'future historians will inevitably wonder'
"If this bill passes, future historians will inevitably wonder why, at a critical moment in its history, Israel chose to tell 85 percent of the Jewish diaspora that their rabbis weren't rabbis and their religious practices were a sham, the conversions of their parents and spouses were invalid, their marriages weren't legal under Jewish law, and their progeny were a tribe of bastards unfit to marry other Jews."
So writes Alana Newhouse, the gifted editor of Tablet, in the New York Times, responding to the conversion bill currently snaking itself through the Knesset; a bill that will, in effect, return Israel to a state in which only the orthodox rabbinate will be able to perform legally recognized conversions to Judaism, thus stripping legitimacy from Reform and Conservative rabbis. But is this really what future historians will wonder about? Have organised American Jews, even the hippest among them, entirely lost their ability to distinguish between an argument about political rights in a democratic state and the question of who gets to come to Camp Ramah?
Will future historians not wonder how a democratic state--any democratic state--should presume to define or legally designate what a "Jew" is, or a "Christian," for that matter, or award material privileges to individuals based on this legal designation, especially a state with a 20% (and growing) non-Jewish minority?
The Jewish state began as a Jewish national home, distinctive for its Hebrew language and thick cultural soup, in which individual poets, politicians, etc., made individual choices about identity and voluntarily joined associations and movements inspired by what of Jewish civilization mattered to them. Even schlock Diaspora writers got the point. Nowhere in the 640 pages of Leon Uris's Exodus do Ari Ben Canaan and his English girlfriend, Kitty, speak about her conversion. As far as the new state was concerned, was not the new Jew anyone speaking Hebrew, slinging a rifle over her shoulder, living in the Jezreel Valley, and fucking Ari Ben Canaan?
And will historians not wonder how this inclusive, democratic spirit--this great cultural adventure--would become so debased and over-shadowed during three generations, such that even American literary critics like Alana Newhouse, who on Monday will pronounce knowingly on Herman Wouk and Philip Roth, will, on Friday, think the problem is which rabbis have the right to make people into Jews, so that other made Jews would have the "right to marry" them? Will historians not wonder about a country, any country, where Newhouse does not have the right to marry anyone-the-hell she wants, Jew, Arab, or brunette fetishist? Particularly about a country that depends not only on the goodwill of the Jewish Diaspora, but the goodwill of all the Western democracies where the right to civil marriage has become boring?
I know that Newhouse, who is brilliant and sassy (and, I can state from experience, treats writers perfectly) thinks she is making a case for pluralism. But she is not, except in the suffocating sense that Sophie Portnoy made the case for hygiene. Imagine that Quebec had actually voted for independence in 1995, and that Canada could do nothing about it. Imagine that, by 2005, the new state passed all kinds of laws that privileged people legally define as Quebecois--access to land in the Laurentians, for example--and that one feature of being Quebecios was being a member of the Catholic Church. Imagine, then, that political leaders in the St. Jean Baptiste Society, which had won the national election, began debating whether Hans Küng, or liberation theologians in Latin America, had the right to convert you to Catholicism. Now imagine you were a Montreal Jew like Mordechai Richler, or a Frenchman like Camus, for that matter, and what you would think of this debate--or, indeed, think about Catholic intellectuals in Paris who thought this was a serious question about pluralism?
"Neither the Jewish diaspora nor Israel can afford a split between the two communities -- a dystopian possibility that, if this bill passes, could materialize frightfully soon," she writes. I see. Dystopia is an Israeli law that "splits," not a legal system that fails to protect the splinters. Anyway, I suspect future historians will have better things to do than wonder about the narcissism of people who think that their "people" is the only people in the world.
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This seems another instance of Israel's tendency in recent times to self destruct and to adopt policies that only make it weaker in the end. What a pity.
July 19, 2010 1:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it a pity?
July 19, 2010 1:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
Because Israel is a nation that held, at one time, great promise and really represented a hopeful future in a dark world. But that was a long time ago now. And also because I do not wish ill on the state of Israel or its people. I would like to see Israel able to live in harmony with its neighbors. I perceive the same mindset and attitudes that produced this cockamamie idea as being very, very close to the mindset that has turned Israel into a hostile, brutish, and paranoid state that has isolated itself not only from its neighbors but also from most of the world. I think it is the inevitable result of the apparently eternal occupation. To me, that is a pity.
