October 7th changed everything and nothing will be the same again. On this we are agreed. On this there is no shortage of damning evidence.
Almost every organization we were taught to respect has shown its ugly face —and we will never respect them again. Yet beyond the easy and obvious targets - the United Nations, Amnesty International, the Red Cross, Spain and Ireland - is the little discussed matter of Jewish status. It is this matter to which I now turn –- and I hope that the Jewish world will follow me.
2 years is a long time ago in modern politics - and short time in stagnant religion - but allow me to help you refresh your memory. In those heady days of early 2023, Jewish status was the monopoly of one group: the Ultra-Orthodox. Progressive Jews had tried to bypass them; Zionist Israelis had tried to ignore them; but their hold on the Jewish imagination was unrelenting. Even if you were a middle of the road, traditional cherry-picker, “we” were all agreed on one thing: a Jew was he or she that was born of a Jewish mother. The Ultra-Orthodox had declared it so — and who will we to disagree with men in beards.
“We” didn’t include me, but it included almost all of thee. Even the most cultural of ethnic Jews, was determined on the point of matrilineality. Upon any “happy” announcement of forthcoming marriage, the first question was guaranteed to be: “Is she Jewish?” And when I say guaranteed, I mean I cannot think of even a single exception to this rule. The first thought of any Jewish mother, however religious or culturally secular, was the rabbinical status of the announced spouse. Not happiness, not joy, not celebration, but the ketubah. To be “intermarried” was place yourself outside the tent.
And so it was that vigorously anti-Zionist Jews, from Chomsky to Finklestein, were automatically bestowed Jewish status, while the greatest servants of the Jewish people were treated as lepers for want of a Jewish mother. The ultra-Orthodox had proclaimed it so.
The thinking Jew may have protested: Did not Moses marry a non-Jewish wife? Were his children thereby “goyim”? And did he not give the very law that we claim to be following? Such protestations inevitably fell on deaf ears, two thousand years of nonsensical tradition automatically cancelling out reason.
In Israel too, this tyranny of nonsense held full sway. According to the Law of Return, all those born of a Jewish grandparent were eligible for immigration. If Hitler would have killed you, the Jewish state would welcome you. Yet “welcome” must be put very much in inverted commas – for though you would get a passport, you would be treated as “Other” on the census. Literally.
Every year on Rosh Hashanah eve, the Israeli authorities release their much-awaited population statistics. The Jews will be 75% of the population. The Arabs and Druze 20%. And in the middle will be this mysterious groups called “Others”. Who are these Others? Are 5% of the population really naturalized Thai guest workers? Not at all. The Others, for the most part, are literal Others. “Non-Jewish” Jews, generally from the former Soviet Union. Legal Jews cast out as lepers by the Ultra-Orthodox religious establishment. They exist, but only by tolerance. Legally, culturally and by classification, they are othered.
King David, Tziporrah and Moses’ son Gershom would have been proud members of this underclass —the latter literally being “ger sham, a stranger there”.
To the above, Ultra-Orthodox apologists cite conversion. Conversion, to be clear, is a total sham. A sop to hope in a fairy tale world. Conversion is impossible — unless of course you decide to become Ultra Orthodox yourself. If you don’t, your conversion will be accepted by some, but not by all, leaving you in a permanent state of status purgatory. The Ultra-Orthodox dictatorship is such that only those that don black and white can escape perpetual otherness.
October 7th has changed everything — because among those groups for which we’ve forever lost respect are the Ultra-Orthodox (the Haredim) themselves. The Haredim have become the internal United Nations: bitter opponents of Israel and the vulnerable diaspora, citing Jewish sources for their impotence under barbarian threat.
They refuse to serve in the military.
They refuse to help their suffering co-citizens.
They conduct sit-ins on the streets.
They stage mass, heartless demonstrations.
They act as if nothing’s going on and paralyze the government in order to legalise their draft dodging.
The entirety of Israel, from the religious Zionists to the secular to the Druze, have completely lost respect for these self-alienated Men in Black. In our greatest hour of need, they have put sectarian concerns and theological nonsense ahead of the safety and security of Am Yisrael. Although “religiously Talmudic”, they have inexplicably and intolerably put themselves outside of the tent of the Jewish people.
So why now should we listen to their rulings on Jewish status?
Why should we follow their dictates on divorce?
Why should we humbly consent to their every theological whim?
We shouldn’t and we won’t: their reign of tyranny is at an end. By outing themselves as non-Zionists, unattached and uninterested in the fate of the Jewish people at this most difficult hour, they have positioned themselves, at best as embarrassing irrelevances, at worst as bon fide non-Jews. Like the hardline, anti-Zionist “Jews” in the West, their opposition to Israel has made them voices that we are permanently unwilling to hear.
The entire “my mother is Jewish” charade has been exposed. Naomi Klein might have a Jewish mother. So might Rabbi Klein of Jerusalem. But are either of them still members of our people? The answer is in serious doubt.
To be clear, I am not saying that a Jew must be pro-Israeli government. In many ways, how can you be when its propped up by the Haredim of United Torah Judaism and Shas? How can you be when its most extreme party leader, Itamar Ben Gvir, was himself barred from serving in the IDF? Indeed, I am not pro-Israeli government, very largely because the aims of its members often contradict the interests of Israel.
Nonetheless, to boycott Israel, to seek its destruction, to advocate for its enemies and - in the Israeli context - to refuse to serve, is entirely unacceptable. Israel is at the very centre of Jewish life. It is the vehicle of the Jewish future. To wish the worst for the Hebrew State; to support Hamas; to call for a globalised Intifada; is to fully exit oneself from the Jewish people — and I don’t give a damn whether your mother is Jewish. A person who separates themselves from our fight for survival, in Israel and beyond, is not a brother. We can disagree on how to fight, when to fight and far more besides —by we cannot seek the deliverance of the enemies of civilisation, either from Jerusalem Yeshivot or New York universities.
