Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel
Jewish Fundamentalism in
Israel
Pluto Middle Eastern Studies
Also available
Jewish History, Jewish Religion
The Weight of Three Thousand Years
Israel Shahak
Open Secrets
Israeli Foreign and Nuclear Policies
Israel Shahak
Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel
Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky
Pluto
Press
LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication
Data
Shahak, Israel.
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel / Israel Shahak
and Norton Mezvinsky.
p. cm. — (Pluto Middle Eastern series) Includes
bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7453-1281-0 (hbk.)
1. Orthodox Judaism—Israel—Controversial
literature.
2. Orthodox Judaism—Political aspects—Israel. 3.
Political violence—Israel. I. Mezvinsky, Norton. II. Title. III. Series.
Preface vi
Glossary xiii
Introduction 1
1
Jewish Fundamentalism
Within Jewish Society 5
2
The Rise of the Haredim
in Israel 23
3
The Two Main Haredi
Groups 44
4
The National Religious
Party and the Religious Settlers 55
5
The Nature of Gush Emunim
Settlements 78
6
The Real Significance of
Baruch Goldstein 96
7
The Religious Background
of Rabin’s Assassination 113
Note on Bibliography and Related Matters 150
Notes 164
Index 169
Virtually
identified with Arab terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism is anathema throughout
the non-Muslim world. Virtually identified with ignorance, superstition,
intolerance and racism, Christian fundamentalism is anathema to the cultural
and intellectual elite in the United States. The recent significant increase in
its number of adherents, combined with its widening political influence,
nevertheless, make Christian fundamentalism a real threat to democracy in the
United States. Although possessing nearly all the important social scientific
properties of Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism is
practically unknown outside of Israel and certain sections of a few other
places. When its existence is acknowledged, its significance is minimized or
limited to arcane religious practices and quaint middle European dress, most
often by those same non-Israeli elite commentators who see so uncompromisingly
the evils inherent in Jewish fundamentalism’s Islamic and/or Christian
cousins.
As
students of contemporary society and as Jews, one Israeli, one American, with
personal commitments and attachments to the Middle East, we cannot help seeing
Jewish fundamentalism in Israel as a major obstacle to peace in the region. Nor
can we help being dismayed by the dismissal of the pemiciousness of Jewish fundamentalism
to peace and to its victims by those who are otherwise knowledgeable and astute
and so quick to point out the violence inherent in other fundamentalist
approaches to existence.
This
book is a journey of understanding - often painful, often dreary, often
disturbing - for us as Jews who have a stake in Jewry. With our hearts and
minds we want Jews, together with other people, to recognize and strive for the
highest ideals, even as we fall short of them. We see these ideals as central
to the values of Western civilization and applicable throughout the civilized
world. We believe these values do not stand in the way of peace anywhere. That
a perversion of these values in the name of Jewish fundamentalism stands as an
impediment to peace, to the development of Israeli democracy and even to
civilized discourse outrages us, both as Jews and as human beings. To identify
and lessen, if not purge, this outrage, we have written this book and
undertaken this journey in the hope that it may bring understanding to our
readers as it has brought understanding to us. Our assumption is that peace in
the Middle East cannot be achieved until the currents and cross-currents of
contemporary life in the region are understood. In this most historical and
most religious area, understanding entails an exploration of the past that
continues to impinge upon the attitudes, values, assumptions and behaviors of
all the people of this beautiful and troubled land. Jewish opposition in Israel
to Jewish fundamentalism greatly increased after a Jewish, fundamentalist,
religious fanatic, Yigal Amir, who insisted that he was acting in accordance
with dictates in Judaism, shot and killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. That
numerous groups of religious Jews after the assassination supported this murder
in the name of the “true” Jewish religion aroused interest in Israel in past
killings by Jews of other Jews who were alleged to be heretics or sinners. In
our book we cite present and past investigations by Israeli scholars
documenting that for centuries prior to the rise of the modem nation state,
Jews, believing they were acting in accordance with God’s word and thus
preparing themselves for eternal paradise, punished or killed heretics and/or
religious sinners. Contemporary Jewish fundamentalism is an attempt to revive a
situation that often existed in Jewish communities before the influence of
modernity. The basic principles of Jewish fundamentalism are the same as those
found in other religions: restoration and survival of the “pure” and pious
religious community that presumably existed in the past.
In
our book we describe in some detail the origins, ideologies, practices and
overall impact upon society of fundamentalism. We emphasize mostly the
messianic tendency, because we believe it to be the most influential and
dangerous. Jewish fundamentalists generally oppose extensions of human freedoms,
especially the freedom of expression, in Israel. In regard to foreign policy,
the National Religious Party, ruled by supporters of the messianic tendency of
Jewish fundamentalism, has continuously opposed any and all withdrawals from
territories conquered and occupied by Israel since 1967. These fundamentalists
opposed Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai in 1978, just as twenty years later
they continued to oppose any withdrawal from the West Bank. These same Jews
printed and distributed atlases allegedly showing that the land of Israel,
belonging only to the Jews and requiring liberation, included the Sinai,
Jordan, Lebanon, most of Syria and Kuwait. Jewish fundamentalists have
advocated the most discriminative proposals against Palestinians. Not surprisingly,
Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir, the most sensational Jewish assassins of the
1990s, and most of their admirers have been Jewish fundamentalists of the
messianic tendency.
In
the 1990s, Israeli sociologists and scholars in other academic fields have
focused more attention than ever before upon the social effects in Israeli
society of Jewish fundamentalists. The overwhelming opinion of these scholars
is that the adherents of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel are hostile to
democracy. The fundamentalists oppose equality for all citizens, especially
non-Jews and Jewish “deviants” such as homosexuals. The great majority of
religious Jews in Israel, influenced by fundamentalists, share these views to
some extent. In a book review published on October 14, 1998, Baruch Kimmerling,
a distinguished Israeli sociologist, citing evidence from a study conducted by
other scholars, commented:
The
values of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox and nationalistic
form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared with democratic values. No
other variable - neither nationality, nor attitudes about security, nor social
or economic values, nor ethnic descent and education - so influences the
attitudes of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiosity.
Citing
additional evidence, Kimmerling commented further that secular, Israeli Jews
who had acquired college or university education had the greatest attachment to
democratic values and that religious Jews who studied in yeshivot (religious
schools) most opposed democracy. It is clear that fundamentalist antagonism to
democratic values, as well as to most aspects of secular culture and life
style, is deeply instilled in Israel’s religious schools.
The
documentation of fundamentalist antagonism to the secular life style of a
majority of Israeli Jews is clear. The September 20, 1998, edition of Yediot
Ahronot, the largest circulation, Hebrew- language, daily Israeli
newspaper, for example, contained a “cultural profile” survey of Israeli Jewish
society. The survey revealed that the major Israeli consumers of culture, who
visit museums and attend concerts and the theater, had finished high school and
defined themselves as either secular or not Orthodox (religious). The Israeli
religious press and pronouncements by Israeli rabbis, condemning cultural
activity, have confirmed the survey’s findings.
Jewish
fundamentalists have displayed severe enmity against Jews who adopt a different
sexual life style. Many Israeli rabbis and the Israeli religious political
parties in the 1990s reacted sharply against the increased visibility and power
of the homosexual and lesbian communities in Israel. According to the Halacha
(Jewish religious law), homosexuality is punishable by death by stoning, and,
although the punishment is not clear, lesbian relations are forbidden. The
Israeli secular press emphasized in the 1990s some of the more outrageous
rabbinical proposals for dealing with homosexuals; these included a “compulsory
healing treatment” and/or a period of “education in a closed institution.” Many
rabbis, when interviewed, indicated that they favored imposition of the death
penalty for Jewish homosexual men. (The rabbis tended to leave lesbians alone.)
In their televised election advertisements, Israeli religious political parties
usually have emphasized that homosexual Jews constitute one of the greatest
dangers facing Israel. The religious parties have been successful in their
attempts to eliminate in public school courses any mention of Hebrew homosexual
love poems, some of which contain beautiful Hebrew lyrics. This censorship is
evidence of fundamentalist influence.
Conflicts
in Israeli society between adherents and opponents of Jewish fundamentalism
rank among the most important issues in Israeli politics. In this book we do
not attempt to discuss all of these problems and/or issues. Rather, we focus
upon what we consider to be the most vital problems and issues of Jewish
fundamentalism.
Defenders
of the “Jewish interest” often attack persons who write critically about Jews
and/or Judaism for not emphasizing in the same text positive features that may
have nothing or little to do with the substance under focus. Some of these
defenders, for example, attacked Seffi Rachlevsky after the publication of his
best-selling book, Messiahs’ Donkeys. In his book, Rachlevsky correctly
claimed that Rabbi Kook, the Elder, the revered father of the messianic
tendency of Jewish fundamentalism (who is featured in our book), said “The
difference between a Jewish soul and souls of non-Jews - all of them in all
different levels - is greater and deeper than the difference between a human
soul and the souls of cattle.” The Rachlevsky detractors did not attempt to
refute substantively the relevance of the Kook quotation. Rather, they argued
that Rabbi Kook said other things and that Rachlevsky, by neglecting to mention
them, had distorted the teachings of Rabbi Kook. Rachlevsky pointed out that
Rabbi Kook’s entire teaching was based upon the Lurianic Cabbala, the school of
Jewish mysticism that dominated Judaism from the late sixteenth to the early
nineteenth century. One of the basic tenants of the Lurianic Cabbala is the
absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish soul and
body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was created solely for the
sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews was subsidiary. If an influential
Christian bishop or Islamic scholar argued that the difference between the
superior souls of non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the
difference between the human soul and the souls of cattle, he would incur the
wrath of and be viewed as an anti-Semite by most Jewish scholars regardless of
whatever less meaningful, positive statements he included. From this
perspective the detractors of Rachlevsky are hypocrites. That Rabbi Kook was a
vegetarian and even respected the rights of plants to the extent that he did
not allow flowers or grass to be cut for his own pleasure neither distracted
from nor added anything to his position regarding the comparison of the souls
of Jews and non-Jews. That Kook deprecated unnecessary Jewish brutality against
non-Jews should not minimize criticism of his expressed delight in the belief
that the death of millions of soldiers during World War One constituted a sign
of the approaching salvation of Jews and the coming of the Messiah.
The
detractors of Rachlevsky and those who may level similar criticisms against our
book and us are not the only hypocrites in this area. Shelves of bookshops in
English-speaking and other countries groan under the weight of books on Jewish
mysticism in general and on Hassidism and the Lurianic Cabbala more
specifically. Many of the authors of these books are widely regarded as famous
scholars because of the minutiae of their scholarship. The people who read only
these books on these subjects, however, cannot suspect that Jewish mysticism,
the Lurianic Cabbala, Hassidism and the teachings of Rabbi Kook contain basic
ideas about Jewish superiority comparable to the worst forms of anti- Semitism.
The scholarly authors of these books, for example Gershon Scholem, have
willfully omitted reference to such ideas. These authors are supreme
hypocrites. They are analogous to many authors of books on Stalin and
Stalinism. Until recently, people who read only the books written by Stalinists
could not know about Stalin’s crimes and would have false notions of the
Stalinists’ regimes and their real ideologies.
The
fact is that certain Jews, some of whom wield political influence, consider
Jews to be superior to non-Jews and view the world as having been created only
or primarily for Jews. This belief in Jewish superiority is most dangerous when
held by Jews who love their children, are honest in their relations with other
Jews and perform, as do fundamentalists in all religions, various acts of
piety. This belief is less dangerous when held by Jews who are not
overwhelmingly concerned about religion and/or corruption. A parallel worth
citing here is that in a secular, totalitarian system, a dedicated party worker
or a convinced nationalist is usually more dangerous and harmful than a corrupt
member of the same ideological system.
Our
final point in this preface is both personal and universal. As Jews, we
understand that our own grandparents or great- grandparents probably believed
in at least some of the views described in our book. This same statement may
apply to other contemporary Jews. In the past many non-Jews, as individuals and
as members of groups, held anti-Semitic views, which, especially when the
circumstances were propitious, influenced the behavior of others towards Jews.
Similarly, in the past, slavery was universally practiced and justified, the
inferior status of women was a global phenomenon and the belief that a country
belonged to an individual or family and was heritable was common. Jewish
fundamentalists still believe, as they have in the past, in a golden age when
everything was, or was going to be, perfect. This golden age is so much of a
reality for them that, when faced with issues of pernicious beliefs and
practices, they take refuge by invoking God’s word, by falsely describing the
past and by condemning non-Jews for harboring feelings of superiority and
having contempt for Jews. The fundamentalists also justify their own belief in
Jewish superiority and their feeling of contempt for non-Jews; they seek to
reproduce the mythical golden age in which their views would dominate. We have
written this book in order to reveal the essential character of Jewish fundamentalism
and its adherents. This character threatens democratic features of Israeli
society. We believe that awareness is the necessary first step in opposition.
We realize that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a part
of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human grouping would
criticize their own past, even before criticizing others. This, we further
believe, would lead to a better understanding between human groups and would be
followed, perhaps slowly and hesitantly, by better treatment of minorities.
Most of our book is concerned with basic beliefs and resultant policies in
Israeli Jewish society. We believe that a critique of Jewish fundamentalism,
which entails a critique of the Jewish past, can help Jews acquire more
understanding and improve their behavior towards Palestinians, especially in
the territories conquered in and occupied since 1967. We hope that our critique
will also motivate other people in the Middle East to engage in criticism of
their entire past in order to increase their knowledge of themselves and
improve their behavior towards others in the present. All of this could
constitute a major factor in bringing peace to the Middle East.
Agudat
Israel (“Association of Jews” in Hebrew): A former name of the Askenazi
Haredi party now called Yahadut Ha’Torah.
Aron
Ha’kodesh (“Cupboard of the Holiness” in Hebrew): Place in synagogue where
the Scrolls of Law are stored, to be taken out only on specific occasions.
Regarded as the holiest place in the synagogue. Ashkenazi (“German” in
pre-modem Hebrew): A common name for Jews whose ancestors lived in northern
France, England, Germany, Poland, Russia and other countries of central and
eastern Europe. Bar Mitzva (“capable of [fulfilling] commandments” in
Hebrew): A ceremony usually accompanied by a feast, to celebrate the occasion
when a Jewish boy reaches the age of thirteen, is then obliged to fulfill all
religious commandments and becomes capable of sinning. According to traditional
Judaism the father is responsible for all sins committed by sons below the age
of thirteen.
Black
Panthers: In the context of this book this term refers to a small and
ephemeral, but highly publicized, organization of Oriental Jews in Israel
during the 1970s, which protested discrimination of Oriental Jews.
Bnei
Brak: Israeli town near Tel Aviv, inhabited almost only by Haredim,
mainly Ashkenazi.
Border
guards: A paramilitary unit of the Israeli police.
Cabbala
(“The received [thing]” in Hebrew): The usual name for Jewish
mysticism; used especially for the Jewish mystical groups that have developed
since the eleventh century.
Davar
(“Matter,” in Hebrew): A Hebrew newspaper that ceased to appear in
the mid-1990s.
Degel
Ha’Torah (“Flag of the Torah” in Hebrew): A faction of Mitnagdim within the
party, Yahadut Ha’Torah.
Der’i,
Aryeh: Chief politician of the Shas party, bom in 1959. In April, 1999,
he was convicted for taking bribes and sentenced to four years of imprisonment.
The punishment was suspended pending his appeal. Ga’on (“genius” in
Hebrew): Title of the two chief rabbis in Iraq from about 650 to 1050, each of
whom was acknowledged by all Jews as the supreme religious authority. In the
last two hundred years also used in a vague manner to designate (or to flatter)
any important rabbi. Ge’onim: Plural of Ga’on.
Goren,
Rabbi Shlomo: An important Israeli rabbi. Appointed by Prime Minister David
Ben Gurion as the first Chief Rabbi of the Israeli army. Subsequently a Chief
Rabbi of Israel in the 1960s and 1970s.
Gush
Emunim (“Block of Faithful” in Hebrew): The ideological and settling
messianic movement (see chapters four and five). Founded in early 1974.
Ha’ain Hashvi’it (“the seventh eye” in Hebrew): Bimonthly
issued by the Israeli Institute for Democracy and devoted to media criticism. Haaretz
(“The land” in Hebrew): The most prestigious Hebrew newspaper, read mainly by
the elite.
Hadashot (“News” in Hebrew): A radical Hebrew newspaper
of the 1980s and early 1990s.
Ha’ir (“The town” in Hebrew): A Friday, widely read,
Hebrew newspaper of Tel Aviv and neighboring towns with radical tendencies. Halacha
(“Accepted” in Hebrew): The term as two meanings in Hebrew. 1. The entire
body of the Jewish religious law. 2. A single regulation of that law. To avoid
confusion in this book we used the term only in its first meaning. Where it
occurred in our Hebrew sources in the second meaning (for example, in
references in quotations to books codifying Jewish religious law), it was
translated as “rule.” Haredim (“Fearful” in the meaning “God-fearing” in
Hebrew): Name of those Jewish fundamentalists who refuse modem innovations.
Haredi is the singular form and is also an adverb.
Ha’Shavua (“The week” in Hebrew): An extreme Haredi
weekly. Heder (“Room” in Hebrew): Name for the pre-modem Jewish school
system.
Hesder
(“Arrangement” in Hebrew): Name for religious units in Israeli
army that serve by a special arrangement.
Israel
A and Israel B: Popular Israeli terms designating the two parts of Israeli
Jewish society that often oppose each other: the former leaning to the right
and the second leaning to the left and less influenced by religion.
Karo,
Rabbi Yoseph: 1488-1575, the author of Shulhan Aruch, commentaries on
Maimonides and other religious works. Regarded as the most important rabbinic
authority of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Kashrut
(“proper manner” in Hebrew): A set of rules governing the types of
food that religious Jews can eat according to the Halacha and the proper manner
of their preparation.
Kitzur
Shulhan Aruch (“abridgment of Shulhan Aruch” in Hebrew): A popular book
containing the most necessary rules of Halacha, used in the education of Haredi
children and by the uneducated Haredim. Written by rabbi Shlomo Gantzfried in
early nineteenth century.
Kollel
(“entire” or “inclusive” in Hebrew): An institution for the
studying of Talmud by adults who have finished their Yeshiva studies. Kook,
Rabbi Avracham Yitzhak Hacohen: 1865-1935, also called and referred to in
this book as “Rabbi Kook the elder.” After filling various rabbinic posts he
was the Chief Rabbi of Palestine 1920-35. A prolific author, many of whose
works were posthumously edited from his notes. The founder of the messianic
ideology (chapters four and five). Held in great regard by Gush Emunim
followers and to some extent by all Zionists.
Kook,
Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Hacohen: 1890-1982, a son of Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook.
Called and referred to in this book as “Rabbi Kook the younger.” Took over the
leadership of the adherents of messianic ideology after the death of his
father. All important Gush Emunim rabbis are his students.
Kosher:
Yiddish expression used in Hebrew with ironic undertones to refer
to food, chosen and prepared according to rules of Kashrut. The proper Hebrew
word “Kasher” is used mainly in polite discourse. Kuneh: A Yiddish word
meaning a particular type of stocks used by Jews in Eastern Europe. Adopted in
Hebrew historical and religious works.
Labor:
Proper name The Israeli Labor Party. The largest and also the
oldest Israeli left party.
Likud
(“consolidation” in Hebrew): The largest Israeli right party. Lurianic
Cabbala: The most important branch of Cabbala since the early seventeenth
century. Founded by Rabbi Isaac Luria (1538-72) and his disciples, it has
dominated all subsequent Jewish mysticism. Maariv (“eventide” in
Hebrew): The Hebrew daily paper with the second largest circulation.
Maimonides:
Used in this book, following Hebrew usage, in two meanings: 1.
Rabbi Moshe son of Maimon, called in European languages Maimonides, 1138-1204,
author of many books of commentary on the Halacha. Also, the greatest
philosopher of Judaism. 2. The largest codex of Halacha composed by Maimonides;
the proper name is “Mishneh Torah” (“second rank Torah”). It includes all
commandments and beliefs of Jewish religious law. It is divided into books that
are in turn divided into tractates, entitled according to the issues with which
they deal; they tractates in turn are divided into chapters and individual
rules. In our references following the Hebrew usage, only the tractate, chapter
and the number of the rule are given. Maskilim (“the enlightened ones”
in Hebrew): Name adopted by the Jews who introduced modern influences into
Judaism in late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Mishnah
(“repetition” in Hebrew): The basic and easier part of Talmud,
often studied by itself and equipped with special commentaries.
Mitnagdim
(“opponents” in Hebrew): The most extreme right-wing party now
represented in the knesset.
National
Religious Party: Often referred to by its acronym NRP. Represents
the fundamentalist Jews in Israel who are not Haredim. Oriental Jews (“mizrahim”
in Hebrew): Collective name used at present for Israeli Jews who are not
Ashkenazi.
Orthodox:
In Israel and elsewhere, a common name for Jews who keep the rules
of Halacha, or at least most of them. Orthodoxy refers to the behavior and
practices of Orthodox Jews. (Contrary to Christianity, Orthodox and orthodoxy
in Judaism refer mostly to practices and not to beliefs.)
Palestinian
Talmud (called incorrectly in Hebrew “Jerusalem Talmud”): The less
authoritative and extensive of the two Taimuds. Pentateuch: The first
five books of the Bible, believed to have been written by Moses and regarded as
more sacred than the rest of the Bible. Purim: A lesser Jewish holiday
that occurs about one month before Passover. It has many features of the
carnival but is also characterized by increased hostility to non-Jews.
Rabenu
(“our rabbi” in Hebrew): An unofficial title given to specially
important rabbis.
Rebbe
(“rabbi” in Yiddish): Kept to this day by the holy men of Hassidic
sects as one of their titles. Used in Hebrew in this connotation. Sages: The
customary English translation of the Hebrew term “our wise men of blessed
memory.” Used primarily to designate all rabbis mentioned in the Talmud, but
also to refer more vaguely to all past Orthodox rabbis.
Sephardi
(“Spanish” in Hebrew): Until the late 1970s used in Israel instead
of the term, Oriental Jews.
Sha’atnez:
A Hebrew word denoting the forbidden mixture of wool and flax in a
textile.
Shach,
Rabbi Eliezer: 1898-, the spiritual leader of the Degel Ha’Torah faction and
one of the most influential rabbis in Israel. Shas: The party of
Oriental Jewish Haredim.
Shishi (“Sixth” or “Friday” in Hebrew): Name of a
defunct Hebrew weekly.
Shofar:
Ram’s horn used for sacred blowing during some synagogue services
and especially on the New Year.
Sholem,
Professor Gershon: 1897-1982, founder of the modern study of
Cabbala; wrote many authoritative books on Jewish mysticism. Shulhan Aruch (“prepared
table” in Hebrew): A summary of a longer work, Bet Yoseph, by Rabbi Yoseph Karo
but shorter than the Maimonides version, because it omits many less important
subjects. It is regarded as authoritative by most Orthodox Jews. Usually the
differences between the Shulhan Aruch and the Maimonides version are minor.
Tai,
Professor Uriel: Died in 1985. Professor of German history at Tel
Aviv University.
Talmud
(“study” in Hebrew): Although there are two Taimuds, Palestinian
and Babylonian, the term “Talmud” without qualification always refers to the
Babylonian Talmud, regarded as the most authoritative text by Orthodox Jews.
The Palestinian Talmud (much shorter and inferior in its arrangement) enjoys
only a supplementary authority. The basic part of both Taimuds is the Mishnah,
a collection of terse laws written in Hebrew. The other part, called “Gemarah”
consists of a discussion of those laws mixed with many legends. The Gemarah is
much longer than the Mishnah and is written in both Aramaic and Hebrew. Both
Taimuds are divided into sixty tractates. The Babylonian Talmud is always
printed in standard editions with the same division of pages so that all
references are to the names of tractate and page numbers.
Torah
Sheba’al Peh (“oral Torah” in Hebrew): Term used, especially by Orthodox
Jews, to refer to the sacred Jewish literature other than the Bible.
Tractate:
A major division of the Talmud. Each tractate has a name, usually
roughly describing its main contents.
Tsomet
(“junction” in Hebrew): Secular right-wing party headed by Reserve
General Raphael Eitan and allied with Likud. Tsomet has been politically
powerful in the early 1990s.
Yahadut
Ha’Torah (“Judaism of the Torah” in Hebrew): Party of Ashkenazi Haredim,
comprised of two almost independent factions: one Degel Ha’Torah and the other
a coalition of Hassidic sects.
Yated Ne’eman (“faithful tent peg” in Hebrew): Weekly
of Degel Ha’Torah.
Yediot Ahronot (“last news” in Hebrew): The Hebrew newspaper
with by far the largest circulation.
Yerushalaim (“Jerusalem” in Hebrew): A Hebrew Friday paper
published in Jerusalem. Belongs to Yediot Ahronot.
Yeshiva
(“sitting” or “meeting” in Hebrew): Institution for higher
Talmudic studies. The plural is Yeshivot.
Yom
Kippur (Day of Atonement in English): The most sacred day of the Jewish
religious calendar.
Yoseph,
Rabbi Ovadia: The spiritual leader of the Shas party.
This
is a political book about Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. It includes some
original scholarly research but is based to a great extent upon the scholarly
research of others. Hopefully, this book is analytical.
We
have inserted in the text many and copious quotations from serious articles
that have appeared in the Israeli Hebrew press. The majority of articulate
Israeli Jews have learned about Jewish fundamentalism and some of the
reactions thereto during the past ten to fifteen years from these articles.
Some of these articles provided summaries of and analyses by leading scholars
who have researched in-depth aspects of Jewish fundamentalism.
We
have quoted and have usually explained texts from talmudic literature. Such
texts have been and still are often used in Israeli politics and often quoted
in the Israeli Hebrew press. We have concluded that in the usual English
translations of talmudic literature some of the most sensitive passages are
usually toned down or falsified - as a result, we have ourselves translated all
of the texts from talmudic literature that we have quoted in the book. The
quotations from the Bible, however, follow the standard translations, sometimes
in more modem English, except when specifically noted otherwise.
We
realize that we have presented a number of lengthy quotations. We determined
that this was necessary in order to explain our points adequately. We believe
the quotations deserve to be and should be read in full. Instead of footnoting
each quotation separately in the traditional scholarly manner, we decided to
mention in the text from where each quotation was taken. Although this may at
times appear to be a bit redundant, it makes the flow of understanding easier.
Although
our book deals primarily with recent developments in Jewish fundamentalism, it
is rooted in Jewish history. A brief overview of Jewish history, especially for
readers who may lack adequate knowledge thereof, is necessary in order to
provide the contextual framework for the subject matter. Fundamentalists of all
religions wish to restore society to the “good old times” when the faith was
allegedly pure and was practiced by everyone. Fundamentalists believe that in
the “good old times” all the evils associated with modernity were absent. To
gain an understanding of Jewish fundamentalism, it is imperative to identify
the historical period that fundamentalists believe should be re-established. In
order to do this, we must specify the various periods of Jewish history.
Jewish
history is usually divided into four major periods. The first is the biblical
period during which most of the Jewish Bible (Old Testament in the Christian
tradition) was written. Although its beginning time is uncertain, this period
lasted until about the fifth century bc.
Judaism, at least in its major characteristics, did not exist in this time
period. The Hebrew word “yehudim” (“Jews” in post-biblical Hebrew) and its
cognates in the Jewish Bible only denotes the inhabitants of the small kingdom
of Judea and is used to distinguish these inhabitants from all the other
people, called Israelites or “sons of Israel” or, rarely, “Hebrews.” The Bible
anyway is not the book that primarily determines the practices and doctrines of
Orthodox Jews.1 The most fundamentalist Orthodox Jews are largely
ignorant of major parts of the Bible and know some parts only through
commentaries that distort meaning. Controversies, moreover, consumed the
biblical period. The majority of Israelites, including inhabitants of Judea,
practiced idolatry throughout much of this period. Only a minority of
Israelites followed those tendencies from which Judaism subsequently arose. In
short, Judaism, as it came to be known, did not exist during the biblical
period.
The
second period of Jewish history, usually called the Second Temple period, began
in the fifth century BC and lasted until the destruction of the Second Temple
by the Romans in ad 70. This was
the formative period of Judaism with its subsequent characteristics. The term
“Jews,” which denotes those people who followed the distinctive religion of
Judaism and the name Judea, which denotes the land wherein Jews lived, appeared
in this period. Near the end of this period, after Jews had conquered most of
Palestine, the Romans adopted the term “Judea” in describing Palestine.2
The two most important new Jewish characteristics that developed in this period
were Jewish exclusiveness and the resultant separation of Jews from all other
nations. For the first time the persons of other nations were referred to by
the collective name of gentiles.3 The second new characteristic was
based upon the assumption that the Jews must follow biblical law, that is, the
true interpretation of the law. During most of this period, however, disputes
centering upon differing and rival interpretations of the law occurred. At
times, these disputes erupted into civil wars. The long-lasting quarrel between
the Pharisees and Saducees was but one example of such disputes. Shortly after
the beginning of this period, Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. States
influenced by Hellenism ruled Palestine for almost a thousand years thereafter;
even the short-lived independent Jewish state of the Hasmonean dynasty was in
most essentials a type of Hellenistic state. Consequentially, Jewish society
and the Hebrew language, even though keeping their Jewish characteristics were
transformed by the influences of Hellenism. Hellenism influenced even more
deeply the Jewish diaspora in Mediterranean countries. Jews in those countries
often spoke and prayed in Greek. Unfortunately most of the Jewish literature in
Greek, which was produced in this period, was subsequently lost by the Jews;
only that part preserved by various Christian churches has remained.
Most
historians date the beginning of the third period in ad 70 with the destruction of the Second Temple. Other
historians prefer to date the beginning of the third period in ad 135, when the last major Jewish
rebellion against the Roman Empire ended. This period ended at different times
in different countries with the onset of modernity and the rise of modern
nation states. Modernity began when Jews were granted rights as citizens equal
to those granted to non-Jews and consequently when their autonomy, which entailed
subjection to the rabbis, ended. This occurred in the United States and France,
for example, by the end of the eighteenth century; this did not occur in Russia
until 1917 or in Yemen until the 1950s. The Jewish rebellions against the
Romans resulted in a permanent loss of Jewish population in Palestine; the
importance of the Jewish diaspora thus increased. This change became fully
operative in the fifth century ad.
Additionally, the failure of rebellions caused the Jews to lose hope that the
Temple would be rebuilt and that the animal sacrifices performed in the Temple,
previously the heart-center of the Jewish religion, would be restored before
the coming of the Messiah. The repeated defeats caused most Jews to accommodate
themselves to the ruling authority of Rome and of other states in return for
the limited autonomy directed by the rabbis. Thus, in the Roman empire of the
fourth century ad, in a system
created much earlier, all the Jews were in religious matters subject to the
Patriarch who had the power to punish them by flogging, by levying fines for
religious offenses and by imposing taxes. The dignitary called Patriarch in
Roman sources was called President (“Nassi” in Hebrew) in Jewish sources. He
presided over the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court, and in Palestine
appointed court members and other religious functionaries. The Patriarch,
whose post was hereditary, held a high official rank in the hierarchy of Roman
state officials. A similar arrangement simultaneously existed in Iraq where the
top official was called the head of the diaspora. Both the patriarch and the
head of the diaspora claimed to have been descended from the family of King
David. The office of the patriarch lapsed shortly after ad 429; the office of the head of the diaspora lasted until
about ad 1100. Both offices
provided the framework for models of Jewish autonomy. This autonomy, which
persisted until the modem era, and later repercussions thereof, contributed to
the rise of Jewish fundamentalism. The great abundance of literature produced
in the third period, the longest in the entire course of Jewish history, was
written mostly in Hebrew but also in Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, Yiddish and other
languages. The major theme was religion; the minutiae of religious observances
were mainly emphasized. Poetry, philosophy and science, predominantly of the
Aristotelian variety, appeared at some times in some places but were neither
universal nor continuous. In many diaspora areas, particularly in central
Europe, the only literature produced until 1750 was religious. From the
perspective of Jewish fundamentalism the most important occurrence in the third
period was the growth of Jewish mysticism, usually referred to by the name of
Cabbala. Jewish mysticism transformed Jewish beliefs without changing, except
for a few details, Jewish observance. Between 1550 and 1750, the great majority
of Jews in western Europe accepted the Cabbala and its set of beliefs. This was
the end of the third period of Jewish history, which immediately preceded the
rise of modern nation states and the beginning of modem influences. Mysticism
is still accepted by and constitutes a vital part of Jewish fundamentalism,
being especially important in the messianic variety. As shown in our book, the
ideology of the messianic variety of Jewish fundamentalism is based upon the
Cabbala. In spite of making occasional references to the Bible, Jewish
fundamentalists generally have consistently pinpointed and described the last
part of this third period as the golden age that they wish to restore. It is
important to note that, beyond the spawning of Jewish fundamentalism, the wide
circulation of religious literature in this third period created a strong sense
of Jewish unity, based upon a common religion and the Hebrew language. (Almost
all educated Jews, regardless of what language they spoke, understood and
employed Hebrew as a written language for their religion.)
The
fourth and modem period of Jewish history is the one in which we live. It began
at different times in different countries; many Israeli Jews passed directly
from pre-modem to modem times. As discussed in Chapter 3 of our book, this
phenomenon has been especially important for Oriental Jews. Our book emphasizes
that Jewish fundamentalism arose as a reaction against the effects of modernity
upon Jews. The influence of Jewish fundamentalism upon the Israeli Jewish
community can only be understood adequately within the context of the entire
course of Jewish history.
Jewish Fundamentalism Within Jewish Society
Almost
every moderately sophisticated Israeli Jew knows the facts about Israeli Jewish
society that are described in this book. These facts, however, are unknown to
most interested Jews and non-Jews outside Israel who do not know Hebrew and
thus cannot read most of what Israeli Jews write about themselves in Hebrew.
These facts are rarely mentioned or are described inaccurately in the enormous
media coverage of Israel in the United States and elsewhere. The major purpose
of this book is to provide those persons who do not read Hebrew with more
understanding of one important aspect of Israeli Jewish society.
This
book pinpoints the political importance of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, a
powerful state in and beyond the Middle East that wields great influence in the
United States. Jewish fundamentalism is here briefly defined as the belief
that Jewish Orthodoxy, which is based upon the Babylonian Talmud, the rest of
talmudic literature and halachic literature, is still valid and will eternally
remain valid. Jewish fundamentalists believe that the Bible itself is not
authoritative unless interpreted correctly by talmudic literature. Jewish
fundamentalism exists not only in Israel but in every country that has a
sizeable Jewish community. In countries other than Israel, wherein Jews
constitute a small minority of the total population, the general importance of
Jewish fundamentalism is limited mainly to acquiring funding and gamering
political support for fundamentalist adherents in Israel. Its importance in
Israel is far greater, because its adherents can and do influence the state in
various ways. The variety of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel is striking. Many
fundamentalists, for instance, want the temple rebuilt on the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem or at least want to keep the site, which is now a holy Muslim praying
place, empty of visitors. In the United States most Christians would not
identify with such a purpose, but in Israel a significant number of Israeli
Jews who are not fundamentalists identify with and support this and similar
demands. Some varieties of Jewish fundamentalism are clearly more dangerous
than others. Jewish fundamentalism is not only capable of influencing
conventional Israeli policies but could also substantially affect Israeli
nuclear policies. The same possible consequences of fundamentalism feared by
many persons for other countries could occur in Israel.
The
significance of fundamentalism in Israel can only be understood within the
context of Israeli Jewish society and as part of the contribution of the Jewish
religion to societal internal divisions. Our consideration of this broad topic
begins by focusing upon the ways sophisticated observers divide Israeli Jewish
society politically and religiously. We then proceed to the explanation of why Jewish
fundamentalism influences in varying degrees other Israeli Jews, thereby
allowing fundamentalist Jews to wield much greater political power in Israel
than their percentage of the population might appear to warrant.
The
customary two-way division of Israeli Jewish society rests upon the cornerstone
recognition that as a group Israeli Jews are highly ideological. This is best
evidenced by their high percentage of voting, which usually exceeds 80 per
cent. In the May 1996 elections, over 95 per cent of the better educated,
richer, secular Jews and the religious Jews in all categories of education and
income voted. After discounting the large number of Israeli Jews who live
outside Israel (over 400,000), most of whom did not vote, it can be safely
assumed that almost every eligible voter in these two crucial segments of the
population voted. Most Israeli political observers by now assume that Israeli
Jews are divided into two categories: Israel A and Israel B. Israel A, often
referred to as the “left,” is politically represented by the Labor and Meretz
Parties; Israel B, referred to as the “right” or the “right and religious
parties,” is comprised of all the other Jewish parties. Almost all of Israel A
and a great majority of Israel B (the exception being some of the
fundamentalist Jews) strongly adhere to Zionist ideology, which in brief, holds
that all or at least the majority of Jews should emigrate to Palestine, which
as the Land of Israel, belongs to all Jews and should be a Jewish state. A
strong and increasing enmity between these two segments of Israeli society
nevertheless exists. There are many reasons for this enmity. The reason
relevant to this study is that Israel B, including its secular members, is
sympathetic to Jewish fundamentalism while Israel A is not. It is apparent from
studies of election results over a long period of time that Israel B has
consistently obtained a numerical edge over Israel A. This is an indication
that the number of Jews influenced by Jewish fundamentalism is consistently
increasing.
In
his article “Religion, Nationalism and Democracy in Israel,” published in the
Autumn 1994 issue of the periodical, Z’ Manim (no. 50-51), Professor
Baruch Kimmerling, a faculty member of Hebrew University’s sociology
department, presented data pertaining to the religious division of Israeli
Jewish society. Citing numerous research studies, Kimmerling showed
conclusively that Israeli Jewish society is far more divided on religious
issues than is generally assumed outside of Israel, where belief in generalizations,
such as “common to all Jews,” is challenged less than in Israel. Quoting the
data of a survey taken by the prestigious Gutman Institute of the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem, Kimmerling pointed out that whereas 19 per cent of
Israeli Jews said they prayed daily, another 19 per cent declared that they
would not enter a synagogue under any circumstances.1 Influenced by
the Gutman Institute analysis and similar studies, Kimmerling and other
scholars have concluded that Israel A and Israel B contain hard-core believers
who hold diametrically opposed views of the Jewish religion. This conclusion is
almost certainly correct.
More
generally, the attitude towards religion in Israeli Jewish society can be
divided into three parts. The religious Jews observe the commandments of the
Jewish religion, as defined by Orthodox rabbis, many of whom emphasize
observance more than belief. (The number of Reform and/or Conservative Jewish
in Israel is small.) The traditional Jews keep some of the more important
commandments while violating the more inconvenient ones; they do honor the
rabbis and the religion. The secularists may occasionally enter a synagogue but
respect neither the rabbis nor the religious institutions. The line between
traditional and secular Jews is often vague, but the available studies indicate
that 25 to 30 per cent of Israeli Jews are secular, 50 to 55 per cent are
traditional and about 20 per cent are religious. Traditional Jews obviously
belong to both the Israel A and Israel B categories.
Israeli
religious Jews are divided into two distinctly different groups. The members of
the religiously more extreme group are called Haredim. (The singular word is
Haredi or Hared.) The members of the religiously more moderate group are called
religiousnational Jews. The religious-national Jews are sometimes called
“knitted skullcaps” because of their head covering. Haredim usually wear black
skullcaps that are never knitted, or hats. The religiousnational Jews
otherwise usually dress in the more usual Israeli fashion, while the Haredim
almost always wear black clothes.
The
Haredim are themselves divided into two parties. The first, Yahadut Ha’Torah
(Judaism of the Law) is the party of the Ashkenazi Haredim who are of East
European origin. Yahadut Ha’Torah itself is a coalition of two factions. The
second is Shas, the party of the Oriental Haredim who are of Middle Eastern
origin. (The differences between the two types of Haredim will be more
specifically discussed in Chapter 3.) The religious-national Jews are organized
in the National Religious Party (NRP). By analyzing the 1996 electoral vote and
making some necessary adjustments, we can estimate the population percentages
of these two groups of religious Jews. In the 1996 election the Haredi parties
together won 14 of the 120 total Knesset seats. Shas won ten seats; Yahadut Ha’
Torah won four. The NRP won nine seats. Some Israeli Jews admittedly voted for
Shas because of talismans and amulets distributed by Shas that were supposedly
valid only after a “correct” vote. Some NRP members and sympathizers, moreover,
admittedly voted for secular right-wing parties. Everything considered, the
Haredim probably constitute 11 per cent of the Israeli population and 13.4 per
cent of the Israeli Jews; the NRP adherents probably constitute 9 per cent of
the Israeli population and 11 per cent of the Israeli Jews.
The
basic tenets of the two groups of religious Jews need some introductory
explanation. The word “hared” is a common Hebrew word meaning “fearful.” During
early Jewish history, it meant “God-fearing” or exceptionally devout. In the
mid-nineteenth century it was adopted, first in Germany and Hungary and later
in other parts of the diaspora, as the name of the party of religious Jews that
opposed any modem innovation. The Ashkenazi Haredim emerged as a backlash group
opposed to the Jewish enlightenment in general and especially to those Jews who
refused to accept the total authority of the rabbis and who introduced
innovations into the Jewish worship and life style. Seeing that almost all Jews
accepted these innovations, the Haredim reacted even more extremely and banned
every innovation. The Haredim to date have insisted upon the strictest
observance of the Halacha. An illustrative example of opposition to innovation
is the previously mentioned and still current black dress of the Haredim; this
was the dress fashion of Jews in Eastern Europe when the Haredim formed
themselves into a party. Before that time Jews dressed in many different styles
and were often indistinguishable in dress from their neighbors. After a brief
time, almost all Jews except for the Haredim again dressed dififerendy. The
Halacha, moreover, does not enjoin Jews to dress in black and/or to wear thick
black coats and heavy fur caps during the hot summer or at any other time. Yet,
Haredim in Israel continue to do so in opposition to innovation; they insist
that dress be kept as it was in Europe around 1850. All other considerations,
including climatic ones, are overridden.
In
contrast to the Haredim, the religious-nationalist Jews of the NRP made their
compromises with modernity at the beginning of the 1920s when the split between
the two large groupings in religious Judaism first appeared in Palestine. This
can be immediately observed in their dress, which, with the exception of a
small skullcap, is conventional. Even more importantly, this is evident in
their selective observance of the Halacha, for example, in their rejection of
many commandments regarding women. NRP members do not hesitate to admit women
to positions of authority in many of their organizations and in the political
party itself. Before both the 1992 and 1996 elections the NRP published and
distributed an advertisement, containing photographs of various public figures
including some women supporting the party, and boasted more broadly on
television of female support. Haredim did not and would not do this. Even when
Haredim, who ban television watching for themselves, decided to present some
television election programs directed to other Jews, they insisted that all
participants be male. During the 1992 campaign the editors of a Haredi weekly
consulted the rabbinical censor about whether or not to publish the
above-mentioned NRP advertisement. The rabbinical censor ordered the paper to
publish the advertisement with all photographs of the NRP women blotted out.
The editors did what the censor ordered. Outraged, the NRP sued the newspaper
for libel and sought damages in Israeli secular courts, disregarding the
rulings of Haredi rabbis prohibiting using secular courts to settle disputes
among Jews.
The
religious-nationalist Jewish compromises with modernity regarding women are
exceedingly complicated in many ways. The Halacha forbids Jewish males to
listen to women singing whether in a choir or solo regardless of what is sung.
This is stated directly in the halachic ruling that a voice of a woman is
adultery. This is interpreted by later halachic rulings stipulating that the
word “voice” here means a woman’s singing not speaking. This rule, originating
in the Talmud, occurs in all codes of law. A Jewish male who willingly listens
to a woman’s singing commits a sin equivalent either to adultery or
fornication. The great majority of NRP faithful members, nevertheless, listen to
women singing and thus commit “adultery” routinely. Some of the most strict NRP
members, especially among the religious settlers in the West Bank, have not
only puzzled over this problem but at times have tried to solve the problem of
how to adjust by developing creative approaches. In the early 1990s some of the
settlers founded a new radio station, Arutz, or Channel, 7. For their station
to become successful and to appeal as broadly as possible to Israeli Jews, the
settlers understood that the songs of the fashionable singers of the day, some
of whom were women, would have to be broadcast. The rabbinical censor, however,
has refused to allow a breach of the Halacha whereby male listeners would hear
female singers and thus commit “adultery.” After further consultation with the
censor, the setders devised an acceptable solution that is still being
employed. Men sing the songs, made popular by women; the male voices are then
electronically changed to the female pitch and are broadcast accordingly over
Arutz 7. A part of the traditional public is satisfied by this expedient, and
the learned NRP rabbis insist that no adultery is committed when men listen to
the songs being sung. The Haredim obviously have rejected and condemned this
accommodation and to date have refused to listen to Arutz 7. Even more
importantly, the Haredim, after increasing somewhat their political power in
the 1988 elections, were able to impose their position in this regard upon the
whole state by forcing a change in the opening of the new Knesset session. The
opening ceremony previously began with the singing of “Hatikva,” the Israeli
national anthem, by a mixed male-female choir. After the 1988 election, in
deference to Haredi sensitivities, a male singer replaced the mixed choir.
After the 1992 election, won by Labor, an all-male choir of the Military
Rabbinate sang “Hatikva.”
How
can the Haredim, who altogether constitute only a small percentage of Israel’s
Jewish population, at times, either alone or even with the help of the NRP,
impose their will upon the rest of society? The facile explanation is that both
the Labor and Likud parties kowtow to the Haredim for political support. This
explanation is insufficient. The kowtowing continued between 1984 and 1990
during the time that Labor and Likud had formed a coalition. Currying favor
from the Haredim for alignment purposes was then politically unnecessary. The
offered explanation, furthermore, does not adequately take into account the
special affinity of all the religious parties, perceived since 1980 as fundamentalist,
to Likud and other secular right-wing parties. This affinity, especially
between Likud and the Haredi religious parties, based upon a shared world
outlook, is at the crux of Israeli politics. (This affinity is analogous to
that existing between Christian and Muslim fundamentalists and their secular
right parties.) The relatively simple case of the NRP illustrates this well.
The NRP recognizes, although does not always follow, the same halachic
authorities as do the Haredi parties. The NRP also adheres to the same ideals
relating to the Jewish past and, more importantly, to the future when Israel’s
triumph over the non-Jews will allegedly be secure. The differences between the
NRP and the Haredim stem from the NRP’s belief that redemption has begun and
will soon be completed by the imminent coming of the Messiah. The Haredim do
not share this belief. The NRP believes that special circumstances at the
beginning of redemption justify temporary departures from the ideal that could
help advance the process of redemption. NRP support in some situations for
military service for talmudic scholars is a relevant example here. These
deviant NRP ideas have been undermined since the 1970s by the expanding Haredi
influence upon increasing numbers of NRP followers who have resisted departures
from strict talmudic norms and have favored Haredi positions. This process has
been counter-balanced to some extent by the growth in prestige of the NRP
settlers who are esteemed as pioneers of messianism even though the
assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by a messianist may have momentarily
increased Haredi prestige.
The
religious influence upon the Israeli right-wing of Israel B is attributable
both to its militaristic character and its widely shared world outlook. Secular
and militaristic right-wing, Israeli Jews hold political views and engage in
rhetoric similar to that of religious Jews. For most Likud followers, “Jewish
blood” is the reason why Jews are in a different category than non-Jews, including,
of course, even those non-Jews who are Israeli citizens and who serve in the
Israeli army. For religious Jews, the blood of non-Jews has no intrinsic value;
for Likud, it has limited value. Menachem Begin’s masterful use of such
rhetoric about Gentiles brought him votes and popularity and thus constitutes a
case in point. The difference in this respect between Labor and Likud is
rhetorical but is nevertheless important in that it reveals part of a world
outlook. In 1982, for example, when the Israeli army occupied Beirut, Rabin
representing Labor, although advocating the same policies as favored by Sharon
and Likud, did not explain the Sabra and Shatila Camp massacres by stating, as
did Begin: “Gentiles kill Gentiles and blame the Jews.” Even if Rabin had
himself been capable of saying this, he knew that most of his secular
supporters in Labor, who distinguish between Gentiles who hate Jews and those
who do not, would not have tolerated such a statement. They would have
repudiated such rhetoric as being both untrue and harmful.
Religious
influence is evident in the right’s general reverence for the Jewish past and
its insistence that Jews have an historic right to an expanded Israel extending
beyond its present borders. More than other secular Israelis, members of the
Israeli right insist upon Jewish uniqueness. During many centuries of their
existence, the great majority of Jews were similar in some ways to the present-
day Haredim. Thus, those Jews who today revere the Jewish past as evidence of
Jewish uniqueness respect to some extent religious Jews as perpetuators of that
past. An essential part of the right’s emphasis upon uniqueness is its hatred
of the concept of “normality,” that is, that Jews are similar to other people
and have the same desire for stability as do other nations. Some cultural
affinities between secular and religious Jews of the Israeli right are not
primarily ideological. Many Likud supporters, whether Sephardic or Ashkenazi in
origin, are traditionalists; they view rabbis as glamorous figures and are
affected by childhood memories of the patriarchal family in which education was
dominated by the grandfather and the women “knew their place.” Although most
pronounced in those of the religious vanguard, such considerations also affect
secular Jews of the right. The right often exaggerates the beauty and
superiority of the Jewish past, especially when arguing for the preservation of
Jewish uniqueness.
The
religious and secular members of the right share fears as well as beliefs. In
an October 6, 1993, article, published in Haaretz, Israel’s most
prestigious daily Hebrew-language newspaper, Doron Rosenblum, relying upon
varied sources, illustrated this by quoting pronouncements of Likud leaders
that were designed to show Israelis the grave nature and risks of the peace
process and at the same time to continue the boasting that Likud had initiated
the process.
Rosenblum
quoted the following statement by Likud Member of the Knesset (MK) Uzi Landau,
who after the 1996 elections was appointed chairperson of the Knesset Committee
for Defense and Foreign Affairs:
If
Rabin’s policies toward Syria are followed, one morning they [Israeli Jews]
will awaken to see columns of Syrian tanks descending from the Golan Heights
like herds of sheep ... The settlements of the Galilee will then be attacked by
fire-power stronger than that used in [the war of] 1973 ... Since the idea of
extermination of Israelis remains a topic in the Syrian consciousness ... any
[Israeli] withdrawal from the Golan Heights will only precipitate the moment
that the Syrian knife will approach the throat of every inhabitant of the
Galilee ... Syrian policies are fixed by a genetic code not subject to rapid
changes.
Apparently
keeping to its double-standard approach, the Western media, which would almost
certainly have blasted any non-Jewish politician for attributing Israeli
policies to a Jewish genetic code not subject to rapid changes, avoided
commenting upon the Landau statement.
Rosenblum
also quoted MK Benny Begin, a major Likud leader, who expressed the fear that
Syria would make a frontal attack upon Israel. This fear is commonly expressed
by members of most Israeli political parties. What is characteristic of Israel
B, however, is that, as Benny Begin specifically declared, the aims of a Syrian
invasion will be the same as “the aims of Pogromists of Kishinev to cut Jewish
throats.”2 Begin added that this time nuclear scientists would help
in the Syrian venture. Comparing the unarmed Jewish community, a small minority
in the Russian Empire, with Israel and its army illustrates a common attitude
to the Jewish past held by the secular right-wing Israeli parties and the
religious Jews. This attitude takes no cognizance of historical development.
Jews in whatever condition are always the real or potential victims of
Gentiles.
Rosenblum,
who is a member of Israel A, perceived all such imagery as incongruous.
Observing that Landau regarded the Syrians as sheep, he asked: “Can it be that
he [Landau] means to say that we are wolves?” Rosenblum then offered his
analysis of why this rhetoric has nevertheless been so persuasive:
The
suspicion is long-standing that members of the national camps [that is, the
secular right] use power-mad rhetoric to cover their subliminal existential
fear of the entire world. This fear was not dispelled in the slightest when the
state of Israel was founded. Labor, in spite of all its faults, has succeeded
by whatever means to cast aside such fear and replace it with a constructive
and pragmatic world oudook. Likud, which resumed its historical note with ease,
has not.
Those
chauvinistic Jews who speak with utmost confidence about Israel’s power and
ability to impose its will upon the Middle East are most susceptible to such
fears. The same people who predict that a second Holocaust will almost
immediately occur if Israel makes any concession to the Arabs also often state
categorically that the Israeli army, if not restrained by politicians, by
Americans, or by leftist Jews, could conquer Baghdad within one week. (Ariel
Sharon actually made this claim a few months before the outbreak of the October
1973 war.) The fear and the self-confidence co-exist harmoniously. The belief
in Jewish uniqueness enhances this coexistence. Most foreign observers do not
realize that a sizeable segment of the Israeli Jewish public holds these
chauvinistic views. The schizophrenic blend of inordinate fears and exaggerated
selfconfidence, common to the Israeli secular right and religious Jews,
resembles ideas held by anti-Semites who usually view Jews as being at the same
time both powerful and easy to defeat. This is one of the reasons why attitudes
of Israeli right-wing individuals toward the Gentiles, especially toward the
Arabs, resemble so closely the attitudes of anti-Semites toward the Jews.
The
secular right and the religious Jews also share other fears. They fear the West
and its public opinion. They fear and condemn Jewish leftists, a term
sufficiently broad to include most Labor followers, for not being sufficiently
Jewish, for preferring Arabs to Jews and for living lives of delusion. They
view the left as dangerous because of its ability to attract new recruits,
especially from the ranks of the country’s intellectual elite.
The
issue of normalcy most divides the Israeli right from the left. The left longs
for normalcy and wants Jews to be a nation like all other nations. The entire
Israeli right, on the other hand, is united in its resentment of the idea of
normalcy and its belief, along the lines of the Jewish religion, that Jews are
exceptional - different from other people and nations. Reverence for the
national past allegedly solidifies this uniqueness. Religious Jews believe that
God made the Jews unique; many of the secular right believe that Jews are
doomed to be unique by their past and have no free choice in this matter.
