Elections, Jewish Commonwealth and Who Are We?

A third round? Maybe !!

By Malcolm Dash

Two inconclusive elections and perhaps a third? So what divides the two blocs vying for dominance? Is it the issues of security, capitalistic economics, health, welfare, education? No, not really, only cosmetic differences separate the thinking on the “Left” and “Right” with regard to these issues and the overall governance of Israel.

Since the eighties, both camps have been committed to Western style majority rule, capitalism and equality. If this is so, then how should we understand the schism between the two groups?

Let’s take a closer look at the composition of the two blocs. The “Right” represent a conservative, traditional Jewish approach and the “Lefts” path is towards the “current” Western Liberal progressive political orientation with the emphasis on individual rather than on collective rights.

Who are we?

For over two thousand years the Jewish commonwealth has been wrestling with its identity and distinctive characteristics. This tension became most apparent when Jews were confronted by the cultural juggernaut of Hellenism, an encounter that would have an abiding influence on Judaism and the Jewish people.

Hellenism was a dynamic synthesis of Greek culture and the native cultures of the Near East. It had liberated peoples from the limitations of geography and birth, substituting it for Hellene culture and education.

Greek reason and thought now ushered in the primacy of Humanism. Man was now at the center of the cosmos, rather than merely of the polis (the Greek city), as it had been earlier. Many Jews rapidly oriented themselves towards this teleology and also adopted the Greek language.They did this to prove themselves Greek and eventually, they would out-Greek the Greeks (familiar, think pre World War 2 German Jews).

Acculturation

As time passed, more and more Jews not only spoke like Greeks, but took on their customs, attitudes and behaviors, which on many levels were antithetical to the values of Judaism. Most of the Jewish upper class elites were simply swept away by the tide of Aegean culture.

The victory of the Maccabees over the Greeks was a great disappointment to “Hellenists” and “Hebrews”, the two distinct groups that defined the earliest Christian communities in Israel. The Hebrews became Jewish Christians who spoke almost exclusively Aramaic, and the Hellenists became Jewish Christians who spoke Greek.

Western civilization

Most historians agree that the concept of Western culture emerged with the Ancient Greeks. Greek ideology was to become the foundation of what has come to be called Western democracy.

Democracy on steroids

Fast forward to our present time of modern liberal democracy, a democracy beset by many problems. Foremost is the conundrum of the recent advancement and emphasis on individual rights, which is clearly leading to an excess of individualism.

The origin of individualism in democracies, or the idea of the solitary, self-sufficient human self, is still not well understood. Yet we seem to believe that the cure for extreme individualism and for what ails democracy is more democracy. However, unrestrained democracy dissolves the ties or duties which link human beings to one another—those that constitute the family, religion, and political community.

Today it has become politically incorrect and “intolerable” “to compel the individual to defer uncritically to the authority of the collective. He or she should be free to live however he or she thinks best. As Tocqueville put it, “of the beast with the angel in him—are the deepest source of human misery”. All assertions of the existence of a common moral authority in matters of personal morality, sex and family, are seen as manifestations of “authoritarianism.” It should be understood that the very perception of unlimited freedom by a human being is a dizzying and terrifying concept.

The individual or the collective

Many Israeli Jews are flirting with Radical individualism and radical egalitarianism which ineluctably leads to the same thing—atomism. Atomism is the result of the destruction of all that obligates human beings to one another and all that distinguishes them from one another.

Israel has become a comparatively affluent society. Be that as it may, there is a great deal of restlessness even in the midst of abundance. However, no amount of material success can wholly satisfy human desires or replace the fundamental need for morality and the spirituality of religion. When Democratic individuals continue to pursue even greater amounts of status and material success, they do so in the belief that they have no choice but to hope that somehow it can become gratifying . No other standard of success is credible to them. The consequences of an individuality rooted in materialism produces nothing but misery. It gives rise to poverty and related forms of human degradation to those who fail in the race of life.

The jabber of civil war

Perhaps it’s a misrepresentation to allege that the miscarriage of the past two elections is the first rhetorical salvo in a civil war-like fracture for the character and soul of the Jewish people.

