Balfour Street in Jerusalem. (photo by Pat Johnson)
One hundred years ago, on Nov. 2, 1917, one of history’s most consequential letters was typed. Simple and short, the Balfour Declaration, as it would become known, is a central artifact in the history of Zionism, the state of Israel and the ongoing conflict over claims to the land on which Israelis and Palestinians reside.
The letter from the British foreign secretary, Lord Arthur Balfour, was addressed to Lord Walter Rothschild, a leader in the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. It informed Rothschild that the British cabinet had approved this one-paragraph statement:
“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”
The letter was enormously historic for a number of reasons, not least that the first Zionist Congress had taken place a mere 20 years earlier, the first tangible expression in two millennia that the Jewish people should reasonably anticipate self-determination in the land of Zion. And now one of the world’s great powers was on record as supporting the endeavour.
The letter was also hugely presumptuous because the area in question was still under the control of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans would not be thoroughly vanquished by the British-French-Russian allies until 1918. Yet the allies were so confident of eventual victory that the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 was already (on paper) carving up the region between the European powers.
Nevertheless, the document stood as a testament to British allegiance to the Zionist ideal in the interwar period. That allegiance, of course, amounted to very little in practical terms. In response to Arab protests (including mass murder in Hebron in 1929), the British froze Jewish migration to Palestine at the very moment in history when it was more urgently necessary than ever. The Holocaust – which can be said to have begun in earnest on Kristallnacht, Nov. 9, 1938, 21 years to the day after the Balfour Declaration was made public – occurred, of course, because of the Nazis’ Final Solution. But it could only have occurred in the enormous extent that it did because no other nation on earth would welcome the imperiled Jews of Europe. Palestine was the most obvious place for them to go, but British resolve folded in the face of Arab protest and Jews were trapped in Europe, where six million would die.
Likewise, the British commitment to Zionism amounted to nothing when it mattered again after the Holocaust. Still preventing widespread Jewish migration to Palestine, the British eventually gave up on the entire enterprise and threw the troubled land into the lap of the newly founded United Nations. The UN, for its part, eventually passed the Partition Resolution that would have seen two states – one Jewish, one Arab – formed in Palestine.
The reality remains that one significant sub-clause of the Balfour Declaration stands out to the contemporary eye. The statement that “nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” would certainly be viewed by many as remaining unfulfilled. The civil rights of non-Jewish citizens of Israel are protected in law, but serious inequalities remain. More significantly, the statelessness and associated lack of civil rights experienced by Palestinians in the Israeli-controlled parts of the West Bank would certainly not live up to the well-intentioned words of Balfour.
Some say the British government should apologize for their role in advancing an independent Jewish state. British Prime Minister Theresa May batted that one back in a letter to her party’s Conservative Friends of Israel, saying, “We are proud of our role in creating the state of Israel.… The task now is to encourage moves toward peace.”
If apologies are in order, the British government might consider apologizing for giving little but lip-service to the Zionism enterprise throughout the 20th century.
The Balfour anniversary is an interesting time to reflect on history – and the past has an important role to play in informing us of the present. But, as always, we should keep our focus on the future.
Soon after he discovered he was Jewish, Csánad Szegedi reached out to Rabbi Boruch Oberlander. Szegedi’s transformation from virulent antisemite to Orthodox Jew is the topic of the documentary Keep Quiet. (photo from Gábor Máté/AJH Films & Passion Pictures)
While this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival holds much that will be of interest to Jewish Independent readers, the list is short when it comes to specifically Israeli or Jewish-related films that will appeal.
Perhaps surprisingly, the Israeli films are harsh critiques of Israel. Beyond the Mountains and Hills (Israel/Germany) is about a dysfunctional family (a metaphor for the country), Junction 48 (Israel/Germany/United States) is about an Arab-Israeli rapper who faces racism, among other Israeli-inflicted ills; Between Fences (Israel/France) is a documentary about Israel’s internment of African refugees at the Holot Detention Centre and Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt (Israel/Canada) is about Hannah Arendt, who, among other things, was critical of Jewish leadership during the Holocaust and did not approve of the state of Israel as it was founded.
Among the other film offerings is Keep Quiet (United Kingdom/Hungary), a documentary about Csánad Szegedi, the staunch antisemite who helped found Hungary’s far-right party Jobbik and its Hungarian Guard, which has since been banned. As a member of the European Parliament, he continued to foment hatred until a fellow nationalist and racist outed him as being Jewish – his grandmother had not been the adopted daughter of the Klein family, as she told him, but their daughter. The documentary includes interviews Szegedi did with his grandmother (about her imprisonment in Auschwitz, and other matters) and a conversation with his mother, who also found out later in life that she was Jewish. He asks both women about his increasing embrace of antisemitism over the years, why didn’t you stop me? Their responses are thought-provoking and sad.
Keep Quiet does not accept Szegedi’s transformation unquestioningly and gives speaking time to the doubters, as well as the cautious believers, such as Rabbi Boruch Oberlander, head of the Orthodox Rabbinical Council in Budapest. Oberlander has supported and taught Szegedi since the former antisemite contacted the rabbi for help. The event that ends the film is Szegedi’s attempt in 2013 to speak in Montreal about his Jewish journey – he wasn’t allowed to stay in the country. Before being put on the next plane home, however, Szegedi recorded a lecture, which was played at the event, with Oberlander fielding the hostility it wrought in some attendees. In Oberlander’s view, we must love every Jew, no matter how wicked. Of his choice to help Szegedi, he says, “I pray that I shouldn’t be disappointed.” Even Szegedi is unsure as to whether he would ever turn his back on Judaism – maybe, he admits, but not likely.
The way in which the filmmakers present Szegedi’s story is informative and balanced, and viewers get a sense of the man and his deeds, as well as about Hungary and how a political party as racist as Jobbik can find success there.
