The Anne Frank House Center says that, “Zionism is about the pursuit of an independent Jewish state.” That was accomplished in 1948, and affirmed in bloody wars in 1956, 1967, 1973 and in various attacks and battles since then. On October 7 the Zionist military apparatus, for all its impressiveness, failed because of hubris. Modern Jewish history didn’t start then. The post-World War I San Remo Conference of 1920 was the genesis for current dynamics, when the artificial boundaries of the Levant were created by the victorious Western empires.  

Zionism is abused as a social and religious cudgel by the Evangelical movement, and has become another tool of divisiveness for the American far-right. Evangelicals, not Jews, comprise a greater plurality of Israeli tourism now, as more American and European Jews reject this narrative of a “false idol,” in the words of author and activist Naomi Klein. She wrote in a recent ‘Street Seder Address’ published in The Guardian, that Zionism “is a false idol that takes our most profound biblical stories of justice and emancipation from slavery – the story of Passover itself – and turns them into brutalist weapons of colonial land theft, roadmaps for ethnic cleansing and genocide . . . . . a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe – and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate.”

Netanyahu’s virulent Likud form of Zionism, which he has now allied with the openly racist and even genocidal Religious Zionism and Jewish Power blocs, has created an image of the movement that is anathema to many progressive and leftist activists, and it fuels anti-Semitism as less informed people on the right and left conflate this ruthless ultra-nationalism with Judaism. Just as marriages can run their course, leading to a necessary divorce, the time has come for Jews to divorce Zionism. Bibi has become a literal Pharaoh to Palestinians.  Klein adds, “From the start it has produced an ugly kind of freedom that saw Palestinian children not as human beings but as demographic threats – much as the pharaoh in the Book of Exodus feared the growing population of Israelites, and thus ordered the death of their sons. It is a false idol that has led far too many of our own people down a deeply immoral path that now has them justifying the shredding of core commandments: thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet.”

Democracy Now! Video: “Naomi Klein: Jews Must Raise Voices for Palestine, Oppose “False Idol of Zionism”

It’s important to remember that “Judaism and Zionism are two distinct terms often intertwined, in reality, they represent rather distinct concepts with different historical, cultural, and most importantly, political implications,” as noted in The Business Standard.  They add, “Following the establishment of Israel, Zionism became an ideology that continues to support the development and protection of the State of Israel. Zionism, at its core, can be understood as a manifestation of Jewish nationalism.”  Judaism is a religion, while Zionism is a political ideology.

 The original anti-Zionists were, “from fringe Orthodox sects and maintain that Israel can only be regained miraculously. They view the present state as a blasphemous human attempt to usurp God’s role, and many seek to dismantle the secular State of Israel. However, unlike many gentile anti­-Zionists, Jewish anti-Zionists usually firmly believe in the Jewish right to the Land of Israel, but only at the future time of redemption.”  Though the Neturei Karta were the most visible of observant anti-Zionists, most Haredim in Israel continue that tradition with their refusal to participate in the military or support the embattled state.

Klein asserts that the Zionist ideology, “. . .  is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children. Zionism is a false idol that has betrayed every Jewish value, including the value we place on questioning – a practice embedded in the Seder with its four questions asked by the youngest child. . . . Including the love we have as a people for text and for education. . . .Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza; the destruction of countless schools, of archives, of printing presses; the killing of hundreds of academics, of journalists, of poets.” She calls this “scholasticide,” which is parallel to the burning of libraries and synagogues by Nazis.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC) is one of many Western Jewish organizations that continues to promote the false idol narrative.  They argue that anti-Zionism means that Jews “do not have a right to self-determination — or that the Jewish people’s religious and historical connection to Israel is invalid.” The AJC also says that, “Calling for a Palestinian nation-state, while simultaneously advocating for an end to the Jewish nation-state is hypocritical at best, and potentially anti-Semitic.” The polemical problem is that the Jewish nation is a powerful “fact on the ground,” though threatened by hostile outside forces. Israel is a political reality. But Judaism and Zionism are also threatened internally by Bibi’s leadership record of self-destruction, as his primary aim is political self-preservation. Israel’s economy and security are also undermined by the refusal of the Haredim to support the state and serve in the military.

Not only can Israel remain secure without Zionism; it may become more secure, as the provocations towards Palestinians would cease. The Temple Sunday School narrative minimizes, euphemizes and marginalizes what Palestinians suffered in the Nabka, concurrent with Israeli independence. It’s time to correct that false narrative, and recognize that Zionism has run its course.

The outpouring of objection to American funding of the Israeli war machine is unprecedented in size and scope. In turn the size and scope of government efforts to quash these protests is also unprecedented, now becoming evocative of Kent State in 1970. That’s the first thing that comes to mind when anyone proposes placing National Guard troops on a US college campus. Doing so would be a provocation and incitement for escalation, and that game plan appears to be unfolding.

Judaism and its offshoots, Christianity and Islam, have all been plagued by departures from their spiritual ethics into orgies of violence. We see this phenomenon in Bibi’s brand of imperial Zionism, Hamas’ and other extremist groups’ violent perversion of Islam, preferring an ideology of hate and misogyny, and the White Christian Nationalist movement in the US, fueled by Trump. The religions of Christianity and Islam have struggled to come to terms with secular modernity, and have seen powerful and violent movements during that struggle. Judaism has the spiritual Reform movement, but no corresponding social-political movement. Judaism came first and has an obligation to take the lead in creating a new paradigm, of a monotheistic, biblically-rooted tradition that nevertheless stands for tolerance and human rights for all. Jews must recognize that the shelf-life of Zionism has expired. Also important is that Judaism is a religion, not a form of ethno-nationalism, despite former President Trump’s attempts to dragoon all Jews into the effort to censor free speech over Palestinian human rights.

The Court’s decision was prompted by a petition filed by The Movement for Quality Government, the Brothers and Sisters in Arms and 240 other Israeli citizens. They object to exempting thousands of ultra-Orthodox draft-eligible people from military service. The government instructed the IDF not to draft the yeshiva students in June 2023, though the exemption had expired. The petitioners responded saying, “It’s very saddening that instead of understanding that something illegal is being done here – a government decision in violation of the law – the attorney general is enabling the continuation of the illegal situation and allowing the sinner to benefit. In fact, she is defending an illegal situation in court.”

In a gross act of hubris-chutzpah, Bibi promised his ultra-Orthodox parties that the legislation they want for extending exemptions will be passed. This would not be the first time Bibi has made promises to allies he doesn’t have the standing to keep, without cooperation from other parties unlikely to go along. He’s become well-accustomed to sacrificing Israel’s immediate and long-term interests for his own political survival, not unlike Donald Trump. And any such bill that might pass the Knesset will not pass the Supreme Court, judging by their recent actions.

 The exemption of yeshiva and rabbinical students from military service dates to the founding of Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Most of the European and global rabbinate, libraries and scholarship history had been wiped out by the Nazis. The exemption was necessary to rebuild 20^th Century Judaism from the ground up to re-stock the synagogues, universities and yeshivas. By most accounts, that was amply accomplished by the 1973 War. The original exemption applied to only 400 yeshiva students, at a time when the comprised a small segment of the population. Ironically, the Haredim were some of the original anti-Zionist, who opposed the creation of the Jewish State, which they viewed as an impediment to the return of the Messiah. So in 1948, their opting out of military service was not significant to security.  Now they comprise roughly 14% of the Israeli population, as noted above, and is the fastest growing demographic, creating a drag on the economy and military. They remained exempt from the conscription pool when the nation has never been more embattled with wars on multiple fronts.

