THE CANCELING OF ITAMAR BEN-GVIR AT A SYNAGOGUE IN NYC

Avi Abelow | April 27, 2025

Itamar Ben Gvir (Photo by Shai CandlerOwn work, CC0)

I have no problem acknowledging that some Jews, especially outside of Israel, feel uneasy about figures like Itamar Ben-Gvir. People can argue about his past actions, his political style, or certain statements, and not want to vote for him in Israeli elections. Reasonable people can have real discussions about these things.

But what’s so disappointing — and dangerous — is how many simply refuse to recognize the reality behind his popularity among so many Israelis today.

They ignore the fact that Ben-Gvir is not a racist, not a terror supporter, and not the threat they want to believe he is. His appeal isn’t rooted in hate. It’s rooted in a deep, painful awareness that Jewish survival in our homeland requires strength — and an unflinching acknowledgment of where the threats against us are really coming from: an Islamonaz*I enemy that exists within a 1,400 year culture that still today chants in celebration “Khaybar, Khaybar ya yahud”, celebrating the time when Muslims massacred the Jews in Khaybar back in the 7th century, and a society that today seeks Israel’s destruction.

That reality isn’t comfortable. It doesn’t fit Western progressive narratives. But it’s the truth that Israelis live with every single day — and ignoring it only costs more Jewish lives.

Reading some of the reactions to Ben Gvir’s appearances in America, one thing becomes heartbreakingly clear: too many Jews, even now, still don’t understand the reality we are facing.

Worse — the Western progressive values they have internalized are actively crippling their ability to even recognize the most basic Jewish instinct: the right and necessity of self-defense.

One recent example summed it up perfectly. A commentator warned that a “Judaism addicted to power” is as bad as terrorist movements around the world. Addicted to power? Since when did the Jewish people — after two thousand years of exile, persecution, pogroms, gas chambers, and now jihadist slaughter — need to apologize for finally reclaiming power to defend ourselves?

Power is not evil. Power is survival. Without Jewish power, we are dead. Without Jewish strength, there would be no Israel, no free Jewish communities, and no future for our children anywhere.

The real moral perversion isn’t Israelis voting for leaders like Itamar Ben-Gvir who promise to defend them — the real perversion is Jews, whether in Israel or in the diaspora, preaching weakness, restraint, and moral equivalence at a time when Jewish blood is flowing freely on the streets of the Land of Israel.

Let’s be crystal clear: the Jews who elected Ben-Gvir — by the hundreds of thousands — are far more connected to the authentic values of the Jewish people today than the Jews writing these hand-wringing posts whether in Israel or from behind their keyboards in New York or Los Angeles.

Israeli Jews who live in Ashkelon, Sderot, Jerusalem, and Judea and Samaria know exactly what’s at stake. They know that survival depends not on hollow slogans of “unity” and “restraint” but on armed, unapologetic Jewish strength — the kind of strength Torah values have always demanded when facing evil.

The Torah commands us, “If someone comes to kill you, rise up and kill him first.” It does not say: Hold back lest you be accused of ‘supremacy.’ It does not say: Worry about how CNN or your progressive neighbors will feel about your response.

It says: Defend the lives of the Jewish people. Without hesitation. Without apology.

Those accusing Ben Gvir and Jews in Israel of “supremacy” simply because they want to live safely in their ancestral homeland have absorbed the anti-Western, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish narratives of our times. They have replaced Torah values with progressive dogma. They have neutered the Jewish survival instinct under a delusion of moral “purity” that demands we lay down and die in order to be loved by others.

There’s no virtue in weakness. There’s no holiness in surrender. There’s no peace that comes from appeasing those who seek your destruction.

It is no accident that it’s precisely a majority of the Jews most grounded in our land, our history, and our faith — especially the Jews living in the towns and cities closest to danger — who overwhelmingly reject the suicidal ideals of the progressive world. They know better. They feel it in their bones.

They understand that Jewish sovereignty demands Jewish strength. That Jewish freedom demands Jewish courage. That Jewish life demands Jewish power.

When some Jews lecture Israelis for “celebrating Jewish power,” they reveal how distant they’ve become from the living, breathing, fighting spirit of the Jewish people.

October 7th should have shattered every illusion. It should have been the final death blow to the “progressive” fantasy that Jewish “niceness” would protect us. Instead, some Jews are doubling down on the same suicidal softness that has made Jews throughout history easy prey for our enemies.

We cannot afford to listen to them anymore.

We must embrace basic Jewish pride — a fierce, unapologetic, courageous pride rooted in our land, our Torah, and our God-given right to survive and thrive.

Not “addicted to power” — committed to survival.

Not “supremacy” — sovereignty.

Not “terror tactics” — self-defense.

That is the only Judaism that will ensure a Jewish future — in Israel and beyond.

Like him or hate him, today Ben Gvir represents a healthy understanding of our reality and self-preservation that many Jews deeply influenced by Western education and values are afraid to accept.