At the same time as seeing betrayal from Rabbis and professors alike, we have seen extraordinary bravery from the “Others”: the Others that fight in the Israeli Army, the Others that fight online, the Others that are here on Substack.
I am one of the Others. My wife is “not Jewish”. My daughter is “not Jewish”. Or at least that’s what the discredited Israeli Rabbinate say. Yet I have done more for Israel in the last decade - and in particular in the last two years - than the entire non-fighting, non/anti-Zionist, Haredi community combined.
(Those Haredim in the military or otherwise engaged in legal national service, and the genuinely gifted Talmudic scholars are not included in this last statement.)
I live in exile. I live far from New York, Melbourne and London. Only 40 years ago, I would have been cast out for “intermarriage”. Only 30 years ago they would have sat shiva. Only 20 years ago, I would never have been spoken of. An embarrassment. An irrelevance. A black Tziporran Midianite who “married out” of the tribe. And in refusing to move to London, New York or Israel, I would have sealed my fate: the man who betrayed 2000 years of Jewish history.
But today things have changed —and dramatically so. October 7th changed everything. Amongst the greatest advocates of Israel - and through it Western Civilisation - are the eternal lepers. The “intermarried” like me.
Else the completely exiled that have been guest writers on Guerre and Shalom. The proud Jews living in Indonesia and Singapore like Nachum Kaplan. The Shlomo Levins in Mexico and the Susan Bordos in Kentucky. Francisco from Seville, living in Lincolnshire. Sam Harris - the hardline New Atheist Sam Harris - who has become a full-on Zionist since October 7th. And, of course, Garry Kasparov. All of us, in a post-10/7, internet age, have become fighters, the Jewish fighters that Israel needs. No matter where we live, who we married or our religious beliefs we stood up to the plate when so many others - including “Israeli” Rabbis - failed, in some cases catastrophically so.
That is why Nachum, Shlomo, Susan, Sam, Garry, Francisco, myself and others are the new voices of the Jewish people. It’s why people read our work, follow us, support us, pay us subscriptions to continue —because we did our duty to the Jewish people, our history and our future; we stood up for the true West when the hour of destiny came. General Gallant would prefer to write for Guerre and Shalom than Hamodia because it was us that stood up against the barbarians. We held firm at the gates when those with a Jewish mother let them in.
Now, in 2025, a Jew isn’t someone with a Jewish mother who lives in a big Jewish community, eats falafel, dances to Hava Nagillah, goes to shul on Yom Kippur and gives charity to a Jewish cause. It’s someone who fights for the Jewish nation, militarily, in writing, in speech or otherwise. It’s someone with historical intelligence to fight for the future. It’s someone who learnt the lessons of the past —-and will stop the 1930s happening again at all costs.
It’s someone who’s read the Tanakh, the story of Jewish people, and is willing to write the next chapter. It’s someone who learnt of Moses and Ruth and David, the eternal Others who ignored the critics to create a new world. It’s someone who is a Jew because the moment to be a Jew has arrived —not through ritual, ancestry or custom, but through having the heart of the lion and the strength of a tiger.
Today, the Jewish people stand as sentinels of civilisation in a decayed world: a world where the West is fraying at the edges and democracy is on life support. When Americans and Brits don’t know who they are anymore. When Cosmopolitan Palestinianism has drained us all of who we are.
But the Jews aren’t who the Haredim say the Jews are. In a post-10/7 world, their rulings and dictates and prejudices are irrelevant. The Jews are those who will fight the purveyors of evil —on the beaches, on the landing grounds, on the fields and in the streets. Like the titans of the Second World War, we will never surrender.
We will draw arms until freedom is established and each may sit under his own fig tree with none to make him afraid.
We will fight with a sword and we will fight with a keyboard, with our words and with our acts. Truth will be our shield and courage will be our legacy. Those who defy us, from Spain to Ireland, will be defied in turn. Those who bless us will be blessed and those who curse us will be cursed.
וְהִיא שֶׁעָמְדָה לַאֲבוֹתֵיֽנוּ וְלָנֽוּ. שֶׁלֹא אֶחָד בִּלְבָד, עָמַד עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ. אֶלָּא שֶׁבְּכָל דּוֹר וָדוֹר, עוֹמְדִים עָלֵיֽנוּ לְכַלּוֹתֵנֽוּ. וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא מַצִּילֵנוּ מִיָּדָם
And this is that promise which sustained our fathers and us.
That it is not one enemy alone that stood up against us to destroy us.
But that in each generation there are those standing up against us to destroy us..
But the Holy One Blessed Be, He saves us from their hand.
This is the creed of the Jews. And to convert to Judaism is to accept this alone. May all our mothers see the light and join us in the fight against darkness at this gravest hour.
Thank-you to Elena Gomel for this comment:
"Post-October 7, it is time to redefine Jewishness. We are a people, not a religion. Our culture is not a bagel. Our history is not The Fiddler on the Roof. I have more in common with a Druze soldier who fights for Israel than with an anti-Zionist American “liberal” whose rabbi campaigns for Mamdani. This essay deserves to be placed on the same bookshelf as Jean Amery’s On the Necessity and Impossibility of Being a Jew. Amery, a survivor of Auschwitz, was not a Jew according to the Halacha. I couldn’t care less., He is one of the greatest Jewish writers of the last century."
Very powerful, Daniel. And sad. A community so torn apart at the time of its greatest threat.
Can those who refuse to fight for their tribe be said to belong to it? Then what of pacifists? Does the tribe have a responsibility to those who refuse to bear arms- conscientious objectors? These questions have challenged my own ideas about war and non-violence.