Hannah Arendt (photo from the Hannah Arendt private archive via Zeitgeist Films)
Vita Activa also does a good job of including both fans and critics of Arendt’s work, but mainly uses Arendt’s own words to explain her thoughts and analyses. The film uses as its foundation the Adolph Eichmann trial, about which Arendt wrote Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), describing Eichmann as “a typical functionary,” and thus an example of the “banality of evil.” (Viewers should be warned that there are many disturbing Holocaust-related images in this film.)
“Eichmann was quite intelligent but he had that dumbness,” she tells an interviewer in one of the clips included in the documentary. “It was that dumbness that was so infuriating, and that was what I meant by ‘banality.’ It has no depth; it isn’t demonic. It’s simply the unwillingness to ever imagine what others are going through.”
Another of Arendt’s theories – about refugees – remains relevant. With no rights, refugees are considered “superfluous” by a regime, she argued, and denationalization and xenophobia become a powerful weapon of totalitarian politics.
In Keep Quiet, a political journalist describes Hungary as a “part of the world where history has been manipulated” and the effects that such manipulation has upon generations. Arendt broadens that view beyond Europe, saying, “It has been characteristic of our history of consciousness that its worst crimes have been committed in the name of some kind of necessity or in the name of a mythological future.”
In addition to her early work, Vita Activa touches upon Arendt’s personal life, which offers some further understanding of the philosopher, who was seen by many to lack empathy. In one interview, she talks about how Auschwitz shouldn’t have happened, how she could handle everything else but that. Yet, she criticized the Jewish leadership who cooperated with the Nazis – the councils and kapos – and hypothesized that, if there had been no such leadership, there would have been chaos and suffering and deaths but not six million. One professor interviewed for the documentary calls Arendt’s comments “irresponsible,” another says they showed her complete ignorance of history, yet another says she regretted her remarks later in life.
The film also notes Arendt’s change from supporting Zionism to condemning elements within it. Among other things, she said, “A home that my neighbor does not recognize is not a home. A Jewish national home that is not recognized by and not respected by its neighboring people is not a home, but an illusion, until it becomes a battlefield.” And she pointed to tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories.”
The documentary also covers Arendt’s 1951 Book of Thoughts, in which she contemplates the nature of forgiveness, revenge, reconciliation. For her, the latter doesn’t forgive or accept, but judges. When you take on the burden of what someone else did, she believed, you don’t accept the blame or absolve the other of the blame, but take upon yourself the injustice that occurred in reality. “It’s a decision,” she said, “to be a partner in the accountability, not at all a partner to the guilt.”
A “theatre of the oppressed” workshop at the Holot Detention Centre in Israel. (photo from Vancouver International Film Festival)
Reconciliation and forgiveness don’t enter the picture in either the documentary Between Fences or the fictional (but based on a real person) Junction 48. They each highlight important, even vital, issues in Israeli society, but do so in such a condemnatory, predictable way that anyone but the choir won’t be able to sit through these films.
Without much context, Between Fences looks at the poor situation in which asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan find themselves when they reach the safety of Israel. In many countries, these asylum seekers face problems, but viewers wouldn’t know that from this documentary, nor would they begin to understand the atrocities being committed in their homelands. However, they will learn how Israel doesn’t recognize their refugee status and makes every effort to send them back, how racist Israelis are towards these newcomers and a host of other problems with Israel and its people. Not one government official or Israeli is interviewed, although some Israelis participate in the “theatre of the oppressed” workshops in Holot on which the film focuses. In addition to leaving many questions unanswered, the film also begins and ends confusingly and is slow-paced.
Bias also makes Junction 48 almost unwatchable for anyone who would like to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved, so that both peoples’ rights and safety are ensured. From the second sentence of the opening, the perspective is made clear: “The Israeli city of Lod is the Palestinian city of Lyd, which once sat on the main railway junction. In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from Lyd in order to resettle the town with Jews….”
Samar Qupty and Tamer Nafar in Junction 48. (photo from VIFF)
We then meet Kareem, an aspiring young rapper, whose parents are worried about his involvement with drug dealers and his future in general. His friends not only deal and take drugs, but visit prostitutes and dabble in other criminal activity. Nonetheless, every Israeli they encounter is the real bad guy, from the police to other rappers to the government, which is knocking down one of their homes to build a coexistence museum. Oh, the irony.
The only entertaining and thought-provoking aspect of this film is the music by lead actor and film co-writer Tamer Nafar, which is available online.
In the end, the Jewish Independent chose to sponsor what a VIFF programmer called a “classic Jewish comedy,” though, having seen a screener of the film, the Jewish aspect is hard to discern. While much lighter (and non-political) fare than the other offerings, it has much to say – or show, really, as the dialogue is minimal – about social awkwardness and a lack of direction in life. The protagonist, Mike, works at a pizza place in New Jersey and has the energy level of a slug and the magnetism of zinc. Yet, somehow, he has friends, albeit not great ones.
Short Stay is one of those films that moves apace with its main character, so slowly and in all different directions, as Mike both physically wanders the streets and mentally wanders to destinations unknown. Viewers don’t gain insight into what motivates Mike, who seems unperturbed by his lack of career, social skills, direction and future, but they root for him, empathize with what must be his loneliness.
The social awkwardness of the protagonist of Short Stay, Mike, is obvious in his exchanges with others. (photo from VIFF)
Short Stay director Ted Fendt best describes the acting of the nonprofessional cast, many (all?) of whom are his friends. “The film contains a range of performance styles from the fairly natural (Marta and Meg), to Mark and Dan’s B movie ‘villains,’ who might have stepped out of an Ulmer or Moullet film, to the quasi-Bressonian, unaffected manner Mike delivers his lines.” And therein is a Jewish link, Edgar G. Ulmer.
