“It happened in the days of Ahaz son of Jotham son of Uzziah, king of Judah: Rezin, king of Aram, and Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to wage war against Jerusalem…” This is the prophet Isaiah speaking, 7:1.
Read it again: Pekah son of Remaliah, king of Israel, went up to wage war against Jerusalem. It is possible that some of my Jewish brethren who read this may be astonished that the king of Israel, in alliance with heathen Aramites, made war on Jerusalem.
It was a passage that stopped me in my study of Isaiah, and it is a portion of Isaiah that I doubt is much read aloud in synagogues where, as we know, our prophets’ words, except as incorporated in the liturgy, sound only in the haftorahs.
What was on Pekah’s mind in attacking Jerusalem? Verses 7:5-6 tell us: “Aram, along with Ephraim and the son of Remaliah, has counseled evil against you, saying, ‘Let us attack Judah and annex it to ourselves.’” In Kings II:14.14 we find Jehoash, king of Israel, looting the temple treasures, one of many such accounts.
The books of Kings and Chronicles are in large part accounts of Jews killing Jews. This begins with the rupture of Judah following King Solomon’s death, with two tribes, Judah and Benjamin under King Jeroboam in Judah, and 10 tribes in the north under King Rehoboam.
So why Israel? Why not Judah? Why call this new nation Israel? Why name it after a kingdom of Jewish idolators who made a habit of attacking and sacking Jerusalem and battering and robbing its sacred temple?
The answer is that every nation arises from myths. Myths are constructed out of what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget. Zionists choose to remember they are a chosen people, am nivchar, the exodus from Egypt, the conquest of Canaan, and the glories of Solomon, and choose to forget fratricide and idolatry.
Righteousness is another word for Exceptionalism, the idea of being a special people, exempt from moral or any other law. Exceptionalism has characterized the worst of American patriotism, and Zionism.
I suspect that the reason Ben Gurion and the other founding fathers chose to name their state Israel is that Judah is a cognate of “Yid,” with its unpleasant associations, particularly for anyone from Eastern Europe. In selecting Israel, however, they unwittingly labeled themselves heirs to a state that was the opposite of what Judaism stands for.