Israel Turns on Itself

For all these reasons, to be a secular Israeli in 2009 is a demoralizing and demoralized affair. We are tired: tired of the Palestinians, tired of the bombs, tired of U.N. and EU condemnations, tired of having so much of our daily wages taxed to buy guns and missiles, tired of the army reserves, tired of being hated, tired of going to bed and waking up to reports of kids -- Jewish kids, Palestinian kids -- watching their parents die or dying in their parents’ arms. We are tired of our lives and tired of ourselves.

For two communities in crisis, riots like those that set Jerusalem aflame last week are a welcome relief. Many ultra-Orthodox find in their city’s secular government -- its social services, police, and mayor -- an external source of their malaise. Locating the cause of their suffering outside their own unsustainable way of life, and attributing it to the malevolence of Jewish Cossacks or Jewish Nazis, ultra-Orthodox leaders defer reflection about the real causes of their distress.

Something similar accounts for the harsh and totalizing reaction that so many secular Israelis have had to the past week’s events, finding all ultra-Orthodox guilty, first of heartless acceptance of child abuse, and then of wild hooliganism, adding up to a cultural identity of primitive and traitorous barbarism. For such a view of the ultra-Orthodox does wonders for the self-image of secular Israelis. Now more than before, we need the ultra-Orthodox torching bus shelters and shattering computers. These sorts of ultra-Orthodox, and they alone, serve as a token of the continued relevance of the secular Zionist program, at a time when this claim to relevance is no longer evident, certainly in Europe and the United States, but also increasingly within the borders of Israel itself. Nir Barkat, a mayor with little charisma who has failed to distinguish himself in his first year in office, appears principled and virtuous only when he is staring down a rabble of rabbis.

The riots will pass. As I write, the child remains under constant attention at Hadassah hospital, where he has gained one third again of his body weight. Under court order, his mother was released from jail to house arrest, and will receive immediate psychiatric care. Both will drop from the headlines.

Still, it won’t be long before new headlines come, in the ultra-Orthodox press screaming of cruel and godless authorities goosestepping into Meah Shearim to brutishly break up yiddershe families, and in the secular press of religious zombies slavishly following their rabbis’ orders to torture their kids into mindless obedience. These headlines will come, and rocks will be thrown and trash bins will be set ablaze, because ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis are locked in a macabre pas de deux that serves each group as it tries to negotiate its own depressing reality. For ultra-Orthodox and secular Israelis, decrying loudly the vicious vice of the other is one of the few ways each can still locate virtue in themselves.

PREVIOUS 123

Save over 50% when you subscribe to FP.

GIORGIO

1:33 AM ET

July 21, 2009

On Secularism

The most important issue facing Israel is whether it will be able to weather the polarising storm of religion and crisis that is constantly crashing over the Middle East. It's not uncontroversial to say that secularism leads to progress, in material and economic terms, and one of the main reasons Israel "made the desert bloom" is because of its commitment to secularism, its huge stocks of semi-technocratic human capital, and obviously massive US support.

The high demographic tendencies of ultra-orthodox Jews are extremely worrying. The parallels between this community and Islamist radicals was aptly noted in your example of American ultras showing support for Hamas. These are backwards, violent people with a powerful vengeance complex. Like all politically religious communities, they see no reason at all why there should be tolerance of belief systems other than their own, an inevitable corollary to their absolute faith in their God and moral system.

The Israeli state is put in a difficult position by this. It needs to subsidise the existence of such communities, as they are vital (if problematic) to the Israeli nation's identity. However, the state, and increasingly the people, also realise that the future does not lie with this brand of violent atavism, but with an internationally engaged, secular, progressive state. Israel is desperately looking for a chance to re-invent itself politically, but keeps getting dragged back down by religious violence without and religious thuggery within.