In 1998, the Court dispensed with the exemption, as a violation of equal protection law. Since then, a series of short-term agreements through the Courts and Knesset kept it in place. The most recent one in 2018 expired on March 31, after which, Bibi tried and failed to negotiate with the Court to extend the deadline; and pass a law to permanently enshrine it in Israeli law.

The Court’s ruling validated what many exemption objectors argued all along, that the government could not subsidize the yeshiva students, while exempting them from the conscription requirements of all other Israeli citizens. This was an application of the American “equal protection” concept, enshrined in the 14^th Constitutional Amendment. Israel had no such law until 2021.    

“How military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox divide Israel” | REUTERS Video

This Court decision has fractured the Israeli government, which has been a delicate balance of ultra-Orthodox leaders and far-right secular groups promoting illegal settlements in Palestinian territory. If PM Benjamin Netanyahu does not defy his own Court (again), the Haredim might leave the government prompting new elections. But if the decision is not honored, some secular politicians might prompt the collapse. The Likud government is dependent on two ultra-Orthodox parties to keep the government in power, Shas and United Torah Judaism.

Haredim or Haredi are the most observant Jews adhering to every one of the 613 laws in the Torah, Talmud, the Midrash and other formal commentaries. Unlike the Chassidic Chabad Lubavichers, the Haredim are rigidly exclusionary towards other Jews, and self-segregating; while Chabad engages in secular outreach and is accepting of Jews who are not as observant. The self-exclusionary nature of Haredi is fueled by the fact that, “They teach their children to despise secular Jews. They do not recognize the state, they are anti-Zionist; to them, we are simply a cash register that must be robbed,” according to Haaretz columnist Nehemia Shtrassler.

The Court had given the government the April 1 deadline to submit a new bill and until June 30 to pass it, when it ruled the exemption to be a violation of “equal protection,” and thus discriminatory. The war cabinet consists of Bibi, along with Ministers Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz. The latter two argue that Bibi’s proposal does not go far enough to meet the manpower needs of the IDF, and they want more Haredi men in the troops.  Most of the 287,000 reservists called up on October 7 have since been released, but will return to active duty soon. Many reservists resent being compelled to serve longer active terms, and want the Haredi men drafted.

The drama was elevated when Gantz, the former general, opposition leader and war cabinet member;  called out this untenable situation, and demanded new elections in September. Gantz suggested that early elections would provide Israel with international legitimacy, a direct reference to public comments by the US and other allies, over the growing objections to Bibi’s leadership, and the self-destructive nature of the far-right government. He said, “I believe Israeli society needs to renew its contract with its leadership, and I think the only way to do it and still maintain the national effort in fighting Hamas… is by having an agreed election date. ”  His comments elicited a harsh reaction from the Likud, dismissing the call as “petty politics,” claiming it would lead to paralysis, divisiveness and an impediment to freeing the hostages; as if they’re on track to accomplish any of this, and actually care about the hostages more than causing famine in Gaza. Bibi claimed that new elections would “paralyze the country,” as if he hasn’t already accomplished that. He follows the same double-speak playbook as Trump with the media.

But Gantz’s position also brought parallel, but different objections from fellow Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, who insisted that Gantz’s centrist position does not go far enough. Lapid said, “Israel cannot wait another six months until the worst, most dangerous and failed government in the country’s history goes home. As long as we are a democracy, there is a tool that changes reality. It is called elections. Election now!” This places Israeli opposition leaders in alliance with Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. His dramatic Senate Floor speech last month called for new Israeli elections; and also called out Bibi for focusing more on his political survival than the security of his nation, or minimizing civilian casualties in Gaza. But it’s President Joe Biden’s move now to halt US aid to the Israeli war machine, to dignify Schumer’s rhetoric and legitimize his own.

The Bibi government is like to fall soon, a consequence of political over-reach for an untenable situation, and his own brand of hubris-chutzpah. After a series of inconsequential elections and back room bargaining, which yielded no majority; he managed to cobble a fractured government, composed of ministers with competing and conflicting agendas and interests. It was destined to fail from the beginning, and now they face a dilemma certain to bring it down. It’s a matter of time. Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party has declared that if new elections aren’t held by September, his party will leave the government.

The minister’s report – and this anecdote – were well-received at the court. The Ottoman authorities were impressed by the openness and tolerance of the European universities they visited and as a result took steps to introduce educational reforms into their own educational system.  

The Hungarian Jewish scholar referred to in this anecdote was Ignaz Goldziher, the savant who pioneered the scientific study of Islamic languages and texts in the West. During his long career he produced books and articles that are studied by Islamicists to this day. His work had a profound effect on Western scholarship in the areas of comparative philology, religious studies, and the emerging disciplines of Semitic languages and comparative religion. His vast oeuvre includes over eight hundred scholarly articles. The titles of his major books, six of which are studies of various aspects of Islam, are familiar to all students of the Middle East. His earliest work, Mythos bei den Hebräern (1876), was influenced by Max Müller’s work on solar mythology and addresses the relationship between theories of myth and the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. From scholarship on the Bible Goldziher moved to the study of Islam. He translated Islamic classical texts into German and Hungarian and synthesized this material into surveys of Islamic religion and philosophy. He rose to prominence in his native Hungary and then throughout the West as the preeminent non-Muslim authority on Islam. Islamic scholars in Egypt and elsewhere in the Muslim world recognized the importance of Goldziher’s accomplishments and considered him a valued colleague. Goldziher understood the political and social implications of his scholarly work. Throughout his life he strived to create an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding between Muslims, Jews, and Christians.  

Goldziher was not the only late nineteenth century Jewish scholar drawn to Islam. Many others were drawn to the study of what they deemed Judaism’s “sister religion.” As we shall see in the coming chapters, Islam held a strong appeal to European Jewish intellectuals in the nineteenth century, a period of intense ferment and change in Jewish life. This central European Jewish fascination with Islam was not limited to those engaged in the study of religion and philosophy. In the late nineteenth century, the anticipated full emancipation of the Jews was blocked by a resurgence of Christian anti-Semitism. Islam, as an abstraction, if not as a political reality, appealed to many Jews. The Golden Age of twelfth century Spain, the Convivencia in which the three monotheisms were imagined to have lived in mutual tolerance, was the model for a new era of religious tolerance and mutual respect. This aspiration was reflected in the Moorish architectural styles of German synagogues of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.   

Among those fascinated by Islam were the early rabbis of Reform Judaism. First and foremost among them was Abraham Geiger. Geiger’s doctoral dissertation, presented at age twenty-four, asked the question “What had Muhammad taken from the Jews?” Geiger demonstrated that many stories narrated in the Qur’an had close parallels to narratives in the Bible and the Midrash, and he speculated that the Jewish narratives directly influenced the Qur’an. His later work focused on the development of Judaism, which he saw as an evolving faith, one that could be brought into line with modern European thought and practice. With this modernizing project in mind, Geiger shaped the emergence of Reform Judaism in the mid-nineteenth century.  

These German Rabbis and scholars viewed Islam as a ‘rational’ religion, a religion unencumbered by the magical and ‘superstitious’ aspects of Christianity, and of Orthodox Judaism. For reformers of Judaism, Islam offered a model of a ‘religion of reason.’ And in emulation of Jewish life in the Convivencia of Spain’s ‘Golden Age,’ a period idealized and romanticized by many scholars, European Jews would flourish. Goldziher was affiliated with the Neolog (Reform) movement. 

At the University of Budapest Goldziher studied Arabic and Persian with Arminius Vambery. Vambery’s birth name was Chaim Wamburger; and he had become both a Muslim and a Christian in pursuit of ‘Oriental Knowledge’ and a university lectureship. In his autobiography Vambery noted that his Orthodox Jewish education and its emphasis on the mastery of texts and languages prepared him for mastering Islamic texts and languages. In his six-year sojourn in Istanbul, Vambery mastered Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. For Muslims, as for Jews, Vambery noted, text study is a form of devotion.

H/t Memorial Website of Ignaz Goldziher

Like his teacher, Goldziher was educated in Orthodox Jewish schools and brought to the study of the Qur’an the same attention to detail that Rabbinic scholars brought to the Torah. Thus many, but not all, of the era’s Jewish scholars of Islam had a Jewish religious education rich in text study and analysis. With these tools in hand, they took on the study of Arabic and Islam.  

Thus, from the outset of the liberalization of European Judaism, the study of Islam, or more precisely, an idealized vision of Islam as ‘rational religion,’ played a significant role. That vision was based on the recognition that the two sister religions had similar, though not identical, approaches to the study of scripture, the development of law, and the practice of rituals. 

In the first half century of this modern Jewish engagement with Islam, (1870-1920), contact with actual Muslims was limited. Some of Goldziher’s teachers, colleagues, and students spent time in the Arab world and in the wider Muslim world. And they met with European Muslims, of which there were many in Germany. Goldziher himself studied at Cairo’s Al-Azhar, the great center of Muslim learning. But these contracts did not lead any of these Jewish scholars to convert to Islam.  

In the next stage of this Jewish – Muslim encounter, roughly from Goldziher’s death in 1920 to the outbreak of war in 1939, a number of European Jews became Muslims.  

From Budapest, Goldziher went to study in Germany, then the center of both Jewish studies and Islamic studies. At the University of Leipzig he was mentored by Heinrich Fleischer, the preeminent European Arabist of the day. Fleischer, who began his academic training in a Christian seminary, was unusual in that he accepted Jewish students into his doctoral program. Eventually some forty percent of his one hundred and thirty advisees were Jews. In his eulogy for Fleischer, Goldziher said “He was one of the few learned men of our time whose academic influence was inseparable from the moral beauty that adorns a man’s character.”ⁱⁱⁱ 

Excerpted from:

From Jews to Muslims: Twentieth-Century Converts to Islam by Shalom Goldman. Click here to order.

Much of Goldziher’s inspiration for this life long-commitment to scholarship derived from his 1873-74 journey to the Middle East. He was then twenty-four years old and at the end of a five-year period in which he had travelled throughout Europe and studied with the most eminent European Arabists of his day. When he arrived in Damascus in 1873 and then proceeded to Cairo, he was already fluent in Arabic, and this eased his entry into Muslim religious and educational institutions. The bulk of his time in the Mideast was spent in Cairo, where his language skills, intellectual acumen, and persistence gained him an introduction to the Shaykh Al-Azhar, the administrative and spiritual head of Al-Azhar, Islam’s oldest center of religious learning.  

Goldziher was the first European non-Muslim to attend lectures at this prestigious academy. He was allowed to do so only after the Shaykh gave him a rigorous examination. Of the four months that he spent at Al-Azhar Goldziher later wrote “Both the students and the teachers treated me as if I were one of them, although I never posed as a Muslim. These were four glorious months of spirited learning.” In his travel journal Goldziher wrote movingly of his period of study at Al-Azhar: “In those weeks, I truly entered into the spirit of Islam to such an extent that ultimately I became inwardly convinced that I myself was a Muslim, and judiciously discovered that this was the only religion which, even in its doctrinal and official formulation, can satisfy philosophic minds. My ideal was to elevate Judaism to a similar rational level. Islam, as my experience taught me, is the only religion, in which superstitious and heathen ingredient are not frowned upon by rationalism, but by orthodox doctrine.”^iv 

Note that though he was fascinated by Islam, and driven to master its texts and traditions, Goldziher did not feel drawn to convert to Islam. He remained within the Jewish fold. This was in marked contract to his teacher Chaim Wamburger – Arminius Vambery, who, in the course of his life converted first to Islam and later to Christianity.  

Goldziher, as events towards the end of his life would indicate, was deeply loyal, attached to the Hungarian language and people, and to its Jewish community – and this despite his constant complaints about his job in that community’s Neolog (Reform) Synagogue.  

Goldziher’s teachers at Al-Azhar gave him an Arabic title, Shaykh Zarawi. The Arabic document which the head of Al-Azhar wrote on Goldziher’s admission to the theological school reflects a more relaxed period in interfaith relations, in which a non-Muslim scholar, fluent in Arabic, could gain permission to study at an institution usually closed to outsiders. The document read: “There appeared before us the Hungarian talib Ignaz, a man of the ahl al-kitab (peoples of the book) with the presentation of his desire to delve into the sciences of Islam under the eyes of the wise and learned shaykhs of the mosque. . . .  He declares himself far removed from all pursuit of mockery . . . Thus it is the decision of God that this youth become a neighbor of our flowering mosque, and one must not obstruct the decision of God.”^v In later years, Goldziher’s pride in this affiliation remained. He signed his books with the title Ignaz Goldziher, the Magyar (Hungarian) Azhari, student at Al-Azhar.  

In Islam in its earliest form (c. 7^th century A.D.) Goldziher found a model for religious tolerance, a model that he felt could serve modern societies and religions well. In his Introduction to Islamic Theology and Law, Goldziher wrote that “It is undeniable that, in this earliest phase of the development of Islamic Law, the spirit of tolerance permeated the instructions that Muslim conquerors were given for dealing with the subjugated adherents of other religions.” And speaking of the Islamic states of his own time, Goldziher noted that “What today resembles religious toleration in the constitutional practice of Islamic states goes back to the principle of the free practice of religion in the first half of the seventh century.”^vi 

But it was not only with the Egyptian religious establishment that Goldziher forged lasting ties during his sojourn in Egypt. He met with intellectuals, activists, and Sufis. Goldziher was also acutely aware of the political struggles then raging in Egypt and allied himself with progressive nationalist forces. He sympathized with the views of Egyptian nationalists opposed to both the Ottoman Turks and the European colonial powers. In Cairo Goldziher befriended the influential thinker Jamal ad-Din Al-Afghani, (1838-1897) who called for Egyptian independence from all foreign powers. Al-Afghani, who lived in Egypt from 1871 to 1879, had a profound effect on Egyptian politics in particular and on Arabic political thought in general. The mid 1870s, when Goldziher was in Cairo, were a formative period in Al-Afghani’s political development. His charisma and oratorical ability had attracted many followers. Visiting European intellectuals were eager to meet with al-Afghani, and he with them. Among the Europeans, it was Goldziher with whom he formed the closest association. The friendship with Al-Afghani and the other social and intellectuals ties that Goldziher formed during this 1873-74 visit had a profound effect on his understanding of Islam as it is lived. As Lawrence Conrad noted in an important series of articles on Goldziher, the full import of this trip must be understood in the context of the times. For Goldziher arrived in the Near East in the heady early days of the nahda, the great revival of Arab political and cultural awareness that influenced the intellectual and social life in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Middle East. 

Among the aspects of Islam that Goldziher investigated and explained to a Western audience was Sufism, the mystical tendency and tradition within Islam. In Egypt, Goldziher met with Sufis and observed their rituals. He wrote extensively about Ibn Arabi, the great thirteenth century scholar who interpreted the Qur’an in a mystical manner. In his Lectures on Islam Goldziher dedicated a full lecture to Ibn Arabi and the Sufis. His essays about Sufism helped popularize its teachings in the West – and those teachings were the background for the resurgence of Western interest in Sufism in the early twentieth century. In this book’s accounts of Jewish interest in, and conversion to, Islam, an attraction in Sufism is a major factor in some individual’s decision to convert.^viii This was particularly true in the United States and Western Europe, where mystical forms of ‘Eastern’ religions held great appeal to the young and unaffiliated. 

Though the necessity for religious tolerance was a theme that emerges from Goldziher’s oeuvre, he himself was the victim of intolerance throughout his life. The breadth and depth of his scholarship on Islam was recognized by experts throughout the world, yet despite his international stature as a scholar, the state-controlled University of Budapest would not grant him a regular university appointment. A Jew, even one educated within Hungary’s own university system, was not a suitable candidate for a professorship. In predominantly Catholic Budapest, Protestant candidates too were often rejected. A contemporary of Goldziher’s, the Jewish linguist Bernard Munkacsi, in writing of his own travails at the hands of the university’s administrators, described the fate of Jewish scholars who aspired to university professorships in late-nineteenth century Hungary: “The honors degree, Ph.D. and academic achievements were all in vain! Where teacher’s posts were given, certificates of baptism were required. Teachers-to-be of Jewish origin had to settle their ‘religious status’ before being employed by the state. Many of my attempts to acquire a secular job have failed.”^ix  

Goldziher, while bitter at rejection by the system that educated him, did not vent his spleen at the Hungarian authorities. Rather, he reserved his most caustic remarks for his Jewish co-religionists. When Goldziher, in his mid-twenties, realized that admission to the regular university faculty would be denied him, he accepted an administrative job with the Neolog (Reform) Budapest Jewish community. As secretary of the Israelite Congregation, the Reform Synagogue with the largest membership in Europe, Goldziher was responsible for the religious, educational, and social activities of the congregation. As Raphael Patai noted, “A man without Goldziher’s intense scholarly drive, and more important, with a thicker skin, could have found at least some measure of satisfaction in occupying this influential position.”^x But Goldzhiher, though he served in an influential position for thirty years, did not. 

Goldziher found no satisfaction from his work as a community official. In his diary, and in his letters to friends, he complained bitterly about his fate as a synagogue administrator. Early on in his period of service he wrote “It was decided that I become a slave. The Jews wanted to have pity on me. This is the misfortune of my life.” Even though he expresses his feelings strongly, it is remarkable that Goldziher did not succumb to these bitter feelings and sink into inactivity. On the contrary, he persisted in his studies of Islam and developed a work ethic that enabled him to produce scores of books and articles over the thirty years he served the congregation. During the working year Goldziher would read Arabic texts at night, translating and taking notes, and this after working eight hours in the congregation’s office in which he supervised a staff of ten employees. On his six-week summer vacation he would take these books and notes (and later, when he married, his wife and son) to the mountains and write a complete monograph in one sustained effort. Among the magisterial works written in this manner were: Islam: Studies in the Religion of Mohammad (1881), a long German-language monograph on the Zahiris (1884), and the authoritative Introduction to Islam (1910).  

While engaged in mastering a vast corpus of Islamic texts, Goldziher did not neglect the study of Judaism. In many of his essays he compares Jewish and Islamic beliefs and practices. As Alexander Scheiber noted, “The Bible and the Talmud were Goldziher’s favorite studies in his youth. He remained a good Hebrew stylist and retained his interest in Jewish learning until the end of his life.”

It was only in 1905 that Goldziher, then aged 55, received a regular university appointment in Budapest. During his thirty-year tenure at that city’s Reform Jewish congregation, he had turned down job offers from the most important European and Middle Eastern centers of the study of religion and culture. Among the offers: In 1893 the University of Heidelberg, at the urging of the great Semitist Nöldeke, offered him a professorship. A year later Cambridge University invited him to occupy the chair left empty at the death of William Robertson Smith, the eminent philologist and historian of religion. In the first decade of the twentieth century Goldziher received offers from the Khedive of Egypt to teach in Cairo – and from Zionist leader Max Nordau (who was Goldziher’s childhood friend) to teach at the newly envisioned Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Surely he was the only person who received job offers from both Muslim and Jewish institutions. 

Senior Zionist leaders, including Max Nordau and Nahum Sokolow, sought Goldziher’s involvement with the Zionist cause, and Sokolow hoped to “entrust Goldziher with the mission of improving relations between Arabs and Jews.”^x Though Goldziher wrote that “he wished that persecuted Jews would find a home in the Holy Land and live peaceably together with Christians and Muslims,” he was not an active political Zionist and declined the invitation to teach at the planned, but not yet established, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which opened its doors in 1925. 

Goldziher remained within the Jewish community, he never was a committed Zionist. We noted earlier that his teacher Armin Vambery – who professed the Protestant faith after his youthful conversion to Islam – actively supported “the Return to Zion.” A decade before Zionist leaders asked Goldziher to take on “the mission of improving relations between Arabs and Jews,” Vambery met with Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, and agreed to arrange a meeting between Herzl and the Ottoman Sultan, Abdul Hamid.

To all of these offers of university professorships at foreign institutions, tied to Budapest and his family, friends, and regular employment, Goldziher said no. His refusal to consider teaching positions outside of Hungary – coupled with his continuing bitterness and anger at the Jewish community for “enslaving” him in his administrative position – are congruent with the general psychological picture we get from reading his correspondence. Despite his accomplishments and worldwide acclaim, he felt trapped in a work situation in which his worth as a scholar was not recognized. And from that trap he could see no way to free himself. Too, his loyalty to Hungary and its community of scholars made him reluctant to leave his native land. This was the way that Raphael Patai, the anthropologist whose father was a student of Goldziher’s, viewed Goldziher’s psychological makeup. A more recent study and analysis by Lawrence Conrad, sees Patai’s reading of the diary as flawed. For along with Goldziher’s stridency and occasional emotional outbursts, there is much in his correspondence with colleagues that is positive and affirming. To use Goldziher’s emotional outbursts as the basis for an interpretation of his life and work seems to Conrad, and to me, an unreasonable assumption.

Robert Simon, Goldziher’s biographer, noted that “he transformed correspondence into a veritable cult.” The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has preserved a good deal of correspondence, and as one observer put it, “the mere quantity of these letters is astounding: 45 boxes containing 13,700 letters from 1,650 people.” Goldziher clearly followed his own advice about staying in touch with colleagues. A letter from a valued colleague or student was joyfully received. He told A.S. Yahuda that “if I receive a letter from Nöldeke or Snouck I feel as if I were given a precious gift. A happy and solemn mood descends upon me immediately.” And these were not mere missives of politeness. Scholars who have studied his correspondence noted that these letters, and Goldziher’s detailed replies, could pass for scientific papers, in that they convey more ideas and scientific value than many other scholarly articles of the time. Joseph de Somogyi, a student of Goldziher’s who emigrated to the U.S. and taught Arabic at Brandeis University, quoted his teacher as exhorting him “to do two things if you want to prosper in life: answer every letter or card you receive, even if your answer be negative; and give lectures at the Orientalists’ congresses. This is as important as literary work.”

The outbreak of World War in 1914 was a great blow to Goldziher’s spirit, and to his hopes for world peace. His ability to travel, and to receive visiting scholars in his home, was severely curtailed by the hostilities. Hungary, one of the belligerents, was severely destabilized by the war, in which it was on the losing side. At times, Goldziher’s personal concerns about the war emerge in his correspondence, though for the most part his letters are concerned with matters philological and textual. Some of these letters served as drafts for his academic papers. Goldziher also kept a diary and in it he allowed himself greater freedom of expression. Portions of these diaries were published in the 1970s. William Montgomery Watt, in an essay on the diaries, noted that they contained a startling revelation about Goldzhiher: “His apparently effortless mastery of his subject and the even tenor of his scholarly expositions suggest a placid existence in the groves of academia. The publication of the diary shows such a suggestion to be completely erroneous. All these works of serene and profound scholarship came from one who was engaged for over thirty years in an intense spiritual struggle against forces which made his daily life almost unbearable and threatened to destroy all his confidence in himself.”This ‘spiritual struggle’ referred to here was Goldziher’s experience of his synagogue job as oppressive and his scholarly work as liberating, life-affirming.  

