Hebrew Voices #125 – A Non-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox Jew

In this episode of Hebrew Voices, A Non-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox Jew, Nehemia Gordon shares an encounter he had at Speakers' Corner in London, with a Jew who believes he must wait for the Messiah to come, before returning to Israel, and tells us what it’s like for him being an Ultra-Orthodox Jew living in England.

I look forward to reading your comments!


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Hebrew Voices #125 – A Non-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox Jew

You are listening to Hebrew Voices with Nehemia Gordon. Thank you for supporting Nehemia Gordon's Makor Hebrew Foundation. Learn more at NehemiasWall.com.

Nehemia: Shalom, this is Nehemia Gordon, and I am here at Speakers' Corner in London. This is a place where anybody can come and get up on a soapbox and preach. And one of the things I love about this is this really is an embodiment of free speech, and also it takes me back to the biblical period where the Prophets would stand up on a soapbox, and they would preach the word of God. And I think of Isaiah 56 where the Prophet says, “Ko amar Yehovah, ‘Shimru mishpat va'asu tzedaka, ki kerova yeshu'ati lavo vetzidkati lehigalot.’” And he was standing in a corner in a public square on the side preaching the way that I'm preaching right now. We're gonna go in now to Speakers' Corner and see what are some things that people are speaking about and hear the speakers and engage with them.

Nehemia: Okay, what is your name, sir?

Eli: Eli.

Nehemia: Eli, do you speak here at the Speakers' Corner?

Eli: No, I just come here to walk around, to heckle sometimes.

Nehemia: Tell me your impressions. You're walking around here with a kippah. Do you ever get people who are hostile?

Eli: It happens, but nothing major. I feel fairly safe here, actually.

Nehemia: Was there anyone who was ever violent towards you?

Eli: No, it never happened. I do get sometimes people who say hateful remarks.

Nehemia: I had this Iraqi Muslim guy who was telling me that I'm a baby killer.

Eli: You get these kinds of things, yeah. I get blamed for anything Israel does or is perceived to do, because of my identity. I'm a Jew, so obviously I'm associated with Israel, so anything Israel does is my fault.

Nehemia: What is your view about Israel?

Eli: Be more specific.

Nehemia: Are you a Zionist?

Eli: Not per se.

Nehemia: I'm a Zionist. Tell me what it means to be a Jew that you're not a Zionist? I'll tell you first what it means for me. It means I believe that the land of Israel belongs to the people of Israel, and we have a right to live there.

Eli: Well, that's the religious, theological question and the political, the secular. And when I get asked here in Hyde Park, usually by Arabs, Muslims, “Am I a Zionist?” Generally I say, “Yes,” because I don't want them to feel a kinship. Because I might be anti-Zionist from a theological, from a religious point of view, but not from a political. And I'm not in any way associated with them. Their battle is not my battle. I'm against everything they stand for.

Nehemia: Who’s “they?”

Eli: The Muslims…

Nehemia: Who are anti-Israel…

Eli: The anti-Israel people.

Nehemia: Like the Iraqi gentlemen told me that they're going to basically wipe out all the Jews in Israel one day. He said, “We'll expel them.” I said, “What if they won't leave?” He said, “We'll take care of them.”

Eli: Well, it's probably not going to happen. Certainly, if you look how Iraq is nowadays...

Nehemia: He doesn't mean him personally. He means other people.

Eli: Probably not. From a theological point of view, again, there's a religious question.

Nehemia: Let's assume my viewers, some who are not Jewish, know nothing about the theology. Explain what it is theologically, not to be a Zionist.

Eli: Well, it's quite simple. The ties that we have to the land are God-given rights, and God was the one who expelled us from the land because we weren't deserving, we weren't worthy. And He's the only one who's going to bring us back with the coming of the Messiah, the rebuilding of the Third Temple. We don't see the State of Israel as part of that belief. In fact, the State of Israel is un-debatedly, a very secular state, certainly in its beginning and its conception it was actively instrumental in eradicating Judaism, religion. They don't build in any way on the promise that God gave, it's ridiculous to assume that.

