You can follow our co-blogger Chorus of Apes and go all Nakba on us. You can go all “neo-Zionist” instead and lose yourself in congratulatory paroxysms of pride and militaristic extremism. See here for example. Or finally, you can waffle and prevaricate between the other two alternatives, watching any tribal joy you once felt drain out through myriad cuts of national guilt and historical revision.
The last option seems most popular in progressive Jewish circles these days. My roommates objected to my proposal for a Yom Ha-Atzma’ut House Party by saying they wanted to avoid propaganda or the appearance of it. “Maybe we should have something about the nakba too.” “We don’t want to look right wing.” “How about we go to a Brit Tzedek talk instead.” Something about Independence Day made us uncomfortable.
Yom Ha-atzma’ut looks a little funny these days. Between the alliance of Electronic Intifada and Kahane Chai to forever tarnish the word “Zionism,” and the casual abuse of patriotism by fear-mongering Republicans in the US, the idea of “national pride” has become suspect. Every 60th Birthday congratulation needs a “but..”, and every praise of the Jewish State re-born in the Jewish Homeland comes with a “however..” We’re cynical and jaded, and don’t want to buy into anything that smacks of conservative forces or creeping 21st century totalitarianism.
So we want to kill the myth of the Third Comonwealth, scuff the shine on the Zionist dream, give us nothing-but-the-facts-ma’am and add another social justice cause to the bottom of the list.
But I’m thinking that Yom Ha-atzma’ut is not something to do half-assed. Righteous foundation myths and tribal pride aren’t just kids’ stories: they’re the moral stories that give us our ideals.
Remember (if you’re American) when you first learned what really happened when the Pilgrims hit Plymouth rock. When that cartoon fantasy of harmony and shared wealth dissolved into the broken treaties of the colonists, and the cold hard earth they dug into to rob Native graves. I think that a large part of that sting, that rage, (that righteous indignation, if you will) was the disappointment that the reality did not live up to the myth.
People we’d been taught to honor had let us down. The founding parents of institutions we’d be taught to respect and identify with had behaved in despicable ways. Which is sort of ironic, I guess. Or at least depressing.
But the real, glorious irony is that the myths never did let us down. These lies are the tales that taught us what to believe in. The myths are the prosecutor’s finger. When we hear about Israeli crimes and mistakes, whether during the War of Indepedence or today, it’s the myths that shout loudest “this was wrong. This must be remedied.” It’s the Declaration of Indepedence which was never fulfilled which kicks us in the gut and demands more effort on our part.
Our myths are our moral foundation, and I believe, something to celebrate whole-heartedly. So this is a (slightly belated) Yom Ha-Atzma’ut Same’ach from me to you, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Happy Independence Day. Make the dream a reality.
60 years ago this week, the State of Israel declared independence. Here is the full text of Israel’s Declaration of Independence. It contains many ideals that Israel can work towards as it enters its next 60 years. Some of those ideals are going to get Jewschool labeled as anti-Israel for publishing them. So be it.
ERETZ-ISRAEL was the birthplace of the Jewish people. Here their spiritual, religious and political identity was shaped. Here they first attained to statehood, created cultural values of national and universal significance and gave to the world the eternal Book of Books. More »
More specifically, he explains how the notion that Israel is a Jewish democratic state is like baklava. When you first taste it, its feels sweet, but after a few minutes, things get sticky, and you are left with a lump in your stomach.
Burg says a lot more than that. The interview is 90 mins long. He talks about love conquering hate, the place of the holocaust in the Israeli psyche, the place of minorities in Israel, and the end of the zionist myth.
In the Times Online, appears a lengthy review by Geoffrey Wheatcroft of no fewer than 6 books on Israeli and her history: Jacqueline Rose’s THE LAST RESISTANCE, Colin Shindler’s THE TRIUMPH OF MILITARY ZIONISM: Nationalism and the origins of the Israeli Right, David Goldberg’s THE DIVIDED SELF: Israel and the Jewish psyche today, Victoria Clark’s ALLIES FOR ARMAGEDDON:The rise of Christian Zionism, Yakov M. Rabkin’s A THREAT FROM WITHIN: A century of Jewish opposition to Zionism, and Jimmy Carter’s PALESTINE: Peace not apartheid
The review is long and rangy, starting and ending with a focus on the complicated and largely unknown major Israeli historical figure Jabotinsky. As he says in the review,
But the conflict in the Holy Land is still more dissonant in this regard. It is the single most bitterly contentious communal struggle on earth today (something which itself casts an ironical light on the aspiration of the first Zionists to “answer the Jewish question” by “normalizing” the Jews and removing them from the pages of history); it must receive more media coverage than India, which has a population a hundred times greater; it inflames acute passions. And yet it sometimes seems that the more strongly people feel, the less they actually know about the story of Zionism. Maybe it should be a requirement for anyone who wishes to hold forth on the subject to write first a few lines each on Ahad Ha’am, Max Nordau, George Antonius – or Vladimir Jabotinsky.
