Leonid Goldin | Choose life

Аналитика 24.12.2024

I have given you a choice between life and death, a blessing and a curse.
Choose life – so that you and your children after you may live.
Deuteronomy 30, 19.

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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Winter and the election of President Trump have cooled somewhat the outward manifestations of the anti-Semitic bacchanalia in America. There are no pro-Palestinian demonstrations of thousands with slogans of colonization and genocide, and protests at universities have subsided. But hatred and hostility toward Jews have not abated. Religious Jews remain the most frequent victims of anti-Semitic attacks, Jewish activists receive death threats, and aggressive counter-protests and provocations accompany events of Jewish organizations.

While in America with the election of Trump, there is hope for decisive measures to combat anti-Semitism, in Europe and many other parts of the world the situation is only getting worse. Culture, sports, and scientific exchange have always been seen as effective measures to promote peace, friendship, and cooperation. But the attitude towards Israel is different: sanctions, boycotts, hostile demonstrations.

During the tour of Israeli athletes in Holland, Denmark, France, and other countries, Islamic extremists organized a genuine pogrom, the victims of which were also Jews who had no idea about sports competitions. The authorities and police were unable to prevent the attacks and robbery, and moreover, the rioters found defenders in politics and the media.

The mayor of Amsterdam Femke Halsema called the events by their real name – pogrom, but immediately publicly regretted what she had said and tried to reduce everything to ordinary conflicts between sports fans. Instead of legislative measures, there was a degenerate discussion of what should be considered a pogrom. After the collapse of the USSR, there were many immigrant Jews in Europe who could convincingly answer this question, but no one asked them. One can also recall Kristallnacht and the events that followed, but today the concept of the Holocaust is being used to justify Palestinian terrorists.

International organizations are whipping up anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic hysteria, accusing Israel of crimes against humanity, genocide, and demanding sanctions and arrest of the country’s leaders, trying to preserve the terrorist regime and change the places of victim and perpetrator. Over the last decade, more than a million people have been killed in Muslim strife, more than 500,000 in Syria alone, and more than 30 million have become refugees, colossal destruction and economic losses, but the UN has passed more condemning resolutions against Israel than all other countries combined.

The situation of US Jews is not as dangerous as in Europe, so far avoiding the worst scenario that would have followed if Harris had been elected. But Jews, two percent of the population, account for more hate crimes than all others combined. Church doors are permanently open, free access, and synagogues have entrance controls and posted security. Recently, FBI agents showed up at the home of Zionist Organization of America President Mort Klein and warned him and his family that Iranian agents had obtained their personal information and were preparing hostile actions. Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, head of the World Values Network, a pro-Israel organization, has received constant death threats against him and his family.

Any politician, prominent journalist, or professor who supports Israel, and demands the curbing of anti-Semites, is targeted. It is a sad irony of Jewish fate that even those who make accusations against Israel and try to disassociate themselves from their history, culture, and traditions are not immune to threats and attacks.

There is a Hasidic group that opposes the existence of Israel – they believe that the Jewish state should be recreated only after the coming of Moshiach. There are active anti-Israel organizations like J Street, American Jews for Peace Now, Partnership for Progressive Israel, and politicians like Bernie Sanders who demand a ban on arms sales to Israel, accusing it of human rights violations and war crimes. In essence, this position differs little from the attitudes of many members of Reform synagogues. J Street has over 400 Reform rabbis, 110 Reconstructionists, and 73 Conservatives, but no Orthodox.

Trying to please their haters is of little help – few of them are interested in the private beliefs of Jews. To the dormant anti-Semite, every Jew is an object of hatred and hostility. To the anti-Semitic intellectual, a Jew who criticizes Israel is a useful idiot.

Today there is no real program of action, no common understanding of interests and goals, and this is not only true for Jews. The current picture of the world is defined by polarization and division instead of the global solidarity on which so much hope was pinned until recently. The collapse of utopias has advantages: there is no room for magical thinking, illusions, infantile hopes, and empty promises, and consciousness is sobered.

Since the destruction of the Temple, the Jews have repeated the incantation to unite, to fight back together against their enemies. But disunity has been, is, and will continue, and not only in the Diaspora; existential threat does not help Israel achieve internal unity. The question of Jewish identity, the meaning and purpose of Jewish existence remains a subject of irreconcilable strife. It would be good to understand and find an answer to who we are – the original victims of all time, or privileged pioneers in all the trials of humanity, on whose achievements and mistakes the consciousness of all peoples should learn and develop and build their existence.

Jewish organizations and leaders, cult celebrities, religious and atheists, consider their primary task to be the salvation of the world, and the improvement of humanity. But to cope with this task, or at least to try to influence the course of events, one must first ensure one’s survival. This issue has been resolved in Europe, not in favor of the Jews. Israel has been struggling for existential survival for its entire history. In America, the golden age of Jewish life is ending due to the new demographics in the country, low Jewish birth rates, and mixed marriages, Jews are losing ground in politics, culture, education, and media; even where their presence persists, they are in liberal positions and the “Jewish question” is not their priority. Years of prosperity have sown memory atrophy, unfulfilled expectations, and oblivion of history and destiny. Will the new life awaken the will and consciousness?

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In the run-up to Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year’s Eve, New York City officials prudently banned politicized public events, but the World Values Network attempted to hold an indoor rally in Times Square in support of Israel and for the release of the hostages. The rally and the discussion “Will Israel last for the next hundred years” had to be canceled due to an insufficient number of registered participants. Although the rally was organized in Miami, where the weather and public atmosphere are more favorable.