Nehemia: Give us an example of how they eradicated religion. Some of the audience know nothing.

Eli: Well, the biggest example was what's called the “Yaldey Tehran,” the “Tehran children.” These were European children who were brought to Israel via Tehran, war survivors, most of them orphans, and they were forcibly put into non-religious kibbutzim where they were basically forced to drop all their religious beliefs that they had from home. Not all of them came from religious homes, but even many who did were forcibly made to work on the Sabbath, and eat non-kosher, etc. etc. And there's also the Moroccan children that they imported, and there's actually many, many instances. All this is easily found on Google. Those are examples of forcibly wiping out religion. But even putting that to a side, it's certainly a secular state.

Nehemia: Let me jump in here. Probably, the most famous example in Israel, there were some Yemenite children, I believe they were. Their parents were told they were dead, and then they were sent and raised by secular Jewish families. They kind of felt these Jews were coming in too religious, and they wanted to strip them of their religious identity. So, this did happen, and it's actually something that is discussed in Israeli politics. It's something that is condemned by anybody who is any kind of a decent human being. And there's discussion of trying to figure out who was behind this and prosecuting them.

Eli: That's the thing. It's condemned from a human rights point of view. Because Israel today is a secular state, it's about human rights, about being a good person, as opposed to being a good Jew. And a good Jew would mean following the Torah, following the commandments of Hashem. There’s no belief…

The State of Israel nowadays doesn't follow from the promise that God promised us the land. Rather, it follows from the political point of view that since this was a Jewish kingdom in days of yore, and much later even, till about 1,900 years ago, it was actually a Jewish kingdom, and the Romans forcibly exiled us. So now, we're returning to the land where there's always been a Jewish presence, and Jews have got historical ties, and the Jews have a right to self-determination. And they want a place the call their own, just like every other nation, and Israel is the most fitting place for that.

We can go into how many of the local indigenous population was displaced at the time. Some were, some forcibly, some by will. Many of the lots were bought by Jews, many were actually uninhabitable, and the Jews who came in the few aliyas before the state was created, they actually drained the swamps, and these things. Again, the debates are back and forth, you can Google it, I'm not gonna repeat all the articles, you can find that.

But anyway, that happened 70 years ago, so not so much to do with nowadays. The question nowadays, do I agree with Israel broadly speaking, from a political point of view? Yes, I do. I don't think that it's apartheid. It's certainly not an apartheid state. The Israeli-Arab population certainly is not discriminated against. You can say the question, what about the West Bank and Gaza? Do they have rights of determination or not? Good question. You can argue that they do, but how that would be implemented is...

Nehemia: That has been a subject of negotiation since 1993, so we're not gonna solve that here.

Eli: I don't think so. The only feasible way would be a two-state solution. Certainly not a one-state, but even two-state… There's many, many problems back and forth. As to the question, are you Zionist? It depends. From a religious point of view, I don't believe that a Jew has the right to return.

Nehemia: You believe a Jew does not have a right to return?

Eli: No, I believe God does not want us to return.

Nehemia: Well, those are two different things. Does a Jew have a right, even if God doesn't want us to?

Eli: A right defined by who? Is it rights given to us by God? We don't have a right according to what God wants from us. A good Jew should not be doing that. I actually know there are differing opinions even amongst religious Jews, but broadly speaking, the consensus amongst religious kharedi Jews is that...

Nehemia:Kharedi” is what we say in English, “Ultra-Orthodox.”

Eli: Yes.

Nehemia: Do you accept that definition?

Eli: I mean, it's a label as good as any to know what you're talking about.

Nehemia: Tell me what it's like to be a kharedi Jew here in England. And again, assume my audience knows nothing.

Eli: Nothing, really. I'm not sure where the England part comes in.

