A Look at the Jerusalem Day Parades + One Sane Parade (Column 566)
Dedicated to my dear wife, Daphna,
who warned about similar phenomena in Lod.
Well, no choice since Jerusalem Day is about to pass. So here’s another short and dense current-affairs column.
Today I heard a radio interview with my childhood friend, Yehudit Oppenheimer, CEO of the left-wing NGO 'Ir Amim'. Yehudit is a graduate of the Kfar Pines Ulpana and was a counselor with me in the Bnei Akiva branch we established in Karkur. I haven’t been in touch with her for many years, and from the interview I gathered that she has since moved away from those worldviews. She spoke there about the Flag Parade/Dance, describing it as an ongoing, repulsive fascist event. In similar cases I would have dismissed such statements out of hand and chalked them up to a typical left-wing sensitivity, but upon hearing her words this time I actually didn’t think so, for reasons I’ll detail shortly.
Three Traumas
In the wake of her remarks, I recalled a trauma I myself experienced at such a flag dance. At the same time, I also remembered other traumatic events I’ve experienced over the course of my not-so-short life, and altogether I recalled three.
The first was on a clear night in the middle of the rollicking 1970s, when I was still a high school student (at the Midrashiya). We joined a very long convoy of cars on the way to settle in Nabi Salah (later, Neve Tzuf). Leading us was none other than the legendary Meir Har-Zion with a few of his friends from the Jordan Valley, and they led a convoy of hundreds of civilian cars at night along dirt roads in the hills without lights, while the police and the army filled the area with checkpoints. Unbelievable, but just like in legends we managed to move without lights for many kilometers along dirt paths on barren rocky hills, until we came upon a military checkpoint manned by a few immigrant recruits with their squad commander. The moment it became clear they didn’t intend to let us pass, Meir Har-Zion and his comrades didn’t hesitate for a second, simply got out of the vehicle, pushed them aside, and moved all of us through the checkpoint. As a kid this left an indelible traumatic mark on me—how could we do this to our own soldiers. Years later I thought maybe it wasn’t quite that awful, but from my perspective back then it certainly left a trauma I remember well to this day.
The second event was a few years later, when I was a student at Yeshivat Har Etzion. On the movement’s annual Shabbat Irgun that year, I was sent to proudly serve as the national Bnei Akiva leadership’s emissary in Moshav Avivim on the Lebanese border (not many years after the massacre of its children). That Shabbat will never leave my memory. I encountered staggering backwardness the likes of which I had never known and would not have believed could be found in the Holy Land in the twentieth century. It was a truly dispiriting Shabbat, where it was impossible to speak with anyone except a few children, while outside the moshav’s youths—army veterans with high-schoolers—systematically smashed the branch’s windows. I heard shocking stories about the day-to-day conduct toward the National Service volunteers there, by parents and students, and I was truly horrified. Again, I was very young and not very familiar with worlds other than my own (though over the years I was active in various communities and towns such as Or Akiva, Karkur, and more), and perhaps the trauma was exaggerated (though I suspect not by much).
The third event was when I was already an adult, so I don’t think that trauma was due to my youth. At that time I proudly served as a ram (rabbinic lecturer) at the Hesder Yeshiva in Yeruham (about twenty-five years ago), and I traveled with students and faculty of the Yeruham yeshiva to the flag parade on Jerusalem Day. As a child I participated in the dances that set out from Merkaz HaRav to the Western Wall throughout the night, and I remember that as a rather tiring event but not very harmful—lighthearted, playful nationalism to gladden the hearts of youth. In contrast, the flag parade I’m talking about was truly shocking. A horrifying fascist event, where the air was charged with fascist tension. The flags served there to demonstrate violent sovereignty; the singing and the atmosphere left no room for interpretations. Since then I haven’t been to these events again, and likely will not be. But the testimonies I hear speak of an escalation of the rampant ultra-nationalism there, and in light of my experiences above I can quite believe it.
I don’t think I’m especially sensitive. I’m also not a leftist, and at the time I was even less so than today. I have no problem with the occupation (though I’m willing to compromise on it if there’s a security benefit). I’m entirely in favor of using great force when necessary against rioting Arabs and terrorists, and I’m outraged by the indulgence and tolerance of the government and the army toward the actions of Israeli Arabs and of course also Palestinians from outside (Gaza and Judea & Samaria). But regardless of all that, and certainly not due to left-wing sensitivity, I can say it was simply a horrific experience. I couldn’t help recalling stories about nationalist parades elsewhere that I won’t mention so as not to anger my readers further (to be honest, even back then I noticed certain trends—like Yair Golan). I’ve written here in the past that I have similar feelings when I see an Israeli flag in a synagogue, especially when dancing with it there in ecstasy. This ultra-nationalism that sanctifies mundane matters and injects religious ecstasies into them repels and worries me greatly.
Back to Yehudit Oppenheimer’s words. She described chants of “May your village burn,” “Muhammad is dead,” and other poetic gems, all of it done over the heads of Arabs in the neighborhoods where they live (in the Muslim Quarter) with Israeli flags waved to poke out their eyes, along with harassment and damage to shops and shoppers—things that led the police in later years to ban opening stores and to bar Arabs from entering the “dance” areas. Again, had I not had that experience myself I’d have dismissed this description as left-wing exaggeration. But in light of the above, I don’t think that’s the case.
What’s wrong with it?
You might say: What’s wrong with it? People are expressing their national pride, and if the Arabs are hurt by it, they can lump it. They want to destroy us and aren’t loyal to the state, so why should I be sensitive toward them. Turning the other cheek is Christian policy. We have a different tradition.
I already told you I’m not a leftist. I fully agree with this description of the Arabs. I don’t accept the claims made in the name of political correctness that most Arabs want peace, aren’t terrorists, and are just seeking quiet lives. And certainly not the claims that their actions are done because of us and our fault. In my view the claims that most want good lives and aren’t terrorists are factually correct but irrelevant. As a collective they do want to destroy us. As a collective, most of them are hostile to the state and its Jewish citizens. As I understand it, their (so-called) national identity is built mainly on that desire to destroy us. Beyond that they don’t have many additional shared features, and it’s no wonder that this identity was forged mainly after we arrived here and posed for them this unifying challenge (to destroy us). If so, it’s easy to understand the impulse to demonstrate before them our national pride and our (non-existent) conquest and sovereignty in Jerusalem. Moreover, I think these demonstrations are directed at the Arabs but aimed primarily inward, as a protest against the lack of Israeli sovereignty and governance in Jerusalem.
If it were a demonstration that explicitly bore those matters on its banner, I’d keep quiet. But those are deep motives. On the surface, this parade is a repulsive outburst of ultra-nationalism. My problem is not only the harm to Arabs (which to me is tactically wrong and humanly repugnant), but what it does to—and expresses about—our own souls. An ultra-nationalist frenzy is ugly herd behavior, regardless of whether and whom it harms. I’m not willing to belong to a rampaging herd, not even for the sake of creating identity and confidence in the rightness of our path. That is a human abyss I’m unwilling to descend into. The rampaging in other fascist parades was deplorable not only because of its outcomes. It was itself vile and bestial. When you see a mob running wild, especially around nationalist ideas, you meet the lowest strata of ourselves as human beings. Therefore, irrespective of what might come of it and whom it harms, it’s a problematic event one should not participate in or identify with.
Outbreaks in the style of La Familia—even if one can understand where they come from and what they express—are concentrated, unadulterated brutishness. Therefore, even if one sympathizes with the frustration that leads to them, it’s not right to lend them a hand. Yehudit described rabbis and educators marching with their students and none of them rebuking the ugly songs and the fascist rampage. This isn’t unique to the hardal public, though it has a very troubling influence in religious-education institutions. Joining that stream are also students and educators who aren’t hardal. Ultra-nationalism is a chronic illness in the religious-Zionist world; its origins may be pure and its aim laudable, but its manifestations are ugly and bestial. The frustration of lacking sovereignty for thousands of years, the abuse we absorbed from the gentiles, the ceaseless harassment by the Arabs, etc., may provide a psychological explanation for the phenomenon—but certainly not a justification.
The line between repulsive, bestial ultra-nationalism and a more delicate national pride is very thin. Unfortunately, because of the difficulty in making that distinction, every statement like mine here is labeled as leftism and anti-Zionism, and that’s precisely what has caused this parade to become a parade of the religious-Zionist sector while the rest of the public keeps away. On the religious right they’re willing to swallow this rampaging ultra-nationalism in order to achieve national pride and a Zionist identity, and on the left (mainly secular) they’re unwilling to adopt even national pride and the proper attitude toward rioters and Arabs, so as to avoid the opposite sin and arrive at ultra-nationalism. What’s sorely lacking is the sane pole between these two extremes—one that is prepared to cultivate national pride and decisive actions to realize governance and sovereignty, but not repulsive, ugly ultra-nationalist demonstrations in the style of the Flag Parade.
