To the Diaspora By Amotz Asa-El amotz@jpost.co.il (March 15, 2002) Bugsy Siegel, the legendary gangster who launched his career by extorting pushcart peddlers in the Lower Eastside, didn't live to see the Jewish state. Five months before the UN voted to establish Israel, Siegel was mowed down by a hail of bullets fired into his mistress's Beverly Hills palace, after having lost his partner Meyer Lansky's trust while pioneering Nevada's gambling industry. Still, two years before his death Siegel met Hagana agent Reuven Dafne, who was desperately seeking money for the Yishuv's armament effort. Siegel was initially disbelieving. "You mean to tell me Jews are fighting?" he asked, "fighting as in killing?" When Dafne said they indeed were, Siegel replied "I'm with you," and then sent, over a few weeks and in several suitcases, $50,000 in green bills. Now Israel is at war again, but world Jewry often seems to lack even Siegel's kind of tribal instinct. Sure, the Diaspora is as anxious as ever. Many Jews, as the International Jerusalem Post's letter page attests, are brimming with advice, exegesis and reprimands for this or that facet of Israeli action or inaction. Like the Israeli public itself, some believe Ariel Sharon is handling the situation well and others think he is not; some think he is being too soft, others that he is too harsh, and most think Israel's public-relations operation is ineffective, not to say substandard and downright destructive. Ordinarily, such criticism would be not only legitimate, but even desirable. Yet this is war, in some ways the most vicious that Israel has faced since 1948. Never since its inception has the Jewish state's home front faced such a systematic assault, and never since the War of Independence have ordinary civilians been such a prime, frequent and deliberate target. And since this is war, it also means that those who are with us emotionally, but not physically, would do well to tone down their critique of Israel and seek more constructive ways in which to channel their frustrations. Blame for the disenchantment frequently voiced by Diaspora Jews concerning Israel's image lies not only with Israel, but also with them. In the past, crisis in the Middle East meant Diaspora Jews were concerned mainly that Israel's depiction in their media might make them feel ashamed in the company of non-Jews. Today, the problem is that Israel has become the most dangerous place for a Jew to roam, and that increasingly its citizens feel their country's very existence is at stake. That is what many abroad still don't get, and only mass public action - sponsored, financed and openly led by the Diaspora's official leadership - can make plain. Diaspora Jews can help put the Arab world on the defensive. When Arab leaders talk - as they will in their upcoming summit in Beirut - about "occupation," Jews can rally (with Lebanese expatriates) outside Syrian embassies, demanding Assad first put an end to his own occupation of Lebanon before preaching to others. When Arab representatives speak of "freedom" and "human rights," Diaspora Jews should mobilize local legislatures - the way they did so effectively with the Soviet Union - in order to demand Arab regimes democratize, and cease jailing dissidents. Most crucially, they should be trained to argue for our cause. They must repeat ad nauseam that Israel offered, through the president of the US himself, practically all the free world had asked it to offer, but Arafat chose war. They should know to say that Israel targets soldiers and their operators, and the Palestinians target civilians and the Western way of life. And when asked how come more Arabs die - they must know to explain that in World War Two Japan lost 1.9 million people as opposed to America's "mere" 298,000 (on all fronts); that ratio didn't make fascism one iota less immoral then, and it won't make it such today either. It's been years since Diaspora Jewry took to the streets in full force. It last happened during the struggle for the release of Soviet Jewry, and previously on the eve of the 1967 Six Day War. Of course, things have changed since then. Confronting Soviet totalitarianism provoked no one in the West, and the 1967 demonstrations hailed what was then perceived as a vulnerable community of Holocaust survivors. Today the Diaspora must act in the face of an often-hostile media that still portrays Israel as the Goliath that only we and our neighbors realize it is not. Moreover, today many Jewish communities must contend with rapidly growing and increasingly confident Muslim communities alongside theirs. Worst of all, the Jewishly-educated Jews who rallied for Israel in 1967 have frequently forgotten to educate their own children to be as Jewish as their parents. The reluctance to loudly campaign for Israel is, therefore, understandable: the risks at stake, from failing to draw crowds to provoking anti-Semitism, are severe. However, none of these compare with the risks taken daily by pedestrians on Jerusalem's sidewalks, commuters outside Efrat, shoppers in Netanya, joggers in Jerusalem's promenade, or parents leading kids to bat mitzvas. To help stem this madness, Israelis now tell their brethren abroad what Mordechai told Esther when she hesitated to approach Ahasuerus and demand he rescind the decree to annihilate the Jews: This is no time to keep silent.