Nehemia: I mean, being a kharedi Jew, let's say, in Tehran, in Iran, and there still are Jews in Iran, isn't a very pleasant experience.

Eli: No, I could say, broadly speaking, I don't have any problems. In fact, maybe when I was a kid, there might have been more incidences of anti-Semitic attacks. Local yobs, but nowadays...

Nehemia: Yobs? What's a yob?

Eli: I’m not sure what the American term is. It's a youth that's wild or uncouth. Probably Google will find the exact term.

Nehemia: We'll Google "yob.”

Eli: It's a British term.

Nehemia: There was a famous video that went around of a Jew walking through Paris. And he wasn't even dressed like a kharedi. He had a kipah on, and they were siccing dogs on him, and spitting on him, and cursing him. Do you experience that ever here, is that a common thing?

Eli: I don't. It does sometimes happen, but it's not a common thing. Certainly, it happens. I don't think it's ever going to be eradicated. In fact, nowadays, we've got more problems from a religious point of view with the Ofsted, for example.

Nehemia: What?

Eli: Ofsted, which is the…

Nehemia: I don't know what that is.

Eli: That's the government body to inspect schools. In general, the Board of Education really want to interfere with our way of teaching. For example, they're opposed to teaching creationism as fact.

Nehemia: They try to go into your school and tell you how to teach?

Eli: Yes. I'm talking private schools, of course.

Nehemia: I went to a kharedi private school in Chicago.

Eli: Also, for example, here in the UK the law is that you have to teach respect to everyone, but it's not just in a broad sense, be respectful to everyone. There are protected characteristics, which is, let's say, all genders, all sexualities, all races or religions, and you have to specify. So, when you’re teaching respect to everyone, you really have to specify, “Be respectful, even if someone is homosexual. Be respectful, even if someone identifies as trans,” or whatever. “Be respectful even if they're Christians and know some of their religion.” If you go into Ofsted inspections, Ofsted is the body that does the inspections. If you Google, it’s O-F-S-T-E-D. O-F, I’m not sure what that is, Office For…

Nehemia: All right, we don’t get that.

Eli: It’s education. It’s something, like it’s an acrostic. The E-D is the education. You’ll see that all the kharedi schools in the last few years have been failing, there's an inadequate score, and it's almost all of them is because of this, because we don't teach about the protected characteristics. Now, we religious Jews, for example, are against homosexuality, but we don't... I grew up in a religious school, it was never taught either way, it was never mentioned, because we also don't teach about sex for children, there's no sex education. We teach about abstinence, we teach not to look, not to mingle, not to shake hands. There’s separation between the genders. The schools are all either boys or girls, and there's only allowed physical contact with a close relative, like a brother, sister, or parent, or when you get married. And that's how we bring up our generations.

And so, looking at the outcomes, teenage pregnancies, rapes, harassment, all these kinds of things are far, far, far below the national average, so I’d say we are doing something right. But they want us to actually teach about sex education, not just in a general sense, but also specific, and teach that you can be a homosexual and be respectful for someone…

Nehemia: They're telling you, you have to teach sex education in your private school?

Eli: Yes, as I say, it's more than even a general sex education. It's more than just saying how to be safe. It's specific, you have to teach them homosexuality exists. If you're homosexual, don't worry about it. If you see a homosexual, don't worry about it, you should accept it. Now, leaving aside the religious thing, that we actually don't accept homosexuality… And I could make the argument from a non-religious point of view why that's wrong, but that's irrelevant. A person should be able to respect a person, that is not to spit on the person, which we don't do. And we're never taught to spit...

Nehemia: You're taught to be respectful of people, and I can confirm that. I grew up in a kharedi household, or a kharedi school, and I was never taught, “Go harass people because they're gay,” it just wasn't even talked about.

Eli: I mean, you can see I'm talking to you and you don't look religious...

Nehemia: I'm actually religious, but not your brand of religious. We could have that discussion, if you want.