July 19, 2010 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I keep going back to what General Marshall (the Marshall Plan guy and much respected as a general and a man in his day) said that he believed that a democracy couldn't survive more than four years of a war.
He was talking about WWII and the US - too bad he wasn't around during Nam which I believe began our downward trajectory as a democracy - and Israel's been in a state of defense/offense a war-like footing for about sixty years so I would have to agree with your "eternal occupation" suggestion.
July 19, 2010 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
We all would like to see an Israel able to live in harmony with its neighbors, but there is no hope without a drastic change in the current political realities.
So where you see a pity, I see an opportunity. A weaker, more hostile state would not have the immense political power that Israel now enjoys, thus weakening the Lobby and allowing meaningful progress.
July 19, 2010 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
But it is not growing weaker. It will remain as militarily powerful as it is or grow in that realm of power. The isolation of Israel, however, will grow and that will feed the paranoid, fearful element that is driving much of the politics there. I hope you are right, but I see precious little opportunity on the horizon without a complete and dramatic change in what is happening politically in Israel. I think the Israeli right is the greatest enemy the future of Israel has.
July 19, 2010 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, anything that sticks it to Israel is fine. Have you heard Bibi ranting about Iran recently? And military power is not national power. Case in point: USA
July 19, 2010 11:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is the real problem. As long as a state ruled by a fanatical minority has the ability to end life as we know it in this country (through retaliation by those whom Israel chooses to attack) we are all in peril.
Israel seems to be headed back to pre-Enlightenment days, not forward to some possible stable future.
July 20, 2010 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel was paranoid from the first day. What are you talking about ?
July 20, 2010 4:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it even "self-destruct"? I see it as a way to tighten the bonds of the tribe and avoid it being diluted by The Others.
Generally speaking it is ill advised to think of Israel doing "self-destructive" things. Or at least you should not come to that conclusion casually.
July 19, 2010 5:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Brilliant. I'm a contemporary historian (senior citizen version) and I wonder about this now...so you don't have to wait for the up and coming ones.
July 19, 2010 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Only in Israel? No.
news report, LA Times:
Muslims throughout Temecula and Murrieta [California] have saved up for years to build a mosque to replace the plain white industrial building, tucked between a pipeline company and packaging warehouse, where they now gather to pray.
But as the Islamic Center of Temecula Valley moves ahead with plans to build on a four-acre plot of vacant land near Temecula's gentle hills and invading housing developments, plans for the new mosque have stirred hostility in this mostly conservative community in southwest Riverside County.
The pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, just across a cul-de-sac from the site of the mosque, said the two religions "mix like oil and water" and predicted a "confrontational atmosphere" if the project moves forward. "The Islamic foothold is not strong here, and we really don't want to see their influence spread," said Pastor Bill Rench.
July 19, 2010 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hereby refudiate this mosque.
July 19, 2010 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Even the Baptists can't agree -- there are thousands of Baptist sects in the world. Here's a brief selection of some sects in America.
Baptists: American, Reformed, Welcoming and Affirming, Missionary, Central, Christian Unity, Conservative, Continental, Cooperative, Evangelical Free, Free Will, Full Gospel, Fundamental, General Association, General Association of General, General Association of Regular, General Conference of the Evangelical, General Six-Principle, Independent, Old Regular, Southern, Sovereign, United etc.
July 19, 2010 3:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Israelis who are pushing this bizarre bill should realize that its passage may put them on the road to self-destruction - nevermind the ever-present threat of destruction at the hands of the greater Arab world.
July 19, 2010 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
When has the greater Arab world has threatened to destroy Israel?
July 19, 2010 4:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good question. But when Israel moved on Lebanon, continues to push for a 'solution' to Iran, pushed for our invasion of Iraq, continues to regard Syria as a threat to Israel's sovereignty, apparently Israel feels herself threatened by a good part of the Arab world.
July 19, 2010 4:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
That is an unwarranted assumption. National leaders go to war and act aggressively not because they feel threatened, most of the time they do it for selfish reasons: for the sake of aggrandizement, for the sake of being superiority , for the sake of being more powerful, more prosperous, and all that jazz.
