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Lag ba-Omer’s Zionist Rebirth

Today the minor holiday of Lag ba-Omer is being celebrated in Israel with picnics, bonfires, and pilgrimages to Mount Meron in the Galilee, the purported burial place of the 2nd-century sage Simon bar Yoḥai. While this holiday, which marks the 33rd day between Passover and Shavuot, is ancient, its exact origins remain something of a mystery to historians and rabbinic scholars alike. One possible interpretation, which gained prominence only in the wake of the Jews’ return to Israel, connects it to the failed anti-Roman rebellion of Simon bar Kokhba in 132-35 BCE, which was the last credible attempt to restore Jewish sovereignty by force of arms prior to 1948. Eli Kavon writes:

With the founding of the state of Israel, it is fascinating how Simon bar Kokhba has become the epitome of heroism. Rabbinic views of bar Kokhba are critical of this military leader, [seen by some rabbis as] a failed messiah [and] the source of great suffering. That negative assessment of bar Kokhba endured for 1,800 years.

While messianic activism has many dangers, of which bar Kokhba should be a reminder, the Zionist movement has actually done history a great service by rehabilitating this military leader. Indeed, while his revolt was eventually crushed, it was a success for two years and caused great loss and suffering to the Roman empire’s best legions.

Bonfires and field days are the perfect antidote to a malignant understanding of that rebellion solely as a failed messianic adventure that was doomed from the start.

Read more at Jerusalem Post

More about: Bar-Kokhba, Israel & Zionism, Jewish holidays, Lag ba'Omer, Religion & Holidays

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic