Tlie Rabin Assassination:

The Israel American Jews Should Support

hroughout the 1970s and '80s, Israel's lads hinted at deep spiritual instincts, however identity as a Jewish state seemed unfocused, among secularists. As a people whose immutable. Diplomatically ghettoized, daily lives are constandy violated by death, Israelis and led by Holocaust survivors have a far greater need for religious expression TMenachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, Israelis than many of them know. felt a grim, if natural, link with the Jewish past. But those instincts and needs are not being Orthodox West Bank settlers displaced secular translated into new Israeli forms of Judaism. kibbutzniks as the new pioneering elite. Leading Jewishness and Israeliness are detaching into bohemian artists and actors became ultra- warring camps. Orthodox penitents, lending a new, if uneasy, Clearly, Israel must become more Israeli— legitimacy to religion. more democratic—extending national identity But in the 1990s a confluence of powerful to its nonjewish citizens not with a grudging for­ counter-trends is challenging the country's mality, but vigorously and unequivocally. It is Jewish identity. With the end of communism and absurd that a Diaspora Jew, with no intention of the beginning of the Mideast peace process, ever living here, can feel a greater sense of Israel has become an accepted member of the belonging to the modern state of Israel than a community of nations, eroding its sense of nonjewish Israeli who was born and will die in Jewish "otherness." Economic prosperity has shat­ Israel. A more democratic Israel means a less for­ Yossi Klein Halevi, a tered pioneering ideology and with it the mally Jewish one led by a secular government senior writer for The romance of the settlement movement. The grow­ equally representing all of the people. But at the Jerusalem Report, is ing participation of the country's 800,000 Arab same time, Israeli society needs to be rooted in author of Memoirs of citizens in the democratic process means that Jewish values and traditions, if only to resist a Jewish Extremist "Israeliness" can no longer be instinctively becoming a cultural chameleon, confusing its (Little, Brown, 1995). equated with Jewishness. And the arrival of over identity with the latest imported fads. He lives in Jerusalem half a million immigrants from the former Soviet On some level, democracy and Jewishness are with his wife and two Union, the least Jewishly educated and committed hopelessly contradictory. What do we do, for children. of any group of newcomers yet, has augmented example, with the Law of Return, which dis­ that Israeli minority that lacks any emotional criminates against non-Jewish Israelis and yet religious attachment. which most Jewish Israelis—understandably— In the increasing struggle over the country's insist on preserving? most basic identity—whether it will remain a And yet we have no choice but to struggle with Jewish state aligned with the Diaspora and the the paradox at the heart of our national identity. Jewish past or become an entirely secular Israeli In recent months, some important voices have state representing only its own citizens—Yitzhak been raised, calling for an Israel that is at once Rabin's assassination has substantially boosted politically more democratic and culturally more the latter option. For many secularists, the mur­ Jewish. In fact, an official alliance seems to be der has delegitimized not just Religious emerging, transcending Left-Right enmities and Zionism—until now the most credible bridge uniting liberal Orthodox Jews and Jewishly com­ between Jewishness and Israeliness—but Judaism mitted secular liberals. Among the Orthodox are itself. That rejection will hasten the process, Rabbi Yehudah Amital of the dovish Meimad already well underway even before the assassina­ Religious Zionist movement and West Bank set- tion, of the separation of religion and state, and dement activist Rabbi Yoel Bin-Nun; among the with it, perhaps, the emergence of a post-Jewish secularists, novelist A.B. Yehoshua as well as Israel. prominent journalists Yaron London and And yet, the eventual collapse of statist Amnon Dankner, both of whom have recently Orthodoxy doesn't have to mean the end of a written essays bemoaning the superficiality of an Jewishly connected Israel. The opposite may be Israeli secular culture emptied of Jewish content. true: Separation of religion and state can free American Jews should learn those and other Judaism and encourage the development of an names, should begin supporting those trying to indigenous Israeli spirituality. The thousands of create an Israel that most closely approximates young people who gathered in Tel Aviv's Rabin their own vision. As a pluralistic community, Square lighting candles and singing Hebrew bal­ American Jews need a more democratic Israel. Shocks; and Aftershocks

