The right wing in Israel is increasingly unhinged from reality
As Jews around the world prepare to celebrate Pessah [Passover] – the festival of freedom – President Obama’s condescending and insulting behavior reminds us of how we were treated by Pharaoh in Egypt.
- Danny Danon, Member of Knesset, Likud
A couple of weeks have passed since the Israeli government insulted Vice President Biden during his visit to Israel, and the current crisis in US-Israeli shows no signs of abating. Right wing members of Israeli PM Netanyahu's coalition are digging in their heels and firing off invectives against Obama, insulted themselves by reports that Obama asked Netanyahu to drop the Shas Party [Ultra-Orthodox Eastern Jews) and Yisrael Beitenu [Ultra-nationalist Russian Immigrants] from his governing coalition in favor of the centrist Kadima Party. After less than a year in office, Netanyahu's boorish FM, Avigdor Lieberman, has brought relations between Israel and its most important allies, including the US, Turkey, the UK, and Australia, to new lows.
Jews around the world begin the Passover Holiday today at sundown. In Israel especially, they will do so with a measure of melancholy. According to a recent poll, only 14% of Israelis think that Israel has a favorable standing in the world. Passover has a special significance for Israel. Many Zionists, in an effort to understand the "Jewish problem" in the 19th and 20th centuries, drew parallels between the diaspora condition of Jews in Europe to the biblical period of Jewish slavery in Egypt. Jewish life in Europe, according to this thinking, was the same as the period of ancient bondage in Egypt, and the solution also remained the same: a return to Israel.
During their march to freedom, the American Black Civil Rights movement also strongly identified with the story of the Jews' Exodus from Egypt. And in an unlikely, but perhaps fitting twist of events, President Obama became the first US President to hold what is now an annual White House Seder.
In the heat of the 2008 presidential campaign, Jewish members of Obama's team improvised a makeshift Seder in the basement of a Pennsylvania hotel. Obama himself ended up joining in, along with non-Jewish staffers, in what was a welcome respite from a grueling campaign. Customarily, diaspora Jews end the Seder with the toast "Next Year in Jerusalem". Obama half-jokingly instead toasted, "Next Year in the White House". He followed through on that:
- Danny Danon, Member of Knesset, Likud
A couple of weeks have passed since the Israeli government insulted Vice President Biden during his visit to Israel, and the current crisis in US-Israeli shows no signs of abating. Right wing members of Israeli PM Netanyahu's coalition are digging in their heels and firing off invectives against Obama, insulted themselves by reports that Obama asked Netanyahu to drop the Shas Party [Ultra-Orthodox Eastern Jews) and Yisrael Beitenu [Ultra-nationalist Russian Immigrants] from his governing coalition in favor of the centrist Kadima Party. After less than a year in office, Netanyahu's boorish FM, Avigdor Lieberman, has brought relations between Israel and its most important allies, including the US, Turkey, the UK, and Australia, to new lows.
Jews around the world begin the Passover Holiday today at sundown. In Israel especially, they will do so with a measure of melancholy. According to a recent poll, only 14% of Israelis think that Israel has a favorable standing in the world. Passover has a special significance for Israel. Many Zionists, in an effort to understand the "Jewish problem" in the 19th and 20th centuries, drew parallels between the diaspora condition of Jews in Europe to the biblical period of Jewish slavery in Egypt. Jewish life in Europe, according to this thinking, was the same as the period of ancient bondage in Egypt, and the solution also remained the same: a return to Israel.
During their march to freedom, the American Black Civil Rights movement also strongly identified with the story of the Jews' Exodus from Egypt. And in an unlikely, but perhaps fitting twist of events, President Obama became the first US President to hold what is now an annual White House Seder.
In the heat of the 2008 presidential campaign, Jewish members of Obama's team improvised a makeshift Seder in the basement of a Pennsylvania hotel. Obama himself ended up joining in, along with non-Jewish staffers, in what was a welcome respite from a grueling campaign. Customarily, diaspora Jews end the Seder with the toast "Next Year in Jerusalem". Obama half-jokingly instead toasted, "Next Year in the White House". He followed through on that:
Pete Souza/White House
For the uninitiated, Jews and Samaritans celebrate Passover yearly according to the Jewish (lunar) calendar on the 15 of Nisan, which varies with the solar Gregorian calendar. "Seder" means "order" in Hebrew, referring to the special way that Jews eat the holiday meal. Jews abstain from leavened bread for a week, to remember the ancient Jews' hurried flight from Egypt across the Sinai Desert, during which they baked bread but did not have time to wait for it to rise.
Passover typically occurs around the same time as Easter, and there is much debate over whether Jesus's Last Supper was a Passover Seder. It is not difficult to see the similarities between Jews eating wafer-thin bread with wine and the Eucharist sacrament. Less disputed is that Passover actually originated as a Newroz-style holiday of harvest, during which Jews celebrated the arrival of Spring and traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice sheep (Korban).
Happy holidays!
- Jon
Passover typically occurs around the same time as Easter, and there is much debate over whether Jesus's Last Supper was a Passover Seder. It is not difficult to see the similarities between Jews eating wafer-thin bread with wine and the Eucharist sacrament. Less disputed is that Passover actually originated as a Newroz-style holiday of harvest, during which Jews celebrated the arrival of Spring and traveled to the Temple in Jerusalem to sacrifice sheep (Korban).
Happy holidays!
- Jon
