Published: 12 July 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
The deeper one gets into Jerusalem’s Old City, the older and more magnificent the stone becomes, and the greater the sense that you are travelling through a city so desired that it had been the subject of more than 50 battles and sieges before returning to Jewish hands in 1967.
This year, however, adorning the streets of Jerusalem are a series of much newer signs, all bright blue, either proclaiming “Trump is a Friend of Zion” or, more perplexingly, “Trump make Israel Great Again”. Many of the signs, though only a few months old, are decaying, their shine withering away. Others have been defaced. Both outcomes seem fitting given their subject matter.
The idea that a city needs a vulgar reality TV star turned president to make it great (not even “great again”) seems absurd. In the world’s foremost city of tradition and heritage, it’s preposterous.
Jerusalem’s greatest heroes range from kings David and Solomon and Judah Maccabee to Yitzhak Rabin and Moshe Dayan. And that’s far from a comprehensive list. Their principles, and the principles of Judaism, were to continue, respect and promote an ancient tradition, one of profoundly spiritual values, laws and covenants.
Donald Trump embodies little that is traditional, spiritual or respectful. Nor does he embody the Jewish principles of study, thought and reflection.
But this is 2018, in a world of endemic polarisation and division. A world rife with tumultuous change and the rejection of the status quo. In juxtaposition to much of its surrounds, Israel seems a steady and stable nation – not something one could really say at any other point in modern history.
Yet here in the modern Jewish state that rebirthed the ancient and promised dream of a Jewish national home, in the world’s holiest, most historic city, the seduction of Donald Trump looms large. He has not revealed anything, conquered anywhere, vanquished any enemies or rescued any friends.
He has moved a building.
AT THE opening plenary of the Global Forum of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) – a gathering of thousands of Jews not only from the US but from around the Jewish Diaspora – Jerusalem’s Mayor, Nir Barkat, rises to speak. He is the first to comment on President Trump’s decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In praising the decision, he says when people ask him what would happen when the embassy was moved, he answers: “Nothing. Not only nothing, but it will send a statement to the people of Jerusalem – it’s over. After all this time, we’re here to stay in Jerusalem.”
He offers the bizarre message that the security of Jerusalem hinges not on thousands of years of spiritual patronage and holy sacrifice, nor modern military, economic and technological prowess, but a symbolic gesture from an erratic foreign leader whose policies have opened a chasm between Israeli and the Diaspora.
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Indeed, the split between Diaspora (particularly American) Jews and Israel looms large over the otherwise triumphant mood of the forum. This divide, coupled with long-standing disagreements over Jewish religious pluralism, particularly in the wake of the abandoned “Kotel (Western Wall) agreement” to expand a pluralistic prayer space; and a proposed conversion bill to further monopolise ultra-Orthodox control over Jewish religious affairs in Israel, was hard to ignore.
When Netanyahu got up to speak, he spent surprisingly little time discussing Trump. Perhaps he knew his crowd.
The focus of much of his speech was that “All Jewish people should feel at home in Israel.” He repeated this mantra seven times, seemingly desperate to convince the crowd– even though he knows non-Orthodox Jews feel alienated from a country that has allowed its ultra-Orthodox minority to gain a monopoly over religious affairs.
By contrast, Labor leader Avi Gabbay told the forum that a government under his premiership would implement the Kotel agreement as it was originally brokered, a pledge that draws plenty of applause. But this conference is full of applause; only in the subtext of applause for individual items does the strength of the crowd’s approval become apparent.
The themes of the various plenaries are diverse, but a prevailing theme behind the scenes – for example in the individual discussion sessions – is the growing divide between Israel and the Diaspora. The AJC has even distributed a booklet of 25 short essays on the topic, a welcome acknowledgement of a very real problem.
At a later plenary, Diaspora Affairs Minister Naftali Bennett offers a lengthy acknowledgement of these challenges – devoid of real solutions or proposals. He concludes with a request to the Diaspora to “keep standing up for Israel, keep fighting for us.”
If that doesn’t encapsulate the divide between Israeli and American Jewry, I don’t know what does. Love us, fight for us, donate to us, but don’t expect us to change.
Israel was founded by a Zionist movement dominated by secular social democrats, who ruled and built the state for its first 29 years.
It's hardly surprising that the American Jewish community, still embodying more of that old school, liberal state, is drifting apart from Israel. Australia is clearly in a different situation, but similarities and common challenges exist, and the trajectory, particularly among young people, is similarly towards more diversity, less unity or uniformity, and more assimilated.
Israel cannot keep begging the global Jewish community to “make yourself at home” and support it financially, morally and politically, while eschewing political and religious pluralism for an increasingly conservative and right-wing bent.
Somewhere in the middle, one suspects, lies the solution. A Diaspora that values a national liberal identity for Israel over religion and Zionism will never fully embrace the Jewish nation state. And an Israel which is unable to truly recognise and cater to the diversity of the Jewish people will never truly be a home for all Jews.
The starting point is recognition, courage and political will.
Main photo: PBS