Goldziher’s literary legacy of books, articles, letters was vast. His other great contribution to scholarship was mentoring of students. He taught and inspired a generation of Islamicists, Comparative Semitists, and students of religion. These students, in turn, founded scholarly lineages of their own. During World War Two, many of his Jewish students were murdered by the Nazis. Others fled Europe and survived. They taught, wrote, and inspired a new generation of scholars in New York, Boston, London, Moscow and Jerusalem. As Noam Stillman wrote in an essay on “The Mindset of Jewish Scholars of Islamic Studies”: “Goldziher’s holistic approach to Islam as religion and civilization, to Hadith, law, theology to practice – both orthodox and heterodox, high and popular, historical and actual – and to belles lettres, shaped succeeding generations of scholars, Jews and Gentiles alike.”

 German-trained Jewish scholars of Arabic and Islam explored many facets of the historical relationship between Islam and Judaism. One of them, Jacob Goldenthat, explored “the influence of Islamic culture on medieval works in Jewish philosophy and Hebrew Grammar.” Another German-trained Jewish scholar of Arabic and Islam, Joseph Horovitz (1874-1931), continued and expanded on the legacy of Goldziher. Horowitz sought to forge ties between Jewish and Arab scholars of Islam. In 1928, in his argument for establishing a School of Oriental Studies at the recently established Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Horovitz wrote that, “The idea was to create a school for the study of the East, its languages and literatures, its history and its civilizations especially the Arabic and the Islamic worlds, were to be considered. It was hoped that the work to be undertaken would be such as to be appreciated by the learned world in general and more especially by savants of the Arabic speaking countries; and that in its own way, i.e. by showing that there was a ground of intellectual interest common to Jewish and Arabic scholars, the institute might also help to promote the good feelings between these two communities.”^xix But for many reasons, this institute was never established. Arab opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine, and to what the Arabs saw as British support for Zionism, broke out into violence in 1929 and to a full-scale rebellion in the Arab Revolt of 1936-9. Horovitz’s proposal that academic cooperation would lead to a lessening of tensions no longer seemed relevant to the faculty and directors of the Hebrew University. 

As some scholars have noted, Goldziher’s life and scholarship flatly contradicts the assertion of post-colonialist scholars that the study of Middle Eastern cultures is inextricably tied to imperial designs of power. For Goldziher’s work is itself a critique of Orientalism. It is an attempt to present Islam as it is understood and interpreted by its followers in its own textual tradition and not as it is presented by its antagonists. Goldziher sharply attacked Renan and other European scholars who denigrated Islam and repeatedly sought to disprove his negative view of Islam and Muslims. Goldziher’s Cairo friend al-Afghani also produced a trenchant critique of Renan’s Orientalist views. One might imagine the young Hungarian Jewish Orientalist and the older Muslim religious and political thinker critiquing Renan’s views as they walked through Cairo in the winter of 1874.^xx 

The reader will recall Goldzhiher’s youthful declaration, at age twenty-four, that “Islam was the only religion which can satisfy philosophic minds.” Goldziher and his colleagues saw early Islam as a ‘religion of reason’ and as a model of how Judaism might be integrated into European civilization, and in the decades after his death the appeal of contemporary Islam as an alternative to ‘Western’ faiths grew, especially among Jews. In the mid-1920s, a few years after Goldziher’s death, a small but significant number of German and Austrian Jews converted to Islam. Among them was Leopold Weiss of Berlin, who, as Muhammad Asad, (1900-1992), dedicated his life to presenting Islam as a religion of reason, and arguing against what he saw as extremist tendencies within the Islam of the late twentieth century. Similarly, twentieth century Western interest in Sufi teachings and rituals was informed by the scholarship of Goldziher and other late nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars of Islamic mysticism.   

Excerpted from with the author’s permission from: From Jews to Muslims: Twentieth-Century Converts to Islam.

Jewish tradition as shaped by Rabbinic Judaism abhors literal reading of the Torah all the while considering it the holiest object in existence. This, in fact, is what distinguishes the Jews from the Karaims, who remain attached to literalism. One may offer different reasons for the rabbis’ insistence on interpreting biblical verses. They consider the text timeless, so in order to make it meaningful for future generations they must explain and decode it. This dynamic view of the eternal is reflected in the very term used for Judaic law, the halakha, which is derived from the root “move.” It may well be that rabbis felt uneasy with the literal reading and so offered their own understanding of a biblical verse. This approach rejects anachronism and fundamentalism and tries to make the Torah a living source of inspiration.

Violence is not rare in biblical texts. The Pentateuch and several of the books of the prophets, such as Joshua and Judges, teem with violent images. From the genocidal command to wipe out seven nations inhabiting the Promised Land to the obligation to blot out the memory of Amalek, there are quite a few episodes that appear to promote massacre. Biblical Israel was conquered under conditions that could hardly be described as peaceful.

But far from glorifying war, Jewish tradition decisively deemphasizes military prowess as the principal reason for the victories mentioned in the Bible. After the Romans’ destruction of the Second Temple of Jerusalem, Jewish life underwent a transformation. Viewed in the context of Judaism, the annihilation of Jerusalem defined the normative attitude toward force, resistance, and the Land of Israel for nearly two millennia.

Rather than promote revenge, Jewish tradition encourages self-examination. After a calamity or a misfortune occurs, one is advised to examine and correct one’s own misdeeds (lefashpesh bemaasaw). This approach suggests that the Temple was razed by the Romans because of gratuitous hatred among the Jews, and that the first exile to Babylonia occurred because of illicit sex, murder, and idolatry.

The Roman siege of Jerusalem in the first century, like the Israeli siege of Gaza, sharply divided the Jews. The scholars of the Law tended to favor negotiated compromise, while the zealots organized a forceful response. Classical exegetes — such as the Italian Ovadia Seforno (1470–1550) — condemned the advocates of armed struggle in particularly severe terms: “If the Zealots had heeded Rabbi Yohanan Ben Zakkai [a prominent scholar opposed to violence], the Temple of Jerusalem would not be destroyed.” Considering the central position held by the Temple in Judaism, the accusation is indeed serious and serves as a warning against any collective temptation to use force. The Mishna defines a strong man as someone who succeeds in controlling his own inclinations, passions, and urges (Pirke Avot, 4:1).

But what does Jewish tradition do with explicit violence mentioned in the Torah? The oral tradition interprets it allegorically: the sword and the bow used by Jacob the Patriarch against his enemies (Genesis 48:22) become prayer and supplication (Bereshit Rabbah 97:6); the victory of Benaiah over Moab (2 Samuel 23:20) now stands for Torah study (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot, 18b).
To some, Purim provides a model for conflict resolution. The story is as simple as it is prophetic. Haman, the Persian vizier, has planned a total massacre: “to destroy, to kill, and to annihilate, all Jews, both young and old, little children and women, in one day” (Esther 3:13). The response of the Jews was to proclaim a fast of repentance, but at the same time to find a way to influence the king and thereby circumvent the vizier and his decree. Queen Esther intervened, revealed to the king her Jewish origins, and convinced him to stop the planned genocide. “But it did not occur to any of the Jews to use physical means against Haman,” noted Rabbi Elhanan Wasserman in his commentary on the history of Purim written at the end of the 1930s (Jewish Guardian 1977, 8–9). Yet, the massacre of 75 000 people at the hand of the Jews that is mentioned in the final chapter, albeit explicitly authorized by the king, causes anguish and calls for interpretation.

