The Peoplehood of Israel
Reflections on Israel’s 70thIndependence Day
By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman
As tough as last week was, the one that ends tonight was even tougher.
Last week we observed Yom HaShoah—Holocaust Remembrance Day.
This week it’s Yom HaAtzmaut—Israel’s Day of Independence—and, just prior to it, Yom HaZikaron, the day set aside in sacred remembrance of the fallen defenders of Israel.
Last week I thought about what it means to be a Jew. This week I thought about what it means to be an Israeli.
As a Jew, I am at home everywhere and nowhere in this world. As an Israeli, my home is in the heart of Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. As a Jew, I have a history of over three thousand years; as a citizen of the State of Israel, less than a hundred.
I’ve lived most of my life in the United States, but my childhood and youth, the formative years of my life, were spent in Israel. Even today I am fortunate to be able to spend a fair amount of time in both countries, to observe, learn, and partake of both cultures.
With one foot on this side of the world and the second in the other, the perspective is enlightening.
In Israel I learned what it means to be a Jew in our own homeland. It’s easier to be Jewish in Israel, even if you are secular and not at all religious. The language, the traditions, even the food, all reflect Judaism and the many flavors it comes in. In Israel I feel freer than anywhere else, free to be Jewish, free and able to defend myself, my country and my people.
On the other hand, my life in the United States has taught me what it means to be a Diaspora Jew, always watching my step, careful with what I say, always mindful of who’s around me and what they might be thinking of me. In the Diaspora, I learned, you can’t take your Jewish heritage for granted. You have to make it happen for it to be there.
When I’m in Israel, I try to explain America to my family, friends and acquaintances. It isn’t simple. Israelis are used to a multi-party political system, a cultural hodgepodge that is noisy and chaotic, yet also multi-colored and joyful. Israelis pride themselves on their achievements in every aspect of modern life—from the arts, literature and music; to high tech, medicine, and environmental conservation; from superb cuisine and excellent wines, to—for the first time in over 2000 years—a powerful and formidable army.
In the best and most altruistic way, Israel shares its accomplishments with people all over the world, and even beyond. In fact, a special suit, developed by the Israeli company StemRad and designed to protect astronauts from radiation, is about to be launched into space in preparation for NASA trips to Mars, boldly carrying the flag of Israel to where no man or woman has gone before.
Concerned with daily threats to their existence, Israelis argue nonstop about the best way to protect this vibrant and non-stop country. They argue politics; they hold their noses at corruption in government; they complain about prices and taxes. They object to religious coercion, but refuse to recognize the validity of any form of Judaism other than Orthodoxy.
Israelis aren’t afraid of anything except bad news. No problem exists without a solution just waiting to be discovered. But they do not understand Trump, and the anti-Semitism they see rising in the United States and the rest of the world. They do not understand what it means to be a Jew in the Diaspora, and they are perplexed by the hesitancy of American Jews to offer unwavering support to a State that, for the first time in 2000 years, has offered Jews refuge, safety, security and pride.
And so I sit with them—my Israeli family and friends, and sometimes even with total strangers—at homes, in restaurants and cafés, and I try to explain the strange world that is America: The politics, the culture, and the growing fear of implicit and—more and more—explicit, overt, anti-Semitism.
In its 70 years of independence, Israel has seen more war, violence and terrorism than any other country in the western world. It has also taken in more refugees from all parts of the world and somehow managed to integrate them and create a nation that is more family than disparate groups.
Despite the challenges of living in a dangerous and tumultuous part of the world, Israelis are among the happiest people anywhere on this planet. They are proud, and free, and feel safe and secure in their own homeland. They don’t remember anymore what it feels like to be a minority. Though most Israelis consider themselves secular and not religious, they are surrounded by, and are part of, an almost exclusively Jewish culture and environment. Most would like to see Judaism and Jewish law modernized, but at the same time they do not understand Reform Judaism or the American Jewish community’s need to adapt, change, and modernize the way we worship and live.
Israelis don’t understand our fear, but they also underestimate our will to survive as a people. They see us as Diaspora Jews, a relic of the past—a past that Israelis are ashamed of, a past that inspires fear and anxiety instead of confidence and pride. They see our need to integrate not as a survival tactic, but rather as the first step to assimilation, on the fast track to disappearing.
Americans Jews, on the other hand, don’t understand the tough stance Israel has to take against those who wish to see her destruction. They don’t understand the tension and constant threat that Israelis live with, every moment of every day. American Jews—with the exception of those whose sons or daughters serve in the Lone Soldier Program of the IDF—don’t know the terror, the fear of losing a child in battle or in an act of terrorism. Israelis never forget that 23,646 men, women and children have been killed defending the land of Israel since 1860, the year that Jews first built new homes outside the walls of old Jerusalem.
As a result of these mis-understandings, at times, relations between the two Jewish communities—in Israel and the Diaspora—become strained. Yet we must never lose sight of the fact that we are one people. Despite the differences among us, we are parts of the same body. History may have taken us on different paths, but we all share a glorious past and an even more glorious mission.
As the State of Israel celebrates 70 years, we have come to see its existence both as historical necessity and as a miracle. But it isn’t only the Hand of God that we see here. 2000 years ago, the ancient sages taught that כל ישראל ערבים זה לזה, “All Israel are responsible for one another.” Even then, they foresaw the difficulty of maintaining our Jewish identity, our peoplehood, while dispersed among the nations. It is because we have always heeded this teaching, that we are here today, and that the State of Israel is there for us today and every day.
On Israel’s 70th birthday, with the full knowledge that our fate as a people is intertwined, we need Israel to understand us and make room for our more liberal way of being Jewish. And in turn, we in the Diaspora need to commit ourselves to being there for Israel: To visit it, to take pride in the example it sets for the world, to support and defend Israel against all those who call for her destruction.
The bridge between our two communities is a sacred one. We ARE responsible for one another. We each need what the other has to offer. We share the same history and tradition, and we fill our lives with the same values and principles. Whether we live in the United States or in Israel, we are all the People of Israel.
In the Diaspora and in the reborn Land of Israel, the Jewish People lives. Happy Birthday, Israel. Am Yisrael Chai.
© 2018by Boaz D. Heilman
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