Would Religious Pluralism Bring Peace to Israel?

There's a great article in Yediot on the demands being brought to the Israeli Defense Minister and IDF Chief of Staff: Progressive (Reform) and Masorti (Conservative) Jews want a Reform or Conservative military rabbi.

To any American, it would seem like a bizarre and even unnecessary request.  But, for Israelis who do not enjoy the same Amendment rights when it comes to synagogue and State, the request for pluralistic religious representation is big news that could have a major impact on both the Israeli and the Jewish diaspora's way of viewing and living Jewish life.

Currently the rabbinic services within the IDF are strictly Orthodox.  This means that non-Orthodox Jewish soldiers are required to observe an Orthodox way of life including traditions that limit women's prayer on base and denying the families of fallen soldiers the ability to hold non-Orthodox funeral services.  The argument being put forth by the Progressive and Conservative movements is that "Every soldier who dedicates his time, and sometimes risks his life for the State, is entitled to religious services in accordance to his faith."

In some ways, the argument could be seen as a slippery-slope.  While Muslims are not required to join the IDF, there are a few dozen volunteers who join the ranks every year.  Opening the door to non-Orthodox religious representation could pave the way for Muslim soldiers to call for an Imam in the ranks.  Given the gross politicization of Islam in the Middle East, and the bureaucratic undertaking the IDF would have to conquer in appointing an Islamic cleric to their staff, more than one headache could ensue.  Still, should the risks outweight the worth of religious freedom?   

Should the change take place, it would send a variety of equally important messages to Israel and the Jewish world, as well as to Israel's critics.  Firstly, the acceptance of religious pluralism within the ranks of the IDF would testify to Israel's reputation as the strongest democracy in the Middle East.  Secondly, this action of religious pluralism would send a much-needed message to Jews the world-over:  We all worship the same God and read the same Torah; we can have unity despite our different religious points of view.  Thirdly, the introduction of Jewish religious pluralism within the ranks of the IDF would sound the death-knell for the stranglehold the Orthodox Rabbinate has over the otherwise secular Israeli government.  This is, perhaps, the most politically threatening aspect of the request--and the strongest reason why it should be honored. 

To reach its full potential, Judaism needs to be de-politicized from the Right in Israel as much as the Left in America.  Judaism is, first and foremost, a faith of morals and values that simultaenously informs and transcends political outlook.  When religion itself (any religion, for that matter) crosses the line into the political sphere, human beings feel free to justify their political beliefs and actions in the name of God; division ensues when unity should be the goal.  There's a reason the only leader who ever brought us truly together sang, "Oh how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together in unity." 

Americans pay special attention to religious freedom for a variety of reasons, all of which boil down to the simple fact that developing a relationship with God and expressing that relationship publicly is a personal choice.  For too long, the Jewish world has been pushed in a variety of directions and made to worry whether we are too Jewish or not Jewish enough.  As the national representative of Jews across the globe, Israel has taken the brunt of this burden.  For all the directions in which Israelis (the majority of whom are in the midst of some level of military service) are being pushed, they should feel the freedom to walk in the direction of faith, and reassured with the knowledge that they will be received with open arms.

Progressive Tikkun Olam: Repair or Destruction?

“You are a bad Jew!  You are a bad Jew!  Have you ever heard of Tikkun Olam?  …This, what you are doing, is NOT healing the world.” 

This finger-pointed accusation made by one left-wing Jew to a right-wing Jew outside the D.C. offices of FreedomWorks went viral last week.  Along with illustrating the over-the-top anger leftists have regarding right wing politics, this brief exchange highlighted the schism that increasingly pervades political dialogue.  Today, it seems that when it comes to politics, two people may disagree and still get along, unless they are radical leftists.  To radical leftists, those who hold an opposing viewpoint are simply accused of destroying the world. 

But can the accusation of “not healing the world” really hold water?

The politic of “Tikkun Olam” can be traced back to the Mishnah, which was codified around 200 C.E.  Mipnei tikkun ha-olam (for the sake of the repair of the world) is commentary relating to what was, essentially, discombobulated bureaucratic procedure; courts would convene, and then cancel; people would randomly change their names; divorces would not be finalized.  The idea behind the Mishnah’s version of “repairing the world” was simply to establish order on the part of governing bodies with the goal of avoiding chaos among the population at large.

Move ahead to the 16^th century and Tikkun Olam is taken to a newer, more spiritual level by Kabbalistic Rabbi Isaac Luria.  His interpretation (in a nutshell) involved human beings repairing the world by divorcing the holy from the physical world through deep, contemplative spiritual acts.  In fact, Luria’s Tikkun Olam didn’t require the repair of the world so much as the ending of it through the transcendence into a completely holy, spiritual realm.

Fast-forward to the 1950s when Tikkun Olam was re-fashioned again, this time by Jewish progressive causes looking to spur on social change.  Applying the idea of repairing the world to the Marxist ideology of oppressor versus oppressed (boss v. worker; majority v. minority, etc.), progressive Jews took an idea meant to de-bureaucratize government and used it as an excuse to establish a huge bureaucracy in the form of a social welfare state:   Repairing the world, one government program at a time.

