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Israeli Jews
Ponder Destiny
JONATHAN TSEVI
Special to The Jewish News
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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1990
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T
he theme of this year's
dialogue was "What is
a Jew?" For me, the
major question as an Israeli
Jew was: Do we have the
same destiny as American
Jews?
I tend to agree with
Knesset member Avraham
Burg, who, in his opening
remarks at the dialogue,
claimed that American
Jewry is an autonomy
within the United States.
Life in the United States for
the Jews is very comfortable,
and, hence, there is no
urgent, existential need for
American Jews to leave and
go to Israel.
Two thousand years ago,
Judaism was, unlike Chris-
tianity, a religion that was
based upon and received its
nourishment from Eretz
Yisrael, the land of Israel.
Even the communities out-
side Eretz Yisrael accepted
without reservation the au-
thority and the primacy of
Eretz Yisrael.
The rules changed dras-
tically after 70 C.E., with
the destruction of the Tem-
ple and the beginning of the
exile. As Burg said, when
the exile became comfor-
table, it became Diaspora.
The miracle of the con-
tinuation of Jewish life, even
though Eretz Yisrael
became just a dream, is not
for a second underestimated.
The preservation of the Jew-
ish people is the achiev-
ement of the Diaspora, be it
in Yemen, Ethiopia, Poland,
Peru or the United States.
The major question to con-
sider is what difference does
it make — if it does make a
difference at all — that the
State of Israel now exists in
Eretz Yisrael.
One possible answer is
that the Jewish community
living in that part of the
globe which happens to be
the historical Eretz Yisrael
is nothing but another Jew-
ish community. Therefore,
the fact that, geographically,
this community is located at
a place of historical impor-
tance to the Jewish people is
just an interesting coin-
cidence.
Jonathan Tsevi, an attorney,
was one of 20 Israeli par-
ticipants in the 25th annual
Americalsrael Dialogue in
Jerusalem. The article
originally appeared in the
Jewish Exponent in
Philadelphia.
This Jewish community
constitutes a majority of the
population; hence, they con-
stitute a "Jewish state."
This state may be used as a
refuge for other Jews in
times of trouble witness the
aliyah of Arab Jewry, the E-
thiopians and Soviet Jewry.
Thus, as a land of refuge,
together with its historical
importance, Israel of today is
important to other Jews.
But in essence, according
to this view, the Jewish
community in Israel is just
another Diaspora, both in
concept and in essence.
This is a legitimate
perception of the situation,
and I felt that many of the
American delegates at the
dialogue felt this way, even
without putting it in such
harsh terms. Even many
Israelis share that view. The
fact is that many more Jews
have left the State of Israel
for Jewish autonomy in the
United States than vice ver-
sa.
I offer a different view-
point: The Jewish people
were forced into the
Diaspora phase of Judaism.
However, things changed in
1948. The Jewish people are
today faced with two types of
Judaism: the Diaspora and
Israel.
Although I do not for a
minute underestimate the
Babylonian Talmud,
Maimonides or Abraham
Joshua Heschel, Jewish
creation was centered in
Eretz Yisrael before 70 C.E.,
and if Judaism is a religion
or nation or culture that gets
its nourishment from Eretz
Yisrael, it must return to
Israel.
Therefore, the destiny of
the Jewish people — living
not merely in autonomy but
in a state, and not just in any
state but in Eretz Yisrael —
is not the Diaspora destiny.
In Eretz Yisrael, the Jew-
ish people are heading
toward a new reality of Jew-
ishness, and their destiny is
inevitably not the same as
the Jews in the United
States or in Togo.
Obviously, Jews who do
not return to Israel do not
believe that the estab-
lishment of Israel is a Jew-
ish revolution in the sense
that it is not only the begin-
ning of redemption, but even
more the end of Diaspora.
This marks the true differ-
ence between U.S. Jewry
and Israeli Jewry today, one
that demands a continuation
of such dialogue.
❑