ISRAEL, THE ONLY “JEWISH STATE “, is not a theocracy.
RE http://www.middleway.org/
I am cynical about such groups who try to bring both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs together in a middle-way for peace. They usually attract people with one-sided agendas, not the even-handed ones they are supposed to attract, - but there seem to be a number of such groups on the web and maybe,- just maybe, more from the Arab side will take courage and join up. Usually they are instigated by Israelis and well-meaning Jews with a few Moslems from democratic countries, while Moslems from the Islamic Theocracies and Palestinians are afraid to participate, except those who push their own side's agenda.
Inevitably, these groups face the question of what kind of State Israel should end-up being, when eventually (Please God!)peace will come to their region.
For Diaspora Jewry, Israel is not just a haven for the dispossessed and endangered Jews from all parts of the world. It is our spiritual homeland, not simply another secular, democratic state like any other in the world! We expect it to have the Jewish ethos and spring from the well of Jewish traditions, while following modern democratic principles of human rights. This kind of Jewish nation is not a form of Theocracy as practised in some Islamic States. The Israeli citizens, while very ethnically mixed and multicultural, agree to these basic principles, whether they are religious or secular.
Thus most Diaspora Jews visiting Israel love the idea of being able to experience life in a total Jewish environment. This means observing the Sabbath and the Jewish Holy Days, - not the Sundays and Christian Holy Days of the West,- or no Holy days at all!It also means walking in the footsteps of the Sages of the Torah-scriptures, not only of those of the New Testament or the Koran. It means being able to buy, eat and drink Kosher foods whenever and wherever one wants to. They want to experience the country where primarily Jewish History is taught to the young throughout their school years, alongside all other world histories,- while living in a total Jewish environment which needs to be saved and preserved for future gnerations.
It does not mean however, that Diaspora Jewry expects Israel to be a Theocracy, no matter how much the Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) communities would wish it to be. No one wants to have ancient religious edicts imposed on them, nor religion in general rammed down their throats.
In "The Australian" (January (9/1/08), an article described USA Jews who were polled and found to be less and less committed to Israel as a "Jewish State",- or to any "ethno-centric" State! Tzipi Livni, Israeli FM, is apparently very concerned about that and has taken steps to address this problem. But how and why is it so?
I blame the Israeli Jews themselves, first and foremost, who instead of being ambassadors for their sole Jewish nation in the world, flock abroad to live and work or simply as tourists en-masse,- with their "Jewish" part seemingly of little outward concern. We find that they often keep away from us Diaspora Jews (when we would love to embrace them!)and even when we do make contact they don't want further interaction! They rarely participate in traditional rituals with other Jews in the Diaspora communities.
Perhaps it is understandable. Israeli Jews probably look at us Diaspora Jews living our lives unconcerned by daily war, terrorism, or hostile Arab neighbours,- our kids don't have to continuously go and put their lives at risk in the IDF,- and probably feel alienated from us. We discovered quite a few Israelis locally by accident, who don't see or feel anti-Semitism, except anti-Israel hostility because it is "the Jewish State", - so they may not believe in the need to safeguard their totally 'Jewish' nation, but simply their homeland. Who for?- The Haredim (ultra-orthodox) whom they view more as a burden than an asset? For the Diaspora who push them to "fight to the last Israeli"? Surely they will tire of it eventually?
If there won't be an educational change, particularly from the religious modern-Orthodox and Progressive Zionists,- I am afraid the next generations will not care to fight for Israel to remain predominantly Jewish.
I hope I am wrong, but if there won't be a change in the Israeli people’s attitude to us Diaspora Jews, -who are after all their only reliable allies and supporters,- I fear for the future of Israel as a "Jewish" State. I am hopeful that the academics and politicians like Tzipi Livni who care about this issue and are becoming aware of this problem, are paying attention to it and addressing it in their research and applying it in their educational institutions.
