Why I Didn't Celebrate Yom Ha'atzmaut
I didn’t celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut yesterday. I don’t think I can celebrate this holiday any more.
That doesn’t mean I’m not acknowledging the anniversary of Israel’s independence – only that I can no longer view this milestone as a day for celebration. I’ve come to believe that for Jews, Yom Ha’atzmaut is more appropriately observed as an occasion for reckoning and honest soul searching.
As a Jew, as someone who has identified with Israel for his entire life, it is profoundly painful to me to admit the honest truth of this day: that Israel’s founding is inextricably bound up with its dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of the land. In the end, Yom Ha’atzmaut and what the Palestinian people refer to as the Nakhba are two inseparable sides of the same coin. And I simply cannot separate these two realities any more.
I wonder: if we Jews are ready to honestly face down this “dual reality” how can we possibly view this day as a day of unmitigated celebration? But we do – and not only in Israel. Indeed, there is no greater civil Jewish holiday in the American Jewish community than Yom Ha’atzmaut. It has become the day we pull out all the stops – the go-to day upon which Jewish Federations throughout the country hold their major communal Jewish parades, celebrations and gatherings. I wonder: how must it feel to be a Palestinian watching the Jewish community celebrate this day year after year on the anniversary that is the living embodiment of their collective tragedy?
I can’t yet say what specific form my new observance of Yom Ha’atzmaut will take. I only know that it can’t be divorced from the Palestinian reality – or from the Palestinian people themselves. Many of us in the co-existence community speak of “dual narratives” – and how critical it is for each side to be open to hearing the other’s “story.” I think this pedagogy is important as far as it goes, but I now believe that it’s not nearly enough. It’s not enough for us to be open to the narrative of the Nakhba and all it represents for Palestinians. In the end, we must also be willing to own our role in this narrative. Until we do this, it seems to me, the very concept of coexistence will be nothing but a hollow cliche.
Toward a new understanding of Yom Ha’atzmaut, I commend to you this article by Amaya Galili which was published yesterday in Yediot Achronot. Galili is affiliated with Zochrot – the courageous Israeli org that works tirelessly to raise their fellow citizens’ awareness about the Nakhba.
An excerpt:
The Israeli collective memory emphasizes the Jewish-national history of the country, and mostly denies its Palestinian past. We, as a society and as individuals, are unwilling to accept responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians, which allows us to continue living here. But who decided that’s the only way we can live here? The society we’re creating is saturated with violence and racism. Is this the society in which we want to live? What good does it do to avoid responsibility? What does that prevent us from doing?
Learning about the nakba gives me back a central part of my being, one that has been erased from Israeli identity, from our surroundings, from Israeli education and memory. Learning about the nakba allows me to live here with open eyes, and develop a different set of future relationships in the country, a future of mutual recognition and reconciliation between all those connected to this place.
Accepting responsibility for the nakba and its ongoing consequences obligates me to ask hard questions about the establishment of Israeli society, particularly about how we live today. I want to accept responsibility, to correct this reality, to change it. Not say, “There’s no choice. This is how we’ve survived for 61 years, and that’s how we’ll keep surviving.” It’s not enough for me just to “survive.” I want to live in a society that is aware of its past, and uses it to build a future that can include all the inhabitants of the country and all its refugees.
Click here to read the article in the original Hebrew. Click below to read the entire English version. (H/T to my friend Mark Braverman for sending it along.)
Identity Card
“Where will you be for the holiday? Are you going to the celebrations in town? To a picnic in the Carmel Forest? It’s really beautiful there! Won’t you come? Everyone’s going.” A few years ago I would have joined them; a picnic out in the country – what could be wrong with that? But something changed. People around me are celebrating, but I’m not.
