Herzlia boys’ individual rights must be balanced against obligation to others

Chuck Volpe, Sydney

For those who don’t know, Hatikvah translates as “The Hope”. It is the anthem of the state of Israel, but it is much more than that. The words were written in 1878, 70 years before Israel was established, and it reflects the Jews’ 2 000-year-old hope of returning to the land as a sovereign people.

It is the song of the Jewish heart, yearning for a second exodus from the persecution and suffering of the diaspora. In short, Hatikvah expresses Jewish identity as well as nationhood. In 1944, as Czech Jews were being led to the gas chambers at Auschwitz-Birkenau with the accompanying Waffen-SS guards beating and humiliating them, they sang Hatikvah. It was the last thing they did.

Hatikvah represents a sacred value. To use it as a means to an end is to commit an act of desecration which plunges a metaphorical knife into the Jewish heart. Acts of desecration are the very opposite of respectful discussion and gentle argument, and are the province of those who believe their truth is unassailable (the Taliban spring to mind).

Of course it was a setup. The boys had hardly risen to full height when others rushed in to demand their right to free speech be respected, the respect they deny to others. But free speech is a strawman argument and in any case, besides the point. It’s a strawman argument because no one denies them the right to speak freely in the appropriate forum. And it’s beside the point, because even if they were denied this right, it is still not permissible to desecrate values held dear by millions. Our rights as individuals must be balanced against our obligations to others. Rights are individual and man-made, our deepest values are communal and derived from our nature as social beings. It’s called ubuntu.

Some have called them courageous, but there’s nothing courageous about Jew-baiting. Would they have dared juggle a crucifix in a Christian Church to protest the behaviour of priests, or banged a drum in a mosque during Ramadan to protest against suicide bombers? Not a chance!

They would do well to remember that Jews stand in the shadow of a long history which includes the delegitimisation of their religion, the delegitimisation of their race, and now the delegitimisation of their nation state. No Jew, not even these two, can step outside that shadow.