Yet, we occasionally read these days of “Orthodox” Jews who molest, steal, rob, murder, assault, spit and curse at women and little children, set fire to businesses they disfavor for one reason or another, eschew self-support, brawl, intimidate and terrorize other Jews, or are otherwise genuinely disagreeable people. So what is it that makes those people “Orthodox,” or, even holier in the public mind, “ultra-Orthodox”?

The costume they wear.

It is a mistake that is made not only by a hostile media but also by the Jewish public, including the religious Jewish public. To our detriment, we define people by their costumes – e.g., long black coats, white shirts, beards and sometimes peyot – and we ourselves create expectations of conduct based on the costume that is being worn, as if the costume necessarily penetrates to the core of the individual and can somehow mold his character and classify his spiritual state – as if the costume really means anything at all.

If the events in Bet Shemesh or elsewhere in Israel rectify that mistake once and for all, some unanticipated good would have emerged from the contentiousness.

This is more than simply stating that any “Orthodox” Jew who sins is by definition not an “Orthodox Jew.” In truth, that statement is flawed and illogical, because all people sin; the truly “Orthodox” Jew might be one of the few who still actually believe in sin – stumbling before the divine mandate – and still seek to eradicate it by perfecting himself and struggling with his nature.

But the Torah Jew is defined by a core set of beliefs, principles and religious practices. One who subscribes to that core set is Orthodox notwithstanding any personal failings he has, failings which according to the Torah he must strive to reduce and diminish. No Jew – Rabbi or layman – is allowed to carve for himself exemptions from any mitzva. That is why deviations like the female rabbi, the dilution of the bans on homosexuality, the purported officiation by an “Orthodox” rabbi at a same-sex wedding, the relentless search for obscure leniencies in order to rationalize improper conduct, and other such anomalies drew such swift and heated reactions from the mainstream Orthodox world. The violent and criminal excesses in Israel have drawn similar rebukes but the thought still lingers: why do we even expect decorous and appropriate conduct from people who are perceived as thugs even within their own community, and who have literally threatened with violence some who would criticize them publicly? Because of the costume they wear.

Many of the brutes of Bet Shemesh have been widely identified as part of the sect known as Toldos Aharon (Reb Arele’s Chasidim).* The thumbnail sketch by which they are known always includes the declaration that they “deny the legitimacy of the State of Israel,” which in today’s world should be – and largely is – identical to being a member of the Flat Earth Society. They are “devoted to the study of Torah,” reputedly. Really ? What is the nature of their Torah study ? Are they Brisker thinkers, analytical and questioning, or are they more akin to another Chasidic sect, whose rebbe famously discouraged learning Torah b’iyun (in depth) because he claimed such distances the student from Divine service ? (That rebbi preferred a superficial and speedy reading of the words of the Gemara as the ideal form of Talmud Torah. And it shows.)

But what most identifies Toldos Aharon is…their costume. This, from Wikipedia: “In Jerusalem, married men wear white and grey “Zebra” coats during the week and golden bekishes/Caftan (coats) on Shabbos. Toldos Aharon and Toldos Avrohom Yitzchok are the only groups where boys aged 13 and older (bar mitzvah) wear the golden coat and a shtreimel, as married men do; however, married men can be differentiated by their white socks, while the unmarried boys wear black socks. In other Hasidic groups, only married men wear a shtreimel. All boys and men wear a traditional Jerusalemite white yarmulke. Unmarried boys wear a regular black coat with attached belt on weekdays, unlike the married men, who wear the “Zebra” style coat.”

Does any of this sartorial splendor have the slightest connection to Torah, to Orthodoxy, to living a complete Jewish life, to true divine service ? Memo to real world: there is no such concept as authentic Jewish dress. The Gemara (Shabbat 113a) states that Rav Yochanan would call his clothing “the things that honor me” (mechabduti) – but the Gemara does not see fit to even describe his clothing in the slightest fashion. Jewish dress is dignified and distinguished, clean and neat.  We are especially obligated to wear special and beautiful clothing throughout Shabbat (Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim 262:2-3). But beyond the tzitzit and the kippa for men, and modesty for all, there is no such thing as Jewish dress, the prevalence of contrary popular opinion notwithstanding. We are never told what Moshe, Ezra, Rabbi Akiva or the Rambam wore, and we are informed that one reason the Jews merited redemption from Egyptian because “they did not change their garb” (i.e., they did not adopt Egyptian styles) – but we are never informed what kind of clothing they did wear. Why ? Because it doesn’t matter one whit.

A sect that obsesses so much on clothing that it distinguishes the married and the unmarried by the type of socks they wear, and insists that everyone wear the same two coats, is not practicing a form of Judaism, in that respect, that is either traditional or brings honor and glory to the Creator. It is a practice that is not designed to induce others to gush about what a “wise and understanding people” we are. They are rather fabricating artificial distinctions between Jews – likely in order to foster cohesion within their small group, ward off outsiders, and better exercise mind control over their adherents. It is no wonder that such a group is not responsive to any known Rabbinic authority – not even the Edah HaChareidis – nor is it any surprise that the sect’s deviations from Judaism can be so repugnant to all Jews and all civilized people.  Surely there is more to prepare for in marriage than simply the acquisition of different color socks.