Once, at one of the picnics, I came across the remains of an old building with a blue dome. I discovered that it had belonged to the village of Ein Ghazal. IDF soldiers expelled its Palestinian residents on 26.7.1948, Israel prevented them from returning, and planted the Carmel Coast Forest among the ruins of the buildings it demolished. It was difficult to see the remains, but once I did I could no longer ignore them – the ruins of villages where people lived until 1948.
The nakba (which means “great catastrophe” in Arabic) began in 1948, when the Zionists began to expel most of the Palestinian inhabitants, to demolish their homes and erase the rich Palestinian culture. The nakba continues today with destruction of Palestinian buildings, mosques and cemeteries, expropriation of land for the benefit of Israeli Jews, institutionalized discrimination, refusal to allow Palestinian refugees to return home, military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, systematic killings in Gaza, most of whose residents are refugees, and more. We don’t want to see or hear any of this, and certainly not on Independence Day.
As I spoke with people about the nakba, and learned more about it, I began to ask myself questions and began to get worried. A crack opened in what I had known, and in my identity. The crack made me continue questioning. This educational process allows me to rethink my life here. The nakba isn’t only the Palestinian’s memory and history. It’s also an event that is a part of my individual and collective memory and identity as an Israeli.
The Israeli collective memory emphasizes the Jewish-national history of the country, and mostly denies its Palestinian past. We, as a society and as individuals, are unwilling to accept responsibility for the injustice done to the Palestinians, which allows us to continue living here. But who decided that’s the only way we can live here? The society we’re creating is saturated with violence and racism. Is this the society in which we want to live? What good does it do to avoid responsibility? What does that prevent us from doing?
Learning about the nakba gives me back a central part of my being, one that has been erased from Israeli identity, from our surroundings, from Israeli education and memory. Learning about the nakba allows me to live here with open eyes, and develop a different set of future relationships in the country, a future of mutual recognition and reconciliation between all those connected to this place.
Accepting responsibility for the nakba and its ongoing consequences obligates me to ask hard questions about the establishment of Israeli society, particularly about how we live today. I want to accept responsibility, to correct this reality, to change it. Not say, “There’s no choice. This is how we’ve survived for 61 years, and that’s how we’ll keep surviving.” It’s not enough for me just to “survive.” I want to live in a society that is aware of its past, and uses it to build a future that can include all the inhabitants of the country and all its refugees.
Recognizing and implementing the right of return are necessary conditions for creating that future. The refugees’ right of return is both individual and collective. Return does not mean more injustice and the expulsion of the country’s Jewish inhabitants. As has occurred elsewhere in the world, ways can be found to implement the return of the refugees without expelling the country’s current residents. That’s what should happen here, and it’s possible. Implementing the right of return will allow us, Jewish Israelis, to end our tragic role of occupiers.
Life doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. There are other alternatives. Palestinians and Jews can together build a society that is just and egalitarian. People will live sanely, not perpetually anxious and in fear of war. And then? Then we’ll really have a happy holiday.
Amaya Galil
Zochrot
Translation: Charles Kamen
Chilling. Thanks.
They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat.
Meh. The recent election isn’t making me feel whatever form of vague patriotism I can feel for Israel as an American Jew. When the peace process gets on track I might be proud of the country.
Until then, meh. Let Bibi and Lieberman dig their own political graves.
I don’t mean to pile more onto the depression bandwagon, but in the past three days I’ve had six Israelis tell me separately how little the holiday means to them since Gaza specifically. I mean, I’m a Diaspora 20-something Jew of a social justice bent, yes yes, it makes sense I’d not really get the nationalism of the day.
It’s a shame that the Dor Chadash-NYC’s and Birth/rights of the world are so emptily exhuberant in their enthusiasm for the day. You get the feeling even their choir kids are trying harder than necessary. I’ve been seeing some NYC events that try to celebrate in nuanced ways, but it’s limited to the usuall suspects: J Street, NIF, BTShalom. Everyone else tries to throw an orgy.
Is it just me, or is it like my friend accused, that the left thinks we have the monopoly on nuance?
The common charedi and leftist rejection of Eretz Yisrael is fascinating.
