Jewish values?

Here's a report in the Jerusalem Post, lamenting the fact that some Jews apply what they see as Jewish values to humanity as a whole and not just to their fellow Jews.

The good news is, then, that Jewish education works. A generation of young Jews around the world have internalized the message that "being Jewish" means fixing the world in its totality, without regard to race, religion or nationality.

The bad news for the Jewish state and people is that this generation of American Jews have taken from their education that acting Jewish means doing justice without regard to nationality or peoplehood.

While it feels good to support all peoples and all victims, the nature of the world in which we live in - where Hizbullah amassed thousands of rockets and attacked Israel; where Iran edges towards nuclear weapons; and where over a third of Israel's Jews, and, surprisingly, 20 percent of New York Jews live under or close to the poverty line - makes an ethics of universalism simply irresponsible at the moment.

It is at times like these that we who care about our families need remember the inherent obligation of peoplehood: Justice means providing full support to those whom you live with, those who would die for you, and the people whom you came from, no matter what the world thinks.

THE NEW JEWS seem to have forgotten this obligation. Shaped by the Diaspora, educated into multiculturalism and a universalistic morality, these young Jews equate their Jewish identity with global social justice. Even at a time of war they organize a benefit concert for all the war's victims, even if it means necessarily reducing the amount of aid provided to those who sacrificed for our welfare.

Where will it all end?