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Zionism, Ethics and the New Birth of Freedom
By Joel Schalit / August 18, 2009
Once upon a time, Zionism was considered one of the most progressive of causes among American liberals. Support for Zionism was thought to go hand in hand with noble goals such as civil rights and the advancement of freedom, free speech and tolerance, cultural pluralism and the rights of minorities. And the American Zionist movement was led by one of the nation’s most powerful, influential and innovative figures, Louis Brandeis.
During the years which marked the heyday of his Zionist involvement, which lasted from 1913 to 1921, Brandeis not only put the American Zionist movement on its feet, he laid down the basic conceptual framework through which Americans, Jews and non-Jews, articulated and channeled their support for Zionism and the state of Israel down to the present day. He also articulated a vision of Zionism rooted as much in liberal values as in Jewish concerns, which owed as much to Thomas Jefferson as it did to Theodore Herzl, perhaps more. Remote as that vision seems to be from the realities of Israeli life today, it is worth recalling and exploring, for its own sake and for what we can learn from its power, as well as limitations.
The first Jew ever to sit on the US Supreme Court, Louis Bandeis was, for years before that, a cutting-edge figure in American law, social policy and constitutional thought. His path to Zionism, like that of many others, of whom Herzl is only the most prominent example, took him from the circles of power and influence which he had attained as an assimilated Jew, to the concerns and hopes of the Jewish people, and in particular to the distresses of East European Jewry. In the end, Brandeis was unable fully to identify with Eastern European Jews, and with the style of politics which they brought to the Zionist movement. After several years at the helm not only of American Zionism but the Zionist movement worldwide, he and his supporters went their own way.
Brandeis was born in Kentucky in 1856 to a family of largely assimilated German Jews. His intellectual brilliance and drive led him to Harvard Law School where, among other things, he founded the Harvard Law Review, the first major American scholarly journal of law. He stayed in Boston, and over the decades established himself as a successful corporate lawyer while coming to be known, by virtue of his innovative work on behalf of the Progressive movement and its causes, as "the people’s attorney."
Louis Brandeis came of age during a period of great changes in American life. Factors such as industrialization, mass migrations, increasingly bigger corporations and the rise of densely populated major cities created great dislocations, new masses of the poor in both urban areas and the countryside – and new, hitherto unimaginable degrees of wealth and power for a lucky few. Brandeis saw here a structural inequality, "the curse of bigness," and in particular of unregulated corporate monopolies and the political interests supporting them, which cried out for remedy, to be delivered by law.
Up to that time, lawyers and the law had been seen, correctly enough, as largely conservative elements in society, which served chiefly to protect the social and economic status quo. Brandeis was one of the first American advocates to see the possibility of the law as an instrument of social change. He began to take on cases aimed at promoting social causes and rectifying systemic injustices (such as monopolies and unjust wage structures) and he developed a new legal methodology to do so: the "Brandeis Brief" marshaled information derived from the new social sciences of economics, sociology and statistics to frame legal arguments.
This new method in turn reflected his belief that the law was not a fixed entity in itself, but rather a set of responses to changing human circumstances, properly guided by enduring values, above all respect for individuals, their dignity and their freedom. To his mind, while basic values were eternal and commanding, the law was a never-ending experiment, and America’s local governments in all their diversity were "laboratories of democracy."
Brandeis became a leading figure in America’s Progressive movement, a coalition of rural populists, economic nationalists, and liberals – the group with which he identified. Brandeis was not a socialist; he believed in free markets and competition, regulated by the state, to protect small businessmen and limit the political influence of big business. He greatly influenced the leader of the Progressives’ liberal wing, Woodrow Wilson, who, when he became President in 1916, appointed Brandeis to the Supreme Court. There he emerged as the champion of civil rights and liberties.
Through most of his career, Brandeis had very little Jewish involvement. In 1905 he addressed a Jewish audience for the first time and said that he had high hopes for the Eastern European Jews arriving in America in droves because, unlike the German-Jewish circles in which he had been raised, they possessed "idealism and reverence." In 1910, Brandeis mediated a strike of New York garment workers and this brought him into contact with Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, struggling workers and activist intellectuals. He found himself deeply moved by them and their struggles even as – in a hint of things to come – he found that his very American pragmatism regularly collided with their ideological fervor.
