Of states and peoplehood

    My teacher at the Shalom Hartman Institute asked us to consider the implications of statehood for the Jewish people. This is no surprise at an institute founded by a rabbi who claims that Israel changes everything. The irony is that in the same week I was asked to write about these considerations, I have traveled to Bethlehem to meet with Palestinians, I was told by my wife that she is constantly confronted by people who say I find no good in Israel, and my American vice president was seriously disrespected during his visit to the country. So where does one begin?
    I think there are assumptions behind this question that need to be unpacked. Jewish peoplehood is a touchy issue. Lots of greater minds have written about it. I can only skim the surface.     One question that comes to mind is “how is peoplehood established?” Once in Sarayevo, I heard Benjamin Barber, a professor emeritus from Rutgers University, describe a difference between ascribed and assumed identities. I understand him through two stories. One is a small piece of Jewish learning that says that Abraham didn’t receive the Torah from God because he didn’t have a people to lead. The second story is in the first chapter of Exodus when Pharaoh decides that Egypt is threatened by this growing nation; the children of Israel. Pharaoh is the first person to call us a nation, Am in Hebrew (no, I don‘t think Pharaoh spoke Hebrew).
    For Barber, Abraham may have had an assumed identity as one commanded by the sole God of humanity, but it wasn’t a national identity. Likewise, the children of Israel, forced into slavery by the Egyptians, were victims of the ascribed identity given to them by Pharaoh. He thought they would rise up against Egypt. Little did they know that we can barely do anything as a collective except quarrel. The implications of the these contradictory yet coexisting notions of identity have great implications for the Jewish people. One might ask, “Are we a people because we have a common set of values
?” Or, “Are we a people because we have been treated as one for millennia?” Both of these questions are oversimplifications of Jewish peoplehood. Clearly, we are not a people bound together by values. I could bring several proofs for this; my Buddhist cousin who does seder with my family or the behavior of committed and engaged Jewish community members, the extreme being Madoff. There are lots of examples and every Jew has her own.
    As for the way we have been treated, this is an extremely complex matter. Jews have a shared and collective memory. A great book about this is Zakhor by Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi#. Of course this is a myth, but it is the myth we live in. One might even say that it is the glue that binds our assumed identity. We are Jews because “Our father was a wandering Aramean.”
    I believe that memory has a great affect on human agency, and, kal vachomer, therefore, collective memory has an affect on collective agency. We Jews, sometimes, act as Jews upon the world and not as individuals. We do this because we imagine ourselves to have experienced everything Jews have experienced for ages. This is the result of ascribed identity affecting assumed identity. Part of the way we respond to the world is based on the way we perceive the way the world treats us. Think of the ramifications for the Jewish people and statehood. When we have a state, we have some tools previously unavailable to us as a collective. We have an army, police, laws and other social institutions. We have a government, a land and an official standing in the comity of nations. There are also some things that many nations have which we have not acquired for ourselves yet, particularly, a constitution and permanent borders.
    I proceed to unpack the inquiry of my teacher by looking at Jewish statehood through the lens of Barber’s dualism. The wise son asks, “Is Israel a Jewish state or a state of Jews?” and the wicked son, “What have you done by creating this country?” The innocent - though maybe the wisest - challenges us by simply questioning, “What is this?” And the one who doesn’t know how to ask will simply assume a different identity until he is reminded of his Jewishness by the ascribers of our negative attributes.
    Jews have lived without assuming the yoke of their Jewishness. The ascription of the identity is probably worse for these people. Heinrich Heine, the great German poet who converted from Judaism to Christianity, was quietly resting in his coffin, years after his death, when Hitler bothered to desecrate it during the mere 24 hours he spent in Paris after its fall. Clearly Jewish identity is something that can’t be completely removed, but we should ask if everything a Jew does is Jewish? When Sandy Koufax refused to pitch in the World Series on Yom Kippor, he was undoubtedly acting as a Jew. Ideally, that could also be said for wealthy Jewish philanthropists like George Soros, although I tend to believe that he would not ascribe his generosity strictly to his Jewishness.
    When Jews have a state of their own, is it fair to say that the ingenuity of Jewish Israeli citizens is a collective contribution of our people to the world? Most Jews would answer in the affirmative. I have loads of emails testifying to the collective contributions of individual Jews, even though I am not sure that Avram Hershko, a Hungarian born Israeli chemist (2004 Nobel winner), would say that his science is Jewish or necessarily a part of his living in Israel. Would it be fair to make the same claims about a non-Jewish Israeli citizen?