One can search in vain the Torah, the Talmud, the Rambam, the Shulchan Aruch and the classic works of our modern era for any guidelines similar to what appears above. If these hooligans wore modern garb, we would not hesitate for a moment to denounce them, to agonize over how it is they left the derech, over the failings of their parenting and education, and probably over the high cost of tuition and the toll joblessness is taking on the Jewish family. That the reaction of many to this criminal behavior is less shrill is attributable to but one cause: the costume. For some odd reason, we expect more.

We assume the costume mandates fidelity to halacha and engenders considerate and refined conduct. It doesn’t. It is unrelated. It is irrelevant to spirituality. It says nothing – nothing – about a person’s religiosity. I have dealt several times with conversion candidates who insisted on wearing Chasidic dress – who had beards, peyot, long black coats, white shirts, would never wear a tie, and wouldn’t even hold from the eruv – but they were still non-Jews. In the shuls where they davened while studying for conversion, members wondered why these frum-looking men never accepted kibbudim (honors). They didn’t, for one reason: they were not yet Jews. They just thought they were wearing the costume of Jews.

All the lamenting and hand-wringing is partially warranted, and partially misplaced. Partially warranted because we have for too long tolerated discourteous, larcenous and vicious conduct among people who self-identify because of their “dress” as religious Jews – the consistent rudeness, the unseemly “bargaining” that occurs when a bill is due, and, as one extreme example, the recent arson at Manny’s. (Manny’s is a popular religious book store in Me’ah She’arim that carried a great variety of sefarim –  including mine – that was targeted by similar violent groups for carrying “disapproved books.” The store was set on fire a few months ago, and the owners largely caved to the pressure.) None of that is “Orthodox” behavior in the slightest. And it is partially misplaced because we play the game by their rules when we gauge people’s spiritual potential – or even spiritual level – based of the coat, hat, yarmulke, shoes, socks, shirt, pants or belt that they wear. It not only sounds insane, but it is insane, and it should be stopped. No one is more religious because he wears black or less religious because he wears blue or brown.

We would never consider people who habitually violate Shabbat, Kashrut, etc. as Orthodox. We should never consider people who are routinely brutal and abusive, or have disdain – even hatred – for all other Jews outside their small sect – as Orthodox either. They embrace certain Mitzvot and dismiss others, as well as ignore fundamental Jewish values. Certainly – traditional disclaimer – these goons are but a miniscule, atypical, unrepresentative, extremist, outlier group unrelated to the greater Charedi community that is only now awakening to the dangers within.

Nonetheless, even the greater community would benefit if they too began to de-emphasize the “costume” as at all meaningful or indicative of anything substantive. The Sages state (see Tosafot, Shabbat 49a) that the custom to wear tefilin the entire day lapsed because of the “deceivers.” (One who wore tefillin all day was reputed to be trustworthy, until the thieves learned that trick and used their “tefillin” to swindle others.) Those who reduce Judaism to externals necessarily exaggerate the importance of the costume, and naturally provoke those common misperceptions that cause the Ultra-Distorters to be deemed “Ultra-Orthodox.”

Would we make great progress in the maturation of the Jewish world if a blue suit occasionally appeared in the Charedi or Yeshivish wardrobe ? Perhaps. But we would certainly undo the inferences that attach to certain types of dress that leave many Orthodox Jews wrongly embarrassed and ashamed of the behavior of “people like us.” They are not like us. We must love them as we would any wayward Jew, and rebuke them as we would any wayward Jew. Even wayward Jews wear costumes.

Then we can promulgate the new fashion styles – the new uniform – of the Torah Jew, where beauty, righteousness and piety are determined by what is inside – not what is on the outside – by deeds and Torah commitment and not by appearances.

May we never again hear someone say that “X looks frum.” No one can “look” frum; one can only “be” frum, which itself is not as admirable as being erliche. That lack of sophistication is atrocious, embarrassing, and corrosive to Jewish life and distorts the Torah beyond recognition. We know better than that, and we are better than that. In a free society, anyone can dress exactly like others or unlike others if he so chooses. But it says nothing about their values, only about their identification with one group or another. We should stop trusting people simply because they don black coats, black hats, and wear beards – or, for that matter, kippot serugot. All are costumes. None convey any real truths about the real person.

The true measure of every Jew – and every person – is always within.

RSP- For another perspective on this issue, please read the following at: http://www.cross-currents.com/archives/2011/12/29/welcoming-the-charedi-spring/#ixzz1iP31ZbUB

*I have seen one report attributing the violence to Toldos Aharon adherents, and another that Toldos Aharon is uninvolved. If they are indeed uninvolved, then I retract the reference to them and apologize. – RSP

Moreover, the Rambam continues that “the mitzva of Ner Chanuka is most precious (chaviva hi ad me’od) and one has to be extremely careful in order to inform others of the miracle, and to expand on it in praise and thanksgiving to G-d.”

But why is this particular mitzva so precious ? There are other mitzvot that we have that also purport to publicize miracles – most famously the reading of the Megila and the drinking of four cups of wine on Pesach. In neither place does Rambam call those mitzvot precious – so why does he use that term only in reference to Ner Chanuka ? And why do we say of the Chanuka candles that they are “holy” – what’s so holy about Ner Chanuka ?

