Abandoning Our Archaic Fears

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

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Abandoning Our Archaic Fears

A High Holiday Sermon for 5768/2007 The American Jewish Community's Future Direction in a Christianizing America

By Rabbi Haim Dov Beliak, JewsOnFirst.org, September 2, 2007

The classic joke of a bygone era began with the question: What is a Jewish telegram? (For my younger listeners, a telegram was the fastest form of long-distance communication where the phone was not available. But it had one draw back; the sender had to pay for each word, thus necessitating that most difficult of Jewish virtues -- brevity.)

So what is a Jewish telegram? One that says: "Start worrying letter follows." (Pause and pray for laughter).

The challenges of Jewish life seem clearer to us when we are living in threatening conditions. We Jews are past masters at dealing with threats stemming from anti-semitism.

Currently, though, the challenges Jews face derive from conditions of freedom. Nevertheless, our community organizations continue to focus on anti-semitism as if it was the central threat to Jewish life.

In this High Holiday reflection, I want to suggest that, while anti-semitism is an ongoing concern for Jews, we should not use it as our only paradigm for asking whether this or that policy – or this or that alliance -- good for the Jews.

Rabbi Harold Schulweis, a leader in the American Jewish community, long ago challenged the Jewish community to think of an alternative to anti-semitism as a propellant for Jewish endeavors. While acknowledging that the fear of anti-semitism cannot yet be relegated to dustbin of history, we must also acknowledge that it can no longer be the only measure, or the primary measure, of what is good for Jews.

People may be inspired by fear; it opens the pocketbook, but it closes the heart and mind. We are summoned on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to move beyond daily concerns. As a people, we know how to respond to fear, but we are not yet able to express a coherent and positive engagement with our Jewish commitments. We readily give money to Jewish agencies that continue to specialize in purveying perceived threats of anti-semitism. Meanwhile, projects that enhance Jewish life often languish.

A new framework
Are there not other ways to frame our challenges than in terms of constant threats to Jews and Judaism? Some, particularly the young, who have not experienced the realities of anti-semitism, are puzzled or alienated by our paradigm of threat.

Without pretending that anti-semitism has disappeared, there is a need to ask different questions. Are not the challenges we face in conditions of freedom different than those we asked in previous eras? What are the concerns of Jewish life in America? What are the issues that call for us to be vigilant?

One of the new challenges needing a new paradigm is the growing phalanx of Christian Zionists. These are some of the very people who once seemed to be our implacable enemies -- fundamentalist Protestants who casually exuded anti-semitism. Now they claim they have seen the light. Instead of deprecating us, some of these reborn anti-semites calling themselves Christian Zionists say we Jews are the source of blessing.

Based on their discovery of a new way to read Genesis 12, Christian Zionists have appointed themselves our new friends. They believe that these words spoken to Abraham in Genesis position Jews as the central purveyors of goodness and blessing: "I will make of you a great nation, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse him that curses you. All the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you." (Genesis 12:2-3)

Many Jews are drawn in – should I say, taken in -- by Christian Zionists' declarations of support. Some Jewish organizational leaders claim that Christian Zionists prove their good intentions by their practice of giving millions of dollars to Israel, most notably at events "honoring" Israel. Christian Zionists say that Jews should be grateful for the money and political support given to Israel. As if there were no strings attached.

In terms of Jewish history, this is a rare case of people who love us. Should we not be happy?

Many of us have questioned the nature of this embrace. For some in the organized Jewish community the fact of this new found love should not be questioned. It is simply a question of expediency. The money and the political support far outweigh any other considerations.

Neither Christians nor Zionists
An evangelical friend of mine claims that Christian Zionists are neither Christian nor Zionist.

He says they are not Christian as he understands Christianity to mean following a peace-loving role model, Jesus. They fall short as Zionists because of their blood lust for Armageddon, an end-times military conflict needed to presage the return of Jesus, a prophecy they extract from the New Testament book of Revelation.

Christian Zionists believe that Jews are key players in that end-times drama. They see it beginning with with the 1917 Balfour Declaration recognizing Britian's promise to facilitate a national home in Palestine for Jews. They see the next act of the drama open with the founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Act 3 for them was Israel's conquest of the West Bank and Gaza forty years ago. Now that Jews control Jerusalem, say Christian Zionists, they must build the Temple and restore animal sacrifices.

According to the Christian Zionist script, these steps will lead to the final battle of Armageddon. The word, Armageddon is a mangled reference to the many battles fought in ancient times at a place called Ir Meggido in the Jezreel Valley of Israel.

The Christian Zionists are not Zionist in any coherent fashion. At a minimum, a definition of Zionism might suggest that Zionism would seek the welfare of Jews and the Jewish state. That welfare would stipulate an ardent desire to achieve peace for Israelis with their neighbors. Instead, these Christian Zionists pray for the start of the end-times battles and for the conversion of Jews.

Yes, of course, they promise the Jewish organizations that welcome their support that they will not try to convert the Jews they meet with and donate to. But they pray for that conversion. And they believe that Jews who don't convert are blind and will be slaughtered when Jesus returns. The essence of Christian Zionism is that Jews and Judaism disappear, morphing into Jesus worship.

Despite this, many Jewish organizational leaders respond with what amounts to a nudge and a wink – "just take the money and accept the political support." While this response is viewed as "pragmatic," I would suggest that it is ultimately a surrender of Jewish dignity to associate the fate of Israel and our own good name with Christian Zionism.

How so?

On John Hagee
One needs to appreciate that the most prominent spokesperson for Christian Zionism, Reverend John Hagee of San Antonio, makes clear his attitude of disdain toward Jews who are secular, Reform, or Conservative. Hagee deems worthy only Orthodox Jews who are biblical literalists. Hagee's dismissal of most Jews points not to embrace but disdain. (Orthodox Jews are not literalist interpreters of the Bible, either. Hagee likes them because they share some of his reactionary social positions.)

