Nicholas Kristof’s championing the cause of Syrian refugees in a series of NY Times columns over the past few weeks is admirable. Among them: Anne Frank is a Syrian Girl, . Especially in the face of the U.S. refusal to do our fair share to help with the massive outflow of refugees caused by war; a conflict exacerbated by us and other outside meddlers.
So aside from the unfortunate title, which makes it sound like a gritty new reality show, I take issue with nothing in today’s column. However, there is a savage irony the Times columnist neglects in asking this question: despite having one of the largest populations of remaining living Holocaust survivors, Israel has rejected the 60,000 African refugees who’ve made their way to Israel over the past decade or more. Men, women and children fleeing tribal conflict, starvation, forced conscription and political persecution in Somalia, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea, have trekked hundreds of miles across desert and other hostile elements seeking a haven. Only to find doors slammed in their faces, riots, mass arrests, detention camps and miles of barbed wire fences. In fact, the Israeli company which built the Sinai fence has offered to build Donald Trump’s border fence should he be elected president.
Israel has accepted virtually no refugees during this period. It has mostly refused to even process them. It has tricked hundreds into leaving by giving them $3,500 and shipping them out on flights to countries like Uganda and Rwanda. As they have no passports or other identifying papers, the refugees are even more vulnerable than they were in Israel. Not to mention that all of this is a blatant contravention of international humanitarian law. The Netanyahu government persuades these African dictatorships to accept these human “cast-offs” through bribes like weapons and other blandishments. The weapons enable them to conduct wars within their own countries or against neighbors.
So to the question: “would you save the life of a Jew from the Nazis,” if the “Jew” was an African refugee, Israelis would answer, No. Of course, some will point out that Israel did take in hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors after WWII. This is, of course, true. But there are numerous reasons for this only peripherally related to moral considerations. First, Yishuv leader David Ben Gurion, desperately needed Jewish bodies to counteract the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents of pre-state Palestine against whom he contemplated fighting a fierce conflict. The more new immigrants Israel accepted, the better its chances of pushing out the unwanted Palestinians. Second, the survivors often had family already living in Palestine, so Israel couldn’t very well turn them away. Third, these survivors were, like other residents of Mandatory Palestine, Jewish. It is much easier to help one’s own kind than to help an outsider. This is the very same phenomenon Kristof is combatting in his columns: rejection of the Other.
Israel’s rejection of both African and all other refugees, including Syrians, runs counter to Biblical invocations like “remember the stranger for you too were strangers in the land of Egypt;” and the Book of Ruth, in which the Moabite heroine refuses to abandon her Israelite mother in law, Naomi, even though it means leaving her homeland to be with Naomi in the land of Israel:
“Entreat me not to leave you…for wherever you go, I will go; and where you live, I will live: your people [shall be] my people, and your God my God: Where you die, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more if anything but death parts you and me.” (Ruth 1:16–17)
It seems that Israelis, including Orthodox Jews, who one would expect to feel more bound by such precepts, honor their religion only in the breach or when it is most convenient.
This article is lower then whale excrement.
Anne Frank was a Dutch citizen, not a foreign refugee, and Richard’s base attempt to graft Syrian war refugees with Israel’s unique refugee problem must fail as well.
There are very few African women and children refugees in Israel. Most of the refugees are young, able bodied men, and many, if not most, are working and getting paid.
Most, if not all of the Eritreans, are economic migrants, and could be legally deported, but Israel has chosen not to do so.
South Sudanese are a different matter. Most were originally economic refugees, but their country is now in a civil war and these migrants cannot be deported into a war zone.
Question: Richard. Have you personally elected to sponsor an African or Syrian refugee and bring him to Seattle?
@ Yshai Kalmanovitch: I’d rather use your real name as you posted virtually the same comment on your Facebook account in my FB profile page. Whenever Trippin’ Jon posts here I’d suggest commenters address him by his real name and not his handle. I prefer transparency.
Here was my response there:
What nonsense! Dutch people sheltered Jews during the Holocaust. I don’t know of any Israelis offering refuge individually or as NGOs to African refugees. When a synagogue in Israel offers such a haven as churches do her in the U.S. do let me know.