Even more interestingly, Tikkun Olam took on the concept of collectivity at the sacrifice of individuality.  Like the Protestant Social Gospelists of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, today’s progressive Jews take Biblical teachings on communal responsibility (i.e. Cain and Abel) and, through their socialist lens, re-interpret these teachings to mean that the individual has no right over the collective.  (This, despite the fact that the bureaucracy of social justice calls for varying groups—defined in terms of ethnicity, gender, sexual preference, race, and even religion—to receive entitlements over other groups.) Using a twisted form of Jewish teaching to justify their political beliefs, this progressive version of collectivist Tikkun Olam became the justification for telling any non-progressive that their politics were destroying the world.

 

One look at Biblical history, however, proves the exact opposite to be true:  Time and time again, Israel’s narrative is one of the individual attempting to lead the nation out of collective misery.  The most notable example, Moses, was a total loner.  Born a Hebrew but raised in an Egyptian household, he spent most of his life living among desert tribesman before returning to lead his people Israel out of bondage.  Five minutes into their journey, the Hebrews begged for a return to slavery and spent most of their 40 years in the desert whining about how much better it was to stomp straw into bricks than be free and on their way to their own Mediterranean beach front real estate.

A few generations later, the young nation of Israel begged their prophet Samuel, “Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations.”  This collective desire to be lorded over by another human being translated into a series of largely corrupt lunatics (with one glowing exception) who weakened the kingdom and left it vulnerable to eventual attack and destruction by surrounding tribes and nations who drove the people of Israel into exile.

Of course, a series of prophets repeatedly arose to warn Israel of impending disaster.  These individuals, like the Judges before them, ranged from members of guilds and Temple service to average farmers, but they shared a few common traits.  They each stood out as a lone voice of warning in the crowd, they were pretty much all thought of as lunatics, and the majority of them suffered horrible fates at the hands of the collective population of Israel who just wanted them to shut up.   

In fact, Biblically speaking, Jewish collectivism has clamored for a return to slavery, sought to empower kings, was cool with being governed by corruption, and slandered, ostracized, evicted, and even stoned the only individuals who tried to get them out of their own collective mess.  (So much for trying to be your brother’s keeper.)

The situation didn’t get much better after the Tanakh ended, either.  More corruption in the priesthood led to Israel’s own Vichy of sorts—a Roman rule mediated by a crooked Jewish priesthood that led to a series of Zionist revolts, ending in the destruction of yet another Temple and a 2,000-year long Diaspora.

Interestingly, the Rabbinic reason for why the Jewish nation came upon such a horrible fate is sinat chinam, “baseless hatred”.  In the period leading up to the destruction of the second Temple in 70 CE, Jews in Judea were split into varying factions, many of which turned on each other in the midst of the revolt.   Instead of being one unified force in the face of Roman occupation, these groups drew sides and formed alliances for varying religious and political reasons.  This factional attitude put Israel on a path of self-destruction. 

One Rabbinic teaching likens the nation of Israel to a unified body having distinct parts with their own unique purposes that work in harmony for the greater good of the nation.  “Therefore, when we as individuals actualize our potential, every other individual is uplifted, as well as Jewish people as a whole.”   Compare this to the attitude behind baseless hatred:  “But a person who acts according to his inner conviction that he is correct will never admit his mistake. He believes that the other person or the government is wrong. What mistake is there to admit? He thinks that you are wrong, not him!”   As a result, both “God and our fellow man” are stripped “of their singular importance in the world.” 

In the midst of the Temple’s destruction, Israel’s factions put more faith in themselves than in God, and as a result, put their own religious and political priorities above the needs of the very people they claimed to be fighting for.  (Sound familiar?)  Consequentially, many individual lives were sacrificed in the name of collective callings. 

Whether it meant fleeing from Egypt, foregoing pagan behaviors, or seeking to overthrow occupying forces, for the collective of ancient Israel, enslavement to an oppressor or oppressing ideology continually trumped the freedom of individual choice.  Contrary to today’s progressive spin on Tikkun Olam, the result of favoring the collective was not repair, but repeated self-destruction. 

Thomas Jefferson once said, “A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”  When the collective is distributing justice, who is there to ensure that the collective is being just?

 

This article also appeared at NewsRealBlog and Our Last Stand.

ElBaradei: Israeli Facts and Fictions

What is truth?

The agreement spanning the past 140 years of definitions in my dictionary collection is that Truth conforms to fact or reality; Truth is the body of real things, events, and facts.

Yet, according to Wikipedia the popular, open-source online encyclopedia:

“Truth can have a variety of meanings… “Truth” must have a beneficial use in order to be retained within language.  Defining this potency and applicability can be looked upon as “criteria”, and the method used to recognize a “truth” is termed criteria of truth. Since there is no single accepted criterion, they can all be considered “theories”. ”

Compare the two definitions and you’ll see a striking difference.  Historically, reality is truth.   Yet, according to contemporary pop culture, truth is a subjective opinion.  Opinion is truth.

In the interest of ideological inquiry, I decided to contrast the commentary of the right-wing Caroline Glick with commentary from the left-wing Dahlia Scheindlin and Roi Maor published in +972.   

