80 | SEPTEMBER 14 • 2023
T
he year 2014 was the
year when it became
dangerous to be a Jew.
Israel, subject to sustained
missile attack, discovered how
hard it is to fight
an asymmetric
war against a
terrorist group
ruthless enough
to place rocket
launchers
beside schools,
hospitals and
mosques. It found itself
condemned by large sections
of the world for performing
the first duty of any state,
namely to protect its citizens
from danger and death.
Antisemitism returned to
the streets of Europe. Nearly
120 years after the Dreyfus
trial, the cry “Death to the
Jews” was heard again in
Paris. Seventy years after the
Holocaust, the call of “Jews
to the gas” was heard in the
streets of Germany. There
were times when it felt as if
the ghost of a past we thought
long dead had risen to haunt
us. More times than was
comfortable I heard Jews say,
“For the first time in my life I
feel afraid.”
Let us stay with those fears
and confront them directly.
We are not back in the 1930s.
To the contrary, for the first
time in the almost 4,000-years
of Jewish history, we have
simultaneously independence
and sovereignty in the Land
and State of Israel, and
freedom and equality in the
diaspora. Israel is strong,
extraordinarily so.
The success of Iron
Dome was the latest in
an astonishing line of
technological advances —
not just military but also
agricultural, medical and
commercial — designed to
protect, save and enhance life.
Israel has lived with the
disdain of the world for a
very long time. Given that it
is the only fully functioning
democracy in a Middle
East where elsewhere entire
nations are brutally tearing
themselves apart, that is a
problem for the world as
much as for Israel.
Besides, which we know,
even the most lukewarm
among us, that it is infinitely
preferable to have a State of
Israel and the condemnation
of the world than no Israel,
no Jewish home and have the
sympathy of the world.
The unity Israel showed
during the Gaza conflict was
deeply moving. It reminded us
that in a profound existential
sense we remain one people.
Whether or not we share a
covenant of faith, we share
a covenant of fate. That is a
good state to be in as we face
the Yamim Noraim, the Days
of Awe, when we stand before
God not just as individuals
but as a people.
As for antisemitism, rarely
has it been more self-evident
that the hate that starts
with Jews never ends with
Jews. The most significant
enemies of the Jews today
are the enemies of freedom
everywhere. Worldwide,
we may feel uncomfortable,
anxious. But there are parts
of the world where Christians
are being butchered,
beheaded, driven from their
homes and living in terror.
As for Muslims, one
prominent academic recently
estimated that of the hundreds
dying daily, at least 90 percent
were doing so at the hands of
their fellow Muslims. Bahai
are at risk. So are the Yazidis.
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH
Choosing Life