Another,
but somewhat less important, reason for the affinity between the secular right
and religious Jews is that the latter are capable of providing “convincing”
arguments for perpetual Jewish rule over the land of Israel and for the denial
of certain basic rights to the Palestinians. These arguments are not only put
in terms of national security but more importantly in terms of the God-given
right to these territories. The secular Likud scholars and politicians are
often far too alienated from the Jewish past and Jewish values to talk
competently, or indeed even to understand properly, such matters. Only the
religious can provide an in-depth rationale for Likud’s policies, which are
grounded not in short-term strategic considerations but rather in the long
history of the special relationship between God and his chosen people.
Although
far more intense among members of Israel B, these same sentiments can be
discerned among members of Israel A. This fact provides the explanation for the
political concessions made to the religious parties. (Foreign observers have
too often incorrectly attributed these concessions merely to the size and/or
the lobbying power of the religious parties.) These sentiments have also
affected Jewish historiography and education. Since the late 1950s, and
especially after the 1967 war, Israeli Jewish historians, scholars in allied
fields and popularizers, although generally less dishonest in their writings
than most of their diaspora colleagues, have too often unduly beautified and
romanticized past Jewish societies and have carefully avoided normal criticism.
This type of apologia constituted a new trend. From the late nineteenth century
until the mid-twentieth century, early Zionists and others in modem Jewish
movements were severely critical of many aspects of their own religious
cultural tradition and tried to change, in many cases even to destroy, parts of
that tradition. Since the late 1980s, some younger Israeli historians, perhaps
prompted by a growing polarization of Israeli Jewish society, have written and
published some critical works that have shaken to some extent the still current
apologetic trend.
The
comparison of the world outlook and fears of the secular right with those of
the Haredim requires more explanation. Standard Haredic perceptions of the
world can only be understood as relics of pre-modern times. Menachem Friedman,
a Westernized observant Jew, a highly regarded authority on the Haredim in both
mandatory Palestine and the state of Israel and a professor at the religious
Bar-Ilan University, provided an excellent description of these Haredic
perceptions in a Davar article published on November 4, 1988. Friedman
wrote this article to explain the electoral fiasco that developed from the
unsuccessful attempt of some candidates on the religious list of 1988 to
advocate some moderation regarding the treatment of Palestinians. Friedman
explained:
The
Haredi world is Judeocentric. The essence ofHaredi thought is the notion of an
abyss separating the Jews from the Gentiles. This is why any coalition between
Labor and Haredi doves is impossible. There actually is no such thing as a
Haredi dove. People who speak about the Haredi world usually do not know how to
read its signs. They do not understand that world nor its prominent
personalities. The distance between Haredi doves and hawks is not great. Haredi
doves and hawks share a common point of departure. Both see the relationship
between non-Jews and Jews as they had seen them before Israel was established.
They assume that non-Jews and Jews are poles apart. Non-Jews want to kill and
destroy the Jews; the rightful differences between Jews should only be about
how they should react to the ever-present non-Jewish desire. Currently, these
are two alternative Haredi reactions to that common assumption. Rabbi Shach
[the spiritual leader of one of the two Haredi factions] says that since the
nonJews hate us we need to keep quiet and refrain from provoking them by not
reminding them of our existence. The Lubovitcher Rebbe says that we should be
strong. [The Lubovitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, died in 1992.] Those
are two alternative answers, both arising from the common concept that a gap
separates Jews from non-Jews. Rabbi Shach is not a dove in the same sense as
Shulamit Aloni [a former Meretz Party leader] is a dove. Aloni is a dove,
because she believes in a humanism that emphasizes the fundamental equality of
all human beings and nations and the capability of different human beings and
nations to communicate. Rabbi Shach believes that communicating with non-Jews
is not possible and that they may only be able to forget that Jews exist. The
Lubovitcher Rebbe states that we should be strong in order to defend ourselves
against the non-Jews who always want to destroy us. [The difference between the
two leaders] can be illustrated by their respective attitudes toward the peace
[treaty] with Egypt. They both say that there is no peace and there can never
be one, because the Egyptians want to exterminate us. Rabbi Shach, however,
adds that we should try to minimize [Jewish casualties] by keeping quiet. The
Lubovitcher Rebbe says that, because the peace does not exist in any case, we
should refuse to make any concessions. The Haredi dove does not believe in any
kind of peace, and, therefore, all the talk about a narrow coalition, headed by
Labor [and including Haredim] is completely baseless. Subsequent political
developments in Israel, including the election of Netanyahu in May 1996, have
confirmed the truth of Professor Friedman’s analysis. From another Haredi
perspective Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph, the spiritual authority of the Shas Party,
corroborated this article. Rabbi Yoseph argued in a September 18, 1989 article
in Yated Ne’eman that since Israel is too weak to demolish all Christian
churches in the Holy Land it is also too weak to retain all the conquered
territories. Using this reasoning, Rabbi Yoseph advocated that Israel make
territorial concessions in order to avert a war in which Jewish lives will be
lost. Rabbi Yoseph did not mention Palestinians nor even their most rudimentary
rights. The Haredi world view is similar to the view held by the Israeli
secular right. The world view of Likud politicians, enthusiastically supported
by followers, is basically the classic world view of religious Jews; it has
undergone significant secularization but has kept its essential qualities.
The
alliance between the religious and secular parties of the right produced the
Netanyahu victory in the 1996 election. This alliance was forged in spite of
two deep political differences between the parties. The first difference
concerns democracy, especially as illustrated by the structure of Israeli
parties; the second difference revolves around Zionism.
All
Israeli political parties except for the Haredi were and remain structured
along the lines of parties in Western countries, especially those in the United
States. Most of the Israeli parties, for example, introduced primaries in order
to choose their candidates for the Knesset elections. The Haredi party
structure, however, is different and peculiar, perhaps analogous only to what
has happened in Iran. All the Haredi parties have a two-tier structure. The
tier that is lower in importance includes the acting politicians, who, even if
they are ministers or Knesset members, humbly profess in public that they are
merely serving the party’s rabbinical sage councils whom they consult for
directions before making any decisions. None of the Haredi politicians of any
one party accept direction from rabbinical councils of other Haredi parties.
The councils’ deliberations are kept secret; their decisions are not subject to
any appeal since they are regarded as divinely inspired. The council members
are not elected either by rabbis or lay people. If a council member dies, his
successor is appointed by the remaining members. The rabbinical members of
Haredi party councils, usually referred to by their followers as sages, make
all decisions and view with suspicion the usual party structure, because it is
viewed as innovative and modem. The modern political party structure, including
membership, branches, internal elections and a host of other items that exist
in the NRP, is totally absent in the Haredi parties. The disagreement and
sometimes even hatreds of one another by Haredi parties stem
from
recognition of different rabbinical “sages” as final authorities. The Haredi
political structure has preserved a male monopoly. To date, there have been no
female Haredi politicians. Haredi disunity has prevented more rapid
Haredization of parts of Israeli society. Structure similar to the Haredi was
common in Jewish communities from the second century of the common era until
the abolition of Jewish communal autonomy in modem nation states. The aim of
Haredi practices has been and still is to preserve the Jewish way of life as it
existed prior to modem times. Haredi parties, in their attempt to preserve an
ancient Jewish regime, have to date constituted a political backlash directed
against the tide of modernity that engulfed the NRP. The Haredi reaction, like
many others, is often disguised as a romantic desire to return to a past that
was allegedly happier and more emotionally secure for Jews than the modern life
with its doubts and uncertainties. The Haredi-indoc- trinated community strives
to suppress all doubts of members and believes that happiness is thus achieved.
The
disagreement between Haredim and most other Israeli Jews over Zionism is
complex. The Haredim and the Zionists agree about the centrally important
Zionist principle that anti-Semitism is an eternal quality common to all
non-Jews and is different from xenophobia and/or any hatred of other
minorities. This view is, of course, similar to that held of Jews by
anti-Semites. (This similarity probably accounts for the political contact
between some Zionists, beginning with Herzl, and “moderate” anti-Semites, who
only wanted to rid their societies of Jews or limit the numbers of Jews in
their societies without killing them.) The views concerning and the fears of
anti-Semitism shared by the secular right and the Haredim accord with this
central principle of Zionism better than do the views currently held by the
left Labor and Meretz parties, which are frequently accused by Likud of not
being sufficiently Zionist.
Haredi
ideology nevertheless clashes with Zionism on certain other principles. Two
major examples are the Zionist aims to concentrate all Jews, or as many as possible,
in and to establish a Jewish state in Palestine. These aims or dogmas
contradict the Haredi interpretations of the Talmud and talmudic commentaries.
Because of the perceived contradiction, Haredim have consistently proclaimed,
and still proclaim, their strong opposition to Zionism; they claim that the
state of Israel is merely another diaspora for Jews, and they avoid using
Zionist symbols. Every Israeli political party other than the Haredi, including
the NRP, end or begin their conventions with the singing of “Hatikva,” the
Israeli national and the world Zionist movement anthem; the Haredi parties and
organizations do not do this but instead recite Jewish prayers. The media
often condemns the Haredim for not singing “Hatikva” on official occasions. At
all international Zionist conventions held in Israel only the Israeli flag is
displayed. At Haredi conventions held in Israel all flags of the nation states
from which delegates came, including Israel, are displayed in alphabetical
order.
The
Haredi objection to Zionism is based upon the contradiction between classical
Judaism, of which the Haredim are the continuators, and Zionism. Numerous
Zionist historians have unfortunately obfuscated the issues here. Some detailed
explanation is therefore necessary. In a famous talmudic passage in Tractate
Ketubot, page 111, which is echoed in other parts of the Talmud, God is
said to have imposed three oaths on the Jews. Two of these oaths that clearly
contradict Zionist tenets are: 1) Jews should not rebel against non-Jews, and
2) as a group should not massively emigrate to Palestine before the coming of
the Messiah. (The third oath, not discussed here, enjoins the Jews not to pray
too strongly for the coming of the Messiah, so as not to bring him before his appointed
time.) During the course of post-talmudic Jewish history, rabbis extensively
discussed the three oaths. Of major concern in this discussion was the question
of whether or not specific Jewish emigration to Palestine was part of the
forbidden massive emigration. During the past 1,500 years, the great majority
of traditional Judaism’s most important rabbis interpreted the three oaths and
the continued existence of the Jews in exile as religious obligations intended
to expiate the Jewish sins that caused God to exile them.
In
recent years, a number of Israeli Jewish scholars, who in general have
developed a more honest Jewish historiography, have focused upon the essence of
rabbinical interpretations of the three oaths. In his highly regarded scholarly
book, Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism (published in
Hebrew in Israel in 1993), Aviezer Ravitzky, for example, provided a good
summary of rabbinical interpretations of the three oaths from the fifth century
ad (or CE - Common Era). In his
analysis Ravitzky noted that in the ninth century Rabbi Shmuel, son of
Hosha’ana, an important leader of Palestinian Jewry, in a poetic prayer quoted
the following as God’s words. “I took the oath of my people not to rebel
against Christians and Muslims, told them to be silent until I myself will
overturn them as I did in Sodom.” In the thirteenth century during the time
that some rabbis and poets emigrated to Palestine for religious reasons,3
Ravitzky continued, other rabbis in many parts of the world quoted the three
oaths theory to warn against the spread of this potentially dangerous
phenomenon. Rabbi Eliezer, son of Moshe, the spiritual leader of a Jewish
congregation in Wurtzburg, Germany, in the thirteenth century warned Jews who
wrongly emigrated to Palestine that God would punish them with death. At about
the same time, Rabbi Ezra of Gerona, Spain, a famous cabbalist, wrote that a
Jew emigrating to Palestine forsakes God who is only present in the diaspora,
where a majority of Jews live, and not in Palestine. In his book Ravitzky
stressed that similar and even more extreme views continued to be expressed
until the nineteenth century. The celebrated German rabbi, Yehonathan Eibshutz,
wrote in the mid-eighteenth century that massive immigration of Jews to
Palestine, even with the consent of all the nations of the world, was
prohibited before the coming of the Messiah, In the early nineteenth century,
Moses Mendelsohn and other supporters of the Jewish Enlightenment, as well as
their opponents such as Rabbi Rafael Hirsch, the father of modem orthodoxy in
Germany, agreed and continued to derive this prohibition from the three oaths.
Hirsch wrote in 1837 that God had commanded Jews “never to establish a state of
their own by their own efforts.” Rabbis in Central Europe were even more
extreme. In 1837, the same year that Hirsch prohibited Jews from declaring a
Jewish state, an earthquake in northern Palestine killed a majority of the
inhabitants of Safad, of which many were Jews, some of whom had recently immigrated.
Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum, a leading Hungarian rabbi, attributed the earthquake to
God’s displeasure with excessive Jewish emigration to Palestine. Teitelbaum
stated: “It is not God’s will that we should go to the land of Israel by our
own efforts and will.” Rabbi Moshe Nachmanides, who died in 1270, was the one
exceptional Jewish leader who opined that Jews should not only emigrate to but
should also conquer the land of Israel. Other important rabbis of that time and
for many centuries thereafter ignored or strongly disagreed with the view of
Nachmanides.
In
the 1970s, seven centuries after his death, Nachmanides became the patron saint
of the NRP and the Gush Emunim settlers. NRP rabbis also have claimed that the
three oaths do not apply in messianic times and that, although the Messiah has
not yet appeared, a cosmic process called the beginning of redemption has
begun. During this period some of the previous religious laws should allegedly
be disregarded; others should be changed. Thus, the dispute between the NRP and
the Haredim has centered upon the issue of whether Jews are living in normal
times or in the period of the beginning of redemption. Having made some
political gains and becoming more self-confident after the 1988 national
election, the Haredim strengthened their principled opposition to Zionism and
to the NRP. In 1989, the two most important Haredi rabbis, Rabbi Shach and
Rabbi Yoseph, held an anti-Zionist convention in Bnei Brak, Israel. Their
speeches, devoted to expressions of principled opposition to Zionism and the
beginning of redemption doctrine, were published in the Haredi newspaper, YatedNe’eman,
on September 18, 1989. The two rabbis from an halachic perspective also
addressed the vital Israeli political issue of whether some areas of the land
of Israel should be given to non-Jews, that is, to Palestinians. They refuted
the NRP and Gush Emunim view that in accordance with the beginning of
redemption no land of Israel should be given to non-Jews. Rabbi Yoseph and
Shach argued that Jews still live in normal times when visible help of God
cannot always be expected to save Jewish lives.
Rabbi
Yoseph, renowned for his halachic erudition, presented in-depth analysis and
correctly noted that Rabbi Shach here agreed fully with him. Rabbi Yoseph began
by disagreeing with the NRP and Gush Emunim rabbis who argued that the
beginning of redemption and God’s commandment to conquer the land of Israel
were more important than the saving of Jewish lives that would be lost in the
war of conquest. Rabbi Yoseph acknowledged that in messianic times Jews would
be more powerful than non-Jews and would then be obligated to conquer the land
of Israel, to expel all non-Jews and to destroy the idolatrous Christian
churches. Rabbi Yoseph, however, asserted that the messianic time of redemption
had not yet arrived. He wrote:
The
Jews are not in fact more powerful than the non-Jews and are unable to expel
the non-Jews from the land of Israel because the Jews fear the non-Jews ...
God’s commandment is then not valid ... Even non-Jews who are idolaters live
among us with no possibility of their being expelled or even moved. The Israeli
government is obligated by international law to guard the Christian churches in
the land of Israel, even though those churches are definitely places of
idolatry and cult practice. This is so in spite of the fact that we are
commanded by our [religious] law to destroy all idolatry and its servants until
we uproot it from all parts of our land and any areas that we are able to
conquer ... Surely, this fact continues to weaken the religious meaning of the
Israeli army’s conquests [in 1967].
The
quotation cited above illustrates well a part of Israel’s realpolitik. Before
the 1996 election, both Peres and Netanyahu regarded Rabbi Yoseph as an
important political figure and often courted him openly. This was done in spite
of Yoseph’s publicly declared doctrine that Jews, when sufficiently powerful,
have a religious obligation to expel all non-Jews from the country and destroy
all Christian churches. Leftists and most peace advocates in Israel lauded
Yoseph and Shach for agreeing to withdrawal from the occupied territories but
neglected to mention and actually suppressed the major thrust of the Yoseph and
Shach position. For the most part the Western media avoided reporting the most
essential points of the Yoseph speech. The reality here is that the
Yoseph-Shach view constitutes one part of the hawkish heart of Israeli
politics.
In
his speech Rabbi Yoseph also acknowledged the halachic prohibition of selling
real estate to non-Jews in the land of Israel, but he limited this prohibition
to a time when doing so would not cause the loss of Jewish life. In the same
manner he dealt with the issue of whether Jews should trust only in the hope of
God’s help or should take their own precautions against danger or war. Yoseph
contended that this issue is analogous to the question of whether a Jew who is
ill on Yom Kippur should be given food to save his or her life. In the latter
case, according to Rabbi Yoseph, the Jew who is ill should be given food even
if the medical experts disagree with one another about the danger to life that
would exist if the fast were observed. Following this line of reasoning, Rabbi
Yoseph opined that, even if the military experts disagreed with one another as
to whether withdrawal from the territories would avert war, the government
should order withdrawal. Rabbi Yoseph, not influenced by the trusting-in-God
argument, pointed out that Jews had been killed in previous wars and that the
miraculous coming of the Messiah establishing God’s rule over the world would
occur without the loss of a single Jewish life. Rabbi Yoseph also noted that
the state of Israel is filled with Jewish sinners who provoke God. He quoted
numerous rabbinical authorities who agreed with him that the three oaths were
still valid.
Rabbi
Yoseph’s view did not interest Rabin, Peres or Netanyahu. His dazzling display
of erudition, occupying three large pages of small print, moreover, did not
convince a single NRP rabbi. Rabbis Yoseph and Shach, who a bit later became
enemies, continued to oppose Zionism and the beginning of redemption doctrine;
they continued to advocate their variety of Jewish fundamentalism and to
command the allegiance in 1996 of fourteen members of the 120- member Knesset.
Rabbi Shach, who is more extreme in his opposition to Zionism than is Rabbi
Yoseph, prohibited the Knesset members of his political party, Yahadut
Ha’Torah, from becoming ministers in Netanyahu’s Zionist government. Shach, however,
ordered his party’s Knesset members to support the Netanyahu government.
Netanyahu rewarded Yahadut Ha’Torah by creatively giving it control of the
ministry of housing. Netanyahu made himself the housing minister and signed
almost blindly anything submitted by Deputy Minister Ravitz of the Yahadut
Ha’Torah Party. This procedure was obviously employed to obviate the necessity
of Yahadut Ha’Torah’s formally joining a Zionist government while nevertheless
enjoying its benefits. Contrary to Rabbi Shach, Rabbi Yoseph ordered members of
his party to become ministers in the Netanyahu government. These facts
illustrated the political importance of Rabbis Yoseph’s and Shach’s views.
Rabbi
Yoseph’s clearly expressed views on the territories not only reflect the Haredi
view but also clearly resemble a great part of the actual foreign policy of the
state of Israel. Rabbi Yoseph has argued that Jews have a religious duty to
expel all Christians from the state of Israel only if doing so would not
endanger Jewish life. Rabbi Yoseph has postulated that any Jewish concessions
to non-Jews in the state of Israel has to be based solely upon the
consideration of whether denial thereof could prove harmful for Jews. Rabbi
Yoseph would almost certainly have favored a permanent occupation of all the
territories if he were convinced that this would not provoke Arabs to harm
Jews. Israeli governmental leaders with almost full support of Israeli Jews
believed after the June 1967 war that the Arabs were incapable of harming
Israel and therefore refused to make any concessions. Only after suffering
grievous losses in the October 1973 war, and fearing another war, did the
government of the state of Israel, again with almost the full support of
Israeli Jews, agreed to return the Sinai to Egypt. In 1983, even after the
massacres at Sabra and Shatila, the Israeli leaders contemplated permanent
occupation of one-third of Lebanon and domination of the remaining two- thirds.
Sharon concluded a peace treaty, based upon those terms, with the then puppet
Lebanese government. The guerilla warfare, conducted by the Lebanese in 1984
and 1985, which resulted in consistent Israeli casualties, caused the Israeli
leaders to abandon those plans and to retreat. Israeli foreign policy, although
usually conceived and conducted by secular Jews, has to date displayed an
essence derived in part from the Jewish religious past. Indeed, the Zionist
movement, which underwent a partial secularization, also kept many basic Jewish
religious principles. Rabbi Yoseph, Ben- Gurion, Sharon and all major Israeli
politicians share a common ground in policy advocacy.
The Rise of the Haredim in Israel
Although
expanding steadily from the early 1970s, Jewish religious fundamentalism in
Israel attracted relatively little interest in the dominant secularly oriented
Israeli society until 1988. Members of the various Haredi sects, generally
self-contained in residentially segregated areas of Israeli cities, led lives
absorbed by concerns and preoccupations that appeared exotic at best to
outsiders. Although some members of these sects clashed sharply over specific
issues with the secular part of Israeli society and at those times acquired a
bit of public attention, they were mostly ignored. The sensational Haredi
political success in the Israeli parliamentary elections of 1988, predicted by
none of the professional pollsters, surprised many people. Because of their
continued political successes in succeeding elections through the 1990s, the
Haredim put themselves into a position at various times to be able to dictate
to the Israeli secular majority.
The
Haredi political successes not only caused many Israeli Jews to look more
closely at and to be more concerned with the Haredim but also sparked increased
attention abroad, especially in the United States. The interest generated in
the United States prompted the writing and publication of many new books and
articles in English that focused upon the folkloristic aspects of the Haredim
but unfortunately largely ignored their basic ideology and world oudook. The
following discussion will attempt to analyze, particularly for those readers
who are not literate in Hebrew, the political importance of the Haredi upsurge.
A crucial part of this analysis is the acceptance of the well-documented
proposition that an understanding of the entire Israeli political right is to
some extent dependent upon an understanding of the basic elements of Heredi
politics, apart from the disagreements, splits and reunification efforts of
many Heredi individuals and sects. The two major questions to be analyzed are:
•
How have the Haredi
parties secured their political influence?
•
What organizational
structure have the Haredi employed for maximum political success?
Concern
with education has provided the major answer to both questions. The Haredi have
on balance successfully educated their own children and other Jewish children,
over whom they have obtained custody, in a manner guaranteeing maximum
continuity. The Haredi have influenced many Israeli Jews in addition to their
own by acquiring direct authority over several school networks and by
indirectly influencing numbers of other schools.
Throughout
the twentieth century, the Haredim have attempted to continue Jewish education
as it had mostly existed in the diaspora before the Enlightenment influenced
Jewish society. The governments in the countries in which the Haredim lived,
however, have at times insisted upon some modernized curricular content that
was inconsistent with and in opposition to what had previously been taught in
Jewish schools. This was the case in Israel until 1980. Since 1980, helped by
generous Israeli governmental subsidies, the Haredim have attempted with some
success to reimpose the earlier type of Jewish education and the earlier school
networking system in many poorer provincial Israeli towns and in slum areas of
larger Israeli cities. The Haredi goal has obviously been to perpetuate their
educational influence upon an increasing segment of younger- generation Israelis.
Historically,
Jewish schooling began with the heder for Jewish male children aged three or
four. (The heder, a word meaning ‘room’ in Hebrew, was the name of the
traditional Jewish elementary school as it existed from talmudic times in the
earliest centuries of the Common Era until the formation of the first modem
nationstates at which time many Jews strove to modify or abolish the heder.)
The heder was previously for males only. According to the Talmud and the
Halacha, females do not need education and are explicitly forbidden from some
forms of study. Until modem times, most Jewish women received no formal
education and were mostly illiterate. This stood in striking contrast to Jewish
males. Faced with governments of modern nation states and with many Jews
themselves reacting against and abolishing the exclusion of females from formal
education, the Haredim established special institutions to train, more
precisely to indoctrinate, young Haredi girls to accept and to agree to
inferior education. Heder education consists only of sacred, Jewish studies.
Secular subjects, including arithmetic, foreign languages, science, literature
and Hebrew grammar are excluded. Most of the Bible is included among subjects
not taught. After studying the Pentateuch with the help of a commentary by
Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaki who died in 1099), the students proceed directly
to study of the easier parts of the Talmud. After studying about eight years,
the less capable students are sent to various places to leam a craft, trade or
some other occupation; the more capable are admitted to an institution of
higher learning called a yeshiva. (Yeshiva in Hebrew means sitting or meeting.)
Usually, several levels of “yeshivot” (plural) exist. The weedingout process
of students continues at each level. Those students who are found to be less
capable are directed to moneymaking pursuits and somewhat later to involvement
in religious services as minor rabbis or as supervisors of religious kashrut
rules in restaurants, hospitals, the army and other institutions. The more
capable students proceed in their learning by going from one yeshiva level to
another. After graduating from the highest yeshiva and marrying, the best of
the students spend their lives in an institution called a kollel (a term
derived from the word meaning “entire”) and spend their time studying only
talmudic literature. A few of the most capable are later appointed to high
rabbinic positions or become heads of yeshivot or kollels.
As
mentioned previously, traditional Jewish education, described above, does not
include any secular or humanistic studies. It is worth re-emphasizing that this
exclusion of secular subjects includes not only mathematics, all sciences and
foreign languages but also Hebrew literature, which includes poetry dealing
with religious subjects, grammar and Jewish history. It is thus no surprise
that Hebrew religious poetry, even the medieval masterpieces, are unknown to
the Haredim. Only the sacred studies (a pre-modem term in Judaism) are taught
with the greatest possible intensity. The sacred studies consist mostly of the
Talmud and some subsequent talmudic literature. At the highest yeshiva level,
one out of twelve to fourteen hours per day of sacred studies may be devoted to
the study of morality, which primarily consists of lurid descriptions of the
punishment, inflicted by God either in the life of this world or in hell, for
even the smallest deviations from religious commandments. The teachings of the
biblical prophets, the books of Job and Ecclesiastes and numerous other parts
of the Bible are studied neither in the heders nor the yeshivot and are
therefore unknown to the Haredim. Except for the Pentateuch, Haredim know only
those parts of the Bible quoted in the Talmud and then only within the context
of talmudic interpretation. Haredim generally lack knowledge of major parts of
the Bible; this lack of knowledge constitutes one source of the differences
between the Haredim and some other religious as well as most secular Israeli
Jews. Yeshiva students are often deprived of sleep. After reaching the age of
sixteen, Yeshiva students devote at least twelve to fourteen hours per day to
study. The classes are noisy, because the students shout about what they are
studying. Studying in silence is considered to be a sin. Chaos is often the
result in the classroom; different students often shout about different
passages of texts. Students may ask questions about the internal matters of
what is being studied but never about the assumptions upon which interpretations
are made or about the external world. Students are most often isolated from the
outside world, especially from the secular world. Students are prohibited from
contact with unbelievers. The teacher’s authority is extensive and almost
absolute. The main teacher or the head of the yeshiva usually will select the
wives for students.
The
type of education described above has shaped human character. It also
inevitably has produced dissenters. The first Jewish dissenters from Judaism in
modem times rebelled against this type of education and became principled
opponents of the religion that from their perspectives tried to subject them to
such totalitarian controls. Other individuals, schooled in the Haredi
tradition, have ultimately yielded to temptations of modernity, such as
watching television and attending movies. This usually has resulted in a
weakening of commitment to Haredi Judaism but seldom to its renunciation. In
Israel such persons have been and still are called “traditional” or “Mesorati.”
These people have usually remained - and still are - outwardly uncritical of
what they learned; they have continued to worship the charismatic rabbis
without paying any price for renunciating the prohibition of forbidden secular
pleasures. Others who have strayed but have not undergone self-emancipation
have after a temporary break returned to sacred studies to be again
indoctrinated by their education.
The
Haredim emphasize the sanctity and predominant importance of the sacred
studies; they believe that the virtue emanating from those engaged in sacred
studies is responsible for all good happenings for Jews. For that reason those
who engage in sacred studies are not required to make their own livings, are
granted numerous privileges and are exempted from communal duties. All of this
originated and became universal among Jews in talmudic times. Living in
autonomous communities, in which they retained local rule, Jews could and did
determine that individuals engaged in sacred studies be exempted from paying
taxes and from most other obligations and burdens for which members of the
community were responsible. Additionally, the disciples of the sages, those who
reached a specified high degree of proficiency in the sacred studies, were
granted special privileges in many areas of life over which the Jewish
community had control. During talmudic times (c. ad 200-500) in Iraq, for example, the disciples of the
sages, who also were merchants, were granted the privilege of selling their
merchandise before ordinary Jews were allowed to do so in the markets of Jewish
towns. That meant that these disciples of the sages had no competition.
A
burning issue in Jewish history, and in Israeli politics, is how rabbis and
rabbinical students earn their livelihoods. In Israel the constantly increasing
burden of support weighs heavily upon taxpayers, most of whom are not religious.
This has provoked and continues to provoke resentment, especially when combined
with the fact that a majority of rabbinical students do not have to serve in
the army. Most Israeli religious Jews, especially the Haredim, attempt to
justify state support and freedom from army service by arguing that the Jews
and the Jewish state of Israel exist by virtue of their support of talmudic
study. Their support is supposedly responsible in turn for God’s support, which
includes God’s allowing Israel to win its wars. This argument, similar to
arguments made by clergy of other religions and frequently emphasized in the
Israeli media, alleges that God’s help not soldiers win wars. This argument
specifies that God provides other benefits as well. He, for example, grants
good weather because of rabbis and students who spend most of their time
studying Talmud. Engaging in such study is the best way, better than reciting
prayers, giving charity or performing other good deeds, to gain entrance into
paradise. Those who engage in talmudic study make it possible for themselves,
their families, their financial supporters and, to some extent, other Jews to
enter paradise.
Direct
financial support of rabbis and students of Talmud is, nevertheless, a
relatively new innovation in Judaism. During the lengthy period of Talmud
composition, approximately 50 bc
to ad 500, and for centuries
thereafter, rabbis and students received no salaries or any other forms of
financial support for talmudic study. (Elementary teachers who taught Bible to
small children were paid.) Indeed, the T almud itself prohibited payments for
talmudic study. Some talmudic sages were working-class people who had
well-known professions and earned their livelihoods from their labors. The only
form of financial reward that was allowed for a talmudic sage was a recompense
for not working. This can be illustrated by a talmudic anecdote about one of
the most important sages, Abaye, who lived in Babylonia in the fourth century ad. Abaye was a farmer and cultivated
his farm by himself. If asked a question by someone while working, he told the
questioner: “Work on this irrigation canal for me while I ponder your
question.” The last important rabbi who fully supported such behavior was
Maimonides, who died in 1204. Maimonides’ ruling in his Learning Torah Laws
(chapter 3, verse 10) is often quoted by secular, Jewish Israelis:
Anyone
supposing that he will engage in Torah [talmudic study] and not engage in
labor, thus taking his livelihood from charity, should be considered a person
who has extinguished the light of religion, put Torah to shame, caused evil to
himself and lost his chance to enter paradise, since it is forbidden to make
profit form the sayings of Torah in this world. The sages said: “Everyone who
makes profit from the sayings of Torah loses his life.” They [the sages] have
also ordered and said: “Do not make it [Torah] either a crown in which to boast
or an axe with which to work.” And they [the sages] have further ordered and
said: “Love labor and hate the rabbinate.” All Torah not accompanied by labor
will be nullified, and the end of such a person [so engaged] will be that he
will rob the people.
Many
Israeli secular Jews use this statement of Maimonides to document their
contention that all rabbis, especially rabbis in Israel, are robbers.
Why
for centuries have almost all religious Jews not paid attention to the opinion
of Maimonides, which is solidly based on many talmudic passages? The answer is
that religious Jews read any sacred text, including the Talmud and the writings
of Maimonides, only with the help of the most sacred commentaries that become
the accepted religious opinions. Regarding the above-quoted passage of
Maimonides, the most important, subsequent commentary is “Kesef Mishne” (“an
addition of silver”), written by Rabbi Joseph Karo, who died in 1575. Karo, the
author of ShulhanAruch which to date is the most authoritative
compendium of the Halacha, opposed the opinion of Maimonides on this issue.
Almost all subsequent rabbis accepted the opposing position of Karo. In the
beginning of his “Kesef Mishne,” Karo mentioned that Maimonides in his commentary
on Mishne wrote at length against salaries of rabbis and presented a sizeable
list of talmudic rabbis who were laborers receiving no salaries for talmudic
studies. Karo wrote:
He,
let his memory be blessed [Maimonides], brought the example of Hillel, who was
a wood-cutter while a talmudic student. This is not proof. We must assume that
he [Hillel] engaged in labor only at the beginning of his studies. In his
[Hillel’s] time there were thousands of talmudic students; perhaps, they gave
financial support only to the most famous among them ... But how can we assume
that when Hillel became famous and was teaching the people they did not give
him financial support?
Religious
Jews in Israel use this form of reasoning, which without adequate proof
attributes customs of current rabbis to the hallowed past. Secular Israeli Jews
often have satirized such reasoning by telling a joke that is known to almost
every Israeli Jew. This joke is based upon the fact that, although no halachic
reference exists concerning an obligation of a male Jew to wear a head
covering, there is no other visible custom to which religious Jews are
universally so faithful. Indeed, the popular Hebrew saying for a formerly
religious male that became secular is “He took off his skullcap.” The joke
centers upon a rabbi’s being asked to provide the proof for the obligation that
male Jews must wear head coverings. The rabbi in the joke answers: “The Bible
says: ‘And Abraham went’ [to a certain place]. Can you imagine that he went
without a head covering?” The joke’s ridiculing of the usual mode of rabbinic
reasoning is obvious.
Karo
argued that all famous sages, described in the Talmud itself as laborers or
craftsmen, must have been given financial support. Karo concluded by arguing
that priests in the temple were paid for their work and that, therefore,
rabbis, who are equivalent to priests, should be paid. Talmudic students should
be paid, Karo maintained, because without students there would be no rabbis.
“Those in control of the usual expenditures [in Jewish congregations] should
be compelled to pay the rabbis,” he stated. “The current custom is that all
Jewish rabbis receive their salaries from the [Jewish] public.” This was the
general custom in the sixteenth century, except in some distant communities
such as Yemen. The salaries of rabbis continually increased as did the
occasions on which they took fees from their captive public. Evidence of
rabbinic corruption in Jewish communities since the latter part of the
seventeenth century is abundant. The rabbinate’s alliance with rich people in
oppressing poor people, especially in Ashkenazi communities, and the use of
bribery and other undue influence in the appointments of rabbis are but two of
the many aspects of this corruption. Corrupt practices of many Israeli rabbis,
both Haredi and NRP, have been well-documented by the Israeli Hebrew press and
are widely known in Israel. This corruption is a continuation of a long-term
trend.
The
granting of special privileges for pursuing sacred studies exists in modem
Israeli society. One of the most controversial issues in the State of Israel
has been, and continues to be, the deferments from military service for most
students and graduates of yeshivot. These students and graduates first receive
a draft deferment on the basis of declarations from heads of yeshivot. When
their deferments expire, the students or graduates are either entirely exempted
from army service or are inducted directly into the army reserve forces after
undergoing only brief and cursory recruit training. They are disqualified from
serving in any dangerous or even unpleasant capacities. Their chances of being
killed or wounded in wartime are thus greatly reduced. Their deferments mean
that these students or graduates do not have to serve in ±e army for the period
of three years, which is compulsory for all other Israeli Jewish males who are
between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one. In his analysis of this situation,
Ehud Asheri reported in his August 22, 1996 article, published in Haaretz,
that at that time 5 per cent of all Jewish males were so deferred.
The
vehement passions aroused by and the debates over this issue have
antagonistically deepened the split between Israeli Jewish secularists and the
Haredim. Currently, many secular Jews complain, as they and others have in the
past, that the Haredim do not share equally with other Israeli Jews the tasks
and burdens imposed upon society. The Haredim argue, as they continually have
in the past, that such reasoning is fallacious. Influenced by their education,
the Haredim are convinced that all victories as well as defeats of the Israeli
army are due to God’s intervention and that without doubt God takes into
consideration the numbers, progress in study and commitment of those Jews who
engage in talmudic study. The Haredim cite numerous passages in the Talmud and
in subsequent talmudic literature that are emphatic on this point. Not only the
privileged students and graduates of yeshivot but also traditional Israeli Jews
support the Haredim and the cited sacred Jewish writings on this point.
The
attitude of many secular Israeli Jews towards sacred studies and the Talmud is
the exact opposite of that held by the Haredim. Secularly oriented parodies of
the Talmud have remained popular and still abound in Israeli society. Many of
these parodies revolve around the Haredi rationale underlying the deferment and
exclusion from military service. In December 1988, for example, during one of
the recurrent disputations about the deferment from service of yeshiva
students, the Haredim pointed to the talmudic version of the biblical account
of the victories of Yo’av, the general of King David. The Haredim quoted the
talmudic interpretation that these victories were attributable to David’s
sacred studies, since in their view Talmud in an oral form dated back to Moses
and perhaps to Abraham and was written later. Some secular writers responded
publicly that David rather remained at home and sent Yo’av to fight, because he
was occupied in committing adultery with Bathsheba and causing the death of her
husband, Uriah. One columnist in the Israeli press, certainly not
Haredi-oriented, opined that David was probably more keen about studying
Bathsheba’s bodily curvature than he was about studying the Talmud. Such debate
has had, and continues to have, a bearing upon Israel similar in some ways to
the effect upon politics that similar debate had in Christian Europe in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries. What many foreign observers of Israeli Jewish
society have not grasped is that, even with the scientific and technological
accomplishments in Israel, the Haredim and most other Israeli Jewish
fundamentalists live figuratively in a time period that corresponds closely to
European Christian societies many generations ago. These fundamentalists have
not made the quantum leap, as have secular Israelis, into modern times. The
tension between fundamentalist and secular Israelis, therefore, stems mosdy
from the fact that these two groups live in different time periods.
Haredim
often propound theories even more extreme than those mentioned previously. Many
Haredi rabbis, for example, assert that the Holocaust, including most
particularly the deaths of one-and- a-half million Jewish children, was a
well-deserved divine punishment, not only for all the sins of modernity and
faith renunciation by many Jews, but also for the decline of Talmudic study in
Europe. The Haredim and their traditional Jewish followers attribute the death
of every Jew, including each innocent child, not to natural causes but to
direct action of God. The Haredim believe that God punishes each Jew for his or
her sins and sometimes punishes the entire Jewish community, including many who
are innocent, because of the sins committed by other Jews. In 1985, when twenty-two
children, twelve and thirteen years of age, were killed in the town of Petah
Tikva in a traffic accident involving their bus, Rabbi Yitzhak Peretz, one of
the heads of the Shas Party and the then Minister of the Interior, stated in a
television appearance that the children were victims, because a movie house was
allowed to remain open on the Sabbath eve. Many members of the Hebrew press,
predominantly representing secular Jews, attacked Rabbi Peretz mercilessly for
making this statement. The Shas Party, nevertheless, in the next election did
not lose but rather gained votes in various places, including Petah Tikva. The
Haredim held and advocate similar beliefs about God’s punishing and rewarding
Jews in many areas of life on the basis of Jews’ either committing sins or
following God’s word.
In
the late 1990s, the primary concern of the Haredim is to expand their
educational system, especially in poorer localities wherein they successfully
offer material inducements such as hot meals. The Haredim strongly lobby the
non-Haredi public schools with their propaganda. In some places these lobbying
efforts are successful. In other areas the fierce opposition by parents who are
educated and politically effective thwarts the Haredi propaganda and lobbying
efforts. Haredi influence is sometimes extreme in specific places. In Netivot,
one of the most religious towns in Israel, for example, the Haredim have
successfully opposed any public high school, because it would be obligated to
provide instruction in secular subjects. Netivot is the only Jewish town in
Israel without a high school.
In
order to proselytize and to spread their superstitions, Haredim often exploit
the distress of people. Relatives of terminally ill hospital patients,
especially if they are traditional, are often approached by messengers of a
charismatic rabbi, who first reiterate that the doctors cannot help and then
suggest that the relatives buy some sacred water, consecrated by a certain
rabbi, and smear the patient with it. The messengers relate stories about
miracles that occur after the use of this sacred water, which is never
distributed without a non-returnable payment. The messengers, of course, never
mention the failure of sacred water miracles. The secular Hebrew press at times
will report on the failure of these miracles, especially when a large amount of
money is known to have been spent for the sacred water. Such reporting,
however, most often only deepens the chasm between those who read and those who
do not read but loathe the secular Hebrew press. In their own press the Haredim
not only attack the secular press but also display their general hostility
towards secular Israeli Jews. Until the later part of the 1980s, most of the
Israeli Jewish public paid little attention to the Haredi press. Since then,
general public attention has increased considerably. Dov Albaum, one of
Israel’s foremost experts on Haredi affairs, focused upon this point in two
Hebrew-language articles, one published in the August 30, 1996 issue of the
newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, the other published in the July-August issue
of the bi-monthly periodical, Ha’ain Hashvi’it (The Seventh Eye), which
is published by the Israeli Democracy Institute and is devoted to analyzing the
Israeli press. Albaum discussed the structure of the Haredi press in Yediot
Ahronot and then proceeded to a discussion in Ha’ain Hashvi’it of
the Haredi attitude as a whole towards secular Israeli Jews. According to
Albaum, the violent attacks in the Haredi press upon Aharon Barak, the
president of the Israeli Supreme Court, attracted increased public attention.
The Haredi press called Barak “the most dangerous enemy ever to face the Haredi
public.” Albaum pointed out that the earlier Haredi press attacks upon the
left-wing kibbutzim, the Israeli army, the secular media and many other secular
institutions and figures aroused little general interest. The attack upon the
Supreme Court, long regarded as the holiest symbol of Israeli secular
democracy, piqued the interest of many secular Jews. The violent Haredi press
attacks upon Yitzhak Rabin, while he was prime minister, did not have the same
effect. Shortly before Rabin’s assassination an article in one of the most
popular Haredi weekly publications, Ha ’Shavua (The Week) predicted:
The
day will come when the Jews will bring Rabin and Peres to the defendant’s bench
in court with the only two alternatives being the noose or the insane asylum.
This insane and evil pair have either gone mad or are obvious traitors. Rabin
and Peres have guaranteed their place in the Jewish memory as evil Jews of the
worst kind. They resemble the apostates or the Jews who served the Nazis.
Reiterating
that secular Jewish interest in Israel heightened after the attack upon Barak
and the Supreme Court, Albaum observed that increasing numbers of secular
Israelis are insulted when they read in the Haredi press that their lives are
garbage and their children are hallucinating, lifeless drug addicts. Albaum
explained:
Haredi
journalists deliberately exaggerate all marginal phenomena in secular society.
They describe all murders, cases of alcoholism and hard drug situations as
characteristics of secular Jewish society. In addition, they allege as facts
incorrect statements, engage in the wildest forms of slander and often use the
most derogatory terminology. Their aim is to condemn absolutely the secular,
Jewish lifestyle.
It
is difficult to avoid considering such depiction as analogous to the Nazi
methodology.
The
structure of the Haredi press is significant. Albaum pinpointed as the main
Haredi ideological trendsetter Yated Ne’eman (Faithful Tent-Peg), the
official newspaper of the Degel Ha’Torah faction, headed and controlled by
Rabbi Shach. Albaum explained that Yated Ne’eman is strictly monitored
by a committee of five rabbis, all appointed by Rabbi Shach and headed by Rabbi
Natan Zohavsky. At least one of the committee’s rabbis is in the newspaper’s
office each evening except the Shabbat. Every word of every article,
advertisement and announcement must be approved for publication by the rabbi(s)
on duty. Certain words and expressions, such as aids or television, are not
allowed to be printed. The term “Red Cross,” supposedly associated with
Christianity, is especially prohibited from usage.
Yated
Ne’eman articles often ferociously attack rival Haredi factions. One
example is that all advertisements about social events of the Shas Party, which
is despised by Rabbi Shach, are not allowed to be printed. The importance of
this prohibition was highlighted when, after an apparent lull in the spiritual
war between Rabbi Shach and Shas, one of the newspaper’s editors dared to
publish an advertisement announcing the bar-mitzvah of Aryeh Der’i’s son.
(Aryeh Der’i is a Member of the Knesset and an important Shas leader.) Upon
learning of this, Rabbi Shach strongly reprimanded Rabbi Zochovsky, the head of
the overseeing committee of rabbis.
Spiritual
censorship committees exist and monitor everything printed in other Haredi
newspapers. Albaum asserted: “Freedom of the press is an unknown concept in the
Haredi press.” Haredi editors, according to Albaum, proclaim a different kind
of freedom: “the right of our public not to know certain things.” The censoring
rabbis decide what the public should not know.
In
reflecting the general Haredi attitude towards secular Jews, Haredi press
articles often present arguments reminiscent of antiSemitic statements about
all Jews. Albaum pointed to a February 1996 article, for example, in which
Israel Friedman reiterated the position that the land of Israel belongs only to
the Haredim and that secular Jews and Palestinians should leave it. In
addressing secular Jews, Friedman in his article stated: “Go away from here ...
We tell you this in a friendly manner. Go away. American crime will easily
absorb the criminal secular youth who are all enchanted by alcohol, drugs and
earrings. They are bloodsuckers who drink our blood. They dare to live on land
that belongs to us.” In another article Albaum quoted Nathan Ze’ev Grossman,
the editor of Yated Ne’eman, as attributing the rise of neo-Nazism in
European countries “to the influence of the Rabin government.” Grossman
described all kibbutzim as Nazi institutions and proposed “to put them on trial
according to the precedent of the Nuremberg trials.”
The
Haredim demand that other Jews should, at least in public and especially in
regard to matters of symbolism, behave according to their dictates. Haredi
demands, often supported by traditionalist Jews, so frequently cause political
scandals that they can be described as a staple of Israeli politics. More
Israeli government crises have occurred because of religious scandals than for
any other reasons. To further their political interests, the Haredim insist
upon employing certain symbols. This insistence has played an important role in
Israeli politics. Many Israeli Jews, together with a much greater number of
diaspora Jews, in deference to what they believe is Jewish tradition and the
commandments of Judaism, support Haredi demands to keep and display symbols of
religious observance. Such support has produced scandal. One particularly
illustrative scandal occurred in Autumn 1992 and occupied Israeli politics for
many months. During the time of this scandal, the Haredi Shas Party threatened
to leave the Rabin government, not because of Rabin’s plans to deal with the
Palestinians nor because of possible concessions to the Syrians but rather
because the then Minister of Education Shulamit Aloni, on a visit to Nazareth
was photographed eating in a non-kosher, Arab restaurant and thus violating the
religious symbol of the ritual purity of food. Only six months prior to the
Aloni affair another scandal involving a Member of the Knesset had occurred; MK
Yael Rayan was photographed on a Tel Aviv beach, dressed in a swimsuit and
reading a book on Yom Kippur. All the religious political parties then
protested furiously against what they termed this “profanation of Judaism.”
After hearing traditionally religious Labor Party Knesset members echo the same
sentiments, Prime Minister Rabin, who was not traditionally religious,
reinforced the accusation.
During
her tenure as minister of education, Shulamit Aloni made numerous statements
that were viewed as being in opposition to symbols in Judaism and thus
blasphemous; these statements resulted in scandals. One month before arousing
scandal by eating in an Arab restaurant, for example, Aloni publicly
acknowledged that the denial of the world’s being created in six days was a
tenable hypothesis. She also publicly struck the controversial, although hardly
earth-shattering, position that the teaching of Judaism in the state’s secular
schools should be slightly changed. (She was content to leave as it is the
teaching of Judaism in the state’s religious schools.) Aloni caused even more
furore when she publicly slighted some biblical figures. Ranny Talmor, a
respected Israeli journalist, rightly observed in her October 14, 1992 article
in the newspaper, Hadashov,
[Aloni]
scarcely escaped Galileo’s fate after he persisted in maintaining that the
earth moved around the sun. Some supposedly enlightened, secular Jews whispered
to one another: “Of course she is right, but why does she need to say this in
public?” The Jewish Grand Inquisitors were delighted in their realization that
they had scored another victory against the weak- minded infidels.
The
Jewish Inquisitors harassed Aloni even more after Rabin forced her to apologize
publicly in an open letter to Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph, the spiritual head of the
Shas Party. Yoel Markus, a well-known Israeli journalist, reflected widely held
opinion when he observed in his October 13, 1992 Haaretz article:
As
is well known, each concession in such matters only encourages the demand for
more. This is why the abject surrender to Jewish religious demands by members
of the Labor and Meretz Parties makes us wonder. Rabin has solemnly undertaken
to check closely an intelligence report, submitted to him by the National
Religious Party [NRP], describing how Aloni violated the Sabbath and ate
non-kosher food in Israel and abroad. The Chairman of the Labor Party faction
in the Knesset [Elie Dayan] publicly rebuked Aloni and Member of the Knesset
Yael Dayan.
The
NRP hired detectives to spy on ministers in order to discover what
transgressions of Jewish religious commandments they committed. Such spying
continued while the Rabin and Peres governments were in power. Rabin and Peres,
while prime ministers, obtained all the findings of the detectives and
continually attempted to keep their ministers from transgressing any religious
laws in public.
In
his Haaretz article, Yoel Markus articulated many fears, shared by a
sizeable segment of the Israeli Jewish public:
We
can also expect demands that each minister and member of the Knesset be
accompanied by a kashrut inspector, who holds a full-time job for this purpose
and that similar inspectors be appointed to insure that kashrut is observed in
every neighborhood and on every street in Israel. A demand may also be made to
establish vice squads, authorized to raid private homes in order to ascertain
whether kashrut is being observed and whether, God forbid, a wife does not by
chance have sex with her husband in the period of impurity during and after the
time of menstruation [lasting eight to fourteen days.]
Other
Israeli journalists expressed similar fears and went further than did Markus in
their published articles. Some attacked not only the religious but also the
secular Jews who remained silent about the attacks upon them and their behavior
and who would allow continual efforts by religious surveyors to brainwash
systematically. Many Israeli Jews, whose opinions were represented by certain
journalists, saw the activities and actual victories by religious factions as
advancements towards a full-scale Jewish “Khomeinism” in Israel.
The
discussion of the Aloni scandal continued for weeks in the Israeli press and
became increasingly political. Nahum Barnea wrote in his October 23, 1992 Yediot
Ahronot article:
Rabin
encouraged the torrents of anti-Aloni propaganda by advancing the slogan
“either Aloni or peace.” What connection can there be between Aloni’s dietary
preferences and peace ... On four separate occasions Rabin summoned the leaders
of Meretz [Aloni’s party] to his office in order to convey to them the
complaints about Aloni made by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, the spiritual head of the
Shas Party.
In
his October 23, 1992 Davar article, Amir Oren censured Rabin for being
subservient to Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph and for equating the rabbi’s power to be
equal to that of Stalin’s in his time. Oren opined that the Shas Party had
begun to fulfil in Israel a role analogous to that of the Shi’ites in Lebanon.
In Oren’s view Israel, “far from being the only democracy in the Middle East
was imitating Lebanon and Iran, becoming in effect half a state of anarchy and
half a theocracy.”
Amnon
Abromovitz in his October 23, 1992 Maariv article put a somewhat
different spin on the Aloni scandal. He wrote: “The vicious use of Aloni as a
scapegoat by the religious Jews generated public support for her. A repelling
stench of religious zeal, fundamentalism and sexism is emanating from the
harassment of Aloni.” Abromovitz blamed Rabin for encouraging this harassment,
but he added that despite all her talk and non-kosher eating, Aloni had granted
religious institutions, especially those of the Shas, more money than had any
previous Minister of Education. Abramovitz concluded: “Aloni may talk
blasphemously about God, but she has been foremost in generosity to those who
believe in Him.”
The
leaders of the Labor Party and their non-traditionalist sympathizers answered
the above expressions of fear, especially after Oslo, by arguing that
concessions to the demands of the Haredim were necessary to ensure backing for
the peace process. This stock answer did not satisfy many secular Israelis.
What Markus concluded represented broad secular opinion:
The
reason for Rabin’s servility to Shas is supposed to be politics. Labor experts
in skullduggery assure us that the Shas Party may leave the coalition if it
finds it no longer able to withstand pressure from the other Haredi circles ...
The conclusion is that Labor must do its best to placate them ... Politics is
important, but freedom of conscience and everyone’s right to follow one’s creed
are even more important. Jewish secularism is a creed. The crude hypocrisy,
with which the ministers fake religious devotions, leads nowhere but only
damages their government’s integrity. If Shas wants to leave Rabin’s coalition,
it will do so by order of its rabbis. It will then not help if Rabin puts on an
Haredi garb and/or if Aloni shaves her head to cover it with a coif. [The
reference here is to a commandment of traditional Judaism that a woman, before
marrying, has to shave her head and cover it with a coif. The Haredim attempt
to enforce this rule strictly. Many Jewish, religious women cut only some of
their hair and cover the remainder with wigs. Many secular, Jewish women are
enraged by this rule.]
By
design, Haredi rabbis and politicians select secular women in politics as the
primary targets of their attacks, even though they could pinpoint secular men
as much, if not more, for transgressions of religious law. The Haredim
repeatedly refer to Jewish women, engaged in politics, as witches, bitches or
demons. Although a bit crude at times in the use of descriptive language, the
Haredim approach mirrors to a great extent traditional Judaism’s broadly based
position regarding women. This position not only restricts the rights of women
but in many ways holds women in contempt. Rule 8 in Chapter 3 of the Kitzur
Shulhan Aruch (Abridgment of ShulhanAruch), an elementary textbook for Jews
with little talmudic education, for example, dictates: “A male should not walk
between two females or two dogs or two pigs. In the same manner the males
should not allow a woman, dog or pig to walk between them.” All Haredi boys
between the ages of ten and twelve study and are required to observe this rule.
