I occasionally write op-eds in response to opinions I disagree with, but this is the first time I have written because I so strongly agree with an opinion that I could not remain silent. My dear friend and colleague, Rabbi Pesach Wolicki, published an editorial in Israel365 News titled, “Who is considered a Jew after Oct. 7?.” I encourage everyone to read it, Jew and non-Jew alike. It marks a watershed stage in Jewish history.
This requires a lengthy explanation. Before World War Two, being a Jew was stigmatized, and no one would admit to being a Jew unless he really were a Jew. Conversion into Judaism was unheard of, dangerous, and illegal in most countries. Anyone who claimed to be a Jew was taken at his word. We had truly become, as Balaam predicted, “the nation that dwells alone, and not reckoned among the nations.”
But, as Israel modernized and became a wonderful place to live, the Israeli government was suddenly faced with the dilemma of determining who could come and live in the ancestral homeland. At first, the Law of Return gave Jews the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship. The definition of a Jew was based on the Nazi definition, applying to people with one or more Jewish grandparents and their spouses. Halacha (Jewish law) was even more straightforward, based on the binary principle that anyone with a Jewish mother was Jewish. No definition of who is a Jew considered any beliefs or actions. We were a people bound by blood.
The Halachic definition has not changed, but the legal definition has faced challenges. In his article, Rabbi Wolicki referred to the case of Brother Oswald (Daniel) Rufeisen. He was born and raised as a Polish Jew but converted to Catholicism after the Nazi invasion of his homeland. He moved to Israel in 1959, seeking Israeli citizenship under the Israeli Law of Return, but was refused. Ironically, it was the secular Israeli government that added an element of religion to the definition of a Jew, turning Brother Daniel away because he had accepted another faith.
After much debate about the definition of who is a Jew, the Knesset amended the Law of Return in 1970 to exclude people who have “voluntarily changed their religion.”
While the Halacha remains unchanged, this dilemma of defining Jewish status remains unresolved. Rabbi Wolicki raised a point quietly discussed behind closed doors by the most ardent Zionists. There is no question that a person with a Jewish mother can eat pork on Yom Kippur, and he is still a Jew. A Jew can even take on a new and foreign faith, but the moment he turns his heart to the God of Israel, he is immediately accepted back as a wayward brother. Once a Jew, always a Jew.
But connecting with Christian Zionists has brought this into question. I feel more at home sitting with Christians who love Israel than with liberal Jews who reject Israel and support political agendas that threaten the Promised Land. My Christian friends share many of my dearest values, share my Bible, and share my love for the most precious thing in my life outside of my family: the land of Israel.
Liberal Jews share none of that and have a painful disdain for all of these precious things. How can I call them ‘brother’?
As Rabbi Wolicki highlighted, Oct. 7 made the issue of Israel as an aspect of Jewish identity unavoidable. While politics is a matter of debate, Israel’s survival is not a political issue. American Jews can vote for Democrats and reject Trump, but they cannot reject Israel.
Or can they?
Rabbi Wolicki wrote his editorial in response to a coalition of Reform rabbis who took out a full-page ad in The New York Times condemning Trump’s plan to allow Gazans to relocate. The ad accused Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing.’
This week, a group of Reform rabbis wrote a letter to senators asking them to reject the nomination of Mike Huckabeea as the US Ambassador to Israel. They objected to his rejection of the “Two-State Solution” and, ironically, his faith-based love of Israel. These Jews referred to Israel as ‘the occupation,’ a term that denies history and the entire Torah.
When I wrote an article about this, I compared these Jewish leaders to the spies in Exodus who rejected the land of Israel, thereby condemning an entire generation to wander in the desert and die.
It also ignored the Jewish blood spilled 500 days ago and the Jews still in captivity, raising the question of whether these Jews are still our brothers. As Rabbi Wolicki concluded, “Their betrayal goes beyond misguided politics or a naive desire for peace. While Jewish blood still stains the earth of southern Israel, they have chosen to stand with those who spilled it.
“They have forfeited not only their right to speak in our name but their place among our people. Let them take their “solidarity” elsewhere – the Jewish people will survive without them, as we have survived all those who betrayed us before.”
Rabbi Wolicki said what so many Jews in Judea and Samaria feel but are too afraid to say. It is now clear that liberal Jews only support Israel if it conforms to their liberal political agenda. And Israelis now find themselves at odds with their Jewish brothers in the US who espouse beliefs that endanger our existence. While Christians are still strangers who it is difficult for us to trust, they are our greatest allies, bound to us in…faith in the God of Israel.
Rabbi Wolicki’s article raises a painful question that has been whispered at Shabbat tables in Judea and Samaria for years: Can a Jew reject Israel, choose liberal agendas that threaten our existence spiritually and physically, and still be defined as Jews?
Honestly, asking this question was painful, and I am not brave enough to put words to the answer I know is true. By admitting this, I am forced to watch painfully as my Jewish brothers sail off over the horizon.
At the same time, this emphasizes how dear my Christian Zionist friends are. They are a lifeline, standing by Israel in our time of need when our Jewish brothers have turned their backs on us and joined the enemy.
To be candid, I am uncomfortable with this new alliance. Even the most Zionist Christians see me as an “unfulfilled Jew” for not accepting Jesus. We do not discuss our vastly different visions of what will be at the end-of-days. I condition my friendship on their setting aside the Christian mandate to “spread the gospel” and proselytize. They are much more dear to me than they were two years ago. So, for now, a friendship with those conditions and based on a love of Israel is enough.
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