Guest Blog: Israel not the state of Israelis

In a recent blog post Colette Avital raised the question 'Is the Jewish Agency for sale'? It was inspired by the decision of the Jewish Agency to make Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, a highly successful fundraiser among US evangelical Christians, a member of the Agency Executive Board. Avital referred to two issues: one regarded the possibility of distorting the Jewish Agency's agenda by opening itself to the influence of money; the second raised questions regarding the motives behind evangelical contributions. Both questions are legitimate, but do not, I feel, go far enough.

Of course Evangelical and general Christian support has an agenda. They have never hidden the fact that their support for Israel has, among other things, a selfish interest. The return of the Jewish people to Zion is, according to their belief, the necessary precondition for the return of their messiah. So long as Jewish fundraising among them channels their contributions to general funds such as Israel Bonds, there is no problem. A problem does exist if their contributions are targeted and politically-driven. And this points to the crux of the Eckstein-JA problem. The State of Israel did not just happen to come into existence in the Twentieth Century. Zionism was our Diaspora's response to a material need. The Enlightenment transformed Europe from theocracy to secular; but terrible as theological anti-Judaism was for Jewish survival, a secularized Christendom turned out to be even worse. Only with the emergence of secular Christian animus did we begin to realize that we could never be accepted, never achieve security in Diaspora. The only reason for a Zionist movement, for a Jewish state was Christianity's attitude-turned-action towards the Jewish religion and the Jewish people.

The real problem represented by Rabbi Eckstein is not that he was rewarded for his money-raising abilities. As a past fundraiser I know well that such reward is routine in the world of political fundraising. No, the real problem goes much deeper, to the core of our Jewish identity. It is natural for people to accept the appearance of their surroundings as real. Only under extreme duress do we abandon, and then only reluctantly, our preconceptions. Perhaps we are not universally loved as a community, but individually I feel accepted. How comforting to remind myself that a Kissinger could rise to Secretary of State, that a Jew could even run for president. What other country of the Diaspora do Jews find such acceptance? Very reassuring, until we remember that Jews rose even higher, were more accepted, intermarried at an even higher rate in Germany pre-Hitler. But that was then, we cling to, things are different here, today.

Nor is Israel less prone to Denial. Three months ago MK Bar-Sasson as chairman of the Knesset Constitution Committee urged limiting Israel's commitment of refuge to the Diaspora by cutting the heart out of the Law of Return, by eliminating the Grandparent Clause. And a few weeks later Interior Minister Sheetrit insisted the Jewish Agency no longer encourage aliya by communities not accepted as Jewish according to Halacha! Thankfully our children are more aware than our politicians regarding the meaning of 2000 years living dispersed within Christendom, of the resulting Shoah. A recent poll found that more than 60% of Israeli youth believe another holocaust is in our future.

One would hope that so long and tragic a history would carry within it a warning about our future. Perhaps our Diaspora has been living the myth of acceptance too long to overcome its denial. But a state of Israel was directly inspired by our experience of Christian animus. Israel only gained independence as the result of momentary and transient guilt by Christendom for having perpetrated the Holocaust. Israel emerged out of the ashes of Auschwitz. Israel is not, was never intended to be the state of the Israelis. Israel was created as the vanguard of the Jewish people, to serve as refuge for the victims of our next holocaust.

No, the problem of Rabbi Eckstein and the Jewish Agency is not that he is rewarded for his money-raising abilities but that, in full view of history he, like our Diaspora and state, choose not to learn the lessons of 2000 years of Christian-Jewish dialogue, the obvious lessons of history. We choose instead the comfort and security of a self-created fantasy world in which our neighbors, who appear to like us, really do; that they really do have our best interest in mind; that they really do support our project in Israel out of the goodness of their hearts.

The real problem represented by Rabbi Eckstein is that we choose not to learn from history and experience. Antisemitism continues alive and well; Christendom's Jewish Problem is yet unresolved. And the technology which, but a mere sixty years ago nearly spelled the end of Jewry and Judaism in all its lands of the world, back even to a single grandparent, has only improved over the decades.