A Liberal and a Zionist

Remarks to an Open House

Rabbi Melanie Aron

October 17, 2002

One of my first political memories is of the New York City teachers strike in 1968. This divisive strike pitted the heavily Jewish teachers union against African Americans from the Outer Boroughs and liberals from Manhattan, over the issue of community control. It broke up a very successful coalition of Jews, African Americans and so called Patrician Liberals that had dominated New York politics. The language used on both sides during the strike was most inflammatory and painful and disrupted many friendships, including some within my parents' circle.

Those who work with me on the Interfaith Council locally, know of my fears that the same thing might happen again, as issues of foreign policy threaten to disrupt our very successful local working coalition. We have done important work on affordable housing, immigrant rights, living wage, and children's health care and there is much yet to be done.

I am a liberal and a Zionist and I hope that by the end of this afternoon that identification will not seem oxymoronic. Being a Zionist does not mean that you agree at all times with the current government of Israel. This afternoon you have already heard a number of different points of views presented by our speakers, all of whom identify themselves as Zionists.

Being a Zionist means that you believe in the existence of a national homeland for the Jewish people, just as you might believe in France as a national homeland for the French or Italy as the national homeland for the Italians. Being a national homeland for the Jewish people, doesn't mean that non-Jews can't live there. Israel currently has about a half a million non-Jewish citizens, who vote, serve in the Keneset (there are 13 Arab Keneset members currently) and in other elected and appointed positions, and in general, to a remarkable degree enjoy the rights of citizenship along with Jewish Israelis.

While Americans think of Jews as being a religious faith parallel to Christianity, for most of the past three thousand years and in most places around the world, Jews have been considered a people, a nation, and treated accordingly. It is for this reason that a Jewish homeland for a Jewish people is so important to many Jews, particularly those not living in the United States. I was surprised this past winter when I was living in Israel to meet brand new immigrants from France and Argentina who had chosen to come to Israel to live. Even at that difficult and dangerous time they felt the future held more promise for them in Israel than a home facing anti-Semitism.

Some people say: But what about Israel being a Jewish state, having an established religion? Isn't Israel a theocracy? Though we in the United States favor separation of Church and State, many countries around the world have an established religion. England has an established religion and no one claims that on that basis England is not a democracy. When I lived in Manchester as a child and attended government schools, there was weekly instruction in Church of England theology, from which I was excused along with the Catholic children who also had special dispensation to go to a different place during the time of religious instruction. It is true that in Israel the national holidays rather than being Christmas and Easter are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Succot and Passover, but in Israel citizens of every religion are given the right to practice their own religion, holy places of Christians, Muslims and Bahai's are safeguarded and are under the authority of their own institutions, and an individual is married, divorced and buried under the religious law of their own religion. Israel is not a theocracy, it is not ruled by Jewish religious law, halachah. Israeli law is a combination of Ottomon Turkish law, British law from the period of the Mandate, and contemporary Israeli Law which is not Jewish religious law. Though Jews have special rights in terms of immediate immigration, non-Jews may also immigrate to Israel, through a process not unlike United States immigration laws. In addition government schools in the Arab community, are not required to teach the same curriculum in terms of Jewish history and religious culture. Interestingly, some of the most serious infringements on freedom of religion in Israel relate to liberal Jews like myself who find the Orthodox monopoly on Judaism in Israel incompatible with our personal and communal religious freedoms.

Two decades ago the United Nations passed a resolution that Zionism is racism, but anyone who has been to Israel can see how nonsensical that is. Jewish people are of many races and that is most evident in Israel, where less than 40% of the population is of European origin. Many Israeli Jews are refugees from North African and Arab countries- about 65,000 are Africans from Ethiopia airlifted to Israel when their lives were threatened by famine and anti-Semitic attacks. The United States, by contrast, which has 40 times the population of Israel, and over 100 times the land, has allowed in only 57,000 refugees from all of Africa in the years 1987-1998.

As a liberal I admire Israel for its national health insurance- for all its faults it is light years ahead of our current system, and, up until the last decades flirtation with global capitalism, for its strong unions and relatively narrower economic inequalities. I feel an identification with Israel as Israel grapples with issues that are important to me, feminism, equal rights for gays and lesbians, and ending discrimination, in Israel's case, against its Arab citizens and against its non-European Jewish citizens. Is Israel perfect? Is Israel going to earn 100% from the ADA ? No, but Israel is a democracy where groups fighting for greater freedoms have the ability to pursue their goals. The Justices on Israel's Supreme Court are far more liberal than our own present court, and they continue to struggle with issues of equal justice, of abuse of authority, of the rights of those who refuse to serve in the armed forces and of the interpretation of housing and zoning ordinances. There are many, many of their decisions of which I can feel very proud. Balancing security and individual freedom is not easy, as we have seen in the results of September 11th here in the United States, but in Israel, all members of society, including Arabs, continue to have their day in court, to contest what they believe are infringements of their rights.

With elections coming up soon in our American community, I was thinking about a question that has come up among the participants, Jewish, Christian and Muslim, in our Arab- Jewish dialogue. What would it take to elect a more pro-peace government in Israel? Even that the question is worded in this way, in the assumption that governmental change takes place through democratic elections, speaks to me about why I am a Zionist and a Liberal. Incidentally voter turn out is much higher in Israel, though of course not as high as the 110% reported recently in Iraq.

The answer to the question of what it would take to elect a more negotiation oriented government is partially what Yitzhak spoke to us about already. A reduction in violence is vital to making Israelis believe again in the viability of the peace process. But the other part of the answer, is the same as would be given for a similar question in America. It will take a coalition of motivated citizens willing to work to promote the candidates of their choice.

There is no greater icon of American Liberalism than Martin Luther King, a defender of Israel's right to exist as a state in security. No one can really know what he would say today, but in 1968 shortly before his death, he was heckled at Harvard on the issue of Zionism, by those who were critical of Israel and came back with a strong rejoinder. I believe that he would agree with me, Liberal and Zionist is no oxymoron.