In The Nation, Will Alden writes of “a new Jewishness being born before our eyes” embodied by the Jewish students participating in the campus tentifada. He stipulates that traditional Judaism is “in need of transformational renovations and repair,” but the truth is that the religion Alden practices is not a Judaism renovated or repaired — it’s not Judaism at all.

Alden proposes that the real purpose of Shabbat, the Jewish sabbath, is to offer a taste of a world “outside capitalist logic and capitalist time.” Now, I must admit that I only spent two decades in Jewish educational institutions studying ancient Jewish texts, but this is the first time I’ve heard of “capitalist time” in any context. God and the rabbis dealt with time of the normal sort.

Alden adds that at the encampment at UCLA, students held a Passover seder with olives, strawberries, and watermelon to “symbolize solidarity with Palestine and Gaza.” This is a particularly peculiar practice considering one of the main themes of the seder is that in every generation, enemies of the Jewish people rise up in an attempt to destroy us. Traditionally, Jews tend not to feel solidarity with these groups. 

As an Orthodox Jew, I am careful to avoid arguing that anyone who practices a Judaism different from my own is not a “real” Jew. But that doesn’t mean lines cannot be drawn at all, and non-Jewish observers curious about those Jews participating in the anti-Israel encampments on college campuses should be aware that no serious sect of Judaism — Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, or any other — endorses the existence of such a thing as “capitalist time.” Here, as is also the case in their attitude toward the Jewish state, Alden and his leftist peers have created something entirely foreign to anything rightfully referred to as “Judaism.”