The Gospel According to Moshe Dayan

My grandfather will roll in his grave when he finds out that he has become a guru to a Christian metal band from Virginia that uses his namesake. Lior Dayan continues to sacrifice the memory of his grandfather for personal gain.

Strange things happen in Richmond, Virginia. Taylor Bassett, for instance, was born there 19 years ago; his father decided to name him “Moshe Dayan.” From the father’s perspective, since he admired the real Moshe Dayan his whole life, it was only natural that he name his child after him. And thus the baby left the hospital and went into the world bearing the rather odd name of Moshe Dayan Bassett. When the child was three, his parents divorced. His mother, who raised him, decided that since his father was no longer a part of his life, it was time for him to take on a name with a more American flavor, a name that wouldn’t cause the kid to be the biggest joke at his school. So she named her son after her father, Taylor Bassett — an all-American name, no doubt.

At 16, two important things happened in Taylor Bassett’s life. First, he started a Christian metal band. Second, his father returned after years of complete absence. Taylor felt that there was only one way for him to display his new-found love for his father and close a circle. He decided to name his band after the original name his father had given him at birth.

“The truth is that after we researched Moshe Dayan’s life we suddenly understood that such a unique name could garner us a lot of attention,” says Sean Wiber, who plays electric guitar for the band. “We knew that such a name will pique people’s interest and raise a lot of questions.” And he’s right. That name certainly raises a lot of questions. That name is the only reason I came across the band’s MySpace and YouTube pages and listened to their noisy metal songs. It’s also the reason that I contacted them.

I imagine that if my grandfather, Moshe Dayan, wasn’t rolling in his grave after the declassification of the Yom Kippur War Protocols, he will probably roll (perhaps even a few times) if he finds out what I just found out: He has become a guru, a muse, to a Christian metal band. In Richmond, Virginia, of all places. Is there anything more bizarre than that? I’ve already encountered all sorts of products for which it was decided that the namesake of Moshe Dayan would do them some good: T-shirts, cigars, lighters, posters, tomatoes, coins, stamps, coinholders. But Christian metal bands from Richmond, Virginia that answer to the name “Moshe Dayan” — that’s something I thought I would never encounter.

What possible connection can there be between a one-eyed general from Israel and a Christian metal band from the old confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia? That’s exactly what I asked Sean Wiber, and to my surprise he replied shamelessly that “the former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Gideon Raphael, once wrote that Moshe Dayan’s favorite tactic was to “rock the boat.” Only Moshe Dayan knew how to rock the boat enough that the helmsman lost control of it and a few unwanted passengers fell overboard, but not enough to flip it over completely. The band admires that quality about Moshe Dayan, we admire that sort of aggression. Furthermore, we feel that our music and what we represent to the world is analogous to Moshe Dayan. We want to do the same things he did in the military and political worlds in our own musical world.”

And as it turns out, that’s only the beginning. Very quickly, I discover that from the band’s point of view, Moshe Dayan was much more than a talented Middle Eastern general. He was the representative of the spirit of God in the Holy Land. “We believe with our whole heart and with absolute confidence that it was the hand of God that sent Moshe Dayan to save Israel and ensure that it won’t be erased from the map,” explains Wiber in an email. “In all of Israel’s wars, the odds were always against it — especially in the six-day war — and still, under the leadership of Moshe Dayan, Israel withstood the Arab threat. God sent Moshe Dayan to ensure that his promise to Israel remains fulfilled, that the sons of Israel will receive the Holy Land. Because without Moshe Dayan, the Jews would have lost the country promised to them, given to them by the hand of God.”

We live in a strange world: In a time where Moshe Dayan is being relegated to obscurity in his own country, on the other side of the world, in Richmond, Virginia, the idolization of the name is only increasing. Scores of kids with studs, exposed tattoos, earrings and piercings arrive at metal clubs, gather around and wildly shout, “Moshe Dayan!”

I don’t think they know too much about Moshe Dayan’s actions, but still, here in Israel it has been years since anyone has shouted any such thing. After all, the last time any sort of crowd has shouted the name in Israel was 37 years ago, after the reverberating failure of the Yom Kippur War. And sometimes, you know, any shout is better than silence.

Let the Dead Bury the Dead

Moshe Dayan, the band, is made up of six members: Taylor Bassett (vocals), Steven Anderson (electric guitar and background vocals), Sean Wiber (electric guitar), Bryant Tompson (keyboards), Zach Ryder (bass guitar) and Zach Compton (drums). The band was started two years ago, but “if we’re going to talk in simple terms, Moshe Dayan isn’t really a band, it is a church,” says Wiber. “The Church behind the band is what really motivates us. Our true goal is to expose the people that come to our show to God’s word. The band was started to spread Jesus’ love in a crowd that most Christians don’t think can be reached.”

On this point, I’ll save you from some of the religious bullshit, because not only is it uninteresting, it is also angering. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it is religious proselytism that disguises itself as art. In Christianity, especially American Christianity, the phenomenon is so widespread that it has really turned into a plague. Over here, we’ve become used to the mass gatherings of conversion to Orthodox Judaism at the hand of the prophet Elija. In American Christianity, missionaries make use of more complex tactics that include many tricks, both scheming and camouflaged. This is third- and fourth-generation proselytism.

