Published: 30 April 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
One of my earliest childhood memories is of my father sitting and listening to the big radio in the corner of our living room on November 29, 1947. He was listening to the United Nations vote on the partition of Palestine, and he was crying uncontrollably. I had no idea what had happened, so I asked my mother. “From joy” she said, “from sheer joy, a Jewish State is about to be born”. This was 70 years ago and I was four years old.
During my childhood in South Africa everything revolved around Israel. My father was the head of the Zionist Federation, and the King David School was founded. It was called a National Jewish Day School. My father used to remind me that when we would pray for rain, it was not for rain in South Africa, but rather rain in the land of Israel. My mother was the Hebrew teacher in the school. It was clear that I would end up in Israel, and so I did. In my upbringing it was believed that the third Jewish commonwealth was in formation and a new chapter in Jewish history is being written. I had to be a part of it. And so, I arrived in Israel in 1959 and have been there since.
When I came to Israel I found the young Israeli society split into two distinct narratives: one group believed they were starting a fresh new chapter of Jewish history, detached from the previous ones. The other group believed that the creation of Israel was another chapter of an ancient book. Those were two very different interpretations of the Zionist idea. It was hard for me to comprehend this rift.
I understood that this schism is about the understanding of modern nationalism and the place of Israel within this construct: some viewed Israel as a normalization of the Jewish people in the framework of modern nationalism while others considered Israel as a beginning of the messianic redemption. This schism was contained until 1967. But after the Six Day War it took on new proportions.
It became clear that there is a battle of narratives, between the narrative of normalisation and the narrative of redemption. Even though I am a practicing religious person, I found myself stopping chanting the blessing of the prayer for Israel as the “beginning of the flowering of our redemption” because I felt that some of the worshippers were taking it literally.
I call upon the leadership of the Diaspora to think of new strategies to salvage the decline of Hebrew instruction and its use. We must have a core of cultural and linguistic concepts that bind us.
After the 1967 cut 1967 Six Day War I was sent as a Shaliach shaliach (emissary) to Baltimore (US), and there I found another schism. American Jews used a different terminology: they called Judaism a "religion" and regarded it as a private matter, a domain of the congregation, completely separated from the state. This gap highlighted another challenge that modern Israel had to face. What is the meaning of a "Jewish state"? What is the meaning of the term other than Jewish "the Nation-State of the Jewish People"? And how do we relate to Jews outside of Israel who do not define themselves in national terms and are not in preparation for immigration to Israel.
Sadly, Israelis were not educated to face this challenge. Israelis were misguided in their education about Jewish life outside of Israel. They were brought up on the notion of the three ‘A’s As: Aliya, Antisemitism, Assimilation, i.e., Jews around the world should make Aliya, and if they don’t they will face perpetual antisemitism or disappear through the in evitable process of assimilation.
Within Israel, another problematic course of events took place. The political system is using the state's tools of legislation and policies to define Jewish identity, Jewish culture and Jewishness in the public sphere. The State state defines who is a rabbi, what is kosher, who is a Jew, what Jewish content is taught in the schools, and how are holy places managed (e.g. the Kotel). Such actions create exclusion and tension among Israelis and between Israel and world Jewry.
Despite the dramatic changes that occurred in the Jewish world in recent years, Israelis are still stuck in the old paradigm. Israeli education has failed to educate the young generation about the vitality and viability of Jewish life outside of Israel. The only powerful experience that many Israeli youth go through is the trip to Poland, where they experience the story of the demise of Jewish life, not the exposure to the living Jewish people. We need to design and operate new types of educational experiences for young Israelis that will correct this flaw.
I also get frustrated with my brothers and sisters in the Diaspora. Over the years they have chosen to be passive, to observe the drama of Israel, to support it from the seats of the theatre. They turned Israel into a "charity". But perhaps the worst mistake of Diaspora Jewry is the failure to teach Hebrew. As Hebrew became the day-to-day language of Israel, Hebrew literacy in the Diaspora declined.
Today, Hebrew is a dividing force not a uniting factor in the life of Jews. I call upon the leadership of the Diaspora to think of new strategies to salvage the decline of Hebrew instruction and its use. We must have a core of cultural and linguistic concepts that bind us.
As Israel turns 70, we need a new educational and communal paradigm to base the relations between Israel and world Jewry. We cannot rely on people's memories or a-priori commitments. Only an exciting and inviting message to the younger generation will keep them in the wide tent of the Jewish people.