Edward Armitage, “The Festival of Esther,” 1865, Royal Academy of Arts 03/1188

One such initiative was undertaken by the Shalom Center in Philadelphia. A range of people wrote their own versions of the final chapter. Many were inspired by classical Judaic sources aware that violence can only beget more violence and cycles of revenge. One commentary suggests that Jews offered gifts of food to their erstwhile enemies, which dovetails with the Purim custom of mishloah manot, sending each other edible items. Moreover, such behavior would be considered heroic. Avot de Rabbi Nathan, an 8th century source, defines a hero as someone who can turn an enemy into a friend (23:1).

Yet, quite a few followers of National Judaism (or, in Hebrew, dati-leumi), including members of the current Israeli government, revere a different kind of a hero. They erected a shrine to commemorate Dr Baruch Goldstein (1956–1994), a US-born physician, who massacred dozens of Muslims praying in Hebron on the day of Purim. He had apparently been influenced by the biblical readings associated with Purim, calling for the extermination of Amalek. He saw Amalek in Muslims and Palestinians, which inspired his murderous mission.

The association of the Palestinians with Amalek seems to have become so common in Israel that it encourages unbridled cruelty from IDF soldiers sent to Gaza. They chant with joy about how they are destroying Amalek. The direct link between the biblical texts and the challenges facing Israel encourages violence as has been graphically shown at the International Court of Justice in The Hague in January 2024.

Jews have long associated their enemies with Amalek. Among others, Zionists have been often portrayed as Amalekites by those Jews who oppose the Zionist colonization of Palestine. But they would never resort to violence in their struggle against the modern Amalek. Rather, some rabbis called on the faithful to resist the internal Amalek and fight off the emotion, in rabbinical parlance, the evil inclination (yetser har’a), which tempts some Jews to identify with Zionism and the state that embodies this ideology. The numerical value (gematria) of the letters constituting Amalek is equal to that of the letters in the word safeq, doubt. These rabbis argue that rejection of Zionism should brook no doubt.

Zionist settlement in Palestine and the unilateral declaration of independence by the state of Israel in 1948 challenged the tradition of non-literalism, certainly among the secularized settlers but only slightly less among those affiliated with National Judaism. From the beginning, Zionism has encouraged love of the land, a love that has taken political and ideological forms. The nature hikes with the Torah in the hand have been intended to impart an intimate knowledge of the terrain mentioned in biblical verses. This organic intimacy breeds literal rapport with the Torah recounting events that are believed to have happened mostly in that land.

But the events narrated in the Book of Esther are located elsewhere. Against the continuing massacres and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza we can celebrate Purim by transforming the violence it contains into a manifestation of empathy. We can write our own finales for the Book of Esther. After all, Purim is a holiday of radical transformation. Haman thought he would be the one to be honored by the king, but it was his worst enemy, Mordechai, whom Haman was forced to praise and parade. Jews were facing a genocide, but then the tables turned, transforming a day of anguish into festivity. The Torah is eternal precisely because it is not immutable and allows for time-sensitive interpretations, including those of the Book of Esther.

IMDB’s laconic description of Glazer’s masterpiece, based on a novel by Martin Amis, goes this way: “Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his wife Hedwig strive to build a dream life for their family in a house and garden beside the camp.” The film is an indictment of what Hannah Arendt called “The Banality of Evil.”

The British national Glazer, however, clearly has a difficulty with the Zionist Right, which has appropriated the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews as a primary plank in its platform of bestowing impunity on the Israeli government for whatever atrocity, whatever violation of international humanitarian law, whatever genocide its leaders wish to commit.

In his Oscar acceptance speech, Glazer said,

“All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present — not to say, ‘Look what we did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack in Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”

Here’s the clip:

ABC Video: THE ZONE OF INTEREST Accepts the Oscar for International Feature Film

Daniel Arkin at NBC writes, “Inside the Dolby Theatre, many in the audience could be seen cheering and applauding. Sandra Hüller, the German actor who portrayed Höss’ wife, Hedwig, appeared to be crying and put her hand to her chest.”

He adds, “Billie Eilish, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef wore red pins on the Oscars red carpet symbolizing calls for a cease-fire.”

Glazer’s international platform (19.5 million people watched live) and his universalist sentiments posed a severe difficulty for the Zionist right wing. Glazer was saying that the Holocaust was an event in human history, not solely in Jewish history, and that its lesson is that dehumanization leads to atrocities and even genocide. In wartime Nazi Germany Jews were called “Rats, lice, cockroaches, foxes, vultures.” And then they were murdered in their millions by the National Socialist government.

Likewise, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called Palestinians in Gaza “human animals.”

Glazer is aware that the Hamas commandos who killed over 600 Israeli civilians on October 7, along with some 400 military personnel, also dehumanized those Jews, allowing them to mow down attendees at a music festival and left wing grandmothers at Kibbutz hamlets.

He was saying that this dehumanization, and its consequences in the casual murder of other human beings, clearly needs to be resisted. But how? How? is the existential question of the twenty-first century.

But for the current full-on fascist cabinet in Israel and its cheerleaders in the United States, the Holocaust and October 7 aren’t about universal values, they are about Jews and Zionism. They are antinomian in effect, justifying Israeli troops in committing any action, any crime. They are a get out of jail free card for Zionists. The Right denies that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Gaza, even though over 13,000 children have been killed in indiscriminate bombing and another 12,000 women noncombatants have been killed. How else, they ask, could you destroy Hamas? Even President Biden, however, has begun pointing out in public that there are other ways of targeting a small terrorist organization than killing tens of thousands of noncombatants.

Glazer also violated the tenets of the Zionist Right by saying that his film about the Holocaust is not about what people did in the 1940s but about what people do today. His clear implication is that the tactics the Israeli government is using in Gaza must be condemned for the same reason that the Holocaust must be condemned. These actions, while of entirely different scale, are atrocities that spring from a denial of our common humanity.

Glazer’s most controversial assertion was, “Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many people.”

He was saying that the Zionist far right of Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich had attempted to hijack the Jewish religion to which Glazer and some of his colleagues adhere, and that he rejects this appropriation.

This statement strikes at the core of Zionist nationalism, which insists that Judaism and Zionism are identical. Non-Zionist Jews from this point of view are traitors. Never mind that in opinion polling significant numbers of American Jews express discomfort with the right wing Zionism that has come to dominate Israeli politics.

Because Glazer’s brief, historic statement profoundly threatened the project of what some have called “Israelism,” a cult-like induction of people into the Zionism=Judaism and “Jews must support Bibi” complex of beliefs, some Zionists decided that he must be smeared and his reputation destroyed.

Batya Ungar-Sargon, Newsweek deputy opinion editor, author of a book on how “woke” media is allegedly undermining democracy, and inveterate propagandist for the Israeli Right, presented a gross distortion of what Glazer said on X:

I simply cannot fathom the moral rot in someone's soul that leads them to win an award for a movie about the Holocaust and with the platform given to them, to accept that award by saying, "We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness."

— Batya Ungar-Sargon (@bungarsargon) March 11, 2024

Even X’s community comments eventually flagged the post as misleading, though it is actually a horrid lie, and it is hard to understand why anyone should ever again take seriously anything she says.

Her posting was widely reposted and paraphrased on the Zionist Right, in a disinformation campaign attempting to make it look as though Glazer were an apostate and had abandoned Jewish values rather than standing up for them.

