The Jewish state is having its fifty-fifth birthday. The very fact of its having survived this long, when it has been threatened by its neighbors every moment of that time, is the first mark of its success.
It is fair to say that no state in the modern world has suffered from threats and challenges to its existence so great and so continual as has Israel. It has been outnumbered on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena from before its very conception. More than twenty thousand Israelis have given their lives in the past fifty- five years so that this nation might live. And it is true to say that the continued existence of Israel has been possible only because of the extraordinary dedication and devotion of a remarkable group of people, many of whom made the supreme sacrifice for it.
This chapter in Jewish history, a chapter of Jewish heroism is something that must be looked upon with both appreciation and sadness. There is no cheshbon nefesh (accounting) of Israel that can be made without taking into account the suffering and sacrifices of so many individuals and families, sufferings and sacrifices that continue to this very day.
So it might be said that on the negative side of the ledger is the fact that in fifty-five years of its existence Israel still has not won the acceptance of its neighbors, a peaceful place in its own area. There are those who want to blame Israel for this, but I believe that any fair-minded historical observer would say that from even the time before its conception Israel held out a hand of compromise and peace to its neighbors. Israel has in fact gone farther than any other country I know of in its generosity toward those it has defeated in battle. The most recent offer of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which to many of us was generous to the point of being suicidal, was nonetheless rejected by our Arab neighbors. And the truth is that today, even a quarter of a century after our formal peace with the largest Arab state, Egypt, we still do not have real psychological acceptance within the Arab world. In fact, there has been a worsening and extension in the hate campaign against Israel and the Jewish people in the past two and one half years. And it is fair to say that the ?cold peace? with Egypt and Jordan is also marred by anti- Semitic educational systems, by an inability to see us as partners in building the Middle East.
In this sense, there have been times in Israel when the situation seemed more hopeful, especially in the first days of our peace with Egypt. And there were times too, especially immediately after the Sinai campaign of 1956, and the June 1967 war, when Israel appeared to itself, it turns out somewhat mistakenly, as militarily invulnerable. Today, despite all our achievements in the realm of security, we still are threatened, most especially by non- conventional weapons being developed at various places throughout the Arab, and perhaps the Islamic, world.
On the other hand, the general opinion among military experts is that the gap between Israel and any combination of Arab forces has widened considerably. And that Israel has, in the past two and one half years, conducted a by-and-large successful campaign against Palestinian terror. There are those who see Israel today in terms of the conventional military balance (and especially with the fall of Iraq and the Eastern front) as more solidly secure than ever before.
Israel?s internal successes and problems are also very great. The absorption of more than two and one half million new immigrants in fifty?five years is overall a great human success story. Israel has done for the survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust), for those made refugees from Arab lands, for those from the former Soviet Union, what the Arab world has refused to do for its own people. It has absorbed them and given them opportunities to make new lives. And again, on the whole, economically and socially, Israel has gone from its beginnings as an extremely indigent country to being if not in the very first rank, then nonetheless among the developed, prosperous nations of the world. This, though there alarmingly remain great gaps in income between various sectors of the population and an increasing trend toward greater inequality, toward the development of a multi-generational lower class in the country.
The dream of a socialist paradise , of a land of equality, has not been realized. So, too, the dream that Israel would be in social justice conspicuously different from all other nations in the world. One of the most disappointing and painful developments in the Jewish state is the presence of that kind of criminality and violence that plagues almost all societies of the world. Surely, the degree of violence, even on a verbal level, the lack in many ways of basic derech eretz in everyday human relations is one of the great problems and shortcomings of the society today.
The return to the Promised Land, the building of the Jewish state, was inspired and fortified by the Biblical vision of a redeemed land in which Justice was at the center. The very ?ordinariness? of Israel, the prevalence of so much of what is wrong and sinful in human relations is a rebuke to the mandate given the Jewish people in the land. The Biblical demand is for the Jewish people to walk in the ways of God, to be a moral and ethical light to the nations. Without this, our meaning and justification for being here loses force. And there is, no doubt, a sense of decline in this dream from that intensity with which it was held by the great pioneering builders of the state. Though it might be said, as poor man?s consolation, that the overall system of justice in Israel is reasonably good, especially when compared with that of most other nations.
