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Israel Must Confront the Jihadist Desire for Immortality
Effective counter-terrorism is never just about strategy, tactics, or doctrine. Whatever an insurgency’s operational specifics, this area of national security planning should always remain starkly analytic and logic-centered. For Israel in the Islamic Middle East, this means a heightened conceptual awareness of death and “last things” as embraced by its jihadist foes.
It means, inter alia, that Israel’s counter-terrorism planners should continuously bear in mind the primacy of one consistently overlooked and underestimated form of power: the desire for immortality, or “power over death.”
Any promise of immortality is of course densely problematic. By definition, it lies beyond the boundaries of science and logic. How, then, should the desire of Israel’s terrorist adversaries for immortality be assessed by Israeli planners during the Gaza War?
Any such inquiry should begin with certain core questions. The principal query is this: How can one human being meaningfully offer eternal life to another? Reciprocally, it must also be asked: How can any terrorism-opposing state construct components of its national security program upon a determined enemy’s “hunger for immortality?” This phrase is taken from Spanish (Basque) philosopher Miguel de Unamuno’s classic treatise The Tragic Sense of Life (Del Sentimiento Tragico De La Vida; 1921). Unamuno would never, however, have been sympathetic to the twisted idea of a murderous faith-based “martyrdom.”
Though these questions are difficult, they have answers. Even in our age of incessant quantification and verification, there is something in our unreflective species that yearns not for reason-based clarity but for mystery and faith. In facing jihadist terrorist ideologies that promise the faithful eternal life, Israel must remain wary of projecting ordinary human rationality upon Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others like them.
Projections of decision-making rationality usually make sense in world politics, but there are enough major exceptions to temper hopeful generalities. If Israel’s national decision-makers were to survey the current configuration of global jihadist terrorist organizations (both Sunni and Shiite) from an analytic standpoint, the nexus between “martyrdom operations” and “life everlasting” would be conspicuous. At that point, Israel’s security planners would be in a much better position to deter murderous hostage-takers and suicide-bombers, both in microcosm (individual human terrorists) and in macrocosm (enemy states that support terrorists).
In such time-urgent matters, there are corresponding and converging elements of law. Jihadist insurgents who seek to justify gratuitously violent attacks on civilians in the name of “martyrdom” are acting contrary to international law. All insurgents, even those who claim “just cause,” must still satisfy longstanding jurisprudential limits on permissible targets and on law-based levels of violence.
As a matter of binding law, such humane limits can never be tempered by claims of religious faith. Faith is never legally exculpatory.
According to authoritative jurisprudence, the relevant legal matters are not inherently complicated or bewildering. Under longstanding rules, even the allegedly “sacred” rights of insurgency must always exclude any deliberate targeting of civilians or any use of force to intentionally inflict unnecessary suffering.
Law and strategy are interrelated; but at the same time, they are analytically distinct. Regarding the Gaza War and effective counter-terrorism, the legal bottom line is clear: Violence becomes terrorism whenever politically animated insurgents murder (intentionally kill) or maim noncombatants, whether with guns, knives, bombs, automobiles, or anything else.
It is irrelevant whether the expressed cause of terror-violence is presumptively just or unjust. In the Law of Nations, unjust means used to achieve allegedly just ends are always violations of the law.
Sometimes, martyrdom-seeking terrorist foes such as Hamas advance a supposedly legal argument known as tu quoque. This historically discredited argument stipulates that because “the other side” is guilty of similar, equivalent, or greater criminality, “our” side is necessarily innocent of any wrongdoing. Jurisprudentially, any such disingenuous argument is always wrong and invalid, especially after the landmark postwar judgments of the Nuremberg (Germany) and Far East (Japan) tribunals.
For conventional armies and insurgent forces, the right to use military force can never supplant the rules of humanitarian international law. Such primary or jus cogens rules (rules that permit “no derogation”) are referenced as the law of armed conflict, humanitarian international law, or the law of war. Significantly, these terms apply to both state and sub-state participants in any armed conflict.
