There are many ways to take Judaism, demean it, make
it tawdry, take its high flown and majestic ideas about the messiah, the upper
and lower worlds, humans created in the image of God, loving your neighbor as
yourself, and sideline them all for the goal of constructing concrete structures
on a barren hill in Judea, or setting up trailers along a stretch of barren gravel and
rock.
The diminution of Judaism is the subject of The Hilltops, a short documentary by
Igal Hecht. Hecht is a careful filmmaker;
he wants people to tell their own stories without his framing the questions or
answers in some meta-narrative that either condemns or honors them.
Yet it is hard not to feel when watching The Hilltops that the illegal settlers
in the West Bank are not only breaking Israeli law and departing from the prime
tenants of classical Zionism, but also reducing Judaism to a construction
project. The dream of Greater Israel and its Judaism has
become about plywood, sheet-rock, cinder-block and utility poles.
Of course, Judaism posits a love of Zion as one of
its central, driving impulses. But to
place it as the jewel in the crown is the reduce so much else that gives the
religion it richness.
What is left are dusty people in slovenly clothes,
heavily armed, constructing shitty buildings, abusing Palestinians, all in the divine
mission of redeeming the land. Their
singular purpose reduces them to Jewish zombies, so fixated on their
God sanctioned goal that they forget, or ignore, or berate that fact that other Jews have vital interests,
not only in peace, but in the future of a grand, beautiful religion --- a spiritual
tradition that is on par with all the
great traditions of the world. Not a religion about territory lost or gained, but about hearts turned toward God.
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