01 Sep AS JEWISH AS A HAM SANDWICH: BEN SHAPIRO, CHABAD, AND WHAT IT MEANS TO BE JEWISH

A fascinating debate
broke out online last
week over a question
that sounds semantic but
is actually profound.
Though it wasn’t framed
this way, to me, the
question being debated
was essentially: is there a difference between
being a Jew and being Jewish?
It began when comedian Hannah Einbinder
expressed views sharply critical of Israel (not
for the first time). Ben Shapiro responded,
“Hannah Einbinder is about as Jewish as a
ham sandwich.” He added, “If you believe
that these people represent Jews or Judaism,
then you believe Madonna represents
Catholics or Catholicism.”
When someone, whether a celebrity or
grassroots activist, invokes the “as a Jew” card
to lend credibility to an argument or position
that he regards as anti-Jewish, Ben’s response
on several occasions has essentially been:
Don’t use your Jewish identity to validate an
argument that is antithetical to Judaism or
harmful to the Jewish people.
Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone of Chabad.org
pushed back. “There are many ways to
criticize bad arguments,” he wrote. “Saying
people who are indeed Jewish are about as
Jewish as a ham sandwich is simply not it.”
Shapiro responded: “Wrong. Using the mantle
of Jewishness, something Einbinder and
company demonstrate zero actual commitment
to, in order to promote anti-Judaic insanity is
fundamentally un-Jewish and ought to be
called out as such.”
Then Rabbi Shais Taub joined the fray. “Torah
is the final arbiter of all matters, including
Jewish status,” he wrote. “You cannot revoke
someone’s Jewishness even if you believe
they are using that very status to advance
ideas that are to the detriment of the Jewish
people.” Rather than push such Jews away, he
argued, we should devote ourselves to
bringing our brothers and sisters back into the
fold.
So who is right? When a Jew invokes “as a
Jew” while advancing ideas we believe are
deeply damaging to Judaism, Israel, or the
Jewish people, do we say, “You’re about as
Jewish as a ham sandwich”? Or is a Jew a Jew
now and forever, and our responsibility is
always to love them, embrace them, and try to
bring them closer? The answer may be both.
The Gemara in Sanhedrin famously describes
the sin of Achan, who disobeyed Hashem’s
command not to take from the spoils of
ישראל אף על פי ,words the with ,Yericho
הוא ישראל שחטא, even though a Jew has
sinned, he remains a Jew. The Gemara offers a
beautiful metaphor: A myrtle standing among
thorns remains a myrtle and is still called a
myrtle. Achan’s crime was devastating and
damaging: he had not merely committed some
private aveirah, rather his actions brought

catastrophe upon the Jewish people.
Nevertheless, Chazal insist that his essential
identity remained unchanged.
The Gemara in Yevamos takes this even
further. A convert who properly completes the
conversion process is k’Yisrael l’chol devarav,
Jewish in every respect. What happens if that
convert later abandons Judaism? He remains a
Jew. If he marries and decides to abandon
Yiddishkeit, his kiddushin remains valid
because he is now a Yisrael mumar, an
apostate Jew, but a Jew nonetheless. The
Rambam codifies the same principle regarding
someone born Jewish who converts to another
religion. Even if he willingly worships idols,
his kiddushin remain fully binding. There is
no reverse conversion. There are no backsies.
Once you are a Jew, you are a Jew forever.
The Gemara in Kiddushin adds another
dimension. The Torah says, לה׳ אתם בנים
אלקיכם,” You are children of Hashem your
G-d.” Rabbi Yehuda understands this
conditionally: Only when we behave like
Hashem’s children are we called His children.
When we do not, we lose that designation.
בין כך ובין כך אתם :disagrees Meir Rabbi
בנים קרויים, either way, you are called
children. The Gemara supports Rabbi Meir
with a series of pesukim describing Jews as
foolish children, faithless children, even
destructive children. The Torah is telling us
something: at times we may act like terrible
children, but we remain children.
Remarkably, the Rashba writes that although
we ordinarily follow Rabbi Yehuda in a
dispute between Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi
Meir, here the halacha follows Rabbi Meir
because the pesukim brought by the Gemara
support him. As any parent can relate to, no
matter what we do to upset our Father in
Heaven, we remain Hashem’s children.
That is particularly important as we enter Elul
and approach Rosh Hashanah and Yom
Kippur. Some of us look back at the year and
feel inadequate. We have made the same
mistakes again. We have disappointed
ourselves and Hashem. Maybe we wonder
whether we have exhausted His patience. But
still we pasken like Rabbi Meir. Banim atem
laHashem Elokeichem. You are still His child
and will always be his child.
Rebbe Mordechai of Kuzmir finds a beautiful
allusion in the unusual formulation banim
atem. Why does the Torah need the word
atem? Elsewhere, regarding the rabbinic
authority over the Jewish calendar, Chazal
derive from the word osam: ,שוגגין אפילו אתם
even—אתם אפילו מזידין, אתם אפילו מוטעין
when you err unintentionally, even
deliberately, even when you are mistaken.
Rebbe Mordechai takes the same word with
different vowelization – “Atem” – and reads
the same message here: Banim atem. You
remain Hashem’s children afilu shogegin,
afilu mezidin, afilu mut’in. When we make
mistakes, when we knowingly make the