And one other, fundamental question: Why Chanuka ? Why do we commemorate ancient but short-lived victories ? The  Chashmonaim had their moment and served a valuable function 22 centuries ago, but they disappeared 20 centuries ago. The monarchy they established was a fleeting phenomenon in Jewish history, and the Mikdash they lovingly rededicated was destroyed two centuries later  – so why celebrate their achievements that have long ago been dimmed by history ?

Rav Soloveitchik zt”l explained by citing the Gemara Shabbat (22b) that the Menorah in the Mikdash served only one purpose: “it was evidence that the Divine Presence rests on the Jewish people.” So, too, the Rav said, Ner Chanuka is a symbol of G-d’s enduring presence among the Jewish people in every age and in every location in the world. In essence, in the absence of the Mikdash, Ner Chanuka is the means by which we demonstrate every year that we are the Chosen People.

That was one of the primary clashes between the Jews and the Hellenists. The latter maintained that the Jewish people had to renounce any notion of chosenness, to them a cause of Jew-hatred that we ourselves provoked. They argued that we were just like everyone else, and the very concept of a “chosen” people was repugnant to their modern sensibilities.

It still is. Of course, the early Christians claimed for themselves the mantle of the New Israel, but it fascinating that the early Americans did the same. The Pilgrims called themselves New Israel, sprinkled the colonies liberally with biblical names, and saw America as the “Promised Land.” Benjamin Franklin even wanted the Great Seal of the US to depict the crossing of the Red Sea, and Thomas Jefferson thought a better image was the Israelites in the wilderness being led by a pillar of fire and a cloud. (Instead, they chose the bald eagle and other symbols.)

Nonetheless, all this imagery – and the idea of a “manifest destiny” – fed the notion of American exceptionalism, which, sad to say, even high-ranking American politicians have repudiated of late. And even Jews are uncomfortable with the concept of an “am hanivchar.”. One of my putative colleagues on the far left fringe of the Orthodox rabbinate not long ago described the notion of chosenness as “a moment of imperfection in G-d’s creation and decision-making.” It is “problematic” to single out one people for leadership. Hmmm…well, someone’s imperfect.

The publicizing of Chanuka is not merely a reminder of the miracle of Chanuka and the salvation of Israel from our enemies, but primarily proof that the divine presence rests on the people of Israel. Our relationship with G-d is based on two components – our acceptance of

G-d’s oneness and the special character of the descendants of Avraham. That’s why the Rambam says the mitzvah is “to demonstrate and publicize the miracle” – to demonstrate what is already known but also to reveal what is not widely known, or widely accepted: to explain why we fought then, why we fight today, what G-d expects of us, and what is His vision for mankind.

And that is why the Ner Chanuka is a “very precious Mitzva,” treasured and cherished, and why these flames are holy, set aside not to use but to examine, understand, and investigate this unique phenomenon of an eternal people and its relationship to the Creator. Megila and the four cups on Pesach recall a particular event – Chanuka is more than that: it is a celebration of our unique relationship with G-d that has never faltered and that transcends time and space.

Thus, after the victory, the Chashmonaim endeavored to formalize the notion of the chosen people in halacha – reinforcing the ban on intermarriage, and adding to the laws of purity and impurity – all of which served to stem the tidal wave of assimilation in those days, and serves as a model for our time as well. That is the Chanuka that deserves celebration every year. It is not just the miracles of old, but His loving embrace that reminds us then and now that redemption comes not through might or power but through G-d’s spirit, and our fidelity to that spirit.

     Of course Newt was right. Interestingly, few, if any of his most rabid critics in the Arab world and in the anti-Israel media even challenged his thesis. They focused on the prudence and propriety of the statement, on the ever-shifting balance between the Old Newt and the New Newt, and the prospects of “peace” in the Middle East given this startling and audacious admission.

    But of course Newt was right, if impolitic. It wasn’t that long ago when Israel’s Prime Minister, the late Golda Meir, made such an assertion herself. In a statement to The Sunday Times (June 15, 1969), she said: “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” All Newt did was state a bald-faced truth that has been obscured for too long.

    That is not to say that there have not been Arabs living in what they called Palestine for generations. There have been Arabs living in the land of Israel for quite a while, just like there have been Jews living in Israel – in an unbroken chain of residence – since antiquity. But the Arabs of Israel never had a national identity, and never sought statehood or independence until the Jews returned en masse in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. (Previous Jewish residents were forced to live without any national rights and subservient to the Muslim, Christian, Turkish – the latter for 400 years until 1917 – and finally British rulers.) It is Palestinian “nationalism” and “peoplehood” that were contrived by Jew-haters and anti-Zionists.

    Thus, it is well known that the early 20^th century Arabs of the land of Israel called themselves “Southern Syrians” and derided the early Jewish settlers as “Palestinians.” (How’s that for marketing?) Those same Arabs rejected the UN state proffered to them in 1947, and then “neglected” to seek statehood from 1948-1967 when Judea, Samaria and Gaza were controlled by fellow Arabs. In other words, the “Palestinian people” that Newt neutered, and “Palestinian nationalism” itself, were both inconsequential formulations that only exist to undermine and disqualify the Jewish State of Israel. To underscore the point, had there been no “Israel” created in 1948, the territory of “Palestine” would have been distributed to a variety of Arab entities to the north and east, themselves creations of the international community. But an “Arab Palestine,” as an independent state, would have been on no one’s radar, as it was not until, as Newt pointed out, the 1970s.

