Veteran AF: Dec 3, 2022

Saturday, December 3, 2022

The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Levy Book 42 of 2022

When I began my Jewish journey after torch-carrying Nazis marched in Charlottesville. In my search after that horrible night, Bernard-Henri Levy in his book The Genius of Judaism was one of the first writers to show me I really am a Jew.

Jews themselves fight over who is a Jew. My family and Jews I knew growing up said I was not a Jew. I do not have a Jewish mother. When I joined a Synagogue, it had to be a Reform Synagogue. To be Conservative, especially to be Orthodox, I would have to convert.

For non-Jews, my Jewish Dad means I am a Jew, the same way that having an Italian Dad would make me Italian. Of course, every white supremacist and Nazi in America hates me even if my mother is not Jewish.

Levy went showed me what an amazing tribe I am a part of. To be a Jew is to have a unique place in the world in so many ways. Who loses their country and gets it back after two millennia? And keeps its culture together during that entire two thousand years.

I wrote this about my first reading of the book in 2018:

The book explicitly on faith that moved me the most was The Genius of Judaism by Bernard-Henri Levy. This book looks at the history of the Jewish people and Israel through the lens of the Book of Jonah. Levy shows us Judaism and his view of the Jewish world by his interactions with “Nineveh” in the form of modern-day enemies of Jews and Israel. One modern Nineveh he visits is Lviv, Ukraine.

I knew my trip last summer was to visit Holocaust sites would center on Auschwitz, But this book led me to pair Lviv with Auschwitz as two sad extremes of the Holocaust. Auschwitz is the most industrial site of slaughter, Lviv is the most personal. At Auschwitz, the Nazis built a place of extermination. In Lviv they simply allowed the local population to act out their own anti-Semitism.

Lviv was the most personal of the sites of Holocaust slaughter. Neighbors killed neighbors and dumped their bodies in ditches. Levy went to Lviv to make peace with this site of unbridled hate. He seems to have succeeded. I did not. Ukraine tried to kill my grandparents. Ukraine remains a cauldron of anti-Semitism.

Which brings up another aspect of Judaism which Levy makes so simple and beautiful. We Jews, at our best, are committed to Justice, to repairing the world.

Until this year, I was ambivalent about Ukraine as was Levy. From the beginning of the war, I have volunteered for Ukraine, sometimes three or four days a week making combat medical kits. Levy made a documentary backing the fight to keep Ukraine free.

When the Russians invaded, Ukraine needed all free people to rally to her defense. Whatever problems I had with Ukraine before February 24 are insignificant compared to the unjust attack on an innocent country.

Glory to Ukraine.

The book is a celebration of Jewish history and life and is beautifully written.

First 41 Books of 2022: