Modern Misyavnim and Maccabees

There are Jewish enemies of the Jewish People to be fought

We have many enemies in the world, but just as in antiquity, some of them are unfortunately from our own nation. In the past I’ve mentioned the Hitler-justifying Yaron Reuven. But he’s just a lone individual (albeit with a huge impact). There’s an entire large and organized group of Jews who are working together in such a way as to harm the Jewish People in general and Israel in particular.

I’m talking about certain academics in the fields of Judaic, Middle Eastern and Holocaust studies. It’s not just a matter of lone Jews writing bizarre articles about Palestinian crocodiles and their human hunters being wiped out by colonial Zionists. There’s a tragically large number of Jewish academics in Jewish studies who condemn Israel without basis and seek to whitewash the antisemitic aspect of much of the criticism and hatred of Israel. And because they are not only Jewish, but also scholars of Judaism, they are granted prominence and authority.

Thus, for example, when Israel was defending its civilians from thousands of rockets being fired from Gaza, these academics condemned Israel for "the state violence that the Israeli government and its security forces have been carrying out in Gaza" (with a later tepid acknowledgement that the rockets from Hamas were unjustifiable and indiscriminate). They were also bothered by the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which observed that some (though not all) criticism of Israel is clearly a manifestation of antisemitism, and they worked to produce a rival definition that enables antisemites to demonize Israel to their heart’s content. And this week, they signed a letter to defend Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian rights who has been exposed for all kinds of antisemitic, terror-whitewashing views.

The only way to combat the respect given to a group of Jewish academics in Jewish studies is to counter them with responses from another group of Jewish academics in Jewish studies. Such an effort is not only difficult to coordinate, but also challenging for many of the participants, given the overt anti-Israel attitudes in many academic institutions. Fortunately, Professor Jarrod Tanny and others stepped up to the task, and formed The Jewish Studies Zionist Network, a group which I have joined. Anyone with a doctorate who is involved with Jewish-related scholarly and/or educational work is entitled to join, and I strongly encourage all such qualified people to do so!