Yoram Hazony is a Jewish political philosopher who created the influential National Conservatism movement. Now he wonders why some fellow travelers on the Right no longer want to work with a Jew.
I have come to understand that Christianity is a spinoff (if I may) of Judaism. Jesus was a Rabbi who wanted to mix it up. He is important to me as part of my story.
I grew up Jehovah’s Witness and was “catechized” with a book titled Listening to the Great Teacher. The cover was Peptobismol pink and was for young kids. Another one was My Book of Bible Stories. Mustard yellow and for younger kids.
As a young adult, I left the messianic apocalyptic sect and began to explore Judaism. I ended up Roman Catholic on the advice of a Rabbi I met at The University of Chicago Hillel center (he said I was never going to resolve my Jesus question—he wasn’t wrong).
It was a few years later that I was introduced to the teachings of Luigi Giussani after becoming RC.
I absolutely reject replacement theory. The Jews will always be the particular people chosen by G-d and given the Torah. Was Jesus the Messiah or just a great teacher who ended up being sacrificed because there was an upheaval in first century Palestine and Pilate wanted to get rid of the problem and get Caiphas and the very divided Sanhedrin off his back? I don’t know.
Among Evangelicals there is the famous phrase he was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. I am beginning to think there may be other options to choose from.
I just know I am grateful for the Hebrew Bible. Grateful for the existence of a people who have lived in the Middle East for almost four thousand years with a connection to a place whose ground you can kiss when you land.
The only coalition I want to be a part of is the coalition of being a seeker of Mystery with other seekers of Mystery.
You have a fascinating backstory, Emerald. Thanks so much for sharing it. And fwiw -- I love when Jehovah's Witnesses ring my doorbell. They're interesting, engaged, well-versed, and extraordinarily brave. Most strangers who appear on my doorstep want to sell me something or get me to sign a petition. The JWs want to change my worldview. At a time when we're inundated with so much noise and nonsense, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a sign that the Big Questions still matter.
"I absolutely reject replacement theory." >> So do I (as you know). The challenge is how to make sense of these traditions and sustain their narrative power without diluting them into a meaningless mush.
"Among Evangelicals, there is the famous phrase he was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. I am beginning to think there may be other options to choose from." >> Me, too.
Emerald, I have been a seeker of Mystery my entire life and walked wherever I felt a resonance from within. Sometimes it still surprises me to have ended up back, not to the stale Reform Judaism I left in the early 70’s, but to a living Heritage that not only resonates but positively GLOWS fiercely and with passion. It took a lifetime to walk into living Judaism emanating from and calling me back to Eretz Yisrael and the glorious People to whom I now, at long last, finally belong. Shabbat Shalom, dear friend!
Mr. Hazony, it can happen everywhere, where people don´t think on their own, instead of "as a part of" a "party", an ideology, a religion, a nation, a "direction" ... after all you have studied and learned, how you could you miss out on learning this, and "be disappointed" ?
Does he live is Israel? I understand the coalition of the political right and Jews. What I don’t understand is what you mean by he can’t finish the story? What is his story?
Uh oh... Not sure how to handle these expectations! Also, I love when Ehud references Jaws. You can take the guy out of Martha's Vineyard, but you can't take Martha's Vineyard out of the guy. :-)
"Does [Yoram] live in Israel"? >> Yes. In Jerusalem, I think. Nine kids.
Re: "he can't finish the story" --> Based on what I've read and what Yoram told me, he considers the Ingathering to be part of The Story. So do I, of course. There is something miraculous about the existence of a third Jewish commonwealth, and he & I both believe this is a Biblically-based, narratively driven miracle. For Yoram (and for Ehud, I think), the Story demands that all the Jews in the Diaspora "come home." That the Diaspora is dying, and that the only future for Jews is in Israel.
What interests me most is what each of us does next. Yoram has decided that his mission in life is to travel around the West telling lapsed Christians to read their Bibles, and faithful Christians to grab the reins of political power. His National Conservatism movement is all about bringing the Bible into the public square and making Christendom great again. His particular fixation is with the Anglo-American legal tradition; the United States and the U.K. are the hinge points in Western history, he believes. And that if Western civilization is going to be saved, the first order of business is to bring the Bible to Washington and London.