As it turns out, Christians love to think “outside the box” and flood the world with holy bands that play in every style imaginable: rock, pop, metal, dance, hip hop, grunge, disco, R&B, blues, punk and so on. In this respect, Moshe Dayan (the band) is not particularly exceptional. It’s part of a widespread phenomenon, of a plague that has been ravaging America for years.

I ask Sean: “How exactly does this happen, how do you guys play God’s word to these kids in the crowd? How do you cause them to discover Jesus?” Sean answers, “It’s pretty simple: we play music that they love, we gain their support and trust, and by God’s grace we draw them towards the faith. There are a lot of strategies we use to expose these lost kids to the word of God. For instance, we incorporate messages from the New Testament into the lyrics for our songs. The fans love to sing along with our songs at our shows, so in one song, we get them to shout out loud ‘let the dead bury the dead,’ and I don’t think that these kids even know that they’re basically quoting a verse from the Gospel of Matthew. We do everything we can to plant the seeds of God into the ears of our fans, and all that is left for us to do is to hope that they will discover the strength of Jesus through the words, freeing them from Satan’s grasp.”

Abandoning the Family Tree

Truth is, I’m sick and tired of writing articles about Moshe Dayan. For years now, I’ve been sick of writing in this contemptible genre — the crowded genre of family writing — but despite that I continue to flood newspapers and websites with articles that deal, in one way or another, with Moshe Dayan. And in the end it is always me that is left with a self loathing that haunts me like a spell. I’m always thinking about how much I hate my inability to turn down this publisher or that newspaper when they ask me to write something about Moshe Dayan. I wish I could tell him: “Listen, I really don’t want to write this article. I understand that Moshe Dayan interests the readers, and I understand that it increases readership, but it just does not sit well with me. I’m tired of it.”

Instead, however, the spell returns, I smile and say to the publisher something along the lines of “no problem, just tell me how many words you need and the deadline; let’s milk my grandpa’s name just a little bit more.” Sometimes it’s much worse than that; sometimes the publisher does not even ask me to write about my grandfather and it is me that suggests the topic. Like today, for instance. After all, no publisher called me up and asked me to write about a band called Moshe Dayan.

I’m the one that accidentally discovered the band on Facebook. In the beginning, when I was first exposed to the Virginian band, I really thought it would be a great subject for a column. Only afterward, when I sat down to write, face to face with both the keyboard and the subject, I suddenly realized that I had written this article dozens of times before. Once, it appeared in The City in an article titled “How I got out of Military Service without Losing my Left Eye.” Another time it appeared in Ma’ariv under the heading: “The Same old Dayan, the Same Old Eye,” and once more in Style, it was called “Sex, Uniform and Moshe Dayan: Lior Dayan on the Sex Appeal of Grandpa.” This same basic idea has appeared in a million articles/columns/blogs in almost every newspaper, website and pamphlet that exists in Israel.

I think that over the years, I’ve written about my grandfather from every angle possible and I have no more available. If the geometry police were to come, I’m convinced it would be the end of me: Two hexagons and a square in uniform will knock on my door, I’ll open it, and they’ll handcuff me saying “Lior Dayan, you are under arrest for excessive use of the geometric shape termed ‘angle’ and this time you’ve gone too far, you’re coming with us to the station.”

But don’t start thinking that I am as spotless as I make myself out to be; after all, I’ve always known that I have the option to say no (no, I don’t want to write this article about Moshe Dayan), but I’ve chosen to say yes and hope that the article will help me with my personal goals and ambition. You see, every article was written in hope that it will lead to another article — not necessarily on the subject of the Dayan family, but in the same newspaper or magazine. Behind every article is the thought that an editor will read my draft and won’t be able to ignore my genius and will want me to write more. And sometimes, the editor has asked me to write more — not necessarily on the Dayan family — but of course sometimes it doesn’t happen.

The bottom line is that I have always been willing to sacrifice my grandfather and his memory for my own selfish good. It’s not easy to admit this, but it is the truth. Under my blond hair and my playful face hides an expert in manipulation, egocentric beyond belief. If that is the case, then there isn’t really much of a difference between the musical tricks of the Christians from Virginia and my own textual tricks. In the same way that a Christian metal band uses music for their personal agenda, I use Moshe Dayan for mine.

Whatever it is, however it is, I think it is time to change direction — change my way of thinking. I’ve gotten everything I can from my family tree and maybe it’s time to switch trees (perhaps even move to a different forest) and take a break, for a few years, from subjects that begin with “Moshe” and end with “Dayan.” It seems like the fairest thing I can do, for myself and my grandfather’s memory. So let’s summarize that strange things happen in Richmond, Virginia, that we’ll leave Moshe Dayan (the band) alone and let Christian metal continue to crush guitars and shake microphones in the name of Jesus, and let us finish this column before I accidentally mention the name “Moshe Dayan” one more time.