And so Louis Brandeis began his own journey down the road traveled by so many Westernized modern Jews, whose encounters with Eastern European Jewry brought them in touch with parts of themselves they had hardly known existed, and to political and cultural commitments they never would have imagined.
The fledgling American Zionist movement sensed an opportunity and began to court him, a task made easier by the fact that many of the progressive intellectuals and activists with whom he was already engaged on social and political issues were Zionists themselves. At first Brandeis began to advise the Zionists, much the same way that he advised and lent his name to any number of worthy causes. With time his involvement deepened, in part due to his relationship with the young Jewish philosopher who first coined the phrase "cultural pluralism," Horace Kallen.
Brandeis had known Kallen, twenty-five years his junior, at Harvard, and in 1913 as Brandeis’ Zionist involvement deepened, he had Kallen send him some of his writings, in which he was developing the idea that rather than being a ‘melting pot,’ American culture should aim to be "a harmony…to which each [nation] contributes its unique tone." His exchanges were Kallen were crucial to the development of his Zionist ideas.
Brandeis and Kallen attempted an answer to a peculiarly American question, namely how is it that I, an American Jew who believes and identifies deeply with America’s culture, heritage and public philosophy, similarly identify with the problem of the Jews and of Judaism, and of Zionism’s various solutions to these problems? And how do I go on so believing and identifying? This American question of Kallen’s still resonates, today.
Their answer was Zionism as a form of cultural pluralism. It was a political Zionism whose politics had a powerful Herzlian element of political rights for minorities, and a deep, Ahad Ha’am-like, element of cultural revival with ethics at the center. Kallen and later Brandeis were, in this mix of self-phenomenology and political philosophy, making two arguments:Â
First, that American identity, when thought through to its deepest roots and intentions, yielded a much broader harvest of loyalties, aspirations, affiliations and values than the distinctively Anglo-Saxon heritage of its founders, not because a range of cultures and ethnicities dotted the American landscape but because, as Kallen wrote in a 1915 essay, entitled "Democracy vs. the Melting Pot", "Americanization has not repressed nationality. Americanization has liberated nationality…Because no individual is merely an individual, the political autonomy of the individual has meant and is beginning to realize the spiritual autonomy of the group."Â
The second argument was that Zionism could and ought to be moving along the same basic continuum as Americanism, towards a liberal polity that would enable a range of people and minorities to flourish in light of their own historical experiences. For them Zionism was, in a deep and real sense, Americanism by another name and with a different, though not contradictory, historical inflection. Their commitments to Zionism and to Americanism did not, to their mind, conflict, because they sincerely saw each very much as a reflection of the other. And they were helped along here by a peculiarly American mix of Protestant Biblicism and Enlightenment humanism, which was also at work in their Progressive political commitments as well.
By 1915, Brandeis’ Zionist vision had come to fully flower, and he laid it out in a speech to the largest association of Reform Rabbis. His audience was only partially ready for what he had to say. Like classical Reform, Brandeis understood Judaism and Jewish values almost entirely in terms of universal ethics. But while Reform saw Zionism as running contrary to those values, Louis Brandeis saw it as the very best way to bring them to life.
It all begins with individual freedom – and for an individual to realize his freedom he must be free to live the life of his culture. Brandeis distinguished between nation and nationality – nations being the political institutions in which nationalities come to expression.
Democracy, he said, "insists that the full development of each individual is not only a right, but a duty to society; and that our best hope for civilization lies not in uniformity, but in wide differentiation." For its part, what Brandeis called "the Jewish spirit," was "essentially modern and essentially American." How could this be?
He continued:
America’s fundamental law seeks to make real the brotherhood of man. That brotherhood became the Jewish fundamental law more than twenty-five hundred years ago. America’s insistent demand in the twentieth century is for social justice. That has also been the Jews’ striving for ages. Their affliction as well as their religion has prepared the Jews for effective democracy. Persecution broadened their sympathies. It trained them in patient endurance, in self-control, and in self-sacrifice. It made them think as well as suffer. It deepened the passion for righteousness.
And Brandeis concluded "loyalty to America demands…that each American Jew become a Zionist. For only through the ennobling effect of its strivings can we develop the best that is in us and give to this country the full benefit of our great inheritance…"
In this vision Judaism is a particular people’s mission to teach universal ethical values, a mission that they can realize only by maintaining their own identity and keeping true to their historical experience. Only by winning independence, freeing themselves from persecution and maintaining their culture in their homeland can they be true to their ethical mission, which at bottom is the same ethical mission of America.
