Why Israel Matters

The subject of Jews and Christians in “Christian America” is riddled with difficulties, and we should have no illusions about their being soon resolved. The contradictory legacy of the twentieth century—which witnessed the Holocaust in Europe as well as the birth of the State of Israel and the dramatic advance of Jewish security and success in America—does not exhaust the ways in which we can think about the Jewish-Christian relationship in the century ahead. At present and for the foreseeable future, one important factor is that most American Jews are not religiously Jewish. This is a factor addressed by many Jewish thinkers; for instance, by Elliott Abrams in his book Faith or Fear , which bears a subtitle very much to the point of our discussion, How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America. (Although I would like to think the subject is not survival but flourishing.) Abrams vigorously makes the case that the commitment of Jews to Jewishness, rather than to Judaism, is neither faithful to Jewish history nor capable of sustaining the Jewish community in the future.

The dominantly secular character of American Jewry is closely related to Jewish anxieties about the new assertiveness of religion in American public life. If most Jews do not see barbed wire, they are nonetheless made exceedingly nervous about any reference to “Christian America.” Moreover, there is a curious conflation of developments in this country and developments in Israel. Both there and here, secular Jews worry about the political ascendancy in Israel of those who are routinely described as “the ultra-Orthodox.” In public discussions, the analogy is frequently drawn with “the religious right” in this country. The argument is made that in both instances religion is a threat to secular democracy—with the adjective “secular” inseparable from “democracy.” In the Israeli circumstance, the argument cannot be lightly discounted.

The Orthodox in Israel—and the more rigorously Orthodox in this country, such as the Hasidim—seem to have little experience or appreciation of democracy. One reason for this is that, before the establishment of Israel in 1948, Judaism had never had the experience of being the religio-cultural establishment in a modern state. Since the Roman occupation and the destruction of the Temple in a.d. 70, Jews have not borne the chief responsibility of building and maintaining a nation. This is in sharpest contrast to the Christian experience, which since the Emperor Constantine has had seventeen centuries of wildly diverse experiments, both successful and spectacularly flawed, in relating its theology, moral teaching, and religious institutions to civil society and the political order. The more seriously religious forms of Judaism, especially the Orthodox, have yet to demonstrate that there are authentically religious warrants by which publicly assertive Judaism supports, rather than threatens, modern democracy. In the vast span of history, the short fifty-four years of the State of Israel have provided the only laboratory for that demonstration, and at present the outcome of that experiment is uncertain.

In Christian America, most Jews believed, at least in the latter half of the twentieth century, that the more secular the society the safer it is for Jews. Some of us have argued to the contrary that the naked public square is a very dangerous place for Jews and other minorities. Where there are in public no transcendent aspirations to the good, there are also no transcendent inhibitions against evil, including the evil of anti-Semitism. This argument has been advanced also by Jewish thinkers such as Irving Kristol, Midge Decter, and the company of neoconservatives around publications such as Commentary, the Public Interest, and, more recently, the Weekly Standard. It has surely made a dent, but most American Jews, it must be admitted, are still wedded to the ideology of the naked public square. Now it is being extended to Israel, with unforeseen consequences for Christian America’s perception of both Jews and Israel, the two being, of course, intimately connected.

Among my Christian friends, and especially among evangelical Protestants who have little personal experience with Jews or Judaism, there is frequently expressed puzzlement about the secularism of American Jewry. Judaism is for evangelicals a religious category, understood in terms of biblical history. They do not understand the disjunction between that Judaism and the Jewish reality in American life. At the same time, these evangelicals—who provide most of the leaders and troops of “the religious right”-have been and are at present the strongest non-Jewish supporters of the State of Israel. For many of them, Israel and the Jewish people are crucial players in their apocalyptic scenarios for the End Time. Needless to say, many Jews are not happy with the eschatological roles in which they are cast by these evangelicals. Irving Kristol, on the other hand, has succinctly remarked, “They can have their theology. I’ll take their support for Israel.”

American Christians in general, including Catholics and oldline Protestants, have been very supportive of Israel. That could change, I believe it would almost certainly change, were Israel to perceive itself and be perceived as a thoroughly secular phenomenon. The reasons for support for Israel in the past have been several. First was the Holocaust and the preeminent Jewish claim on victim status. But, despite dramatic reminders through movies and other media, the memory of the Holocaust fades. It is true that Holocaust studies are entrenched in textbooks from grade school through college, but to most young people today the Holocaust is history as ancient as the Civil War or the fall of Rome. That will, inevitably, be more the case ten or thirty years from now.

