This failure to understand the complexities of Judaism and Jewish identity also fuels hostility to Israel. Many non-Jews, assuming that Judaism is merely a religion, cannot understand why a faith group should be entitled to a state. That’s partly why they think it’s outrageous that the Jews have “colonised” land that they assume belongs to Arabs, who they think do have a genuine national claim. They think it’s a category error. They have absolutely no awareness that the Jews are, in fact, a historic nation, bound by their own system of law and a common language, history, institutions and culture, and that they are the only people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national kingdom. These westerners may be aware that in the Bible the land was promised to the Jews alone. But in godless Britain, at least, that only deepens their hostility because they believe the Bible is a fairy tale. They have no idea that it operates on different levels, one of which is a historical record of the creation of the Jewish people. Western secular progressives dismiss the Bible because they hate religion. They believe that it stands in the way of the liberal causes they hold dear to them. Ginsburg was a secular heroine because of her promotion of those liberal causes. So they can’t process the fact that she drew on that same biblical text for her moral values. Orthodox Jews, along with those from different religions and none who believe that today’s progressive causes have repudiated the core moral tenets of the Hebrew Bible, may regard Ginsburg instead as the standard-bearer of American Jews who have regrettably made liberalism their religion under the mistaken assumption that it represents authentic Jewish values. Justice and compassion — the core principles of the Hebrew Bible that are extolled by liberals — are, however, parts of a broader moral and ethical package. When detached from the Bible’s other precepts, such as individual duty, responsibility and accountability for one’s actions, they may be transformed into their diametric opposite and become instead the weapons of liberal “social justice” power politics. One may be appalled by that and worry about the future of American Jewry as a consequence. One may regret Ginsburg’s rejection of Jewish religious observance, just as one may regret its rejection by the majority of the American Jewish community and the moral confusion that has caused. But no-one can be in any doubt that this is an argument, however bitter and anguished, among Jews. And Ruth Bader Ginsburg died as she had lived—a rightly garlanded tribune of the incomparably disputatious, morally driven and law-bound Jewish people. Jewish News Syndicate. Melanie Phillips. |