Another Jewish filmmaker – Vancouver’s Ben Ratner – will be premièring his short film, Ganjy, at this year’s festival. About a former boxer suffering from dementia pugilistica, who is in desperate need of help when three friends visit, Ganjy was inspired in part by Muhammad Ali. Its creators are looking to fundraise enough to take the film to other festivals, as well as contribute to the Muhammad Ali Parkinson Centre. For more information, visit indiegogo.com/projects/ganjy-film#.
For more information about and the full schedule of films playing at VIFF, visit viff.org.
Note: This article has been edited so that it is clear Hannah Arendt was speaking of tendencies within Zionism that she considered “plain racist chauvinism” that do “not differ from other master race theories,” and not condemning Zionism as a whole.
I was recently invited to speak to an Ottawa-based Israeli-Palestinian relations group on the topic of Canadian Jews and Israel. Unfortunately, there is a dearth of public opinion data available on Canadian Jewish attitudes. We have some broad strokes on identity issues, though. In addition to Conservative Judaism – rather than Reform – being our largest denomination, Canadian Jews, compared to American Jews, are one generation closer to the Holocaust, are more likely to speak Hebrew, educate their kids Jewishly, and to have visited Israel. Most central to my talk though, was how Canadian Jewish institutions are responding to attempts to challenge Israel as a Jewish state, including the boycott movement.
A lively Q&A followed, but there was one question that stopped me in my tracks. What is it about Israel, a man asked, that makes you feel attached to it? He seemed genuinely curious and rather puzzled, so puzzled that he asked it twice.
Being in the field that I am in, I have a ready answer, but I know I am not typical. My own attachment to Israel centres primarily on a deep passion for Hebrew and Israeli culture. I lived in Israel for three separate years in my 20s, I speak only Hebrew to my kids, I alternate my Netflix watching with Israeli dramas and I am as likely to binge listen to “The Last Waltz” as to Kaveret’s final concert album. My daughter’s d’var Torah at her bat mitzvah was the only one I’ve heard reference Arik Einstein lyrics. Of course, the attention I devote to Israel is partly a function of my profession, but I chose my area of study based on a great sense of attachment to the country and a desire to understand how the Israeli-Palestinian region can become a more just and humane place.
But what of my fellow Canadian Jews? Those of my parents’ generation, who grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust, might view Israel as an insurance policy in the event of the unthinkable. Religious Jews might feel a profound spiritual connection to the land. But what of the many less religious Canadian Jews of my generation (and younger), those for whom Canada, with its absolute commitment to freedom, tolerance and multiculturalism is as safe a haven as any they could imagine; those for whom particular stones on particular bits of territory are not understood to hold sacred meaning, and for whom Hebrew or Israeli contemporary culture is not something that pulls them?
What does Israel mean to these Jews who are unlike my parents, unlike religious Zionists and unlike me?
I encourage my fellow Canadian Jews to articulate their attachments. Doing so with nuance and open hearts may help uncover new political arrangements. Maybe it would point to two states, maybe a confederation system where everyone has access to all the land but possesses citizenship in only one state (as Dahlia Scheindlin and Dov Waxman have proposed), and maybe even a single state where both languages and cultures are carefully preserved. We should ask what threat, exactly, does refugee return pose, rather than leave it as an imaginary bugaboo. Being explicit about our emotional ties – while being open to hearing the emotional experiences of others – may bring us closer to supporting creative peace efforts.
A postscript. A survey of the Canadian Jewish community is currently being circulated by Jewish Federations of Canada-United Israel Appeal, and British Columbians can respond online via svy.mk/20qCWb7. The survey is being conducted by David Elcott and Stuart Himmelfarb, both of New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. As I recall, there is only one question on Israel, which asks whether the respondent feels “attached” to the country. Attachment is associated with many different perspectives, and says nothing about one’s commitment to human rights for those under Israel’s control, for example. I hope that we may soon see more in-depth survey research on Canadian Jewish attitudes towards Israel and its policies.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications. This article was originally published in the CJN.
When Vancouver-based songwriter and musician Daniel Maté wrote on his public Facebook page that he had declined an invitation from Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver to accompany some singers on Yom Hazikaron, since he “couldn’t in conscience do that as long as we don’t honor the far more numerous victims of the terror ‘our’ side inflicts,” he received an invitation from an Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) member to get involved in their group.
Sarah Levine was that IJV member. “It’s important to me to stand with other Jews who are working for Palestinian human rights,” she told me. “I think we have a particular role as Jews to think critically about Zionism, since the state of Israel often claims that it does things ‘in our name’ and with our support.”
Along the political spectrum of Jewish groups in Canada devoted to matters pertaining to Israel and Palestine, IJV – which bills itself as a human rights organization – tries to carve out a space rejecting traditional Zionist principles. In an organized Jewish community where conservative positions on Israel prevail, this doesn’t make it many friends.
Writing in the Huffington Post, IJV campaigns coordinator Tyler Levitan cites the silent treatment he regularly receives from an array of Jewish institutions when he seeks to publicly debate issues including Jewish National Fund discriminatory land-lease policies and the boycott, divestment and sanction movement. IJV considers BDS “a last resort,” as the group’s website says, and, while most observers would characterize IJV as anti-Zionist, it says that it “does not define itself in terms of Zionism.”
I spoke with Levitan. “Eroding that support base [for political Zionism] would be weakening the glue that binds the community,” he said. “That’s the fear. But we at IJV feel that having difficult and honest conversations is what makes the community stronger.”
For several years, I’ve watched IJV operate from close quarters. As a self-defined progressive Zionist, I have not signed onto IJV’s platform. But, as someone who values serious debate within the Jewish community, I have twice participated in an IJV-hosted forum. Mostly, I find it a sign of community weakness that most of the engines of the Jewish community attempt to shut IJV out of the conversation entirely.
Some Jewish papers (namely this one and the Jewish Post & News in Winnipeg) are open to including IJV perspectives, but the Canadian Jewish News and the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin keep a wide berth around IJV. Yoni Goldstein, CJN’s editor, will not grant IJV editorial space. As Goldstein put it, “… even though we promote inclusion as a virtue, there are limits to how inclusive we’re willing to be. Abetting BDS and rejecting Israel’s future as a Jewish state crosses the line.” Goldstein added: “Independence has its benefits, but the comfort of community is not usually one of them.”
With the exception of the Peretz Centre in Vancouver and the Winchevsky Centre in Toronto, no Jewish community locale will host IJV events – or even rent space to them, according to Levitan. But they’re not giving up on trying to be heard within Jewish community walls. “We’re persistent,” he said.
To reject Zionism indeed does place IJV outside of the mainstream community tent. It is this way, but should it be?
Like all political “isms,” Zionism’s meaning comes from the effects of the policies with which it is associated. While the debate between statist Zionism and those who foresaw other possible arrangements for Jewish liberation in the early 20th century was robust and active, non-Zionist voices receded as Jewish statehood emerged. But now, almost seven decades later, Israel is in crisis. It may be time to ask whether Jewish privilege should be rolled back in favor of some more inclusive and democratic arrangement. A frightened community, however, may view this very question as akin to treason.
IJV’s adherence to the Palestinian right of return is the biggest stumbling block for those who support Israel’s identity as a Jewish and democratic state. But even here, consider the wording on IJV’s website: “Peace will only be possible when Israel acknowledges the Palestinian refugees’ right of return and negotiates a just and mutually agreed solution based on principles established in international law, including return, compensation and/or resettlement.”
Any solution – even a two-state one – will likely involve some return, some compensation and some resettlement. While IJV does speak in terms of “rights,” in practice we might see their call as somewhat more pragmatic than many assume.
The thing is, even reasoning out these complicated dilemmas as I’m trying to do here is well-nigh impossible as long as groups like IJV remain excluded by the sort of herem (excommunication) with which they’ve been saddled. One thing on which Levitan and mainstream Jewish community leaders seem to agree is that there’s a lot of fear. And, sadly, we know all too well the kinds of politics to which fear can give rise.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications.
A screenshot from the trailer for Avi Does the Holy Land. The vlog will appeal to some more than others.
Good satire depends not only on distancing the viewer from the object of ridicule, but on making them identify with it, if only just a little. For North American Jews who’ve grown up with affection towards Israel, a new video blog (or vlog) does just that.
Avi Does the Holy Land is a sendup of sex-drenched Zionism, a vlog that purports to tackle various hot-button aspects of Israel – “the most contentious state in the Middle East!” in the words of Avi, a “Canadian Jewess” who “went on a Birthright trip and fell in love with Israel.” (Haaretz has since revealed that Avi is Aviva Zimmerman, originally from Calgary, and now an Israel-based filmmaker.)
Through a website, a YouTube channel and a Facebook page, Avi covers such topics as how to beat terrorism, whether Palestinians are really oppressed or not, what to pack for Birthright, and the accusation, by Israel’s critics, of pinkwashing.
And, while Avi is a cartoonish, lipsticked character who perpetually seems perplexed by the sincerity of her interviewees, many of us will no doubt identify with at least a sliver of her carefree naiveté.
“Did I just give a blow job to a guy named Dudu?” she muses in one segment.
In my kibbutz-loving period of the early 1990s, it wasn’t a guy with the unfortunate name Dudu I fawned over, but another whose name in translation meant “ploughed field.” Giggling over his agricultural moniker while in ulpan class, my pals and I idealized his Zionist credentials.
In another scene, Avi wears a pink T-shirt emblazoned with an Uzi, the kind that pepper tourist shops throughout Jerusalem.
While I never wore clothing depicting an actual gun, I did rummage through the kibbutz lost and found one day and select a worn, burgundy T-shirt from a paratrooper, the kind Israeli soldiers design when they finish their basic training. (This one, from 1984, was extremely tame next to the tasteless ones appearing in more recent years – ones that promote rape and anti-Palestinian violence.) I later found the owner – a different strapping kibbutznik whose name meant cedar tree – but never did return it. Why would I? It had the perfect mix of soft fibres and Jewish power pedigree. All the better to wear while painting metal beams and bantering with the workers over never-ending tea-and-toast breaks in the kibbutz welding shop.
Avi Does the Holy Land’s web episode “Pride vs. Pinkwashing” is the most cutting in terms of political messaging. It involves alternating scenes of Avi doing what she “does best” – “dancing on a truck” at Tel Aviv Pride – and interviewing Rami Younis, a Palestinian writer and activist, over charges of Israeli pinkwashing. Calling Israel’s critics “belly-aching leftist sh–heads,” Avi muses over Younis being “hashtag superserious,” and finally suggests to him that perhaps if he drapes himself in a rainbow flag, Israel will treat him better.
It’s probably fair to say that I move in circles that are highly critical of the occupation and that, while I’ve taken a nuanced position on pinkwashing, still take the claim seriously. But I, too, have enjoyed a Tel Aviv Pride beach party, trying to order a vodka cocktail from a shirtless bartender and, in my distraction, confusing the Hebrew word for cranberries with that for paratroopers and enjoying my private little malapropism – a symbol of Diaspora idealization of Israel – for weeks after.
