Tisha B'Av Zionism Roundup with a Special Mijal Bitton "Zionist Loyalty" Note (8/14)
David Shasha
Introduction to This Week in Tisha B’Av Zionism
Each year at this time I gather relevant articles on the ongoing White Jewish Supremacy perplexity over what Zionism means, with “traditional” Israelis increasingly opting out of both Judaism and Israel itself, as the Religious Zionists take over.
Tisha B’Av – and I intentionally spell it in the Ashkenazi manner to make the point – is a pivotal day because, after the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE, it commemorated the start of the Diaspora and the anticipation of God’s – not man’s – restoration of the Jewish national order.
Zionism, of course, chose the human and not divine course, and we have been dealing with the ramifications of this decision since 1948.
The Week in Tisha B’Av Zionism: Tatte Bakery Café
We begin with the “Real Zionists” – those who are heir to the Atheist Socialists who founded the State of Israel – who have largely been sidelined when it comes to not only the present reality of the country, but of its future; a future tied in to the eschatological and apocalyptic nature of “Jewish Redemption.”
The Neo-Cons HASBARAH machers at Jewish Insider treated us to an excellent piece on Tatte Bakery Café and its Israeli founder, note the Zionist name well, Tzurit Or:
IDF veteran Ms. Or is a YORED, as she has taken her proud Ashkenazi Kibbutz heritage – meaningless in today’s Israel – and brought it to Elite American enclaves in DC and Massachusetts.
Please take a look at her very Heimische menu, which is not referenced in the JI article:
https://tattebakery.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/DC_Summer2022_allday_060122.v2.pdf
She is defiantly not Kosher, as shellfish and pork are prominent parts of the cuisine. Though the style of the food, pace Zionist racist Orientalism and cultural appropriation, is Middle Eastern.
Classic!
And though the specific details of institutional Tatte racism are not detailed in the article, Or is a chip off the old Zionist block:
In the summer of 2020, Or faced criticism from Tatte employees for not properly disciplining managers accused of racism and for not doing enough to promote employees of color. That same summer, she stepped down from her position as CEO into a new “chief creative officer” role, a transition that she said had been in the works even before the accusations emerged.
This is what Herzl intended.
This Week in Tisha B’Av Zionism: Ascending the Temple Mount!
It happens every year at this time:
Those Jews who observe the fast know well that the Temple is central to the day’s liturgy, as we all hope that God will restore us to our homeland and the Temple – whatever it might mean today given its role as basically a very bloody abattoir – in an eschatological manner.
The radical Religious Zionist Settlers have internalized the Kookian role of the first Zionists, not Jewishly observant, in “God’s Plan” to restore the Jews to the Land.
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/abraham-isaac-kook/
And they continue to “Force the End” by going to the Temple Mount in the hope that they can displace the Palestinians, as they have in the West Bank, and begin the Temple restoration in earnest – all without God.
It is a delusion of the first rank, a delusion which leads to violence and dysfunction.
This Week in Tisha B’Av Zionism: The New Gaza War
A critical part of that eschatological vision is the violence against the “native” Palestinians, which once again reared its ugly head just in time for the fast:
I provide the link to Mondoweiss in order to remind you of the rejection of the Zionist eschatology and its attendant violence by many Jews around the world.
In essence, Israel has refused to decide whether it wishes to end the conflict, given the fact that there are only two options: a Bi-National state, or a separation of Jews and Arabs based on the internationally-recognized lines.
Over time, and it has been a long time for this conflict, Israel has refused either option, and has apparently made the calculation that loss of life is acceptable – especially if that loss is mainly on the Palestinian side:
Radical Zionist and White Jewish Supremacist in good standing Tikvah Daniel Gordis processes the violence from the “Orthodox” religious perspective as part of a History of Pogroms:
“Siege,” interestingly, has been very much on the minds of traditional Jews for the past three weeks. And, I would argue, one cannot understand the enormous significance of Israel’s having struck first this week without a sense of Jewish history and what happened thousands of years ago.
For millennia, Jews have taught their history, one generation to the next, largely through their calendar. For the past three weeks, the period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, traditional Jews have been in a period of muted mourning that grew more intense with the beginning of the month of Av and which culminated yesterday with the observance of the Ninth of Av.
Religious Zionists like Gordis do not accept the Divine authority of Diaspora, but integrate the human process with the Torah understanding in a kind of Zionist SHATNEZ.
