And, of course, it became painfully clear on 9/11 that Americans and Israelis share the same enemies.

     I visited Israel’s memorial to the Arab-Muslim terror of 9/11 several weeks ago. Called “Andardat Ha’te’omim” (Memorial to the Towers), it is located in a valley just outside Jerusalem, visible from the Har Hamenuchot cemetery across the road, and still almost unreachable. It requires traveling on several dirt roads, up hills and down vales, always on the lookout for microscopic signs pointing to the location. But it is there – and worth a quick visit – for what it is, and what it is not. Both are critical to the reckoning that lies ahead.

     The memorial is set in a circle, the circumference of which is marked by plaques on which are inscribed the names of each of the approximately 3000 murdered victims of that horrific massacre. And right in the center is a metal statue that rises in a spiral to unfurl a metal American flag, resting on a glass base that contains a metal remnant of the Twin Towers that was specially sent to Israel by the City of New York. It does, indeed, as the text indicates, reflect the special relationship between New Yorkers and Americans, and the people of Israel.

    Unfortunately, but by now quite typically, the captions speak volumes by what was not said. The metal remnant was taken “from the remains of the Twin Towers that imploded in the September 11, 2001, disaster..” Is that what happened ? The Towers “imploded” ? How ? Why ? Faulty construction ? Planned obsolescence ? Incredibly, the text – there and elsewhere – is silent as to the causes of this “disaster.”

“Disaster” ? “Tragedy”? The tsunami was a disaster, and the death of a young person by illness is a tragedy. The Arab terror of 9/11 was a crime – a brutal, barbaric, heinous, evil, vicious, and hideous attack on innocent civilians. The dedication plaque – the memorial was privately funded – does proclaim “Tolerance Not Terrorism,” and commemorates “the victims of 9/11 and demonstrating a commitment to hope and peace.” But even the term “victims” is neutral, and does not at all convey the malice of the victimizers.

    One looks in vain for any reference to Muslims, Arabs, bin Laden, al Qaeda, Saudi Arabia, Islam  or even hijacked planes being flown into these Twin Towers. A visitor from another planet would not be able to discern why or how these victims died, and at whose hand – if indeed there was a hand involved. Truth be told, there comes a time – long ago reached – when such obfuscations are themselves immoral, and desecrate – rather than honor or memorialize – the lives of the murdered.

     It is not only that obscuring the names, backgrounds and ideology of the murderers nurtures the vile opinions of many – especially in Muslim lands – that the Arab/Muslim terror of 9/11 was actually perpetrated by others, perhaps even Jews. It is worse than that; it diminishes the very idea that there was a ghastly crime here, and not simply an engineering malfunction. And it perpetuates the notion that Islam – or at least a large segment of Islam’s practitioners – are at war with Jews, Americans and the West, and will stop at nothing in order to win that war.

    The political correctness run amok that refrains from identifying the enemy who infiltrated this land, exploited its freedoms, and violated its serenity threatens to undermine the very nature of the world war in which we are engaged. One who is afraid to even name the enemy cannot defeat that enemy, and the liberal mindset that wishes for (and often presumes) the good intentions of even the malevolent is incapable of waging that war successfully. One who is so enamored with demonstrating a “commitment to hope and peace” in the face of an enemy that is uninterested in either hope or peace will forfeit any possibility of hope or peace, or freedom and life.

     That this attitude pervades the American liberal is no surprise. It undergirds the enthusiastic support for the construction of the mosque near Ground Zero by a Muslim leader who does not construe Hamas as a terrorist group. Nor should it surprise Israelis, whose left has also seized every opportunity to shroud even Arab terror in Israel – the same trite phrases (“tragedy”) were inscribed on the memorial to the Sbarro Pizzeria terror victims – again, without any reference to the perpetrators.

    It is not that such memorials would be made more meaningful if they contained curses and imprecations of the murderers; it is rather that the ambiguous language defeats the very purpose of constructing a memorial. It is honest and forthright to identify the murderers of the Jews in the Holocaust as Nazis or Germans; they weren’t victims of random, unnamed, perhaps even natural forces, but of people, evil people. So, too, the people murdered on September 11, 2001, were killed by people, evil people, who were all Muslim-Arabs, and who killed in the name of Islam.

   If that point cannot be mentioned ever, even at this week’s commemorations of the Arab terror of 9/11, it is questionable whether these commemorations have any meaning whatsoever.

   The idea of a 9/11 memorial in Israel speaks well of the originators and implementers, and does reflect the shared battle that Israelis and Americans are waging. Perhaps an amplification of the text at the memorial in Israel can still be done, if the will is there and the fear is absent. Then, it – and similar memorials – will serve their most valuable purpose in strengthening the resolve of those who are engaged in this war for the defense of civilization as we know it.

       Take the women’s issues, for one. On the left of the rubber band, Orthodoxy was stretched to the breaking point, and likely beyond it, by such non-Orthodox innovations as female clergy and female prayer leaders. The negative reaction from the Torah community was as swift as it was unequivocal (as unequivocal as a free-thinking, stubborn nation can ever get), leading to the freezing of both innovations for the foreseeable future, if not permanently. (Why do I have the sense that there is more coming ?) While the retreat was alternately portrayed as either tactical or substantive, the bottom line was the same: an admission by the innovators that such actions have no place within the framework of the faithful Torah community.

    While the leftists were inappropriately shoving women into the public domain, the Haredi community in Israel was inappropriately shoving women far into the private domain. The right of the rubber band was stretched (broken ?) so that the Torah became unrecognizable. The trends started several years back, but became exacerbated in the recent past. There are Israeli communities these days with restaurants that have no public seating, lest it lead, I suppose, to mixed eating. It is a terrible infringement on normal family life, part of which involves families eating out together or husbands and wives taking time together. The Mehadrin bus lines that have become popular furthered this trend, with separate seating for women in the back (bad symbolism, there).