(Few dogs and no pigs can be found in Haredi neighborhoods.) Traditional
Judaism also prohibits women from playing even insignificant roles in politics
and/or in any public activities in which they may appear to be leading males.
Women are forbidden to drive buses or taxis; they can drive private cars only
if no males apart from those in their own families or other women are passengers.
These and many rules are followed in Haredi neighborhoods. In these
neighborhoods women who are “dressed immodestly” are often insulted and/or
assaulted. Many traditionally religious Jewish males in other than Haredi neighborhoods,
who do not observe inconvenient religious commandments, take the lead of the
Haredim in resenting and opposing participation of women in politics. These
traditionally religious males regard such participation by women as a threat to
their domination of their own families.
The
numerous misogynistic statements in the Talmud and in talmudic literature
constitute a part of every Haredi male’s sacred study. The statement in Tractate
Shabat, page 152b, defining a woman is exemplary: “A woman is a sack full
of excrement.” The learned Talmudic Encyclopedia (volume 2, pages
255-7), written in modern Hebrew and thus understandable to all educated
Israeli Jews, devotes a section to the “nature and behavior of women.” In this
section the proposition appears that the urge for the sexual act is greater
among men than among women. The evidence presented for this is that men tend to
hire women prostitutes because their urge for sex is greater than the urge of
women. For that reason the Halacha punishes a wife who refuses to have sexual relations
with her husband much more severely than it punishes a husband who refuses to
have sexual relations with his wife. For the same reason a prospective husband
is obliged to see his wife-to-be before marrying her but a prospective wife is
not obligated to see her husband-to-be before marriage. After seeing his
prospective bride, moreover, the prospective husband can send a messenger and
conduct the marriage through the messenger. Jewish folklore contains stories
describing the utilization of this procedure.
The
halachic prohibition of teaching talmudic literature and/or the Bible to women
has been in the past and is currently still of great importance. Studying
“Torah Sheba’al Peh” (the oral law) is for the Halacha a supremely important
commandment. It is equivalent in importance to all the other commandments put
together. (The law, according to belief, was given by God orally to Moses and
was handed down orally for many centuries before being written.) This
obligation, termed “Talmud Torah” or “learning the Torah” is viewed as
independent of time. Every pious male Jew is obligated to devote a portion of
all days and nights, including holidays and working days, to this study. A
basic talmudic rule frees women from positive obligations that are dependent on
special times and obliges women only with positive obligations that are
independent of time. Women, for example, are obliged to keep the Sabbath and
the holidays that last more than twenty-four hours and are thus considered to
be independent of time. Women, on the other hand, are not obliged to hear the
shofar (ram’s horn) blown on the New Year, which only takes a short time and is
thus considered to be dependent on time. (There are a few exceptions to this
rule.) A woman is permitted to fulfill what she is not obliged to do; hence she
can choose to hear the ram’s horn blown on the New Year. This rule underlines
the women’s religious inferiority to men, since another talmudic dictate is
that a person who fulfills a commandment because he is obliged to do so is
greater and receives a greater reward from God than a person who fulfills a
commandment he is not obliged to fulfill. A Jewish woman that comes to the
synagogue on the New Year and hears the ram’s horn being blown, according to
traditional Judaism, will receive a smaller reward from God than a male who
does the same, because she is not obliged to hear whereas he is so obliged. Tractate
Kiddushin (page 34a) of the Talmud, however, ruled that women are not
obliged to fulfill “Talmud Torah,” even though it is an obligation independent
of time. This ruling is part of Halacha. The rule was later amended to mean
that women should learn only the special obligations that they must keep to the
extent that they know what to do and what to avoid. The issue, therefore,
arose: What parts of sacred studies are women permitted to learn or to be
taught? The talmudic answer to this question, based upon many quotations, was
given by Maimonides. In his work, Talmud Torah Laws (chapter 1, rule
13), Maimonides wrote:
A
woman who has studied Torah receives a reward [from God], but it is an inferior
one when compared to man’s reward. This is because she is not obligated [to do
so], and everyone who does what he is not obliged to do gets an inferior reward
compared to [the reward given to] one who does what he is commanded to do. The
woman nevertheless receives some reward. The sages commanded a father not to
teach his daughter Torah, because most woman never intend to learn anything and
will, because of the weak understanding, convert the pronouncements of Torah
into nonsense. The sages said: “Everyone who teaches his daughter Torah can be
compared to one who teaches her insipid matters.” This rule, however, applies
only to talmudic studies. Although a woman should not be taught the Bible, she,
if taught, would not have been taught insipid matters.
A
somewhat shortened version of this is given in the authoritative compendium of
the Halacha, ShulhanAruch (Yorah Deah, rule 246, paragraph 6). In modem
times the Haredim have attempted to modify those rules to some extent. They
have taught and still do teach girls the easier parts of the Talmud, in which
arguments between the rabbis, that are considered to be dangerous for the “weak
female mind”, do not occur. Similarly, the Haredim have taught and do teach
girls the Pentateuch but reserve the highest level and most serious
commentaries for the boys. The Haredim maintain in their schools a strict
separation of girls from boys and do not allow the girls to observe boys
playing in the schoolyard.
Many
Israeli Jews, who in their youth received thorough talmudic educations, have
later in their lives reacted antagonistically against Orthodox Judaism’s
depiction and treatment of women. Some of these Jews in reaction have written
articles that are often published in the Israeli Hebrew press but are almost
never translated into English. Kadid Leper, for example, a well-known Israeli
journalist who as a youth studied in a yeshiva for years before becoming a
secularist, wrote in his April 18, 1997 Hai’r article under the title
“Woman is a sack full of excrement,” the following:
Beatings,
sexual brutality, cruelty, deprival of rights, use of a woman as merely a
sexual object; you can find all of this there [in the Talmud] ... For two
thousand years women had a well- defined place in the Jewish religion [Orthodox
Judaism]; this place is different from what the rabbinical establishment
describes; according to the Halacha, the place of women is in the garbage heap
together with cattle and slaves. According to the Jewish religion [Orthodox
Judaism] a man buys for himself a slave woman for her entire life simply by
providing food and dress and granting to his wife the sexual act.
This
kind of published article, together with the many published reports of rabbinical
harassment of women, have not only firmed polarization in Israeli Jewish
society but have contributed significantly to the growing secular enmity
towards Haredim.
In
many areas of Israeli Jewish society, the Haredim continue to maintain their
separateness and at the same time assert that other Jews accept Haredi dicta.
This is well illustrated by an example from the area of medicine. In his
December 25, 1995 Yediot Ahronot article, Dov Albaum discussed the
request submitted two weeks previously by the Haredim to the Israeli Ministry
of Health:
Rabbi
Yehoshua Sheinberger, the head of the Medicine by Law Organization, requested
what seemed to be an innocent request that, as a concession to the religious
Jews, personal blood donations be permitted. Previously, a person who donated a
unit of blood for a patient undergoing surgery received a document entitling
the recipient of the donation to one unit of blood from the general reserves of
the Blood Bank. This new request, if accepted, would create a situation in
which blood donors would be able to demand that hospitals or first aid stations
give their blood donations only to specific recipients.
Rabbi
Sheinberger, supported by two other important rabbis, argued that Haredim
usually refuse to donate blood but might change their attitude if this demand
were accepted. Albaum in his article discussed the additional motivation behind
this request:
Beneath
the surface there is a completely different problem that led to the rabbis’
approaching the [Israeli] Ministry of Health. Haredi religious law authorities
have in recent years dealt with the following issue: “Is it permissible for a
pious Jew to receive a blood transfusion from non-Jews or from Jews who do not
observe Jewish religious laws?” Haredi rabbis fear that, receiving “tainted,”
secular blood, or non-Jewish blood might cause a pious Jew to behave badly and
even, heaven forbid, harm his observance of the Jewish religious laws.
Several
months before the above-mentioned request, Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph addressed this
problem at length in his new book, Questions and Answers - Statements-.
“Blood that comes from forbidden [that is, non-kosher] foods may cause a
negative effect upon its Jewish recipients. It may produce bad qualities, such
as cruelty and/or boldness ... Therefore, a pious Jew, who does urgently need a
transfusion and who faces no danger in waiting to receive blood from a strictiy
religious Jew, should wait.” Rabbi Yoseph offered similar advice for those
pious Jews needing organ transplants; he advised them only to accept such
donations from other pious Jews. This dictate erupted into a serious dispute
among rabbis in Israel and astonished many secular Jews. In another published
article, Albaum reported that Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a former chief rabbi of
Israel, disagreed with Rabbi Yoseph and stated: “When a secular Jew is bom, he
is bom with kosher blood and all the forbidden foods that he later eats are
dissolved and made marginal in his blood.” In regard to non-Jews, however,
Rabbi Eliyahu mostly agreed with Rabbi Yoseph and held that religious Jews
should attempt to avoid blood donations from them. Rabbi Eliyahu did not
totally forbid blood donations for Jews from non-Jews. He stated:
It
is permitted at certain times that Jews receive blood, or in the case of
sucklings mother’s milk, from non-Jews, in spite of the fact that such blood is
detrimental to their Jewish characteristics and spirit. This is because blood
is transferred slowly and is made marginal in the cycling of Jewish blood in
the body. Nevertheless, when possible, a Jew should avoid receiving such blood.
Rabbi
Sheinberger finally admitted that such rulings constituted the primary reason
for his request: “The Haredi community has a problem in this area. For the
Haredim blood from a Jew who eats only kosher food is preferable to blood from
a Jew who does not observe dietary laws.” Other Haredi rabbis agreed. Rabbi
Levy Yitzhak Halperin, the head of the Scientific Religious Institute for
Jewish Law Problems explained: “Blood donations from non-Jews or from Jews who
eat forbidden foods are a problem. Jewish religious law holds that a Jewish
child should preferably not be breast fed by a non-Jewish woman because her
milk consists of forbidden food and contaminates the Jewish child.” Such positions
and statements antagonized secular Jews and met great opposition from the great
majority of members of the Israeli medical profession.
In
1994 Rabbi Sheinberger ignited another controversy and created scandal with a
similar request. He met with senior physicians from the Israel Transplants
Association and discussed with them the Jewish religious prohibition on organ
donations. In Israel Haredi Jews refuse organ transplants from their and/or
their relatives’ corpses. On this issue the Haredi position influences many
people for superstitious as well as religious reasons. Organ transplants in
Israel are thus difficult to arrange. Surgeons frequently request Haredi rabbis
to appeal to their followers to agree to organ transplants from corpses of
their relatives in order to save lives. The surgeons’ argument is based upon
the Jewish religious law giving priority to saving Jewish lives. In his
discussion Rabbi Sheinberger put the condition that only a Haredi rabbi could
authorize such transplants. He explained: “Jewish religious law states that it
is forbidden to transplant Jewish organs into either non-Jews or Jews who are
not pious. It is obvious that it is prohibited under any circumstances to
transplant Jewish organs into Arabs, all of whom hate Jews.” Rabbi Sheinberger,
when asked for his definition of a Jew who is not pious, replied that a rabbi
must determine the status of every Jew. Sheinberger’s request caused a huge
commotion and was rejected.
Many
non-Haredi rabbis allow an organ of a non-Jew to be transplanted into a body of
a Jew in order to save the life of the Jew. They, however, oppose the
transplant of an organ from a Jew into the body of a non-Jew. Some important
rabbis go much further in discussing and ruling about differences between Jews and
nonJews on medical matters. Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, an influential member of
the Habad movement and the head of a yeshiva near Nablus, for instance, opined
in an April 26, 1996Jewish Week article, reproduced in Haaretz
that same day: “If every single cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, and is
thus part of God, then every strand of DNA is a part of God. Therefore,
something is special about Jewish DNA.” Rabbi Ginsburgh drew two conclusions
from this statement: “If a Jew needs a liver, can he take the liver of an
innocent non-Jew to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish life
has an infinite value. There is something more holy and unique about Jewish
life than about non-Jewish life.” It is noteworthy that Rabbi Ginsburgh is one
of the authors of a book lauding Baruch Goldstein, the Patriarchs’ Cave
murderer. In that book Ginsburgh contributed a chapter in which he wrote that a
Jew’s killing non-Jews does not constitute murder according to the Jewish
religion and that killing of innocent Arabs for reasons of revenge is a Jewish
virtue. No influential Israeli rabbi has publicly opposed Ginsburgh’s
statements; most Israeli politicians have remained silent; some Israeli
politicians have openly supported him.
The
Haredi demand to establish the Halacha as the law of the state of Israel has in
recent years received increased support from the more pious members of the NRP.
Briefly summarized, the specifics of this demand are:
•
God’s political authority
must be formally and juridically recognized. Ordained rabbis, God’s certified
agents, must be the decision makers.
•
Rabbis must oversee all
social institutions, adjudicate all issues that arise, make final judgements
about all social services and censor all printed, pictorial and sound matter.
•
Sabbath, other religious
laws, physical separation of women from men in public places and “modesty” in
female conduct and dress must be enforced by law.
•
Individuals must be
obligated legally to report all noticed offenses of others to rabbinical
authorities.
The
theocratic, totalitarian nature of the Haredi demand for the Halacha to be the
binding law of the State of Israel is obvious.
A
brief consideration of ±e historical background should provide a basis for
understanding the differences between the two major Haredi groups: the
Ashkenazi and the Oriental, formerly called Sephardi. Throughout most of their
history, Jews lived scattered in different countries. Not surprisingly,
separate Jewish communities emerged, comprised of Jewish residents of a single
country, of a cluster of countries or sometimes of different parts of a single
country. Until about AD 1050 one particular community existed as a Jewish
center, recognized by other communities as the authority for dictating rules
and issuing instructions binding upon Jews throughout the world. The last such
center was the Jewish community of Iraq. After the collapse of the last center
in Iraq, the differences between Jewish communities deepened considerably.
Different communities, for example, although keeping and using some of the
ancient prayers common to all Jews, composed new prayers, used only in their
own services. Even the chanting of prayers in different communities changed and
thus varied. Religious rules of conduct in almost every conceivable area of
life, to which pious Jews adhered, also changed to some extent and varied from
one community to another.
The
Ashkenazi community that emerged in northern France and western Germany between
the tenth and twelfth centuries became more innovative and began to deviate
more from previously established patterns than any other community with the
possible exceptions of small communities in remote countries, such as Georgia.
The Ashkenazi divergences became embedded and persisted. Until this day, for
example, most pious Ashkenazi Jews refuse to eat meat or any foods containing
meat that are prepared under supervision of non-Ashkenazi rabbis; pious members
of other Jewish communities are content with dietary supervision of rabbis not
belonging to their community. Thus, a pious Sephardi Jew, visiting a pious
Ashkenazi Jew will eat food prepared by the latter, but a pious Ashkenazi Jew
visiting a Sephardi Jew will refuse to eat any foods containing meat or often
any food whatsoever. Ashkenazi exclusiveness is evident in many other aspects
of their religious conduct. Sephardi Jews, on the other hand, developed as
early as the twelfth century an exclusiveness of their own, based upon the
consideration ±at they were superior in some ways to other Jews. The Spanish
and Portuguese Jews, a part of Sephardi Jewry, especially developed a pride in
the supposed “purity of descent.” (In Hebrew Sephardi means Spanish.) Most of
them not only refused to marry but also often despised being together with
Ashkenazi Jews. Moses Maimonides, who lived until 1204 and was both a rabbi and
the greatest medieval Jewish philosopher, moralized in a testament addressed to
his son:
Guard
your soul by not looking into books composed by Ashkenazi rabbis, who believe
in the blessed Lord only when they eat beef seasoned with vinegar and garlic.
They believe that the vapor of vinegar and the smoke of garlic will ascend to
their nostrils and thus make them understand that the blessed Lord is near to
them ... You, my son, should stay only in the pleasant company of our Sephardi
brothers, who are called the men of Andalusia [or southern Spain, then ruled by
the Muslims] because only they have brains and are clever.
Similar
statements, in which members of a Jewish community express feelings of their
superiority over other Jews, abound in Jewish literature and are common. Even
as late as the 1960s older Sephardi rabbis and other Jewish men in Jerusalem,
when signing their names, would invariably add the Hebrew initials meaning
“pure Spanish.” Ashkenazi exclusiveness, as it developed and deepened over
centuries, however, became more all-encompassing and extreme than Sephardi
exclusiveness.
The
developing exclusiveness had geographical, social and political causes. Prior
to the formation of the Ashkenazi community, almost all Jews lived in the
Mediterranean basin or in countries, such as Iraq, connected with the basin by
trade routes. In the tenth century most Mediterranean countries were under
either Muslim or Byzantine rule. The communications between this region and the
emerging feudal Europe were tenuous largely because of the language barriers:
Greek and Arabic, spoken on the one side, were largely unknown in Western
Christian areas, while Latin was largely unknown in the Orient. Jews, who almost
always spoke the language(s) of the people among whom they lived, encountered
the same communication obstacle as did other people. The Ashkenazi community,
therefore, framed its own life style without knowledge about or guidance from
the older, Jewish communities. The Ashkenazi Jewish life style developed within
the context of the emerging feudalism in Europe, which differed in many crucial
respects from other regimes in other areas in that time period. In spreading
eastward into the emerging states in central and eastern Europe, the Ashkenazi
community solidified its cohesiveness and its identity: these have persisted to
date but in more pronounced forms among religious rather than secular Ashkenazi
Jews.
Expelled
from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1498, Sephardi Jews not only settled in
but also transformed other Jewish communities. In these communities the new
Sephardi immigrants tended to maintain an exclusiveness and to remain aloof
from other Jews. Having come from the relatively developed society of the Spain
of the Renaissance and having settled in less developed countries, they soon
became the wealthiest, best educated and most politically connected Jews in
Mediterranean countries. The Sephardi Jews that settled in Saloniki (now in
Greece but then part of the Ottoman Empire) received privileges from the
Ottoman Sultan, because they manufactured the best cloth and provided textiles
for the uniforms worn by members of elite units of the Ottoman army. The
Saloniki Sephardi Jews kept this monopoly for 130 years, losing it only when
more modem textiles were imported from England and the Netherlands. Spanish
Jews mostly and Italian Jews to a lesser extent actually did most of the
creative work in all areas of medieval Jewish culture. Largely because of their
wealth and education, Sephardi Jews imposed their customs, language and name
upon Jewish communities in all the countries to which they emigrated. One good
illustration of this occurred in Jewish communities in the Balkans and what is
now Turkey. The Jews in these communities called themselves “Romaniole,” taken
from the popular name of the Byzantine Empire “Romania.” They spoke Greek until
about 1550 at which time, influenced by the effects of the Sephardi
immigration, began to call themselves “Sephardi” and to speak Ladino, an
ancient form of Spanish. The fact is that no Sephardi communities existed other
than those made up of the immigrants from the Iberian Peninsula, their
descendents or those who assimilated themselves into Sephardi communities.
European travelers and some Ashkenazi Jews have referred, and still refer,
mistakenly to all non-Ashkenazi Jews as Sephardi. This is because the real
Sephardi Jews established a lasting hegemony over other Jewish communities.
Many other than Sephardi, non-Ashkenazi members of Jewish communities have more
correctly defined themselves not only as Jews but also as Iraqis, Moroccans,
Italians or another nationality.
Until
the end of the seventeenth century, Ashkenazi Jews constituted a small minority
of world Jewry. Their cultural advancement trailed far behind other Jewish
communities, especially the Sephardi and Italian. Since the eighteenth century,
the populations of Mediterranean countries, especially those in the Ottoman
Empire, steadily declined economically and demo- graphically. This trend
greatly affected Jewish communities of those countries. Between 1700 and 1850,
Jewish populations in these countries steeply declined and became increasingly
impoverished. The modest increase in Jewish population between 1850 and 1914
did not to a significant extent offset the decline. From the beginning of the
eighteenth century the political and technological advancements in Europe
affected the Ashkenazi community. From the mid-eighteenth century the Ashkenazi
population began to increase rapidly; by 1800 Ashkenazi Jews had become the
majority of world Jewry; this increase and the majority percentage accelerated
in the nineteenth century. Jews living in the European part of the Russian
Empire, nearly all of them Ashkenazi, proliferated sevenfold between 1795 and
1914. Ashkenazi Jews developed a variety of innovations in Judaism, some of
them secularist. By the first half of the twentieth century, Ashkenazi Jews had
surpassed the relatively small, non-Ashkenazi minority in every major respect,
including Talmudic studies. The current split between religious Ashkenazi Jews
and non-Ashkenazi Jews stems from the fact that during the past two centuries,
in contrast to what had previously been the case, almost all rabbis of
distinction have been Ashkenazi. In non-Ashkenazi communities during this time
period the quality of talmudic study, of books published and even of older
books being reprinted has disastrously declined.
Until
1948, Zionism and the emigration of Jews to Palestine were predominantly
Ashkenazi inventions. Most religious Jews viewed Zionism as being in opposition
to Judaism; hence, only Jews emancipated from their religious past could become
Zionists. Even so, few Ashkenazi Jews immigrated to Palestine because of
Zionist convictions. The great majority of those who immigrated did so only
because their lives were so difficult in their own countries of origin. The
great majority of Jews in Israel in 1948 were those who had immigrated to
Palestine after the increase in anti-Semitism in Europe after 1932 and
especially after Hitler came to power in Germany. The number of non-Ashkenazi
Jews in Israel at the time of the state’s creation was relatively small. For
most Jews in nonAshkenazi communities, the religious influence, especially the
messianic strain, was in the 1950s and early 1960s still potent. Living
standards in Israel in the 1950s, although below those throughout Europe, were
superior to those in most of the Arab Middle East. The Israeli government, therefore,
could easily persuade Jews from many countries, for example, Morocco, Yemen and
Bulgaria, to immigrate to Israel. The Israeli government induced Jewish
immigration from Iraq by bribing the government of Iraq to strip most Iraqi
Jews of their citizenship and to confiscate their property. By contrast, few
Jews immigrated to Israel from the more advanced countries of the eastern
Mediterranean, such as Greece or Egypt.
The
majority of the Israeli Jewish population shifted to the nonAshkenazi. During
the period from 1949 to 1965, Ashkenazi Jews in Israel declined to a minority
that stabilized at about 40 per cent of Israel’s population. The substantial
immigration of Jews from the former Soviet Union thereafter increased the
Ashkenazi population to about 55 per cent. By virtue of their having come from
more advanced countries, the bulk of Ashkenazi Jews were relatively modem in
outlook and secular.
The
non-Ashkenazi Jews, increasingly referred to as “Orientals” instead of
“Sephardis,” remained predominantly religious. Upon their arrival in Israel
many Oriental Jews and their children were put through a cultural socialization
directed by veteran Ashkenazi residents and advocated by members of the Zionist
Labor Party then in power. This socialization included a considerable amount of
coercive modernization and attempts to secularize the young. The results of
this coercion were mixed during most of the first two decades of Israel’s
existence. The majority of Oriental Jews remained traditionalists, meaning that
these people ignored the more exacting commandments of Judaism, such as the ban
of Sabbath travel, but followed other commandments, especially those dealing
with synagogue attendance. Even more importantly, it meant that they retained
belief in the magical powers of rabbis and “holy men.” To date, only a few
Oriental politicians dare criticize a rabbi in public, even when the rabbi
strongly opposes or curses them. Ashkenazi Jews of all political views in
contrast criticize rabbis freely. Most Ashkenazi politicians despise any
kowtowing to rabbis. Almost all Oriental politicians, including the Black
Panthers of the early 1970s and the members of tiny Oriental peace movements,
commonly bow to and kiss the hands of rabbis in public.
The
Ashkenazi religious minority, particularly its Haredi segment, has resisted
secularization of Oriental Jews. They have succeeded to some extent, most
particularly in persuading a minority to retain the strict observance of
Judaism’s commandments. They have established separate religious schools and
yeshivot for the Orientals and have admitted, although in strictly controlled
numbers, some of the most qualified Oriental youngsters to their own schools
and yeshivas. After the passage of time, an Oriental Haredi elite group of
rabbis and talmudic scholars emerged in Israel. Almost without exception,
Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis trained members of this elite group.
By
the beginning of the 1990s, the confrontation between the unbending Haredi
version of Ashkenazi exclusiveness and Oriental traditionalism, which
previously was potentially explosive, erupted. The Ashkenazi Haredi movement
insisted upon completely freezing the situation that existed in central and
eastern Europe around 1860. The Oriental Jews, trained by Ashkenazi Haredi
Jews, were forced
to
discard their traditional garb, wear the black Ashkenazi clothing and learn and
speak Yiddish. Yiddish was the language of oral instruction in the Haredi
yeshivot; Hebrew was reserved for writing. The Oriental traditionalists were
also forced to adopt the Ashkenazi manner of praying, which differed in
numerous ways from their former method. Revered rabbis, who commanded authority
and encountered almost no opposition, imposed those radical changes. By
contrast, the various attempts by the Labor movement to impose modernizing
constraints upon the Orientals in the 1950s sparked furious opposition among
the Oriental masses, who would often criticize politicians but hardly ever
criticize rabbis.
The
Oriental students in Ashkenazi Haredi yeshivot, after years of docile
submission to demands and after being ordained as rabbis, were not granted
status equal to that of their fellow students and rabbis. They have continued
to accept and even today seem to be content with their inferior treatment. An
excellent illustration of this is the inequality in intermarriage with their
Ashkenazi peers. All Jewish communities share the time-honored custom that the
head of the yeshiva arranges all marriages of yeshiva students. He carefully
picks the daughters of rich and pious Jews as wives for students. The better
students are matched with the daughters of the wealthiest parents. (The head of
the yeshiva also matches daughters of rabbis with sons of the wealthiest
parents.) Yeshiva students have selflessly complied with this matchmaking;
resisting has been - and still is - considered to be a grave sin. This practice
was instituted so that yeshiva students, who had no marketable skills, and
their families would be supported. Students could continue their sacred studies,
and the entire supporting family would supposedly then be able to enter
paradise. More recently, yeshiva heads, when unable to find wealthy,
prospective fathers-in-law for students, find prospective wives that are
previously trained in skilled professions suitable for Haredi women and are
willing to support husbands engaged in “sacred studies.” (Such support will
supposedly bring the wives to paradise.) By being matchmakers, yeshiva heads
have most often been able to control the livelihoods and thus the lives of
yeshiva students and their families.
Ashkenazi
Haredi Jews have never formally prohibited marriages with pious Jews from other
communities. Such marriages, nevertheless, often have been - and still are -
considered disgraces. Because of this, the heads of Ashkenazi Haredi yeshivot
adopted the custom, still followed, of matching Oriental students, however
distinguished in their studies, with either physically handicapped Ashkenazi
brides or ones from poor families.
Not
surprisingly, an unwritten rule developed whereby Oriental students, however
distinguished, would not be appointed to any responsible teaching positions
even in lower-rank yeshivot, attended solely by Oriental students. These
teaching jobs were reserved for Ashkenazi rabbis, the underlying assumption
being that Oriental Jews were not yet sufficiently mature to hold responsible
religious positions. When Rabbi Shach, one of the foremost Haredi leaders,
explicitly reiterated this assumption shortly before the 1992 elections, he was
denounced as being racist by many Ashkenazi secular Jews; neither Oriental
rabbis nor Oriental political activists uttered one word of public criticism.
No
Oriental initiative was responsible for the creation of the Haredi political
party, Shas. Rabbi Shach formed Shas before the 1988 elections, because he, in
his rivalry with other prominent Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis, needed to have
Knesset members that would be subservient only to him. He, therefore, ordered
those rabbis that were his students and retained personal allegiance to him to
form two new, separate, Haredi political parties: Degel Ha’Tora (Banner of the
Law) would be purely Ashkenazi; Shas (an acronym for Sephardi List for
Tradition) would be purely Oriental. After the formation of both parties, the
party leaders publicly regarded Rabbi Shach as their highest spiritual
authority and vowed to obey him unconditionally. In order to make Shas also
attractive to non-Haredi Orientals, Shach handpicked a non-Haredi Oriental
rabbi upon whom he could rely - Rabbi Ovadia Yoseph, the former chief rabbi of
Israel - to act as the nominal party head. Shach, of course, retained
authority. For Shach, Yoseph’s greatest virtue was that, after failing to win
re-election as chief rabbi due to the NRP’s refusal to exert influence on his
behalf, Yoseph hated the NRP as fiercely as did Shach himself. As is well known
in Israel, hatred between secular Jews cannot match in intensity the mutual
hatred between diverse groups of religious Jews, especially in the quarrels
between rabbis representing those diverse groups. Shach had good reason to
expect that, because of his wish to retaliate against NRP rabbis, Yoseph would
remain loyal to him and be content with his subordinate role.
For
a while everything worked as Shach had planned. The two parties, controlled by
Shach, obtained eight Knesset seats altogether in the 1988 elections; Degal
Ha’Tora had two seats; Shas, six seats. The Haredi party, Agudat Israel,
against which Shach formed his parties, obtained only five seats. Degel Ha’Tora
and Shas preferred a Likud government and after the 1988 elections supported
Yitzhak Shamir as the prime minister. Their support may have been decisive.
After 1990 Shamir would not have had a Knesset majority without their support.
The self-demeaning attempts by the Labor Party leader, Shimon Peres, to reverse
this situation failed. Peres spent months attending lessons of Talmud, given in
his home by Rabbi Yoseph. Peres attempted unsuccessfully to be received by
Rabbi Shach; Shach received many petty secular politicians but not Peres. Peres
made repeated, public pronouncements about how deeply he respected Judaism in
general and the Haredi rabbis in particular. Everything Peres attempted was in
vain. Shach and his rival Haredi rabbis did not bend in their support for
Shamir. Yitzhak Rabin’s victory over Peres for the leadership position in the
Labor Party primaries preceding the 1992 elections was largely due to Labor’s
rank-and-file disillusionment with Peres’ attempts to ingratiate himself with
Haredi Jews and to win their support. In spite of this experience, Peres
repeated the same attempts that resulted in the same results in the 1996
elections.
The
Haredi parties wielded political power after 1988, most especially in the
1988-90 period. Peres, still in the government after 1988, supported their
demands; Shamir, while Prime Minister, was even more resolute with support.
Haredi political success can best be measured by the amounts of money the two
Haredi parties were able to obtain from the state through so-called “special
money” grants, not subject to fiscal controls of the state. These special money
grants were made through a voluntary association, formed to remain under the
real control of a Haredi Knesset member or his friends. The ministry of finance
made grants from the state budget to such associations, most often on the basis
of flimsy purpose statements and with no control exerted over expenditures. The
resultant corruption was enormous, reaching a scale unprecedented in the
entire history of the State of Israel and finally causing the withdrawal of
such special money grants.
The
extensive corruption involved in the obtaining of this special money did not
necessarily mean that the money itself was used illicitly. Shas spent most of
this money to establish a network of institutions designed to exert a lasting
influence and to train cohorts of militants that in the future could enable the
party to maximize its control over its public. This network consisted of a
chain of educational institutions designed to revive traditional Jewish
education for boys with only sacred and not secular subjects taught. (Shas
largely ignored the education of girls.) Adult males between the ages of 40 and
50 were encouraged to leave their professions or give up their businesses in
order to enroll in institutions and study sacred subjects with guaranteed
remuneration. The remuneration, that is, salaries for studying, were admittedly
low, but numerous individuals considered the life of study preferable to their
persisting to do menial work or to maintain decaying businesses. The recruits
did more than study Talmud. They were required to do political work for Shas.
These recruits soon constituted Shas’ political cadre, which has been and
remains instrumental in turning Haredi neighborhoods into electoral
constituencies under almost any conceivable circumstances.
Informed
Israeli political commentators have recognized the public and political impact
of such Haredi political activity. In his June 26, 1992 article in Al-Hamishmar,
Professor Gideon Doron, Rabin’s major advisor on strategy during the 1992
elections, explained after Rabin’s victory why the Labor Party refrained from
canvassing votes in Shas-dominated neighborhoods:
This
is a party that keeps its public under continuous influence during election and
other times ... Shas’ method is to turn electoral outcomes into sources of
monetary revenues and spend the money obtained during the four years [between
one election and another]. The method succeeds. True, they also use magic
spells, amulets and vows that greatly influence their public, but their role is
secondary.
According
to Doron, the best way to appeal to the Shas constituency is to do so through
those of the salaried elite whose role anyway is to keep the constituency under
control. Doron pointed out that, with the exception of the previously mentioned
elite, Shas’ followers are essentially the same as the “Oriental
tradition-minded segment of Likud supporters.” By acquiring political power,
Shas leaders, particularly Rabbi Yoseph, gained self-confidence and began to
seek emancipation from the tutelage of Ashkenazi Haredi rabbis. In each
Shas-dominated neighborhood, Rabbi Yoseph rather than Rabbi Shach was acclaimed
to be the greatest rabbi in the world. After some years of continual adulation
by the masses, Rabbi Yoseph almost certainly came to believe that he no longer
needed to be subordinate to Rabbi Shach.
The
split between Shas and Rabbi Shach came after the 1992 elections and was
sparked by a triviality. The split in reality was over the rival claims by
Shach and Yoseph to be regarded as the spiritual head of Shas. Rabin, when
forming his coalition, approached and accepted the demands of Shas. Before
signing an agreement, Shas asked Rabbi Shach for approval. Shach refused,
because, as discussed in another chapter, Shulamit Aloni was to be named
Minister of Education. Shach’s newspaper, Yated Ne’eman, editorialized
that this appointment was worse than the killing of one million children during
the Holocaust. The reasoning employed here was that the Nazis killed the
children but did not prevent their souls from going to paradise, whereas the
appointment of Aloni could corrupt Jewish souls and deprive them of paradise.
Rabbi Yoseph and the Shas Party, nevertheless, decided to risk the souls of
Jewish children and joined Rabin’s government. Rabbi Shach and his followers
reacted negatively in a furious manner that persisted thereafter.
The
confrontation between the two Haredi movements has been waged in the magical
area over the contest of spiritual authority. In keeping with commonly held and
magical Haredi beliefs, the Shas leaders’ sin of resisting Rabbi Shach’s will
could be punished by a few curses resulting in either the deaths or sicknesses
of those leaders and/or their family members. The result would allegedly
restore heavenly equilibrium. In order to further this magical result, Rabbi
Shach’s supporters resorted to conduct previously employed in similar
situations. They published fake announcements of deaths, hospitalizations
and/or traffic accidents of Shas leaders and then either notified the families
accordingly by telephone or sent ambulances to their homes. As noted above,
internecine hatred between religious Jews, and especially between Haredi
rabbis, is often virulent. The existence of such hatred has continually
resulted in disunity within ranks that limits Haredi political power. The
methods of internecine infighting have been so customarily employed within
Haredi culture that, unfortunately for Rabbi Shach’s followers, the impact is
severely limited. In the domain of magic, moreover, Shas has on its side the
great authority and renowned miracle worker, Rabbi Kaduri, who announced that
he would shield all Shas leaders by casting cabbalistic spells. Rabbi Kaduri
also claimed that God revealed to him that harassment by other Haredi Jews
would qualify Shas leaders for the greatest Jewish virtue, sanctification of
the Lord’s name through martyrdom.
In
the contest of spiritual authorities, debate ensued over whether Rabbi Yoseph’s
spirituality was sufficiently great to validate his challenge to Shach’s
rabbinical authority, especially in light of Yoseph’s former allegiance to
Shach. Following the debate all the Shas rabbis decided to obey Rabbi Yoseph.
Shas rabbis and followers then began to extol Rabbi Yoseph as “the greatest
rabbi of his generation,” greater even than any Ashkenazi rabbi. This honor had
previously been awarded to Rabbi Shach. Shas had won its independence. The
Ashkenazi Haredi Jews thus could not defeat but did sever all connections with
Shas. No Ashkenazi rabbi distanced himself from Shach’s pronouncements; some
added even more venom. The leader of the largest Hassidic sect, the Gur
Hassids, reiterated his previously expressed view that Israel lost the Yom
Kippur War (of October 1973) because a woman, Golda Meir, was prime minister.
He implied that Israel would lose its next war because of Shulamit Aloni.
Ashkenazi rabbis and their followers used weapons more hurtful than their
curses and pronouncements. They desecrated Shas synagogues, usually just before
the beginning of the Sabbath, thus making it difficult to clean in time without
desecrating the Sabbath. Many Shas leaders, who had been educated in Ashkenazi
institutions and who continued to pray in Ashkenazi synagogues, were harassed
or beaten during the reciting of prayers.
One
Shas leader, Rabbi Pinhassi, was spat upon and beaten in an Ashkenazi synagogue
in the Haredi town of Bnei Brak during a Sabbath prayer session. Some children
of Shas leaders were terribly abused. The then Minister of the Interior,
Yitzhak Der’i, had to remove his sons from an Ashkenazi yeshiva after they were
publicly humiliated. Der’i was repeatedly harassed, often when attempting to
pray in synagogues, by Shach’s followers and by religious settlers. Shas
followers fought back. On several occasions they beat up those who had harassed
Der’i; they also desecrated Ashkenazi synagogues in retaliation. Shas
retaliations ultimately served their opponent’s cause by escalating the
conflict.
The
split and conflict within Haredi ranks illustrate the religious transformation
of Oriental Jews. For over two decades many secular Oriental groups were
founded; they all failed to obtain the support of the populations they claimed
to represent and, as a result, collapsed ignominiously. Their failure can be
attributed to their obstinate refusal to recognize that the Oriental Jewish
communities define themselves primarily in religious terms. The Haredi Shas
Party will in the foreseeable future likely remain the sole Oriental political
party in Israel. This particular case study may help illustrate the nature of
religious transformation of a not fully modernized population.
The National Religious Party and the Religious Settlers
The
ideology of the NRP and Gush Emunim, the group of religious settlers in the
territories occupied by Israel since 1967, is more innovative than the ideology
of Haredi Jews. Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak Kook, who was the chief rabbi of
Palestine and a most prominent rabbinical supporter of Zionism, devised this
ideology in the early 1920s and developed it thereafter. Rabbi Kook the elder,
as he was called, was a prolific author. His followers considered him to be
divinely inspired. After his death in 1935 he achieved the status of a saint in
NRP circles. His son and successor as NRP leader, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda Kook the
younger, who died in 1981 at the age of 91, also achieved saintly status. Rabbi
Kook the younger wrote no books and did not achieve the talmudic competency of
his father, but he possessed a strongly charismatic personality and exerted
great influence upon his students. He elaborated orally the political and
social consequences of his father’s teachings. The rabbis who graduated from
his yeshiva in Jerusalem, Merkaz Harav, or Center of the Rabbi, and remained
devoted followers of his teaching established a Jewish sect with a well-
defined political plan. In early 1974, almost immediately after the shock of
the October 1973 war and a short time before the ceasefire agreement with
Syria was signed, Rabbi Kook’s followers with their leader’s blessing and
spiritual guidance founded Gush Emunim (Block of ±e Faithful). The Gush Emunim
aims were to initiate new and to expand already existent Jewish settlements in
the Occupied Territories. With the help of Shimon Peres, who in the summer of
1974 became the Israeli defense minister and thus the person in charge of the
Occupied Territories, Gush Emunim in the remarkably short time of a few years
succeeded in changing Israeli settlement policy. The Jewish settlements, which
continue to spread throughout the West Bank and to occupy a large chunk of the
Gaza Strip, provide testimony of and documentation for Gush Emunim’s influence
within Israeli society and upon Israeli governmental policies.
Gush
Emunim’s success in changing Israeli settlement policy in the 1970s is
politically explicable. Defense Minister Moshe Dayan determined Israeli
settlement policy from the end of the 1967 war until 1974. He did not allow the
establishment of Jewish settlements in the bulk of the territories. The only
exception he made was to allow a tiny group of Jewish settlers to live near
Hebron. Dayan wanted to envelop the densely inhabited parts of these areas by
creating a settlement zone in the almost uninhabited Jordan Valley and northern
Sinai (the Yamit area). In order to preserve the Israeli alliance with the
feudal notables who were in firm control of the villages (although not of the
larger towns), Dayan promised not to confiscate village lands; he mostly kept
his promise. Gush Emunim demonstrated its strength by organizing enormous
demonstrations in 1974 and 1975 opposing the Dayan promise. These demonstrations
were also directed against United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for
backing the Dayan policy. Peres, who became defense minister after Dayan in
1974 in the first Rabin government (1974-77), initiated a new policy which he
called “functional compromise” and for which he acquired Gush Emunim support.
According to this policy all the land inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip
that was not being used by the inhabitants could be confiscated for the
exclusive use of the Jews. Palestinian political leaders who accepted this new
policy arrangement would be offered absolute rule over Palestinians. The
government of the State of Israel would control only certain essential
functions in Palestinian areas.
Prime
Minister Rabin at first opposed this policy. In 197 5, Peres conspired with
Gush Emunim and planned strategy to combat Rabin’s opposition. Gush Emunim
organized a mass rally in Sebastia, a disused railway station near Nablus.
Rabin forbade the demonstration, but Gush Emunim demonstrators succeeded in circumventing
the army roadblocks and assembled in Sebastia. During the period of the ensuing
lengthy negotiations Peres lent some support to Gush Emunim. More demonstrators
arrived on the scene. Finally, a compromise settlement that favored Gush Emunim
was reached. Gush Emunim members were allowed to settle in what is now the
flourishing settlement of Kedumim. Operating in much the same manner, Gush
Emunim in 1976 with the help of Peres founded the settlement Ofra as a
temporary work camp and the settlement Shilo as a temporary archaeological
camp. Gush Emunim also pursued similar policies and initiated settlement
beginnings in the Gaza Strip. The Gush Emunim settlements, agreed to by Peres
in 1975 and 1976, still exist and are flourishing. Following the 1977 election
of Menachem Begin as prime minister, a “holy alliance” of the religious Gush
Emunim and successive secular Israeli governments occurred and has remained in
place to date.
Having
achieved settlement policy successes, Gush Emunim rabbis cleverly conducted a
number of political intrigues and were able to achieve domination of the NRP.
From the mid-1980s the NRP has followed the ideological lead of Gush Emunim.
After the death of Rabbi Kook the younger, the spiritual leadership of Gush
Emunim became centered in a semi-secret rabbinical council, selected by
mysterious criteria from among the most outstanding disciples of Rabbi Kook.
These rabbis have continued to make policy decisions based upon their belief in
certain innovative elements of ideology not openly advocated or detailed but
derived from their distinct interpretation of Jewish mysticism, popularly known
as Cabbala. The writings of Rabbi Kook the elder serve as the sacred texts and
are perhaps intentionally even more obscure than other cabbalistic writings.
In-depth knowledge of talmudic and cabbalistic literature, including modem
interpretations of both, and special training are prerequisites for
understanding Kook’s writings. The implications of Kook’s writings are
theologically too innovative to allow for a popularized presentation to an
otherwise educated Jewish public. This is probably the reason why so few
analyses of the Gush Emunim ideology have appeared. The one significant and
learned analysis is an essay by Professor Uriel Tai, published originally in
Hebrew in Haaretz on September 26, 1984, and published in English in The
Jerusalem Quarterly (No. 35, Spring 1985) under the title: “Foundations of
a Political Messianic Trend in Israel.” The Tai essay, although marred to some
extent by sociological jargon and by some analogies not well adapted to its
theme, is the most valuable analysis to cute. Several relatively good studies
in Hebrew of the more mundane aspects of Gush Emunim have appeared as books.
The one study in English is Ian Lustick’s book, For the Land and the Lord:
Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (1988). The initiative for the Lustick book
was apparently connected to Lustick’s personal reaction to the Jonathan Pollard
espionage affair1 and began as a paper written for the United States
Department of Defense. This may explain the book’s excessive concentration on
the changing political stances of Gush Emunim and its relative neglect of
important parts of ideology. Contrary to what the title suggests, the book
contains littie description or explanation of Jewish fundamentalism. To some
extent, moreover, this book is apologetic; the more extreme aspects of Gush
Emunim dogmas and beliefs are not accurately revealed. Some of what is missing
in the Lustick book can fortunately be found in the chapter titled
“Nationalistic Judaism,” in Yehoshafat Harkabi’s book, Israel’s Fateful Hour
(1988). The ensuing discussion of Gush Emunim ideas and politics will take
cognizance of the Lustick and Harkabi analyses but will rely more upon Tai’s
study and other Hebrew writings.
The
status of non-Jews in the Cabbala as compared to that in talmudic literature is
a good beginning point for discussion. Most of the many Jewish authors that
have written about the Cabbala in English, German and French have either
avoided this subject or have hidden its essence under clouds of misleading
generalizations. These authors, Gershon Scholem being one of the most
significant, have employed the trick of using words such as “men,” “human
beings” and “cosmic” in order to imply incorrectly that the Cabbala presents a
path leading towards salvation for all human beings. The actual fact is that
cabbalistic texts, as opposed to talmudic literature, emphasize salvation for
only Jews. Many books dealing with the Cabbala that are written in Hebrew,
other than those written by Scholem, present an honest description of salvation
and other sensitive Jewish issues. This point is well illustrated in studies of
the latest and most influential school of Cabbala, the Lurianic School, founded
in the late sixteenth century and named after its founding rabbi, Yitzhak
Luria. The ideas of Rabbi Luria greatly influenced the theology of Rabbi Kook
the elder and still underlie the ideologies of Gush Emunim and Hassidism.
Yesaiah Tishbi, an authority on the Cabbala who wrote in Hebrew, explained in
his scholarly work, The Theory of Evil and the (Satanic) Sphere in Lurianic
Cabbala (1942, reprinted in 1982): “It is plain that those prospects and
the scheme [of salvation] are intended only for Jews.” Tishbi cited Rabbi Hayim
Vital, the chief interpreter of Rabbi Luria, who wrote in his book, Gates of
Holiness: “The Emanating Power, blessed be his name, wanted there to be
some people on this low earth that would embody the four divine emanations.
These people are the Jews, chosen to join together the four divine worlds here
below.” Tishbi further cited Vital’s writings in emphasizing the Lurianic
doctrine that non-Jews have satanic souls: “Souls of non-Jews come entirely
from the female part of the satanic sphere. For this reason souls of non-Jews
are called evil, not good, and are created without [divine] knowledge.” In his
illuminating Hebrew-language book, Rabbinate, Hassidism, Enlightenment: The
History of Jewish Culture Between the End of the Sixteenth and the Beginning of
the Nineteenth Century (1956), BenZion Katz explained convincingly that
the above doctrines became part of Hassidism. Accurate descriptions of Lurianic
doctrines and their wide influence upon religious Jews can be found in numerous
other studies, written in Hebrew. In books and articles written in other
languages, and thus read by most interested nonIsraeli Jews and non-Jews, such
descriptions and analyses are most often absent. The role of Satan, whose
earthly embodiment according to the Cabbala is every non-Jew, has been
minimized or not mentioned by authors who have not written about the Cabbala in
Hebrew. Such authors, therefore, have not conveyed to readers accurate accounts
of general NRP or its hard-core, Gush Emunim politics.
A
modem and influential expression of the attitudes derived above is evident in
the teachings and writings of the late “Lubovitcher Rebbe,” Rabbi Menachem
Mendel Schneerson, who headed the Chabad movement and wielded great influence
among many religious Jews in Israel as well as in the United States. Schneerson
and his Lubovitch followers are Haredim; nevertheless, they involved themselves
in Israel’s political life and shared many concepts with Gush Emunim and the
NRP. The ideas of Rabbi Schneerson that appear below are taken from a book of
his recorded messages to followers in Israel, titled Gatherings of
Conversations and published in the Holy Land in 1965. During the subsequent
three decades of his life until his death, Rabbi Schneerson remained
consistent; he did not change any of the opinions. What Rabbi Scheerson taught
either was or immediately became official, Lubovitch, Hassidic belief.
Regarding
the non-Jew the Lubovitcher Rebbe’s views were clear even if a bit disorderly:
“In such a manner the Halacha, stipulated by the Talmud, showed that a non-Jew
should be punished by death if he kills an embryo, even if the embryo is non-
Jewish, while the Jew should not be, even if the embryo is Jewish. As we [the
talmudic sages] learn from Exodus 22:21, beginning with the words ‘and if any
mischief will follow.’” This quoted verse is a part of a passage beginning in
verse 21, describing what should be done “if men strive and hurt a woman with
child,” thus damaging the embryo. Verse 22, whose beginning is quoted by the
Lubovitcher Rebbe, says in full: “And if any mischief will follow, then you
shall give soul for soul.” (Some English translations use the wording “life for
life” instead of “soul for soul.”) The above stated difference in the
punishment of a Jew and a non-Jew for the same crime is common in the Talmud
and Halacha.
The
Lubovitcher Rebbe continued:
The
difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common
expression: “Let us differentiate.” Thus, we do not have a case of profound
change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case
of “let us differentiate” between totally different species. This is what
needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally
different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world ...
The Old Rabbi [a pseudonym for one of the holy Lubovitch rabbis] explained that
the passage in Chapter 49 of Hatanya [the basic book of Chabad] : “And
you have chosen us” [the Jews] means specifically that the Jewish body was
chosen [by God], because a choice is thus made between outwardly similar
things. The Jewish body “looks as if it were in substance similar to bodies of
non-Jews,” but the meaning ... is that the bodies only seem to be similar in
material substance, outward look and superficial quality. The difference of the
inner quality, however, is so great that the bodies should be considered as
completely different species. This is the reason why the Talmud states that
there is an halachic difference in attitude about the bodies of non-Jews [as
opposed to the bodies of Jews] ” “their bodies are in vain.” ... An even
greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul
exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three Satanic spheres, while the Jewish
soul stems from holiness.
As
has been explained, an embryo is called a human being, because it has both body
and soul. Thus, the difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish embryo can be
understood. There is also a difference in bodies. The body of a Jewish embryo
is on a higher level than is the body of a non-Jew. This is expressed in the
phrase “let us differentiate” about the body of a non-Jew, which is a totally
different kind. The same difference exists in regard to the soul: the soul of a
Jewish embryo is different than the soul of a non-Jewish embryo. We therefore
ask: Why should a non-Jew be punished if he kills even a non-Jewish embryo
while a Jew should not be punished even if he kills a Jewish embryo? The answer
can be understood by [considering] the general difference between Jews and
non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself
is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only
to serve the Jews. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”
[Genesis 1:1] means that [the heavens and the earth] were created for the sake
of the Jews, who are called the “beginning.” This means everything, all
developments, all discoveries, the creation, including the “heavens and the
earth - are vanity compared to the Jews. The important things are the Jews,
because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine]
aim.”
After
some additional cabbalistic explanation the Lubovitcher Rebbe concluded:
Following
from what has already been said, it can be understood why a non-Jew should be
punished by death if he kills an embryo and why a Jew should not be punished by
death. The difference between the embryo and a [baby that was] born is that the
embryo is not a self-contained reality but rather is subsidiary; either it is
subsidiary to its mother or to the reality created after birth when the
[divine] purpose of its creation is then fulfilled. In its present state the
purpose is still absent. A non-Jew’s entire reality is only vanity. It is
written, “And the strangers shall stand and feed your flocks” [Isaiah 61:5].
The entire creation [of a nonJew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.
Because of this a non-Jew should be punished with death if he kills an embryo,
while a Jew, whose existence is most important, should not be punished with
death because of something subsidiary. We should not destroy an important thing
for the sake of something subsidiary. It is true that there is a prohibition
against [hurting] an embryo, because it is something that will be bom in the
future and in a hidden form already exists. The death penalty should be
implicated only when visible matters are affected; as previously noted, the
embryo is merely of subsidiary importance.
Comments
concerning and partial summaries of the above opinions have appeared, but with
insufficient emphasis in the Israeli Hebrew press. In 1965, when the above was
published, the Lubovitcher Rebbe was allied in Israel to the Labor Party; his
movement had already acquired many important benefits from the government then
in power as well as previous Israeli governments. The Lubovitchers, for
example, had obtained autonomy for their own education system within the
context of religious state education. In the mid- 1970s the Lubovitcher Rebbe
decided that the Labor Party was too moderate and thereafter shifted his
movement’s political support sometimes to Likud and sometimes to a religious
party. Ariel Sharon was the Rebbe’s favorite Israeli senior politician. Sharon
in turn praised the Rebbe publicly and delivered a moving speech about him in
the Knesset after the Rebbe’s death. From the June 1967 war until his death the
Lubovitcher Rebbe always supported Israeli wars and opposed any retreat. In
1974 he strongly opposed the Israeli withdrawal from the Suez area, conquered
in the October 1973 war; he promised Israel divine favors if it persisted in
occupying that land. After his death thousands of his Israeli followers, who
continued to hold the views expressed in the above quoted passage, played an
important role in Netanyahu’s election victory by demonstrating at many
cross-road junctions before election day; they chanted the slogan: “Netanyahu
is good for the Jews.” Although subsequently strongly criticizing Netanyahu for
meeting with Arafat, signing the Hebron agreement and agreeing to a second
withdrawal, the Rebbe’s followers continued their overall preference for the
Netanyahu government.
Among
the religious settlers in the Occupied Territories the Chabad Hassids
constitute one of the most extreme groups. Baruch Goldstein, the mass murderer
of Palestinians, was one of them (Goldstein will be discussed in Chapter 6.)
Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, who wrote a chapter of a book in praise of Goldstein
and what he did, is another member of their group. Ginsburgh is the former head
of the Yoseph Tomb Yeshiva, located on the outskirts of Nablus. Rabbi
Ginsburgh, who originally came to Israel from the United States and has good
connection to the Lubovitcher community in the United States, has often
expressed his views in English in American Jewish publications. The following
appeared in an April 26,1996 Jewish Week (New York) article that
contained an interview with Rabbi Ginsburgh:
Regarded
as one of the Lubovitcher sect’s leading authorities on Jewish mysticism, the
St. Louis born rabbi, who also has a graduate degree in mathematics, speaks
freely of Jews’ geneticbased, spiritual superiority over non-Jews. It is a
superiority that he asserts invests Jewish life with greater value in the eyes
of the Torah. “If you saw two people drowning, a Jew and a non-Jew, the Torah
says you save the Jewish life first,” Rabbi Ginsburgh told the Jewish Week
“If every simple cell in a Jewish body entails divinity, is a part of God, then
every strand of DNA is part of God. Therefore, something is special about Jewish
DNA.” Later, Rabbi Ginsburgh asked rhetorically: “If a Jew needs a liver, can
you take the liver of an innocent non-Jew passing by to save him? The Torah
would probably permit that. Jewish life has an infinite value,” he explained.
“There is something infinitely more holy and unique about Jewish life than
non-Jewish life.”
Changing
the words “Jewish” to “German” or “Aryan” and “non- Jewish” to “Jewish” turns
the Ginsburgh position into the doctrine that made Auschwitz possible in the
past. To a considerable extent the German Nazi success depended upon that
ideology and upon its implications not being widely known early. Disregarding
even on a limited scale the potential effects of messianic, Lubovitch and other
ideologies could prove to be calamitous.
The
difference in the attitudes about non-Jews in the Halacha and the Cabbala is
well illustrated by the difference expressed specifically in regard to non-Jews
who have converted to Judaism. The Halacha, although discriminating against
them in some ways, treats converts as new Jews. The Cabbala is unable to adopt
this approach because of its emphasis upon the cosmic difference between Jews
and non-Jews. The Cabbala explains that converts are really Jewish souls
consigned firstly to non-Jewish bodies as punishments and later redeemed by
conversion to Judaism either because the punishment ended or because a holy man
interceded. This explanation is part of cabbalistic belief in metempsychosis,
which is absent in the Halacha. According to the Cabbala, a Satanic soul cannot
be transformed into a divine soul by mere persuasion.
The
ensuing discussion of Gush Emunim ideas and politics takes cognizance of the
Lustick and Harkabi studies but relies primarily upon primary source material
and upon analyses by Tai and other Hebrew-language writers. Tai described and
analyzed Gush Emunim principles by quoting extensively from writings of Rabbi
Yehuda Amital, an outstanding Gush leader who was appointed minister without
portfolio in the Israeli government in November 1995, by then Prime Minister
Peres and who served in that capacity until June 1996. Peres described Amital
as a moderate. In explaining Amital’s views, Tai relied heavily upon Amital’s
published article, “On the significance of the Yom Kippur War [1973].” To
illustrate Amital’s emphasis upon spiritual yearning and the political-messianic
stream of thought, Tai quoted the following:
The
war broke out against the background of the revival of the kingdom of Israel,
which in its metaphysical (not only symbolic) status is evidence of the decline
of the spirit of defilement in the Western world ... The Gentiles are fighting
for their mere survival as Gentiles, as the ritually unclean. Iniquity is
fighting its battle for survival. It knows that in the wars of God there will
not be a place for Satan, for the spirit of defilement, or for the remains of
Western culture, the proponents of which are, as it were, secular Jews.
Tai
further interpreted Amital’s and thus Gush Emunim’s basic views:
The
modern secular world, according to this approach, “is struggling for survival,
and thus our war is directed against the impurity of Western culture and
against rationality as such.” It follows that the alien culture has to be
eradicated because “all foreignness draws us closer to the alien, and the alien
causes alienation, as is the position of those who still adhere to Western
culture and who attempt to fuse Judaism with rationalist empiricist and
democratic culture.” According to Amital’s approach, the Yom Kippur War has to
be comprehended in its messianic dimension: a struggle against civilization in
its entirety.
Tai
proceeded in his discussion to ask Amital a multi-faceted, serious question:
“What is the point of all the affliction? Why do wars continue, if the Messiah
has already come and if the Kingdom of Israel has already been established?” Amital
replied: “The war initiates the process of purification, of refinement, the
purifying and cleaning of the congregation of Israel.” Tai continued to
discuss: “We thus learn that there is only one explanation of the wars: they
refine and purify the soul. As impurity is removed, the soul of Israel - by
virtue of the war - will be refined. We have already conquered the lands; all
that now remains is to conquer impurity.”
The
followers of the two Rabbi Kooks have applied the above concepts to all other
Israeli wars. Rabbi Shmaryahu Arieli, for example, explained, according to Tai,
that the 1967 war was a “metaphysical transformation” and that the Israeli
conquests transferred land from the power of Satan to the divine sphere. This
supposedly proved that the “messianic era” had arrived. Tai also quoted the
teachings of Rabbi E. Hadaya: “[The conquests of 1967] liberated the land from
the other side [a polite name for Satan], from a mystical force that embodies
evil, defilement and moral corruption. We [the Jews] are thus entering an era
in which absolute sovereignty rules over corporeality.” Tai emphasized that
these statements constituted a warning that any Israeli withdrawal from
conquered areas would have metaphysical consequences that could result in restoring
to Satan sovereignty over that land. Other Gush Emunim leaders directly and
indirectly expressed the same ideas in their public statements and writings.
There
can be little doubt that Gush Emunim has seriously affected Israeli Jewish
religious leaders and lay people. During the time of the Israeli invasion of
Lebanon, for example, the military rabbinate in Israel, clearly influenced by
the ideas of the two Rabbi Kooks, exhorted all Israeli soldiers to follow in
the footsteps of Joshua and to re-establish his divinely ordained conquest of
the land of Israel. This exhortation of conquest included extermination of
non-Jewish inhabitants. The military rabbinate published a map of Lebanon in
which the names of Lebanese towns had been changed to the names of cities found
in the Book of Joshua. Beirut, for example, was changed to Be’erot. The map
designated Lebanon as land belonging to the ancient northern tribes of Israel,
Asher and Naphtali. As Tai wrote: “Israel’s military presence in Lebanon
confirmed the validity of the Biblical promise in Deuteronomy 11:24: ‘Every
place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours; our border shall be
from the wilderness, from the river Euphrates, to the western sea.’” The
followers of the two Rabbis Kook viewed Lebanon as being delivered from the
power of Satan with its inhabitants being killed in the process.” Such a view
is not exceptional; it has numerous ancient and modem parallels, both religious
and secular. The idea of a murderous purification of land from the evil and
defilement that provoke God is common. In her chapter, “The Rites of Violence,”
in the book, Society and Culture in Early Modem France, Natalie Z.
Davis, for example, presented the same idea as being the rationalization for
the massacres perpetrated by France in the second half of the sixteenth
century. In his excellent book, The Pursuit of the Millennium, to cite
another example, Norman Cohn discussed Christian religious movements that
sought to bring about the millennium by the use of force resulting in the
deaths of many people.
Three
interpretative and interrelated comments about Tai’s analysis of Gush Emunim
should be made. First, the rabbis, cited as authorities by both Tai and the
authors of this book, are not obscure or fringe rabbis but are important
Israeli figures. As previously noted, Shimon Peres, when prime minister,
regarded one of them, Rabbi Amital, as a moderate and appointed him minister
without portfolio. Second, Tai was able to comprehend the real essence of what
he termed the “political messianic trend.” His expertise in German Nazism,
particularly in Nazi ideology and its sources, almost certainly helped him in
his study of Gush Emunim. (See Tai’s book in Hebrew, Political Theology and
the Third Reich, Tel-Aviv University Press, 1989.) The similarities between
the Jewish political messianic trend and German Nazism are glaring. The
Gentiles are for the messianists what the Jews were for the Nazis. The hatred
for Western culture with its rational and democratic elements is common to both
movements. Finally, the extreme chauvinism of the messianists is directed
towards all nonJews. The 1973 Yom Kippur War, for instance, was in Amital’s
view not directed against Egyptians, Syrians and/or all Arabs but against all
non-Jews. The war was thus directed against the great majority of citizens of
the United States, even though the United States aided Israel in that war. This
hatred of non-Jews is not new but, as already discussed, is derived from a
continuous Jewish cabbalistic tradition. Those Jewish scholars who have
attempted to hide this fact from non-Jews and even from many Jews have not only
done a disservice to scholarship; they have aided the growth of this Jewish
analogue to German Nazism.
The
ideology of the Rabbis Kook is both eschatological and messianic. It resembles
in this respect prior Jewish religious doctrines as well as similar trends in
Christianity and Islam. This ideology assumes the imminent coming of the
Messiah and asserts that the Jews, aided by God, will thereafter triumph over
the non-Jews and rule over them forever. (This, it is alleged, will be good for
the nonJews.) All current political developments will either help bring this
about sooner or will postpone it. Jewish sins, most particularly lack of faith,
can postpone the coming of the Messiah. The delay, however, will not be of long
duration, because even the worst sins of the Jews cannot alter the course of
redemption. Sins can nevertheless increase the sufferings of Jews prior to the
redemption. The two world wars, the Holocaust and other calamitous events of
modem history are examples of punishment. The elder Rabbi Kook did not disguise
his joy over the loss of lives in World War I; he explained that loss of lives
was necessary “in order to begin to break Satan’s Power.” The followers of the
elder Rabbi Kook’s pronouncements often have detailed in depth such
explanations. Rabbi Dov Lior, one of the best-known rabbis of the aforementioned
Gush Emunim rabbinical council and the rabbi of Kiryat Arba, for instance,
argued that Israel’s failure in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon was due to the
lack of faith manifested in the signing of the peace treaty with Egypt and the
returning of “the inheritance of our ancestors [Sinai] to strangers.” Lior also
explained in an article about him, published in the Hadashot Supplement
of December 20, 1991, that the capture by the Syrians of two Israeli diplomats
stationed in Junieh, Lebanon, in May 1984, was “a just punishment for the
maltreatment in detention of our boys from the Jewish underground.” In the Hadashot
article Lior added “I do not know what sufferings can yet befall all the Jews”
for this crime.
Explanations
that may appear to the uninitiated to be outlandish and bizarre are sometimes
the most readily acceptable to Gush Emunim followers. This is especially the
case when these followers believe redemption is near at hand. They believe that
Satan, as described in the Cabbala, is rational and well-versed in logic; they
believe further that the power of Satan and of his earthly manifestation, the
non-Jews, can at times only be broken by irrational action. Gush Emunim thus
founded settlements on the exact days of United States Secretary of States
James Baker’s recurrent arrivals in Israel not merely to demonstrate Gush Emunim
power but also as part of a mystical design to break the power of Satan and its
American incarnation. In the past, different Jewish religious movements, for
example, the movement of the false Messiah Shabtai Zvi in 1665 and 1666 and
early Hassidism, had employed similar logic. Certain Christian and Islamic
movements also employed analogous logic at certain times.
Gush
Emunim ideologues, especially Rabbi Kook the elder, not only derived their
ideas largely from Jewish tradition but were also innovative. How they
developed the Messiah concept is illustrative. The Bible anticipated only a
single Messiah. Jewish mysticism anticipated two Messiahs. According to the
Cabbala the two Messiahs will differ in character. The first Messiah, a
militant figure called “son of Joseph,” will prepare the material preconditions
for redemption. The second Messiah will be a spiritual “son of David” who will
redeem the world by spectacular miraclemaking. (Gush Emunim followers believe
that miracles occur at various times.) The cabbalistic conception is that the
two Messiahs will be individuals. Rabbi Kook the elder altered this idea by
anticipating and advocating that the first Messiah will be a collective being.
Kook identified his group of followers as the collective “son of Joseph.” Gush
Emunim leaders, following the teaching of Rabbi Kook the elder, continue to
perceive their rabbis, and perhaps all followers as well, as the collective
incarnation of at least one and perhaps two divinely ordained Messiahs. Gush
Emunim members believe that this idea should not be revealed to the uninitiated
until the right time. They believe further that their sect cannot err because
of its infallible divine guidance.
Rabbi
Kook’s second innovation concerned the relationship of the first Messiah to
ignorant non-believing Jews, both secular and religious. Rabbi Kook derived
this concept from the biblical prophecy that the Messiah “bringing salvation”
will be “riding upon an ass and upon a colt, the foal of an ass” [Zechariah
9:9]. The Cabbala regarded this verse as evidence for two Messiahs: one riding
upon an ass and the other upon a colt. The question here was: How could a
collective Messiah ride upon a single ass? Kook answered the question by
identifying the ass with Jews who lacked wisdom and correct faith. Kook
postulated that the collective Messiah would ride upon these Jews. This meant
that the Messiah would exploit them for material gains and would redeem them to
the extent that they could be redeemed. The idea of redemption through contact
with a spiritually potent personality has been a major theme common to all
strands of Jewish mysticism. It has been applied not only to humans and their
sins but also to animals and inanimate objects. In Israel this idea is still a
part of religious education. Popular books for religious children contain many
stories that allegedly illustrate this point. One of the most repeated stories
is about a virtuous wild duck that is caught, killed and made into a succulent
dish for a holy rabbi. This duck is considered to be redeemed by its being
eaten by the holy man. The Gush Emunim innovation here has been to apply this
not only to nonbelieving Jews who are redeemed by following the collective
Messiah but also to all conceivable material objects, ranging from tanks to
money. Everything can be redeemed if touched or possessed by Jews, especially
messianic Jews. Gush Emunim members apply this doctrine to the conflict in the
Holy Land. They argue that what appears to be confiscation of Arab-owned land
for subsequent settlement by Jews is in reality not an act of stealing but one
of sanctification. From their perspective the land is redeemed by being
transferred from the satanic to the divine sphere. Gush Emunim, so its
followers believe, is by virtue of exclusive access to the total and only truth
more important than the remainder of the Jewish people. Gush Emunim rabbis
utilize the following analogy of the messianic ass: given its lowly status in
the hierarchy of beings, the ass must remain ignorant of the noble purpose of
its divinely inspired rider. This is the case in spite of the fact that the ass
surpasses the rider in size and sheer power. The divine rider in this analogy
leads the ass toward its own salvation. Because of his noble purpose the rider
may have to kick the ass during the course of the journey in order to make sure
that the ass does not stray from the ordained path. In the same way, the Gush
Emunim rabbis assert, this one messianic sect has to handle and lead the
ass-like Jews, who have been corrupted by satanic Western culture with its
rationality and democracy and who refuse to renounce their beastly habits and
embrace the true faith. To further the process, the use of force is permitted
whenever necessary.
The
final innovation of Rabbi Kook the elder contributed most decisively to the
popularity and political influence of his early followers and subsequently of
Gush Emunim. During the period of redemption this innovation affected the
conduct of the elect in relation to worldly concerns and contacts with other
Jews and non-Jews. Rabbi Kook taught that the elect should not stand aloof from
the rest of the world, as Jews had often done in the past. Realizing that other
people were sinful and even Satanic in nature, the elect had to attempt to bridge
the gap between themselves and the others by actively involving themselves in
society. Only by so doing would the elect have any chance to sanctify others.
The elect should provide an example, exert influence politically and
increasingly make contact with other people. Since the 1920s this doctrine has
greatly influenced the behavior of those affiliated with the NRP. After being
established in 1974, Gush Emunim vigorously reasserted this doctrine in spite
of great resentment of the public. Unlike Orthodox Jews previously, Rabbi
Kook’s followers began to dress like secular Jews and only distinguished
themselves outwardly by wearing skullcaps. To date they have followed the
Israeli secular clothing fashions of the 1950s. In their schools they
introduced portions of secular teaching into their curricula. They permitted
their people to enroll in Israeli secular universities.They additionally
established the religiously oriented Bar-Ilan University. Although restricting
the Bar-Ilan teaching staff to religious Jews, Gush Emunim sought to expand the
university’s scope of instruction to include all the usual academic
disciplines. The Haredim have consistently resented and viewed with abhorrence
these pursuits of what they regard as secularization. Rabbi Kook insisted that
each Jew had a religious duty to fight and to train to fight. NRP members have
faithfully followed this teaching. Many Gush Emunim members have been and still
are officers of the Israeli army’s select units; their proportion in such units
has continually increased. Gush Emunim religious school students have gained
renown for their excellent combat qualities, their high motivation to fight,
their relatively high casualty rate during the Lebanon war and their
willingness to beat up Palestinians during the Intifada.
Gush
Emunim has won broad public sympathy in Israeli Jewish society because of its
attitude towards army service. This contrasts sharply with the societal
antagonism directed against the Haredim for their dodging of military service.
The doctrine of sanctity, attributed by the two Rabbi Kooks to almost every
Zionist enterprise, contributed even more to the widespread public sympathy for
and support of Gush Emunim. Tai contrasted the religious Zionist outlook of
Rabbi Kook the younger and Gush Emunim with that of the secular left. Tai
defined the secular left’s Zionist outlook as a “poetic, lyrical notion,
according to which the return to the soil, life within nature, the agricultural
achievements, the secular creativity [are essential parts].” The two Rabbi
Kooks, while acknowledging that the secular left’s notion unwillingly served
the coming of messianic redemption, emphasized “the military victories upon
holy soil and the Jewish blood spilled on this soil.” Rabbi Kook the younger,
together with other Gush Emunim leaders, went further, according to Tal, by
defining “the State of Israel as the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of
Israel as the kingdom of heaven on earth.” Followers of Rabbi Kook still refer
to Israel as the “earthly support of the Lord’s throne.” Israel Harel, one of
the most important Gush Emunim leaders, used this expression to make a
political point in his weekly column in Haaretz on September 12,1996.
Quoting an early essay by Rabbi Kook the elder, Harel wrote that the State of
Israel was “the base of the Lord’s throne in this world” and thus is and should
be completely different from states “considered by Locke, Rosseau and others.”
For such people as Harel, total holiness envelops and justifies everything
Israel does within the context of divinely inspired guidance. Tai wrote that
from this vantage point “every action, every phenomenon, including secularism,
will one day be engulfed by sacredness, by redemption.” It is not inconceivable
that this type of sacredness could lead to the exploding of nuclear bombs in
order to end the power of Satan and to establish “the base of the Lord’s throne
in this world.”
In
many respects Gush Emunim members and the majority of NRP supporters have
continued to resemble the early Zionist pioneers. This fact has boosted their
public image. They have helped to promote this image by presenting themselves
to the uninitiated as successors of the pioneers of the 1920s and 1930s who are
still cherished in the Jewish national memory and lauded in Israeli education.
As previously indicated, Gush Emunim members, except for their miniscule
skullcaps, continue consciously to emulate the dress and mannerisms of the
early pioneers. The almost exclusively Ashhenazi background of both the early
pioneers and the Gush Emunim settlers help this emulation. All Gush Emunim
rabbis are Ashkenazi. The accepted Israeli standards of religious education,
discussed in Chapter 3, are largely responsible for the absence of Oriental
Jews among Gush Emunim rabbis. Although unwillingly to join, many Oriental Jews
have supported and continue to support Gush Emunim. The Likud constituency has
to date consistently supported Gush Emunim. By contrast, most members of the
Labor Party supported Gush Emunim until the end of the 1970s but changed after
Gush Emunim opposed the peace treaty with Egypt and demanded that Lebanon be
annexed “as a part of the heritage of our ancestors, the tribes of Asher,
Naphtali and Zebulun.” Gush Emunim infuriated many Labor supporters by
continuing to advocate other extreme hawkish policies and by fiercely opposing
Sharon’s 1982 alliance with the Lebanese Falangists, who were Christians and
therefore considered to be idolaters. Gush Emunim’s position in 1982 was that
Jews in their battles and conquests should only rely upon God’s help. Any
alliances with non-Jews could incur God’s wrath and lead to His withholding
help. Such ideas were, even for extreme Labor Party hawks, unacceptable.
Gush
Emunim and NRP politics must be understood within the context of ideology. The
ideology makes clear what members of these groups wish to accomplish. Books
written in English have unfortunately failed to discuss adequately this
ideology. Lustick’s book, For the Land and the Lord, which discusses
Gush Emunim’s outward political behavior, is the prime example. Lustick relied
to a great extent upon the writings of Harold Fisch for his analysis of Gush
Emunim’s political ideology. Fisch, a professor of English literature who
seemingly has only limited competence in the Talmud and Cabbala, has mostly
written for English-speaking readers and has primarily concentrated upon
Christian fundamentalists in the United States. Lustick also relied somewhat
upon the writings of Rabbi Menachem Kasher. Kasher was a highly respected
talmudic scholar who wrote in Hebrew and influenced potential Gush Emunim
initiates. His messianic tracts are well- known to many Gush Emunim and Yeshiva
students. Lustick only briefly quoted Kasher twice and then obfuscated what he
did quote. In our book we have relied more upon what Kasher wrote and have
additionally utilized other Gush Emunim literature.
Gush
Emunim activists live in a homogeneous West Bank society that they control.
This society is mostly protected against “contamination” by rival detested
ideologies, especially those that stem from Western culture and have been to
some extent influenced the secular part of Israeli Jewish society. The
possibility clearly exists that the Gush Emunim homogeneous society and its NRP
supporters can increase their political power and influence within Israeli
society. The ideology of the two Rabbis Kook is the determining force of NRP
and Gush Emunim political action. The fundamental political tenet of Gush
Emunim is that the Jewish people are unique. Gush Emunim members share this
tenet with all Orthodox Jews, but they interpret it somewhat differently.
Lustick discussed this tenet by focusing upon the Gush Emunim denial of one
classical secular Zionist theme. Lustick correctly pinpointed the two
assumptions of this theme, the first being that “Jewish life had been distorted
on both the individual and the collective levels by the abnormality of diaspora
existence.” Second, only by undergoing a “process of normalization,” by
emigrating to Palestine and by forming a Jewish state can Jews become a normal
nation. Quoting Fisch, Lustick stated that for Gush Emunim this classical idea
“is the original delusion of the secular Zionists.” The Gush Emunim argument is
that secular Zionists measured that “normality” by applying non-Jewish
standards that are satanic.The secular Zionists focused upon certain nations
that they considered “normal” and asserted that the non-Jews in these normal
nations were more advanced than were most diaspora Jews. Because of this, so
argued the secular Zionists, Jews should try to emulate those non-Jews by
becoming a “normal” people in a “normal” nation state. The Gush Emunim counter argument
is: “Jews are not and cannot be a normal people. Their eternal uniqueness ...
[is] the result of the covenant God made with them at Mount Sinai.” Lustick
further explained this Gush Emunim position by quoting one of the group’s
leaders, Rabbi Aviner: ‘“While God requires other normal nations to abide by
abstract codes of justice and righteousness, such laws do not apply to Jews.’”
Haredi rabbis often cited this idea in their writings, but they strictly
reserved its glaring consequences for the yet-to-come messianic age. The
Halacha supports this reservation by carefully distinguishing between two
situations in discussing codes of justice and righteousness. The Halacha
permits Jews to rob non-Jews in those locales wherein Jews are stronger than non-Jews.
The Halacha prohibits Jews from robbing non-Jews in those locales wherein the
non-Jews are stronger. Gush Emunim dispenses with such traditional precautions
by claiming that Jews, at least those in Israel and the Occupied Territories,
are already living in the beginning of the messianic age.
Lustick
failed to explain adequately the messianic age considerations and the
distinctions between Jews and non-Jews. Harkabi’s treatment was better. In
discussing the halachic teaching and the Gush Emunim position regarding
murders, Harkabi explained that the murder of a Jew, particularly when
committed by a nonJews, is in Jewish law the worst possible crime. He then
quoted the Gush Emunim leader, Rabbi Israel Ariel. Relying upon the Code of
Maimonides and the Halacha, Rabbi Ariel stated: “A Jew who killed a non-Jew is
exempt from human judgment and has not violated the [religious] prohibition of
murder.” Harkabi noted further that this should be remembered when “the demand
is voiced that all non-Jewish residents of the Jewish state be dealt with
according to halachic regulations.” Gush Emunim rabbis have continually
reiterated that Jews who killed Arabs should not be punished. Gush Emunim
members not only help such Jews who are punished by Israel’s secular courts but
also refuse to call those Jews “murderers.” It logically follows that the
religious settlers and their followers emphasize the “shedding of Jewish blood”
but show little concern about the “shedding of non-Jewish blood.” The Gush
Emunim influence on Israeli policies can be measured by the fact that the
Israeli government’s policy on this matter has clearly reflected the Gush
Emunim position. The Israeli government under both Labor and Likud leadership
has refused to free Palestinian prisoners “with Jewish blood on their hands”
but has not hesitated to free prisoners “with non-Jewish blood on their hands.”
Another
practical consequence of such attitudes is Gush Emunim’s impact upon the
conduct of the Israeli government in all matters concerning the territories.
Gush Emunim continues to encourage Israeli authorities to deal cruelly with
Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The refusals of Prime
Ministers Rabin, Peres and Netanyahu to advocate the evacuation of even a
single Jewish settlement is attributable primarily to the influence of Gush
Emunim. Gush Emunim’s influence upon all Israeli governments and political
leaders of varying political persuasions has been significant.
The
Gush Emunim attitude towards Palestinians, always referred to as “Arabs living
in Israel,” is important. Lustick mostly avoided this subject. Harkabi dealt
with it honestly by extensively quoting the statements of Rabbis Tzvi Yehuda
Kook, Shlomo Aviner and Israel Ariel. Kook, Aviner and Ariel viewed the Arabs
living in Israel as thieves; they based their view upon the premise that all
land in Israel was and remained Jewish and that all property found thereon thus
belonged to Jews. Harkabi, who learned this when doing the research for his
book, expressed his shock: “I never imagined that Israelis would so interpret
the concept of historical right.” Harkabi listed in sub-chapters of his book
the numerous applications and extensions of this doctrine. He pointed out that
for Gush Emunim the Sinai and present-day Lebanon are parts of this Jewish land
and must be liberated by Israel. Rabbi Ariel published an atlas that designated
all lands that were Jewish and needed to be liberated. This included all areas
west and south of the Euphrates River extending through present-day Kuwait.
Harkabi quoted Rabbi Aviner: “We must live in this land even at the price of
war. Moreover, even if there is peace, we must instigate wars of liberation in
order to conquer it [the land].” It is not unreasonable to assume that Gush
Emunim, if it possessed the power and control, would use nuclear weapons in
warfare to attempt to achieve its purpose.
For
Gush Emunim, as Harkabi made clear and Lustick indirectly confirmed, the
God-ordained inferiority of non-Jews living in the state of Israel extends to
categories other than life and property. Gush Emunim has developed a foreign
policy for the state of Israel to adopt. This policy stipulates that Arab
hostility towards the Jews is theological in nature and is inherent. The
conclusion drawn is that the Arab-Israeli conflict cannot be resolved
politically. This conclusion is supported by Lustick’s quoting the prominent
Gush Emunim leader and former Knesset member, Eliezer Waldman: ‘“Arab hostility
springs, like all anti-Semitism, from the world’s recalcitrance to be saved [by
the Jews]’” (pp. 77-9). Lustick also quoted other Gush Emunim leaders who left
no doubt about their refusal to enter into political agreements with
“present-day Jewish inhabitants of the land who resist the establishment of
Jewish sovereignty over its entirety.” Lustick quoted Fisch who argued that
Arab resistance could be attributed to Arabs’ seeking “to fulfill their
collective death-wish.” Gush Emunim rabbis, politicians and ideological
popularizers have routinely compared Palestinians to the ancient Canaanites,
whose extermination or expulsion by the ancient Israelites was, according to
the Bible, predestined by a divine design. This genocidal theme of the Bible
creates great sympathy for Gush Emunim among many Christian fundamentalists who
anticipate that the end of the world will be marked by slaughters and
devastation. Gush Emunim has from its inception wanted to expel as many
Palestinians as possible. Palestinian terrorist acts allow Gush Emunim
spokespeople to disguise their real demand for total expulsion by arguing that
expulsion is warranted by “security needs.”
Harkabi
quoted the views of Mordechai Nisan, a lecturer at the Hebrew University in
Jerusalem, that were published in the August 1984 issue of Kivunim, an
official publication of the World Zionist Organization (pp. 151-6). According
to Nisan, who relied upon Maimonides, a non-Jew permitted to reside in the land
of Israel “must accept paying a tax and suffering the humiliation of
servitude.” In keeping with a religious text of Maimonides, Nisan, according to
Harkabi, demanded that a non-Jew “be held down and not [be allowed to] raise
his head against Jews.” Paraphrasing Nisan further, Harkabi wrote: “Non-Jews
must not be appointed to any office or position of power over Jews. If they
refuse to live a life of inferiority, then this signals their rebellion and the
unavoidable necessity of Jewish warfare against their very presence in the land
of Israel.” Such views about non-Jews, published in an official publication of
the World Zionist Organization, resemble Nazi arguments about Jews. Harkabi
commented: “I do not know how many Jews share his [Nisan’s] belief, but the
publication of the article in a leading Zionist periodical is a cause for grave
concern.”
The
three following examples of other articles that appeared in Hebrew-language
newspapers provide additional analyses of NRP and Gush Emunim attitudes. One of
these articles deals with the most extreme group within Gush Emunim, named
Emunim (Being Faithful). Established after the formation of the Rabin
government in 1992, Emunim is led by Rabbi Benny Alon, the son of retired
Deputy President of the Israeli Supreme Court Menahem Alon. Rabbi Alon, quoted
by Nadav Shraggai in his September 18,1992 Haaretz article, stated:
The
method of the mid-1970s will no longer work under a government whose moral
profile is defined by the Meretz Party and whose members’ hearts and minds are
filled with scorn for the entire land of Israel and for Judaism. They not only
want a Palestinian state without any Jews to be established in the very midst
of the land of Israel. They also want a secular democratic state to replace the
Jewish state of Israel. This government is spiritually rotten.
Rabbi
Alon then contrasted the 1992 government leaders with the Labor leaders of the
mid-1980s and before, who “felt like warmhearted Jews feel” and were thus
responsive to Gush Emunim’s pressures. Alon continued, “But you cannot apply
the same methods with the likes of [Meretz MK] Dedi Tzuker or [Meretz member]
Moshe Amirav who coordinate their deeds with our enemies.” In preparing his
September 18, 1992 Maariv article, journalist Avi Raz questioned Alon
further and discovered Emunim’s tactics: “Emunim wants to discredit Rabin [the
then prime minister] by forcing him to rely [for a Knesset majority] on the MKs
from the Arab parties and thus to destroy the legitimacy of his government.”
Rabin and Peres made concessions but nevertheless insisted upon expanding
Jewish settlements. In his article Raz quoted Alon further:
From
the spiritual point of view Rafael Eitan is wrong and should be criticized when
he justifies Jewish settlements on the basis of helping Israeli’s security.
Security considerations in favor of the settlements are not the point. As I see
it, politics rest upon spirituality. A body politic needs a soul. Israel’s
security and even the survival of the Jewish nation are no more than material
dimensions of the spiritual Jewish depth. When we say that we must prevent the
formation of a Palestinian state in order to save the Jewish state from
extinction, we are not talking about spiritual things.
As
Raz observed: “Blessed with profound spirituality, Alon and his associates go
to the United States for five days in order to request Christian
fundamentalists to support financially their activities.” Alon and his
associates succeeded in acquiring some of this requested funding. As Jewish
fundamentalists who abominate nonJews, they forged a spiritual alliance with
Christians who believe that supporting Jewish fundamentalism is necessary to
support the second coming of Jesus. This alliance has become a significant
factor in both US and Middle Eastern politics.
The
second example concerns the policies of Gush Emunim itself under the Labor and
Meretz government of the 1990s. In his October 5, 1992 Haaretz article,
Danny Rubinstein quoted Gush Emunim leaders who believed the goal of Rabin’s
policies was “to destroy root and branch the [Jewish] settlements in the
territories and all accomplishments of Zionism.” Rubinstein carefully distinguished
between the secular Golan Heights settlers and Gush Emunim. The Golan Heights
settlers claimed that Rabin’s policies were mistaken, because peace with Syria
could be reached on Israeli terms. Gush Emunim claimed that “the Washington
negotiations [with the PLO] amount to nothing else than a dialogue of human
beings with a herd of ravenous wolves, aiming solely at turning the entire land
of Israel into the entire land of the Arabs.” This does not mean that Gush
Emunim declined to take money for its own purposes from the government that
negotiated “with a herd of ravenous wolves.”
In
his October 14,1992 Haaretz article, Nadav Shraggai discussed a
symposium, organized and underwritten by the ministry of religion in
conjunction with the ministry of education, headed by Shulamit Aloni. The
symposium’s theme was: “Is autonomy for resident aliens in the Holy Land
feasible?” Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the symposium’s major speaker, explained:
“’Autonomy is tantamount to a denial of the Jewish religion.’” According to
Goren, the Halacha considers the denial of Judaism to be the gravest Jewish sin
and enjoins pious Jews to kill those infidels who deny Judaism. Rabbi Goren
likened such infidels to those people who advocated autonomy. This indicated
that an attempt to assasinate Rabin would occur for religious reasons. Goren
argued further that Judaism prohibits “granting any national rights to any
group of foreigners in the land of Israel.” Goren also denied that a
Palestinian nation existed. He asserted: “Palestinians disappeared in the
second century bc, and I have not
heard of their being resurrected.” Goren reassured his audience that,
undeterred by widespread infidelities, “the process of redemption, already
underway for one hundred years, cannot be reversed when Divine Providence
awaits us all the time.” Another symposium participant, Rabbi Aviner, concurred
with Goren that Judaism forbade granting even a small amount of autonomy to the
Palestinians. Rabbi Zalman Melamed, chairman of the Committee of the Rabbis of
Judea, Samaria and Gaza, made the same point even more clearly: “No rabbinual
authority disputes that it would be ideal if the land of Israel were inhabited
by only Jews.” Rabbi Shlomo Min-Hahar extended the argument to Muslims and
Christians specifically by claiming: “The entire Muslim world is
money-grubbing, despicable and capable of anything. All Christians without
exception hate the Jews and look forward to their deaths.”
Israeli
taxpayers, including Muslim and Christian Arabs, paid for this symposium,
during which rabbinical leaders delivered such arguments. Prime Minister Rabin
and the ministers of religion and education approved and did not utter publicly
negative criticism of any of the views expressed. Rabin’s approval might be
understood as a part of his deliberate encouragement of political programs at
variance with what he claimed to favor. Minister of Education Aloni’s approval
can be understood rationally only as another manifestation of her weakness,
carelessness and foolishness. Both Rabin and Aloni visited Germany shortly
before this symposium and fiercely condemned publicly the “German hatred of
foreigners.” They carefully avoided mentioning racist statements and recommendations
made by rabbis in Israel about how foreigners should be treated. They did not
mention, let alone condemn, Rabbi Melamed’s advocacy of transfer, that is, the
total expulsion of all non-Jews from the land of Israel. Such mention might
have complemented their denunciation of German xenophobia.
The
third example, also taken from the Hebrew press, stems from a book of responsa,
published in 1990. The book, Intifada Responses, written by the
important Gush Emunim rabbi, Shlomo Aviner, provides in plain Hebrew halachic
answers to the questions of what pious Jews should do to Palestinians during
situations that arise at times similar to the Intifada. The book is divided
into brief chapters that contain answers to questions. The answers do not
relate to Israeli law. Quotations from the first two chapters (pp. 19-22)
illustrate the essence of the questions and answers contained in this book. The
first exemplary question in Chapter 1 is: “Is there a difference between
punishing an Arab child and an Arab adult for a disturbance of our peace?” The
answer begins by cautioning people not conversant with the Halacha that
comparisons should not be made between Jewish and Gentile underage minors; “As
is known, no Halachic punishments can be inflicted upon Jewish boys below the
age of thirteen and Jewish girls below the age of twelve ... Maimonides wrote
that this rule applied to Jews alone ... not to any non-Jews. Therefore, any
non-Jews, no matter what age, will have to pay for any crime committed.” In
providing his answer, Rabbi Aviner proceeded to quote another ruling by Maimonides
that warned Jews not to punish a non-Jewish child who can be presumed to be
“short of wisdom.” Aviner concluded that determining whether a non-Jewish child
is to be regarded as an adult depends upon whether that child, even if younger
than thirteen, has sufficient understanding. According to what Aviner wrote in
his book, any Jew is capable of judging whether a non-Jewish child should in
this sense be considered and punished as an adult. The second exemplary
question is: “What shall we do if an Arab child intends to threaten a [Jewish]
life?” Rabbi Aviner explained that all prior responsa dealt only with the
actual commissions of crimes by non-Jewish children. He explained in this
answer that if a non- Jewish child intended to commit murder, for example, by
throwing a stone at a passing car, that the non-Jewish child should be
considered a “persecutor of the Jews” and should be killed. Citing Maimonides
as his authority, Aviner maintained that killing the non- Jewish child in this
instance is necessary to save Jewish life.
In
the second chapter of his book Rabbi Aviner posed and answered a single
question: “Does the Halacha permit inflicting the death penalty upon Arabs who
throw stones?” His answer was that inflicting such a punishment is not only permitted
but is mandatory. This punishment, moreover, is not reserved for stone throwers
but can be invoked for other reasons. Aviner asserted that a rabbinical court
or a king of Israel “has the power to punish anyone by death if it is believed
that the world will thereby be improved.” The rabbinical court or king of
Israel can alternatively punish nonJews and wicked Jews by beating them
mercilessly, by imprisoning them under the most severe conditions and/or by
inflicting upon them other extreme suffering. Gush Emunim spokespeople have
argued that this power of the rabbinical court and king of Israel can devolve
to the Israeli government, provided that government abides by the correct
religious rulings. The punishments, mentioned here, should be invoked if the
authorities believe that such punishment will deter other wicked people. Aviner
made clear his preference was to invoke the death penalty and /or severe
flogging upon any non-Jew found guilty of intending to throw stones at Jews.
The
discussion in this chapter should distinguish qualitatively the Gush Emunim-NRP
form from the Haredi form of Jewish fundamentalism. The greater potential
danger clearly rests with the Gush Emunim and the NRP, because their members
have involved themselves in the state in order to sanctify Israel.
The Nature of Gush Emunim Settlements
Media
coverage of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories has primarily
focused upon effects on Palestinians and the threat posed to peaceful
resolution of conflict. From the prospective of Jewish fundamentalism the
religious settlements should be viewed from three standpoints: their standing
as citadels of messianic ideology, their present and potential influence upon
Israeli society and their potential role as the nuclei of the new society that
messianic leaders want to build.
Such
discussion must be preceded by two comments concerning the settlements, as
viewed by Israeli society. The first comment is that a great majority of
Israeli citizens, represented by Knesset members, favor Israel’s retaining all
settlements. In early 1999, at least 100 of the 120 Knesset members, including
all the Labor Party members, almost certainly support this position even though
minor differences exist about the form of retention. All Arab Knesset members
oppose retaining the settlements; hence the percentage of Jewish Knesset
members in favor is still even greater than a mere counting might indicate. In
Israeli Jewish society, nevertheless, a sharp popular difference in point of
view about settlements still exists. Some small groups on the left oppose all
settlements. More importantly, most Israeli Jews consider it normal that Jews
live in some settlements but abnormal that Jews live in other settlements. This
distinction is usually ignored outside Israel, especially in the Arab world.
The
majority of Israeli Jews regard living in settlements in the “greater
Jerusalem” area as normal. “Greater Jerusalem” is an Israeli urban and social
term, not limited in meaning to the Green Line or to the municipal borders of
Jerusalem, as established during the 1967 annexation. Living in “greater
Jerusalem” means living in a place with bus connections adequate for Jews to
travel by public transportation to Jerusalem for shopping or evening
entertainment and to return home by midnight. In early 1999, more than 250,000
Israeli Jews, about 5 per cent of the total Israeli population, lived in
“greater Jerusalem.” The total population of all other West Bank, Gaza Strip
and Golan Heights settlements is about 100,000. These 100,000 are not solidly
grouped in a small area, closely connected with a big city, but are divided
into many small settlements. Ariel, the largest West Bank settlement outside of
“greater Jerusalem,” for example, has about 15,000 inhabitants; Kiryat Arba has
less than 6000; many settlements have about 100 inhabitants. These numbers show
that the majority of Israeli Jews regard living in those settlements as
abnormal and refuse to settle there. In spite of the money expended and the
other forms of support by Israeli governments for so long a time period, only a
small number of Jews have opted to live in settlements in the occupied
territories outside of “greater Jerusalem.”
In
the settlements outside of “greater Jerusalem” another distinction, constantly
made by the Israeli Jewish public, must be noted. Those settlements whose
inhabitants are similar socially and politically to the majority secular
segment of Israeli Jewish society have been and still are viewed differendy
than are those settlements whose inhabitants are mostly or totally religious
Jews. (As previously stated only 20 per cent of all Israeli Jews are
religious.) This is seen in Israeli election results, reported by the media
about every four years for each locality, including each settlement. In the
“greater Jerusalem” settlements, the voting pattern does not differ from the
Jewish average behind the Green Line; in other secular settlements the pattern
is almost the same with only a small tilt to the right. The Labor and Meretz
parties regularly receive good percentages of the total vote. In the religious
settlements, on the other hand, the inhabitants rarely even vote for Likud or
other right-wing secular parties; they vote instead for religious parties and
quite often only for the NRP. In Kiryat Arba in the 1992 elections, for
example, the four largest secular parties - Labor, Likud, Meretz and Tsomet -
received altogether less than 5 per cent of the vote. Nationally, those parties
together received about 80 per cent of the national vote. In the 1996 election
the Likud vote in Kiryat Arba rose to 24.4 per cent because of Netanyahu’s
promises; in the separate vote for prime minister that year Netanyahu received
96.3 per cent and Peres only 3.6 per cent. (In the national vote for prime
minister that year Netanyahu received 50.1 per cent and Peres 49.3 per cent.)
Beit El B is a typical smaller religious settlement in which Netanyahu received
99.6 per cent of the prime minister’s vote in 1996 to only 0.3 per cent for
Peres. In the Knesset election that same year in Beit El B, the NRP received
76.4 per cent and Moledet, the most right-wing party represented in the
Knesset, with strong religious tendencies, received 14.5 per cent. Thus, NRP
and Moledet, the two parties that garnered together 11 of the 120 Knesset seats
or 9.1 per cent in 1996, received 90 per cent of the Beit El B vote. In
contrast, in the secular settlement, Alfey Menashe, Netanyahu received 71.5 per
cent and Peres 28.4 per cent of the vote.
The
most exposed and isolated settlements are those inhabited by religious
settlers. Although largely ignored by the media outside of Israel, this is a
significant fact. In these exposed and isolated settlements, only religious
messianic Jews are prepared to settle. To a greater extent, this has been the
major reason why all Israeli governments have supported the religious messianic
settlements regardless of how the inhabitants there have voted. Netzarim,
situated in the middle of the Gaza Strip, is a good example of these
settlements. To the north of Netzarim is Gaza City, to the south, some of the
largest refugee camps. Each conglomeration has about 200,000 inhabitants. In
mid 1998, Netzarim had about 120 religious messianic Jewish settler families.
(At the time that the Oslo agreement was signed, Netzarim had almost 60
families.) Some of the adult males living in Netzarim spend most of their time
studying Talmud. Near Netzarim is an army base that guards a military road
crossing the Gaza Strip from east to west. This road, which according to the
Oslo agreement is under exclusive Israeli control, cuts the Gaza Strip into two
parts. The army base is strategic in controlling Gaza but is represented to the
Israeli Jewish public and to the outside world as necessary to protect the
settlement of Netzarim. Secular, traditional and/or Haredi Jews have not opted
to settle in Netzarim and have given no indications of settling there in the
future. Thus, the Israeli government, wishing to maintain the control of the road,
must depend upon the messianic settlers who are ideologically dedicated to
settle in such a place.
Settlements
in the Occupied Territories can be correctly understood only within the context
of overall Israeli strategy. The basic concept, held since 1967 by both Labor
and Likud with different degrees of hypocrisy, has been to oppress Palestinians
with maximum efficiency. Maximum efficiency includes minimal number of Jewish
forces to achieve the specific purpose. The major idea is that well-trained
Jewish soldiers should to the greatest extent possible be reserved for any
major war with one or more of the Arab states. Soon after acquiring the
Occupied Territories in June, 1967, the Israeli government seriously considered
the “Jordanian option.” This idea was that Jordanian forces would come to the
West Bank to do the necessary job for Israel. The government of Jordan,
however, refused to agree to this plan. Hence, the government of Israel then
devised and instituted the “village leagues,” composed of local Palestinians
who effectively ruled the West Bank for some years with only slight support of
the Israeli army. The Intifada broke the “village leagues.” Both the “Jordanian
option” and the “village leagues” concepts were devised for the same purpose as
was the Oslo process in the 1990s. Prime Minister Rabin clearly explained that
this purpose was to have Palestinians ruled on Israelis’ behalf by their own
people. This was to be accomplished without
interference
from human right organizations and without Israeli legal hindrances to the
arbitrary will of the conquest regime. The Israeli army, according to this
thinking, would be free to concentrate upon its grand military strategy.
Israeli
strategy regarding the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in the period after Oslo
was and still is based upon settlements being the foci of Israeli military
power. This strategy can best be described by considering the Gaza Strip, where
the geography is much clearer than in the West Bank. The Gaza Strip, as clearly
seen on published maps, is criss-crossed by military roads. In keeping with the
Cairo Accords, these military roads remain under exclusive Israeli jurisdiction
and are patrolled by the army, either jointly with Palestinian police or
separately. The Israeli army has the legal right to close any section of these
roads to Palestinian traffic, even if the section is within an area ruled by
the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli army uses this right routinely either
when a convoy on route to a settlement is passing or when a decision is made to
embarrass the Palestinian Authority. One of these roads, the Gaza City
bypassing road, traverses the length of the Strip, carefully bypassing the main
cities and refugee camps. Another military road, joined to a strip of land,
cuts off the Gaza Strip from Egypt. Other roads traverse the Gaza Strip from
the Israeli border on its east side to the sea or to the Jewish settlement
block (Qatif) on the west. One such road, the Netzarim road, meets the Gaza
City bypassing road at Netzarim, thus rendering Netzarim a strategically
important crossroad. Shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accord, the Israeli
Hebrew press reported that large forces of the border guards and the army were
stationed near Netzarim where a new base had been constructed for them. The
official status of Netzarim allowed Israel to do this legally and to acquire
the support of that part of the Israeli Jewish public that is more devoted to
settlements than to army bases. As the well-known commentator Nahum Bamea
quipped: “Had a Netzarim not existed, it would have been invented.”
The
overall effect of all these roads is that the Gaza Strip is sliced into
enclaves controlled by the bypassing roads. The role of the Jewish settlements
in the Gaza Strip is to serve as pivots of the road grid. This is devised to
ensure more effectual perpetual Israel control. This new form of control,
labelled “control from the outside” by Rabin and other Labor politicians,
allows the army to dominate the Gaza Strip with only a minor expenditure of forces.
This is far preferable to the former situation in which huge control presence
had to be expended for direct patrolling of cities and refugee camps of the
Gaza Strip. The Hebrew press has continually referred to the earlier form of
control as the “control from the inside” and has emphasized that it was less
effective and required more forces than the “control from the outside.”
Changing from inside to outside control continues to depend upon the grid of
roads which in turn depends upon settlements such as Netzarim. As already
stated but worth repeating, only religious Jews who believe in messianic
ideology have been willing to establish and live in such settlements.
The
situation in the West Bank, outside the greater Jerusalem, is geographically
more complicated than the Gaza Strip but is essentially based upon the same
principles of “control from the outside.” This control is centered upon a grid
of roads whose foci are the settlements. A few settlements were founded for
sentimental reasons. Ariel Sharon, wanting to provoke the United States
Secretary of State James Baker during his visits to Israel in 1991 and 1992,
helped establish these few settlements. Small groups of fundamentalist Jews,
even more extreme than Gush Emunim, also helped establish these small
settlements. Although given prominent media coverage, these settlements
remained relatively insignificant, representing only a small proportion of all
the settlements. Settlements, such as Kiryat Arba and the separate Jewish
settlement in Hebron, have been supported by all Israeli governments primarily
for strategic reasons. Although at times creating smokescreens by making
insulting comments about settlers, Prime Minister Rabin from the time of the
Oslo agreement until his death strengthened most of the settlements, especially
those in the West Bank. Yossi Beilin, one of the chief architects of the Oslo
agreement, repeatedly reassured the Israeli public that the Labor government
had not abandoned the settlers. Beilin, as reported in Maariv on September
27, 1995, rebutted accusations made by Likud members of Knesset:
Their
most ridiculous accusation is that we have abandoned the settlers. The Oslo
Accord was delayed for months to guarantee that all the settlers would remain
intact and that the settiers would have maximum security. This entailed making
an immense financial investment in them. The situation in the settlements has
never been better than that created following the Oslo Accord.
Even
more important is that the Labor government had an opportunity to remove the
Hebron settiers, or at least a part of them, in the period of shock after
Goldstein’s massacre. The Labor government refrained from doing so. In his
August 18, 1995 Davar article, Daniel Ben-Simon revealed the following
about discussion of the issue in Prime Minister Rabin’s office: “The heads of
all Israeli security services opposed the evacuation of Hebron’s settlers.”
Such opposition underlined the settlements’ strategic importance and the
dependence of both the Israeli government and army upon the messianic settlers.
The
messianic ideology, described in the prior chapter, and the many pronouncements
of messianic rabbis and lay leaders show that the aim of Gush Emunim, unlike
the aim of Israeli governments, is not limited to the strategic value of
utilizing settlements to keep control of the Occupied Territories. The more
important aim of Gush Emunim leaders is to create in their homogeneous
settlements models of a new society. They hope this new society will spread
until it finally absorbs the secular, traditional and Haredi Jewish population
of the state of Israel into the collective Jewish identity that they envision.
This identity will, they believe, be the religious, ethnocentric, anti-liberal
and anti-universalist society ordered by God. In attempting to conceptualize
their plan, Gush Emunim leaders can tolerate democracy only so long as it helps
to create the divine Jewish kingdom. They believe that any values not
consistent with Jewish values, as established by the Halacha and Cabbala,
should be suppressed. Human and civil rights, as well as the concept of
statehood, should be established by a specified divinely inspired group of
rabbis. These views became more widely acceptable in Israeli society,
especially among NRP members, after the October 1973 war. In that war secular
Israeli militarism suffered a defeat. The widely perceived failure of generals
led to the formation of an esoteric elite that supposedly derived its knowledge
from a higher source than mere strategic considerations. Some of the leading
generals in that war were regarded as hedonists who were careless with the
military affairs entrusted to them; Gush Emunim rabbis and lay leaders appeared
to many Israeli Jews to be endowed with dedication, a sense of mission, moral
superiority, strict honesty in financial affairs and a sense of their own
certitude. This characterization, similar to that of Hamas leaders in
Palestinian society, continued thereafter. Gush Emunim leaders have remained
dedicated to their principles and are financially honest. In a society pervaded
by many kinds of corruption, this is most important. Gush Emunim has been and
still is endowed, moreover, with a territorial base of its own, replete with
dedicated followers who can expertly handle weapons and execute military
operations.
The
power of Gush Emunim increased significantly between 1974 and 1992. In addition
to its own members it acquired a periphery of supporters with varying degrees
of commitment. Perhaps its greatest achievement after 1974 was its ability to
influence Israeli Jewish culture and collective identity during a period when
ethnocentric ideas rose to the fore in Israeli society. Most of the political
right wing, as well as many Labor Party supporters, remained sympathetic to Gush
Emunim so long as Palestinians in the territories remained relatively docile.
This situation lasted until the outbreak of the Intifada in December 1987.
Before the Intifada, many Israeli Jews felt that the control of Palestinians
from the inside was not too costly and was bearable. Hence, many secular
Israeli Jews felt that they could afford to support the Gush Emunim version of
the conquest rather than the Moshe Dayan version, which prevailed until 1974
and was based upon cooperation with conservative Palestinian notables.
Cooperation with the traditional Palestinian notables made it unnecessary to
keep large Israeli forces inside the areas densely inhabited by Palestinians.
Because the notables were alienated by the settling and by the resultant confiscation
of land in those areas, “village leagues” were invented as a substitute for the
traditional forces. The Intifada showed that this prop was only of temporary
value. The settling of the Gaza Strip and the remainder of the West Bank began
in 1975 when Rabin for the first time was prime minister and Peres was the
defense minister in charge of the territories. These two architects of the
so-called peace process of the 1990s were largely responsible for one of the
major factors preventing peace.
The
onslaught of the Intifada changed sentiment within Israeli Jewish society. The
Israeli government deployed more Israeli soldiers in the territories. This
caused many secular Israeli Jews to reconsider the costs involved in occupying
the territories. Many of these Jews concluded that the cost was unwarranted. A
new situation in Israeli society then developed and continued thereafter. The
coalition of messianists and their various supporters, all ethnocentric to some
extent, joined together and formed one camp. The other camp consisted of a
politically and socially heterogeneous group of people, united in opposition to
the type of Jewish theocracy that they saw as the inevitable consequence of the
continued support of Gush Emunim and its settlements. The continuing Israeli
domination of the Occupied Territories, dictated to some extent by Gush Emunim,
developed into a major issue in the struggle between these two Israeli Jewish
camps.
The
rapid organization of Gush Emunim settlers boosted the expansion and power of
religious settlements after 1974. The rabbis who became and remained the
dominant leaders of the Gush Emunim settlers in 1991, organized themselves into
the Association of Judea and Samaria Rabbis. The group was founded after
President Bush of the United States pressured the Shamir government to
participate in the Madrid Conference. Lay settler leaders were afraid of what
might develop at the Madrid Conference. As Dov Albaum wrote in the January 7,
1994 issue of Yerushalaim-. “The rabbis, trusting in the divine promise,
took advantage of that situation by filling the leadership vacuum.” The power
of the rabbinical association increased after the Oslo agreement. Albaum
continued his analysis by quoting Daniel Shilo, the rabbi of the Kedunim
messianic settlement:
The
Judea and Samaria rabbis are now solving the gravest problems the religious
settlers face when they begin to lose faith in the Jewish settlement of Judea
and Samaria, as ordered by God, to be an instrument of the Jewish redemption.
Jews who lack faith even begin to ponder whether the whole idea of settlement
in the territories might not be fundamentally wrong or whether the process of
divine redemption is not in its retrogression stage or whether the Almighty is
not trying to signal to us to halt the settling. In such a time rabbis have the
obligation to provide the answers. This is why we rabbis have more power than
any conceivable lay Gush Emunim authority.
The
rabbis used this power to emphasize that their followers were obligated to have
faith in them. This is often disguised as having faith in God.
Albaum
further observed:
The
Judea and Samaria rabbis are not satisfied with being vested only with
spiritual power. They began developing their own intelligence network, which
quickly became extensive, using information gathered from religious or
otherwise sympathetic officers of the Israeli army’s high command. General
Moshe Bar- Kochba, a member of the General Staff who recently died after
retiring from the army, was named by the Judea and Samaria rabbis as one of
their major informants. Bar-Kochba allegedly informed the rabbis regularly and
in advance about the plans for army operations in the territories. Upon
learning about his actions, other officers followed in his footsteps.
Thereupon, the army command, in order to gain access to the real leadership of
the religious settlers, decided to regularize those relations and to inform the
rabbis officially about its operations. A battalion commander, for example, did
not hesitate to dress a local settlement rabbi in army uniform, take him to a
look-out post and identify to him the undercover soldiers operating in local
Arab villages. [The commander hoped] that he would thus convince the Judea and
Samaria rabbis to stop blocking the major highways and thereby obstructing the
unit’s movements. This was not an isolated instance. The heads of the Judea and
Samaria Settlement Council, comprised of religious laymen, now confront a
rabbinical council of what is effectively a kingdom of Judea, which arose
before their eyes. The council of laymen derives some consolation from its
solid connections with government agencies. Rabin, whose top priority interest
is to reach a dialogue with religious settlers, keeps summoning the Judea and
Samaria Council members for intimate talks. He cannot have the same contact
with the kingdom of Judea rabbis, because they consider it demeaning to address
a sinner like him. They also know that the lay council members would not dare
to make a major decision without first obtaining their blessing.
The
Oslo process shocked Gush Emunim rabbis and lay settlers. This occurred in
spite of the great material support for settlements that Gush Emunim received
in the 1990s from Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres and Netanyahu. A few messianic
rabbis offered explanations for the occurrence of Oslo and attempted to console
their flock about the process, but they met with almost no success. Religious
symbolism, especially appearing in apocalyptic forms, blocked acceptance. The
sight of Palestinians waving their flags, the appearance of armed Palestinian
police and the proliferating symbols of the Palestinian Authority constituted
visible evidence for the failure of the messianic vision of quick redemption.
This in turn deepened the hatred of “Jewish traitors,” whose treason allegedly
spoiled God’s plan and influenced the majority of Jews to disregard the divine
command and to follow the traitors. This hatred, directed mostly at Rabin and
his ministers, was consistent with the Cabbala, which held that the redemption
of the Jews had almost occurred at various times only to be prevented each time
because a majority of the nation opted to follow a heretic or a traitor. In
Jewish history those who have most strongly believed in the coming victory of
redemption have also most strongly harbored feelings of betrayal. After Oslo
such people were mostly concentrated in the religious settlements.
Hatred
of Arabs and secular Jews has not been solely limited to members of religious
settlements. In his March 11, 1994 article, published in Shishi, Nerri
Horowitz focused upon another group of extremists, called Hardelim.1
Horowitz analysed Hardelim’s “twofold hatred of Arabs and secular Jews” and
presented documentation in the form of quotations from their copious and
abstruse literature, filled with cabbalistic references. Although esoteric, the
literature of the Hardelim has influenced a majority of religious Jews. (A
minority of religious Jews have opposed the Hardelim advocacy.)
Nadav
Shraggai presented a more popular description of this “twofold hatred” ideology
in his February 18, 1994 Haaretz article. Shraggai pointed to the
renunciation by some religious settlers and other religious Jews of the
traditional prayer for the State of Israel, which was never accepted by the Haredim
but said by NRP followers on every sabbath and religious holiday since 1948.
Shraggai noted that some religious Jews who had previously recognized the State
of Israel as holy renounced this prayer and the holiness of the state; they
became convinced that the government and therefore the state, in accepting
Oslo, had “betrayed its sacred mission.” After concluding that Rabin and his
ministers were traitors, the messianists viewed as particularly offensive the
following words of the prayer: “O, God, radiate your light and truth upon
Israel’s leaders, ministers and advisers.” Shraggai correctly insisted that his
analysis focused upon the relatively moderate antagonists. These moderates
contented themselves with intense ideological debate but did not, as did the
extremists, plan and engage in murder and other violent acts. Shraggai wrote:
The
personal, ideological and religious crisis in which the nationalreligious
Jewish community in Israel has found itself, generated doubts about the very
foundations of religious Zionism: namely its historic alliance with secular
Zionism and its wholehearted acceptance of the State of Israel. In the past
that alliance revolved around the perception that the secular State of Israel
was the first stage in the process of redemption. At present, even the
moderates question this assumption. These doubters do not have much in common
with radicals like the admittedly marginal Yehuda Etzion of the Jewish
Underground who opposes any Jewish state that is not a monarchy ruled by the Davidic
dynasty, or Mordechai Karpel, the founder of the Jewish Nation Exists for
Eternity movement, which also wants to turn Israel into a theocratic monarchy.
Shraggai
noted that several influential rabbis, including Azri’el Ariel who eulogized
the assassin Goldstein, led the “moderates.” Shraggai quoted Rabbi Ariel:
The
religious settlements were established not only to create facts on the ground
but also to affect the hearts and minds of the Jewish people. We believed that,
by encountering the holy parts of the land as if they were alive, the hearts of
the Jewish masses would be united with the heart of the land. We envisaged the
process as reconnecting the national Jewish consciousness with its spiritual
roots.
Rabbi
Ariel further opined:
For
a majority of Jews the settlements have failed to restore that sacred linkage.
The majority of Jews have renounced the Jewish roots present in their souls,
profaning themselves by [committing the] sin of choosing the so-called
“morality” of Western culture instead of their own moral values. In the state
of that grave sin their hearts have remained unaffected by the land of Israel
... We now have to build the sacred and observant community from within. Let us
stop looking out. Let us stop to seek paths [that lead] to the hearts of our
sinning Jewish brethren. One day, those who have effectively abandoned the
Jewish religion will find their dreams shattered. They will become afflicted by
a sense of emptiness. After having faltered on every path, they will come to
seek us. Until then our role will consist of raising a generation of the truly
chosen and holy ones, a generation capable of receiving Jewish repentant
sinners with open arms.
In
presenting his argument, Rabbi Ariel did not mention Palestinians. Although
presumably realizing that Palestinians on all sides surround their sacred and
observant communities, Rabbi Ariel and others like him have consistently
considered irrelevant the existence of Palestinians; they have concerned
themselves with secular Jewish Zionists. Shraggai quoted Ariel: “Historic
Zionism has reached its end in bankruptcy ... The real Zionism, the holy one
with profound roots, exists only where the really religious Jews are living; in
the mountains of Judea and the valleys of Samaria.”
In
his article Shraggai additionally quoted the articulate settlement rabbi, Yair
Dreyfus. Maintaining that Israel was committing spiritual apostasy by making an
agreement with the PLO, Rabbi Dreyfus argued further that the finalization of
that agreement would “mark the end of the Jewish-Zionist era in the sacred
history of the land of Israel.” Dreyfus, as quoted by Shraggai, continued:
Historians
will record that the Jewish-Zionist era lasted from 1948 to 1993. It ended when
most Jews had turned into Canaanites. Hence, 1993 marks the beginning of the
new Canaanite era ... in that era of sin Jewish political thought,
cultural-educational thought included, will be polluted by a speedy
Arabization. The Jewish left will continue its treacherous practices of
dismissing Jews from key posts and replacing them with Arabs. This will be done
in the government, broadcasting authority, land authority, editorial boards of
newspapers and boards of university directors. Every important position will be
filled by an Arab.
Although
his predictions were not fulfilled after 1993, Rabbi Dreyfus has remained
steadfast in his belief about the new Canaanite era. For him pollution
apparently often resulted when Jews had contact with Gentiles. Rabbi Dreyfus
accused secular Jews of “wanting to create a new Israeli-Canaanite personality
and thus destroying authentic Judaism by blending it with alien elements.” He
feared that this new personality would eliminate Jewish-Zionist motivation. He
accused the Meretz Party of blending Communism into it and by this process
polluting Zionism. This blend, Dreyfus contended, “has begotten the seed for
growth of a new Middle Eastern ethnicity: the Canaanite-Palestinian
pseudo-Jews.” He concluded:
The
true Jews, desirous to live as Jews, will have no choice but to separate
themselves in ghettos. The new, sinful Canaanite- Palestinian state [Israel
after Oslo] will soon be established upon the ruins of the genuine
Jewish-Zionist state. It will not be, as Israel was expected to become by being
true to the word of God, a foundation of God’s throne on earth. God may even
make war against this polluted throne of his. The Jews who lead us into that
sin no longer deserve any divine protection. We must fight those who separated
themselves from the true Israel. They have declared a war against us, the
bearers of the word of God. Our leadership will walk a Via Dolorosa before it
understands that we are commanded to resist the state of Israel, not just its
present government. Our cooperation with its agencies can only be based upon a
new covenant. Without it, we are going to surrender supinely to a government of
sin. Instead of doing so, we shall pursue a merciless struggle against the
Canaanite- Palestinian entity.
By
expressing his opinions openly and forcefully, Rabbi Dreyfus both represented
and influenced the thinking of most religious settlers before and after the
Rabin assassination. Notwithstanding the hostility to Christianity existent in
historical Judaism and religious Zionism, the parallels here to specific Christian
theological formulations are conspicuous.
For
secular Israeli Jews, the most important NRP and religious settler issue has
revolved around the penetration of young NRP followers into the combat and
elite units of the army and its officer corps. For nearly twenty-five years
after the June 1967 war, this penetration on balance enhanced the image and
importance of the NRP in Israeli society; a kind of partnership between the NRP
and the secular majority emerged. The initiation of the Oslo process, however,
provoked some rethinking by many secular Jews and raised some tough issues. The
Rabin assassination heightened apprehension of and aroused fears about the
NRP’s penetration into the military. All of this occurred because of the strong
military character of Israeli Jewish society. This character developed not only
because Jewish males serve in the military for at least three years,2
but also because they, after finishing their time of duty, continue serving as
reservists for one mon± each year until the age of fifty-four. The fact that
about one-half of all Israeli Jewish females serve in the military for at least
two years additionally contributes to the shaping of this character. Those who
serve in the combat and/or elite units or as pilots enjoy tremendous social
prestige when they leave the service and often are able to exert political
influence. The political weakness of religious parties, especially the NRP,
before 1967 was directly related to the relative absence of religious soldiers
in combat and elite units of the army. This situation changed slowly after
1967. When Gush Emunim appeared in 1975, its lay leaders and especially its
rabbis began educating and inspiring young NRP followers to adopt the military
profession as a religious duty, to join the combat and elite units of the army
and to become officers. Young NRP followers became dedicated, disciplined and
efficient soldiers, ready, if necessary, to sacrifice their lives for their
country. The army high command and a large segment of the Israeli Jewish
population welcomed this development with positive enthusiasm. The NRP thus
earned public appreciation, just as the kibbutz movement had done previously,
because of the excellent military performances of its young members.
The
Oslo process initiated a change in the almost unqualified admiration of Gush
Emunim and the NRP. Fears arose that NRP followers in the army might refuse to
carry out government orders for Israeli withdrawals from parts of the occupied
territories and/or for the removal of one or more Jewish settlements. The fears
expanded following the Rabin assassination. Even before the assassination,
Baruch Kimmerling, in his April 6, 1994 Haaretz article, reflected a bit
of the early apprehension and fear. He discussed the increasing penetration of
the Israeli army by religious zealots and the powerful influence of the
religious settlers upon units stationed in the territories. Kimmerling
concluded: “Now it is all important that the army’s command sees to it that
every army unit is supervised. Perhaps those officers and even entire units,
which were for too long involved in negotiations with the religious settlers
and in protecting them and which have in the process developed too much
affinity with them, should be instantly disbanded.” Kimmerling regarded his
recommendation as only a stop-gap solution. The army high command did not
accept and most of the attentive public ridiculed the recommendation at that
time. Kimmerling recognized that “in the long range” the problem that had
arisen would be insoluble without a deep change in society. He wrote: “On the
one hand, it is difficult to see how the army, having a significant number of
officers adhering to ideology of religious settlers, could evacuate a Jewish
settlement. On the other hand, I find it difficult to imagine how the Israeli
army could be ideologically purified.”
Worth
noting here are the two unique schemes devised for young NRP followers in an
organized fashion to serve in and penetrate the combat and elite units. The
first scheme was formulated as an arrangement, not governed by law, between two
independent parties: the Israeli defense ministry and the rabbinical heads of
the NRP’s Hesder Yeshivot religious schools. According to this arrangement,
Hesder Yeshivot students receive a special kind of draft service. They are not
inducted into the army in the normal way and thus do not serve continuously for
three years in units assigned by the army according to its needs. The regular
army units almost always consist of soldiers holding differing religious and
secular views. The Hesder Yeshivot students instead are inducted into the army
as a group and serve in their own homogeneous companies, accompanied by their
rabbis who are responsible for and watch over the students’ “religious purity.”
They serve for eighteen months rather than for the full three years. The
eighteen- month period is not continuous but is rather divided into three
six-month periods. After each period of army service, the Hesder Yeshivot
students leave the army for a six-month period of talmudic study in a yeshiva
wherein the presumably negative influences of having met secular Jewish
soldiers are supposedly countered. The Hesder Yeshivot soldiers continue to
serve in reserve units under the usual conditions. The political pressure
exerted by Gush Emunim and the sympathy for its members felt by army generals
in the 1970s were partly responsible for this special arrangement. The major
reason for its continuation, however, is the excellent military quality and
record of Hesder Yeshivot students. Their performance is far above the average
of those in the Israeli army and their dedication is even greater. Not only the
generals but also other soldiers hold this view. During the three years of the
Lebanon War (1982-85) and in the aftermath of fighting in the “security zone,”
for example, Hesder Yeshivot students continued fighting and winning even after
a high proportion of Israeli soldiers had been wounded and killed. Soldiers in
Hesder Yeshivot units also distinguished themselves during the suppression of
the Intifada; they were noted for their cruelty to Palestinians, which was from
many perspectives much more severe than the Israeli army average. The
homogeneous composition of Hesder Yeshivot companies of soldiers is another reason
for the continuation of the special arrangement. When the army commanding
officers have wanted to inflict especially cruel punishment upon Palestinians
or others, they have most often relied upon and used religious soldiers. In
more ordinary companies, consisting of soldiers holding varying political
views, some members might object to illegal cruelty and even inform media
people of its use. In Hesder Yeshivot units the religious soldiers, who are
anyway more cruel than most secular Jews, will not object to the orders.3
From
1996, when indications appeared that membership in the Hesder Yeshivot had
stopped increasing and may have begun to decrease, the religious pre-military
academy scheme became the chief means of organized penetration by NRP supporters
into the Israeli army. By this arrangement the young men, usually eighteen
years of age, who enter religious pre-military academies are given draft
deferments for one or one and one-half years of study. Afterwards, they serve
for three years in ordinary combat or elite units. This is in contrast to
serving, as do Hesder Yeshivot students, in homogeneous companies or units. The
teachers in these academies are for the most part not rabbis but rather
ex-officers who possess some talmudic knowledge. Only a small amount of the
teaching is devoted to military subjects and training in hiking and endurance.
Most of the teaching and study time is devoted to those parts of the Talmud and
other religious literature that inculcate dedication to the land of Israel and
to other values favored by Gush Emunim. The ascetic pre-military academy life
is attractive to religious youth who are often in reaction against the
hedonistic life style of secular Israeli youth. Since their inception the premilitary
academies have been situated in settlements in the Occupied Territories. The
army has from the beginning subsidized these academies to some extent, but the
major part of the support money has come from private donors. Most graduates of
these pre-military academies are well prepared and advance to the officer
corps. Persuaded that the Israeli army is sacred, those who come out of these
academies almost always serve their full three-year terms. Some serve for a
much longer time and become career officers.
After
the Rabin assassination, many Israelis began to view the increasing number of
NRP followers in the army as a threat to the government and to the Israeli
regime as a whole. Ran Edelist summarized this concern well in his September
13, 1996 article in the Hebrew-language newspaper Yerushalaim, titled
“First We Shall Conquer the Supreme Court and Then the General Staff.” The
title of this article suggests the desire to penetrate and conquer the most
important institutions of the State of Israel. In discussing the general aims
of the messianic religious right, of which the religious settlers are the
advance guard, Edelist wrote:
Their
institutions have the stamina of a long-distance runner since they believe in
the eternal survival of the Jewish nation; in this framework they prepared four
approaches for the battle of the land of Israel: settlements, financial
support, education and promotion of their men in the army to achieve domination
of a future General Staff. This is not a conspiracy but a cool estimate of a
national situation in their struggle for a future image of Israeli society and
a sophisticated use of an opportunistic government, enabling them to fill their
budgets. It is not a case of good and bad but a struggle about the character of
the State of Israel. The religious right wing uses the legitimate approach of
conquering positions of power of which the General Staff is central. It may be
said that since the inception of Israel the secret slogan of Israeli
politicians was “we shall conquer first the security apparatus and then the
Knesset and government.” Ben-Gurion did this when he pushed out Sharett and
Lavon. Golda Meir’s slogan was “the party is everything,” and since her time
the Labor party has ruled in the General Staff. This rule was so absolute that
Begin and Shamir, during the time that they were prime ministers, did not
succeed in shaking this and forming another General Staff that would be
influenced by their ideology.
Understanding
Israeli politics, the religious settlers devised and evolved their plan of
penetrating the army, its officer corps and ultimately the General Staff. As
Edelist wrote:
The
religious settlers understood that with the help of only party politics and
their ideology they would not get far and would not achieve a State of Israel
in the borders promised by God. If they therefore want to be represented in
every place in which the important decisions are made, especially in the army
as a whole and particularly in the General Staff, they must be represented in
such places. First the aim and then the means to achieve that end were decided.
The
Hesder Yeshivot and the religious pre-military academies became those means.
Other
Israeli political observers and commentators seconded Edelist’s analysis. In
his January 24, 1997 Haaretz article, titled “The Army of the Lord,”
Yidan Miller, for example, described the views of Dr Reuven Gal, who served as
the chief psychologist of the Israeli army between 1976 and 1982 and then
became the director of the highly respected Karmel Institute for Military and
Social Research. Dr Gal, according to Miller, summarized the data about
volunteering to serve in combat units from 1994 through 1996 and compared them
with corresponding data of 1989. Dr Gal reported that whereas 60 per cent of
secular youth in 1989 wanted to serve in combat units, the average for the 1993
to 1996 period dropped to 48 per cent. Most of that decline occurred in 1995
and 1996. The decline was greatest in the secular kibbutzim, localities with
large leftist majorities. The drop was from 83 per cent in 1989 to 58 per cent
in the 1993 to 1996 period. In comparison, among the religious youth the wish
to volunteer to combat units remained constant at about 80 per cent during the
same time. In religious kibbutzim, the figure went to 90 per cent. Before the
Oslo agreement a large majority of religious youth entering the army considered
a commander’s order to be superior to any instruction from a rabbi. This had
changed by 1996. Citing Dr Gal’s summary, Miller wrote: “For a significant part
of them [the religious youth] instruction by a rabbi had an equal and sometimes
superior value than did an order from a commander.”
Publication
of such findings disturbed many secular Jews. They attempted to acquire for
their youth opportunities for army careers similar to those afforded religious
youth. They advocated the establishment of secular pre-military academies.
During the first two years of the Netanyahu government, however, when the Oslo
process stagnated, the numbers of secular youth who volunteered to serve in
combat units increased to a point unparalleled since the 1970s. This adversely
affected the attempted penetration into the army of the messianic religious
right. Comprising only 6 to 7 per cent of the Israeli Jewish population,4
the messianic religious right depended for its penetration upon the absence of
motivation of other Jews to serve in combat units.
Following
Netanyahu’s election in 1996, two factors motivated more Israeli Jewish youth
to volunteer for combat units. The rising level of Arab hostility to Israel and
to its elected government constituted the first factor. Some Arab leaders
issued war threats. Most of Israel’s Jewish youth considered all of this
unjustified and responded in the traditional Israeli manner by advocating
increased militarism. The second factor arose from the perception that
Netanyahu’s government was a new coalition of Jewish minorities, which as never
before in the history of the state has allowed those previously excluded from
important social opportunities and advancements to succeed. For the first time
in Israeli history the defense minister and the chief of staff were Oriental
Jews. The older, Labor-sympathizing elite members of the army opposed those
appointments. This most likely encouraged young Israeli Jewish males who were
not from Ashkenazi Labor-supporting families to seek careers as army officers.
Most of these and other such young men previously thought that they would not
be allowed to become career officers. Among the lower-income class of Israeli
Jews an army career with its relatively high salaries is prestigious as well as
economically attractive. Except for computer experts, doctors and other highly
educated specialists, the way to a good career is to serve in a combat unit.
Ironically,
the collapse of the detested Oslo process adversely affected the religious
settlers in their attempt to penetrate the Israeli army and in that way to
achieve a commanding influence over Israeli policies. During most of the time
that the Oslo process continued under the Rabin and Peres governments, the
religious settlers’ chances of penetrating the army increased. The religious
settlers’ chances of determining specific Israeli policies decreased after
Netanyahu and Likud came to power in 1996. Perhaps, this development provides
us with an example of what is sometimes the fate of fanaticism: the fanatic
group thrives when it perceives itself to be in danger or threatened by other
parts of its own society. Conversely, when faced by a society that has become
unified against what is believed to be an outside threat, the fanatic group is
less able to penetrate major institutions such as the army and to influence
long-range policy.
The Real
Significance of Baruch Goldstein
The
story of the massacre committed by Baruch Goldstein in the Patriarchs’ Cave in
Hebron on February 25, 1994, is well known. Goldstein entered the Muslim prayer
hall and shot worshippers mostly in their backs, killing 29, including
children, and wounding many more. In this chapter we shall not describe that
massacre; rather we shall focus upon Goldstein’s career prior to the massacre
and upon the reactions of the Israeli government and fundamentalist Jews to
the massacre a short time after it occurred. This should provide a vivid
illustration of Jewish fundamentalism. We shall extend our discussion of some
details until the summer of 1998.
One
important background fact about Goldstein exemplifies the influence of Jewish
fundamentalism in Israel: long before the massacre, Goldstein as an army
physician repeatedly breached army discipline by refusing to treat Arabs, even
those serving in the Israeli army. He was not punished, either while in active
or reserve service, for his refusal because of intervention in his favor.
Political commentators discussed this story in the Hebrew press even though not
a single Israeli politician referred to it. This story deserves detailed
exploration in our analysis of Jewish fundamentalism.
In
his March 1, 1994, Yediot Ahronot article, Aryeh Kizel, a regular Davar
correspondent, wrote that Goldstein, shortly after immigrating to Israel and as
a conscript assigned to an artillery battalion in Lebanon as a doctor, refused
to treat Gentiles. According to Kizel, Goldstein, after refusing to treat a
wounded Arab, declared: “I am not willing to treat any non-Jew. I recognize as
legitimate only two [religious] authorities: Maimonides and Kahane.” Kizel
further reported:
Three
Druze soldiers who served in Goldstein’s battalion approached their commander
and asked for another doctor to be stationed in their battalion, because they
were afraid that Goldstein would refuse to treat them in case they were
wounded. Because of their request Goldstein was reassigned to another
battalion. He continued to serve as a military doctor both in the conscript
army and in the reserves. After some years he was reassigned to the regional
Hebron brigade of the central command where he thereafter served his reserve
stint. Immediately after receiving this assignment, he told his commanders that
his religious faith would make it impossible for him to treat wounded or ill
Arabs; he asked to be reassigned elsewhere. His request was granted, and he was
reassigned to a reserve unit serving in South Lebanon.
Amir
Oren, who subsequently became the military correspondent of Haaretz^
provided the most complete story of Goldstein’s relations with the Israeli army
and the entire Israeli political establishment in his March 4 Davar
article. According to Oren, after the 1984 elections and the subsequent
formation of the national unity government, then Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and then Chief of Staff General Moshe Levy learned about Goldstein’s refusal to
treat non-Jews in Lebanon. Oren wrote:
When
Goldstein’s refusal to treat non-Jewish patients became evident to his
commanders, both the artillery corps and medical corps commanders quite
naturally wanted to court-martial him and thus get rid of him. They took it for
granted that this could be easily done, because Goldstein had graduated only
from the army’s course for medical officers. [Goldstein did not have combat
officer training, which is normally a prerequisite for admission to the course
for medical officers.] The two corps [commanders] also knew that Goldstein,
while attending the army’s course for medical officers, had become notorious as
an anti-Arab extremist.
According
to other Hebrew press reports, some of Goldstein’s trainee colleagues demanded
that he be dismissed from the course; their demand was refused. Oren related: “
[Goldstein] was already then protected by highly placed people in senior
ministries. Those patrons requested that Goldstein be allowed to serve in
Kiryat Arba rather than in a combat battalion.” The situation then developed
into “a bone of contention between the commander of the army’s medical corps
and its chief rabbi.” Oren continued:
In
the end the issue of what to do with an officer who openly refused to obey
orders by invoking Halacha has never been resolved, even if that officer openly
refused to provide medical help both to Israeli soldiers and POWs. Can we avoid
being stunned by the army’s failure to court-martial Goldstein? Why was no
order to court-martial him ever issued by the entire chain of the army command?
That chain of command included the commander of the northern command, Reserve
General Orri Or [a Labor MK and later in 1994 the chairman of the Knesset
Committee for Foreign and Defense Affairs], and General Amos Yaron, who now is
the commander of the manpower department. Why did they refuse to decide without
first consulting the chief rabbi? The already embarrassed medical corps
[commanders] now [after the massacre] admit that they were scared by publicity
that might have propelled the religious parties and religious settlers’ lobbies
to make things more of a mess than ever before. The fear of publicity time
after time prompted the army commanders to give in to all kinds of Goldsteins,
rather than to denounce their views and court-martial them.
Many
sources corroborated Oren’s hinting that this Goldstein situation did not
constitute a unique case. The story told by Oren revealed the pervasiveness of
the religious parties’ influence in the Israeli army. Jewish orthodoxy’s stance
against non-Jews, as openly advocated by Goldstein’s idolized leader, Rabbi
Meir Kahane, was - and still is - an essential position held by the major
religious parties. As such, this stance has had a strong impact upon the
Israeli army. Had Rabin and the army commanders mentioned by Oren, moreover,
felt no affinity whatsoever with Kahane’s and Goldstein’s views, they would not
have given in to the religious parties with such abandon and thus sacrificed
all consideration of military discipline. Israeli policies, directed towards
Palestinians, other Middle East Arabs (perceived by Zionists as non-Jews) and
people of other nations, are only explainable by assuming that they are based
upon anti-Gentile feeling. The anti-Gentile feeling is strongest among the most
religious Jews but exists as well in this secular milieu. This is the reason
why support for Goldstein in 1984 and 1985 had a sequel in the excuses by many
Israeli leaders for the slaughter. These excuses were thinly disguised by
mostly hypocritical expressions of shock.
Goldstein’s
refusal to give proper medical treatment to non-Jews continued after he was
transferred to Kiryat Arba. In his February 27,1994 Yediot Ahronot
article, Nahum Bamea wrote:
The
senior Israeli army officer in the Hebron area told me about his two encounters
with Baruch Goldstein. The second time he saw him was in the company of Kach
goons who were abusing President Ezer Weisman during his visit to Kiryat Arba.
The first time he encountered Goldstein was after an Israeli soldier had
wounded a local Arab in his legs. The Arab was brought to an army clinic for
treatment, but Goldstein refused to treat him. Another army physician had to be
summoned to substitute for Goldstein. The officer did not explain why Goldstein
was thereafter not demoted in rank but was rather allowed to keep performing
his duties in the reserves. Incidentally, his misconduct also constituted a
violation of the oath he had taken upon becoming a doctor, but for this the
Israeli army cannot be blamed.
Barnea
made clear that the entire Israeli establishment, not just the army, was
responsible for the leniency granted to Goldstein for his misdeeds. The
leniency lasted until the massacre. Only after the massacre did the official
line change to shock, coupled with assertions that Goldstein had acted alone.
Thus, during the first three hours after the slaughter Rabin and his retinue
insisted either that Goldstein was a psychopath or that he was a devoted doctor
who happened to suffer a momentary derangement. Barnea reported: “Within hours
a whole edifice of rationalization was built, according to which Goldstein had
allegedly been under unbearable mental pressure, because he had to attend so
many wounded and dead [persons], including Arabs.” The men who propagated this
lie knew that Goldstein had refused to treat Arabs. Barnea continued: “Thus,
the Arabs were made guilty for what he could not avoid doing. The implication
was that the Arabs assaulted him rather than the other way around and that he
really acted for the benefit of the Arabs by letting them finally realize that
Jewish blood could not be shed with impunity.” This brazen lie was maintained
as long as possible before being abandoned without apology. The propagation of
such a lie reveals the influence of Jewish fundamentalism upon the secular
parts of the Israeli establishment.
Goldstein
represented Jewish fundamentalism in the extreme. Some of the Gush Emunim
leaders at the time of the massacre were only a bit less extreme. Barnea
compared Goldstein’s attitude toward non-Jews with that of Rabbi Levinger, the
Gush Emunim leader whom he interviewed on the day of the massacre:
Levinger
was in a good mood; after arguing about how religious settlers should respond
to the massacre, he shortly before had won the three hour debate at a session
of the Kiryat Arba municipality. The secretary of the Council of Judea, Samara
and Gaza District, Uri Ariel, [who became director of the prime minister’s
office in 1998] proposed condemning the massacre. Levinger staked his authority
behind the proposal that the [Israeli] government should instead be condemned
[for putting Goldstein] under unbearable mental pressure [propelling him to
action].
In
the discussion the terms “murder,” “massacre” or “killing” were avoided;
instead the terms used were “deed,” “event” or “occurrence.” The reason is that
according to the Halacha the killing by a Jew of a non-Jew under any
circumstances is not regarded as murder. It may be prohibited for other
reasons, especially when it causes danger for Jews. In many cases the real
feelings about a Jew murdering non-Jews, expressed in Israel with impunity,
correspond to the law. Levinger told Bamea that the resolution “expresses in
passing” the sorrow about dead Arabs “even though it emphasizes the
responsibility of the government.” When asked by Barnea whether he felt sorry,
Levinger answered: “I am sorry not only about dead Arabs but also about dead
flies.”
Goldstein
on principle had refused to treat non-Jews for many years before the massacre.
He worked as the municipal doctor of Kiryat Arba and treated Arabs only when he
could not avoid doing so. Bamea quoted one of Goldstein’s colleagues from the
Kiryat Arba clinic who recalled that “whenever Goldstein arrived at a traffic
accident spot and recognized that some of the injured were Arabs, he would
attend to them but only until another doctor arrived. Then, he would stop
treating them. ‘This was his compromise between his doctor’s oath and his
ideology,’ said his colleague.”
The
Halacha enjoins precisely the behavior of Goldstein’s refusing to attend
non-Jews. The Halacha dictates that a pious Jewish doctor may treat Gentiles
when his refusal to do so might be reported to the authorities and cause him or
other Jews unpleasantness. There is reason to believe that whenever doctors as
pious as Goldstein were forced to treat Arabs they behaved as did Goldstein. In
his previously cited Yediot Ahronot article, Aryeh Kizel added that the
Israeli army found that Goldstein’s conduct did not require any disciplinary
measures. A Maariv correspondent wrote in his March 8, 1994 article that
Goldstein’s military service record was sufficiently distinguished to earn him
a ceremonial promotion from the rank of captain to that of major. The president
of Israel would have officially awarded this promotion on April 14, 1994,
Israel’s independence day. Only Goldstein’s death, which occurred at the time
of the massacre, prevented what would have been a revealing promotion.
An
even greater example of Jewish fundamentalism’s influence upon the secular part
of the Israeli establishment can be detected in the official arrangement of
Goldstein’s elaborate funeral at a time that the deliberate character of the
massacre could not be denied. The establishment was affected by the fact,
widely reported in the Hebrew press but given little place in the foreign
press, that within two days of the massacre the walls of religious
neighborhoods of west Jerusalem (and to a lesser extent of many other religious
neighborhoods) were covered by posters extolling Goldstein’s virtues and
complaining that he did not manage to kill more Arabs. Children of religious
settlers who came to Jerusalem to demonstrate sported buttons for months after
the massacre that were inscribed: “Dr Goldstein cured Israel’s ills.” Numerous
concerts of Jewish religious music and other events often developed into
demonstrations of tribute to Goldstein. The Hebrew press reported these
incidents of public tribute in copious detail. No major politician protested
against such celebrations.
President
Weizman expressed more extravagantly than others his sorrow for the massacre.
Weizman, as reported by Uzi Benziman in his March 4, 1994 Haaretz
article, was also engaged in lengthy and amiable negotiations with Goldstein’s
family and Kach comrades concerning a suitably honorable funeral for the
murderer. Kiryat Arba settlers, many of whom had already declared themselves in
favor of the mass murder in radio and television interviews and had lauded
Goldstein as a martyr and holy man, demanded that General Yatom, the commander
responsible for the Hebron area, allow the funeral cortege to parade through
the city of Hebron, in order to be viewed by the Arabs even though a curfew
existed. Yatom did not object outright to the demand but opposed it as
something that could cause disorder. Tzvi Katzover, the mayor of Kiryat Arba
and one of the most extreme leaders of the religious settlers, telephoned
Weizman and threatened that the settlers would make a pogrom of Arabs if their
demands were not met. Weizman responded by telephoning the chief of staff and
asking why the army opposed the demand of the settlers. According to Benziman,
Chief of Staff Barak answered: “The army was afraid that Arabs would desecrate
Goldstein’s tomb and carry away his corpse.” In further negotiations involving
Barak, Yatom, Rabin, Kach leaders and Kiryat Arba settlers, Weizman assumed the
consistent position, as stated by Benziman, that “the army should pay respect
to the desires and sensibilities of the settlers and of the Goldstein family.”
Ultimately, the negotiated decision was that a massively attended funeral
cortege would take place in Jerusalem and that the police would close some of
the busiest streets to the traffic in Goldstein’s honor. Afterwards, the
murderer would be buried in Kiryat Arba along the continuation of Kahane
Avenue. According to Benziman, Kach leaders at first rejected this compromise.
General Yatom had to approach the Kach leaders in person and beg them abjectly
for their agreement, which he finally secured. Yatom also had to obtain consent
from the notorious Kiryat Arba rabbi, Dov Lior. As reported in the March 4,
1994, issue of Yerushalaim Lior declared: “Since Goldstein did what he
did in God’s own name, he is to be regarded as a righteous man.” Benziman
explained the conduct of Weizman and his entourage: “After the fact the
officials of the presidential mansion justify those goings on by the need to
becalm the settlers’ mood.” After the funeral the army provided a guard of
honor for Goldstein’s tomb. The tomb became a pilgrimage site, not only for the
religious settlers but also for delegations of pious Jews from all Israeli
cities.
The
details of Goldstein’s funeral as arranged through the office of President
Weizman are significant. The facts below were taken mostly from the Ilana Baum
and Tzvi Singer report, published in YediotAhronot on February, 28 1994.
The funeral’s first installment took place in Jerusalem. Among the estimated
thousand mourners only a few were settlers from Kiryat Arba. Baum and Singer
noted: “Without having met Goldstein personally, other mourners most of whom
were Jerusalemites, were enthusiastic admirers of his deed. Many more were
Yeshiva students. A large group represented the Chabad Hassidic movement,
another group [consisted of antiZionist] Satmar Hassids.” Other Hassidic
movements were also well represented. (Not mentioned in the English-language
press, Goldstein, a follower of Kahane, was also a follower of the Lubovitcher
rabbi.) Baum and Singer continued:
People
awaiting the arrival of the corpse could be heard repeating: “What a hero! A
righteous person! He did it on behalf of all of us.” As usual in such
encounters between religious Jews, all the participants tuned into a single,
collective personality, united by their burning hatred of the Israeli media,
the wicked Israeli government and, above all else, of anyone who dared to speak
against the murder.
Before
the start of the procession well-known rabbis eulogized Goldstein and commended
the murder. Rabbi Israel Ariel, for example, said: “The holy martyr, Baruch
Goldstein, is from now on our intercessor in heaven. Goldstein did not act as
an individual; he heard the cry of the land of Israel, which is being stolen from
us day after day by the Muslims. He acted to relieve that cry of the land!”
Toward the end ofhis eulogy Rabbi Ariel added: “The Jews will inherit the land
not by any peace agreement but only by shedding blood.” Ben-Shoshan Yeshu’a, a
Jewish underground member, sentenced to life imprisonment for murder and
amnestied after a few years spent under luxurious hotel conditions, lauded
Goldstein and praised his action as an example for other Jews to follow.
Border
guards, police and the secret police protected the funeral cortege. Baum and
Singer related:
An
entire unit of border guards precede the cortege; they were followed by young
Kahane group members from Jerusalem who continuously yelled: “death to the
Arabs.” While obviously intending to find an Arab to kill, they could not spot
one. Suddenly, a border guard noticed an Arab approaching the cortege behind a
low fence. The border guard immediately jumped over the fence, stopped the Arab
and, using force, led him away to safety before anyone could notice. He [the
border guard] thus saved him [the Arab] from a certain lynching.
Behind
the young Kahane group members was a coffin, which was surrounded by leaders of
Kahane splinter groups, some of whom were wanted by the police. (The police and
the secret police claimed later that they did not recognize these wanted
leaders. The press correspondents easily recognized them.) Baum wrote:
Tiran
Pollak, a Kahane group leader wanted by the police, granted me an interview
near the coffin. “Goldstein was not only righteous and holy,” he told me, “but
also a martyr. Since he is a martyr, his corpse will be buried without being
washed, not in a shroud but in his clothes. The honorable Dr Goldstein has
always refused to provide medical help to Arabs. Even during the war for
Galilee he refused to treat any Arab, including those serving in the army.
General Gad Navon, the chief rabbi of the Israeli army, at that time contacted
Meir Kahane to ask him to persuade Baruch Goldstein of blessed memory to treat
the Arabs. Kahane, however, refused to do so, because this would be against the
Jewish religion.” Suddenly the crowd began yelling: “Death to the journalists.”
I looked around and realized that I was the only journalist inside the crowd of
mourners. I clung to Tiran Pollak and begged him to “please protect me.” I was
scared to death that the crowd might recognize me as a journalist.
Military
guards transported Goldstein’s coffin to Kiryat Arba through Palestinian
villages. A second round of eulogies was delivered in the hall of the Hesder
Yeshiva Nir military institution by a motley of religious settlers, including
the aforementioned Rabbi Dov Lior. Lior said: “Goldstein was full of love for
fellow human beings. He dedicated himself to helping others.” The terms “human
beings” and “others” in the Halacha refer solely to Jews. Lior continued:
“Goldstein could not continue to bear the humiliations and shame nowadays
inflicted upon us; this was why he took action for no other reason than to
sanctify the holy name of God.”
Tohay
Hakah reported in Yerushalaim on March 4, 1994 upon another Lior eulogy
of Goldstein a few days after the funeral. He recalled that Lior several years
ago was excoriated in the press for recommending that medical experiments be
performed on the live bodies of Arab terrorists. The outcry against this recommendation
influenced the attorney general to prevent the otherwise guaranteed election of
Lior to the Supreme Rabbinical Council of Israel. The attorney general,
however, did not interfere with Lior’s current rabbinical duties. The press
reported upon other eulogies, delivered not only in religious settlements but
in religious neighborhoods of many Israeli towns during the days immediately
following the slaughter. The Hebrew press reportage of these eulogies suggests
that the most virulent lauding of Goldstein and the calling for further
massacres of Arabs occurred in the more homogeneous religious communities.
The
approval of Goldstein and his mass murder extended well beyond the perimeters
of the religious Jewish community. Secular Israeli Jews, especially many of the
youth, praised Goldstein and his deed. That Israeli youth were even more
pleased by the massacre than were the adults is well-documented. The concern
here nevertheless will be with the adult population, which in many ways is the
most significant. According to Yuval Katz, who wrote an article published in
the March 4, 1994 issue of Yerushalaim, it is not true that “with the
exception of a few psychopaths, the entire nation and its politicians included,
has resolutely condemned Dr Goldstein, even though, luckily for us, all major
television networks in the world were last week still deluded by this untruth.”
Katz told how a popular television entertainer, Rafi Reshef, who was not
controlled as tightly as the moderators in sedate panels, “could this week
announce the findings of some reliable polls.” Katz continued:
It
is important that according to one poll about 50 per cent of Kiryat Arba
inhabitants approve of the massacre. More important is another poll that showed
that about 50 per cent of Israeli Jews are more sympathetic toward the settlers
after the massacre than they were before the massacre. The most important poll
established that at least 50 per cent of Israeli Jews would approve of the
massacre, provided that it was not referred to as a massacre but rather as a
“Patriarch’s Cave operation,” a nice-sounding term already being used by
religious settlers.
Katz
reported that the politicians and academics interviewed by Reshef failed to
grasp the significance of those findings. Attributing them to a chance
occurrence, they refused to comment upon them. He tended to excuse them:
I
presume that those busy public figures, along with everybody else who this week
exerted himself to speak in the name of the entire nation simply did not have
time to walk the streets in the last days. Yet, with the exception of the
wealthiest neighborhoods, people could be seen smiling merrily when talking
about the massacre. The stock popular comment was: “Sure, Goldstein is to be
blamed. He could have escaped with ease and have done the same in four other
mosques, but he didn’t.”
The
impression of many other Israelis corresponded to the Reshef findings. People
were rather evenly divided into two categories: in one category the people were
vociferous in cheering the slaughter; in the other category the people mostly
remained silent and condemned the massacre only if encouraged to do so. Katz
continued:
Therefore,
this was the right time to draw finally the obvious conclusion that we, the
Jews, are not any more sensitive or merciful than are the Gentiles. Many Jews
have been programmed by the same racist computer program that is shaping the
majority of the world’s nations. We have to acknowledge that our supposed
advancement in progressive beliefs and democracy have failed to affect the
archaic forms of Jewish tribalism. Those who still delude themselves that Jews
might be different than [people of] other nations should now know better. The
spree of bullets from Goldstein’s gun was for them an occasion to learn
something.
The
wise comments of Katz were not heeded in Israel except by a minority. It may be
that had more Israeli Jews paid attention and heeded the words of Katz the
murder ofYitzhak Rabin would have been averted. In the view of this book’s
authors, the important difference between the real shock caused by Rabin’s
murder and the lack of shock caused by Goldstein’s massacre lies in the fact
that Goldstein’s victims were non-Jews.
Although
less direct than Katz, many other commentators in the Israeli Hebrew press have
focused upon that part of the Israeli Jewish public who were shocked by the
rejoicing over the massacre of innocent people and disturbed by the apologia
offered by many politicians and public figures. Some of those people who were
shocked described the backers of and apologists for Goldstein as “Nazis” or
“Nazi-like.” These same people, who can be considered moderate hawks rather
than Zionist doves, had before the massacre reacted negatively to the use by a
few Israeli Jewish critics of such terminology in describing a part of the
Israeli Jewish population. These “moderate hawks” had habitually labelled many
Arab organizations, such as the Abu Nidal group and the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, “Nazi” or “Nazi-like.” They did not repudiate their
views about these Arab organizations; they merely concluded that some Jewish
individuals and organizations also merit being so labelled on equal terms with
some Arabs. The prestigious journalist, Teddy Preuss, reflected upon all of
this in a most severe but substantially representative manner in his March 4,
1994 Davar article:
Compared
to the giant-scale mass murderers of Auschwitz, Goldstein was certainly a petty
murderer. His recorded statements and those of his comrades, however, prove
that they were perfectly willing to exterminate at least two million
Palestinians at an opportune moment. This makes Dr Goldstein comparable to Dr
Mengele; the same holds true for anyone saying that he [or she] would welcome
more of such Purim holiday celebrations. [The massacre occurred on that
holiday.] Let us not devalue Goldstein by comparing him with an inquisitor or a
Muslim Jihad fighter. Whenever an infidel was ready to convert to either
Christianity or Islam, an inquisitor or Muslim Jihad fighter would, as a rule,
spare his life. Goldstein and his admirers are not interested in converting
Arabs to Judaism. As their statements abundantly testify, they see the Arabs as
nothing more than disease-spreading rats, lice or other loathsome creatures;
this is exactly how the Nazis believed that the Aryan race alone had laudable
qualities that were inheritable but that could become polluted by sheer contact
with dirty and morbid Jews. Kahane, who learned nothing from the Nuremberg
Laws, had exactly the same notions about the Arabs.
Really,
Kahane had the same notions about non-Jews. Although less scathing than Preuss,
other Israeli commentators suggested the same consideration.
In
contrast to the above criticism were the even more numerous comments about the
harm caused to Israeli Jews by the Goldstein massacre. The lament in the
February 28, 1994 Haaretz Economic Supplement, for example, was
headlined: “Goldstein’s massacre caused distress on the Tel-Aviv stock market.”
Other papers voiced similar sentiments. More importantly, Shimon Peres and
other senior dovish politicians presented a typical political apologia in their
criticism of the massacre, which they delivered in a meeting of the Knesset
Committee for Foreign and Defense Affairs. Specific detail of this meeting is included
below to illustrate the real opinions of most Israeli politicians and their
general disregard of a major massacre of non-Jews except as it affected the
interests of Israel and its allies. A March 8, 1994 Haaretz article
reported the discussion at this meeting. Peres wasted no time expressing
heartfelt shock about the murdered Palestinians but spoke instead about the
harm to Israel caused by the “pictures of corpses that the entire world could
watch.” Peres did not condemn the armed religious settlers for their public
rejoicing and shooting; he deplored the harm caused to Israel and to themselves
by the pictures of them. As quoted in Haaretz, Peres added: “The events
in Hebron also adversely affected the interests of President Mubarak and King
Hussein, and even more of the PLO and its leadership.” Peres then went on to
say: “We have had Jewish Kibbutzim located in the midst of Arab- inhabited
areas for 80 years, and I cannot recall a single instance of such a slaughter
nor of firing at Arab buses nor of maiming Arab mayors.” At this point in the
discussion senior Likud politicians interpolated Peres. As reported in Haaretz-.
The
first to interrupt Peres’ speech was Sharon. “Kibbutzim are dear to me no less
than to you, but there have been many cases when somebody from a kibbutz would
go out to murder Arabs.” Peres answered: “The two cases are not comparable,
because in the case under discussion the murderer was supported by a whole
group of followers.” Benny Begin [answered]: “Why are you always talking in
generalities?” Peres [responded] : “I am not. I only maintain that in order to
pursue the peace process we need the PLO as a partner, and now this partnership
is in straits and we need to help the PLO.” Sharon [answered]: “You mean that
we should help that murderer [Arafat].” Peres, angrily banging the table
[responded] : “And what about Egyptians with whom you, Likud, made peace?
Didn’t Egyptians murder Jews? Really. What’s the difference between war and
terrorism? Does it make any difference how 16,000 of our soldiers were killed?
Everywhere, states are making deals with terror organizations.” Netanyahu
[spoke] : “No state exists that has made a deal with an organization still
committed to its destruction. The PLO has not rescinded the Palestinian Covenant.
You are dwelling upon the crime committed in Hebron not in order to reassure
people [Jews] living there but in order to advance your plan to establish a
Palestinian state.” Peres [answered] : “It is you and your plans that will lead
to the formation of a Palestinian state, because it is you, the Likud, that
created the PLO in Madrid. It is you who conceived the autonomy in the first
place, contrary to all our [previously pursued] aims.” Netanyahu [stated] :
“Autonomy is not the same thing as state.” Peres [continued]: “But it is Sharon
who is first to say that autonomy is bound to lead to a Palestinian state ... I
am not less steadfast than are you; this is why I have elaborated the most
restrictive possible interpretation of autonomy in Oslo, in relation to its
territory, power and authorities. This is why we are against international
observers and consent only to the temporary presence of representatives from
the countries contributing money. And regarding the Palestinian Covenant, they
have renounced it publicly, but they find it difficult to convene their
representative bodies to ratify this renunciation.” Begin [answered]: “Let me
remind you that the PLO has not undertaken publicly to rescind the Palestinian
Covenant.” Peres [answered] : “I don’t give a damn about you and/or your
legalistic verbiage! Arafat said that he renounced the Palestinian Covenant and
for me Arafat is the PLO.”
The
above passage shows, among other things, that knowledge of Israeli politics and
more generally Jewish affairs can be best attained by using the original
sources of what Jews say among themselves.
The
continuing process of Goldstein’s elevation to the rank of saint by groups of
Israeli Jews and his worship as such began soon after the massacre. In his
February 28, 1994 Haaretz article, Shmuel Rosner recounted a sermon
delivered on the Sabbath after the massacre by Rabbi Goren, the former chief
military rabbi and chief rabbi of Israel. Rosner wrote: “Goren’s conclusion was
that next time an authorization would be needed for a massacre. The
authorization should come from the community ‘not from the [present] illegal
government.’” Rosner observed that the audience liked Goren’s sermon but would
have preferred, as would numerous other Israeli Jews, that the army rather than
Goldstein had committed the massacre.
In
the days and weeks after the massacre, appreciation of Goldstein and his deed
spread throughout the Israeli religious community and among its supporters in
the United States. The initial expressions of that appreciation may be most
significant, because they were spontaneous and because they illustrated the
influence, even beyond the messianic community, of an ideology that approved
indiscriminate killing of Gentiles by Jews. Avirama Golan described in her
February 28,1994 Haaretz article how news about Goldstein on the day of
the massacre became known in the overwhelmingly Haredi city of Bnei Brak and
how the next day a religious Jewish crowd reacted with praise of Goldstein
during a mass entertainment event. The massacre occurred on Purim, the festival
during which religious Jews are merry and sometimes drink alcoholic beverages
to the point of drunkenness. Bnei Brak streets were filled to capacity by
joyful celebrants that day; a special security force, comprised of religious
veterans of the Israeli army’s elite units, had been hired by the mayor to
enforce order and modesty. Golan described the response in the streets to the
spreading news of the massacre:
A
hired security guard, with a huge gun in his belt, a black skullcap on his
head, and special insignia of “Bnei Brak Security Team” on his chest, stared at
a fundraising stall. Then he noticed his pal across the street. “A Purim
miracle, I’m telling you, Purim miracle,” he shouted at the top of his voice.
“That holy man did something great. 52 Arabs at one stroke.” However, the
fundraiser, a slim yeshiva student, was skeptical. “That’s just impossible,” he
said. “Those must be just stories.” But the people standing around confirmed
the news. “It was on the radio,” they said. “Where?” “In the Patriarchs’ Cave
in Hebron.” The yeshiva student turned pale. “I don’t mind the Arabs, but it is
us who will pay the price,” he said. “What are you talking about?” the security
guard shouted, “It’s a Purim miracle. God has helped.” People around the stall
formed two groups: on the one hand those who said that God Himself ordained a
well- deserved punishment of the Arabs; on the other, those who remained silent
throughout. The fundraiser went on writing receipts and shaking his head. “Oh,”
he said, “nothing really happened.” The Bnei Brak functionary’s wife said that
dozens of visitors who, as is customary on Purim, visited their home that
morning, were shocked. “By the murder?” somebody asked. “To tell you the truth,
not exactly by the murder. About what may now happen to the Jews.”
Jumping
to the evening of the next day, Golan continued: “Masses of religious Jews were
expected to come to Yad Eliahu Stadium [the biggest in Israel] to be
entertained by the famous religious jazz singer, Mordechai Ben-David. For
months before the massacre, this evening had been planned as a demonstration
intended to save the land of Israel from Rabin, Peres and other Jewish
infidels.” All factions of the religious community were represented in the crowd.
Golan again continued:
The
first part of the evening passed quietly and even rather dully. Only after the
intermission, some minutes before the star of the evening was to appear, the
crowd went on a rampage. The master of the ceremony called upon a Kiryat Arba
resident to address the crowd. He started by praising that “righteous and holy
physician, Dr Goldstein, who rendered us a sacred service and got martyred in
the process.” The speaker called upon the audience to mourn him. By and large,
the audience remained silent. Some applauded. Only a single individual, wearing
a small beard and a knitted skullcap, stood up and yelled: “I disagree; that
was a cold-blooded murder!” Instantly he was physically assaulted. Many in the
crowd yelled: “Kick the infidel out of the hall!” The tempers calmed down only
when Ben-David finally appeared on the stage and began singing. Outside after
the performance some people reminisced that more Gentiles had been killed by
the Jews in Susa during the original Purim [75,000]. They, therefore, reasoned
that this was the right time to kill a comparable number of Gentiles in the
holy land.
No
wonder that Dov Halvertal, a member of the almost defunct faction of the NRP
doves, told Golan: “This Purim joy epitomizes the moral collapse of religious
Zionism ... If religious Zionism does not undertake soul-searching right now, I
doubt if it will ever have another opportunity.”
Subsequent
developments showed that neither the religious Zionists nor other factions
within the Jewish religious community were or are in any mood to engage in
soul-searching. On the contrary, the appreciation of Goldstein and the feeling
that Jews have a right and duty to kill Gentiles who live in the land of Israel
are growing. In his March 23,1994 Haaretz article, Nadav Shraggai
discussed the visit of a delegation of all Israeli branches of the Bnei Akiva,
the large youth movement affiliated with the NRP, to Kiryat Arba and Hebron,
which was then under a curfew selectively applied to its Arab inhabitants. The
purpose of this visit was to “encourage Jewish settlers.” Yossi Leibowitz, a
settler leader from Hebron, as described by Shraggai, “beaming with
satisfaction visible in his face asked the delegation: ‘Have you already
visited the tomb of holy Rabbi Doctor Goldstein?’ ” The visitors rejected the
suggestion but did not utter one word of rebuke to the worshippers of the new
saint. They then had to withstand a flurry of abuse from their local Bnei Akiva
comrades who argued that their refusal to pay homage to Goldstein amounted to
support of the left. Local rabbis affiliated with the NRP seconded the
denunciation. Rabbi Shimon Ben-Zion, a senior teacher in the local Hesder
Yeshiva and hence a state employee, delivered a eulogy of Goldstein and of what
he called “his act.” He added: “[If the government] keeps bowing low to Arabs,
all of whom are murderers, [and if] the Jews fail to establish a firm rule over
the land of Israel [there will be] more Goldsteins.” Most visitors made
counter-arguments; they were nevertheless influenced by their hosts’ arguments;
they came to believe that their duty to support the Jewish settlers in Hebron
was more important than any minor disagreements about Goldstein’s sainthood.
Gabby
Baron reported in the March 16, 1994 Yediot Ahronof.
Deputy
Minister of Education Mikha Goldman was physically assaulted yesterday after
delivering a welcoming speech at a meeting of Jerusalem’s district teachers in
the Binyaney Ha’umah hall in that city. He managed to avoid being hurt. His
speech infuriated dozens of religious teachers, because he talked about his
visit to Kiryat Arba and the shock he experienced when finding how enthused the
religious school children were by the massacre in the Cave of the Patriarchs. A
virtual riot erupted in the hall, which was filled by about 5000 Jerusalem
district teachers, as soon as he spoke about it. Dozens of religious teachers
jumped onto the podium. A female teacher who managed to reach it [the podium]
picked up a flowerpot from the speaker’s table; she was ready to hurl it at him
when at the last moment she balked. All the religious teachers assembled in
rage in front of the podium and decried the deputy minister as “a fascist.”
Goldman insisted upon continuing his speech. When he ended, he had to leave the
building under heavy guard, thanks to which the pursuing teachers were unable
to injure him.
Neither
Education Minister Amnon Rubinstein nor Prime Minister Rabin uttered a single
word in condemnation of the incident.
On
April 5, 1994, Israeli radio reported that Rabbi Shimon Ben-Zion had
distributed a leaflet among the Kiryat Arba and Hebron settlers requesting
financial contributions for a book about “Saint Baruch Goldstein.” On April 6, Yediot
Ahronot published the text. The book refers to Goldstein as “Rabbi Doctor
Baruch Goldstein of blessed memory, let the Lord avenge his blood.” The Kiryat
Arba municipal council backed the ideas of Ben-Zion. In his April 5,1994 Haaretz
article, Amnon Barzilay reported that two days earlier Gush Emunim leaders,
including Mayor Benny Katzover, had an amicable talk with Prime Minister Rabin
who apologized to them for his past outbursts against them and promised never
to repeat them. (The outbursts anyway were intended for consumption of the
Israeli “doves,” Arafat and the Western media.) The two sides agreed to
cooperate closely in the future. Thus, Rabin understandably found it
ill-advised to say anything about Rabbi Ben-Zion’s idea.
About
one year later the Kiryat Arba municipality obtained a permit from the Civil
Administration of the Occupied Territories to build a large and sumptuous
memorial on Goldstein’s tomb, which has become a place of pilgrimage. Thousands
of Jews from all Israeli cities, and even more from the United States and
France, have come to light candles and pray for the intercession of “holy saint
and martyr,” now in a special section of paradise close to God and able to
obtain for them various benefits, such as cures for diseases from which they
suffer, or to grant them male offspring. The visitors have donated money for
Goldstein’s comrades. No Orthodox rabbi has criticized this.
The
well-publicized worship of the new saint has brought increasing opposition from
secular Jews. (The opposition of Palestinians, especially those living in
Hebron, to the hero-worship of Goldstein and to the monument to this mass
murderer are not within the scope of this book but should be obvious.) After a
long campaign in the press, Knesset members passed a piece of legislation in
May, 1998, that prohibited the building of monuments for mass murderers and
ordering removal of existing ones. The Israeli army should have removed the
monument immediately after passage of the law in the Knesset. Instead army
spokesmen announced that negotiations over the Goldstein monument were on-going
with Goldstein’s family and local rabbis.
The
book in praise of Goldstein, titled Blessed the Male, was published in
1995 and sold in many editions. Most of the readers were from the religious
public. The book contained eulogies of Goldstein and halachic justifications
for the right of every Jew to kill non-Jews. Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh, the then
head of the Kever Yosef (tomb of Joseph) Yeshiva, located on the outskirts of
Nablus, wrote one chapter of that book. The essence of Rabbi Ginsburgh’s views
were presented in Chapter 4. His and other such ideologies, even if expressed
more cautiously, explain Goldstein’s massacre, the considerable support
Goldstein and later his followers have received from religious Jews and the
ambiguous attitude of Israeli governments to this crime. Those people,
especially Germans, who were silent and did not condemn Nazi ideology before
Hitler came to power are also, at least in a moral sense, guilty for the
terrible consequences that followed. Similarly, those who are silent and do not
condemn Jewish Nazism, as exemplified by the ideologies of Goldstein and
Ginsburgh, especially if they are Jews, are guilty of the terrible consequences
that may yet develop as a result of their silence.
The Religious Background of Rabin’s Assassination
Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin was murdered for religious reasons. The murderer and his
sympathizers were and still are convinced that the killing was dictated by God
and was therefore a commandment of Judaism. Comprehensive surveys, published in
the Hebrew press, of people in religious neighborhoods and especially religious
settlements indicated great sympathy for the murder. The polarization of
approval and disapproval in the Israeli Jewish community over the killing of
the prime minister of the Jewish state has increased since the time of the
murder. Many Israeli Jews, significant numbers of Jews living outside Israel
and most non-Jews do not possess sufficient knowledge of Jewish history and
religion to put this kind of an assassination into its proper context. In this
chapter we shall attempt to provide the historical-religious background
necessary for an understanding of the Rabin assassination.
Jewish
history has been replete with religious civil wars or rebellions accompanied by
civil wars in which horrifying assassinations were committed. The Great
Rebellion (ad 66-73) of Jews
against the Romans that culminated in the destruction of the Second Temple and
in mass suicide in Masada is exemplary. The defenders of Masada were, as many
present-day visitors to the Masada site are seemingly unaware, a band of
assassins called Sikarikin, a name taken from the word for a short sword that
group members hid under their robes and used to kill their Jewish opponents in
crowds of people. In the Talmud the word means terrorists or robbers and is
applied only to Jews. Neither Masada nor this particular group are mentioned in
the Talmud or in any part of the traditional writing preserved by Jews.
Actually the Sikarikin were an ancient Jewish analogue to modern-day
terrorists. Their suicide activity resembled the terrorist behavior of the
suicide bombers who are so abhorred in the state of Israel. The Sikarikin
escaped to Masada not from the Romans but from their Jewish brethren. Shortly
after the rebellion against the Romans began, the Roman army that was advancing
to Jerusalem was initially defeated and had to withdraw. The Sikarikin
attempted forcefully to establish their leader, Menahem, as absolute king. The
Jews of Jerusalem then attacked and defeated the Sikarikin in the temple
itself, killing most of them including Menahem. The remaining Sikarikin escaped
to Masada where they stayed during the rebellion; they did not fight the Romans
but instead robbed neighboring Jewish villages. Three years after the Sikarikin
defeat, the Roman army, commanded by Titus, approached Jerusalem for the final
onslaught. (Titus’ chief of staff, Tiberius Julius Alexander, was a Jew, the
nephew of the great philosopher, Philo.) Jerusalem was divided into three parts;
each part was under the command of a different leader; the leaders had already
been fighting with one another for two years. The Roman Empire at that time was
then concerned about a civil war. One of the leaders, Eliezer the Priest,
commanded the Temple and used it as his stronghold. On Passover eve in the year
AD 70, another rebel leader, Yohanan of Gush Halav, utilized brilliant strategy
to overcome Eliezer. He dressed his soldiers as pious pilgrims who seemed to be
coming to the temple for the Passover sacrifice. After being admitted to the
temple by the gullible Eliezer without a body search, they, after guessing
correctly that Eliezer and his men would not carry arms in a place so holy,
pulled out their swords and slaughtered all their opponents. The well-known
Masada terrorists became Jewish and Israeli national heroes, as did the
Jerusalem Jews who killed most of the Sikarikin. Yohanan of Gush Halav also
became a national hero, but Eliezer the Priest, perhaps because he was killed
by Jews, was completely forgotten. In these and in many similar incidents in
Jewish history, killing was allegedly committed for the greater glory of God.
Yigal Amir, Rabin’s assassin, made such an allegation.
The
violence between Jews did not end with the loss of Jewish independence and the
ceasing of Jewish rebellions. (The last Jewish rebellion occurred in ad 614.) From the Middle Ages until the
advent of the modem state, Jewish communities enjoyed a great degree of
autonomy. The rabbis who headed and had the authority in these communities were
most often able to persecute Jews mercilessly. The rabbis persecuted Jews who
committed religious sins and even more harshly persecuted Jews who informed
upon other Jews to non-Jews or in other ways harmed Jewish interests. The
rabbis generally tolerated violence committed by some Jews against other Jews,
especially against women, so long as the Jewish religion and their own
interests were not harmed. The relevancy of this aspect of Jewish history to
the Rabin murder is obvious. The assassin, Yigal Amir, is a talmudic scholar
who was trained in a yeshiva that inculcated its students to believe that this
violence committed by rabbis over a lengthy time period was in accordance with
God’s word.
Long
before Rabin’s assassination, scholarly studies of Jewish history, written in
Hebrew, recorded the violence mentioned above. The assassination aroused so
much public interest in this topic that the Hebrew press published numerous
articles either written by or resulting from interviews with distinguished
Israeli scholars. Rami Rosen’s November 15, 1996 Haaretz Magazine
article, titled “History of a Denial,” is an excellent and representative
example. Although Rosen interviewed several distinguished historians, he relied
primarily upon the views of Professor Yisrael Bartal, the head of the
department of Jewish history at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Bartal
began his statement:
Zionism
has described the diaspora Jews as weak people who desire peace and abhor every
form of violence. It is astonishing to discover that orthodox Jews are also
providing similar descriptions. They describe past Jewish society as one not
interested in anything other than the Halacha and the fulfillment of the
commandments. The entire Jewish literature produced in eastern Europe, however,
teaches us that the reverse is true. Even in the nineteenth century the
descriptions of how Jews lived are filled with violent battles that often took
place in the synagogues, of Jews beating other Jews in the streets or spitting
on them, of the frequent cases of pulling out of beards and of numbers of
murders.
Citing
the authorities interviewed, Rosen explained that many murders were committed
for religious reasons. It was usual in some Hassidic circles until the last
quarter of the nineteenth century to attack and often to murder Jews who had
reform religious tendencies, even if small ones. These Hassidic Jews also
attacked one another because of frequent quarrels between different holy rabbis
over spheres of influence, money and prestige. After having learned the
opinions of the best Israeli scholars, Rosen asked:
Were
Yigal Amir, Baruch Goldstein, Yonah Avrushmi [who threw a hand grenade into a
Peace Now demonstration, killing one and wounding a few people] and Ami Poper
[who killed seven innocent Palestinian workers and was adopted as a great hero
by extremists] parts of the Jewish tradition? Is it only by chance that Baruch
Goldstein massacred his victims on the Purim holiday?
Rosen
answered his own question:
A
check of main facts of the [Jewish] historiography of the last 1500 years shows
that the picture is different from the one previously shown to us. It includes
massacres of Christians [by Jews]; mock repetitions of the crucifixion of Jesus
that usually took place on Purim; cruel murders within the family; liquidation
of informers, often done for religious reasons by secret rabbinical courts,
which issued a sentence of “pursuer” and appointed secret executioners;
assassinations of adulterous women in synagogues and/or the cutting of their
[the women’s] noses by command of the rabbis.
Rosen
included in his long article many well-documented cases of massacres of
Christians and mock repetitions of the crucifixion of Jesus on Purim, most of
which occurred either in the late ancient period or in the Middle Ages. (Some
isolated cases occurred in sixteenth-century Poland.) From the eleventh century
until the nineteenth century, Ashkenazi Jews were more violent and fanatical
than were the Oriental Jews, although the fanaticism of the Spanish Jews during
both Muslim and Christian rule was exceptional. Jewish historians have not yet
determined the causes of those differences. The influence of Christian
fanaticism on the Jews may have been a cause. The Jews who lived in Spain may
have been influenced by the fact that Muslim Spain was more fanatical than the
rest of the Muslim world.
The
violence perpetrated against women for centuries and other aspects of internal
group violence influenced the developing character of traditional Jewish
society. This character set the contextual framework for Rabin’s assassination.
Citing a few case examples here may further understanding of this character.
Rabbi Simha AsaPs book, The Punishments After the Talmud Was Finalized:
Materials for the History of Hebrew Law (Jerusalem, 1922) is a marvelous
source of information. Rabbi Asaf, who subsequently became a professor at the
Hebrew University and in 1948 was one of the first nine judges of the Israeli
Supreme Court, was a distinguished scholar and a religious Jew. Convinced that
a Jewish state would be established, he wrote his book in order to show that a
sufficient number of legal cases existed in the history of punishments
inflicted by Jewish religious courts to provide precedents.
Although
some variances in halachic interpretation and in practice existed, violence
against women, as defined in any reasonable and modern way, was routinely
practiced for centuries in most Jewish communities. Some rabbis allowed the
Jewish husband to beat his wife when she disobeyed him. Other rabbis limited
this “right” by requiring that, prior to the beating, a rabbinical court, after
considering the husband’s complaint, had to issue an order. Presumably as an
extension of this husband’s right, rabbinical courts in Spain ordered the
cruellest punishment for Jewish women suspected of fornication, prostitution
and adultery and a much lighter punishment for Jewish male fornicators. In the
early fourteenth century a local Jewish notable asked the famous Spanish rabbi,
Rabenu1 Asher, whether it was correct punishment to cut the nose of
a Jewish widow, made pregnant by a Muslim. The notable added that, although the
evidence itself was not conclusive, the pregnancy was well-known in the city.
Rabenu Asher answered: “You have decided beautifully to cut her nose in order
that those committing adultery with her will find her ugly, but let this be
done suddenly so that she will not become an apostate [before her nose is cut]”
(Asaf, p. 69). In a case wherein a male fornicated with Muslim women, Rabbi
Yehuda, the son of Rabenu Asher, ordered only excommunication or imprisonment (Asaf,
p. 78). This same punishment was prescribed when male Jews owned a Muslim
female slave with whom other male Jews fornicated. The rabbis regarded the
commission of adultery of Jewish women with Jewish men as less serious. In such
a case one rabbi ordered that the woman’s hair be shorn and that she be
officially excommunicated in the synagogue in the presence of other women
(Asaf, p. 87). The Sephardic Jews of Jerusalem sheared women’s hair as
punishment for such sexual sins still in the nineteenth century. In some
recorded cases the punishment was based upon the belief that the sexual sins of
Jews, especially those committed by women, prevented rain from falling. The
rabbis supposed that the rain would fall if Jewish women sinners were punished.
Enlightened Hebrew press commentators at the time humorously noted that the
rain did not fall even after women had been punished. In places where more
modern attitudes prevailed, however, Spanish and Portuguese Jews desisted from
these ancestral customs. Asaf quotes the elders of the Portuguese Jewish
community in Hamburg in the late seventeenth century who, although having
publicly accused members of their community of having intimate relations with
non-Jewish women, expressed their regret that they could not punish them. Asaf
pointed to the reason: “In every such case they must get permission from the
town judges” (p. 95). The Jewish community, Asaf wrote, could only inflict
religious sanctions, such as telling two brothers that they could not enter the
synagogue until they had dismissed a notorious servant from their home (p. 97).
The
Jewish rabbinical authorities in some eastern parts of Europe could inflict
somewhat tougher punishments. These punishments, however, were less severe than
those that had been imposed in Spain. The heads of the Jewish community in
Prague decided in 1612 that all Jewish prostitutes had to leave the town by a
certain date or be branded after that date with a hot iron (Asaf, p. 114). The
prostitutes’ main offence was that they were seen drinking nonkosher wine with
some unnamed notables of the community. The most tolerant communities were
those in Italy who, as Asaf recorded, gave full encouragement to the
prostitutes, because they saved “bachelors and fools from the worse sins of
adultery or of cohabitation with non-Jewish women.”
In
his previously mentioned article, Rosen recorded research of new Jewish
historians showing that Italian Jews copied the Renaissance custom according to
which a husband or brother can kill his wife or sister with impunity if he
suspects her of adultery. To remove the resultant blemish upon the honor of an
insulted husband, Jews committed many of these murders in the synagogue during
prayer in order to obtain publicity. A Jew, named Ovadia, from Spoleto, for instance,
murdered his wife in the synagogue and, after explaining his reasons, received
no punishment. The Italian authorities put Ovadia on trial and fined him, but
the Jews did not believe he had done anything wrong. Soon thereafter, he
remarried another Jewish woman. Brothers in other cases murdered suspected
women. Referring to his research, Rosen cited one such case in Ferrara in the
mid-sixteenth century. The murderer brother worked for a charity organization
that was affiliated with the congregation; he was able to continue in his job
after the murder. Rosen determined and reported that in such cases the rabbis
usually did not react.
Jewish
autonomy before the rise of the modem nation state allowed rabbis to engage in
a wide spectrum of persecution, of which violence against women was but one
category. The rabbis employed various types of violence against Jews who
committed religious or other sins. Jewish fundamentalists, wanting to revive a
situation that existed before the hated modem influences allegedly corrupted
the Jews, emphasized this violence. The centrality of violence in the Halacha
played an important role in the development of Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox
Judaism historically had a double system of law. There was, on the one side, a
more normal system of law, but there was, on the other side, been a more
arbitrary system of law employed in emergencies. These emergency situations
most often occurred when rabbis had great communal power. The rabbis, alleging
that heresy and infidelity were at dangerously high levels, often suspended the
normal system of laws, at least in the area of guarding the beliefs of the
community, and used emergency powers to avert God’s wrath. A relevant example
for our study concerns the death penalty. In the normal system of law, the
halachic application of the death punishment against a Jew was almost
impossible to carry out, as opposed to its much easier application against a
non-Jew. Even inflicting less severe punishment against Jews, such as thirty-
nine lashes, was difficult. The normal talmudic alternative to the death
penalty for Jews who killed other Jews was release of the Jewish murderer
without further punishment. The Talmud posits another alternative. This
alternative, as described by Maimonides in his commentary, Laws of the
Murderer and of Taking Precautions, chapter 4, rule 8, is that Jewish
murderers, absolved of the death punishment by a rabbinical court, could be
“put into a small cell and given first only a small amount of bread and water
until their intestines narrowed and then [fed] barley so that their bellies
would burst because of the illness.”
Rabbinical
judges experienced difficulty in inflicting punishment when Jewish autonomy was
limited by secular authorities. Only those rabbinical judges who were appointed
by what was called “laying of hands,”2 for example, could at first
inflict flogging limited to thirty-nine lashes. Rabbis later devised a new more
arbitrary way of inflicting punishment called “stripes of rebellion.” The new
method, which could be used by any rabbi, included harsher punishments. The
number of lashes, for example, was unlimited. The cutting of limbs and
unlimited imprisonment time were added. After the talmudic period and following
the declines of the Roman and Sassanid Empires and of the Muslim caliphates,
Jewish communities in many places became more autonomous and thus the
opportunities for rabbis to impose more severe punishments increased.
The
Jewish religious authorities perpetrated most of the violence against Jews who
were considered to be heretics or religious dissenters. The punishments imposed
had to be warranted by the Talmud, or at least by interpretation of the Talmud.
The Talmud was composed under the rule and authority of two strong empires, the
Roman and the Sassanid; both of these empires limited the powers of Jewish
autonomy much more than did subsequent medieval regimes. Talmudic sages
frequently complained that under the rule of these two empires, they did not
have the power to punish Jewish criminals with death but rather only with
flogging. The few cases in which talmudic sages attempted to execute a Jewish
criminal prompted strict official investigations. One of these few cases,
mentioned in the Palestinian Talmud, concerned a Jewish prostitute in the third
century who was finally executed. Apparendy because execution was so difficult
to enforce, the Talmud does not order a death punishment for Jewish heretics
but does enjoin pious Jews to kill them by employing subterfuges. The major
halachic codes, although emphasizing that the death punishment should be
inflicted only if execution was possible, contain such prescription. The
paradigmatic expression of this command in the codes comes ironically under the
section devoted to saving life. The question is posed: What is a pious Jew to
do when he sees a human being drowning in the sea or having fallen into a well?
The talmudic answer, still accepted by traditional Judaism, is that the answer
is dependent upon the category to which the human being belongs. If the person
is either a pious Jew or one guilty of no more than ordinary offences, he
should be saved. If the person is a non-Jew or a Jew who is a “shepherd of
sheep and goats,” a category that lapsed after talmudic times, he should
neither be saved nor pushed into the sea or well. If, however, the person is a
Jewish heretic, he should either be pushed down into the well or into the sea
or; if the person is already in the well or sea, he should not be rescued. This
legal stipulation, although mutilated by censorship in certain editions of the
Talmud and even more in most translations, appears in Tractate Avoda Zara
(pp. 26a-b). Maimonides also explained this stipulation in three places: In the
Laws of Murderer and Preservation of Life, Maimonides contrasted the fate
of non-Jews with that of Jewish heretics. In the passages from Laws of of
Idolatry Maimonides only discussed Jewish heretics. In Laws of Murderer
and Preservation of Life (chapter 4, rules 10-11), he wrote:
The
[Jewish] heretics are those [Jews] who commit sins on purpose; even one who
eats meat not ritually slaughtered or who dresses in a sha’atnez clothes (made
of linen and wool woven together) on purpose is called a heretic [as are] those
[Jews] who deny the Torah and prophecy. They should be killed. If he [a Jew]
has the power to kill them by the sword, he should do so. But if he has not
[the power to do so], he should behave so deceitfully to them that death would
ensue. How? If he [a Jew] sees one of them who has fallen into a well and there
is a ladder into the well, he [should] take it away and say: “I need it [the
ladder] to take my son down from the roof,” or [he should say] similar things.
Deaths of non-Jews with whom we are not at war and Jewish shepherds of sheep
and goats and similar people should not be caused, although it is forbidden to
save them if they are at the point of death. If, for example, one of them is
seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued. As it is written: “Neither
shall you stand against the blood of your fellow” (Leviticus 19:16) but he [the
non-Jew] is not your fellow.
In
Laws of Idolatry, chapter 2, rule 5 Maimonides stated:
Jews
who worship idolatrously are considered as non-Jews, in contrast to Jews who
have committed [another] sin punishable by stoning; if he [a Jew] converted to
idolatry he is considered to be a denier of the entire Torah. [Jewish] heretics
are also not considered to be Jews in any respect. Their repentance should
never be accepted. As it is written: “None that go into her return again,
neither [do] they hold the paths of life” (Proverbs 2:19). [This verse
is actually a reference to men who frequent “a strange woman,” that is, a
prostitute.] In regard to the heretics who follow their own thoughts and speak
foolishly, it is forbidden to talk with or to answer them, as we have said
above [in the first section of the work] so that they may ultimately contravene
maliciously and proudly the most important parts of the Jewish religion and say
there is no sin [in doing this]. As it is written: “Remove your way far from
her and come not near the door of her house.” (Proverbs 5:8).
The
last verse refers again to men who “frequent a strange woman”, that is, a
prostitute. The commentators explained that this passage meant that a truly
repentant idolatrous Jew is accepted by the Jewish community, but a heretic is
not accepted. A heretic who wants to repent, however, may do it alone. The main
reason for this difference is seemingly that an idolatrous Jew, including one
who converts to Christianity, accepts another religious discipline, while a
heretic follows his own views and is thereby considered to be more dangerous. In
chapter 10, rule 1 of Laws of Idolatry, Maimonides, after explaining the
extermination of the ancient Canaanites and again asserting that no Jews should
be killed, said: “All this applies to the seven [Canaanite] nations, but Jewish
informers and heretics should be exterminated by one’s own hand and put into
hell, because they cause trouble to Jews by removing their hearts from being
true to the Lord, like Tzadok, and Beitos [the alleged founders of the
Sadducean sect] and their pupils. Let the name of the wicked perish.” In ms
next rule Maimonides asserted that non-Jews should not be healed by Jews except
when danger of non-Jewish enmity exists. In his Fundamental Laws of Torah,
the first treatise of his codex, chapter 6, rule 8, Maimonides, after explaining
that Jews are forbidden to burn or otherwise to destroy the holy script and
that they may not even damage any Hebrew writing in which one of the seven
sacred names of God is written, ruled:
If
a Torah scroll was written by a Jewish heretic, it should be burned, together
with all its sacred names [of God], because the heretic does not believe in the
holiness of God and could not write it for God but must have thought that it is
like other books. Therefore, given this view, God is not sanctified [by it] and
it is a commandment to burn it [the scroll] so that no memory is left of the
heretics or to their deeds. But, a Torah scroll written by a non-Jew should be
put away with the other holy books that deteriorated or were written by
non-Jews.3
Although
he did not instruct Jews to burn heretical books, Maimonides probably based the
above passage upon many directives issued by talmudic sages since about ad 100. These directives called for the
burning of books by heretics. Indeed, talmudic sages even boasted at times
about burning such books themselves. Halachic codes did not so instruct, but
rabbinical responsa frequently called for and Jewish history is replete with
examples of Jews burning Jewish books. Together with burial of books in
cemeteries, this reached a high point in the eighteenth century. Although
minimized in many apologetic histories of Jews, especially in works written in
English, the burning and the burial in cemeteries of books in the history of
Judaism was far more intense than in the histories of either Christianity or
Islam.
Traditional
Judaism also forbade independent thoughts. In his Laws of Idolatry,
chapter 2, rule 3, Maimonides, after explaining that a Jew should not think
about idolatry, continued:
And
it is not only forbidden to think about idolatry but [about] any thought that
may cause a Jew to doubt one principle of the Jewish religion. [The Jew] is
warned not to bring it to his consciousness. We shall not think in that
direction, and we shall not allow ourselves to be drawn into meditations of the
heart, because human understanding is limited, and not every opinion is
directed to the real truth. If a Jew, therefore, allows himself to follow his
[independent] thoughts, he will surely destroy the world because of
insufficient understanding. How? He may sometimes be seduced to idolatry and
sometimes think about the uniqueness of the Lord, sometimes that he exists and
other times that he does not; [he may] investigate what is above [in the sky]
and what is below [under earth], what is before [the world was created] and
what is after [the end of the world]. He may think about whether or not
prophecy is true; he may think about whether or not the Torah was given by God.
Because such people do not know the [true] logic to be used in order to reach
the real truth, they become heretics. It is about that issue that the Torah
warned us. As it is written: “And that you seek not after your own heart and
after your own eyes that you are using to prostitute yourselves” (Numbers
16:39). [This verse is included in the third passage of “Kry’at Sh’ma,” one of
the most sacred Jewish prayers that is said daily in the morning and in the
evening.] This means that every Jew is forbidden to allow himself to follow his
own insufficient knowledge and to imagine that his own thoughts are capable of
reaching the truth. The sages have said: “after your own heart” means heresy;
“after your own eyes” means prostitution. This prohibition, even though the sin
causes a Jew to lose paradise, does not carry the penalty of flogging [because
flogging is inflicted only in cases of deeds].
Such
prohibitions of any independent thinking (which some Haredim apply to some of
Maimonides’ own writings) were common in post-talmudic Judaism and have
persisted to date in part of Orthodox Judaism. Orthodox Judaism totally
prohibited independent thinking about issues discussed freely by St Augustine
regardless of whatever answers he put forward. Indeed, such issues are almost
never mentioned today by Orthodox Jewish scholars.4 Many theological
problems freely discussed by Thomas Aquinas5 were and remain
unthinkable in traditional Judaism. (Traditional Judaism today includes not
only Orthodox but much of Conservative Judaism as well.) Amazingly, many
people, especially in English-speaking countries, still attribute to
post-talmudic Judaism the intellectual distinction achieved in numerous
countries by many Jews in the past 150 years. This delusion has contributed to
the spread of fundamentalist Judaism. In reality, the contrary has been the case.
Most of the Jews who attained intellectual distinction were influenced by
rebellion against this type of totalitarian system; they negated some of its
major tenets.
In
addition to advocating that heretics be killed, whenever possible, by employing
one method or another, traditional Judaism directed that heretics while still
alive should under all possible circumstances be treated in a worse manner
than non-Jews or Jews who converted to another religion. One socially important
example of such directed treatment is the burial of the heretic’s corpse,
together with the ceremonies to be observed by the family after the burial.
Whereas traditional Judaism permits and sometimes even obliges Jews to bury
most Jewish sinners, it strictly prohibits Jews to bury Jewish heretics and/or
a few types of Jewish sinners. Tractate Trumot of the Palestinian
Talmud, chapter 8, halacha 3, discusses a Jewish butcher in the town of
Tzipori in Galilee who sold nonkosher meat. This butcher fell from a roof and
was killed. Rabbi Hanina Bar Hama, a sage in the early third century ad, encouraged the Jews of the town to
let their dogs eat the corpse. Such behavior was usually not feasible; hence,
later authorities were more moderate. Maimonides and later rabbis were content
with prohibiting the family of the heretic to mourn his death and ordering the
family to rejoice. Maimonides clearly put this in his Laws of Mourning,
chapter 1, rule 10:
All
who separate themselves from public custom [of the Jews], such as those who do
not fulfil commandments and do not honor the holidays or do not frequent
synagogues or houses of study but rather regard themselves free and [behave]
like other nations, and heretics, converts and informers should not be mourned;
when they die, their brothers and all other relatives should put on white
garments, make banquets and rejoice, since those who hate the Lord, blessed be
he, have perished.
Most
Jews rigorously followed this rule of Maimonides until the beginning of Jewish
modernization; some orthodox Jews follow this rule to date.6 In the
small towns of eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, Jews devised another
custom of humiliating burial of heretics and other Jewish sinners. This custom,
often mentioned in the contemporary Hebrew and Yiddish literature, was called
“ass burial.” It was derived from the biblical verse, Jeremiah 22:19, where the
prophet predicts that King Y ohoiakim of Judah “will be buried as an ass.” This
custom had three general components. First, members of the Jewish burial
society, called the Holy Society and consisting of the fiercest zealots of the
town, would first beat the heretic’s corpse. Then the corpse would thereafter
be put on a cart filled with dung and was in that condition paraded through the
town. Finally, the corpse would be buried beyond the fence of the graveyard
without religious rites. The two expressions, “ass burial” and “beyond the
fence” became proverbial terms in Hebrew and Yiddish and are still used to
denote social ostracism. The famous Jewish writer, Peretz Smolenskin (1840-85),
wrote a Hebrew novel, tided Ass Burial, which is still read. In his
novel Smolenskin told the story of a young Jew in a Russian small town who,
because of a petty quarrel with the chief of the Jewish burial society, was
declared a heretic. The Jewish congregation hired an assassin who murdered the
heretic. The heretic was buried in an ass burial. Smolenskin was the father of
the naturalistic style in Hebrew literature. His novels were based upon a close
observation of Jewish life as it was in his time.
Learned
authorities often disagreed on the definition of heretic. Talmudic sages
enumerated several kinds of heretics who were called by different names. The
Talmud emphasized one type of heretic, called “apikoros” apparentiy named after
followers of the Greek philosopher, Epicurus. In Tractate Sanhedrin,
page 99b of the Talmud, the Apikoros were designated as all Jews who were
disrespectful to rabbis. One talmudic sage asserted that a Jew who was
disrespectful to another Jew in the presence of a rabbi was a heretic. Rabbi
Menahem Ha’Meiri, in commenting upon the above passage, said that a Jew who
called a rabbi by his name without using the honorific tide was a heretic. The
prevalent opinion until the twentieth century was that Jews who were disrespectful
to rabbis were not heretics but were only “like heretics.” Real heretics were
those who denied the validity of the Talmud as religious authority. This
definition did not lessen the punishment of heretics and other sinners, when
feasible to employ under emergency laws. This definition lessened the duty,
imposed by the Talmud, of separating many Jews who paid taxes from the
congregation. In the first half of the twentieth century, two famous rabbis,
Rabbi Hazon Ish and Rabbi Kook the elder both ruled that laws regarding
heretics “do not apply because visible miracles do not occur.” To what extent
the Hazon Ish-Kook opinion is followed today is difficult to determine. At this
point in our discussion, nevertheless, the focus is upon pre-modern times.
Our
survey of punishments, inflicted under emergency Jewish laws upon Jewish
heretics and other sinners, begins with pronouncements by the last Jewish
rabbis whose authority was and still is universally acknowledged. These rabbis
were the heads of yeshivot in Iraq until about 1050; they were named “Ge’onim.”
(In the singular each of them bore the name “Ga’on,” which in Hebrew means
“genius.”) The Ge’onim left many responses to questions addressed to them from
all parts of the Jewish world. These questions were concerned with how Jews,
especially Jewish communities, should behave. In his previously mentioned book
(1922), Rabbi Simha Asaf quoted a collection of such responses ordering that a
Jew who violates the sabbath should be flogged and should have his hair shaved
(p. 45). Rabbi Paltoi Ga’on, as noted by Asaf, in ad 858 answered the more difficult question: Should a Jew
who sinned on either the Sabbath or a holiday be flogged on that sacred day if
the danger exists that he may escape before the Sabbath or the holiday ended?
Rabbi Paltoi answered by reminding his questioners that the congregation had a
prison and that the sinner could be imprisoned on the Sabbath or on the holiday
and then flogged afterwards. Rabbi Paltoi, nevertheless, after acknowledging
that the act of flogging violated the Sabbath in certain ways, concluded that
the concern about the Sabbath or holiday violations should not prevent the
flogging of Jewish sinners on the sacred day (Asaf, p. 48). Rabbi Tzemach
Ga’on, who lived after Rabbi Paltoi, was asked what to do with a Jewish priest
who married a divorced woman, which as noted by Asaf is forbidden to priests
(p. 52). Rabbi Tzemach Ga’on expressed the fear that such a sinner, if only
flogged, would go to another place and during synagogue services would
participate in the priest’s blessing by stretching out over the heads of
congregation members his hands with his fingers separated. Rabbi Tzemach Ga’on,
therefore, ordered that the last joints of the priestly sinner’s fingers should
be cut off, thus identifying and making it impossible for the sinner to
participate in the blessing. The last and most famous Ga’on, Rabbi Ha’i, who
died in 1042, devoted a long response, cited by Asaf, to an explanation of how
Jewish sinners were flogged during his time; he detailed, moreover, how they
were specifically flogged by his court. He emphasized that the whip was made of
hemp and for the worst sinners was especially thick. The sinner was bound
“right hand to the right foot and left hand to the left foot.” The one who
flogged him stood near his head. The ceremony began with a reading of the
appropriate biblical verses. After the flogging, the sinner stood naked with
his dress in his hand and acknowledged the justice of his sentence. Finally,
the court asked God to have mercy on him. In other responsa, cited by Asaf on
pages 56 and 57, Rabbi Ha’i specified the sins for which Jews should be
flogged. Cutting one’s hair on the minor holidays, putting on shoes during the
mourning periods and violating the Sabbath were three examples. Asaf pointed
out further on pages 58 and 59 that other responsa in the eleventh century
provided proofs that the Jews of Egypt flogged sinners in front of the doors of
synagogues and that the rabbis of Italy, because of the general political chaos
and much greater Jewish autonomy, could and did execute sinners. Asaf
specifically recorded the numerous death sentences inflicted by the Babylonian
rabbi, Abu Aharon, who immigrated to Italy; for example, Rabbi Abu Aharon
sentenced an adulterer to be strangled and a man who committed incest with his
mother-in-law to be burned. Asaf illustrated the wide parameters of flogging by
reporting that another unnamed Italian rabbi stipulated that if a Jew living in
a courtyard area with other Jews sold his flat to a non-Jew, he should be
flogged.
In
Spain, whether under Muslim or Christian rule, Jewish autonomy and the
consequent punishment of Jewish sinners were most developed and punishments
were recorded in the largest number of cases. On page 62, Asaf quoted Rabbi
Samuel the Prince,7 who died in 1046: “Spanish Jews were always free
of heresy, except in a few villages near the Christian land where suspicion
exists of some heretics being harbored in secret. Our predecessors have flogged
a part of [±ose] Jews who deserved to be flogged, and they have died from
flogging.” Rabbi Ha’i, as previously mentioned, insisted that the Jew being
flogged must acknowledge the justice of his sentence and repent. Refusal to
repent, Ha’i and many other rabbinical authorities made clear, compelled more
flogging even until death. Spain may have become “free of heresy” at least
partially because previous heretics were flogged to death. Rabbi Samuel’s boast
was confirmed to some extent, according to Asaf on page 63, by the story of the
Jewish philosopher and historian, Rabbi Avraham Ibn Daud who, in his book Shalshelet
Ha’kabalah (Chain of Tradition), told how the Karaites, when they began to
spread, were humiliated and expelled from all the towns of Castile except for
one.8 Somewhat later, after Rabbi Daud’s death, Maimonides moderated
the flogging punishment. In his commentary on the Mishnah, Tractate Khulin, quoted
by Asaf on page 64, Maimonides maintained that Jews who committed sins which
would normally result in the death penalty should “now only be flogged and
excommunicated but their excommunication should never be removed.”
The
Jewish sins punished with the greatest cruelty, apart from informing which will
be separately discussed below, were acts of disobedience to the will of and/or
physical attacks upon rabbis. Such acts were not rare occurrences. Asaf on page
67 quoted the late thirteenth-century responsa of Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet, the
famous rabbi of Barcelona. Rabbi ben Aderet endeavored to show that any rabbi
can “together with the elders” sentence Jews who oppose the rabbi’s authority
and are “notorious for their wickedness”, not only to flogging but to the more
severe punishments of having their hands or feet cut off or of being killed.
Many other rabbinic responsa dealt in detail with such severe punishments. Asaf
reported on page 72 that the previously mentioned Rabenu Asher was angry with
Rabbi Moshe of Valencia for ruling against a usual custom and thus Asher’s own
authority in a matter of sabbath observance. From Toledo, Asher wrote to Rabbi
Yitzhak of Valencia and ordered him to condemn the offending Rabbi Moshe to
death unless he (Rabbi Moshe) did not repent after being fined and
excommunicated. Rabenu Asher also dealt with the financial aspect of inflicting
the death penalty. In his responsa to “the holy community of Avila,” as
reported by Asaf on page 74, the execution of the wicked was compared to the
building of city walls; executions supposedly defended the purity of Judaism
just as the walls defended their physical safety. Thus, just as every Jew could
be compelled to pay taxes for the upkeep of the walls, every Jew could be
compelled to pay for the execution of the wicked Jews.
Our
final example from Spain is a summary of the responsa of Rabbi Yehuda, the son
of Rabenu Asher. This responsa, quoted by Asaf on page 77, is important not
only because it documents the use of violence but also because it describes the
normal procedure in emergency cases of halachic decision making in cases brought
before the rabbinical court. The elaborate display of reasoning in Jewish
emergency law, differing totally from Halacha, is well illustrated in this
responsa.
A
cornerstone of the normal halachic procedure, based upon the Bible and employed
in all cases brought before the rabbinical court, is that, in the absence of
written documents that are used only in civil cases, every judgment must be
based upon the testimony of two or more male Jewish witnesses. The testimony of
each of the two witnesses must be exactly the same as determined in direct
interrogation. In the illustrative example presented in his responsa, Rabbi
Yehuda cited a case of a Jew who beat another Jew so severely that, as a
consequence of this, the latter died. Two witnesses, Moshe and Avraham (family
names not given), saw the beating. Two other witnesses, Yoseph and Yitzhak, saw
only the beginning of the beating; they then left and thereafter returned to
see the beaten man lying on the ground with blood pouring from his head. After
giving thanks to God for “inspiring the kings of the earth to give Jews the
power to judge [their offenders] as we are judging now,” Rabbi Yehuda explained
how the principles of current Jewish law that are not all according to Halacha
have to be applied in the case under consideration. Rabbi Yehuda, as quoted by
Asaf, decided:
If
only the testimony of Moshe and Avraham is found to be valid, the offender
should be executed. If only one of their testimonies is found to be valid
together with finding the testimony of either Yoseph or Yitzhak to be valid,
the offender’s hands should be cut off. If the testimony of either Moshe or
Avraham is found to be valid but the testimony of both Yoseph and Yitzhak is
found to be invalid, the offender’s right hand should be cut off. If the
testimony of both Moshe and Avraham is found to be invalid but the testimony of
both Yoseph and Yitzhak is found to be valid, the offender’s left hand should
be cut off. If all the testimonies are found to be invalid, the offender should
be exiled from the city because the fact that he killed [the victim] became
notorious.
In
other European countries, Jewish autonomy and thus its consequences were less
powerful than in Spain. Perhaps this was because the other states, in spite of
their feudal nature, were stronger than the Spanish kingdoms before the latter
part of the fifteenth century. In England, where royal power was especially
strong and where Jews settled only after England’s conquest by William I, there
were, so far as we know, no cases of rabbis’ flogging or otherwise punishing
Jews for religious offenses. In continental Europe, where Jewish autonomy
depended more on the feudal lords than on the king or emperor, however, there
were significant numbers of cases. In fourteenth-century Germany, for example,
the famous rabbi, Yosef Weil, according to Asaf on page 102, recorded in his
book of responsa that Rabbi Shimon from Braunschweig asked him whether it was
permitted to put out the eyes of a Jew who violated the Sabbath and Yom Kippur
(the Day of Atonement). Rabbi Weil answered that it was permitted and referred
to talmudic evidence for his permission. In another case, reported by Asaf on
page 104, the famous Rabenu Tam who lived in northern France in the twelfth
century ordered that in the case of a Jew who beat another Jew the punishment
should be the cutting off of the offender’s hand rather than the usual
punishment of flogging. Asaf recorded on page 103 that another rabbi had seen
his father inflicting the punishment of flogging. Flogging was used in general
in Germany as a punishment for lesser religious sins; the cutting of limbs was
rare. The use of flogging even diminished with the passage of time; fines,
excommunications and obligatory fasts were used by German Jews as almost the only
punishments.
In
the countries east of Germany, especially in Poland and after 1569 in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth where Jewish autonomy was extensive, punishments
inflicted by rabbis almost equalled those inflicted in Spain. Every Jewish
community had its own prison and stocks, called “kuneh” in Yiddish, that were
placed in the entrances to major synagogues. The stocks consisted of iron bars
to secure the sinner’s arms, compelling him to stand facing entering members of
the congregation who would spit at him, slap his face and/or take other
physical action against him. Flogging was freely practiced in the synagogue,
usually during the reading of the law in the midst of the morning prayer. Asaf
reported on page 122 that the famous sixteenth-century rabbi, Shlomo Luria,
assured his questioners that a well-flogged sinner would not sin again and that
the number of stripes in flogging should be determined by the court according
to what is decided as fitting the sin. In serious cases the inflicted penalties
were mutilation and death. A generation after Rabbi Shlomo Luria, another
famous rabbi, Maharam (our teacher Rabbi Meir) of Lublin, according to Asaf on
page 123, wrote about a case of a Jewish murderer caught by Polish authorities.
Maharam insisted that such an offender should be executed by the rabbinical or
Polish authorities. Maharam warned the rabbis against substituting mutilation
for execution:
I
recall what occurred when I was young, in the time of Rabbi Shekhna R.I.P. In
his time there was a most wicked Jew; the great rabbi permitted [the community]
to put out his eyes and cut off his tongue. After having this done to him, he
converted to Christianity, married a non-Jewish woman and had children. He and
his [family members] were always enemies of the Jews.
In
the seventeenth century, mutilation as a punishment, instead of death or
flogging, tended to disappear among Jews of the Polish- Lithuanian
Commonwealth. Expulsion from the town appeared as a new punishment. The
autonomous Jewish community of a given town could determine which Jews would
reside in the town. The privilege of residence was usually granted
automatically only to the children of the old residents, their wives and the
rabbis. All other Jews had to apply to the community authorities and receive,
often after a payment and/or for a limited time, their residence rights. One of
the cruellest punishments that a Jewish congregation could inflict, therefore,
was expulsion, because an expelled Jew would have great difficulty acquiring
residence rights elsewhere. This punishment, nevertheless, was increasingly
employed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. When Russia, Prussia and
Austria thereafter divided Poland, these three conquering powers limited the
autonomy of Jewish communities and forbade them to expel their members from
towns. The expulsions in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were often
immediate, regardless of the time of year, and were many times used as a weapon
in religious disputes, such as the quarrel between the Hassids and their
opponents, the Mitnagdim. The Union of Jewish Congregations in Lithuania,
according to Asaf on page 127, ordered immediate expulsion from the town in
addition to physical and financial punishment for any Jew who “behaved with
contempt toward the rabbi.” In another rule, cited by Asaf on pages 127 and
128, the Union ordered congregations to expel Jews who had previously been
expelled from another town. The expelled Jews were usually compelled to sign a
document, similar to the one quoted by Asaf on page 132, from the city of
Krakow, stating that if they stay in the town for even one night they must
accept any punishment imposed upon them by the community leaders, including
“mutilation of ear or nose or of other places.” In another case, cited by Asaf,
a young Jew, who was expelled from Krakow for having taken part in a theft
committed in the house of a notable, was sentenced to be flogged in front of
the door to the synagogue; the youth additionally had to sign a declaration
that if found again in Krakow he knew that “his two ears would be cut off, in
addition [to his receiving] other punishments.” The kuneh or stock was also
used in this period as punishment especially for heretics but also for sinners
who committed minor offences. In 1772, when the leaders of the Jewish community
of Vilna began their struggle against the Hassidic movement, they first
punished the Hassids in their town. Before the eve of the Sabbath prayer all
Hassidic writings were burned near the kuneh so that the congregation members
would see the ashes when they came to the synagogue. Before the burning the
chief Hassid of Vilna, Meir Issar, was flogged privately in the “hall of the
community.” Following the flogging, Issar had to confess his sin, strictly
following the formula prepared by the rabbinic court, in the synagogue during
morning Sabbath prayers. He was then imprisoned for one week in the castle of
Vilna. The chief rabbinic authority at that time, Haga’on Rabbi Eliyahu of
Vilna, additionally wanted to put Issar in the kuneh, but the community
leaders, apparently because Issar’s family was important, refused. This story,
mentioned by Asaf on page 139, was included in the detailed, Hebrew-language
histories of this period.9
The
story of Meir Issar is a typical example of persecution by Jewish authorities
in eastern Europe of a Jewish religious dissident at the end of the eighteenth
century. Fanaticism, religious disputes interposed with excommunications,
burning of or sometimes burial in cemeteries of books and popular riots against
heretics and dissenters characterized many European Jewish communities
throughout most of the eighteenth century, with the exception of those in
England and Holland. Towards the end of the century the zealotry decreased,
first in Germany and Italy and then in the larger towns of eastern Europe; it
continued during much of the nineteenth century among the bulk of the Jewish
population in eastern Europe who lived in smaller towns. The great majority of
Jewish immigrants to the United States, Britain and a few other places in the
nineteenth century, having come from areas in which religious persecution of
Jews by other Jews had been widely practiced for a long time, suddenly arrived
in countries in which such persecution could not, at least not to nearly the
same extent, be carried out.10 The wish of many eighteenth-century
Jews to persecute was seemingly greater than their actual ability to do so. An
incident in the history of the Frankist heresy, which erupted in Poland in 1756
and continued for some years thereafter, provides a good example. When leaders
of the autonomous Jewish community in Poland learned of this heresy, one of
them, Rabbi Baruch from Greece, wrote a long letter to his friend in Germany
and one of the greatest rabbis of that generation, Rabbi Ya’akov Emden.11
In his letter Rabbi Baruch described the proceedings and aims of the main
council of Jewish autonomy held in September, 1756, in Konstantinov. The
council was called the ‘committee of four lands’, a name which referred to the
four main Polish provinces. Rabbi Baruch reported details of the heresy and
wrote that the committee of four lands decided “to bring the matter before the
great Lord who rules over their [the Christian] faith, the Pope in Rome” and to
struggle against the heresy. Rabbi Baruch wrote further that the committee
asked “the help of [Polish] bishops so that the cursed ones would be condemned
to be burned at the stake.” Meir Balaban, the distinguished historian of Polish
Jewry, remarked that the wish to see hundreds of “the cursed ones” burned at
the stake by the Christian authorities, who at that very time were persecuting
Polish Jews, indicated the depth of the hatred of the heretics felt by the
Jewish leadership.12 The committee’s attempt failed. Rabbi Baruch
went so far as to try to involve his patron, the powerful Minister Bruhl who
was the favorite of the Polish King August III in this matter. Rabbi Baruch
wanted Bruhl to arrange an interview for him with the papal nuncio in Warsaw.
The Pope of that time period, Benedict XVIII, would almost certainly not have
agreed to have a mass burning, but the heretics anyway obtained the help of
powerful bishops and magnates and even of Countess Bruhl, the wife of the
minister. The result was that the Jewish leaders could not, as they wanted to,
pursue the persecution.
It
may be instructive to compare the Frankist heresy incident with what Baruch
Spinoza had to endure in Holland about a hundred years earlier. Because of the
relatively tolerant and more modem Dutch regime, the Jewish community of
Amsterdam could only excommunicate Spinoza. As much as members of that
community desired to do so, they could not flog or kill Spinoza; they could not
compel Spinoza to make public confession in the synagogue that he had sinned in
his commentaries and statements about Judaism. The Jewish community could only
excommunicate Spinoza and forbid him from attending the synagogue. A few years
before Spinoza’s excommunication, the Jewish community of Amsterdam
excommunicated Uriel D’Acusta for similar reasons. D’Acusta, however, was not
endowed with Spinoza’s firmness and could not stand his exclusion from the
synagogue and from Jewish community life. D’Acusta asked the rabbis to
reinstate him. The rabbis sentenced him not only to the usual confession but
also to lie at the synagogue entrance so that congregation members could
trample on him before praying to God. D’Acusta accepted the conditions and,
after both confessing and being trampled upon, was duly forgiven. He, however,
again came thereafter to have heretical views. Fearing another excommunication
and something even worse than being trampled underfoot as a recurrent sinner,
he committed suicide. A comparison between the fates of Spinoza and D’Acusta
suggests two lessons for contemporary Jews who do not wish to submit to the
tyranny often prevalent in Jewish orthodoxy: 1) An intellectual compromise with
Jewish orthodoxy is no more possible than is an intellectual compromise with
any other totalitarian system. 2) An apologetic approach to the Jewish past,
which is in reality false beautification and falsification of one part of
Jewish history and is intended to remove the horrors and persecutions that Jews
suffered at the hands of their own authorities and rabbis, only increases the dangers
of a developing Jewish “Khomeinism.” In Israel such compromise increases the
danger of a Jewish state that could become dominated by rabbis who will not
hesitate to punish other Jews as did their revered predecessors when not
prevented from doing so by an outside power.
We
have seen that formal and legal infliction of severe punishments depended upon
the amount of Jewish autonomy that existed in specific places at specific
times. Russia, Prussia and Austria, as previously noted, after their conquest
of Poland, abolished Jewish autonomy and subjected Jews to the ordinary
criminal law of their countries. As bad as that criminal law was, it was on
balance better and more humane than the Jewish law as applied by the rabbis.13
Jewish communities that were suddenly deprived of their power to persecute
heretics found it difficult to accustom themselves to a new situation. The
relatively lax police supervision that existed in Tsarist Russia during most of
the nineteenth century allowed Jewish authorities to persecute religious
innovators through riots, which were similar to what were called “pogroms” when
committed by non-Jews against Jews. Until 1881 in Russia, the number of riots
by Jews against other Jews probably exceeded the number of pogroms by non-Jews
against Jews. The previously persecuted Hassids were the major and worst
persecutors; they were especially active against the emerging Hebrew press of
that time that appeared before the rise of the Yiddish press. The Hebrew press
antagonized the Hassids mainly by reporting and protesting against the
religious persecution by rabbis and their followers. In order to avert
persecution by Jewish rioters, most of the Hebrew papers were printed and
issued in St. Petersburg or behind the Prussian border, where the police were
strong and the small Jewish communities mostly consisted of educated
individuals.
The
history of Jews in Russia until 1881 includes a great deal of persecution of
Jews by Jews. The two following typical examples, one major and one minor, are
illustrative: The major example is taken from the long article by David Asaf,14
published in Zion (1994, number 4), the quarterly journal of the Israeli
Historical Association. Asaf described the riot in Uman in the Ukraine, where
one of the more famous Hassidic rabbis, Nahman of Braslaw, was buried and where
his followers who came on pilgrimage to his tomb on the Jewish New Year were
attacked and beaten year after year for decades by other Hassids. The annual
beatings finally culminated in 1863 in an especially nasty attack by a
coalition of Hassidic sects that was described by a contemporary Jewish writer
in the Hebrew press of that time. The writer of the article noted the
similarity between this Hassidic “pogrom” and those committed by the antiSemites.
