The Mondoweiss site has been shown to traffic in antisemitism again and again and again. Its cofounder, Philip Weiss, seems to have a bizarre hatred for Jews.
So it is interesting to examine when the site pretends to suddenly become a champion of the Judaism it despises.
It recently published an article titled "The Zionist assault on Judaism" from Jeff Halper, director of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and opponent of the concept of a Jewish state.
This article claims that "Zionism has not yet murdered Judaism but it has undermined its moral and historical integrity. "
In order to make this claim, Halper has to do no less than redefine Judaism itself.
Merriam-Webster defines antisemitism as “hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group.” On this score, Zionism minced no words. In its foundational doctrine “the negation of the Exile,” Zionism, of course, did not discriminate per se against Jews as a religious, ethnic or racial group. It did, however, express hostility towards them, particularly in its devalorization of Jewish life and culture abroad over the past two millennia – often encapsulated in the dismissal and ridicule of “galut (exilic) mentality.” While targeting Jewish communities for the purpose of recruiting them to its settler project, Zionism repudiated them, denying their very validity.This is the basis for Halper's long article attacking Zionists as being anti-Judaism - that Judaism is Exile, and any desire for a Jewish state somehow negates the Judaism in communities throughout the world.
The idea that the essence of Judaism is exile is not new to Halper. Judith Butler has come up with that argument as well.
In order to attack Israel while claiming not to be antisemitic, one must redefine Judaism as being fundamentally diasporic, and having nothing to do with the Land of Israel.
Too bad Judaism disagrees.
Three times a day, in prayers, Jews say "Sound the great Shofar for our freedom, raise the banner to gather our exiles, and gather us from the four corners of the earth. "
And "Return in mercy to Jerusalem Your city, and dwell in it as You promised. Rebuild it soon in our day as an eternal structure, and quickly set up in it the throne of David. "
And " let our eyes behold Your merciful return to Zion."
There are similar passages in the Grace After Meals and elsewhere. Not to mention the many Jewish laws that only apply to those living in Israel. One simply cannot separate Judaism from Zion. To claim otherwise is to show an astonishing ignorance of Judaism itself.
Judaism has never regarded the Diaspora as an ideal. Only revisionists like Butler and Halper do that. They want Jews to remain powerless - and to eventually disappear. They hate Israel so much that they redefine Judaism to exclude some of its basic tenets.
In fact, Israel helps strengthen the Jewish communities of the world. Jewish pride in Israel has become an important component of modern Judaism.
This is what the Jewish revisionists want to demolish - they want to turn Israel from a source of pride into a source of shame. Moreover, they want to redefine Judaism itself to transform the millennia-old Jewish desire to return to Zion into an immoral compulsion to oppress Arabs.
These attempts to redefine Judaism as inherently diasporic, with nothing to do with the Land of Israel, is in fact all the proof you need that anti-Zionism is a form of antisemitism. One cannot separate Judaism from the concept of the return of the exiles without attacking the fundamentals of Judaism itself.
This attack on Judaism is eagerly done by Jewish ignoramuses like Halper and Butler. It only proves what they are trying mightily to argue against - that they are today's antisemites.