Hagee qualifies his professed love for the Jewish people even further when he writes in his book Jerusalem Countdown that Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust as a punishment for not accepting Jesus. The chutzpah displayed here would normally put a person beyond the pale occupied by Iran's Ahmadinejad. But Israel's US lobby, the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, invited Hagee to give a keynote speech at its 2007 conference.

Hagee's frequent dismissal of the fate of Palestinians – Christian and Muslim – is a model of callousness on par with his instrumentalization of our own people.

Finally, it is important to appreciate that pre-World War II Christian theology did not see Jews as people with normal cares and concerns. We were either dismissed or magnified beyond normal human life. Put simply, we became counters or pawns -- in a theological game in which Jews are eventually sacrificed. Modern Christians have moderated these views.

Dispensationalism and Replacement Theology
The embrace of Jews, by fundamentalist Christians like Rev. Hagee is called pre-millennial dispensationalism. The more widely accepted approach of many Protestants, replacement theology, holds that Jews were replaced by the Church and are thus outside of history and God's purview.

Both replacement and dispensationalist theologies offer a profoundly insulting disregard for our own being. Jews are seen as "good" if they follow their theologically assigned script. From a theological perspective this kind of reasoning is obscene. Perhaps you remember the Smothers Brothers' routine: "mother always loved you best." That is the comedic equivalent of replacement theology. Now Hagee and his fellow dispensationalists offer an opportunity to sacrifice ourselves for their theological notions.

Self-respecting Jews must politely and firmly respond "a plague on both your houses." Neither dispensationalism nor replacement theology makes room for our integrity and agency.

By contrast with the professed "Zionism" of Hagee and his cohorts, both classical Zionism and classical forms of liberal Judaism sought to return Jews to history. No longer would we be the subject of other people's whims. We would be empowered by our own agency. We would come down from our self-imposed or assigned pedestal and take responsibility for our own destiny.

Christian Zionism's theology conflicts with our own Zionist aspirations and our progressive religious commitments. It is just the latest attempt to co-opt us into being part of some else's dream.

Because our children matter to us
Reform leader Rabbi Eric Yoffie spoke for many us when he wrote in a recent Forward op-ed expressing concern that the embrace of the Christian Right is alienating the next generation of Jewish leaders.

We know a great deal about Jewish young adults. We have learned from extensive research that these young people are often more socially liberal than their baby-boomer parents. They are pluralistic in their thinking, and they are tolerant of difference, especially differences in gender and sexual orientation.
They respond negatively to those who disparage other religious traditions and who make exclusivist religious claims. They are insistently centrist in their political views on the Middle East. And they are suspicious of a Jewish establishment that they see as too focused on money and insufficiently focused on values.
And so whom do we offer to these young people as a spokesman for Israel? John Hagee, who is contemptuous of Muslims, dismissive of gays, possesses a triumphalist theology and opposes a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. If our intention was to distance our young adults from the Jewish state, we could not have made a better choice..

A different kind of challenge
One thing that has changed for us is our ability to affect our collective future – even though the rhetoric of the Jewish community continues to sound like the 1930's when the sense of vulnerability was most keenly felt. The terrifying times of Jewish powerlessness are hopefully behind us. Our challenge is now how to use our power wisely.

That power is not hard to identify. We Jews are respected and even feared in many quarters because we have developed skills for participating in our democracy. No politician doubts that Jews care about certain issues, especially those that pertain to Israel.

Our history lessons remind us that in a democracy indifference can open a door to tyranny. If, as is often said, vigilance is the price of liberty, then Jewish participation in our democracy means honing a special sense of what requires vigilance -- and what does not.

JewsOnFirst.org is focused on the First Amendment's "establishment clause," forbidding government establishment of religion. We regard that clause, commonly known as separation of church and state, along with its accompanying guarantee of freedom of religion as vital "social security" for Jews and the bedrock of a tolerant society.

Today, threats to the establishment clause of the First Amendment are palpable. American Jews who remember our history instinctively know the importance of boundaries between the institutions of state and the institutions of religion. Those threats emanate from the Christian right, which would impose worship of Jesus in our schools and government agencies, and legislate its religious beliefs to control the private spheres of family and sexuality. They have already succeeded in passing laws advancing their agenda in many states.

Reorienting to the real threat
Our Christian Zionist "friends" are part and parcel of the Christian right and share its hostile aims on the First Amendment.

It is that agenda that Jews should fear – and fight.

How, in this time when the Christian right is striving to establish a religious tyranny, should we respond with moral responsibility?

The challenge of modern Jewish life is to learn from the past. One of the big issues that should sound alarm bells for our community is the already advanced attempt by the Christian Right to Christianize this country's most powerful American institution, the military.

A little-noticed aspect of that attempt is the Christian right's campaign to revise history to replace our secular Constitution with a fictional religious founding.

Those who are striving to wipe out our history and our future as a tolerant and inclusive nation have made a prodigious start in the US military.

Compelling evidence of this threat to our nation was recently seen in the Pentagon inspector-general's finding that high ranking officers and a Pentagon chaplain helped a group affiliated with Campus Crusade for Christ make a promotional video inside the Pentagon. Fundamentalist Protestant officers have been relentless in proselytizing at the service academies of the Air Force, Navy, and Army and at bases around the country.

It is easy to imagine how a fundamentalist Christian military would threaten and change our pluralistic society.

It is important for our organization to reorient themselves to face this threat, so different than the threats of centuries past.

Our history teaches us much and certainly every group we have lived among reminds us of the importance of the separation of church and state and the danger when the wall separating them is breached. It also reminds us of the moral grandeur with which we can respond in times of tyranny.