I can’t put aside history and what happened (and continues to happen) on a daily basis in the region, but as far as being unable to celebrate Israeli Independence day because it meant that other residents of the region were displaced…I have to disagree.
Every fourth of July in the US for instance, there are fireworks, BBQS, parties, etc, and I haven’t heard many people say “oh I can’t fire up the grill tonight, because we stole our homeland from the Native Americans.” (Which we did) In Australia they don’t avoid national pride becaualthse the Aboriginees (sp?) were there first. This is how history WORKS. This planet has been around a long time, and technically, pretty much every swath of land was taken from someone else at some time, although the situation in Israel tends to be a little more volatile because the Palestinians are still living there and we have yet to reach a concord between both of our peoples. There are Bedouin, Druze, and Christians who continue to share the land with the Jews peacefully and have even been made citizens of Israel. The Palestinians have refused all offers of land, peace and treaties that they have been offered. If you to spend the day bemoaning our “theft” of the land, so to speak, you should really start by commemorating the Canaanites.
Nothing substantive to add, but it’s not nakhba, it’s not naqba, it’s nakba (with a kaf).
beersheva, it’s not the past that’s upsetting, it’s that it ain’t over yet. Celebrate? Why? There are 1.5 million people in Gaza under blockade who live on less than $2 a day, because Israel thinks collective punishment is an acceptable political tool. And you can see how well it’s been working…
So are we good to watch fireworks on the 4th of July because the subjugation and oppression of Native Americans is complete? I mean, they’ve still got the illiteracy, the alcoholism, the fraction of a fraction of their former lands, the history of our betrayal, and whatnot, but that’s not, like, “now” now, right?
KFJ, I’m just following your logic here, but from what I understand, you’ll wear blue and white again on Yom Haatzmaut when we’ve completely decimated the Palestinians, and left for them casinos and hokey societal placeholders. Do I have that correct?
I mean, I suppose you could be morally consistent by living in a country that doesn’t have a history of colonialism or imperialism or gross human rights violations. I don’t know where such a place exists, but I doubt they’ve got decent WiFi.
Many of us in the co-existence community speak of “dual narratives” – and how critical it is for each side to be open to hearing the other’s “story.”
The problem, in my experience, is that this is a one way road. Have you met a lot of Palestinians, Shalom Rav, who undergo periods of deep introspection about the Jewish narrative, the Jewish “story”, the challenges and hostility faced by the Yishuv and the Palestinian role in their own dispossession?
I’m friends with Palestinians, secular, religious… I’ve never actually experienced a Palestinian seriously contemplate the Jewish narrative in Israel, much less empathize with it.
They closest they come is to empathize with the Jewish experience in the Holocaust, but only because to do otherwise would place them outside the bounds of acceptable company. And even then they start drawing similarities between Warsaw and Gaza or similar such nonsense.
A Palestinian empathizing with the Jewish experience in the Levant is a traitor to their people, period. They would be seen as undermining their national cause, and would immediately lose any and all credibility amongst their own. Their leadership doesn’t even accept that there was a Jewish Beis Hamikdash at the Temple Mount, which apparently was the major breakdown in negotiations in both 2000 and 2008.
The other side never speaks of peace or coexistence – only of their interests, their demand and our concessions – and it certainly doesn’t waste time pondering the validity of the Jewish narrative.
You write nice words, but there is no one to reciprocate them. There is a time for conciliation, and there is a time to stiffen your spine and defend what’s yours. Israel is ours. Buck up, buddy.
Firouz: And even then they start drawing similarities between Warsaw and Gaza or similar such nonsense.
Yeah, I hate it when people synthesize contemporary experiences with past narratives — they should keep the two way separate. Good thing the Jews don’t relate the Holocaust to contemporary events in Israel, whew! What a mess that would be. I’m so glad they listen openly to the other side and accept their narrative.
Seriously now. Your experience is not my experience, and I’m sorry for that. I went to the territories in 2004 and made a lot of lasting connections that I’m really lucky to have. Those Palestinians reciprocated my interest and thought plenty about how Jews/Israelis feel. Which is amazing, because they’re often without work, angry as hell at Israeli politicians and Palestinian politicians, concerned about a relative in jail, and stuck at home under closure. The rest of us, by comparison, have the advantage of being removed from it — at least no one has threatened to knock over our homes recently.
That said, they didn’t always agree with me. If that’s what you mean — agreeing with your interpretation of history — well, that’s you, not them.
great article.
I’m interested in the comparison a couple of comments make between Yom Ha’atzmaut and thanksgiving. As a Brit I have no idea – are there American groups that are opposed to thanksgiving on the ground if what was done to native Americans? Or groups that hold ‘reflective’ events about this history? I think that would be a positive development. I know that were we to institute a ‘national day’ in Britain (its been mooted) I would use it to institute discussions of Britain’s brutal colonialist past!
Why I Didn’t Celebrate Yom Ha’atzmaut:
Because I am not Israeli.
I’m interested in the comparison a couple of comments make between Yom Ha’atzmaut and thanksgiving. As a Brit I have no idea – are there American groups that are opposed to thanksgiving on the ground if what was done to native Americans? Or groups that hold ‘reflective’ events about this history?
Thanksgiving not so much; Columbus Day yes.
“are there American groups that are opposed to thanksgiving on the ground if what was done to native Americans?”
yes. i went to one every year on Alcatraz Island – a big “Day of Mourning” event organized by American Indian groups across Northern CA and elsewhere. i think i’ve been to one at plymouth in MA, too.
Thanksgiving is widely considered the “Day of Mourning” among American Indian communities. Just google “thanksgiving day of mourning” (no quotes) and a bunch of results come up.
don’t we celebrate Pesach as our freedom from slavery, yet also realize that it took many Egyptian deaths for it to happen? Do you celebrate Pesach?
Why does it matter what happened to the Egyptians, except that they were broken in every way possible to demonstrate to all, Jew and non-Jew, G-d’s power. If you believe in G-d, and in the story of Pesach, why would feel anything for Egyptian deaths? The Torah is not kind to “dual narrative”.
In fact, the only Egyptians we celebrate are those who – sobered by plague after devastating plague – rose up in rebellion against Pharoah to free the Jews. We call it Shabbos HaGodol.
To compare the miracles and plagues of Pesach to Yom Ha’Atzmaut and the Nakhba is silly. We were taken out of Egypt by the revealed and open hand of G-d. The only way you could make this comparison, it seems to me, is by passing moral judgement on G-d, at which point you need serious spiritual assistance and introspection.
I understand that you’re attempting to make celebration of Yom Ha’Atzmaut more palatable, Jason, but doing so by comparing it to Pesach is misguided.
Firouz, at your seder, do you not pour out some of your wine when you recite the plagues?
Firouz writes:
The only way you could make this comparison, it seems to me, is by passing moral judgement on G-d, at which point you need serious spiritual assistance and introspection.
Ha-shofeit kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?
“Ha-shofeit kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?”
Seriously.
Firouz, I think people who truly see the formation of the State of Israel being part of Hashgacha Pratit by G-d would disagree with your assessment. They say Hallel on Yom Ha’atzmaut the same way they do on Pesach. They see Medinat Yisrael as being part of a salvation – salvation both from years of persecution abroad, and also part of “reishit tzmichat geulatenu”.
And it’s not just Pesach, read the later part of the Megillah where over 500 (I might be wrong on the number) Persians are killed. And the Chanukka story as well. Many Jewish holidays focus on the fact that G-d rescued the Jews from either near destruction or mass death and gave them victory over their enemies. There were a lot of deaths on the other side, but yet, except for the act at the Pesach Seder of spilling a little wine for the Egyptian deaths, we mostly celebrate our victory, not mourn over their defeat. And you know as well as I that if those stories are true, many Egyptians, Persians, and Greeks died who were not involved in the wars itself.
