By Rabbi Dow Marmur
JERUSALEM–Fifty years ago Adolf Eichmann was on trial in Jerusalem. The proceedings took place in a building which today is the Gerard Behar Center.Monday night several hundred mostly young Israelis came together in the same place, not to commemorate the trial but, as one of the speakers put it dramatically, to try to erase Eichmann from our own hearts and minds. I was there among the few old people present.
The occasion was a meeting sponsored by an alliance of 16 groups across the religious and political centre-left spectrum to express dismay at the growing racism in Israeli society, most recently – but by no means only – reflected in a declaration by fifty communal rabbis urging Jews not to rent or sell property to non-Jews; of course, they meant Arabs. Instead of teaching Jewish values and promoting respectful coexistence among all citizens, this was their way of telling us to keep Israel Jewish at all cost.
Of the four speakers two were rabbis, one brilliant and popular modern Orthodox, the other a very impressive woman graduate of the Israeli Conservative programme. Both argued persuasively that racism is against everything Judaism stands for, including Jewish law on behalf of which the fifty spoke. The two demonstrated how racism is also contrary to Zionism, something that even the less than friendly United Nations finally came to accept. Nationalism at its best never excludes others when it promotes its own.
Even more poignantly and echoing the Eichmann reference, the speakers pointed to the sacred duty of Jews not to do unto others what had been done to our people in the Diaspora. They reflected on the bitter irony of Jews imitating their tormentors now when they have a state of their own, ostensibly as a way of keeping it Jewish. Some articulated the shame this has brought on our people and our faith.
But it was also suggested that, despite the indignation in the room and in much of the media, the fifty may have spoken for many ordinary Jewish Israelis who hold racist and fascist views stemming from that lethal mixture of ideology, ignorance and low morale. It’s this that so rightly worries the sponsoring organizations.
And it’s by no means clear how to combat the evil. Some advocate political action, but the thought of yet another political party in Israel is most alarming. There’re enough of those as it is. Their machinations leave too many well meaning voters disillusioned and determined to stay in their own private realm where they practice yoga and meditation, bitch to friends and family about the state of the world and do nothing about it or settle for having as good a time as possible under the circumstances.
One speaker had a more radical solution: a return to the kind of social democracy that sought equality and shunned exploitation that was characteristic of the ambitions of the founders of the state. But that, too, isn’t likely to come about. Israel is different now – capitalist – and the clock can’t be turned back. Jews who dreamed to become like all other nations in their own state now realize that they have done so, for both good and bad.
Of course, democratic Israel can’t fight the intolerance of the growing haredi minority to which the fifty rabbis belong by discriminating against all ultra-Orthodox Jews, however irritating and menacing the intrusion of some into Israeli life may be.
So we’re left with demonstrations and fiery speeches: a great concern when facing yet another problem with no clear solution in sight. But the event also reminded me that progressive forces in Israel are alive and well. And that’s a source of great comfort.
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Marmur is rabbi emeritus of Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto. He divides his year between Canada and Israel