In addition, especially among liberals and leftists, there is a keen awareness of what Israel has meant for its neighbors, especially the Palestinians. Even the most determined defender of Israel acknowledges that Israel has had the upper hand-militarily, economically, and politically-and that hand has sometimes been brutal. Such defenders say that, in view of the many threats to Israel, it is sometimes necessary to be brutal, but the fact is that, looking at Israel or at the situation of Jews in America, fewer and fewer Americans, perhaps even fewer and fewer Jewish Americans, find plausible the connection between being Jewish and being a victim of history. With respect to Israel, that could of course rapidly change were, God forbid, Israel to suffer a severe setback or defeat at the hands of its enemies. Nobody should want to pay that price for reinvigorating the support of the American people.

During the more than forty years of the Cold War, which is most of the history of the State of Israel, a major reason for support was Israel’s alliance in a free world threatened by Communist totalitarianism. Like the Holocaust, the Cold War is history and will increasingly be viewed as ancient history. Today the claim is made that Israel is America’s best friend in the Middle East, but most Americans are likely inclined to the not unreasonable view that, were it not for Israel, America would not have so many enemies in that part of the world. As the believability of the past reasons for support fade or disappear, fresh attention must be paid the deepest and most abiding reason, namely, that Israel is a Jewish state, and “Jewish” is understood as a religious category. However inarticulate they may be about it, American Christians intuit that there is a divinely ordered entanglement between Christians and Jews that is not there with any other people. Certainly not with Muslims, for the obvious reason that Christians can understand their doctrines, history, and hopes without reference to Islam, while Christianity makes no sense, Christianity would not be, without Judaism. This deepest and most abiding reason for support for the State of Israel is today being undermined, I believe, by those who would have Israel redefine itself in purely secular terms. Through Jewish friends and occasional visits to Israel, one can appreciate, at least in part, how infuriating the “ultra-Orthodox” may sometimes be, but to force a choice between extreme secularism and extreme religion is a perilous game. Without the religious definition, one must wonder what the identity of Israel would be. A Jewish nation without Judaism is merely a tribal phenomenon, inviting obscene comparisons to the “blood and soil” nationalism that, through the horror of the Third Reich, brought Israel into being. It could even invite the enemies of Israel to revive the infamous slander of the United Nations General Assembly, since rescinded, that Zionism is a form of racism.

In Israel today, with echoes among some Jews in this country, voices are raised in favor of “Post-Zionism.” Limor Livnat, a prominent Israeli political figure, spoke to this phenomenon in an address to the Middle East Forum in New York City. “Post-Zionism is in effect what used to be called anti-Zionism. Post-Zionists claim that they do not oppose the idea of the State of Israel, but claim rather that the task has been completed. They suggest that the idea of a Jewish state is inherently racist, that the words Jewish soul’ should be removed from our national anthem, and that Israel should be a state for all its citizens—a phrase that really implies that Israel should cease to be a Jewish state in all senses. Israel, they argue, should mimic as closely as possible the Western liberal democracies.”

But Israel is not possible apart from being Jewish, Livnat contends. “There are certain ideas that keep a people alive. Once those ideas fade from the collective mind and heart, that people loses its reason to live. A nation that has no unique national character and a people without challenges for the future has nothing to be unified about. With no past, there is no future…. Liberalism is not Judaism. Ideas such as majority rule, minority rights, and distributive justice are all to be found in Jewish thought and history. The Jewish people did not return to Israel, however, to foster a rebirth of Western liberal democracy. The only ‘ism’ they came to Israel for is Judaism… And if Israel has no special role as a democracy and as a proponent of Judeo-Christian values, then on what basis is Israel entitled to any sort of special relationship with the United States?”

Of course only Jews can decide how to be Jews, whether it is a matter of Jewishness or of Judaism. In this country, we witness the most promising relationship between Jews and Christians since the Church condemned Marcion as a heretic in the second century. That relationship is strengthened by Jews deciding for Judaism. That decision may also have a strong bearing upon the security of the State of Israel, to the extent that its security depends upon the support of America.