Differentiating Between Two Wars
How we relate to these wars is significant because it expresses how we understand Jewish liberation, its objectives and what policies we are willing to support in our current chapter of Israel’s story.
Rav Yehuda HaKohen is a West Bank Jewish organizer & educator. As a leader in the Vision movement, he works to empower students to become thought leaders & active participants in the current chapter of Jewish history. As part of Semitic Action, he organizes grassroots dialogue sessions for Palestinians & Israelis seeking to transcend competing one-sided narratives in favor of a more scientific analysis of what forces us into conflict.
How we relate to these wars is significant because it expresses how we understand Jewish liberation, its objectives and what policies we are willing to support in our current chapter of Israel’s story.
The same Zionists that use San Remo as a legal argument for Jewish sovereignty tend to also accept the legitimacy of foreign leaders ‘granting’ Israel permission to build in or annex our homeland today.
I like to think we ran a campaign that raised the level of conversation and forced people to think about what the next goals of Jewish liberation might be.
Unlike most of the festivals on the Hebrew calendar, Sukkot commemorates an event that takes place in the future but has ramifications for the present.
The 18th of Elul was once a Hebrew festival marking the day Shimon HaTarsi achieved full independence for Judea from Seleucid-Greek rule after a brutal guerrilla war spanning nearly three decades.
The objective shouldn’t have been greater proximity to power – to replace Haman with Mordekhai as prime minister – but rather the dismantling of an unjust system and a mass return to Jerusalem.
The fact that Jews still fast on this day thousands of years later speaks volumes about the length, depth & power of Israel’s collective memory.
Did the United Nations give the Jewish people a state? Whose interest does this narrative serve and what impact has it had on Israeli society?
Jewish indigeneity to the land of Israel can’t just be a pro-Israel talking point. It must be an identity Jews internalize as part of our own decolonization.
Thinking outside-the-box & questioning the assumptions behind most of our political conclusions can prevent Israel’s national-religious camp from losing our way or unwittingly betraying the struggle we’ve committed our lives to.
We can’t judge those who didn’t fight. But we can acknowledge that within the context of a system that fostered an exclusive focus on personal survival, fighting was an act of reclaiming our humanity.
Israel’s laws and customs possess incredible cosmic significance way beyond the revealed reasons for which they were ostensibly established.