The press calls Shmuley Boteach, head of the World Values Network, “America’s Rabbi.” There is no such title officially, and there were many objections among rabbis of different denominations, but for many years, the name Shmuley has been firmly associated with notions of his national fame and sometimes scandalous popularity. He is constantly on television and radio and is a spiritual mentor to many politicians and celebrities, such as Michael Jackson.

Shmuley is orthodox, a Lubavitcher Hasid, a Republican, an active supporter of Trump, and an uncompromising defender of Israel, he does not share the utopian illusions of liberal Jews to appease anti-Semites and is always ready to accept the challenge to a public fight, which sometimes ends up in serious litigation and financial costs for him. Shmuley got into a televised debate with Candace Ovens, a young African-American woman, a media celebrity recognized as “anti-Semite of the year,” promising to defeat her; who won is up for questioning. Yet the certain result is that Candace is embroiled in a high-profile lawsuit; Shmuley is collecting subsidies for lawyers and personal security. Ilhan Omar, a famous Anti-semite in Congress sued Shmuley for 150,000 dollars for using her picture for his advertisement in the Washington Post.

In his youth, as an emissary of the Lubavitcher Rebbe at Oxford University in England, he created a unique pro-Israel organization in which students from different countries, most of them non-Jews, actively cooperated; frequent guests were country leaders and world figures of science, culture, and sports.

Shmuley is a brilliant orator with great erudition, with the passion and conviction of a biblical prophet, his knowledge is by no means limited to the orthodox canon, his connections around the world with friends and enemies have no limits. A debate with an opponent is definitely more interesting to him than a comfortable conversation in a circle of like-minded people and admirers. Presenting his radio appearances, it has been said that he has terrorists on “speed-dialing”. He never misses an opportunity when disagreeing to arrange a tough polemic even with those that are close to him in beliefs, as with the Zionist Organization of America, Professor Alan Dershowitz, and the leadership of Chabad.

When the movie based on Philip Roth’s novel “The Plot Against America” was released, in which one of the main characters is a Rabbi who helps a fascist dictator win the election, there were reviewers who claimed that the prototype was Shmuley, a Trump supporter. Shmuley protested, demanding an apology; it would probably have been wise to ignore it, but that’s not in the habits of a relentless polemicist. Shmuley’s battleground is vast and only growing.

He does not ignore the most difficult issues for religious understanding: millennials of persecution, the Holocaust, the causes of evil and injustice, and the realities of human nature and social relations, to which his books “The Holocaust – Genocide of Memory” and “Fed Up with Faith – Challenging God in the Face of Suffering and Tragedy” are devoted. He regularly places full-page manifesto ads in leading publications in defense of Israel and against anti-Semitism.

Shmuley is not only preoccupied with politics. Among his 36 books, almost half are about domestic and family relationships. These include the bestsellers “Kosher Sex,” “Kosher Adultery,” “The Kosher Sutra,” “Kosher Lust,” and many others on the subject. And not just theory, Shmuley gives practical advice to spouses that may bewilder a person with ascetic ideas about the bodily and emotional nature of human beings. Passion is essential to a strong and happy marriage; he goes further than American sex guru Dr. Ruth in expanding sexual freedoms but within the boundaries of the marital relationship. Shmuley has a beautiful, elegant, educated wife, and nine children, the sons served in the Israeli army, two of whom are currently in combat.

Shmuley strives to maximize the involvement of non-Jews who express understanding and support for Israel, and who oppose anti-Semitism. Sometimes among them are scandalous celebrities, people of completely unconventional interests and orientations, whose presence is shocking not only to the hard-core orthodox. He does not try to reeducate homosexuals, his advice is, “There are 313 commandments in the Torah, follow the other 312.” Obviously, this is not a matter of theological debate, Israel and Jews have so few supporters today that there is no need to neglect anyone expressing support.

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Shmuley is a lone warrior, not in officiousness, but he has proven how much can be accomplished by the will and effort of even one man. It is hard to imagine him in unity with the Jewish mainstream. It’s hard to imagine the mainstream in unity, too. But overloading is inevitable. Young people raised by liberal education and culture will move further and further away from Judaism and the Jewish way of being. But some Jews, Reform and secular, will still realize where their liberal policies and ideology, their hopes for enlightenment and charity, are leading them.  At the same time, the orthodox will inevitably be increasingly exposed to the influences and demands of the secular world, of their environment. Both in the Diaspora and in Israel, the polarization and diversity of the world will not disappear. We will have to live with it, as we have in all Jewish history.

Predictions, prophecies, and speculations about the fate of the world today are not to be believed. The fate of the world after the fall of the socialist system, the collapse of the global liberal-democratic doctrine, pan-Islamic extremism, the place and role of America in the new world, the change of the political climate in Europe—the list of false hopes and predictions can go on for a long time.

The newest fears and hopes of salvation are connected with artificial intelligence – perhaps, without bias and with objective information, it will settle everything, and educate the misguided humanity. The Israeli newspaper “Maariv”, having exhausted the list of unconvincing authorities, turned to AI with a question: “How do you imagine Israel in “2048?”. Here’s the answer: “Based on current trends, Israel will remain a leading country in technology, with a diverse population and ongoing political challenges.” It turns out that not only politicians and pundits but also supercomputers can offer mundane platitudes.

Jewish history and national character have always included both hard rationalism and magical thinking. Ben-Gurion said, “In Israel, to be a realist, you have to believe in miracles.” Magical thinking with a realistic understanding of human nature and the picture of the world helps us to live and survive. But the magical thinking of liberals leads them to extinction.