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Dave Chappelle isn’t the first to suggest that Jews run Hollywood. Here are the origins of the trope.
(JTA) – On “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Dave Chappelle really wanted his audience to know there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood.
“I’ve been to Hollywood, this is just what I saw,” he said during his widely dissected monologue. “It’s a lot of Jews. Like, a lot.”
While suggesting that it might not be fair to say Jews run the industry, the comedian said that coming to that conclusion is “not a crazy thing to think.” Chappelle’s “SNL” episode drew a season-high 4.8 million viewers when it aired on NBC (eclipsing Jewish comedian Amy Schumer’s own hosting stint the week before), and his monologue had more than 8.1 million views on YouTube as of Wednesday.
The Anti-Defamation League was quick to denounce Chappelle’s act, calling it antisemitic. Other prominent Jews have followed suit.
“I was very disturbed to see him speaking, to millions of people, a lot of antisemitic tropes,” Pamela Nadell, a professor at American University who researches antisemitism, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
But Chappelle, who was himself riffing on recent antisemitism controversies involving Kanye West and Kyrie Irving, wasn’t exactly breaking new ground by insinuating that Jews run Hollywood. The trope has been a part of show business since its earliest days — when, in a literal sense, Jews did run Hollywood. Or the studios, anyway.
Nearly every major movie studio was founded in the early 20th century by a group of first-generation secular Jews who immigrated to the United States from Eastern Europe. Carl Laemmle (Universal), Adolph Zukor (Paramount), William Fox (Fox), Louis B. Mayer (MGM), and Benjamin Warner (Warner) were all Jewish silver-screen pioneers, laying the groundwork for the size and scale of the industry to follow.
But the industry has diversified greatly in the century since, with studios largely swallowed up by corporate behemoths. And while individual Jews may be overrepresented in an industry that has long welcomed and rewarded them, the rhetorical danger, Nadell said, comes in conflating a large Jewish presence in an industry with ownership and control of that industry.
“Jews remain active in Hollywood in a variety of roles, but it would be impossible to say that they run Hollywood, that they own Hollywood,” she said.
“Whenever the Jews enter into any kind of position where they might have influence over people who are not Jewish, then all of a sudden it’s seen as some kind of conspiracy.”
Conspiracy theories dogged Jews in Hollywood from the industry’s beginning. Because so many Jews were in control in Hollywood in its early years, Joseph Breen, who for decades ran the industry’s Production Code office and tried to make movies palatable to Catholic morality groups, blamed “the Jews” for sneaking sex, violence and moral depravity into the movies.
But their rise to the top of the still-young motion picture industry wasn’t because they were a part of some secretive cabal; it’s because, historians say, Hollywood provided a low barrier to entry for enterprising businessmen, and was lacking the antisemitic guardrails of more established industries.
“There were no social barriers in a business as new and faintly disreputable as the movies were in the early years of [the 20th] century,” historian Neal Gabler writes in his landmark 1988 book “An Empire Of Their Own: How The Jews Invented Hollywood.”
In the book, Gabler notes that the movie business, which evolved out of other professions like vaudeville and the garment industry where Jews had already found a toehold, lacked “the impediments imposed by loftier professions and more firmly entrenched businesses to keep Jews and other undesirables out.”
As such, Jews (particularly recent immigrants) were able to thrive in show business in a way they couldn’t in most other industries. Once they were in, family ties or the general phenomenon of affinity groups often led to them elevating other Jews in the industry: For example, prolific Jewish producer David O. Selznick, whose credits include “Gone With The Wind,” “Rebecca” and a huge string of other hits in the 1930s and ’40s, spent many years at MGM, run by his father-in-law, Louis B. Mayer.
Areas like the film, garment and publishing industries were attractive to Jews, Nadell said, “because there were so many other sectors of the economy where they were barred from.”
But in exchange, Hollywood’s prominent Jews had to effectively extinguish their Jewishness.
Yearning to assimilate into American society, the Jews who ran these studios were beset on all sides by antisemitic invective — first from Christian groups like the Legion of Decency, then by anti-Communist groups, both of whom accused Hollywood’s Jews of conspiring to undermine American society with their loose morals.
As such, the Jewish studio heads largely refrained from making any movies about Jewish themes, or snuffing out antisemitic content even within their own films, or otherwise exerting their influence in any obviously Jewish way, even as many of the Golden Era of Hollywood’s most acclaimed writers and directors (Herman Mankiewicz, Ernst Lubitsch, George Cukor, Billy Wilder) were also Jewish. “Gentleman’s Agreement,” the landmark 1947 film about antisemitism, didn’t have any Jewish producers, directors or major stars (though some of its credited writers were Jewish).
Famously, Hollywood’s Jews also went out of their way to avoid offending Hitler during the Nazi era, continuing to do business with Germany and largely avoiding featuring Nazis as villains in the prewar years.
Director Steven Spielberg speaks at the Academy Awards in Hollywood, Feb. 9, 2020. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
With the demise of the studio system in the 1960s, Jewish creatives ranging from Mel Brooks to Steven Spielberg to Natalie Portman no longer had to hide their identity from audiences, but instead made it an essential part of their public personas. Earlier this week, in a New York Times interview, Spielberg acknowledged that Hollywood was a welcoming place for Jews when he arrived as a young filmmaker.
“Being Jewish in America is not the same as being Jewish in Hollywood,” he said while promoting “The Fabelmans,” a loose retelling of his own Jewish upbringing. “Being Jewish in Hollywood is like wanting to be in the popular circle and immediately being accepted as I have been in that circle, by a lot of diversity but also by a lot of people who in fact are Jewish.”
Still, such ethnic affinity has often been deemed conspiratorial. “Hollywood is run by Jews” and “owned by Jews,” Marlon Brando declared in a 1996 interview with Larry King, further claiming that Jewish studio executives prevented antisemitic stereotypes from being depicted on screen while allowing stereotypes of every other minority group “because that’s where you circle the wagons around.”
(Despite this outburst, which prompted intense backlash from Jewish groups, Brando was known for having close relationships with Jews and demonstrating a strong understanding of Jewish theology and culture throughout his life, and apparently spoke Yiddish quite well.)
This general air of suspicion around Jews in show business has continued into the modern day, as evidenced by Chappelle and West’s comments. In the tweets that precipitated the collapse of his businesses, West singled out Jewish producers and managers in the entertainment industry he had affiliations with, echoing how believers in antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control tend to fixate on Jews in leadership positions outside of the public eye.
Attorney Allen Grubman, left, and rocker John Mellencamp speak onstage during the 37th Annual Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in Los Angeles, Nov. 5, 2022. (Amy Sussman/WireImage)
Ignoring the many industry leaders who are not Jewish, such conspiracy theorists tend to focus on the successful managers and lawyers in Hollywood who are, including Jeremy Zimmer, Ari Emanuel, Allen Grubman — and Harvey Weinstein, whose decades of sexual abuse, scorched-earth targeting of his accusers and eventual downfall are the subject of the new movie “She Said.”
And in a similar fashion to Brando, Chappelle suggested that there is a double standard in talking about ethnic groups, with jokes about Jews being seen as taboo in a way that jokes about Black people and other groups are not: “If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian, it’s a mob. If they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence and you should never speak about it.”
At the same time as Jews in and out of the industry are fighting such perceptions, they are also pushing for greater visibility. The unveiling of the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles last year almost entirely omitted Jews from Hollywood’s founding narrative, leading to backlash from Jews in the industry and, ultimately, the guarantee of a new permanent exhibition space focusing on Jews.
And there was one other way in which the Chappelle episode hearkened back to the age-old dynamics of the relationship between Jews and Hollywood: “Saturday Night Live” executive producer Lorne Michaels, who presumably allowed the monologue on the air, is Jewish.
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The post Dave Chappelle isn’t the first to suggest that Jews run Hollywood. Here are the origins of the trope. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The Yiddish theaters and elevated trains are long gone, but the spirit of the Bowery lives on
The oak rolltop desk I write on was once the reception station at the Crystal Hotel on the Bowery. Back in the 1930s, a man could rent a single bed, clean sheets and a foot locker in a large barracks-style room at the Crystal for less than a dollar a night; some lived there until the hotel closed in the late 1960s.