If not many Europeans or Americans know who “Jabo” was, Israelis certainly do. He remains the most charismatic, fascinating and controversial figure in the history of Zionism, and in the state to whose creation he devoted his life, but which he never saw. Born in 1880 in Odessa, he was converted to the Zionist cause as a young man by tsarist persecution, became a tireless publicist and organizer, and helped to create the Jewish Legion which fought with the British against Turkey during the First World War. In the 1920s he broke away to found the uniformed youth group Betar, and then the militantly nationalistic right-wing brand of Zionism he called Revisionism, in opposition to Chaim Weizmann and the general Zionists, and to David Ben Gurion and the Labour Zionists of the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in Palestine.
From Betar would grow the Irgun Zvei Leumi, which waged an armed campaign against the British and the Arabs – in British and Arab eyes, a terrorist campaign – in the ten years before Israel was born. When Jabotinsky died in American exile in 1940, he had not seen the murderous horror that engulfed the European Jews, the creation of the Jewish state, or the legacy of his own movement. The Irgun evolved into the right-wing Herut party, which was not merely excluded from office but veritably anathematized in Israel for the first quarter-century the state existed after 1948, but which, now in the guise of Likud, took power at last in 1977 under the old Irgun leader Menachem Begin – and which descends to the present administration.
Last Wednesday, Rabbi Herschel Schachter, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, was giving a class to young Americans at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem. At some point, the class was opened up to questions, and in response to a question regarding service in the army, he said that your decision to serve in the army should be based on what the army was doing. Well, that’s not so bad. Yes, doubting the army is taboo in Israel, but I’m alright with that. Here’s the kicker. He went on to say, “If the army is going to give away Yerushalayim [Jerusalem] then I would tell everyone to resign from the army – I’d tell them to shoot the rosh hamemshala [prime minister].”
Yes, yes, yes, that’s what he said. Unfortunately, the YouTube video of this unfortunate quote was removed, but the Jewish Week wrote down a transcript. That’s called incitement folks, it’s bad. Here in Israel, we’ve already had one prime minister murdered after Rabbis couldn’t keep their mouths shut, and apparently this Rabbi thinks the world would be better if it were to happen again.
In all fairness, I should also report the apology that Rabbi Schachter issued recently,
Statements I made informally have been publicly excerpted this week. I deeply regret such statements and apologize for them. They were uttered spontaneously, off the cuff, and were not meant seriously. And they do not, God forbid, represent my views. Jewish law demands respect for representatives of the Jewish government and the State of Israel.
OK. It’s something of an apology. However, it seems difficult to accept. Rabbi Schachter apologized for speaking off the cuff and for not respecting representatives of the Jewish government. Where’s the concern for human life? Where is the apology for saying the same things that have already resulted in one murder? Rabbi Schachter is an important public figure and a rabbinic leader. His words are received hungrily by thousands of students, and even among other Rabbis he calls the shots. He is the halakhic decisor for the Orthodox Union and for dozens of rabbis across the country. The Mishna (Avot 1:11) tells us, “Sages, be careful with you words!” We know in our own recent history how important a principle that is. Rabbi Schachter needs to know it too.
YU also needs to do better. Even if this is the best apology Rabbi Schachter can muster, I expect something more from YU. What would you do if your teacher, or your children’s teacher, said such a thing? What would happen to a professor who spoke this way? The university’s failure to censure Rabbi Schachter is a tacit acceptance of his remarks. I pray to God that YU and the many well educated people there don’t agree with Rabbi Schachter - and I want to hear them say so.
The governor of New York is about to lose his job for paying for sex. Rabbi Schachter advocated murder. That’s a big deal.