So I think, though the circumstances have changed, Yom Ha’atzmaut is not unique in focusing on the Jewish victory. I personally do feel conflicted because of the fact that for many Palestinians who had nothing to do with the war, they got screwed by the both the UN, by the Jews, and perhaps (depending on how much you see Medinat Yisrael being driven by G-d himself), G-d himself. I don’t celebrate their losing their home. But I don’t feel the least bit bad celebrating the Jewish state as a whole, flawed as it may be.
eric-
you wrote “The common charedi and leftist rejection of Eretz Yisrael is fascinating.”
The haredim certainly, and the leftists probably, are not rejected Eretz Yisroel in any way shape or form. They are rejecting Medinat Yisrael. There’s a BIG BIG BIG difference. Quite to the contrary, the haredim would say they embrace eretz yisroel while secular zionists do not.
Are you sure that secular Zionists do not embrace eretz yisroel?
Excuse me. I misunderstood your statement, Justin.
Ha-shofeit kol ha’aretz lo ya’aseh mishpat?
Revealed good, concealed good… study some chassidus.
500 Persians
500 Persians were killed in Shushan alone, one the first day. I didn’t look it up, but I think the total number in all of Persia is closer to 75,000 Persians were killed in the story of Purim.
I take your point, Jason, and I don’t mean to imply we should be celebrating the death of our enemies – our victory or survival is wholly dependent on G-d alone – but I reject the notion of ignoring our triumph, or mourning their demise. It is a foolish Western/Edomite idea to mourn the enemy’s dead as a way of demonstrating one’s compassion, because Edom lacks true compassion. We’re Semites – we have nothing to prove.
“As a Jew, as someone who has identified with Israel for his entire life, it is profoundly painful to me to admit the honest truth of this day: that Israel’s founding is inextricably bound up with its dispossession of the indigenous inhabitants of the land.”
Got news for you Brother…
The Jewish People are the indigenous people of the Land of Israel. Go to any Arab village in Israel, dig a few inches under the ground and what do you find? Jewish artifacts. There have been only three independent commonwealths here in this land in the the last three thousand years, all of them Jewish. There has never been a Palestinian State, a Palestinian king, a Palestinian currency, a Palestinian language, or a unique Palestinian culture. The whole thing is a myth that has only existed for less than 50 years.
Which is why when I celebrated Yom Haatzmaot, with so much joy, in the Jewish State of Israel, I went to Machne Yehuda, and bought hamburgers for my son who is named for the first king of Israel over 3000 years ago, with my shekels (which is the currency that that king used to by his hamburgers) as he played with his friends in Hebrew. The indigenous language of the indigenous people of this land, the Jews.
Chag Sameach my precious Jewish brother, and if you change your mind, we have a burger for you for Yom Yerushalayim in a couple of weeks. If not, oh well, more BBQ for us.
There have been only three independent commonwealths here in this land in the the last three thousand years, all of them Jewish.
Don’t forget the Kingdom of Jerusalem. (Not exactly Palestinian, though.)
In a few centuries, will the Third Commonwealth be an interesting footnote, like the Kingdom of Jerusalem?
“The haredim certainly, and the leftists probably, are not rejected Eretz Yisroel in any way shape or form. They are rejecting Medinat Yisrael. There’s a BIG BIG BIG difference. Quite to the contrary, the haredim would say they embrace eretz yisroel while secular zionists do not.”
I’m sorry but there is no difference. This is an understandably fine point, but think it all the way through.
It’s like saying that one loves eretz yisrael but rejects possession of eretz yisrael. OK…. So would that be like loving, say, the Torah but rejecting possession of the Torah? It’s a meaningless attempt at distinction. If you reject possession of X then you are rejecting X.