I like to think of myself as a 3rd generation citizen of the Bowery. For 65 years, my grandfather and father worked on the Bowery, manufacturing store fixtures in the building that was once the Crystal Hotel and before that a Vaudeville theater named Miner’s. I remember the signs on the wall that warned against spitting and smoking in bed. Even as I live and work elsewhere, I feel connected to the place.
I love to walk the mile-or-so stretch in lower Manhattan from Chatham Square, where the oldest thoroughfare in New York City begins, to its northern reach on East 4th Street at Cooper Square. And I love the layers of history so visible on its streetscape. First a Lenape Indian pathway and then a popular route for Dutch farmers, the Bowery (from bouwerijs, the Dutch word for farms) hosted later waves of businesses, breweries, bars, theaters, artists’ lofts, lodging houses for people with nowhere else to go and social service agencies to help them; today, there are even some bespoke shops and a Chabad.
While the Bowery has had a reputation as “Skid Row” or “Devil’s Mile” — the title of an engaging exhibit now at The New Museum through Jan. 31, 2027 — for me, it’s alive with stories. It’s a wide avenue where the pace is quick, the energy is high and the architecture is wildly varied, highlighting one of the widest views of the sky in this city.
On a sunny fall day, light bounces off the glass storefronts and the metal restaurant equipment being unloaded onto the sidewalk. The street’s Honey Locust and London Plane trees are lovely but sparse, so there’s no leafy canopy blocking the view. Most seats along the stretch north of Delancey are BYO: Several men face the sunlight, sitting outside buildings in a cluster of abandoned office chairs, crates and a beat-up recliner.
The light wasn’t always this brilliant: From 1878 to 1956, the Third Avenue Elevated train cast the sidewalks and street into shadow, as seen in the celebrated photographer Weegee’s stark image in the New Museum exhibition, “Under the Third Avenue El, 1943-45.”
The exhibition provides a beautifully detailed overview of 400 years of Bowery history, culture and tumult, with early maps, paintings, playbills, contemporary sculpture, photographs by Harvey Wang from the book Flophouse: Life on the Bowery, and a 19th century fire vehicle that hasn’t been seen on the Bowery since 1840. The royal blue, gold-trimmed “Lady Washington Engine Co. No. 40, Hand Pumper Fire Engine,” with painted classical scenes on the front and back was used by a volunteer fire brigade who, despite their elegant carriage, were known as a brutal street gang.
The Bowery was the city’s first entertainment district, with serious theater in the early 19th century and later on melodrama, magic shows, tap dancing (born on the Bowery), minstrel shows and Yiddish, Chinese and Italian theaters. A host of performers known as human curiosities filled the stages of dime museums. Peter Stuyvesant, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln all showed up on the Bowery, as did P.T. Barnum, who started his career selling “quack medicines and bear grease” at a dry goods store at 101 Bowery.
The site of the New Museum was once the London Theatre, which later became the Lipzen Theatre and Gabel’s Theatre, which staged Yiddish productions. And, a few blocks south is the footprint of the theater in my family’s history, Miner’s Bowery Theatre, established in 1878. Harry Miner was a former police officer, firefighter and pharmacist, who first owned the London Theatre before renovating this one. He helped launch the career of Eddie Cantor; Al Jolson sang and W.C. Fields juggled here. Miner also pioneered Amateur Night — and the “hook,” a wooden cane used to yank lesser performers off the stage. In 1929, the theater burned down.
I came across a photograph online of the top of the Crystal Hotel’s Art Deco façade. I reached out to the person who posted the image and met Kunihide Nakajima, a 3rd generation Japanese master sushi chef who also loves Bowery history. His gorgeous namesake restaurant, Nakaji, opened on the site of the 1826 Bowery Theatre, which later became the Thalia and a home to Yiddish theater. That building burned down six times, was rebuilt 5 times, but was completely destroyed, also in 1929.
“All you have to do is look up,” Nakajima says. “History is still there.”
I had to look twice at a photo in the exhibition that’s part of Martha Rosler’s installation of text and images from the 1970s to see the signage from my father’s business reflected back in the window of a cash register store across the Bowery.
Two decades ago, when I last reported on the Bowery for The New York Times, I walked around with my father, who was treated with much respect as the street’s elder statesman. Then, grand performances at the Amato Opera House were still being staged. The Amato family closed what was billed as the world’s smallest opera house in 2009. The Neoclassical building, originally a cigar factory and then a mission for the homeless, is now a Japanese restaurant with a mezuzah on its door and luxury apartments.
A few blocks north on the corner of Bowery and 1st Street, I couldn’t resist trying a blend of coffee called Marky Ramone’s Bowery Beat, a nod to the neighborhood’s punk history, at Adios Amigos – named for the Ramones’ breakup album. Sipping the robust coffee on a stool at the window, I looked out at the Bowery, much as I enjoyed doing when I was a child in the window of my father’s shop. I used to wave at the passersby back then; this time, I just watched a carnival of dog walkers carrying drinks more likely to be iced matcha than Wild Irish Rose (the favored drink of the Crystal Hotel crowd). I watched people pushing baby carriages or laundry carts filled with belongings, bicyclists, tourists with large shopping bags, a man inching forward trying to get his mismatched shoe back on, a woman with long gray hair pushing a walker, wearing the most colorful jacket I’ve ever seen.
At 202 Bowery, the Plato Gallery is hosting Shuto Okayasu’s solo exhibition of urban scenes. The exhibition’s title, “Impermanence,” seems fitting for this street. The New York-based Japanese artist cites the Buddhist concept that life is changing, constantly, and beauty can be found in fleeing moments.
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Israel’s messy election result: Five scenarios for what could happen next
Israel’s election has produced a messy result: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing bloc has suffered a major defeat, losing perhaps 11 seats compared with its victory in 2022. Yet the country could still end up with Netanyahu as prime minister. Or a broad unity government that preserves part of the existing order. Or a repeat election.
According to near-final results, Netanyahu and his allies have won just 53 seats in the 120-member Knesset, down from the 64 that gave them a comfortable majority four years ago. The opposition has secured 67 seats, one of the strongest showings for the anti-Netanyahu camp in decades. You might think this would be interpreted as a decisive rejection of the incumbent government and a mandate for political change – yet things are not exactly so.
The complication is that the opposition’s seats include 19 held by Arab parties, whose dramatic electoral gains appear to have been driven by a surge in turnout among Israel’s Arab citizens. The Jewish-led opposition parties together hold just 48 seats, leaving them well short of the 61 needed for a parliamentary majority. And several of their leaders have promised to avoid a coalition with the Arab parties.
That pledge was always difficult to reconcile with Israel’s electoral math – as well as with the promise of equality in its Declaration of Independence. Indeed, the moderate camp has for decades depended on Arab votes for a parliamentary majority, even when Arab parties remained formally outside the governing coalition. The promises in this round were designed to reassure Jewish voters moving away from Netanyahu’s right-wing bloc, many of whom distrust the Arab parties on security, Palestinian nationalism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Now opposition leaders may have to choose between their principal campaign objective – removing Netanyahu, which the country needs desperately – and a secondary promise that should never have been made.
Further complicating the picture are Likud allegations of fraud – expected standard operating procedure – which on Thursday received a boost by reports of an investigation that Qatar might have bribed Israeli Arabs to vote.
A major wild card is President Trump, who seems determined to save Netanyahu and may pressure the main opposition leader, Gadi Eisenkot, to acquiesce. No one should be surprised if Trump engineers another Iran war – or, conversely, promises peace plans with the Palestinians and Saudi Arabia – to scramble the Israeli equation in ways that might help his fellow right-wing populist.
There are several possible routes to a government, each involving concessions and risks.
1. An opposition government supported by the Arab parties
The most direct path would be for Eisenkot to accept the parliamentary support of the Arab parties and form a government backed by the 67 lawmakers elected in opposition to Netanyahu’s bloc. This could involve bringing Ra’am, the pragmatic Islamist party led by Mansour Abbas that joined the governing coalition in 2021, into the government, and perhaps relying on outside support from the Joint Arab List, which is less Zionist-friendly.