What puzzles me is why an Orthodox Jew is doing this. Last time I checked, not one of the 613 mitzvot says: 'Tell Christians to read their Bibles, and travel the West to energize the Christian Nationalist movement.' I didn't think Orthodox Jews were supposed to hector the Gentiles. I thought Jews are supposed to set an example, to be a light unto the nations.
When I say Hazony can't finish the Story, I mean that he can't connect the dots of history in a way that leaves room for Diaspora Jews like me. Per Yoram, we're all supposed to make aliyah... and then the Bible makes a big comeback in the West... and everyone is going to church... and 7 million Diaspora Jews resettle in Judea and Samaria... and... then what? Yoram is clearly motivated by a vision of how the next few years or decades should unfold, but I don't see where his vision takes us. What happens to all the Muslims in Europe, for example? Forced repatriation? The Palestinians -- where do they go? And even if everyone in the West rediscovers Christ, where does that leave Israel? The Jewish state is surrounded by two billion Muslims, many of whom are hostile. What resolves that conflict? .... Also: Yoram is hoping and praying that the Christianity he is reviving will have great affection for Zionism; that the nation-state of Israel will be embraced as the Church's older brother, and that the West will stand with the Jews. But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that a reborn Western Church could very easily say: To hell with Israel. If you listen closely, you can hear those voices right now.
The main reason I'm wary of Hazony's strategy is that the changes he envisions will make his "ingathering of ALL the exiles" a self-fulfilling prophecy. That a Western Christianity might turn (once again) against its Jewish neighbors, and make life so unpleasant that we have no choice but to make aliyah. I'd get on the El Al plane and mutter to myself about what a schmuck Hazony is -- intentionally salting the earth to make my life in the United States untenable.
What's the alternative? More Emerald. If I'm reading you right, you're standing somewhere between Rome and Jerusalem, with one eye on Athens. That, I think, is a meaningful, hopeful, and productive place to be. And me? I'm standing between Maryland, Athens, and Jerusalem, wondering why Yoram Hazony wants to turn my life upside down.
My Story says: After 2,000 years, we've returned to Jerusalem. The Israeli flag has been raised over the Old City, and now we stand together, stuck between the Wall and a hard place. Now what? ... Put another way: If the *complete* ingathering of the Jews will usher in some Messianic age, then the Israeli rabbinate can hasten that day by declaring that all us Diaspora Jews are not really Jews at all. That we've all been excommunicated like Spinoza. Which means that with a stroke of the pen, the rabbis can declare that The Ingathering is finally complete! Hallelujah! What's next -- the Third Temple? The return of the priesthood and a resumption of animal sacrifices?
The problem with the Jewish-Noahide dualism is that it turns 8 billion people into a sideshow, into the supporting cast. The genius of Jesus (and Muhammed) was to encourage more people to get out of their seats, get on stage, and speak up. With Christianity and Islam also in the spotlight, everyone gets to be a player, everyone is essential to the Plot. To shut the door of History at Sinai or Calvary strikes me as shortsighted. My G*d is bigger than that.
The introduction to Chaim Potok’s _Wanderings_ which I started only this morning says:
“How is it that after almost four thousand years of tense, fructifying, and often violent culture confrontation—with ancient paganism, with Greece and Rome, with Christianity and Islam, and, for the past two hundred years, with modern secularism—how is it that after all this, Jews still exist and are still—as I am here— attempting to understand and interpret their history?”
Re-read the message two more times. If Hazony thinks that Christendom is going to somehow be swayed as a collective to support Israel, I believe he is going to be very disappointed. We Christians are a shifty bunch.
We are divided into a myriad sectarian movements on the Protestant side of the aisle. The RC church stands behind the Chair of Saint Peter and hopes to hold itself together until the second coming of Christ—given what I see, good luck with that. And I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the Orthodox (Christians).
The JWs believe that they are the remnant. Persuading all people to worship Jehovah will keep them from being vulture fodder at Megiddo. When I walked away, all I could think was there are good people everywhere. I want to find those good people and stand with them.
I still feel this way. But the bad people get in the way. I focus my attention on the bad people and forget that there are good people. Lots of good people.
And yet, I am with Ehud and the need to lock and load so while I am in search of the good, the bad can be contained (until it can’t be like that poor family of mother and daughters that I learned about reading Ehud and the kibbutzim on 10/7).
