Aug. 22, 2009
It’s not even over, but we can already begin to imagine how we’ll remember the summer of 2009. Haredi residents of Mea She’arim unleashed violent demonstrations when Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat dared to open a parking lot on Shabbat to relieve unbearable congestion. A few weeks later, Jerusalem neighborhoods were once again filled with smoke from burning trash bins, and this time, municipal workers were attacked, because an apparently deliberately starved baby was removed from his haredi mother’s care.
The mayor responded by withholding city services from Mea She’arim, saying (correctly) that he had an obligation to protect the city’s workers. A director of Hadassah University Medical Center, where the baby was treated, was then threatened and had to be assigned bodyguards. The battle lines were drawn.
In Ramat Bet Shemesh, a small band of anti-Zionist, ultra-religious fanatics continued to terrorize other residents for outrageous behaviors like owning a television set. But though the campaign of terror was months old, the authorities still seemed disinclined to intervene. Elsewhere, when a massive gay-lesbian rally was planned in Tel Aviv to protest the murder of two youths in a support center, a 20-year-old soldier from a Nahal Haredi unit was arrested for sending a threatening e-mail, promising the gay community that the next attack would be even deadlier.
His remand was extended, but our memories were not.
THIS IS Israel, and a few days later, we’d all forgotten about him. Indeed, mostly forgotten about all these instances. “They’re a bit extreme,” we tell ourselves. We can muddle through this, too. After all, when you consider that we have Barack Obama, Iran, Gilad Schalit, the economy, swine flu and a few other matters on our plate, how much do burning trash bins really matter? They want to turn their own neighborhoods into a war zone – can we really be bothered?
I suggest that we allow ourselves to be bothered, deeply bothered.
A brief reminder of some American history. Israel, as we all know, is 61 years post-independence. The US was the same age in 1837. That year, Martin van Buren was inaugurated as the eighth president of the United States. Michigan became a state of the union. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales became a best-seller. Horace Mann introduced his educational reforms in Massachusetts, American Presbyterians split into the “new” and “old” schools and Samuel Morse exhibited his electric telegraph at the College of the City of New York.
The parallels to Israel are striking. A functioning political system was in place. The country did not yet have permanent borders. Educational reform was desperately needed. America was a deeply religious, and religiously fractious, country. There was cultural excellence and technological innovation.
Not bad for a country only 61 years old.
But in 1837, 61 years after American independence, Congress was also operating under the recently passed “Gag Law,” designed to stifle congressional debate on slavery. Those who favored the Gag Law hoped to conduct the business of state as usual, without undue attention to that nagging problem of enslavement. Yes, most people understood that there was a deep and dangerous fault line running through American society with radically different conceptions of the kind of society American ought to become, and no, no one knew how to resolve it. What the authors of the Gag Law believed, however, was that what mattered most was conducting business as usual and putting off the slavery debate. They did not want Congress discussing slavery (because many of them supported it), and they wanted to spend their time working on seemingly more pressing and immediate matters.
We Israelis, of course, have no need for a Gag Law. No legislation is required to get us to ignore the massive fault lines running just underneath the surface of our society. We have radically different conceptions of what the permanent borders of this country should be, but no national conversation on the subject. Nor is there meaningful public discourse about how to manage the cooling relations between Israel and its historically most trusted ally. And though everyone knows that we have at least two major populations who do not share a commitment to Israel being both Jewish and democratic, with the exception of a foolish and ill-fated demand for loyalty oaths, no one is terribly inclined to take the issue on.
LET US return to America in 1837. On the surface, despite the rumblings of slavery discussions, America was thriving. But in 1837, the US was only 24 years away from its Civil War. The fault lines would erupt, threatening the very survival of the country that had once hoped to ignore them. Somewhere between 600,000 and 700,000 soldiers would die in the war; brothers would fight on opposite sides, sometimes killing each other. The war would rip the country asunder, and were it not for a leader of the likes of Abraham Lincoln, the US as we know it might not have survived.
