This is an entry on Facebook published by Professor Jacob Neusner's son. Professor Neusner was a tremendous inspiration for me.
Today my family marks the yahrtzeit of my father, Rabbi and Professor Jacob Neusner, who died 8 years ago today, 6 Tishrei (pictured here with my sister in the 1980s).
I often wonder what he would say and write about the events of this moment -- he was both a Zionist (he considered making aliyah in the '50s) and was critical of political Zionism as a replacement for robust, literate and religious Judaism. He believed deeply in Jewish life outside the State of Israel, and that the diaspora must remain a vital place of Jewish invention and dynamism, and not dependent on Israel for its identity.
I suppose he would have seen the return to synagogues and religious connection now common across world Jewry post 10/7 as a validation of his view that in the end, we cannot replace enchantment with politics -- when the heart is broken, we don't need policy, we need prayer.
He would have seen the close identity-affiliation of diaspora Jews with Israel as both a byproduct of the intellectual weaknesses in diaspora Judaism AND the dynamism and relative scale of Israeli Jewish life and culture.
The rise of religious Zionism, nourished by Mizrachi Jews, as a critical feature of Israel's national life in the last two decades would have surprised him in its richness. Diaspora Jews now depend on Israel in a way that wasn't the case even in the post-67 period. Israel is the center of the Jewish world and the Ashkenazi-centric diaspora has receded to secondary status -- and my dad would have recognized that shift and not resisted it further. He might have suggested it was just as much a victory of Israel's dynamic culture as a surrender by the aging and tired diaspora. In any case, he was a realist.
As for the rise of intellectually fashionable anti-Semitism especially among the professoriate and his former colleagues, he would have had no illusions. He would have had no problem unleashing his legendary wit and letter bombs against those who hide their Jew-hatred behind academic robes and fancy titles. They would not have been able to elide their own bigotries with vague and passive reassurances.
He wasn't fooled by academic pretension or rank -- he knew who was any good, and that mediocrities were the most likely to hide amid faddish political fashions, administrative positions, and the faculty lounge and senate, whose meetings he faithfully ignored.
He would have stuck it to them, embarrassed them, and, if they tried to silence him, would have simply written more about them. That was his way. No fear.
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