Sometime during World War I, the story goes, a Jew lost his way along the Austro-Hungarian frontier. Wandering through the woods at night, he was suddenly stunned by the screaming challenge of a border-guard: “Halt, or I’ll shoot.” The Jew blinked uncomfortably into the beam of the searchlight and replied. “What’s the matter with you? Are you crazy? Can’t you see that this is a human being?”

The Jew’s behavior, utterly sensible in principle, is nonetheless preposterous in the existing world. Surely, in the best of all possible worlds, no human being could ever imagine shooting another of his own species, one also created in the Divine image. Yet, this is hardly the best of all worlds, and in the present predatory situation the overriding sameness of human beings is scarcely ever noticed. In this situation the most insignificant differences are often elevated above all commonalities and “craziness” lies in rejecting such elevations.

How shall we survive in such a distorted world? Shall we all simply join in to approve the inversion of sane behavior? And must we join in collectively as well as individually, as states as well as persons?

These questions are especially problematic for Jews and the Jewish State. Wishing always that the non-Jewish world will fully acknowledge his or her fundamental humanity, the individual Jew has hoped for at least would emerge. Similarly, since 1948, the State of Israel has tried, again and again and Agni, to impress its hostile Arab neighbors with the cosmopolitan vision of a shared humanity. Sadly, anti-Semitism is now resurgent thought the world, and hatred of Israel – the individual Jew in macrocosm – is virulent, widespread and one the rise.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 1st, 2002 and is filed under opinion.