An attempt was also made to push back against the red pins worn by numerous celebrities at the Oscars, symbolizing their call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza (which in polling the majority of Americans of both parties desire).

Foreign policy expert Matt Duss pointed to another disinformation campaign:

pic.twitter.com/h2KG6p0SW1

— Matt Duss (@mattduss) March 12, 2024

Another poster saw a pattern:

Lol.

You can watch the roll out of the propaganda in real time…

As a bunch of geographically dispersed accounts amazingly arrive at the same conclusion simultaneously. pic.twitter.com/tJk7NmfI7z

— Conor Hennessy (@typingduck) March 12, 2024

In fact, the red pins were distributed by ArtistsForCeasefire
who said, “The pin symbolises collective support for an immediate and permanent cease-fire, the release of all of the hostages and for the urgent delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza,”

Israeli propaganda, or Hasbara, as Duss points out, has reached the level of irrationality and of sheer crazy that characterizes QAnon conspiracies such as Pizzagate and Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Jewish space lasers.

That is why we increasingly have to consider what comes out of AIPAC, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office and other Zionist organizations as QZionism, a form of information pollution.

Yet, as any student of history, let alone a diplomat, will testify, conflicts between nations cannot be understood, let alone resolved, without an understanding of their historical roots. Could this also be true of the current conflict between Israel and the Palestinians?

The roots of this conflict are often explained with reference to establishment of Israel in 1948, including as it did, the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland as well as the killing of thousands more. Although the Zionists who founded Israel were for the most part Labor socialists and often secular-minded, the civil war in which the British Mandate of Palestine collapsed brought out a nationalistic tribalism among the newly minted Israelis. That tribalism among the Zionists was further reinforced by the Nazi mass genocide of Jews in Europe during WW II, i.e., the Holocaust.  Ironically, the Jewish tribalism of the Zionist paramilitaries in late British Palestine also impelled Palestinian and Arab tribalism. Despite the ethical universalism of the Qur’an and Islamic values, extremist Muslim groups have in recent decades become seduced by modern notions of ethnic nationalism, veering into a tribalism of their own, in the face of colonialism and neocolonialism.

A struggle within Judaism between universalism and tribalism can be traced much, much further back, however. This is the time of the author(s) of Second Isaiah in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. Among other things, Second Isaiah teaches the universal existence of God, i.e., not just the God of the Jews but of the whole world. It further contains numerous exhortations to ethical behavior and social justice. Ethical behavior includes such things as caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing justice, and treating others with compassion. 

This means that the author(s) of Second Isaiah were one of a small group of religious reformers of the Axial Age, a period given its name by the German philosopher Karl Jaspers. Jaspers identified the Axial Age as a worldwide transformation of religious consciousness that lasted from roughly between 800-200 BCE centered in the Mediterranean, India, and China. Overall, its key features included a new emphasis on ethical living, individual introspection, and universal principles.

“The Axial Age,” Digital: Dream/ Mystical, Juan Cole prompts, 2024

By comparison, the multiple religions of the world’s peoples prior to the Axial Age, including Judaism, were tribal in nature, i.e., focused on what was good for the tribe as a whole rather than the individual tribal member, much less on what was good for those outside of the tribe. While tribes typically spoke of themselves as the “people” those outside of the tribe were regarded with disdain if not fear, as a potential enemy that, when necessary, had to be destroyed in order to ensure the survival of the tribe.

It is attractive, but mistaken, to assume that in the aftermath of the Axial Age after 200 BCE, the old tribal-centric religions, typically described as animistic in character, simply atrophied and disappeared. However, as many subsequent wars have demonstrated, that is not the case. When a tribe, now called a nation, comes under threat, whether real or perceived, the populace of that nation reverts to a tribal mentality if not a tribal morality, i.e., only we are human, the ‘other’ is not. The universal deity is returned, albeit unconsciously, to his/her status as a tribal deity concerned exclusively with the welfare of the tribe. Once tribalized, the deity goes on to bless and protect the tribe, and only the tribe, assuring them of victory. As for the treatment of the tribe’s enemy, anything goes.

In the case of the current conflict in Israel/Palestine this age-old paradigm is all too clear. Thus, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not hesitate to invoke the Biblical image of the Jewish tribal battle against the Amalekites. He claimed Israelis were united in their fight against Hamas, whom he described as an enemy of incomparable cruelty. “They [Israeli Jews] are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world,” Netanyahu said in Hebrew and then added: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”

Netanyahu’s reference was to the first Book of Samuel in which God commands King Saul to kill every person in Amalek, a rival tribe to the ancient Israelites. “This is what the Lord Almighty says,” the prophet Samuel tells Saul. “‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” (1 Samuel 15:3)

Likewise, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed that “We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.” While Gallant may have initially been referring to Hamas fighters, he went on to call for the collective punishment of all Palestinians in Gaza, stating, “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza. There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.”

The tribal nature of Netanyahu and Gallant’s comments could not be clearer, just as their dismissal of the shared humanity of Israelis and Palestinians alike. It should be underlined that they are members of the secular Likud Party, so that despite their appeal to the Hebrew Bible, they are not exemplifying Judaic values. Stripped of any religious conscience, their naked tribalism became astonishingly cruel.

Yet, at the same time there are Jews, including in Israel, who recognize their shared humanity with Palestinians.  Admittedly in Israel itself, groups like “We Stand Together” are numerically few in number. However, among Jews outside of Israel, groups like “Jewish Voices for Peace” and “Not in Our Name” number in the many thousands. These groups are supported by leading Jewish intellectuals like Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Noam Chomsky, Avi Shlaim, Miko Piled and Ilan Pappe. While it is common to describe these groups and individuals as “left-wing” or “progressive,” their stances are not so much political as they are a continued recognition of the universal Judaic values of caring for the poor and oppressed, pursuing justice, and treating others with compassionate based on their shared humanity.   

At this point readers may be thinking, if this analysis is correct, it certainly doesn’t apply to adherents of Judaism only.  Don’t all of today’s major religions teach recognition of our shared humanity, the need to be compassionate to others, i.e., some version of ‘do unto others as you would have them do to you’?  In response, I would certainly agree they do. We are fortunate indeed that all of today’s major religions share these basic values at least doctrinally. But what of the historical practice of these religions?

William Blake, “The prophet Isaiah,” from Isaiah, liii, 7-12; seated figure with right arm raised.” c.1821″ British Museum, Museum number 1940,1012.1

While limitations of space don’t allow me to go into detail, let me give but one example that has particular relevance to the current situation in Israel/Palestine. I refer to the role played by “Manifest Destiny” in American history. First coined in 1845, this term represented a collective mindset that viewed the expansion of the US as both necessary and ordained by God. As the US gained more territory, proponents of Manifest Destiny used it to justify the forced removal, enslavement, and even elimination of Native American tribes, as well as the expansion of slavery into newly acquired territories.

I suggest the tribal mindset of Christians of European heritage that was manifested in Manifest Destiny is similar to the far-right Zionist commitment to the forced removal and/or elimination of the Palestinian people as part of the current, extremist Israeli government’s drive to create Greater Israel, which it sees as comprising all the lands promised to the Jewish people by God in the Bible.

Compare these actions with the words that both Christians and Jews claim to believe in as contained in the book of Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

What is one to make of the vast difference between the practice of many Christians and Jews in comparison with the teachings they both claim to believe in? Should their practice be regarded as simple hypocrisy, i.e., do as I say, not as I do? And were there space, I could give similar historical examples from all the major religions of the world. Hypocrites all?