There is a tendency in this conversation (and in liberal palaver in general) about Israel to think that they are "paranoid", "misguided", "feel threatened" whatever. That's just absolute nonsense. Look at Netanyahu. Does he paint the picture of a man who feels threatened or does he come across as an arrogant bastard? You tell me.
July 19, 2010 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
1948 , 1956 , 1967 , 1973 .... Today (Iran)
July 19, 2010 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Iran did not threaten Israel. That's an old wives' tale, thoroughly discredited.
July 19, 2010 11:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
STFU
July 20, 2010 2:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
And 1948 , 1956 , 1967 , 1973 is irrelevant to today. There are no current threats compared to its now-apparent internal ones.
MJ has written about how Israel is doing itself in, how the Israeli government is its own worst threat. Well let them go for it. The deserve it.
July 19, 2010 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
MJ Is IDIOT Lets start with that
July 20, 2010 2:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
My friend , After 100 years we get use to all this threats !
* sorry about the English
Hear a story.
In 1950 the CIA published(The same organization that the Washington Post said today that they have hundreds of thousands of workers and the budgets are a bottomless pit)
intelligence assessment that says that the young State of Israel has two years left to survive ...
62 years later, Israel has the strongest army in the region and the 5 strongest army in the world (with or without the help from Uncle Sam),
Israel is currently the most developed country in the region and more developed than half of the European countries (Maybe more), the Israelis are considered one of the most educated nations in the world with the highest percentage of engineers, scientists (Productive ones), etc. ...
In the last decade Israel is the largest recipient of Nobel Prizes in relation to the size of population.
If you look at the numbers (Simple absolute facts) - you will notice that the greatest contribution to humanity in terms of science, medicine, technology comes (Again in relation to the size of population.)
About the article issue - I don't have any SAY ,
But I Know one thing : The Ultra orthodox (Not all of them) should not stick their noses to every hole !
They (Ultra orthodox) And the Arabs are 2 societies who do not contribute nothing to Israel only Problems ,Both of them getting more than 60% of the warfare money , Both of them do not serve, Do not Work , Do not volunteer in anything (beside the Arabs who volunteer to terror groups), 24/7 both of them crying and Protesting and do not take responsibility about their life , The Arabs are responsible to 60% of the crime in Israel (Even if they are only 18% of the country), Involved in car accidents more than anyone....
July 19, 2010 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
I forgot to mention that all of the above achieved during 60+ tears :
Almost every decade has a war .
Constant state of Political, security ,economic Instability ,
Succeeding in absorbing and integrating Millions of Poor/orphans/skeletons/Holocaust,Pogroms survivors refugees from around the world !
July 19, 2010 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps you'd also like to fill us in on why Israel continues to seem to need our $3 billion/year since according to you it is such an advanced, thriving, wealthy and with-it country?
July 20, 2010 10:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ask the US government - they want a client states - it's good for them - With this money they are blackmailing countries around the world (eg. Egypt,Jordan,etc...)
July 20, 2010 3:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah Israel feels so "threatend" by the Palestinians that it has to ethnically cleans them from the teritorries. They should go to Jordan, bla bla bla....yeah Israel is just shaking in its boots about the threat that palestininaS pose to Israel. Give me a break!
July 19, 2010 11:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why Not Jordan , After All 90 % of the Jordanians are "Palis" ?!
Who said they are threat ? - they are just Pawns in a bigger game - their lucky is that Israel is their neighbor - in Jordan ,Syria,Lebanon , Egypt - they live like shit and treated like shit - In the west bank they have the highest living quality in the Arab world -
In Jordan in the 70's (Black September)- the king killed in one week more than 30K-50K ,In Hamma massacre in Syria - in one Week Assad Killed Thousands of them , In Lebanon in the Civil War - The ruin the country ,Many of them killed by the Christians , In gulf states The authorities start to expel them in the recent years , In Egypt,Libya ,Tunis and other North African state
they are "Persona non Grata" ,
Iran and Syria will fight until the Last Pali
Their Arabs brothers are not really give a dam about them- In the Last months for example - most of the Gulf states start to expel them (The reason they give :"troublemakers")
July 20, 2010 4:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
so given all that why is it you cannot feel any compassion for the Palestinians? That's my problem with you.
