Anshel Pfeffer Jewish soldiers never die - they just get drafted into the IDF
The
British War Cemetery on Mount Scopus is one of the most peaceful spots
in Jerusalem. The final resting place of 2,515 soldiers of World War I
overlooks the entire city, and while it doesn’t completely escape the
bustling hubbub of the adjacent university and hospital, surrounding
Jewish and Arab neighborhoods and busy roads, there’s a peculiar
stillness to the meticulously landscaped paths and lawns. Just as
General Edmund Allenby’s officers maintained discipline among the men of
the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in yet another campaign of that
senseless war, today the gardeners still paid for by the British
government continue to keep the unruly Mediterranean fauna in check in
the corner of a foreign field that is forever England.
On
Monday, Remembrance Day for fallen IDF soldiers, I visited the British
War Cemetery, looking for a quieter, more contemplative experience than
the packed Mount Herzl had to offer. In the northernmost corner, things
from afar seemed slightly less tidy. Most of the graves of Jewish
soldiers are concentrated there and by the headstones were strewn little
flags of Israel, blue and white remembrance candles and the cellophane
wrapped bunches of flowers that the Defense Ministry distributes during
this period.
It
was clear what had happened. Every year, in the week before Remembrance
Day, the ministry’s Commemoration Department sends hundreds of soldiers
to adorn the grave of each IDF soldier, every victim of a terror attack
and every individual recognized as having fallen in the
pre-independence struggle for Jewish statehood with a little flag,
flowers and a candle. This relatively new custom is aimed at the
families visiting the graves, so they feel the state has not forgotten
their loved ones’ sacrifice.
I
called the ministry and asked who decided to add to Israel’s national
casualty list British soldiers who fought and died during World War I.
The spokesman Assaf Zohar got back to me and tried patiently to explain
that the 23,169 fallen didn’t include only the IDF soldiers who died
since 1948, but all those killed since the first pioneers left the walls
of the Old City of Jerusalem in 1860 to establish the first new Jewish
settlements of the modern era.
I
knew that already, and asked Zohar why British soldiers, who happened
to be Jewish and could have just as likely been sent to fight the
Germans on the Somme rather than the Turks in Palestine, had become part
of the Zionist pantheon. Whose decision had it been to posthumously
draft Second Lieutenant H.L.A. Keyzor, of the South Wales Borderers,
only beloved son of Jack and Doddie, who fell for King and country at
the age of 20 on March 9, 1918, to the Israel Defense Forces founded
three decades later? And had anyone coordinated this with the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) which has maintained the
cemetery on Mount Scopus since its establishment in 1927? As of writing,
I am still waiting for an answer.
I
know, however, that whoever put this site on the ministry’s list wasn’t
acting on official policy. The only “British” soldiers recognized as
“fallen in the battles of Israel” are the Jewish citizens of mandatory
Palestine who volunteered, encouraged by the leaders of the Zionist
movement, to fight the Germans in World War II. Someone decided on their
own initiative to include also the Jewish soldiers who happened to be
deployed to this part of the world in World War I. Once they got on the
list, that was it. And it’s all too easy to see where the impulse came
from.
Some
may see this as a heartwarming gesture; adopting these poor Jewish boys
who died so young, far away from their families. But since they were
buried according to Jewish law, and their graves are maintained by the
largest and most impressive international organization of its kind in
the world, they have not been abandoned in any way. Indeed, much of the
fashion by which the IDF built its own cemeteries was built on the
Commonwealth War Graves Commission model.
If
you really want to do the right thing, then have a rabbi come and say
kaddish on their yahrzeit. But to put an Israeli flag on their graves
for IDF Remembrance Day is an obnoxious and all-too-Israeli
expropriation of their memories, which has nothing to do with Zionism or
modern-day Israel. And there’s all too much of this blurring of lines
going on between the Jewish state and the Jewish people.
We
see it now in the reactions to the totally justified demand recently
raised by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and senior treasury officials
that the Jewish National Fund, which controls 15 percent of Israel’s
land (and a much higher proportion than that of land that can be used
for new housing) be audited by the state comptroller and submit its huge
assets (which should belong to the state anyway) to the nation.
The
JNF claims that the government cannot order them around, because “this
land belongs to all the Jewish people,” as if the Jewish people is an
entity with a collective will that only a small bunch of hacks can
divine. The JNF’s critics are being branded as “anti-Zionists” but in
reality, those calling for transparency and probity in the management of
state land are the real Zionists. True Zionism should be liberating
this land from the clutches of a self-serving clique and putting it at
the disposal of all Israel’s citizens, Arabs and Jews. Those hiding
behind “the land of the Jewish people” excuse are perverting the most
successful ideology of the last century.
Benjamin
Netanyahu wants to pass a law that will say Israel is the nation-state
of the Jewish people, but you can’t legislate the self-evident and his
initiative smacks of a dismal lack of confidence and moral clarity. No
one can poll all the Jews of the world to see if they feel the same and
even if it was possible, the result would be irrelevant. Why not first
ask them what they want us to do with the JNF land?
Israel
was established and fought for by Jews as a haven for Jews, and as such
has been recognized by the world. But it can only serve its purpose by
acting as a sovereign state, with equal rights for all its citizens,
non-Jews alike. Not by forcing itself with frivolous laws, its
corruption, its little flags and bunches of flowers, upon the Jews,
living and dead, who are not and never will be its citizens and
soldiers.
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