Israel stands at the tip of the spear of the West, Josh Hammer argues in “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” Hammer, senior editor-at-large at Newsweek and a prolific lawyer and podcaster, offers a highly readable and convincingly argued new book.
It is “incumbent upon Western Christians of all stripes to appreciate, and not simply take for granted, just how much of the prevailing Western order they predominantly built owes a moral, legal and cultural debt of gratitude to Judaism, Torah and the Jewish people,” Hammer writes. After all, “Millenna before the English common law popularized its own notion of blind justice and equality under the rule of law, the Hebrew Bible articulated it right in Leviticus: ‘You shall commit no justice in judgment; you shall not favor a poor person or respect a great man; you shall judge your fellow with righteousness.’” The Golden Rule of treating others as one would want to be treated is of course based on the verse in the same biblical book that instructs the Israelites to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Hammer reminds his readers that the earliest Americans — the Pilgrims and Puritans — saw themselves as continuing the story of ancient Israel, having crossed the Red Sea in order to create a new covenantal society modelled after that of the revelation at Sinai. The American experiment is a “biblically rooted balancing act between individual self-worth, on the one hand, and communal and national responsibilities, on the other hand,” inspired by God’s relationship with the Jewish people. John Locke’s “Second Treatise of Government” and its emphasis on natural rights, and Thomas Jefferson’s claim in the Declaration of Independence that “all men were created equal,” both emerge from Genesis’ description of humanity being created in God’s image.
It is not only in the realms of law and political philosophy that Israel has impacted the West, but in contemporary politics and national defense as well. Referencing the Abraham Accords, he notes that “an empowered Israel has quite obviously led to more peace, not less: more regional normalization agreements, better containment of Iran, more security for American interests and more geopolitical stability.” By fighting against those who stand against American, democratic values, including eliminating numerous Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists with American blood on their hands, “Israel is quite literally doing America’s — and the West’s — dirty work for it.” Pro-Hamas support at Harvard is symptomatic of a societal rot that must be opposed by all Americans who correctly recognize their country’s Israel-inspired story and the alignment between American and Israeli values.
Unlike “sundry fleeting and unworthy paradigms,” he summarizes, “Jewish morality and the broader Jewish-Christian biblical worldview still provides the proper moral, ethical, legal, and political foundations for Western civilization today.”
Noting the miraculous nature of Jewish survival throughout centuries of persecution, from the forces of Pharaoh to the present conflict against Islamist terror, Hammer cites Alexander Hamilton. The Founding Father once mused “The state and progress of the Jews, from their earliest history to the present time, has been so entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs, is it not then a fair conclusion, that the cause also is an extraordinary one — in other words, that is the effect of some great providential plan?”
Throughout this passionately argued volume emphasizing how and why to stand strongly by Israel’s side during this crucial moment in the West, Hammer references the Maccabean fight to preserve Judaism against the Seleucid-Greeks. He recounts that, having been raised a secular Jew, at his bar mitzvah he was given a Hebrew name for the first time, Yehoshua Maccabee. But, he reminds his readers, we are all tasked with the mission of those courageous ancient Jewish warriors — to play our role in the great providential plan of Jewish history. “Always be a Maccabee, and always be proud and authentic representatives of the broader nation of Israel,” he encourages his readers. Be “a proud Jew who leads an authentic Jewish life, with a deep love for the Torah and the Law of Moses, Am Yisrael (the people of Israel), and Eretz Yisrael (the land of Israel).”
Rabbi Dr. Stuart Halpern is Senior Adviser to the Provost of Yeshiva University and Deputy Director of Y.U.’s Straus Center for Torah and Western Thought. His books include “The Promise of Liberty: A Passover Haggada,” which examines the Exodus story’s impact on the United States, “Esther in America,” “Gleanings: Reflections on Ruth” and “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land: The Hebrew Bible in the United States.”
