In preparation for Yom Kippur, we present on the Israeli Skeptic website an article by Dr. Yehiam Shurk, the historian at Beit Berel College, who attempts to trace precisely in our recent history the term Jewish state
This idea of a "Jewish state", and some also add "... and a democratic one", was born only in recent years. Most of those who hold this opinion hang on a high tree, in a favorable condition: Theodore Binyamin Ze'ev Herzl no less and no more. After all, he himself, those who assert this and emphasize, wrote "The State of the Jews".
So let's be precise and remove many shadows from the corners of the above distortion idea: First - the distance between Herzl and Judaism was about the same distance from west to east. He was an assimilator, a liberal, a man of the great world, whose attachment to Judaism was very loose. It is true that he was deeply impressed and shocked by the Dreyfus affair, as someone who covered the trial as a journalist for the "Noya Praia Prasa". But this shock was more humane, moral and historical-mythological, in terms of the loss of a feather from the bird of the Jewish soul; Secondly - the anti-Semitism that slapped with burns on his bare face had more than a personal dimension. The assimilated, bourgeois Herzl, law student and member of various Viennese clubs, felt a strong personal blow in his tender stomach, while Dreyfus was being judged, condemned to the pillory, publicly humiliated and even stirred up an anti-Semitic wave in and around Paris. Herzl sympathized with Dreyfus and when Dreyfus was trampled Herzl felt more personal than traditional-Jewish humiliation. Thus, all those who wish to hang a kind of "repentance" on it after the Dreyfus trial, invent an imaginary hanger on which to hang an ideological suit tailored to their size and even from the fabric, buttons and lining that they think are closest; Thirdly - let us examine Herzl's essay - "The State of the Jews" - and seek to find the Jewish aspect in it. We will ask and bother, but in vain. Herzl's essay was called by this name to symbolize the moral and pragmatic-practical need for a solution to the plight of the Jewish people (and not of Judaism), from the lack of a homeland and persecuted anti-Semitism. He wants to treat the Jewish people as a nation (lacking a territory at this stage), which will realize its historical desires in its own territory (and by the way, in this essay, Herzl specifically marks Argentina as the preferred country and not the Land of Israel) and not as a public with a religious and traditional common denominator. His intention was to offer a national-political solution to the Jewish people and not a Jewish solution to the people. Even in his second book, "Altneuland", and more than his predecessor, the solution for the people, for the nation, is emphasized in the secular, free, liberal-democratic, modern, advanced and reformed dimension. In this essay, Herzl highlights the need for separation between religion and state.
So if Mehrzel is not saved and we have great difficulty proposing the connection between the "Jewish state" and a "Jewish state", lest we examine the approaches of his successors, who follow the path of Zionism in the Land of Israel. Well, one can look carefully and meticulously at the speeches, writings and musings of the Zionist leaders in Israel throughout the settlement period, the mandate, and find nothing but very marginal and loose remnants of an affinity between nationality and religion, between the Land of Israel and Judaism. Their interest was political on one side and ideological on the other: constructive, settler, pioneer, social and more. You will find them talking about the salvation of the people and the nation, their restoration, their growth and flourishing, but they left religion and worship to the faith of the individual and its religious institutions.
On May 14, 1948, the establishment of the State of Israel was announced, and in the opening sentence of the essential part of the Declaration of Independence, we encounter the following text: "... and we hereby announce the establishment of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel, namely the State of Israel." Lo and behold, the arrow came out of the bag: for the first time it is about a "Jewish state". Even if I claim that this was due to Ben-Gurion's desire to attract the religious-Zionist current ("Hapoel Mizrachi"), even if I say that the "smoothing" was due to the desire to signal to the Jews of the Diaspora that it was their country and home, even if I swear that Ben-Gurion began to cultivate a kind of messianic message -Tanaki ... even then the wording will remain intact and I will find my arguments submerged in a quagmire of problems. But what, and this is explicitly From the distinctly secular worldview of the Zionist leaders, one of two: a "Jewish state", which is a state that has religion and Halacha at its core, and which has no place for other religions, except as a tolerable minority with the rights of a minority, or a "Jewish state" as Herzl taught - a state that arose to solve the plight of the Jewish people, and there is only a semantic connection between it and religion and its institutions, and why exactly the second interpretation is that For this purpose, one must refer to the main sections of the Declaration of Independence. A document that places at its center "complete social and political equality for all its citizens" cannot be explicitly a "Jewish state". To be, in no way, a "Jewish state". A state characterized by a religious-faith divide cannot guarantee equal social and political rights for all its residents and cannot be considered democratic.