     The latter entered the public fray again with the recent announcement that the new, long-delayed (and I mean, long-delayed) light rail in Yerushalayim will have Mehadrin cars as well, with separate seating for men and women. This prompted the usual litany of complaints about the encroachment of religious law in the public sector, and about the coercive nature of that community. In truth, I understand the economics of both: faced with a choice of the Haredim starting their own transportation system or accommodating their requests, Egged simply catered to their customers and gave them what they wanted – a Mehadrin line. That makes good business sense. So, too, the director of the new light-rail system said that if Haredim boycott the light-rail, it will fail – so, again, a prudent business decision was made, although it would seem more logical to me to have separate female and male cars on the light-rail, rather than force women to the back of one car.

    It is the religious imperative of such a setup that escapes me. Where exactly does the Talmud, the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch mandate such a separation in the public realm ? Rav Moshe Feinstein famously wrote that incidental contact even on crowded public transportation is sexually innocuous. Normal people are unaffected by it, and generations of pious Jews conducted themselves accordingly. One wonders what has changed. Just because something can be done – by sheer numbers of consumers – does not mean it should be done, and certainly not on a religious basis.

     Some argue that the Torah may not mandate such separations, but tzniut (Jewish modesty) always strives for higher standards. Yet, a group of Haredi rabbis recently prohibited the wearing of the burqa (only eye slits are visible), which a group of peculiar Jewish women in the Bet Shemesh area have donned, saying that Jewish law does not require such concealment. But on what grounds can it be prohibited ? The Torah certainly does not prohibit or demand it. As we have seen on the left side of the rubber band, just because something is not explicitly prohibited does not make it permissible, prudent, or sensible. There are customs and values that define the Torah community, and we twist and elongate that rubber band at our peril. Eventually, it snaps, and we become a people that are defined by our eccentricities rather than our wisdom, by behavior that is weird rather than rational, and by our segregation from society rather than by our integration in it and elevation of it.

     It is sociologically fascinating that it was the Edah Hacharedis that put the kibosh on the burqa, apparently sensing intuitively that this was beyond the pale. Certainly, nothing is simple, and the overreaction on the part of the Haredim can easily be seen as a response to the laxity in moral matters and relations between the sexes that characterizes much of Modern Orthodoxy, and of course the general society. In some quarters, tzniut  is openly derided, even as in other quarters it is taken to unprecedented excesses. And it goes without saying (all right, I’ll say it), that everyone fancies himself/herself in the sane, normal, mainstream, broad-middle of the Bell Curve. (My Rebbi used to say, accordingly, that each person feels that someone driving faster than him is a maniac, and someone slower than him is an idiot. Each person thinks he drives at the optimum speed.) But we do see how the extremes, right and left, dim the light of Torah and drive away Jews who unthinkingly perceive the Torah as having no real norms – subject to the whims of every generation and fad – or having no real limits in its demands on us.

    Rav Soloveitchik said it well, in “U’vikashtem Misham” (Ktav, page 54): “This is the tragedy of modern man: that, instead of subordinating himself to God, he tries to subordinate his God to his own everyday needs and the fulfillment of his gross lusts.” Or, said another way, in an exaggerated fear of his gross lusts. The Torah gave us the perfect prescription for all our needs – spiritual, moral, ethical, social, psychological and physical. As the New Year begins, it behooves all of us to reinforce the rubber band, find joy and fulfillment in the Torah we were given and not one we create ourselves, and find true service of Hashem in our subordination to His will.

With blessings for a shana tova, a good, happy and healthy year for all.

     Among the bitterest aspects of the ancient tragedies commemorated during our recent national period of mourning was the crushing disappointment felt by the Jewish people when we were betrayed by our erstwhile allies: “I called for my friends [those who had professed love for me] but they deceived me” (Eicha 1:19).

Rashi comments that this refers to the infamous episode in which the Arabs, our putative cousins, distributed salty foods to the Babylonian exiles on their death march, and then offered flasks that contained nothing but air – and the Jews perished of thirst.

So, on whom can we rely in this world when times are tough for Jews but on each other, on the shared bonds of peoplehood? And therein lies the problem and one of the enigmas of the exile today.

Visiting the Chabad of Salt Lake City, I picked up a few pamphlets Chabad distributes about mitzvot, Shabbat, Jewish life – and one called “Love Your Fellow Jew,” a primer on that most indispensable, definitive mitzvah. Its language is both instructive and inspirational:

Nothing has been as detrimental to the Jewish people as the modern idea that Judaism is a religion. If we are a religion, then some Jews are more Jewish, others less Jewish and many Jews not Jewish at all. It’s a lie. We are all one. If one Jew stumbles, we all stumble with him . We are not a religion. We are a soul. A single soul radiating into many bodies, each ray shining forth on its unique mission, each body receiving the light according to its capacity . A healthy Jewish people is one big, caring family where each individual is concerned for the other as for his own self.

Clearly, this is not a universally shared perspective, as the pamphlet continues:

What beautiful sentiments, and the more I read, the more I wished they were true.

By coincidence, I read this on the same day the Russians extricated their ten spies from the United States by orchestrating an exchange within a week of their arrests, and I wondered to myself – again – what is wrong with the Jewish people? How is it that we sit with such equanimity while Jonathan Pollard now sits in prison for more than 9,000 days, and Gilad Shalit sits for more than four years in some dark abyss, absent without a trace?

Too many Jews say, “Well, Pollard was a spy who committed crimes, so he should sit. And Shalit, well, the government in order to free him has to find the right number of terrorist murderers to free to create more mayhem, so it is really up to us.”

And many say, “Well, Sholom Rubashkin deserves 27 years in prison for bank fraud, and the desecration of God’s name, and the like. And Israeli MIAs Zachary Baumol, Yehuda Katz and Tzvi Feldman can disappear into Syrian custody, and Ron Arad can evaporate off the face of the earth, and that’s just the way it is. And Eli Cohen, the Syrians don’t have to return his body for burial even 45 years after his execution, because ” I’m not quite sure why.

