GEOFF SIFRIN

TAKING ISSUE

Should Diaspora Jews meddle in Israeli politics – Americans, South Africans or others? Or refrain because they don’t live there?

Israel is not a regular state. Diaspora Jews have every right to try to influence what it does, who gets elected and the nature of its society. Its actions affect Jews’ lives everywhere. Witness the pig’s heads placed alongside kosher food at Woolworths in Cape Town by Cosas, inspired by the BDS campaign against the store for selling Israeli products.

Attacks on Jews in Paris were motivated by Israel-hatred, but easily became Jew-hatred. For most ordinary South Africans, Israel is outside personal experience; all they know is the version spread by BDS. They cannot distinguish between Jews and Israel.

Israeli politics has some curious aspects. A vivid example which would baffle liberal Diaspora Jews occurred on Sunday regarding the national anthem, Hatikvah. Most countries take it as a given that parties aiming for election to parliament endorse such important symbols like the flag and the anthem as representing what unites the nation.

South Africa’s national anthem, composed after the 1994 democratic elections, incorporates several languages and narratives appealing to different population groups. It is a unifier reflecting Nelson Mandela’s value of national reconciliation – even if many whites still can’t sing the exact words of its “African” section, most feel moved by it.

Yet in Israel Rabbi Shalom Cohen, the foremost religious arbiter in Shas – a political party competing for Knesset seats which has been part of past governing coalitions – called Israel’s national anthem a “stupid song”.

Speaking at a campaign rally on Sunday, he disparaged modern Orthodox and secular Israeli Jews who sing it. Rabbi Cohen was appointed successor to the late legendary rabbinic leader of Shas, Ovadia Yosef.   

One explanation for animosity toward Hatikvah is because it contains the words “to be a free nation in our land”. For secular and most modern Orthodox Jews, this “positive” phrase speaks to the Jewish people’s suffering in the Diaspora and longing to build their own state to relieve this – the essence of Zionism.

Rabbi Cohen, however, believes the meaning behind the words “free nation” has another agenda – to be free of the religious commandments of the Torah.

Freedom is such a basic notion for the Western liberal mind that we can’t imagine a legitimate political party in a democracy rejecting it. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is the most celebrated phrase in the US Declaration of Independence – “unalienable rights” given to all human beings by their Creator.

In South Africa, the freedoms enshrined in our Constitution give immense pride, particularly knowing the struggle to achieve them by the heroes and heroines who fought apartheid. The word freedom seems an unassailable “good” to imbed in the national anthem.

However, words mean different things to different people according to their authentic worldview. Rabbi Cohen believes the words of Torah, which accompanied the People of Israel for thousands of years and speak about the yearning and return to Zion, are preferable to a song written in recent decades.

On the other side of the spectrum is the ultra-left, ultra-secular Meretz party,for whom individual freedom is a non-negotiable value above almost all others. Both Shas and Meretz are valid players in Israeli politics. Some pre-election polls show, however, that most Israelis lie in the centre of the spectrum and that both Shas and Meretz might not achieve the minimum threshold of votes for a seat in the Knesset.

Where does this leave Diaspora Jews? The range of their worldviews reflects the Israeli one. There is no reason for them to refrain from trying to influence Israeli society, which is theirs as much as anyone else’s.

• Geoff Sifrin is former editor of the SA Jewish Report. He writes this column in his personal capacity