Israel has made great strides in certain areas of human development ? in agriculture, in areas of modern technology, medicine, communications, hi- tech. It has given to other nations in this regard, as well. Yet, the fact is that this technology also means that Israel is something it was never envisioned to be, the third largest supplier of arms in the world. Here, one can talk about one must be done to survive, but there nonetheless is a question and a bad moral aftertaste connected with this.
No nation has had as many problems, perhaps has as many problems as Israel. And few have shown as much ingenuity in solving them. One central such problem is the whole Jewish character of the state, especially as there is an ongoing decline in the size of the Jewish majority. Here, much needs to be done. And this is one great problem among others that threaten the society from within, and which must not simply be left to grow to the point where it forces a fundamental change in the society. Israel, which was founded as a Jewish state, will lose its meaning completely if it ceases to be one.
Yet, the Yishuv, which was slightly more than a half a million Jews in 1948, has become a state with five million Jews. And if it were not for the demographic race with the Arabs over occupation and possession of the land, this could, in one sense, be looked upon as an uncompromised success story. Still, the question might be raised as to the stewardship of the land during this time. The replanting and rebuilding is accompanied by ecological problems, which will require further investment and care in the future. The settling and building of the land, which in itself is the realization of a dream of many generations, has also created new problems and challenges.
On the whole, it might be said that many great and remarkable things have been done, and that the challenges presented to Israel in the future will require great dedication and ingenuity. Israel, the return of the Jews to sovereignty in their own land, the great ingathering of people from so many different nations, has been a dream realized. The challenges of the future are to keep the community of Israel alive and to work to realize those aspects of the Biblical and Jewish aspirations that we have been less-than-perfect in bringing into being.
But for this generation, the task is not to finish the work, but to make their own contribution to a process that will, with the help of God, continue to be realized for many generations to come.
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Shalom Freedman is a freelance writer in Jerusalem, whose work has appeared in a wide variety of Jewish publications.
It is fair to say that no state in the modern world has suffered from threats and challenges to its existence so great and so continual as has Israel. It has been outnumbered on the battlefield and in the diplomatic arena from before its very conception. More than twenty thousand Israelis have given their lives in the past fifty- five years so that this nation might live. And it is true to say that the continued existence of Israel has been possible only because of the extraordinary dedication and devotion of a remarkable group of people, many of whom made the supreme sacrifice for it.
This chapter in Jewish history, a chapter of Jewish heroism is something that must be looked upon with both appreciation and sadness. There is no cheshbon nefesh (accounting) of Israel that can be made without taking into account the suffering and sacrifices of so many individuals and families, sufferings and sacrifices that continue to this very day.
So it might be said that on the negative side of the ledger is the fact that in fifty-five years of its existence Israel still has not won the acceptance of its neighbors, a peaceful place in its own area. There are those who want to blame Israel for this, but I believe that any fair-minded historical observer would say that from even the time before its conception Israel held out a hand of compromise and peace to its neighbors. Israel has in fact gone farther than any other country I know of in its generosity toward those it has defeated in battle. The most recent offer of Prime Minister Ehud Barak, which to many of us was generous to the point of being suicidal, was nonetheless rejected by our Arab neighbors. And the truth is that today, even a quarter of a century after our formal peace with the largest Arab state, Egypt, we still do not have real psychological acceptance within the Arab world. In fact, there has been a worsening and extension in the hate campaign against Israel and the Jewish people in the past two and one half years. And it is fair to say that the ?cold peace? with Egypt and Jordan is also marred by anti- Semitic educational systems, by an inability to see us as partners in building the Middle East.
In this sense, there have been times in Israel when the situation seemed more hopeful, especially in the first days of our peace with Egypt. And there were times too, especially immediately after the Sinai campaign of 1956, and the June 1967 war, when Israel appeared to itself, it turns out somewhat mistakenly, as militarily invulnerable. Today, despite all our achievements in the realm of security, we still are threatened, most especially by non- conventional weapons being developed at various places throughout the Arab, and perhaps the Islamic, world.