Repeatedly, however, and without a scintilla of law-based evidence, supporters of Hamas terror-violence against Israeli noncombatants insist that “the ends justify the means.” Leaving aside the ethical standards by which any such argument should be dismissed on its face, ends can never justify means in the law of armed conflict. There can be no defensible ambiguity regarding such a conclusion.
The witless banalities of politics ought never be taken to accurately represent the expectations of binding law. In such universal law, whether codified or customary, one person’s terrorist can never be another’s “freedom-fighter.” Though it is correct that certain insurgencies can sometimes be judged lawful or even law-enforcing, allowable resorts to force must always conform to humanitarian international law.
Whenever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions constitute terrorism. Even if adversarial claims of a hostile controlling power were plausible or acceptable (e.g., relentless Palestinian claims concerning an Israeli “occupation”), corollary claims of entitlement to “any means necessary” would still remain false. Recalling Hague Convention No. IV: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
What about Israeli attacks on Gaza? Though Israel’s ongoing bombardments of Gaza are producing many Palestinian casualties, the legal responsibility for these harms lies entirely with Hamas “perfidy,” or what is more colloquially called Hamas’s use of “human shields.”
It is also noteworthy that while Palestinian casualties are unwanted, inadvertent, and unintentional, Israeli civilian deaths and injuries are always the result of Palestinian terrorist criminal intent or “mens rea.” In law, there is a great difference between deliberately murdering innocent celebrants at an Israeli music festival and the lethal consequences of indispensable Israeli counter-terrorist operations in Gaza.
International law is not an intuitive or subjective set of standards. Such law always has determinable form and content. It cannot be casually invented and reinvented by terror groups to justify their interests. This is especially true when their inhumane terror-violence intentionally targets a designated victim state’s most fragile and vulnerable civilians.
National liberation movements that fail to meet the test of just means can never be protected as lawful or legitimate. Even if the law were to accept the questionable argument that relevant terror groups had fulfilled all valid criteria of “national liberation” (e.g., Iran-supported Hamas or Hezbollah), these groups would still not satisfy the equally significant legal standards of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.
These enduring critical standards were specifically applied to insurgent or sub-state organizations by Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and by the two 1977 Protocols to these Conventions.
Standards of humanity remain binding upon all combatants by virtue of the broader norms of customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. This rule, commonly called the “Martens Clause,” makes “all persons” responsible for the “laws of humanity” and for associated “dictates of public conscience.” There can be no exceptions to this universal responsibility based upon a presumptively “just cause.”
Under international law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in both apprehension and punishment. As punishers of grave breaches under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute or extradite terrorists. Under no circumstances are states permitted to regard terrorists as law-abiding “freedom fighters.” This ought to be kept in mind by states that routinely place their own presumed religious and geopolitical obligations above the common interests of binding law.
The United States incorporates international law as the supreme law of the land in Article 6 of the Constitution, and Israel is guided by the immutable principles of a Higher Law. Fundamental legal authority for the American republic was derived largely from William Blackstone’s Commentaries, which in turn owe much of their clarifying content to jus cogens principles of Torah.
Ex injuria jus non oritur. “Rights can never stem from wrongs.” The labeling by jihadist adversaries of Israel of their most violent insurgents as “martyrs” should have no exculpatory or mitigating effect on their terrorist crimes. As a practical problem, of course, these faith-driven foes are animated by the most compelling form of power imaginable. This is the power of immortality or “power over death.”
For Israel, a primary orientation of law-based engagement in counter-terrorism should always take close account of enemy attraction to “last things.” Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s observation that “an immortal person is a contradiction in terms” lies beyond intellectual challenge, but jihadist promises of “power over death” still remain supremely attractive to terrorists. It follows that Israeli counter-terrorist planners ought to focus more directly on the eschatology of its Gaza War terrorist adversaries.
For the foreseeable future, Hamas “martyrs” will present an incrementally existential threat to Israel. If these barbarous criminals should ever get their hands on fissile materials, however, this threat could become more immediately existential. Hamas would not require a chain-reaction nuclear explosive but only the much more accessible ingredients for a radiation dispersal device.