The Subject: Mohammed ElBaradei, leader of the Egyptian opposition.

The Methodology: To take the facts as they stand and compare Glick and Scheindlin’s responses.

The Goal:  Obviously these writers are paid to opine, so the objective will be to define how much of their argument relies on known fact, versus value judgment.

ElBaradei’s role as head of the IAEA

According to Glick, “As IAEA head, ElBaradei shielded Iran’s nuclear weapons program from the Security Council.”  He also, “continued to lobby against significant UN Security Council sanctions or other actions against Iran…”

According to Scheindlin, “During his 12 years as head of the IAEA, [ElBaradei] ratcheted down the increasingly nutty rhetoric calling for military action against the Iranian nuclear program (following a similarly moderate tone before the Iraq war).”  They cite Malcolm Hoenlein, the executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations,  who “accused ElBaradei of covering up Iran’s true nuclear weaponization capacities while he directed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog,” and conclude, “Israelis and prominent Jews have already begun working to discredit [ElBaradei’s] image…”

The Facts:  In 2009, France and Israel accused ElBaradei of intentionally “omitting evidence that the IAEA had been given [by Western intelligence] about an alleged covert weaponization plan” that involved the building of a nuclear bomb.

ElBaradei on Iran & Iraq

Regarding Iran’s nuclear capabilities and the WMD controversy in Iraq, Scheindlin & Maor opine, “ElBaradei certainly has experience, and so far he was proven right on both Iran and Iraq…”

Glick references a current interview in which ElBaradei, “…dismissed the threat of a nuclear armed Iran telling the Austrian News Agency, ‘There’s a lot of hype in this debate,’ and asserting that the discredited 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate that claimed Iran abandoned its nuclear weapons program in 2003 remains accurate.”

The Facts:  In 2006, the #2 official in Saddam Hussein’s air force said that WMDs were moved across the border into Syria via civilian aircraft before the 2003 war.  This came out roughly 1 month after Israeli General Moshe Yaalon made it public that Saddam “transferred chemical agents from Iraq to Syria.”

Regarding Iran, the U.S. Government recently arrested an Iranian national “accused of operating an international smuggling network that illegally exported” weapons materials back to Iran to support their ballistic missle and nuclear programs.  As of the end of January, the British Defense Secretary declared that Iran could have a nuclear weapon by 2012, calling Israel’s estimate of 2015 “over-optimistic.”

ElBaradei and the Muslim Brotherhood

Both Glick and Scheindlin & Maor agree that ElBaradei is willing to work with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Glick observed that the Muslim Brotherhood has backed Elbaradei’s “political aspirations.”    She also quotes ElBaradei from Der Spiegel : ‘We should stop demonizing the Muslim Brotherhood. …[T]hey have not committed any acts of violence in five decades. They too want change. If we want democracy and freedom, we have to include them instead of marginalizing them.’”

According to Glick, The Muslim Brotherhood “is the progenitor of Hamas and al Qaida,” seeks to transform Egypt into an Islamic regime, and has defended Hizbullah terrorists.

Scheindlin and Maor reserve comment on the character of the Muslim Brotherhood.  As for ElBaradei, they quote the opinion of one man who had met the “pro-Western liberal moderate” and gathered the impression that the quiet intellectual had “no basis of support” back in Egypt since he’s been away for so long.

The Facts:  The Muslim Brotherhood has a history of hating Israel, having “raised an army to fight Israel in its war of independence in 1948.  Its Palestinian branch was the nucleus for Hamas.”  According to some, it was a Brotherhood agent who assassinated Anwar Sadat after he signed a peace treaty with Israel.  According to others, it was a member of Egyptian Islamic Jihad, which later merged into Al Qaeda.  In a related fact, the Muslim Brotherhood has also supported Al Qaeda.  Their focus isn’t solely on Egypt or the Middle East:  One of the goals of the Muslim Brotherhood in North America is to “establish an effective and stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which…presents Islam as a civilization alternative.”

ElBaradei, now officially backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, supported the group on American television, remarking to CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, “You know, the Muslim Brotherhood has nothing to do with the Iranian model, has nothing to do with extremism, as we have seen it in Afghanistan and other places.  The Muslim Brotherhood is a religiously conservative group.  …We need to include them.  They are part of the Egyptian society, as much as the Marxist party here.”

Conclusions

On all three counts, Glick evidenced a clear ability to quote facts in drawing conclusions.  Scheindlin and Maor evidenced the ability to hand-pick citation and tailor it to the advantage of their opinions.  For example, Glick’s strong suit was in using primary source quotes from ElBaradei to illustrate his relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Scheindlin and Maor’s ability to twist facts in order to suit their personal views was most evident in the case of their “Conspiracy Against ElBaradei” theory that managed to twist a known fact into a smear campaign against ElBaradei championed by “Israelis and prominent Jews”.  As a result, the former produced analysis while the latter expressed value judgments.