The latter arrangement would allow the Jewish-led opposition to control the cabinet while giving Arab parties considerable influence without requiring them to assume responsibility for policies they oppose.
They could concentrate initially on domestic priorities, on which they all agree, including restoring democratic institutions, establishing a state commission of inquiry into the Oct. 7 failures, addressing the cost of living, combating crime in Arab communities and reversing controversial authoritarian reforms of Netanyahu’s outgoing government. Additional parliamentary support on individual issues could help reduce dependence on any single faction.
Avigdor Lieberman, the anti-Netanyahu, anti-religious nationalist whose Yisrael Beiteinu party won seven seats, could prove the toughest obstacle. Opposed to a coalition that relies on an Arab safety net, he could potentially demand a turn as prime minister in exchange for his support. Conceivably, some from Netanyahu’s bloc might later join in as well.
2. A unity government under Netanyahu, excluding the far right
A second possibility is a broad national unity government joining Netanyahu’s Likud with most of the Jewish-led opposition while excluding his ultranationalist partners, especially the globally toxic Itamar Ben-Gvir. Such an arrangement would command a substantial parliamentary majority and could be presented as an answer to Israel’s political divisions and security challenges.
Trump, who aggressively endorsed Netanyahu, will probably push for this, and Eisenkot could be receiving some phone calls from the White House.
Netanyahu would argue he should be the prime minister of such a government – or at least go first in a rotation. He’d argue his Likud is still the largest party, but that is actually irrelevant under the Israeli system – only the blocs count.
For Netanyahu, unity would offer an opportunity to shed his most controversial partners while remaining at the helm, claiming national reconciliation.
For Eisenkot and other opposition leaders, the political cost would be enormous. Having campaigned to end Netanyahu’s rule and won a 67-seat majority, they would look weak. They also could find themselves responsible for government decisions that would enrage their supporters, like additional settlements in the West Bank.
3. Defections from the opposition give Netanyahu another majority
A third possibility involves Netanyahu persuading opposition lawmakers to change sides, allowing him to assemble a governing majority despite his bloc’s electoral defeat.
Netanyahu could also attempt to recruit such individual lawmakers through ministerial appointments, policy concessions or promises of political influence. Parliamentary rules governing defections could complicate these efforts, particularly for lawmakers seeking to break away individually. But it is possible. One potential figure is, again, Lieberman, whose Yisrael Beiteinu party has been among Netanyahu’s fiercest opponents. A former defense minister and veteran coalition negotiator, Lieberman holds nationalist positions closer to the traditional right than to the liberal opposition, although his longstanding hostility toward Netanyahu would make any reconciliation dramatic – and he has ruled it out. But he has also ruled out a coalition with the Arabs.
The prospect of major cabinet portfolios, a broader realignment of the right and the avoidance of another election could nevertheless become appealing options.
The broader implication is that Netanyahu could retain power through post-election maneuvering.
4. A unity government under Eisenkot, with Netanyahu in senior ministry
A fourth scenario, albeit unlikely, would flip the odd assumption that Netanyahu must lead a unity-government. Using his leverage in parliament, Eisenkot could become prime minister with Netanyahu accepting a senior cabinet position, perhaps as foreign minister or defense minister. Netanyahu would remain a prominent national figure, potentially representing Israel abroad or overseeing a major policy portfolio, while Eisenkot assumed responsibility for leading the government.
There would, however, be significant legal complications. Netanyahu’s ongoing criminal trial blocks him legally from serving as an ordinary cabinet minister rather than prime minister (which, due to a loophole, is possible). Assigning him a portfolio would require legislation and invite judicial scrutiny.
Another main obstacle: Netanyahu is pathologically fixated on retaining the premiership, and almost no one in Israel thinks he would accept such an arrangement over new elections.
5. Another election
The final possibility is that the parties fail to reach an agreement and Israel returns to the polls.
President Isaac Herzog plays an important procedural role, consulting parliamentary factions and assigning the task of forming a government to a Knesset member. The process could begin next week, and the initial mandate normally lasts 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension. Further procedures allow other candidates to seek a majority before another election becomes necessary.
