THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

contemplated a radical idea. It was starkly different from the actions of those whowere to become his followers, some of whom today proudly carry the banner ofracist nationalism. Kook viewed the Diaspora and the loss of independence not justas a historical disaster, but also as a voluntary decision of the people, made for moralreasons. Kook wrote.We abandoned the world politics by coercion, which also had aninnate will, until a happy era, in which a commonwealth can bemanaged without evil and barbarism . . . That is, our ancestors’voluntary decision to walk down the world stage and to wanderthroughout the paths of Exile originated in the will to abstain from thecrimes and sins of corrupt government. “It is not worthy for Jacob todeal with a commonwealth, when it needs to be bloody, when itdemands evil talent.” 11It would be wrong for us to whitewash the truth and say that we are immune and thatit will not happen to us. It happened to the Germany of Schiller, Goethe andMendelssohn, and also to us. In Israel of Agnon, Oz, and Rabbi Ginzburg bad thingshappened. The source of some is the trauma, and the source of others is thegroundwater of Jewish identity and the segregationist, confrontational nature of ournational existence for ages. I fear certain rabbis and their overt and covert theories,and I also fear there are some thugs among us. There is a built-in element ofdiscrimination, arrogance, and preference for anything that comes from Jewish genes.It is much more present than deniers wish to see.Not long ago I had a conversation with an acquaintance of mine, a good-hearted,hard-working blue-collar man. I told him that I met the Arab boyfriend of a womanfriend of ours. He sputtered a curse, in Arabic, of course.“What do you prefer,” I asked, “that your daughter would have married someonepositive, educated, gentle, and well-to-do like Mahmud, my friend from Nazareth, orthe lazy, violent, drunk criminal that she married?”“I, I don’t care,” he replied. “He can be the meanest man in the world, as long ashe is Jewish,” he said, adding, in case I still did not get it, “Pure, like this, you know.”Several days later I spoke at one of Israel’s finest universities. The conversationrevolved around Jewish identity, assimilation, and humanism. At the end of the