With Lincoln, America elected a leader with a vision for the country and with the courage to fight for that vision. He knew that the price might be horrific. It is clear from his writings that he did not relish the bloodletting that preserving the union would require. But he stood fast. There are times, he understood, that one must be willing to say to large blocks of one’s citizens that their vision of the country is not ours, and that we will fight them – economically at first, then using force if we have to – to ensure that the democracy we envision survives, no matter what.
But those were different days. Some people in America knew what kind of a country they wanted and debated the issue fiercely. America wasn’t exhausted by seven decades of war. And perhaps most distressing, there’s no Abraham Lincoln anywhere on our horizons.
Email
Print
Tags: America, culture, Israel, War
Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center, where he is also a senior fellow. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents in Israel...
The Jewish State must end, say its enemies, from intellectuals like Tony Judt to hate-filled demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even average Israelis are wondering if they wouldn't be better off somewhere else. 
Very interesting & sobering. The only bit of hopefulness might be that in 1837, Lincoln was not “on the horizon.” He barely was, in the sense you mean, even when he was elected in 1860.
Dr. Gordis,
Your thoughtful analogy of the division in American society that led to the Civil War infers that the most dangerous conflict confronting Israeli society today is the present strife between religious and secular Jews.
The ultra-orthodox who are demonstrating against opening the parking lot in Jerusalem on Shabbat and those harassing secular residents of Beit Shemesh and the gay community undoubtedly pose a threat to the unity of Israeli society and to democratic values. However, the conflict between the settlement movement and the rest of Israeli society has the potential of being far more destructive and dangerous to Israel from both within and without, and it is far more militant, and powerful. Worse still, the government condones it.
The settlement enterprise does not only usurp valuable money, manpower, and resources of the army and the government. Capitulation to its fanatic ideology holds the peace process hostage, gives legitimacy to violence and lawlessness that has stained the fabric of our society. The continued construction in the West Bank and settler lawlessness provides a strong tailwind to the agendas of fundamentalists such as Hamas and Hezbollah, who use the excuse of continuous settlement expansion for their aggression. The threat they present and the fear generated by it was nurtured by Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman and the Israeli people chose the false security of fortress mentality.
It is my opinion that the war we have not yet had the courage to fight is to combat the settlement enterprise and the occupation that are destroying us from within. If we succeed in doing that we will have the strength to deal with our internal differences between secular and religious.
Your comparison with US history starts with the premise that Israel is only 60 years old. In truth the Jewish State in Eretz Yisrael is 3,000 years old. In failing to recognize that, you highlight a divide within Israeli society that is even deeper and more significant than the religious/secular divide. There are Jews living in Israel who identify themselves primarily as Israelis, as citizens of a democratic country, just as a German or an American would. Then there are those who view themselves primarily as Jews and only secondarily as Israelis. According to the pollsters, most of the Jewish citizens of Israel are in the 2nd category, but the apparatus of the state is in the hands of first group, and that’s where the real conflict lies.
Hevra:
Gordis compares Israel today with Lincoln administration during the civil war. I suspect that he is the only person who understands the comparison. There are many people in these United States who still do not understand the Lincoln administration. The title raises the issue of a final fight between secular and haredi citizens. I suspect that the government will put this issue on the back burner. Having read Rabbi Riskin last week it is possible to conceive an alliance that will outnumber the haredi and solve the problems. Reading this is no fun. Overlooking it is dangerous. Take your choice.
Moish
Dr. Gordis:
Excuse my ignorance, but why would Jews deliberately starve anyone. Aren’t we supposed to protect life?
It is a Solomonian puzzle and an enigma: Is Israel to be a Democracy with a Jewish majority or a Jewish State that is also a Democracy? If it is a Democracy, what has happened to the Zionist ideology about a homeland for the Jews? If it is a Jewish State how can we expect the Muslim 20% to honor the Mogen David and sing Hatikvah?
Rabbi Daniel Gordis may be our “Abraham Lincoln,” No? You certainly have a wonderful grasp of the issues.
