Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...
Yes, Please make this my home page!
BACK TO LITERATURE,ESSAYS,POLITICS
BACK TO SITE PLAN
WHAT ISRAEL MEANS TO ME.
I see Israel as an aspect of more general "Jewishness" and
shall try to draft their respective impact on my life.
I was brought up in the cosmopolitan context of the Warsaw
intelligentsia, as the son of a German refugee. I vaguely
knew my Jewish origin, but religion and nationality had
little importance for us.
Amid this peaceful context, the encounter with Jewishness
came like a thunder from the blue sky: Nazis occupied Poland
and we were sent to the ghetto. The horror, in the face of
brutal terror, turned soon into revolt. Having escaped from
the ghetto I joined the Polish Resistance, the AK. Due to my
proficiency in German I was assigned as liaison agent to the
Gestapo penetration service, commanded by Captain Danuta.
I applied also for missions of liaison with the ZOB (Jewish
Fighting Organization) in the ghetto. In that role I joined
The Upraising, which coincided with the Passion Week 1943.
My memories in literary form ("Passion Week") are registered
in Yad Vashem.
So much for my encounter with Jewishness. Israel, in the
sense of "Eretz Yisrael", turned up for me after the war,
through meeting other survivors, mostly adherents of
HaShomer HaTzair, preparing to join kibbutzim and Zahal.
We saw Israel as a safe harbor for Jews, as an ideal in
which "Jew" had little to do with religion and meant mainly
"the oppressed". Enthusiastic about the creation of
Israel, we were deeply disappointed by its religious order,
by its biblical justification, by the Law of Return founded
in the halakhic definition of Jew. We dreamed about a secular
country, sheltering of course religious Jews, but open to
anybody sharing Jewish culture or fate. We saw the halakhic
rule as an affront to our secular Weltanschauung and as
outrageous injustice to "Goim" who trained with us in view
of migrating for moral reasons to Israel, some being former
AK liaison agents who had themselves fought in the Uprising.
Most of us were simple youngsters without much intellectual
upbringing, but we saw the halakhic definition of "Jew" as
an insult to common sense.
(Indeed, Halakha defines a Jew as the offspring of a Jewish
mother. However, in order to ascertain that his mother was
Jewish, he would have to prove that in turn, her mother, her
grandmother, etc. were Jewish. A glaring vicious circle
making motherhood-based Jewishness a logical nonsense. The
marginal entry to the cycle, viz. the conversion, is no better:
the converting rabbi must clearly be Jewish, but he cannot
prove it either and may only spin in the same vicious circle.)
Thus, by the halakhic definition itself there ain't no sich
animal as a "Jew". Halakhic "Jew" is an irrational, dogmatic
phantasm. And yet, the fact remains that millions of Jews
have been exterminated.
Phantasms versus Facts. I have fully grasped this dichotomy
much later, working on foundations of Relativity with
Einstein's team.
Einstein believed that a new reason is essential if mankind
is to survive and that blunders cannot be remedied by the
same reason that created them. Established reason, with its
nationalist and religious phantasms and the jungle "freedom",
ended up necessarily at Auschwitz. Thus, an Auschwitz-free,
humane world may only be conceived in terms of a new reason
banning irrational dogma and accepting only factually
verifiable, rational ideas. On the face of it, religions,
with their dogmatic, unverifiable phantasms, should be
disregarded.
Yet, however irrational their dogma, religions are obviously
social facts. Thus, an enlightened country should accommodate
religions while refusing to be in any way ruled by their
dogma and rigorously restricting laws to rationality.
Individual beliefs, however delusory, should be respected as
long as they don't infringe upon the law.
The Halutzim dream of Israel was clear: a shelter for the
oppressed; rational, but tolerant towards irrational beliefs;
peaceful, but unyielding to danger; pragmatic towards the
"free" economy, but unselfish, incorruptible, and supportive
of kibbutzim trying to break with the jungle.
Did this dream come true or, as some people say, has it
turned into a nightmare?
I can only speak for myself.
