Comparing Jewish American efforts for Rubashkin and Grossman to those for Pollard

Hamodia Editorial: That None Be Forgotten


J4JP
20 June '10

J4JP Prefacing Comment:

The editorial below which recently ran in Hamodia is a deeply principled statement and a welcome change - albeit with one fatal flaw.

While we applaud the editorial's main thesis, it is both puzzling and galling to repeatedly be assailed with the canard so prevalent in the American Jewish Community, namely that there does not seem to be anything practical which can be done to help Jonathan Pollard.

It is puzzling because it simply is not true; and it is galling in light of the massive efforts and hyperbolic publicity that the American Jewish Community Leaders, their organizations and related media arms have invested in other recent cases. Never, in 25 years, has the American Jewish leadership done anything remotely similar for Jonathan Pollard! What is more, the others were certainly not "the mitzvah of pidyan shvuyim for one who was moser nefesh for Am Yisrael!"

The gross failure of the American Jewish leaders to advocate even minimally for Pollard was exposed when President Obama recently sat down with 31 Jewish Congressmen to find out what he might do to improve relations with Israel and the American Jewish Community. Imagine how simple it would have been for the Jewish Congressmen (or even just one or two of them) to say: "Mr. President, Jonathan Pollard's release would go a long way to reassuring Jews world-wide of your fairness and your concern for Israel. Please sign Pollard's commutation papers which are sitting on your desk and send him home to Israel. "

But the Jewish Congressmen had never heard from their Jewish constituents (aka the Jewish leaders) that Pollard is an issue to anyone, so they did not bring up Pollard's name at all when they sat with the President.

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Is the US Constitution Worth Dying For?

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
04 January '10

(While there are some points here with which I beg to disagree, the over all thrust of the response is on target. Y.)

A few weeks ago, a reader posted the following comment on my blog: "I perceive that young liberal U.S. Jews (i.e., the vast majority) are uncomfortable with the idea of a Jewish "nation" - just as they challenge the ethnic identification of nations generally. This is only natural for an American whose allegiance is to a legal document (the Constitution) and a flag, not a people. How do you make the argument to young Jews who are two generations removed from violent anti-Semitism, attracted to the "tikkun olam" worldview, and skeptical of nationalism generally, that Jews need a separate nation of their own that is worth killing and dying for? I think this is a serious issue that is already manifesting itself in the ever weakening support of Israel among under 40, non-orthodox U.S. Jews."

Most nations today define themselves ethnically. This is true of the Japanese, of the Germans, of the Russians, or of the Swedes. Indeed, it is because of ethnic differences that a civil war broke out in Yugoslavia in the late 1980s and that Czechoslovakia broke apart twenty years ago. And it is because of ethnic differences that the Québécois keep trying to break apart from Canada. Nationalism and national identity are a fact a life, whether you like it or not. Many academics have tried to de-construct and to de-legitimize nationalism and national identity, but it is a fact that most people identify with a nation, and that most nations define themselves ethnically.

I can understand that some people feel uncomfortable with the fact that many nations, indeed most nations, define themselves ethnically. But nations are entitled to define themselves however they want. And it is illiberal to be judgmental on how they define themselves. So people cannot on the one hand call themselves "liberal" and on the other hand denigrate the way other people wish to define their identity. Why is there such tolerance for gender and ethnic differences within American society, but at the same time such intolerance for ethnic differences within the international community?

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