A famous American comedian stood on stage at a Jewish fundraiser recently and said: I spent more time in a Buddhist temple then a Jewish one as I was growing up. It was October 7 that made me rethink the place of Judaism in my life.
In the wake of October 7, we’ve seen this soul-searching phenomenon everywhere in the Jewish world, and on its ever-elusive borders. A massive attack on a group of Jews – where does it leaves me as someone who is somehow related to this group? People who never felt connected to Israel or Judaism are now rethinking their identities, and coming to strikingly oppositional conclusions.
At a dinner party recently, a colleague told me that their child, who wasn’t raised Jewish (“we raised them to have no faith”), and has a non-Jewish mother, had found a way to connect to that part of their heritage: they march with Jews for Palestine. Anything else? I asked, any other Jewish act on behalf of your offspring? No, was the answer. Isn’t the marching enough? So, what makes a person Jewish? Who gets to decide who is Jewish enough in order to speak on behalf of the Jewish people?
The verb to Jediaze (to become Jewish, להתייהד, le-hityahed) is only mentioned once in the whole Torah. Though you might know it from Christian contexts, it doesn’t exist in Judaism itself. To convert to Judaism is to become a resident – to become a ger (le-hitgayer – להתגייר), an interesting choice in of itself.
To become a Jew is only mentioned, once, in the book of Esther. The book that doesn’t mention G-d at all.
The pro-Palestinian encampment in Oxford held a Kiddush every Shabbat. Someone in attendance told me that the participants were holding the booklet of prayers upside down. They were performing Jewish; they were intending to do a Jewish act. Is that enough or are they “Jew-washing” the encampment? One of the leaders of Jews for Palestine in New York said, years ago, “I am many things: a New Yorker, an American, a man, an academic. To be Jewish is very low on that list.” I guess October 7 moved his Jewish identity up the list, now that he invokes it to explain his politics. It is a strategy we can see on both sides of the Zionist/anti-Zionist binary. I could go on with examples from both sides of this black hole - but you get my point. I hear of people “coming home”, reclaiming identities, finding out that they are Jewish and not nessiseraly liking it.
There are an estimated 250 people in Algerian jails right now who have been put there for their fight for human rights. I wonder if I could march down the street as “Algerians for human rights”. I’ve never been to the country (as an Israeli Jew of Algerian decent it would be a very short visit), I do not speak the language (just short conversations - no I am not hungry, thank you. Yes, my mum is well, thank G-D, how is yours?) but based on the logic of the “new Jews” this is enough, no?
רַבִּים מֵעַמֵּי הָאָרֶץ, מִתְיַהֲדִים--כִּי-נָפַל פַּחַד-הַיְּהוּדִים, עֲלֵיהֶם.
“Many among the nations of the land acted in a Jewish manner (mityahadim) – because a fear of Jews fell upon them.”
book of Esther, 8, 17.
It is not an easy verse to read from a modern perspective. A century ago, it would have been read differently: every nation wants to overcome its enemies, and we – a weak small nation, once did it too! Nowadays, from a post-pre-whatever-perspective, it is read as aggression. People were so scared of us that they tried to assimilate! When did that ever happen again?
The people recounted in the book of Esther converted out of fear, not out of conviction of the truth or beauty of Judaism, and Jews themselves told us this. If history is written by the winners, to reflect their narrative of events, why is it that the Jews want to tell us this? Is it an attempt to tell the nations – don’t mess with us again (it didn’t work, did it?) or to convince ourselves that we can own our story? (It will take 2000 years for the next time, and again – G-d will be mostly absent from that story as well)
Nowadays people are so scared of us that they claim Judaism yet again – to speak against the actions of the Jewish state. It is interesting to see that they are more scared of Zionism than from antisemitism. Never have they cried out – “I am a Jew” – in public. It was never really part of their identity until it had to be claimed for political, rather than religious, cultural, or communal, reasons.
Nowadays people are so scared for us that they claim Judaism in order to join us, to stand with a group of people that’s been beaten black and blue, and gave back as much as it got, and then some.
Forget about Esther – what would Darwin say? How would these choices sound from a survival of the fittest point of view?
Conversion is not a central part of Judaism. We don’t try to convert the masses. To be honest with you, Judaism is self-contained in many ways. We simply do not care much about affairs of other nations, until they become ours as well.