I have heard an Israeli academic present his research data on the attitudes of Israelis towards the Diaspora,- it wasn’t very optimistic. But at least it showed an awareness that it is a topic which needs to be addressed.
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JEWISH JOKE
A Synagogue's Custom
A young scholar from New York was invited to become Rabbi in a small old community in Chicago. On his very first Shabbat, a hot debate erupted as to whether one should or should not stand during the reading of the Ten Commandments.
The next day, the rabbi visited 98 year-old Mr. Katz in the nursing home. "Mr. Katz, I'm asking you, as the oldest member of the community," said the rabbi, "what is our synagogue's custom during the reading of the Ten Commandments?"
"Why do you ask?" asked Mr. Katz. "Yesterday we read the Ten Commandments. Some people stood, some people sat. The ones standing started screaming at the ones sitting, telling them to stand up. The ones sitting started screaming at the ones standing, telling them to sit down... "
"That," said the old man, "is our custom."
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Showing posts with label Jewish homeland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jewish homeland. Show all posts
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Friday, August 24, 2007
ISRAEL, DIASPORA AND ZIONISM:the meaning of a Jewish 'homeland'.
Jewish Museum Lecture,23/11/06. Lecturer Zohar Raviv, of the Melton Adult Education Institute of the Hebrew University. A young man in his early thirties, graduate of Brandeis University.
Notes:(MM)
HOMELAND VS. A HOME ON LAND. Geography and theography.
While we may love our home on its piece of land, it can be changed at will.
A homeland is a totally different concept.
One needs to understand the meaning of our Torah, -the interpretations of the Torah,- the words of the Torah,- and the differences between geography and theography, between history and narrative to understand the meaning of the Jewish Homeland. The Almighty ‘wedded’ man to the land and this was consummated in the Torah which gave us our Jewish identity for over 5 Millenia,
The (Aramaic) words in the Torah are the roots of Hebrew words which describe the topography of Canaan across the desert to the sea. Moses leading the Jews to the “promised land”, is actually the “magical land”. Zohar gave many examples of the words used in prayer which identified the progress of the people across the desert to the sea, -a land which they identified according to the sun as being very wide,- (when in fact it is only wide E to W,- while we look at it as long and narrow, N-S.)
Zohar commented that we in the Diaspora are in effect more Jewish than our Israeli brethren, why? Because we are at home in lands which are not our homeland and to compensate for whatever feelings we have about this, has created a difference between the Israeli and the Diaspora Jews who celebrate the festivals and identify with their fellow Jews all over the world. Israelis on the other hand, who feel that they live in their Homeland according to the Jewish calendar already, are more intent on their secular enjoyments and take their religious Judaism for granted.
The Jews remained Jewish even when dispersed, dispossessed and in exile for the last 2,500 years by means of a living relationship with the soil in their ancient Homeland through the Torah. There are Agrarian laws , pentateuchal and rabbinic which relate to the land in Israel. The economy which is envisaged for the children of Israel by the Laws of the Pentateuch is purely agricultural. (The Holy Land was to be divided according to tribal areas and each family within the tribe was to receive its portion.) Alienation of this ancestral land could only be temporary; in addition to the cancellation of debts every SABBATICAL YEAR, when the land must be kept fallow; etc.
Many of the Jewish (Israelite) feasts have an agricultural basis and application, particularly Passover, a herdsmen’s and farmers’ festival; Shavuot (Pentecost) was the festival of the new grains; and Succoth (Tabernacles) was the festival for the gathering-in of the autumn harvest. Many religious laws (halacha) apply to agricultural produce and animal husbandry,- in the land of Israel mainly.
Zohar said that Israelis who are “Orthodox-secular” ( the Reform Judaism, or Conservative, or Liberal, etc. are not recognised by the official Rabbinate as being ‘authentic’) don’t consider themselves Jewish first and foremost, but national-Israelis,- while the Orthodox-religious Israelis will always be Jews first and there is a need to bridge this divide.