However, the battle lines appear to be clearly drawn between Western liberal progressive Democracy counterpoised by traditional, non-radical orthodox Judaism. A Judaism that does not reject Democracy, as a matter of fact it incorporates most of the elements and principles of modern day Democracy.

Dynamic Judaism

When exploring the oral tradition of Judaism. we find it interpreted the written Torah, it modified its teachings to accommodate ever-changing political and social circumstances, and appended it with new statutes of law. “It added a dynamic dimension to the written code, making it a perpetual process rather than a closed system.The vitality of this tradition is fully demonstrated in the way the ancient laws were adapted after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and by the role played by the Talmud in the survival of the Jewish people in exile”.

By the 11th century, Diaspora Jews lived in a Talmudic culture that united them and superseded geographical boundaries and language differences. Jewish communities governed themselves according to Talmudic law, and individuals regulated the smallest details of their lives by it.

This was a community called upon to express its loyalty to God and the covenant by exhibiting “collective solidarity” within its corporate life on every level, including all aspects of human behaviour, from the most public to the most private. The Jews, together with all humanity, were called upon to institute political, economic, and social attributes, that would affirm divine sovereignty and enhance human solidarity.

Scripture, Halakhic, Haggadic, Midrash, Mishna,and Gemara were the sources that Jewish leaders used to give their communities stability and flexibility. Jewish communities and individuals of the Diaspora faced novel and unexpected situations that had to be dealt with in ways that would provide continuity, while making it possible to exist with the unprecedented travails of a people without territorial sovereignty.

The Ultra Orthodox

The deadlocked election cycle isn’t really about the ultra orthodox community and its alleged oppressive influence over the lives of secular Israelis Jews. This vilified community is far too occupied in desperately fighting to cope with the intrusion of modernity and the threat this presents to its way of life. Therefore they have little interest in persuading others to adopt their life style.

True, they marginally participate in the economy and are under represented in the military. Additionally, they maintain Rabbinic control over births, marriages, death, conversions, public transportation on Shabbat and other more niggling matters that offend secular Jews.

Nevertheless, for over seventy years this has been the status quo, a position that has successfully managed the tensions between the secular and religious elements of the Jewish society.

Of course the ultra observant Jews should be more widely involved in the economic activity of the country. Their absence is a true loss of human capital in the work place.

And until the Army decides that it wants to restructure itself and become a smaller and technologically based force, all citizens and that includes the ultra religious should be inducted into the IDF.

However, legislation enforcing this community to embrace modernity is impractical and will fail. Over time, modernity will penetrate the fabric of this community but it should be as the result of evolution not revolution i.e. legal statutes.

Religious Zionism

So if ultra orthodoxy is not the electoral issue then it must be Bibi. The main street media, legal establishment and the talking heads would have you believe that the nostrum for our political malaise is the removal of Bibi Netanyahu. With Bibi gone, the expectation is (Incidentally, I am a very critical observer of his policies and stewardship), that a stable coalition of Liberal progressives together with  Likud, will produce a stable government . This, they claim, is the cure for the divide that bedevils the nation.

Note, this effectively deligitimizes the religious parties and eliminates their constituents from the democratic process. It hints at neo-fascism. Really, is this how an enlightened Democratic society should deal with its political opponents ?

Therefore with the removal of Bibi and the religious Zionist parties  , the Liberal progressives would then be able to implement their agenda…..the secularization/Hellenization of the Jewish state, unilateral withdrawal from most of Judea and Sameria and the establishment of a tyrannical, irridentist, misogynistic, homophobic, undemocratic, terror state. An entity not unlike Gaza, except in this instance it would be a strategic nightmare, threatening the very heartland and survival of the Jewish state.

Ben Gurion, understood that the ideology of secular Zionism would not be sufficient to sustain the “miraculous” return of the Jews to their homeland. He figured out that there would be no justification for or entitlement to the “Land” without Torah and the historical collective memory of the Jewish people.

It’s clear to me, as an unapologetic non-observant, non messianic Jew, which political bloc will best preserve the type of Jewish state envisaged by most of the founding fathers and affirmed by at least seventy percent of the Jews of Israel .