The Promise of Israel

Daniel Gordis

Description

Why Israel's greatest weakness is its greatest strength, and what its supporters and enemies can learn from its success

Israel's critics in the West insist that no country founded on a single religion or culture can stay democratic and prosperous?but they're wrong. In The Promise of Israel, Daniel Gordis points out that Israel has defied that conventional wisdom. It has provided its citizens infinitely greater liberty and prosperity than anyone expected, faring far better than any other young nation. Israel's "magic" is a unique blend of democracy and tradition, of unabashed particularism coupled to intellectual and cultural openness. Given Israel's success, it would make sense for many other countries, from Rwanda to Afghanistan and even Iran, to look at how they've done it. In fact, rather than seeking to destroy Israel, the Palestinians would serve their own best interests by trying to copy it.

• Takes many of the most compelling arguments against Israel and turns them completely on their heads, undoing liberals with a more liberal argument and the religious with a more devout argument
• Puts forth an idea that is as convincing as it is shocking?that Iran's clerics and the Taliban should want to be more like Israel
• Written by Daniel Gordis, the author of the National Jewish Book Award winner, Saving Israel
• Daniel Gordis has been called "one of Israel's most thoughtful observers" (Alan Dershowitz) and "a writer whose reflections are consistently as intellectually impressive as they are moving" (Cynthia Ozick)

Certain to generate controversy and debate, The Promise of Israel is one of the most interesting and original books about Israel in years.

Introduction: Asleep under Fire 1

ONE The Israel Model 14

TWO Where a Tradition Meets the World 25

THREE Diff erence Matters 39

FOUR Universalism’s Betrayal 57

FIVE A Biblical Tug-of-War 73

SIX The Invention of the Invention of Nationalism 91

SEVEN Diversity Is the Key to Human Freedom 112

EIGHT The Only Thing We Should Not Tolerate Is Intolerance 126

NINE A Country with the Soul of a Church 140

TEN A State unto the Diaspora 165

Conclusion: Survival Is Not a Purpose 183

Acknowledgments 197

Notes 203

Index 229

Sujets

• Middle Est
• Histoire
• Israel
• Judaism
• Palestine
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 17 juillet 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781118235478
• Langue: English

Extrait

Contents
Introduction
Chapter One: The Israel Model
Chapter Two: Where a Tradition Meets the World
Chapter Three: Difference Matters
Chapter Four: Universalism s Betrayal
Chapter Five: A Biblical Tug-of-War
Chapter Six: The Invention of the Invention of Nationalism
Chapter Seven: Diversity is the Key to Human Freedom
Chapter Eight: The Only Thing We Should Not Tolerate is Intolerance
Chapter Nine: A Country with the Soul of a Church
Chapter Ten: A State unto the Diaspora
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Index

Also by Daniel Gordis
God Was Not in the Fire: The Search for a Spiritual Judaism
Does the World Need the Jews? Rethinking Chosenness and American Jewish Identity
Becoming a Jewish Parent: How to Explore Spirituality and Tradition with Your Children
If a Place Can Make You Cry: Dispatches from an Anxious State
Home to Stay: One American Family s Chronicle of Miracles and Struggles in Contemporary Israel
Coming Together, Coming Apart: A Memoir of Heartbreak and Promise in Israel
Saving Israel: How the Jewish People Can Win a War That May Never End
Pledges of Jewish Allegiance: Conversion, Law, and Policy-Making in Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Orthodox Responsa (coauthored with David Ellenson)
Copyright 2012 by Daniel Gordis. All rights reserved
Cover design: Erica Halivni
Published by John Wiley Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey
Published simultaneously in Canada
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com . Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions .
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information about our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some content that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats. For more information about Wiley products, visit us at www.wiley.com .
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Gordis, Daniel.
The promise of Israel : why its seemingly greatest weakness is actually its greatest strength / by Daniel Gordis.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-00375-6 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-22177-8 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-23547-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-26028-9 (ebk)
1. Israel-Politics and government-21st century. 2. National characteristics, Israeli. 3. Zionism. 4. Arab-Israeli conflict-1993-Influence. I. Title.
DS128.2.G66 2012
956.94-dc23
2011053472
For
Ada and Menahem Ben Sasson
and the children we share,
Talia and Avishay Ben Sasson-Gordis
Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said:
This is my own, my native Land ?
Whose heart hath ne er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned, . . .
From wandering on a foreign strand?
Walter Scott
The Lay of the Last Minstrel
August 1804

