers and televisions. Beit Shemesh = Teaneck East. All I see is an exported vapid, shallow, materialistic American Judaism inculcated with nationalism and messianism.
    The best part is that our revolution is not just talk, it’s real, it’s happening. Our movie’s climax are the pictures of new immigrants, real people arriving. They are not running away from anything – they are choosing Israel.
    If it’s to be believed that they’re emigrating to Israel for the reasons your prescribe, then they most certainly are running away. They’re defecting from reality.
    Yes – I am a Zionist and I believe Hashem is recalling the family back home. The birth of the State of Israel following the Holocaust, the return of the Jewish people to their Biblical homeland, miraculous wars, amazing success – with all the challenges – I LOVE Israel, I love its air, I love its people. I see PAST THE CYNICISM which seems to be in vogue on this site.
    And this has everything to do with G-d returning the exiles and nothing at all to do with Israel’s demographic conundrum and the necessity of moving as many Jews as possible into the country, even if, say, 10 years ago we didn’t consider them Jewish because they’re black, or if they live in the FSU, if they’re not Jewish at all so long as they pretend to be for our record books. And even if we’re overstating the threat of antisemitism to light a candle under people’s asses, it’s all the will of G-d. Lies, deceit, trickery, exploitation, misappropriation, trade agreements with Nazis. Clearly, that’s how geulah will happen…
    Man, see, I see past the blind idealism which seems to be in vogue with ba’al teshuvas who feel the hopelessness of American consumerism and find a spark of meaning in their Jewish heritage. They fall in with their local religious Zionist cult leader, adopt this false “revolutionary” posture (what’s revolutionary about racism and ethnic nationalism?) and become rabid, right-wing, racist, nationalist pigs. Is it any wonder that everyone at Kumah writes from Israel National News, that you all link to Women In Green, our that some of your writers proudly pose with machine guns slung over the soldiers as if they were Hamasnikim? You call that revolutionary? I call the aping the same tired Marxist bullshit real revolutionaries have been fighting for years.
    We’re done with galut, and we are going to build an amazing Israel.
    Yeah, on the backs of exploited Mizrachi, Russian, Ethiopian, Druze, Asian and Arab workers; with the blood of secular soldiers; and on land expropriated from indigenous Bedouin and Arabs. Not to mention with money earned from selling arms to hostile nations with attrocious human rights records.
    Don’t you see you’re smearing the name of G-d by giving Him credit for this?

  5. And yet, Mobius is an Oleh. Neo-Zionism is putting your money where your mouth is.
    Sincerely,
    A racist pig with a machine-gun slung over his shoulder like a Hamasnik

  6. Those slums were predominantly of people of North African descent. Ergo, mostly Arab Muslims. What, were they white French Catholics?
    Neither your facts nor your logic are strong. On facts, a great many were people of descent that is not North African, most predominantly Black African. On logic, while many were Muslim there is no causality or even correlation — most Muslims did not riot, and many who rioted were not Muslim.
    The U.S. is predominantly Christian, ergo the next Senate will be mostly Christian, but it is not relevant in very many contexts to describe it as the “Christian Senate”. The U.S. is predominantly right-handed, ergo the next Senate will be mostly right-handed, but it is not relevant in very many contexts to describe it as the “right-handed Senate”.

  7. hum wrote: Neither your facts nor your logic are strong. On facts, a great many were people of descent that is not North African, most predominantly Black African. On logic, while many were Muslim there is no causality or even correlation — most Muslims did not riot, and many who rioted were not Muslim.
    Okay, logic-and-fact man, why don’t you back up your claims with some article references? I believe that the vast majority of people understand the rioting in France to have been the cause of years of exclusion of Arab Muslims (many from Algieria and other former French colonies) from French society (jobs, education, etc.). Until you back up your race-card pulling (to which I was surprised at how quickly Mobius acquiesced) with some facts, I’m going to assume that you’re wrong. Why don’t you provide an explanation for why there was rioting by people living in specific neighbourhoods, within specific age groups? You are avoiding providing an explanation because it brings it back to the conclusion that it was rioting primarily facilitated by Arab Muslims in French suburbs, due to their pent-up frustration of inequality in France.

  8. please don’t sound so pessimistic. I am a progressive, religious Jew living in galut with plans to make aliyah nimshechet. There are many like me. In 2004, the Reform movement sent 66 teenagers to study for the year. In the past 2 years, at least twenty of those students have made aliyah upon graduation of high school. This year, the Reform movement will have sent 150 students to study and experience the land. Don’t worry, we’re coming!
    l’hit!
    Adam

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