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Jewish World Review Oct. 26, 2000/ 27 Tishrei 5761
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
WELL, HERE’S a kick in the head for you. Actually, for me.
I’ve spent a good portion of my life and my words the last several years
calling for Jewish unity. And now that there’s more Jewish unity than there
has been in a long time, I find myself on the outside looking in.
I think it’s fair to say that at this moment, the Jewish people are very unified.
How very sad.
We are unified, of course, because of what’s been happening the last
several weeks in Israel.
Which seems to be how it always goes. We only come together when we
see ourselves as being attacked from the outside. We only put aside our
differences when we believe all are out to get us all, don’t care which of us
are Orthodox or Conservative or Reform, left-wing or right-wing.
How very sad that we need to wait for that to be unified. How very sad that
we need to rely on that to embrace our fellow Jews.
How very sad, for starters, because thankfully we are threatened much less
than any Jews ever before. Which one would think is a very good thing, but
which is not good if being threatened is what it takes for us to see the value
in, the preciousness of being united.
And how very sad, for another thing, because while we are feeling very
threatened these days, the fact is that we are not. Not at all.
Even though we all feel very much that we are. Talk to almost any Jew and
s/he’ll tell you the same thing. That the media is unfair to us, the United
Nations is out to get us, the Arabs want to destroy us, Israel is under siege if
not at war, anti- Semitism is rampant everywhere. That, in short, everyone
hates us and wants to hurt us. Same old story.
It is amazing to me what a bleak picture we have all painted, how under
attack we all feel. When the reality simply isn’t so.
Israel has never been stronger, the Jewish people have never been
stronger. Israel has never been less threatened, the Jewish people have
never been less threatened. We have never had it better.
That does not mean there are not those who hate us and wish to harm us.
But it does mean that nothing is as it was for us, which, considering our
history, is very good for us.
This time, we are not the ones who only have the stones. This time, we
have the power, we have the instruments of a government working for us,
protecting us. This time, American Jews, all of the world’s Jews can speak
out, stand up, without fear, with conviction.
What’s going on in Israel is not the Six Day War or the Yom Kippur War.
Israel is not in any real danger, its existence not in any way threatened. Of
course, what is going on is unpleasant and difficult. But it in no way calls for
the kind of reaction we’ve seen from Jews.
Namely, unity. Unity born of feeling threatened. For that is an unhealthy
unity, a false unity, based not on reality or love but on fantasy and fear.
Which is why it is a unity that will be over as soon as the crisis is.
The only unity that counts, the unity I’ve been calling for for years but do
not see now, is a unity just because. Just because we are Jews. Just
because by coming together we can accomplish so much, can make the
most of this unprecedented time in Jewish life, when we are free and secure
as never before. Just because we want to be a whole, healthy people,
embracing life, not dreading it.
That’s why we should come together. At all times. Not just at a time when
we think we’re surrounded.
Problem is we don’t know how to make the most of good times because we
aren’t used to that. And so we make the best of what we think are bad times
because we are very used to that.
Being under attack we are used to and know how to handle. Anti- Semitism
we are used to and know how to handle. The world and the media being
out to get us we are used to and know how to handle.
And so the mess in the Middle East came by at just the right time. Was
enough like old times that we could make more of it than there is, in order
not to have to deal with the new times in which we live. For that calls on us
to see that Jewish life is unlike it has ever been ever and that calls us on us
to do things differently than any other Jews have ever done ever. And that’s
hard and that’s scary. Easier to stick with what we’re used to.
And the beauty is that feeling hated not only allows us to feel comforted
that things are as we’re used to them being, but it also brings about Jewish
unity.
After all, when we’re under attack from all sides, we can’t very well be
attacking each other. After all, during the last several years when things
have never been better for us, Jewish disunity has never been worse. We
simply don’t, won’t or don’t know how to get along when things are going
good. But give us a crisis and boy, we come together.
How sad, how very, very sad. Good times for us means bad times between
us. Bad times for us means good times between us.
Which is another reason we’ve so exaggerated what’s going on. For the fact
is that we like getting along, like seeing that what we have in common is
much bigger and more important than that which divides us. But the only
way we can give ourselves permission not to nit-pick each other, not to focus
on our differences, not to call each other names, is when we face a
common crisis, fear a common enemy.
Which is why we’re reacting the way we are. Which is why we see things one
way when reality tells us it’s not that way.
As Newsweek put it, “this is the year 2000, not 1973 or 1967. The Middle
East is a very different place than it was a generation ago. Ten years after
the Gulf War, Saddam’s military is still weak; the Arabs’ old friend, the
Soviet Union, is long gone; Syria and Egypt are impoverished nations
yearning to be part of the globalized economy, not preparing to invade
Israel; the United States and Israel are both vastly more powerful, militarily
and economically.”
As a senior Israeli army official put it, “we have maps detailing every nook
and cranny of the Palestinian Authority ... throughout Gaza and the West
Bank. If we want, we will hit PA military targets so precisely, so acutely, they
won’t know where it’s coming from.” And, as Ehud Barak said, Israel so far
has used “one millionth of the military power at our disposal.”
We have nothing to fear. This time is unlike any other time for us ever.
Still, sadly, seeing ourselves as being threatened is for us like putting on a
pair of old slippers. Well, the fact is that this time we are not threatened.
And it’s time we came together because of that, not despite that. Time we
stopped seeing things being good as a reason to fight each other ever more
bitterly and started seeing it as an opportunity to embrace each other ever
more tightly. As cause to celebrate our differences, see how much we
benefit from our diversity, feel how much better we will all be if we come
together for reasons that have to do with what’s inside us rather than
because of those outside us.
To do that, we must recognize that things are not as they were, that we
have more reason these days for joys, rather than oys, for kvelling rather
than kvetching.
And that it’s about time we learn to come together in genuine unity out of
love, instead of waiting to be forced together by a false unity out of
08/17/00: It ain't easy being ... a 'Joe'
Against Jewish unity
By Joseph Aaron
JWR contributor Joseph Aaron is Editor of
The Chicago Jewish News. Send your comments to him by clicking here.
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