America Needs Jews

Rabbi Edmond H. Weiss, Ph.D.

In 1967, the low-rent district of Hollywood produced Mars Needs Women!-- a

preposterous sci-fi adventure in which four Martian males come to earth looking for
human females to abduct. Why? For unexplained reasons, a genetic plague has reduced
the number of Martian females born, so that the ratio of males to females is 100:1.
Without this infusion of human women, Martian civilization is doomed.

Now, in the early 21st Century, America finds itself in the same situation as the
Martians. No, there hasn’t been a sudden drop in the number or fertility of its women.
But there has been a precipitous drop in the influence of Jews on American life and
discourse.

This last claim might rankle many non-Jewish Americans who prattle about undue
Jewish influence. Among them are those who, on the one hand, decry Jewish “control”
from the left--liberal mainstream media and Hollywood--and, on the other, from the
right--predominantly Jewish neoconservatives manipulating American foreign policy,
allegedly with more concern for Israel than the United States. (In the mid-Twentieth
Century, these groups were called the Partisan Review Jews versus the Commentary
Jews.)

Nevertheless, I believe that the loss of Jewish “energy” constitutes a threat to the
progress of American life and might even signal a return to a far less enlightened
country than we have come to appreciate since the 1960s, when Abraham Joshua
Heschel marched side-by-side with Martin Luther King. The problems, issues, and
conflicts are too many to explore here, but a modern Jew should engage with at least
these few areas in which articulate, motivated Jewish action is needed:

First, more and more of American life is under the political control of extreme
Protestant fundamentalism. A movement which began in the 1960s by targeting school
boards and local councils has leached upward to the highest levels of American
government. For example, Michael Pompeo, Secretary of State, an intelligent and very-
well educated man, subscribes to “rapture theology,” a fringe of American
Protestantism. In 2015, he told a rally that “To worship our Lord and celebrate our
nation at the same place is not only our right, it is our duty… [Politics is] a never-ending
struggle ... until the rapture.”

Some people call this notion--that America should be a Christian country and follow the
precepts of fundamentalist Protestantism— “Christian Nationalism.” And, of course, all
Americans are entitled to their religious beliefs, no matter how bizarre they seem to
others. But, in this case, our Secretary of State subscribes to an eschatology that affects
Israel and Jerusalem, that is eager for the end of the world, which will begin with an
immense war in the Middle East!

It would be bad enough if these people limited themselves to subverting science

textbooks, infiltrating military service academies, and insisting on prayers at
government meetings. But now they are getting ever closer to implementing their
phantasmagorical vision of the end days into American foreign policy. While various
organizations snap at the heels of President Trump, the current Vice President—an
unabashed Christian Nationalist—sits quietly on the sidelines waiting for his chance.
Moreover, every federal judicial post in America is currently being filled from a list
prepared by extreme Christian elements. And just the other day, the Roman Catholic
Chairman of the House dismissed the congressional chaplain, apparently because he is
from the liberal wing of Roman Catholicism!

It is the job of the 21st Century Jew to speak up whenever America is assumed to be a
historically Christian country and offer a calm, clear, well-informed rebuke of the idea.
This is not to argue that Americans are barred from subscribing to any religious view,
but rather that, for example, it is wrong for Protestant extremists to be teaching courses
under contract to the U.S. Air Force Academy and, therefore, for Jewish cadets to fear
for their careers or well-being.

Second, Israel needs an enlightened defense from its enemies throughout the
political spectrum. Everyone knows about the alt-right and neo-Nazis. But, as a life-
long liberal (What educated Jew isn’t?), I am appalled at the virulent anti-Israel
sentiment in the American Left, including a distressingly large number of Jewish
people, especially on the campuses of our best colleges. Like most liberals, I believed
that a two-state solution was possible in the Middle East and I was often frustrated
when Israeli leaders would drag their feet in the process. And I also tended to discount
the apocalyptic rhetoric of the death-to-Israel Arabs as … rhetoric.

