‘Most Misguided Jew Award’

It’s time to give proper recognition to those Jews who possess the skill required to twist and distort history while also being blithely unaware of their own self-interest. 

Every week finds another Jewish person or group proudly proclaims its denial or disinterest in the threats aimed at Israel and the worldwide Jewish community whilst expressing their solidarity with Palestinian victims of supposed Israeli aggression.

Sometimes, you just have to marvel at the intellectual calisthenics of which these people are capable, how they manage to find so much wrong with Israeli society and politics and so much to admire in Palestinian culture.

That these people can simultaneously dispute the legitimacy of Israel’s re-birth and the measures the country must take in order to defend itself in the face of 70 years of repeated aggression and terrorism – while excusing or simply ignoring the Palestinians’ tenuous connections to the ‘Holy Land’ and their dedication to the genocide of the Jewish people – is simply incomprehensible to most of us in the Jewish community.

Well, it’s time to give proper recognition to those Jews possessing the super-human skill required to twist and distort history while also being blithely unaware of their own self-interest. Accordingly, I am hereby anointing myself as the official head of the committee that each week will present the ‘Most Misguided Jew Award’ and I invite readers to volunteer to serve on the committee and/or to propose candidates for this great honor.

Given the large number of Jews who have no problem being members of anti-Israel groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now or supporting and voting for the Democratic Party, there is obviously no lack of possible prize-winners, but I believe the Inaugural Prize should go to Rabbi Brant Rosen and his congregation, Tzedek Chicago.

This is a synagogue where rather than praying for the souls of Jewish martyrs, the congregant pray for Gazans killed in clashes with Israeli border guards. Not a word about what those Palestinians hoped to achieve by penetrating Israel’s defenses. (Anyone remember the Salomons who lost three family members when a Palestinian sneaked across the border?)

The congregation also decided to add some new sins to the ‘Al Cheit’ recitation on Yom Kippur, expressing remorse for the sins of “… blockading 1.8 million Gazans inside an open-air prison” and “… for wedding sacred Jewish spiritual tradition to nationalism and militarism”. No criticism (or even recognition) of Palestinian terrorism or intransigence or virulent anti-Semitism? No conceding that Gazans share a border with Egypt that could provide a safe exit if the Egyptians hadn’t concluded, with much justification, that Palestinians constituted a serious threat to Egyptian security.

Neither is any thought given as to what would transpire if Israel didn’t possess one of the world’s most formidable armies in the face of merciless enemies.

These proud members of our tribe must have been afraid they weren’t going far enough in their anti-Israel stance to qualify for this treasured prize, so they also commemorate ‘Nakba Day’ instead of Israeli Independence Day. Seriously. Oh, and did I mention that their rabbi is a member of the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-led organization that strongly supports BDS?

You couldn’t make this stuff up. That Jews anywhere could deny the Palestinians’ murderous history, their squandering of all the material and financial assistance they receive in order to support terrorism, and their distortion of history to invent connections to territory they have never controlled (or even inhabited in some instances) reveals a dedication to progressive wokeness that truly merits this first ‘Most Misguided Jew Award’.

To you, the rabbi and congregation of Tzedek Chicago, congratulations for having achieved a level of self-hatred and ignorance that is truly worthy of this recognition.