So is Avi “other”? Or is Avi “us”? For those who are distressed by the occupation and feel a gradual distancing from Israel through decades of government intransigence and illiberal moves intended to silence and intimidate human rights activists, probably a bit of both. And for those who don’t have a single critical word in their lexicon for the Jewish state, I’m really not sure. But I’d love to see their reaction.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She is a columnist for Canadian Jewish News and contributes to Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward, among other publications. This article was originally published onforward.com.
More than 100 people were at the Museum of Vancouver on Sept. 9 for a New Israel Fund of Canada-hosted panel discussion, The Backstory: Behind What You Know About Israel. Moderated by Temple Sholom’s Rabbi Dan Moskovitz, the evening featured Ronit Heyd, executive director of Shatil, an Israeli nonprofit supported by NIF, and Canadian journalist and editor Jonathan Kay of The Walrus.
The night before their Vancouver talk, Kay and Heyd spoke to a large crowd in Toronto, where they were joined by Haaretz editor-in-chief and journalist Aluf Benn. In Vancouver, the two were introduced by NIFC board president Joan Garson and executive director Orit Sarfaty. They covered a range of issues, including the rise of women in the Knesset, how North Americans talk about Israel, the problem of racism in Israeli society, the lasting impacts of 2011’s social justice protests and the influence of feminism and the Women of the Wall.
Ronit Heyd (photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)
Starting with a bit of good news, Moskovitz asked Heyd to talk about the fact that, at 31 members, the current Israeli Knesset has more women MKs than any prior government. “It’s not just in the Knesset,” said Heyd, “more women than ever ran in the last municipal elections.” Women are also trying to participate more equally in local religious councils, a task not for the faint-hearted, she said, due to the “very strong political power in the Knesset [and the Israeli establishment] that is still being held by the ultra-Orthodox parties. The ultra-Orthodox do not have – I want to add, yet – do not have women in the parties.”
The impact of the rise of women in politics extends beyond the makeup of parliament, Heyd said. “It is important to note that when a woman enters a very masculine environment, it changes” in several ways, including shifting the agenda. It is changed by raising, for example, the notion of transparency, “of the need to have a more just distribution of resources, of having a more open governance … and we see that especially with the religious councils.”
Though the pace of change is slow, she said, “This is not happening just out of the blue; they needed training. One of the things that Shatil does is work with a group of women who want to be elected to the religious councils – they want to have their voice heard. They need support, they need to know how to build alliances, how to read a budget.”
Kay added that, while there are certain parallels, the situation in Canada is very different, and bringing women into Israeli politics is a “much more urgent project.” Unlike in Israel, he said, “in Canada, there is no significant mainstream constituency that believes that women cannot occupy the public sphere. It’s a fringe, not mainstream, view. In Israel, you have these people who ideologically don’t believe that women should have a role in public life.”
However, though women in Israel are participating at unprecedented levels in government, their voices are still not equally heard in the male-dominated policy landscape. Of the main issues in the Knesset, Heyd said, “The first one is security. The second one is security. The third one is also security. And women are not brought into that conversation.” The impact of women will be more fully realized, she said, once they have influence in policies around pay equality, security and the economy.
Moskovitz asked each panelist to comment on the polarization of the conversation about Israel and how the divisiveness impacts the Canadian and Israeli Jewish communities.
Jonathan Kay (photo from New Israel Fund of Canada)
Part of what creates the tense atmosphere is that “Zionism itself in its most potent form has become a form of religion,” Kay said. “What do religions provide? They provide a theory of evil, they provide a theory of good, they provide a tribal identity, they provide a liturgy … many of the fundamental elements of a religion are provided by the most militant aspects of Zionism as they are projected in the Diaspora.
“By the way,” he continued, “I consider myself a Zionist. I’ve written columns in support of Israel, I’ve raised the flag in time of war. However, I know when I see people’s opinions on geopolitics become so strong that they take on the character of religious beliefs. And you see this with the Iran nuclear deal. It is not only, ‘I don’t like Clause 7, but I do like Clause 8.’ The dialogue is, ‘It’s 1938, are you with Churchill or are you with Chamberlain?’ … the imagery of Hitler, the imagery of black, white, good, evil. And, again, I know there’s this well-intentioned idea among many liberal Jews, ‘Well, if only we had the right press release, or the right argument and we could frame things in the right way.’… To a certain extent, that’s not happening because the people on the other side of the debate have chosen another faith.”
The speakers agreed that the polarization of the debate in the Diaspora impacts Israeli society; it matters. “There is a direct line that goes from the conversation that is being held here in North America and what’s happening in Israel,” said Heyd.
Can Jews in North America find a way to talk about Israel, asked Moskovitz?
“Email is the destruction of dialogue,” Kay said. “Stop sending each other articles! Take 30 seconds and actually put your own thoughts in your own words. You don’t have to send it to 50 people…. Don’t call me an imperialist if you think I’m right wing. Don’t call me a useful idiot if you think I’m left wing…. Don’t fall back on those tropes…. In the ’90s, you actually had to find someone to argue with! Now, you can actually do it from your desk, and I think that has raised the temperature because it has created tribalism. It’s one thing to lose an argument with one person, it’s another thing to lose an argument with 50 people on a reply-all email chain. It sounds silly, but the medium is the message.”
Another issue that has made news is the problem of racism. While there are few parallels between the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States and the protests of Ethiopian Israelis earlier this year, both countries still need to find a way to better integrate and respect racial diversity. The issue is especially acute when it comes to integrating Arab-Israelis into Israeli society.
Kay said he believes that Canada has done an excellent job of assimilating various groups, with some exceptions, but it helps that many immigrants come to Canada from urban centres, and are well educated. “Regardless of their skin color, they’re capitalists…. That’s the main thing,” he said.
On the question of what changes Israel has undergone since the 2011 summer economic protests, Heyd said there is still no economic relief for average Israelis, who are increasingly burdened by the cost of living, but Israelis have received more coverage for childcare, and the centralization of the market is back on the political agenda.
