We, the Israelites: Embracing Our Maccabean Spirit

No one should underestimate the difficulty of the past few years. Most of us in the Diaspora have never dealt with anything like this level of hate and violence before. But what will define us is not the level or nature of the problem but how we deal with it. So, when someone comes into your life who touches your soul by the mere fact of being both humble and humane, it can show us a way forward.

At the ADL Conference last month, I met a lovely Christian Zionist named Ruby, an adjunct lecturer at John Jay College and trauma counselor. When she told me about her work with Holocaust education, I mentioned that White Rose Magazine, named after the German White Rose student resistance group of the early 1940s, is going to be publishing an issue on Holocaust survivors, followed by a ceremony for Righteous Christians.

As I listened to her speak more about her work, I added: “Maybe we should combine testimonies from survivors with testimonies from Righteous Christians.” Her response was immediate and defiant. “Oh no. I could never do that. I would feel like I’m undermining their sacred testimonies.”

I was thrown completely off guard. Who today isn’t seeking fame? Flashing naked body parts or fabricating ridiculous theories — all for an incessant need for external validation? New York City, which used to attract the most creative visionaries, has now become a hotbed of “influencers” seeking constant attention. Even at spiritual events, the “look at me!” crowd is always there to undermine the most solemn moments.

I have called this period neo-Hellenism because of the constant need to self-promote and worship false idols. Yes, it’s fueled by social media addictions but also by a lack of decency — dignity — in general. And perhaps what’s been hardest for me personally: a hyper-conformity that our ancestors continually fought against and died for.

What Ruby reminded me is that losing our humanity in today’s fight is quite literally self-destructive. Israelis don’t try to turn tragedy into “fame.” Their focus is on preserving our beautiful homeland, which is why it remains a beacon of light.

We can use this Yom Haatzmaut to begin to move out of this terminal self-absorption by returning to the Maccabean spirit that not only established the state of Israel but secured its eternal future. Bravery is essential but it needs to be combined with an unbreakable pride. And real pride stems from the soul — in no need of external validation. In fact, it is precisely our humanity — our Judean souls — that we need to strengthen right now.

This fight is far from over, and the only path forward is truly leaning into Judean identity — our nonconformity, creativity and sacred dignity — and beginning to develop true Maccabean resilience.

The New Jew

In 1896, Theodor Herzl published “Der Judenstaat — The State of the Jews.” The Jews possessed a nationality, he dared to write. “We are a people — one people.” What we were missing was a state of our own. He knew this wouldn’t end antisemitism, but it would end our having to live in ghettos.

“I believe that a wondrous generation of Jews will spring into existence. The Maccabeans will rise again,” he wrote. “We shall live at last as free men on our own soil, and die peacefully in our own homes. … And whatever we attempt there to accomplish for our own welfare, will react powerfully and beneficially for the good of humanity.”

Two years later, at the Second Zionist Congress, Max Nordau introduced the concept of the “New Jew”—”Muscular Judaism.” It was designed to contrast with the “Diaspora Jew,” aiming to create strong, brave Israelis, in contrast to the image of “weak” Jews in the European Diaspora.

This concept was most famously stated by Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1982 to then Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.), who had threatened to cut off aid to Israel. “I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.”

The goal of both Herzl and Nordau has been fully realized in our homeland. Israelis are strong, brave, proud, and resilient. In fact, Oct. 7, 2023 showed that this tenacity grows stronger with each generation: Gen-Z Israelis ran to the south and flew back to Israel to fight.

Their focus is on Israel — an innate understanding that while we, as Bret Stephens put it in his “State of World Jewry” speech in February, “have the honor of being hated,” we also carry the sacred responsibility of securing a safe, thriving Jewish future.

That can happen if the Diaspora embraces the Maccabean spirit. To remain decent and dignified not because it will end antisemitism — nothing will end antisemitism — but because if we continue to over-assimilate there will be nothing left to save.

Neo-Hellenism

In 2022, Michael Steinhardt, the founder of Birthright, wrote a breathtakingly honest memoir called “Jewish Pride.” “The real threat to Jewish survival is from assimilation,” he wrote. Steinhardt discussed how the nonprofit sector had degenerated into an endless cycle of galas and self-congratulation.

His book was so meaningful to me personally because the conformity and superficiality of neo-Hellenism has been a continual source of pain, especially after moving to NYC.

After Oct. 7, the first group to disappoint was what I call “silent liberals,” pro-Israel Jews in positions of power who, to maintain “status,” could not even bring themselves to publicly condemn Hamas.

Just two decades ago, those who sought fame were mocked relentlessly, but today’s intellectual class has no problem with it — as long you are not pro-Israel. Which is why we now live in a world of lies, disinformation and inverted morality.

The second group of neo-Hellenists are the “influencers.” It should be noted that some who fall in this category — people like Montana Tucker — are doing incredible work. But many are under-educated on the facts and willing to do nearly anything to get attention.

And then there’s the third group: leftist Jews who knowingly “amplify” lies about Israel to maintain status. I was at The New York Times when a particular Jerusalem correspondent began to lie about Israel. We watched as her pieces moved from inside the paper to the front page to above the fold. Rather than being ostracized, she was rewarded.

Steinhardt predicted all of this. The desire to assimilate and gain status through that assimilation became the top priority of so many Jewish Americans in the past half-century, with few noticing the irreparable consequences.

