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p
sumably, the experience would
sensitize them to Israel's obses-
sion with security and might also
inhibit them from criticizing Is-
raeli policy.
Israel, perceived through the
prism of the Holocaust, merits
special indulgence and consider-
ation: It is the home of a remnant
people.
And now, save for the highest
officials — presidents, prime min-
isters and foreign ministers —
the ritual visit will become mere-
ly a recommended option.
The change in policy, we are
told, is the handiwork of Yossi
Beilin, Israel's deputy foreign
minister. The initial incomplete
reports indicate that he seeks to
give official visitors freedom of
choice.
Perhaps. But those familiar
with Mr. Beilin's refreshing chal-
lenges to convention may sup-
pose that he is uncomfortable not
only with Yad Vashem as a re-
quirement, but also with the im-
plicit suggestion that the first
thing one ought to know about
Jews is that people have sought
to kill them — and quite recent-
ly succeeded massively.
The remembering and the re-
minding have a place. That is not
in question. What is in question
is how we intend to understand
and depict ourselves.
Ephraim Zuroff, Israel direc-
tor of the Simon Wiesenthal Cen-
ter, said, "For anyone to
understand what this country's
all about and why it's important
to have a Jewish state, it's obvi-
ous they must learn about the
Holocaust and its implications."
That, of course, is convention-
al wisdom. But it does not bear
up under examination.
True, no chronicle of Israel's
unfolding is complete without an
understanding of anti-Semitism
in general and the Holocaust in
particular. But Zionism did not
begin in 1933 with the rise of the
Nazis to power. It began more
than half a century earlier, part-
ly as a response to anti-Semitism,
still more as a Jewish expression
of the nationalist urge rising in
Europe.
Nor did Zionism succeed be-
cause of the Holocaust. In fact,
by slaughtering the major reser-
voir of anticipated immigrants,
the Nazis wounded Zionism bru-
tally.
Zionism succeeded because a
handful of Jews had made their
way to Palestine and stubbornly
invented or pieced together the
institutions and the processes of
statehood. It succeeded because
it was in England's interest to
unburden itself of the responsi-
bility for Palestine the League of
Nations had granted it. It suc-
ceeded because of the courage of
Israeli Jews and the solidarity of
world Jewry.
Zionism is not (principally)
about the survival of the Jewish
people; it is about the auto-eman-
cipation of the Jewish people.
That formulation will irritate
those who believe that the cen-
tral motive for Jewish persistence
is to spite our enemies. It will
anger those who have sought to
encourage Jewish identity by
picking at the scabs of Jewish
trauma. And it will disappoint
(at best) nervous Jews who, with-
out reflection, imagine that the
Jews need an extraordinary ra-
tionale for their perfectly ordi-
nary desire to govern themselves
on a piece of land to which they
are organically connected.
I, too, cannot — nor would I —
free myself entirely of the notion
of Israel the transcendent; of the
mystical, even heavenly Israel
that stands outside history's con-
ventional parameters. At times,
I must remind myself that Israel
is foremost a nation like all the
other nations — and it must be
that if we are to hope that now
and then it will be a light unto
the nations.
I, who freely choose to visit
Yad Vashem frequently, am
haunted by that poignant line
from Nellie Sachs' "Chorus of
Comforters": "We are gardeners
who have no flowers."
But the obvious, if unconven-
tional truth is that we are — and
were — prodigious gardeners
long before the Kingdom of Night
descended upon us, and we have,
the destruction notwithstanding,
flowers in profusion.
But if Auschwitz is not the
most important thing that ever
happened to us, what is? Again
and again: The Exodus from
Egypt and then Sinai. These are
the most important things that
ever happened to us, whether or
not they ever happened. ❑
Leonard Fein is a writer living in
Boston.
Territories Sealed
After Bombing
Jerusalem (JTA) — The Israeli
Cabinet voted unanimously to
seal off the Gaza Strip and West
Bank following the Jan. 22 sui-
cide bombing at a crowded bus
stop near the coastal city of Ne-
tanya.
The Cabinet reached the deci-
sion Sunday evening after the
ministers broke off their regular
session earlier in the day when
news of the attack was first re-
ported.
The attack prompted Presi-
dent Ezer Weizman, whose post
is largely ceremonial, to step into
the political arena with a call to
postpone Israel's ongoing negoti-
ations with the Palestinians.
Many ministers called for a re-
assessment of current security
measures.