THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

etween brothers.” They use the Hebrew idiom for civil war. For years I toned downmy positions in an effort to prevent a schism in the nation. Today I am different. Arethese my brethren? I ask. I reply with a resounding no. For me brotherhood andnational family life are not maintained by an automatic pilot. I have two biologicalsisters, the daughters of my parents. I have spiritual brothers and sisters with whom Ishare the same values. If you are a bad person, a whining enemy or a strong-armoccupier, you are not my brother, even if you are circumcised, observe the Sabbathand do mitzvahs. If your scarf covers every hair on your head for modesty, you givealms and do charity, but what is under your scarf is dedicated to the sanctity ofJewish land, taking precedence over the sanctity of human life, whosever life that is,then you are not my sister. You might be my enemy. A good Arab or a righteousgentile will be a brother or sister to me. A wicked man, even of Jewish descent, is myadversary, and I would stand on the other side of the barricade and fight him to theend. Automatic Judaism, bereft of self-criticism and moral obligations, is for me anabominable race theory. Since the Shoah took place, there is no genetic Judaism,only ethical, obliging Judaism. Therefore a war between brothers cannot be. If amore violent struggle takes place, it will be called a civil war, not a brothers’ war.This will be not a war between members of the Jewish people of different shades ofbeliefs, but an uncompromising struggle between good people and bad peopleanywhere. All their good ones and ours on one side, and all the bad—and there is noshortage of them—of both parties on the other side.Hitler created a melting pot in Auschwitz. He wanted to cut us off from the worldand to shut us all out, indiscriminately and mercilessly, in one big heap of ash. Thewinning answer to Hitler is the union of all good people in the world against thecoalition of evil, which includes some of my people. Israeli humanism mustunderstand that the answer to the Israeli occupation is not just withdrawal from theoccupied territories, but also the creation of a new Jewish identity. With this identitywe shall launch a struggle for a better world, repaired and human, that follows thevalues of Moses, not the racist legacy of Korah. Because of my dissociation withthem and their exclusion from my brotherhood circle, I have to redefine my wholeJewish identity and affinities. The time for prayer renewal has come. We need to write