Ted Belman (first published 2006)
Everyone is familiar will Hillel’s quote, loosely translated, “If I am not for myself, who am I? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?”
I have always understood this to mean that an individual must make the case for his particular before making the case for the other. Particularism before universalism. Neither should be to the exclusion of the other, but the former, according to Hillel, comes first. One might add that it is only natural to fight for yourself before fighting for others. The twentieth century witnessed within the Jewish community a flight from the Jewish particular in favour of the universal. As the Jews came out of the ghetto, they shed religion for secularism. They became Communists in Russia, socialists in Europe and liberal Democrats in America.
The Jewish Right wishes to follow Hillel’s dictum by emphasizing the Jewish particular first and then addressing the “other”. Thus, it chooses a Jewish Israel even if it offends the Western notion of democracy. On the other hand, the Jewish Left wishes to do the opposite. It stresses the rights of the other, particularly the “Palestinians”, at the expense of Jewish rights.
A case in point is the fence decision by the Israel’s High Court of Justice. The Court severely restricted where Israel could build the fence by putting the security of Israelis second to the rights of the Arabs.
The Jewish Right wants Israel to be a Jewish state whereas the Left argues that Israel should be a state like other states or of all its citizens. Binyamin Netanyahu got it right when he said, “Israel is the state of the Jews and not of its citizens.”
In my recent article “It pays to be Jewish”, I argued that Israel, to be a Jewish state, must give pre-eminence to Jewish Civil Law, which flows from the Torah. I implied that freedom of speech should not protect anti-Israel incitement and that persons not loyal to Israel as a Jewish state should have their citizenship revoked and should not be allowed a Knesset seat.
This raised howls of racism from some. But to deny your enemies certain rights is not racism, because it is not based on physical characteristics. It is self-defense, because it is based on their stated intention to destroy you.
Paul Eidelberg, in his important book Jewish Statesmanship, stands against a loyalty oath as the solution:
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“It is the height of impudence, of conceit and even of stupidity to grant equal political rights to Arabs in the expectation that they will renounce their religion and 1,300 year old civilization for a ballot box.
“[…]From the Torah’s perspective, a people is not a random or amorphous aggregation of individuals. The essence of peoplehood is particularism and not universalism which is not to say that particularism precludes universal ideas and ideals such as ethical monotheism. A living people must have a revered past and a profound sense of collective purpose, embodied in national laws and literature and vivified by national holidays and customs. Such a people will experience similar joys and harbour similar thoughts conducive to friendship. They will feel responsible for each other and respond in righteous indignation to assaults on their national honour. Therein is the heart and soul of a people and the reason why their government will not bestow citizenship on foreign elements whose goals or way of life clashes with their own.”
Thus, the question becomes, are the citizens of a country entitled to preserve their ethnic or religious makeup or their culture? And who is to decide? The Western model says “no”. Multiculturalism reigns supreme, as does relativism. No one’s values are better than the values of others. Everything and everybody is to be tolerated, even those who don’t tolerate you. It is easy to see that this is the ultimate destination of universalism. It seeks to render valueless the particular, whether religious or national. It is paradoxical that the greatest opposition to universalism comes from Muslims, who are the largest intended beneficiary.
While the Left continually excoriates Israel for falling below a standard imposed by them on Israel alone, it totally ignores the reality of the Muslim world. You would think that since the Muslims are most in conflict with their tolerant world view that they should focus on castigating and reforming them. But no, they pick on Israel instead. Could this be anti-Semitism?
When Jews agonize over the survival of the Jewish people, invariably one asks, “Survive as what?” Obviously, if you give up what makes you Jewish, you, as a Jew, are not surviving. The resistance to assimilation is also often referred to as racism, but it isn’t. It denotes love of self. This is healthy. It is the self-hatred of the Jewish Left who strive to deny the Jewish particular that is to be rejected, or at least recognized for what it is.
The same goes for Israel. If Israel would become a bi-national state, it would die as a Jewish state. Even the name Israel could be changed. The Arab Israelis would argue for the Law of Return to apply to them, also. And so on. It will also die as a Jewish state if it doesn’t take steps to preserve its Jewish character. At a minimum, these should include restoring Jewish Civil Law as the supreme law of the land and creating a constitution that permits only Jews to determine its national purpose, character and defense.
I submit that a nation has not only the inherent right of self defense when its national existence is threatened, but also when its cultural essence is at risk. Israel’s enemies deny it both rights. To assert these rights is not racism. Every nation has the right to determine who can immigrate, who can become citizens and what values in its society are inviolable.
Israel even more so. The Torah defines the People of Israel (Am Yisroel) and the Land of Israel (Eretz Yisroel), and the connection between them and G-d. The People of Israel have a collective responsibility and a mission and a birthright (Israel). Whether or not you believe in G-d, the fact remains that this is the essence of Judaism. This essence has survived for over three thousand years and should continue to survive.
Israel has not only the right to defend this culture, but the duty to do so.
The irony of this is that in the diaspora, it was necessary for Jews to work for universalism in order to preserve themselves. Societies which demanded assimilation were not safe for Jews. Jews would champion a degree of multiculturalism if only to make their “apartness” safer.