With the outbreak of World War I, American Zionists found themselves at the forefront of the world Zionist movement, and Brandeis was catapulted to international Jewish leadership. He approached this with the same pragmatic earnestness and technical skill that he had brought to other causes and his slogan was "Men! Money! Discipline!" He set to work organizing the movement and supervising massive relief projects in Europe.
Brandeis’ Zionist vision was stated succinctly in the so-called Pittsburgh Program, announced at a conference there in 1918, aiming to offer a distinctly American reaffirmation of the Basel Program put forward by Herzl in 1897. Its first principle was "political and civil equality irrespective of race, sex, or faith, for all the inhabitants of the land.” Its other provisions went on to list American Progressive ideas such as public land ownership and free public education, and the importance of Hebrew.
Of course, from today’s perspective, this platform seems to be a message from another planet. A Zionism whose very first principle – and the only political principle articulated in the document – is civic and political equality for all, Arabs and Jews? Before we simply dismiss it out of hand, we need to recall that the meaning of nationalism was different before and after the Versailles conference that ended World War I. Before the first world war, nationalism was in many respects a liberal claim, a moral claim for liberty by ethnic groups pressed against oppressive empires, and thus a claim more easily reconcilable with universalist moralities. Early Zionists, like Brandeis, did not see relations with Palestinian Arabs as necessarily zero-sum, since both were engaged in a struggle for self-definition vis-Ă -vis the Ottomans. After World War I with the attendant collapse of the Ottoman, Romanov and Austro-Hungarian empires and the weakening of the Western imperial system as a whole, nationalism increasingly became a claim pressed by ethnic groups against one another, to the bloody results we see today.Â
The Pittsburgh Program’s terribly thin version of Jewish culture, as reflected in its simple invocation of Hebrew and no more, prefigured another and more immediate conflict within the Zionist movement itself.
After the war, Louis Brandeis found himself increasingly at odds with the World Zionist Organization and its leader, Chaim Weizmann. The two engaged in the kind of mind-numbing organizational battles which characterize Zionist history, and which today seem more distant than the Stone Age. The heart of it was that with the Balfour Declaration, Brandeis saw the role of the Zionist movement as technocratic, providing economic and professional help to the locals in Palestine, who would be free to develop themselves and their institutions, just like their American counterparts championed by Brandeis and the Progressives.
Though Weizmann well understood the imperatives driving Brandeis, he believed that Zionism had to continue being a mass movement of the Jewish people, above all the Jews of Eastern Europe. It was they who gave Zionism its demographic heft and moral power. It was they who the Zionist revolution sought to modernize and transform through nation-building. By 1921, the split between the two of them was complete. Weizmann retained the leadership of the WZO, while Brandeis and his followers found various avenues for their Zionist activity, such as Hadassah. Some became supporters of Brit Shalom, others eventually found their way back into the WZO.
The contact with Eastern European Jewry that brought Brandeis face-to-face with his own Jewishness and made him a Zionist also highlighted the limits of that engagement. In his later years, he forged deep personal connections with young circles of Hashomer Hatzair, whose Progressive ideals resonated with his own and who, like him, were already distanced from the traditions of Eastern Europe by several generations. Brandeis stayed on the Supreme Court until 1939, all the while maintaining his championing of civil rights and liberties. He passed away in 1941.
What relevance, if any, does Brandeis’ vision have for us today?
American Jews still follow his basic formula that American identity can go well with a certain kind of Jewish identity, largely non-essentialized and value-driven. Primordial identities of peoplehood and land are made to pass through a sieve of universal values, and only then can they be considered legitimate. The state must justify itself by reference to values, and so the land, which is entirely instrumental. Thus Zionism, or support for Israel, is a facet of the liberal Progressivism Jews champion in the United States. American Zionism and American Jewishness are thus perceived not as dual or contradictory, but complementary features of a broader loyalty to the liberal ideal as a whole.
Of course, the Holocaust deepened the American Jewish commitment to Israel, lending it power, and even terror. And the Cold War reinforced the view of Israel as an extension of American’ values, and with good reason. Since the 1960s, support for Israel has become one very powerful expression of Jewish identity politics. And for these very reasons, the continuing sorrow of Israel’s settlement policies in Judea and Samaria corrodes American Zionism and the Jewish identity connected with it.
American Jews still subscribe to the broadly Progressive views of Louis Brandeis. Yet as they have moved up the socio-economic ladder they, like the so-called “New Left,” and its counterparts in both Europe and Israel, have successively lost touch with the working classes whose interests they have claimed to represent. Much of their Progressivism is very much a middle class phenomenon, for better or worse.
In Israel itself Brandeis’ influence was felt in Israel through organizations such as Hadassah, whose combination of technical efficiency, volunteerism and avoidance of party politics (and openness to Arabs) were in his spirit. On the legal front, Shimon Agranat, who saw himself as a follower of Brandeis, brought much of his concern for civil rights and liberties to his work on the Supreme Court. Brandeis continues to influence leading jurists such as Aharon Barak and Ruth Gavison.
Yes, from today’s perspective the Zionism of Brandeis and Horace Kallen seems hopelessly naĂŻve, and out of touch with the rough-and-tumble of Israeli society. Their vision of Judaism shorn of metaphysics and of most of the mitzvot is a total non-starter for religious Jews, while at the same time their passionate belief that Judaism really does mandate democracy and freedom is well removed from the profound secularism of Israel’s left, which is nurtured more by European ideologies and traditions than by Americans. The seeming apostles of American ideas in Israeli public life have embraced precisely the sort of robber-baron capitalism that Brandeis so determinedly fought.
And yet, Brandeis offers a special synthesis of a number of elements: Passion for social justice (which deeply impressed Rav Kook when he met Brandeis’ on his trip to America in 1924); careful attention to the concrete details of social policy; a commitment to human flourishing expressed in deep commitment to both individual freedom and to the cultivation of group identities and cultures; a belief in pluralism which requires both that my own culture be respected and that I in turn respect that of others. Amid all the dreadful things in Israeli society today, why not try and take up this vision, modified by the hard-won experience of the decades since Brandeis’ fateful clash with Weizmann, as at least one ideological alternative within the house of Israel?
Israel has suffered from a range of total ideologies, from socialism to free market fundamentalism, to religious fundamentalism, and others. Brandeisian liberalism offers a non-totalizing ideology which is nonetheless rooted in deep ethical commitments.
A liberal political order takes as its starting point a universal assumption regarding the essential liberty and dignity of human beings. This universality at some point must take into account the texture of individual lives, including their particular commitments. This leaves liberalism forever almost by definition having to struggle with the tension between its universalizing assumptions and the limits generated by those assumptions themselves. And thus it is saved from the dangers of totalizing ideology. And how is it saved from the opposite danger, of polite and bland weakness? By the pillar of political Zionism as Herzl and Brandeis and others understood it, i.e. as a concrete answer to the very real sufferings of very real Jews.
At the same time, the Zionist cultural pluralism of Brandeis and Kallen is precious, precisely because by its own logic it must recognize other cultures and peoples and their respective claims not to deny Jewish claims, but precisely to affirm them.
The Zionism of Kallen and Brandeis – and perhaps that of Herzl too – imagined one significant shared element of identity between the Jewish and non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, namely, their hero Abraham Lincoln would have put it, a new birth of freedom, for Jews and Arabs alike. As it turns out, the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine saw things differently and many still do. But does this vitiate a vision of peoples turning to one another, if not in a shared political vision, at least in support of each other’s freedoms, however far-off that may seem today? Can we come to see freedom of the individual not as that which dissolves collective life, but as that which can give it shape and moral direction? Can we build the land and the state, not as idols with which to crush people but as vessels for a humane and human spirit?
Yehudah Mirsky, a former State Department official, now lives in Jerusalem, where he is a Fellow of the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute. This essay appeared originally in Hebrew in Eretz Acheret and is reprinted with permission.
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Dear Karioka79:
I understand your hope that Israel will not become the "Halachic Republic of Israel." But unless the chiloni seculars discontinue state child allowances and welfare to Orthodox families, the arrival of the Halachic Republic is almost inevitable.
Also, unlike seculars, the ultra-Orthodox believe that it is a sacred duty to have many kids. The child allowances are just making it easier.
Remember, Haredi children are 25% of all Israeli elementary school children. As you know, Israel is a very small country. When they become 25% of all adult voters, that will have a very huge impact. Imagine if one-fourth of the voters of the United States were ultra-Orthodox — it would have a big effect.
