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I know that this an emotional topic for anyone who calls himself Jewish. My desire is to express my question without offending the masses, as thats not my intention. I ask purely from a place on intellectual honesty; emotionally, I feel I have a strong connection to Israel. However, if we look at it subjectively, what do we gain by having a formal state of Israel?
Im not advocating any left wing policies here. I sincerely believe that theres a reason the Ribbono shel Olam put us in Israel. But for the sake of argument, can anyone come up with a gain of the Jewish people accomplished by the State of Israel?
My thoughts first centered on safety. That it gives us the ability to protect ourselves. However, along with the State of Israel came enemies. Iran, Iraq, etc… weren’t necessarily hostile to Jews before Israel. I personally have a friend in Yeshiva who’s grandfather was a general in the Iraqi army and a confidant of Saddam Hussein. He claims that Hussein even renovated Ezra’s kever at his grandfather’s behest.
I next thought about definition. But if anything, the definition the State has given is a warped secular definition which has confused the masses as to what being Jewish really means. How many people put medinat Yisrael at the forefront of their idealism while actual halachik observance gets sifted to the back burner? And furthermore, the new pending laws to forcibly remove people from sitting and learning seems to be a direct testament to this mentality of misconstrued priorities.
Originally, Israel was a safe haven, a place to call home for a people decimated by the horrors of the Holocaust. But from a place of intellectual honesty, does it remain as such? Or is our whole defense of Israel come from an indoctrination from the previous generations? Is there a gain by it, or are we better off not having it?
Again, I just want to reiterate that Im coming from a place excluded from emotions. I sincerely wish I haven’t offended….
The fact remains that before the founding of the state of Israel, there were very few yeshivos in Palestine. They were only for the small population who lived there. There were tensions between the Jews and the Arabs living there (look at the Hebron Massacre in 1929, for example.)
Since the founding of the state of Israel, there has been a huge increase in the number of yeshivos there! Hundreds of thousands of people have learned there, thanks to the founding of the state. This would never have been allowed under the rule of Muslims.
Jews once again have full access to the Kotel to daven. Before the founding of the state, the kotel was surrounded by trash, with only a small, narrow path in front of it. Now, the Kotel gets the respect it deserves, and is safely accessible to all Jews. The same goes for many other holy places.
You can dismiss the safety it provides after the horrors of the Holocaust if you like. The fact remains that if such a thing were to happen again, Israel would be ready to help all the Jews it could.
Are there things I dislike about Israel? Sure. When I went on Birthright, someone (an Israeli) told our group, “I love Israel. Israel is a place where everyone can be proud to be a Jew!”
I don’t get that. My great-grandparents were very proud to be Jews in Europe, even as they were being led to the gas chambers. It’s no big deal to be proud to be a Jew in Israel. I’m proud to be a Jew living in the US! It’s a big deal to be proud to be a Jew when living among those who look down on you for it. I don’t need Israel to be proud!
Some interesting points/questions.
But with respect to Israel as a safe haven for victims of the Holocaust, I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as a safe haven during the next Holocaust. When the next Hitler comes to power wherever that may be, there is a country where a Jew can go live, by law. Is it perfect? Of course not.
There is a great gain from it, due to its effect on reducing intermarriage and increasing fertility among the Jewish people. If the chilonim who survived the Shoah had moved elsewhere, most of their grandchildren and great-grandchildren would have been non-Jewish. Because they moved to a majority-Jewish country instead, thousands, perhaps even millions of Jewish babies were born that would not have otherwise been born. This is a huge benefit.
Israel has also enabled a large dati and charedi birth rate through its welfare policies. One can’t be sure about these things, but it seems likely that the birth rate among religious Jews (particularly the MO but even potentially the charedim) would have been less if they had all come to America or Europe, where it is not as culturally supported to have large families.
To be sure, the secular Zionists created a secular Jewish identity through identification with the state, but I don’t think this has meant less observance than if the state hadn’t been created. Like I said above, the Jews emigrating elsewhere wouldn’t have even had Jewish offspring, so there would have been few left to be observant. Moreover, the average secular chiloni in Israel is actually more religious than many of the temple-going Reform types in America, since they avoid eating pork and shellfish, fast on Yom Kippur, and take off work for major Jewish holidays.