We have a rationalization for everything, and I’m left to wonder: what is wrong with the Jewish soul? We pay lip service to ahavat Yisrael (love for our fellow Jew), but do we really believe it, or ever act upon it when it is personally inconvenient? The Russians extracted their spies in the blink of an eye; the Chinese community in the 1990s rallied around a Chinese-American spy and he was released after two years; a non-Jewish American naval officer named Michael Schwartz who spied for the Saudis in the 1990s was never even prosecuted, just court-martialed and dismissed.

Somehow, Japanese-Americans kept their unjust internment during World War II in the forefront of American consciousness, and blacks do not let anyone forget the slavery that ended a century and a half ago. Their communities rallied around, and rally around, any victim of perceived injustice. And where are we?

Rubashkin was sentenced to 27 years for defrauding a bank of $27 million dollars – more prison time than the prosecution even requested, and after they initially sought a life sentence. Yet Jeffrey Skilling, former president of Enron – which defrauded banks and investors of billions of dollars, and cost people 20,000 jobs plus their pensions – was sentenced to 24 years, less time than Rubashkin, and Skilling’s sentence was just vacated on appeal, and he may be free in a relatively short time.

Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom) was convicted of defrauding investors of $100 billion dollars, and received less prison time than did Rubashkin. Dennis Kozlowski (Tyco) was convicted of stealing five times as much money (and pocketing it) than Rubashkin was accused of – and also received less jail time than Rubashkin. And most recently, Hassan Nemazee, an Iranian-American fundraiser for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, was sentenced to just 12 years in prison for defrauding banks of $292 million dollars, half the incarceration for more than ten times the fraud.

Granted, no two cases are identical, but the contrasts are still jarring. And one need not argue for the innocence of Pollard or Rubashkin to be outraged at the disproportionate sentences each received. How is this possible? Is there a Jewish surcharge? Do the courts increase a Jew’s sentence because of the chillul Hashem involved? Where are we?

Further, why does Israel tolerate the kidnapping of its soldiers, and continue to provide Gilad Shalit’s captors – the residents of Gaza who voted Hamas into power – with food and electricity? Has Israel insisted that Shalit be visited by the Red Cross, as is his right under international law, in exchange for those provisions? Has Israel verified that Shalit himself is a beneficiary of that same food and electricity? Jews bend over backward to be more moral – after all, who wants to be accused of collective punishment – but instead we are less moral, lacking even in elementary love for our own flesh and blood, our own people.

On a recent trip to Washington, I visited the Newseum, a fine museum dedicated to the history of journalism. The museum screened a documentary titled “The Media and the Holocaust,” describing in great and painful detail the “paltry, embarrassing coverage” (Abe Rosenthal’s words) of the Holocaust by the American news media, especially The New York Times.

It is not that the Holocaust wasn’t covered – it was. The New York Times alone ran 1,100 Holocaust-related stories during that era – but almost all were buried on the inside pages.

Item one: a tiny story on page 6 in July 1942 reports that “700,000 Jews have been murdered.” That same day’s newspaper devoted a lengthy page-one article to New York Governor Lehman’s decision to donate his tennis shoes to the war effort.

Item two: an April 1943 report on the Warsaw Ghetto uprising – a cover story – failed to mention that the insurgents were Jews; they were described only as Poles.

Item three: The Times reported in July 1943 on the death of “350,000 Jews” in a little blurb on page 5. The front page that same day contained a long piece on the July 4 traffic.

Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum said the disgrace was that the media reported that “A million Jews have been killed,” when they should have shouted – in 16-point type – “A MILLION JEWS HAVE BEEN KILLED!” They did not scream when they should have. We too do not protest or scream or get angry or threaten to turn off the spigot of financial contributions Jews make to (usually Democratic) politicians. We will occasionally have a very tepid demonstration, addressed by the same array of politicians and professional Jewish leaders with predictable speeches that send everyone home thinking something has been accomplished. How many Jewish leaders who meet with President Obama ask about Pollard? How many leaders who met with Prime Minister Netanyahu recently asked him if he requested Pollard’s release?

We look back with disdain at the apathy of American Jews during the Holocaust. Granted, this is not the Holocaust – but have we really improved that much? I don’t see how we are any better. Our excuses are more clever and articulate, and sound more reasonable – but our devotion to the preservation and well-being of every Jew still needs enhancement. We are often told our leaders have bigger fish to fry; but human beings are not fish. “I have called for my friends, and they have deceived me.” Will that be Pollard’s legacy, and Shalit’s, and others?

According to our Sages, the Second Temple was destroyed due to the baseless hatred prevalent among the Jewish people. And perhaps if we cannot find it in our hearts to protest every injustice against a Jew and to instinctively defend every Jew, we are presently unworthy of redemption.

There is a fine line between being so provincial and insular that we are indifferent to others – and being so cosmopolitan, so universal, that we are effectively indifferent to our own. In the not-too-distant past, Jews changed their names and noses in order to curry favor with our neighbors; now, they merely have to disconnect from other Jews and identify with the cosmopolitans, and some even with our enemies.

For too long, we have so feared being stigmatized as narrow-minded that we have become too judgmental and unforgiving towards our own people. But in reality, there is no stigma. Every group naturally takes care of its own before others – whether Americans or Russians, whether Muslims or blacks. That is natural. We have become unnatural, and many Jews are emotionally estranged from our own people.

We can – and should – condemn crime and criminals (and ostracize those who have intentionally harmed Jews), but that does not mean we also have to accept double standards and abandon our own when unjust punishment is meted out. We do not have to tolerate that Jewish prisoners of war never survive the experience, and are held incommunicado in gross violation of the rules of war. We do not have to tolerate the cruel and heartless treatment of them by our enemies (enemies that are otherwise celebrated by the civilized world) that is their now customary fate, and negotiate with them as if they are decent, respectable people.

