Published: 31 March 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
At the end of the 18th century, with the new winds of Enlightenment and secularism, many Jews (most of them young and autodidact) left the Jewish neighbourhoods (ghettos) with the hope of integrating into the non-Jewish surroundings.
Until then, hatred towards Jews stemmed mainly from the fact that they looked different (with their long beards, their special long black robes, and their different language – Yiddish), or because some of them were "Court Jews" who were in charge of financial matters, including taxation. Now the hatred of the Jews was mainly caused by the fear of being replaced by them.
Many Europeans were afraid of the "tide" of Jews, who became lawyers, physicians, journalists and university professors, and that triggered the modern wave of Jewish hatred: anti-Semitism. Theodor Herzl and his secular, highly educated colleagues felt that integration into Christian society was impossible for them, and they were afraid that the anti-Semitic laws and regulations would trigger violence against Jews (especially in Germany).
They proposed the Zionist solution. Solution?? The big success of Zionism was that 50 years after the first Zionist Congress, Israel was established. The big failure of Zionism was that it happened only after 50 years, and so it could not save one third of the Jewish people obliterated in the Holocaust. Is “failure” the right word here?
Herzl’s "Jewish State" was meant to save European Jews. It was born too late to fulfil this vital mission, but it became the secular guarantee for Jewish continuity. A person like myself, who sees the Jewish people as his extended family, who cherishes the unique Jewish story, and who does not want to have a world without Jews, but who is an agnostic person, who is not partaking in religious rituals, can expect that his descendants will remain Jewish, since the assimilation rate in Israel is close to zero.
I know that they will not need any Sunday school to learn about our history, our holidays and our Jewish library. They will speak Hebrew, and love the Shabbat, without any need to pray to a metaphysical entity.
In the past 70 years, my country has been through a huge transformation. From being a poor country, dependent on the Jewish Diaspora (mainly in the US), Israel is approaching a GDP per capita of $40,000, its life expectancy is one of the highest in the world, and most of its socio-economic indications put it in the highest decile rank. In 1948, only one tenth of Jews lived in Israel; today we are the biggest Jewish community in the world, and for many years, we have not been dependent economically on world Jewry.
That means that our responsibility to Jews all over the world is much bigger. I know. It is a tight rope. Many Jews in the world were extremely happy 70 years ago, when Israel was born, but this happiness was accompanied by some fear that their neighbours would demand that they leave the diaspora and move to the new Jewish state.
The American Jewish leadership negotiated with Israel's founding father and its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, an understanding that the Israeli government would never pretend to speak on behalf of the Jewish world, and that there would be no Zionist activities in the US (The Blaustein-Ben-Gurion agreement, October 1950). There are still fears of being accused of dual loyalty and we should be very careful about it even if it has become very marginal.
We should stress the huge difference between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a tribe or a people
Being the largest Jewish community in the world makes Israel responsible for weak Jewish communities, mainly in the spheres of education and security. When I initiated, in 1994, the Birthright-Taglit project, what is this project? which suggested that Israel would finance a very significant part of the youngsters' trip, I was very much criticised because Israel had many other urgent priorities.
I referred to it in my book (My Brother's Keeper) by noting that rather than being the poor nephew, we became the older brother, and that comes with a new responsibility. In that book I also suggested to have a Jewish general council which should meet every few months, would consist, mainly of members who had been elected to their legislative assemblies and deal with issues to do with Jewish continuity, education, anti-Semitism, and so on.
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Regretfully, unlike my successful Birthright idea, that one never took off. Those of us who care for Jewish continuity should work very hard on the possibilities for Jews to meet, mainly in order to enable Jews to marry each other. Nevertheless, since we do not want our kids to live outside their immediate environment in the diaspora, and since young people will not make Aliya only because of Jewish continuity, we must be much more liberal in absorbing the non-Jews into our families.
Who am I to suggest to the religious Jews how to be more moderate on the conversion laws? However, the non-religious ones should not adopt the religious norms. We should open up to non-Jews who join us, we should not ask secular Christians to convert in order to become secular Jews, we should stress the huge difference between Judaism as a religion and Judaism as a tribe or a people which is based, historically, on a religious narrative.
The Jewish people are in a process of becoming a new and a very interesting entity which will include people "from Jewish origin", that is, people who will join the tribe without conversion; people who will consider themselves fully Jewish, even though they will not be considered like that by one Jewish denomination or another; secular people (especially in Israel), who will not see a synagogue from within, but will live full Jewish life, from their kindergarten to their home for the elderly; moderate religious Jews and ultra-religious Jews.
There is room for everybody, and the role of those who care for Jewish continuity, is to contain them all, not to exclude anybody who wants to be part of us, and to invent more and more projects which will bring young Jews together, whether in their communities or in Israel.
Dr Yossi Beilin is an Israeli politician and scholar. He was elected to the Knessset in 1988 and has served as a minister in several Cabinet portfolios over the past 20 years. He has published several books, including “Sons in the Shadow of their Fathers”, “The Price of Unity” and “Israel at age 40-Plus”.
