Looking Into Bernard's Head

Bernard Avishai, professor who teaches business at the Hebrew University, writer, author, etc., star of New York Review of Books, The Nation and other left-of-trendy-center platforms and periodicals, who sometimes lives in his home in the German Colony in Jerusalem, doesn't like what I and others like me do - and stand for.

Here are some of his expressions:

Occupation is advanced by zealots of Jewish law, or that rightist, neoconservative ideas are particularly strong (so polls show) among the quarter of American Jews who attend synagogue at least once a month?

and

So what is the tradition? The law commanded by Torah? Is it the prophet’s gloss on the law? Or another prophet’s sublime lesson in humility? (or the Talmud’s commentaries on the limits to humility?) The point is: the texts are not monolithic and mere humans have made choices about what commandments to perform, in what spirit: what interpretations to bring, and what texts or melodies to juxtapose

and

The phrase “Jewish values”, you see, makes sense only to people who assume a world of free will. You have to believe that, generally, people have intellectual personality, individual sovereignty, and moral erudition—that more sacred than the Book is the right to interpret books. Incidentally, this enlightenment insight not only marked Jews for successful acculturation into America, but arguably launched Zionism, too. If every Jew was going to be his own rabbi, then Jewish civilization had best be held together by a common language and territory.

and, finally,

J Street says, “No more.” Occupation and settlements justified by isolated passages of scripture debase the way Jews justify anything. Jews are not, or not only, an interest group. It is now Palestinians who have a “yoke” to “untie”. In his 1934 preface to the Hebrew translation of Totem and Taboo, Freud asked: when you eliminate Hebrew, the “religion of one’s fathers”, and “nationalist ideals”, what “is left that is Jewish”? He answered: “A very great deal, and probably its very essence.” Perhaps.

I could cry.

This is so infantile. It is so "I-know-better". It is so "above history".

He uses "history", tradition, "religion", nationalism" and twists their meanings, perverting their essence and thwarting their purpose.

Who does he think will protect Israel better? J Street?

Who does he think will secure a Jewish future better? J Street?

Who does he think will assure Jewish values persevere better? J Street?

Who does he think will be more Jewish in twenty years from now? J Street?

How valid is his morality when he accepts the Pals. as partners in peace, in security, in humanity after the experience of the last century?

Who has extended the hand of cooperation? Who has sought to placate? Who has actually compromised?

And who exclusively used terror to advance political goals with no need to defend? Who always wants more? Who hides the final goals?

Ans, who bases himself on fools like Avishai and J Street?