Not long after getting out of the army, a friend and I drove down to Eilat to relax for a couple of days. We were sitting in our hotel room after an amazing day of hiking and snorkeling, and there was the news. A suicide bombing. Twenty people were murdered, dozens more injured. It was the “Childrens’ Attack.” I stared helplessly at the TV screen, I prayed for the injured, and I prayed to see an image of the new prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, distraught, upset, denouncing the violence. As the night rolled on, more people died, the army made plans, but Abu Mazen never appeared. My friend and I were shooken up, we couldn’t stay and swim any longer. We packed our bags and headed home.
The next morning, on the drive back, we stopped by an army base where my old unit was stationed. There was a good friend of mine, now an officer. Roi was doing some work on a tank, and he was alone. I climbed up with him, and we sat down to talk. There, on that hulk of steel we cried. We were sorry for ourselves, we were sorry for our country, we were sorry for the victims, we were sorry for the Palestinians, and we were sorry for the world. Niether of us had ever wanted to fight, but we did. We did it because we needed to, because there was a war, because we had a responsibility to keep our friends and our families safe. But, every day, we prayed for peace. We prayed for an end. Every day that we fought in the territories, every day that we caused Palestinian suffering, we understood just how much we shared with them, and how hurtful it was for everyone for this all to go on. The past few weeks had been quiet. Roi’s company was able to leave the front. We thought it was ending, that perhaps things would change, but the night before had shattered everything once again. So, we sat, stared at the sun, and we cried. We were tired.
That was nearly five years ago. Since then, wow, things have changed, right? Arafat died, the Red Sox won the World Series, the disengagement hapenned, I went to school, Arik had a stroke, Facebook, the Lebanon war – and we’re still fighting the Palestinians, and terrorism keeps on going. You know what? I am tired.
I am tired of fighting, I am tired of death. Yes, I will go on. I will continue to support Israel, I will continue to fight for peace. I will continue to draw attention to the genuine suffering of the Palestinian people, and I will continue to serve in the reserves, and God forbid – in another war. But, I am tired of all of this i am tired of trying to fight my way through this horrible moral thicket, and I am tired that for every thought of doubt I have, someone is questioning my character. Blaming me for the holocaust, blaming me for the death of Palestinians, blaming me for the death of Jewish citizens, and blaming me for ignoring Torah. All of this is complicated, it is exhausting. My thoughts have grown so jumbled and confused, that the beginnings and ends of conversations and arguments are hidden beneath so many layers of rhetoric.
When the government of Israel has to run advertising extolling the values of not deserting military service, we all may be welcome to speculate about the sustainability of the occupation.
With the spat of articles recently covering the increasing number of citizens “ineligible” for military service — be they hareidi or just anyone, now 1 in 4 — apparently the Israeli government is now running ads saying “A true Israeli doesn’t desert.”
– But I think the message is proved as missing the point when the reply is this parody sticker changing one letter so it now reads “A true Israeli doesn’t rule over [other people].” Ha! Hell yes.
It sounds like it’s the government of Israel that isn’t getting the message? And anybody got a picture of the real advertising?
Looks like the attacks on Obama’s “pro-Israel” bonafides are paying off…
Yesterday, while hundreds of thousands of Gazans flooded through the demolished border with Egypt simply to get food and basic supplies after nearly a week of complete border closures imposed by Israel, Sen. Barack Obama sent the following letter to US Ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad:
Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,
I understand that today the U.N. Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order.
I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condemn the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in Southern Israel for over two years.
All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel’s destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded by rockets on an almost daily basis. That is unacceptable and Israel has a right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians.
The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks against Israel, and should make clear that Israel has the right to defend itself against such actions. If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
To be clear, I’m one of those who actually believe Obama IS the best candidate for Israel precisely because he will be a strong supporter of Israel AND someone who can strengthen Israel’s security through peace with its Arab neighbors. So I greet this letter with sadness.