We have to get angry, in a positive and constructive way. We have to take our inspiration from the Tea Party that is trying to transform the American political culture from the grassroots, because the elitists of both parties have not been responsive.

We need a Jewish Tea Party that can reflect the voice of the average, simple Jew who loves Jews and loves justice, and is ill-disposed to making the crass political calculations that sacrifice human beings on the altar of expediency.

Israel is not a powerless country. An Israel that even feigns anger for the sake of Jewish life – and demands to know the fate of Katz, Baumol, Feldman, Arad, Pollard, Shalit and others – can achieve surprising results. We need to bolster the sense of unconditional love that always emerges during crises, and join together to advocate for Pollard and Rubashkin, for Shalit and Arad, and not simply each sub-group for its own. Ahavat Yisrael is a difficult mitzvah, but it is a mitzvah nonetheless. Now is the time.

When we have self-respect, others will respect us. When we are fearless, others will fear us. When every day we pray for suffering Jews and envision ways to liberate them from their afflictions, when we hold our politicians and leaders accountable rather than sit silently as they take our money while acquiescing in the demeaning of Jewish life, when we show that Jewish blood is not cheap and Jewish life is precious, we will be a people worthy of redemption and the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth.

      This creativity is certainly multi-faceted, but is largely attributed to the skill sets acquired by the average Israeli through his military service and especially the informality, originality, personal responsibility and free-thinking that are hallmarks of that service. They note, for example, that “the IDF has a chaotic, anti-hierarchical ethos – which can be found in every aspect of Israeli society. A private will tell a general in an exercise – You are doing this wrong, you should do it this way. (This is not to say that soldiers aren’t expected to obey orders.) But orders are given in the spirit of men who have a job to do and mean to do it. They are not defined by rank. This is because Israel’s society and history is based on questioning.” To leftist writer Amos Oz, Judaism itself has cultivated a “culture of doubt and argument.” These individuals are groomed to think out of the box.  It can be a mixed bag for a commander: “Assertiveness versus insolence; critical, independent thinking versus insubordination – the words you choose depend on your perspective, but collectively they describe the typical Israeli entrepreneur.” Today’s Israeli Ambassador to the United States Michael Oren noted that he served in units where they literally “threw out” the officers – a colonel , for one – simply voted them out, and the commanding officer was re-assigned because the enlisted men thought he was not up to the tasks at hand.

     Furthermore, “at debriefings, emphasis is put not only on unrestrained candor but on self-criticism as a means of having everyone learn from every mistake. Explaining away a bad decision is unacceptable.” Nothing is swept under the rug, and this type of thinking and questioning leads these soldiers – once they leave the army – into businesses where re-organization, enhanced efficiency, and new ways of looking at old problems are prized and desirable characteristics. So products such as microchips, EZ Pass, sophisticated medical surgical equipment, instant messaging and many others boast an Israeli provenance.

     Oddly, there was time in recent years when these skills failed abjectly: the 2006 War in Lebanon. I quote:  “Indeed, the 2006 Lebanon War was a case study in deviation from the Israeli entrepreneurial model that had succeeded in previous wars. Giora Eiland, a senior military official and for years a national security advisor to a succession of prime ministers, stated:  ‘Open –minded thought, necessary to reduce the risk of sticking to preconceived ideas and relying on unquestioned assumptions, was far too rare.’ “One of the problems of the Second Lebanon War was the exaggerated adherence of senior officers to the chief of staff’s decisions. There is no question that the final word rests with the chief of staff, and once decisions have been made, all must demonstrate complete commitment to their implementation. However, it is the senior officers’ job to argue with the chief of staff when they feel he is wrong, and this should be done assertively on the basis of professional truth as they see it.”     

     The 2006 war was a costly wake-up call for the IDF.” During the Second Lebanon War, “Israel suffered from a lack of organization and a lack of improvisation.”

     What is even more bitterly ironic, and arguably causative, is that the obsequiousness to authority and the glorification of “following orders” without question actually began almost a year earlier, with the expulsion of Jews from Gush Katif and Northern Shomron and the destruction of their thriving communities. This blot on Israeli society and Jewish history, now five years past, evoked a wave of hysteria about the sacred obligation to “obey orders,” how the failure to follow orders blindly would result in the collapse of the IDF and the imminent destruction of the State of Israel itself, and how the “mitzva” to obey orders supersedes any other mitzva in the Torah – especially that of settling the land of Israel. Those who embraced Oz’ “culture of doubt and argument” were branded as both immoral and seditious. The IDF Chief of Staff, Boogie Ya’alon, who challenged his civilian superiors and rejected the very premise of the Expulsion, was simply silence and replaced.

     Is there anyone left who does not believe that had the Expulsion Plan been subjected to greater scrutiny and analysis that Israel would have spared itself both the stain of having maltreated its own citizens as well as the daily cascade of rockets that began immediately thereafter and terrorized Sderot and nearby towns ? To the anguished litany of catastrophes that have befallen our people on the Ninth of Av, we ourselves were bystanders to the addition of the following notation: “9 Av, 2005: the last day of legal Jewish settlement in Gush Katif and Northern Shomron.” That calamity took its place with the sin of the biblical spies, the destruction of the two Temples and the fall of Betar, the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and other such cataclysms.

     The wound of Gush Katif still has not healed. Most of the refugees, intrepid souls that they are, have successfully begun the process of rebuilding their lives – personal and professional – after much hardship, and with the assistance of a variety of private organizations (Jobkatif.org leaps to mind). They persevered despite the brutal betrayal of the Israeli government – before, during and after the expulsion. For many (even non-refugees), their trust in government, both in terms of policies and morality, will be forever shattered, and rightfully so. And Ariel Sharon, architect of the Expulsion, remains an exile himself, suspended between this world and the next one – perhaps awaiting the resettlement of the last of the refugees whose lives he shattered before he can find his own eternal rest.