And as a Diaspora community seeking sources of dangerous to Israel's soul. inspiration and renewal, American Jews also need Israel is a web of contradictions, at once a more Jewish Israel. Eastern and Western, Jewish and Israeli, a holy That dual interest requires American Jewish land and a secular western democracy. Decisive liberals to reevaluate their own Israeli alliances. victory for any of its competing cultural camps Just as most American Jews wouldn't support will impoverish the country and alienate key Israel's anti-democratic forces, so should they groups from its national identity. refrain from aligning with militandy antijudaic American Jews should help us resist simplistic secularists, even if they are champions of greater resolutions of our identity conflicts. Maintaining democracy. Indeed, those "ultra-secularists" are the paradox of Israeliness and Jewishness will the mirror image of the ultra-Orthodox. The first insure our spiritual vitality and American Jewry's group finds nothing relevant in Jewish tradition; link with Israel. the second, nothing relevant outside it. Both are

The Still, Small "Voices of Israeli Youth

cannot speak to the havoc that Yitzhak insecurity—a personal need to be a part of some­ Rabin's assassination caused throughout thing stronger than ourselves. Intuitively, we all Israel and the Jewish world, but I can talk knew we needed this collective support. Only about the perplexing response of Israel's after we found ourselves feeling safe and com­ I[youth. I was among those who shed the tears, who forted in our own tender embrace did we start to wrote the poems, who lit the candles while hud­ think about what it was that had made us feel so dling together in the pitch dark night of confu- vulnerable in the first place. ion, singing songs that had never really meant During the time we spent singing and crying .nything to us before. and praying together, we slowly came to an The curious diing is, reflecting on those few understanding of what it was that we were so lays, that we do not really know7 why we acted as scared of—being by ourselves, being alone. Only i)we did, and are unable—even now—to define after being together did we become aware of the Jwhat it is that we felt, what it is that we are feel­ true significance of the murder, all of us together, ing. The truth is, we surprised ourselves as we sur­ each of us alone. prised our parents. Was it simply that we had lost our leader, on The meaning of our spontaneous reaction whom we depended for peace and tranquility? Micha Breakstone, 17, isn't anything easily defined. Rather it is con­ Was it the threat of a civil war that made us so was bom and raised in tained somewhere in the volumes of poems and fearful? Had our values been washed away in the Israel. He lives in testimonies we produced, which we published gushing surge of blood spewing from Yitzhak Jerusalem with his family. upon the walls and scattered among the flowers Rabin's heart? Was it the frightening lightness of offered by a country in mourning, and which we our being? laminated in a mixture of tears and melted wax. And why, why the hell did we take notice Wandering through the streets of Jerusalem only now? benveen 2 and 3 a.m. on my way from the prime Two articles in the Hebrew papers gave some­ minister's residence to nowhere, with the com­ what contradictory analyses. One heralded the forting strumming of the guitar now muffled by reaction of Israel's young people as a long-await­ a growing separation and rbneliness, I realized ed, but essentially unanticipated sign that my gen­ something that had evaded me earlier. At a dis­ eration—the first thought not to have imbibed tance of a few hundred yards from my friends, I the Zionist dream with their mothers' milk—was became aware of a vanishing sense of security. perhaps worthy after all of inheriting the Jewish I think that what moved the hundreds of thou­ state, which had indeed been handed us on a sil­ sands of teenagers who were out there in the ver platter. The second article discounted this streets long after the sun had set was not grief or assessment, warning Peres that if he wanted our the desire to mourn, but rather the feeling of support in the future, he would have to look for us not at nighttime vigils or in venues of political that will become clearer to others. I want to be activism, but at the malls. According to this assess­ able to believe—for me personally, and for my ment, the State is really of less interest to us than generation—that our reaction to the assassina­ the silver platter on which it has been served. tion was more than a passing urge to connect to I hope this is not true. But I'm not sure. I don't something beyond ourselves. The questions soci­ know what I would have said just a few weeks ago, ety at large has about our generation are great. but now I know that I want to be able to confront But so is the commitment of Israel's youth to the questions that will determine what kind of shape ourselves into a people capable of finding society I am to live in. Maybe, just maybe, the the answers. Our response to the assassination assassination really was significant to us, the was perplexing, but so are the challenges facing younger generation. I hope that as time passes us. And anything less than what we have begun and we continue our collective soul-searching, to express would have been insufficient.