My brother once shared with me a professor’s saying, “There’s your truth, there’s my truth, and then there’s the Truth.”  At the time I remember thinking, “If your truth doesn’t chime with the Truth, what good is it?”  Opinion should never be the source of Truth.  However, in the world of 24-hour news and basement bloggers, opinion often draws more attention than fact.  Not to be solely lamented, well reasoned opinion can shine a light on the Truth at hand when done right.

Unfortunately, in this world, “done right” is a matter of opinion.

Originally published @ OurLastStand.com 

A Conservative Response to the Palestine Papers

"It is easier to dismiss claims that run contrary to what you already believe than to perhaps change your beliefs, but that fact alone doesn't invalidate what could be new facts."  That was one friend's response to my questioning of the validity and purpose of the "leaked" Palestine Papers this week.  Instead of recognizing the bias involved in Al-Jazeera leaking documents that Israelis readily concede will give Abbas and the Palestinian government a good standing internationally (and, consequently, continue to frame Israel as the evil, unwilling partner in negotiations), I'm supposed to be willing to concede to "what could be new facts" and change my entire way of thinking about the peace process.


Forget the fact that I've never really talked about the peace process or my opinions of the Palestinian government.  I am Conservative, and therefore right wing, and therefore I distrust the Palestinians and will seek to frame them in as evil a light as possible by my very political nature.


And I thought Leftists were supposed to be the supporters of open minds and open dialogue.


In his reaction to the Palestine Papers, J. J. Goldberg notes the complete lack of a response from the organized Jewish community that he tends to characterize as typically right wing in nature when it comes to supporting Israel, commenting, "The one thing nobody seems able to get their minds around is the idea that Israel might be in the wrong here. That would be much too awkward." 


Truthfully, if Jewish Leftists weren't such rampant environmentalists they'd probably have printed and distributed copies of the leaked documents with instructions to rub them in the faces of any Jewish right wingers they could find hiding under rocks.  Within the next month the Papers will no doubt be published in America by at least one Jewish Leftist organization under the title "Triumph!  Triumph at Last!"


So, what have they really won?  They have papers that allege a Palestinian partner willing to compromise on the Right of Return, Jewish settlements in the West Bank, and joint control of Jerusalem.  No actual peace agreement documents were included in the Papers, which only covered Palestinian discussions.  We don't know if these comments ever reached Israeli ears because we have no documentation to that effect.  We also don't have any official Palestinian verification of the documents in question.


In fact, what we do have is the Palestinian Cheif Negotiator, Saeb Erekat, condemning the release of the Palestine Papers and accusing Al-Jazeera of slander, saying that the leaked documents make him look like a traitor to his people.  According to Erekat, the leaks are the fault of a former CIA Agent and British national who now works for Al-Jazeera.  (Perhaps this is one of the conspiracy theories J.J. Goldberg is trying to blame on the right wing, which is funny; I didn't know Erekat, who claims that the leaks are "punishment for going against the United States in the Security Council" qualified as yet another one of those annoying Israeli & American flag-waving right wingers.)


Still functioning on the assumption that the Palestine Papers are really true, Goldberg does concede that the Palestinians are slightly somewhat to blame:

But that would overlook the Palestinian leadership’s contributions to the mess. They never told their public how much they were willing to give up to achieve statehood. No doubt they wanted to hold off admitting how much they were giving away until they could announce how much they were getting in return. That’s a basic rule of negotiating.


Unfortunately, the Palestinian leaders didn’t just keep their cards hidden. They adopted an emphatic public stance that was the opposite of their negotiating position: no compromise on refugees, no deviating from the 1967 borders, no demilitarization, no Israeli presence on the Temple Mount. The result was that the Palestinian public wasn’t prepared for the realities of peace. Not surprisingly, the leak of the Palestinian negotiating positions in January caused an uproar.

You could approach this in one of two ways: If the papers are true, then the Palestinian government plays one incredible game of poker.  If they aren't true, which is the official Palestinian government stance, then we are only left with what we do see coming out of the Palestinian leadership: an unwillingness to negotiate combined with a militant attitude towards Israel.

Perhaps that is why there has been so little conversation on the Palestine Papers outside of the Left Wing.  It is the Left Wing that consistently looks for hope where there is none, just as they continually assign blame where it doesn't belong.  The one solid conclusion that pragmatic Israeli analysts could draw from the leaks is "that the document leak aimed to harm Abbas's standing within the PA, but instead will raise his standing internationally."  Suddenly, the man who supposedly was willing to negotiate but refuses to verify that claim and stands behind a wall of non-negotiation becomes the international hero. I'm sure the Nobel committee is already taking the leaks into account for this year's nominations.

 

I can't answer for the mainstream Jewish (secretly right-wing cabal) community's lack of response to the Palestine Papers.  I can, however, say that from a Conservative perspective the Palestine Papers are nothing but the same old sorry news coming out of the Israeli-Palestinian sphere.  As for my personal Conservative, crazy right-wing views, it's like I explained to my friend: Like mostly everyone I know, I'm always willing to put a little John Lennon in my CD player. I'm also far too used to these types of stories: "Palestinians are willing peace partners!" only to be followed by "More terror attacks by [insert terror front's name here] on Israelis" followed by "Crackdown on security in West Bank" followed by "[Terror Group] using special ed kid as human sheild suicide bomber" or "rockets fired over Gaza Strip into Sderot" followed by "There will be no talks until the militant action stops!" followed by "Fine then, we aren't negotiating!" 

