By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — As we’re about to celebrate 70 years of Jewish statehood, it seems appropriate to remind ourselves that, God beware, had there been no Israel there would today be only a fraction of the 15 million Jews – approaching the same number as before the Holocaust – who now inhabit this earth. And those left would had become a historic curiosity, no more significant than are the Amish today.
Advocates of Jewish Diaspora existence like George Steiner think differently. Steiner believes that our Jewish destiny is to live as guests among the nations. Presumably, if persecution and even the threat of extermination is the price, so be it. Mercifully, it’s he and individuals like him who constitute the historic curiosity. Most Jews in the Diaspora know that Israel makes it possible for them to be Jews.
Even ultra-Orthodox Jews who live in Israel, though passionately opposed to Zionism because they see it as an affront to their Messianic expectations, are sustained and protected by the state they abhor and the defense of which they shun. They’d be much fewer of them had there been no Israel. Many feed themselves because of the social welfare and the financial subsidies to their institutions that make it possible for them to exist without having to earn a living.
Non-Orthodox Jews like myself, prone to legitimately complain about being sidestepped and treated as religious pariahs, wouldn’t have had the vitality we have today – perhaps even more in the Diaspora than in Israel – without having brought Israel, and with it the notion of peoplehood, into the center of our thinking and our activities.
Israel has turned us into a normal people by enabling us to be at home in the land of our ancestors, irrespective where we actually live. Many Jews are surprised to discover how much they feel at home here even when they live abroad. I’m one of those privileged to live here who never tires of quoting Amos Oz, the distinguished Israeli writer: “I love Israel even when I can’t stand it.”
And when I can’t stand it, recipients of these reflections can read about it. They know that my concerns are primarily about the political leaders of the country. Greed for power and its trappings, coupled with the reactionary ideology that’s currently sweeping much of the world, has turned against those who espouse liberalism and openness to the outside world.
That world includes the Palestinians, because history has imposed on us to share this land with them, despite the pathetic and outrageous distortions by most of their leaders. Ignoring and mistreating our Palestinian neighbors and cousins threatens our very future here, if not physically then definitely morally and spiritually. And that despite the way we’re about to celebrate 70 years of statehood is being used against us by hostile Palestinian leaders who exploit the frustrations of those for whom they purport to speak. The result is more hostility and more deaths. It mars our joy and our determination to stay, but it in no way intimidates us to want to be elsewhere.
Though much of the fault is on the other side, this is also an occasion for the leaders of the State of Israel to look at themselves. In order to see to it that Israel will be around not only in the next 70 years but in the next 700 years and beyond, we must make sure that we live well with our neighbors.
It’s in this hope and with this determination that makes living here a unique privilege and an unprecedented challenge. It’s here that we can realize our potential as Jews and as citizens of the world.
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Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. Now a resident of Israel, he may be contacted via dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com