Broadening the issue
This phenomenon forms the backdrop to what has been unfolding before our eyes in recent months, where the desire to produce a right-religious-national government is bringing that side to an unjustified, unrestrained rampage on all fronts. The entire religious and rabbinic leadership is prepared to swallow all the frogs—like a corrupt prime minister and ministers, unrestrained budget transfers for harmful purposes, heavy-handed, unjustified legislation—all in the name of the lofty goals of tradition, Judaism (so-called), right-wing policies, and security, etc. (most of which, of course, are not achieved). Thus is created a desecration of God’s name on a level unseen since the creation of the world. Today, in the eyes of the world, religious Judaism is synonymous with racism, corruption, and brute force. Note that this encompasses all shades of institutional religiosity: Haredim and religious-Zionists, Lithuanians, Hasidim, and Sephardim. All these are willing for Judaism to become a byword for corruption and brute force and every moral evil—and with ample justification.
Opposite stands the other pole (called here “the left,” wrongfully), which, in order to oppose the brutish, unrestrained conduct of the coalition, also opposes Judaism and tradition (everything is “religionization,” and every government action is a disaster). They’re trying to reclaim the Israeli flag because they understand that until now they’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater, and that’s already a good start toward sane conduct. But in the meantime, in most cases, again and again both sides compromise with highly problematic behaviors just to avoid complexity.
But life isn’t a guava. It is complex. One can uphold the value of nationalism without ultra-nationalism. And conversely, one can oppose religious coercion without opposing Judaism and without viewing every legitimate step as coercion, “religionization,” and exclusion (I’m already tired of hearing the empty, demagogic sermons that again and again debase these concepts). In the previous column I noted that almost every issue in our lives is complex, and we must accustom ourselves to treat it that way. One can hold any well-reasoned position without enslaving all arguments and discussions to the coveted end goal. It is possible to act rationally and still hold to what we deem the correct bottom line.
The Sane Parade
Yoaz Hendel spoke in that program before Yehudit Oppenheimer. In my terms, one could say that in his remarks he pointed out that Jerusalem Day itself suffers from the polarization I’ve described here. He focused on the religious layer, and I’m adding here the ultra-nationalist layer (I assume he agrees with this too, but isn’t comfortable saying so openly). Those who participate in today’s Flag Parade are only those who belong to the rampaging ultra-nationalist and religious pole. Others keep away from Jerusalem and its parades, since they have acquired a very problematic tinge. Thus needless polarization has formed around a subject that could have been consensual.
To his credit I must say that Yoaz Hendel has quite a few initiatives in these praiseworthy, sane directions: he founded a right-wing organization that monitors the moral conduct of IDF soldiers at checkpoints; he organized demonstrations from the right against the extreme reform but in favor of a reasonable reform; and more. Truly a positive person who acts in the right directions and against the foolish dichotomies that have arisen here, apparently at the encouragement of interested parties (as if morality or opposition to the reform belong to leftists and secular people). Kudos to him.
For our purposes, Hendel announced that he is organizing a Jerusalem Day parade like in the distant past (see a report here). It’s not necessarily a religious event, without separation between men and women, and I would add what he didn’t say: that it’s meant to be an event where even people who don’t feel comfortable with the ultra-nationalist rampage but do feel comfortable with national pride and a connection to Jerusalem will also feel at home. An event whose focus won’t be rampage, harassment, and poking everyone’s eyes, but expressing joy over the city’s liberation. It sets out this evening from the Liberty Bell Park parking lot at 17:45.
Full disclosure: I don’t think I’ll participate in this parade, since ceremonies—especially national ones—don’t do it for me. It seems like a kids’ thing, and I don’t like anything that smells of herd behavior (nationalism somehow usually smells like that). I also don’t like the pathos of ceremonies and the grand speeches about Jerusalem—“we will never forget,” “and forever it will never be divided,” etc. etc. But I have nothing against it in principle. Whoever this speaks to (nobody’s perfect)—certainly those weighing joining the foolish parade of ultra-nationalist rampage—are invited to join Yoaz Hendel. My hand, too, will be with him. From afar…
Discussion
In my opinion, life really is guava
Wow!
