Jeremiah Haber – a Jewish voice for our times
JVL Introduction
Self-description: “Jeremiah (Jerry) Haber is the nom de plume of Charles H. Manekin, an orthodox Jewish studies and philosophy professor, who divides his time between Israel and the US.”
For a long time now he has provided a series of crucially important, thoughtful and reflective blog posts on issues central to Zionism, morality and Jewish identity.
He hasn’t blogged for a while. Here he explains why not and gives a brief update on his current thinking.
And here are links to a few of his blogposts – you will find more on the right-hand side of his blog page.
- What’s Wrong With Israel Keeping Settlement Blocs
- Zionism Without a Jewish Ethnic State
- Singling Out Israel for Moral Opprobrium
- Who Is a Liberal Zionist?
- Jewish Ethics and the Question of Justice for Israel/Palestine
- Religious Zionist and Progressive on Palestine–Part One
- “Was the Arab-Israeli Conflict Inevitable”
- Israel as Refuge for the Jews
This article was originally published by The Magnes Zionist on Tue 29 Oct 2019. Read the original here.
Should I Revive This Moribund Blog?
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A wise man. He agrees with me. Does he agree to our publicising it far & wide? I can think of many places it would be useful.
Says it all. Says it well.
I am delighted Jerry Haber has started writing again. Especially as I feel personally validated! I too saw the opening evening of the J Street convention – though it was via a replay on my laptop, not by my personal presence. And I too immediately spotted – or thought I had – who got the loudest applause and cheers from the audience.
Jerry Haber’s paragraph 7 was what I saw too: “I recently attended the opening evening of the J Street Convention, and the loudest cheers among the young people were for folks like Bernie Sanders, Ayman Odeh, and for notions of Israel-Palestinian civil equality and partnership.”
And I too drew similar conclusions: ‘These are young Jews who may not wish to join the BDS movement, but see nothing wrong with it as a movement of Palestinian resistance. Yes, some of them consider themselves Zionist, but they are willing to trade-in traditional Zionism for a weaker version, i.e., an Israel that fosters Jewish national and cultural aspirations but not at the expense of Palestinian national and cultural aspirations. Let’s hope that they bend the arc of justice more than my generation has.”
Never a Zionist (so I don’t have to give it up!), I am delighted to welcome all these young liberal Jews who are standing up to be counted – against oppression, against the occupation. Their politics may not be mine, but they know who are the people to support and that’s a brilliant start.
I found the last paragraph the most inspirational:
“To call anti-Zionism or criticism of the Israeli regime “anti-Semitic” is not only false, but is also a hateful and hurtful slur, which should be condemned as such. It often masks deep bigotry and ethnic prejudice. Wishing to see all Israelis dead is not anti-Semitic although it is an expression of anti-Israel bigotry, which, like all bigotry, should be condemned.”
Too much effort has focused on denying the identity of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. If equal or comparable attention had been paid to stressing that there was such a thing as unacceptable anti-Zionist bigotry, perhaps people would have got less alarmed and excited.