On the threshold of greatness (III): a singular Jewish nation--without America?

 Today, it is easy to call Israel an outcast. She seems alone and rejected.  She alone stands accused of being responsible for the failure to achieve peace between Arab and Jew in the Middle East. The President of the United States practically said as much in a March 2011 meeting at the White House with leaders of major American Jewish organizations—and these American Jewish leaders have subsequently signed on to the Obama proposal for Israel to pull back to pre-1967 borders before peace negotiations with the Arab begin-- so that ‘there can be peace’.

The leadership of America’s Jewish community laments Israel’s refusal to deal with a terrorist organization—Hamas. These leaders call for Israel to surrender land.  They want Israel to yield to Obama. They fear for Israel’s safety. They see Israel’s destruction if she does not comply.

But the pain and anguish everyone sees is not a hint of a destruction to come; rather, it is the  harbinger of birth. America’s Jewish (secular) leadership does not understand the reality of Israel: she does not stand on the threshold of destruction; she stands on the threshold of greatness. The sounds we hear are not the sounds of the mourning; they are the sounds of the birthing room. The final result of the Arab onslaught against the Jewish nation will not be Israel’s destruction. It will be Israel’s ennoblement.

The leadership of the American Jewish community has taken a stand—to promote the Obama call for pre-1967 borders for the future of Israel. But this leadership decision represents not only a disconnect from the majority of Israel’s citizens, it is a disconnect also from the majority of America’s Jews. Polls repeatedly show this. With this decision, the leadership of the American Jewish community has put itself onto an iceberg—and then shoved off, cutting itself off from those who have fed and supported it.

If this leadership wishes to survive, it should announce immediately that the Obama proposal is a betrayal of the Jewish nation. It should publicly reject J Street. It should reject every call for a two-state solution so long as Hamas clings to terror, calls for the destruction of Israel , and so long as Arab media and mosque demonize the Jew, call for the killing of Jews and honor Jew-killers.

To do otherwise is to ignore American Jewish sentiment and betray Israel.

But there is another American Jewish leadership that must now also step up for Israel: the religious leadership. If both the secular and religious leadership of the American Jewish community are to have any role in the birthing room of the new Israel to come, they must both show up.

Until now, the religious leadership in America has been ‘delicate’ about its support of Israel. It has remained (for the most part) silent about modern Israel because modern Israel does not meet their refined criteria for approval. But with Israel now in the birthing room, with the pang and cry of birth echoing in our ears, the time for delicacy and refinement are passed.  The religious leadership of America must put down its objections and pick up the Israel flag. They do not need to reject their objections. But they must put those objections aside to declare their unity with and connection to their people. To do otherwise is (potentially) to render themselves irrelevant.

The quality of Torah in Israel grows, deepens and matures daily. Today, it may be possible that, if American Jewry did not exist, Israel’s national and religious life would nevertheless stand—and thrive.

American Jewish leadership—both secular and religious—run the risk of cutting themselves off from Am Yisroel, the Jewish nation.  We are not quite there yet; but are we getting close?

Our struggle for national survival has reached a new stage. Ours is no longer the struggle of the 1940s or 1950s. We are about to step over the threshold of greatness.   Our future ennoblement is before us.

The din of hate that surround us are the cries that accompany our new birth. If American Jewish leadership refuses to break bread with Israel now, they risk everything. In the secular community, more than 50% of our Jewish youth leave our religion; perhaps millions who call themselves ‘Jewish’ may not be halachically Jewish; most in America who call themselves Jewish have little or no understanding of their Jewish heritage—and all of this begs the question: how Jewish is their view of the Jewish State? How credible is their voice?

In the religious community, leadership seems to stand aloof. They know full well what is their heritage, but their apparent ideology of galut—exile—(see Rabbi  Dr Yehoshua Kemelman, Diaspora is Jewry’s graveyard, Urim Publications, 2009, p. 10) turns them cold to Israel.

The leadership of American Jewry—both secular and religious—appear to offer little that is positive for Israel. They seem to find little time to support Israel’s future even as 60,000 Jews a year walk away from America’s Jewish community (ibid, p 9). As Rabbi  Kemelman points out  (ibid, p10), Israel will survive without America’s children; but will American Jewry survive without Israel?

Israel will survive. Israel will step across the threshold to greatness.

America?