When Loyalty To Country Conflicts With Morality

In America and Israel today, we face painful choices between flag and faith.

Out of patience: Nearly 70 percent of Israeli Jews favor saving the hostages over continuing the war.

As an American Jew, I love and feel deep loyalty to two countries, the United States and Israel. But like many of us, I am deeply worried about the path of their governments as, each in its own way, appears to be on a dangerous trajectory from democracy to a form of authoritarianism, endangering the welfare, and perhaps lives, of their citizens. Each situation presents moral challenges in how to respond, sometimes pitting love of country vs. upholding Jewish values (“Justice, justice shalt thou pursue”... Deut: 16-20)

Reflecting on Memorial Day in America, a day of tribute to those who made the supreme sacrifice in service of country, must I choose between allegiance to flag and the noble, humane ideals of the Constitution? The Trump administration is rejecting the reality of the present, continuing its forceful effort to take American society back to the 1950s, ideally consisting of white Christian families with husbands at work and wives at home with the growing family. January 6th rioters are set free, government agencies are dismantled or slashed, employees fired, and legislation is passed to further empower the wealthy. Closest to home for American Jews, the Trump administration is enforcing its will on universities in the name of fighting anti-Semitism in a way that, rather than being a solution to the problem, is making it worse. The government has weaponized Jew-hatred as a cudgel to advance its political agenda and emasculate universities.

The dilemma this presents for many Jews is deciding whether to support punishing anti-Israel activists and leaders even though the government’s tactics may well be illegal. Such support would find Jews blamed for turning their backs on free speech. But opposing the government would have Jews appearing ungrateful, rejecting an effort seemingly being made on their behalf in combating anti-Semitism.

In truth, the Trump focus on anti-Semitism rightly highlighted many years of anti-Israel sentiment in American universities, including among faculty. But the mean-spirited, if not vicious, approach in dealing with Harvard and Columbia Universities – withholding major funding, suing the universities, deporting pro-Palestinian activists and banning foreign students – is a dangerous over-reaction that may well backfire because it is unethical and unhelpful, if not illegal.

At an all-day symposium last Sunday at the Center for Jewish History on “The End of an Era? Jews and Elite Universities,” the consensus among most of the 17 speakers – primarily Jewish academics – was that anti-Semitism on campus must be addressed, but better by universities’ aggressive action than through federal coercion and lawsuits. (The only full-throated support for the Trump administration’s confrontational approach came from Bill Ackman, the hedge-fund billionaire and Harvard alum, who asserted that it was sincere, not a pretext, and that universities should be held accountable to the government.)

As citizens, we should feel secure in calling out universities for serious failures of the past regarding their treatment of Jewish students – in terms of education, security and socialization – and we should insist on the schools following their own revised policies, and monitor them. We should also feel secure calling out the Trump administration for violations of the law in its zealous efforts to punish universities on multiple levels. Sadly, the fear that such criticism could result in punitive action against us is a sign that ours may no longer be a fully democratic society.

Israelis Are Questioning Its Government’s Motives

On Yom Yerushalayim (Jerusalem Day), marking the reunification of Israel’s capital under Jewish sovereignty in 1967 for the first time in 2,000 years, it is difficult to celebrate an act of joining together at a moment when Israeli society is unraveling – exhausted, frustrated and traumatized from 19 months of war and no clear plan to both destroy Hamas and save the hostages.

The crisis in Israel today is different from the one in America but there are striking similarities. Each government has a strong leader at the helm who has gained power by dividing the society rather than seeking to bring people together. He describes his political opponents in the harshest of terms, not to be trusted or believed, a danger to the country. Motivated in part to gain and retain the highest office in the land for fear of facing prison for alleged crimes, these leaders have chosen, or allowed, political extremists to play key roles in their government. Loyalty to the leader is far more important than competence or the national interest. At least half of the country’s citizens deeply distrusts the leader and his policies.

In Israel, the nation’s remarkable resilience and unity that began on October 8, 2023 has given way, first to a sense of resignation to a lengthy war and more recently to bitterness as reservists are called up yet again to serve while thousands of young charedi men avoid national service, and more and more Western countries – including England, France and Canada – join the international chorus of condemnations against Israel as a genocidal state holding back food and humanitarian aid from Gaza’s civilians. Long protected from the brutal images of a decimated Gaza, Israelis are gradually coming to terms with the deaths of thousands of innocent Gazan women and children.

And now Netanyahu has launched a more aggressive military campaign, determined to take over 75 percent of Gaza territory semi-permanently. Concern increases over the fate of the remaining living hostages who may face even greater danger now – either from Israeli bombs, execution by Hamas or starvation over time. Some Israeli thought leaders openly question whether the country can still maintain that it is conducting a just war. Others bemoan the fact that there is little public discussion or debate over whether Israel has crossed a moral red line.

What action, if any, should be taken by American Jews who fervently support their brothers and sisters in Israel but are increasingly troubled by a coalition where the prime minister is widely believed to be extending the war as a means of staying in power – and where two radically right-wing coalition members calling for Israel to resettle its citizens in Gaza hold sway over the government? Here, as always, we must speak out for the same values the prophets of biblical times demanded of the Jewish people – to strive for justice, truth and peace.

During a recent conversation, American-Israeli author and journalist Yossi Klein Halevi told me that when he lectures across the U.S. and Canada, his Jewish audiences want to hear from him “a love language for Israel, even with its flaws” that could soothe their concerns.

The love is still there. But the concerns are growing.