Reviewing Naomi Klein’s Declaration of Exodus from Zionism
- And the story of the golden calf that the Samaritan made
and which the Children of Israel took as a god in the absence of Moses, when he
preceded them to the appointed time of his Lord, but the Samaritan led them
astray, and they broke their appointment with Moses. It is a moment of
tremendous setback for the Children of Israel’s journey with God, the prophets,
and prophecy.
Klein recalled the moment of Moses descending from the
mountain and his extreme anger when he found the children of Israel worshiping
a “golden calf,” calling for the rejection of the worship of the new “golden
calf,” by which she meant “the false idol of Zionism.” Klein said, before a
gathering of Americans (the majority of whom were anti-war Jews), in a protest
calling for an end to arming Israel, which was held in Brooklyn (New York),
near the home of the majority leader in the US Senate, Senator Chuck Schumer:
“Many members of our (Jewish) community worship a false idol.” ... They are
delighted with it... They are drunk... The idol has defiled them... This false
idol is called Zionism,” she said, considering that “Zionism is a false idol
that took the idea of the
Promised Land and turned it into a bill of sale for an ethno-military state.” “It is a false idol that takes our
deepest biblical stories of justice and freedom from slavery — the Easter story itself — and
turns them into brutal weapons of land theft and colonization, and road maps
for ethnic cleansing and genocide,” she added. “It is a false idol that has
taken the transcendent idea of the
Promised Land, a metaphor for human liberation that has traveled through
multiple religions to every corner of this world, and has dared to turn it into
a bill of sale to a militaristic ethno-state.”
Also, Klein rejected Zionism's claims about liberating Jews
from anti-Semitism and securing them in a Jewish state of their own, saying
that "the version of liberation proposed by political Zionism is itself
worldly." From the beginning, it required the mass expulsion of
Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands during the Nakba,” noting
that “from the beginning (Zionism) was at war with dreams of liberation. It is
worth remembering in the Easter celebration that this includes dreams of
liberation and self-determination for the Egyptian people. This false Zionist
idol equates Israel’s security with the Egyptian dictatorship and client
states.”
Zionism and genocide
Likewise, Klein spoke about the genocidal nature of the
Zionist project against the people of Palestine and its immoral essence, saying
that Zionism “produced an ugly type of freedom that viewed Palestinian
children, not as human beings, but as a demographic threat, just as the Pharaoh
in the Book of Exodus feared the increasing population.” Of the children of
Israel, and therefore ordered the killing of their children. Zionism has
brought us to the present moment of catastrophe, and it is time to say clearly:
it always leads us here. “It is a false idol that has led many of our people
down a very immoral path, making them now justified in tearing up the basic
commandments: Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not covet.”
She also called for protest and the Jews’ exit from Zionism,
just as they left Pharaonic captivity, and to disavow the Zionist entity and
its crimes, saying: “We, in these streets for months and months, are the exit.
Leaving Zionism. It is a false idol that equates Jewish freedom with cluster
bombs that kill and maim Palestinian children. Zionism is a false idol that has
betrayed all Jewish values, including the value we place on asking questions.
“It is a practice rooted in Easter with its four questions asked by the
youngest child, including the love we have as a people for text and teaching.”
She added: “Today, this false idol justifies the bombing of every university in Gaza. The destruction of countless schools, archives, and printing presses;
Hundreds of academics, journalists and poets were killed. This is what the
Palestinians call educational genocide, that is, killing the means of
education.”
No to an ethnic Jewish state
“Meanwhile, in this city,” Klein continued, “universities
are calling in the NYPD and barricading themselves against the dangerous threat
posed by their students who dare to ask them basic questions, like: How can you
claim to believe in anything at all, least of all of us, when you By enabling,
investing in, and cooperating with this genocide? “The false idol of Zionism
has been allowed to grow unchecked for too long.” She added: “So we say
tonight: It all ends here.” Our Judaism cannot contain an ethnic state, because
our Judaism is international in nature. Our Judaism cannot be protected by the
rampaging military establishment of that (ethnic) state, because all the army
does is sow sadness and reap hatred, including against us as Jews,” noting that
“our Judaism is not threatened by people who raise their voices in solidarity
with Palestine. Crossing lines of race, ethnicity, physical ability, gender
identity and generations. Our Judaism is one of those voices, and it knows that
in this chorus of voices lies our collective safety and liberation.”
Klein added, “Our Judaism is Passover Judaism: gathering in
celebration to share food and wine with loved ones and strangers alike, a
ritual that is portable by nature, light enough to carry on our backs, and we
need nothing but each other: no walls, no temple, no Rabbi, there is a role for
everyone, even - especially - the youngest children.” He considered that “the
Passover Seder is a diaspora technology if there is one, and it is designed for
collective grief, contemplation, asking questions, remembering, and reviving
the revolutionary spirit.” So, look around. This, here, is our Judaism. While
the waters rise and the forests burn and nothing is certain, we pray on the
altar of solidarity and mutual assistance, whatever the cost.”
Liberation of Judaism
Klein added: “We do not need or want the false idol of
Zionism.” We want freedom from the project that commits genocide in our name.
Freedom from an ideology that has no plan for peace other than dealing with the
murderous theocratic petro-states next door, while selling automated
assassination techniques to the world. We seek to liberate Judaism from the
ethno-state that wants Jews to feel perpetual fear, wants our children to be
afraid, wants us to believe that the world is against us, so that we run to its
fortress and under its iron dome, or - at the very least - to keep the weapons
and donations flowing. That is a false idol.” According to Klein, the matter is
not limited to “Netanyahu only, but the world that created it and created it:
it is Zionism,” asking, “Who are we?” We, in these streets for months and
months, are getting out… Leaving Zionism. And to the likes of the Chuck
Schumers of this world, we do not say: “Let our people come out (from the
captivity of Zionism).” Rather, we say: We have already left. And your
children? They are with us now.” Exit statement finished.
Resuming the battle against Zionism
The United States witnessed a decisive battle between Reform
Judaism and the Zionist project, fought by the American Council for Judaism
(the organization of observant American Jews) under the slogan that Jews are
not a nationality but a religious group, and that it is necessary to revive the
principles of Reform Judaism, whose rabbis have opposed Zionism since before
World War First, they supported equal rights for Jews in the countries in which
they lived. This battle was led by Elmer Berger (1908-1996), the Reform Jewish
rabbi and writer, emancipated from Zionist thought, and who stood against
Zionist intellectual terrorism. He contributed to the establishment and
leadership of the “American Council of Judaism” with the aim of confronting the
establishment of the Zionist state, because it does not represent all Jews in
any national or political sense. He devoted his life, efforts, and writings to
the issue of Palestine and opposing Zionism, exposing its claims, and warning
Jews of its myths and dangers.
It is worth mentioning here that the United States, under
the administration of Harry Truman, was the first country in the world to
recognize the Zionist state, five minutes after announcing its establishment on
May 15, 1948. On that day, everyone thought that Rabbi Elmer Berger and Reform
Judaism had been defeated and had lost their battle against Zionism once and
for all. But one who contemplates the statement of the Jewish “exit” from
Zionism and the repudiation of the “settlement wheel,” in the heart of New
York, as well as the popular movement across religions, generations, and races
in the streets of the Western Metropolitan and its ancient universities, which
was launched by the “Al-Aqsa Flood,” sees the resumption of Rabbi Elmer
Berger’s battle against Zionism. The battle is not over, but is being fought
with greater energy, broader horizons, and greater momentum.
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