    “Is Israel a Jewish state or a state of Jews?” is not really that wise of a question, but neither is the wise son’s question on Passover. “What is this?” however, is brilliant?
    When the vice president of Israel’s greatest ally and financial backer comes to Israel as a guest hoping to reignite the peace process and is greeted with an announcement of 1600 new homes being built in East Jerusalem, we can describe this in many ways, but nobody would be so bold as to call it Hachnasat Orchim, the Jewish value of welcoming the guest. When I encounter Palestinians in Bethlehem deprived of basic human rights like freedom of movement or the right to visit their holy sites, I am quite certain that this is not a case of “veahavta lereehcha cmocha,” loving thy neighbor as thyself. But when I rebuke my fellow countrymen and leaders for our misbehavior as a state, I am quite certain that I am following the Jewish behavior prescribed in Leviticus, “Hocheach, Tocheach,” you shall surely rebuke your neighbor.
    The question that remains open for me is whether a state, which is a modern creation of humans, can embody all the characteristics of what we refer to when we speak of peoplehood? Is peoplehood something we use as a word for descriptive purposes but don’t dare try to reify as a concrete object, or is peoplehood something that exists and needs to be channeled properly to make its essence good? I don’t like states, but I find that they can be beneficial to my existence. My American passport can get me into any country in the world, even Cuba with some lubrication (I’ve been twice). States can also protect human freedoms in ways that universalism cannot. Some countries allow people of the same sex to get married. Some countries have free press and assembly. But states are still forms of authority, and authority can be used for good and bad purposes.
    Israel is a state that includes Jews who seek refuge from their oppressors, or who want to be here, some who came to be part of this huge Jewish enterprise and others who were simply born here and don’t have a Jewish identity as much as an Israeli identity. The addition of non-Jewish Israeli citizens and foreign workers may exacerbate the problems, but they are not the cause. Quite simply, it is not easy to imagine or bring proof for the existence of some moment in history when Jews had personal agency, lived democratically and functioned as a collective. The fact that we have a collective memory does not have clear implications for how we should build a collective future. Yes, our understanding of our ascribed identity and the victimization that has caused us leads us to acknowledge the need for a refuge state, a state of Jews. But what about a Jewish state?
    When David Hartman says that, “Israel changes everything,” he is absolutely correct, even though change is nothing new to our people. Having a state creates a new Judaism just like living during the Middle Ages or in a ghetto in Poland. The addition of sovereignty and a vehicle of collective agency, byproducts of statehood, accelerate the pace of change, and being part of the comity of nations limit’s the change, but Israel changes everything. There is a new dualism in the Jewish world. No longer are their just assumed Jews and ascribed Jews. Today we have Jews who are part of the biggest Jewish project in our history and those who are not. And the way to make the best of our existing reality, being a people with a country, is to find ways to collectively and righteously address our predicament.
    To this goal, I think that the idea of Israel education is a myopic term. Israel is a project of the Jewish people on the same level as Jewish community centers, synagogues and kosher restaurants. We need to assess the assets of our nation and find ways to work together to reap the benefits of these assets. The key is finding ways. At one time in our history, the mara dátra, the spiritual leader of a community, was a directive force in Jewish enclaves. Today, in a smaller, global village linked together by computer networks and extremely rapid forms of transportation, the conversation needs new rules. We need to develop a discourse literacy with guidelines that can help us continue the collective pursuit and discussion of what it means to be Jewish, and that conversation should not be limited to Israel education. Israel is a means, not an end for the Jewish project. As a refuge, it is a response to anti-Semitism. As a collective endeavor, it is only one, albeit the largest, Jewish enterprise. But if we want Judaism to succeed, I believe that it will require of us to examine our projects within the trajectory of Jewish history and not as an end in themselves. To do this, we will have to reflect hard on why we believe God gave us His Torah, and what was the purpose of promising this land to our ancestors. Most importantly, though, we must develop the skills and disciplines needed to have the conversation which is the constitutional part of our peoplehood. We must remember that the Torah is no longer in Heaven, and it is our task alone to extrapolate its meaning.