Interview: Rabbi Daniel Zemel
On Zionism, Christian nationalism, the American covenant, and the White Sox trading Chris Sale to Boston
A few weeks ago, I posted this:
Rabbi Zemel’s question about fleeing from the United States is a disturbing echo of the question Jews have asked themselves for generations — in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, England, Poland, Austria, Lithuania, Russia (and the Soviet Union), Libya, Yemen, Iran… and on and on, ad nauseum.
That question — do we stay or do we go? — also raised some disturbing questions for me, such as: Does Rabbi Zemel believe the Jewish story in America is fundamentally different from all our other encounters during our 2,000 years in the Diaspora? If so, how and why is it different? So I contacted Rabbi Zemel, who graciously agreed to sit down with me for an interview.
Below you’ll find excerpts from our almost one-hour conversation. (If you want to hear the entire interview — including Rabbi Zemel’s thoughts about the Chicago White Sox [his team] trading pitcher Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox [my team] in 2016 — please let me know.)
What is your assessment of Yoram Hazony, the godfather of the new National Conservatism movement?
(Hazony is an American-born Israeli political philosopher who believes that John Locke was deluded, liberalism is built on quicksand, and all Jews should abandon their lives in the Diaspora and move to Israel.)
Are you the same Zionist today that you were 30 years ago?
Do you believe the modern nation-state of Israel is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and of G*d’s covenantal promise to the Jewish people?
(Many Christian Zionists believe that American Jews should move to Israel to hasten the Second Coming of Christ. That’s not exactly the same as Yoram Hazony’s vision — but it’s close.)
On the Roman Catholic narrative after Vatican II — and the search for a coherent American Jewish story (this exchange is one of the most illuminating):
So… should Zionism be the center of the Jewish Story?
You clearly see a threat to American Jews. Who poses that threat? And what’s their Story?
On the dangers of living inside an unfinished Story:
Why do you think the American Jewish experience will be different than our experiences elsewhere? What makes America different?
An unsettling anecdote about American Jews and Israel:
On the universal, the particular, and the narrative promise of America:
I deeply admire Rabbi Zemel’s faith in the American people and the possibility that America is exceptional in the right ways. But here’s what continues to puzzle me: How can our American “covenant” bind us together as a nation when we no longer have any shared sense of what that covenant is all about?
Thanks to Rabbi Zemel for taking the time to chat with me… for his wisdom and good humor… and for gracefully accepting the fact that the White Sox trading Chris Sale to the Red Sox was a horrible deal for Chicago.