If you are not willing to go through the gritty difficulties of actually possessing the thing, then all you are willing for it to be is a pretty museum piece that you can admire from afar. But a homeland under a plexiglas case in a nitrogen atmosphere is not a “homeland” at all. It’s an academic hypothesis.
Think of the same sentiment applied to any other nation and the silliness of it becomes clearer. There is no way to separate the substance and meaning of eretz yisrael from the need for Jewish sovereign control over it. It is that moral burden of control and the implications of nationhood it carries, that are rejected by both leftism and charedi ideology.
Saying that you “love” eretz yisrael and would prefer to live there on a farming commune under Arab or British or Turkish domination is to reject eretz yisrael.
That is the root attitude that prevails among charedim and leftists today. That for all the trouble, being in charge of and responsible for eretz yisrael is just not worth it in the modern era. It’s a burden we’d be better to do without. It’s an interesting convergence of ideology from two sides that at first glance would seem to be deeply at odds with each other…
so there was no eretz yisrael before medinat yisrael? and there will not be an eretz yisrael if there ends up not being a medinat yisrael? how could medinat yisrael be so inextricably linked if the concept of such a thing is a 19th century invention/20th century realization and yet the concept of eretz yisrael dates back millenia? zionism is not the full extent of the jewish experience, my friend.
Eric, who are you to speak in such terms? Are you a haredi in Bat Ayin dealing with “the gritty difficulties of actually possessing the thing”? Medinat Yisroel is not Eretz Yisroel. Israel is not a Jewish state – its laws and government structure do not reflect the entirety of Jewish law, and they were not designed to do so, except in specific cases of “tradition” or “symbolism”.
Israel is not a Jewish state; it is a state of Jews. Moshiach is not here. Eliyahu is not here. The Temple has not been rebuild. Amalek has not been destroyed. The Sanhedrin has not been established. We’re not there yet, buddy. You want the nitty gritty? Put on tefillin.
Saying that you “love” eretz yisrael and would prefer to live there on a farming commune under Arab or British or Turkish domination is to reject eretz yisrael.
Name one haredi who is saying this! Even the fringe haredis you are speaking of are not rejecting the authority of the State of Israel. They are rejecting its claim to be a Jewish state, which it is not. None of them are clamoring to live under Arab rule. Are you insane? Have you ever met a religious Jew? Do the words “unbridled Jewish nationalism” mean anything to you? They’re out there in tents and shacks on a mountaintop, surrounded by Arab villages, risking their lives and defying the world to settle the land, and you’re preaching to THEM about love of Eretz Yisroel?!
Firouz,
Huh? Mainstream haredi ideology is not too impressed by the existence of the state of Israel. The overwhelming majority of the people who risk their safety to live in tents and shacks for the purpose of securing eretz Yisrael are not haredi. I never mentioned those people and am not sure why you did. “Haredi” and “religious” are not synonymous. Haredi ideology regards the existence of Israel as basically a necessary evil at best.
Anyway who said anything about “clamoring”? To haredi ideology the land of Israel is a place “to do more mitzvos” and little more. They’re not foolish enough to clamor to live under Arab rule. But ideologically they don’t have a fundamental problem with foreigners being in charge instead of Jews.
Harediism in general is not interested in doing that much to contribute to the Jewish project of rebuilding Jewish sovereignty in a modern nation-state. (Aside from learning in yeshiva, which irrespective of its value can’t be said to be part of the project per se. Especially since charedi ideology generally values isolationism and self-segregation from the rest of society.)
I’m not sure why the absence of the messiah, Eliyahu and the Sanhedrin has any bearing on Israel’s status as a Jewish state. Israel may not be run according to halacha but it is plainly the national project of the Jewish people… at least those who choose to participate in it. It is the next phase in the development/evolution of the Jewish nation as a nation.
To some people that new phase and its requirements are deeply disagreeable. This isn’t a deeply ideological observation. I think it’s manifestly clear and we all know people for whom that is so.