The government forcibly removing people from learning is a jaundiced way of looking at it. They’re simply enforcing (to a very limited extent) the universal draft on a community that was except from it for many decades, and when they are enlisted, they are given time for learning each day. If they succeed with these efforts, and charedim contribute more to the army and workforce, the chilonim will have a less negative imagine of the charedim and be more open to kiruv attempts.
What do we gain? We have an ally (that this president and his ilk are rapidly throwing away), which is our country’s one and only dependable friend in the Middle East, with no agenda for world dominance, no agenda for viciously terrorizing and killing people who are not Jews, with no desire to murder millions of innocents just to show they can, and who have generously shared their technological, security, and medical advances with the world, only to be rabidly bitten by the hands they have fed.
As for identity, for those who aren’t observant having a land is having a home base. Probably, most of those who identify as Jewish and aren’t observant, do so because of Israel. It also meant a lot to those stuck in the USSR.
The safety argument is that now there is an army. Another safety argument is that Hadar Be’eretz Yisroel Domeh Kemi Sheyesh Lo Elo’kah. There is a special Hashgacha in Eretz Yisroel — Tamid Einei Hashem Elokecha Bah…
I imagine you are asking about having it as an official state. The merits of being there is well known.
ask not what does israel do for us, but what can we do for israel.
Up until the last election, Israel was a tremendous supporter of learning Torah (even if it was done as part of a political deal rather than out of love of Torah). Israel also has been great for frum publishing (suggesting we should aspire to disband the IDF and give the money to Mossad ha-Rav Kuk and the other Torah publishing houses – we’ld all be better in the long run). If you are the equivalent of “modern orthodox”, its great for Yiddishkeit and having a secular career (America has hassles for “conservadox” or frummer, Israel only has hassles for those frummer than the kipad srugah crowd).
How much impact Israel would have had on the holocaust is questionable. If the British, French and Dutch empires (at the time huge, globe encircling empires upon whom the sun never set) couldn’t stop Hitler, its doubtful we could have made a difference. And a very good argument can be made that the reason the British blocked Jewish emmigration from Europe was to keep the zionists from going to Palestine (i.e. if the hareidim and De Haan had prevailed in making peace with the Arabs, there would not have been any attempts by the Brits to keep Jews from fleeing, and most European Jews would have ended up safely elsewhere, though only the fanatics would have preferred Eretz Yisrael). And in all fairness, American opposition to holocaust rescue was based on the fear that most Jews would be socialists and communists, and if not left wing radicals, they would be frum which to Reform Jews was just as bad (Reform Jews then were both very anti-socialist and anti-frum — and were politically the dominant group in the Jewish community, and led the opposition to holocaust rescue plans).
If you are really concerned about goyim trying to wipe out the Jews, you should favor having Jews widely distributed in many different countries, or perhaps should consider space exploration (something the Americans looked into to solve the “Jewish problem” – but not workable in the 1940s). As it now, nukes on Jerusalem and Bnei Brak would be devasting to the frum community. Of course you could trust Ha-Shem to protect us, but that would make you a hareidi fanatic.
The fact that we can board a plane and land a few hours later in Tel Aviv, doesn’t mean we should forget the people who were interned on Cyprus after surviving the concentration camps, for trying to make the same trip in far less comfortable circumstances.
Anyone old enough to remember standing at Shaar Mandelbaum, looking from a distance at a small part of the Kosel and not allowed to approach, or anyone who knows such a person, would not ask your question.
APY – GOOD answer!
I agree. Is there a lack of graves in Europe that they brought us to this desert to die? I remember the fish we used to eat for free in Europe. And we had all the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic we wanted. If only we had died in the land of Europe, or if only we might die in this wilderness! Why is the Lord taking us to that land to fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be carried off! It would be better for us to go back to Europe! Let us head back for Europe.
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