In a worst-case scenario, the use of a primitive nuclear device by Hamas or Hezbollah could spur Iran to enter into direct military conflict with Israel. At that point, Israeli policy considerations of “last things” could become all-important and determinative. For Israel, the primary battlefield will always be intellectual, not territorial. A jihadist enemy that links terror-violence against the innocent to delusionary promises of immortality poses a potentially irremediable threat.
Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue and the author of many books and articles on terrorism and international law. His latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Brooklyn Woman Denied Bail, Claims She Didn’t Kill Anyone in Car Crash That Killed Jewish Mother, Two Daughters
An overturned auto in a car crash flipped on its roof landing on a mother and her three children, killing two children on March 29, 2025, in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
A Brooklyn woman denied killing anyone when she appeared in court on Thursday, less than a week after a Jewish woman and her two daughters died when she crashed her car into them at a crosswalk.
Miriam Yarimi, 32, appeared in Brooklyn Criminal Court via a video stream from her room in NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, according to the New York Daily News. She is undergoing a psychological evaluation at the hospital following Saturday’s deadly car crash.
After the crash, Yarimi told first responders she was “possessed” and believed the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was following her. She has made similar claims about being pursued by the CIA on social media several times in the past, The Algemeiner previously reported.
Yamini, who is also Jewish, faces a slew of charges that include three counts of second-degree manslaughter, three counts of criminal negligent homicide, and four counts of second-degree assault.
“The devil is in my eyes. I am haunted inside. I didn’t kill anyone. I didn’t hurt anyone. Prove it. Show me the proof. You have no proof,” Yarimi said in a statement after Saturday’s crash, according to Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Nocella. “I need CT scans in my eyes. I need to get the scanning done now … Where’s my daughter? My daughter’s always in my heart.”
“People are out to get me,” added the single mother. “I need CT scans on my entire body. F— you. I need a whole work up to get whatever is in my body out of it. I did not hurt anyone. All the evidence is on my phone.”
Nocella called Yamini a flight risk and asked the judge that she be held without bail due to the “nature and severity” of the allegations, as reported by the Daily News. Judge Jevet Johnson agreed with Nocella and ordered Yamini to be held without bail. Nocella said prosecutors are prepared to present grand jury indictment on the manslaughter charges.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said his administration is “committed” to taking more action to prevent traffic violence and deaths following the fatal car crash that killed Natasha Saada, 35, along with her daughters Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5. Saada’s 4-year-old son Philip was injured in the crash and is still being hospitalized in critical condition.
Adams’ office announced on Wednesday that there were 41 traffic deaths during the first three months of 2025 — 24 fewer than last year and the second fewest since they started being recorded by the city. Despite the decline in traffic deaths, Adams admitted that more work needs to be done to keep New Yorkers safe on the streets, as evident by Saturday’s deadly car crash.
“In order to make New York City the best place to raise a family, we need to be safer at every level — including on our streets,” he said in a released statement on Wednesday. “Our administration’s investments in intersection safety improvements, treating traffic violence as the serious crime that it is, and our expanding automated camera enforcement are all helping ensure we’re leading the way toward a safer future for all New Yorkers — whether they are pedestrians, cyclists, or motorists.”
“We understand there is more work to do, as evidenced this past weekend’s tragic crash in Brooklyn because one lift [sic] lost to traffic violence is one life too many, but our administration remains committed to reducing traffic violence as much as any other form of violence,” Adams added.
On Saturday afternoon, Yarimi crashed her car into an Uber and then slammed into four members of the Saada family as they were trying to walk across the street at an intersection on Ocean Parkway in Midwood.
Yarimi was speeding at the time of the incident, “probably doing close to twice the speed limit,” and “ran a red light” just before the crash, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez revealed on Wednesday while speaking to Eyewitness News. Yamini was also driving on a suspended license and has accumulated almost 100 parking and camera violations, including 21 speed camera tickets and five red light tickets.
“It actually exceeds just being reckless, it’s almost being wanton, we’re not going to tolerate that,” Gonzalez told Eyewitness News. “Her vehicle had been ticketed many times by red light cameras and speed cameras, that car was a frequent violator of both speed laws and red-light laws, and there is no excuse for running a red light.”
