Teaneck, N.J. — Two events occur this month that demand your active participation. Common sense demands it. Practical politics demand it. Jewish law demands it.
Those two events are the election on Tuesday and the Second International Rally in Israel Nov. 24-27.
Last August, approximately 1,500 people participated in the first “Rally in Israel,” suggesting that it was a huge success. The fact is, the rally was a failure in one very tangible respect: Few participants came from the United States. By and large, American Jews stayed home.
In doing so, they sent a loud and clear message: American Jews no longer seem to care all that much.
Fortunately, U.S. foreign policy was not changed by the poor showing. That is not because American Jewish organizations have such great clout that they could overcome American Jewish apathy, however. It is because the Christian right has made Israel’s survival a priority at least as high as ending abortion in America.
Christians by the planeload fly to Israel from all over the world to show their “solidarity” with the Jewish state while Jews by the planeload stay home.
The Christian right supports a strong Israel only because it believes that it is essential to the fulfillment of prophecy in which, as Armageddon approaches, two-thirds of us will die horrible deaths and the rest of us will convert to Christianity. Are these the people we should depend on to defend the right of Jews to live safely and securely in the State of Israel?
That said, there is the fact that Jews in the diaspora (meaning Jews who voluntarily live outside the Land of Israel, as distinct from exile, which is not voluntary) have an obligation to support the State of Israel in every practical way, including going there and “showing the flag” when needed.
This obligation pre-dates even the conquest of Canaan, which marked our assumption of our patrimony. It goes back to the days of the sojourn in the desert.
We see the birth of the diaspora in chapter 32 of Numbers. Virtually on the eve of Israel’s crossing over to the west bank of the Jordan to claim its rightful inheritance, at the very moment that Israel needs to be united, Moses divides Israel by creating the diaspora. With God’s obvious approval, if not under His direction, he grants the tribes of Reuven, Gad and half of Menashe the right to live outside the Land.
There can be only one explanation for such a remarkable event: The diaspora was created to benefit Israel. This is made clear in Deuteronomy 3:18-20, when Moses recalls the moment he approved the request of the two and a half tribes to live outside the Land of Israel:
“And I commanded you at that time, saying, ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess it; you shall pass over armed before your brothers the People Israel, all who are fit for the war…. [And there you shall remain] until they also possess the Land which the Lord your God has given them beyond the Jordan. And then shall you return every man to his possession, which I have given you.’”
Reuven, Gad, and half of Menashe may have thought that living outside the Land was their idea, but Moses says it was all part of God’s plan. Thus the right to live outside Israel exists only for those who actively assist the people inside Israel to live securely. For those who are not active in this, that right never existed in the first place and they sin against God every moment they live anywhere but Israel.
Stating the obvious
The Torah, however, is only stating the obvious. Israel can only survive if all the Jews support it, not just those who live there.
In country after country, it is becoming fashionable to cut all business ties with Israel in the hopes of bringing it to its economic knees. Country after country desires to see Israel humiliated and its very existence jeopardized.
Only the United States stands firmly in Israel’s corner. It does so not because the Jews support Israel, but because the Christian right does, and because its own war on terrorism makes any other position vulnerable to attack as hypocritical.
The Christian right, however, will not support Israel indefinitely. Sooner or later, it will realize that, for the second millennium in a row, the “second coming” has been “postponed.” It will redefine its theology yet again (it did not start out as friendly to the Jewsh state), and Israel’s survival will no longer be in its interests.
There are many reasons why we must “vote with our feet” — literally — in support of Israel. This is one of the most important ones. Israel’s survival must depend on our support, not the support of those who are motivated by the hope that this is the beginning of the end of the Jewish people.
If there is any way you can make it to Israel in the days leading up to Thanksgiving, sign up for the Rally in Israel. The three-night stay costs $950 and includes airfare, hotel and touring. There also are a limited number of $300 subsidies available for people. For more information, visit www.rallyinisrael.org.
Of course, even if this rally is a great success, it will have little meaning if in the halls of power there is a suspicion that the Jewish vote on Election Day is of diminishing consequence.
Politicians count heads. If you are among those groups that do not show up to vote, you are among those groups to whom little attention is paid.
American Jews have considerable political clout. This is not because we are so great in numbers. We are a scant 5 million out of 288 million people. Given our below-zero population growth, we are likely to be even fewer by 2005.
Our strength has always been in the percentage of Jews who turn out for elections. We may be a minority, but at the polls we make up a significant sector of the electorate.
Often, we are the “swing vote” that makes or breaks a candidacy.
Sadly, participation in elections is declining among American Jews. This is a dangerous trend. Many issues on the communal agenda must be addressed — at the local, state and national levels — including social service programs and ongoing support for the State of Israel.
“All Israel,” the Talmud tells us, “is responsible one for another.” The concerns of some Jews must be the concerns of all Jews. We fail in our responsibilities to ourselves when we stay home on Election Day and when we stay away from Israel.
Shammai Engelmayer is the rabbi of Temple Israel Community Center of Cliffside Park, N.J., and former executive editor of The New York Jewish Week. This column originally appeared in the Teaneck, N.J.-based Jewish Standard and Jewish Community News .
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