wrong choices, even when we are confused
and lost, Hashem has not given up on us.
This is why the Gemara says that a communal
fast that does not include the sinners of Israel
is not a proper fast. It is why, before Kol
אנו מתירין להתפלל עם ,announce we ,Nidrei
העבריינים, we permit ourselves to pray
together with the transgressors. And who are
the transgressors? We might imagine we are
welcoming the Jew who drove to shul on Yom
Kippur. But if we are honest, we are also
talking about ourselves. We are all the
avaryanim. None of us should imagine that we
are so perfect that we automatically deserve a
place in the room.
This is a running theme throughout much of
Jewish law and thought. The chelbenah, the
malodorous spice, was nevertheless essential
to the ketores. The aravah has neither taste nor
fragrance, yet without it there are no complete
arba minim. Klal Yisrael includes Jews who
are distant, confused, alienated, and sinful.
The very word we use to describe a community,
“צבור – Tzibbur,” many point out, stands for
“Tzaddikim, Beinonim, V’R’shaim.”
These sources certainly sound like they
support the approach of Rabbis Lightstone
and Taub. A Jew is a Jew, always a child of
Hashem.
So was Ben Shapiro simply wrong, is his
approach extreme, unforgiving and maybe
even inaccurate? Not necessarily. The
Rishonim introduce another category that
changes the conversation. There is Yisrael,
and there is “Achicha.” Yisrael describes who
you fundamentally are. Achicha, your brother,
describes how you participate in the
covenantal fraternity of the Jewish people and
how we relate to you.
The Maharam Mi’Rutenburg distinguishes
between the two. Certain Halachos are based
simply on being Jewish. Gittin and kiddushin,
marriage and divorce, for example, remain
fully operative even for an apostate Jew. But
other mitzvos are explicitly formulated in
terms of achicha. The Torah commands us to
return aveidas achicha, our brother’s lost
object. We may not charge our brother interest.
Somebody can therefore remain Yisrael while
forfeiting aspects of achva. There are times we
are instructed, even obligated, to treat a Jew as
if he was not a Jew.
There are, in other words, two levels: דרגת
אחוה ודרגת ישראל. When it comes to Jewish
identity, Hashem decides who is a Jew. And a
Jew is a Jew is a Jew. But achva describes the
way we relate to and behave toward our fellow
Jews. If someone deliberately removes
himself from the Jewish people and works
against them, the Rishonim recognize that
those choices can affect that status and that
status affects the privileges he or she enjoys
and how we relate to him or her.
This is where the conversation becomes
especially relevant today. The Rambam

describes the poresh midarkei tzibbur, one
who separates himself from the Jewish
community, in startling language: פי על אף
עבירות עבר שלא, even though he has
committed no aveiros. Imagine someone who
keeps Shabbos, is meticulous about kashrus
and is personally scrupulous about halacha.
But he is nivdal mei’adas Yisrael, he separates
himself from the Jewish people. Continues the
Rambam,בצרתן נכנס ולא, he does not enter
into their suffering. He does not feel their
pain. Their enemies are not his enemies. Their
danger is not his danger. Their destiny is not
his destiny. He conducts himself, says the
Rambam, k’ilu eino meihem, as though he is
not one of them. That is itself a profound
religious failure and it impacts his place in the
community in this world and his very entrance
to the next one.
We need to be exceedingly careful here.
Criticizing Israel or its government, leaders,
or officers does not make someone an enemy
of the Jewish people. Advocating for
Palestinians does not remove someone from
achva. There is plenty about Israel and about
the Jewish community that can legitimately be
criticized. Where exactly the line is crossed is
a serious and complicated halachic question,
and labels such as mumar, moser, and poresh
midarkei tzibbur (and more modern
terminology like “Kapo” or “self-hating Jew”)
should not be thrown around casually. But
there is a difference between criticizing
policies and leveling blood libels against the
Jewish state. There is a difference between
advocating for another people and actively
undermining the safety and security of your
own, a clear distinction between disagreement
and disassociation.
Moshe Rabbeinu provides the opposite model:
Moshe ,ויגדל משה ויצא אל אחיו וירא בסבלותם
went out to his brothers and saw their
suffering. What helped make Moshe the
quintessential leader of the Jewish people was
precisely achva. He saw other Jews as his
brothers. Rashi tells us that he placed his eyes
and heart upon their suffering. Jewishness is
not only what you eat, how you observe
Shabbos, or which mitzvos you perform. It is
also whose pain you feel, whose fate you
share, and whom you call your brother.
And that brings us back to Ben Shapiro’s ham
sandwich. Perhaps what the conversation is
missing is distinguishing between the noun
Jew and the adjective Jewish. Jew is an
identity. Jewish is a description. A Jew you are
forever. Yisrael af al pi shechata, Yisrael hu.
Even if you espouse ideas as non-kosher as a