T¥on-Tradit ional Traditions: Israel's Secularized Relioious Rituals

irst: the shock and grief. They were par­ tation of being the university with the best teacher- ticularly visible among the young, pri­ student relationship in Israel. marily non-religious Israelis, who, Ironically, Bar-Ilan University suffered most building on rituals developed in Israel from the witch-hunt that developed in pursuit of Fover the years to commemorate Yom Hazikaron possible conspiracies among right-wing religious (Israel's Memorial Day) , performed sponta­ nationalists. Bar-Ilan suffered from this because neous memorial rituals consisting of mournful the assassin, his brothers, and those most closely or otherwise expressive popular music, candle associated with his group studied at the Institute lightings, and assemblies. Those who suggested for Advanced Torah Study, the kollel ax Bar-Ilan. that this was a new departure either are unaware In an irony of ironies, that kollel was founded to of, or have neglected, the ritual developments for convince young rabbinical students to pursue those specifically Israeli memorial occasions that academic degrees while they were pursuing their have occurred over the past nearly fifty years. To rabbinical studies—something virtually unheard say that the youth did not invent new rituals but of in Israel until then—and thereby produce rather drew upon those developed for other what would hopefully be a more enlightened rab­ Israeli mourning events is not to denigrate either binate for the country. The fact that the kollel the rituals or the seriousness of the young people. had, in part, moved to the right and that within What is significant is that there has developed it there were a small group of extreme right-wing in Israel a rather secularized set of rituals that are students who succeeded in tarring the whole Daniel Elazar, the informed with a religious spirit but are not much enterprise and the university that hosted it is a founder and president of part of traditional Judaism, nor are they identi­ tragedy for Israel in its own right. the Jerusalem Center for fied with any kind of organized non-traditional The witch-hunt went beyond Bar-Ilan, however. Public Affairs, is the Judaism. This phenomenon holds interesting In the first week or two, religious people were author of over 50 books and important possibilites for Israel's future. All assaulted at least verbally for being religious. and publications on the this was intensified by the response of the world On a more positive note, seldom noticed: American Jewish commu­ and its leaders. The outpouring of personalities Israel's governmental system continued to func­ nity and Israel, showed Israelis that if they saw Rabin with his lim­ tion smoothly. In true democratic style, Israelis itations, his colleagues in other countries saw him in responsible positions simply picked up the as a good captain. pieces and continued. Shimon Peres immedi­ Next: the soul-searching and recriminations. ately became Acting Prime Minister. Binyamin The first occurred in various sectors of the Israeli Netanyahu, leader of the chief opposition party', population but it did not go very deep. The ones the Likud, announced with equal rapidity that who seemed to be most engaged in it after the first Likud would support Peres's bid formally to week or two were the moderate Religious Zionists, become prime minister on the grounds that no those who had provided the votes for the Meimad other party should profit from the assassination. party in 1988 and who generally supported the Peres, in an effort to bridge the gap between peace camp but who were a distincdy small minor­ religious and secular Jews, appointed to his cab­ ity among Religious Zionists. They and their col­ inet as a minister without portfolio the leader of leagues are the ones who provide the dominant Meimad, Rabbi Yehuda Amital, a prominent fig­ spirit at Bar-Ilan University; they have helped build ure in the yeshiva world with clearly moderate it into a bridging institution between religious and views. Peres also began discussions with the secular Jews and have given it the deserved repu­ National Religious Party and the ultra-Orthodox parties either to bring them into the governing that led to the assassination. Secondly, when Peres coalition or at least to get them formally to sup­ opened up discussions between the governing port the government. Encouraged by Peres's coalition and the religious camp, this left the reaching out to them, the religious parties Likud more or less isolated. backpedaled from their nationalistic rhetoric of Before Rabin's assassination, Netanyahu had the past few years to begin to move back to not caught on as a viable alternative to the prime defending the religious concerns which had minister, although his party looked as if it would been primary to them in the past, such as reli­ gain a majority in the Knesset. Under the new gious domestic education and maintenance of provisions for direct election of the prime minis­ religious standards in the public square.. ter, the Knesset majority would no longer deter­ In addition, Peres now refers to the 'Jewish res­ mine who would be prime minister, however. idents of the West Bank," rather than to the "set­ Who knows what awaits us between now and the tlers." Whether there have been longer-term election, but it is the Likud that has to come changes in Israeli politics will not be known for from behind. some time, until at least after the next Knesset The Palestinians are, in general, minding their elections, planned for October 1996. For now, Ps and Qs. There have been some incidents but however, the Dkud is in retreat on all fronts. This the Palestinian Authority's reactions have been is partly because during the witch-hunting days in swift and at least reasonably satisfying. It seems the immediate aftermath of the assassination, clear that, at least until they get their territories Labor party polemicists led by Leah Rabin, the back, Arafat and his supporters will try to keep prime minister's widow, attacked the Likud and within the agreement. Will this lead to continu­ Netanyahu, its leader, for fomenting the violence ing peace? Many of us are a bit more optimistic.