Palestinians are like Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans; presenting another stage in a long line of Anti-Semites and persecutors of the Jewish People. It is a standard theme of the Three Weeks, but neglects the role of God in the process, and how Zionism flies in the face of that process.
Indeed, I have written extensively about these complications when it comes to Diaspora and Anti-Semitism in the following articles:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gWmSnQ90Kdu_p3TUzDmmZYWuBmnqhxMf8k1DcmppfZU/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GRObunZBnMD5tOWeQ7v6bQwEDiJo1a_jzUZZDmeZ8eE/edit
I would add here that the Torah reading for the 9 Ab Shabbat, the first portion of the Book of Deuteronomy, presents Ancient Israel as being led by God in Genocide against the native peoples of that time:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_violence#Book_of_Deuteronomy
Deuteronomy begins with a review of previous stories, including a battle between the Israelites and the Amorites (Deuteronomy 1:41-44), and the destruction of Rephaim by the Ammonites with Yahweh's help (2:21), along with similar other displacements. Deuteronomy 2:31-37 records the complete extermination of the people ruled by Sihon king of Heshbon. Similar treatment, at Yahweh's command, was given to the people under Og king of Bashan. Moses also recounts how God destroyed the followers of Baal-Peor, and threatens to destroy the Israelites if they return to idolatry. Similar threats of destruction for disobedience, or idolatry more specifically, can be found in Deuteronomy 6, 8, 11. On the other hand, God promises that if his people obey him, he will protect them from the diseases the surrounding nations suffer from and give them victory in fighting their enemies in Deuteronomy 6, 7 and 11.
Whatever the historical reality of these narratives – and Israeli archaeologists have questioned all of it in the face of Zionism and Biblical Literalists – the ongoing attempt to link the Biblical past and the Zionist present ignores the traditional Jewish belief that violence is not a one-sided proposition.
Like many Religious Zionists, Gordis is locked in a dreamworld which has serious consequences on the ground.
Rather than learning the lessons of the Three Weeks and the Diaspora tradition, these fanatics see Zionism as standing against the “weakness” of traditional Jewish quietism and its Cosmopolitan aspects, so pronounced in the classical Sephardic heritage.
This Week in Tisha B’Av Zionism: Mijal Bitton and “Jewish Loyalty”
In honor of Tikvah Rabbi David Wolpe and his Jonathan Haidt-inspired White Jewish Supremacy “Diversity,” I re-posted my article on the Zion Ozeri Arab Jews Live in Caves Haggadah:
https://groups.google.com/g/Davidshasha/c/0Nt6IH6-FGk
The article reminds us that self-hating Sephardim like Mijal Bitton are all in with the White Jewish Supremacy – and especially the Zionist racism.
And, right on cue, Ms. Bitton appeared in last Monday’s Shalom Hartman White Jewish Supremacy Institute e-mail newsletter, as a “Loyal Jew”:
https://mailchi.mp/shi.org.il/ideas-for-today-290024?e=ce188d0296
In order to be “truly” Jewish, we must be Zionists:
https://www.hartman.org.il/zionism-as-loyalty/
Here is the source sheet for her presentation:
It is a fascinating collection that begins with the Levantine, not Zionist, Jacqueline Shohet Kahanoff – a name I do not ever recall seeing in Bitton’s writings – but moves quickly to Tikvah Neo-Con favorites like Alasdair MacIntyre, Rabbi David Hartman, the MAHARAL.
The Kahanoff quote is fascinating:
When Grandfather Jacob’s hand rested on my head, I felt that this blessing was something ancient and precious, a treasure, which the grandfathers of our grandfathers had received from God. Because of this blessing, I was in God’s safekeeping and belonged to the people of the stories in the old prayer books.
She then moves to MacIntyre’s examination of community and identity:
[A person is] ...essentially a storytelling animal. That
means I can only answer the question ‘what am I to do?’ if I can answer the
prior question of ‘what story or stories do I find myself a part?...
I am never able to seek for the good or exercise the virtues only qua individual...we all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity. I am someone’s son or daughter, a citizen of this or that city. I belong to this clan, that tribe, this nation. Hence what is good for me has to be the good for someone who inhabits these roles. I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation a variety of debts, inheritances, expectations and obligations. These constitute the given of my life, my moral starting point. This is, in part, what gives my life its moral particularity. The contrast with the narrative view of the self is clear. For the story of my life is always embedded in the story of those communities from which I derive my identity. I am born with a past and to try to cut myself off from that past is to deform my present relationships.
Is the past Zionist?
Will the late David Hartman provide the answer?
I am a ‘we’ before I become an ‘I,’ and the ‘I’ surfaces only after it has appropriated fully the sense of ‘we.’
The traditional Jew does not begin with immediacy, but by listening to a story
from his or her parents, by first participating in the drama of the collective
standing before God at Sinai.
We are all ONE PEOPLE – not Levantines, but Ashkenazim.
Which token Sephardi Meir Buzaglo reinforces:
Receiving the legacy from our parents isn’t faith like the faith we [might] have for the one who tells us stories about what they saw in a far-away land. We are faithful (ne’eman) to them: We listen to them in a singular way. We distinguish between our relationship to them and out relationship to other reporters. The parents also do not tell their story to the whole world. Their intended audience is limited from the beginning.
For those not familiar with Dr. Buzaglo, he is exactly the sort of Ashkenazi-friendly Sephardi that gets him the honors from racist institutions like Avi Chai and Mechon Hadar:
https://www.avichai.org.il/sites/default/files/GAVISON%20ENG.pdf
https://www.projectzug.org/educator/1618/dr-meir-buzaglo
His academic work in Philosophy serves the larger White Jewish Supremacy project, as it serves Eurocentrism more generally:
https://en.philosophy.huji.ac.il/people/meir-buzaglo
Not even a token mention of Sephardim there!
Buzaglo and Bitton are a definite match.
She next presents the example of Ruth, and the negation from the Paul’s Galatians – and from the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, the “Liberal” foil to the “Conservative” MacIntyre:
Once someone has said, I am an Indian first, a citizen of the world second, once he or she has made that morally questionable move of self-definition by a morally irrelevant characteristic, then what, indeed, will stop that person from saying[,] I am a Hindu first and an Indian second, or I am an upper-caste landlord first, and a Hindu second? Only the cosmopolitan [has] the promise of transcending these divisions, because only this stance asks us to give our first allegiance to what is morally good-and that which, being good, I can commend as such to all human beings...
The Stoics stress that to be a citizen of the world one does not need to give
up local identifications, which can be a source of great richness in life. They
suggest that we think of ourselves not as devoid of local affiliations, but as
surrounded by a series of concentric circles. The first one encircles the self,
the next takes in the immediate family, then follows the extended family, then,
in order, neighbors or local groups, fellow city-dwellers, and fellow countrymen-and
we can easily add to this list groupings based on ethnic, linguistic,
historical, professional, gender, or sexual identities. Outside all these
circles is the largest one, humanity as a whole.
Our task as citizens of the world will be to "draw the circles somehow toward the center" (Stoic philosopher Hierocles, 1st-2nd CE), making all human beings more like our fellow city-dwellers, and so on. We need not give up our special affections and identifications, whether ethnic or gender-based or religious. We need not think of them as superficial, and we may think of our identity as constituted partly by them. We may and should devote special attention to them in education. But we should also work to make all human beings part of our community of dialogue and concern, base our political deliberations on that interlocking commonality, and give the circle that defines our humanity special attention and respect.
It is a fascinating conclusion to a very White Eurocentric collection of texts, which does not reflect the traditions and values of the classical Sephardic heritage and the articulation of Jewish Humanism of Elijah Benamozegh and Sabato Morais.
Tellingly, it makes no reference to Rabbi Jose Faur:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/hakham-jose-faur-memorial
Which I contextualized in a special newsletter:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T5hwSK5C4N8Vd50UYMptCy1jmk5LSyJbIUEh-Lq6_s8/edit
Nor does it address the issue of Ashkenazi Zionist racism that I discussed in the “Haggadah and HASBARAH” article. We are expected to be “faithful” to multiple Jewish registers, but there is nothing in the readings that would upset the White Jewish Supremacy apple cart.
It is framed in a way that is not at all consistent with the classical Sephardic tradition, but which is perfectly in sync with the Modern Orthodox YU laining that Bitton was raised with, and which she now so proudly represents.
Which is why she has been warmly embraced by the White Jewish Supremacists.
Given the Yehuda Kurtzer context in which she operates, her neglect of the Sephardic heritage is the perfect branding exercise, as we saw in my NIGGEN article:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Rp2kwRQcny_KeF1X24JQav3-an2edAl7lySF8nwv6w/edit
It is what we would expect from Bitton, as she continues to climb the White Jewish Supremacy ladder and follow Meir Buzaglo as a token Sephardi who would never choose to compromise her Tikvah brand by antagonizing the very sensitive Ashkenazim, with their monopoly over the Adult Jewish Table.
David Shasha