I know the day's not over yet…

But it’s almost a shame Ahmadinejad didn’t nuke Jerusalem tonight, as I figured he wouldn’t (expecting the ironic flash of blinding light while typing this). It would’ve been a good day to go. Better to be in full-blast range than to have to sit through nuclear winter and the final flailings of the human race.

Tomorrow (or the day after?) Ariel Beery will have what he claims is not an attack piece in the Jerusalem Post, attacking me and the Acharei Hamilchama concert, as well as Jew It Yourself and Jew It Yourself’s only grantor thus far, because I didn’t race to join the IDF when Israel opened up a can of whup-ass on Lebanon and have decided it is morally and ethically necessary for Jewish people to support both Israeli and Lebanese victims of war.

One band, Lenses, has backed out because one member will be out of town. Another has graciously declined because two members said “fuck no” to the idea of helping Lebanese people.

Earlier today, a highly anticipated phonecall from a foundation I thought was interested in Jew It Yourself called to tell me, in fact, why they thought Jew It Yourself was an absolutely necessary and overdue project that they will not be supporting. I quickly devolved into an inarticulate spazz on the telephone in light of the preceding subjects, the sheer disappointment of getting shot down by yet another foundation, and the continuous arrival of e-mails in my inbox like the following:

From: GEMSEA1@aol.com
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:54:00 EDT
Subject: (no subject)

kapo

From: avifinkel@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 20:43:52 -0400
Subject: Evil people you are

And you think your jewish helping arabs who kill jews? i guess you dont know what the mishna says or maybe you do, your just to far gone “those who have piti on the wicked will end up being wicked to the pitiful” You see what happends to libirals they sink deeper and deeper. you know what go move to lebenon israel doesnt need you or your help!

From: moshe445@neto.bezeqint.net
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 21:41:31 +0200
Subject: raising funds

Dear Sir

You are wasting your time raising money for the “poor Lebenese civilians” ask the BBC who they are. Wait for their kids those people you help will probably shoot your kids dead one day.

Support the Israelies first there are plenty of them to help, when you are finished with them think about others but until then your own brothers come first unless of course you are one of those Jews who love the arabs first and then the Jews.

I have said for a long time that the biggest Jew haters are the Jews themselves and YOU are the proof.

I wish you NO success what so ever.

People like you would serve the country better if you wouldn’t exist.

Moshe Herskowitz

From: imarealtor33162@yahoo.com
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 2006 10:50:34 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: relief aid-miami response

our sages say that if we are kind to cruel people, we become cruel to kind people. While you mean well, you should not be helping the civilians in Lebanon with relief efforts. When will we Jews learn that helping those who hate us, only makes them hate us more. Hezbollah will rebuild their neighborhoods and will get their support, at the polls in return. These lebanese civiliians voted Hezbollah into power. Hezbollah has the money which they are using by helping the Lebanese citizens. In reeturn, the citizens hate Israel and collaberate with Hezbollah I will not support your institution so long as it does not help only the real victims-the Jews. Do not think that you are engaging in Tikkun Olam..you are not. By helping Lebanese “victims”, you are sustaining the enemy that seeks to destroy you. I ask that you change your goals.

Cindy Ziv

Sometimes I think the Jewish people get everything they deserve.

***

After I came out against the war — which I regretfully did not do from the get-go, as I know better and should have known better at the time — many were quick to condemn me for not standing 100% behind Israel’s actions in Lebanon.

This one dude, I consider one of my best friends here. I love him to death. Whenever he needs me, I drop what I’m doing to help him. Tech stuff, whatever, he needs, I’m always there for him. When he and his wife suffered a personal tragedy, I cried for them and sent flowers immediately — I didn’t know what else to do. I offered myself fully. Davened for him and his wife throughout the week. Love the guy, totally. After I came out against the war, he told me I should leave Israel. Copped a real attitude with me. He made me feel like I wasn’t worth the air I breathe. And while I think I managed to ease his feelings towards me a bit — it’s obvious he’s still furious with me. Not because I’m a bad friend. Not because I don’t love and support him. Not because I don’t care about him and his family. But because I disagreed with him about why Israel went to war and what the best means of addressing the conflict are.

And every day, it hurts more and more.

I understand where he was coming from. His best friends were up North, fighting, so it seems, for my right to exist in the land of Israel, if not the world. And here I was, denigrating their efforts by not standing in full solidarity with them in the belief that they were doing the right thing. But how could I? I saw what was happening with the same eyes as Sydney Blumenthal and Seymour Hersh. And for that, I’m blasted as a paranoiac and conspiracy theorist — and an emeny of my people.

And I’ve got to say — that’s entirely fucked.