In War of Words, Rabi n Gave as Good as He Got

ight and left, when applied to Israeli probably half of those vote for religious parties politics, have entirely different mean­ with limited interest in security/peace issues. The ings than in the United States. overwhelming majority of the voters for Likud Americans often think that Labor are traditional (i.e., follow some but not most of Rbeing on the left is similar to the American the requirements of Jewish law) or secular Jews. Democratic party or perhaps a little further out; As a result, except for being more sympathetic to Likud, being on the right is supposedly akin to Jewish tradition, Likud is as secular as Labor. the American Republican party or perhaps a lit­ The media have also been filled with stories tle more extreme. about the extreme attacks on Rabin and others However, the differences between Labor and on the left for being "traitors" and the like. (See Dkud, left and right, have nothing to do with what MOMENT, "Israel's Uncivil Wars," December divides Democrats and Republicans in this coun­ 1995). Unfortunate as it may be, Israeli politi­ Bruce Terris, a resident try. Labor and Likud do not disagree over the bud­ cians and the general public have long engaged of Jerusalem since 1984, get, taxes, welfare, health, the environment or any in rhetoric more extreme than what is tolerated is a partner in the Washington-based public other domestic issues. Labor and Likud are divid­ in the United States. Leftist supporters repeatedly interest law firm Terris, ed over one issue: how to achieve both security and termed Begin, Sharon and other Likud leaders Pravlik & Wagner. He peace. Someone believing in more programs for "murderers" during the Lebanese War. And was the chairman of the the poor might well be a member of Likud and today, since the assassination, leftists have sav­ Democratic Party in the someone favoring lower taxes for the wealthy a agely denounced Likud. District of Columbiafrom member of Labor. Indeed, Labor draws consider­ Rabin himself gave as good as he got. He com­ 1968 to 1972. ably more support than Likud from the wealthy. pared his rightist critics to Hamas because, he On the other hand, Dkud has a substantial major­ said, they equally were trying to undermine the ity of poor and lower-middle class voters. Despite prospects for peace. At a public meeting a few being a life-long liberal Democrat in the United weeks before his death, Rabin told a critic who States, I have had no trouble voting for Likud in had been an Israeli citizen for years to go back to Israel since becoming a citizen in 1984. the United States. He made clear to the residents The American media's focus on Orthodox of the West Bank—who had been encouraged to Jews, because of the religious views of Rabin's settle there by both Labor and Likud govern­ murderer, has also given a distorted impression. ments, including governments led by Rabin him­ Most of the opponents of Labor's peace process self—that he had little concern for their safety are not Orthodox. Only about 15 percent of and that they were obstacles to peace. In sharp Israel'sjews practice Orthodox Judaism and continued on p. 93 Rabin ly voted against the left in the 1992 all, just as the left had the legal right to continued from page 39 elections. Rabin took office only continue its unpopular program with a becattse of Arab votes. However, since one-vote majority, the right equally had contrast, the President of Israel, Ezer Rabin stated that Labor could not gov­ the legal right to denounce both the Weizman, who is far more a dove than ern without having ajewish majority, it program and its proponents. Rabin ever was, made a concerted effort enticed a small religious party, Shas, to Labor can hardly complain that the to meet with and reassure Israelis living join the leftist coalition with promises right took its opposition to the streets. in the settlements that they would be of cabinet positions and control over The left did exactly the same thing heard. the large sums of money paid by the during the Lebanese War. It held mas­ While reprehensible as Israeli political government to religious institutions. As sive demonstrations that were often rhetoric often is, Americans should put a result, Shas, which had campaigned accompanied by extremist attacks on it in context. Even in the United States, on the basis of a flat promise to its vot­ the government. As a result, it forced during the Vietnam War, American pro­ ers to support Likud no matter what, the government to withdraw from testors viciously criticized Presidents joined Labor. Subsequently, Shas left most of Lebanon, despite the govern­ Johnson and Nixon and other support­ the coalition for a variety of reasons, ment's legal power to continue the ers of the war. Extreme opponents of