And Jacob Was Alone:

Thoughts on UN 181
1. November 29, 1947

I wish I could stand here with unbridled enthusiasm for the 70th
anniversary of what Israelis call chaf tet b’november, the date the United
Nations voted for Resolution 181. But I cannot.

It of course was a meaningful day. Israeli editor Ezriel Carlebach wrote

about a friend: ​“My cab was driving in midtown,” Abba Hushi told me,
“and the radio was broadcasting ads for coffee and soap. Suddenly, the
broadcast was interrupted with a special announcement: The UN had
voted in favor of a Jewish state. The driver stopped the car in the middle
of traffic. He jumped out, pulled me outside, and kissed me. ‘I’m a Jew!’ he
said ‘And now I have a state!’”

It is important day. There is is lots of unbridled enthusiasm. But I don’t

share it.

I grew up as a child with the United Nations resolution 3379 - otherwise

known as “Zionism is Racism”.

This hideous resolution, voted on November 10th 1975 - almost the

anniversary of Kristallnacht - was, to use the words of Daniel Patrick
Moynihan ​“a lie”​, one which he said ​“grants symbolic amnesty -- and
more -- to the murderers of the six million European Jews.”

We all had bumper stickers on our cars with the large letters UN spelling
out “United Nothing”.

2. Um Shmoom

Israelis had their own version of United Nothing:​ “Um shmoom”,​ a play on
Ummot Meuchadot, the Hebrew term for United Nations.
This term however had a longer history. Ben Gurion coined it in a cabinet
meeting in March 1955, after a series of horrific attacks from the Fedayeen
in Gaza. Ben Gurion wanted to attack Gaza. Moshe Sharett, the past Prime
Minister and serving Foreign Minister said the United Nations wouldn’t
accept the attack. He wrote in his diary that Ben Gurion also disagreed with
his assessment of UN 181:

‫ מלא חרון על החולקים עליו ​שלדעתו טחו עיניהם מראות את‬,‫נאום ב"ג היה עז ונמרץ‬
‫ אם ייעשה‬,‫החזות הרת האסון וקצרה דעתם מלהבין כי ישועתנו רק במעשה הנועז‬
‫ ​ביקש לעשות חשבון צדק אתי על שאמרתי בישיבה‬.‫ בטרם תוחמץ שעת הכושר‬,‫במועדו‬
",‫ "לא ולא‬.1948-‫ לא היתה קמה המדינה ב‬1947-‫קודמת ​כי אלמלא החלטת או"ם ב‬
‫שמוּם'" )כינוי חמוד‬-‫ "רק העזת היהודים הקימה ]את[ המדינה ולא החלטת 'אוּם‬,‫זעק‬
,‫​ ודאי‬.(‫ומכובד זה חזר ונשנה בפי גדול מדינאי ישראל פעם אחרי פעם במהלך נאומו‬
‫ אבל גם אלמלא באה לעולם היו היהודים משיגים את עצמאותם‬,‫ההחלטה היתה חשובה‬
].‫בהמשך המאבק‬

Here you have it. Um Shmoom - well before Zionism is racism. Who needs
the United Nations?

And 28 Years later, Chaim Herzog, in his brilliant response to UN 3379,

gave a diplomatic version of Um Shmoom:

The great moments of Jewish history come to mind as I face you, once
again outnumbered and the would-be victim of hate, ignorance and evil….

I stand here not as a supplicant. Vote as your moral conscience dictates to

you. For the issue is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue is the continued
existence of this organization, which has been dragged to its lowest point
of discredit by a coalition of despots and racists.

The Jewish people will go on, he said. The only thing being judged is
whether the UN is worth anything, or just a plain old Um Shmoom.
3. An old argument

But despite my feelings about the UN, there is more than “Um Shmoom” in
this debate..

The argument between Sharett and Ben Gurion is an old one, one which
Jews have always fought.

We have ​isolationists and internationalists​. Both in tactic and in

principle - do we dwell alone, or together. stand tall or stay smart.

And the word at the center of the argument is levado - alone

Balaam says: (Num. 23:9) ‫שּׁב׃‬ ְ ‫ִשׁכֹּ֔ן וּבַגּוֹיִ֖ם לֹ֥א י‬

ָֽ ‫ִת ַח‬ ְ ‫ֶהן־ ָעם֙ ְל ָב ָד֣ד י‬

Is this a prophecy? A compliment?

