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Progressive Rabbis Support the Underdog: Hamas
Over the years I’ve had many conversations with friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, about the overwhelming number of Jews who are Progressives. Although in some ways, their commitment is perplexing, since many of the Progressive values must result in some cognitive dissonance for liberal Jews. But I’ve explained that many of them believe in supporting the underdog—the people who are oppressed and rejected by the larger society.
When the massacre of October 7 in Israel occurred, there was a great outcry in the Jewish community, in the U.S. and abroad. Reformed, conservative and orthodox Jews in the United States and in Israel raged about the Hamas attack. But one small group—progressive Rabbis— which has taken the view that the Palestinians in Israel are the oppressed, continue to decry Zionism and criticize Israel for its response to October 7. What is happening to these leaders of Jewish communities?
Officially, Zionism is a key pillar of all three major Jewish denominations in the U.S. But in the more progressive Reform and Conservative movements, some prominent rabbis are raising the alarm about a small but significant number of rabbinical students and early career rabbis who identify as non-Zionist or anti-Zionist, and who lack the connection to Israel that has for decades been a key part of what it means to be Jewish in the diaspora.
Yehuda Kurtzer, president of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America, had this observation:
‘This could create a real problem if the schools are effectively putting people out of the system who hold these views, but they can’t get hired and sometimes get fired, because their views don’t align with what the laity basically believes.’
The fact is that these young rabbis are in conflict with their congregations who believe that the Israelis are justified in destroying Hamas. A primary problem is that these rabbis are not educated in the history and realities of the Jewish state, and have based their beliefs on the progressive agenda. Due to the inherent tensions in discussing Zionism and Israel, the topic is often avoided and put aside.
But one rabbi who spoke to the problem explained that to some people, the issue is a complex one:
‘There’s no loyalty oath that we expect, but we do expect deep, serious engagement in the history, in the culture, in the ongoing reality of Israel, and people can choose to express that in their own ways, from their own point of view,’ said Rabbi Lisa Grant, the director of the rabbinical program at Hebrew Union College’s New York campus.
In a recent Commentary podcast, Matthew Continetti and John Podhoretz brought up a couple of points that I found especially prescient. Continetti described the struggle that arises for liberal Jews who identify with the model of the “oppressed Jew.” In some ways, they have transferred their concerns for oppressed people in general to Hamas, essentially identifying with their attackers and rejecting the Israeli efforts to take vengeance. Podhoretz followed up with the comment that Jews are expected to take vengeance when they have been attacked, especially as they were attacked on October 7. Not only is it the right thing to do, but they alone are responsible for saving their state and vanquishing the enemy.
Fortunately, some Jews have decided to create conversations about Israel and take on the issue of Zionism:
The inaugural three-day conference, ‘Zionism: A New Conversation,’ provided a fresh opportunity for a wide range of rabbis to grapple with modern-day Israel. The conference, which ended Tuesday, brought 110 rabbis from congregations, day schools, rabbinical schools and Jewish organizations across America to Miami for sometimes tough conversations; it was sponsored by the Lisa and Michael Leffell Foundation, the Paul E. Singer Foundation and the Maimonides Fund.
They collected substantial information from across the Jewish spectrum to prepare for the conference, especially confronting the tough questions which come up about Zionism, Israel and the faith.
Rachel Fish, the co-founder of Boundless, a think-action tank looking to revitalize Israel education and combat Jew-hatred, spoke at the conference:
During her two sessions at the conference, she encouraged rabbis to ‘be brave individuals, because they need to model moral courage for their congregants, for their students, for their educators, for the larger community, and they can’t avoid the hard topics.’
They need to remember that talking about Israel is ‘not so complicated,’ she said. You can disagree with the government and its actions. ‘You can hold all of that complexity, but the conversation that’s taking place in the public square is adjudicating Israel’s right to exist. It is not nuanced. It is not holding the complexity. [It’s starting with the idea that] Israel was born in sin and therefore it has no right to exist. That’s what they have to be able to address.’
I don’t know how this question of Zionism will be resolved in the long-term. I wonder how many people, particularly Jews, believe that the survival of Israel needs to be central to Jewish identity?
Published in Religion & Philosophy
Should Jews have volunteered to go to the camps to pay for their alleged victimization of German gentiles?
There were no Palestinian refugee camps until Arab leaders got the bright idea to wipe Israel off the map in ’48. The chaos, mutual fear of reprisal, and the evacuation orders of Arab leaders were all factors.