There’s no need for a letter like this. We know Obama condemns attacks on Israel and believes Israel has a right to defend itself. Even Dennis Kucinich says that. But for someone who handles every other foreign affairs issue with such nuance and care, this is disappointing. More »
On Thursday night we went to see the Hebrew version of Avenue Q in Tel Aviv.
feygele has posted some thoughts. Having seen the original version in New York, we had been wondering how they would translate the cultural references — how many Israelis have heard of Gary Coleman? And the answer is that they replaced American cultural references that Israelis wouldn’t get with Israeli cultural references that we (as North American expats) didn’t get. Instead of Gary Coleman (played by a woman in the New York production), Avenue Q’s va’ad habayit [sic] was headed up by Michal Yannai, played by herself in a comeback role. As best we can tell, Michal Yannai is the Israeli equivalent of Gary Coleman: a former child TV star with a checkered history. The Israeli version of Avenue Q is still in New York (the sign on the front says “FOR RENT” in English, and the Empire State Building is still the Empire State Building), and the (American) characters have inexplicably heard of Michal Yannai, who is pursuing acting roles in the US, until the end when she decides to go back to Israel. The puppet characters are all the same as in the American version (including Katie-fletzet and Trekkie-fletzet, based on Oogie-fletzet, the Israeli version of Cookie Monster), but Christmas Eve (a Japanese character who speaks Engrish) has been replaced by Latina (that’s her name). We hypothesized that this is because a stereotyped Asian character may have hit a nerve for Israeli audiences, because of all the current issues with Thai and Filipino guest workers in Israel. In several instances when Latina sings solos, the music suddenly turns into salsa-style. Latina and Trekkie Monster both speak in ungrammatical Hebrew, botching gender agreement, and using infinitives instead of conjugated verbs (”àðé ìòùåú”, etc.)
The songs, of course, have all been translated into Hebrew. “What Do You Do With a B.A. in English?” has become “úåàø øàùåï, æä ðçîã… áùáéì àîà” (”A bachelor’s degree, that’s nice … for Mom”). Instead of reading a book about Broadway musicals of the 1940s, Rod is reading a book about Eurovision, and the ensuing song, “If You Were Gay”, may contain the best line of the show: “àí äìá áçø / áîùëá æëø”. Lines like this, permeated with biblical and rabbinic references that have become part of the everyday language, convinced me that the Israeli Avenue Q is the true culmination of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda’s achievement. I mean, the translation of “The Internet is for porn / The Internet is for porn” was “äàéðèøðè æä ôùåè / âï òãï ùì àåððåú”, which contains not one but two references to Sefer Bereishit.
We also cracked up at the wedding scene, which the Israeli audience didn’t seem to notice anything odd about. I don’t remember the ritual details of the American version, but this one was a strange mix of American and Jewish wedding customs. The male humans and puppets were all wearing white kippot, and Brian and Latina entered the chuppah to the tune of “Here Comes the Bride”. Michal Yannai officiated, wearing a black hat, jacket, and tie. She pronounced them husband and wife, Latina broke the glass, and everyone shouted “Mazal tov!”. As they left to go check out the buffet, Yannai said “Is it kosher?” and Latina said “No. Sorry.”
“I Wish I Could Go Back to College” became “úðå ìé ìçæåø ìáéú-ñôø” (”Let me go back to school”). As I understand it, áéú-ñôø generally refers to elementary and secondary school, not to college/university. We’re guessing that this change was necessary for the Israeli version because Israelis don’t think of university as an idyllic return to the womb — it’s something they do after the army, when they’re already (relatively) independent adults.
Oh, and the untranslatable “one nightstand” gag was left out entirely.
If you’re in Israel, go see it now! It’s playing on Sunday night at Beit Lessin, and then moving to the Jerusalem Theater for performances on January 17 and 19.
A delegation of Columbia University professors is planning a trip to Tehran to apologize to Ahmadinejad.The Israel Lobby authors say we need “candid but civil” dialogue about the ME. This could be a fine example of that.
The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College published a working paper which reexamines the annual AJC opinion surveys for the past seven years. It’s a thorough fisking of sorts of the information the AJC pumps out regarding peace proposal opinions. Even with caveats to the study’s limits, Perlmann has some interesting data to report.
Highlights:
– The AJC surveys have been limited to people to identify as Jewish religiously.
– No socioeconomic or demographic factors dramatically affect any opinions on the West Bank…
– …Except orthodoxy. Orthodox Jews reject by 93% varying compromises around peace. For the other 9/10ths of American Jewry, denomination accounts for very little differences in opinion.
– Within the non-Orthodox denominations, opinion is divided in even thirds: accept all compromises, accept all but Jerusalem, and accept nothing.
– The older you are, the more you are emotionally attached to Israel…
– …Yet, the older you are, the more ready you are to compromise on return of the West Bank.
– 51% who report Jewishness as being “very important” do not report a “very close” attachment to Israel. American Jews appear able to separate their feelings for Jewish religion from the Jewish state. Gasp!
– New York City (or other metro area) Jews aren’t any more conservative than Jews in other places, once you remove the Orthodox contingent.
– Emotional attachment to Israel, in non-Orthodox respondants, does not correlate with rejection of peace proposals.
The Annapolis conference convened today, bringing together delegations from around the world. Many expected (indeed, some hoped) that nothing would be accomplished at the conference. However, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has shocked everyone by pushing through his radical left-wing agenda of dividing Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish people. Not only has the division of Jerusalem been ratified, but it has already been implemented in the space of less than a day, with an efficiency uncharacteristic for Israel.
From here in Jerusalem, we can look around and see what the peaceniks have wrought. Traffic was insane today with all the moving trucks driving around the formerly undivided capital, but now that everything has settled, the Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem are now living almost entirely in separate neighborhoods. (However, in an apparent concession to parties like Yisrael Beiteinu that had threatened to quit the coalition, Olmert has agreed that municipal services will be provided primarily to the Jewish neighborhoods.) In clear defiance of the will of the many Zionist organizations who opposed the division of Jerusalem, Jewish and Arab students are now attending almost entirely separate school systems. And the anti-Zionist left has shown that it means business, by placing some neighborhoods outside the separation barrier, to create a physical rupture in the everlasting unity of our 3000-year-old holy city. Construction crews have been working triple shifts to ensure that all of this is carried out as soon as possible, ever since the order arrived from Annapolis just a few hours ago.
The anti-Zionist left isn’t content merely with dividing Jerusalem; their agenda also includes weakening the city. To this end, they have begun encouraging Jewish residents of Jerusalem to move to fast-growing outlying neighborhoods on Jerusalem’s periphery, and away from the city center, to ensure that central Jerusalem (associated with the Zionist entity) will not see economic development.
In further evidence of a left-wing anti-Israel conspiracy, population studies show that Jews will soon be a minority of the total population of all land under Israeli control, posing a threat to the future of the Jewish state.
How will supporters of Israel respond to these latest provocations?
Here at Jewschool, we’ve had some posts and comments that have been critical of Israel, so it’s only fair that we balance our coverage with some flagwaving. 5.2 metric tons of it.
That’s right, today marked the unfurling of the largest flag in the world, measuring 660 meters by 100 meters. (For the Americans, that means the short side measures one football field).
Filipino entrepreneur and evangelical Christian Grace Galindez-Gupana said she decided two years ago to produce a giant Israeli flag as a testament to her love for Israel and the Jewish people, and as a celebration of 50 years of diplomatic relations between the Philippines and Israel.
“God spoke to me in thunder and lightening,” Galindez-Gupana said. “The Lord said, ‘Make the flag of Israel, the standard of my people.’”
Personally, I think this flag isn’t nearly as tasty as the world’s largest hamentashen, but then again I’m one of those lefties.
The Union of Progressive Zionists announces “Final Status Taboo” in a clever pun on my all-time favorite game, Taboo, in which players attempt to describe final status issues, such as Jerusalem, right of return, etc., without loaded words like “holy,” “Dome of the Rock,” “wall,” “Israel,” “capital” or “religion.”
“While the premise of these events is play, this game has serious ramifications for our ability to move forward as a community in advocating for vigorous U.S. leadership in the resumption of direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations necessary to ensure Israel’s prospects for peace and security in the future,” says Tammy Shapiro the Executive Director of UPZ.
Indeed, this is a variation of a game I play with myself all the time — “Zionist” taboo. I don’t use the Z-word word. I won’t use it around any group. It’s got too much baggage. However, despite how I refuse to call myself a Zionist, I put so much of my time and effort towards a two-state solution, one could argue that I’m more actively supporting the existance of Israel than many so-called Zionists who either (a) take a passive interest but don’t do anything about it or (b) believe that prolonging the unclear status of 6 million Palestinians under Israeli jurisdiction isn’t likely to backfire.
In either right- or left-wing Jewish settings, or especially among non-Jews, the Z-word has too many meanings, too many conflicting connotations. Heroic or villainous, it’s not worth the time of deconstructing my vocabulary, so I just do without it. “Two state” is the wording of choice, “a secure Jewish state alongside a viable Palestinian state” seems to avoid the troublesome yelling matches which occur when people read into my language something I didn’t intend in the slightest.