Time has changed my thinking. It’s not that I was wrong in the past, but that the facts
on the ground have changed tremendously. By now there’s hardly a person on either
side who has not lost a friend or family member to violence from the other side. By
now, the majority on each side would not be satisfied by anything less than the total
defeat of the other. And the rhetoric of Hamas is not mere rhetoric.

There is a convenient metric for characterizing one’s attitude toward Israel. What
percentage of the Palestinian’s problems is due to Israel and what percentage to the
Palestinians and their anti-Israel supporters? I used to think the split was 25 Israel, 75
Palestinian; now I think it’s 10 Israel, 90 Palestinian.

But many of my liberal Jewish contemporaries disagree; they even support BDS. They
do not realize that this boycott is not based on the pursuit of justice but, rather, on the
desire to punish Israelis. The proof is straightforward. There is 100 times more abuse of
Moslems in India than in Israel; there are 100s more Palestinians killed by Syrian
bombers than in Israel; there were 1000s of Sunni Moslems killed by the American-
backed Shia government in Iraq… How do the abuses experienced by Palestinians
compare to those perpetrated by the Chinese or Russians against their own citizens?
This is not to excuse Israeli misconduct, but rather to point out there is virtually no
activism directed at the other abuses, and certainly no boycotts. The only people, it
seems, who need to be punished are Israelis.

I may be deceiving myself. It may be that my deep-felt affection for Israel blinds me to
its flaws. But I am also mindful of Balaam’s “curse.” Everyone knows how Balaam was
hired to curse Israel but that instead he uttered the famous “How goodly are thy
tents…” But Balaam also identified Israel as “a people dwelling alone, not reckoning
itself among the nations.”

Israel has never had many friends, and even its friends are reluctant to say so. (Israel
accepts the political support and revenue from evangelical Christians—even though
they see Israel merely as the setting for some Book of Revelation horror movie.) But I
consider Israel to be one of the greatest countries in the world, denser with scientific
and medical knowledge than any other, in many ways the fulfillment of the marriage
between Judaism and Enlightenment, what my late Hebrew teacher called the next
stage in Jewish thought: Israelism.

I do not share the zealotry of the ultra-orthodox, the belief that the borders of Israel
were determined by Hashem i. My support for Israel will not lure me into the inferno of
Trumpism. But as a contemporary Jew, I feel I must favor Israel and defend her
whenever the need arises. And I’d like as much energetic, intellectual Jewish support as
I can get.
 Third, today’s American Jews must make sure that Judaism remains distinct
from other systems of belief, that the term Judeo-Christian be used rarely, if at all, and
to assure that Tikkun Olam means more than the platform of the Democratic Party.
Historian Simon Schama warns that “if [Judaism] is nothing more than an ethical
solidarity with kindred disadvantaged at home and abroad, then the [reawakening of
Judaism] will just evaporate in a cloud of airy good will.”
We know that Felix Adler, son of a great rabbi, decided that what was universal in
Judaism far outweighed in importance what was tribal; this led him in the late
Nineteenth Century to form the Ethical Culture Society: liberal Judaism with the Jewish
stuff removed. Ethical Culture, with various newer names, is a movement that pursues
world peace and understanding through universal ethical principles. Its perspective
overlaps non-theistic Unitarianism and Humanistic Judaism.

Habitat for Humanity is a splendid organization; Doctors without Borders deserved its
Nobel; and the Democratic Party supports more policies and programs that help
persons in need than their rivals. But, for this Jew at least, universalistic or secular
religion is not enough. I want my own history, my family tree of sages and
philosophers, my Israel, my beth midrash, my grandsons’ bar mitzvahs, my kaddish. I
know that these provide the energy that fuels my thinking and enables me to engage
the world on my own terms.

When Rabbi Abba Silver wrote his most famous book it was called “Where Judaism
Differs”; the publishers, wishing to avoid offense to the “Judeo-Christian” folks,
insisted that he change the title to “Where Judaism Differed.” Even without halacha,
though, modern Judaism is still quite distinct from other religions, and the distinction
makes a difference.

i The Torah has no standing in the court of International Law.