Gideon Levy :Israel's 'Jewish Majority' Obsession (settembre 2015)
It's all based on an
obsession: Israel must be a Jewish state at any cost. Just or unjust,
good or not good, flourishing or not flourishing — the main thing is
that it be Jewish. And as with any obsession, few can explain why and no
one is allowed to doubt it.
On
the day Israel shakes this obsession and becomes a country like any
other, a democracy like any other, it will become a safer and more just
place. For the time being, we have a major stumbling block.
To
celebrate the Jewish New Year this evening, there's no need for a
Jewish state. In New York, Johannesburg and Uman, Ukraine (and even in
Tehran), the holiday will be marked the right way. To maintain a Jewish
lifestyle there is no need for a Jewish state. Freedom of religion
exists in many countries. But then things get complicated.
Almost
all Israeli Jews (and most of the world) think Jews deserve a national
home; Jewish Israelis also want to live in a country where most of the
citizens — preferably all the citizens — are Jewish. The first
aspiration is legitimate and has come true, the second is illegitimate
and nationalist. It also lacks real meaning.
Peter Beinart explained in Haaretz
Friday that there's no such thing anymore as the American Jewish
community: “In 2015, knowing that an American is Jewish doesn’t tell you
much about how she lives or thinks either. There are today basically
two American Jewish communities … each of which has more in common with a
group of American gentiles than with each other.”
These
words are even truer regarding the Israeli Jewish community — it's
subdivided into loosely connected communities. And yet the obsession
about the “Jewish majority” is intensifying, uniting the Jewish right
and left.
In
most enlightened countries, no one dares ask what a person’s religion
is. In Israel it’s key. When Zionist Union MK Nachman Shai says his goal
is for “the percentage of Arabs in the country not to rise,” he's
expressing the height of Israeli political correctness. There are
countries (and Israel should be one of them) where such a statement
would be one's last as a legislator. But when the name of the game is
Jewish majority, such harmful words are no problem.
There
are no Jewish values or Jewish morals — there are universal values and
universal morals. A mother should hope her son becomes a good man, not a
good Jew. A Jewish restaurant is an Eastern European restaurant, and
Jewish sites are ultra-Orthodox or religious in general. Israel must
stop busying itself with its “Jewish character” and Jewish majority all
the time. It must start worrying about progress, justice, morality and
values.
The
Jewish state was established long ago; now is the time to establish a
democratic, egalitarian and just state. It will not become this if it
does not shake the obsession of its Judaism. A state that shakes its
obsessive preoccupation with its Judaism will also shake its anxieties
and stoke less hostility — it will be more just.
And
what can we say about the Jewish majority if it's a majority for
fascism, racism and hatred of Arabs and foreigners? What is Jewish
character for most of us if it means a country of religion? Why should a
liberal Israeli want to live in a country with a Jewish majority based
on settlers and nationalists? Wouldn't it be better to establish a
community of democratic, liberal, secular people fighting the
fundamentalists, anti-democrats and nationalists?
Sixty-seven
years after Israel’s founding, now is the time for the second war of
liberation — a war of liberation from Israel's Judaism.
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