Is Today's Israel
Post-Zionist?

ARTHUR J. MAGIDA SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

eople have identity crises,
so why not nations? That
seems to be the premise of
an article in The New Re-
public by Gershom Gorenberg,
op-ed editor of the Israeli news
magazine, The Jerusalem Report.
Israel, posits Mr. Gorenberg,
is on the cusp of becoming a post-
Zionist society, with an expand-
ing wealthy, bourgeois,
materially-oriented class setting
its sights on Ben and Jerry's, de-
signer wastebaskets for the bath-
room and Marks and Spencer —
and less on the ideals of person-
al sacrifice and communal bonds.
"Today," he writes, "46 years
after its founding, Israel is like
an ex-revolutionary shopping in
the mall. Individuals and the de-
sire for personal comfort, no
longer weaknesses, quietly have
become values. Peace and eco-
nomic success promise to reduce
national tasks — and with them,
the relevance of personal sacri-
fice for national need. The sense
of being bound by a collective fate,
which has made the country a
huge raucous clan, could also
fade. Israel, it seems, is turning
into another Western country."
Ostensibly bringing up the
rear guard and keeping alive
Zionist values of physical effort
and physical sacrifice are the re-

p

There's enough going on at
The Trowbridge to filta book.

At The Trowbridge, the residents are always going, always running,
always doing. They're active, involved and love to have a good time.
They're people a lot like you. We have dances, card clubs, social
events, lectures, movies and dozens of other weekly activities. No one
offers you more activities or a greater quality of services than we do. To
find out more please mail the coupon today or call (810)352-0208.

Making Va-room
In Old Jordan

THE

Name

Address

City

State

Mail to: 24111 Civic Center Dr., Southfield, MI48034

Zip

(810) 352-0208

Phone

T H E DE T RO I T JE WIS H N EWS

CELEBRATING 5 YEARS IS A PREMIER RENTAL RETIREMENT COMMtmn

02

We are pledged to the letter and spirit of U.S. policy for the achievement of equal housing opportunity through-
out the nation. We encourage and support an affirmative advertising and marketing program in which there are
no barriers to obtaining housing because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status or national origin.

am"

NNNG
000

00

LYNNE MASTER, M.Ed

Owner, Director

• ACT, SAT, MEAP Preparation
• Remedial Tutoring/All Subjects
•Study/Testing Skills
• IEPC Advocacy
• Testing/Evaluation

545-6677 • 433-3323

Oak Park

Bloomfield Hills

ff f.°

EQuOw"
BIRMINGHAM

1489 S. Woodward

646-8477

ROCHESTER HILLS

3140 Walton Blvd.

375-9707

ligious Zionist settlers of the West
Bank. But Mr. Gorenberg advis-
es that drawing a "dichotomy" be-
tween the settlers and the
"secular hedonists on the left" is
"far too neat ... The West Bank
settlements are garden suburbs
with red-tiled houses and land-
scaped yards ... Yisrael Harel, the
settler leader, complained re-
cently that hardly any of the
young people from his own set-
tlement turned out for a key
protest. On the other hand, sec-
ular teens still join top combat
[army] units ..."
Mr. Gorenberg speculates that
the settlers are "angry at having
begun their great project as the
rest of Israel was going bourgeois.
For 50 years, left-wing columnist
Orit Shohat wrote recently, the
religious Zionist "tried to imitate
the classic sabra — to dress like
him, settle the land like him, fight
in combat units like him, enter
his sandaLs — and now that [he]
has nearly succeeded, that mod-
el of the sabra has gone out of
fashion."
"... Building a settlement to
stake a Jewish claim on the land,"
writes Mr. Gorenberg, "like oth-
er gestures of idealism, was a
means to an end. With the end
achieved, the gestures turn to
farce."

King Hussein:
Welcomes travelers.

D

on't look twice; Ws all right:
On the cover of this
month's Conde Nast Trav-
eler, it's only Jordan's King

Hussein and Queen Noor sitting
astride the king's motorcycle at
Wadi Rum in Jordan's desert.
It's monarch chic: Her shirt-
sleeves on what looks like a blue
chambray shirt are rolled up and
she's leaning affectionately on the
back of the king, who's wearing
a black leather jacket. And he's
riding, what else? A Harley
' Davidson, of course.
The headline, "Royal Trail-
blazer: Jordan's Hussein Opens
His Spectacular Kingdom," says
it all: The royal duo wants the
Hashemite Kingdom to be the
next mecca for travelers to the
Middle East. And former New
York Times reporter Judith
Miller, who wrote the Conde Nast
Traveler article, does everything
she can to make the country seem
alluring, enticing, breathtaking:
* Unlike many Arab capitals,
Amman is "unmarred by ... ugly
concrete high-rises" and is "clean
and efficient."

