Ever since I was a kid in Montreal I kept hearing the taunt from the wise guys on the corner -- besides how rich we were, how we Jews stick together. 

On the whole, I don’t remember being rich. Most Jews I knew were poor.

As for sticking together, personally I never had much luck on that count. Throughout my career as a writer, it never happened that a New York publisher would put an arm around me and whisper, “You’re Jewish. I’m Jewish. Let’s make a deal. Here’s a million dollars.” Playing the “Jewish card” seldom works.

I could write a book on how we differ and the need for a hero to lead by single-minded resolve, and in fact I did, right here, which brings us to Ayelet Shaked. The question arises whether we still need anti-Semites when the same job is being done so handily by homegrown malcontents, particularly against Israel’s newly appointed Minister of Justice.

A moment after she was announced to that high office, Shaked became the target of a Leftist smear campaign focused on her looks (too pretty) and her politics (too right-wing). Think of it as sore losers resorting to schoolyard petulance. They ended up humiliating themselves by use of such vile tactics.

You expected Isaac Herzog to extend Bibi a helping hand – for the greater good? Declined. So much for the “loyal” opposition.

I do not recall it ever being this bad, such nastiness from within the family.

Unless this is erev rav, mixed multitude riff-raff, so sick that within the Knesset they demand that their own IDF sons and daughters be tried for war crimes. Pathetic but true. Yet Jews have always been argumentative. Ours is a proud faith of defiance, as Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains.


It is remarkable that after all the shouting has been done, this dysfunctional family functions so beautifully.
Even back in the Wilderness we complained; no water, no meat, and in the Sinai, no air conditioning? We are not known to be happy campers. Check out Jackie Mason’s Jews in aRestaurant; it’s too hot, it’s too cold, the service is terrible and there’s a draft coming from the kitchen. By Biblical tradition we are a stiff-necked people.

Moses knew what he was up against. Why deliver the Jews? Why not the Swedes? Them, I can handle.

But from the beginning, modern times, Jews were all in this together, and never mind the warfare between Irgun and Haganah. Everybody chipped in.

Do you believe in miracles? Seemingly overnight these quarrelsome factions, including the Stern Gang, became the IDF.

It is remarkable that after all the shouting has been done, this dysfunctional family functions so beautifully.

The glory of Israel, amid the disputes, can be found in the smallest of events.

I saw it at the Navy base in Haifa. Over there this stupid American nearly brought the entire IDF to a stop.

At the cheder ha’ochel, the mess hall, I dug a spoon into a vat that contained a ton of chicken soup.

The entire room, a thousand cadets, froze. I got to know them all. Some fresh off the farm, the kibbutz. Others from all over the country and the world. The fellowship, the sweetness among these kids testified to the holiness of the IDF. They all turned to me and smiled and assured me that it would be beseder, okay.

Meanwhile nobody could eat. What had I done? The cooks, the dishwashers, the entire kitchen staff came for my spoon. They huddled. Phone calls were made. Finally an IDF Rabbi arrived. More conferences. At last came the decision. My spoon was deemed kosher for the soup. Meat and milk had not been mixed and Israel could breathe again.

(Ben Gurion, I was told, had decreed that the entire military enterprise was to be kosher.)

Balaam, like Ayelet Shaked’s naysayers, also tried to curse Israel, but instead came this famous blessing:

“How goodly thy tents O Jacob; thy dwelling places O Israel.” Despite our differences, still true.

Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. The new thriller from the New York-based novelist, The Bathsheba Deadline, a heroic editor’s singlehanded war on terror and against media bias. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com