Jewish Identities In Post Rabin Israel

American Jewish Committee
Thursday, 30 July 1998

The American Jewish Committee's Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations released a publication that discusses the controversy concerning Jewish identity in Israel in an essay written by Yossi Klein Halevi, a senior writer for the Jerusalem Report, and responses by three noted scholars.

Mr. Klein Halevi's essay details all aspects of Israel's continuing Jewish identity struggle including the "Ultra-Orthodox Separatism: The Rise of Shas," "Secular Israel's Jewish Identity Crisis," "The Jewish Struggle Within The Secular Elite," "The Democratic Struggle Within Religious Zionism." Mr. Klein Halevi analyzes all of the issues associated with the Jewish identity crisis in hopes of creating a beneficial discussion towards a solution.

Responses to Mr. Klein Halevi's essay were written by Michael A. Meyer, Adolph S. Ochs Professor of Jewish History at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Cincinnatti; Mordechai Bar-On, author and former chief education officer of the Israel Defense Force; and Charles S. Liebman, professor of political science and director of the Argov Center for the Study of Israel and the Jewish People at Bar-Ilan University.

"The nightmare scenario for the state of Jewish identity in Israel is of a schizophrenic people divided into two irreconcilable camps: one secular and democratic, perceiving little of value in Judaism; the other traditionalist and xenophobic, perceiving little of value outside of Judaism," wrote Mr. Klein Halevi, who is also the author of Memoirs of a Jewish Extremist.

"It is, arguably, no coincidence that the rift between secular and religious, rather than between left and right, has intensified since Rabin's murder. Indeed, our cultural schism seems to be following the same apocalyptic turn our territorial debate took place after the signing of the Oslo accords. Each side increasingly perceives in the other a threat not merely to Israel's well-being but its very survival: Orthodox Israelis are trying to create a Jewish version of Iran that would make our continued existence here untenable and even unjustified; while secular Israelis are creating a modern version of pagan Hellenistic society that risks arousing Divine wrath leading to our renewed exile from this land, whose holiness we have once again violated," asserted Mr. Klein Halevi.

In his afterword, Avraham Burg, chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, said the first part of Mr. Klein Halevi's essay left him deeply depressed. "But as I read, Klein Halevi led me toward the conclusion of his essay from the depth of manic depression to new heights. 'We have a future, I thought. We haven't lost hope,'" wrote Mr. Burg.

Dr. Steven Bayme, Director of the Institute on American-Israeli Jewish Relations, wrote in the foreword that religious pluralism "ought to constitute a corrective to religious indifference. Such a pluralism must not only combat the extremism of the Orthodox right and the monopoly of the Chief Rabbinate, but it must also be a force for strengthening the role of Judaism in Israeli society, broadening Jewish education and enhancing the Jewish nature of the state."

"The message to the Orthodox must be that the threat to the Jewish future comes not from religious pluralism but from religious indifference. A truly religious pluralism would combat Jewish apathy and enhance Jewish peoplehood," added Dr. Bayme.

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