     Strange, further, that the authors of this insightful book do not connect the dots, and do not see the linkage between the travesty of Gush Katif and the failures of the Lebanon War a year later. The suppression of dissent – worse, the criminalization of dissent – that characterized the Expulsion became institutionalized in the debacle of Lebanon. Obvious mistakes were swept under the rug, no real introspective analysis has taken place about the costs of the Expulsion (nor, for that matter, about the Oslo debacle), nor has there been any accountability on the part of the poor decision-makers of the past. Most of the perpetrators of Oslo have remained unscathed, even celebrated. The architect of the Lebanon flight of 2000 – Ehud Barak – still offers his strategic insights as the Minister of Defense.  The 10,000 refugees of 2005, caused by Israel’s own hand, mushroomed into the 350,000 refugees of 2006, the work of the heinous Hezbollah. “Following orders,” the catch phrase of 2005, became the macabre joke of 2006, when soldiers were ordered in and out of sectors within minutes, told both to move forward and then remain where they were in orders that changed every few hours, and occasionally, and sadly, marched to their deaths. Soldiers saw the futility of following commanders who were hampered by orders coming from distant superiors who did not understand the situation on the ground, and whose lives were therefore endangered and lost. Who can forget the ignominy of then PM Olmert’s directive at the end of the war for soldiers to capture a hill that he had already agreed would be returned the very next day when the cease fire was to begin?  Thirty-three soldiers – Jewish husbands and sons – were killed seizing that useless piece of real estate that, indeed, was abandoned the very next day. “Futility of futilities, Kohelet said, it is all futile.”

   Well, not all. “Start-Up Nation” certainly makes the case that Israel has learned from its mistakes, and the failed Lebanon War fueled a new wave of creative and iconoclastic thinking that hopefully will bode well for the future. The test will be when (if?) the next round of Israeli concessions requires more surrender of land and further expulsions of Jews. Will the reaction be as docile – and as ultimately destructive – as the one five years ago this week ? Let us pray we never have to find

     The thumbnail sketch certainly sounded awful. As reported in the secular press, Ashkenazi parents in Emanuel, a largely Charedi settlement, refused to allow their children to study or socialize with Sefaradi girls in the same school. They even built a wall that divided the campus, and decreed there be separate lunch hours and recess time lest any mingling took place. After a lawsuit, Israel’s High Court ruled that the school must be integrated, and held in contempt (and jailed) parents who refused to comply with the Court order. Immense demonstrations ensued, by Charedim against the court, mainly in Yerushalayim and Bnai Brak, against the intervention of the secular court system in a Torah-education matter.

     Obviously, the secular media, willfully or not, followed the template of the American South, and trotted out terms like “separate but equal,” “segregation,” Bull Connor,” “racism,” and the like – and so got the story wrong. It seems that the dispute was not at all Ashkenazi v. Sefaradi; three of the families whose parents went to prison were Sefaradim. The “offensive” school in question has roughly a 27% Sefaradi population, and the school “discriminated against” has roughly a 33% Ashkenazi population. So racism was patently not the issue, although the accusation is so trite and familiar that it alone is tantamount to a conviction and sentence, and provoked a stream of lamentations about racism in the religious world. Good penance for the self-flagellation, or anti-religious, set.

     The real issue, apparently, is troubling for a different reason: the segregation was mandated because of religious differences between the parent bodies and hashkafot (world views) of the two schools. Parents who wanted their children to attend the “Charedi” school had to abide by a series of personal restrictions in their home life. The precise nature of those restrictions is unknown to me, but I can easily guess most of them – dress code, television, etc. The inability to create two completely separate schools led to the physical divisions on the school property, followed by the parental complaints about discrimination, the lawsuit and decision, and protests. Charedim do not take kindly to being ordered to compromise their religious practices, and especially by those – and Israel’s High Court is notorious in its disdain for the sanctity of Torah and the world-view of religious Jews (charedi, modern, or right-wing) – who do not share their core values.

     All sides are to blame for this fiasco, and the black eye given to Torah. The High Court’s involvement was a typical mistake; its tolerance for Torah is so infinitesimal that its decisions in this realm could never be accepted, no matter what they decided. They simply have no credibility, justifiably so, and most religious Jews – Chareidim or not – challenged to follow the Torah’s mandates or the dictates of this Court – so relentlessly anti-religious for many years – will obviously choose to obey the Torah, and not really think twice about it.

     But, what exactly was the great religious principle at stake here ? Certainly, parents have the right to create their own educational framework and insist on even very restrictive behavioral norms – but not when the school is publicly funded. Private schools have greater flexibility, and even if this particular Charedi school is somewhat autonomous, the government that provides the funding has the right to expand the student population, within reason.

     And there is the crux of the problem as I see it: were the differences between the religious standards in the two “schools” sufficient enough to warrant two separate schools  – and to build a wall between the schools – as if the less rigorous group is ritually impure ? Shouldn’t Jewish education encompass the notion of “love of all Jews” – not in theory but in practice, and especially all Jews who are committed to halacha ? Jewish law and practice are not so monolithic (to be sure, neither is it completely open-ended) that it cannot tolerate slightly different standards of practice, and even lower standards. Must we identify and isolate from religious schools children of parents who have a television or internet access in their homes, or whose the mothers don’t cover their hair or whose sleeves expose their forearms, or eat Rabbanut hashgacha, or serve in the army, or don’t serve in the army, or plan on learning full-time, or plan on working full-time ?

