When the UK announced that it would boycott Jewish communities in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband went on television to make sure everyone knew he was directing this prima facie discriminatory policy “as a British Jew”.
As Ben M. Freeman points out in the article linked above, this has happened many times historically.
What strikes me from the perspective of someone born and raised in the United States is that unlike during the darkest times of the past, American Jews using their Jewishness as a shield to harm Jews and Israel are not acting against their own people out of fear, at least not yet.
Bernie Sanders, Peter Beinart, Brad Lander, Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street and so on are harming the Jewish state, and by extension putting their own neighbors and communities at risk, not for survival, but rather for political and/or financial gain.
The same can easily be said of the British Foreign Secretary; this is not someone acting out of desperation to save his family.
Sadly, their actions may lead us to a point where Jews are forced to once again make awful choices out of fear of survival.
Ironically, they are all making the best possible case for why Israel is so desperately needed for Jewish continuity. And they’re doing so in a way that only makes their ignorance, or hostility, of their own heritage clear.
Jewishness simply cannot be separated from the longing for Zion. This is why saying “I am anti-Zionist but not anti-Jewish (or antisemitic)” makes no sense.
This is not something you need to be a Talmudic scholar to understand. It’s something you’d know from reading the CliffsNotes version of the Bible or even a small portion of a single Jewish prayer book. “Next Year in Jerusalem” is not a newfangled modern Zionist notion. It is the essence of Jewish peoplehood, and has been for thousands of years.
The land of Israel is far more inseparable from Jewish life than shmaltz, brisket or gefilte fish or whatever some people prefer to believe indicates belonging to the Jewish people.
When it comes to actions and rhetoric that harms Israel and the Jewish people, it doesn’t matter if the perpetrator is a Jew, Christian, Muslim or anything else.
Every action that harms the Jewish people should be called out, condemned, and if possible, stopped even when taken by a Jew. Given the cover many seek by invoking their Jewishness, maybe especially when a Jew takes these kinds of actions.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