     Jews have lived in Israel since time immemorial (the title of Joan Peter’s famous work), and even after the destruction of the Second Temple and the great exile, Jews remained. Jews remained in the 2^nd -4^th centuries to write the Jerusalem Talmud, draft the permanent calendar and even entertain, for a time in the 4^th century, the building of another Temple with permission from Julian the Apostate; in the 5^th-6^th centuries to cling to the land amid the Byzantine and Christian persecutions; in the 6^th-11^th centuries to survive the Muslim invasion – returning to Yerushalayim with permission from the Emperor Omar and observing the founding of the only town founded by Arabs in the land of Israel during their entire sojourn – Ramle; suffering the torments of the Crusaders in the 12^th century; enduring the Muslim re-conquest in the 12-15^th centuries in which the land saw a constant stream of Jewish visitors and/or residents, including Rambam, Ramban, R. Yechiel of Paris, and many others; the 16^th century that witnessed the flourishing of Jewish life – the composition – in Israel! – of the Shulchan Aruch and the rise of the giants of Kabbala; the 17-18^th centuries during which both Sefardic and Ashkenazic Jews bolstered existing communities throughout the land of Israel and founded new ones, and the 19^th century, when the Zionist movement in a variety of forms took root.

    Is there a similar “Palestinian” history ? Of course not. Throughout the ages, Jews both persevered in the land, and prayed for the restoration of Jewish sovereignty. It is absurd to even suggest there is a competing Palestinian narrative that bears any substance or validity. As I have noted before in this space, choose any century in the past 2000 years, and try to name a “Palestinian” of any sort. That is why the Arab apologists have been forced to assert that “Jesus was a Palestinian” (Arafat, apparently unaware that Jesus was a Jew) or, in the last week, that the “Palestinians” are descendants of the ancient Yevusi. (Really? I thought they descended from the Girgashi.) That is why the official Palestinian line of the last decade, emanating first from Arafat, is that there is “no Jewish Temple, no Jewish nationalism and no Jewish connection to the land.” The hat burns on the thief’s head. They have no indigenous connection to the land of Israel, and only arrived in large numbers after Jewish settlement began and to take advantage of the opportunities presented by Jewish settlement. Certainly, Chanuka itself reinforces the deep bond that the Jewish people have for, and in, the land of Israel.

    Usually, the Arabs have sought at this point to shift this uncomfortable conversation by saying that “there will never be peace if we argue over history.” But that is a tactic designed to move the debate from the realm of facts and reason to the charade of myth and fantasy, and to obscure the basic function of “Palestinian nationalism” – an Islamic/Arab marketing device to undercut and destabilize Israel’s existence by embracing Western nomenclature of human rights, self-determination, victim refugees, etc.

    Others effectively concede that there really is no historical “Palestinian people” (John Bolton also said as much the other day), but the political reality today is that they “exist” in the media, in the diplomatic chambers, in the UN, and in the land of Israel – so they exist today even if they never existed before, and therefore must be dealt with as if they are a real people.

    This would be a compelling argument, but only if the starting point is that “peace” is somehow possible to attain with an invented nation that denies one’s own existence. That bubble has been burst for many thinking people (excluding, among others, NY Times “experts” on foreign policy) and now resembles more a pagan fantasy than serious statecraft. But nothing valuable or meaningful can be built on a foundation of lies, and the State of Israel, nonetheless, remains guilty of propagating the Palestinian national fantasies while pandering to their blatant lies.

Take, for example, the recent and ongoing ruckus over the renovations of the Mughrabi Gate walkway to the Temple Mount that is in the process of crumbling, not to mention a terrible eyesore. This construction has been challenged by the Muslims as an attempt by the Jews to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.” (Of course, when the bridge collapses, those same Muslims will allege that the Jews destroyed it in order to kill Muslims and to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”) For some mysterious reason (fecklessness is the working theory), the Netanyahu government has abdicated its responsibilities to the Jordanian authorities, a shameful renunciation of sovereignty and a tacit acceptance of the lie that the Jews are attempting to “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

The Israelis should rebuild that collapsing bridge for many reasons – it needs it, it is dangerous, it is now hideous-looking with all the scaffolding surrounding it, and it is acting as the sovereign entity in its capital city within shouting distance of the holiest place in Judaism – but primarily to expose the lie that the re-construction is designed to – you guessed it – “undermine the foundations of the Al-Aksa Mosque.”

Lies have legs. Mark Twain famously said that “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” With a complicit media and the Internet, lies these days can travel around the world several times before truth is even aware of the lie’s existence. For too long, Israel and its supporters have been guilty of accepting the Palestinian lies – history, narrative, policies, accusations (remember Suha Arafat, Hillary Clinton and the poison gas charge? The Egyptian media and the Israel-spreading-AIDS charge? Et al) and reportage without serious and sustained challenge. That time, thanks to Newt, should be long past.

Newt Gingrich may or may not become president, but he has served a valuable function in this regard – defying convention, stupefying his adversaries, and shocking the American-Jewish establishment – by telling an unvarnished truth. Call it “political Newt-ity,” for he has laid bare the hollowness of the enemies’ claims against Israel and exposed their lies, and our inexplicable acquiescence in them.

