                      A Voice From Hebron
                     by Gary M. Cooperberg
                                
                  The New Jew, or the Old Jew?
                          May 1, 1998

        On the fiftieth anniversary of the rebirth of Jewish sovereignty in our ancient homeland, I
found it to be an incredible disappointment to watch Israel television broadcast to the world a
representation of Judaism which would make an anti-Semite proud.

        After viewing video clips of armed Jewish soldiers firing teargas and rubber bullets at Arab
youths shooting stones at them with sling shots, the narrator laments the change of the image of
the Jew.  A Jew, to him, was always a gentle scholar who lived by sitting peacefully and studying
the Torah.   Now, with the declaration of a Jewish State, we find a new image of a Jew with a
gun.  Alas, we have lost our morality and identity.

        The man is either a fool, an ignoramus, or truly an anti-Semite.  To conjure up an image of a
weak and pitiful sage pouring over his books and permitting himself to be humiliated by Jew
haters in pious acceptance of his fate, may possibly apply to a few instances during the time of the
holocaust.  But to suggest that this is the ancient image of a Jew is to deny Jewish history.

        The father of the Jewish people, Abraham, was, indeed a peaceful and scholarly man.  But he
was also a mighty warrior.  When his nephew, Lot, was kidnaped, Abraham took a handful of
men and pursued his enemies.  He defeated five kings in battle and rescued his nephew.

        Moses, our teacher, is described as meek and humble.  He was the greatest Torah scholar of
all time, yet, when he saw a fellow Jew being beaten by an Egyptian, he personally killed the
attacker.

        King David, the author of the psalms and sweet singer of Israel, was a gentle and learned
leader.   Yet it was under his leadership that the Land of Israel was liberated and united as David
defeated our enemies in battle.

        Even Mordechai the Jew is thought of as an elderly scholar who kept his head in the books. 
He certainly was a scholar, but he was also a soldier.  He was a brilliant general in Achashverosh's
army who defeated many enemies of the king which is why he was so favored by the king in
the first place.

        So when we see a modern Jewish Army redeeming our holy land, what we really see is the
restoration of the ancient Jew.   This is not a new phenomenon, rather a very old one.  It is upon
this very principle that the hesder yeshivot were established.  There is nothing more normal than
for a Torah scholar to also take up the sword in defense of his homeland.  Not to defend our
homeland would be a desecration of our Torah and our G-d.   

        There is a new Jew in our country today.  It is a Jew which has absorbed foreign ideology
and which worships foreign gods.  The Jew who declares that Arabs have rights as an independent
sovereign entity on Jewish soil has abandoned the path of our fathers.  The Jew who declares
that Arabs should have equal citizenship rights to our homeland has done the same.  The old Jew
would never share his independence and sovereignty.

        Binyamin Netanyahu is referred to as a right wing extremist leader.  Yet he and his
government have made such far reaching leftist decisions as to have virtually abandoned the
Zionist policies by which this country was founded.  While the leftist "peace camp" has mouthed
meaningless rhetoric about how peace is more important than land, it was the alleged right wing
governments of Begin and Netanyahu which actually implemented this absurdity and gave away
pieces of our holy inheritance to those who have already made use of it to strike out at our
country.

        The Jews who pick up the rifle and man the tanks and F-16 fighter planes are not a new
phenomenon.  Those who have made their homes in the hills of Judea and Samaria are not settlers
squatting on land that doesn't belong to them.  They are decedents of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses and King David.  They are proud Jews who have come home to fulfill the commandment
of G-d to live in and develop the Land which He promised to our Fathers as an eternal
inheritance.

        Hebron is not an Arab city.  It is the first Jewish city founded by our father, Abraham.  The
number of Arabs living there in no way diminishes the validity of our exclusive ownership of this
and every city in the Land of Israel.  Yasir Arafat has no right to one grain of sand in the Gaza
desert. 

        If our prime minister would stop trying to be a "new Jew" who compromises on Jewish
principles for pragmatic nonsense, he would stand up proudly as a true descendent of the old Jew,
and, rather than telling Madeline that 13% is too much to give away, he would make a far more
reasonable offer.  In compensation for removing Arafat and his hordes from the Land of Israel he
would enter into immediate negotiations to acquire 13% of  Fantasyland from Disney World
where Israel will be among the first to recognize the state of Palestine.  The problem is that
Mickey Mouse would never stand for such a travesty of imagination.  Not even Fantasyland could
tolerate such a lie.  

        The strange attempts by "new Jews" to live with those who come to destroy us by calling
blackmail peace are doomed to failure.  The terror and tragedies we face in our homeland will
only end when the old Jew remembers who he is and from whence he came.  When this realization
causes him to stand up as a proud Jew and fight for Jewish land and Jewish principles, then and
only then with the G-d of Israel fight for him and vanquish all of our enemies.  May we all wake
up soon.
