Religious Zionism makes it to 1999.

In the wake of last summer’s disengagement from Gaza, various Israeli media outlets were full of sociologists expounding on the psychological damage dealt to the religious Zionist movement by the failure, or at least temporary setback, of religious Zionism’s pet project of settlement in Judea, Samaria and Gaza — a project whose theological basis was a verse in the minor prophet Malachi:

“And the Lord shall gather you from among the nations of the earth and he shall establish you in trailers upon the mountains of Judah and your mouths shall be filled with the sound of laughter and you shall be clothed in raiment of joy, and colorful knit kippot and oversized flannel shirts, and verily in the place of the uprooted olive trees of Amalek shall bloom the cherry tomatoes of the children of Zion.”

As it turns out, these sociologists were half right. Indeed, massive psychological damage has been dealt to the religious Zionist movement. But, unlike the sociologists’ predictions, the religious Zionists haven’t expressed their crisis of faith by leaving the movement or the country.

Instead, they’ve merely gone totally fucking batshit.

That’s right. Find me one of those fancy, degree-having sociologists who predicted that instead of crawling into a corner and dying, religious Zionism would bounce back with a 5-minute Flash parody of The Matrix exhorting Jews to decide to make aliyah, at which point we’ll all float up from the exilic shackles of the Lower East Side and, newly fortified with knit kippot, alight upon the tarmac of Ben Gurion on the wings of eagles. Apparently those fucking eagles, despite being able to carry a Jew 6000 miles, can’t be bothered to land anywhere other than Lod, so, with 8 or so million Jews milling around Ben Gurion, it’s going to be really hard to catch a sherut to Jerusalem, where the Third Temple will have fallen from the sky and we’ll all have a groovy sausage party to Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up”, all under the firm but beneficent rule of kohen gadol Keanu Reeves and a talking blood red sun who keeps flashing out the name of God like a teleprompter on The 700 Club.

And they say you can’t get good weed in Israel.

Don’t believe me? Have five minutes of your life you’re not particularly attached to? Watch the whole process unfold in Flash thanks to your pals at Kumah (think along of the lines of aliyah organization Nefesh B’Nefesh, only without the economic might of millions of dollars of blood money from another group with a wacky Messianist wet dream, the evangelical Christians), Arutz Sheva, everyone’s favorite beard, flannel and M-16-happy banned news network and the Temple Institute, an organization noted for building an Old City museum dedicated to the 3rd Temple that could best be described as “pornographic.”

Now, look at me. Here I am, at the tender age of twenty, and arguably totally fucking batshit myself, an oleh chadash. I even liked the Matrix and Rage Against the Machine’s first album is on my iPod. I heart my people. I think I’m supposed to be Kumah’s target audience. But instead of getting me all jazzed up about my aliyah, the “KuMatrix” instead fills me with a profound worry for my fellow Jews. Do you Kumah guys need to talk or something? You don’t need to cover your psychological distress with bizarre Flash animations. Seriously. If it hurts, let it out. Michael is here for you. We’ll sit down and have some Gush Katif cherry tomatoes, and, if it’ll really make you feel better, we can even go out for your favorite: ice cream and ripping up Palestinian olive groves.

Think about it. For all of us.

And in the meantime, here’s my official Kumah Aliyah Revolution version of the Kumah Aliyah Revolution Theme Song, “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine:

Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never read it
The Torah, God said it
Radically Judaic
Standin’ with the fury that they had in ’67
And like M-Dayan I’m mad
Not yet knee-deep in manna from heaven
From Rav Kook until ha-gever Baruch
I’ll give ya a dose
But it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air in the Golah of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When Jews’ homes are stolen
‘Cause the state is run by the leftist bourgeois
With help from Tzahal, Shin Bet and the Mishtara
Networks at work, keepin’ people calm
You know they went after Kahane when he spoke out on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot!

Now don’t you want to hop on the next 11:40 El Al from JFK?