You either get beaten into submission by this cycle, or you start to say, "You know what? When you want peace, you'll tell the terrorists to knock it off and be the bigger guy, like Anwar Sadat. Oh, wait, no one wants to be the next Sadat. Nevermind."

If you think I'm oversimplifying my case, go back to 2008 when sources claim the Palestine Papers were written.  According to an incredibly well-documented count on Wikipedia, 1,528 mortars and 1,575 rockets were fired into Israel from the Gaza Strip the same year these unverified documents claim the Palestinian government was willing to make serious concessions for peace.  2008 ended in Operation Cast Lead in which Hamas terrorists in Gaza used a remarkable amount of civilians as human shields, with no condemnation or reaction from Abbas or his government.  To the contrary, it was the soldiers of the Israeli Defence Forces who were forced to undergo an ethics investigation after the war which concluded that "soldiers maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorize Israeli civilians while taking cover behind uninvolved civilians in the Gaza area and using them as human shields."

When Al-Jazeera leaks some papers that indicate Abbas and his negotiating team condemn the terrorists in their midst who use innocent civilians as shields against peace, and when Abbas and his government walk out of Fatah Revolutionary Councils instead of participating in them, then I'll believe there's a chance for peace.  Until then, I can only go with the most recent reports regarding the Palestinian government's willingness to "negotiate":

"The Fatah council derogatorily rejected recognition of “the so-called Jewish state” or any “racist state based on religion.” It reasserted the “right of return” which, if implemented, would facilitate the end of a Jewish majority within the pre-1967 Green Line by allowing about four million Palestinian refugees and their offspring to settle in Israel proper.

Land swaps as part of a peace agreement were ruled out as well. Large settlement blocs in Judea and Samaria, such as Gush Etzion, Ma’aleh Adumim and other cities located just over the Green Line, consisting of no more than five percent of the West Bank, where about 80% around 320,000 Jews live, must be uprooted and settlers must be expelled, it decided.

...In what sounded more like a battle cry than a declaration, Fatah essentially articulated its intent to do everything short of relaunching an armed struggle to undermine the existence of the Jewish state."

Now, that's what I call giving peace a chance.

there are absolutes in this world, Mr. Klein

So, Ezra Klein was on MSNBC this morning to comment on the new GOP House Majority’s desire to open the 112^th Congress with a reading of the Constitution.  His comments boiled down to the action being irrelevant because the document “was written more than 100 years ago.” 

He also put these words in print on his Washington Post blog: “…the Constitution is not a clear document. Written 100 years ago, when America had 13 states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it.”

I guess the fact-checker at the WashPost was late getting in this morning because Klein’s entry was later edited to read: “My friends on the right don't like to hear this, but the Constitution is not a clear document. Written more than 200 years ago, when America had 13 states and very different problems, it rarely speaks directly to the questions we ask it.”

But let’s not get picky over semantics, at least not the kind of semantics that make a 26 year old know it all (whose most complete biography can be found on Wikipedia- "100 year old" comment included) look like someone more fit to co-star in the next Michael Cera movie than the actual, informed “policy wonk” he makes the claim to be.  After all, true wonks stand behind their opinions no matter how wacky they may be.  That’s how you go from being a guest star to getting a starring role on MSNBC, right? 

Poor Mr. Klein, he’ll have to wait a while longer, then, for his ship to sail.  By 5 pm he was already retracting his words: “Yes, the Constitution is binding. No, it’s not clear which interpretation of the Constitution the Supreme Court will declare binding at any given moment. And no, reading the document on the floor of the House will not make the country more like you want it to be…”

Mr. Klein should know full well the complete lack of value any public reading has when the words being read aloud fall on deaf ears; he was raised Jewish.  Presumably, whether only on high holidays or on a weekly basis, Mr. Klein attended services and heard the words of the Torah read aloud.  If the Constitution is invalid because it’s “over 100 years old” then the 3,313 year-old Torah must really be out of date, rendering Mr. Klein’s Jewishness about as valid as his Americanness.

Perhaps that is why he was so eager to defend Hitler:

Hitler probably had the Jews of Germany to thank for the boost in effectiveness felt by his social reforms; it was probably easier to get jobs once Jews were denied theirs, and I’m sure apartments were easier to come by once Jews were kicked out of theirs, and well, as far as doctors go, I hear that Mengele was a regular miracle worker.  As far as Volkswagen goes, well, who wouldn’t want to operate a car of the people—the Aryan German people, that is—and when it comes to vegetarianism well, my dead Aunt’s German parents fed off chicken bones because Germany's breadbasket was just so bountiful. 

“Not everything the Nazis touched was bad. Hitler was a vegetarian. Volkswagen is a perfectly good car company. Universal health care is a perfectly good idea. Indeed, the Nazis actually did a pretty good job increasing economic growth and improving standards of living…pushing Germany out of a depression and back into expansion.”

