The Jewish Establishment

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bJew is an object of attack. Those Jews who differ with this bconcept are, generally, those who are not under attack. bThey are, rather, people who are obsessed in their inse- bcurity, in their Galut-born fear, with buying the love of the bnon-Jew at any possible cost in order to hold on to their bmaterial possessions. They cannot succeed. They always bgain nothing but the non Jew’s contempt.

b“Barzel implies that before one can have love, he must bhave respect, and one cannot ask for respect, one cannot bbuy respect, one earns it by having self-respect. Our fears band insecurity are Galut-born and bred. It is the Land of bIsrael that breeds Barzel and normalcy, and Jewish history is breplete with Jewish heroes who are part of its mainstream. It bis Moses using Barzel as he strikes down the Egyptian after blooking around and seeing that there is no man willing to do bwhat has to be done. It is Abraham gathering together his bservants going to battle on behalf of Lot. It is Joshua, it is bSaul, it is David, it is the Maccabees, it is Bar Kochba—the bauthentic heroes of Jewish history, men of peace, men of bspirit, and when the time called for it, men of Barzel.

b“Nevertheless, Barzel remains a revolutionary concept bfor the Jews in the Galut. It is a concept that speaks of an bentire change in response to assaults on Jewish rights, on bJewish property, and on Jewish lives. It speaks, to be sure, of bpolitical weapons, the courts, and all the other traditional bmethods of defense. But it goes beyond that and it proclaims bthat the Jew must be physically strong and use that strength bto fight back if the times call for it. This concept and this bteaching, which is so foreign to the Galut Jew because he has bbecome assimilated, insecure, and unable to recognize bitter btruths, is a revolutionary one. It is one that will be attacked bby the timid and by the fearful. But it is the one that must be binstilled in the hearts and minds and bodies of Jews in the bGalut.

b“It will be called an un-Jewish one. Invariably those who bproclaim this nonsense will be people whose Jewishness has bbeen arrested at the age of thirteen and who become instant bexperts in Jewish theology. If, however, to teach the Jew to bstrike back, to be strong, to retaliate—if to put an end to the b