Israel Matzav

Friday, July 22, 2011

Time for Jewish men to get out of the basement

Stella Paul wonders why Jewish men are cowering in the basement while Muslims rape and murder their women.

In 1903, the great poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik, was sent to report on the Kishinev massacre of Jews in Russia. Bialik was shocked by what he learned of the men's passivity, as their women were raped and murdered before their eyes. He wrote a searing poem, "The City of Slaughter," excoriating the men hiding in the cellar, who silently watched their loved ones' destruction:

In that dark corner, and behind that cask
Crouched husbands, bridegrooms, brothers, peering from the cracks,
Watching the sacred bodies struggling underneath
The bestial breath,
Stifled in filth, and swallowing their blood!

Given the nature of our times, David Solway and Daniel Gordis have both written important essays on the relevance of Bialik's poem, which I urge you to read. For once again, here in America, too many Jewish men are crouching "in that dark corner," while Jewish women are attacked.

But oh, how their minds are busy! Political fantasies are spinning wildly in their heads. They're dreaming about "constructive engagement" and "dialogue with The Other" and "reframing the narrative." And should you rush in to defend Jewish women, they will finally leap into the fray -- to attack you!

You don't care about the peace process! You don't respect The Other! You want to impose your values on different cultures! You don't understand why they, trembling behind the casks, are so morally superior to hate-filled, brutish you!

Thus, in that corner, we find Rabbi Richard Jacobs, the new leader of the Reform Movement, beckoning his followers to crouch behind him. He gives the signal and millions of eyes look away, as a three-month-old baby girl, Hadas Fogel, is butchered in her crib, while her mother, Ruth, her father, Udi, and her young brothers, Yoav and Elad, bleed to death in the next rooms.

Rabbi Jacobs sighs, and writes another check to J Street, which lobbies Congress to not protest the Fogel murders.

In that corner, wave hello to Rabbi Marc Schneier, flush with money from Hollywood and the Hamptons. He's busy pushing his "interfaith dialogue" racket, The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding. Rabbi Schneier consults the caterer for his next gala affair, as Berkeley student Jessica Felber cries out under violent assault by the leader of Students for Justice in Palestine, and Hampshire College student Lihi Benisty suffers physical blows, death threats, and daily catcalls of "Zionist pig."

Rabbi Schneier decides on the apricot roasted chicken, then turns to the camera to sternly lecture us on why Jews must fight "Islamophobia."

And in that corner over there, why it's the grand old man of the Jewish establishment, Abe Foxman of the ADL! In Malmo, Sweden, 86-year-old Judith Popinski, an Auschwitz survivor, shudders and says, "I never thought I would see this hate again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway," as Jews flee violence from Muslim immigrants. Foxman puffs himself up behind the cask, and demands that Jews give money to help Muslims build mosques in America.

Ten years after 9/11, five years after the murder of Pamela Waechter, it's past time for Jewish men to get out of the basement. The first step: start telling the truth.