Eli: But let’s say, you're not getting harassed by me. We don't teach to spit, or shout, or throw stones, or anything. It's, “You go your way, I'll go my way.” But a person should be able to actually have an opinion. I should be able to believe that homosexuality is wrong, and it shouldn't be foisted upon me to actually have to tell me, or teach my children, “By the way, you should know this is right.” I could teach my child. We might know, even in a broad sense, this is a wrong thing and still know whatever you see doesn't matter. You still don't shout at people in the streets. Looking at our community, violent crime is almost nonexistent. No religious Jews are accused of shouting, and attacking any different races of different religions, or different sexualities in the streets.

Nehemia: I'm not familiar with British politics and culture. Does that happen to, let's say, homosexuals coming from other corners?

Eli: I’m sorry, I don’t…

Nehemia: In other words, are there other groups of people in England who harass homosexuals?

Eli: I’ve no idea. Possibly, but I don't know, and I don't care, really.

Nehemia: I don't know anything about it.

Eli: So yeah, that is a problem that we're facing now. They really want to come in and... Also, teaching about other religions specifically. It’s not enough for them say, “Respect other people,” which we do. We teach it, I teach my children as well. You see someone else, you say, “Hello,” you say, “Thank you,” you hold the door open. It doesn't matter if it's Jewish or not. You're respectful in the broad sense, of other people, but I don't teach them about the Christian rights. I don't teach them about Islam as a religion, because that's abhorrent to me. I've got my religion, which I feel is the true… Sorry, I "feel" is the wrong word, which is the truth, and it's my right to have my truth and believe in the truth. I don't need to teach them that there are many versions of truth existing, and they've got theirs. All I need to tell my child, and which they do, is to respect.

I've got non-Jewish neighbors on both sides, and we don't have any problems with them. We're nice to them, we greet them. If it's holiday time, we'll wish them a happy holiday. But that's it, we keep to ourselves, they keep to themselves. There's no disrespect. In order to be respectful of people, there's no need to teach them and be very specific. But yet what the education department wants to do is to enforce us that we have to mention by name all the protective characteristics. And you have to believe in the orthodoxy that this is right, this is right, this is right.

Nehemia: Last year, I think, I was in Helsinki in Finland, and I interviewed a local Jew there. He was telling me that they've outlawed shekhita, that is the ritual slaughtering of animals according to the Jewish rite. This was a guy who didn't keep kosher, but he said, “You know, we need to have this right as Jews.” And he was fighting for this right. He said, “My grandfather did this, and how could they forbid us?” Of course, the Muslims are allowed to do it. And they're trying to outlaw brit mila, circumcision. Have you encountered anything like that here in the United Kingdom? Is there a movement for that?

Eli: As far as I know, at the moment there isn't. As far as I know. There might not be, but that's as far as I know. But by the way, about the shekhita, it's really very debatable whether there's any evidence that animals feel more pain with shekhita than with other methods. And I myself have seen, I've got goats at home, I raise goats.

Nehemia: Really, you raise goats? Where do you live?

Eli: In urban, regular Stamford Hill, but I've got quite a large back garden, which is a back yard and a field, for you people.

Nehemia: What do you call it in your country?

Eli: Back garden.

Nehemia: Back yard.

Eli: Yeah. In America, they would say, “Yard.”

Nehemia: Back yard.

Eli: We’d say “back garden.”

Nehemia: Back yara?

Eli: Garden.

Nehemia: Back garden. Oh, okay. You have goats in your garden, in your back yard?

Eli: Yes, I've got chickens, goats, rabbits, parrots.

Nehemia: You don't eat the rabbits, do you?

Eli: No.

Nehemia: What do you do with the rabbits?

Eli: They're just there for pets. I've got a few pet goats and a few of them that I raise for meat. I've seen them being slaughtered quite a few times already. Within five, six seconds, at most, they've lost consciousness completely. There are various ways how you would measure consciousness in a human. They've totally lost conscious, we're talking seconds. So, I don't really think there is, but that is just beside the point. Generally speaking, it's not about caring for animals, it's more about...