July 20, 2010 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
1 Million ppl die every Year In Africa from diseases and hunger , In north Korea Millions are starve to death and are in death camps , In Asia/Latin America - it's the same
All of the ppl Above are deserve more compassions and Help than any Jihadisic Maniac who teach his children to kill Infidels from day he was born , GET IT ...I save my compassion to the ppl who do not want to suicide me OR send to my house missiles and throw Me to the sea .
You Have compassion to them - I'm Not Most of the time - they are doing everything to despise them !
I'm not The type of "Laurence of Arabia" - they are not exotic or oriental in my eyes and I'm not fascinated by them - maybe for tourist like you , for me (Someone who live with them) I saw them as backwards , Primitives ,Blood thirsty - I'm Generalize things but this is the reality !
There is a sentence in Hebrew for that(It's hard to translate But there is ppl here who know Hebrew):
"המרחם על אכזרים ,סופו שיתאכזר לרחמנים"
July 20, 2010 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Then why is Israel detemined to march backward behind the most rigid and anti-intellectual sects of Judaism?
July 20, 2010 1:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I always say "future Chinese historians".
July 19, 2010 4:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Second the motion!
Happy days.
July 20, 2010 5:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hispanics don't have any ill will for the Israelis, but Hispanics have taken the decision not to fight and die on Israel soil for the Israelis.
As such, Israelis can solve the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict when they decide they want peace with their political opponent. Until then, Hispanics will leave the Israelis to have to fend for themselves. Of course, Hispanics don't have 'control' of the levers of power here in the USA, or this behavior would be writ large.
And yet, here in Arizona, the 'arch-conservatives'---and that's code talk here in the Sonoran Desert for the bigots and racists' are using SB 1070 to protect themselves from the "sharp elbows of competion". And if that is where the Israeli are desiring to go, I wish them good fortune, since America will eventually become a "minority-majority" nation and that leaves the Jews, both American and non-American, out in the cold. Of course, when Republicans become Hispanics, then we can talk some more. :-)
Note: I like to tease, agitage and aggravate.
Jaango
July 19, 2010 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dr. Avishai, you seem to me to be making a distinction without a difference. You seem to agree with Newhouse that the bill is deplorable. I don't see why you condemn her for putting a different spin on it than you do.
It is possible that I misunderstand the issue entirely, as I do not follow Israeli politics.
July 20, 2010 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good question, and it shows that unlike many of the cookie-cutter comments in this thread, your comment suggests that you actually read Avishai's post. I think--don't presume to speak for him--Avishai's point is that it's futile in any event to define just who a Jew is for "citizenship" or other purposes, and that is consistent with what I understand to be his central thesis, that there is no Jewish People per se, and that any effort by the state to define who is a Jew is inherently undemocratic. Avishai, again as I understand him, objects to special privileges for Jews in Israel, not only with respect to property and other civil rights, but also with respect to the "right of return," which he argues with persuasiveness cannot be reconciled with fundamental principles of democracy. I respect but disagree with Avishai, because I don't believe that a right of return, warts and all, has to be incompatible with equal civil rights for all citizens, Jews and non-Jews, in Israel.
On the other hand, sometimes, Avishai writes things that I may or may not understand, but which just seem to convey a contempt that is unseemly at best. In this case, I would like to believe that Avishai doesn not truly mean what he writes in his last sentence, that Jews believe they are the only "people" in the world. And if Avishai does believe that then I think it just taints what is otherwise a compelling perspective from him. Where I come from, perhaps it being a less intellectual milieu than where Avishai hangs out, we just call that a cheap shot.
July 20, 2010 2:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think, Bruce, he just got ticked off at the end, and threw that in to express his disgust with the bill. An unguarded moment is what I'd call it.
July 20, 2010 3:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
That 'immense political and military power' referred to above, is illusory, and could collapse in a week.
It is dependent on the two present, primary, political, power and economic blocks of the world: the EU and the US.
The EU is in two minds whether to withdraw its Association Agreement with Israel that afford free access to the European market of over a half a billion people. To date, it has not because the EU commission has taken the stance that although the state of Israel is in gross breach of the provisions of the Agreement, it (the EU) stands a better chance of influencing Israel within the current arrangement.
That stance can change at any time and, if so, could wipe out bilateral trade with Europe at a stroke. That is still on the cards, and after the flotilla debacle, is increasingly likely. Israel needs to step very carefully indeed but Israeli political arrogance knows no bounds.
