| Featuring: Political, historical, religious commentary with modern Israeli music | ||||
| Webcast Title: Israel’s Shaky Jewish Identity | ||||
| Webcast Date: 02/21/2010 | ||||
| Length: 40:52 Minutes | ||||
| (February 21, 2010) …Natan Sharansky as well, as head of the Jewish Agency, spoke to the President’s Conference from the States last week and he too is concerned with identity, though in a different way than Bibi. For Bibi, the great story of this country is the history of the non-religious Zionists; for Sharansky, his Jewish side dominates. He had no connection to the Zionist enterprise until late in life and did not come here until 1986. He spoke last week movingly about the core centrality of Jerusalem to Jewish identity, and how he quit Barak’s government because Ehud wanted to divide Jerusalem.
But beyond this, because Sharansky himself is not truly religious, he has no real message for the Diaspora Jews he urges to maintain their Jewish identity. What he misses is that the indispensable core identity of Jews is the religion and all other variations are by definition defective. The Zionists, like the Reform Jews, like Theodor Herzl who was raised in the second generation of Reform Jewish children, believed that like Gentile nationalism which is independent of religion, Jews too could be nationalists and patriots for their land. The Reform Jews thought they could turn Jewish thought into a Gentile-style philosophy, when Jewishness has no philosophy, which means the love of wisdom. Jews don’t love wisdom. Jews love G-d… |
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PLAY Webcast Excerpt (8:39 Mins) |