“Zionism: A Destiny Manifest,
or Manufactured”
It was only after Tsarist power proved too intractable that people like Theodore Herzl, still influenced by the promise and wisdom of socialism, decided that because the Jewish situation in the motherland was irredeemable, a Jewish state somewhere else, based on socialist principles, was the answer. Though Herzl and those attending the first Zionist Conference in Basel, Switzerland in 1897 were not set on Palestine as the only possible location for such a state, by the time Chaim Weizman succeeded Herzl as head of the World Zionist Congress in 1904, Weizman and the WZC were obsessed with Palestine as the only option, and began worldwide financial and logistical efforts to transfer world Jewry to the land of Palestine, regardless of the political and demographic facts that already existed there. The problem, of course, was that Palestine already contained hundreds of thousands of Arab inhabitants.
Roots of the Patriarchy”
Though elements of the patriarchy pre-date Judaism, its emergence as an organized theology and social system is unique to the Jewish people. For millennia, biblical exegesis has underwritten not only patriarchal authority, but history itself. However, the veracity of the Bible as both a moral and historical authority has been challenged not only by an objective science of archaeology, but by historical inquiry free of religious and gender-biased presuppositions. This is salutary for women, since the patriarchy – traced, as it is, back to its metaphoric roots in the biblical person and authority of Abraham – has been the philosophical and practical foundation of women’s subservient status through its iterations as Christianity and Islam.
“Barnum and the Burning Bush”
The history of electronic evangelism proceeds almost in lockstep with the growth of modern commercialism and with developments in communication since Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type. Though rooted in the written biblical tradition, it has infused that history with a modern political agenda. Riding on the waves of TV and radio, purveyors of faith have transformed what was once a private affair with one’s bible into a multi-media experience stretching far beyond the confining, stained glass windows of the cathedral. In doing so, they have translated piety into personal prosperity and cracked the once formidable wall of church/state separation. Beginning with the first “National Prayer Breakfast” in 1953, “Barnum and the Burning Bush” traces the long courtship and marriage of religion and the electronic media to its present, influential position in society and governance.
“Shylock’s Ghost: Anti-Semitism and
Israeli State Power”
As Jewish author Roberta Strauss Feuerlicht chronicles in her book, “The Fate of the Jews,” Jewish history before the time of Christianity was a balancing act, often violent, between those Jews who sought power through collaboration with successive conquering empires, and those who struggled to uphold the integrity of the universal moral code enshrined in the Decalogue no matter who sat on the throne. This conflict between power and conscience persists among Jews today, and, as Feuerlicht explains; “There have always been two strands of Judaism, one ideal, the other real. Virtually every inclination to strive toward the ideal has been subverted by a preference for power rather than conscience.”
