Fighting for peoplehood

My column this week in the Jewish Journal on Daniel Gordis and his dream of reviving Jewish peoplehood.

For example, how can I be a “person of the world” and also be part of the exclusive Jewish family? And if I can’t stand what you believe in, why should I be part of your family in the first place?
There are no obvious answers, but a good start, Gordis said, would be to make all Jews of good faith feel at home in the tent of Jewish peoplehood — even Jews who criticize Israeli policy.
But he also drew lines. We need to balance the ability to criticize Israel, he said, with the need to defend it. It’s one thing to have debates within our community about difficult issues; it’s another to take our critiques of Israel to Capitol Hill and turn them into a media circus.
Like he wrote last week in The Jerusalem Post, we shouldn’t censor ourselves or squelch debate, but, at the same time, we need to remember that whatever we say can and will be used against us by forces who’d love nothing more than to see us commit national suicide.
Gordis is the ultimate struggler. He’s got every side of a complicated problem dangling inside his nimble brain, yet he still aims for a message of clarity and passion.
He reached the height of clarity and passion when he spoke about the extraordinary transformation of the global Jewish community over the past 60 years and the power of Zionism to “manipulate history” and “rejuvenate the idea of hope.”
With that note of optimism, he bookended his stark morning sermon with one idea that has driven this little people forward since the days of Abraham: hope for a better future.