I want to believe this is possible:
"It is necessary that the heroic becomes daily and that the daily becomes heroic." (attributed to JPII)
But political alliances seem to bring more division. It is never ending and I am tired. But I won’t give up. I can’t even when I try.
Thanks again for an interesting article, Alan. Please forgive me, but I'm gonna get all etymology on you here for a second... I think I understand better now the heart of what you've been getting at all along, but I suspect your categories aren't quite right here, the place where you seem to have started.
I have heard a provocative and compelling thesis lately (was it Tom Holland?) that the word "Jew" itself is actually a historically new word, a product of Christianity itself (also, the word "Moslem" and the word "Hindoo").
When you think about it, by all these different "religions" (religio's) accepting the christian categorization of them, in a sense, could not one argue that the effort to find peace between "religions" is ultimately hopeless, cuz we don't all acknowledge how our "identities" are actual christian-forged? In this sense, if we speak of "religions" and "jews", are we not all tacitly admitting that we are all Christian in a sense (including you)?
It’s like Yoram hasn’t read Hannah Arendt, but that can’t possibly be true. His “these guys are totally normal” is Arendt’s “banality of evil” .
I’m glad I only learned of his existence in Ezra Klein’s interview because I would have been as alarmed as you & felt helpless to stop the obvious end game of his nationalism.
He decries “blood and soil”, but he also decries that a Constitution and shared underlying belief in democracy can bind a people, too. It bound Americans until vlad the butcher & the don the would-be 🌞 king started destroying minds online & at rallies.
One more thing, a question: I’m noticing that more than one Israeli doesn’t seem to give a fuck about diaspora Jews. Yoram is one and a Tzlil Berko is another. She started spewing incitement against the US left before Kirk’s killer was turned in and i wrote a strongly worded request for her to knock it off, explaining that I’m a Zionist, liberal Jew who spends an inordinate amount of time defending Israel. I said there are plenty more like me & that she was inciting violence against the JewFam w/o even knowing who did it or why.
She responded with a nasty, “I stand by every word.”
Do you see this, too? Do Israelis only like American Jews for what we can do for them, but have no desire to reciprocate? I’m really troubled.
I have come to understand that Christianity is a spinoff (if I may) of Judaism. Jesus was a Rabbi who wanted to mix it up. He is important to me as part of my story.
I grew up Jehovah’s Witness and was “catechized” with a book titled Listening to the Great Teacher. The cover was Peptobismol pink and was for young kids. Another one was My Book of Bible Stories. Mustard yellow and for younger kids.
As a young adult, I left the messianic apocalyptic sect and began to explore Judaism. I ended up Roman Catholic on the advice of a Rabbi I met at The University of Chicago Hillel center (he said I was never going to resolve my Jesus question—he wasn’t wrong).
It was a few years later that I was introduced to the teachings of Luigi Giussani after becoming RC.
I absolutely reject replacement theory. The Jews will always be the particular people chosen by G-d and given the Torah. Was Jesus the Messiah or just a great teacher who ended up being sacrificed because there was an upheaval in first century Palestine and Pilate wanted to get rid of the problem and get Caiphas and the very divided Sanhedrin off his back? I don’t know.
Among Evangelicals there is the famous phrase he was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. I am beginning to think there may be other options to choose from.
I just know I am grateful for the Hebrew Bible. Grateful for the existence of a people who have lived in the Middle East for almost four thousand years with a connection to a place whose ground you can kiss when you land.
The only coalition I want to be a part of is the coalition of being a seeker of Mystery with other seekers of Mystery.
Shabbat Shalom my fellow seeker.
You have a fascinating backstory, Emerald. Thanks so much for sharing it. And fwiw -- I love when Jehovah's Witnesses ring my doorbell. They're interesting, engaged, well-versed, and extraordinarily brave. Most strangers who appear on my doorstep want to sell me something or get me to sign a petition. The JWs want to change my worldview. At a time when we're inundated with so much noise and nonsense, the Jehovah's Witnesses are a sign that the Big Questions still matter.
"I absolutely reject replacement theory." >> So do I (as you know). The challenge is how to make sense of these traditions and sustain their narrative power without diluting them into a meaningless mush.
"Among Evangelicals, there is the famous phrase he was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. I am beginning to think there may be other options to choose from." >> Me, too.
Emerald, I have been a seeker of Mystery my entire life and walked wherever I felt a resonance from within. Sometimes it still surprises me to have ended up back, not to the stale Reform Judaism I left in the early 70’s, but to a living Heritage that not only resonates but positively GLOWS fiercely and with passion. It took a lifetime to walk into living Judaism emanating from and calling me back to Eretz Yisrael and the glorious People to whom I now, at long last, finally belong. Shabbat Shalom, dear friend!
Mr. Hazony, it can happen everywhere, where people don´t think on their own, instead of "as a part of" a "party", an ideology, a religion, a nation, a "direction" ... after all you have studied and learned, how you could you miss out on learning this, and "be disappointed" ?
Does he live is Israel? I understand the coalition of the political right and Jews. What I don’t understand is what you mean by he can’t finish the story? What is his story?
Ha! With a question like that to Alan you are going to need a bigger boat!
I know. I can’t wait. Batting down the hatches.
Uh oh... Not sure how to handle these expectations! Also, I love when Ehud references Jaws. You can take the guy out of Martha's Vineyard, but you can't take Martha's Vineyard out of the guy. :-)
"Does [Yoram] live in Israel"? >> Yes. In Jerusalem, I think. Nine kids.
Re: "he can't finish the story" --> Based on what I've read and what Yoram told me, he considers the Ingathering to be part of The Story. So do I, of course. There is something miraculous about the existence of a third Jewish commonwealth, and he & I both believe this is a Biblically-based, narratively driven miracle. For Yoram (and for Ehud, I think), the Story demands that all the Jews in the Diaspora "come home." That the Diaspora is dying, and that the only future for Jews is in Israel.
What interests me most is what each of us does next. Yoram has decided that his mission in life is to travel around the West telling lapsed Christians to read their Bibles, and faithful Christians to grab the reins of political power. His National Conservatism movement is all about bringing the Bible into the public square and making Christendom great again. His particular fixation is with the Anglo-American legal tradition; the United States and the U.K. are the hinge points in Western history, he believes. And that if Western civilization is going to be saved, the first order of business is to bring the Bible to Washington and London.
What puzzles me is why an Orthodox Jew is doing this. Last time I checked, not one of the 613 mitzvot says: 'Tell Christians to read their Bibles, and travel the West to energize the Christian Nationalist movement.' I didn't think Orthodox Jews were supposed to hector the Gentiles. I thought Jews are supposed to set an example, to be a light unto the nations.
When I say Hazony can't finish the Story, I mean that he can't connect the dots of history in a way that leaves room for Diaspora Jews like me. Per Yoram, we're all supposed to make aliyah... and then the Bible makes a big comeback in the West... and everyone is going to church... and 7 million Diaspora Jews resettle in Judea and Samaria... and... then what? Yoram is clearly motivated by a vision of how the next few years or decades should unfold, but I don't see where his vision takes us. What happens to all the Muslims in Europe, for example? Forced repatriation? The Palestinians -- where do they go? And even if everyone in the West rediscovers Christ, where does that leave Israel? The Jewish state is surrounded by two billion Muslims, many of whom are hostile. What resolves that conflict? .... Also: Yoram is hoping and praying that the Christianity he is reviving will have great affection for Zionism; that the nation-state of Israel will be embraced as the Church's older brother, and that the West will stand with the Jews. But there's plenty of evidence to suggest that a reborn Western Church could very easily say: To hell with Israel. If you listen closely, you can hear those voices right now.
The main reason I'm wary of Hazony's strategy is that the changes he envisions will make his "ingathering of ALL the exiles" a self-fulfilling prophecy. That a Western Christianity might turn (once again) against its Jewish neighbors, and make life so unpleasant that we have no choice but to make aliyah. I'd get on the El Al plane and mutter to myself about what a schmuck Hazony is -- intentionally salting the earth to make my life in the United States untenable.
What's the alternative? More Emerald. If I'm reading you right, you're standing somewhere between Rome and Jerusalem, with one eye on Athens. That, I think, is a meaningful, hopeful, and productive place to be. And me? I'm standing between Maryland, Athens, and Jerusalem, wondering why Yoram Hazony wants to turn my life upside down.
My Story says: After 2,000 years, we've returned to Jerusalem. The Israeli flag has been raised over the Old City, and now we stand together, stuck between the Wall and a hard place. Now what? ... Put another way: If the *complete* ingathering of the Jews will usher in some Messianic age, then the Israeli rabbinate can hasten that day by declaring that all us Diaspora Jews are not really Jews at all. That we've all been excommunicated like Spinoza. Which means that with a stroke of the pen, the rabbis can declare that The Ingathering is finally complete! Hallelujah! What's next -- the Third Temple? The return of the priesthood and a resumption of animal sacrifices?
The problem with the Jewish-Noahide dualism is that it turns 8 billion people into a sideshow, into the supporting cast. The genius of Jesus (and Muhammed) was to encourage more people to get out of their seats, get on stage, and speak up. With Christianity and Islam also in the spotlight, everyone gets to be a player, everyone is essential to the Plot. To shut the door of History at Sinai or Calvary strikes me as shortsighted. My G*d is bigger than that.
Read your message and need to re-read it.
The introduction to Chaim Potok’s _Wanderings_ which I started only this morning says:
“How is it that after almost four thousand years of tense, fructifying, and often violent culture confrontation—with ancient paganism, with Greece and Rome, with Christianity and Islam, and, for the past two hundred years, with modern secularism—how is it that after all this, Jews still exist and are still—as I am here— attempting to understand and interpret their history?”
Excellent question. My answer: It's an amazing (his)Story, among the greatest ever told.
Re-read the message two more times. If Hazony thinks that Christendom is going to somehow be swayed as a collective to support Israel, I believe he is going to be very disappointed. We Christians are a shifty bunch.
We are divided into a myriad sectarian movements on the Protestant side of the aisle. The RC church stands behind the Chair of Saint Peter and hopes to hold itself together until the second coming of Christ—given what I see, good luck with that. And I can’t even begin to wrap my head around the Orthodox (Christians).
The JWs believe that they are the remnant. Persuading all people to worship Jehovah will keep them from being vulture fodder at Megiddo. When I walked away, all I could think was there are good people everywhere. I want to find those good people and stand with them.
I still feel this way. But the bad people get in the way. I focus my attention on the bad people and forget that there are good people. Lots of good people.
And yet, I am with Ehud and the need to lock and load so while I am in search of the good, the bad can be contained (until it can’t be like that poor family of mother and daughters that I learned about reading Ehud and the kibbutzim on 10/7).
I want to believe this is possible:
"It is necessary that the heroic becomes daily and that the daily becomes heroic." (attributed to JPII)
But political alliances seem to bring more division. It is never ending and I am tired. But I won’t give up. I can’t even when I try.
Thanks again for an interesting article, Alan. Please forgive me, but I'm gonna get all etymology on you here for a second... I think I understand better now the heart of what you've been getting at all along, but I suspect your categories aren't quite right here, the place where you seem to have started.
I have heard a provocative and compelling thesis lately (was it Tom Holland?) that the word "Jew" itself is actually a historically new word, a product of Christianity itself (also, the word "Moslem" and the word "Hindoo").
When you think about it, by all these different "religions" (religio's) accepting the christian categorization of them, in a sense, could not one argue that the effort to find peace between "religions" is ultimately hopeless, cuz we don't all acknowledge how our "identities" are actual christian-forged? In this sense, if we speak of "religions" and "jews", are we not all tacitly admitting that we are all Christian in a sense (including you)?
It’s like Yoram hasn’t read Hannah Arendt, but that can’t possibly be true. His “these guys are totally normal” is Arendt’s “banality of evil” .
I’m glad I only learned of his existence in Ezra Klein’s interview because I would have been as alarmed as you & felt helpless to stop the obvious end game of his nationalism.
He decries “blood and soil”, but he also decries that a Constitution and shared underlying belief in democracy can bind a people, too. It bound Americans until vlad the butcher & the don the would-be 🌞 king started destroying minds online & at rallies.
One more thing, a question: I’m noticing that more than one Israeli doesn’t seem to give a fuck about diaspora Jews. Yoram is one and a Tzlil Berko is another. She started spewing incitement against the US left before Kirk’s killer was turned in and i wrote a strongly worded request for her to knock it off, explaining that I’m a Zionist, liberal Jew who spends an inordinate amount of time defending Israel. I said there are plenty more like me & that she was inciting violence against the JewFam w/o even knowing who did it or why.
She responded with a nasty, “I stand by every word.”
Do you see this, too? Do Israelis only like American Jews for what we can do for them, but have no desire to reciprocate? I’m really troubled.
Thank you and great piece.