     One of my great teachers once said that there are Jews who act as if there are only 12 or 13 Jews in the whole world – only their tiny group constitutes the “true believers” – and everyone else is either illegitimate or inferior. But that is not how we were created; G-d formed us as a nation with all types of people, who would interact, learn from and try to better each other. That is why we were divided into twelve tribes, and why those tribes included great Torah scholars, farmers and craftsmen – and pious people, learned people, impious people and ignorant people. But we remain a nation, and that is best fostered by integration, not segregation.

     Saddest of all is that the protests, even if warranted, bring to the fore the great flaw of Charedi life and lifestyle – and interpretation of Torah. Advice in a nutshell: it is impolitic to bite the hand that feeds you. With an unemployment rate of close to 65% of males between the ages of 25-65 (astounding, and the highest in the industrial world), Charedim are financially sustained by a larger community that is growing more and more resentful of their antics, even as they are ignorant of their enormous contributions. Chesed is great, and Chevra Kadisha is wonderful, but those are not jobs that put money on the table. To vent against a society that works and fights for Charedim, when they largely absent themselves from these nation-building tasks, is imprudent, to say the least.

     To say the most, it puts the Torah in a negative light, broadcasting to the world – Jewish and general – that the Torah is incompatible with life in a modern state. It says, in essence, that a modern state cannot defend itself or support itself according to the laws of the Torah, and the Torah’s ideals can never be the foundation or governing policy of a real nation. That is heresy, but it is difficult to refute the charge that the Charedim are primarily responsible for fostering that heresy in our world.

    I understand their grievances, their antipathy to the High Court, and their fears of eroding the high standards they seek for themselves by interacting with society. But you can’t build a wall in a schoolyard and expect the insulted to pay for it and guard it. You can’t withdraw from the world because of fear. You can’t educate your children to be unproductive in society and expect others to foot the bill in perpetuity. Great acts of personal kindness cannot substitute for “you are praiseworthy when you eat the fruits of your own hands” (Psalms 128:2). Dedication to Torah study must accompany the obligation to love all Jews, especially when those differences are nuances and not fundamental principles of Judaism (and even in the latter case, the obligation remains to love those Jews as well). Otherwise we run the risk of disassociating ourselves from other Jews based on the minutiae of hat size or shape, following this Rebbi or that one, or other small things that become magnified amongst people that are so similar but do not at all define the individual’s spiritual state.

    We should remind ourselves that there is a prohibition to be poresh min hatzibur (separate oneself from the community), and that tzibur includes – as the acronym would have it – tzadikim, beinonim v’resha’im – the righteous, the intermediates and (even) the wicked. There are no “wicked” in this tale, and that should make it easier for all involved to co-exist, to build together, and to live and learn together, all for the glory of Hashem, His Torah and His people.

     Those who persist in maintaining that another operational objective should be the retention of favorable world opinion have set an unreachable goal that will inhibit Israel’s exercise of self-defense. In the current climate, nothing can be done that engender the support of the “world community,” a union of thugs, despots, potentates, secularists, socialists, religious fanatics, anti-religious fanatics and amoral Goodists who, like lemmings, would eagerly march to their own destruction. Europe, in its death throes as a civilization, is numerically disappearing and seeking to ensure its short-term survival by pandering to the Muslim hordes that are overwhelming it.

     It is hard to resist the conclusion that not only was the provocation staged – but so were the “spontaneous” protests across the globe, with the “hastily” manufactured placards, and the vitriolic Jew-hating speeches. Why should we be surprised – this type of rhetorical viciousness has been the norm since the end of the Six-Day War. As one Israeli general said last week, they knew that whatever Israel did would be criticized. There is a sinister pattern that has existed for at least two decades but became most prominent during last year’s Gaza War: Israel is granted the right of self-defense in theory but not in practice. Any military measure taken is considered “excessive” or “disproportionate.” Its civilians are supposed to be rocketed with impunity, and its soldiers attacked without response. The question to the world – “what would you do in similar circumstances?” – is not answered or even taken seriously, because behind the façade of anger is the reality of charade.

   Lies are difficult to combat. As King David wrote: “Lord, save me from lying lips and from a deceitful tongue” (Psalm 120). It is impossible to dialogue with, much less persuade, people who traffic in lies – to whom even video evidence is insufficient to convince them of the hostile intent of the dead thugs. After all, whom should we believe – the “activists” and their yelps, or our own lying eyes ?

     The second “botch” lamented by many is the state of relations between Israel and Turkey. Indeed, Turkey – as a secular Muslim but non-Arab state – was once a primary ally of Israel. But that changed dramatically – and not this past Sunday. PM Erdogan, whose violent countrymen apparently confused Israeli commandoes with Armenians and never expected a response to their attacks, embraced Iran’s Ahmadinejad – last week. Erdogan, at a public forum in Davos in January 2009 screamed at Shimon Peres that “you know well how to kill,” and stalked off.

      There are military ties between Israel and Turkey, owing to the fact that the Turkish military is not fully under civilian control and its generals are the old-school secular Muslims – and those military ties continue because Turkey benefits from the arms and training provided by Israel. But the diplomatic relationship deteriorated when Erdogan, a radical Muslim who is anti-West, anti-American, anti-Israel, and pro-Arab, became prime minister in 2003.

       Those who are wax nostalgic over the halcyon days of Turkish-Israel relations sound much like those who pine for the glorious centuries of Jewish life in Muslim countries – where Jews lived as humiliated dhimmis, like every other non-Muslim in the Muslim world.

         We must find every avenue to strengthen PM Netanyahu, who currently shows the appropriate resolve (what a great line: “this was not a love boat, but a hate boat”), but has been known to waver under pressure. Israel has seized several fully-loaded weapons ships – does anyone remember Karine-A? – and must retain the right to control the Gaza seas (as stipulated by the Oslo Accords, of all things). If Netanyahu caves and allows a third-party to assert that control, it would be typical Bibi but another obstacle to Israel’s ability to defend itself. So far, he has successfully deflected accusations that he has “botched” this operation.