Overall, whether it’s the ways in which Israel is meeting its challenges or struggling to balance security with social justice, what is apparent, Heyd said, is that there is “a mini flourishing of civil society … people in the periphery are becoming involved, not just Tel Aviv, the big cities,” and that is cause of cautious optimism.
NIFC hosts Anat Hoffman, executive director of the Israel Religious Action Centre, on Nov. 17 at Temple Sholom.
Basya Layeis a former editor of the Jewish Independent.
When it comes to Israel, many Diaspora Jews harbor a double standard. They want their own countries to embrace pluralism and multiculturalism, owing to the kind of fluid immigration that allowed their own grandparents and great-grandparents to build a better life in America and Canada and many other places across the West. But, when it comes to Israel, they are comfortable articulating their desire to maintain a Jewish majority. Israelis – even those on the left – have a term for this need: they openly refer to Palestinians (whether in the West Bank, whether refugees living abroad or whether Palestinian citizens of Israel itself) as a “demographic threat.”
Palestinian citizens of Israel are pouncing on this usage more than ever. Ayman Oudeh, head of the Joint List, has called it offensive. He wants Israeli citizens to view their Palestinian citizen brethren as partners in nation-building. Still, he is not looking for a melting-pot version of Israeli identity: he demands that Israel grant the Palestinian citizens “collective rights.” Since they already have their own school system, presumably, by collective rights he means at the very least equal funding for schools and towns, including removing the unequal bureaucratic barriers to gaining building permits, something I’ve written about at the Globe and Mail.
Yousef Munayyer is also distressed by the term “demographic threat,” and concludes that it is intrinsic to Zionism. Instead of having a demographic problem, Israel has a Zionism problem, he argued last March in The Nation. This, as Bibi was whipping up fear against the Arab minority on election day, claiming they were coming to the polls “in droves.”
The scope of the issue is more complex than these critiques – as important as they are – allow. There are at least three aspects at play.
First, strategy. There are reasons why a peace activist may choose to use the term “demographic threat” to sell the idea of withdrawal from the West Bank, for example. This kind of reasoning may appeal to those on the centre or even the right who, unfortunately, aren’t moved by human rights imperatives. When it comes to language and lobbying, we must not forget the game of persuasion.
This connects to the second aspect: emotions. Here, the question is this: without undermining democracy, can a majority population privately desire to maintain its majority status? And, in the event that these private desires are shared publicly – through art or literature, say – should the users be chastised as being anti-democratic?
Here, we need to recall what may be motivating these feelings. It may not be anti-democratic tendencies or racism or even a sense of national superiority. As a national liberation movement, Zionism was acutely concerned with Jewish self-determination, more than it was with undermining any other national group in its midst. And, along with the material gains of statehood has come the desire to sustain a modern Jewish national culture, most markedly in the form of Hebrew. To contemplate becoming a minority in one’s country is to consider the attrition of one’s national language, at the very least, if not the possibility of collective safety and self-determination. Even if the fears are unfounded, even, if, somehow, a post-Zionist Israel can engage in a project of radical multiculturalism such that Hebrew culture maintains its treasured place alongside Palestinian culture and Arabic language, the impulse is still understandable.
Finally, there are the public policies themselves. On this, there is clearly much room for improvement. Oudeh’s call for a high-profile “civics conference” in the tradition of other annual conferences in Israel on issues – including security, social issues and economics – is a good one. As is the urgent need to close the funding gap to Arab schools and towns, and to educate against casual racism, including some landlords not renting to Arabs and “social suitability” committees determining who can live where, the kind of practices outlined by Amjad Iraqi in +972 Magazine. These attitudes and the practices that stem from them are corrosive to democracy.
All this is to say that the creation and maintenance of national identity, particularly in a state as young as Israel, is an enormous project. Using the term “demographic threat” as a way of describing the actual collective emotions and preferences of some citizens is as useful as any analytic phrase. To censor it completely, therefore, would be anti-intellectual and anti-democratic. But, when it comes to policy advocacy, thoughtful Israelis should consider thinking twice about using these words. As citizens of democracies, we should at least strive to hear things as our fellow citizens hear them.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.
The story is told that the idea of building a modern city in Beersheva came from David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister. He appointed a committee of experts to examine the idea. The committee reported back that it could not be done. When Ben-Gurion was asked how he wanted to respond to the report, he replied, “Appoint a new committee.”
Accomplished Israeli historian Anita Shapira recounts the apocryphal anecdote in David Ben-Gurion, Father of Modern Israel (Yale University Press). Shapira, whose book Israel: A History won the National Jewish Book Award in 2012, presents Ben-Gurion as the person who did more than anyone else to establish the state. He inspired a nation of idealists and wartorn refugees to achieve the impossible. But does your overcrowded bookshelf need another Ben-Gurion biography? I can think of three strong reasons to recommend Shapira’s book.
Although not the definitive biography, Shapira offers a fresh perspective on Ben-Gurion’s life based on newly available files of the Israel Defence Forces and extensive work in the archives at kibbutz Sde Boker, where Ben-Gurion lived. She sets out his considerable accomplishments through colorful anecdotes and well-crafted prose.
As well, despite the passage of years, Ben-Gurion remains a central figure in contemporary debates, a touchstone for politicians from all parties. He is invariably quoted during heated arguments over Israel’s relations with Germany, its borders with its neighbors and its treatment of the Palestinians. He is often cited for his work in forging a partnership with the religious communities in the 1930s. Shapira offers solid scholarship for those who wish to reflect on his work.
And, for those with big ambitions, the new biography offers a vivid portrayal of how he scaled the heights of domestic and international politics. His biography may not be a roadmap to glory but aspiring leaders could pick up a few tips.
Shapira writes in detail about the years after the state was declared in 1948, and especially about Ben-Gurion’s role leading up to the Sinai campaign. However, the most engrossing part of this book is about his unlikely development as a leader. With a knack for telling stories, Shapira effectively tracks how the unexceptional youngster, not particularly well liked by his peers, developed pragmatic organizational skills, sharp elbows and incisive political instincts that propelled him into the forefront of the Zionist movement.
Ben-Gurion, born in 1886, grew up in Plonsk, a backwater shtetl three hours outside of Warsaw. Shapira found nothing in his birthplace, his lineage or his education that hinted at his future role in history. She sees no notable qualities in his personality that foreshadowed his destiny.
His mother died in childbirth when Ben-Gurion was 11. He quit school after his bar mitzvah, although he had a lifelong love of learning.
By 14 years old, he had embraced the Zionism of his father, who had been swept up in Theodor Herzl’s dream of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. However, Ben-Gurion was not in a rush to make aliya. At 18, he moved to Warsaw with the intention of becoming an engineer. The engineering schools rejected his applications.
Here is where destiny steps in. He happened to be in the city at a crucial moment in history. He was swept up in the heady events of the days before the Russian Revolution.
He joined Poalei Zion (Workers of Zion), a party that combined his newfound enthusiasm for Marxist socialism with Zionism.
Although his grasp of Marxism was considered shallow, he rose to a leadership position, recognized as a strong debater and speaker.
He finally immigrated to Palestine in 1906, but his early years in Palestine were not particularly auspicious. He often said one thing and did another.
He firmly believed that Jews would reclaim Palestine only by working the land. He said the land would belong to the Jews only when the majority of its workers and guards were Jewish.
He worked in the fields at Petach Tikva and then in the Galilee but he was frequently sick and, when he was healthy enough to work, he was miserable, Shapira writes. Throughout the following decades, he described himself as an agricultural worker while, in reality, he was doing other work in and outside of Palestine.
He had a strained relationship with his father and, according to Shapira, a distant relationship with his wife, who was the mother of his three children. He was excluded from clandestine groups and collectives in Palestine that were forming in those years.
Also, he misunderstood political realities. He was convinced that the Turks would remain in control of Palestine, never anticipating the British Mandate.
Ben-Gurion’s rise to prominence began slowly after the First World War. He expanded the Histadrut, the national federation of trade unions, into one of the most powerful institutions in the country. Elected leader of the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency in 1935, he became the recognized leader of the Jewish community in Palestine. By the mid-1940s, he was exactly the type of leader that was required for the state of Israel to be born. Shapira shows that, from these ambiguous beginnings, a giant of history was formed.
The book has little to say about the lasting significance of some of his initiatives. She writes about his authorization of the forced expulsion of some Arabs, his reluctance to define Israel’s borders and, despite his secular lifestyle, his partnership with the religious community, but does not mention the social and political tensions arising from these initiatives. Shapira does not hold him accountable for creating conditions that led, although unintentionally, to many of the difficulties now confronting the country.
Regardless, Ben-Gurion’s accomplishments overshadow everything else. He transformed armed militias that were focused on fighting the British into a military force that could stand up to the armies of neighboring Arab countries. He ensured that tanks, artillery and aircraft were available to defend the land and its people. He hammered together a provisional government from the fiercely competing factions among the Jewish people in Palestine.
In sharp contrast to prominent Zionists of his era, Ben-Gurion advocated for a Zionism of practical achievements and put little faith in diplomacy and international proclamations. He demanded that Hebrew names be given to every aspect of government-related activity. He ensured that the religious community became partners in this ambitious nation-building project. He also had a hand in shaping the cultural, religious and intellectual character of the new country right from the start.
Shapira says that Ben-Gurion liked to argue that history was made by the masses, not individuals. She shows that, beyond a doubt, his role was decisive.
Robert Matas, a Vancouver-based writer, is a former journalist with the Globe and Mail. This review was originally published on the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library website and is reprinted here with permission. To reserve this book or any other, call 604-257-5181 or email [email protected]. To view the catalogue, visit jccgv.com and click on Isaac Waldman library.
After the attacks in Copenhagen, like after the violence and vandalisms that have rocked the French Jewish community, Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is urging the Jews of Europe to come to Israel as violence against Jews and Jewish institutions increases across that troubled continent.
This call for a new mass aliyah is being met with opposition by European leaders – including Jewish leaders. In Copenhagen, more than 30,000 people, led by their prime minister, commemorated the victims of the terror attacks. Copenhagen’s chief rabbi, Jair Melchior, told the Associated Press, “People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism. But not because of terrorism. If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island.”
Coincidentally, in preparation for our upcoming 85th anniversary issue, we were perusing old copies of this newspaper recently. We came across a commentary from July 1948 titled “Zionism should be wound up.” The author argued that the motive for Zionism – the creation of a Jewish state – had been realized and so the global enterprise should be concluded: even as Israel was literally fighting for its survival in the ongoing War of Independence, and so soon after the Holocaust.
Zionism had been a divisive force in the Diaspora Jewish community, including here in Canada. There were pro- and anti-Zionist Jews of left, right and centre politics, and of Orthodox and secular persuasion and everything in between. Some arguments against Zionism as a movement relied on religious foundations, contending that the ingathering of the exiles would coincide with the messianic era. Other arguments were emphatically secular with the left holding, for example, that it was incumbent upon Jews to remain where they are and fight for a better world for all, rather than retrenching to nationalistic or religious-based separations.
Reading the editorial from 1948, one particular sticking point was that community fundraising efforts had been overwhelmingly allocated to the Zionist effort. Now that the goal had been achieved, the author argued, it was time to redirect fundraising and spending inward, to individual Diaspora communities and to resurrect the “kehilla pattern” of community building and security, with each community taking care of its own needs.