On the other hand, the general opinion among military experts is that the gap between Israel and any combination of Arab forces has widened considerably. And that Israel has, in the past two and one half years, conducted a by-and-large successful campaign against Palestinian terror. There are those who see Israel today in terms of the conventional military balance (and especially with the fall of Iraq and the Eastern front) as more solidly secure than ever before.
Israel?s internal successes and problems are also very great. The absorption of more than two and one half million new immigrants in fifty?five years is overall a great human success story. Israel has done for the survivors of the Shoah (Holocaust), for those made refugees from Arab lands, for those from the former Soviet Union, what the Arab world has refused to do for its own people. It has absorbed them and given them opportunities to make new lives. And again, on the whole, economically and socially, Israel has gone from its beginnings as an extremely indigent country to being if not in the very first rank, then nonetheless among the developed, prosperous nations of the world. This, though there alarmingly remain great gaps in income between various sectors of the population and an increasing trend toward greater inequality, toward the development of a multi-generational lower class in the country.
The dream of a socialist paradise , of a land of equality, has not been realized. So, too, the dream that Israel would be in social justice conspicuously different from all other nations in the world. One of the most disappointing and painful developments in the Jewish state is the presence of that kind of criminality and violence that plagues almost all societies of the world. Surely, the degree of violence, even on a verbal level, the lack in many ways of basic derech eretz in everyday human relations is one of the great problems and shortcomings of the society today.
The return to the Promised Land, the building of the Jewish state, was inspired and fortified by the Biblical vision of a redeemed land in which Justice was at the center. The very ?ordinariness? of Israel, the prevalence of so much of what is wrong and sinful in human relations is a rebuke to the mandate given the Jewish people in the land. The Biblical demand is for the Jewish people to walk in the ways of God, to be a moral and ethical light to the nations. Without this, our meaning and justification for being here loses force. And there is, no doubt, a sense of decline in this dream from that intensity with which it was held by the great pioneering builders of the state. Though it might be said, as poor man?s consolation, that the overall system of justice in Israel is reasonably good, especially when compared with that of most other nations.
Israel has made great strides in certain areas of human development ? in agriculture, in areas of modern technology, medicine, communications, hi- tech. It has given to other nations in this regard, as well. Yet, the fact is that this technology also means that Israel is something it was never envisioned to be, the third largest supplier of arms in the world. Here, one can talk about one must be done to survive, but there nonetheless is a question and a bad moral aftertaste connected with this.
No nation has had as many problems, perhaps has as many problems as Israel. And few have shown as much ingenuity in solving them. One central such problem is the whole Jewish character of the state, especially as there is an ongoing decline in the size of the Jewish majority. Here, much needs to be done. And this is one great problem among others that threaten the society from within, and which must not simply be left to grow to the point where it forces a fundamental change in the society. Israel, which was founded as a Jewish state, will lose its meaning completely if it ceases to be one.
Yet, the Yishuv, which was slightly more than a half a million Jews in 1948, has become a state with five million Jews. And if it were not for the demographic race with the Arabs over occupation and possession of the land, this could, in one sense, be looked upon as an uncompromised success story. Still, the question might be raised as to the stewardship of the land during this time. The replanting and rebuilding is accompanied by ecological problems, which will require further investment and care in the future. The settling and building of the land, which in itself is the realization of a dream of many generations, has also created new problems and challenges.
On the whole, it might be said that many great and remarkable things have been done, and that the challenges presented to Israel in the future will require great dedication and ingenuity. Israel, the return of the Jews to sovereignty in their own land, the great ingathering of people from so many different nations, has been a dream realized. The challenges of the future are to keep the community of Israel alive and to work to realize those aspects of the Biblical and Jewish aspirations that we have been less-than-perfect in bringing into being.
But for this generation, the task is not to finish the work, but to make their own contribution to a process that will, with the help of God, continue to be realized for many generations to come.
-------------------------------------------------
Shalom Freedman is a freelance writer in Jerusalem, whose work has appeared in a wide variety of Jewish publications.