By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM — This city is hosting a Jewish Film Festival this week. One of the movies shown on Sunday night was a documentary about Mordechai Richler. At one point he was mentioned together with Saul Bellow and Philip Roth as writers who helped us to emancipate ourselves from the ghetto mentality of not telling tales out of the Jewish school “in front of the goyim.” They presented Jews and Judaism warts and all.
I always thought that Alan Dershowitz did something similar in his book, Chutzpah. But having seen him on Israeli television earlier on Sunday, I’m about to revise my opinion. In the interview he urged Israeli polemicists – particularly on the Left, I surmise – to “cool it.” As everything that’s being said inIsrael, particularly if it’s self-critical, is reported in the media around the world, Dershowitz is worried that such criticism will be used in the incessant global process to delegitimizeIsrael.
There’re grounds to see this kind of reaction as a way back to the ghetto that not only he and the aforementioned writers fought against, but something that’s also the very opposite to what the sovereign Jewish state wants to be. Its motto has always been Ben Gurion’s, “It’s not what the Gentiles say that matters but what the Jews do that counts.”
Dershowitz not only seemed to go back on his earlier stance, but he also contradicted himself in the same interview when he said that even if the Israeli occupation of the West Bank – which he says he has opposed for decades – were not there, and Israel were “perfect,” the efforts to delegitimize it would go on as before.
So why does Dershowitz want Israelis to cut down on their chutzpah and not speak freely about their politics because it may be cited in the world’s media against the Government of Israel? And why does he seem to suggest that their speaking out will harm the Jewish state, even though its enemies don’t seem to need arguments to attack it?
Perhaps it’s because you can take a Jew out of the ghetto but you can’t take the ghetto out of a Jew. As much as we make ourselves believe that we are liberated members of a free society in most countries of the diaspora, and proud creators of the Jewish state the authenticity of which doesn’t depend on the kindness of strangers, in moments of tension or crisis we may be prone to revert to the old ghetto model.
I believe that this is the reason why Jews in the diaspora are so preoccupied with what the media say about Israel and why they hold the naïve view that if only the Israelis said “the right thing,” everything would be fine. That’s why, for example, I’ve heard many favorite speakers on the Jewish lecture circuit who should know better attack liberal, challenging Ha’aretz – arguably among the world’s best dozen newspapers – as the enemy of Israel and, therefore, also of the Jewish people.
Mercifully, that’s not how Israelis seem to see things. They speak freely without worrying about who hears them and who chooses to misinterpret them. Diaspora Jews may criticizeIsraelfor having bad PR (a constant complaint) but as citizens of the sovereign State of Israel their commitment is to truth and freedom.
That’s one reason why it feels so good to be in Israel. No defender of Israel, however prominent and eloquent, should ever try to tamper with that feeling – even when some of the invective thrown around is at times offensive. When choices must be made, honesty must precede prudence.
*
Rabbi Marmur is spiritual leader emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He now divides his time between Canada and Israel. He may be contacted at dow.marmur@sdjewishworld.com