Israel on Fire

haredim rioting

RISHON LEZION, Israel — Noah Efron writes in Foreign Policy that the Jewish state is becoming increasingly polarized as the extreme left and far right both feel embattled and are on the defensive:

Israel’s ultra-Orthodox and secular leaders alike broadcast animal assurance: a full, tempered confidence that their way of seeing the world is singular in its virtue. But behind the bluster, both communities feel themselves as embattled and endangered. Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel are collapsing under the weight of their successes. Dismissed by Israel’s founding generations as the last vestiges of a dying way of life, the ultra-Orthodox have grown enormously in numbers and in political power in Israel over the 61 years since the state was established. They have negotiated for themselves broad exemption from army service, mandatory for everyone else, and a series of entitlements that allow most ultra-Orthodox men to receive a small stipend for studying in religious academies for as long as they wish to do so. As a result, Israeli ultra-Orthodox males probably spend more time in formal study than any other class of humans ever has in the history of the planet. But small stipends do not easily support large families, and over time the ultra-Orthodox have become Israel’s economic underclass, as each generation exceeds the poverty of the last…

Secular Israelis, for their part, live in perpetual dismay over the fact that their successes have never led them to where they expected to arrive. Their parents’ generation, and that of their parents, expected to be vindicated, that the value and truth of the ideology they embraced would be confirmed by the society they built. After Zionists produced the Good Society, they reasoned, no one could doubt that Zionism itself is a social good. And for some time, it seemed that this formula had proven itself to be Israel’s self-image, broadly, as the country passed through two phases…

No one holds a heroic view of Israel anymore, not abroad and not here… Israel’s social gap is now considered among the greatest in the developed world. The most recent wave of immigrants, from the former Soviet Union, are largely disgruntled, and surveys suggest that a large percentage of them are not even Jews… And most important of all, Israel’s military excellence has been tested in a 20-year misadventure occupying southern Lebanon, and in laboriously maintaining the peace in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The disastrous last war in Lebanon, and the wrenching recent war in Gaza, won support by most Israelis, and censure by some, but together they have left little doubt that the country’s army is not heroic in the sense that it once was.

For all these reasons, to be a secular Israeli in 2009 is a demoralizing and demoralized affair. We are tired: tired of the Palestinians, tired of the bombs, tired of U.N. and EU condemnations, tired of having so much of our daily wages taxed to buy guns and missiles, tired of the army reserves, tired of being hated, tired of going to bed and waking up to reports of kids — Jewish kids, Palestinian kids — watching their parents die or dying in their parents’ arms. We are tired of our lives and tired of ourselves.

The longest distance between two points is a straight line from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv.

In the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Me’ah Shearim in Jerusalem, men walk around in long, black suits and furry hats, even in the oppressive heat of summer in the desert. Women wear many layers of long, flowing clothing to hide any natural curve on their bodies as much as possible. The men study Torah all day while the women work part-time and take care of their families of as many as ten or more children. They survive on donations and government grants.

On the beaches of the cosmopolitan city of Tel Aviv, bare-chested men wear speedos while tattooed women walk around in the smallest bikinis imaginable. They work in the high-tech industry during the day and watch the Israeli version of “American Idol” or the new comedy show “Fun Night,” which features lewd jokes and dancing girls, at home. For dinner, they will probably eat a salad containing bacon and shrimp.

The true threat to Israel is neither an Iranian nuclear bomb nor rockets from Hamas or Hizbollah; it is Israelis themselves. Even if two Americans are respectively a Blue State-devotee of Barack Obama and a Red Stater who supports Sarah Palin, they still have something in common: The principles enumerated in the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution. All Americans, regardless of their political affiliations, are united by a common vision and a set of ideals that supercede preferences on individual policies.

This is not the case in Israel. Sixty-one years after the re-founding of the Jewish state, Israelis still cannot agree on a common vision of what their country should be. Israel does not have a constitution.

Israelis on the far left do not believe in a Jewish state at all because they think countries based on ethnicity or religion are outdated at best or immoral at worst. They want to see a single, secular country consisting of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip in which every person, Jew or Arab, would have one vote. They disrespect religion as well as anyone who believes in it.

The ultra-Orthodox on the far right do not believe in Israel as it currently exists because it is a country that is officially secular and founded by men rather than a theocracy founded by God himself. (In official terms, Israel is a Jewish state based on ethnicity rather than religion.) They disrespect the government, the army, Israelis whom they consider to be less religious, and those who are secular. The ultra-Orthodox do not really care what happens between the Israelis and the Palestinians; they just want to be left alone to follow Judaism as they see fit.

The Religious Orthodox on the right believe that the current State of Israel was founded by God through the hands of men and that Israelis have a duty to settle the West Bank and Gaza. The routinely resist the government when it tries to evict their settlers from the Occupied Territories because, to them, the Torah is more important than the secular law.

Those on the left want Israel to withdraw from the Occupied Territories as soon as possible. The political left believes that the Palestinians will stop their terrorist attacks once they have a country of their own. The religious left believes that it is wrong for Israel to, in their view, oppress the Palestinians and treat them wrongly.

Those on the center right believe that Israel should not withdraw from any part of the Occupied Territories until the Palestians, in their view, stop their terrorist attacks and prove that they are able to build and run a state of thier own.

I write this a few hours before the start of the holiday of Tisha b’Av, the date when Jews fast and mourn the destruction of the First and Second Temples as well as other tragedies including the return of the scouts sent by Moses to Ca’anan, the failure of the Bar Kokhba Revolt against ancient Rome, the razing of Jerusalem by the Roman Empire, and the expulsion of the Jews from England. According to the Mishnah, God destroyed the Second Temple and sent the Jewish people into exile as a punishment because the various communities in ancient Judea — such as the Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots — held a “baseless hatred” for each other.

I cannot help but wonder if ancient history is repeating itself. Ultra-Orthodox Jews are rioting and lighting things on fire in Jerusalem. Religious Zionists are resisting civil law and causing anarchy. Secular Israelis are becoming increasingly angered at these actions and losing all faith as a result. Even the moderates on the right and left cannot agree on what should come first: a ceasing of Palestinian hostilities or the giving of more land to them. (At the same time, Hamas shows no signs of accepting the existence of a Jewish state, Palestinian moderates are increasingly impotent, and Iran is continuing its march towards a nuclear bomb.)

None of these Jewish communities can gain a majority in such a fractured country, so Israel is paralyzed and unable to do anything. This country cannot agree at all on what this country should be. As a result, each of the communities feels threatened and increasingly angry. I just hope the division is not turning into baseless hatred again.

Elsewhere: Danny Ayalon agrees.

Rabbi Eliyahu Kin addresses the issue of “baseless hatred” within the Jewish community as well as within mankind as a whole. His advice? Do not gossip. Be humble. Give people the benefit of the doubt. See that there is something good within everyone since all people are made in the image of God.


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