Justin,
Jewish possession of Eretz Yisrael is a concept that is a tad older than the 19th Century. It’s explicitly from the Torah! The fact that the particular modern flavor of that possession in this era, socialist Zionism, arose in the sociocultural context of 19th century western and central Europe is immaterial to the root issue. (BTW if you doubt that look at Devarim 17:14… the idea that Jewish political structures and movements would be inspired from local, non Jewish sources is not considered unusual.)
Socialist Zionism is not an original Jewish value. Jewish ownership and control of Eretz Yisrael is an original Jewish value. Contemporary political Zionism was simply the vehicle that brought Jews back to that value.
The particular founding ideology of the Israeli state is irrelevant to the fact that it is the modern embodiment of eretz yisrael and the only vehicle through which Jews can assert their sovereignty over eretz yisrael. Obviously the Land is greater than any specific government as even Ben Gurion explicitly acknowledged.
But the re-possession of the land can only happen through real, concrete political and geopolitical means. Just as it always has and must everywhere. (Anyway… how else are we ever supposed to possess the land? Float into Israel on angels’ wings?!)
For contemporary Jews the Land of Israel and the national project of the country of Israel are inextricably bound. I really can’t imagine how it could be otherwise, unless one wants to think of eretz yisrael as some kind of numinous, mystical idea that’s too holy to be allowed to exist in the real world.
“I’m not sure why the absence of the messiah, Eliyahu and the Sanhedrin has any bearing on Israel’s status as a Jewish state. Israel may not be run according to halacha but it is plainly the national project of the Jewish people… at least those who choose to participate in it. It is the next phase in the development/evolution of the Jewish nation as a nation”
No doubt. But was not receiving the Torah (whatever that means to each of us) also part of the development/evolution of the Jews, as we were Jews/Hebrews before Sinai? So, to agree, a state run by halacha (whatever that means to each of us)is perhaps not the only definition of a “Jewish” state.
Also, is socialism–in and of itself–not an original Jewish value? Helping the needy/sick/elderly? Medical care and education for all who need/want? Providing a social safety-net?….Are these ideas not Torah?
Hi there. I just found your blog and really enjoyed this post. I live in Israel, and my thoughts were very much along the same lines as yours. I just couldn’t muster the flag-waving spirit that everyone around me seemed to have. I see the flag, and I see the nakba, now, too — not just our pride, but our shame.
I wrote a nice megilla about it on my newbie blog
http://golgonooza.wordpress.com/2009/04/28/the-state/
Thanks for this. Also, I hadn’t seen the yediot piece — it’s comforting to know that I’m not the only Israeli OR the only American Jew who feels this way.
Is socialism–in and of itself–not an original Jewish value? Are these ideas not Torah?
How do you figure, Jonathan? Aside from the fact that I grew up in a communist country, and let me tell you, it was no paradise… but of course you’ll claim it wasn’t “true” socialism, and I’ll retort that everything is wonderful in dreamland, but this is reality…
Let’s take Pirkei Avot, Ch. 5:
There are four types of people: One who says, “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine” is an ignoramus. One who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours” — this is a median characteristic; others say that this is the character of a Sodomite. One who says, “What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours” is a chassid (pious person). And one who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine” is wicked.
Which one of these four types is a socialist?
For you to say that socialism is a Jewish value is stunning. Yes, socialism (in theory) includes a few tenets that may be found in Jewish custom and law, but the essence of socialism – government ownership over means of production and central planning – goes against basic Jewish laws of property and commerce. And that’s before we get into socialist theology, which aims to displace Jewish metaphysics with dialectic-materialism.
I’m assuming you’ve actually thought of this at some point? I’d love to hear your rationalization.
Firouz- not government ownership, but equal redistribution of capital and means of production every fifty years – yes. And just as an aside, being from a “socialist” country gives you no right to say anything about Socialism, since you know nothing about it, only the nonsense the tyrants in the eastern bloc taught you.