And what has happened since then? It is true that the State of Israel enacted, from the beginning of its foundation, laws with a religious-national character, such as the "Law of Return" and the "Citizenship Law" that derives from it, but the mantra of a "Jewish state" was not heard in the public consciousness. It was clear to everyone that it was Herzl's vision of the "Jewish state" that took hold and not a "Jewish state". The change occurred as a result of the Six-Day War and the occupation of large areas east of the Green Line. Then the flickering of messianic fundamentalism began to be seen, which was carried on the shoulders of "Gosh Emunim" and "The Revival". The youth of the PDFL formed a right-wing, nationalist line, far from the trend that characterized their parents (the people of the historical alliance with the Labor Party), and from then until today the right-wing-nationalist-messianic trend is growing stronger among them. Social and economic hardships served as a wave on which the Shas movement floated, whose success expanded the circle of fundamentalists, fanatics for the Torah, and when they smelled the success (the connection between religion and politics) they realized that this connection cannot and must not be severed. The combination of the two above-mentioned movements gave birth to the ultra-Orthodox (national ultra-orthodox) and the "youth of the hills" in the occupied territories. Nationalism, messianism, and fundamentalism have created a fetishistic cult of mezuzah wielders, who decorate themselves with hamsos and red fuses, who put on Nachman Ma'oman stickers, who are infected with SAD, grave robbers, who visit the graves of righteous people, who are immersed in voodoo ceremonies and other extroverted phenomena (which, by the way, Judaism shuns and disapproves of) , but this does not interfere with "being killed in the Torah's house"). These phenomena are a symptom of the spread of religion/worship among different strata of society, and as a result, voices were heard increasing, which were politically empowered (and who does not want to ride the wave of populism) of a "democratic and Jewish state", or a "Jewish and democratic state" (depending to what extent The room of fundamentalism for the mind of the definer). The bearers of these messages and flags simply find it difficult to understand, because the two terms - democracy and Jewishness - cannot be reconciled in any society or regime. An attempt was indeed made to bridge the poles in the form of the "Reconciliation Order" enterprises (which seem more like a desire to sway secular forces towards religion with pleasant and endearing chords) and the signing of the "Kinneret Treaty", but behind it one truth stands out and that is that there is no bridge between the two poles. It is possible to maintain both concepts, and perhaps it is even appropriate to do so, in a society that wishes to be pluralistic, multicultural, but in practice, at the level of application, and even ideology, the move is impossible. The "Contract of Kinneret" boldly states that its purpose is to fortify the state as a Jewish-democratic state (pay attention to the primacy of religion over the regime) and ignores the contradiction between the two terms. It transmits, very cunningly, social, ideological, religious and national apartheid, which is hidden behind a democratic principle: let us fortify the Jewish majority in the country, and from that every decision made according to the principle "the majority decides" is democratic. The drafters of the treaty apparently "forgot" that this principle is solid but not enough to guarantee democracy. Another, liberal, principle of pluralism is enough to put the democratic-Jewish message of the "Contract of Kinneret" into grotesque pathos. The "Treaty of Sea of Galilee" continues to treat the Palestinian Arabs, the citizens of the State of Israel, as an eternal minority, and this is enough to knock another tile off the floor of the democracy that this treaty seeks to establish. Moreover, there is no democratic regime without individual freedoms, and as long as the Jewish religion is given priority status, and even supremacy, the democratic essence is damaged. As long as the position of the woman is inferior to that of the man and as long as the conversion is orthodox and so are the marriage and the burial, we are closer to third world, medieval countries, than to a progressive, normal and democratic-liberal society. No progressive, considerate, patient and tolerant society can be considered both democratic and mono-religious at the same time. There is certainly a place to talk about the "Jewish state" (although, personally, I do not feel comfortable even with the convoluted washing of the term) together with a democratic regime, there is no possibility of pairing Judaism with democracy. It just won't work! What else? Let us be a reformed democratic and liberal state, which realizes a steel principle in the name of freedom of worship, religion and belief. Religion and belief are the private property of the individual. If he wants, he will define himself as a member of some religion, if he wants, he will define himself as an atheist. A country, in any case, cannot be both democratic and religious at the same time. The choice, my dear, is ours.
