Just Asking
follow-up questions triggered by my essay "I'm Out"
Dear Rabbi Rami,
After reading your Substack essay, “I’m Out,” I put together this list of questions. Please answer them honestly.
Do you believe the Jewish people have a covenant with God?
No. God isn’t a person with whom one makes covenants. God is YHVH, from the Hebrew verb meaning “to be.” YHVH isn’t a being or the supreme being, but rather the process of being manifesting as all beings.
Do you believe that God promised the Land of Israel to the Jewish people?
No, God is reality, not a realtor.
Are Jews God’s Chosen People?
Again, no. YHVH cannot choose a single people because YHVH manifests as all people. Jews call themselves “chosen” for the same reason Christians call themselves “saved,” and Coca-Cola calls itself “the real thing”—self-promotion.
Are you a Zionist, an anti-Zionist, or a non-Zionist?
Zionism supports the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the Land of Israel. A genuine Zionist claims and defends that right as an Israeli citizen. An anti-Zionist opposes that right, while a non-Zionist is indifferent to it. Most American Jews are ZINOs: Zionists in name only who pay lip service to Zionism but do not risk their lives or those of their children and grandchildren by becoming Israeli citizens.
I am a Diaspora Jew whose two-thousand-year-old stateless Judaism produced the Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, Kabbalah, Hasidism, and geniuses like Maimonides, Spinoza, Isaac Luria, the Baal Shem Tov, Dov Baer, Nahman of Breslov, Martin Buber, Franz Kafka, Edmund Jabes, Sigmund Freud, Hannah Arendt, Albert Einstein, Erich Fromm, Marc Chagall, the Marx Brothers, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and many more. I support the right of Jews, Tibetans, Uyghurs, Palestinians, and others to build thriving, culturally affirming, just, and democratic communities wherever they live, without the need to establish political, ethnic, or religious supremacy through a nation-state.
Does the State of Israel have a right to exist?
A state exists by might, not right. Tibet was a state from 1642 until 1950, when it was conquered by the People’s Liberation Army of China. Ukraine became a state in 1991 and will remain one only as long as it keeps Russia at bay. Ukraine finds itself vulnerable because it surrendered its nuclear arsenal in 1994 in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom, and…wait for it…Russia. The State of Israel, itself a nuclear power, exists because, so far, its military remains undefeated. Israel is not likely to surrender its nuclear weapons anytime soon.
Is a sovereign State of Israel necessary to the survival of the Jewish People?
No. Our survival relies on our ability to keep telling our story, uphold our values, observe those mitzvot that embody them, and nurture our creative genius.
Do Palestinians have a right to sovereignty in their historic homeland?
Palestinians have the same rights as everyone else under the 1948 United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to self-determination and to build thriving, culturally affirming, just, and democratic communities wherever they live. The fact that Israel is a signatory to that Declaration and yet violates it concerning Palestinians shows that rights without the power to defend them are hollow slogans.
Is Israel your historic homeland?
No. A DNA test shows that I am 98% Ashkenazi Jewish and 2% Eastern European.
Are you, as a Jew, obligated to care about the State of Israel?
As long as Israel violates the core values of Judaism—loving neighbor and stranger, pursuing justice, seeking peace, and upholding Hillel’s Torah: “What is hateful to you do not do to another”—and does so in my name, I feel compelled to protest the actions of the State of Israel.
Do you ever feel guilty about criticizing the State of Israel?
Sometimes I do. Fortunately, Israel does its best to help me get past it. A recent vote in the Israeli Knesset advancing legislation that criminalizes egalitarian prayer at the Kotel, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, punishable by up to seven years in prison, is a good example.
Is Israel an apartheid state?
An apartheid state legalizes discrimination to maintain the dominance of one racial, ethnic, or religious group over others. Israel promotes Jewish supremacy, so, yes, Israel is an apartheid state.
What is your hope for the State of Israel in the future?
My hope is that Israel becomes a liberal, secular democracy that promotes “the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants; it will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture; it will safeguard the Holy Places of all religions; and it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”
If this sounds naive, please note that I’m quoting Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
I read the Ask Rabbi Rami section in my Spirituality and Health mag (now Unity) first. His answers are thought provoking, tension creating and consistently true. He confronts readers’ complicitness in othering, doing on to others we would not want done to us (golden rule) and complacency in our unconscious daily lives. I am both afraid of and love Rabbi Rami’s thought process. Fearless and direct, he is a shining light in the chaos engulfing us.
Dear Rabbi Rami. You are a recognized spokesperson in the Jewish community and therefore what you say affects us all--not just you. Therefore remarks such as "Israel is an apartheid state" is damaging, because it overlooks a long history with just one biased remark. The comparison with South Africa during apartheid is not valid. While the white minority in Africa oppressed and disabled the blacks to vote, this is not true for Israel. The non-Jewish citizens of Israel can vote. The territories under Israel control were obtained as a result of an attack by its neighboring Arab states. A political solution was offered repeatedly and dismissed repeatedly. The so-called Palestinians only intent to resolve the matter of administering the territories is to eliminate Israel and then have a totally Arab Islamic state in the region instead. If you don't believe this, see what happed when Israel withdrew from Gaza to see if they could govern themselves. They made it into a fortification intended to attack and destroy the Jewish State. That's not surmisal. They've repeatedly said so. Open your eyes publicly to antisemitism. That's where our attention should lie. We have the Jewish state because it's one place on earth where we as Jews have the means to defend us agains those people and nations who blindly hate us for no reasonable reason. Treasure Israel. It's our only hope. Stop slinging slogans without going the story behind your concerns. Amichai