THEY MEAN WHAT THEY SAY: WHY ISRAEL ACTED

Our movement has no official credo but we do have a kind of unofficial motto: we say what we mean and we mean what we say.

This idea is central to the Humanistic Jewish difference. It is the reason that most of us choose Humanistic Judaism as our way of expressing our Jewish identity and participating in Jewish life. It is also a response to the growing disillusionment with a Jewish progressive world that increasingly says little of what it means and means little of what it says.

Our stance makes us outliers. Most of the Jewish world has become used to favoring Jewish nostalgia over real beliefs. But make no mistake. Many in the Jewish world and far more in the larger religious world absolutely say what they mean and mean what they say.

Too many of us tend to forget that.

Prominent among those who fervently say what they mean and mean what they say are religious fundamentalists. In this very narrow sense we are similar. But we are not the same because what we believe in is goodness and human dignity. What they believe in is dogma, divorced from dignity.

In this nation we've been focused—and rightly so—on Christian fundamentalists. Especially the nationalist variety.

They are a problem and a big one. But they are not the greatest threat on the planet. The greatest threat comes from those fundamentalists who choose to actuate their belief that the entire world should be forcibly converted to their religion and that all obstacles must be swept—or more accurately blown—away. These are the jihadists. A minority of Muslims to be sure. But a minority of some 300 million people backed by Iran, one of history's most evil regimes. One that is intent on destroying the west and the Jews who stand on its front lines.

Understanding this is key to understanding why Israel decided to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities. After forty-plus years of hearing "Death to America! Death to Israel!" the Israelis, followed (not led) by President Trump, finally took action.

Like all decent people I want to believe that Iranian and other jihadi calls for death to our society and all of our values (and the Jewish people) are just slogans. That they are no more relevant to reality than the prayers uttered by non-believing Jews in Reform synagogues.

But that is denial.

Five years ago the Iranian regime installed a sign in central Tehran often referred to as the “Israel Doomsday Clock.” This digital clock displayed a countdown over a fist shattering an Israeli flag. Beside the number, a caption read, in English, Farsi, and Arabic "... left before destruction of Israel.” 

Two days ago, the sign was hit by an Israeli airstrike.

This morning Rabbi Daniel Gordis, American-born Israeli scholar at Shalem College and a beloved teacher of mine, wrote this about reactions to the strike on Iran:

From Republican Isolationists—like Tucker Carlson (who seems animated by more than dose of anti-Semitism) and Steve Bannon—to the woke crowd on the left (and many others in the middle), too many people today seem unable to grasp that unadulterated pure evil does exist in our world. Though we may not take ideologies or theologies all that seriously, other peoples do. We may use words lightly; they actually mean what they say [italics in the original].

None of us alive can remember just how unseriously the world took Adolph Hitler. Here's an example of just how unseriously the New York Times took Hitler in 1922:

Several reliable, well‑informed sources confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti‑Semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti‑Semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of followers and keep them aroused, enthusiastic, and in line for the time when his organization is perfected and sufficiently powerful to be employed effectively for political purposes.

The same article further quoted an unnamed politician who said:

You can’t expect the masses to understand or appreciate your finer real aims.… You must feed the masses with cruder morsels and ideas like anti‑Semitism. It would be politically all wrong to tell them the truth about where you really are leading them. (“New Popular Idol Rises in Bavaria,” November 21, 1922)

Too many people in the west refuse to believe the true believers. I was among them for too long. (My mea culpa has already been widely noticed.)

Humanistic Jews also like to say—and rightly so—that we are true believers.

For the sake of the future of the Jews and the Western values that we hold dear, it's time for us to acknowledge that there are plenty of other true believers.

Many people—across every part of our political divide—have no idea what that actually means. But from Israel to America, a growing number of people like me have awakened to the reality that the world is full of such people, and that their destructive intentions must finally be taken seriously.

They say what they mean and they mean what they say.