Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss writes an essay about the joys of celebrating Christmas with his Christian wife, and how proud he is of the IfNotNow members who disrupt Birthright tours, and then:
Over the years, some Christians have said to me, Stop thinking that you’re Jewish, it’s neurotic. But I’ve not been able to do that, or anyway I never tried. I don’t like the entitlement and the Israel lobby, but I believe in tribe, and at some level I clearly love my group and thank it for cultivating traits I cherish, reading and intellectual detachment. A good number of my closest friends are Jewish, and I am taking Hebrew for the first time in 50 years, so as to study what the supremacists say in Israel.
My Judaism is anti-Zionism. That’s the spiritual challenge that has propelled me and this site. My social/political identity is Jewish; and my Jewish chore is clear. Being Jewish means helping to free my group and the world of the historic trauma that generated religious nationalism and all its evils.
Needless to say, there is nothing Jewish about Phil Weiss.His entire spiritual and religious existence is centered on hating Israel. So much so that when he finally decides to learn Hebrew it is not to connect to the rich Hebrew literature that has been the backbone of Western civilization - but to attack Jews.
He is a believer - but his belief system is not Judaism. Philip Weiss' religion, loosely defined, is hate. It is the opposition to Jewish nationalism, Jewish self determination and Jewish pride.
It is laughable that he claims to have intellectual detachment. When every single article he writes is a crazed attack on Israel - which is no worse than any other country, and better than most, especially given the circumstances of being in a state of war for 70 years - you can be sure that there is no intellectual honesty nor detachment from Weiss. His own words, calling his anti-Israel crusade "spiritual," contradicts his smug pretense of intellectualism.
It is almost pitiful that Weiss feels that he must call his bizarre, perverted belief system his "Judaism." He is not willing to throw away his Jewish identity just yet. Maybe he clings to his pretense of Jewishness in order to give moral authority to his anti-Israel screeds, or he really has a "pintele yid" that nags him about his obsession with destroying the Jewish state.
Let me absolve him of that nagging.
Phil, there is nothing Jewish about you besides for perhaps your nose. There is no Jewish philosophy you can point to over two thousand years that remotely resembles what you absurdly call your "Judaism." Your own worldview is based on the negative - negating religious Jewishness, negating Israel, negating Jewish heritage. It is enshrining hate. There is nothing positive you bring to the table. The things you claim to love about Judaism are plentiful among Christians, atheists and others.
Don't pretend to be Jewish any more. Accepting the truth that you are a vicious hater will set you free to attack Jews and Israel with all your spiritual might.