Jonathan Sacks makes an argument that here, Balaam is showing himself

to be an enemy of the Jews. ​Being a people alone is no blessing.
“​Third, nowhere in Tanakh are we told that it will be the fate of Israel or
Jews to be hated. ...Being alone, from a Torah perspective, is not a good
thing. The first time the words “not good” appear in the Torah is in the
verse, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Gen. 2: 18). “

The voice of Sacks is the voice of Sharett; the voice of those who see the
benefits of being part of the world community, the people who aspire to
bring back to the community of nations.

This theory is an old one. The idea is that Israel will be a place that Jews
can be normal - by moving to Israel, we will no longer be abnormal. We will
be at home, and the rest of the world will respect us for this.
Sacks may be correct in holding on to this view. Maybe one day, it will come
true; but for today, 3379 undermines it.

As Jacob Talmon noted way back in 1976, the creation of Israel didn’t stop
Jew hatred, it just changed it. After Zionism is Racism passed, one could
say Israel was “the Jew among the nations”.

That is why others do not share Sacks’ reticence to dwell alone: Yaakov
Herzog wrote famously about a nation that dwells alone:

The theory of classic Zionism was national normalization. What was

wrong with the theory? ​It was the belief that the idea of a ‘people
that dwells alone’ is an abnormal concept, when actually a
‘people that dwells alone’ is the natural concept of the Jewish
people. ​That is why this one phrase still describes the totality of the
extraordinary phenomenon of Israel’s revival. ​If one asks how the
ingathering of the exiles, which no one could have imagined in
his wildest dreams, came about, or how the State of Israel could
endure such severe security challenges, or how it has built up
such a flourishing economy, or how the unity of the Jewish
people throughout the Diaspora has been preserved, one must
come back to the primary idea that this is ‘a people that dwells
alone.’​ More than that, one must invoke this phrase not only to
understand how the Jews have existed for so long; one must invoke it as a
testimony to the Jewish right to exist at all in the land of their rebirth.

4. Our Parsha’s contribution

Our Parsha offers two images of Yaakov - one of the lonely struggler, the
one who is left alone, and of the diplomat, the one who sends gifts to his
brother.
He is Yaakov and Yisrael: a fighter and a diplomat, a gentle wholesome man
and a fierce fighter. He bows, his sends gifts, he kisses, and he wrestles all
evening.

He prepares, as Rashi puts it: ‫ לתפילה‬,‫ לדורון למלחמה‬,‫התקין עצמו לג׳ דברים‬

He is ready to stand on his own, Um shmoom; he is ready to

engage and connect, as a brother and part of the community.

And perhaps he is at the end, standing alone. But that is not the entire
story.

I was taught in a tradition that loved the dialectical- grabbing both sides of
an issue - that saw no law of excluded middles - and felt we are most
creative, and best, when holding on to both possibilities.
And so it with Israel:​ Israel will always be torn between standing
alone as its destiny, and being a member of the community of
nations as its dream.

And we must find a way to be both, to hear Sacks’s voice and

Herzogs, to hear Ben Gurion’s voice and Sharett’s.

And the Parsha’s lesson is: both may be correct.

So for me,for a deep cynic of the UN, today I will give her her due. Without
her, Israel might not be here. AT LEAST NOT YET.

And even for bringing her into the world a bit earlier, we owe the UN a debt
of gratitude.

I want to end with reading a piece that many you may have read, the most
powerful description of that night in 1947. It is one that reminds us that the
world of Yaakov and Yisrael are not so far apart.

(From Amos Oz’ biography, A Tale of Love and Darkness 358-359, about
that night, and what his father Yehuda Klausner said to him:)
So it is. Thanks to a whole host of exceptional diplomats, the
great Jacobs of our people, we have a vote; and now, thanks to
the Israels of our country, we will never be bullied again.

After 181, we got our home; now Israel, the wrestler, will stand
on his own two feet.
THIS IS MY LESSON FOR ALEX, OUR BAR MITZVAH -you are
privileged to be born at a remarkable moment in history. For
your parents, and even more so for your grandparents, what
happened 70 years ago today is remarkable.

You represent for your family, and for all of us, the Jewish
future. And never has it been brighter!

Am Yisrael Chai!