Paradoxically Jewish

8/15/2021 Paradoxically Jewish | Andy Blumenthal | The Blogs
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/paradoxically-jewish/ 1/8
THE BLOGS
Andy Blumenthal
Paradoxically Jewish
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
The Jewish people are full of paradoxes, and this translates into the life and
times of the State of Israel, where now the majority of the world’s Jews reside,
as Yossi Klein Halevi, in his wonderful book, Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor,
has inspired me to write about. There is no one type of Jew, but countless types

like a beautiful mosaic, and nowhere in the world is this incredible mosaic on
display more than in the Holy Land of Israel.
Jewish or Gentile
Already in our family tree and genetics, we are a paradox of faith and religions.
From the beginning of Jewish history, our forefather Abraham had two sons,
Isaac from where the Jews descended and Ishmael from where the Muslims
came. Similarly, from Isaac’s son, Jacob came the twelve tribes of Israel, but
from Isaac’s other son, Esau came the Romans and Christianity. Ultimately, all
three monotheistic religions believe in the One G-d, but they differ in terms of
their beliefs and practices such as the necessity to follow the commandments
and whether the Messiah has already come. The reality is that Christians and
Muslims are our ancient brothers, and eventually all of us will worship Hashem,
in Jerusalem, at the site of our ancient temple, but in the meantime to this day
there is religious conflict across the globe, some extremist and very violent, and
other that is more subtle through missionizing and colonizing, and the desire to
make you more like us!
Judge/Prophet or King
When the Jews were redeemed from Egypt and settled the land of Israel, they
experienced their first national identity crisis between being guided by leaders
that were anchored in spirituality or that of material kingship. Initially, the
Israelites were governed through the spiritual leadership of the Judges and
prophets, but then they wanted to be “like all the other nations” and have a king
to rule them and physically fight for them. In modern day Israel, this paradox is
seen between the Haredi ultra-orthodox community that sees their
religious/Rabbinical leadership as the ultimate guiding authorities in their lives
and non-Haredi Israelis that looks to their political and military leadership for
the direction of the country and the people. For example, many in the Haredi
community are told by their religious leadership (“Judge and Prophet”) to spend

their time in prayer, learning, and raising a religious family, while the
government and IDF (“the king”) encourage people to work and serve in the
military to advance the nation economically and from a security perspective.
Religious or Secular
Over the course of the Jews early years in the land of Israel, they found
themselves at times faithful to Hashem and at other times rebellious and
faithless. The people alternated between following G-d’s Torah and
commandments and straying to idolatry, resulting first in the exile of the Ten
Tribes of Israel, and later in the destruction of both the first and second temples
and the exile of the last two tribes of Judah and Benjamin. In modern day Israel,
the conflict between religious and secular Jews is somewhat constant and
pervasive. Some examples of this are whether public transportation should be
available on the Shabbat and holidays, whether civil marriages should be
permitted, whether non-kosher food is made be available in the Jewish state,
and whether the “Women of the Wall” should be permitted to pray out loud,
with Torahs, tallit, and tefillin at the holy Kotel.
The Jewish Question or The Final Solution
After two millennia in exile, the Jews were a homeless and helpless people that
were persecuted, tortured, forcibly converted, murdered, raped, and pillaged,
and expelled from nation after nation. “The Jewish Question” at the end of the
19th century was whether and how the Jews would survive in a world of anti-
Semitism. Would they actively seek and work to regain their freedom and
sovereignty in the land of Israel or continue to wait passively for G-d to bring
the redemption and their salvation. This conflict was brought to a head with
“The Final Solution” in the Holocaust resulting in the genocide of six million
Jews, “like sheep to the slaughter,” at the hands of Hitler and his evil henchmen.
The remaining Jews who could possibly escape were left trying to flee Europe in
search for a new home, but with the doors closed to them from almost all the

nations of the world, most remained trapped and were ultimately murdered as
well. This left the Jews in a paradox and torn between the hope and active
Zionistic pursuit “to be a free people in our land” against questioning Jewish
traditional blind faith and “exile mentality” of waiting passively for G-d to
miraculously save us. However, in my view, G-d’s redemption of the Jewish
people to Israel through Zionism was the miracle we were waiting for all along!
Self-Reliance or Awaiting Mashiach
Once the State of Israel was founded in 1948, there continued to be a paradox
for the Jewish people of whether to anchor ourselves in our newfound self-
reliance and self-determination through the pioneers of the Kibbutz, the
military and underground fighters, and the Jewish people’s ingenuity and hard
work to make the “desert bloom” and build the Jewish country as a thriving
“Start-Up Nation” or to have faith and await the coming of Mashiach who would
bring redemption, and through G-d’s miraculous hands solve the all of the
Jewish state’s problems and further usher in an era of peace, unity, and
prosperity for all mankind. The principle in Judaism of not relying on miracles
was tested here to the limits when the Jews in fulfilling their 2,000-year longing
to return to the Promised Land came out fighting for their literal survival
against five invading Arab countries in 1948. The question was whether the
redemption of the Jewish people was a promise built on faith, prayer, and
worship alone or did we actively need to work for it by draining the swamps,
fighting our enemies round about. Miraculously, both the faith and the Zionist
activism together made the dream a reality!
Jewish Statehood or Democracy
Israel is paradoxically the Jewish State and a democracy. As the Jewish state,
Jews from anywhere in the world can claim their citizenship, and Jews have
sought refuge from more than seventy countries. In the Jewish state of Israel,
the culture and values are Jewish, the Jewish language (Hebrew) is spoken, and