I agree with every word.
Almost—one cannot explain bestial behavior by a two-thousand-year history.
Those who act like brutes do so in their own name—not in the name of Israel.
I’ve been to the event many times; I did not see what you are describing, and even if the phenomenon exists, it is on the margins, and not broad ones. The La Familia organization that Rabbi Michi is talking about is not connected to the event at all; at most they tag along with it…
Dear Rabbi Michi,
Forgive me if my comment strays from the discussion.
Because I find it completely connected to it.
Like you, I too am not a man of the left, and I have no particular fondness for people who would be happy to turn me into meat patties.
But if we are talking about nationalism and its combination with religion—your text, in my humble opinion, like that of many other learned Torah scholars, is a bit naive. What do I mean when I say naive?
After all, more than once you have written about the need for modern Orthodoxy—for a kind of lean Judaism—or, in more precise words, about combining religious intuition with common sense, and not once or twice have you also testified that most of our public, both religious and secular, is not there, but rather in other realms: either religious fundamentalism
or religious apologetics (of the Benjamin Lau sort and the like). And just as the attitude toward secular studies, consumption of general culture, faith in sages, rejection of various babas and magical thinking—is quite fundamentalist in the broader public, so too is the attitude toward nationalism.
For let us ask ourselves: from what sources can an average Israeli, God-fearing Jew draw his attitude toward different cultures? “Truth among the nations, stability among almost no one has ever heard of.”
As an adolescent for whom the atmosphere of nationalism seemed exaggerated, and who then thought as a God-fearing person that he must hold by the opinion of the sages—I tried then, in great despair, to rummage through all religious Jewish literature and find in it even a shred of a bridge that would allow me to look at the surrounding world in a somewhat more balanced way—
I found no such source.
The apologetics of Benny Lau did not convince me. And so too Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, Rabbi Soloveitchik, and Rabbi Amital of blessed memory, who came from abroad and from a more Lithuanian world—I felt that with all their greatness and the intellectual and Torah integrity they possessed, when it came to the subject of attitudes toward other cultures and toward nationalism, they brought half a sentence from their hearts and did not complete it.
So I went to the sources:
Among the Rishonim I did not find any possibility of seeing the non-Jewish world through their eyes in a more balanced way. Here and there one could see them, with extraordinary intellectual honesty, mentioning and standing behind the Mishnah’s dictum, “If someone tells you there is wisdom among the nations, believe it”—praising this or that gentile for his contribution to mathematics, medicine, and science. But they do not move even a millimeter from the general line: the people of Israel are the main thing, and those attached to them, namely righteous converts, also merit praise. But all the other surrounding cultures? Impurity, wickedness, and utter deceit. “Their flesh is the flesh of donkeys.” And even their hope for peace comes not, God forbid, through rapprochement between Esau and Jacob, but through the Messiah King imposing his rule—according to the pattern of “the female shall encompass the male”; just as now the Jews are under the yoke of the gentile, in the future the gentile will serve, and “strangers shall stand and feed your flocks,” woodcutters and water-drawers for the son of Israel—male and female slaves, woodcutters and water-drawers—that is the full potential and ideal that the sages of blessed memory saw in human cultures throughout history.
As for Hasidism and Kabbalah, there is nothing to discuss at all—there even a wise doctor, philosopher, or mathematician is mentioned only together with the words “may his name and memory be erased.” And even the righteous among the nations and righteous converts are souls from a despicable and filthy source, and heaven forfend that a Jew forget where they come from. That is to say: heaven forbid showing a righteous convert or resident alien any particular personal affection beyond what Scripture decrees.
So the average Haredi, even though he clings to the idea that the people of Israel are not like all other nations and that “our nation is a nation only by virtue of its Torah,” will certainly arrive at extreme nationalism, even if he does not call it nationalism, and even if he does not connect it to the doctrine of the Greater Land of Israel. And not necessarily because he sees his secular or religious Jewish brothers as equal to him, or with the potential to become equal to him—but because all other people are, in his eyes, disgusting like rats or revolting cockroaches.
Rabbi Kook and his son, may the memory of the righteous be blessed, were not clear on this subject and left their public writings that can be taken in either direction. (Or perhaps, as the older veteran students of those rabbis try to say, they tried to impart to their students the possibility of being both nationalistic in all 248 limbs and also noble of spirit and lovers of the ordinary human being as such—whether of the covenant or not—but of course the broader public absorbed, and with perfectly sound logic, only the dominant part of what they taught.)
