As we move into the Hebrew month of Elul, thoughts of accounting, reckoning and asking for forgiveness increase. We all have personal failings that could be corrected. Now is the time to begin. Moreover, groups, communities, even countries should be engaged in the process.
In Israel, there are demands that politicians and army officers assume responsibility for the tragic events of Oct. 7. For months afterwards, the bon mot of many media pundits was whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would do so, and it was asked almost daily. Parents of Golani soldiers who fell defending their position in the south appealed against the decision by the Israel Defense Forces’ chief of staff to promote Shlomi Binder to the head of the Intelligence Directorate because, in his previous position as head of the Operations Division under the Operations Directorate, he proved almost a total failure. Other examples point to whether the divisive anti-judicial reform protests contributed to a perception by Hamas that Israel was crumbling from within.
In the Diaspora, especially in the United States, the events across the nation’s campuses, streets, public squares, congressional committee hearing rooms and synagogues would also point to an agenda of questioning whether the Jewish community was prepared, whether proper steps that should have been taken were taken, whether establishment institutions responded rapidly enough, and more importantly, had the previous years been utilized properly to prepare in some small way for the situation American Jewry now finds itself?
Of course, someone could suggest that it is not my task, but that would be a non-starter. Every Jewish leader in the United States tells Israel what to do all the time.
I would also remind any critics of what I published on this website years ago. I do this not to toot any horn but to provide proof that the establishment ignored the signs that trouble was coming.
Yes, I pointed to campus life. And that was six years ago.
On Nov. 7, 2018, I published that Jewish anti-Israel activists had adopted “an ideological political position that is basically Diasporian in character” and that for these “Diaspora supremacists,” they are the “better Jews,” and Zionist Jews are “illegitimate” and moreover, those anti-Zionist “Jews are channeling a greater hatred they claim to be combating.”
One more reminder from Oct. 7, 2019, when I accused the anti-Zionist Jews of IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace of preferring “a false intersectionality paradigm, seeking unity and comradeship with movements, politicians and leaders who couldn’t care less for Jews as Jews … they have linked up with political forces who express indications of antisemitism, but are blind to that since it is all within the camp of the left.”
The writing was on the wall for those leaders, councils, committees, funds and other elements that make up the U.S. Jewish establishment. And yet, when the protests erupted, Jewish institutions were caught flatfooted. Students, worshippers and restaurant owners, among many others, looked around for help, support and assistance; it was slow in coming or insufficient.
And to be clear, as it became apparent even to those who tried to deny it or turn a blind eye, much of the campus unrest included “Jew-free zones.” That “zoning” began before October 2023. What was effectively done until all hell broke loose for Jewish students? There were many security issues prior to this past year’s events but only now is there a new initiative to protect Jewish students. What is needed is not only to protect them but to instill in them a spirit comparable to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill fraternity brothers who held up an American flag to protect it on its pole during a pro-Palestinian protest on campus.
They need to be educated so that the propaganda of IfNotNow, for example, against AIPAC, will be ineffective. The JVP efforts need be countered. The lure of Within Our Lifetime stymied. Anti-Zionism must be actively pushed back and not tolerated or accepted into the tent.
Up until now, it is clear our youth have been ill-served. There has been a deficiency in Jewish and Zionist education, but there are signs, like Emet Academy, that new initiatives are on the horizon. They are under a media onslaught to which they fall prey.
Jewish students will face a lot of challenges this fall. At Baruch College. At Columbia. At Sonoma State. At Cornell. There’s the disinvestment campaign. Canceling Jewish professors at Sarah Lawrence. It’s not only students that require defense and protection but academic staff as well. Is the Jewish community organized and mobilized?
Another challenge is getting the establishment and the officialdom to work with independent groups. There is so much that can be done education-wise and information-wise by the less cumbersome and less constrained activists.
The first step to setting all this aright is to acknowledge that errors, mistakes and misjudgments were made.
The second step is to feel bad about that and not brush criticism away.
The third step in the process and making an Elul accounting is to realize that there are enemies and adversaries from without—and from within.
The fourth step is to get to work—seriously, imaginatively and with full intent to assure Jewish communal, cultural, religious and national survival.
{Reposted from JNS}
