As a Jewish Person..." - CHRONICLE Online/The WORD 09/18/25

Weekly On-line Rabbi's D'var-Torah

September 18, 2025

25 Elul 5785

Parashat Nitzavim

I have to admit that I didn’t watch the Emmys, but as a former Pittsburgh resident, I was happy to see that “The Pitt” did very well that night. I think that Noah Wylie should have received special commendation for his recitation of the “Sh’ma.”

On the flip side, though, I was greatly disappointed in Hannah Einbinder’s pin celebrating the murder of two lost Israelis in the West Bank (image below), her need to call for the freedom of Palestine without calling for the freedom of the hostages, and her comments after the ceremony. Any time someone chooses to include the phrase, “as a Jewish person,” in their speech, I wince.  

After the ceremony, she said: “I feel like it is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the State of Israel, because our religion and our culture is such an important and longstanding institution that is really separate to this sort of ethno-nationalist state.”

I don’t even know where to begin.

It is impossible to separate the State of Israel from Judaism. For the 1,900 years between the destruction of the Temple and the establishment of the State of Israel, Jews ceaselessly prayed for a return to the Land of Israel. It is part of our daily liturgy—three times every day. It is the last line of the Passover Seder. Our most popular holiday celebrates how a small ragtag army took back Jerusalem and the Temple from an invading power. How, exactly, can one separate the State of Israel from Judaism?

One of the central tenets of our “important and longstanding” religion and culture is a love of Israel.

And then she seemed to suggest that there is something wrong Israel's being an ethno-nationalist state. Does she have a problem with the 50+ Muslim ethno-nationalist states in the world? Does she have a problem with the 20+ countries for which Christianity is their national religion? Or is it only the one Jewish state where this is a problem?  

Israel was, of course, established in the shadow of the Holocaust. People like to say that the only reason that there is an Israel is because there was a Holocaust. However, the truth is that there was a Holocaust because there was no Israel. So, as antisemitism continues to rise to levels not seen by most Jews alive today, it only reinforces for us the necessity of having a Jewish state—even if Hannah Einbinder thinks it an ethno-nationalist state.  

This week’s Torah portion begins with God saying to the Israelites, “You stand this day, all of you, before your God Adonai—your tribal heads, your elders, and your officials, every householder in Israel, your children, your wives, even the stranger within your camp, from woodchopper to water-drawer... (Deuteronomy 29:9).” God included everyone. When someone takes advantage of their moment in the spotlight to speak the words, “as a Jewish person,” she better be sure that she is really representing Judaism and the Jewish people.  

Hannah Einbinder gave us the perspective of Jew who grew up in Beverly Hills as the child of a famous entertainer. She didn’t think about the 850,000 Jews of Arab lands who were expelled from their longstanding homes and were taken in by Israel because they had nowhere else to go. She didn’t think about the survivors of the Holocaust who were taken in by Israel because they had nowhere else to go. She didn’t think about the Israelis who live everyday knowing that there are fanatic terrorists in the adjacent territory who want to kill every last one of them.

Hannah Einbinder didn’t really speak “as a Jewish person.” She spoke as herself.

Shalom,

RAF