On the Third Destruction - Yuval Noah Harari in Haaretz:

‘Two weeks ago I went to Beit Shemesh, a predominantly religious city, to take part in a pro-democracy rally. Hundreds of people participated: religious and secular, women and men, straight people and LGBTQ people, Ashkenazi and Mizrahi, and everyone in between. Opposite us, there was a counter-rally of government supporters. There were only a handful of people, but they were armed with huge loudspeakers that amplified live speeches intermingled with recorded songs. “That’s how it is every week,” explained the old hands. “The other side cannot bring many people, so they fill their ranks with loudspeakers.” To prove their point, they played me recordings of some of the speeches and songs played over pro-government loudspeakers on previous occasions.’

(…)

‘What is destruction, and can Judaism survive a Third Destruction? One scenario is easy to imagine, because we all know it well from the destruction of the Second Temple. The Second Temple was destroyed by religious fanaticism. During the Great Jewish Revolt (66-73 C.E.), messianic Zealots took over the Jewish community in the Holy Land, killed or silenced all moderate voices, and out of burning faith in their own infallibility, led the Jewish people to political and economic destruction.
If the Third Destruction looks like the second, then no matter how terrible it is, we can hope that Judaism will survive, because this kind of destruction is Judaism’s formative event, and Jews are well-drilled in it. The Judaism of the Mishna and Talmud sprouted out of the smoldering ruins that the Zealots left in their wake. For the next 2,000 years, Judaism withstood repeated acts of political and economic destruction, such as the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, the Khmelnytsky massacres in Ukraine, and the Holocaust. It seemed that there is a fixed Jewish script, according to which the Jews build a political and economic center somewhere – in the Holy Land, Spain or Eastern and Central Europe – but just when they reach an apogee of prosperity, a terrible calamity befalls them, and they later have to pick up the pieces and start all over again.’

(…)

‘Imagine a world in which Jews can no longer excuse incidents like Hawara as the handiwork of an extremist minority, because the gangs that burned Hawara turned out to be the pillar of fire guiding the entire Jewish nation? Imagine a world where Judaism discards the spiritual and moral legacy it has accumulated over generations, burns down “love your neighbor as yourself” and sets fire to “you shall not covet your neighbor’s house.” Imagine a world in which “Judaism” becomes a synonym for religious fanaticism, racism and brutal oppression. Could Judaism survive such a spiritual destruction?’

(…)

‘But thousands are not enough. We should be seeing a titanic struggle within religious Zionism. We should be seeing latter-day Jeremiahs coming from within religious Zionism to warn against spiritual destruction. We should be seeing leading rabbis demonstrating and crying in the streets of Jerusalem. This isn't happening. Which political or social movement in present-day religious Zionism has dared to publicly challenge the Religious Zionism party in the coalition government, and its ideology of Jewish supremacy? One might argue that Naftali Bennett tried to turn religious Zionism in a more moderate direction, but he was consequently abandoned and vilified by many of his supporters. Where is Bennett today, and where are Ben-Gvir and Smotrich? If Judaism suffers a spiritual destruction, will religious Zionists have any way back from the abyss? If in the near or distant future more of them understand what they have wrought, they will confront a terrible crisis of faith. What might religious Zionists tell themselves when they come to reckon with their historical role in the Third Destruction? How will they explain that the Jewish stream that thought of itself as the most moral, forgot at the moment of truth the most important values of Judaism, and repeatedly made immoral choices? Every day that religious Zionist rabbis and politicians are leading Israel toward spiritual destruction, without encountering serious in-house resistance, will just make their future spiritual crisis more intractable.’

(…)

‘The creation of a liberal democracy in Israel undermined the Haredi worldview, but the idea of a messianic dictatorship dovetails better with Haredi society. As a result, Shas and United Torah Judaism have in recent years become leading members of the settlement project and of the antidemocratic power-grab.’

(…)

‘One of the most shocking things happening today in Israel is that the country is becoming antisemitic, in the deep sense of that word. Antisemitism isn’t anti-Judaism. The reason that Jews were persecuted for centuries in Europe wasn’t hostility toward Jewish practices like observance of the Sabbath or of the dietary laws of kashrut. Jews were persecuted because they were a small minority that refused to follow the majority’s lead. They allegedly belonged to the Semitic race, in countries dominated by other races. Jews were accordingly vilified as foreign agents, cosmopolitan, unconnected to the land, and as traitors who served various types of liberal and global conspiracies. Exactly the same allegations are made today by the government of Israel against liberal citizens of the country. If you take the propaganda of the Netanyahu government against “left-wingers,” and simply replace the word “left-wingers” with “Jews,” you will be looking at the exact same texts that generations of antisemites have propagated against Jews. No wonder that the Netanyahu government finds it easy to cooperate with antisemitic movements in countries like Hungary.’

(…)

‘When Zionism arose, it wasn’t only the ultra-Orthodox who objected to it. Many liberal Jews thought Zionism was making a double mistake. First, they said Zionism wrongfully adopted the antisemitic critique of Diaspora Jews, as if Jews were really disconnected from the land, and as if there was something wrong in supporting universal liberal ideas. Second, they said Zionism was wrong in trying to solve the Jewish problem by way of emigration to Palestine, where they would establish a Jewish nation-state on the model of Poland or Hungary. Far better, said, for example, Jews who supported the Bund party, that the Jews stay where they are – in Poland, Hungary or Ukraine – and serve their homelands as loyal minorities by fighting for justice, freedom and equality for all citizens of those countries. In the historical memory of the Jewish people, it is common to claim that the Shoah proved that the Bundists were wrong while the Zionists were right. But if Israel turns into a messianic, antisemitic dictatorship, we may have to revisit Bundist ideas.’

(…)

‘As we approach Tisha B’Av, I hope that all the questions I have posed here will remain purely theoretical. I hope that the government of Israel stops its antidemocratic power-grab, heals the national wounds, puts down the flames of Hawara, and prevents a Third Destruction, whether material or spiritual. And if the government of Israel carries on with its dangerous policies, then it is the duty of all Jews, wherever they live, to resist this government in every nonviolent way we know. To do so, it is important that we realize that what is happening right now in Israel is not a fleeting political struggle, but a decisive historical event that will shape Jewish history for generations to come.’ (…)

‘History has its eyes on us.’

Read the article here.

This analysis should be read together with George Steiner’s novel ‘The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.’.

I mus say it's slight uncomfortable to read that Jews ‘wherever they live’ should stand up to save Israel from religious Zionism.

Instead of saving Jews, Jews must now act in order to save Israel, and not only the state, Judaism itself.

A heavy burden. A messianic task. And then there the Evangelicals who read the Book of Revelation (or have heard of it) and believe that Israel will fasten the second coming of Christ.

Apocalypse now all over again.