ham sandwich, you
remain a Jew. Only
Hashem determines
Jewish identity, and no
tweet, political position,
or personal rebellion can
undo it.
But are your ideas
Jewish? Are your actions Jewish? Are you
behaving Jewishly? Are you a representative
of the Jewish people? Are you living with
achva, seeing other Jews as achicha? That is a
different question. In that sense, Ben’s
formulation can be understood differently, and
to me is compelling. He was not, to me, saying
that such a person is no longer a Jew. He was
saying that invoking “as a Jew” does not
magically make an argument Jewish. You can

be a Jew while espousing profoundly un-
Jewish ideas.

Indeed, when espousing un-Jewish and anti-
Jewish ideas with the introduction “as a Jew,”

it is particularly dangerous and damaging.
Historically, apostate Jews often walked away
and disavowed their Jewish identity. They
sought to assimilate, integrate, and erase their
status as Jews. Today, by contrast, some of the
most vociferous voices leveling false
accusations against Israel have abandoned the
Rambam’s basic criteria for being worthy of
achva status, all while prominently waving the
“as a Jew” card.

In that sense, perhaps the ham sandwich
metaphor is particularly fitting. Chazal
describe the pig as stretching out its split
hooves, as if to announce, “Look, I am
kosher,” while concealing the fact that it does
not chew its cud and is therefore not kosher at
all. The pig is a symbol not merely of what is
forbidden, but of the hypocrisy of publicly
displaying the credential that suggests
legitimacy while behaving in a way that
contradicts it. There is something similarly
troubling about invoking one’s Jewish identity
not as a source of responsibility to the Jewish
people, but as a credential to lend greater
legitimacy to those who attack them. The
repeated declaration “as a Jew” can become
the outstretched hoof, holding up Jewish
identity precisely while advancing ideas
profoundly at odds with Jewish solidarity and
responsibility.
Rav Soloveitchik’s famous distinction
between Bris Avos and Bris Sinai helps
illuminate this further. Before Sinai, we
already had a covenant. We were the
descendants of Avraham, Yitzchak and
Yaakov. Bris Avos makes us a family. It gives
us a common history, identity, belonging,
loyalty, and destiny. Then came Bris Sinai. At
Sinai we said na’aseh v’nishma. We accepted
Torah, Halacha, and mitzvos.
This distinction is embedded in Birchas

אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים ונתן לנו :HaTorah
תורתו את. First, bachar banu—He chose us, a
people. Then, v’nasan lanu es Toraso—He
gave us the Torah. Peoplehood precedes
obligation. Bris Avos precedes Bris Sinai.
Tragically, much of the Jewish world today
shares our Bris Avos but not our Bris Sinai.
They may not observe Shabbos or kashrus,
may not believe in Torah min HaShamayim,
and may know little about mitzvos. But they
identify passionately with the Jewish people.
Israel matters to them. Jewish suffering hurts
them. Jewish celebrations move them. We
may desperately want to help them discover
Bris Sinai, but we already share Bris Avos.
There are also Jews with whom we share Bris
Sinai but who seem strangely disconnected
from Bris Avos, from the larger Jewish family
and its collective fate. And then there is the
most painful possibility: someone who seems
to reject both. Neither Bris Sinai nor Bris
Avos. Neither the covenant of Torah nor
identification with the fate and family of the
Jewish people. Perhaps that is the person the
Rambam describes as k’ilu eino meihem—
someone who behaves as though he is not one
of us.
So who is right, Ben Shapiro or Rabbis
Lightstone and Taub? Rabbis Lightstone and
Taub are unquestionably right about the Jew.
Yisrael af al pi shechata, Yisrael hu. A Jew is a

Jew. We don’t give up on another Jew because
Hashem doesn’t give up on another Jew.
Banim atem laHashem Elokeichem. We
should reach out, invite, educate, inspire, put
on tefillin together, share a Shabbos table, and
try to awaken the Jewish soul that remains
present no matter how deeply buried.
But Ben is right about the word Jewish. Being
born a Jew does not make everything one says
a Jewish position. Invoking “as a Jew” does
not give Torah credibility to an idea. Jewish
identity is unconditional but living Jewishly is
not. A Jew is never a treif piece of ham but an
idea, even if said by a Jew, can be and
sometimes it is necessary to point that out,
protest and set the record straight.
You can never stop being a Jew. But you can
certainly stop acting very Jewish. And perhaps
the challenge is not merely to decide which
description applies to someone else.
Elul asks each of us the same question.
Hashem has already decided that we are His
children. Nothing can change that. The
question we have to answer is: How Jewishly
are we choosing to live?