Nehemia: But there is a commandment in Judaism to have mercy on animals and not torture them. And Jews have been doing this for thousands of years. To come along now and say, “Hey, this isn't civilized...”

There's a famous story of Benjamin Disraeli, you've heard of him? He was a British Prime Minister. There was a debate in the Parliament, and there was some slur hurled at him that he was something like a “barbarian Jew.” And he said, “Sir, when your ancestors were running around painted blue, mine had the belief in the one God under Solomon and had a civilization.” So, I think it's kind of strange for the British to come to us and tell us there's a better way to do it.

Eli: Yeah, I agree with that. We are commanded to be kind to animals, to everyone, really. By the way, my animals, I make sure to feed them before I eat, myself. There's always plenty of food, but if, let's say, the parrots their food runs out every two days or so...

Nehemia: A parrot?

Eli: Yeah, I have a parrot, I've got budgies.

Nehemia: What's a budgie?

Eli: It's a small bird. It's also a kind of parrot.

Nehemia: You have like a veritable zoo.

Eli: I have, yes. Again, every few days, I don't eat that day before I've made sure that all the animals... I check the chicken food, the fish food, everything. Again, that's just one example of how we take care. God commands that, that we do it that way.

Nehemia: I used to have a dog and I would always eat before her, because she would enjoy her food better after drooling over my food. And she always got the last bite off of my plate. That's how I did it. Well, Elie, thank you so much, I really appreciate it.

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  • Lillian Santiago says:

    Interesting

  • LG says:

    Great interview! Although I didn’t agree with his views on Zionism, I thought it was awful that the British government was interfering with the way they teach their children in their private schools. I sure hope that they’ve been able to survive with all these lockdowns.

  • Ron says:

    That was interesting.Thanks Elly(?) and Nehemia.

  • Paulette Gray says:

    I budgie (budgerigar) is a native Australian parrot. In the US known as a parakeet

  • JAKE HAVA says:

    The man said the Hebrew schools don’t teach “sex education”, then he goes on to explain what they do teach, which, according to his description, is sex education – true sex education.

  • Walter Schwenk says:

    Eli makes a very lucid appraisal of the political and religious state of Israel. However, I think a strong case could be made that right to dwell in the “Land” is totally contingent upon faithfulness to yhwh.

  • Laura says:

    from Laura in Iowa: Here’s what I got out of this show: for an orthodox Jew, the biggest thing in keeping Torah is keeping shabbat, and the number 2 thing is eating kosher. For the Christians which I grew up around, the top one is drinking and number 2 thing is still smoking. Or looking at porn, not sure now. They don’t assign ranking in sermons, you can gather the importance of each thing to them by the way they speak. (kind of sneaky-like when it comes to drinking. They will mention drinking or drugs within one sentence of one with the word ‘sin’ in it, but rarely both concepts in the same sentence)

    • Neville D Newman says:

      Laura, you wrote that you got out of this episode that “the biggest thing in keeping Torah is keeping shabbat and the number 2 thing is eating kosher.” and also mentioned re. Christians, in your experience, “They don’t assign ranking in sermons, you can gather the importance of each thing to them by the way they speak.”

      I believe we might say that same (latter) thing about Torah. Look at the amount of text dedicated to Shabbat observance, as well as that dedicated to [un]acceptable foods, and compare that to other commands. I think we can gather why those things are considered highly important by the way (and the volume with which) they are spoken about in the scriptures.

    • Sarah says:

      Just because a mouse is in a cookie jar doesn’t make him a mouse. I am sure there are ungodly as well as godly people in both groups. Look for the real “cookies”.

  • Bill W says:

    Nehemia could you please comment on the idea that the old testament has several passages that may indicate there are 2 Yehovahs. I read an article about that recently. You did a show where your 2 guests commented briefly on this but you did not give your opinion.

  • Bill W says:

    That was a very good interview. I wish I had a neighbor like that.