A prolonged deadlock could leave Netanyahu heading a caretaker government while Israel prepares for another election – which is why he probably would not mind.
Another election would raise questions about whether the exceptionally high Arab turnout that helped produce the opposition’s majority could be sustained. Arab voter participation has historically fluctuated, and the latest result could represent either a lasting political transformation or a temporary surge driven by the campaign – then suppressed by bitterness over their exclusion.
For the Jewish-led opposition, returning to the polls would risk squandering its electoral achievement while giving Netanyahu another opportunity to reshape the contest around security, national identity and the legitimacy of Arab parliamentary influence.
If I wore Eisenkot’s shoes
If I were Eisenkot, I would give Lieberman whatever is needed to buy his cooperation and form a government with an Arab parliamentary safety net, remove Netanyahu and secure the premiership.
I would immediately pursue broadly popular policies: a state commission of inquiry into Oct. 7, universal conscription including Arab and Haredi national service, a crackdown on Jewish terrorism in the West Bank and organized crime, particularly in Arab communities, and reversal of Netanyahu’s authoritarian reforms.
I would maintain a firm line against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, and close the legal loophole allowing criminal defendants to serve as prime minister.
I would do all that in the first month. In the second, I would invite Likud into a unity government on these terms. Competent governance, relief from the threats of global economic sanctions and incumbency could build momentum, making any subsequent election prospects more favorable.
All that would require focus, determination and a bit of courage. As a former military chief, Eisenkot should be up to the task.
Netanyahu would scream bloody murder. Give him a megaphone, recommend a valium, and send him a copy of Israel’s Declaration of Independence, which promises equality to the Arabs.
The opposition’s leaders have a chance to show us whether they are worthy of leadership. Their decision will determine whether the election becomes a turning point in Israeli politics or another chapter in Netanyahu’s remarkable record of political survival.
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We Jews have three choices: Separating, assimilating or integrating
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה, טאַטע און מאַמע פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, האָבן ביידע געהאַט די זעלבע השקפֿה און שליחות אין לעבן. פֿונדעסטוועגן האָט יעדער איינער פֿון זיי געלייגט דעם טראָפּ אויף אַן אַנדער אַספּעקט פֿונעם לעבן.
אַבֿרהם האָט זיך מער געוואָנדן אַרויסצו, צו דער וועלט בכלל, מיטן ציל אַרײַנצוברענגען אין איר דעם באַוווּסטזײַן וועגן איר באַשעפֿער. שׂרה, פֿון דער צווייטער זײַט, האָט זיך מער קאָנצענטרירט אינעווייניק, זאָרגנדיק פֿאַרן פֿיזישן און גײַסטיקן וווילזײַן פֿון איר זון יצחק — דער איינציקער גליד וואָס האָט געזאָלט ווײַטער פֿירן די טויזנט־יאָריקע קייט וואָס זײַן פֿאָטער האָט אָנגעהויבן.
אַ ייִד וואָס לעבט אין אַ ניט־ייִדישער געזעלשאַפֿט האָט דרײַ מעגלעכקייטן: זיך אָפּצוזינדערן, זיך צו אַסימילירן אָדער זיך צו אינטעגרירן.
דער וואָס פֿילט זיך באַדראָט פֿון דער געזעלשאַפֿט, אָדער פֿילט אַז ער האָט נישט עפּעס באַזונדערס בײַצוטראָגן ווי אַ ייִד, קלײַבט געוויינטלעך אויס צו האַלטן זײַן ייִדישקייט אין שטוב און אין שול, בעת אויף דער גאַס פֿירט ער זיך ווי אַ „נאָרמאַלער“ בירגער. ער האָט ליבער נישט צו פֿאַרעפֿנטלעכן זײַן ייִדישקייט.
דער וואָס זעט גאָרנישט באַזונדערס אין דעם וואָס ער איז אַ ייִד — בפֿרט אויב ער האַלט זיך נישט פֿאַר „רעליגיעז“ — אָדער וויל דאָס פֿאַרבײַטן אויף אַ לעבנסשטייגער, וואָס פּאַסט זיך בעסער צו דער געזעלשאַפֿט אַרום אים, קלײַבט אָפֿט אויס זיך צו אַסימילירן. דאָס הייסט: ער פֿאַרלאָזט זײַן ייִדישע אידענטיטעט כּדי אָנצונעמען אַ וועלטלעכע און מער „אוניווערסאַלע“ אידענטיטעט.
