Israelis increasingly embrace traditional Judaism

DAVID SAKS

Orwell was commenting on the bizarre phenomenon of how a high degree of learning and intelligence is so often able to co-exist with a blind, emotionally-driven adherence to theories wholly contradicted by facts and logic. A good example in South Africa would be Hendrik Verwoerd, who mesmerised his supporters and intimidated his opponents with his undeniably formidable intellect, yet whose unquestioning belief that the apartheid system he championed could permanently ensure white hegemony, was so hopelessly wrong.

In our day, one of the fashionable theories touted by academics despite their being diametrically contradicted by the objective realities of the situation is that the era of distinct nation states is over and the future is (and should be) one of borderless multiculturalism. Perhaps the shaky EU experiment and the hopes raised by the Soviet super-state which incorporated multiple nationalities and ethnicities under one government, provided some cogent evidence for believing this.

 However, the trajectory of world affairs since the Soviet Union’s collapse a quarter of a century ago, has completely overturned the post-national narrative. The demise of that empire, and of such satellite territories as Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, the emergence of a score of new, fully independent countries, most of which had never existed before as sovereign entities on the world stage. They included Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine and Tajikistan (among nearly half a dozen other new – “stans” that were added to the already existing Paki- and Afghani- versions).

Yugoslavia itself broke up into no fewer than six (or is it seven?) distinct states, which promptly went to war with one another. Czechoslovakia managed to broker a more peaceful divorce.

Since then, the international trend towards balkanisation has only increased. Sudan split into two states a few years ago after the southern part of the country revolted against the tyranny of the Arab Muslim-dominated north.

Nigeria, where a similar north-south conflict between Christians and Muslims is raging, may well go the same way. In the Middle East, Iraq has become little more than a geographical expression, and hopefully the Kurds will succeed in establishing their own state soon.

Striking evidence of how ethnic nationalism even in Europe is making a comeback, was recently provided by the referendum on Scottish independence. While the “no” vote prevailed, nine out of every 20 Scots voted to sever ties with the United Kingdom (and thereby, for no pressing reason, to dissolve the three-century-old Anglo-Scottish partnership, one of history’s most successful cross-ethnic alliances). 

It would therefore seem to be self-evident that far from having had its day, the distinct nation state remains a solidly entrenched and indeed growing reality on the international stage. Despite this, leftwing intellectuals continue to propagate the “State is dead” notion. Moreover, this frequently seems to be directed at one particular state – no prizes for guessing which one.

Not unpredictably Jewish-born academics have been largely responsible for the idea that Zionism has passed its sell-by date and that Israel itself is an increasingly undesirable relic of a bygone age.

The late British historian Tony Judt, in an influential 2003 essay, encapsulated this attitude when he wrote that it had “imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law”. According to Judt, the very idea of a “Jewish state”, in which Jews and the Jewish religion had “exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded” was rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, was “an anachronism”.

Even a decade ago, the way the world was actually unfolding, showed that Judt and his ilk were completely wrong, and subsequent events have only reinforced this. Despite this, their theories continue to hold sway in universities throughout the Western world.

Looking more closely into what they say, one also finds that the real problem that the left seems to have would seem to be less against ethnic nationalism per se, but against Jewish nationalism exclusively. It is thus just another intellectual sleight of hand aimed at delegitimising the Jewish State, with the active connivance of much of the post-Zionist Israeli left.  

Israel itself is becoming more, not less Jewish. According to its Bureau of Central Statistics, 57 per cent of Israelis now practise a form of Judaism that would be classified as “Orthodox” in our own country. 

On this, renowned philosopher and historian David Goldman, himself observant, comments: “This is a crucial, counterintuitive story: Israel is swimming against the secular current, becoming more observant as the rest of the world becomes more secular.” He further regards the Israeli left, “with its soggy vision of universalist utopianism”, as becoming “marginalised and irrelevant”.

Given how much Israelis are embracing traditional Judaism, and in general identifying with their Jewish heritage, one has to ask: Was it really necessary for the Israeli government to introduce a controversial new law formerly defining Israel as “the nation state of the Jewish people”? It was an ill thought-out step, I feel, and a needless provocative one.