Two questions that are not being asked are: first, how long will it be before another Israeli is taken captive by Hamas et al, in order to exchange for more prisoners ? My guess is months, although a few weeks is also a possibility.  Second, how many Israelis will be killed in the future by this latest batch of freed terrorists ? The organization Victims of Arab Terror reports that approximately 200 Israelis have been murdered in the last 20 years by freed
terrorists. Based on past results, and logic, Israelis should start preparing
both fresh graves, and new organizations to memorialize those future victims.

Certainly, I have no complaints at all against the Shalit family, and they acted as any family would and should – prioritizing the life of their child, an individual, over the lives of the public and the community. If I were in their predicament, G-d forbid, I would be doing the same thing. But it is at that moment – when emotion and sympathy provoke the desire to free the innocent captive at all costs – when the cooler heads who govern the nation are supposed to have the national interest at heart and do what is in the interest of the nation, and not the individual. And I would be told that the consequences of this transaction – politically, emotionally and militarily – are just too grave. But the Prime Minister, who has a smooth tongue but often seems to function without a spine, caved. It is a populist act, until, of course, the real price is paid.

Politically, it is a victory for Arab terror and can only provoke more terror. The bar has been lowered still further for those who want to kill Jews. Jewish blood – past and future – has become cheaper, and future terrorists will be even more emboldened that they can murder Jews with impunity. Those who will pat themselves on the back that the trade demonstrates how Jews value life are, in fact, misguided and short-sighted; it is further proof of how the will of many Jews has been broken by terror and they can no longer even think beyond the present. (It is not speculation that freed terrorists will murder Jews; it has been proved 200 times already.) It is not even a small comfort to recognize that, indeed, the life of a Jew is more valuable than the life of an Arab; about 1000 times more valuable according to the prevailing market rate.

Emotionally, it must be devastating for the families victimized by the Arab terrorists who will now be eyewitnesses to those murderers returning to their homes amid heroes’ welcomes and parades, and watching them walk the streets and plot more mayhem against Jews. When will the butchers who carved up the Fogel family be released? Not now – maybe next time, or the time after that. After all, we can’t bring back the dead, so why punish the living hostage and his/her family.

Militarily, it is a security catastrophe as one thousand hard core terrorists re-enter Judea, Samaria, Gaza and Israel proper (for the Israeli Arabs who will be released) to sow the seeds of the next rebellion. (Remember, the first civil war in Israel – in 1987 – erupted a little more than one year after the infamous Jibril exchange released more than 1000 poisonous terrorists into the Israeli bloodstream. Reportedly, this latest group includes about 1/3 currently serving life sentences. And many of these terrorists were captured in undercover operations in which soldiers and security personnel risked their lives, and in some cases were killed. But why risk one’s life to capture a terrorist today who will be freed tomorrow ?

Prisoner exchanges outside the context of an end to hostilities undermine any deterrence that might have existed. Every future terrorist can go about his ghastly business expecting to be released at some point, and be feted and handsomely rewarded when he is released.

Imagine, for a moment, the parents of a sick child whose life could be saved for ten billion dollars of medical care. They demonstrate, rally, petition and pressure the government – and even call the government immoral for rejecting their entreaties. Instead, the “callous” government responds that all life is precious, but the government does not have ten billion dollars to spend on one child, sad to say, and that money can instead be used to spare the lives of thousands of other children. Rational, yes, but small comfort to the parents of that child. But governments – and hospitals – makes such triage decisions all the time.

One might well argue that the Shalit case is different – it is not an individual illness but a soldier sent to do his duty on behalf of the nation for whom the nation than always has an obligation to redeem at any cost. After all, Israel boasts of its mantra that it will never abandon soldiers on the battlefield. But that tripe is obviously untrue. At least three Israeli governments have negotiated with Syria over the disposition of the Golan without first demanding the release of (or information about) the three captives from the Sultan Yaakob battle in June 1982 – Yehuda Katz, Zachary Baumol and Zvi Feldman). And even more Israeli governments abandoned Jonathan Pollard on his battlefield, with Ehud Barak even preferring the pardoning by Bill Clinton of Marc Rich over the pardoning of Pollard. So the cliché is inspiring but ultimately meaningless. It is the type of contention that is made and appreciated but subjected to rational cost-benefit analysis before actual implementation. (Israel also vows never to leave a body in the field, but they would be fools to have half a platoon killed in order to retrieve a body.)

By way of contrast, there are currently American soldiers captive in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US is not exchanging Arab terrorists for those captives. Those who conclude that is evidence that the US does not value life should at least consider the alternative; perhaps that is proof sufficient that the US does value life, and perhaps even more than Israelis do. They value not only the life of their captive soldier, but more broadly the lives of the soldiers who captured those terrorists and the lives of the citizens that will be snuffed out by those released terrorists.

What does Jewish law say about such grisly ransoms? Unfortunately, we have too much experience in this field. The Talmud in Masechet Gittin (45a) states that we “do not ransom captives for more than their value…because of tikkun olam” (the betterment of society), and the Sages offered two reasons, both of which resonate now: either because it will impoverish the community (i.e., endanger their future well-being) or because it will just encourage more hostage-taking by the wicked. Both are true in this context, and Jews have traditionally heeded such guidance. The Torah values life, but life is not our highest value, and the life of an individual does not supersede the welfare of the community. If that were the case, one should never go into battle, in which individual lives will be sacrificed for the good of the community and nation.

Why now? Why wait five years when a similar deal could have been done – at lower cost – five years ago ? Chalk that up to another blundered negotiation by the Israelis, and a persistent inability on the part of much of the populace to recognize – and to retain the reality – that they are in a war that has no end in sight. Certainly, there are political benefits that will accrue to Hamas, which will emerge from this looking like a reasonable interlocutor with whom the world can – and should – do business. (After all, the Israelis shopped in their marketplace.) The real change seems to be a harshening of the conditions of imprisonment for those Arab terrorists now in Israeli prisons. Until this past summer, terrorists were entitled to family visits, cell phones, library and educational privileges, and probably Cable TV and spa treatments. PM Netanyahu ended that when he suddenly realized – just this past July – that Arab murderers were living well on the Israeli shekel and Gilad Shalit had not even been afforded a visit from the Red Cross. That country club lifestyle ended; perhaps that amped up the pressure on Hamas to deal. And deal they did, and they must be enjoying their triumph.

It is certainly possible that the deal will yet fall through. Hamas in the past has raised expectations and upped the ante by asking for more prisoners at crunch time. But it seems as if they have made a reasoned decision to quit while they are ahead.

The feeling here is joy commingled with sadness, sort of like the reaction of a family whose relative survives a  terrorist attack that kills ten people. One grieves for the victims but is quietly happy that one’s relative survived.

It is a gruesome image we dare not forget in the weeks and months ahead.

     The latter two seem more likely. Bear in mind for a moment how low the bar has been set for what is construed as Obama’s “support” for Israel. Prior presidents routinely vetoed Security Council resolutions that condemned Israel’s acts of self-defense and other such treacheries. (The infamous Carter did not veto a resolution condemning “settlement” construction.) But US vetoes of anti-Israel moves at the UN have been so routine that we have taken them for granted, and so expected that the threat itself of a veto has precluded the introduction of many such resolutions.  The Palestinian gambit to have the Security Council recognize their “statehood” was as much precipitated by their own shenanigans and miscalculations as it was by Obama’s diplomatic incompetence. Undoubtedly, Obama encouraged the Palestinians to expect a state on a platter as their natural right, made a halt to “settlement” construction a pre-condition to negotiations (the tree limb from which Abbas has not been able to climb down), and boxed Israel into a corner in which any negotiations
would cause Netanyahu’s government to fall. And Abbas and his cohorts probably assumed that Obama – an advocate of a Palestinian state in the
heartland of Israel – would never veto such a resolution and incur the ire of
the Arab world and street, contrived that it is.  Thus, the speech and the veto – if it comes to that – are damage control.

    But it will have its intended effect. Jewish Democrats, desperate for a reason to vote for the re-election of a black, leftist, Democratic president, now have it. Obama said all the right things – and if he would actually visit Israel, some of his diehard Jewish faithful would be proposing shidduchim between their own
sons and Obama’s daughters. Expect a boost in the “Jewish” polls for Obama,
although not quite to the level that he enjoyed before, when he was acting on
his natural impulses.

     Certainly it was not easy for Obama to change course, and he still does not look comfortable in Netanyahu’s presence (he didn’t even before May’s White House smack down). This is a president, after all, whose economic plan to dig America out of its hole is to dig a bigger hole – by embracing this week, yet again, higher taxes and more public union jobs. And this is a president who can offer to states – just yesterday – a waiver from compliance with the accountability provisions of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” legislation, and claim with a straight face that this does not mean there will be no accountability for failing schools and failed teachers. Well, yes, that is exactly what it means; hence the waivers. He rarely admits error.

    So the diplomatic tap dance worked out as best as can be expected, and President Obama is to be credited for his public support for Israel in an unpopular forum. Of course, the converse would have been odd, given America’s signature as a witness on the Oslo Accords that prohibited either party from taking unilateral steps to change the political status on the ground. But, as aforementioned with the Bush education legislation, Obama is not averse to erasing the policies and values of his predecessors when it suits him. Here, he held – for what is for him – firm, and that sense of realism is welcome. An America that casts its lot with Israel is itself on surer footing.

    Israel also held firm, although one always fears what concessions PM Netanyahu is promising behind the scenes that he will be unlikely to keep when he returns to Israel. And his speech, pointed and passionate, still lacks the winning argument, the polemical punch that would mark Israel’s statecraft as unique and special. Netanyahu, true to his secular roots, cannot bring himself to base the Jewish people’s possession of the land of Israel on the Bible – on G-d’s promise to our forefathers. His references to where our ancestors “walked 4000 years ago,” or to coins found with his name on it next to the Kotel, leave me (me!) cold and unmoved, and thinking, so what ? Just because they walked there gives us as much claim to the land as the name Netanyahu on a coin gives him rights of ownership over that coin. Ancient man walked in a lot of places; no one claims that land on that basis. His is simply a losing argument that persuades no one.

     The divine source of our right to the land of Israel is the only argument with merit and durability, even if it will attract few supporters in the short term. But it has the virtue of being true – to ourselves, to our history, to believers across the world – and true to the G-d who made it to us. Perhaps someday soon there will be a Jewish prime minister who speaks the language of the Jewish people.

    Until then, we can only pray that Israel will quell the inevitable violence that will result from the Kabuki theatre at the UN, and that – here’s the real test – Obama will unequivocally support Israel’s right of self-defense despite the casualties inflicted on a suicidal population, and without demands on Israel to make itself more vulnerable. Then the negotiations to nowhere can begin, and end, and begin again.

