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Beyond Words
Selected Writings of Rabbi
Meir Kahane,
1960-1990
Volume 1
Galut in Israel
There is no word that is referred to with greater contempt in Israel
than “Galut” exile. The Galut,
the Diaspora, we were told, is a hated thing that has bred in the Jew
inferiority complexes, physical fear and mental abnormalities. Those who continue to live there are bluntly
chastised and told to come to Israel and become “normal.
True. But what is not often
spoken about and what is not enough proclaimed is the fact that it is totally
possible to be a sabra, a genuinely free soul, and nevertheless be beset with
all the complexes and problems of a galut Jew. It is, in short, quite possible to be a galut
Jew in Israel, and the land abounds with many of them.
All this is by way of explaining in greater detail the startling
JDL announcement that it was setting up its international office in Israel! “Mah
inyan shimita eytzel Har Sinai?” (What is the connection between Sabbatical
Year and Mount Sinai?) was the outcry.
What purpose is there for JDL in Israel?
Are there troubled neighborhoods?
Is there anti-Semitism? Are there
Panthers? With slight tongue in cheek,
let us leave aside the question of whether there are Panthers in Israel (of
whatever breed) or if there are anti-Semites (of whatever faith) or if there
are troubled areas (of whatever trouble).
Let us go directly to the question: JDL in Israel – why?
The All Mighty has been kind to Israel. He allowed it to survive its Arab enemies
without totally defeating them. He gave
the Jewish state victory and survival without a total peace. Had it been otherwise, who knows what
conflicts and hostilities would have erupted in Israel! There exist within Israel problems of such
magnitude and with such a potential for explosion that they threaten the very
existence of the State. These problems
may be summarized as follows:
Religion – There is a basic conflict between two large segments of
the nation concerning the place of religion in national life. To the religious Jew, the very essence of the
Jewish people is derived from a religious concept. It is a Torah that must guide the national
life. Hence the demands for public
observance of the Sabbath, the laws of kashrut and, above all, the laws of
personal status such as marriage and divorce.
Bitter disputes have arisen revolving about these areas, particularly
the right to marry and divorce at will, but no religious problem so affects the
future of Israel as the definition of “Who is a Jew.”
The religious Jew, if pressed to the wall, can survive without a
compulsory Sabbath law; if Jews do not observe this Sabbath, they can,
hopefully, observe the next one. Massive
and permanent damage to the Jewish soul will not occur if a national law banning
unkosher food is not passed; if the Jew eats ham on Monday, there is hope that
on Tuesday he will be brought around. But the question of “Who is a Jew” is quite another matter. If “today” is not observed properly, there is
no tomorrow. If the halachic definition of a Jew as one who is born of a
Jewish mother or who converts ACCORDING TO HALACHIC is breached today, what may
happen is that, within the next ten years, there will be two nations within
Israel, with special listings kept of those Jews whose families are religiously
Jewish and from whom one can choose a spouse.
That “nation” will be separate from the other one, and bitterness,
recriminations and division will make it impossible for the State to
endure. In short, what is at stake here
is the very unity and survival of ONE Jewish people.
The great obstacle to recognition by all Jews of imperative need to
accept the halachic definition of a Jew – for the sake of Jewish unity – lies
the galut that has crept into Israel.
None have been so crippled by this disease of inferiority and shame
of being Jewish as some of the staunches sabras within the Jewish state.
So much of the opposition to ALL religious definitions and
observances comes from an attempt on the part of large segments of sabras to
escape their Jewishness. It is no
coincidence that so many of the same leaders in the fight against religion are
also leaders in the fight to “de-Zionize”
Israel. The mind boggles at the
thought! Israel without Zionism! Israel free of Judaism and Jewishness! Yet, this is what thousands and thousands of
Israelis are now expounding. One does
not, now, speak of the many who have seized upon this as a rationale for their
demands that Jewish immigration to Israel be curbed because there are not
enough houses for Israeli-born Jews.
These are people who merely use the concept because they are concerned
with immediate personal problems. What
must concern us, more, is the sabra who ideologically proclaims himself
an Israeli first and a Jew second; who looks down upon Jews in the Diaspora and
sees little connection between himself and them; who demands that religion and
nationality be sundered and who finds more in common with non-Jews when he
travels abroad than with Jews (and who all too often consciously avoids Jews
when he travels outside of Israel).
Such a Jew is a galut Jew, pure and simple, though born in
Mishmar Ha’emek a kibbutznik of the first order. When the son of the mayor of Jerusalem writes
a book and candidly states his Israelism over his Jewishness as he sits next to
his non-Jewish wife, we are faced with a serious problem. It is not only that those who cut away their
Israelism from their Jewishness and who deride Zionism have no right to be in
Israel (for it is only the eternal Jewish foreigners to come from Russia
or Yemen and take away the land from the Arabs). What is being evidenced here is an
embarrassment at being Jewish. When
a Jew outside of Israel cries out: “Nihyeh
b’chol hagoyim” (Let us be amongst all the nations”), the Jew
inside Israel proclaims “Nihyeh k”col hagoyim” (Let us be as all of the
nations”). In the end it is the
same. It is an attempt to escape the
uniqueness of the Jewish people with all its obligations and responsibilities. It is an effort to do away with two things. Achdut
Yisroel, the unity of the Jewish people, and its immediate and necessary
corollary, Ahavat Yisroel, the
love of the Jewish people, the need to run to their aid whenever they may be
and the ability to recognize that problem of a Jew in Moscow is as much a
problem for the sabra as the shelling of Beit She’an.
Written July 23, 1971
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