Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning

Inside the young nation, and especially after the 1967 war and the protracted occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, anti-Semitism came to be treated not as a question in need of historically informed answers, but rather as something eternal, outside the bounds of history.

A majority of self-styled secularists led the State of Israel, fought in its armies, tilled its soil. In the eyes of many secular and religious Jews, any state so obviously brought into being by human activity, a state often not observant of Jewish traditional practices, a state manifestly vulnerable and full of flaws, could not define itself as a

One might add that the decision to create the state and take power also constitutes a commitment to end the martyrdom tradition of Jewish history. Since martyrdom means the risk of total annihilation, it is no longer acceptable.