Zohar concluded with a challenge to us, the Diaspora Jews to engage and challenge the Israelis, particularly the youth and for us to teach them what it means “tikkun olam”, to have a meaningful relationship with world Jewry.
(His refs. “Between God and Man” by Abraham Joshua Heshel;
Herzberg’s “The Jews” and another book whose author escapes me, also called “The Jews”.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>The Land:History lesson
>>
http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From "Blood Libel" to "Land Libel" (Europe)
Michael Freund
For a continent that prides itself on the glory and depth of its civilization over the centuries, Europe sure has a lot of work still to do when it comes to its treatment of the Jewish people.
For hundreds of years, European attitudes toward the Jews were essentially shaped by a spiteful and malicious lie.
And in that sense, at least, very little seems to have changed.
For while they once charged us with the “blood libel”, saying that we illicitly used other people’s blood, various European leaders now falsely tar us instead with “land libel”, asserting that we have taken other people’s territory.
And just as they once blamed the Jews for all sorts of catastrophes, such as the Black Death, they now seek to lay various world crises at our doorstep, too.
Take, for example, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's address the other day at a banquet in London, where he outlined his view of how to resolve the crisis in the Middle East.
In an astonishing display of delusion masquerading as analysis, Blair essentially sought to convince his audience that the "core" of all the region's troubles - and yes, even those of Iraq - are somehow connected with the Jewish state.
"A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region," Blair said, adding that it is necessary to adopt what he terms a "whole Middle East" strategy.
And then, after suggesting that the current focus on Syria and Iran is misplaced, Blair added the clincher: "On the contrary, we should start with Israel/Palestine. That is the core."
The core?
What on earth is he talking about?
To suggest that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is somehow connected with the Baathist insurgency in Iraq, or with Syria's desire to strangle Lebanon, or Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara, or Sudan's acts of murder in Darfur, or any of the myriad other intra-Arab conflicts in the region, is not only intellectually vacuous, it is downright silly.
Worse yet, it is a cheap and transparent attempt to mollify the Arab states by parroting their party line of "don’t blame us for our region's troubles, blame the Jews".
In promoting this hogwash, Blair is deflecting attention from the real, underlying cause of the region's ills, namely, the Arab world's lack of freedom, democracy, tolerance and mutual respect.
While courting the Arabs may prove useful to Mr. Blair as he plans for his retirement next year, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that it will make the Middle East a safer or more peaceful place.
Instead, it is just one more sorry example of just how Europe's underlying approach toward the Jew has yet to really change.
Notes:(MM)
HOMELAND VS. A HOME ON LAND. Geography and theography.
While we may love our home on its piece of land, it can be changed at will.
A homeland is a totally different concept.
One needs to understand the meaning of our Torah, -the interpretations of the Torah,- the words of the Torah,- and the differences between geography and theography, between history and narrative to understand the meaning of the Jewish Homeland. The Almighty ‘wedded’ man to the land and this was consummated in the Torah which gave us our Jewish identity for over 5 Millenia,
The (Aramaic) words in the Torah are the roots of Hebrew words which describe the topography of Canaan across the desert to the sea. Moses leading the Jews to the “promised land”, is actually the “magical land”. Zohar gave many examples of the words used in prayer which identified the progress of the people across the desert to the sea, -a land which they identified according to the sun as being very wide,- (when in fact it is only wide E to W,- while we look at it as long and narrow, N-S.)
Zohar commented that we in the Diaspora are in effect more Jewish than our Israeli brethren, why? Because we are at home in lands which are not our homeland and to compensate for whatever feelings we have about this, has created a difference between the Israeli and the Diaspora Jews who celebrate the festivals and identify with their fellow Jews all over the world. Israelis on the other hand, who feel that they live in their Homeland according to the Jewish calendar already, are more intent on their secular enjoyments and take their religious Judaism for granted.