Despite the writer’s conclusion, as successive wars and decades of terrorism confronted Israel, Zionism was not shelved. It morphed into a different type of movement. No longer mobilizing for the creation of a Jewish homeland, it became the overseas support group for the country. After 1967, when “the occupation” altered perceptions of Israel at home and abroad, Zionism again became a divisive cause. But for those two decades, the Jewish people were probably as united as they have ever been in support of Israel.
The lesson of the second half of the 20th century proved the lesson of the first half. Close to a million Jews across the Middle East and North Africa were forced, driven or encouraged by various means to leave their homelands. The difference for these people was that there was now a place where Jews control the immigration policy. Had such a place existed in the 1930s, the impact of the Holocaust may have been massively reduced. Nitpickers will contend that it was the creation of the state of Israel itself that led to the expulsion of Jews from the Arab world, but this equivalency, whatever its merits, does not distract from the underlying point: Jews have often lacked security and permanence in places where they are a permanent minority.
However, being a majority is no assurance of safety. Despite Netanyahu’s invitation, all is not nirvana for the Jews of Israel. Violence and terrorism are not unknown, and life is challenging in different ways than in Europe. It also needs mentioning that everything Netanyahu says and does right now must be seen through the prism of political expediency as the Israeli elections approach.
Nevertheless, these events raise a very serious question: What does Zionism mean today for people in the Diaspora?
There are probably more answers than there are Jews and, in a way, this is the question we grapple with, in one way or another, in these pages every week. But this conclusion may be safe to draw: it is not quite time for Zionism to wind up its affairs.
On the issue of Jewish belonging, I have always pushed for as wide a tent as is necessary to accommodate the range of Jewish experience. Inclusion, rather than ideational boundaries, has been my watchword.
But now, since the Open Hillel conference held at Harvard in October – which billed itself as helping create a “Jewish community that all Jews can feel included in, not just those who pass a political litmus test” – I’ve been feeling a little bit more prescriptive around what values should matter, especially around the centrality of Israel to Jewish life.
On one hand, I’m instinctively positively predisposed to a movement like Open Hillel. Previous reports of a Hillel student board member stating he was forced to step down because he sought to host a Palestinian solidarity activist speaker following the screening of a Palestinian documentary give me chills. And I find Hillel’s guidelines about rejecting speakers who hold Israel to a “double standard” frustratingly enigmatic. There is good conceptual reason to hold Israel, a democracy, to a different standard than Syria, for example. And there is an understandable reason to “single out” Israel when we, as Diaspora Jews, devote more emotional, financial and political resources to the Jewish state than to almost any other.
But, now, my doubts. First was LGBTQ and Palestine solidarity activist Sarah Schulman’s Facebook remarks about the conference. In her post, she railed against the “bullshit of LGBT Birthright,” accusing it of being a forum for “pinkwashing.” I’m partly sympathetic to the pinkwashing charge, awareness of which Schulman herself helped propel in a 2011 New York Times op-ed. There is much to be criticized in Israel’s hasbarah efforts, especially in light of the government’s apathy towards the morally corrosive occupation. But there is a gap: Where is the desired opportunity among Open Hillel activists and participants like Schulman to encourage a deep and textured cultural and political engagement with Israel? Birthright may not be the answer. But what is?
Echoing my thoughts were Steven M. Cohen’s reflections, also posted publicly on Facebook. There, Cohen praised the Open Hillel conference for opening up a much-needed debate on Israeli policies, including criticism of the occupation, but he lamented the apparent “abjuring of the primacy of Jewish or Israel attachment” among participants.
And then came an essay by Holly Bicerano in the Times of Israel, where she criticizes Hillel International’s “Vision for Israel,” which states that “Hillel desires that students are able to articulate why Israel plays an important role in their personal Jewish identities and how Israel continues to influence Jewish conversations, global Jewish peoplehood and the world.”
Bicerano is concerned that, “This particular vision is predicated on the supposition that having a Jewish state must be an integral part of every deserving Jew’s identity.”
My personal, liberal variant of Zionism abhors the occupation, desires to redress political inequalities among the state’s ethnic groups, and opposes the general trend towards illiberal legislation in the Knesset. But, at the very least, I see an important role for Israel’s existence in the life of the Jewish people. While theological commitments are subject to the debates of rationalists, Israel helps secure a sense of peoplehood. Where Jews now speak the languages of their host societies, Israel’s Hebrew revival reminds us of our shared heritage. Where Diaspora Jews must negotiate a minority identity within a majority culture, Israel enables a sense of collective Jewish autonomy.
It follows that were I to find myself in the position of coordinating a campus-based, non-denominational Jewish organization such as Hillel, I would surely encourage students’ right to wrestle with, criticize and protest the policies of Israel. But I would rue the day that the notion of Israel as a component of collective Jewish identity was simply left at the curb.
So, I support the diversity of political views around Israel that were given an airing at the Open Zion conference and I welcome a much-needed, on-the-record conversation about the indignities of the occupation. But if, like Cohen, I am troubled that some of the Open Hillel proponents reject the relevance of sensitive and textured Jewish cultural and political engagement with Israel writ large, what am I to conclude about the fledgling movement?
What I conclude is that we must encourage more Open Hillel gatherings to be held. We must convene discussion not only among the converted. In the marketplace of ideas and attachments, we must realize that the most compelling identity markers will win. Therefore, we must seek to understand how, if Israel is so central to the Jewish identity of so many, it is precisely not this way to so many others. And, if it happens to be decades of Israeli settlements and occupation that have helped push younger Jews away, we must double down – as if we needed a further reason – to do something about those policies too.
Mira Sucharovis an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at Haaretz and the Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published on haartez.com.