My Alyah was delayed due to my critically ill father. I came
just after the 6 days war, amid the enthusiasm of having
conquered the Great Israel, the Golden Yerushalaim and the
Snows of Hermon. My HaShomer HaTzair view saw it as a chance
to share with Arabs modern agronomy, technology, democracy
and welfare and to build together the most humane country,
a model for the world.
I was of course aware of another view, that of orthodox rabbis,
for whom the Great Israel was Yahve's present to Moses, in
whose name they were ready to run it and to cash in the profits.
But I saw Israelis as predominantly secular workers and
soldiers, while the devotees with their funny hats seemed
to me derisory and impossible to be taken seriously.
The first anticlimax was sparked by the "street of injustice".
I came across it visiting friends in a Haifa suburb. Its one
side consisted of new residential houses flanked by posh
Mercedes and Volvos. They were inhabited by Olim Hadashim
(new arrivals) profiteering from immigration-boosting
packages. Most of them in this street were thugs or gangsters
escaped from the Soviets on false halakhic certificates
signed by corrupted rabbis.
The other side of the street comprised decrepit shacks in
which vegetated below poverty level old, pre-48 immigrants
from Turkey or Iran. They had no right to any packages, only
to fight in Haganah or in the IDF and, if invalids, to get
$10 monthly pensions. None could dream to ever have even the
cheapest car. The shiny limousines from the opposite side
were like a slap in the face.
Thus, my first disappointment concerned internal injustice
flying in the face of my dream of a model country. Religious
problems of various gravity followed shortly. Compulsory
kashrut was a nuisance, even if a bearable one. The
prohibition of public transportation on Shabbat was more
annoying. Chains blocking roads in religious quarters were
revolting: they barred emergency vehicles and caused serious
accidents such as that of a soldier decapitated in his jeep.
And sacrificing Israel's security for silly rituals seemed
simply abhorrent: At the moment of writing these lines Israel
faces existential risks and the government needing stability
to deal with them may be overturned over the "problem" of
selling bread during Passover!
Finally, the Yom Kippur trauma. The outrageous laxness,
conceit and corruption of idolized leaders who nearly lost
the war and annihilated Israel. And even worse: the apathy
following our protest sparked by Motti Ashkenazi, the chronic
apathy of Israelis. Olmert bungled the Lebanon war as Dayan
the Yom Kippur and protests yielded alike to apathy, leaving
the bungler at the helm in face of existential threats.
Apathy which I never accepted and endeavor to overcome with
our protest motto "Ichpat Li" - "I Do Care".
Yet, disappointments found compensations. Solidarity bridged,
in my IDF unit, the secular-religious gap. The company
counted several religious Yemenis, gentle, helpful and
appreciated as best craftsmen one has ever seen. It visibly
disturbed them to drive army vehicles on Shabbat, even if
they did not refuse to do so. All secular soldiers proposed
to swap their weekday duties against Yemenis' Shabbat ones,
even when that could mean a lost Shabbat leave.
Yom Kippur trauma got abundant compensation, when the war,
as good as lost by corrupted leaders, was unprecedentedly
turned to victory by bottom-up initiative and determination.
My participation in this "war of captains" was the most
exalting experience of my life. It felt as if the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising had crushed Nazi Germany.
Yom Kippur has unfolded for me another aspect of Israel:
its humanity. I got a leave for treatment of a hand wound
in Haifa hospital. Like all civil hospitals at the time,
it was overrun by wounded Arab POWs. Entering the hospital
you were leaving your religion, nationality etc. outside,
becoming just a patient. My case being benign, I slept on
a mattress in the corridor among lightly-wounded Israelis,
some of them high ranking officers. Comfortable rooms
accommodated more serious cases, mostly the POWs.
I can hardly imagine such a situation in any other country.
I believe this reasonably depicts "What Israel means to me":
A crucial determinant of my outlook on life.
A dream that came true a bit shattered internally and
externally besieged like the Ghetto.
Thus a challenge and a ceaseless commitment.