The expulsion of Israel’s ambassador to Turkey (he was in Israel on leave anyway) and the recall of Turkey’s ambassador to Israel followed the release of the UN report that – get this – upheld the legality of Israel’s blockade of Gaza and therefore the propriety of the Israeli raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara in which nine Turkish thugs were killed. PM Netanyahu has properly refused to apologize, wimpishly offered to pay compensation to the families of the “victims,” and otherwise has had to endure another public relations hit as Israeli-Turkish relations has foundered.

The contacts between Israel and Turkey have always involved a diplomatic tap dance, if not juggling while walking a tight rope. Turkey was once traditionally defined as a “secular Muslim, non-Arab state” and its thumbnail sketch was as “the only Muslim country with which Israel has diplomatic ties.” But neither has been true for years; this is not Kemal Ataturk’s Turkey anymore. Since the Islamic party won control of Turkey’s government, and its strongman Erdogan has ruled, Turkey has undergone a steady de-secularization campaign. Muslim garb, forbidden under Ataturk, is now commonly worn, and in many places expected. Turkey has warmed its relations with Iran and Syria and other enemies of Israel and America, and sought a seat at the table of radical Islam. This was all predicted years ago, and the only hindrances to a full cessation of relations with Israel have been the military – the dominant force in Turkey – and the extensive trade between the two countries that has benefited both.

Those who seek to re-start Israel-Turkey relations on the old premises are simply in denial about the change in circumstances. The old premises no longer pertain. This should have been crystal clear to anyone who observed the saber-rattling of Erdogan that led him to support the flotilla in the first place – an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, with which, after all, Israel is at war. It was just over two years ago when Erdogan got into a shouting match with Shimon Peres in Davos about Israeli “crimes,” leaving the peripatetic peacenik Peres to plead with Erdogan: “What would you do if rockets were falling on your civilians?” Erdogan just walked away. Recent events are just the natural consequence of a rupture that occurred years ago and is unavoidable given the ideological drift of the Turks.

It is important to iterate a classic distinction in statecraft that is often ignored. Turkey was an ally of Israel; i.e., they shared mutual interests. But Turkey and Israel were never friends – there has never been symmetry of views and values that make that association a natural one. Years ago, at a White House meeting I attended, President Bush made a similar point about Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis, he said, are allies, not friends. Israel is a friend. It is a distinction, Bush said, that he never overlooks. Today, Turkey and Israel do not even share interests; hence the tension. It is sad, of course, inevitable, but not irreversible. Israelis, especially, have enjoyed vacationing on the Turkish
shore, and it is an interesting country to visit. (I spent almost a week there
a number of years ago.) Times change.

What galls, though, is the raw hypocrisy of the Turks who have never been a nation with clean hands. Imagine if Israel offered overt support to the Kurdish rebels who have been clamoring for independence from Turkey for decades, and been treated brutally by the Turks? The reaction would have been swift and unforgiving. The Turkish massacres of Greeks on Cyprus have also been played down. But nothing speaks more to the delicacy of the Turkish sensibilities and the need for an immoral silence to grease the wheels of this relationship than Israel’s long-time disregard of the Turkish massacre of more than 1,000,000 Armenians almost a century ago (1915). Israel is one of many countries – the US is another – that have avoided calling the Armenian genocide a “genocide,” and in many cases Turkey has broken off relations with countries that have acknowledged this tragic truth. In the last decade, Congressional resolutions have recognized the genocide but even the US government has not officially done so until today, for fear of impairing relations with the Turks. The Armenian genocide is the 20^th century atrocity that dare not speak its name.

Israel has been even slower on the uptake, especially infuriating because of our understandable sensitivity regarding Holocaust denial. Rumor has it that even the Museum of Tolerance was pressured – by Israel – not to include the Armenian genocide in its displays because of the potential adverse Turkish reaction. (They eventually relented and the museum includes an account of the Armenian massacres, but the same squeamishness and dialogue recurred when DC’s Holocaust Museum opened.) But basic morality should dictate that genocide is acknowledged and the perpetrators – long lost to history – be condemned. It is the least we can do to honor the memory of the slain. While diplomatic contortions are inevitable, and not every truth can be pointed out on every occasion, perhaps now is an opportune time to right that historic wrong. Will it harm relations even more ? Probably in the short term. But it should be accompanied by a statement that “Israel values relations with Turkey, and appreciates the historic alliance between Turkey and Israel, but still mourns the genocide of Armenians a century ago that is no reflection on modern Turkey but is a historical injustice that demands acknowledgment,” or something of the sort.

The US should do the same. Otherwise, we find ourselves in the morally untenable position of kowtowing to Turks who massacred Armenians and demand that the whole world be accessories to their cover-up, and now support Arabs who have similar genocidal ambitions against Jews and Israel.

That will surely stick in their craw, and be a subtle reminder to Turkey that they are not dealing with Armenians, Kurds or Greeks whom they can malign, besmirch and attack with impunity, but with a proud Jewish nation of Israel that will defend its citizens, its honor, its rights and its freedoms. Israel should not again fall into the trap of having to apologize for its existence and having to
defend its right of self-defense.

