Volume 4 No 1 - Journal for the Study of Antisemitism

328 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 4:325
defeated its enemies in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1981 has dramatically,
and perhaps even unthinkably, “changed the game.” The “new Jew” of the
contemporary moment harkens back to the biblical traditions of the warriors
of ancient Israel defending their people against all comers, as opposed to
the impotent leaders and followers of the last 2,000 years. Intriguing, therefore,
is Eisen’s comment that “everyone [unnamed!] is in agreement that
Zionism has bred Jewish violence, but there is deep disagreement [among
the same unnamed? others?] over the moral status of that violence” (145,
i.e., offensive vs. defensive). Further:
many of the concepts that were identified in previous chapters as potentially
violent in the earlier schools of Judaism have been woven together
in a highly combustible combination in religious Zionism. Those concepts
include the ideas that (1) the Jews are God’s chosen people; (2) the
land of Israel was promised to the Jews; (3) in the messianic era, Jews
will regain sovereignty in their own land and their enemies will be
destroyed; (4) Jews are commanded to exterminate the Amalekites 1 ; and
(5) in Kabbalistic dualism, Jews represent all that is good in the world,
and gentiles all that is evil (159).
Continuing in the same theme, Eisen writes that “there is a general
consensus [though he only cites Ruth R. Wisse, Jews and Power, 2007]
that, at the very least, Jews have acted violently against Palestinians and
that in some instances the violence has been aggressive” (167). And while
the story of the re-founding of the State of Israel (the Third Jewish Commonwealth)
was the result of the work of secular, left-wing, socialist/Marxist
Jews, primarily of Eastern European origin, as well as present-day right
wingers, they too were and are the recipients of a heritage of religious Judaism
without which their own activism was foundationless:
Secular right-wing Israelis could not have formulated their views, nor
would their passions for those views have been sustained, without Judaism,
which attached great significance to the land of Israel as the Jewish
homeland . . . Secular Zionists, though not technically “religious,” have
often been violent, and their actions have been inspired in part by the
same religious concepts that have motivated religious Zionists to be violent
. . . secular Zionists have some of the characteristics that are often
attributed to modern religious fundamentalists (175-176).
1. The contemporary question of who is an Amalekite—present-day Palestinians?
Only their leadership? All Muslims? The nation-states of the Middle East?—is
one that is stridently debated among traditional rabbis in Israel and elsewhere.