     The world community is hopeless. Hatred for Israel and the Jewish people did not start in 2010, 2009, 1967, 1948 or even 1933. As our Sages state, it stems from Sinai – from the moment the Jewish people accepted G-d’s Torah and became His faithful servants. Sadly, we have “botched’ that relationship from time to time, but a major part of our return is our recognition of the gift of the land of Israel that He gave to our people. In our willingness to defend it from physical and psychological assault, we are defending G-d’s honor and that of His people, and bringing closer the day when this relentless hostile, hypocritical and spiteful world will acknowledge His majesty and that of His chosen tribe.

     Such a statement would have clarified at the outset Israel’s position, and put the world and the “activists” on notice that any attempt to strengthen Gaza in its war against Israel would be dealt with harshly. Instead, Israel minces words, preferring the illusions of the “peace process” to the reality of persistent conflict. The rhetoric of international protest should not be taken seriously, as it is all part of the game, and with the proper and pointed Israeli response – without apologies, regrets or offers of compensation – will recede within days. Indeed, if Israel’s response – now, properly direct and blunt – becomes limp, flaccid and remorseful, that will only prolong this manufactured crisis. And manufactured it was.

    Obviously, the whole point of the charade was not to supply Gazans with “humanitarian aid” (they don’t need it, and Israel in any event offered to unload, search and then deliver whatever was appropriate) but rather to goad the Israelis in killing some “activists.” In that sense, nine dead, for Muslims, is a very small price to pay for a public relations triumph. Sad to say – but unsurprisingly – Muslims do not value life the same way Westerners do. They gladly die for a cause. Those who don’t believe that should ponder a few phrases – suicide bomber, 9/11, jihad – and consider the dozens of countries across the globe that have been victimized by Muslim suicide terror. As a Hamas parliamentarian said several years ago, taunting Israel and the West: “We love death the way you love life.” If so, these terrorist sympathizers not only got what they deserved, they got what they wanted. Spare me the crocodile tears and soppy rhetoric about the “tragic loss of life.”

      The only botched part of the raid seemed to be that the Israeli commandoes allowed themselves to be assaulted by these “peaceniks” for almost an hour before they responded in kind. That was an operational failure. Otherwise, there was much good that came out of the raid:

1)      Israel’s blockade of Gaza was upheld, and the enemy is on notice that these stunts will not succeed. If tried again, the reaction should be even swifter and less merciful.

2)      Since Israel can reiterate to the world that a state of war exists between Israel and Gaza, it should restrict any aid – even humanitarian – until Gilad Schalit is released alive and well.

3)      PM Netanyahu had to cancel his scheduled meeting with President Obama. As noted here several days ago, this session would have redounded to Israel’s detriment. My, this new crisis is so serious that perhaps Netanyahu will be unavailable until after the summer, and maybe not even until after the Jewish holidays in the late summer. If he comes earlier, he is foolish.

4)      This morning, the UN Security Council passed a resolution stating in part: “The Security Council deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries resulting from the use of force during the Israeli military operation in international waters against the convoy sailing to Gaza”… and… “condemns those acts which resulted in the loss” of lives. And the Obama administration supported this resolution, claiming that it was watered down from an even harsher condemnation of Israel. Result: Israel can no longer count on this US government to defend it from the tendentious and obsessive hatred of the UN towards Israel. Clarity is always beneficial, and so much for the Obama “charm offensive” that is trying to lure liberal US Jews back into the Obama corner.

5)      Another proof (as if another was still needed) that the UN is a joke, and a waste of valuable real estate in New York City. The North Korean sinking of a South Korean submarine several months ago killed five times as many human beings as died in the flotilla follies, with no response. Muslim-Arab terrorists have killed in recent years 1000 times as many human beings as died off the Gaza coast, with no response. Rhwanda. Darfur. If the UN has condemned the rockets into Sderot, I do not recall it. I do recall that Noam Schalit this past March asked the UN Human Rights Commission to intervene on behalf of his captive son; he stills waits for their response.

6)      Perhaps it will stop people from mindlessly spouting the utter nonsense that Turkey is Israel’s closest ally in the Middle East. That was true for many years. It is no longer true. That was true when Turkey was governed by secular leaders. It has not been true since PM Erdogan – a rabid Islamist – took power in 2003 and shifted policy away from Israel and the West and closer to the Arab-Muslim world. Turkey sponsored this flotilla and dispatched it from its shores. It is today part of the Muslim axis against Israel. It is anti-Israel. That doesn’t mean it will always be anti-Israel; it does mean that today it is anti-Israel, and pretending it is not is misguided. Side note: would that the Turks could muster a fraction of the passion and outrage it feels about the Israeli raid and the loss of nine lives here for the 1,500,000 Armenians that Turkey massacred in 1915 and still refuses to acknowledge.

 7)      Another blow to the “peace process,” currently in the guise of the George Mitchell proximity talks. All these efforts are doomed to fail, because they all are designed to facilitate Israel’s demise rather than create a lasting peace. The riots across the world are a timely reminder to Jews and Israelis – many of whom suffer from a peculiar form of amnesia – that a visceral, religious-based hatred of Jews and Israel is alive and well, and prospers whenever Israel shows any weakness. Much of the world has not reconciled itself to Israel’s existence or to Jewish nationalism, and all the Oslo agreements, treaties, signing ceremonies, retreats, surrenders, concessions, compromises, good-will measures and handshakes have not changed that one iota. Almost inarguably, Israeli weakness in the last 20 years has exacerbated Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred across the world, especially the Arab world.

 8)      PA “President” Mahmoud Abbas (whose term expired long ago but in the comical world of Arab “democracies” will serve as long as he wishes) accused Israel of “state-sponsored terrorism.” Well, isn’t that rich (in the sense of cloying) ? Of course, Abbas is an expert on “state-sponsored terrorism,” so he must know it when he sees it.