And speaking of bones, Klein throws us one at the end of his heil Hitler:  “Unfortunately, they also set out to conquer Europe and exterminate the Jews. People shouldn’t do that.”

Not only does he mention the Holocaust in passing, he insults his readers (and himself) by actually being sure to remind you that genocide is wrong.

A good conservative would snub their nose at his gross hypocrisy.  A Jew, especially one who happens to be good friends with a Holocaust survivor, would call Ezra Klein an ignorant ass.

A good conservative would combat his comments regarding the Constitution by explaining that without the Constitution Klein would have no America to argue about.  A good Jew would remind Klein that if a document that is 223 years old is irrelevant and up for debate, the 3,313 year-old Torah that made him a Jew must be something best left for the history books.

And a good Jewish American would tell Mr. Klein that if the Constitution is up for debate, and the Torah doesn’t matter, why should his own words even count?  Perhaps those, too, are up for interpretation.

In which case, it’s too bad the Washington Post blows all of its money on morons.

The horrifying thing about Ezra Klein’s comments is that they are

reflective of an entire generation’s thinking: Founding documents do not matter; everything is whatever you want it to be.  No wonder Klein can defend Hitler.  And if Klein—a Jewish American who is a mere 2 generations removed from those who fought in World War II and were murdered in concentration camps—can defend Hitler, and if the thought process that got him there is commonplace in his entire generation, what does that say for the future of America?

Religion, State & the Threat of Dictatorship

How can a State determine a citizen's relationship with God?

The American government was established on the idea that no government can define or interfere in a citizen’s relationship with the Divine.  For Israel, it is an entirely different matter; not only does the State interfere, the State defines this relationship for the individual as both a religious and a national concept. 

For Americans, religion is an act of choice that does not affect their status as citizens of the United States.  For Israelis, religion defines their status as citizens of the State.  In fact, for some Israeli politicians, religion is not only a matter of citizenship; it is a matter of national security.

Americans could never understand this concept because they have never had to live with it.  In fact, their government was created to avoid it.

But how do you avoid the religion-state relationship when you are Jewish?

Why did the colonialists seek to ensure that the government of America would “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”?  Did they do this to escape the corrupt church-state governments of Europe where priests and monarchs played the role of God?  Did they do this in order to be able to express their faith in a public forum without fear of persecution?  These are both true reasons and, perhaps, there is another to be found in the wording of the Declaration of Independence itself: the recognition that God, not the Protestant god, nor the Catholic god, nor the Jewish god, nor any other god, but God was the Creator who endowed every individual with inalienable rights.

I don’t see God being given much consideration in Israeli politics today.  Zionism, yes.  Religion, yes.  God?  No.  Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beitenu Party advocates a national pledge to a Jewish State for purposes of Zionism.  Shas and UTJ oppose the ratification of a Conversion Bill because it goes against the established Rabbinical authorities.  The majority of Israelis sit between a rock and a hard place, between left and right, between nations that wait for their demise and politicians who are digging the grave.  Meanwhile, the people of God know nothing of God because they are too busy being told what does and doesn’t make them a Jew—that is, acceptable in God’s presence—by a group of rather corrupt individuals with high personal stakes and extremely limited objectivity.

It is strange for an American Jew to try and comprehend the idea that the food you put in your mouth, where you set your foot on Shabbat, or who your father did or didn’t fall in love with could impact your status as a citizen of the land you’re supposed to be able to call home.  It is even harder to understand how any religious leadership could declare a person who is willing to study for their nation to be a better person than the one who is willing to risk their life for their nation.  It is hard for American Jews to understand these things because ours is a Jewishness of choice.  If we want to wear peyas and sheitels, we do; if we want to drive on Shabbat, we do; if we want to marry gentiles and still raise our kids Jewish, we do.  America has afforded us the opportunity no other nation ever has; to make the choice as to whether or not we want to live Jewish lives on our own terms.

I am of the opinion that Israel must be a Jewish state simply because that is the destiny of Israel.  What “Jewish” means and how “Jewish” is expressed, despite the wishes of certain political parties cannot be legislated through mandated pledges, a minyan’s agreement, or a forced dictatorship.  God Himself knows you cannot change a person’s heart.  You can, however, “instruct them in the way they should go so that when they grow old, they will not sway from it.”  You can encourage them with joy instead of force and love instead of judgment.  You can instill pride of nation and of self so that the decisions they make as citizens will be in the best interests of the nation.

There are solutions to the fears that Zionists like Avigdor Lieberman face regarding the future of the Jewish State.  Perhaps if he spent less time agitating the Arabs and more time praising his people, and perhaps if the religious parties like Shas and UTJ spent less time politicizing religion and more time promoting faith, they might find them. 

Can a Jew be a Marxist?

Part 1: How European Intellectuals & German Theologians Planted the Seeds of Communism

Author's Note: This article is also being published at OurLastStand.com as the first in a "History 101" Series, a column that will be devoted to exploring the historical and ideological roots of the crisis we now face as a nation.

"The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general, of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from Christianity, from religion in general." - Karl Marx, On The Jewish Question 1844

To understand today's progressive you have to understand yesterday's socialist. And, by "yesterday" I'm talking roughly 200 years ago when the seeds of socialism were first planted in the hotbed of post-Enlightenment Europe.