דער וואָס איז זיכער אין זײַן ייִדישקייט און אין דעם בײַטראָג וואָס ער קען, דווקא פֿון זײַן ייִדישקייט, געבן דער גאַנצער מענטשהייט, דאַרף נישט אַנטלויפֿן און דאַרף זיך אויך נישט אַסימילירן. זײַן ברירה איז זיך צו אינטעגרירן אין דער אַלגעמיינער געזעלשאַפֿט דווקא ווי אַ ייִד, און זי צו באַרײַכערן פֿון זײַן אייגענעם באַזונדערן אָרט.
פֿאַרשטייט זיך, אַז כּדי זיך געזונט צו אינטעגרירן און האָבן אַן השפּעה אויף דער ברייטערער געזעלשאַפֿט, דאַרף מען האָבן שטאַרקייט און קלאָרקייט וועגן דער אייגענער אידענטיטעט, און זײַן שטאָלץ מיט די אחריות וואָס די אידענטיטעט ברענגט מיט זיך.
אַבֿרהם און שׂרה זענען די פּראָוטאָטיפּן פֿון דער דינאַמיק פֿון דער ייִדישער משפּחה דורכויס די דורות. דער מאַן איז דער וואָס באַשעפֿטיקט זיך, קודם־כּל, מיט דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט; די פֿרוי איז די וואָס דערנערט און בויט די אינערלעכע וועלט פֿון דער משפּחה. נאָר דער וואָס האָט געהאַט און האָט נאָך אַלץ אַ שטאַרקע אינערלעכע וועלט קען זיך שטעלן אַנטקעגן דער דרויסנדיקער וועלט און זי באַאײַנפֿלוסן.
פֿון דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק, לאָמיר איצט אַריבערגיין צו דער אידענטיטעט פֿונעם ייִדישן לאַנד.
ארץ־ישׂראל: דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן, אָדער אַ ייִדיש לאַנד?
ארץ־ישׂראל איז דאָס נאַציאָנאַלע ירושה־גוט פֿונעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק. לויט הלכה־אויטאָריטעטן איז יעדער ייִד אויף דער וועלט דער נאַטירלעכער בעל־הבית פֿון לכל־הפּחות אן „אמה על אמה“ — 0.48 קוואַדראַט־מעטער — לאַנד אין ארץ־ישׂראל. דאָס איז אונדזער אייביקע ירושה.
עס זענען דאָ דרײַ שטעט אין ארץ־ישׂראל וועמענס קויפֿן דורך ייִדן איז דאָקומענטירט אין תנ״ך: חבֿרון, שכם און ירושלים. עס וואָלט געדאַרפֿט זײַן מער ווי קלאָר, אַז ס׳איז נישטאָ קיין אָרט פֿאַר אַ מחלוקת וועגן דער היסטאָרישער און לעגאַלער פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן די שטעט און דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק — וויפֿל עס זאָלן נישט זײַן אַזעלכע וואָס ווילן זיי, חס ושלום, מאַכן „Judenrein“.
אין דער פּרשה חיי שׂרה לייענען מיר ווי אונדזער פֿאָטער אַבֿרהם האָט אָפּגעקויפֿט פֿון עפֿרון החתי די „מערת המכפּלה“ און די אַרומיקע פֿעלדער, מיטן בפֿירושן ציל דאָרט צו באַערדיקן זײַן פֿרוי שׂרה. שפּעטער זענען דאָרט אויך באַערדיקט געוואָרן די אָבֿות יצחק און יעקבֿ, צוזאַמען מיט זייערע פֿרויען רבֿקה און לאה.
דאָס אַלץ איז דאָקומענטירט אין דער תּורה — אַ דאָקומענט וואָס ווערט באַטראַכט ווי היסטאָריש לעגיטים דורך מער ווי 50 פּראָצענט פֿון דער הײַנטיקער וועלט־באַפֿעלקערונג.
