“If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” This is a famous Jewish aphorism from the Sayings of the Sages (Pirke Avot), but its meaning, as usually translated, is ambiguous.
Should we understand it to mean “If I do not advocate for myself, who will?” Or “If I do not defend myself, who will?” The wording of the usual translation suggests both; and it could be understood in either or both ways.
I think both meanings can be brought to bear on each of two recent news events in the Jewish world: the controversy over Hillel Foundation’s guidelines on Israel-related programs, and the death on Jan. 11 of Israeli former general and former prime minister Ariel Sharon.
In December, Jewish and other news media carried stories about events at the small Hillel at the small Swarthmore College in the Pennsylvania town of that name. The Hillel’s board passed a resolution stating that it was joining the “Open Hillel” movement that would allow a wider diversity of attitudes toward Israel among its speakers and student participants. “All are welcome to walk through our doors and speak with our name and under our roof, be they Zionist, anti-Zionist, post-Zionist or non-Zionist,” the resolution stated.
This brought a swift response from Eric Fingerhut, president of Hillel International. In a letter, he warned the Swarthmore Hillel against violating the organization’s 2010 guidelines on this matter. “Let me be very clear — ‘anti-Zionists’ will not be permitted to speak using the Hillel name or under the Hillel roof, under any circumstances,” he wrote.
A typically vehement Jewish argument has ensued, much of which turned around different understandings of the aphorism quoted above.
If the Hillel Foundations do not advocate for Israel on college/university campuses, so many of which appear to be increasingly anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian, who will?
But if Hillel Foundations do not seek to promote and encourage Jewish life in all its diversity on campuses and do not provide a unifying home for all Jewish college students — including those who believe Israel must allow either a co-existing Palestinian state or become a “secular, non-Jewish democratic state of all its citizens” — who will?
The New Republic magazine’s Jan. 6 issue published a superb article on this subject by John B. Judis. In it, he quoted a statement from Jesse Bacon of the leftist Jewish Voice for Peace criticizing the Hillel guidelines: “Rather than include all Jewish groups that are motivated inter alia by ahavat yisrael (the love of the Jewish people), Hillel has decided that the litmus test for sponsorship to be ahavat medinat yisrael (the love of the State of Israel).”
Is it truly possible today to have good faith love for the Jewish people and be opposed to the State of Israel — either to policies of its current government or even to its very existence as a Jewish state? I myself am inclined to answer yes to the first and no to the second, and I believe most Jews would as well. Nevertheless, that is just one opinion in the Jewish community. I know Jews who disagree in good faith, who believe that the existence of Israel as a Jewish state is detrimental for the long-term survival of the Jewish people and Judaism.
Of course, the problem with such Jews is that they appear to make common cause with Israel’s and the Jewish people’s enemies; and members of the two groups frequently say and do the same kinds of things — such as call for boycott-sanctions-divestment. But is not lumping them together an unjust “guilt by association” fallacy? Cannot Hillels distinguish between the BDS advocates who say this is a way to help save Israel and the Jewish people and those who say this is a way to help destroy them?
This is what troubles me about the controversy, and I hope the debate gets moved to this ground. What is the ahavat yisrael thing to do here? Should not being “for ourselves” include being for our diversity? Readers, what do you think?
And that brings us to Sharon. His ahavat yisrael made him an exemplar of the second understanding of the aphorism: If the Jewish people do not defend themselves, who will? This value led him to put his life on the line — he suffered several serious battle wounds — and to develop his talents to make him one of the greatest Jewish soldiers since Judah Maccabee.
Be it said, his values and personality also gave him a sometimes blinkered view and an excessive, even hubristic and ruthless, confidence in his own judgment that could lead him to ignoring his military and political superiors, and even his allies. It could also lead to tragedies; the supposed killing of Jordanian civilians in the Unit 101 raid on Kibeyeh in 1953 and the massacre of Palestinian civilians at the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon by Christian Phalangists in 1982 were both products of Sharon oversights.
But what infuriates me are the accusations that Sharon was a “war criminal” that have been coming from Israel’s enemies, Arab and not. I can’t go into full details here about what he did and didn’t do; historians will be sifting that for generations to come. But it appears to me that Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and his followers and allies likely were and are guilty of far more deliberate crimes against Jewish civilians than Sharon ever committed against Arab civilians deliberately or inadvertently.
I think that to Israel’s hypocritical and chutzpadik enemies, the real “war crimes” Ariel Sharon committed were to defeat brilliantly efforts to carry out a new genocide of Jews and to fight with all his mind and soul for what he believed to be the security of Israel and the Jewish people. For these “crimes” Israel’s enemies will never forgive him — and history will never forget him.
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