Rabbi Moshe Reiss
‘As I look, there is a
lamp stand
entirely made of gold with a bowl on top of it: it holds seven lamps,
with
seven pipes for lamps on it’. (Zechariah 4:2)
Happy
Chanukah!
“www.moshereiss.org.”
A Chanukah story?
From Zionism in Crisis
By
Meyrav Wurmser
Middle East Quarterly – Winter 2006
http://www.meforum.org/article/875
"Jews" Versus
"Israelis"
The
Israeli war of colors continues to be a battle
over the essence of Israel
and Zionism. Since the withdrawal took place as planned, the
religious-national
camp, which had been reenergized by its campaign, is asking itself what
remains
of its beliefs and on what basis it can continue to claim ownership of
the
Zionist enterprise. Some have called for the end of their alliance with
secular
Israel and are choosing to turn their attention to forging bridges into
the
ultra-Orthodox or Haredi community.[28] Others are engaging in a
process of
soul-searching by seeking to determine why religious Zionism has failed
to
attract most Israelis.
But
since the withdrawal, the terms of debate have
changed. There is not only an argument over land and the occupation but
also a
cultural war between two parts of Israeli society: Israelis who believe
that
the Jewish state cannot exist without a strong connection to the Jewish
religion, and Israelis who think that Israel must become a
secular
society. This culture war represents a schism between the secular
"Israelis" and the religious "Jews," both of whom believe
that they should determine the nature and character of the state.
The
extent to which at the core of Israel's
identity crisis is the uneasy relationship between Jewish nationalism
and
religion was evident during the 2005 Independence Day. During the
holiday, the
daily Ha'aretz newspaper asked various writers, artists, intellectuals,
and
rabbis to define Israeli identity. As a part of this project, the paper
listed
a dictionary of words and slang that reflect the essence of Israeli
society.
Dominating the list were terms that reflect pushy, impolite behavior.
The list
indicated the reality that many prominent Israelis define the essence
of their
national identity as no more than a mood or a code of behavior. Such an
un-Jewish definition of Israeli identity reflects a typical Jewish
paradox: the
ongoing modern Jewish attempt to escape Jewish destiny, to define one's
own
identity—just as did the early Zionists who were building a secular
Jewish
state.
The
predominant question with which Israelis from
across the political spectrum must now grapple is whether Israel
can
continue to exist as a Zionist state without some connection to
Judaism.
Prominent thinkers on the left, such as writer Amos Oz, claim that not
only
should Israel
become secular but that this is also the only way to turn it into a
modern and
moral society. In a sweeping attack on the settlers and their religious
observance, he wrote that "to be a free people means each person is
entitled to choose which parts of Jewish tradition are important to
him, and which
to leave behind. It means to have the freedom to run our country
according to
our free will, rather than rabbinic dictates."[29] In response, writer
Naomi Regan, who is sympathetic to the settlers, wrote that Israel
cannot
be divided into "us" and "them," or into
"Israelis" versus "Jews." "Only in the world of
fanatic left-wingers, such as Amos Oz, the nation is divided," she
wrote.
The lives of both parts of the nation are too intertwined, she
continued.
Everyone serves in the same army, and there are too many points of
contact
between religious and secular Israelis to speak about a split in the
nation,
she argued.[30]
Disengagement
has proven to be a defining moment for
Israeli society, not just vis-à-vis future relations with the
Palestinians but
also regarding the actual nature of the Jewish-Israeli state. The
debate has
transcended questions of territory; it has been an argument over
Israeli
identity and the essence of Zionism. The dispute has touched the nerve
of
Israeli society: the relationship between Zionism and Judaism, between
nationalism and religion. The tension over Gaza is a proxy for a deeper argument
over
who Israelis are and what they want to be. Like many democracies that
fought
violent civil wars, Israel
at fifty-seven is struggling—so far not violently—to define its soul.
Meyrav Wurmser is the
director of the Center for
Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute.