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(JTA) — This week marks Yom Haatzmaut, our beloved Israel’s seventy fifth birthday — the day on the Hebrew calendar when David Ben-Gurion proclaimed “the pure proper of the Jewish folks to be masters of their very own destiny” by establishing a Jewish state within the land of Israel. Along with numerous Jews world wide, we specific our gratitude to be alive at this second in historical past when the Jewish folks have sovereignty and a nation to name their very own.
However on this anniversary, Yom Haatzmaut’s particular prayers and festive afternoon barbecues fail to seize the fraught emotions many people are experiencing. Jews throughout the globe in all our totally different peculiarities and particularities — from all political orientations, spiritual and secular, progressive and conservative, for and in opposition to the judicial overhaul being proposed by the present authorities — are reeling.
The previous few months of horrible turmoil in Israel surrounding the judicial overhaul proposal have proven us how fragile our singular and treasured Jewish state is. Whereas Israel’s historical past is replete with cases when exterior forces threatened its folks, this second is exclusive in revealing inner threats to its democracy and social cohesion. We’ve seen poisonous hatred rising amongst Israeli Jews, with fears of a civil battle at an all-time excessive.
How, then, are we presupposed to rejoice Israel on its seventy fifth birthday?
The reply to this query lies on the coronary heart of Jewish historical past and divulges that now’s the second for a brand new Zionist revolution led by each Israeli and Diaspora Jews.
Zionism was by no means nearly establishing a Jewish state. It was about defying Jewish historical past. In 1948, when Ben-Gurion and his fellow Zionist leaders declared Israeli independence, it was nothing lower than a radical assault on diasporic Jewish historical past. It defied the 1000’s of years of Jews being a minority in different nations, topic to the whims and caprice of different rulers. It defied the picture of the weak and defenseless Jew. It even defied Jewish custom itself, which for hundreds of years was understood by a lot of its adherents to demand passivity by Jews as they waited for divine deliverance.
For 2 millennia, Jewish existence was one among vulnerability and victimhood — most frequently both hiding who we’re or struggling for it. The Zionism of 1948 defied diasporic Jewish historical past by giving Jews energy, self-determination and sovereignty to reply to exterior threats and set up a Jewish state.
Understandably, many of the work of early Zionism was centered on mere survival — establishing a state, offering secure refuge to the hundreds of thousands of Jews fleeing inhospitable lands and contending with enemy nations sworn to destroy the brand new nation. It succeeded past any of the wildest imaginations of its founders. The primary 75 years of Israel, by which it has turn out to be a robust and thriving state, are a testomony to the success of Zionism in defying diasporic Jewish historical past.
However the subsequent 75 years of Zionism current and impose on us a special process: To be Zionists in the present day means we should defy a special chapter of Jewish historical past — one which is likely to be referred to as sovereign Jewish historical past.
Historians and educators have identified a critically vital sample within the historical past of Jewish self-rule. There are two pre-modern eras by which the Jewish nation loved sovereignty within the land of Israel: on the finish of the eleventh century BCE with the Davidic Kingdom and the primary Temple in Jerusalem, and in 140 BCE when the Hasmonean dynasty reestablished Jewish independence in Judea. However as every approached their 75th yr of existence, every began to disintegrate due to inner strife and infighting. The Davidic reign over a united Israel successfully ended when it was break up into the 2 competing kingdoms of Judea and Israel. The Hasmonean kingdom started to disintegrate resulting from infighting between the sons of Alexander and Shlomtzion, the rulers of Judea within the first century BCE.
Sovereign Jewish historical past tells us that at across the 75th yr, experiments in Jewish self-determination confronted essentially the most harmful menace of all: self-destruction.
On its 75th birthday, Israel and its supporters face the interior tensions of sovereignty: What does it imply for Israel to be each a Jewish and democratic state and a house to all its residents? How can Israel be each at dwelling within the Center East whereas modeled on Western democracies? How ought to its leaders steadiness majority Jewish tradition with minority rights?
The considerations of the previous Zionism actually nonetheless exist: the way to pursue peace whilst Jewish vulnerability and security proceed to be threatened. However they tackle a brand new character this present day, forcing us to ask how we will handle and embrace conflicting visions of Jewishness and Israeliness whereas nurturing social solidarity and cooperation throughout deep and painful divides.
This Yom Haatzmaut comes at a second of rupture. However the present disaster in Israel represents a possibility – a second for our era to make sure this rupture defies the sample of sovereign Jewish historical past. The generations earlier than us proved that we will rewrite diasporic historical past, turning a story of vulnerability and weak point into one among power and energy. Our era and those who comply with should likewise defy sovereign Jewish historical past and show that we will defend our Jewish state from the interior threats it faces. Our era’s process is to beat our divisions and never let fraternal hatred destroy our shared dwelling.
On this 75th birthday, then, allow us to be taught from our previous and look ahead towards a brand new future. Allow us to proceed to rejoice the unimaginable success by writing a brand new chapter within the magnificent story of Israel and Zionism.
is the Rosh Kehillah of the Downtown Minyan, scholar in residence on the Shalom Hartman Institute and a sociologist of American Jews.
is the Koret Visiting Assistant Professor of Jewish Legislation and Israel Research at UC Berkeley Faculty of Legislation, scholar in residence for the Shalom Hartman Institute and a scholar of Israeli legislation and society.
The views and opinions expressed on this article are these of the writer and don’t essentially replicate the views of JTA or its guardian firm, 70 Faces Media.
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