He described how Hassids smashed the holy cupboard (Aron Ha’kodesh in Hebrew)
where the scrolls of law were stored. The attacking Hassids considered the
place to be heretical in and of itself; the alleged heretics were beaten and
stoned; when they fainted, they were attacked again. The attackers used the
occasion to beat the modernized Jews of the place as well, including women who
wore what was considered to be immodest clothing. Fearful of other attacks, the
Breslaw Hassids hired a company of Russian soldiers to defend themselves from
other Hassids. The following year the collapse of the Hassidic coalition and
another Jewish attack upon Jews in the town of Rzhishchev (south of Kiev) gave
the Breslaw Hassids a temporary respite. The Rzhishchev riot erupted when a
holy rabbi from another place had the temerity to visit Rzhishchev, where
another holy rabbi resided, to collect money. As Asaf wrote in his article: “Of
course, the Hassids of the local holy rabbi cursed and stoned the invader and
he was almost killed.” Many of the Hassids were wounded. The two holy rabbis
then proclaimed that ritual slaughterers of each side were not kosher; each
rabbi also proclaimed that the prayers of the other side were “an abomination
to God.” Scuffles ensured. The holy rabbi of Rzhishchev was denounced by his
colleague as a forger of banknotes. A police investigation followed. Although
the Breslaw Hassids attained a respite, they were, as Asaf showed, attacked
periodically by other Hassids until 1914.
A
minor example occurred in the town of Vyshegrad in 1886 and was recorded in the
contemporary Hebrew press. Quoting research of new Jewish historians, Rosen in
his previously cited article wrote:
Hassids
of Vyshegrad were opposed to the new cantor [of the synagogue] because his clothes
are clean and he puts rubber shoes over his ordinary shoes. They therefore
rioted in the synagogue against this cantor and beat their opponents until
blood flowed. The police came quickly to separate the two sides. The rabbi who
incited the riot was then arrested by soldiers and brought to the government
house to explain the riot. The actual rioters will be criminally prosecuted.
After
1881 the situation in Russia began to change and Jewish attacks upon Jews
decreased for several apparent reasons. First, in 1881 the government
instigated Russian and Ukrainian pogroms began, and mass emigration of Jews
from Russia began. In addition police supervision was tightened under the
regime of Alexander III, who ascended to the throne after revolutionaries assassinated
his father, Alexander II. Attacks by Jews against Jews, although diminished,
nevertheless continued in Russia until 1914.
In
Polish areas ruled by Austrian police, supervision was stronger and therefore
direct attacks by Jews against other Jews apparently ceased. Orthodox Jews
employed some secret forms of religious persecution against modem Jews, who
called themselves “maskilim” (enlightened). In extreme cases, Jewish servants
of the maskilim were suborned to kill their employers or other methods of
assassination were employed. In his article Rosen related:
Because
of the approaching anniversary of Rabin’s assassination, Professor Ze’ev Gris
of the department of Jewish thought at Ben-Gurion University [in Be’er Sheva]
sent us a story about what happened in Lemberg (now Lviv) in the nineteenth
century. [In 1848 Lemberg was part of Austria.] A rabbi, named Avraham Cohen
was assassinated by Jews for religious reasons. This was part of a
confrontation between enlightened Jews, although relatively moderate since they
kept the commandments, and the fanatical Hassids. An article about this was
once published by the Hebrew press in Palestine in Davar one year after
[the Labor leader] Arlozorov [was assassinated]. [The article] was severely
attacked by the right wing Hebrew press of that time.
Rosen
also quoted Professor Bartal who believed the attacks of the "Hassids in
the general confrontation to be the forerunner of the massacre committed by
Baruch Goldstein. Bartal commented further that the maskilim usually only
attacked the Hassids or other orthodox religious Jews by employing satire.15
Only if provoked beyond endurance, Bartal asserted, would the maskilim attack
or defend themselves by using physical violence.
Rosen’s
account of the poisoning assassination of Rabbi Cohen, as taken from what
Professor Gris wrote, is worth relating:
In
Lemberg in the 1840s hundreds of maskilim, after looking for a rabbi to head
their congregation, found Rabbi Avraham Cohen, who was the rabbi in the small
Austrian town of Hohenmass. Avraham Cohen was bom in Bohemia to a poor Jewish
peddler, but he became highly educated. After finishing his Yeshiva studies and
receiving the authorization to become a rabbi, he went to study at and earned a
degree from Prague University. The historian, Dr Ze’ev Aharon Eshkoli, who
researched the story of Rabbi Cohen, published his account in 1934; he wrote
that Cohen was a moderate but as “one educated in the German style of those
times he was considered a modernist.” In 1844, Cohen was appointed rabbi of the
Lemberg congregation of maskilim; two years later he was the rabbi of all
maskilim in the district of Lemberg. In this role he tried to introduce changes
in Jewish life, but he soon encountered furious opposition of “the religious
fanatics,” as Eshkoli defined them. Cohen, for example, initiated the opening
of Jewish schools that would serve as alternates to yeshivot, and he attempted
to abolish the tests of Jewish religious subjects that Orthodox rabbis imposed
upon all young Jewish couples at their betrothal. Cohen’s most important
initiative, according to Eshkoli, was his attempt to abolish the taxes on
kosher meat and sabbath candles, which Lemberg Jews paid to [Austrian]
authorities. These taxes were burdensome for poor Jews but were sources of
income for many Orthodox notables. The method [of taxation] was as follows: A
rich Jew for a certain lump sum obtained from the authorities the right to
impose the tax on the Jews, from whom he took a much greater sum supposedly for
his efforts. Five tax gatherers, all very pious, headed the opposition to Cohen.
Their leader was Rabbi Hertz Berenstein, who came from a noted rabbinical
family; the second was Rabbi Tzvi Orenstein, the son of the former Orthodox
rabbi of Lemberg. In 1846, Cohen sent a memorandum to the emperor [of Austria]
pointing out the injustice involved in the gathering of those taxes. Because of
his connection with the authorities, he was twice invited to talk with the
emperor. The five tax gatherers also sent a memorandum pointing out that the
tax gathering provides a livelihood for thousands of Jewish families. The
Austrian authorities, nevertheless, accepted Cohen’s request and abolished
those taxes in March, 1848.
The
abolition of those taxes may not primarily have been due to Cohen’s request.
The 1848 revolution, which began in Vienna as a reaction against Hapsburg
absolutism, probably prompted the tax abolition. Austrian liberals viewed those
taxes as discriminatory and opposed them; they were supported by the
enlightened Jews. Orthodox Jews, especially their rabbis, were the firm allies
of absolutism and reaction, not only in Austria but throughout Europe and the
Middle East. Rosen continued his story about Rabbi Cohen’s misfortune:
Whether
for reasons of ideological opposition to Cohen or for economic reasons or for
both, the five Jewish notables in 1848 began a total struggle against Rabbi
Avraham Cohen. First, they put placards in the synagogues that incited Jews to
spit in his face and stone him. When the persecution increased, Cohen’s friends
asked him to agree to his being guarded all the time; he refused, saying that
he did not believe that Jews would kill him. The next step involved placards
saying plainly that the “law of pursuer” [to be explained below] applies to
Rabbi Cohen. [One placard said], for example: “He is one of those Jewish
sinners for which the Talmud says their blood is permitted” (that is, every Jew
can and should kill them). Another placard asked: “Will a Jew be found who will
liberate us from the rabbi who destroys his congregation?” The fanatics first
decided that the assassination would take place during Purim in 1848; they even
cast lots to determine who would have the honor of murdering the rabbi, but
their plans went awry. A month later during Passover of 1848 a crowd of Jews
stoned Rabbi Cohen’s home; only a large number of policemen saved him. On
September 6, 1848, however, Avraham Bar-Pilpel, a Jewish assassin, successfully
entered the rabbi’s home unseen, went to the kitchen and put arsenic poison in
the pot of soup that was cooking. Shortly thereafter, Rabbi Cohen and his
family ate the soup; Rabbi Cohen and his little daughter died. The Hassids and
their leaders did not attend the funeral; they celebrated. No Orthodox rabbi,
moreover, uttered one word of condemnation, neither of murderous incitement before
the murder nor of the murder itself. Many nationalistic Jews who were not
Orthodox shared in being silent. The Jewish historian Graetz, author of the
first history of the Jews, omitted this story from his history, which, by the
way, [was published] later. Orthodox Jews took the murdered rabbi’s corpse from
the section of the notables of the cemetery and buried it in another section.
Professor Ze’ev Gris says: “My conclusion is, and I am sorry for it, that there
is nothing new in Judaism.” The de-legitimization, incitement, writing on the
wall and especially the silence of the rabbinical leadership of Galicia of
those times - everything was exactly the same as it was before the
assassination of Rabin.
Was
the murder of Rabbi Avraham Cohen an exceptional case? In December, 1838, the
governor of southwestern Russia, General Dimitri Gabrielovitch Bibikov, issued
a circular to district governors under his authority. He asked them to look
carefully into what was happening in the synagogues and in Jewish houses of
study. “In those places,” he wrote, “Very often something happens that leaves
dead Jews in its wake. Such crimes are especially grave since they occur in
places dedicated to prayer and study of religious principles. They also are
characteristic of autonomous judgment by the rabbinical courts, executed by
their false views about extermination of‘informers’ who reveal crimes of their
co-religionists. The rabbis often succeed in obscuring the [official]
investigation to such an extent that not only the identity of the assassins but
even the identity of the victim remain unclear.”
Many
Israeli new historians believe that the forms of violence committed against
both heretics and informers are intimately connected.
Two
additional halachic laws are of special importance both generally and
specifically when related to the Rabin assassination. These two laws, employed
since talmudic times to kill Jews, were invoked by the assassin, Yigal Amir, as
his justification for killing Prime Minister Rabin and are still emphasized by
Jews who approved or have barely condemned that assassination. These are the
“law of the pursuer” (din rodef) and the “law of the informer” (din moser).16
The first law commands every Jew to kill or to wound severely any Jew who is
perceived as intending to kill another Jew. According to halachic commentaries,
it is not necessary to see such a person pursuing a Jewish victim. It is enough
if rabbinic authorities, or even competent scholars, announce that the law of
the pursuer applies to such a person. The second law commands every Jew to kill
or wound severely any Jew who, without a decision of a competent rabbinical
authority, has informed non-Jews, especially non-Jewish authorities, about
Jewish affairs or who has given them information about Jewish property or who
has delivered Jewish persons or property to their rule or authority. Competent
religious authorities are empowered to do, and at times have done, those things
forbidden to other Jews in the second law. During the long period of incitement
preceding the Rabin assassination, many Haredi and messianic writers applied
these laws to Rabin and other Israeli leaders. The religious insiders based
themselves on later developments in Halacha that came to include other
categories of Jews who were defined as “those to whom the law of the pursuer”
applied. Every Jew had a religious duty to kill those Jews who were so
included. Historically, Jews in the diaspora followed this law whenever
possible, until at least the advent of the modern state. In the Tsarist Empire
Jews followed this law until well into the nineteenth century.
The
land of Israel has been and still is considered by all religious Jews as being
the exclusive property of the Jews. Granting Palestinians authority over any
part of this land could be interpreted as informing. Some religious Jews
interpreted the relations that developed between Rabin and the Palestinian
Authority as causing harm to the Jewish settlers. In this sense, Rabin had
informed. Influential rabbis, such as the Gush Emunin leader, Rabbi Moshe
Levinger, publicly denounced as informers Rabin, some Labor and Meretz
ministers and some Knesset members. Professor Asa Kasher of Tel-Aviv
University, a widely respected person in Israel, tried to enlighten the public
by writing a letter to the editor of Haaretz about the exact meaning of
the term employed by Levinger and about the danger of assassination implied
therein. His warnings were disregarded by everyone, including Rabin and the
editors of Haaretz. Shabak, the branch of the Israeli secret police
responsible for domestic affairs and the body responsible for guarding Rabin,
also ignored the dangers implicit in a possible, and obviously probable,
application to Rabin of the law of the informer. Shabak insisted until the
actual happening that the danger of murder came only from Muslim extremists.
Interestingly, by the end of August 1998, the Israeli media was filled with
Shabak’s warnings that Jewish religious fanatics intended to assassinate
Netanyahu, Defense Minister Mordechai and other ministers because of their
agreement in principle to Israeli withdrawal from an additional 13 per cent of
the West Bank. These warnings were based upon the same fundamentalist logic
that led to the assassination of Rabin; they indicated some of the danger posed
by Jewish fundamentalism.
Rabin’s
murder followed logically from the religious premises of the 1984 Jewish
underground. Members of the underground were then apprehended planting bombs
under Arab buses near Jerusalem on a Friday. The bombs had timing devices so
that they would explode after the Sabbath eve had commenced when under Jewish
religious law, travel on a bus was prohibited and sinful. At that time, before
the Intifada, many Israeli Jews rode in Arab buses. The only category of people
not likely to use these buses when the bombs were due to explode were religious
Jews. The pious members of the Jewish underground sought prior rabbinical
approval for all their actions. Peres, Rabin and Shamir, acting together in
accordance with the agreement that the national unity government then in power
had devised, ordered the police to stop investigating the extremist rabbis. Not
one rabbi opposed the religious reasoning that led to the planting of these
bombs. The conclusion is inescapable that some rabbis approved and others did
not oppose wanton killing of non-religious Jews, presumably because of their
heretical opinions. Yediot Ahronot in its November 16, 1995, issue
alleged that Rabbi Nahum Rabinowitz proposed the planting of mines and explosive
devices around settlements threatened with evacuation by the Israeli army. This
proposal followed the same line of reasoning. When asked about the danger
inherent to lives of Jewish soldiers in his proposal, Rabbi Rabinowitz
answered: “If they obey the order to remove a Jewish settlement, then they are
wicked Jews” and as such, he implied, they deserve death. This should be seen
within the context of the twofold hatred of non-Jews and secular Jews that
settlement rabbis had preached for some time.
The
reason for the willful ignorance of this danger, shared by many Israeli Jews,
including Rabin himself, was in our view Jewish chauvinism, which is so
prevalent among Jews. The chauvinists falsify the history of their nation in
order to make it appear better than it really was. They also falsify the
current situation by claiming that their nation is the best. This claim, often
made by too many Jews, is especially dangerous when reinforced by a combination
of religious fanaticism and willful ignorance. Jewish chauvinism is especially
virulent, because the identification between Jewish religion and Jewish
nationality has prevailed for so long and still prevails among many Jews. It
should not be forgotten that democracy and the rule of law were brought into
Judaism from the outside. Before the advent of the modem state, Jewish
communities were mostly ruled by rabbis who employed arbitrary and cruel
methods as bad as those employed by totalitarian regimes. The dearest wish of
the current Jewish fundamentalists is to restore this state of affairs.
The
information in the Talmud itself about killing and punishing Jewish informers
is scanty and is anecdotal in nature. Fear of Roman and Sassanid authorities
was at least partially responsible for this. The same situation existed during
the time of the Ge’onim of Iraq, who lived from about ad 750 to 1050 under the strong rule of the Abassid
Caliphate. The responsa of the Ge’onim rarely deal only with informers and
impose at most only religious penalties. Rabbi Paltoi, according to Asaf on
page 49 of The Punishments, stated in the mid-ninth century that an
informer is not only a Jew who actually informs but one who during a quarrel in
public with another Jew says that he will inform. Paltoi, nevertheless, imposed
the mild penalty of designating such a person “wicked” and thus incapable of
giving either an oath or testimony. In Muslim Spain, after the dissolution of
the strong Ummayad Caliphate in the early years of the eleventh century, the
situation was different, and informers were frequently executed. In Alicena, a
city mostly inhabited by Jews in the mid-eleventh century, Rabbi Yosef Halevi
Ibn Ha’migash, a famous scholar, according to Asaf on page 63 of The
Punishments, ordered Jews to stone an informer during the Ne’yila prayer on
Yom Kippur, which that year fell on the Sabbath. Stoning is usually considered
to be a severe violation of both Yom Kippur and the Sabbath. The Ne’yila
prayer, moreover, said only once a year at the close of Yom Kippur, is probably
the most holy prayer in the Jewish calendar. The choice of that particular time
must have been dictated by the need to explain to all Jews that the duty of
killing a Jewish informer is more important than other religious
considerations. Indeed, Maimonides wrote in his authoritative commentary to
the Mishnah, as quoted by Asaf in The Punishments on page 63: “It
happens every day in the west [Spain and North Africa] that informers who
allegedly informed about money of the Jews are killed or are [themselves]
informed against to non-Jews so that they [the Jewish informers] would be
either killed or beaten by them [the non-Jews] or given to the wicked.” This
rule, widely quoted by later authorities, established an important precedent:
informing is permitted, even enjoyed, when done by communal Jewish authorities
in cases that they consider essential. Only individual Jews should be killed if
they inform.17
In
another part of his commentary Maimonides said that the obligation to kill both
informers and heretics is a tradition that is applied in all cities of the
west. After the reconquest of most of Spain by the Christians, except for the
kingdom of Grenada, killings of informers continued and actually intensified in
the kingdoms of Granada, Castile and Aragon. The number of cases recorded in
the Spanish responsa is very large. The following few examples are
representative: Rabenu Asher, as quoted by Asaf in The Punishments on
page 73, answered a question about a Jew who was a notorious informer; the
rabbinical court investigated the case. Rabenu Asher answered that the killing
of informers does not need witnesses but only the expression of opinion by
other Jews that a given person is indeed an informer. “Had we needed to take
testimony of witnesses before the accused,” Rabenu Asher opined, “we would
never be able to convict them [the informers].” (This same reasoning was
employed by the Inquisition, by modem totalitarian states and by the Israeli
conquest regime in the territories occupied since 1967.) Rabenu Asher
immigrated to Spain from northern France when already a famous rabbi; he was
probably familiar with Ashkenazi customs as well as with those of Spanish Jews.
Hence, he could probably comment with knowledge and sophistication that common
practice in the diaspora was to punish with death an informer who informed
three times on the Jews or their money. This was necessary, Rabenu Asher
maintained, so that the number of informers among Jews would not increase.
After reflecting upon all of this a bit more, he concluded that killing the
informer as a punishment was a good deed. It would emphasize that all the
Lord’s enemies should perish.
In
another responsa, cited by Asaf on page 74, Rabenu Asher dealt with a Jew,
called either Avraham or Alot. Some Jews had charged that he had informed
several times. Rabenu Asher insisted for all to know that the informer could be
punished even on Yom Kippur when it falls on the Sabbath; he said that this had
occurred in Germany and France. Rabbi Yehuda, the son of Rabenu Asher, opined,
according to Asaf on page 79 of The Punishments, “[In the case of a Jew
who had been an informer for years] every one who kills him will be rewarded by
God. A Jew who could kill the informer and did not can be punished for all that
the informer did as if he did it himself.” In another case Rabbi Yehuda
explained that the Jews themselves should kill the informers lest non-Jewish
judges would refuse to inflict death penalties for informing. In some cases
Jewish congregations literally bought the life of an informer from the king and
then executed him publicly. This occurred for instance, in Barcelona in April,
1279. Rabbi Shlomo ben Aderet, according to Asaf in The Punishments on
pages 65 to 67, reported this in his responsa. A Jew, named Vidalan de Porta,
who belonged to a noble family, informed to King Pedro II of Aragon, who was
also the Count of Catalonia. After being requested by the Jewish inhabitants of
Catalonia, the king agreed (probably for a payment) to deliver him to the
Jewish authorities of Barcelona, who had previously sentenced de Porta to
death. Jews in Barcelona led him “to the street before the cemetery in
Barcelona, and they opened the veins of both his arms. He bled to death.” Three
years after the execution, brothers of the victim protested against it. Rabbi
Shlomo ben Aderet defended the verdict by noting that such verdicts were often
carried out in Aragon and Castile. He also wrote to Germany seeking and
receiving support for the verdict from the most important rabbi of that time,
Meir of Rothenburg (Maharam). The law of the informer is clearly apparent in an
anonymous Spanish responsa, important because it was quoted by the famous
sixteenth-century Polish rabbi, Shlomo Luria. This is cited by Asaf in The
Punishments on pages 83 to 87 : “He [the informer] is not only killed by
decision of the [rabbinic] court, but any Jew who himself is first to kill him
will be rewarded by God.” This same statement appeared in numerous rabbinical
responsa.
Spanish
Jews killed and/or mutilated informers as late as the fifteenth century. Jews
in other communities, especially in North Africa and Portugal, who were
influenced by Spanish Jews did likewise. Rabbi Shimon, the son of Rabbi
Tzemach, who emigrated from Spain and went to Algiers in the early fifteenth
century wrote in a responsa, as reported by Asaf on page 88 of The
Punishments, about the sacred duty to kill an informer. In another
responsa, according to Asaf on page 89 of The Punishments, Rabbi Shimon
recognized that killing was not always possible. He advised in such cases that
the informer should be branded on his brow or flogged but in any case should
have his name as an informer publicized in all communities.
Information
about the killing of reformers in early Ashkenazi communities in northern
France and Germany is sparse before and non-existent after the thirteenth
century. This was probably due to lesser Jewish autonomy and to the stronger
power of non-Jewish states. Rabenu Asher, as previously mentioned, testified
that in his time the killing of informers in Germany was common. He presented
little evidence. Rabenu Tam, one of the chief rabbi of northern France,
according to Asaf in The Punishments on page 107, reported that an
assembly of French rabbis, held in Troyes, debated the problems “caused by the
criminals of our nation,” who either secretly or openly informed, and by the
Jews who brought their cases against other Jews to non-Jewish judges, thereby
flouting the exclusive authority of rabbinical courts. The only explicit
punishment inflicted upon those criminals was excommunication, which included a
prohibition against speaking to them. The rabbis tempered the prohibition
somewhat by stating that those Jews who feared the anger of the king or the
feudal lords could speak to the excommunicated informers but could not use such
permission as merely an excuse to do so. Some rabbis said that an obscure
ancient rule against informers could in addition be inflected. In the latter
part of the thirteenth century, according to Asaf on page 107 of The
Punishments, Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg wrote that Jews could kill or
mutilate, by cutting out the tongue of an informer, who remained in a state of
permanent excommunication. In only a few known informer cases in Germany in
this time period were killing or mutilation inflicted. One such case concerned
an informer in Strasbourg in the early fourteenth century. As reported by Asaf
on page 108 of The Punishments, Rabbi Samuel Shlitzstat of Strasbourg
sentenced an informer to death. The Jewish community applied to a non-Jewish
judge who ordered the informer to be drowned in the Rhine. Some of the
informer’s friends then appealed to some powerful feudal lords and through them
to the emperor. The friends testified in non-Jewish courts and gave signed
testimony, apparently written in Latin. They testified that Rabbi Shlitzstat
sent a letter to the Jews in which he said the informer should be killed. They
also testified that he collected money from the Strasbourg and nearby Jewish
communities to insure the drowning. The implication here was that the judge who
gave the order to drown was bribed. The result in this case was that Rabbi
Shlitzstat had to hide from the authorities for several years and thereafter
escaped from Germany to go to Iraq. He told the president of the Iraqi Jewish
community, David son of Hodaya, about the inequities of the Jews who had
persecuted him. David son of Hodaya then solemnly excommunicated the offenders
in writing. Rabbi Shlitzstat returned to Germany with the excommunication
order. What happened upon his return, that is, the end of the story, is not
known. From that time rabbinical sources reveal nothing about killings but much
about excommunication of informers.
Detailed
information about Ashkenazi Jews in sixteenth-century Poland is available.
These Polish Jews, as previously indicated, enjoyed extensive autonomy in the
relatively weak Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Because of this, killings and
other punishments of Jewish informers, for which evidence is abundant, were
commonplace. Rabbi Shlomo Luria, as Asaf made clear on page 122 of The
Punishments, stipulated that informers should be killed. He added:
It
is better to kill than to mutilate them, for example by cutting out their
tongues, so as to remove the evil from our midst. It is also not only probable
but nearly certain that a [mutilated] Jew would convert and, in order to take
revenge, would tell incorrect things about Jews. I saw myself that by only mutilating
them [the informers] Jews have greatly suffered.
After
the early seventeenth century, Polish rabbis and the Jewish autonomous
authorities tended to employ more cautious language when writing about killing
Jewish informers. In a case of a certain Jewish informer who had been expelled
from the town of Pinsk and from all Lithuania but who appeared in Lubavitch,
the Committee of Lithuanian Jews in its ruling used the Hebrew phrase “hatarat
dam” (“allowing the shedding of blood”). Asaf on page 128 and 129 of The
Punishments discussed this ruling. This phrase, which became common in such
rulings thereafter, was a bit less direct than an actual order to kill an
informer. In this same case the Committee of Lithuanian Jews, after ruling that
Jews who revealed Jewish secrets should be excommunicated even on Yom Kippur,
stipulated, as reported by Asaf:
In
case of anybody who informs, even about Jewish money, and certainly in cases of
bodily harm, every Jew knows the law and therefore there is no need to make any
rules. We only are warning, we order every Jew who sees or hears such action,
whether it concerns him or not, within three days to tell it to two notables of
the town who are not connected to the informer. Otherwise he [that Jew who sees
of hears such action] will be excommunicated himself, and the punishment of
the informer will be applied to him. The two notables will then do what they
should do. But if the informer is powerful and for the time being they [the
notables] cannot do anything to him, the rabbis and notables will write his
name in the Chronicle [of the town] so that his [the informer’s] sons will not
be circumcised, no one will marry his daughters and he will be excluded from
all sacred matters. The good chief rabbis will also keep watch so that the
verse “and when I shall avenge” [a verse occurring several times in the
Pentateuch that supposedly means that God’s revenge has been delayed but will
come] would apply to him.
Again,
the language employed is more cautious and indirect than a direct order to kill
an informer or a Jew who did not report an informer. The last sentence of the
ruling is especially relevant.
A
second Polish example is found in the preserved chronicle of the Jewish
community in Krakow. This is discussed by Asaf on page 133 of The
Punishments. This chronicle condemns Yisrael, son of Rabbi Aharon
Welitshker, for informing on the Jews in regard to financial matters, robbing,
using violence and committing religious offences that cannot be written. The
condemnation continued:
We,
the notables of the community and we the most honorable [rabbinical court], let
the Lord guard them, considered the honor of his family and lessened his
punishment. We therefore condemn him only to be excommunicated in all the
synagogues and be incapable of either bearing testimony or swearing [in
rabbinical court]. An iron collar should be put on his neck. He must also give
back what he took by robbery, whether it was stolen from individuals or from
communities. His property should be confiscated wherever found.
Additionally,
he was ordered expelled from the town; not one of his descendents was ever
allowed to live in that town. This tempered verdict was issued in the spring of
1772.
The
third Polish example is taken from the preface to a talmudic book, Taharat
Kodesh, published in 1733 and written by Rabbi Benyamin, son of the
important Polish religious leader, Rabbi Matattya. This book, to which Asaf
referred on page 133 of The Punishments, showed that informers increased
in number over a period of time, in spite of killings and other ferocious
punishments meted out to them. Rabbi Benyamin bitterly complained about the
large number of Jewish informers in his time and added that many Jews helped or
flattered them. He asked Jews to avoid the informers.
His
proposed remedy was “to allow their blood [to be shed] so that we shall
exterminate them totally.” Rabbi Benyamin additionally prohibited accepting
money from them for charitable purposes. He added that in an unspecified
distant country the Jews had succeeded in exterminating the informers and
thereby were secure in spite of their spending a goodly amount of money for
their security. Rabbi Benyamin’s recommendations were not cautious. More
importantly, the Tsarist police investigations of the killing of Jewish
informers and the many testimonies of enlightened Jews in the nineteenth
century show that the problem of Jewish informers was not solved by these
recommendations.
After
the division of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth between Russia, Austria and
Prussia, finalized in 1795, and after the resultant abolition of autonomy of
Jewish communities by the three conquering powers, violence inflicted by Jews,
especially by Jewish authorities, on other Jews rapidly declined. Violence
virtually disappeared in the Prussian part of Poland and remained at about the
same level in the areas ruled by Russia. In the Russian area, violence, when
practiced however, was often secret. In the area ruled by Austria (Galicia) the
situation was a bit more complex; Jewish violence such as assassinations of
modernist rabbis occurred under certain conditions.
The
different levels of inter-Jewish violence in the three parts of divided Poland
should be ascribed to the different levels of modem influences after the
division. The Jews in the Prussian part of Poland were in an efficient
absolutist monarchy, equipped with a good police and civil administration that
were greatly influenced by modernist tendencies. The first partition of Poland
occurred when Frederic II, the Great, the friend of Voltaire and other French
philosophers of the age of the Enlightenment, ruled Prussia. The influences of
the Enlightenment, at least in the ranks of Prussian administrators, remained
strong for at least a generation after the death of Frederic II in 1786.
Probably of equal importance was the fact that the Jewish Enlightenment began
in Prussia, which possessed even before the partition of Poland a strong
community of enlightened Jews, centered on Berlin, who at that time expressed
themselves as much in Hebrew as in German. These enlightened Jews could thus be
immediately understood by the majority of male Jews in areas annexed to
Prussia.
The
Jews in the Russian area of Poland were by contrast in a more backward regime
that had a weak and inefficient administration in spite of the thin veneer of
the Enlightenment provided by Catherine II, the Great. Russia had also been a
country without Jews for hundreds of years. The first Jews allowed to live in
the Tsarist Empire were the Jews who lived in the annexed Polish territory. The
notorious “Pale,” the only area of Russia where Jews, with a few exceptions,
were allowed to live until 1917, was simply the area of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth annexed to Russia. The “old Russia” kept its “purity” of being forbidden
to Jews. Because of the absence of Jews, Russians, especially Russian Church
leaders, had a strong tradition of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism in Russia in
1800 was worse than in any other country at that time. The Tsarist regime,
moreover, at the beginning of the Polish takeover introduced special taxes on
Jews, in force until 1905, as well as other discriminations against Jews. The
absence of large towns and cities, except for St. Petersburg and Moscow which
were forbidden to Jews, and the undeveloped state of education enabled most
Jews annexed to Russia to continue their old customs, especially in the smaller
communities, until the 1880s. The old customs included the persecution of
heretics and the killing of informers. Nevertheless, the small but growing
group of enlightened Jews found it easier to oppose these and other old customs
under Russian rule than under the conditions of Jewish autonomy in the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Russian rule, even with its deficiencies,
afforded the enlightened Jews somewhat more protection than they previously
had, enabling them at least to testify about killings of informers.
The
Jews in the territories annexed by Austria were in an intermediate situation
between Prussia and Russia. After 1848 and especially after 1867, when Austria
granted a limited form of constitution and other civil liberties, the Jewish
situation in Austria came to approximate more the Prussian and after the
unification of Germany in 1871, the German model.18 Austria and the
Hapsburg dynasty had strong anti-Semitic tendencies that were prominent under
Maria Theresa (1740-80), who was probably the most anti-Jewish ruler of
eighteenth-century Europe and who was responsible for the largest expulsion of
Jews before the Nazi era: she expelled about 70,000 Jews from Prague and other
Bohemian towns in 1745. Maria Theresa had to reverse her decree and allow Jews
to return within a short time because of the strong protests of her allies,
Britain and Holland, upon whose subsidies she depended in the War of Austrian
Succession. Her successor, Joseph II, reversed her policies and in 1782 issued
a decree granting limited, but still significant, rights to Jews. He did this
in the face of considerable opposition.19 After Joseph’s death in
1790, the two tendencies fluctuated until Emperor Franz Joseph decided to adopt
a pro-Jewish policy in 1867.
The
new Israeli historians have presented evidence showing that until the 1880s the
killings of Jewish informers by Jews in the Tsarist Empire were numerous. In his
article dealing with the new Israeli historians Rosen quoted the writer, Shaul
Ginzberg, who wrote in his autobiography that during the nineteenth century
hundreds of Jewish informers were drowned in the Dnieper, the largest river
flowing in the “Pale.” These informers were charged and convicted under the law
of the informers simply because they were suspected of informing the
authorities about something. Rosen wrote: “Like Avraham Cohen, some of them
acted because of ideological reasons such as the wish to bring the Jewish
community to a modem way of life.” Dr David Asaf researched some of those
affairs and said: “Some of the informers were professionals who gave the
authorities information about tax concealment, but even in such cases, judging
them by what amounts to rabbinical martial courts and their execution by what
amounts to lynching help us to understand the conflict between the enlightened
Jews and the Orthodox, particularly the Hassids.” As previously shown, a Jewish
informer was condemned to death in secret without being able to say anything in
his own defense. This mode of execution was employed for hundreds of years
until the recent time.20 Rosen asked Asaf if the Jewish community
regarded those informers as traitors. Asaf responded:
They
were not so regarded by the enlightened Jews. More than this, the enlightened
Jews wanted the Jews to be citizens of the state. This included in their view
paying taxes and serving in the army. Giving information to authorities was in
many cases a necessary thing in their view. If you compare the situation to the
one existing [in Israel] now [one year after the assassination of Rabin] then,
with some changes, the present conflict is similar to what went on then.
To
show what was involved, Asaf recounted an affair he had researched involving a
famous Hassidic rabbi from the town of Rozin, Israel Friedman, who was known as
the “holy man of Rozin.” Friedman as a major Hassidic personage was important,
because the Hassidic movement played a major role in those assassinations.
Asaf related, as reported by Rosen:
Friedman
was one of the greatest Hassidic leaders. In Jewish history books he is
represented as a person of small scholarly knowledge but also as a man of power
who enjoyed the delights of life. He was instrumental in the issuing of the law
of the pursuer against some informers from the town of Oshitz in the Podolia
district of the Ukraine. In February, 1836, a corpse of one of the persons,
Yitzhak Oxman, was found beneath blocks of ice on the frozen river. The corpse
was so mutilated, apparently as a result of torture, that it was difficult to
identify. Only some time thereafter, when the corpse was taken out of its
grave, were new witnesses able to identify it. The corpse of the other murdered
person, Shmuel Schwatzman, disappeared. We now know that he was strangled while
praying in the synagogue. His corpse was cut into pieces and burned in the oven
that heated the community bath. Following a police investigation, in which even
Tsar Nicolai I was interested, it was established that the Jews of the
community where the murder was committed, including relatives of the murdered
persons, knew perfectly well what had taken place and how it was carried out.
Everyone stayed silent either because of strong discipline or because of fear.
This case was one of the few in which a secret rabbinical court, which issues
unwritten verdicts of the law of the pursuer and death punishments, was
discovered. Yosef Perl, one of the chiefs of the enlightened Jews of Galicia,
secretly supplied information to the Russian authorities in order to bring
about the conviction of Rabbi Yisrael of Rozin.
Asaf,
who also described other Hassidic murders, said that Perl, who hated the
Hassids, acted for reasons that he believed to be ideological. Rosen, in
interviewing the new historians, discovered that the various Hassids also
struggled violently with one another mainly because of economic interests. He
wrote: “Since the Hassids gave money to their holy men and some of the latter
adopted a nineteenth century way of life that rivalled the luxuries of
contemporary kings, they were interested in the places from which their incomes
came.”
Pre-modern
Judaism was characterized by many cases of inter- Jewish violence, of which the
few cases mentioned above are merely representative. These few cases, however,
are sufficient to show that Jewish fundamentalism in Israel, both in its
messianic and Haredi forms, is a reversion to a situation that existed before
the onset of modernization and the loss of the type of Jewish autonomy with its
arbitrary powers that allowed killing or otherwise severely punishing
informers. What occurred in Jewish fundamentalism is not dissimilar to what
occurred in other forms of fundamentalism. Some innovations have been made, largely
to disguise true intent. The predominant wish ideologically is to return to the
supposedly “good times” when everything was seen and kept in proper order. In
the case of the Jewish messianic variety of fundamentalism, the idea is to use
modem methods to achieve the power to re-establish the traditional way of life
in an effectual manner. The dangers of Jewish fundamentalism being established
in Israel as at least part of the ruling power are great. For non-Jews in the
Middle East, the Arabs and especially the Palestinians, the main danger is in
and with the messianic variety of Jewish fundamentalism. This is most apparent
in the role of the Jewish religious settlers in the Occupied Territories. For
Israeli Jews who will not accept the tenets of Jewish fundamentalism, however,
all varieties are dangerous. The Jewish
THE
BACKGROUND OF RABIN’S ASSASSINATION 149 fundamentalist attitude towards
heretics is much worse than is the attitude towards non-Jews. This is analogous
to the situation in other religions. A contemporary example is the attitude of
the Iranian regime to Baha’ists, regarded as Muslim heretics, which is much
worse than the attitude towards Christians and Jews. Our firm belief is that a
fundamentalist Jewish regime, if it came to power in Israel, would treat
Israeli Jews who did not accept its tenets worse than it would treat
Palestinians. This book is an attempt to provide wider understanding of Jewish
fundamentalism and hopefully help avert the danger from becoming a reality.
Note on Bibliography and Related Matters
Serious
books describing a social phenomenon usually contain a bibliographical listing
or essay, detailing and perhaps briefly discussing the primary and secondary
sources consulted by the authors. For some years we have read a significant
number of books in English and Hebrew that are concerned with Judaism and the
state of Israel. In our book we decided to refer only minimally to those books
in English; we relied primarily upon the Israeli Hebrew press, basic Jewish
religious (and in a few cases literary) texts and some learned Hebrew articles,
published in Israeli journals and magazines. We identified these in our text.
Our first reason for doing this is that Hebrew sources are, with few
exceptions, the most pertinent in dealing with Jewish fundamentalism in Israel.
We are nevertheless aware that the number of books that focus on aspects of or
background to our topic, published in English and languages other than Hebrew,
is large. We wish to offer an explanation about why we did not cite, and most
often ignored, much of this voluminous literature.
We
believe that the great majority of the books on Judaism and Israel, published
in English especially, falsify their subject matter. The falsification is
sometimes a result of explicit lying but is mostly the result of omission of
major facts that may create what the authors consider to be an adverse view of
their subjects. Many of the books that fit into this category are comparable to
much of the literature produced in totalitarian systems, whether religious or
secular and whether or not embodied in a state. We do not deny that books on
Israel and Judaism published in English have value; they may, and often do,
contain correct and valuable information. Books about the USSR under Stalin or
his successors written by Stalinists, books about Iran written by followers of
Khomeini, books on Christian fundamentalism written by its adherents often
contain correct and valuable information. Many other analagous examples exist.
What usually makes such books unreliable are not so much the lies but rather
the purposeful omissions. Regarding Judaism and Israel, the omissions are more
blatant and numerous in books published in English outside of Israel than they
are in Israel’s Hebrew literature. The omissions pertinent to our subject of
Jewish fundamentalism exist for the same apologetic reasons as do the literary
omissions in any totalitarian system. The information freely available in
Hebrew can and should be used to redress apologia by omissions in English. The
coverage in Hebrew of Jewish fundamentalism is more complete and is not riddled
with omissions, because, as our book shows, Jewish fundamentalism poses an
immediate threat to the beliefs and style of life of a majority of Israeli
Jews. Jewish fundamentalism, if it increases in strength, could destroy Israeli
democracy; this danger does not exist in the diaspora where Jews, even when
supporting the worst aspects of Jewish fundamentalism, benefit from democracy
and pluralism. In our view the state of Israel has faults that have been and
still are caused by the nature of Zionism and by the open and hidden influences
of Jewish fundamentalism. To exchange the present reality of the state of
Israel for a Jewish fundamentalist state of either the Haredi or messianic
variety would create a far worse situation for Jews, Palestinians and perhaps
the entire Middle East. We believe that our book, based primarily upon Hebrew
sources, correctly points out this danger for the first time in English.
To
document our above comments, we shall present a short list of important issues
in Israel and in Jewish history of the diaspora before the modern period, which
are relevant for Jewish fundamentalism but are nevertheless omitted from the
literature in English about Israel and Judaism. We shall first consider two
issues, closely connected to Jewish fundamentalism, that are not specifically
mentioned in our book. We shall thereafter present some issues that, although
discussed in our book, are not mentioned in the voluminous literature in
English. During the Labor Party primaries of the 1999 Israeli election
campaigns, accusations appeared in the Hebrew press claiming that fraud in the
vote counts occurred in Druze and Arab sectors of the party. The use of such
expressions should raise concern. Political parties in the United States and
Britain do not specify Jewish, non-Jewish or similar sectors. Readers of the
Israeli Hebrew press know that an Arab or Druze, that is, a non-Jew who is an
Israeli citizen, even if living in Tel-Aviv or Haifa, cannot belong to the
Labor Party branch of her or his neighborhood; that person must belong to one
of the two sectors that exist for Druze and Arabs respectively. Jews cannot
belong to one of those sectors. Consequently, an Arab living in Tel-Aviv votes
in the primaries of the Israeli Labor Party only as a member of the Arab sector
and not together with her or his neighbors. Other types of sectors also exist,
based upon social structure in the Labor Party. The kibbutzim sector is one
example. In these other sectors membership fluctuates according to the natural
movements of population, not according to racist criteria. A kibbutz member of
the Labor Party who leaves the Kibbutz to settle in Tel-Aviv becomes a member
of the party branch of that person’s new neighborhood; conversely, a Tel-Aviv
member of the Labor Party who joins a kibbutz automatically becomes a member of
the kibbutz sector. In contrast, an Arab member of the Labor Party remains an
Arab wherever that person lives, confined ethnically or more precisely
religiously. Such a proposal for the operation of political parties in the
United States or Great Britain would be quickly labeled and condemned correctly
as anti-Semitic. Such a proposal would be roundly discussed in the press and in
other literature concerned with the United States and/or Great Britain. In the
voluminous descriptions in English of Israel, this phenomenon, although known
in Israel, is almost never mentioned.
The
probable reasons for the above omission are most likely the same as those for
other similar omissions. The first and most important probable reason is that
many Jews and those who sympathize with them wish to avoid comparisons between
what rights Jews as a minority in the diaspora demand for themselves and what
rights Jews deny to non-Jews in those areas where Jews are a majority and wield
the power. We believe that Jewish fundamentalism justifies, explicitly and
unconsciously as a believed survival tactic, both the discrimination and its
cover-up. As noted in our book, Jewish fundamentalism in Israel influences most
of society. Its influence is especially significant in regard to the principles
of Israeli state policies, but its hidden and often clear-cut influence upon a
majority of Jews in the diaspora is strong. Two additional reasons in our view
account for omissions of vital facts in the English discussion of phenomena in
Israel that could be disturbing to many people. A hidden, and sometimes not so
hidden, assumption made in much of the English literature about Judaism and
about Israel as a Jewish state is that Jews are morally superior to all other
nations. This is the most important belief of Jewish fundamentalists who
condemn almost everything “not Jewish” mostly because it is non-Jewish. Any
discussion of the fact that many Jews, when they are able, practice the same
kind of discrimination against non-Jews that some non-Jews practice against
Jews could be detrimental to the theory of Jewish moral superiority. Although
we believe this is part of racist theory, which we oppose, we understand that
unfortunately human beings, including Jews, often have xenophobic tendencies
influenced by historical circumstances. Thus, Jews can and should be viewed
within the same context as other human beings and should in this regard work to
eradicate Jewish xenophobia by exposing it in its present and past forms. The
second reason emanates from writers who are apologists for and from other
advocates of the Israeli political left. The Labor Party is Israel has
consistently practiced blatant racism. Likud, the most important party of the
Israeli right, has not practiced racism so severely and generally as has the
Labor Party. As opposed to the Labor Party situation, Arabs have been, and
still are, able to be members of Likud in their own neighborhood branches. The
idea that the Israeli right wing is in this particular case better than the
Labor Party is abhorrent to the dogmatists of and apologists for the left just
as in the 1930s the idea that many practices in Great Britain were better than
those of Stalin was abhorrent to fellow travelers. The refuge in both cases was
and is a consistent omission of facts that do not fit into the dogma.
A
similar case in point is kibbutz membership in Israel. The kibbutz is one of
the most admired, especially by leftist apologists, Israeli phenomena. It is a
fact, widely known and discussed in Israel, that only Jews can be kibbutz
members. Non-Jews who wish to become kibbutz members must not only acquire the
approval of the kibbutz members; they must, as a condition of joining, convert
to Judaism. The Israeli Chief Rabbinate has established conversion schools for
non-Jews who wish to join kibbutzim. One of the conditions for conversion to
Judaism of women in this as in other situations is that the female convert must
be observed naked in a purification bath by three rabbis. Some of the other
conditions for conversion of those non-Jews desirous of joining kibbutzim are
lighter than are conditions for other potential converts. The Israeli Hebrew
press has often focused upon the degree of difference in conversion procedures
and has also mentioned repeatedly that to date not one Palestinian has become a
kibbutz member. This specific, clearly influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, is
almost always omitted in English language books published about and media
coverage of Israel. We need not empha ;ze the wide discussion that
would ensue if a British or American institution allowed Jews to become members
only if they converted to Christianity.
Scholars
and news media people who purport to describe Israel authoritatively have, as
previously indicated, systematically ignored by omission critical phenomena,
discussed in our book. Some examples of this follow. In Chapter 1 of our book
we mentioned that the concept of Jewish blood bound together the Israeli
secular right wing and religious Jews. This concept, which deems the blood of a
killed or wounded Jew to be infinitely greater in value than the blood of a
killed or wounded non-Jew, is of supreme importance in Israeli politics. The
Netanyahu government in 1998 refused, even when pushed by the United States
government, to release Palestinian prisoners who had killed Jews, whether they
were soldiers killed in a clash or civilians murdered in a terrorist attack.
The Jewish blood concept was the only possible reason. The same Netanyahu
government, as well as some previous Israeli governments, have not objected to
freeing Palestinian prisoners who had killed other Palestinians. The Palestinians
killed were usually presumed to be agents of the Israeli secret police. The
same situation has existed in regard to the Israeli security zone in southern
Lebanon and to the South Lebanese Army. The main reason for creating those
entities, which have prevented a cease-fire occurring between Israel and
Lebanon, was the Israeli desire, influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, to save
“Jewish blood.” A majority of Israeli Jews have paid little attention to
Lebanese, who have been killed, whether they were members of the South Lebanese
Army or simply inhabitants of this zone. Bursts of anguish and even protests,
on the other hand, have accompanied almost every Jewish casualty. Israeli
protesters demanding that Israel leave Lebanon have mentioned only the Israeli
casualties. Usually, only those Israeli Jews who have openly opposed Jewish
fundamentalism in all its aspects, such as Israel Shahak, one of the authors of
this book, have mentioned the Lebanese casualties. The politically important
distinction between Jewish blood and non-Jewish blood is well-known to most
Israelis but is ignored by almost all those who write about Israel and its
policies.
As
also noted in Chapter 1, Rabbi Yoseph, who commands the unquestioned allegiance
of ten Shas members of the Knesset, argued in a published article that Israel
is not sufficiently strong to destroy Christian churches on its territory and
should therefore return some of the occupied territory to the Palestinians.
Otherwise, Rabbi Yoseph contended, Jews might be killed in a war that could
erupt. We pointed out that most writers who discussed Rabbi Yoseph’s alleged
dovish leanings falsified by omitting his reasons for advocating concessions.
In addition to emphasizing Israeli weakness, Rabbi Yoseph expressed willingness
to command the destruction of idolatrous, Christian churches if Israel and the
Jews were sufficiently strong to do this without serious damage to Jews. Rabbi
Yoseph thus illustrated the fierce and visible hatred of Christianity and
Christians so evident among fundamentalists Jews and, to a lesser extent, among
many other Israeli Jews of the political right. Although discrimination
against and persecution of Jews in Christian countries has helped to persuade
some secular Jews to accept this fundamentalist attitude, it is not the sole
explanation. Oriental Jewish rabbis, and to a lesser extent their followers who
came from Muslim countries wherein they were generally not persecuted by
Christians, have expressed more hate of Christianity and its symbols than the
fundamentalist European rabbis and their followers who were persecuted by
Christians. In dealing with political factors in our book, we did not specify
many of the often petty forms of hatred of Christianity that are officially
approved. One case in point is that Israeli educational authorities removed the
international plus sign from the textbooks of elementary arithmetic used in the
first grades of Israeli schools. Allegedly, this plus sign, which is a cross,
could religiously corrupt little Jewish children. Instead of the offending
cross, the authorities substituted a capital “T.” This substitution was made
some years after Israel became a state; the influence of Jewish fundamentalism
was responsible. If this substitution had been made by the Taliban in
Afghanistan, by the Iranian regime or by China during the cultural revolution,
it would probably have been discussed at length. In contrast, this easily
discoverable fact has been omitted in English-language articles and books
concerned with Israeli Jewish society and Judaism. This omission is but one
piece of the existent evidence that most books of this genre are unreliable.
In
Chapter 2 we pointed to specific acts of discrimination against and abuse of
women perpetrated by Jewish fundamentalists. Seemingly unimpressed by the
Israeli Hebrew discussion of and the Israeli Jewish feminist criticism of this
discrimination and abuse, writers of English-language books and articles about
Israel have rarely mentioned this phenomenon. They have not acknowledged that
until modem times most Jewish women were kept illiterate and denied education
by command of the rabbis. They and others have condemned abuses of women in
Iran and other countries but have refused to specify the even more abusive acts
against women in Israel. Jewish feminists have instead celebrated in their
writings the few important Jewish women mentioned in the Bible and the one
woman mentioned in the Talmud, Bruria, the wife of the second-century ad sage, Rabbi Meir. The diaspora Jewish
feminists and other English-language writers have neglected any reference to
the disparaging stories about women in talmudic literature; they have also
failed to admit that from the time of Bruria until the advent of modern
influences upon Jews in western Europe in the seventeenth century not one
Jewish woman was sufficiently important to be emphasized as a leading figure in
Jewish history. (This can be compared to the numerous women who became leading
figures in many areas, including religion, in Western Christendom in the same
time period, in spite of Christianity’s well-known discrimination against
women.) The inescapable conclusion is that English-language sources are
unreliable, not only in the study of the Jewish fundamentalist attitude
towards women but also in the more general study of the status of women in
historical Judaism.
In
discussing the topic of Jewish blood in Chapter 2, we quoted both the
previously mentioned Rabbi Yoseph and the former chief rabbi of Israel, Rabbi
Mordechai Eliyahu, both of whom ordered pious Jews not to accept blood
donations from non-Jews unless their lives were at risk. These two eminent
rabbis, as well as others inside and outside of Israel who agree with this view
did not invent this opinion. This and other similar opinions, existent from the
beginning of blood transfusions, are based upon a talmudic prohibition that
does not allow a non-Jewish nurse to breast feed a Jewish child. The cited
reason for this prohibition is that the milk from a non-Jewish woman would have
an adverse effect upon a Jewish child. In Chapter 2 we quoted the discussion of
the Jewish blood topic that was published in 1995 not only in Israel’s most
widely read daily Hebrew newspaper but in other Hebrew newspapers as well. We
can assume that readers of this book who are not literate in Hebrew and who
were not previously told about such discussion in the Hebrew press would be
unaware of this prohibition of pious Jews accepting blood transfusions from
non-Jews and sometimes even from secular Jews. This prohibition is not to be
found in English- language articles or books about Judaism or Israeli Jewish
society. (Some fundamentalist Jews may discuss this topic among themselves, but
they limit that discussion to their own groupings and do not write about it for
publication in English.) It would be absurd to suggest that in the last years
of the twentieth century scholars, writers and others from around the world
would not discuss and attack an analogous edict, issued by highest ranking
Christian Church leaders, prohibiting Christians from accepting blood
transfusions from Jews. The prohibition is not a secret; it has been openly
discussed in the Israeli Hebrew press. This is yet another example of
distortion by omission, which makes English-language coverage of various
aspects of Israeli Jewish society unreliable.
In
Chapter 3 we briefly discussed how followers of Rabbis Yoseph and Shach
attempted to use magic against one another. This occurred after the struggle
between these two leading rabbis became intense. The political significance
here transcended the Yoseph-Shach disputation; the alleged use of magic is part
of the deep division between Israel A and Israel B, which are defined
previously in both our text and glossary. Members of Israel B, following some
historic Jewish customs, believe in magic and witchcraft; they often practice
it themselves or follow directives supposedly derived from it by rabbis and
cabbalists. (Books in Hebrew detailing instructions for spells and witchcraft
recipes have been best sellers in Israel for many years.) Individuals who are
reputed to achieve success by use of magic frequently obtain political power in
Israel. Most Israeli political pundits are agreed that one of the important reasons
for Netanyahu’s victory in the 1996 election was the exclusive blessing he
received during the campaign from the cabbalist Rabbi Kaduri, and the firm
refusals of many Jewish magicians and cabbalists to bless Peres. (Only the
Hassidic Belzer rabbi said that he was neutral regarding Peres.) Rabbi Kaduri
has remained to date a widely reported, highly visible Hollywood type star in
the Israeli Hebrew press. He was at the center of media attention when he
descended below the surface of the sea in Eilat in a device, usually used to
allow tourists to see underwater sea life, and supposedly instituted spells in
order to avert an earthquake that was predicted by scientists. He claimed to
have diverted the earthquake from Jews to non-Jews. Many Israeli Jews believed
this claim, because the predicted earthquake was light in Eilat but was much
more severe in upper Egypt.
Another
example of the popularity in Israel of magic was evident in the circumstances
surrounding the 1999 trial in the District Court of Jerusalem of a major Shas
Party politician, Aryeh Der’i. Der’i was convicted and sentenced for taking
bribes in spite of tens of amulets hung on his body and blessed by the most
outstanding cabbalists, who additionally engaged in other magic ceremonies on
Der’i’s behalf. At the same time of this trial a scientific congress on the use
of magic and witchcraft in Judaism was held in Jerusalem. Tom Segev, a
columnist for Haaretz and one of Israel’s best known authors, wrote that
the use of magic by Jews was nothing new in Judaism. In his March 26, 1999,
Hebrew-language Haaretz article, Segev transcribed a magical recipe
found in a book, composed in talmudic times (ad
200-500) but still popular in the Diaspora in the eighteenth century.
This recipe, which was devised to confuse a judge and cause him to acquit
unjustly a person who used magic, called for the following: “Slaughter a lion
cub with a copper knife. Gather its blood; tear out its heart and put the blood
into it. Then, write the names of angels on the cub’s face, and wipe the names
with three year-old wine. Mix the wine with the blood. Next, take three heaps
of perfume (names omitted). After purifying yourself, stand before the planet
Venus at night with the perfume and the blood, which must be put on fire.” This
act would supposedly compel the bewitched judge to acquit. Segev reported that
the Israeli scientists participating in this Congress believed magic to be “an
inseparable part of Judaism - used in past intrigues involving rabbis.” To
support this view, Segev quoted a saying in the Palestinian Talmud attributing
the large number of High Priests during the Second Temple period to the fact
that High Priests often killed one another by using witchcraft. This opinion
expressed in the Palestinian Talmud is probably incorrect; the large number of
High Priests during this period should most likely be attributed to bribery and
other political actions of secular (mostly Jewish) authorities of time
connected with making appointments. This opinion, which is not quoted in
English-language writings on Judaism, nevertheless indicates the wide use of
witchcraft by Jews’ attempting to kill one another in this time period. The
typical picture, presented in English-language works, of the pious Jews of the
third period of Jewish history is on balance invalid. The picture of the pious
Jew of talmudic times, standing at night before a planet and attempting to
perform magic rites, is more accurate and can help us understand the reality of
Israeli Jewish society better than the fictional description offered by
apologists. The use of magic in everyday life is also common in certain Jewish
neighborhoods of New York, London, Paris and other cities.
In
spite of its obvious political importance and social significance, this aspect
of Judaism in modem times remains as widely unreported in English, and thus as
unknown to those who do not read Hebrew, as the past use of magic and
witchcraft. In all known societies some individuals have indulged, and still do
indulge, in magic. The misguided attempt to hide this past and present
tendency, which is widespread in Israel, has infested the English-language
histories of the Jews. The substitution of apologetics for historical fact
renders these history texts at least unreliable and perhaps unfit for study.
In
Chapters 4 and 5 we dealt with the religious Jewish settlers in territories
occupied by Israel since 1967 and with Gush Emunim, the movement that produced
the settlers. Despite the attention given to the issues of Israeli settlements
in the territories, English-language coverage has almost totally neglected the
two major considerations, without which proper understanding of this overall
topic is impossible. The first consideration is that the urge to settle has
been theologically motivated and is a manifestation of Jewish fundamentalism.
In discussions of the obligations that people must obey in countries ruled or
influenced by Muslim fundamentalists the religious reasons are highlighted. In
most English-language discussions of Jewish religious settlements, however, the
religious reasons are usually either totally missing or are replaced with
biblical quotations, uttered by the settlers. In our text we showed that the
real motivating factors for the religious settlers, some of whom have moved to improbable
sites, have minimal connections to the Bible. The real reasons emanate instead
from a special idea of Jewish fundamentalism. This idea asserts that the
messiah will arrive soon and postulates that the world is already in the
messianic age.
We
began Chapter 4 by asserting that messianic ideology, as a radical part of
Jewish fundamentalism, is based upon the differences and opposition between
Jews and non-Jews rather than simply between Jews and Arabs (or Muslims).
Writers of English-language books, articles and book reviews have rarely
mentioned this basic tenet, the major exceptions being those writers who have
composed the invalid, out-of-context, virulent and poisonous anti-Semitic
literature. The published reviews of Yehoshafat Harkabi’s book, Israel’s
Fateful Hour, provide a good illustration of this point. The original
Hebrew edition of this book was first published in Israel; the English edition
was published thereafter in the United States in 1988. Harkabi’s book received
wide attention in the United States because of its analysis of Israeli politics
in the 1980s and its emphasis upon differences between the Labor Party and
Likud in foreign politics. In one crucial chapter, from which we quoted and
paraphrased in our text, Harkabi analyzed some major issues of Jewish
fundamentalism and stressed the importance of messianic ideology within that
context. Harkabi’s book was extensively reviewed in American publications, but
only one reviewer in a small circulation progressive publication referred to
this crucial chapter. The other reviewers in American publications avoided any
mention of this chapter and/or its substance. Reviewers in Israel emphasized
this chapter in their comments. The difference in reviewing between the United
States and Israel is telling.
In
maintaining that differences and opposition exist between Jews and non-Jews,
messianic ideology continues to be the primary motivating factor for Gush
Emunim and its major supporter, the National Religious Party. Those who have
written about Israeli Jewish society and about Judaism but have avoided mention
of this have distorted understanding. The significance here is most striking
when the broad support, both direct and indirect, for Gush Emunim is
considered. About one-half of Israel’s Jewish population supports Gush Emunim.
The support, especially monetary, from Jews in the diaspora is also of great
importance. Many Orthodox and other Jews as well in New York City and elsewhere
have been and are encouraged to assist Gush Emunim by what they read in the
largest circulation American Jewish weekly newspaper, the Jewish Press. Published
in Brooklyn, the Jewish Press has been and continues to be an editorial
advocate of Gush Emunim, often presenting op-ed articles written by leading
Gush Emunim spokesmen. New York City and New York State politicians regularly
seek backing of the Jewish Press during electoral campaigns. Not only
have Jewish Press editorial writers advocated messianic ideology; they
have also expressed admiration of Yigal Amir, the assassin of Yitzhak Rabin.
The New York Times, which is read and probably influences many American
Jews, has published in-depth analyses of Christian and Muslim fundamentalism
but has refrained from presenting similar articles describing Jewish
fundamentalism or even advocacies printed in the Jewish Press. Even
so-called liberal American periodicals, such as the Nation and the New
York Review of Books, which have published editorial comments and articles
upholding and advocating Palestinian rights, have neglected to present analyses
of Jewish fundamentalism in their own country. Readers of these and most other
periodicals in the United States, and in other countries as well, would not
know, unless they read books and articles published in Hebrew in Israel, that
Gush Emunim’s goal is to build a “sacred society” whose nuclei are the Jewish
settlements in the occupied territories. It is insufficient, if not folly, to
advocate Palestinian rights without understanding and referring to the
principal cause of the denial of those rights: Jewish fundamentalism in general
and the messianic variety in particular.
The
Goldstein massacre, discussed in Chapter 6, was inadequately covered in the
English press. That Israeli Jewish society was divided in its attitude towards
the massacre was evident in the Hebrew but not in the English press and
literature. Before the massacre, Goldstein’s refusal as a doctor on religious
grounds to treat non- Jewish patients, including soldiers serving with him in
the army, was, although mentioned briefly, treated lightly in the English
coverage. Goldstein clearly derived his views from fundamentalist interpretations
of sacred Hebrew texts. The English coverage indicated that he merely followed
the teachings of Rabbi Meir Kahane, a whipping boy of the American press. In
reality, Goldstein’s views were more broadly based and centered in Jewish
fundamentalism. Having immigrated to Israel as an adult, Goldstein, prior to
his arrival in Israel, had been influenced by the “Lubovitcher Rebbe” and his
influential disciple, Rabbi Ginsburgh. His attitude, moreover, was condoned by
important, Israeli politicians and the Minister of Defense. Articles in the
Hebrew press, to which we referred in our text, discussed these points in
depth; the English coverage avoided mention of much of this.
In
Chapter 7 we showed how well-documented features of Jewish fundamentalism
during the past 800 years, the third and longest period of Jewish history, have
influenced and continue to influence contemporary Jews in the state of Israel
and in the diaspora as well. Both the popular and more scholarly and renowned,
standard Jewish histories, written in English, omit most of these features. The
historic features of Jewish fundamentalism were manifest in the Rabin assassination
and in the reactions to it. Because of omission, distortion and lack of
criticism of Jewish fundamentalism, the English-language coverage could not and
did not put the Rabin assassination in the correct context and thus was
misleading.
Important
issues are involved here, all of which are omitted in the standard Jewish
histories. The first of these, well-known to serious students of the third
period of Jewish history and especially to those who have knowledge of Jewish
religious law and Orthodoxy, is that, before being affected by outside modem
influences, Jewish society was not tolerant. On the contrary, autonomous Jewish
authorities persecuted deviants, perhaps more than did Christian and Muslim
authorities in their respective religions and certainly more than did pagan,
Buddhist and Hindu authorities. The intolerant attitudes and activities,
enshrined in the sacred texts of Jewish fundamentalism in all its varieties,
influenced the behavior and politics of Jews, especially when they had
autonomous power. To oppose the current dangers posed by Jewish fundamentalism,
it is first necessary to expose its historical basis. As we have repeatedly
stated, most writers of books on Judaism in English have not done this.
Influenced by their heritage, many Jews have unfortunately either remained
indifferent to the oppression of Palestinians in and by the State of Israel or
have at times criticized acts of oppression as posing possible danger to Jews.
Some of these individuals, for example, condemn the use of torture as being
unconditionally inhumane when used by states other than Israel, but they argue
pragmatically that its use by Israeli authorities is not in Israel’s best
interest because of worldwide public opinion. Many of these same people in the
United States are zealous in advocating and fighting for the separation of
religion and state in their own country, but they react differently in regard
to Israel. They do not criticize, indeed they most often support, the Israeli
Ministry of Religion, which is almost always controlled by Jewish religious
parties influenced by Jewish fundamentalism, for allotting only 2 per cent of
its budget to non-Jews when nearly 20 per cent of Israel’s citizenry consists
of Muslims and Christians. Both in Israel and in the diaspora the relatively
few Jews who have attempted to defend non-Jews against discrimination and
oppression by Jews have been those who have been influenced by modem theories
of justice. The fact that the majority of Jews do not protest against, but
actually support, Jewish discrimination against non-Jews, especially in the
Jewish state, indicates, at least to some extent, the conscious and unconscious
influence of Jewish fundamentalism. We believe that attempts to hide historical
reality in Judaism and Jewish societies were wrong when Jews were discriminated
against and persecuted in most countries. By the end of the twentieth century,
when Jews have achieved greater power in many societies than any minority group
of comparable numbers and when a Jewish state with nuclear weapons is protected
by the United States, falsification by omission of Jewish history is purely
adverse and totally unacceptable. The nearly total absence of discussion of the
above intolerant aspects of the Jewish past and present in English-language
books caused us to dispense with a traditional bibliographical listing or
essay.
The
issue of Jewish normalcy and the exceptions to it require examination. Jews in
many instances oppressed their own people as other people did. During the same
time period, for example, that rabbis ordered the hands of Jewish offenders to
be cut, Spanish judges, as well as judges in most Christian and Muslim courts,
did likewise. Rabbis ordered Jewish offenders put into stocks in the Polish-
Lithuanian Commonwealth just as non-Jewish authorities used the stock as a
feature of regular punishment throughout Europe and in the American colonies.
The systematic killing of informers, enjoined by eminent rabbis as a religious
duty, has no parallel in other societies. Killing of informers has nevertheless
occurred and still occurs in other societies and, as is the case in Sicilian
society, is often well known. Scholarly historical works, historical novels and
the classical literature in general of many countries and societies depict the
sometimes- employed punishment of killing informers. In contrary fashion, the
major Jewish historians who have written about the third period of Jewish
history, for example, Salo W. Baron, Simon Dubnow and Yitzhak Baer, have
omitted such references in their works. Other highly regarded Jewish historians
who have focused upon the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth, Christian Spain and
Germany have done likewise. Numerous Israeli scholars, who have written in
Hebrew and from whom we quoted and paraphrased in our text, have in contrast
displayed more honesty in their scholarship by including examples of the
systematic killing by Jews of Jewish informers. Consequently, those readers who
are not literate in Hebrew (or have not been told in detail about books in Hebrew
about Jewish history) must have distorted perceptions of this aspect of Jewish
history. This reflection solidified our resolve not to include a traditional
bibliographical listing or essay.
The
distortions, largely by omission, in the English-language histories of the
third period of Jewish history are greater and more severe than are those of
the first and second periods. The reason for this is obvious. Because Judaism
and Jewish history are so important for the history and theology of Christianity
until and shortly after the time of Jesus, Christian historians and biblical
scholars, often critical in their writings, dealt with Jewish history and
Israelite society during the first two periods. The better Jewish historians of
those two periods have felt obligated to follow trends established in
scholarship in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; they have engaged in
critical discussion, even while complaining about what they regarded as hostile
tendencies of Christians who wrote about Jewish history. Few Christian or
Muslim scholars have been or are interested in Jewish history between AD 70 and
modern times, the third period. Apologetic writing of Jewish history is not
unique. Most national histories include apologetic writings. The writing in English
by Jews of Jewish history has remained far more retarded than have the writings
of other national histories. A comparison that illustrates this point is the
difference between the development of historical writing by American historians
of United States history and the lack of development in the writing of Jewish
history, especially of the third period. In recent decades standard United
States history textbooks have included numerous negative features, previously
omitted, of past discrimination and oppression of African Americans, Native
Americans, women and other disadvantaged minority groups. As previously
reiterated, most books in English of Jewish history, especially of the third
period, continue to omit negative features of discrimination and oppression of
both Jews and non-Jews by Jews. The harmful effects of these omissions remain.
We
are finally troubled by the near unanimity in standard English- language Jewish
histories regarding issues involving “Jewish interest.” Whereas the Israeli new
historians of the 1980s and 1990s have sparked fruitful debate about basic
issues not only of the past century in regard to Palestine but of the entire
course of Jewish history, previous historians who wrote in English have omitted
facts and disputations over interpretations of sensitive items. Having already
detailed much of this in our bibliographical note, we, in attempting to
illustrate our point, shall here present only one additional example. The
famous scholar Gershom Scholem, early in his career raised an important
intellectual issue about the nature of Judaism; soon thereafter he, together
with numerous other scholars, dropped it. This issue then became virtually
unknown to people who did not know Hebrew. In his first book in English about
Jewish mysticism, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, based upon a
previous set of lectures delivered in New York City, first published in 1941
and reprinted many times, Scholem questioned whether Jews who believed in
Cabbala had preserved the belief in monotheism that had been previously so
characteristic of Judaism. In his seventh lecture towards the end of section
five of the book, Scholem, after describing the process, which according to the
Lurianic Cabbala takes place by Jewish initiative within God, wrote: “To
reconcile this process with the monotheistic doctrine, which was dear to the
Kabbalists as it was to every Jew, became the task of the theorists of
Kabbalistic theosoply. Although they applied themselves bravely to it, it
cannot be said that they were completely successful.” These two convoluted
sentences implied that the most popular form of Cabbala, still believed by many
Jews in Israel and in the diaspora, is not monotheistic. Actually, Scholem
refrained from mentioning that many Jewish opponents of Cabbala, before it
became dominant around 1550 and during the Jewish Enlightenment, asked the same
question more clearly and expressed more sharply their opposition to the
predominant Lurianic form on the ground that it denied monotheism. Since then,
scholars who have written in English about Judaism, including Scholem himself
in later books, have not, with few exceptions, questioned whether Judaism in
all its forms and all times was monotheistic and/or whether many pious Jews
were believers in monotheism. (Raphael Patai was one exception. In Chapters 5
to 8 of his book, The Hebrew Goddess, published in 1967, Patai raised
this question. Israel Shahak, another exception, did likewise in his more
recent book, Jewish History, Jewish Religion.} The scholars who have
written in English about Judaism have, again with few exceptions, not
considered in their books the even more important question of whether Judaism
throughout its entire history has had fixed tenets.
We
are aware that the books we have not put into a bibliography contain useful
data. We nevertheless believe that these books are guilty of purposeful
omission resulting in grave distortion and do not necessarily deserve to be
listed in a bibliography. These books anyway can be easily found in other
bibliographies. We append this note in lieu of a traditional bibliography in protest
against what too often happens in Jewish studies outside Israel.
Preface
1.
Baruch Kimmerling, review
of Yohanan Peres and Efraim Ya’ar Yukhtman, Between Agreement and Dispute:
Democracy and Peace in Israeli Society (Jerusalem: The Israeli Institute
for Democracy, 1998) in Hebrew. Kimmerling carefully reviewed and analyzed the
data, assembled between 1993 and 1995 by Peres and Yukhtman.
Introduction
1.
We explain this to some
extent in this book. This is explained in greater detail in Israel Shahak, Jewish
History, Jewish Religion (London: Pluto Press, 1994).
2.
The Romans actually
adopted the term Judea by employing the form of “provincia Judea” in describing
Palestine, which in the Bible is called by other names.
3.
The Hebrew word for
gentiles is “goyim,” a word which, as used in the Bible, simply means nations.
The singular “goy” in the Bible was - and is - applied to the Israelites
themselves.
Chapter 1
1.
Some Israeli Jews refuse
to enter a synagogue as a principled protest against the Jewish religion; this
phenomenon is rarely found in non-Israeli Jewish communities but can be
compared to the attitude of some radicals to Christianity, for example, in
France.
2.
The Kishinev pogrom in
1903 in the Ukraine section of the Russian Empire was the first major pogrom in
eastern Europe after a lapse of many years. Kishinev became the symbolic term
of and for murders of Jews everywhere.
3.
The religious reasons
centered upon the fulfillment of religious observance. Common to almost all
pious Jews who emigrated to Palestine in pre-Zionist times was the belief that
all religious observances connected with agriculture could not be fulfilled
outside of but rather only in the land of Israel. Wanting to fulfill as many
commandments as possible, therefore, these Jews thus emigrated to Palestine.
Chapter 4
1.
Pollard, an American Jew
very devoted to Israel, was in the 1980s a highly placed employee of US Naval
Intelligence. He gave many intelligence secrets (not only concerning Middle
Eastern affairs) to Israel. He received a severe prison sentence in the US.
Many American and Israeli Jews, and since the mid-1990s also the Israeli
government, have tried to persuade the US President to reduce his sentence or
give him a pardon. However, these attempts have been unsuccessful, due to the strong
opposition of US intelligence chiefs.
Chapter 5
1.
Hardelim is an acronym of
two Hebrew words that translated into English are “Haredi-nationalist” and
“mustard-like.”
2.
Some religious Jews
acquire religious study deferments and are excused from military service.
3.
After the Rabin
assassination, HesderYeshivot colleagues of the assassin, Yigal Amir, told
members of the press how Amir beat Palestinians in the worst manner. They did
not disguise the fact that all members of their unit beat Palestinians more
than did soldiers in regular units.
4.
All NRP members do not
adhere to the messianic religious right-wing trend.
Chapter 7
1.
“Rabenu” is the Hebrew
word for “our rabbi.” It was an honorary title given only to a few of the most
famous rabbis.
2.
Before and during talmudic
times, rabbis in the Holy Land who were empowered to teach authoritatively and
to serve as judges were appointed by “laying of hands.” A rabbi, already so
appointed, laid his hands on the head of a candidate and pronounced a sacred
formula designed to transmit a sacred power, supposedly derived from Moses
although not mentioned in the Bible. Rabbis in other countries never were given
this form of appointment. Even if diaspora rabbis came to the Holy Land and
after a long stay of study received the “laying of hands” appointment, they
were forbidden to transmit it to other diaspora rabbis not in the Holy Land.
The students of diaspora rabbis, who themselves became rabbis but did not go to
the Holy Land, were, therefore, unable to judge in many matters under the
normal law. The last Palestinian rabbis with powers derived from “laying of
hands” seemingly disappeared in the tenth century without leaving successors.
3.
This rule, which was
never abrogated, seemingly applies to Torah scrolls used by Conservative and
Reform rabbis. Many Orthodox rabbis in Israel have proclaimed that Reform and
Conservative rabbis are heretics. Some of these Orthodox rabbis have publicly
stated that Reform Jews are worse than heretics.
4.
One example of these
freely discussed issues is: After the Great Flood, how did animals who could
not swim well and far reach islands in the Mediterranean?
5.
One example of such
theological problems is: What is God by his very nature incapable of doing?
6.
Israel Shahak, one of the
authors of this book, was present as a child in Warsaw, Poland, in early 1939
at a funeral of a Jewish heretic, the second cousin of his father. (He also
heard this story confirmed by family members later.) At the funeral the
immediate family members, including the father, put on the white garments that
pious Jews wear on the holidays and rejoiced. One of Shahak’s friends who came
from Alexandria, Egypt, after hearing this story, recalled a similar Jewish
funeral in Alexandria in the early 1940s with the family dressed in white.
7.
Rabbi Samuel the Prince
was so called, because he was a minister and a general in the kingdom of
Granada.
8.
The Karaites denied the
authority of the Talmud and only accepted the Bible. Rabbi Yoseph ben Faruj,
who was made the head of the Jews in Spain and given the title of Prince,
expelled the Karaites.
9.
A punishment considered
to be similar to the kuneh was the putting of an iron collar on the neck of a
Jewish criminal. The criminal then would have to walk or pace with this iron
collar.
10.
This important background
is unfortunately not mentioned in the major historical studies of the Jews in
the United States or in other countries to which Jews immigrated in the
nineteenth century. The background is likewise not mentioned in those romantic,
apologetic works that purport to describe the lives of first-generation Jewish
immigrants. Many characteristics of the Jews in the United States and elsewhere
were probably affected by this background.
11.
This letter is described
and partially quoted in Meir Balaban, The History of the Frankist Movement
(Tel-Aviv, 1934 in Hebrew, p. 128). The letter was published in full in Rabbi
Yaakov Emden’s Sefer Hashimush, a collection of documents about various
heresies (part B, document B).
13.
This important point is
seldom acknowledged in the histories of Jews written in English.
14.
David Asaf should be
distinguished from Rabbi Simha Asaf who wrote The Punishments After the
Talmud was Finalized: Materials for the History of Hebrew Law (Jerusalem,
1992).
15.
Two most important
sources should be consulted to gain an understanding of these satires and the
nature of the Hassidic movement against which they were directed. The first
source is Yitzhak Erter’s satire, Metempychosis (Gilgul Nefesh in
Hebrew). Erter, who died in 18 5 2, was regarded as the best Hebrew satirist of
his time; his works were widely read and were republished again and again, the
last time in 1996 in Israel. In his satire, Ertel dealt with the Hassidic
belief in metempsychosis and the help given by holy rabbis to the soul as it passes
from a human body to an animal and then back again. The author meets a soul of
a recently deceased Jew that tells him about its seventeen changes of abode. In
one of those adventures, the soul inhabited a body of an intriguing zealot who
died of chagrin when one of his intrigues failed; the soul then passed into the
body of a fox with an especially beautiful and long tail. The tail caused the
fox to be noticed by fox hunters and killed. Because a blessing of a holy rabbi
was not said at the moment of death, however, the soul became a disembodied
ghost. A Hassid bought the fur made of the fox’s tail and in turn made it into
a collar for a coat that he offered to his holy rabbi. A miracle occurred when
the holy rabbi put on the coat and the fur touched his (the rabbi’s) holy
flesh. Erter wrote: “The fox’s late soul was born again in a body of another
holy rabbi, a person as clever and deceitful as a fox.”
The second
source is an earlier work, The Discoverer of Secrets (Megaleh Temirin in
Hebrew), published anonymously in 1819 by Yosef Perl, the most enlightened Jew
in Galicia at that time. The book purports to consist of letters written (in
atrocious Hebrew, imitated from the bad style and grammar common in Hassidic
books) by one Hassid to another and supposedly edited by another Hassid who
found the letters and added learned references from major Hassidic books for
every absurdity piously related by the correspondents. In Letter 150, one of
the Hassids related that his holy rabbi died and that his widow earned a great
amount of money by selling his garments to Hassids. Clothes of holy rabbis have
sacramental value and absolve even the greatest sins if worn. Putting on a
shirt of a holy rabbi; for example, absolves a person of the sin of murder,
while putting on a holy rabbi’s trousers absolves a person of adultery. The
supposed editor of this book added several authentic references from Hassidic
books to substantiate this belief among Hassids of his time. Such beliefs
continue to be common among Hassids of today. Unfortunately many of the books
written specifically about Hassidism and almost all general Jewish histories
written in English do not mention such beliefs.
16.
“Moser,” the Hebrew word
for informer, is a terrible insult for Jews, similar to the word “collaborator”
for Palestinians.
17.
This was feasible if the
Jewish community was united in facing a single informer or heretic or even a
few of them. Difficulty arose when the community was split; each group then
thought the other was heretical and should be reported to the authorities. This
happened often in Jewish history. The consequences of such quarrels in which
the non-Jewish authorities became involved were sometimes localized but other
times spread to and disturbed Jewish communities in several countries. One such
controversy involved Maimonides, a most severe critic of heresy who in this
case was accused of being a heretic himself. Maimonides’ position as a doctor
to Al-Abdal, the brother of Saladin and the governor of Egypt, and as the
supervisor of Egyptian Jews, prevented any significant Jewish attacks upon him
in Muslim countries. Some Iraqi rabbis, who presumably enjoyed the patronage of
the Khalif A-Nasir (1180-1225), made cautious accusations against him. Even
after his death, Maimonides’ position as supervisor of Egyptian Jews, which was
inherited by his descendants for six generations, greatly fortified his
position in all Muslim countries. In Christian Europe, however, Maimonides was
repeatedly accused of being a heretic. Rabbi Shlomo of Montpellier from
southern France first made this charge in the 1220s. Some rabbis and notables
defended him; others opposed him. The anti-Maimonidean faction informed the
Christian inquisitors, who were busy persecuting the Albigenses in southern
France, that the philosophical, as well as some halachic, writings of
Maimonides also offended Christianity. The inquisitors probably knew neither
Hebrew nor Arabic, the languages in which the supposedly offending books were
written, but they collected and burned some of them publicly. The pro-
Maimonidean faction appealed to feudal lords, who captured some of the
anti-Maimonidean Jews and delivered them to their Jewish enemies, who punished
them as informers by cutting out their tongues. The controversy, nevertheless, continued
until about 1300. This controversy probably still exists. In spite of the
enormous prestige Maimonides enjoys among Orthodox Jews as the first codifier
of the Halacha and as the leading philosopher of Judaism, he remains suspect
among the Haredim. Most Haredi rabbis keep the philosophical writings of
Maimonides away from most of their pupils. Maimonides, in the opinion of some
scholars and in the view of this book’s writers, was in some ways a heretic
according to his own definition of the term. The obscure writing of his
philosophy makes his heresies difficult for most readers to perceive. On this
point, see Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing, Chapters 2
and 3. Strauss compared the style of writing employed by some writers under the
Communist regimes of the 1950s with the style employed by Maimonides and other
Jewish medieval thinkers. Both groups used a comparable style to obscure some
points from many readers because of fear of persecution by zealots, while at
the same time giving hints that could be understood by sophisticated readers.
18.
This situation, which
endured until the rise ofNazism, made the Jews of eastern Europe strong German
sympathizers and contributed to the rise of modern Polish anti-Semitism.
Contrary to what Goldhagen has propagated, Jews of eastern Europe, even during
World War I, regarded the Germans and the German occupying army as
philo-Semitic. They had good reasons for holding this view.
19.
In addition to the
standard works of Jewish history, see Ernst Wangermann, The Austrian
Achievement 1700-1800 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1973). Wangermann noted
outbursts of anti-Semitic violence in the period after the limited tolerance
granted by Joseph II. He also noted that a conservative member of the Council
of State, critical of the Jews of Vienna for beginning to dress in a modern
way, remarked: “[The sight of] young Jewish men, contrary to all custom going
in public dressed indistinguishably from Christians ... some even with swords
at their sides [presages dissolution of society].” Cardinal Migazzi, the
Archbishop of Vienna and the leader of the Catholic Conservative Party, was one
of the people who most warned against any toleration for Jews. After the death
of Joseph II and at the request of some rabbis, the Austrian government
instituted strict censorship of Jewish books and prohibited the printing and
import of all books of the Cabbala. Eliezer Falklash, the rabbi of Prague and
the personal friend of the censor appointed to carry out this “holy work,”
addressed a long responsa to the censor on this subject. Rabbi Falklash in his
responsa praised the order and applauded the Emperors Leopold II and Francis II
for upholding the purity of the Jewish religion. See Shmuel Vertes, Enlightenment
and False Messianic Tendencies: History of a Struggle (Jerusalem: Shmuel
Vertes, 1998, in Hebrew).
20.
This is unknown to many
Jews living in English-speaking countries because of censorship and apologetic
writing that leaves out negative aspects of Jewish history. In Israel today,
the Hebrew press frequently reports the use by Haredim of the law of the
informer and the law of the pursuer. On February 18, 1999, for example, Haaretz
reported that Israeli prosecutors accused Yosef Prushinovsky, a Haredi Jew who
lived in the Mea She’arim quarter of Jerusalem and was on trial for swindling
tens of millions of dollars from Haredim around the world, of trying to
intimidate Haredi witnesses with these two laws. Prushinovsky allegedly
threatened to use these two laws against any Haredi witnesses who dared to
testify against him in Israeli secular courts. Many Haredi rabbis have held
that testifying in Israeli secular courts, in which Arabs can be judges,
constitutes informing to non-Jewish authorities. Haredi Jews, such as
Prushinovsky, are thus often able to commit crimes, usually swindling, with
legal impunity so long as they do it in their own community and do not steal so
much that their pious victims are influenced to commit a grave sin in order to
retrieve their money. The same situation is prevalent in some of the Haredi
Jewish communities in the United States, but the American press rarely reports
the cases or offers any halachic explanation.
Abassid Caliphate 139
Abaye 27
Abromovitz, Amnon 36-7
Agudat Israel 50
Aharon, Rabbi Abu 126
Albaum, Dov 32, 33, 34, 40-1, 84-6
Alfey Menashe 79
Alicena 140
Alon, Rabbi Benny 73—1
Aloni, Shulamit 15, 34-7, 52, 53, 75, 76
Amir, Yigal viii, 114, 137, 159
Amital, Rabbi Yehuda 63, 65 anti-Semitism xi, 13, 17, 146
Arabs, and political parties 151-2, 153
Arafat, Yasser 107, 108
Ariel 79
Ariel, Azri’el Rabbi 87-8
Ariel, Rabbi Israel 71, 72, 102
Ariel, Uri 99
Arieli, Rabbi Shmaryahu 63-4
army 89-90, 98
penetration by zealots 90-5
Arutz, (radio station) 9-10
Asaf, David 133-4, 147, 148
Asaf, Rabbi Simha 116, 117-18,
125-30, 139-44
Asher, Rabbi Rabenu 117, 127, 140-1, 142
Asheri, Ehud 29-30
Ashkenazi Jews 7-9, 44, 45-6
and emigration to Palestine 47-8 exclusiveness 44, 45, 48-50 rise
of 47
and treatment of Oriental Jews 48-50
and violence 116
ass, messianic 67
assassination 134-8
see also death penalty; murder;
Rabin
Association of Judea and Samaria
Rabbis 84
atlases viii, 72
Austria 134-7, 146
autonomy, Jewish 4, 17, 128-32, 142, 143, 145, 161
Aviner, Rabbi Shlomo 71, 72, 75,
76-7
Baer, Yitzhak 162
Baker, James 66, 82
Balaban, Meir 131
Balkans 46
Bar Hama, Rabbi Hanina 123
Bar-Ilan University 68
Bar-Kochba, Moshe 85
Bar-Pilpel, Avraham 136
Barak, Aharon 32, 33
Barnea, Nahum 36, 81, 98-100
Baron, Gabby 110-11
Baron, Salo W. 162
Bartal, Yisrael 115, 135
Baruch, Rabbi 131
Barzilay, Amnon 111
Baum, Ilana 102-3
Begin, Benny 12, 107-8
Begin, Menachem 11, 56, 93
Beilin, Yossi 82
Beit El B 79
Beitos 121
ben Aderet, Rabbi Shlomo 127, 141
Ben-David, Mordechai 109
Ben-Gurion, David 22, 93
Ben-Simon, Daniel 82
Ben-Zion, Rabbi Shimon 110, 111
Benedict XVIII, Pope 131
Benyamin, Rabbi 144-5
Benziman, Uzi 101
Berenstein, Rabbi Hertz 135 betrayal 86-7
Bibikov, General 137
Bible 2, 5, 25
Black Panthers 48
blasphemy 35
blood
donations 41-2, 155-6
Jewish and non-Jewish 11,41,71-2 153-4
Bnei Akiva 110
Bnei Brak 19-20, 54, 108-9 books, burning of 121-2, 130 breast feeding
42, 156
Bruhl, Minister (Poland) 131
Bruria 155
Bush, George 84
Cabbala x, xi, 4, 66-7, 86 and monotheism 163-4 status of non-Jews
57-8, 62
Cairo Accords 81
Chabad Hassid movement 59, 61, 102 chauvinism, Jewish 65, 139
Christian fundamentalists 73, 74-5 Christianity 64, 75-6, 89, 116,
154-5 Cohen, Avraham 134-7, 146 Cohn, Norman 64 conversion 62, 153 corruption
29, 51 crucifixions, mock 116
D’Acusta, Uriel 132
Daud, Rabbi Avraham Ibn 126
Davis, Natalie Z. 64
Dayan, Moshe 55-6, 84 de Porta, Vidilan 141 death penalty 77, 129
for heretics 126-7, 131, 139 for informers 140-5, 146-7, 162
Degel Ha’Tora 33, 50 democracy ix, 16, 83, 151 Der’i, Aryeh 33,
157 D’eri, Yitzhak 54 diaspora 3, 19, 44, 70, 151 discrimination, inter-Jewish
161-2 see also persecution
DNA, Jewish 43, 62
Doron, Professor Gideon 52 dress 7, 8, 49
Dreyfus, Rabbi Yair 88-9
Druze, and Labor Party 151-2
Dubnow, Simon 162
Edelist, Ran 92-3 education 24-9, 26, 40, 51-2 Egypt 66
Eibshutz, Yehonathan 19
Eitan, Rafael 74 elections 1996 7-8 Eliezer the Priest 114
Eliezer, Rabbi 18
Eliyahu, Rabbi Mordechai 41-2, 155-6
Eliyahu of Vilna, Rabbi 130 embryos, Jewish and non-Jewish 59-60
Emden, Rabbi Ya’akov 131
Emunim 73-4
England 128, 131
Enlightenment, Jewish 145-6 Eshkoli, Dr Ze’ev Aharon 135 Etzion,
Yehuda 87 exclusiveness, Jewish 2, 43, 44, 45, 46 48-59
see also superiority; uniqueness excommunication 128,
130, 132, 142 extermination, of non-Jews 64, 73 Ezra, Rabbi 18-19
Falangists, Lebanese 70 Fisch, Harold 70, 71 France 128
Friedman, Israel 34, 147
Friedman, Menachem 14-16
Gal, Dr Reuven 93-4
Gaza City 80
Gaza Strip 55, 56, 72, 78-9, 84 military roads 80, 81-2
Gentiles 2, 11, 12, 15, 65, 88
Ge’onim (Iraq) 125, 139 Georgia 44
Germany 128, 131, 146
Ginsburgh, Rabbi Yitzhak 43, 61-2, 112, 160
Ginzberg, Shaul 146-7 Golan, Avirama 108 Golan Heights 75, 78-9
golden age xii
Goldman, Mikha 110-11
Goldstein, Baruch viii, 96-112 condemnation of 105-7, 110-11 in
English press 160 eulogies 43, 61, 87, 103-4, 112 funeral 100-3 reactions to
massacre 99, 100-10 refusal to treat Arabs 96-9, 100, 103
seen as ‘saint’ 110, 111
Goren, Rabbi Shlomo 75, 108 ‘greater Jerusalem’ 78-9 Green Line
78, 79
Gris, Ze’ev 135-6, 137
Grossman, Nathan Ze’ev 34
Gur Hassids 52
Gush Emunim 19, 72-7 and Arab-Israeli conflict 7 2-3 and army service
68, 83, 90 Ashkenazi background 69 codes of justice 71-2 foreign policy 72-3
ideology 57, 58, 62-6, 69, 70-1, 83 159 influence of 55-6, 72, 83 involvement
in society 68 and peace treaty 69-70 and redemption doctrine 20, 67 and secular
clothing 68 settlements 56, 72, 78-95
support for 68, 159
Gutman Institute 7
Ha’ain Hashvi’it 32
Haaretz
on Aloni scandal 35, 36
on assassination 115
on dangers of peace process 12 and Goldstein massacre 106, 108,
110
Gush Emunim ideology 57, 69, 74, 75, 86-9, 111
on Jewish exclusiveness 43
on military service deferment 30 on zealots in army 90, 93
Habad movement 43
Hadashot 35, 66
Hadaya, Rabbi E. 64 Ha’i, Rabbi 125, 126 Hakah, Tohay 103 Halacha
and assassination 137-8
and death penalty 59, 77, 99-100, 112, 118
and dress 8
and emergency law 127-8
and homosexuality ix as law of Israel 43
and non-Jews 59, 62, 77, 99-100,
103, 112, 118
and women 8-9, 38, 40
Halperin, Rabbi Levy Yitzhak 42
Halvertal, Dov 110
Ha’Meiri, Menahem 124
Ha’migash, Rabbi Yosef Halevi Ibn 140
Hardelim 86
Haredi parties
male monopoly 17
‘special money’ 51 structure 16-17
see also Agudat Israel; Degel Hatora;
Shas party
Haredim 7-9, 17-18, 23-43, 44-54 attitude to secular Jews 34 and
education 23-4, 26, 27, 31, 51 influence of 10-11, 23-4, 31, 40-1 and military
service 68 and modem times 30-1 and sacred studies 30
and symbols 34
and women 9, 10, 37
world outlook 14-16
and Zionism 17-18, 19
see also Ashkenazi
Jews; Oriental
Jews; Sephardi Jews
Harel, Israel 69
Harkabi,
Yehoshafat 57, 62, 71, 72,
73, 158-9
Ha’Shavua 32
Hasmonean dynasty 3
Hassidism xi, 58-9, 66
Hassids
murders 115, 136, 147-8
persecution 133-5
punishment 130
Hatanya 59
‘Hatikva’ 10, 17
hatred
of Arabs and
secular Jews 86
of Christians 154-5
internecine 53-4
of Western culture 65
Hebron 82, 96
heder 24
Hellenism 2-3
heretics 120, 124-5, 149
burial of 123-4
punishments 125-6, 130-3
see also Cohen, Rabbi; idolatry
Herzl, Theodor 17
Hesder Yeshivot 91-2, 93, 103
Hillel 28
Hirsch, Rabbi Rafael 19
history xii, 1-4, 12
distortion of 150, 162-4
Israeli Jewish historians 14
Holland 131-2
Holocaust 31, 52
homosexuals and lesbians ix-x
Horowitz, Nerri 86
hypocrisy x, 12, 37
idolatry 120, 121, 122
indoctrination 17, 26
informers 138^15, 146-7, 162
Intifada 68, 76, 80, 84, 91
Iraq 3, 44, 125, 139
Ish, Rabbi Hazon 124-5
Israel
conquest of 64
expelling non-Jews 20, 22, 76 extent of viii
as kingdom of Heaven on earth 69 as secular state 87
Israel A/Israel B 6, 7, 11, 12, 156
Issar, Meir 130
Italy 131
Jerusalem Quarterly, The 57
Jewish fundamentalism basic principles viii dangers of 148-9, 151,
161 defined 5 influence of ix, 4, 5-6 intolerance 160-1 and peace vii-viii,
15-16 similarities with German Nazism 62, 65, 73, 112
Jewish underground, rabbinical approval 138-9
Jewish Week 43, 62
Jews
corrupted by West 67-8 and non-Jews 15, 18, 58-62, 65, 71, 76-7,
119-20
and racism 105, 152-3 religious 12-13, 17, 49, 53-4, 79 religious
division 6-7 religious-nationalist 7-9
secular ix, 7, 17
and souls x-xi, 58, 60, 62
Jordan Valley 56
Jordanian option 80
Joshua, Book of 64
Judaism
and independent thought 122, 123 origin of 2
pollution by Arabs 88-9 and Zionism 18
see also Jewish fundamentalism; Jews Judea 2
Kaduri, Rabbi 53, 156-7
Kahane, Rabbi Meir 96, 98, 102, 103, 106, 160
Karo, Rabbi Joseph 28-9
Karpel, Mordechai 87
Kasher, Asa 138
Kasher, Rabbi Menachem 70 kashrut 36
Katz, Ben-Zion 58
Katz, Yuval 104, 105
Katzover, Tzvi (Benny) 101, 111
Kedumim 56, 85 ‘Kesef Mishne’ 28 Kibbutzim 34, 153 Kimmerling,
Baruch ix, 6-7, 90 Kiryat Arba 79, 82, 97, 98, 100, 101, 110, 111
Kissinger, Henry 56 Kitzur Shulhan Aruch 37-8
Kivuntm 73
Kizel, Aryeh 96, 100
Knesset
opening ceremony 10
and retention of settlements 78
Knesset Committee for Defense and Foreign Affairs 12, 106-8
kollel 25
Kook, Rabbi Abraham Yitzhak x-xi, 55, 57, 65-9, 124-5
Kook, Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda 55, 57, 64, 65, 68-9, 72
kosher/non-kosher foods 34, 41, 42 kuneh 130
Labor party
coalition 15, 52
and Gush Emunim 69
and Haredim 10, 37, 50-1, 52-3 and Lubovitcher Rebbe 61
and non-Jews 11, 151-2 oppression of Palestinians 80-1 and racism
152-3 and settlements 82 world outlook 13
and Zionism 17
Landau, Uzi 12 language 45, 46, 49 laws, Jewish
emergency 127-8
in European countries 128-32, 142 143, 145, 161
and non-Jews 76-7
oral 38
symbolism 34-6
three oaths 18-19, 21
and women 8-9, 37-8, 40, 116-18
Lebanon 22, 64, 65-6, 70, 72 Lebanon War (1982-85) 91 ‘left’, the
6, 13, 88
Leibowitz, Yossi 110
Lemberg (Lviv) 134-5
Leper, Kadid 40
Levinger, Rabbi Moshe 99-100, 138
Levy, Moshe 97
Likud party
and Gush Emunim 69
and Haredim 10, 50
and Jewish blood 11
and Jewish past 13
oppression of Palestinians 80 and racism 152-3 world outlook 16
and Zionism 17
Lior, Rabbi Dov 65-6, 101, 103-4 literature, Jewish 4
Lubovitchers 61-2
Luria, Rabbi Shlomo 129, 141, 143
Luria, Rabbi Yitzhak 58
Lurianic School 58
Lustick, Ian 57, 62, 70-1, 72, 73
Maariv 74, 82, 100
Madrid Conference 84 magic/witchcraft 53, 156-8 Maharam 129, 141,
142 Maimonides, Moses
on Ashkenazi Jews 45
on heretics 121, 122, 123-4, 140
on idolatry 122
influence on Goldstein 96
on non-Jews 73
on punishment 76, 118-19, 120, 126, 140
on rabbis’ salaries 27-8
on women and sacred study 39-40
Markus, Yoel 35, 36, 37 marriages, arranged 49 Masada 113-14
maskilim 135
Meir, Golda 53, 93
Meir, Rabbi see Maharam
Melamed, Rabbi Zalman 75, 76
Menahem 114
Mendelsohn, Moses 19
Meretz party 6, 15, 17, 74, 88
Merkaz Harav 55
Mesorati 26
Messiah, collective incarnation 66-7 messianism viii, xi, 4
messianic era 64, 71 and non-Jews 65, 158-9 redemption 10, 19-20,
21 two Messiahs 66-7
see also Gush Emunim; three oaths military service,
deferment from 29-30
Miller, Yidan 93
Min-Hahar, Rabbi Shlomo 75-6
Mishnah 140 monuments, to murderers 111-12 Moshe, Rabbi 127 murder
Hassidic 115, 136, 147-8
of Jews and non-Jews 43, 71-2, 99-100
of non-religious Jews 139 punishment for 119 using magic 157-8
see also death penalty; punishment Muslims 75-6
mysticism, Jewish x, xi, 4, 66-7, 163 Nachmanides, Rabbi Moshe 19
Nahman of Braslaw, Rabbi 133 National Religious Party (NRP) 7-8, 55-77
and army 89-91, 92 attitudes 73-6
and Haredim 10 ideology 10, 70 and Jewish state 19, 20, 21 and
Occupied Territories viii and women 8-9
see also Gush Emunim
Nazism 62, 65, 73, 106, 112 neo-Nazism 34
Netanyahu, Benyamin 16, 94-5 blessing from Rabbi Kaduri 156 and
Rabbi Yoseph 20, 21 and settlements 72, 95 support of Lubovitchers 61 warnings
of assassination 138
Netivot 31
Netzarim 80, 81, 82 new Canaanite era 88-9 Ne’yila prayer 140
Nisan, Mordechai 73 non-Jews 15, 18, 58-62 blood 11, 41, 71-2, 153-4 Cabbala
57-8, 62 embodiment of Satan 58, 66 expulsion from Israel 20, 22, 76
extermination 64, 73 and Halacha 59, 62, 77, 99-100, 103, 112, 118
in Israel 72-3
and Jewish laws 76-7
and Labor party 11, 151-2 and messianism 65, 158-9 and murder 43,
71-2, 99-100 souls x-xi, 58, 60, 62
and Talmud 119-20, 156 normalcy 11, 13-14, 71, 161
observance vs. belief 7
Occupied Territories 20-1, 55, 64, 78 Ofra 56
Or, Orri 98
Oren, Amir 36, 97-8
Orenstein, Rabbi Tzvi 135 organ transplants 41, 42-3, 62 Oriental
Jews
cultural socialization 48 in government 94 and Gush Emunim 69
inferior status 49-50 influence of Ashkenazi Jews 48-9 transformation of 54
and violence 116
see also Sephardi Jews
Oslo process 80-1, 82, 84, 86-7, 94
Ottoman Empire, and Sephardi Jews 46
Oxman, Yitzhzak 147
Palestine
autonomy 75, 107
control of 81-2, 84
earthquake 19 emigration to 18-19, 47-8 Jewish state 6, 17
self-rule 80-1, 84 state of 74, 107
Palestinians, irrelevance of 88
Paltoi, Rabbi 125, 139
Patai, Raphael 164
Patriarch 3-4
Patriarch’s Cave massacre 96, 104, 160 peace vii-viii, 12-13,
15-16, 55, 69-70, 107
Pentateuch, study of 24, 40
Peres, Shimon
and Goldstein massacre 106-7
and Haredim 32, 50-1
lack of support 156
and PLO 107-8
and Rabbi Yoseph 20, 21
and religious laws 35
and setdement policy 84
support for Gush Emunim 56, 63, 65, 72
Peretz, Rabbi Yitzhak 31
Perl, Yosef 148
persecution, inter-Jewish 130-1, 133^1, 146
Petah Tikva 31
Pharisees and Saducees, dispute 2
Pinhassi, Rabbi 54
PLO 75, 107-8
pogroms 133, 134
Poland 129-30, 131, 132, 134, 143-6 polarisation, in Israeli
Jewish society
14
politics, and spirituality 74
Pollak, Tiran 103
Pollard, Jonathan 57
prayer for the State of Israel 86-7 pre-military academies
religious 92, 93
secular 94
press
American and English 159-60 Haredi 32-3
Preuss, Teddy 105-6
prostitutes 117-18, 121
punishment 126-34
expulsion 129-30
and God 31
mutilation
128, 129, 141, 142, 143
see also death penalty; murder
Purim 107-9, 136
rabbinical court 77, 119
rabbis
attitudes to 48
and corruption 29
and financial reward 28-9
intelligence network 85
and oppression 29
power of 84-6
and violence 114-15, 118, 119
Rabin, Yitzhak
and Aloni scandal 35, 36-7
assassination viii, 10-11, 89, 90,
134, 137-8
background to assassination 113-49
and Goldstein massacre 97, 111
and Haredim 32
and Rabbi Yoseph 21
seen as informer/traitor 86, 87, 138
settlement policy 56, 72, 74, 75-6,
80, 81, 82, 84
talks with rabbis 85-6
victory over Peres 51
Rabiniwitz, Rabbi Nahum 139
Rachlevsky, Seffi x, xi
Ravitsky, Aviezer 18-19
Ravitz, Deputy Minister 21
Rayan, Yael 34
Raz, Avi 74
reasoning, Jewish 28-9
rebellions, against Romans 3, 113-14
redemption 19-20, 21, 65, 67, 69, 75, 86
Reshef, Rafi 104-5
right, secular 11-14, 22
‘right and religious parties’, the 6,
11-12,16
Rosen, Rami 115-16, 118, 134-6,
146-8
Rosenblum, Doron 12-13
Rosner, Shmuel 108
Rubinstein, Amnon 111
Rubinstein, Danny 75
Russia 132-4, 137, 145-6
Rzhishchev riot 133-4
Sabra massacre 11, 22
sacred studies
benefits for others 27 and financial reward 27-9 privileges 26-7,
29
and support from wife 49 sacred water miracles 32 Safad,
earthquake 19 Saloniki 46
salvation, Jews and non-Jews 58 Samuel the Prince, Rabbi 126
Sanhedrin 3
Satan 58, 64, 66
Satmar Hassids 102
scandals,
political, and Jewish symbols 34-5
Schneerson, Rabbi Menachem (Lubovitcher Rebbi) 15, 58-61, 102,160
Scholem, Gershon xi, 58, 163 Schwatzman, Shmuel 148
Sebastia, demonstration by Gush
Emunim 56
Second Temple, destruction of 2, 3, 113
secular Jews ix, 7
in army 93-4
attitude to sacred studies 30
and Haredim 32 4, 34, 37
hatred of 86
see also right, secular secular press 32, 36 Segev, Tom
157
Sephardi Jews 44-5, 46, 47
see also Oriental Jews settlement policy 56, 84, 158-9
settlements
attitude of Israeli Jews to 78-9 evacuation 139
and Jewish consciousness 87-8 religious messianic 79, 80, 82, 84
voting patterns 79
Shabak 138
Shach, Rabbi 15, 19-21, 33, 50-1, 53, 156
Shamir, Yitzhak 50, 84, 93
Sharon, Ariel 11, 13
on Goldstein massacre 107
and Lebanon 22, 70
and Lubovitcher Rebbe 61
West Bank settlements 82
Shas party 7-8, 50
harassment from Ashkenazi Jews 53-4
political activity 51-2
and Rabin 36-7
split with Rabbi Scach 33, 52-4 Shatila Camp massacre 11, 22
Sheinberger, Rabbi Yehoshua 41, 42
Shilo, Rabbi Daniel 56, 85
Shimon, Rabbi 142
Shishi 86
Shlitzstat, Rabbi Samuel 142-3 Shmuel, Rabbi 18
Shraggai, Nadav 74, 75, 86-8, 110 Shulhan Aruch 40
Sikarikin 113-14
Sinai viii, 22, 56, 66, 72 Singer, Tzvi 102-3 Smolenskin, Peretz
124 souls, of Jews and non-Jews x-xi, 58, 60, 62
Spain, punishment of sinners 126-7 Spinoza, Baruch 131-2 superiority,
Jewish xi-xii, 43, 58, 60, 62, 152
see also exclusiveness; uniqueness symbolism, religious
34-6, 86 Syria 12, 55
Tai, Professor Uriel 57, 62-5, 69 Talmor, Ranny 35
Talmud
Babylonian 5
Haredi interpretations 17 and heretics 124 and magic 157
and non-Jews 119-20, 156
parodies 30
and punishments 118-19, 139 study of 24
three oaths 18-19, 21
and women 38-40
and women singing 9
Talmud Torah 39
Talmudic Encyclopaedia 38 talmudic literature
commentaries 28 translation of 1, 5
talmudic studies see sacred studies Tam, Rabenu 142
taxes, on kosher meat and sabbath candles 136
Teitelbaum, Rabbi Moshe 19 three oaths 18-19, 21
Tiberius Julius Alexander 114 Tishbi, Yesaiah 58
Torah 27-8, 122
see also sacred studies Torah Sheba’alPeh 38 Tractate
Ketubot 18 Tractate Kiddushin 39 Tractate Sanhedrin 124 Tractate
Shabat 38 traditionalists 7, 11
Tzadock 121
Tzemach, Rabbi 125, 142
Ummayad Caliphate 140 uniqueness 11, 13, 71 see also
exclusiveness
‘village leagues’ 80, 84
Vilna, Hassids 130
Violence, inter-Jewish 114-18, 145, 147-9
see also murder; punishment
Vital, Rabbi Hayim 58
Vyshegrad 134
Waldman, Eliezer 73 war
and God’s intervention 30
as process of purification 63-4
as punishment 65
Weil, Rabbi Yosef 128
Weizman, Ezer 98, 101, 102
West, public opinion 13
West Bank
military roads 81, 82 population of settlements 78-9 settlement
55, 56, 82, 84 withdrawal viii, 7 2
women
in army 89 and education 24, 38-40
Jewish feminists 155
and Jewish law 8-9,37-8,40,116-18 in politics 53
religious inferiority 38-9 and religious obligations 39-40 shaving
heads 37, 117
singers 9
violence against 116-17, 118, 155
World Zionist Organization 73
Yad Eliahu Stadium 109
Yahadut Ha’Torah 7-8, 21
Yaron, Amos 98
Yated Ne’eman 16, 19, 33, 34, 52
Yatom, General 101
Yediot Ahronot
on Aloni scandal 36
on Goldstein massacre 96, 98, 100, 110-11
on Haredi press 32
on killing of non-religious Jews 139 survey of Jewish society ix
Yehuda, Rabbi 117, 127, 141 Yerushalaim 92, 101, 103, 104
yeshiva 24-5
Yeshu’a, Ben-Shoshan 102
Yiddish 49
Yisrael, Rabbi 148
Yitzhaki, Rabbi Shlomo (Rashi) 24 Yo’av 30
Yohana of Gush Halav 114
Yom Kippur 128, 140, 141
Yom Kippur War 53, 63, 65 Yoseph, Rabbi Ovadia
and Aloni scandal 35, 36
and blood transfusions 41, 155-6 hatred of NRP 50
and Shas party 50, 52-3 spiritual authority 53 teaching Peres 50-1
territorial concessions 16, 19-22, 154
Zion 133
Zionism 6, 16, 17, 68-9, 88 and classical Judaism 18, 47 ideology
6,17
independent thought 122, 123 partial secularization 22, 87 secular
Zionists 71
Zionist anthem see Hatikva
Z’Manim 6
Zohavsky, Rabbi Natan 33
Zvi, Shabtai 66
Index compiled by Sue Carlton
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