the including that its voters overwhelm­ occupation. war engaged in violence. However, the ingly opposed Rabin's policies regard­ The American media are filled with American public distinguished between ing the West Bank. As a result, the news stories and editorials that assume responsible and extremist opponents. Knesset's approval of the Oslo II agree­ Rabin's peace process will lead to Few people blamed George McGovem ment was by only a single vote and was peace. Israelis—a substantial minority if for the Weathermen. squarely based on Arab parties. not a majority—don't make that The strife in Israel raises another, Indeed, a majority of Israelis assumption. They think that Rabin's fundamental issue concerning the right opposed Rabin's policies. The polls peace process (which they regard as a of a government in a democracy to before his death showed that while the plan for peace at virtually any cost) can make decisions of enormous impor­ public strongly supported a "peace lead to war just as much as the propos­ tance based on the slimmest of majori­ process," it opposed the largely unilat­ als of those who are blind to the oppor­ ties. It is no secret in Israel that the eral concessions of the Rabin govern­ tunities for peace. Labor Party would have preferred to ment. Yet Rabin and his government Americans had much the same views have Shimon Peres as its candidate in pressed on, defying the majority will, in when American interests were at stake. 1992 for prime minister. However, it the conviction that they knew what was In the 1972 election, Americans over­ knew that his dovish positions would best for Israel. whelmingly chose Richard Nixon over have been fatal to Labor's chances for Of course, as a legal matter, the gov­ the peace candidate, George victory. Therefore, Labor chose Yitzhak ernment had the power to enter the McGovern. When Americans did so, Rabin, the tough-talking former gener­ Oslo I and II agreements. But democ­ they were not rejecting peace. They al. While Rabin and the Labor platform ratic governments that exercise their merely were deciding that peace was promised to pursue peace negotiations legal power on vital issues contrary to more likely through a strong foreign vigorously with the surrounding Arab the will of the majority or even a sub­ and defense policy than through a pol­ countries, they gave no indication that stantial minority endanger the very sta­ icy perceived as weak. Labor would negotiate with the arch- bility of their countries. Vietnam is a fair Israel's future demands that left and terrorist Yassir Arafat and his PLO or comparison. The turmoil and hatred right, secular and religious, reach some that he was prepared to allow the PLO resulting from that unpopular war has reasonable measure of accommodation. to arm thousands of former terrorists deeply affected the American political This means several things: on the West Bank. Rabin went to the system ever since. First, every Israeli must examine his Golan Heights and explicidy promised The effect of the Oslo I and II agree­ or her own conscience. Virtually all of the largely Labor supporters who live ments has been even more serious in us bear some responsibility for the mur­ there that Israel would never leave it. Israel. Important as the Vietnam War der. The religious Zionist community Thus, the Israeli public went to the was in the United States, it pales in com­ has already begun the process of self- polls in 1992 without the slightest indi­ parison to the issue of the territories criticism. The secular right can hardly cation that they were voting for the pro­ (and the Golan) to Israel. These issues avoid self- examination in light of gram Rabin has been pursuing since involve the very existence of the coun­ attacks being made on it. However, has 1993. Indeed, a new party, the Third try. To most Israelis, this is the issue, vir­ the left accepted any responsibility? Is it Way, is in the process of formation, tually the only issue, in public life. willing to admit that it too has engaged composed largely of Labor leaders and Well before Rabin's assassination, in savage criticism of its opponents and supporters, including at least two and one could sense that the stability of the has virtually ignored the views of maybe four members of khe Knesset, country was in danger. It is easy to approximately half its fellow citizens? which opposes withdrawal from the blame the right for this. The right after Second, the left must stop blaming Golan, as well as the extent of the con­ all was holding the demonstrations, Likud for Rabin's death. While this may cessions on the West Bank. putting up the signs, making the attacks. be clever politics, it is terrible govern­ Even though Rabin himself enjoyed But was the right supposed to sit idle, ment. It is bad enough that