Arabs had openly called for wiping out Israel and all Jews and after the expected victory turned into a humiliating defeat, it was widely feared that Jews might reciprocate that sentiment. Even though the Israelis did not systematically kill Arabs as feared, the Jews are still presumptively responsible for acts done by Arabs pursuant to an Arab psychological state born entirely out of projection. The fear that Jews will do to Arabs what Arabs want to do to Jews drives a lot of perverse, self-defeating behavior. Again, Jews are at presumptively at fault if Arabs are completely nuts.
The sheer narcissism of pretending to be so enlightened to be above it all and thus ignore the pathology that victimizes Arabs more than does Israel is tiresome. Golly, if only the Jews had looked sympathetically at Nazism from the standpoint of a typical German sociopathic early party member and just profusely apologized and divested there would not have been a need for Auschwitz et al.
As always, @susanquinn, an engaging and interesting discussion. I recommend it for promotion to the Main Feed.
I have heard for decades that the “Arab-Israeli Issue” is complex and difficult, demanding nuanced and subtle point and counter-point to fully understand. I have always thought such sophistry was nonsense; the Jewish people have always had the greater claim to the country as a nation, and therefore as a state. The Arab population was essentially undifferentiated as Sunni and Arabic-speaking, sharing the same religion, literature, music, history, and all other distinctive ethnic characteristics as the Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, and Muslim Lebanese living in that region of the former Ottoman Empire.
But, as I have acknowledged before, I am only a knuckle-dragging, low-brow ridge Neanderthal, lacking the intellectual capacity for nuanced and subtle reflection. As a result, I fail to see a single substantive difference between Hamas and Nazis, or between the Palestinian populations of Gaza (or the West bank, for that matter) and the civilian population of Nazi Germany from 1939 to 1945.
If not the Jewish identity, how about protecting the only democracy in the Middle East? How about supporting a healthy capitalist economy not found elsewhere in the world? I admit I don’t understand the so-called progressive Jews (nor any of the other self-indulgent opinionators) who think Hamas is an unsupported underdog, treated as pariah by everyone else in the world.
AMEN
Thanks, PH. Your thinking is hardly “knuckle dragging”; rather it is incisive and accurate. When people muddy the waters, as these progressive rabbis have done, it clouds their own minds and makes a clear decision seem overly complex. I don’t know they can be brought around.
The difficulty is that the Jews do believe it is about Jewish identity, and shouldn’t need other credentials to show, in order to be allowed to survive. There are some who believe that without Israel, Jews would not survive overall.
Susan, I am not so sure about “supporting the underdog” being a good explanation for some Jews’ pro-Hamas views about this conflict or their views on Israel in general. I liken this to some mainline Christian denominations who are all in for progressive causes – I drive past a few mainline Protestant churches on my errands to the cities that display those noxious “In this house…” signs, or rainbow flags. In both cases I think that Progressivism is the religion they actually practice, Judaism or Christianity being a vestigial thing, a fig leaf that attempts to lend their views some firmer foundation than mere emotions and Leftist platitudes (an attempt that fails).
In what sense is Hamas the underdog? It might be a fairly small terrorist organization, but it commands broad Leftist support in the world, both in practical matters – just think of the vast sums of money and material that were provided to them so they could build those tunnels – and in political matters. Really, if anyone is the underdog in this area, it’s Israel, a tiny country surrounded by mostly hostile Muslims.
I think the affluence and relative peace and stability of living in the U.S. has allowed these attitudes to thrive. And, of course, the Leftist progressive agenda that runs rampant in the educational system contributes to this – the knee-jerk impulse to blame the U.S. first is also applied to Israel. I think this has more to do with the Left’s anti-capitalism position than it does with any real concern for the Palestinians as underdogs.
Thanks for this opportunity to elaborate, Jean. I agree that progressivism is their religion, but they believe they can follow both, since they don’t consider progressivism a religion themselves. They are rabbis, after all [sarcasm]. Many of them have probably fallen for the progressive rhetoric: that Israel illegitimately took over the country, that they attacked the Arab residents, that they drove Palestinians out with the 1948 war, and Israel occupies Hamas. I realize these are all lies; that’s why there were other rabbis who said that we have done a very poor job of educating these rabbis. They also have taken up many more anti-Zionist, anti-Israel lies just like other progressives. So you and I are informed and we are on the same side. This mis-education is a travesty, and these rabbis think they should be leading congregations.