     I have been in Israel a little less than a month, and one’s perspective on events here changes because of the new vantage point. It is never as gloomy here as it sometimes appears from abroad, and for the simplest reason: abroad, our filter on events is almost exclusively the media, and the media’s function is to highlight (exaggerate?) problems, injustice, dangers, flaws, foibles and corruption. About the only news reported is bad news; good news need not apply, except in special sections devoted to “good news.” If it bleeds, it leads, the worst of the human condition is accentuated, and there are no problems – only catastrophes. But real life is not like that. The media distortions – or emphases – are as grotesquely inaccurate as looking at oneself in a fun-house mirror.

    Here, what we abroad tend to see as a willful blindness to looming dangers (Iran, incoming rockets, UN decisions, etc.) is, in fact, just living normal lives. School resumed yesterday, and the first day of school is a national event – all parents take their children to school (work is delayed), and the atmosphere is festive – it is almost like the “parent vacation” begins. The sun shines every day, the weather is beautiful, the holiness of the land is tangible (well, depending on where you are), the shuls are filled, the Torah is studied and implemented, the malls are crowded, families celebrate joyous occasions together, neighbors assist each other in every sphere, the modernization is glorious, Shabbat is truly peaceful, and anyone with a sense of history can only marvel at the creation and the accomplishments of the Jewish state in just over six decades. All “problems” pale before that.

     Undoubtedly, the picture is not entirely bucolic. There are struggles in every sphere for many people – financial, religious, personal, etc. Every institution of society can be upgraded and improved, and some drastically so. Nothing is ever perfect – and the media here, even more partisan than in the US – is relentlessly negative. But they are easily tuned out, or at least compartmentalized. It could be that the macro-situation is so frightening than people focus on their micro-existence, but who is to say they are incorrect in their assessment? Who is to say that there is some point in time – before the Messianic age – in which society will be perfected? That is a misconception that can simply ruin lives and detract from our collective and individual happiness.

     Often, there is a sense – driven by the media – that if a particular policy course is selected, paradise will ensue (and vice versa – disaster will come if another approach is taken). But problems that are solved simply give way to new problems of an unprecedented and unanticipated nature. The relief of the end of the Cold War was almost immediately followed by the panic of the hot wars of radical Islam against the Jews and the Western world. The business cycle still produces the boom and the busts. The insistent demands for “social justice” and “equality” are somewhat self-defeating, because they are vague objectives that can never be attained even if they sound enlightened.

    There has been intense hype of the “social protests” by the media but, aside from certain adjustments to existing policies, it seems not to have attracted broad-based support and has foundered on the shoals of leftist politicization and incoherent and incomprehensible demands. And the protesters do not speak for the “people;” granted, no single group ever does, because most “people” are not involved in protests or demonstrations, or are politically active at all. While Israelis tend to be more politically engaged than Americans – roughly 2/3 of the citizenry votes, a far greater percentage than in the US – voting and being politically active and astute are not identical processes. So Israelis, like Americans, tend to be easily manipulated by politicians and their promises. But here it is magnified – demonstrations that attract 25 loud people can lead the news, if their agenda conforms to the media’s agenda.

       The “people,” as it were, tend to go to work, earn a living, raise their children, nurture their spiritual lives, and take pride – immense pride – in Israeli accomplishments. The average Israeli, in that sense, is much more patriotic than the average American. There is a healthy sense of skepticism, and an internal corrective mechanism that operates. (Today’s news that long-time, extreme left-wing Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner was fired for his private but written musings that justified Arab terrorism against Jewish civilians, is a sign of that corrective mechanism. Americans would – wrongly – be up in arms shouting about the “free press” et al, but the First Amendment does not mean that every single organ of the press is “free.”)

     Even the rockets of the last few weeks have receded for now, but the greater impact is minimal. A bomb in Tel Aviv does not resonate in Yerushalayim, and rockets on Be’er Sheva are not felt in Haifa. That is not to say that people don’t care; of course, people care – but they still maintain their normal lives when they are not directly impacted. In that sense, it is a small country (roughly the size of New Jersey) but much larger than it seems.

      Perhaps it is natural that residents do not obsess over the looming dangers because one could easily go insane and live in constant terror of tomorrow’s unknown. Conversely, people of faith are reassured – and there are many more people of faith here than there are religious Jews – that G-d’s will prevails, and that He has a special providence over this land and its people. It is also comforting to know that not every problem can and will be resolved in our lifetimes, and the increasing realization that “peace” is not coming anytime soon has a strangely calming effect on the masses. That recognition should – we pray – stay the hand of the unyielding appeasers, has created a sense that Israelis have done what they can for “peace” without any reciprocity, and engendered an attitude that lends itself to living good, healthy, productive and meaningful lives – and not worry about threats that might never truly materialize.

     Certainly that does not relieve the politicians, the political thinkers and the defense establishment of their obligations to plan, deter, thwart, and respond to every security predicament – but it does enable the average person to focus on the normal routines that preoccupy people everywhere.

     There is no shortage of bad news, here and everywhere, but to see only crises and troubles is to distort and disfigure life in the Holy Land, and really everywhere else in the world. There is a confidence here born of weathering worse storms – hunger, poverty, starvation and wars against more powerful enemies, not to mention the traumas of Jewish history, past and recent. And there is a desire to live, grow, prosper and seek satisfaction in the fulfillment of the remarkable prophecies that have come true in our time.

      One need not always debate whether the glass is half-full or half-empty; sometimes it is just easier to fill the glass.