Special to WJW

If the Jewish community continues "with business as usual," Avraham Burg believes, "there is a fair chance that we won't be."

The former speaker of Israel's Knesset with the Labor Party was in the area last week to discuss "Assessing Jewish History-A Vision for the Future," and though he briefly alluded to the heavy political developments taking place in his nation, he focused more on the strains developing within Judaism.

Burg, whose 2004 best-selling book God Is Back soon will be available in English, said that he feared American Jews were becoming single-issue voters, and that blind support for Israel did not benefit either community. "When we say that we support Israel, does that mean there are no wrongs with it?" he asked. "Do we judge Israel differently, or do we judge ourselves differently than we judge the rest of the world?"

Addressing some 200 people at Adas Israel Congregation in the District, Burg said that he could see 200 different futures. Whereas Israel at one time united Jews, the three leading narratives surrounding it for the past century have become obsolete, he said. Aliyah, settling the land and how to achieve security were no longer issues on which all Jews could reach a consensus.

"What's my future of Judaism?" he asked. "It's re-introducing humanism into the current Jewish equation."

Emphasizing Jewish responsibility to the world, he said, "The woman in Darfur is no less important than my tefillin in the morning."

The kippah-clad Burg stressed the importance of tolerance and especially pluralism, which he defined as "I have my truth and you have your truth," rather than "you're stupid and I tolerate you."

The real clash of civilizations would be between democracies and theocracies, he said, between those who live according to the rule of democratic law and those who use theology to justify their actions. To illustrate his point, he recalled a televised debate he held with two settlers prior to Israel's disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005. His sparring partners wore orange Stars of David to draw a parallel to the Holocaust.

The ensuing program quickly devolved into a shouting match. At one point, one of the settlers turned to Burg and tried to appeal to their shared religiosity. "But Avraham," she implored, "you are my brother."

Burg, who said he does not believe in "genetic Judaism," was enraged. He replied that he had only two sisters (one of whom had died of cancer), and then to emphasize his distaste, he recalled telling the woman that if he saw her and the Dalai Lama drowning, he would jump in to save the Dalai Lama. The Tibetan leader, he told her, is his "value system brother and you are my adversary."

"The first call I got was from my mother," Burg sheepishly admitted of the many responses he received in reaction to his outburst. But Burg did not back down in his insistence that Israel must move beyond the Holocaust. "Are we a Holocaust-shaped people or are we something else?" he asked the crowd.

Some Jews will never be able to trust non-Jews because of such historical traumas, but, Burg maintained, this was not how he wanted to practice Judaism.

Burg spoke in loving terms about his mother, who died last year at the age of 86, and used her example to show the differing mindsets one could take. Her father, the chief rabbi in Hebron, once had said prayers at the bedside of an ailing Arab neighbor who later recovered. When the riots of 1929 erupted, this family would protect Burg's mother and her immediate family. Burg's mother never lost her faith in humanity.

Burg recalled driving her home from her 85th birthday celebration, when she told him, "You know, I think God loves me."

When Burg asked her how she could possibly feel this way after all the sufferings she had endured, she responded, "I was surrounded and engulfed by love."

"Love" is what is necessary for the Jewish people "to cure our trauma," said Burg.