I will ask you simply: do you really think there is reason to expect—and perhaps even a right to expect—from a public that lives only among Jews, and for whom those who are not of the covenant are mostly enemies—and in light of the sources—to be non-nationalistic? And on the other hand not to be dragged into shallow leftism?
Perhaps in old age
“Those who participate in the Flag March today are only those who belong to the rampaging nationalist and religious pole.”
Such an offensive claim requires grounding and evidence beyond your one-time visit to the Flag March decades ago and a quotation from Judith Oppenheimer and co.
From my experience and in my humble opinion (and my evidence is not much better than yours), this is a crude generalization that does not represent most participants.
It definitely could be. For now I have no conclusions regarding my worldview. To my shame, I tend to draw conclusions from arguments, reasons, and facts.
Yes, one can expect it. Among other things, I am trying to act in those directions, and that is why I write these things.
Indeed, accepted. The wording of that sentence is exaggerated. That is the spirit that blows there, but it is not true that all the participants are like that.
I take part in the march every year and must protest the defamation here. An overwhelming majority of the groups sing beautiful and good songs and of course rejoice over the liberation of the city. It’s a shame that you latch onto videos uploaded online that blacken the name of so many good people
You’re trying so hard to say that you’re not a leftist, but I have to say that quite a few of those who vote for left-wing parties completely agree with everything you wrote here.
Most think we need to fight the Arabs.
The main motive for achieving peace is our own interest, not the occupation.
Etc., etc.
The division between right and left is no longer relevant; rather, the real division is between fanatics and liberals.
Agreed, the majority are not at all violent; there are certain days of the year on which people overdo certain things, so perhaps the heart swells over its banks a bit too much—and so what? There are bigger troubles. Also, rabbis in fact warn against provocative and bestial marchers; here is Rabbi Aviner from a few days ago https://www.srugim.co.il/792709-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A2%D7%93-%D7%93%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%A2%D7%93-%D7%9E%D7%92%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%90
A response to our master by Rabbi Yehoshua Inbal (whose wife passed away today in the prime of her life (46), may it not befall us… ) May God heal their pain and comfort them.
The response is to the second volume of the trilogy:
https://rationalbelief.org.il/%d7%94%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a0%d7%9ם-%d7%90%d7%99%d7%91%d7%93%d7%a0%d7%95-%d7%a9%d7%9c%d7%99%d7%98%d7%94-%d7%a2%d7%9c-%d7%94%d7%a8%d7%95%d7%97/
Yehoshua Inbal VS Michi Abraham
Apologetics in the mirror
What has straw to do with grain?
That is exactly the point, and I’m glad you understood it; only your logic has a problem. The fact that leftists agree with my words does not mean these are leftist statements. I assume they also agree that 2 plus 3 equals 5, that Biden is the president of the United States, and that murder and theft are forbidden. The claims here are not connected to the left in any way.
Beyond that, I detect a serious reading-comprehension problem here (probably out of anger). I did not write that there is a problem with the occupation. On the contrary, I wrote that I have no problem with the occupation. I did not write that there is no need to fight the Arabs, but the opposite. But apparently what I wrote is unrelated to what you read. A person reads from the thoughts of his own heart.
As for your final remark, I completely agree. It is just unclear to me how that squares with everything before it.
What self-righteousness. The violent and beastly herd I saw were דווקא the protesters from the left, who also lack the self-awareness to realize it. Personally, I have no complaints against the government regarding all the things described here because I simply no longer care. People under the dictatorial rule of wild, stupid, empty people—namely the leftist state officials and the left that works to preserve this situation. There is no gentleness or humanity in the left, just as the Germans had none in the Holocaust. As far as the left is concerned, we do not exist at all. We are not human beings to them, so there is not exactly any desecration of God’s name here. And even the concept of desecration of God’s name in the eyes of the gentiles no longer has any value, because they themselves are inhuman savages—the East in practice, and the West in its hypocrisy and under the cover of a suit, tie, and elegant shoes. Last time this erupted in the Jew-hatred of the Holocaust, when specifically the most cultured nation behaved with the greatest inhumanity, and in practice nothing has changed to this day. If people engage in affirmative action for their enemies at the expense of their brothers, I don’t care if that money gets plundered for sectoral needs.
The problem is that you have friends on the left, to whom you think—as a classic religious-Zionist with inferiority feelings—that you need to provide explanations. I too have such shallow relatives (older ones, uncles and aunts) who, when they are guests in my home, of course are incapable of keeping their mouths shut even for an hour, and if they raise these issues I simply do not respond to what they say (which is part of the left’s industry of lies and consciousness engineering) and instead give them an icy stare until they fall silent in embarrassment and lower their heads. It works excellently; over time they have learned to respect me, and today they even look at me with a bit of awe. I have no desire or need to give them an explanation about anything at all. It is time for the right to learn to respect itself and be independent. In any case, on the left everything is fashions without content. One simply should not relate to it. Your accusations here are like accusations against a Jew who cheats the nobleman and the gentiles, when they themselves are savages and inwardly think Jews have neither a right to life nor a right to property. I don’t care what the gentiles (and those who resemble them) think, because they do not think. They are instincts walking on two legs.
No. This is a division of perhaps fanatics on one side—the right—and fanatics of another religion on the other—the left (and those who curry favor with them). There is nothing liberal about the left. It has a religion of its own, even stupider, and its believers are the most devout in the world in their religion.
By the way, I also do not like ceremonies and parades of all kinds, nor rampaging (though these are teenagers and one cannot really blame them; that is the nature of youth). But I am glad there is someone doing this work that needs to be done. And I certainly would not look down on him. That is rather treacherous, one might say. When I was younger, I was horrified by this kind of violence toward Arabs (I was a sensitive kind of boy in that sense, though never a leftist, heaven forbid), but when I matured and understood human nature and the soul, I understood that the Arabs are a thousand times more violent. Every one of them—in relation to Jews—is a bomb waiting at some point to explode. And not for nothing are there all the stories of Arabs who worked for Jews and were their partners and like brothers and friends, and in the end murdered them. My grandfather worked with many Arabs who loved and respected him, and he told me (quite calmly) that the attitude toward them should be “respect him and suspect him.” One must never turn one’s back. And regarding the damage to the soul—as stated, these are teenagers and they will grow up.
For your information, ever since they invented the link, you can paste a link instead of writing it all over again
What link (and what is that? “Link” means “kישור”)? You can’t edit the comments here.
You are completely right: Jerusalem Day has become an expression of repellent religious nationalism that wants to celebrate Jewish supremacy. The secular public has pushed this day out of its calendar because it is too Jewish and demanding, and it also symbolizes a challenge that has become a political entanglement and the beginning of all the problems we face today with the Arab society in our land. I happened to be there last year after almost 30 years of not participating, and what I saw with my daughter was Ben Gvir and his friends running after two Arabs in the street with hatred in their eyes. After Ben Gvir showed up to stake ownership over this holiday, I understood that I do not belong to it at all. This holiday will soon disappear—not because it is unimportant in the history of the Jewish people, but as you said, because the State of Israel has already despaired of this day and handed it over to the extremists. In my opinion, this symbolizes a kind of betrayal by the government toward the settlers, who express their anger toward a secular Zionist body that is betraying its identity.
Instead of writing the same messages for the hundredth time
I guessed that might be what you meant. In any case, Rabbi Michi also repeats himself a lot, and that is fine. Just as a solid object looks different from different angles and each angle contributes more to the mental picture of it in one’s mind, so too with abstract things. They have different perspectives from different directions. Every subject here brings up and illuminates that insight in a different light. In any case, this is not a message. I really do partly know and partly know what I am saying. And in any event, everyone who comments is conveying a message. Don’t strike an objective pose.
I cannot understand you.
How would you feel if I wrote the sentence, “Michi’s family is a family of people who have gone off the religious path”?
?
Then allow me to update you: the percentage of rioters and people behaving immorally is far lower than the percentage of people who have gone off the religious path in your family.
Why are you generalizing and slandering an overwhelming majority of a public that truly came only to celebrate?
I define myself as a fair-minded Zionist (like Lova Eliav in his time) or as a left-wing hawk on security (like Meir Pa'il in his time).
The socio-economic worldview is less important here, but I am an American liberal or a northern-European social democrat. The government has an important role in good services for all, and in regulation, order, and law—but it should preferably refrain from productive functions that the private market handles well.
I am glad about the author’s return to repentance, even if it is partial—it’s a shame there aren’t many like him….
