Dear Tevagirl
Your argument is not with me but with Bialik. Also with Theodor Herzl in his book The Jewish State and his play The New Ghetto. I know, at least vicariously, about helplessness in the face of murderous rage and overwhelming force–my great-grandfather, a noble man, was hacked to death by rampaging Muzhiks in the Ukraine as he read the Tanakh quietly at his table. And I have other stories too. Nevertheles, Bialik and Herzl–and Ze’ev Jabotinsky–were also right, for the germ of weakness and resignation infected many religious Jews. It was only later, with the growing Zionist movement and the heroic resistance of the Warsaw ghetto, that we saw the birth of the “new Jew.” But don’t deceive yourself–there are still a great number of “wicked sons,” of cowards and temporizers and collaborators among us, as David Mamet and others have eloquently deplored.
David
