Great well researched book on the growing influence of the jewish Fundamentalists in Israeli politics.here is a review:
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
By Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky.
Pluto Press,Paperback, 2004, 176 pages.
Reviewed by Allan C. Brownfeld
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs
In recent years there has been a dramatic growth of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel
which has manifested itself in vigorous opposition to the peace process and has played
a key role, as well, in the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and the
murder of 29 Muslims at prayer by the American-born fundamentalist, Baruch Goldstein.
In an important new book, Jewish Fundamentalism In Israel , Israel Shahak and Norton
Mezvinksy provide a thorough assessment of this phenomenon in modern Israel. The
authors trace the history and development of Jewish fundamentalism, examining the
various strains, and identify the messianic tendency which they believe to be the most
dangerous.
Israel Shahak, an Israeli and a Holocaust survivor, is a retired professor at the
Hebrew University and a leading human rights activist. Norton Mezvinsky is a professor
of history at Central Connecticut State University who has written and lectured
extensively on the modern Middle East.
The authors point out that “…the adherents of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel oppose
equality for all citizens, especially non-Jews.” The respected Israeli sociologist
Baruch Kimmerling, citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars, declared:
“The value of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic form
that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No other
variable—neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic
values, nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes of [Israeli] Jews
against democratic values as does religiousity.”
What particularly concerns the authors is the total contempt which Jewish
fundamentalists show toward non-Jews. Rabbi Kook the Elder, the revered father of the
messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, said, “The difference between a Jewish
soul and souls of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and deeper
than the difference between a human soul and the souls of cattle.”
Rabbi Kook’s entire teaching, which is followed devoutly by, among others, those who
have led the settler movement on the occupied West Bank, is based upon the Lurianic
Cabbala, the school of Jewish mysticism that dominated Judaism from the late16th to the
early 19th century. “One of the basic tenets of the Lurianic Cabbala,” the authors
write, “is the absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish
soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the
sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary. If an influential Christian
bishop or Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls of
non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the difference between the
human soul and souls of cattle, he would incur the wrath of all and be viewed as an
anti-Semite by most Jewish scholars regardless of whatever less meaningful, positive
statements he included.”
The scholarly authors of books about Jewish mysticism and the Lurianic Cabbala, such as
Gershon Scholem, have, the authors charge, “willfully omitted reference to such ideas.
These authors are supreme hypocrites. They are analogous to many authors of books on
Stalin and Stalinism. Until recently, people who read only the books written by
Stalinists could not know about Stalin’s crimes and would have false notions of the
Stalinist regimes and their real ideologies.”
According to the ideologies which underlie Gush Emunim, the militant West Bank settlers
group, and Hasidism, non-Jews have “satanic souls” Shahak and Mezvinsky note that “the
role of Satan, whose earthly embodiment according to the Cabbala is every non-Jew, has
been minimized or not mentioned by authors who have not written about the Cabbala in
Hebrew. Such authors, therefore, have not conveyed to readers accurate accounts of
general NRP (National Religious Party) or its hardcore Gush Emunim politics.”
Common to both the Talmud and Halacha, Orthodox religious law, is a differentiation
between Jews and non-Jews. The late, highly revered Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson,
the “Lubovitcher Rebbe” who headed the Chabad movement and wielded great influence in
Israel as well as in the U.S., explained that, “The difference between a Jewish and a
non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: ‘Let us differentiate.’ Thus, we do
not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level.
Rather, we have a case of ‘let us differentiate’ between totally different species.
This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a
totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world…A
non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is written, ‘And the strangers shall guard
and feed your flocks’ (Isaiah 61:5). The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for
the sake of the Jews…”
Rabbi Schneerson always supported Israeli wars and opposed any retreat. In 1974 he
strongly opposed the Israeli withdrawal from the Suez area. He promised Israel divine
favors if it persisted in occupying the land. After his death, thousands of his Israeli
followers played an important role in the election victory of Binyamin Netanyahu. Among
the religious settlers in the occupied territories, the Chabad Hassids constitute one
of the most extreme groups. Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer of Palestinians, was
one of them.
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, who wrote a chapter of a book in praise of Goldstein and what
he did, is another member of this group. An immigrant to Israel from the U.S., Rabbi
Ginsburgh speaks freely of Jews’ genetic-based, spiritual superiority over non-Jews.
“If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah says you save the
Jewish life first,” Ginsburgh states. “If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails
divinity, is a part of God, then every strand of DNA is part of God. Therefore,
something is special about Jewish DNA…If a Jew needs a liver, can you take the liver of
an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah would probably permit that.
Jewish life has an infinite value.”
Shahak and Mezvinsky point out that, “Changing the words ‘Jewish’ to ‘German’ or
‘Aryan’ and ‘non-Jewish’ to ‘Jewish’ turns the Ginsburgh position into the doctrine
that made Auschwitz possible in the past. To a considerable extent the German Nazi
success depended upon that ideology and upon its implications of being widely known
early. Disregarding even on a limited scale the potential effects of messianic,
Lubavitch and other ideologies could prove to be calamitous…The similarities between
the Jewish political messianic trend and German Nazism are glaring. The Gentiles are
for the messianists what the Jews were for the Nazis. The hatred of Western culture
with its rational and democratic elements is common to both movements… The ideology…is
both eschatological and messianic. It resembles in this respect prior Jewish religious
doctrines as well as similar trends in Christianity and Islam. This ideology assumes
the imminent coming of the Messiah and asserts that the Jews, aided by God, will
thereafter triumph over the non-Jews and rule over them forever.”
