The Children of Zion
A few questions for those exploring their Jewish roots after October 7th
During the pandemic, like so many others, I tried those websites. The ones that give you your family tree. But most of my roots, like many other Jews, were exterminated by Nazis and like-minded sociopaths in Eastern Europe.
We call those who lived “survivors.” One of my distant cousins was a multiple survivor. First, he survived the Warsaw Ghetto, captured during the uprising. Next, he survived forced labor camps, where most were worked to death. After the war he survived the refugee camps and married Miriam, herself an Auschwitz survivor. His name after the war was Ben Zion.
It’s quite unlikely that “Ben Zion” Manspeizer was born with those two first names. “Ben Zion” literally means “Son of Zion.” Male Holocaust survivors often took on such names, sometimes as first or last, to show they were continuing the line for an entire people.
And so, I was always pleased to find postings like this in various Jewish genealogy websites announcing the potential arrival of a new child of Zion:
“Hi. I recently did a DNA test and found out I’m XX percent Jewish. Very excited and intrigued to learn about our past and our Jewish heritage.”
But in the days following October 7, I found myself wondering about those new recruits, having questions for them.
Are they still excited?
Do they feel that Jew hate? Can they smell the antisemitism in the air? Did they see and hear the celebrations around the world applauding the brutal October 7th slaying of babies and children and old people?
Did they hear the words of the students at Harvard and other elite universities condemn us as having brought this on ourselves? What did they think as students tore down posters of Hamas hostages? Did they want to burn their own diplomas in response to their college’s seeming indifference?
Do they, like you, feel the weight of thousands of years of hatred and persecution on their shoulders? Do they feel the deaths of millions of brethren over history as a crushing sadness in the soul? At times like these, does that sadness become unbearable?
Do they feel the loss? Not only of the millions who died, but of the millions more who never were, the never born Jews. Do those souls scream out now more than ever? And I want to know if they’re still excited.
The New Historians of the Ivy League
When they hear those Ivy League students say, “Israel has been there for only 75 years, the Palestinians were there first,” do they laugh bitterly: “Have you read the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Koran?”
Those texts of the three great Western religions acknowledge the primacy of Jewish claims to the land. They tell stories of Saul, David, and Solomon, who were as real as Jesus and Mohammed, and walked the actual roads of Israel a thousand years before Jesus, even longer before Mohammed.
The very stones of Jerusalem attest to those truths, stones that were already ancient when the Romans tried to erase all memory of the people who lived there, relabeling the place Palestine after slaughtering over a million Jews. It was neither the first nor last attempt to wipe us from the face of the earth.
Does their blood boil when the nouveau historians of the Ivy League forget to mention that the first act in Israel’s existence was the attempt by every country surrounding it to immediately destroy the nascent nation. Or that the great Palestinian catastrophe was the direct result of the surrounding Arab nations’ attempt and failure to finish what Hitler started? Or even that when the Arab/Islamic world failed to deliver on its promise to drive the Jews into the sea, they found it more politically convenient to leave the Palestinians in refugee camps rather than offer them homes. And still do.
How do you feel, new child of Zion, when you remember what the world has already forgotten? Do the young Ivy League historians know anything about the pogroms in Hebron, Kielce, and Aleppo? Do the uninformed know what happened at Munich in 1972? What about Ma’alot, Paris, Antwerp, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, Tree of Life? How do you feel knowing the world will one day forget the victims of October 7th, as it sometimes already feels like it has, lost in the cries over the Palestinian dead, for whom you ache. Now you know what it is to be a Jew.
Is the double-standard already achingly apparent?
Does it all seem entirely too familiar to them, that they knew how the script would play out within hours of learning of the horrific slaughter? That horror and revulsion would be supplanted by calls blaming Israel for the brutal murders of its own citizens and guests. That Hamas would retreat behind its millions of human shields, trusting that time and the world’s Jew apathy or hate would allow it to survive. That Israel would be pilloried for each unfortunate death accompanying its entirely appropriate response. That the world will not permit Israel to destroy Hamas.
The United States, in righteous fury after 9/11, began and prosecuted a war with Iraq over a lie–the pretext of weapons of mass destruction. The number of Iraqi civilians dead because of that war? About 200,000, according to Brown University’s Watson Institute.[i] But compare the outrage over their deaths–virtually none–with the outrage caused by the unfortunate death of a single Palestinian reporter covering an Israeli army raid in Jenin last year. Do the new children of Zion wonder why?