HILLEL

1:51 AM ET

on religiousity

the article divides israelis into secular and haredim, as neither I most strongly object. while the haredi community is growing it is under threat, not by the secularists but by the modern religious. those pious Jews who see no contradiction in fulfilling the ta'ag ha mitzvot and serving the state. the yiddish speaking ghettos of mea shaarim may riot now and again but slowly they will eventually be absorbed

MARY

4:40 AM ET

Missing the point

I think you are all missing the point. Doesn't what is going on fit with what the bible says? Is this not registering with anyone? Until you see the larger picture they will win. Stop fighting this war at the tips and start fighting it at the roots. It is the devil and the devil will call himself whatever he needs to, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim or American, gay or straight. His attempt is to divide and conquer. Wake up, the time is now. Do not be fooled by Satan. Unite. I am saddened by the lack of recognition on too many peoples part that IT IS happening.

NB12

7:36 AM ET

Russian Israeli

The author should better talk for himself. I am Russian Israeli and I would not say that Russian Israelis are particularly disgruntled. The Kibutzim are gone and inequality has increased but unless you are Noah Effron, why should it cause so much dismay? Israel is a tiny country turned hi-tech superpower. It's a huge achievement and far more real and worthy of pursuing than this illusive socialist ideals cherished by leftist diehard mastodons the style of Effron. I would say it takes a bit of hutzpa on the part of the author to claim that he speaks for majority of Israelis.

SAN FERNANDO CURT

10:55 AM ET

Reality bites

For the rest of us out here in the real world, Israelis' seeming obsession with building "The Good Society" of uniquely righteous folk building egalitarian socialist communities defended by the "most moral army in the world" has for 60 years papered over the base reality that Israel is a strictly apartheid society based on old-fashioned "us vs. them". This internal upheaval emphasized how shrunken is Israel's facade of founding myths, and little more.

KENNEDY

12:00 PM ET

Tired of the Palestinians?

If you are all so tired of the Palestinians get off their land and go back to where you came from. I`m sure they are tired of being ethnically cleansed, and robbed of everything including life. Israelis are delusional for thinking this pipe dream can last forever. The world is sick of it all.

INJUNTROUBLE

7:14 PM ET

The whole world is sick and tired of Israel (and also of Arabs)

We are all tired of Israel and its problems. We don't to hear about them anymore.

It would be great if Israelis spent their time tearing each other apart instead of bombing other people.

They should just return all the money they took from the American tax payer.

AABBEY

3:32 AM ET

July 22, 2009

Yet another weary secular Israeli who has left Judaism

Purely secular, leftwing Israeliness is in fact weary. You can be Jewish, moral, engaged and loving without strictly being in the sharedi or even kippa-wearing minorities in Israel. Try this view from a "religious Zionist" who understands that, Rabbi Dr. Donniel Hartman of Shalom Hartman Institute on our website hartman dot org dot il

MADRID

4:35 PM ET

Horror of horrors...

Horror of horrors!:

"surveys suggest that a large percentage of them [Russian immigrants] are not even Jews."

(For some perspective on the double standard afforded to Israel and its cheerleaders in the press, imagine if an American Christian journalist complained that recent immigrants to the US "are not even Christian" with such casualness. What would the ADL and the rest of the lobby do to such a journalist?)

The ethnocentrism and double standards at the heart of Israel and its citizens and supporters is so ingrained that they perhaps don't even notice such things. Ditto for the gruesome public anxiousness about the "demographic" threat of the Arabs. Remind me again why my tax dollars are going to such people who are opposed to everything that this country (the US) is supposed to stand for?

JAYESLOS

7:06 PM ET

July 23, 2009

The need for further specifity

Excellent article, but to group people together as "ultra-Orthodox" ignores the point that the "ultra-Orthodoxy" is made up of many seperate sects, some of which can't stand each other. It is not one cohesive unit. That kind of simplification is useful when discussing socio-religious distinctions in the broadest sense, but when it comes to these types of situations, more specificity is best.

Also, there aren't two polar opposites of "ultra-Orthodoxy" and "secular". There are people in the middle, too.

In last week's ultra-Orthodox riots, the world watched the Jewish state, exhausted by conflict, slowing tearing itself apart.

BY NOAH EFRON | JULY 20, 2009

(10)