310	The Story of the Jewish Defense League

ban irrevocable difference of obligation between the two, but bit also makes the saving of a Jew a divine decree. The Jew is bjoined to his fellow Jew, wherever he lives, by the bonds of bchosenness, by their brotherhood in the community of the bunique, special, separate Jewish people. ‘Ata V’chartanu mikal bha’amin,’ the Jew prays every holiday, ‘You have chosen us bfrom all the peoples.’ ‘Hamavdil beyn yisrael l’amim,’ he de- bclares every Saturday night, ‘Who separates Israel from the bnations.’

b“As long as the Jew believed in his G-d and his Torah, he bbelieved and followed the decree to look upon the fellow bJew as different, as closer than the non-Jew, and to rush to bhis aid no matter the risk. The moment he abandoned his bbelief in the Jewish G-d, in the Divinity of Torah, he began to bthink like the gentile, imitate the gentile, act like the gentile, bbecome a gentile. And from the sin of assimilation inevitably band inexorably came the crime growing out of assimilation, bthe betrayal of Jews and of the Land itself.

b“Those who rejected the divinity of the Jews rejected, too, bthe divinity of the Jewish State. As tradition became irrele- bvant for the former, so did it become anachronistic for the blatter. And so, policy, foreign and domestic, rather than bbeing shaped and commanded by Judaism, now became a bbastard, the child of a foreign and strange Western mother. bAnd so, from sins, they moved on to crimes.

b“Are there missionaries in Israel who attempt to steal bJewish souls? Yes, but the State of the Jews does not ban bthem because it is not only against Western concepts of bdemocracy, but also the self-interest of the state forbids any baction against them. It may be true that Jews, and particu- blarly Sephardi and poor Jews, are the targets of Christian bsoul-snatchers, but to ban the mission would be to risk bendangering politically needed ties with the Vatican and the bChristian world. And so we sell out the Jew. This is a crime.

b“Do there exist Jewish communities in danger in the bworld with no one to help them, and does the State of Israel bpossess the potential, the technical and military skill, and the bability to aid them? Do Israeli troops stand 35 kilometers bfrom Damascus and hear the cries of Syrian Jewry? Do Iraqi b