Israel is split great personal popularity, careful while the government, with its one vote over the peace process. Using Rabin's unalysis of the election results demon­ majority, continued to make one con­ death to bludgeon political parties that strates that the majority ofjews actual­ cession after another to the PLO"' After continued on page 103 Rabin faster and then forcing the proposals through the Knesset based on a very New and Noteworthy continued from page 93 small majority. The substantive position Down-To-Earth Judaism: represent half of the public can only would probably be close to that of the Food, Money, Sex and the undermine Israel's political stability Third Way, which, as its name implies, is Rest of Life even more. centrist on these issues—a probable will­ Arthur Waskow The left must also stop blaming the ingness to make some territorial conces­ Illustrated with papercuts by Judith Hankin religious. Kippa- and skirt-wearing sions on the Golan but retaining most of New York: VWam Morrow and Compaiy, he., 1995.402 pp., S25. young people are being accosted on the it; giving up some smaller settlements streets as "murderers." It is hard to imag­ but retaining the major groups ofjewish Waskow invites his readers into a wide- ine anything that is more likely to tear settlements, a defense line along the ranging conversation about everyday mat­ the country apart. The wide division Jordan River and some other areas that ters—eating, working, mating and pausing between the secular and religious has are important for security; and no con­ for renewal—and about the connections long been a dangerous one. It now is far cessions on Jerusalem, except perhaps between them. The conversation includes more threatening. for some limited neighborhood powers voices from the Biblical, Rabbinic and Third, a consensus must be developed both in Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Modern eras. Waskow would have us join behind any program for peace. While Finally, the consensus must be built in the "spiral dance" by which Jews go back into their past to make a new future. the true believers on the left may think on the basis of hard-headed analysis of Because women's experience has so long that they incontrovertibly know what is what is in Israel's interest. Neither the been absent from, or on the edges of, the best, the country is not so sure. And country as a whole nor its individual cit­ historical conversation, special effort is Israel's friends in the United States izens should base their positions on cre­ made to include it here. Concrete and should be encouraging this kind of ating a memorial to Rabin. The murder speculative, learned and personal, political peace process, rather than urging Israel has not changed the issues. Labor's poli­ and spiritual, Down-to-Earth Judaism to continue to take actions that large seg­ cies are neither more nor less likely to acknowledges the tensions, contradictions ments of the public strenuously oppose. lead to peace and security today than and creative possibilities in the space Likud candidates may have their own before Rabin's death. The only proper between the tradition and the ways many ideas, but a fairly broad consensus could memorial is for Israel to work toward a of us "really" live daily. We are urged not be built by Labor if it acted far more broad public consensus for a program only to go and study, but to go and do, slowly and in consultation with others, that serves both of its vital interests— seeking passionate knowledge that can rather than trying to move faster and peace and security. ® lead to transformative action in all the spheres of our lives and of our world. —Elaine Reuben

Jewish Short Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond Directed by Joan Micklin Silver South Hadley, Massachusetts: The National Yiddish Book Center, 1995, nine audiocassette tapes, $80 plus $5 shipping and handling, 1-800-535-3595.

Leonard Nimoy hosts this stunning collec­ tion of readings of classic Jewish short stories, directed by Joan Micklin Silver and first broadcast on National Public Radio. The selections lean heavily toward Old World masters like Isaac Babel, 11. Peretz, and Sholom Aleichem (translated from Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew), but American writers like Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick and Grace Paley are represented by some of their best-known stories. The readers are a constellation of film and tele­ vision stars, including Walter Matthau, Elliot Gould, Carol Kane, Alan King and Alan Alda. All are fine, and a few are sublime. Rhea Perlman ("Carla" on Cheers) was born to read Grace Paley's mordant New York stories, and Lauren Bacall delivers an understated but devastating interpretation of Isaiah Spiegel's "A Ghetto Dog." —A.S-C.