Starting with the American Revolution, and the French Revolution, the principle of universal enlightenment was applied, at least to whites, with the franchises growing by the decades. Jews prospered under this arrangement since religion was removed from the state’s consideration. The Jews championed universalism. France’s Jewish legislator, Adolphe Cremieux, was able to get France to award Absolute Equality to Algerian Jews with the stroke of a pen, which France was still hobbling Algerian Muslims.
So the Jewish people prospered by Enlightenment Universalism.
Indeed the lot of Mizrahi Jews improved in North Africa as European Powers protected Mizrahi and Sephardim from Muslim outrages. By 1948, after a century of European protection – with WWII being a break in the pattern – Jews had almost forgotten how bad the Muslims were.
What is forgotten was the Hitler was a historical reaction to the Englightment progress of Europe; while Muslim polite behavior in North Africa during the colonial period was not typical. From 1789 – 1930, Europe, by its own volition, became safer for Jewry, while North Africa’s improvement was not volitional on the part of Arabs, but enforced on the Arab by European rifles.
Hitler was an evil, vile … reaction.
Hitler was a reaction against universalism in favor of particularism: Aryan Particularism. A virulently evil strain. Russia’s pogroms had been a Slavophilic strain of particularism.
Hitler was the last standard of reaction against the universalist tendencies starting in 1776 in America and 1789 in France.
After WWII, Jews became renowned public champions of universalism, since particularlism had almost killed them in Germany, and to a lesser extent in Czarist Russia. The American left became saturated with many Universalist Jews … such as Bella Abzug.
1947, Hollywood produced a movie: Gentleman’s Agreement which protested covenantal discrimination against Jews in New York Area neighborhoods. Daryl F. Zanuck insisted on making the film, even though some were afraid.
It was considered an important film which moved society away from prejudice.
The problem is: In Israel, at that time, the Jewish National Fund, was set up on such exclusive covenantal arragements which excluded goyim. [I know, I know, the Arabs have their Waqf].
If anyone noticed this inconsistency in 1947, no one made much hay about it; but today, such a glaring inconsistency will be fodder for examination.
To now assert particularism in Israel is going to be a very hard sell, after so many Leftist Jews have worked against particularism in the West.
Maybe no one here on Israpundit cares. Maybe the first and only principle on this board is the excellence of the Jewish people.
However, this will not sell to the world in general. Maybe some Evangelical Christians will allow for it; but the rest of the world, especially Europeans, will wonder why Jews insist on absolute equality in their Gentile nations and a state for all its citizens, but have a different arrangement in Israel, where the state is NOT the state of all its citizens.
The idea of Western Democracy is that of a Locke’s social contract between the state and the citizenry. Israel does not subscribe to that understanding.
That may NOT bother many here; but BDS will eat it up.
However, that will be a hard sell to the West.
Not everyone who will notice the inconsistency is an anti-semite.
I can understand why Israel does not want to enfranchise Lunatic Muslims.
Again, I am giving history. Not condemning. How you deal with it, will be interesting to see.
@CuriosAmerican
Jews did not demand right to a different culture, only to equal rights as citizens. All they had until then was their culture. The rest of “oppressed” you quote were various nationalities belonging to the same Christian civilization. They had nationalistic aspirations. The same nationalistic aspiration of the Jews is Zionism.
Mr. Belman is a hundred percent right: Israel needs to survive as the Jewish State, nothing less.
E pluribus unum – as the answer to Particularism before Universalism.
Until after WWII, Western Nations were particularistic and demanded assimilation.
The Left (among whose leaders were many Jews) rammed through multiculturalism starting in the 1960s.
One might track the rise of multiculturalism to the 19th century when Jews worked for and were given the vote without having to swear the truth of the Christian Trinity upon taking office.
Oddly, the first group to successfully demand the right to a different culture – with equality – in Western Society were Jews in the 19th century. I know, I know after centuries of persecution. But other groups were hammered as well. Gypsies (enslaved until the 19th cent), Basques, the Irish (almost genocided), Poles (whose country was erasicated for centuries), Scots (the Highland Clearances nearly exterminated them) etc.
The first group to break through and insist on equal treatment were 19th century Jews.
Adolphe Cremieux of France comes to mind. Cremieux successfully lobbied for all Algerian Jews to be given French citizenship, while Muslim Algerians were denied it – in itself, a double standard.
Lionel de Rothschild in Britain was the first to have England forego the Christian Oath upon admittance to the House of Commons.
Jews are often in the forefront in the West for keeping Church and state separate. It will be deemed a double-standard if Israel now insists on a particularistic state.
The problem with Netanyahu’s statement is that in Eastern Europe, there are countries willing to call themselves Christian nations.
For example:
The World Jewish Congress was furious when Greece tried to put religion on their Greek ID cards. Greek Jews might be hurt.
Yet, Israeli ID cards, still indicate Jewishness, where a Hebrew Calendar can inidcate Jewishness; while its absences Goyishness.
So what is necessary for Jewish safety in Israel, can be harmful in the diaspora.
Good luck trying to defend this.
I am not saying Netanyahu is right or wrong. I am saying this will not go over well – and in Eastern Europe, the precedent will be badly applied.