As for being a refugee, what does that have to do with it? Once Anne was deported to Auschwitz she was a refugee and murdered. African refugees in Israel are citizens of their home country. That doesn’t protect them as Anne’s Dutch citizenship didn’t protect her from the Nazis. Anyone who has citizenship in a country & flees to another in fear of their life or in the face of persecution has the right to refugee status.
There are Israelis who are aiding the refugees, but virtually all of them agree with my historical analogy and disagree with you. Go ask one of the foremost Israeli activists in this field, David Sheen whether he agrees with you. I dare you.
Further, I didn’t create the analogy either. Nick Kristof did. He has a Pulitzer Prize. What do you have?
Yshai Kalmanovitch, you wrote: ” Anne Frank was a Dutch citizen, not a foreign refugee” , which is false. Anne Frank wrote in her diary that she wanted to become a Dutch citizen, but she was stateless when she died. She lost her original German citizenship in 1941, when the Netherlands were already occupied. Her father became a Dutch citizen in 1949.
@Richard
I’ll ask you again, ” Richard. Have you personally elected to sponsor an African or Syrian refugee and bring him to Seattle? “
@ Yshai Kalmanovitch: I’ll answer that question when you prove that you’ve engaged directly in support of African refugees in Israel, something you claimed without offering any evidence.
Further my country is accepting 100,000 Syrian refugees and there are hundreds of local volunteers & NGOs who are sponsoring them. This is sonething Israel has refused to do & there has been no clamor from Israelis to accept any refugees, either Syrian or African. Just the opposite, there have been pogroms in Tel Aviv against them.
My friend Rita Zawaideh, for whom i organized a public talk on the plight of Syrian refugees, does this regularly. She also visits Syrian refugee camps regularly bringing relief to them.
If you don’t offer proof of your own direct involvement on behalf of Syrian refugees in Israel you will have 2 choices: either to admit that you do not engage in support of the refugees. If you do not do this you will lose your commenting privileges here. You have 24 hrs to do so.
@Richard
Your reading comprehension skills stink.
It’s 10,000 refugees, not 100,000.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4847722,00.html
@Yshai Chelmnik: No, that’s the number that have already been admitted. Not the number that will be admitted in the entire year. Wrong once again, Einstein: http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/john-kerry-u-s-accept-85-000-refugees-2016-100-n430576
85,000 in 2016 & 100,000 in 2017. Now go & study, as Hillel said.
I would like to address the final section of the post, the “Jewish” part. I find this effort to throw Israel’s “Jewishness” back in its face to somehow demonstrate hypocrisy, as hollow and without basis.
I certainly do not have ownership of what is Jewish and what is not. And I appreciate that you have a strong background in Jewish studies. However, your positions on this and other posts represent a strident left progressive liberal humanistic approach that is more a social phenomenon rather than a religious one. Your key elements including:
* hypercriticalness of Israel
* skepticism and cynicism regarding historical Zionism and comparing it to fascism.
* hyperfocus on victimhood of Palestinians specifically, and Arabs and Muslims in general, along with other currently favored minority groups
* Rejection of current Western leaders and specifically of mainstream left
are all indicative of this “camp”.
While you can bring of examples of Jewish, Biblical and Rabbinic writing supposedly supporting liberal values. this ignores the overwhelming history of Jews being a small intensely self-focused, tribal group, who only came out of their bubble when other peoples did during the emancipation. I wouldn’t expect otherwise for a persecuted, victimized and marginalized group.
Certainly, the biblical Hebrew religion is full of violence, brutality and tribalism.
My point is not to argue what is dominant or genuine. Be a liberal Jew, and I respect that. But if you are already cherry picking Jewish sources and values based on your REASON, why not just say that it is reason, not religion, that supports what you are advocating, not Judaism? I am sure that the other progressives who comment here, had no need for Judaism or any other religion for that matter, to tell them what they think is right.
BTW, the conservative/right does the same thing– selectively use religion to “prove” their rightness. I reject their arguments as well.
“the biblical Hebrew religion is full of violence, brutality and tribalism” but there always were the prophets to criticize what they thought was wrong. Just think of Nathan daring to accuse king David + the story not being censored and remaining in the scriptures. I don’t think those prophets minded very much whether they were ‘cherry picking’ from the tradition or not. They just spoke their minds, and often in a hyper critical way. One of the most interesting aspects of Judaism.
I would grant you that part of Judaism is definitely speaking your mind. There is a concept of ‘heresy’ but it was never really practiced. Everything can be argued about.
