The Dangerous Idea That One Government Speaks for All Jews (Part 1 of the Uninvited Series)

When people criticize the Chinese government, they do not generally hold Chinese-Americans responsible.

When Russia invades a neighboring country, few people assume that every Russian living abroad supports the decision.

When the United States goes to war, most people understand that Americans overseas are not personally accountable for every action of Washington.

Yet when it comes to Israel, a different standard often applies.

Again and again, when Israel is involved in a military conflict, political controversy, or diplomatic dispute, Jewish communities thousands of miles away find themselves under pressure. Synagogues receive threats. Jewish students are confronted on university campuses. Jewish businesses are vandalized. Ordinary Jews are asked to defend policies they had no role in creating and don't even support.

Why does this happen?

Many people assume the answer is simple: anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism certainly plays a role. Hatred of Jews existed long before the State of Israel was founded and would continue to exist even if Israel disappeared tomorrow.

But there is another factor that receives far less attention.

For more than a century, Zionist leaders have promoted the idea that Israel is not merely a country with a Jewish majority. They have presented it as the state of the Jewish people, the representative of Jews everywhere, and the political expression of Jewish identity itself. Critics of Zionism, including many Orthodox Jews, warned from the very beginning that this idea would have dangerous consequences. If the world came to see Israel (falsely) as the embodiment of world Jewry, then Jews everywhere would inevitably be judged by Israel's actions.

The problem was not merely theoretical. If a government claims to speak on behalf of millions of people around the world, then outsiders will naturally assume those people share responsibility for what that government does.

That assumption may be unfair, but it is predictable. Imagine a government declaring itself the official state of all Christians everywhere. Suppose it announced that Christians living in France, Brazil, Nigeria, and the United States were all part of a single political nation represented by that government. What would happen when that government went to war? What would happen when it made controversial decisions? How long would it take before people began blaming Christians worldwide?

The same question applies to any religious or ethnic group. The moment a government claims to represent a global population, the distinction between that government and that population begins to blur.

Many Jewish opponents of Zionism believed this would happen with Israel long before the state was even established. They feared that Jews would increasingly be viewed not as loyal citizens of their own countries, but as members of a political nation headquartered elsewhere. Anti-Semites would use Jewish nationalism (Zionism) as evidence that Jews were a separate people whose loyalties lay outside their countries of residence. Those concerns were voiced not only by Orthodox rabbis but also by many non-Orthodox Jewish leaders in Europe and America.

Whether one agrees with those warnings or not, it is difficult to deny that the phenomenon they feared exists today.

When conflict erupts in the Middle East, anti-Jewish incidents frequently rise in countries that have no direct connection to the fighting. Jewish communities in Europe, North America, and elsewhere often find themselves dealing with consequences generated by events occurring thousands of miles away. The individuals targeted may have no connection to Israel whatsoever. They may never have visited Israel. They may even oppose the existence of the state of Israel. Yet they are treated as representatives of Israel simply because they are Jews.

This reaction makes little logical sense.

A Jewish shopkeeper in London does not control Israeli military policy.

A Jewish doctor in Paris does not determine Israeli foreign policy.

A Jewish student in New York does not decide where Israeli troops are deployed.

Yet all three may find themselves treated as though they do.

The problem becomes even more complicated because many people, including many Jews, assume that criticism of Israel and criticism of Jews are the same thing. They are not.

Governments are not peoples.

States are not religions.

Political movements are not identical to the communities they claim to represent.

One can oppose the policies of the Chinese government without hating Chinese people. One can criticize the government of Saudi Arabia without hating Muslims. One can object to American foreign policy without hating Americans.

The same principle applies to Israel. A person may support Israeli policies, oppose Israeli policies, or hold a mixture of views. None of those positions justifies hostility toward Jews as Jews.

In fact, many Orthodox Jewish critics of Zionism argue that the very tendency to merge Jews and Israel into a single entity is itself part of the problem. Judaism is a religion, a civilization, and a covenant that existed for thousands of years before the modern State of Israel. From their perspective, treating a contemporary government as the representative of all Jews distorts both Judaism and reality.

You do not need to share that theological outlook to appreciate the practical concern.

When a government claims to speak for an entire people, members of that people may find themselves carrying burdens they never chose.

When that government is praised, they are expected to celebrate.

When it is condemned, they are expected to apologize.

When it goes to war, they are treated as participants.

When it makes enemies, those enemies often become theirs.

The result is a situation in which ordinary individuals become symbols of political struggles they did not create and cannot control.

Perhaps the most important lesson is also the simplest. A government should be judged by its actions. Individuals should be judged by theirs. The moment we forget that distinction, justice becomes impossible.

And when that distinction disappears, minorities are usually the first to suffer.