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February 6, 2004
Who is a Jew in Israel?
Existential questions, no easy answers, from Mayzel.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
The barrier being constructed between Israel and the West Bank
may not be illegal or immoral, but it is impractical and economically
unsound, according to an Israeli scholar who will lecture here throughout
February.
Prof. Matitiahu Mayzel made his première appearance Monday
night in a wide-ranging lecture at the Jewish Community Centre of
Greater Vancouver (JCC). As well as speaking to groups on local
campuses and in synagogues, the Tel-Aviv University historian will
lead a four-week course on contemporary Israeli history.
Mayzel refuted an audience member's suggestion that walls that divide
people, such as the Berlin Wall, have never succeeded. "The
Berlin Wall didn't fail," said Mayzel, whose area of expertise
is Russian and east European history. "What failed was the
political system of East Germany."
A wall (or a fence, as Israeli officials prefer to term the construction)
can succeed in achieving what its proponents intend, said the professor,
noting that the Great Wall of China did what it was meant to do
– hold back the Mongols – until the regime that built
it collapsed for other reasons. The difficulty, he said, is to fund
the military infrastructure to maintain and defend such a wall.
"The wall itself needs military support," said Mayzel,
noting that the Israeli barrier consists of a variety of structures,
from eight-metre towering concrete sheets to some segments of barbed
wire and more conventional border security. "That
is an extremely heavy burden economically."
Moreover, he claimed, the fence limits not only the movement of
Palestinian people, but the economic agenda of Israel.
"It's against the policy of Israel, which sees in the West
Bank both a market for Israeli products and a source of labor,"
Mayzel said.
Beyond the external conflicts Israel has with its Arab neighbors,
Mayzel focused as well on the conflicts that have confronted Israel
internally. Returning to an issue that has been eclipsed by the
violence of recent years, Mayzel addressed the existential topics
of whether Israel is a "Jewish state" or a "state
of the Jews" and the issue of who is a Jew.
Particularly among the 800,000 immigrants from Russia over the past
decade, there is a substantial number of citizens who view themselves
as Israelis, but not as Jews. Religious definitions of Jewishness
– being born to a Jewish mother or converting through proscribed
methods – would exclude a significant number of recent immigrants.
Yet this points to older conflicts, according to Mayzel, which Zionists
faced as the realization of statehood approached: Should Israel
be founded on Jewish religious ideals or, more generally, as a refuge
for people who are Jewish? Should some Jews move to the resurrected
Jewish homeland or is the ideal to gather all the Jewish
people?
Theodor Herzl, who is credited with the advent of political Zionism
slightly more than a century ago, was a non-practising Jew who once
believed that Uganda might make an acceptable place for a Jewish
state. Religious considerations were far from Herzl's mind. Similarly,
when the state was formed in 1948, the idea that state law should
be based on halachah, Jewish law, was rejected. Yet the debate
continues over the degree of religious influence in the country
and the validity of an individual's claims to Jewishness.
Mayzel offered few conclusions Monday night, to the consternation
of one audience member, who demanded, possibly tongue in cheek,
that the professor tell the audience what to think.
Mayzel emphasized the integral relationship between Israel and Jewish
communities in the Diaspora and soundly refuted one audience member's
contention that she felt it was not her place, as a Diaspora Jew,
to speak up on Israeli issues.
"Israel owes its very existence to the range of Jewish communities
around the world," Mayzel said. Speaking of the challenges
over who is a Jew and what it means to be a state for the Jewish
people, Mayzel invited Vancouver's Jews to engage themselves in
the debate.
"We have a problem here," he said. "And this probably
is not only for the Jews of Israel to decide."
Mayzel's appearance in British Columbia as a visiting scholar-in-residence
is sponsored by the JCC as part of what Herb Silber, the centre's
president, told the meeting was an added emphasis on Israeli affairs
in the mandate of the current administration.
Pat Johnson is a native Vancouverite, a journalist and
commentator.
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