Saada and her daughters were buried in Israel this week. Four-year-old Philip remains at the hospital for his injuries and is facing “tough straights,” Gonzalez said. “We expect him to make some kind of recovery, but it’s going to be a long road for him.”
The boy lost one of his kidneys during treatment at Maimonides Medical Center, according to New York City Comptroller Brad Lander. “It’s heartbreaking,” Lander said after he visited the home of the Saada family, according to the New York Post. “He’s still in critical condition. He lost one kidney but they are hopeful about his prognosis.”
Five people in the Uber hit by Yarimi’s car suffered minor injuries.
Supporters of a proposed state law that would stop repeat super speeders in New York have rallied together since the car accident on Saturday, calling for the passage of the bill that they said could have prevented the crash. The legislation would require speed limiters to be installed on vehicles owned by repeat reckless drivers, like Yarimi. The device automatically limits the vehicles to within 5 mph of the legal speed of the road. The “Stop Super Speeders” bill was sponsored by New York State Assembly Member Emily Gallagher and Senator Andrew Gounardes.
The New York City Comptroller, Brad Lander, supports the bill and criticized Adams for not already implementing such measures.
The post Brooklyn Woman Denied Bail, Claims She Didn’t Kill Anyone in Car Crash That Killed Jewish Mother, Two Daughters first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Hungary Announces Withdrawal From ‘Political’ ICC as Netanyahu Visits Country, Defying Arrest Warrant
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to the media next to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in Budapest, Hungary, April 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Bernadett Szabo
Hungary on Thursday announced that it will withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) as the country welcomed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the capital city of Budapest, defying an ICC arrest warrant against him over allegations of war crimes in Gaza.
Despite Hungary’s status as a signatory of the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, Netanyahu was not taken into custody upon his arrival in Budapest. Instead, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed his Israeli counterpart with full military honors.
GREAT meeting with a GREAT friend, @PM_ViktorOrban. Together, we’re making the GREAT alliance between
and
even stronger! pic.twitter.com/Svphzb61Gn
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 3, 2025
Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary, which is scheduled to last until Sunday, is his first trip to Europe since the ICC issued an arrest warrant against him last year. In February, he made his first foreign trip altogether since the ICC’s decision to the United States, where he met with US President Donald Trump.
As Orban and Netanyahu met to discuss regional developments and bilateral cooperation, Hungarian Minister Gergely Gulyas released a statement announcing that “the government will initiate the withdrawal procedure” from the ICC, which could take a year or more to complete.
After their meeting, Orban said he believes the ICC is “no longer an impartial court, not a court of law, but a political court.”
“I am convinced that this otherwise important international judicial forum has been degraded into a political tool, with which we cannot and do not want to engage,” Orban said during a press conference.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar praised Budapest’s decision to withdraw from the international court, highlighting the country’s “strong moral stance alongside Israel and the principles of justice and sovereignty.”
“I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC,” Saar wrote in a post on X. “The so-called ‘International Criminal Court’ lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for harming Israel’s right to self-defense.”
I commend Hungary’s important decision to withdraw from the ICC. FM Péter Szijjártó and I dealt with this matter extensively. The so-called “International Criminal Court” lost its moral authority after trampling the fundamental principles of international law in its zest for…
— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 3, 2025
In November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu, his former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and now-deceased Hamas terror leader Ibrahim al-Masri (better known as Mohammed Deif) for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza conflict. The ICC said there were reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant were criminally responsible for starvation in Gaza and the persecution of Palestinians — charges vehemently denied by Israel, which until a recently imposed blockade had provided significant humanitarian aid into the enclave throughout the war. Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, despite Hamas’s widely acknowledged military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.
After the court issued the warrant against Netanyahu, Orban rejected the decision by inviting the Israeli leader to Budapest and accusing the court of “interfering in an ongoing conflict for political purposes.”
During Thursday’s news conference, Netanyahu commended Hungary’s withdrawal from the ICC, calling it a “bold and principled action” as “the first state that walks out of this corruption and this rottenness.”