History is a lot like gravity; for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The reaction to the abuses of monarchy, aristocracy, and the State-Church complex of the late 1700s was revolution on both sides of the Atlantic. Both the American and the French Revolutions were fed by the thinkers of the Enlightenment, a period in history that directly preceeded this turning point in Western life. The Enlightenment was a period driven by intellectual investigation based on reason as the ultimate means of obtaining objective truth and establishing authoritative systems of government and religion. It could be argued that the Enlightenment was a sort of culmination to Europe's great religious upheaval that started with Martin Luther and expressed itself in radical religious wars. It was as if the growing educated class took a look around and decided that the world could be a better place if only people stopped to think before walking into battle over age-old superstitions and feuds.

In America, the Enlightenment thinkers would inspire Revolutionaries who believed that the ultimate authority over earth was God, and that God empowered individuals with inalienable rights, including the right to worship Him as he or she saw fit, without government interference. However, as David Aiken explains in his doctoral thesis, The Role of Atheism in the Marxist Tradition, European thinkers most strongly influenced by the Enlightenment would go on to declare that it was man who had the ultimate authority over man and, ultimately, God didn't even exist.

As the following outline of Aiken's research details, these European political and theological philosophers made their mark on Marx and subsequent socialist/progressive thinkers:

Political Origins

1793 - In his tome Political Justice, William Godwin argued that:

• rational choice, not Godly salvation, perfected man
• This would leave those who are deemed "rational thinkers" to "save" everyone else, for example, through extensive legislation regarding health care, diet, and exercise.
• man had no moral responsibility,
  
  • For instance, to give water to hospital patients in dire thirst
• man's actions were determined by his environment out of "necessity", that is, what took place before he arrived,
  
  • This totally negates the concept of free will and the ability to choose your own direction in life.
• government should be abolished and replaced with autonomous economic and political units

Godwin was also a strong advocate against property ownership and marriage. His work would influence the Romantic poets Shelley, Byron, Coleridge, and Wordsworth, as well as the political thinker Robert Owen.

1796 - Gracchus Babeuf constructs a plan to overthrow the French government via a "secretly organized insurrection of the Paris mob". This failed attempt would be known as The Conspiracy of Equals. Their social and economic goals included:

• abolition of right to inheritance
• Inspiring ideas like the Estate Tax
• elimination of distinctions between rich and poor
• equality between men and women
• The kind akin to the "equality" proposed in the defeated Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), perhaps?
• obligation of all people to work
• Regardless of their ability to do so? And what would happen if they could not produce more than they consumed?

These goals were printed in the Manifesto of Equals written by atheist journalist Sylvain Marechal, who was the "first socialist writer to label religion as a drug." Interestingly it was not Marx, but Babeuf, the organizer of the failed coup d'etat, who was the first revolutionary to use the phrase,"From each according to his ability to each according to his need."

1813 - Robert Owen, heavily influenced by the writings of William Godwin, publishes A New View of Society. Owen believed that:

• Man is made by his environment
• and has no free choice in the matter
• Man cannot be changed by punishment
  
  • rendering any kind of justice system useless
• Man can be changed by building a society based on "social justice"
• bad institutions cause misery and evil, which could be eliminated through rational education delivered in conditions of freedom and equality
• and no doubt micro-managed by the Army of New Teachers aka "rational thinkers"

Robert Owen came to believe that "all opposition to his social proposals stemmed from...religious attitudes." Owen's writings became a part of England's "Infidel Movement" that railed against the institutional powers of the Anglican church. The "Owenite Society", later known as the "Rational Society" was established in 1841 and sent atheist lecturers to organized meetings around England; one meeting in Manchester was attended by Marx's co-philosopher Engels. Influenced by the writings of Owen, Marx would write in his 1844 manuscripts, "Communism begins with atheism, but atheism is initially far from communism."

Theological Origins

While the suggestion that Christian belief was "erroneous", "irrelevant to the great issues of the day", and even a "fossilized cultural identity" sprang out of the Goethe-influenced German Romantic tradition of the early 1800s, the German Higher Criticism Theologians were the intellectuals behind the dismantling of faith in scripture. Aiken explains the 4 stages of the breakdown as follows:

1. "Destructive criticism applied to the reliability of the Bible as a source of Christian authority"
   
   • In other words, the Bible can't be trusted
2. "an assault upon the possiblity of any source of law and authority above the observed natural law, in short, on the supernatural"
   
   • You can't see, touch, or taste God, so He doesn't exist
3. "the relegation of the Diety to a human invention serving a utilitarian philosophical and psychological purpose"
   
   • People invented "God" in order to make themselves feel better
4. "the search for a way to eliminate this last barrier to the replacement of God's sovereignty...with man's."
   
   • Man not only replaces God, Man IS God

By the time of the Enlightenment, the Church had already been seen as a failure by Luther and the Reformation. The only supreme authority left was The Bible itself. The German Higher Critics separated "Historical" Truth versus "Religious" Truth, in other words, Reason versus Faith. To the Higher Critics, personal belief was "highly arbitrary" and "incapable of objective definition."

