It's no great secret that much of the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) world is officially ambivalent about the State of Israel. Jonathan Rosenblum, who is Haredi himself, argues that those who continue to fight against the existence of the State of Israel (and today the only Haredi, group that fights actively against the State of Israel is the Neturei Karta), are fighting a battle that has long since ended. In his second column on the subject, Ben Yitzchak rested his case on the fact that a number of the sponsoring organizations had Zionist in their titles. In my humble opinion, the venerable columnist is a general busy fighting the last war, if not the one before that. Zionism as a vibrant ideology has long since ceased to exist – certainly outside of Israel, and, I suspect, even within. At most the "Zionist" label signifies a certain level of identification with the Jewish people and support for the existence of the State of Israel.Read the whole thing.
Though most members of Zionist organizations -- leaving aside the specifically religious ones -- are not religious, their lack of religious observance has little to do with their Zionism and more to do with the fact that non-observance is the default position of most of world Jewry. Indeed I would venture that those who style themselves as "Zionists" are likely to be considerably more religiously observant than those who do not.
Defense of Israel's right to exist is one of the few means for Jews in chutz l'aretz to continue to identify as Jews. I met one barrister at the conference, for instance, who has contributed over a hundred thousand pounds ($160,000) of his time to pursuing administrative complaints against the biased reporting of the BBC. And from the ranks of those positively identified as Jews are most likely to come the next generation of ba'alei teshuva.
Thus it is a positive development – or so it seems to me -- if chareidi adults can join with other Jews on matters of common agreement. Chareidi participation in pro-Israel advocacy provides an excellent opportunity to refute the stereotype of chareidim as concerned only with their narrow interests and apathetic about the general welfare. A number of people suggested to me that the Jewish Leadership Council was so dead-set against my participation because an articulate refutation of the attacks of the European Left on Israel, by someone with a black kippah and tzitzis out, would also effectively debunk many of the common myths about chareidim. (I spent the rest of my week in England speaking on university campuses and in Jewish high schools for AishUK on the outright lies and delusional rhetoric that pervades the public discussion of Israel in Europe.)
Rabbi Guttentag shared with me some of the vituperative letters sent to him. The thrust was that the existence of Israel has only served to create anti-Semitism around the world. Again, this strikes me as fighting old battles. Whatever one's opinion of the creation of the State of Israel, it exists. The only way it could cease to exist, prior to the coming of Mashiach, would be a bloodbath involving the slaughter of millions of Jews, religious and non-religious alike, and the destruction of the world's leading citadels of Torah.
The next time they have one of these conferences, someone should call me. Unlike Rosenblum (who went to law school but no longer practices - yes, we have met), I'm still a practicing lawyer and write a blog about Israel. That will ruin all of their stereotypes.posted by Carl in Jerusalem
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