Zionism is Judaism

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had the audacity to declare, after his 'Israel-must-be-wiped-off-of-the-map' hatefest and Holocaust denial, that he is a friend to the Jewish People. This is a common tactic of anti-semites, to declare 'Death to the Zionists- but we love Jews'. They try to separate the Jewish People from their state and try to convince the world that their hatred for Israel doesn't mean that they hate the Jews. Actually, as long as the Jews live like good dhimmis in the exile, Ahmadinejad along with his Islamofascist and liberal cronies adore the Jews.

This is nonsense. Judaism and Zionism cannot be separated. Zionism did not start in the 1800s and was not founded in Eastern Europe or in Basel. Zionism was founded by the rivers of Babylon, when the Jews wept bitterly over their exile and vowed 'if I forget thee O Jerusalem, may my right hand lose its cunning!' Herzl's book, the Jewish State, did not invent the idea of Jewish national revival; 3 times a day, Jews beseech G-d 'that our eyes may behold Your return to Zion in mercy'. Herzl was simply able to convey this idea in practical terms, however, the Jewish dream to one day live again as a free nation in Israel has existed since the beginning of the accursed exile, by Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian army.

Judaism in exile is a soul with no body. In exile, we must constantly be hyphenated Jews, never free or able to simply be what we were meant to be- Jews, plain and simply Jews. We could never assimilate completely and become Germans, Frenchman and Americans 'of the Mosaic persuasion'. The constant fear of being taunted as a 'Zhid', 'Kike' or 'Jude' always lingered at the back of our minds. In exile, we exist on the peripheries of history, always passive and subjected to the whims of our gentile overlords. That is why a Jew in exile is never complete, always compartmentalized. There is no Torah like the Torah of the Land of Israel And no wisdom like the wisdom of the Land of Israel. (Sifri, Ekev) Only in the Holy Land, the Land of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, can a Jew truly be a Jew.

Why, after being freed from Egyptian slavery, did the Jews need to ascend to the Land of Canaan? Couldn't they have simply kept the Torah in the land of Goshen among the Egyptians? No, a Jew in exile is never complete, never able to serve his G-d fully, always at the command of his gentile ruler. Instead of being marginal, the Jew in the Jewish State is at the center of history, not passive to what is around him but assertive of his role and destiny.

In Israel, a Jew doesn't have to worry whether his children will intermarry or whether or not he will have Jewish grandchildren. We don't have to worry about our children learning Christmas carols in school or about 'being different'. Israel is where a Jew belongs, his homeland, his inheritance. G-d measured all the lands of the earth and found that the most fitting land for the People of Israel is the Land of Israel. (Talmud Yerushalmi Nedarim) The Land was created for us! During our long exile, the Land never blossomed for our oppressors, never brought fruit for its conquerors, those who drove its children out. Only when the Jews returned did the desert blossom, did the barren land turn green. This Land was meant for us and only for us, not for any foreign nation or Pseudo-people who seek to separate us from it. G-d said: The Land is Mine, and the People of Israel is Mine. I will give My Land to My People (Tanchumah, Bamidbar 34). His people! His land!

An anti-semite can pretend to oppose only Zionism while like Jews but we know better than that. Zionism is the most basic expression of the Jewish soul's desire to return to the land of its forebearers, the land in which its ancestors lived, worshipped, built and unfortunately were exiled. There are many beautiful lands in which the Jews have found themselves in the course of their millenia of wandering but we fit in none of them. We were always different, worshipped differently, spoke differently, dressed differently. A Jewish community can exist in the exile aval ze shelanu, but this, the Land of Israel, is truly ours and we will never again be separated from it.

Cross-posted from For Zion's Sake