Israel must step into the role that America once occupied.

Israelis are defending the West, which is essentially our own creation to the extent that the West is ultimately a product of Judaism and Christianity.

An Israeli Air Force plane prepares for takeoff. (photo: Israeli Air Force/X)

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Today, many all over the world, including Jews, are calling Israel’s underlying Zionist ideology into question.

There are Jews apparently so ignorant of Judaism that they claim Zionism is not Judaism. They reject Zionism as if it was some sort of non-Jewish ideology. Therefore, in their ill-conceived conclusion, being “anti-Zionist” is not being anti-Jewish.

People have distorted the term “Zionism” by emphasizing the way early Zionists embraced socialism and ignoring the Biblical and rabbinic ideas pertaining to the centrality of the land of Israel in Judaism. Perhaps the mystical notion that prior to redemption a spiritual transformation of Israel must take place further removed the connection between redemption and homecoming.

If it is not too tacky, one may point to a Judaic trinity of Land, Law, and People. Too many Zionist ideologues have highlighted the kibbutz as the ideal socialist achievement, somehow implying that the Zionist movement was all about social change and liberal democracy.

Essentially, however, Zionism is about restoration. It is about making Israel whole again by returning the Jews to their land. Critics of Zionism depict it as a malignant form of tribalism or even racism. It is neither.

The term Zionism is merely a neologism; a new word for an old idea. Its most fervent advocate, Theodor Herzl, was actually a very assimilated Jew who was motivated by the Dreyfus affair, a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic and remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism.

The scandal began in 1894 when Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a 35-year-old Alsatian French artillery officer of Jewish descent, was convicted of treason for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent overseas to the penal colony on Devil’s Island in French Guiana, where he spent the following five years imprisoned in very harsh conditions.

Nowadays, it seems that among assimilated Jewry, antisemitism is their only connection to Judaism. Consequently, Herzl argued that Zionism would solve Europe’s Jewish problem. However, in fact Zionism is not an antidote to antisemitism. On the contrary, it has exacerbated it all over the world.

In trying to present the idea of Jewish national rebirth, especially in the early 20th century, it was important to portray Zionism as a contemporary nationalist movement and de-emphasize its Biblical roots, which was paradoxically the reason that Christians rallied around the movement. Zionism is essentially a revolutionary movement that does not rebel against capitalism.

Instead, it rebels against the notion of fate. It is a movement of faith, of people who believe that a nation, unlike an individual, can be born again. It is a distinctly Biblical movement that eschews individualism in favor of collective identity. Indeed, in Hebrew the word “Israel” alludes to both the person and the nation.

The Zionist vision is very much like the ancient vision of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a post-Exilic prophet, who sat among the ruins of Jerusalem and saw the rebirth of the city and the people. Modern Israel is a synonym for that valley of the dry bones. Zionists labored in the hope of reviving a land and a national spirit. The fact that Arabs lived in that land did not in any way diminish the belief that this barren uncultivated plot of earth could again bloom agriculturally and spiritually.

Its regeneration is the acknowledgement of Herzl’s famous dictum, “If you will it, it is no dream.” That is why Zionism is merely another word for redemption. The effects of the movement of Jews homeward proves the Biblical assertion that Jews have the power to affect history rather than just be affected by it.

Moses changed the world’s social order forever, making slavery anathema and freedom the highest good. Jeremiah and Isaiah saw nationalism as a bridge to a new international order that would be guided by Judaism.

Indeed, throughout time and the paroxysms of history, Judaism continued to envision a future better than the past. Under the crush of Roman centurions, Jews continued to insist upon liberty. The Bible envisioned that another “anointed” one like Moses or David would arrive to lead us once again from the bondage of exile to the glory of liberty. Among those who were contenders for this dramatic role were Jesus and then Bar Kochba.

For the majority of Jews, however, special leaders had not arrived. In the 17th century some believed it was Sabbtai Sevi. In the 19th century Theodor Herzl was viewed by many as a Messiah. But, the strength of Zionism was its insistence that no one man would come to free the Jews. It would only come about as a popular movement.

By the late 19th century and early 20th century, Jews had become accustomed to the reductionism that had rendered Judaism as a religious sect. The famous phrase among German reformers was: “We are Germans of the Mosaic persuasion.”

The philosophical conundrum for Jews (as well as non-Jews) is that, during the 18th and 19th centuries, both Jews and non-Jews tried to present Judaism as a religion. But, Judaism is so much more than a religion. To classify it as such is an illustration of reductio ad absurdum (the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction).

Born in the late 19th century, modern Zionism looked like the same kind of national movement that arose among the Greeks or Poles. However, it was not. The Jewish nation came into being long before 19th century nationalism. Its origins were unique.

After emancipating themselves, the Hebrew tribes endured a long process of nation-building, evolving through tribal confederations into a unified state with its capital city and government. The nation was not formed by its borders but by its laws and worldview. One can say that the “Chosen People” chose their holy land. And this explains how we managed to remain a nation despite being driven from our land.

We were a nation long before we developed our religion. Part of the confusion stems from the way people read the Bible. It is an encyclopedic work covering history, political philosophy, law, ethics, and theology. However, reductionist readings promulgated the erroneous idea that the Bible was a religious work.

Like other great nations, the Jews saw themselves as special. We speak of American exceptionalism and of Israel’s chosen-ness. But such ideas as the “Chosen People” do not imply that Jews are superior to others. Israel was not chosen because of our superiority, but because of our willingness to accept a code that demanded more of us.

It was racist to believe that we are innately superior because our law asserted that all of humankind was created in the image of God. But, it would be the height of mediocrity to abjure our right to become better than others. Being better is one of the perks of being free.

However one parses the meaning of being “chosen” by God or by history, as Hugh Hewitt once stated, Israel must step into the role that America once occupied. We are defending the West, which is essentially our own creation inasmuch as it is the product of Judaism and Christianity.

The notion that we are a “light unto the nations” has never been as clear as it is today — standing alone together.

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