     Jews and people of good will everywhere must remain resilient – physically and psychologically – against the onslaught that has started and will continue for several days. Be strong. These PR battles are not incidental to the war against Israel but one of the major battlegrounds. The enemy has in numbers what it lacks in truth, justice and morality – and the latter are always stronger. Do not parrot the trite and wrong-headed sound bites about the “botched raid.” On the contrary: the raid was not botched at all. The raid was a success. Soldiers go into battle ready to kill and be killed. Israeli soldiers killed so that they should not be killed. Gaza and Israel are at war. That is the nature of war. Israel’s vital interests were protected by its military forces. And Jewish blood is no longer cheap.

       The attempted “charm offensive” began several weeks ago. It included reaching out to US Rabbis for private meetings and the exchange of clichés and platitudes, meetings that – unlike President Bush’s outreach – did not actually include a meeting with the president himself, and now has culminated in what is being billed as a “friendly” meeting (as if that is something unusual), that will even include the presence of a photographer, perhaps a flashy smile, and, if Netanyahu plays his cards right, an entrance through the front door of the White House in daylight instead of the standard (for Israel’s prime minister) rear door entry in the dark of night.

       Yet, even this invitation was muffed by the White House. Note the contrast in the invitations of Netanyahu and PA ex-president Abbas (who still functions as ra’is despite the fact that his term lapsed more than a year ago, but who’s counting anyway ?). Netanyahu was “invited” in a throwaway line by Rahm Emanuel who was visiting Israel: “Since you’ll be in Canada next week, stop in…” or something to that effect. The Abbas visit, in two weeks, was announced in a formal statement issued from the White House, with pomp and solemnity. There was no such formal White House statement for Netanyahu.

       The Prime Minister should have said “no, thank you… not this time, perhaps in a few months.” He should have deflected this invitation by saying: “Mr. President, your invitations are always welcome and our friendship is strong, sincere and true. But it is not right for me to impose myself on you for a third visit, while you – a world traveler, including across most of the Arab world – have yet to visit me in my humble and holy land. So let us plan a date for your visit, and we shall talk then…” He should not come because the Obama administration is locked into a mindset that is detrimental Israel’s survival: “peace” is on the horizon and it will only be won through Israeli concessions. However that sentiment is couched and colored (the Arabs will renounce terror, incitement, or the wearing of white robes), the bottom line is all tangible concessions must come from Israel. And every new concession is just the prelude to the next round of concessions.

     Israel could benefit from some benign neglect, at least until the harmful dynamic  is halted or reversed. An interesting commentator wrote (http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=176586) that Netanyahu’s primary goal today should be domestic stability (especially including that of his government) and that Israel would do well to avoid any diplomatic initiatives for the foreseeable future. Every Israeli diplomatic initiative in the last thirty years has left Israel in an impaired strategic posture at its conclusion, as if often winds up negotiating with itself and against itself. Passivity has its place, and even words matter.

      Be careful what you say. Surrender begins insidiously, with words that Israel interprets as innocuous even as the enemy and its acolytes invest them with great significance. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 102a) states that “brit keruta lasfatayim” – there is a covenant made with the lips. Whatever people say will be fulfilled in some form, and not always as they intended.  In 1978, Menachem Begin agonized over accepting one phrase in the Camp David Accords, acknowledging the “legitimate rights of the Palestinian people.” He didn’t believe they had any rights to the land of Israel, much less legitimate ones. He was convinced to sign (foolishly), likely by advisor Aharon Barak, who later became the irksome President of Israel’s High Court of Justice, who told him that the phrase “legitimate rights,” absent any real definition, meant nothing,  and were just empty words.

    Not quite. The phrase was almost universally perceived to reflect the “national” rights of an Arab people to the land of Israel, and the rest is inglorious history. Within twenty years, the idea of a Palestinian state went from being anathema to the civilized world and synonymous with a wish for Israel’s destruction to Israel’s being anathematized by the civilized world (and the uncivilized) for its failure to create a Palestinian state, even though it is still synonymous with a wish for Israel’s demise.

   Therein rests the danger as well in Netanyahu’s embrace of a conditional Palestinian state last June. Not many remember or care what his conditions were; all people consider is that there few credible leaders in Israel now – right or left – who oppose a Palestinian state. The natural question then becomes: why is Israel obstructing the creation of a Palestinian state that they themselves have endorsed ? That question is difficult to answer convincingly to a world that has tired of Israel’s security laments, and that question – sure to be raised by Obama to Netanyahu next week – weighs like an albatross around Israel’s neck. So why go to a White House altogether ? To coordinate a joint attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities ? That’ll be the day.

    Words matter. Words create psychological realities that are often then translated into physical realities. Sure, Netanyahu relieved US and some domestic pressure by this concession, but at what cost? When words are used as concessions, to thwart the relentless pressure coming from our enemies and their supporters, the consequences are profound. The only answer is not to become tired, not to become so fatigued that surrender seems like the only reasonable option. In this, the Talmud guides us as well (ibid 104b): “kal hamaitzik l’Yisrael eino ayaif,” whoever oppresses Israel does not become weary. The enemy is inexorable, and is emboldened when he sees that Jews are tired (as Ehud Olmert infamously said five years ago). But knowing that their relentlessness is a given – and that our passion must exceed theirs – means that we must be vigilant in giving no quarter practically or even verbally. “No” (or “no, thank you”) is also an answer.

     So, you are always welcome here, Mr. Netanyahu, but you need not jump just because Obama tells you to jump. He is busy anyway cleaning up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that his daughter Malia has been hectoring him about (shades of Amy Carter’s youthful obsession with “nucular proliferation” that bedeviled her father). Let Obama clean up the mess in the Gulf, and when those waters are again pristine, he can try to clean up the mess in the Middle East. Otherwise, there are hazardous and choppy waters ahead for Israel.