The Malaise of the Jewish People

Is the Gaza expulsion emblematic of the fading will of the Jewish people? Have the "eternal people" grown weary of the burden of being Jews and succumbed to the lure of assimilation and gradual extinction by defection?

That's what columnist, Israel Harel, of Israel's normally liberal daily newspaper, "Ha'aretz" , thinks, and he makes a very compelling argument.

In his column, Harel wrote this regarding the lack of Jewish "long road" resolve for Zionism and Judaism:

"But even the greatest believers cannot ignore the clear signs that, in the general national sense, there is no coverage any more for this belief, this hope. The eternal people, which mobilized its full force - more than four divisions - to carry out the uprooting of Gush Katif, a major symbol of the long road, is very much afraid of a long road."

It is clear that the plan to "withdraw" from Gaza was, in a deeper sense, really an escalation of the battle to disengage Israel from Zionism and observant Judaism. Israel is a reflection of the current "Jewish State of Mind", i.e., the desire to expel the "Jewish" from the "Jewish State" as much as possible. The Gaza Expulsion wasn't so much a pragmatic disengagement as it was a rejection - a rejection of Zionism and religious Jewry.

Says Harel,

"About two months ago, researchers of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute met with the prime minister and members of Knesset and presented them with a study that shows that in the coming decade the population of the Jewish people will decrease by another half a million people.

The eternal people, it turns out, is sick and tired of the long road and prefers assimilation or zero population growth. And because of the fear of the long road, the nation accepts, even initiates, a bastard plan that is moving it backward in almost every way - territorially, demographically and spiritually."

I strongly recommend reading the rest of this insightful column, as Harel does a fantastic job of elucidating the tremendous internal crisis facing the Jewish people both within Israel and beyond.

-MZ