But the things that Richard argue for, justice (at least his concept of it)and equality– there is nothing really uniquely ‘Jewish’ about it. It’s modern humanism, and people try to force it into a religious category, but it’s really post hoc.
You are not saying that justice and equality are absent from the scriptures are you? Or that they can be ignored because those are also universal values, and not uniquely Jewish? It is really hard to separate religion and ethics in the way that you seem to try.
And by the way, the Jews were not always a small intensely self-focused, tribal group: There used to be active proselytization of the Jewish faith until Christianity took over that role and forced Judaism to stop making converts. Are you sure you are not cherry picking from the tradition yourself?
Elisabeth – maybe you confuse between the old testimony prophets and the new testimony.
The Israelite Nevi’im were not fluffy, cute, loving people. The were full of rage and wrath.with description of punishment and death.
Finally… the Talmudic rabbis said “Since the destruction of the temple, prophecy was give to fools” – So…
I know the old testament well, and I know what the prophets were like. Some writings are full of rage and wrath, other writings are totally different, but criticism was always there, and that is what I referred to.
The new testament is not full of fluffy, cute, loving people either. Don’t generalize about either of the two.
@ Yehuda: Justice & equality are not uniquely Jewish? Tell it to the Prophets. Their every word denies your claims. Unless you wish to claim they are modern humanists before their time. That would be an interesting claim.
@ Yehuda:
No, I have a strong Jewish identity period. It goes far beyond college studies in Judaica. It includes years of participation in synagogue life, years of Jewish study at Camp Ramah, two years of study at Hebrew University, working as a Jewish communal professional for years, and decades of membership in various synagogues. I have a Jewish religious identity as well.
Nope, while I am not an Orthodox Jew, I have studied & participated in Jewish religious life for decades. You cannot deprive me of my religion, though you might try. My ethical views are as grounded in Jewish religious tradition as yours or anyone else’s. It may make you uncomfortable that I deprive you of the ground you seek to occupy, monopolizing Jewish religion to support your right wing nationalist views. But I will deprive you of that monopoly.
What the hell is “hypercriticalness?” You mean I criticize Israel and you don’t like it? You mean my criticism is so well grounded in Israeli reality & historical facts that it’s hard to rebut. Then so be it. Amos, Isaiah & Jeremiah were hypercriticial of Israel too. No one called them “strident liberal humanists.”
I didn’t know skepticism was a crime. If so, it’s a good thing they made Socrates drink poison. They should’ve made Spinoza do the same. And Einstein since he was a strident liberal humanist pacifist. That’s a club I”d be honored to join if invited.
Ah you mean I reject Obama’s nanny state policies & counter-terror policies as violatons of international law? And that I reject the Labor Party too since you clearly mistakenly believe it’s part of the “mainstream left?” If so, again I’m proud to do so along with millions of other Americans & Israelis who reject an inauthentic left that lost its way and its heart long ago.
Again, you misunderstand. These sources aren’t torn out of their original context and made to fit a modern cookie-cutter ideological template as you suggest. These so-called “liberal humanist” views are deeply embedded in the original texts. Of course, there are other sources which conflict with them with which I take strong issue. But that’s so in every religious tradition.
This is nonsense. Jews were hardly ever a small insular tribal group as you claim. They constituted 10% of the overall population of the Roman empire. THey were at one time a powerful empire during the Davidic period and after. In the Diaspora, Jews played pivotal roles in many cultuures & societies. Their inventions and genius founded philosophical approaches and academic fields. We have proudly impacted virtually the entire world & far above our mere numbers.
I do not “cherry-pick” sources. I know the entire sweep of the Jewish tradition (though certainly not every fact or page of Gemara). I grapple with all of it–good, bad & indifferent. I think it is you who is skin-deep and engages in artificial constructs of what Jewishness is.
Judaism and reason are not at odds. The lives of thousands of Jewish intellectual from far before the Englightenment to the present have proven this.
Again, you won’t & can’t deprive me of Judaism.
Richard, you misconstrue me and also put words in my mouth.
I am NOT trying to take the high ground or “take away your Judaism”, or in any way wish to detract from your Jewish background and service.
But I most certainly DO NOT use Judaism to justify my political views.
My view is that historical Judaism, like all religions, was an authority based system of knowledge and law. (as opposed to science and modern philosophy which are evidence based). In modern times this has changed. All religions have reformed to various degrees, but I think that this reform is due to human moral and scientific progress, not from the religion itself. (What ended slavery or polygamy? what about civil rights for sexual minorities?). Certainly we are entitled to selectively draw from various traditions, but I think that our personal basic moral compass and world view is something intrinsic and that we weave into them the evidence that fits. I know that its difficult to tease out the different factors and cause and effect, .
I don’t pretend to know you and analyze you. But in my experience people across the various political and religious divides do not first weigh all the evidence like some detached judge and then determine their position. The process is actually the reverse– we have our moral instinct and reaction, then we seek the evidence to justify it. Studies in moral psychology bare this out, too.
Ask yourself the question: Are all those people out there who disagree with you, simply misinformed, or are they all morally corrupt?
Again, you are doing what you accuse Richard of yourself aren’t you?
Your moral instinct is to allow anything that would help Israel survive as a Jewish state, and you seek the evidence to justify that by claiming that Jewish tradition is characterized by violence, brutality and tribalism. Richard on the other hand is a modernist softy who has no right to claim his convictions are rooted in the Jewish tradition, because his convictions do not suit you.
Of course I am rationalizing. At least I admit it. I have a moral instinct (not yours of course) and I do not use justifications from Judaism (well maybe a little bit) but mainly from realpolitik
So you are incorrect in claiming that I use Jewish tradition to justify my political views.
In my view all religions are man made constructs designed to hold communities together.
My argument with Richard is not to claim that my morality is more Jewish, just that his is no more so.
To me it has nothing to do with the Jewish religion. It has to do with survival and prosperity of an ethnic group. No more or no less than Palestinian nationalism.
Survival and prosperity of an ethnic group is not morality.
If you are part of that group, it certainly is. Is Palestinian well being not part of morality? I recognize that conservative and liberal morality differ in their emphasis on group loyalty. But even a liberal cares for his nation!
@ Yehuda: You advocate survivalism. I advocate Judaic morality & Prophetic Judaism. They are quite different. There is no rule anywhere saying that ethnic groups must survive at all costs. They survive if they behave rationally, observe reasonable ethical precepts, and adapt to their surroundings in every sense. Israel isn’t doing a very good job of this I’m afraid to say. Rome died as an empire. As did the ancient Greeks. There are modern version of them extant today but they are far different than they were in their ancient glory. That could be Israel’s fate as well. But survivalism without any deeper grounding is a recipe for extinction.
Yehuda, what is the difference between your kind of morality and a Herrenvolk ideology?
@ Yehuda: You are neglecting a primary tenet of Judaism: I don’t have to have the same view of Judaism or Jewish identity as you to be a perfectly kosher Jew. We are not a centralized religion. There is no Vatican, nor a pope who determines who is & isn’t a good Jew. My ethical precepts are deeply grounded in Jewish & Judaic tradition. You will have to accept this. If you don’t it’s your problem, not mine or Judaism’s.
Richard: I have failed to convey that I do not have any condescension or pretense at all regarding your Judaism. I absolutely do not. In general, I know that the majority of Jews are liberal, and this could be because of their Jewish culture, or maybe not. There are probably several reasons for this. Personally I feel that the Orthodox establishment (particularly in Israel) has become ossified and corrupt, and I sympathize with the ideas of progressive Jewish streams.
It is obvious that you have thought deeply about your ethical and political views, which are informed by your background and education.
Having said that I think it is impossible to separate our world views from the milieu in which we live, and our own temperaments. After all, do you think that if your just educated all of those people out there with all of the injustices and facts– that you could get 40% of Americans who support Trump to stop doing so?
I agree with you that there is no “rule” that says an ethnic group has to survive at all costs. Perhaps it would have been better if Jews assimilated 1000 years ago, it would have saved a lot of suffering. But the world would have lost the likes of Spinoza, Abravanel, and Buber.
But now that we’re here, well, don’t expect that we’ll knowingly put ourselves out of existence. Who is the judge for that? You don’t seem to have those expectations of the Palestinians. By what standard is it determined that the Palestinians nationalism or tribalism is justified, regardless of the suffering caused, but not Jews? (No, I am NOT denying Palestinian rights!)
