As I wrote earlier, there is a disreputable modern American Jewish tradition of attempting to use Jewish liturgy and especially the Passover seder as an excuse to promote non-Jewish political issues. When Arthur Waskow created his “Freedom Seder” to make the holiday about American civil rights rather than the Exodus one could at least say it was an attempt to use Judaism to promote a good cause rather than a bad one. Other such attempts to make Haggadahs about immigration, the Labor movement or any other left-wing cause are less defensible. And using Passover to play partisan politics is simply pathetic. But the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) has now gone completely beyond the pale with a new version of Passover in which Israel is transformed into Egypt and the Palestinians have become the Jews.
This Haggadah, which was brought to our attention by the Anti-Defamation League, isn’t merely an expression of dissent against the policies of the Israeli government about which Israelis and Americans may differ. By appropriating the symbolism of the Festival of Freedom to promote a cause whose purpose is to deny the Jewish people their rights and liberty, the group is committing an act of spiritual vandalism. Identifying Israel with Pharaoh and Egyptians is an effort at delegitimization that crosses the boundary from bad taste to anti-Semitic invective.
The point of this seder is to demonize Israel and Zionism. Though Passover is fundamentally a celebration of the national liberation of the Jewish people, the JVP seder is one in which only the Palestinians have rights and seeks to brand the return of the Jews to their homeland and the creation of their state into an act comparable to the enslavement of the Jews. It even urges Jews to add an olive to their Passover plates along with the traditional symbols as an expression of solidarity with the Palestinians and “an invitation for Jewish communities to become allies to Palestinian liberation struggles.” The authors are apparently so imbued with hatred for Israel that they ignore the fact that those “struggles” have mainly consisted of violent attempts to eradicate the national existence of the Jews.
In this parody of a Haggadah, the ten plagues are represented as Israeli actions and the bitter herbs that Jews eat to remember slavery are used instead to speak of the bitterness of Palestinian existence. Even more egregious is the l’chayim(toast) over the traditional cups of wine to BDS — the economic war on Israel which seeks to boycott, isolate and sanction the Jewish state — and the traditional breaking of the middle matzah which to the JVP symbolizes the destructive impact of Israel’s creation.
To single out the Jewish state for denial of rights in a way that no other country would be treated is an expression of prejudice. One of the standard tropes of anti-Semites is to try and paint Jews as the mirror image of their oppressors. Calling Israelis Nazis is a commonplace slur, but for Passover, the JVP has made them Egyptians and attempted to transform one of the sacred rites of Judaism into a vicious exercise in Israel-bashing.
In doing so, JVP has demonstrated that it has no place within the organized Jewish community or among the society of decent Americans. Their desire to wage economic war on Israel already places them outside the boundaries of normal political dissent. But their compendium of Passover-themed slurs is an act so despicable that it merits their being shunned the same way we would any other hate group.
The whole thing is silly. The only Seder these so called Jews have ever been to was at their Bubbe's house 40 years ago.
Shorter Tobin: "They're all anti-semites except for thee and me, and I'm not so sure about thee."
Shorter Grumpy Old Man: "I utterly detest Israel, which I will obsessively mention whether the subject is Galic sports, off-broadway theater or the price of eggs in Japan. But HOW DARE YOU CALL ME AN ANTI-SEMITE!"
beautiful! I give you two thumbs up, even tho only one will show up on the board. n neven shorter Grumpy: "G*DD*M JOOS!"
speaking of short, Grumpy, where are the other 6 dwarfs? firebombing the Israeli embassy?
Well, we're pretty about sure you. You do get that to turn a hallowed affirmation of Jewish people as national community sanctified before the Creator into a paint-by-numbers inversion is to convert a baptismal font into a bidet? Words, things, experiences have meaning–turning them via endleslly liquid syllogism into unmoored condemnations of the Jews is to choose solipsism over the world.
this would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. n nhave these people really deluded themselves into thinking that the so-called "Palestinians" are the true historic owners of Eretz Israel? what about the thousands of years of archaeological discoveries they've made that clearly show a Jewish presence in the land? what about the quotes from Arabs themselves in the 20th century to the effect that, Well yes, of course we just made up the "Palestinian" nationality to better fight the Zionist entity? n nI don't know if they're crazy, moronic, or just consumed with hate. but whichever, I wish they would just STFU.
The Palestinian Arabs define themselves by what they can appropriate from the Jews: Jerusalem is home to the mosque where Muhammad tethered his horse (though there was no mosque in Jerusalem during Muhammad's lifetime); Jesus was a Palestinian crucified by the Jews; Abraham was the first Muslim. n nIs it any wonder that the Palestinian acolytes on the left have adopted the same pathology?
So, the Palestinians are asking "Let my people go." n nThis is wonderful news. Let them go. The farther from Israel the better. Maybe they can go all the way to Birobijan. It is located in Southeastern Siberia, near the Russian border with China and Korea. Jews never lived there until it was created by the whim of Stalin. There are very few Jews there now, and it would not be hard to repatriate them to Israel. n nI am sure Palestinians would be welcomed by their Russian brothers, who had supported them for so long in their struggle to exterminate the Jews. Fresh Siberian air can do wonders for hot tempers. And Mother Russia certainly knows how to suppress an uprising or two while maintaining full respect for human rights.
The sky father would have been kinder in 1967…
? n nthe Semitic analog to Yahweh–if we deny Sinai revelation or Jewish prophetic experience–is not, strictly speaking a "sky father"': his power is not solely of the Christian metaphor of "heaven" or "purity" or "above" but of here below. The cluster of divine powers associated with B'aal had dominion not only of the heavens but of earth, of thunder, of mountains. More importantly the Hebraic King is immanent as well as transcendant. localized (in the Ark, in the Temple) as well as displaced skywards, not to mention prone to personally visiting the patriarchs or waylaying them in guise, to kvetch, cajole, promise, or wrestle with them or try to beat the living daylights from their obdurate stiff-necked selves. n n"Hadad, a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name, Hadad, Bau201bal was commonly used. Nevertheless, few if any Biblical uses of "Bau02bfal" refer to Hadad, the lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, but rather refer to any number of local spirit-deities worshipped as cult images, each called bau02bfal and regarded in the Hebrew Bible in that context as a "false god". ":
I have a Reconstructionist Haggadah here which quotes liberally from Desmond Tutu. It is an abomination. I can live with the heavy use of Martin Luther King in this Haggadah albeit his message isn't a message about Jews or Judaism, but Desmond Tutu is an execrable little abortion of a man in a clerical collar who's only reason for continuing to breathe is to tell us all how much he hates Jews and wants them exterminated.
Separating Passover from the Jews is like separating a Wedding from the Bride.