As the days rolled past and the hate-filled rhetoric rolled in, whether it was being thrashed for my “unfunny” hash boycott or for signing an artists’ petition against the war, I arrived at the following conclusion:

People who intimate that I am a self-hating Jew, or who assail me as a traitor to my people — they don’t do so because of my Jewish credentials. Nevermind that I sit in a beit midrash breaking my teeth on gemara, or that I daven every day and bentsh after every meal, that I say modeh ani when I wake up and the shema when I go to bed, or that I’m shomer kasruth, and shomer shabbat, that I light candles and say kiddush every Friday night and havdallah every Saturday evening, that I don’t even kill mosquitoes on Shabbos, or that I do my best to study the weekly Torah portion, or that I wear my tzitzit out even when I’m in dirty Jersey, or that my last relationship was a shomer negiah one, or that I have committed myself to Jewish communal service, that I volunteer my efforts on a dozen different Jewish social justice projects, that I helped deliver Matisyahu to the world, that I diligently fight antisemitism on the Internet, that I make my mother so infinitely proud that she can’t stop bragging on me to her friends…

See, I’m a douchebag. A degenerate. A piece of shit scum bastard with whom, to paraphrase, am yisrael would be better off were I not to exist. But not because I have rejected Torah and yiddishkeit. Not because I don’t love my fellow Jew and serve the Jewish community. Not because I don’t love and care for my family and my friends. Not because I’m not a sweet and good natured human being (even my crazy hareidi-Kahanist sister says I’m a good boy).

Rather, it is simply because I am not a Jewish nationalist. It is because I question the merits, the successes and the halakhic legitimacy of Zionism, the occupation, and the neoconservative’s Middle Eastern regime change policy (which apparently doesn’t exist and to claim that it does makes me conspiracy theorist, despite the fact that it very much exists). It is because I do not toe the Zionist line. That is why I am regarded as the enemy of my people.

I know a guy, for example, who’s virtually my twin in the world. But pious he ain’t. Not in his private life, and often not in his public behavior. I like the guy too much (even if he shits on me whenever he sees an opening) to provide specifics, and besides, it’s assur to publicly shame your fellow Jew, suffice to say his shtick is considered more socially acceptable, and he receives far greater opportunities within the Jewish community, for nothing more than the fact that he is an entirely unapologetic Zionist.

So I’ll move on to a more explicit example: Jewish Mayhem. Here’s a guy who promotes everything that is assur — pornography, tattooing — whatever. If it’s antithetical to Jewish law and tradition, it’s in his magazine and celebrated as a positive expression of Jewish culture. This guy photoshopped my head onto a Hamas member’s body and put it on his website. And people loved it and applauded him. Why? Not because I’m not a good Jew, but because I’m not a Zionist.

If you want to know the state of the Jewish people today, look no further than to the Jewish state, where gang rape is the national pastime, the top lawyer in the country is quite literally getting away with murder, the Justice Minister just went down for sexually assaulting an 18 year-old, the President’s about to go down for raping a subordinate, the Prime Minister’s about to get hit for bribery, and where my sister, as just a personal example, was beaten on the street in broad daylight with witnesses present by a convicted felon who skipped out on parole and fled to Israel where he resides illegally and who was just let out of jail though he was caught red handed for a second time with hard drugs without any charges being pursued against him and now we both have to watch our backs for fear of reprisal. And we haven’t even begun to discuss what’s being done to the Arabs.

No, I’m not a Zionist. I’m a Jew. I’m not going to whitewash this despicable desecration of our inheritance and paint it as awesomely wonderful because of its scientific breakthroughs or its false appearance of democracy.

The more venom you spew in my direction, the more I realize it’s true — that Zionists don’t really believe in Torah. Because Zionism is assur by the Torah. Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. It is a Jewish nationalist movement. Judaism and Zionism are not one and the same.

See to be a “good Jew” today, you don’t have to care about Torah. You don’t have to practice Judaism. You don’t have to believe in G-d. You don’t have to be educated in your history. You don’t have to be educated in our source material. You don’t have to learn gemara. You don’t have to lay tefillin. You don’t need to know a word of Hebrew. You don’t have to keep a single mitzvah or even know what a mitzvah is — sorry to tell you, it doesn’t mean “good deed.” No. You just need to unyieldingly, unquestioningly support Israel in every military decision (unless those decisions aren’t brutal enough against our supposed enemies, in which case, feel free to dissent). You need to perceive of a black and white world in which all Arabs and Muslims are evil and all Jews are good and innocent and worthy of your unconditional support. Nevermind what the Torah says about provoking both the wrath of G-d and the wrath of the nations. Nevermind capital-T Truth at all. Sieg heil, sieg heil, and “you’re okay in my book.”

You know — it’s not even that I don’t support Jewish emancipation or self-determination, because clearly I do. And I obviously believe there are psychotic pricks in this world who have a lust for Jewish blood who need to be confronted head-on. But it’s not even the point.

THE ONLY THING THAT WILL REDEEM THE JEWISH PEOPLE IS TESHUVA.

Nothing more, nothing less.

So you can take all the photos of “hot chicks” at the Kotel on Tisha B’Av you want. And you can write all the op-eds in the Jerusalem Post you like, publicly shaming your fellow Jew for not being a blind cheerleader in the Zionist army. And you can celebrate your depravity and curse those who genuinely seek to connect to and serve G-d all you like. Piss on my head and tell me its raining. Stand the definition of justice on its head and smile as you stuff a shit sandwich down my throat.

But as you inch this world ever closer towards apocalypse, just know that I would rather be on the side of G-d and justice than a member of your club. If you want to make me out to be a pariah — if you want to put me in cherem because I actually believe G-d when He says redemption comes “Not through arms nor through strength, but through My spirit” — go right ahead.

Toss me out on my ass if you must. But know that you are throwing aside one of the most devout, committed, whole-hearted, loving Jewish people in the world today. And not because I’m not a good Jew. But because I don’t support the infinitely corrupt and halakhically illegitimate state that will be the undoing of our people.

I can only wonder how many other committed Jews you’ve cast aside under the same auspices.