The main front line in this war is southern Israel, where the Israel Defense Forces are working to defeat Hamas, secure the border, and rescue hostages. The second front is in the diaspora. Here we are fighting a series of multifaceted battles.
Our universities, high schools, middle schools, synagogues, organizations, social media, workplaces, and city streets are all front lines in this recurring, never-ending war against Jews. Just as our ancestors fought for the right to live as Jews, from the Maccabees to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, so must we now.
We must fight back with all our resources, from our bank balances to our most talented thinkers. This war is not just about keeping Jew-hatred at bay. It is a battle for the soul of the Jewish community. For our right to Jewish specificity.
A fight to truly express our Jewishness and Zionism without pressure from the wider world to assimilate. We must reject assimilation, which is different from integration. Jews living in the diaspora can, and perhaps should, integrate without losing their Jewishness in the process.
overcome dual identity
Please do not make any mistakes. It is difficult to overcome our dual identities. Many of us are insecure about our own history and afraid of being different. We balk at the realization that the dominant culture we live in may have defined us all along.
But our differences are what make us special. We can belong to diaspora societies without succumbing to the canad of dual loyalty. To drive home this point, consider what we say to our children when they enter the workforce. “Change to be accepted?” Not likely. We tell them, “Be true to who you are.”
It’s time to adopt our own advice: a Jewish War Cabinet.
Ultimately, a Jewish war cabinet is needed to win this war of self-awareness. To win this war, people across the Jewish world will need to work together. We must eliminate infighting within our organizations and the illusion that ideological differences separate us. We must clearly and decisively demand the right to self-affirmation.
We cannot simply include people who have previously held positions of power as members of this Cabinet. We need an equal team of fresh, talented people with influence and ideas. Each must leave their ego at the door. And we must recognize that each of us is fighting for something much bigger than ourselves. This is a fight for the perpetuation of a proud Zionist Jewish world that understands its connection to each other and to our indigenous lands.
The Jewish people and indigenous Jewish people must be a central focus in the work of the Jewish War Cabinet. Our schools need to incorporate it into their curriculum. Our organization needs to run a program on it. And our synagogues must preach it alongside a more religious perspective on the Torah.
For too long, we have let the wider world define our identity. There are Jewish groups and Holocaust organizations that refuse to classify Nazi Jews as a race and refer to them as a religion. This is an understandable response to Jewish hatred, but it is wrong. We must remember that Jews have the right to define Jewish identity.
Although there will always be outliers and radical fringe members in our communities, I argue that it is possible to reach consensus with flexibility and room for reasonable disagreement. We are not a monolith, and we have never been a monolith. But there are fundamentals, starting with this, that we must agree on. We are the indigenous peoples of the Land of Israel and have the right to live authentically while maintaining a connection to our homeland.
The Jewish War Cabinet must not be a mere talk shop. It must be solution and action oriented. It’s about taking an idea and disseminating it to the broader Jewish community while providing concrete support. Training teachers, creating curricula, coaching people who lead organizations. Importantly, it will require buy-in from community organizations. The threat is too great to mobilize all of our resources to work together.
After all, we are at a crossroads. Future generations of Jews will look to us and ask what we did during this recent war against the Jewish people. Will they see a Jewish community actively fighting to ensure Jewish survival, or will they see disharmony and inertia?
It’s time to choose.
The author is a founder of the modern Jewish Pride movement, an educator, and the author of Jewish Pride: Rebuilding a People. His new book is “Reclaiming Our Story: The Quest for Jewish Pride.”