@Yehudah: Despite some Orthodox Jewish belief to the contrary, Judaism has always been influenced by surrounding cultures & external factors. Judaism has never seen itself as rigid or unchangeable. To say that secular ideas have impacted me or Judaism in general is to say something that has been true for centuries. A religion does not stop being valid because external factors influence it or cause change within it.
@Richard. All you said is true. But where is the line between what is uniquely”Jewish” and what is secular humanism?
So for instance, if you protest on behalf of LGBT rights– is that Jewish or secular? What is uniquely Jewish about defending the weak? Would a good Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist, not say the same thing? The language might be Jewish, but what about the idea, the sentiment?
@Elizabeth: No. There is no ideology that Jews are a superior race that must rule over Palestinians.
(This is certainly not a “Jewish” idea!)
Why do you consider Jewish nationalism to be racism but not Palestinian nationalism?
The conflict is currently between 2 mutually exclusive national movements.
Personally, I think Israel should be the first, and not the last, to recognize a State of Palestine.
It would be the correct thing to do, as well as in Israel’s interest.
But I’m going off topic…
There is a difference between a people that are oppressing another people being nationalistic in order to defend this injustice, and a people that are oppressed being nationalistic as a reaction to their opression. Surely you can see that.
I think you are being naive if you say that there is no ideology that Jews are a superior race that must rule over Palestinians. There are definitely groups in Israeli society that think so, and they are growing stronger and stronger, taking over the army and government. This should worry you, if you care about the future of your country.
“There are definitely groups in Israeli society that think so, and they are growing stronger and stronger, taking over the army and government.”
Saying that is like saying racists are “taking over” the US police and government. The “proof” is the recent shootings.
While nationalism, xenophobia and isolationist feelings are present everywhere, including Europe and the US, the racists are not taking over.
In Holland you have Gert Wilders and his party. Does that mean that racism is “taking over” the Dutch? Should Holland be sanctioned because of them?
If you take your perspectives by reading the anti-Zionist english Haaretz than you will certainly get that impression. But it is out of context and exaggerated.
“and a people that are oppressed being nationalistic as a reaction to their oppression.”
As I mentioned in my comment on the later post, it depends where you begin the story. Are you saying there is no Arab/Palestinian nationalism before Israel? Come on. Nationalism was big everywhere in the first half of the 20th century. The Arabs of greater Palestine were no exception.
Your comparison is off. Dutch police or army are not shooting ethnic minorities for dubious reasons on an almost daily basis, failing to properly investigate and prosecute the shooters. If they were, sanctions would be in order.
During World War 2, the Dutch Nazi Party counted 100,000 strong.
Twenty-five thousand Dutchmen joined the SS to fight side by side with their Aryan brothers.
Shame!
*ring*
Shame!
*ring*
https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=dutch+nazi+party&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003
Elizabeth. What’s that sign in the doorway say?
@ Yshai Kalminovitch: DUring the Holocaust, 76% of Dutch Jews were killed. Nearly 30,000 Jews went into hiding & were saved by Dutch non-Jews. Eight other European countries killed a higher percentage of Jews than Holland. Given that Holland borders Germany, there would of course be Nazi sympathizers among the Dutch and it would be important for the Germans to impose their administration & policies on Holland. Holland is no worse than many other European countries who had a broad sytem of collaborators. But the Dutch resistance was also quite extensive:
Just think about whose side YOU would have been on, Barbarella. And especially whose side you are on NOW.
@ Yehuda:
Israel is completely unlike western democracies. Racists not only are taking over, they’ve been in control for years. This entire blog documents this. Not to mention that Haaretz has documented the takeover of the army by the Orthodox settler nationalists. The officer corps is now largely composed of such individuals.
Gert Wilders is not PM. Bibi Netanyahu is. Gert Wilders isn’t even in the governing coalition. The governing Likud is peopled with virtually every MK or minister being more racist than the next.
Calling Haaretz “anti-Zionist” just about made me spurt my coffee out my nose. I really no longer have the stomach for this when you reveal your ideological deformities in this way. Haaretz is about as liberal Zionist as they come. If you don’t recognize the difference then you aren’t worthy of engaging in discourse.
Nationalism isn’t the problem. It’s nationalism run amok. Ahad HaAm was a nationalist. That sort of nationalism could thrive anywhere including the Middle East. But your kind of Jewish (or Judean) nationalism is akin to a much darker, racist and more violent form of historic European ultra-nationalism.