“The ICC directs its actions against us fighting a just war with just means,” Netanyahu said. “I think [this decision will] be deeply appreciated, not only in Israel but in many, many countries around the world.”
After the Israeli leader was welcomed in Budapest, Hamas issued a statement calling on the Hungarian government to reverse its decision and extradite Netanyahu to the ICC to stand trial, calling the decision an “immoral stance that shows collusion with a war criminal who is running away from justice.”
In a post on X, Israel’s top diplomat reiterated his support for Hungary’s decision, arguing that Hamas’s statement only proves the country is taking the correct stance in this matter.
“Whoever needed further proof as to how justified, moral and necessary Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC is: Hamas just condemned it,” Saar wrote.
“Hamas is defending the politicized and twisted so-called ‘International Criminal Court.’ And that’s the whole story.”
Whoever needed further proof as to how justified, moral and necessary Hungary’s decision to withdraw from the ICC is: Hamas just condemned it.
Hamas is defending the politicized and twisted so-called “International Criminal Court”.
And that’s the whole story.— Gideon Sa’ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) April 3, 2025
After the ICC’s decision to issue the warrants, several countries, including Hungary, Argentina, the Czech Republic, Romania, Poland, France, and Italy, have said they would not arrest Netanyahu if he visited.
US and Israeli officials issued blistering condemnations of the ICC move, decrying the court for drawing a moral equivalence between Israel’s democratically elected leaders and the heads of Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2o23.
The ICC has no jurisdiction over Israel as it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. Other countries including the US have similarly not signed the ICC charter. However, the ICC has asserted jurisdiction by accepting “Palestine” as a signatory in 2015, despite no such state being recognized under international law.
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Jewish Individualism Will Not Work, But Solidarity Must
The Western Wall and Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
During the events of Purim, Haman approached King Xerxes I and said, “There is a certain race of people scattered through all the provinces of your empire who keep themselves separate from everyone else. Their laws are different from those of any other people, and they refuse to obey the laws of the king. So, it is not in the king’s interest to let them live.”
Queen Esther’s solidarity with her dispersed people in Persia, and her profound loyalty to her Jewish identity, saved them from Haman’s genocide and secured their self-defense when she courageously revealed her heritage to Xerxes I.
Today, Israeli Jews are once again fighting for their Jewish and Zionist survival. Since Oct. 7, 2023, this Jewish Armageddon has extended anew to Diaspora Jews, who have felt the past’s chilling draft. Antisemitism has reawakened, infecting non-Jews and Jews alike. Few people contribute to antisemitic attitudes more than “self-loathing” Jews. These “self-loathing” Jews, who cynically reveal only the negative aspects of their Jewishness, believe they can avoid antisemitic attacks if they condemn Israel. But they achieve only self-betrayal, gaining neither acceptance nor respect from those who hate all Jews. Jews are a nation of people who question, not people who answer.
Questions pervade the Jewish mind to such a degree that the adage, “two Jews, three opinions,” has become a common characteristic of Jewish identity. Moreover, the pursuit of an answer often serves as a springboard for further inquiry. For us, as Jews, the ultimate answer, akin to the messianic ideal, remains a distant, undefined future. This traditional perspective has granted Jews a sort of perpetual license to disagree. Jews enjoy engaging in debate with others, but they sometimes find particular delight in debating amongst themselves, which allows their intellects to roam and their sardonic wit to playfully engage with each other’s vulnerabilities, finding humor without causing offense.
This love for discourse, for questioning everything in sight, including Hashem himself, is by no means the only puzzle that makes up our Jewish identity. Another crucial element of our makeup is solidarity. In times of major upheavals, we have always stood together against the masses who rose against us. To our enemies, we Jews — atheists, nihilists, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, Haredi, religious Zionists, non-religious Zionists, or undecided — look, taste, and feel the same. They care nothing for our ingrained liberalism. Our enemies seek cracks within our communities in order to break us apart and cause irreparable damage.