Shlomo Vile overlooks the highly important fact that for almost 2000 of the 3000 years of the Jewish state, the b’nai Yisrael were in exile–expelled from the land, so our tradition tells us, for the sin of sinat chinam, senseless hatred. That does seem to be a specialty of the haredim, although Hashem knows they have no monopoly on it.
If you visit the marble steps on the south side of Herod’s Temple, excavated about 30 years ago, you will find that they are flat and smooth, without the indentations from foot traffic of other ancient sites. That is because they were buried when the temple was destroyed, a little more than 60 years after Herod completed it.
Why do you say that we have no Abraham Lincoln? We have Benjamin Netanyahu.
Like Lincoln, Netanyahu understands the issues well, he understands the nation’s heritage well, he understands that 100% solutions do not exist but is nonetheless determined to tackle the nation’s problems and is doing so masterfully. Lincoln said: “Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored – contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man – such as a policy of “don’t care” on a question about which all true men do care – such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance – such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.
“Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.”[Cooper Union Address, Feb 29, 1860, NYC.]
On the issue of Haredim, Netanyahu has clipped their wings significantly, and in the economic reform which has saved this country from bankruptcy in the sub-prime financial crisis he also, by ending the hand-out policy, maneuvered the Haredim back to the derekh-eretz kadmah leTorah Judaism of needing to work for a living. And when one has to work for a living he becomes part of the society. When one is part of a society he does not throw stones.
Netanyahu on the Oslo Accords, like Lincoln on slavery, understands that while proven to be catastrophic they cannot be reversed immediately. He has prevented them from mushrooming. He has, without rejecting the international community’s position, arrested the erosion of Jewish sovereignty in the Jewish Homeland with a simple, but ingenious, formula: reciprocity.
Unlike Lincoln, whose position on slavery brought the South to secede instigating the Civil War, Netanyahu may be able to lead to victory in the War(s) We Haven’t Fought Yet without firing a shot. Like the Arabs, the Haredim have more to gain than lose by living peacefully with Israeli society as it is. Netanyahu is navigating towards this realization and so the Jewish Arab conflict may well be, as Ron Dermer wrote of the Cold War, “won without firing a shot”. [Sharansky & Dermer, preface to the paperback edition, The Case for Democracy, Public Affairs, New York, 2006.]
Like Lincoln, Netanyahu rests on a narrow majority and must deal with venomous opposition from within. Like Lincoln, Netanyahu will succeed.
Louis Lipsky
Jerusalem
If Netanyahu is our Lincoln, we’re in worse trouble than I imagined.
Dear Meir ben Avraham,
People said that about Lincoln in 1860, also. He got less than half the popular vote and might not have been eelcted if there weren’t 4 candidates. We might be in worse trouble than you imagine, and some might agree with you if you’d care to try to substantiate your view. Tossing out one-liners is really disregarding the detailed thought that Gordis regularly employs in his writing and that most of his responders present in kind.
Louis
Dear Mr. Lipsky,
I take your point about the tone of my post. So more seriously: unlike Lincoln in 1860, Netanyahu is not an unknown quantity. We’ve seen him in the post before; and to be frank, in my view he did not demonstrate the kind of character–menschlikheit, let us say–that marks the truly great leaders. Now, you have laid out a set of evidence supporting the view that Netanyahu may be the right leader for this particular crisis, and you may be right. Moreover, Bibi may have grown and matured in the last decade. I can imagine, then, Netanyahu having accomplishments analogous to Lincoln’s. But I can’t consider Netanyahu as *like* Lincoln–I find the comparison jarring.
Dear Mr. Ben Avraham,
Thank you for the clarification, your position is clear even though not elaborated. I, of course, personally believe that history will find my comparison less jarring. But let us not trouble Dr. Gordis’ readers with our discussions. If you wish I will be pleased to hear from you at louis@lipsky.org.
Ketivah vaChatimah tova,
Louis
Dr. Gordis, Your erudition continues to amaze me, your sensitivity always moves me, occasionally to tears, and your conclusions often depressing. However, I am of the Israel is a democracy school and constantly advocate for Israel (letters to the editor, guest opinons, etc.) with that as my mantra. And there is no question that when our friends in Congress talk about the relationship between Israel and the U.S., it is about our shared values.
I’ve read more from your books and journal pieces than from your newspaper articles, so this was actually the first I’d read.
It IS an enlightening comparison, but the sources of division vary signicantly. The US didn’t have a significant, vocal comparably-unified and viral portion of it’s population pledged to its destruction (the indigenous populations of the US is a very different story than from the Arabs in the region – despite comparisons by Palestinians and a few First Nations spokespeople), a portion of the population committed to the “founding documents” of the nation, but pledged to indifference towards the State (which it feeds off of), did not have neighbors duty bound to see it pushed into the sea (what? – Canada?…), and was not comprised vastly of Jews! – pushed or pulled to Aretzeinu by force of fate or soul – and likewise did not have an ancient religion and culture to see as either binding agent or fertilizer, fossil or ferment…Bracha Ben Avraham makes a good point about Yesha “vs.” the State – one that reveals also the geographical and economic issues that were also significant factors behind the War Between the States.
I also think recent scholarship on Lincoln as a “big government Republican” makes suspect the desirability of ending such a war on such terms ever again. I think this is also evidenced by the New Deal era of Executive monopoly and the most recent Big Government Republican administration in the U.S.(both based in part on the kind of legislative War Powers pilpul activism that Lincoln innovated).
Churchill once declared “Democracy is a terrible system but unfortunately it’s the best we have.” The argument for Isreal’s exsistence is that it should be as a Jewish state. The problem becomes complicated by trying to define who is a Jew. The religous right seem to have mandated that they have the right to decide that and the secular and less religous have allowed them that power to the extent where some Jews have been disenfranshised of the right to call themselves Jews.
We live on planet Earth-where man seems the predominant spieces and while we should look to religion for a moral guide (there is nothing in the Torah or even in the New Testament against slavery so we would be wrong to let the religous ones be our “soul” moral compass.
In order for Israel to survive we have to stop allowing the Religous parties be the tail wagging the dog.
While I have no conviction Bibi is the leader to bring about peace. I certainly didn’t think Begin would either so it perhaps is best not to presume and do our personal best and move others to do likewise.
Hear hear! The point I think is not that we should/should not be against the Haredim. I think that there are probably very good Haredim out there. It is that the very same laws and societal standards that hold for others should hold for them. If they break the law, they should be punished as anyone else. If they have gangs of thugs (modesty patrols) attacking people, those gangs should be broken up by the police. If a public road runs through their area, they should not be allowed to control it like a gang. Now it is at the point where they think themselves a separate nation. And I agree, we have to fight that with all means at our disposal.
Having just recently finished reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s excellent book, “Team of Rivals”, which is all about Lincoln’s presidency and his cabinet, and his incredible wisdom in the way he sought to compromise between the Northern abolitionists and the Southern secessionists, I can thoroughly understand Daniel Gordis’s comparisons between Israel 2009 and the United States circa 1850. The whole time I read the book I was pondering the parallels, although my mind tended more to the conflict between the advocates of “Greater Israel”(as the Slave States) and those advocating ending the occupation.(radical abolitionists) Of, course, I also was aware of the differences in our situations (eg the comments above by P.S.)
But the tendency to violence between opposing ideologies was so similar.
Surprisingly, I wept like a baby when Lincoln was killed, even though I knew the end of the story. There is no doubt that if this unusual leader had lived to complete a second term that the reconstruction of the Union and the resulting relations between the North and South would have been very different from what they were. But I don’t think that I was weeping for them; I was weeping for us. Because we don’t have a leader on the horizon who is even 1/3rd of an Abraham Lincoln.
And hear hear for Avraham Sonenthal! Ditto to all of the above except that I have yet to see the good Haredim telling the bad Haredim that breaking the law is a no-no and most assuredly not the way a good Jew behaves. Please do fight those cro-Magnon types. I wonder if they learned how to conduct themselves on their modesty patrols from their fellow humanitarians in Iran.