The United States destroyed two countries–Iraq and Afghanistan–in pursuit of vengeance for September 11th. What, you wonder, would the US have done had 9/11 resulted in almost 50,000 viciously murdered Americans, the proportional number of Americans to the 1400 murdered Israelis?
Do our newly sequenced brethren wonder if the new historians of the Ivy League would rally then? Or is it only when Jews pursue justice and security that they paint their signs and compose their chants? Why don’t the students chant “from the River to the Sea” for native Americans, true victims of colonialism, racism, mass murder and apartheid? Are they now beginning to understand the hypocrisy and double standard applied to us and the only Jewish country in the world.
Why do they hate us?
If you are a Jew, then you ask, constantly, why do they hate us so? Is it because we were supposed to be weak, but are strong? Is it because we just won’t die? Is it because we succeed despite the obstacles put in our way, despite the mass murders, ethnic cleansings, apartheids, expulsions, forced conversions and hate? Is it because we so dramatically exceed the expectations of our limited numbers?
Is it because we turned the desert green? Is it because we take care of our own; look up Operations Magic Carpet, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Solomon if you must. Is it because Israel is, with all its flaws, a true melting pot, a beautiful mélange of peoples of all colors and religions and orientations.
Is it because they believe the lies, the laughable lies, of global conspiracies, space lasers, Christ killing, blood libels, and “protocols of elders.” The only elders of Zion I know are Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner— their only protocol is laughter—because the only other possibility was tears. That special hate others hold for us, that’s a big piece of our history right there.
Are they amazed?
Do they wonder how their people have borne so much pain and suffering, been on the receiving end of so much hatred and violence, and yet, accomplished so much? From 1901 to 2022 about 22% of Nobel Prize winners had at least one Jewish parent. Among their heroes can be Albert Einstein, Hannah Senesch, David Ben Gurion, George Gershwin, RBG, Golda Meir, Barbra Streisand and Steven Spielberg. Or choose among Elie Wiesel, Gloria Steinem, Henrietta Szold, Harry Houdini, Milton Friedman, Lauren Bacall, Sigmund Freud, Helena Rubinstein, Robert Oppenheimer, and Beverly Sills.
Even though we joke about Jewish athleticism, will Sandy Koufax, Sue Bird, Hank Greenberg, Aly Raisman, Benny Friedman, Sid Luckman, Amy Alcott, Alex Bregman, and Nancy Lieberman suffice? Or like me, a hockey fan, do you imagine Team Israel with Adam Fox, the Hughes brothers, Jason Zucker and Zach Hyman—all wearing the blue and white.
Are they proud to be the descendant of David and Solomon, of Deborah and Rebecca, of warriors and wise people? To bear the mantle of Masada and Jericho, of Entebbe, and of Mitla Pass. To walk in the footsteps of those who walked alongside Dr. King in Selma, like Abraham Joshua Heschel. To hear that Israel can turn actual salt water into wine, with desalinated sea water from the Mediterranean used to irrigate the vineyards of the north. That same desalinated water, by the way, is also provided to Arab Jordan by Jewish Israel.
If not, a retake of that DNA test might be in order.
Oh, the guilt.
Do they know Jewish guilt yet? It’s the guilt of the survivor. “Why did I survive when so many of my countless relatives did not.” I lost dozens in the Holocaust, maybe hundreds. Do they know how we ask, “please let him not be one of ours” when we hear a “Jewish” name associated with some bad act; the universal shame we feel at every Madoff. It’s guilt we carry over Sabra and Shatila and over every death in Gaza. It’s the guilt that we can never be good enough, that we need be purer even than Caesar’s wife. It's the shame that we are not there–in Israel–doing our part. That Jewish guilt is a piece of them too.
On behalf of Jews everywhere, we understand if some find this all overwhelming. We do. We understand that some may turn back at this point. Some hills are just too steep. They are for some of us, too.
And we are now facing the biggest hill most living Jews have ever faced. And so, to our new members, if you still want to walk through the door, it is and will always remain open.
Welcome, child of Zion.
[i] https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/figures/2021/WarDeathToll.