A number of years ago, my wife Aliza and I were travelling to Israel for a study program. After going through security at Los Angeles International, we boarded a bus to take us to our plane. After something of a long bus ride, we finally arrived at what looked like a temporary terminal where one lone airliner was parked.
It was our El Al plane; with its emblematic Star of David, representing the flag of Israel, painted in bright blue and white on the side. The Jewish country’s national airline sat proud and majestic, but alone; and I recalled the verse in Numbers, describing the Jewish people as… “a people that dwells apart, not reckoned among the nations…”
Jews know what it’s like to be alone. When our founding father, the first monotheist, the man who first began spreading the rumor about the One God, Abraham, introduced himself to others, he identified himself as “ha-Ivri” — The Hebrew. The word is based on a word meaning “the other side.” The Talmudic sages said the name meant that Abraham stood on one side of the river, while the entire rest of the world stands on the other side. Abraham knew what it was like to be alone.
Jews have always known how others felt about us. It’s actually amazing that Jews were able to hang on to any kind of self-esteem considering the hatred of others and the ways they were demonized. Almost every Jew knows and has recited on Passover every year for the last 2,000 years: “For not only one (enemy) has risen up against us to destroy us, but in every generation they rise up to destroy us.”
Yes, Jews know what it’s like to be alone in the world; and now, in the aftermath of Oct. 7, we feel that aloneness like it hasn’t been felt since the world turned its eyes while the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews.
Israel knows about being alone from the abandonment of much of the world beginning on about Oct. 9, as cities around the world witness massive rallies in support of Hamas and its goal of eliminating Israel and the Jews from the middle east. Hamas gave us a preview of what they hoped to achieve on Oct. 7 with brutality that reached new levels of cruelty, torture, and barbarity; and which they promised they will do again and again and again. And tens of thousands around the world are rallying to their cause.
Jews outside of Israel have experienced an aloneness in ways we thought wouldn’t happen again. The sky-rocketing rise in Jew hatred has startled most of us, even those who’ve tracked the rise in antisemitism during the last six or seven years.
Jews were reminded of their aloneness just a few days ago when Leo Varadkar, Prime Minister of Ireland, spoke about the release of Emily Hand, a nine-year-old Irish-Israeli girl who had been held hostage by Hamas for 50 days. Most of us cannot in our worst nightmares imagine what horrors she saw. Varadkar spoke about his relief that “…an innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned.” That’s how he described a little girl’s ordeal of being kidnapped and held underground in an unlit tunnel in the hands of murderers, rapists and terrorists.
Yes, Jews know what it’s like to be left out in the cold. Jewish liberals helped establish the civil rights movement in America. My mother (a Zionist) was one of the first white people to join the NAACP in San Bernardino County. The final version of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 was written in the basement of the Religious Action Center of the Reform Movement of Judaism.
But no matter; many in the progressive movement and organizations have condemned Israel and either outright supported or at least forgiven the terror and atrocities of Hamas. Jews are shut out from much of what is called the Progressive Movement in America. Unless they renounce Israel, that is.
Liberal Jews have experienced a new aloneness by the abandonment of friends who suddenly have become middle east experts and are posting anti-Israel propaganda and lies and even letting pass from their lips the genocidal slogan, From the river to the sea…
Young Jews in America’s universities, some of the finest academies in the world, huddle in fear as professors and students spout their hatred of Israel and Jews. Young Jews feel very alone, abandoned by friends, teachers, and administrations.
Jewish feminists have discovered a new aloneness by the abandonment of the Women’s Movement, that has expressed no horror at the particular violence perpetrated against Israeli women and girls. The MeToo movement apparently doesn’t have room under its tent for Jewish women who are raped and brutalized.
Jewish clergy have found a new level of aloneness in the silence from ecumenical partners and allies. Many used to work on social justice issues shoulder to shoulder with Muslim and Christian colleagues who have not reached out in compassion for, let alone a modicum of understanding of, the pain, fear and shock that permeates the lives of Jews right now.
For many American Jews, this feeling alone is new. It’s as though we thought a significant part of the Jewish story didn’t apply to us. That we live outside of Jewish history. On Oct. 7 we discovered we are very much in Jewish history.
Israel is quite aware that it stands pretty much alone in the world. There are some notable exceptions among the family of nations that have continued to support Israel, and President Biden’s support is holding pretty steady, despite growing pressure in the Democratic party for him to push for a cessation of hostilities.
But those who are calling for a permanent cease fire have to know what it means: Hamas wins. Which weakens Israel. Which emboldens its enemies including, but not limited to: Hamas, Hizballah, Syria, Yemen, and, of course, Iran. That is why Israel has to continue the war until it’s two objectives are achieved: the release of all the hostages and the end of Hamas’s ability to function in Gaza.
The Israeli public is surprisingly unified on this. And with the exception of a few on the far left in America, American Jews are surprisingly united in their support of Israel. Despite how alone we feel.
The biblical poet known as Kohelet said, “There is nothing new under the sun.” And now we realize: there’s nothing new about Jews dwelling apart, not reckoned among the nations.
Michael Berk is Rabbi Emeritus of Congregation Beth Israel, the largest Jewish congregation in San Diego and the oldest in Southern California.