כאָטש אַראַבער קענען טענהן אַז זיי שטאַמען אויך פֿון אַבֿרהם דורך זײַן זון ישמעאל און האָבן דעריבער אַ לעגיטימע תּבֿיעה אויף די דאָזיקע לענדער, איז דאָס אַ טעותדיקע טענה צוליב צוויי סיבות.
ערשטנס, זענען די אַראַבער וואָס וווינען הײַנט אין ארץ־ישׂראל נישט די אָפּשטאַמיקע פֿון ישמעאל, נאָר זענען אַריבערגעפֿירט געוואָרן אין אַנדערע געגנטן דורך דעם אַסירישן קעניג און שׂונא פֿון די ייִדן, סנחריבֿ.
צווייטנס, אַפֿילו ווען מיר וואָלטן אָנגענומען אַז זיי זענען בני ישמעאל, קומט זיי דערפֿאַר נאָך נישט ארץ־ישׂראל, ווײַל ישמעאל איז געווען דער זון פֿון שׂרהס דינסט הגר. אַבֿרהם האָט אים געגעבן זײַן ירושה נאָך בײַם לעבן און אים אַוועקגעשיקט ווײַט פֿון ארץ כּנען.
ארץ־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז דאָס לאַנד פֿון די ייִדן; עס איז אַ ייִדיש לאַנד.
אייגנטום איז אַ צופֿעליקער און ענדערלעכער מצבֿ: הײַנט האָב איך עס, מאָרגן האָסטו עס. עס איז נישטאָ קיין מהותדיקער חילוק אין מײַן אויטאָ פֿון איידער איך האָב עס דיר פֿאַרקויפֿט ביז נאָך דעם וואָס עס איז געוואָרן דײַן אייגנטום; פֿריִער איז עס געווען מײַנס, און איצט איז עס דײַנס.
מיט ארץ־ישׂראל איז אָבער אַנדערש. דאָס לאַנד איז באַשאַפֿן געוואָרן פֿאַרן ייִדישן פֿאָלק, כּדי דאָס פֿאָלק זאָל קענען אויספֿירן זײַן תּכלית: אַנטפּלעקן דעם אויבערשטנס אָנוועזנהייט אין דעם פֿיזישן וועלט אויפֿן בעסטן אופֿן, און פֿון דאָרט, ווי דאָס האַרץ, אַרויספּאָמפּען אָט די אָנערקענונג און באַגײַסטערונג אין דער גאַנצער וועלט.
נישט אומזיסט רופֿט די גאַנצע וועלט דאָס לאַנד „דאָס הייליקע לאַנד“. דערמיט דערקענט מען, אַז אַפֿילו די ערד גופֿא פֿון ארץ־ישׂראל איז הייליק.
אין אַנדערע ווערטער: די פֿאַרבינדונג צווישן ארץ־ישׂראל און עם־ישׂראל איז נישט בלויז היסטאָריש אָדער צופֿעליק. זי איז מהותדיק און נשמהדיק. דאָס לאַנד און דאָס פֿאָלק טיילן אַ שליחות וואָס דער אויבערשטער האָט זיי געגעבן, און די פֿולע אויספֿירונג פֿון דער שליחות איז אָפּהענגיק פֿון ביידע.
ווען מיר קעמפֿן פֿאַר אונדזער לאַנד, טראַכטן מיר נישט בלויז פֿאַר אונדזערט וועגן, נאָר אויך לטובֿת אונדזערע שׂונאים. אויך פֿאַר זיי איז עס צום גוטן, אַז זיי זאָלן לאָזן דעם ייִדישן פֿאָלק אויספֿירן זײַן שליחות אין זײַן לאַנד, בשעת זיי קענען בשלום אויספֿירן זייער שליחות אין דעם לאַנד וואָס געהערט צו זיי.
ווען דער דאָזיקער פּונקט וועט זײַן קלאָר בײַ אונדז, וועט אונדז זײַן גרינגער זי קלאָר צו מאַכן אויך פֿאַר אַנדערע.
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