We have not yet lost our hope
Of being a free people, in our land
Hatikva, 1878
Introduction
ASLEEP UNDER FIRE
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonders that would be;
Till the war-drum throbb d no longer and the battle flags were furl d
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, Locksley Hall, 1837 1
What struck me most about California when I started to visit it was its newness. Nothing seemed old. The cars all appeared new; the people dressed young and acted younger. To a young East Coast kid just starting a career, California seemed all about the future, almost devoid of a past.
But all of us have pasts. All of us come from someplace, and even in the shiny new West, it often takes very little for people to start talking about their lives, their deepest regrets, and their senses of how they have, or have not, honored the legacies from which they were born. It s amazing, actually, what people tell a clergyperson, no matter how young he or she may be. When I first headed out to Los Angeles after finishing rabbinical school, I had no real conception of what awaited me. Some of what I hazily imagined actually came to be. Much did not. But one of the things that I remember most clearly is the stories that people, especially elderly people, told me, even though they barely knew me.
There was one story that I heard several times, in one form or another, always from people around the age of my grandparents. These people told me how their siblings who had arrived in America before them would meet them at the New York harbor. The new arrivals came off the boat with almost nothing to their names, but they had, in addition to their meager belongings, Jewish objects like candlesticks for the Sabbath or tefillin that they had transported with great care. The sibling (usually a brother) who had arrived in the United States a few years earlier would take the bundle with these Jewish religious objects, nonchalantly drop it into the water lapping at the edge of the pier, and say, You re in America now. Those were for the old country.
The men and women who told me these stories were much, much older than I was, and the events they were describing had unfolded more than half a century earlier. When I was younger and first heard them, what horrified me was the mere notion of throwing those ritual objects into the ocean as if they were yesterday s garbage. As I grew older, I was struck by the fact that these elderly people still remembered that moment and that it troubled them enough for them to recount the story to a young person like me, so many years later.
Later still, I began to understand the deep pain and mourning implicit in those stories. There was a sense of having betrayed the world from which they had come. There was a sense of the cruelty of their brothers cavalier discarding of the bundles; it might have been well intentioned, but it was callous and mean, and half a century later, it still evoked such pain that they sought to talk about it.
Before we judge these siblings at the pier, we should acknowledge that both sides were right. Both the elderly Jews who told me their stories and the brothers who had tossed their possessions into the oily, filthy water reflected a profound truth. The brothers were right that there is a price of entry to the United States and that it is a steep one. In large measure, many immigrants have done as well as they have in the United States precisely because they were willing to drop bundles of memory, ethnicity, and religious observance into the harbor. And the people who told me these stories were right that the pain and the anger that they felt about that price were real, abiding, and deeply scarring. They had given up something of themselves when they came to the United States, and the scars never fully healed. Being forced to pretend that they had paid no price at all only made matters worse.

Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hutu, Pashtun, or Christian-it makes no difference. All of us can imagine and even feel the visceral horror of being told to take our past and figuratively toss it into the harbor. Those immigrants were told that they were welcome, as long as they dispensed with the heritage with which they had come to their new home. But the story of demanding such sacrifice for acceptance is hardly over. It continues for some immigrants to the United States today, and it occurs in the international arena as well.
Sad to say, it is that same attitude that the United States (like much of the West) now exhibits toward Israel. You are welcome to join us, the West essentially says, as long as you drop your ethnic heritage in the ocean forever. We welcome you to the family of nations, but with a price: we want you to be precisely like us. Be different, and our patience will soon run out.
Later portions of this book will explain why preserving ethnic heritage is such an important human endeavor. For now, though, we ought to acknowledge how troubled we should be by saying to anyone-anywhere and at any time-that he or she must abandon a precious heritage and not transmit it. Those elderly immigrants who told me their stories had no choice when they arrived at the shores of New York. Often penniless and usually frightened, they had nowhere else to go. When their siblings took the parcels and dropped them in the water, there was little the new immigrants could do but stifle their cries and hold back their tears.
Isr