A side remark by the author teaches about a disqualifying attitude among a large minority of Jews in Israel.
In a broad survey regarding government decisions since the establishment of the state, 13% defined the decision to enter Oslo as excellent, and another 20% defined it as good….. despite the poisonous propaganda that broad circles of the right sow against it.
The blood of so many innocent Jews has been spilled in abundance over the past decades.
Jews were slaughtered, burned alive in suicide bombings, and shot and left to bleed to death.
So many people are wounded, mentally and physically disabled, because of countless Arab murderers.
And we have not even mentioned those who were caught and whose plans were thwarted.
And you choose to focus on a few dark-haired (not especially smart) individual Jews who engage in low-level vandalism, and when it is not at all certain that the Arabs did not provoke them first. And on a few thousand who sing stupid songs.
You’re a real bastard, no small one at all.
And I’m a real idiot for cooperating with this clickbait.
I absolutely join in your last sentence. More power to you for your honesty.
Where is the line drawn?
I am a settler who opposes the current regime coup,
and therefore I go out to demonstrations in the cold, in the rain, and in the heat—my daughters and I.
At first I really didn’t know what to do.
On the one hand, I understand the existential danger to the whole nation in what the government was plotting, and still seeks to do.
On the other hand, there were many left-wing elements at the demonstrations.
Thank God, I found the demonstration in Jerusalem opposite the President’s Residence, and so with a drive of almost an hour and a half each way I found my place among religious people and right-wingers who oppose the current regime coup.
True, not everyone there is right-wing and certainly not settlers, but many are, and in any case the atmosphere is good, pleasant, and positive.
So I found the balance, but there was a situation in which, for lack of an alternative, I would have had to compromise and demonstrate with left-wing people,
and that seemed to me the right thing to do if there was no other option.
On the other hand, every year
I took the children to the Flag March, which in my eyes is very, very important.
And since I arrived this year before the official time, I took the children on walks on the rooftops of the Muslim Quarter in the Old City.
I have known the area well for years, I carry a weapon, and it is fascinating to see everything from above.
And then I discovered something interesting:
Enormous police forces are on the rooftops, on a scale the public cannot imagine, dedicated to protecting the celebrants precisely because they are invisible.
But the police from above, from their observation points, can clearly see every person and what he is doing.
Bottom line, I stood there with them and witnessed the great disgrace.
You can clearly see the rampaging, the riots they are trying to start, the doors they are trying by force to break through…
True, not all of them, nor even most of them…
But still many, many too many.
(By the way, I don’t understand the police: everything is sharp and clear to the officers there, and some of it is documented—why don’t they prosecute the rioters?)
Now my question: after seeing the disgusting behavior of a large part of the celebrants/rioters (+ the speeches that were inside the gathering at the Western Wall…), I resolved in my heart that, as much as the children will let me next year, if Jerusalem is not rebuilt with the Temple, I will probably keep away from these shameful scenes.
And why?
Because it is yuck that cannot be borne,
a great disgrace.
On the other hand, when it comes to demonstrations against what the government is plotting, I am less fastidious and more forgiving if there is no choice.
Why?
When do you say it is important to show up and therefore one compromises on content,
and when do the content and the atmosphere determine that it is impossible and one should not come?
Where is the line?
A feeling of the heart?
I am torn…
To Rabbi Michi, hello,
Assuming there really is a certain group at the march that desecrates God’s name—why should the conclusion be to avoid coming?
On the contrary, let us come in droves together, all the large groups that refrain from coming for precisely this reason, and thereby influence things and eradicate the phenomenon!
The more that national pride and the sincere joy of Jerusalem Day (the joy of returning to the holy city, the city where David encamped, after 2000 years of exile!) grow—joy that hurts no one and pokes no one in the eye—the percentages of those who desecrate God’s name will decrease, and the march will appear in a completely different light.
In principle that is correct. If this march speaks to you, then go to it, but do what you can to change its character. Indifference to what happens there is problematic and also causes desecration of God’s name. Beyond that, a certain character has already formed, and it is hard to change it; and when the ability to change is small, there is logic in avoiding participation altogether. Especially when there is an alternative of a sane march (Yoaz Hendel).
Have you drawn any conclusions about your political worldview from the fact that, had you not had that experience, you would have dismissed this description as a “left-wing exaggeration”? Could it be that there are other issues you don’t know well, where the leftists are not exaggerating?