The Jews remained Jewish even when dispersed, dispossessed and in exile for the last 2,500 years by means of a living relationship with the soil in their ancient Homeland through the Torah. There are Agrarian laws , pentateuchal and rabbinic which relate to the land in Israel. The economy which is envisaged for the children of Israel by the Laws of the Pentateuch is purely agricultural. (The Holy Land was to be divided according to tribal areas and each family within the tribe was to receive its portion.) Alienation of this ancestral land could only be temporary; in addition to the cancellation of debts every SABBATICAL YEAR, when the land must be kept fallow; etc.
Many of the Jewish (Israelite) feasts have an agricultural basis and application, particularly Passover, a herdsmen’s and farmers’ festival; Shavuot (Pentecost) was the festival of the new grains; and Succoth (Tabernacles) was the festival for the gathering-in of the autumn harvest. Many religious laws (halacha) apply to agricultural produce and animal husbandry,- in the land of Israel mainly.
Zohar said that Israelis who are “Orthodox-secular” ( the Reform Judaism, or Conservative, or Liberal, etc. are not recognised by the official Rabbinate as being ‘authentic’) don’t consider themselves Jewish first and foremost, but national-Israelis,- while the Orthodox-religious Israelis will always be Jews first and there is a need to bridge this divide.
Zohar concluded with a challenge to us, the Diaspora Jews to engage and challenge the Israelis, particularly the youth and for us to teach them what it means “tikkun olam”, to have a meaningful relationship with world Jewry.
(His refs. “Between God and Man” by Abraham Joshua Heshel;
Herzberg’s “The Jews” and another book whose author escapes me, also called “The Jews”.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>The Land:History lesson
>>
http://www.mapsofwar.com/images/EMPIRE17.swf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From "Blood Libel" to "Land Libel" (Europe)
Michael Freund
For a continent that prides itself on the glory and depth of its civilization over the centuries, Europe sure has a lot of work still to do when it comes to its treatment of the Jewish people.
For hundreds of years, European attitudes toward the Jews were essentially shaped by a spiteful and malicious lie.
And in that sense, at least, very little seems to have changed.
For while they once charged us with the “blood libel”, saying that we illicitly used other people’s blood, various European leaders now falsely tar us instead with “land libel”, asserting that we have taken other people’s territory.
And just as they once blamed the Jews for all sorts of catastrophes, such as the Black Death, they now seek to lay various world crises at our doorstep, too.
Take, for example, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's address the other day at a banquet in London, where he outlined his view of how to resolve the crisis in the Middle East.
In an astonishing display of delusion masquerading as analysis, Blair essentially sought to convince his audience that the "core" of all the region's troubles - and yes, even those of Iraq - are somehow connected with the Jewish state.
"A major part of the answer to Iraq lies not in Iraq itself but outside it, in the whole of the region," Blair said, adding that it is necessary to adopt what he terms a "whole Middle East" strategy.
And then, after suggesting that the current focus on Syria and Iran is misplaced, Blair added the clincher: "On the contrary, we should start with Israel/Palestine. That is the core."
The core?
What on earth is he talking about?
To suggest that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is somehow connected with the Baathist insurgency in Iraq, or with Syria's desire to strangle Lebanon, or Morocco's occupation of Western Sahara, or Sudan's acts of murder in Darfur, or any of the myriad other intra-Arab conflicts in the region, is not only intellectually vacuous, it is downright silly.
Worse yet, it is a cheap and transparent attempt to mollify the Arab states by parroting their party line of "don’t blame us for our region's troubles, blame the Jews".
In promoting this hogwash, Blair is deflecting attention from the real, underlying cause of the region's ills, namely, the Arab world's lack of freedom, democracy, tolerance and mutual respect.
While courting the Arabs may prove useful to Mr. Blair as he plans for his retirement next year, we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that it will make the Middle East a safer or more peaceful place.
Instead, it is just one more sorry example of just how Europe's underlying approach toward the Jew has yet to really change.
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