I am a Jew

I am a Jew. Always have been. I never went to Hebrew school. I never got Bar Mitzvahed. But I am a Jew, nevertheless. In fact, being a secular Jew is as much a part of the Jewish tradition as being a devout Jew.

For me being a Jew is not about religion. Religion is a very personal thing. I never have been into organized religion. Never did like the idea of people telling me what to believe or not believe. Never did like rules even if they had been around for a few thousand years.

As I get older I am able to define just what it is about me that is Jewish, for it is ridiculous to say or think that culture makes no difference in the character of a person. More and more I see that there are aspects of Jewish culture that are part of who I am. Recent events have brought this to the fore.

As the armed forces of the State of Israel bombed and machine gunned people in Gaza I felt revolted. As the armed forces of the State of Israel made it impossible for hospitals to treat wounded, as the armed forces of the State of Israel blew apart women and children in the name of retribution, I felt sick to my stomach.

So let me contradict myself and propose a rule. Under no circumstances do you murder women and children. I am really not interested in the reasons. We Jews are smart. We have a history of intellectual discussion. This is rooted in the Talmud itself. Maybe that’s why there are so many Jewish lawyers.

We also have a healing tradition—a tradition of compassion. Maybe that’s why there are so many Jewish doctors.

As Jews we have been subjected to millennia of persecution. Mothers have been killed in front of their children. Jewish children have been gassed, burned, shot and tortured for thousands of years.

As a Jew, I cannot sanction the murder of women and children, no matter what excuse. I cannot support the killing of women and children at any time in any place. How can we?

Where is our morality? Where is our memory? Have the echoes of the machine guns at Baba Yar or Auschwitz faded out so far that we don’t realize that murdering of innocents is unforgivable?

There is a story of an ancient rabbi who sat with his students in an olive grove. He asked his students when we know the difference between dark and light.

One student answered, “When we can tell the difference between a donkey and a camel.”

The rabbi shook his head.

“Light is when we can distinguish the olive trees against the horizon,” another student said.

Again the rabbi shook his head.

The students were getting agitated. “Is it when we can see our hands in front of our face? Is that when we can distinguish light from darkness, rabbi?” asked a third student.

Again the rabbi shook his head.

“Tell us rabbi,” the students chorused. “When can we tell the difference between dark and light?”

The old man pointed to the horizon and then to his hands. “It is neither there nor here,” he said. “Light is when we see ourselves in others. All else is darkness.”

This, to me, is the essence of being a Jew. Even as we are outsiders we can see ourselves in others. Because we have been outsiders we can see ourselves in others and others in ourselves. For me, compassion is the essence of being a Jew. In that sense it is no wonder that Christ comes out of the Jewish tradition.

But governments have nothing to do with compassion. They never have. And armies are made for killing, whether they are Russian or German, Israeli or American. Finally, like that Dylan song, every country thinks they have God on their side. How many thousands of years have people slaughtered each other thinking that God was on their side?

Marx once spoke of this period in which we live as “prehistory”. It is prehistory when grown up human beings can actually justify the state murder of thousands.

Of course, the continual state sanctioned murder of women and children in Iraq is a modern atrocity that keeps on being renewed. This, too, is an abomination.

But the calculated Israeli destruction of people in Gaza has a different flavor for me. It is the constantly perpetuated myth that the state of Israel is somehow representative of Jewish culture. It is the constant lie that the State of Israel represents all Jews.

The State of Israel is a state. Like all states, it has no heart and can be cynical and destructive. And now it is engaging in the killing of women and children. It does not represent me. Nor does it represent what I love about the Jewish tradition—compassion, sensitivity and wisdom.

Just as the Vietnamese were able to distinguish between the people of the United States and the government which napalmed their population, so I distinguish between the State of Israel and the people of that country. Apparently there is more serious protest in Israel about the actions of the government than there is in this country. How strange is that?

I really don’t care “who started it.” There is something very childish about that argument. I mean really childish. Just yesterday I saw two brothers, age five and six fighting. “He started it,” said the five year old, but the fight was in the relationship not the acts.

Can we learn nothing from five year olds? Look at our family. Jews and Muslims are of one blood. We are brothers and are fighting a family feud that began a very long time ago. It is time to grow up.

Of course the irony is that Jews and Muslims have lived together in peace for quite some time before this last century. While the Inquisitors of Christian Spain were burning Jews at the stake, the Caliphs of Bagdad welcomed Jews into the civilized culture of their world.

I am not a pacifist by belief. In fact, I try not to believe in anything and really don’t hold much with the notion of faith. But in this day and age it is insane for states to operate as they have since Babylonia.

We, in this country, are emerging from an eight year period of darkness. Millions of people adapted the slogan of “Yes We Can”. Like all slogans that can be cheapened and we Americans can turn anything into a bubble gum ad. But there was something much deeper in this last election. It is the possibility that people can start thinking in new ways.

Maybe, in this tenth year of the twenty first century we can start thinking and acting in new ways. Maybe we can start to listen to our hearts. Maybe we can stop justifying the unjustifiable. Maybe.