As for military prowess. This is a somewhat of a myth. Israel kills most of her enemies by the use of drones whilst sitting at a desk in Herzlia or Bat Yam. The IDF has never had to face an equally equipped army. Its 'victories' have to date been against Uganda, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Gaza.
No. There is no immense political or military power - it's illusory, also.
July 20, 2010 5:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
"The IDF has never had to face an equally equipped army." What do you mean by an equally equipped army? In 1967 and 1973 (not even talking about 1948) Israel was outgunned both quantitatively and qualitatively by arab armies equipped with the latest top-of-the line Soviet equipment. (Artillery 12-1, Tanks 10-1, airplanes 4-1). And the arabs lost every time. And then they call it a "massacre".
July 20, 2010 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
About th EU :Actually after the Flotilla Israel did a great service to Europe - now they have reasons ,Why not accepting Turkey To the EU , By the way - Currently the EU is Pro Israel than ever (since the 70's) ,The biggest numbers of tourists to Israel today are not the Americans (Like 10 years ago) , Most of the tourist come from Russia,Europe - 65 % are NON-Jews and are not Evangelicals
About Bat-Yam and drones (What the connecion ? Mystery ) - ? WTF ? Bat-Yam (Where this pop up?) is the last place in Israel to associate with an army Installation - This is the problem with lots of ppl here - they think they are specialist about Israel issues BUT they are not - you read too much Harretz/Jpost crap
July 20, 2010 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
The founding Zionists, Utopian socialists most of them, believed that creating Israel would cure all the ills created by centuries of diaspora and persecution and make Jews into "normal" people (whatever that is). With some delicacy we might say that they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams (or nightmares). What has been created seems to be a sounding box of universal proportions wherein to wash the people's most intimate dirty linen before the gentiles.
July 20, 2010 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
More than the validity (or invalidity) of either Newhouse's or Avishai's argument, I can't help but be focused on, and frankly, staggered by, Avishai's misogynistic, chauvenistic, and disgustingly disrespectful treatment of Newhouse's position. Throughout his piece, Avishai harps on her gender ("sassy", "brunette fetishist" -- ew!!) as he tries and fails to take apart her argument. I am sure Avishai would never attempt this in a rebuttal of a male colleague; the whole thing is simply repulsive. Not to mention, to try to posit that Israel was never a "Jewish" state is simply wrong. I don't agree with Israel's policies and politics, but characterizing the country as something that it is not only makes Avishai look even more ridiculous and lame. Mr. Avishai, it would behoove you to treat and address your female colleagues as you would your male peers. You'll come off better.
July 20, 2010 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
More than the validity (or invalidity) of either Newhouse's or Avishai's argument, I can't help but be focused on, and frankly, staggered by, Avishai's misogynistic, chauvenistic, and disgustingly disrespectful treatment of Newhouse's position. Throughout his piece, Avishai harps on her gender ("sassy", "brunette fetishist" - ew!!) as he tries and fails to take apart her argument. I am sure Avishai would never attempt this in a rebuttal of a male colleague; the whole thing is simply repulsive. Not to mention, to try to posit that Israel was never a "Jewish" state is simply wrong. I don't agree with Israel's policies and politics, but characterizing the country as something that it is not only makes Avishai look even more ridiculous and lame. Mr. Avishai, it would behoove you to treat and address your female colleagues as you would your male peers. You'll come off better.
July 20, 2010 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
"An Israeli man of Arab origin has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.
Sabbar Kashur, 30, was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Monday after the court ruled that he was guilty of rape by deception. According to the complaint filed by the woman with the Jerusalem district court, the two met in downtown Jerusalem in September 2008 where Kashur, an Arab from East Jerusalem, introduced himself as a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship. The two then had consensual sex in a nearby building before Kashur left.
When she later found out that he was not Jewish but an Arab, she filed a criminal complaint for rape and indecent assault.
Although Kashur was initially charged with rape and indecent assault, this was changed to a charge of rape by deception as part of a plea bargain arrangement.
Handing down the verdict, Tzvi Segal, one of three judges on the case, acknowledged that sex had been consensual but said that although not "a classical rape by force," the woman would not have consented if she had not believed Kashur was Jewish."
Zionism is racism.
July 20, 2010 11:48 PM | Reply | Permalink