But as Bret Stephens noted in his speech, this type of conformity goes against Judaism. “The Jewish people are a countercultural nation. … It is this courage that is the central source of our inner strength as people and our endurance as a people. We must never let it go.”

“They do not hate us because of our faults and failures,” Stephens continued. “They hate us because of our virtues and successes. The more virtuous or successful we are, the more we’ll be hated by those whose animating emotions are resentment and envy.”

Decolonize the Soul

Like Steinhardt, Stephens emphasized that the response should be strengthening Jewish identity and expanding Jewish education and other institutions: building a thriving Jewish future in America.

“The proper defense against Jew hatred is not to prove the haters wrong by outdoing ourselves in feats of altruism, benevolence, and achievement,” he said. “It is to lean into our Jewishness as far as each of us can, irrespective of what anyone else thinks of it. If the price of being our fullest selves as Jews is to be the perennially unpopular kids, it’s a price well worth paying.”

“The goal of Jewish life is Jewish thriving. And by Jewish thriving, I don’t mean thriving Jews individually speaking. I mean a community in which Jewish learning, Jewish culture, Jewish ritual, Jewish concerns, Jewish aspiration and Jewish identification … are central to every member’s sense of him or herself.”

A decade ago, indigenous rights activist Ryan Bellerose said that Jews need to “decolonize” Jewish identity. “Jews need to see Jewish identity through a Jewish lens rather than a European one,” Bellerose told me. “It’s a struggle for all colonized indigenous people to see ourselves through an authentic lens of our own people.”

In 2017, Bellerose wrote in Tablet magazine, “Strengthening Jewish identity is the optimum way to fight against the perpetuation of false narratives and lies. This can be achieved only through an indigenous decolonization of Jewish identity.”

Thousands of years of persecution and colonization can never undercut the fact that we are all Israelites, indigenous to Eretz Yisrael. We are not white, colonizers or privileged; nearly all of our ancestors came here with literally nothing.

It’s a realization of who we are, where we came from, and that so much of our identity has been imposed on us. Fully embracing our true identity is empowering; it will no doubt help each of us cope not just with antisemitism but with all of the toxic missiles life sends our way.

Touched by G-d

When my grandfather and mother passed, I worked through my grief by trying to find the right words to describe them. I came up with two phrases: touched by G-d and souls of beauty. We’re all of course touched by G-d, but they were particularly blessed. My grandfather’s greatest joy was making people laugh; I have no doubt he would have used social media to do the same.

While the “activist” scene in NYC remains excruciatingly toxic — endless drama for status — we do have many Rubys: Judeans working tirelessly behind the scenes and never asking, let alone demanding, credit. For our own sanity, many of us have decided to only work with the anti-narcissists.

I often point to Eden Golan, who represented Israel in the 2024 Eurovision competition with the song “Hurricane,” as a role model for young Jews. A true soul of beauty, Golan — like nearly all Israelis — never used Oct. 7 for personal gain. Her strength comes from her creativity and beautiful soul. And I’m beginning to see young Jews here use their creative skills to create videos — not for fame, but simply to express themselves creatively.

Stephens’ emphasis on creating more of our “own tables” — in publishing, the arts, education — reinforces this focus. Jews have historically thrived through creativity, which brings out the best in each of us.

Nourishing the Maccabean Spirit

When my son was a toddler, he was fascinated with Joshua in the film “The Ten Commandments.” Already saturated with comments about “toxic masculinity” from his ignorant millennial anti-teachers, I believe he was unconsciously looking for role models.

I encouraged this by repeating what G-d said to Joshua and what Mattathias repeated to his Maccabean sons: “Be strong and courageous.” It translates directly to being strong and resolute — encouraging spiritual and mental fortitude rather than mere physical aggression.

Building the type of self-esteem that doesn’t need constant external validation begins in the home. It’s not about showering kids with constant attention; that can easily backfire. Kids who grow up with a strong inner base are taught respect, responsibility and compassion.

At the same time, synagogues need to lose the politics, return to focusing on Judean values and begin to focus on Judean ethnicity: teaching conversational Hebrew and what it means to be part of an ancient people whose DNA connects us directly to our homeland. When I discovered that Judaism is not just a religion but an ethnicity, I felt emotionally stronger. But the idea hasn’t taken hold — in large part because synagogues aren’t embracing it. Ethnicity is stronger than the vague term “peoplehood.”

None of this is to diminish how difficult the last few years have been. Most of us have never experienced anything like this, and our emotional systems remain in a state of shock. The fact that much of the world has returned to hating Jews and is currently backing a regime that gouges the eyes out of women, uses kids as human shields and murders its own civilians with more glee than the Nazis isn’t a pleasant thought.

But that isn’t an excuse for undermining precisely what makes us Judean.

As Rabbi David Wolpe has put it: “Becoming a better person is usually a climb, not a leap. A thousand decisions for decency. A hundred restraints on unkindness. We are not expected to catapult to goodness, just to stretch higher, inch by inch.”

And that is how we remain a light unto the nations, both here and in Israel. It’s well past time to fully realize Herzl’s dream of Maccabean Jews, wherever we live.

Karen Lehrman Bloch is editor in chief of White Rose Magazine.