So the President spoke last night at this dinner in Washington D.C. celebrating Jewish life in America. Here is some of what he had to say:
Jewish Americans have made countless contributions to our land. The prophet, Jeremiah, once called out to this -- to his nation, "...seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf." For 350 years, American Jews have heeded these words, and you've prayed and worked for peace and freedom in America. Freedom to worship is why Jews came to America three-and-a-half centuries ago; it's why the Jews settled in Israel over five decades ago.
Our two nations have a lot in common, when you think about it. We were both founded by immigrants escaping religious persecution in other lands. We both have built vibrant democracies. Both our countries are founded on certain basic beliefs, that there is an Almighty God who watches over the affairs of men and values every life. These ties have made us natural allies, and these ties will never be broken.
Now this was a very positive speech. Bush went out of his way to stress the valuable contributions of both Jews and Judaism to America. And so I hate to quibble but, of course, I will.
First, "the Jews" did not "settle in Israel over five decades ago." Some Jews did. Many, many more settled there several decades and even centuries before that and scores of Jews, and Jewish communities, have simply remained in Israel since the time of the Second Kingdom. While Jews first set foot on America's shores in September, 1654, they have been living in the Land of Israel consistently since Biblical times. Surely the President knows this.
Moreover, Jews didn't really settle in Israel for freedom of worship. Surely the President knows this, too. Many of the Jews who came to Eretz Yisrael fleeing pogroms in Russia or persecution in Europe weren't even religious. These were people whose lives were in danger, people who were prohibited from earning an honest living, people who had nowhere else to go because they had been vomitted out by the countries in which they had previously lived. As for those Jews who did settle in Israel for religious reasons, freedom of worship was generally not paramount. They came because their tradition told them that Israel was their eternal home. They came because the very dirt in Israel is holy, because there lie the tombs of our ancestors and the foundations of our Holy Temple. They came because they had been praying every day for their entire lives for the opportunity to come and now, here it was.
So while President Bush's analogy between Israel and America is pleasant, it's not really accurate. And it tends to obfuscate important differences that are crucial to understanding many of the very Israeli positions to which Washington seems so oblivious or hostile today.
Religious freedom is more than the freedom to practice one's faith. It is also the obligation to respect the faith of others. (Applause.) So to stand for religious freedom, we must expose and confront the ancient hatred of anti-Semitism, wherever it is found. (Applause.) When we find anti-Semitism at home, we will confront it. When we find anti-Semitism abroad, we will condemn it. (Applause.) And we condemn the desecration of synagogues in Gaza that followed Israel's withdrawal. (Applause.)
There it is. One line in the middle of a rather long speech, thrown into a discussion of the evils of antisemitism (mischaracterized as religious bigotry rather than racism). It's the only reference I've heard to date by our President to the horror that has erupted in Gaza in the past few days. And what's missing from this brief comment? You would never know that this abstract "desecration" consisted of acts, by actors. Passive voice. It's almost as if those synagogues desecrated themselves.
I want to thank you for your patriotism. I want to thank you for compassion. I want to thank you for your love for the United States of America. All of America is grateful to the Jewish people for the treasures you have given us over the past 350 years. May God bless you, and may God continue to bless our country.
That's very nice. There was a lot to commend in this speech. I'm gratified that the President chose to appear and speak at all. But something is clearly amiss here. Bush's "war on terror," such as it has been, is clearly off course and veering further off every day. And so kind words about American gratitude for Jewish contributions and patriotism aren't giving me a lot of comfort right now.
