Durban Deja Vu
Rabbi Moshe Sherer
(The paragraphs below are excerpted from an essay written by the late Rabbi Moshe Sherer, who served as President of Agudath Israel of America from 1963 until his death in 1998. The essay was written in 1975, shortly after the UN's "Zionism is Racism" declaration, and appears in Hebrew in Rabbi Sherer's book "B'shtei Einayim." Translation courtesy of Am Echad.)
We Orthodox Jews share the outrage of Jews the world over at the perverse United Nations resolution smearing "Zionism" with the tar of "racism." Agudath Israel has lodged its protest with the United Nations itself and denounced the resolution at its recent meeting as well as in the press. We shall, furthermore, continue to make our anger known and continue to defend the name of Judaism and Jews.
It would be wrong, through, to suffice with statements aimed at the outside world. We must assure that clarity prevails within the Jewish community as well.
Our public denouncement of the United Nations resolution is straightforward and without reservation. Through the resolution was supposedly aimed only at secular "Zionism", a movement with which the traditionally Orthodox world has little connection, we are not fooled; the slander is an attack on the entire Jewish people.
In truth, through, even if the Arab world and its partners were indeed only directing their hatred at certain Jews, we would feel precisely the same responsibility to come to the defense of our brethren. While we may have our own quarrel with secular Zionism, when Jews are libeled, their affiliation does not matter; our love for our brothers and sisters draws us to their side.
As it happens, through, the U.N. resolution is aimed at all Jews, for it assails the historical Jewish right to Eretz Yisrael. The Torah bestowed that right and any attack on it is an attack on Judaism and the Jewish people.
The U.N. has long embodied a particularly wild and blatant manifestation of what the Midrash calls a "law" of nature: "Esau hates Jacob." The world's outlaw-nations are unprepared to grant us any peace, even after they witnessed a third of our people utterly destroyed. Behind the United Nations ' austere façade lies a veritable jungle, crawling with well-dressed, diplomatically correct savages.
In the face of such malevolence, we Jews who remain faithful to all the Torah's laws are one with all our fellow Jews.
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