I don’t believe in God, I’m ashamed of successive Israeli governments, so why am I proud to be Jewish?

pic thanks to www.atheistnexus.org

The answer’s in the question: I’m ashamed of how Israeli governments have behaved. I wasn’t ashamed of the abomination of South Africa’s apartheid régime: I just loathed it.

Not one part of my being seeks to be allied with the brutality that’s going on in Israel and the Occupied Territories, but still, for a reason that neither this colyoom nor any other piece of writing can fully explain, despite being an atheist, I feel it personally.

When I call myself Jewish in Ireland people assume I am some kind of Zionist fascist racist anti-Palestinian bastard. In London, I am seen by some members of my family and the wider Jewish community as an embarrassing Arab-loving Palestinian hugging Hezbollah kissing terrorist.

Why does everyone seek black and white solutions to problems? Why search for absolutes, where none exist?

A old friend of mine insists that I have no right to call myself Jewish. He tells me that he could convert to Judaism, just as easily as I could become a Catholic, and that would make him Jewish. He says that as I don’t believe in God, it makes no sense to claim membership of a religion.

I try time and time again to explain to him that my Jewishness is not a preference. I don’t call myself Jewish in the same way that I call myself a Chelsea fan. It’s not a lifestyle choice.

Why on earth would I seek membership of a club that has been attacked for thousands of years? Why would I align myself with a group of people that every conspiracy theorist blames for all the banking ills of the world? Why would I choose to belong to a people that has survived despite its history, rather than because of it?

If Judaism was about believing in God then I’d be stuck. But it’s not, and I’m one of the thousands of living proofs. I feel my Jewishness in my bones; in my heart; in my head and on this evening of Kol Nidrei, the holiest night of the Jewish calendar, my thoughts will be with my family in London and my late Father, for whom a candle will be lit in my living room.

Being Jewish means a lot to me. Judaism is so wrapped up in the fabric of family life that I cannot see my mother, brother or sister, or myself in the mirror, without knowing, feeling, living my Jewishness.

Judaism starts, ends and lives in the home. Every Friday night throughout my life, the family gathers at the dinner table to break bread and drink wine and welcome in the Sabbath  Prayers are read and blessings made, but the occasion is infinitely more about the family being together than giving thanks to an ill-tempered God.

Every Jewish festival starts in the home, usually around the dinner table, and such is the importance of food within Jewish culture that each festival brings different food traditions in different families.

For New Year we used to eat roast lamb, and at Pesach or Passover we eat matzos and small yeast-free cakes like cinnamon balls, almond cake and coconut pyramids. At hannukah we eat doughnuts and latkes. Tonight my family will take the Yom Kippur fast together and then 26.75 hours later, they’ll break that fast with a selection of deli items, like rollmop herring, chopped liver, smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels, and cold fried fish (delicious, despite how vile it sounds!).

Possibly as a result of Jews being excluded from society for so many centuries, my Jewishness gives me a sense of inclusion. I’m part of something ancient and vast, even though it operates best at a tiny domestic level. For me, it’s neither a religion nor a way of life. There’s nothing I do every day that makes me know I’m Jewish.

Hmmm, well, I call my mother every day. Good Jewish boy. And when I see Jewish comics on the TV I feel I can relate to their humour better than a non-Jewish person might. I feel a part of Larry David and Woody Allen running through me. Their angst is mine.

I feel proud of Einstein’s genius, proud of Menuhin and Chomsky and Roth and all the great Jewish thinkers, scientists and artists, musicians and inventors (although the atom bomb was less than a good idea); proud that Jews have survived long enough to allow someone like me, an atheist living in a Catholic country, surrounded by millions of non-Jewish people, to be part of the Tribe, but cannot tell you why or how it feels.

As I say to my friend after I’ve become exasperated: “If I’m not Jewish what am I? You can philosophise all you like about whether being Jewish is a religious or racial matter, but I can tell you from the inside, that’s what I am: God or no God!”

So as we enter this Yom Kippur, this Day of Atonement, when Jews remember their dead and ask for forgiveness from sin, I’ll think of my family, of their Fast and how long the day feels when it has no meals to mark its progress.

I’ll remember long Yom Kippurim spent in our family living room, with the TV off and all of us forced to make conversation, no choice but to to discuss matters of life and meaning. Weighty and philosophical discussions were not commonplace in our lounge, so it always made a welcome change to hear how crazy we all were; how different were our outlooks on life, and yet there we all were, bonded together by ... by what?

A culture? A race? A people? A religion? A nation?
Being Jewish can be all and none of the above. It’s an identity that you know you have, from which there is no hiding. And why would you want to hide?

Well, history has shown us why, and now with the crimes of Israeli governments lighting the fires of hatred all over the internet, a subtext of anti-Semitism is showing through the cracks. The word ‘Zionist’ has been hijacked by those who would do us damage. It fuels all the conspiracy theories and will eventually fire up hatred against people like me once again.

So am I Jewish because I’ll be persecuted as a Jew, atheist or believer?
No. That’s far too negative an assumption. In the words of the Jewish God (or was it Popeye?):

“I am who I am!”

To be Jewish, you need to have Jewish humour. So as a way of saying ‘Yes I’m Jewish, no I don’t know why, but strangely, I’m proud of it!’, and as an antidote to the hatred, here’s a wee Jewish joke.

So two Israelis, Avi and Motti, are wandering around the Amazon Jungle, trying to hunt down Nazis. They stumble upon a clearing in the trees, where there sits a beautiful marble mansion, with towering pillars and vast formal gardens.

Nodding silently they slip inside unseen, and climb the huge white staircase, higher and higher, passing an unparalleled collection of rare and stolen art.

Finally they reach a gallery, and looking down they see below a long table, around which sits twenty young men and twenty old men. The young men look strangely like the old men, as if they might be their sons, and all the old men look suspiciously like notorious Nazi leaders.

The young man at the end of the table stands up to speak. Avi points out to Motti that this bloke looks a lot like a young Hitler, and then they listen to his fierce speech.

“Ziss time ve vill make no MISTAKES! Ziss time ve vill not be so SOFT! Ziss time ve vill kill ALL za JEWS and ALL za HEDGEHOGS!”

The men sitting around the table sit back in shock, and then start shouting back:
“Hedgehogs?”
“Why kill the hedgehogs?”
“What’s that about hedgehogs?”
“Hedgehogs? Why hedgehogs?”

Looking down from above, Motti turns to Avi and whispers:
“You see. I told you. Nobody gives a shit about the Jews!”

I wish you all Well over the Fast, and please, don't not only pray for peace: believe it might happen.