I don’t know a thing about how rabbis are designated, Susan – can you enlighten me? I’m a Catholic, and Catholic priests are formed through many years in seminary. The Orthodox do the same. Some Protestants have a similar process, but it’s not a given, and I have known of Protestants who bestowed on themselves the title and role of pastor. How do rabbis become rabbis?
I am copying this from Chabad.org–
The word rabbi means “my master” in Hebrew. A rabbi is a religious leader of Jewish people. Some rabbis lead congregations (synagogues), others are teachers, and yet others lead informally. Rabbinic ordination is known as semichah. In common parlance, a rabbi with advanced training in practical Jewish law (halachah) is known as a rav.
So all of those rabbis would have gone to a seminary, according to their aspirations (reform, conservative or orthodox) and another rabbi needs to ordain them.
An observation for anti-Zionist Jews: You’re still on the menu.
It is a very simple matter: Does Israel deserve to exist as a country?
Can you imagine anyone asking that about any other country in the world. Does China deserve to exist as a country? Does Canada, India, Great Britain? What sober person would ask that question about any nation?
(Well, Putin, perhaps about Ukraine; but he doesn’t disguise his reasoning in sophistry, and the intellectuals aren’t flocking to his side as they do with Hamas.)
I gather that there are numerous small neighbors of Russia’s that Putin thinks are not really independent nations, but misplaced Russian territories.
Thank you, Susan. Yet another example of Ricochet being a source of learning.
If you don’t mind me asking another question that is not really relevant to your topic, what are the main differences between orthodox and conservative Judaism? I’m thinking the reform branch is probably a bit like the liberal Protestant denominations I mentioned above.
Orthodox can vary a bit with specific practices, but they basically follow the halacha, the Jewish laws, which include things like observing the Sabbath (with restrictions on activities), dietary laws, and so forth. They are rules for everyday life. Conservative also have various practices that sometimes include orthodoxy and often do not. Reform is the most liberal, except there is Reconstructionist which has very little in common with the others.
If you want more detail, you can go here. And I love to answer questions!
The cognitive dissonance for progressive rabbis who support Hamas — or at least its preservation as a ruling entity–is that the target is not just the state of Israel, but all Jews. But, you say, Hamas revised its charter to limit its genocide to Zionists in 2017. Well, thank you very much. So for 29 years (1988-2017) Hamas’ target was all Jews, but for the last 7 only Jews in Israel? According to Wikipedia —
In other words, “I see your meal and I intend to eat it. Well, actually I will only eat the entree. But I reserve the right when I have eaten the entree to then eat the rest.”
Good analogy.
This puts it well:
Please. Are these terrorized folks the same ones I see cheering after viewing the GoPro videos of the massacre on Oct 7? If there are terrorized Gazans, it is the Hamas terrorists who are the cause. I have zero respect for these Rabbis and thank God that the very liberal Jews in Israel understand that their survival is on the line, if the polls that I have seen are accurate.
Only the ones smaller than Russia.
I don’t know how this question of Zionism will be resolved in the long-term. I wonder how many people, particularly Jews, believe that the survival of Israel needs to be central to Jewish identity? —the OP
In the long term, if you want to live freely as a Jew, you will only be able to do so in Israel. Enrollment in Jewish day schools in America is exploding because Jewish parents are frightened about the bullying their kids are likely to suffer in public schools.
The point about whether Zionism is central to Jewish identity is moot.
Zionism is essential to Jewish survival.
We’ve discussed this before. What do you mean by “living freely as a Jew”?
Anti-colonialism, especially as it evolved in the 20th century, plays a major role in the thinking of the Left.
However, Dave, I question the identity given to the Jews in Israel as colonialists. Not all Jews left Israel during the diaspora ( A diaspora (/daɪˈæspərə/ dy-ASP-ər-ə) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin). The Jews are the indigenous people of Israel. They are not colonialists.
Dastardly Jewish left-wingers have secretly aided the Zionists by encouraging open LBGTQXZY support for Hamas. The wool has been removed from my eyes. It is so simple, I can’t get over how I did not see this before.
https://x.com/Thexmuslim/status/1769446370803400879?s=20
Good grief. It’s hard to believe the paths that people pursue…
I’ve have been chuckling at these fools since they started parading for Hamas. Talk about working against your self-interest!
Indeed. Muslims hate gays and would just as soon kill them. Go figure. But then I’ve never looked to the Left to make sense.
It is all about sequence and timing. First do x and later do y.