This offends a few commited left-wing Zionists, including people I greatly, greatly admire, because they believe so strongly in taking back the Z-word from the Messianists, the Likudniks, and the Christians. That fight is laudable, sure. But it’s not worth my time to make a pit-stop to save the Z-word on the way to fighting for peace in the Holy Land. And it has the added benefit of making it easier to get along with all kinds of people.
Sorry, Z-word, it’s just another reason to leave you behind.
If you look at the Forward’s recently published Forward 50, you’ll see April Rosenblum’s name listed right below grizzled Cold Warrior Norman Podhoretz, in the Ideas and Activism section. Strange bedfellows, indeed. Gey veys! (Go figure)
April is being recognized for her groundbreaking work, the recently published 32 page pamphlet The Past Didn’t Go Anywhere: Making Resistance to Anti-Semitism Part of All of Our Movements. If you’ve spent more than five minutes doing social justice work, you probably know that anti-Semitism is a real and pervasive problem. April’s pamphlet includes historical analysis, as well as thought provoking discussions about the nature of anti-Semitism today.
April was, as she describes it, ‘raised radical’ in Philadelphia, where she lives today. She is also an ardent Yiddishist and brings what I consider to be a Diaspora Nationalist perspective to her political analysis.
So, mazl tov April!! I look forward to seeing what else you have in store for us!
So the State of Israel has gone 59 1/2 years without a written constitution. You can’t blame them really — when the state was declared in 1948, there was a war going on. And then other things just kept coming up. Ok, it wasn’t just procrastination; Israel has been able to stay in business only by sweeping certain deep fissures (Jews vs. Arabs, secular vs. Orthodox) under the rug, and sitting down to come up with a constitution would have required all of these sectors of the population reaching a consensus on the character of the state. In the meantime, Israel has been making things up as it goes along, and the Knesset has passed a series of Basic Laws (English and Hebrew text) which function collectively as a sort of constitution. The Basic Laws outline the procedural rules governing each of the branches of government, and some of the more recent ones are the beginnings of a Bill of Rights. (Don’t worry, “Freedom of Occupation” isn’t what you think! It says “Every Israel national or resident has the right to engage in any occupation, profession or trade.”) The Basic Laws don’t say anything about judicial review (in which judges can use the Basic Laws to overturn other laws as unconstitutional), but hey, neither does the U.S. Constitution.
PM Ehud Olmert has announced that he wants to roll out a constitution in time for Israel’s 60th anniversary, and a Knesset committee is hard at work, led by MK Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson. A draft of the preamble has been released to the press — here’s the English and Hebrew text (both with commentary from Ha’aretz).
It looks like it’s really not going to be easy to come up with something that everyone will agree on. The current draft says “The State of Israel is a Jewish and democratic state”, but there are some who will take issue with the “Jewish” part (the Arab parties are boycotting the committee meetings), and others who will take issue with the “democratic” part (the haredi parties are opposing provisions that would guarantee equal rights insofar as this conflicts with their understanding of Jewish law, and separation of church and state seems to be off the table), and still others who will take issue with the “is”. (I place myself in the latter camp, seeing “Jewish and democratic” as an aspiration, but not an accurate description of the status quo, and not attainable without a change in the status of the territories.)
A significant provision of this draft says “A Jew who immigrated to Israel by virtue of the Law of Return shall be eligible for Israeli citizenship in accordance with the terms and timetable determined by law.” This opens the door for a change in the current law, in which Israeli citizenship is awarded immediately upon arrival. Note also that “Jew” is not defined (the committee wasn’t interested in waiting another 60 years).
Keep watching over the next several months to see how these and many other issues are addressed, and start placing your bets on when (or whether) a final text will be ready for ratification.
Last Wednesday, Rabbi Herschel Schachter, a Rosh Yeshiva at YU, was giving a class to young Americans at Yeshivat HaKotel in Jerusalem. At some point, the class was opened up to questions, and in response to a question regarding service in the army, he said that your decision to serve in the army should be based on what the army was doing. Well, that’s not so bad. Yes, doubting the army is taboo in Israel, but I’m alright with that. Here’s the kicker. He went on to say, “If the army is going to give away Yerushalayim [Jerusalem] then I would tell everyone to resign from the army – I’d tell them to shoot the rosh hamemshala [prime minister].”
When the government of Israel has to run advertising extolling the values of not deserting military service, we all may be welcome to speculate about the sustainability of the occupation.