Years of relative peace and prosperity since the Holocaust have allowed us to gather again and engage in countless polemics over the fate of Israel, Jews, Judaism, and Zionism. However, we have failed to notice that we are at war again, and that our enemies eagerly exploit the divisions within a nation that comprises only 0.2% of the world’s population. These enemies — radical Islamists and progressive Western leftists who view Jews and Israel as white oppressors and colonizers — avidly listen to Jewish internal squabbles and criticisms of the Israeli government.
Despite the significant progress the Shin Bet and IDF have made in dismantling much of Hamas’s leadership and terrorist infrastructure, destroying its complex network of tunnels and command centers, and weakening Hezbollah, in addition to eliminating tens of thousands of Hamas terrorists, many Jews remain critical of, and disagree with, what Israel represents today. Aware of government problems, Israelis desire improvement. However, their rage and almost addictive pattern of anti-government protests have provided their adversaries with more opportunities to exploit perceived weaknesses.
This has resonated with some Jews worldwide. In New York, some Jewish intellectuals have defended “free-Palestine” and pro-Hamas protesters harassing Jewish students, invoking freedom of speech. They appear to have fallen prey to what they perceive as the lies of progressive anti-Zionist media, which systemically omits crucial facts about Israel. This includes the IDF’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties, and its role in eliminating thousands of Hamas terrorists and dismantling their terror network, which posed a significant threat to Israel (and innocent Palestinians themselves).
These “romantic” progressive Jews also forget that no matter how critical they are of that “brutal” IDF, it is still fighting on their behalf, because it is fighting on behalf of every Jew. Civilian deaths do occur, but they are either unfortunate incidents of war or, more often, a direct result of Hamas’s cruelty, as Hamas terrorists purposefully embed themselves within the civilian population. I once sat at dinner in Israel with a wealthy American Jewish couple who came on a sympathy tour a few months after Oct. 7. Nevertheless, the husband was convinced that the IDF was deliberately killing Palestinian children.
Those were wealthy, educated American Jews who thought they were charitable because they donated to Jewish causes, and therefore, believed they had the right to express their views on everything. This is where I, a Soviet Jew who grew up deprived of Judaism yet targeted by antisemitism, felt differently. To begin with, the husband was completely wrong. Second, in times of existential crisis, we, as Jewish people, must set aside our irresistible urge to disagree and criticize Israel on basic premises such as Israel’s fight to ensure Jews don’t live through a second genocide. The freedom to speak our minds has been ours for thousands of years. We conversed with Hashem, we obeyed Him, we sacrificed for Him, and then we quickly learned to disobey and question Him, even before we began arguing amongst ourselves.
Still, throughout our dotted and punctured history, it wasn’t our tongues or our disagreeable minds that kept our small nation together; it was our solidarity. In solidarity, we walked out of Egypt. In solidarity, tens of thousands of Eastern European Jews came to their promised land as early as the 1920s and began to build from nothing. In solidarity with his orphans, Dr. Janusz Korczak, despite being given the chance to save himself, chose to march with them, hand in hand, through the ghetto to the deportation point, on their way to Treblinka, where they met their final hour. In solidarity with other Jews across the Soviet Empire, Soviet Jews secretly tried to remember who they were, despite years of persecutions and purges.
In solidarity with their Soviet brethren, powerful American Jewry fought for Russian Jews to be able to emigrate to Israel and the United States. One of the main reasons our small nation has not disappeared into the abyss is because, in Diaspora, across oceans, and through impenetrable iron curtains, we never ceased to support one another. We knew we could not afford the luxury of neglecting our faith, traditions, and, most importantly, we could never abandon defending ourselves against our enemies.
Caesar’s “Divide et impera” (“Divide and Conquer”), though a cliché, is particularly relevant here. Seeing fractures within our communities, our enemies have intensified these divisions through incessant anti-Zionist and antisemitic propaganda and violence. Therefore, only as an undivided people, united by a single purpose — eradicating our enemies and protecting our promised land — do we stand a chance of survival. Perhaps only then will the day come when Jewish people gather on virtual street corners to argue and ask questions to which they seek no answers.
Anya Gillinson is an immigration lawyer and author of the new memoir Dreaming in Russian. She lives in New York City. More at www.anyagillinson.com.
The post Jewish Individualism Will Not Work, But Solidarity Must first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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