Zionism and the Jews Who Hate Jews
This is part of the story I had not yet learned;
Noah Berlatsky↱ explains:
For months, Zionists have been justifying the ongoing genocide of Palestinians by insisting that Israelis and Jewish people must be strong and remorseless in prosecuting the war/committing war crimes. "We are not the Jews of trembling knees," the ADL's Jonathan Greenblatt declared as the assault on Rafah escalated. Lahav Harkov, the Senior Political Correspondent for Jewish Insider boasted "We are not Jews with trembling knees." In January, Jerusalem Post columnist Ben Freeman, insisted at a Stand With Israel rally, "We are not Jews with trembling knees."
And in a Jerusalem Post editorial, Zvika Klein evoked the 1982 words of Israeli Prime Minister Menachim Begin in a meeting with then head of the Senate Foreign Relation Committee Joe Biden: "I am not a Jew with trembling knees."
You can find lots of other examples on social media; Zionists, individually and as a group, want to let you know that they are not those Jews. Which raises the question, who are the Jews whose lower extremities wobble? If the good, strong Jews are over here, who are the weak, worthless Jews over there?
The answers aren't exactly counterintuitive or surprising. Still, it's useful to look at the history of the phrase to understand the ways in which praise of Zionist strength and militarism are inseparable from contempt for Jewish diaspora victimization. Those who suffer are framed as contemptible—which makes the brutalization of your enemy a moral imperative, and even a joy.
Consider the prospect that certain
philosemitism was always
antisemitic. It is difficult to explain insofar as knowing the whole story is hard, and what comes down in non-Jewish communities is scrap and litter. But at the heart of it is an idea described, technically, as
premillennial dispensationalism; as comedian Bill Maher explained accurately: Certain Christian "Friends of Israel" need Jews to hold Jerusalem so that Jesus will return and, "when Jesus comes back, the Jews have a part to play, which is, of course, to die." While the mechanics of any given thesis, such as premillennial dispensationalism, vary, the underlying idea that Christian love for Jews has something to do with the Second Coming is not new, and for generations born
after the '48 usurpation, it is woven into the narrative.
But the tale is rife with uncertainty: Even the Christians who raise up future generations on that kind of expectation cannot explain it; the role of the Jewish suffering paving the way for Christian glory is long known, poorly defined, and almost entirely extemporary.
It is, however, affecting:
Michael Oren↱, formerly the Israeli Ambassador to the United Stats, once recalled the story of a political gaffe that had the folks back home confused and worried. That is, he recorded a speech for American rabbis, and while his speech resonated with American conservatives, Israelis thought he lost his mind:
God, in fact, permeates America. The name appears on the currency, in the Pledge of Allegiance, and (as the Creator) in the Declaration of Independence. Testifiers in American courts swear, "so help me God," as do judges, soldiers, and presidents. Politicians, especially, even the most secular among them, must repeatedly proclaim their faith. Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his first inaugural address, mentioned it no less than 14 times; "God" was cited five times even in Donald Trump's. A president whom no one mistook for God-fearing nevertheless saw value in posing outside a Washington church holding a Bible. The same Barack Obama who once railed against those who "cling to guns and religion" defined himself at times as a born-again Christian. Each year of my ambassadorship, I watched him talk fervently about his faith to the thousands of attendees of the National Prayer Breakfast, and call the others on the dais—Republicans and Democrats alike—"my brothers in Christ."
None of this exists in Israel. There is no equivalent in Hatikvah to God Bless America, and in our Declaration of Independence, only a vague reference to the "Rock of Israel." Secular politicians do not speak about their spirituality, but neither do their ultra-Orthodox counterparts. Commandments, yes; the Almighty, no. Our current kippa-wearing prime minister has been photographed in tallit and tefillin but never once quoted on his beliefs. A country that hardly separates synagogue from state effectively excises God and faith from its public discourse.
Why? How is it that two nations with deep roots in the biblical traditions could harbor such different approaches to God and faith? And why must professions about them be lauded in one society but lambasted in another?