• Bahrdt and Venturini were the first to employ a "Rationalist Historiography" approach to the study of the Bible - eliminating anything from the Gospel accounts that could not be verified by reason.
• Schleiermacher would go on to define religion as "the consciousness of being absolutely dependent" and sin as "anything that curtailed this sense of dependence."
• Kant would declare that "man was to find moral self-perfection by his own unaided efforts," that man was to "accept no dogmas or creeds from previous generations as sacrosanct," and instead was to "exercise freely the capacity of understanding as a means for participation in human progress."
• Fitche would mysteriously declare that, quite apart from Christianity, "a spiritual and moral imperative [was] manifesting itself as a dynamic in the affairs of mankind."
• Strauss, in his 1836 work The Life of Jesus would declare the Gospels to be a "myth".

All of these critics had their impact on the reknown German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel. It has been noted that, "without Hegel, Marxism would be unthinkable." To Hegel, the Church ignored reason and, therefore, ultimately despised man. Taking the civilized world backward about 18 centuries, Hegel sympathized with the pantheism of ancient Greece and Rome, calling it "a religion for free people". Subsequently, he hated Jews in particular, writing that, "men thus corrupt...were bound to create the doctrine of corruption of human nature and adopt it gladly." Hegel also "deeply resented the Christian notion that all human beings must submit to God." He preferred, instead, a "theology of a religion in which the self is...God," promoting the idea of "learning to know God as a our true and essential self."

Not only did Hegel despise God, he despised the people who brought God's Word to the world and represented it on a daily basis--Jews and Christians--because these people were a living witness to the truth of God's Word and, therefore, a hindrance to Hegel's own plan for a "Religion of Humanity".

Hegel influenced Marx through Marx's cohorts, "Young Hegelians" Bruno Bauer and Moses Hess:

It was Bauer who introduced Marx to Hegel at The Doctors' Club at Berlin University in 1837. According to famed critic Albert Schweitzer, Bruno Bauer had a "pathological hatred" of Christianity. He also went so far as to claim demonic possession in an 1841 letter to a colleague.

Moses Hess was the one to draw Marx's attention to the connection between atheism and communism. Hess was the first to equate Capitalism's economic alienation of the worker with Christianity's religious alienation of the worker. To Hess, Capitalism and Christianity were so intertwined that the destruction of one was inseparable from the destruction of the other. Hess's direct influence on Marx's work can be seen in Marx's On the Jewish Question in which he denounces the Rights of Man "...including freedom, as concepts which kept man isolated from his fellow man."

And yet, it is perhaps Ludwig Feuerbach who had the most direct influence on Marx. Feuerbach's goal was "...to rid the human race of all religious illusions and turn its attention completely away from God and back to men." For Feuerbach, "God" is nothing more than the archetype for the "Ideal Man", but because of religious misconception of "God", man is held back from having the freedom and autonomy to be the God he could truly be. "To enrich [this idea of] God, man must become poor, that [Man-]God may be all, man must become nothing." Does this sound like the beginnings of collective salvation?

Finally, Feuerbach wrote that the purpose of his work was to "...change man...from lovers of God into lovers of humanity, from candidates for the after-life into students of the here and now, from religious and political valets of the divine and worldly monarchy and aristocracy into free, self-confident citizens of the earth."

So, what is the impact of the growing atheist belief of the 1800s on today's progressive mindset? The answer is clear: These atheistic thinkers helped to shape a worldview in complete opposition to that which the Bible outlines:

• Sin becomes Freedom
• Biblical teaching becomes Imprisonment
• God does not exist
• Man is God
• God does not save
• Man is the source of salvation

Is it any wonder, then, that today's progressives seek to undermine a Constitution that was written to acknowledge the existence of God, the benevolence of God, the need for God, and the freedom God gives to all mankind? These men possessed an avowed outspoken hatred of Judaism and Christianity. Should it be any surprise, then, that their intellectual descendents, today's "progressives," make it a point to decry, condemn, and even legislate away every speck of evidence of the Judeo-Christian heritage of America?

Ironically, Marx's friend and fellow converted Jew, Heinreich Heine, was not too blinded by the atheistic milieu he was in to foresee the problematic, even fatal results of Germany's theological and intellectual denial of the God of the Bible when he wrote the History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany in 1834:

"The natural philosopher will be terrible, for he has allied himself to the primal forces of nature. He can conjure up the demonic powers of ancient German pantheism...and if ever that restraining talisman, the Cross, is shattered, there shall arise once more...that mindless madman's rage of which the Nordic poets sang so much... I warn you, Frenchmen, keep then quiet still, and for God's sake do not applaud!!"

The thought process began with the idea that the lessons of the Bible were "irrelevant to the great issues of the day." How many Americans live a Twice-A-Year religion, no faith required? How many of us believe and are teaching our children to believe that the Bible is a dusty old book that sits on a shelf?

If we do not learn from history we are doomed to repeat it. What began with a loss of faith in God and scripture ended in Holocaust for Europe.

How will it end in America?

Only we have the free will to find out.