I am delighted you have managed to find no place for Zionism in your Judaism. I guess you sit down when Ark is open and everyone sings “ki mitzion taytze Torah” (Translation for those non-Hebrew speakers : from out of Zion will come the Torah).

Seriously, Israel is reparations for 2000 years of discrimination and brutality against the Jewish people by the Christian and Islamic world.

Zionism neither lays claim to huge tracts of the earth nor demands all knees bend to the Jews. It is simply one uncompromising point- Israel is the Jewish homeland. For those who despise Israel, tough noogies. A daily dose of news from Israel will send the snakes in your head spinning in every which direction.

Finally, Zionism can be world redemptive- if a people can be displaced from their land and return to rebuild it, continue their traditions and build a great nation that seeks nothing but to be a blessing to its people and its neighbors, I say that is global redemption at its best and an example for any and every nation to follow.

Drury’s critique of monotheism as a linear progression with a beginning and a glorious end does remind me of modern ideologies and presidential elections. I read once that the pagans were looking for a messianic figure to save them at the time of Christianity. Christianity was the religion that sought to spread itself everywhere. I never read anything about such a desire in Judaism.

I’d like to know how Drury rationalizes the fact that before the spread of Christianity most empires were pagan countries. They had war gods and found glory in battle. I think primatology probably has better answers for this aspect of human nature.