It is, in itself, a fascinating question, but in our moment there is another detail to note. If, for instance, "Netanyahu's military secretary, a religiously observant general, whispered, 'I like what you said but, truth be told, TMI'", it might read, in the moment of Oren's telling, like just another small detail. But if Oren had "crossed a line", what line is it? Even the former ambassador struggled to explain.
So perhaps the responses to my neo-paganism speech were somewhat predictable—standing ovations in the United States, scorn in Israel. And yet, the situation may be changing. Given the sharp decline in church attendance in the United States, future American leaders might be expected to put less emphasis on their religious beliefs. Israel is heading in exactly the opposite direction, with new and vibrant synagogues opening frequently, even in historically godless Tel Aviv. Beginning with Meir Ariel, Kobi Oz, Meir Banai, and Shotei Hanevuah ("The Fools of Prophecy"), Israeli rock music has been infused with passionate Judaism. "I do not owe anything to anyone," Religious Affairs Minister Matan Kahana, defending his kashrut reform from ultra-Orthodox attacks, recently declared. "Only to God."
Somehow, that paragraph is understated. If, only a few years ago, we might have perceived in Oren's description a rise of what looks like glitzy, charismatic, evangelical churching within Israeli Jewish communities, even that felt too easy a projection. But the unabashed, even enthusiastic, brutality of the latest Israeli pogrom is shot through with the born-again, crusading fervor familiar to American evangelical Christendom.
Berlatsky's recollection on Bialik informs and actually repairs that perception:
The phrase Jews "with trembling knees" comes from a 1904 Hebrew verse by Russian Jewish poet Hayim Nahman Bialik. The poem was called "In the City of Slaughter," and it commemorated the 1903 Kishinev Easter pogrom in Russia, in which 49 Jewish people were killed and 1500 homes were gutted. Christians also committed mass rapes of Jewish women.
Jewish writing on the atrocities of the Holocaust tends to express solidarity with victims and dwell on grief, sadness, and the breakdown of meaning ....
.... Bialik, however, takes a different tack in memorializing the earlier atrocity. He does not stand with the victims. Rather, he deliberately separates himself from them so he can judge and condemn not primarily the Christian attackers, but the Jews who were attacked.
The bitterness of the poem is its own phenomenon: "Bialik's invidious tall tales aren't just false; they're antisemitic," Berlatsky explains. "He's leaning into stereotypes which frame Jewish men as weak and unmanly, and as obsessed with dry legalism rather than with honor." And the phrase about trembling knees is a condemnation derived from Bialik's make-believe. "The comparison of Jewish victims to roaches and dogs explicitly echoes antisemitic rhetoric, and is intended to dehumanize," while "Bialik encourages readers to feel not sympathy for the victims, but repulsion and disgust." Historian Steven J. Zipperstein describes "the most influential poetic work written in a Jewish language since the Middle Ages". And inasmuch as the poem would influence the Zionist ethos by dressing its anger in antisemitism, so also is it important to recall that "proponents of Israel often insist that Israel is necessary to provide refuge and safety in case governments in the diaspora turn on Jewish populations", and while "there are various problems with this argument", Berlatsky reminds that Bialik's poem "is not really concerned with safety or with refuge. He is not nearly as concerned with preventing future violence as he is concerned with preventing future
dishonor."
If your main goal is not to be viewed as a Jew with "trembling knees," if the state myth of the new militant Jew is predicated on a loathing of weakness, then victims are by definition disgusting and worthy only of scorn and hatred ....
.... Jewish people should not justify genocide and war crimes now by suggesting, with Bialik, that Jewish victims of genocidal violence in the past got what they deserved.
And, in a way, it would seem Jewish Zionists agree with their Christian Zionist neighbors, that in the end, Jews get what they deserve.
And if it feels strange, it is as strange as it ever was.
____________________
Notes:
Berlatsky, Noah. "The 120-Year Old Zionist Poem Still Being Used to Smear the Diaspora and Justify Atrocity". Everything Is Horrible. 13 May 2024. EverythingIsHorrible.net. 14 May 2024. https://bit.ly/3yc3KrV
Oren, Michael. "Are Politicians Who Talk About God Crazy?" Tablet. 12 October 2021. TabletMag.com. 14 May 2024. https://bit.ly/3oZzc6b
