THE SCHMUCKS LOST

Good news (from Reuters):

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday delayed a decision on bitterly contested plans for a judicial overhaul until next month amid fears that Israel's worst national crisis in years could fracture his coalition or escalate into violence.

It was unclear how far the bill's delay to the next parliamentary session, announced by far-right coalition partner Jewish Power, will satisfy either side or cool a crisis the army chief said on Monday made "this hour different to any before".

I’ve told the story before, of my graduate school friend, the Israeli Sabra infantry officer who commanded a platoon in the company that liberated the Wailing Wall in the ‘67 war, how he heard his commander pray “Help us, God, we won .”

That’s been the central issue for Israel for the past 55 years.

It’s so complicated, and so divisive, that a good friend of mine whose Substack you all read, said this past Saturday that the topic he doesn’t bring up at his Substack is this one, because it divides rather than unifies. That’s certainly why it hasn’t come up often here.

Ever since that Rabbi came to my church camp that summer in 1958 and told us the story of the holocaust, and how confronting that reality was the event that made him who and what he was, a Rabbi dedicated to taking the truth to the Gentiles, I’ve found in the years since that most of the people I’ve been allied with in the political battles to get justice for all turn out to be “members of the Tribe.” That’s not a coincidence.

In my own review of religions that all unbelievers go through to prove to themselves that Unbelief is the proper response to the baloney, I came to see there was one religion that was more founded on the struggle for Justice for All, a struggle involving coming to an understanding of just what that term means and what it requires of one who believes in it, understanding what ethics are, rather than worrying about any afterlife, is Judaism. So it’s been no surprise that where people are fighting for these things, one always finds Jews among those most committed to the struggle.

Which is also what has made the past 55 years difficult, watching the government of Israel and so many Israelis so often lose sight of that central truth. I had to keep remembering a comment by a fellow screenwriter friend, a Member in Good Standing of the tribe, describing the “Hollywood Jews”: “They’re just schmucks with Jewish names.”

Which has certainly been a good way to view Benjamin Netanyahu over the past 33 years, and his allies - the man who so obviously puts his own interests above those of the country he claims to lead. All of them - Schmucks with Jewish names. Unfortunately, over the past 30 years - the Intifadas, the assassination of Rabin, the rise of the American religious nutcases in their settlements in the West Bank, and everything else - it’s been easy to think the Schmucks were winning the battle for the soul of the country founded on a passionate belief in Justice for All.

And that is why this morning has felt so good to read and see the news. Tell me another country where 5% of the country’s population would go into the streets to affirm their belief in Justice for All, and their commitment to acting on that belief. Certainly not here!

A nationwide general strike has shut down everything. In the cause of Justice for All.

Israeli embassies around the world are closed in solidarity with the strike.

The Army’s joined the people.

Nitwityahoo’s attempt to organize counter-demonstrations by the Settler Loonies is failing.

The Schmucks have been forced to back down. Maybe further than they think they have.

All those issues of how Israel creates a society in which there really is Justice for All are still there, they haven’t gone away, and these events won’t change that. But another thing I learned in understanding the thirst for Justice for All is that it’s a struggle that will never have an end. There is no heaven - on earth or anywhere else - where all is resolved. The struggle will always continue, because we will always be humans.

And so today I wish good luck to the people who have come out and reminded us of that truth.

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