I suggest not. Instead, I point to what is as yet an unresolved split in all religions, i.e., between their tribal heritage, based on tens of thousands of years of past history, versus their Axial-period awakening of less than three thousand years ago. This awakening was of profound importance in that it led to a recognition of the universal nature of their teachings based on their shared humanity. This in turn led to a feeling of mutual compassion in which others are recognized as extensions of themselves, extensions who have the same human needs and fears as they themselves.

Although the present conflict in Israel/Palestine may yet claim untold thousands of lives, at some point it will end, at least this time around. It is safe to say, however, that the battle for the soul of Judaism will continue on. The battle, that is, between those the sort of Judaism that sees itself  in other peoples versus the kind that retains a tribal mentality in which its own well-being is the predominate if not exclusive concern. Inevitably this dichotomy will lead to further hostilities in the future and yet more bloodshed, possibly even among Jews themselves.

At the same time, we already see the emergence of groups like the Jewish Voices for Peace and Stand Together that show the universal values of the Axial age being increasing embraced, especially by young Jews living outside of Israel and even some inside of the country. Which side will prevail remains to be seen.

Yet, it is critically important for non-Jews not to assume this is a conflict that only involves the Jewish people. As recorded history all too graphically reveals, the struggle between a narrow tribal mentality versus a universal mentality truly accepting of the other, is one that transcends all ethnic, racial, national, and even religious, boundaries. In the US, the slogan “America First!” is currently embraced by millions, demonstrating that the tribal mentality remains firmly in place.   Likewise, we have seen the recrudescence of a narrow Hindu tribalism in India, which betrays the Axial Age ethical universalism of Buddhism and the Upanishads.    

As brutal and destructive as religion-endorsed tribal warfare was in the past, humanity as a whole was endangered. Today, however, things have changed, not simply because of the very real possibility of nuclear-induced “mutual assured destruction” but because of the ever-increasing dangers resulting from phenomena like global warming. None of the problems increasingly facing humankind as a whole can be solved by one or even a group of nations. They require concerted the efforts, including necessary sacrifices, of all nations and peoples of the world.

Thus, the question of “the battle for the soul of Judaism” is, in fact, the same battle that adherents of all the world’s religions face and even of those who identify with no faith. Adherents of Islam face the same dilemma. That is to say, can we homo sapiens collectively awake to, and transcend, the historical practices associated with our tribalized pasts or are we bound to continue to fool ourselves into believing that we are pursuing universal truths even as we betray such truths in practice. Thus, the battle for the soul of Judaism is in reality the common struggle of all who believe in human equality and dignity, now encompassing even the very survival of the human species.

Historically, and even theologically, Jews have always been closer to Muslims than they were to Christians. It was in Muslim lands, the late eminent historian Bernard Lewis told us, that Arabic “became the language of science and philosophy, of government and commerce, even the language of Jewish theology when such a discipline began to develop under Islamic influence.” The Moroccan-Israeli historian Michel Abitbol couldn’t have been clearer: “The transformation of Judaism following its encounter with Islam affected all aspects of Jewish life profoundly and irreversibly.”  The great scholar of Jewish thought Maimonides (whose face graces the Israeli sheqel as seen above), wrote his classic Guide to the Perplexed in Judeo-Arabic. It is common today to talk about a Judeo-Christian tradition to distance the West from Islam, but one can more appropriately talk about a Judeo-Muslim one.

Actually, similarities between Judaism and Islam made Jews targets in Christian Europe. “Why should we pursue the enemies of the Christian faith in far distant lands,” wrote Peter the Venerable of Cluny to Louis VII in 1146, “while vile blasphemers far worse than any Saracens, namely the Jews, who are not far away from us, but who live in our midst, blaspheme, abuse, and trample on Christ and the Christian sacraments so freely and insolently and with impunity!?”

After their expulsion from Spain in the fifteenth century, Jews were welcomed into the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim lands. A Frenchman by the name of Isaac Zarfati, deploring the treatment of Jews in Germany, encouraged his co-religionists to join him: “I proclaim to you,” he wrote, “that Turkey is a land wherein nothing is lacking, and where, if you will, all shall yet be well with you.”

Prominent nineteenth-century Jewish scholars from Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire such as Abraham Geiger, Heinrich Graetz, and Ignaz Goldziher who played a key role in developing what we now call Islamic Studies were convinced of the superiority of Islam to Christianity and felt a strong kinship with Muslims. The British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a descendant of Spanish Jews, was disdainful of European culture and proud of his Semitic ancestry. He called Jews the “Arabian tribe” and Arabs “Jews upon horseback.” In his novel Coningsby, or the New Generation, Disraeli wrote: “Why do these Saxon and Celtic societies persecute an Arabian race, from which they have adopted laws of sublime benevolence, and in the pages of whose literature they have found perpetual delight, instruction, and consolation?” For this reason, Jerusalem cannot be ruled by uncouth Europeans and “will ever remain,” he wrote in Tancred, or the New Crusade, “the appanage either of Israel or of Ishmael.”

Following their emancipation in Germany, Jews, eager to reclaim their Oriental heritage, used Moorish designs to build their synagogues because they offered the closest model they could imagine to the original Temple of Solomon. This led Orientalist scholar Paul de Lagarde to comment: “What is the sense of raising claims to be called an honorary German and yet building the holiest site that one possesses in Moorish style, so as to never ever let anyone forget that one is a Semite, an Asiatic, a foreigner?”

Still, Jews saw themselves as Orientals connected to Arabs and Muslims more so than they were to the alien traditions of their host European nations. As one writer put it in the monthly journal Jüdische Monatshefte: “Who is Ishmael to us?  What does the Islamic world mean to us?  The Muslim religious doctrine, customs and laws, the Muslim science and beautiful literature contain golden seeds which seem borrowed from us and the Jewish hereditary stock and thus seem familiar and related.” In fact, the association of Jews and Muslims persisted well into the Second World War when Nazis called the most degraded of their inmates in Auschwitz Muselmänner, or Muslims

The great Iraqi poet Ma’ruf al-Russafi wrote: “We are not, as our accusers say, enemies of the Children of Israel in secret or in public/How could we be, when they are our uncles, and the Arabs are kin to them of old through Ishmael?”

In 1948, King Abdullah of Transjordan told Golda Meir: “I believe with all my heart that divine providence has brought you back here [to Palestine and the Middle East], restoring you, a Semitic people who were exiled to Europe and shared in its progress, to the Semitic East which needs your knowledge and initiative. Only with your help and your guidance will the Semites be able to revive their ancient glory. We cannot expect genuine assistance from the Christian world, which looks down on Semitic people. We will progress only as the result of joint efforts.”

Just like Moroccan Jews in Israel and Muslim Moroccans are united by their love for their ancestral land, a better appreciation of the common heritage uniting Jews and Muslims could also help lessen tensions and establish a more durable foundation for peace.

Excerpted from Tingis with the author’s permission. Read the entire essay here .

But my father Elhanan Leibowitz OBM (of blessed memory), whose yahrtzeit, or Jewish anniversary of death, occurs this week, taught us a very different version of Judaism. It was moral, nuanced, and always in search of authentic sources that emphasize a multi-faceted approach to Judaism.

In this video lesson, I analyze a Talmudic text that I shared with my father, in which a passage in Tractate Sanhedrin discusses whether compromise is to be avoided, accepted, or desired. As is typical in the Talmud, there are several opinions. But what did the great Jewish codifier Maimonides (12th cent.) – commonly known by the nickname Rambam – decide? And what happened when as a yeshiva student I wrote a letter to the editor applying the Talmudic conclusion to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

This is a video of the shiur I gave in memory of my father Elhanan Leibowitz z”l, with whom I discussed – many years ago – this Talmudic passage:

Samuel Leibowitz: “Does compromise show weakness or strength?”