Members of Gush Emunim argue that “what appears to be confiscation of Arab-owned land
for subsequent settlement by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one of
sanctification. From their perspective the land is redeemed by being transferred from
the satanic to the divine sphere…the Gush Emunim rabbis assert that this one messianic
sect has to handle and lead the ass-like Jews, who have been corrupted by satanic
Western culture, with its rationality and democracy and who refuse to renounce their
beastly habits and embrace the true faith. To further the process, the use of force is
permitted wherever necessary.”
The Jewish fundamentalists believe that God gave all of the Land of Israel (including
present-day Lebanon and other areas) to the Jews and that Arabs living in Israel are
viewed as thieves. Rabbi Israel Ariel, a fundamentalist leader, published an atlas that
designated all lands that were Jewish and needed to be liberated. This included all
areas west and south of the Euphrates River extending through most of Syria, much of
Iraq, and present-day Kuwait.
Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, another spokesman, said, “We must live in this land even at the
price of war. Moreover, even if there is peace, we must instigate wars of liberation in
order to conquer it [the land].”
Mordechai Nisan, a lecturer at the Hebrew University, expressed this view in an
official publication of the World Zionist Organization. Relying on Maimonides, he said
that a non-Jew permitted to reside in the land of Israel “must accept paying a tax and
suffering the humiliation of servitude.” He said that non-Jews must not be appointed to
any office or position of power over Jews.
When it comes to Baruch Goldstein’s murder of 29 Palestinians at prayer,
fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that such an act constitutes “murder” because,
according to the Halacha, “the killing by a Jew of a non-Jew under any circumstances is
not regarded as murder. It may be prohibited for other reasons, especially when it
causes danger for Jews.” When asked if he was sorry about the murdered Arabs, militant
Rabbi Moshe Levenger declared: “I am sorry not only about dead Arabs but about dead
flies.”
For the fundamentalists, Goldstein became a hero. Military guards transported his
coffin to Kiryat Arba through Palestinian villages. Rabbi Dov Lior in a eulogy stated
that, “Goldstein was full of love for fellow human beings. He dedicated himself to
helping others.” Authors Shahak and Mezvinsky write that, “The terms ‘human beings’ and
‘others’ in the Halacha refer solely to Jews.”
Although messianic fundamentalists constitute a relatively small portion of the Israeli
population, their political influence has been growing. If they have contempt for
non-Jews, their hatred for Jews who oppose their views is even greater.
The murder of Yitzhak Rabin, the authors show, is one in a long line of murders of Jews
who followed a path different from that ordained by rabbinic authorities. They cite
case after case, from the Middle Ages until the 19th century.
One typical example was the assassination by poison of Rabbi Avraham Cohen in Lemberg,
Austria on Sept. 6, 1848.
Assuming his rabbinical position in 1844, Cohen initiated changes in Jewish life. His
most important initiative was his attempt to abolish taxes on kosher meat and sabbath
candles which Lemberg’s Jews paid to Austrian authorities. These taxes were burdensome
for poor Jews but were a source of income for many Orthodox Jewish notables.
The Austrian authorities accepted Cohen’s request and abolished the taxes in March
1848. The five Jewish notables of the town began a total struggle against Rabbi Cohen.
Critics argued that the “law of the pursuer” applied to the rabbi. One placard said:
“He is one of those Jewish sinners for which the Talmud says their blood is permitted”
(that is, every Jew can and should kill them). On Sept. 6, a Jewish assassin
successfully entered the rabbi’s home unseen, went to the kitchen and put arsenic
poison in a pot of soup that was cooking. Both Rabbi Cohen and his small daughter died.
The Hassids and their leaders did not attend the funeral, but celebrated.
It was precisely the same Talmudic laws that caused Rabbi Cohen’s death which were used
to murder Yitzhak Rabin. Yigal Amir, Rabin’s assassin, cited the “law of the pursuer”
(din rodef) and the “Law of the informer” (din moser). The first law commands every Jew
to kill or to wound severely any Jew who is perceived as intending to kill another Jew.
According to halachic commentaries, it is not necessary to see such a person pursuing a
Jewish victim. It is enough if rabbinic authorities, or even competent scholars,
announce that the law of the pursuer applies. The second law commands every Jew to kill
or wound severely any Jew who, without a decision of a competent rabbinic authority,
has informed non-Jews about Jewish affairs or has given them information about Jewish
property or who has delivered Jewish persons or property to their rule or authority.
The authors write: “The land of Israel has been and still is considered by all
religious Jews as being the exclusive property of the Jews. Granting Palestinians
authority over any part of this land could be interpreted as informing. Some religious
Jews interpreted the relations that developed between Rabin and the Palestinian
Authority as causing harm to the Jewish settlers. In this sense, Rabin had informed.”
For the future, the authors fear the growth of such fundamentalism just as the
prospects for peace have dramatically improved. They note that, “It should not be
forgotten that democracy and the rule of law were brought into Judaism from the
outside. Before the advent of the modern state, Jewish communities were mostly ruled by
rabbis who employed arbitrary and cruel methods as bad as those employed by
totalitarian regimes. The dearest wish of the current Jewish fundamentalists is to
restore this state of affairs.”
This book should be a wake-up call to many Americans, particularly Jewish supporters of
Israel who are not aware of the nature of the fundamentalism which is growing strong in
that country. This fundamentalism is increasing in influence as a result of Israel’s
electoral system, which bestows power to minority parties far beyond their
representation in the population. The authors declare: “We believe that awareness is
the necessary first step in opposition.” Professors Shahak and Mezvinsky have done a
notable service for men and women of goodwill of all religious traditions by pointing
to the ideological roadblocks to genuine peace which must be overcome.