the Jewish calendar and holidays are observed. Nevertheless, there are many
Jews still not yet fortunate enough to be living in Israel and this too is a paradox
given the founding of the modern state of Israel in 1948 and ingathering of the
exiles over the last 73 years! At the same time as Israel is a Jewish state, it is
paradoxically a thriving Democracy, and the only one in the Middle East, that
has free and fair elections, with 20% of the population that is Arab, and where
the rights of all races, religions, nationalities, disabilities, and sexual
orientations are protected and respected. Everyone has equal opportunity to
become anything from a member of the Knesset to an Air Force pilot. In Israel,
there is truly a “melting pot” of people from Jews to gentiles, Druze to
Bedouins, Ashkenazim to Mizrahim, religious to secular, and from countries
around the globe. Additionally, while many early settlers of Israel were
socialistic and founders and supporters of the Kibbutz lifestyle, the country
quickly shifted to a more nuanced balance between paradoxically capitalism and
a strong socialistic-style safety net for benefit of all of its citizens.
Ashkenazi or Mizrahi
Israel is geographically situated where East meets West. While many of the
initial settlers of the Yishuv (pre-1948 Israel) were Ashkenazim from Europe,
later nearly a million Mizrachi Jews from Asia and North Africa came and
settled in Israel, and in the later 20th century another million Jews came from
behind the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain. Thus, Israel is split between a
paradoxical Western orientation and those of Islamic and Oriental influences. In
the early years, this led to accusations (of subpar treatment for Mizrahim and
even the stealing of their babies) but in 1984, the formation of the Shas political
party to represent and give power to the interests of Mizrahim helped to balance
the Agudat Israel party that traditionally represents the Ashkenazi world view.
The broadening of the gamut of political parties in Israel has helped in
protecting the diverse interests of these different people’s backgrounds and in
guiding the country forward.

Peace or Security
Israeli Jews are a true paradox as they are both the majority and the minority. In
Israel, they are a majority as well as being the most powerful country in the
Middle East. However, in the region, Israelis are a minority, surrounded by the
22 nations of the Arab League composed of hundreds of millions of Muslims,
who don’t accept Israel’s right to exist and are a constant existential threat
collectively or from a coalition of aggressors, thereof. It is this duality of
majority and minority, and of being powerful and historically powerless, that
drives Israelis between a morally driven ambition to achieve peace and co-
existence with their Arab neighbors, while also having a deep-seated anxiety
about their security, both from the trauma of the Holocaust as well as from their
Arab neighbors ongoing denial of Israel’s right to exist, legitimacy, as well as
threats to throw every last Jew into the Sea! This paradox has left Israel in a
bind with its neighbors in that Israel cannot trade their legitimate right to
sovereignty and security for their neighbors right to self-determination. In this
paradox then, as much as Israel’s left-wing Labor Party wants to make real
peace with the Palestinians, Israel’s center-right Likud party cannot yet deliver
on it until Israel’s security is also assured.
Modernity or Antiquity
The final paradox here is that the Jews are both an ancient people, over 4,000-
years old, but also a people who have existed from the time of Abraham to the
present day. Perhaps, Mark Twain said it best in September 1897:
The Jews constitute but one quarter of one percent of the human race…[yet]
his importance is extravagantly out of proportion to the smallness of his bulk.
His contributions to the world’s list of great names in literature, science, art,
music, finance, medicine and abstruse learning are also very out of proportion
to the weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world
in all ages; and has done it with his hands tied behind him…The Egyptians,
“

From the earliest of times, the Jews ushered in monotheism, and with the
Torah, a code of living and morality for the world. The Jews are a paradox as an
ancient “people of the book” but also recognized for their vibrancy throughout
the ages in advancing civilization and the good of the people of the world. From
the more than 200 Jewish Noble Prize winners (22% worldwide) to the recent
two gold and two bronze medals that Israel won in the Tokyo Olympics. The
Jewish people are “chosen” not for privilege, but for responsibility to try to be a
good example or as the prophet Isaiah said, “a light unto nations”. Needless to
say, we don’t always succeed —and sometimes we fail miserably—but this
doesn’t prevent us from time and again “going back to the drawing board” to try
and get it right!
While Israel and the Jews are filled with paradoxes from our forefather Abraham
to the modern State of Israel, we are a people who try to wear these paradoxes
well. We relish our commonalties even as we are proud of our differences and
uniqueness. We argue and fight with each to try to get to “the truth of the
matter,” and we negotiate, compromise, threaten and cajole to that sometimes
elusive end. Paradox is just another word for our survival against all odds and
our determination to overcome the blind hate, anti-Semitism, and scapegoating
of Jews throughout history. We Jews are individually broken, but together, we
are a beautiful, paradoxical mosaic—a little meshuggah (crazy) and with an
unfortunate dose of PTSD, but fundamentally good in intent and deed—working
to fulfill our optimism, hope, and mission to usher in the universality of G-d in
the world and of betterment for humankind.
the Babylonians and the Persians rose, filled the planet with sound and
splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greeks and Romans
followed and made a vast noise, and they were gone; other people have sprung
up and held their torch high for a time but it burned out, and they sit in
twilight now, and have vanished. The Jew saw them all, survived them all…All
things are mortal but the Jews; all other forces pass, but he remains.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andy Blumenthal is a business and technology leader who writes frequently about Jewish life,
culture, and security. All opinions are his own.
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