(RNS) — In Israel, ever since Oct. 7, 2023, when you meet someone on the street, you ask the casual question: “Ma shlomech?” or “How are you? What is the state of your peace, your wholeness?”
The typical response is: “Shlomi k’shlom ami”: “I am only as good as my people; my peace is only as good as the peace, the wholeness, of my people.”
We American Jews get it. We feel as if we are living in a state of siege. Consider what has happened since Passover: the Passover evening attack on the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; the killing of two Israeli Embassy employees in Washington, D.C.; and the attack on Jewish people marching for the release of hostages held in Gaza in Boulder, Colorado.
And now, Israel is at war with Iran. We are glued to CNN, WhatsApp and text messages from friends and family in Israel.
It makes me think of an old Bob Dylan song that has become an earworm, “Neighborhood Bully.” It appeared on his “Infidels” album, released in 1983. I suspect this song was written during the war in Lebanon in 1982, in which Dylan tackled the history of the Jewish people:
Well, the neighborhood bully, he’s just one man
His enemies say he’s on their land
They got him outnumbered about a million to one
He got no place to escape to, no place to run
He’s the neighborhood bully.
And then, we come to this verse:
Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad
The bombs were meant for him. He was supposed to feel bad
He’s the neighborhood bully.
The verse seems to refer to Israel’s 1981 bombing of Osirak, the Iraqi bomb factory that was set up to produce weapons-grade plutonium. It turned out to have been the dress rehearsal for Israel’s stunning strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities, its military, its media infrastructure — everything.
“Old women condemned him, said he should apologize. …” To apologize would be to court the love and affection of the West. As the Israeli public intellectual Micah Goodman said: Israel wants to be both loved and feared. Specifically, it wants the nations of the West to love it and the nations of the Middle East to fear it.
But, in the shadow of an existential military threat from Iran, Israel has to be feared by the Middle East. The danger is that it will probably decrease the love from the West.
So, Dylan is saying, they’re not going to love us. But Israel cannot go it alone. It knows that, and so does the world. Which means Israel needs at least a little bit of, if not love, then respect.
As for “knocking out a lynch mob,” on Oct. 7, the lynch mob came for Israel. It wasn’t about the Palestinians, despite the free-flowing “free Palestine” rhetoric. The word Palestine was not on the lips of the Hamas murderers. When a terrorist killed an Israeli, he did not call his parents to boast: “I killed an Israeli.” Or, even, “I killed a Zionst.”
No. It was about killing Jews. This was always about Jews.
It’s because Hamas works for Iran. Consider the mullahs’ stated aim “to wipe Israel off the map.” You’d think it was about the Palestinians, or frustration that a two-state solution has not emerged, but it’s always about the Jews and the Jewish state. That is why Iran sent its agents to Buenos Aires in 1994 to bomb the AMIA building — the local headquarters of the Jewish community — in the worst terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere before 9/11.
You think a Jewish building in Buenos Aires is about Israel? Nope, it was about the Jews, and not only them.
Years ago, I was talking with a friend in Georgia about a trip of mine to Israel. I had been there when Hezbollah attacked the north of the country. Israel, of course, fought back.
A man approached us and asked: “Did I hear you say that you just got back from Israel?” I prepared for him to punch me in the face, but instead, he said, “I just want to thank your people for fighting that battle for us.”
He got it. So does German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who said of Israel’s attacks on Iran: “This is the dirty work Israel is doing for all of us. We are also victims of this regime. This mullah regime has brought death and destruction to the world.”
For the pacifists who want only peace, that’s well and good. But, the world is not a Peter, Paul and Mary concert. Woodstock is over. Pacifism is not an option here — not when Israel is fighting this existential war not only for its own survival, but because it stands on the front lines of the world. When will the battle end?
To quote Dylan, again: “The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind.”
- Join me for “Memory, Prayer and Resilience: remembering DC and Boulder,” on Zoom, at noon Eastern time, Sunday, June 22, sponsored by Wisdom Without Walls and co-sponsored by Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism and the Union for Reform Judaism. We will remember the victims of the Washington, D.C., attack, pray for healing for the victims of Boulder and ask, where are we as American Jews, today? The keynote speaker will be Yossi Klein Halevi, writer and senior fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute. Prominent American rabbis and cantors will lead in remembrance and prayer, with music by Neshama Carlebach, Kol B’Seder, Peter Himmelman, Julie Silver and more. Registration is required at tinyurl.com/memoryprayer.
