http://lennybendavid.com/2010/03/eating-chametz-prohibited-bread-on-j.html Monday, March 29, 2010
Eating Chametz (Prohibited Bread) on J Street
The accompanying photo is "photo-shopped" and is not a real portrait
The Passover Seder service invites all who are in need to come and eat. This year I will not extend an invitation to our Seder to J Street’s director Jeremy Ben-Ami.
Passover is a wonderful celebration of freedom for the People of Israel and serves as an example to the world. Yet, Ben-Ami had the chutzpah on Passover eve to produce his own commentary on the Seder and to distort the meaning of the Passover holiday and Seder service to fit his anti-Israel agenda.
I don’t recall seeing in Ben-Ami’s bio any reference to his ordination as a rabbi. Maybe it was from some Deconstructionist divinity school, but it certainly wasn’t from the ancient schools of Moses, the sages Rabbi Gamliel or Rabbi Akiva, or from modern day rabbinical seminaries.
Oh, yes, I remember: Six months ago, the religious authority Ben-Ami presented to the New York Times his different and unique vision of how Judaism and Israel can survive and how to observe Passover:
“The average age of the dozen or so [J Street] staff members is about 30,” the Times profile reported. “Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. ‘They’re all intermarried,’ he says. ‘They’re all doing Buddhist seders.’ They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of ‘Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.’ Living in a world of blogs, they’re similarly skeptical of the premise that ‘we’re still on too-shaky ground’ to permit public disagreement.”
Ben-Ami sent out and posted on J Street’s website his “Four Questions for the Seder” handout. His distortions of Judaism and his attacks on the pro-Israel community and the Israeli coalition government cross the line – whatever line you chose, it’s crossed.
The Torah belongs to all of the Jewish People ever since Mt. Sinai and forever. As a collective, the Jewish People believe that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people from the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Today, no one should deny that the largest stake, the largest rewards and the largest risks belong to those who protect Jewish peoplehood and statehood spiritually and physically, those who guarantee future generations of Jewish families, those who work its Land, and those who study its Torah (in whatever structure they chose).
Not protecting the Jewish People, the Jewish community, or however you call the Jewish collective are those who seek to encourage the assimilation of the Jewish people and its Torah into some 20th and 21st century universalist ideology. Call it what you will – communism, socialism, liberalism, tikkun olam, post-Zionism, etc. it is not anything near the “time-honored Jewish values” Ben-Ami dares to claim. Ben Ami: You may not dissolve Judaism in an attempt to subsume it into a universalist code that decries Jewish self-defense, pride and patriotism.
As I’ve written elsewhere, Ben-Ami is the shaliach tzibbur (prayer leader) for "Newest Testament" Jews: Jews who have embraced the new American Jewish religion of tikkun olam [fix the world] liberalism. Tikkun olam is the new overarching mitzva that guides them, even though it was never one of the 613 precepts of the Torah. The founding of Israel and the creation of Palestinian refugees may not have been the Original Sin in their theology as it is to others on the Left, but the settling of the West Bank following Israel's victory in 1967 is definitely viewed by them as Israel's Golden Calf.
The universalism of tikkun olam is a direct challenge to the exclusive “chosenness” of the core traditional Shma prayer. Shma Yisrael – Hear O’ Israel (why only Israel?), Hashem Elokeinu --the Lord is God (isn’t God dead or maybe She’s retired?), Hashem Echad –the Lord is One (doesn’t declaring the Oneness of God exclude the believers in Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, Wiccan gods, or Elvis?)
I’m sure Ben-Ami’s intermarried Buddhists are wonderful people, but in 25 years they and their children will not be filling the synagogues, temples, and day schools in the United States, nor will be they sitting in the classrooms of Hebrew University or Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavne, nor guarding the borders or flying the aircraft over the State of Israel. To them, Passover Seder will be a quaint custom observed by their grandparents.
Ben Ami’s false message
In his Passover missive, Ben Ami divides the Jewish world in two, describing it as a “struggle developing between two camps with radically different visions of Jewish expression in the 21st century.” According to Ben-Ami, it’s “us” or “them.” There are no shades of grey? How Jewish is that?
“On one side of this struggle,” Ben Ami continues,” are those committed to our vision of time-honored Jewish and democratic values - grounded in respect for ‘the other,’ a tolerance for dissent, and a willingness to sacrifice territory for peace.”
Notice Ben-Ami has no respect for “the other” when she/he is a Jew. It's all "we" and "they." And since when is surrender a "time-honored Jewish value?" Look how divisive Ben-Ami is in the next section:
“On the other side,” says Ben-Ami, “are those who seem willing to muffle dissent, view all conflict as zero-sum, and place retaining captured land and territory at the center of its value system.”
What intolerance! Anyone who opposes J Street as well as the Israelis who democratically vote for what they perceive as best for Israel are depicted as fascist. Don’t forget that territory was given up by right-wingers Menachem Begin and Binyamin Netanyahu when they negotiated directly with real partners for peace. Barak and Sharon surrendered territory to terrorists and got rockets in return from Lebanon and Gaza.
“As a people,” Ben-Ami concludes, “do we line up with those who seek to hang on to all of "Greater Israel" and watch our Jewish and democratic values erode in Israel and in our community, or do we stand up urgently for territorial compromise and for behavior in Israel and in our community that reflects our cherished and long-held values? … We're in a larger and more significant battle over who we are as a people in this new century and how our people are defined collectively for ourselves and for others by the behavior of the country that serves as our national expression.”
What an anti-democratic diatribe by Ben-Ami. His “we” should decide Israel’s values and behavior! He's upset because Israel's behavior will define him, a Newest Testament Jew, living in Washington.
Ben-Ami – go find your afikoman somewhere else. You remind me of someone else who scorned the Jewish People and sought to divide them -- the rosha – the evil son – and he is not invited to my table either