The "25%"Â will also have more children. They speak of this all the time in the Israeli press.
The chiloni are not pushing back effectively against them. They gripe, they bitch and do little. And continue the child allowances, and subsidizing the ultra-Orthodox schools. They are sentimental about the Haredim and believe that they need them to have children to keep the Arab population down.
Now, about joining the IDF — I think you may wish to examine the current IDF — not the one that used to exist.
Forty percent of the Israeli officer corps is now hard-core Orthodox dati, the religious, semi-modern Orthodox. Secular enrollment in the military is falling rapidly.
The military chaplains are increasingly hard-core Orthodox, preaching really frightening stuff about showing no mercy to Arab civilians, and they oppose having women in the IDF, etc.
And the IDF has foolishly coaxed haredim to start joining, creating special regiments just for them, the Nahal. I think arming the Haredim is not a very good idea.
Plus, the Haredim have demands — as usual. They demand special ultra-Orthodox regiments — in which no women are allowed — they will not hold a military post if there are women soldiers on it — they do not want women officers giving them orders or training – they want separation from women at IDF vacation spots — they want this, they want that. They are very firm about religious and gender differences.
 And the IDF is foolishly giving in to their demands. The IDF is not changing the Haredim. The Haredim are changing the IDF.
 Just think — they are training armed Haredim in regiments of their own. And encouraging more to join. So when the Haredim are finally numerous enough to create a Halachic Republic of Israel, not only will there be armed dati, many from the West Bank settlements, but there will be also armed Haredim.
 Can you think of any other democracy that allows an anti-democratic minority intent on taking over its government to balloon to over one-fourth of its children, and continues subsidizing it, and is now trying to coax it into the military? Madness!
Joining the IDF is no "privilege" for people like us of mixed parentage. There is apparently some discrimination against us — half-Jewish soldiers reporting to military conversion classes report keeping a low profile lest other soldiers discover their parentage.
The IDF has set up special conversion classes for us — that’s nice — but why should they give in to the Orthodox conception of many half-Jewish people as "not Jewish"?
We have all of the obligations of Israeli citizens — taxes, service in the military –Â but not all of the rights to marriage and burial. So that is why it is not a privilege for people like us to serve in the Israeli army.
What is the "privilege" of dying for Israel in battle and then being buried with the Druze and Christian dead in "non-Jewish" sections of the IDF cemeteries, lest your half-Jewish body contaminate the sections of the IDF cemeteries reserved for "real" Jews?
As far U.S. military service, my Christian father — my mother was Jewish — was a career naval officer, two of my brothers were Army officers, and one brother is an Air Force chaplain.
So I know about military service, the good and the bad. But the U.S. military doesn’t bury some soldiers in separate cemetery sections because they aren’t "Christian enough" due to mixed or doubtful parentage.
Can you imagine special "religous" regiments in the U.S. military because say, Mormons, didn’t want to serve except with each other? Can you imagine groups of women soldiers being forced to evacuate posts because special male "religious" regiments refused to serve with women? Can you imagine refusals to accept women officers or trainers because — women aren’t supposed to be in the military, according to these special "religious" regiments? Etc.
None of that behavior would be tolerated in the U.S. Army even for second. My brothers would likely not have joined a U.S. military that acted like that.
 If you doubt what I’m saying, the Israeli papers are now in English langugage translations, free, and online. They discuss all of this, including in the ultra-Orthodox papers.
Sincerely,
Robin Margolis
http://www.half-jewish.net
Robin, thank you for your input, there is a lot of good information on your posts. I’m glad there are organizations out there for the many, as you call, "half-Jewish", working to change perceptions and bringing people together. The Orthodox certainly have increasing power in Israel, but I think their dream of taking over on a level similar to what happened in Iran with Islam is not as easily attainable as you make it look. First, as their numbers increase and their attempts to control Israel society grow bolder, so will be pushback from secular Israel. Second, as their numbers increase and the burden their lifestyle imposes on the Israeli economy/society increases, there is going to be a need for some kind of change pushed by secular Israel and probably by the Orthodox themselves. The now very public struggle of many Orthodox women for fairer divorce procedures is one example of how people will push for change when change is needed. There is a lot of polarization in the world today between the secular and religious worlds. But at the end of the day I don’t think Jews would risk the self-destruction of the modern state of Israel in order to impose their will.
 My one significant reservation regarding everything you wrote has nothing to do with the struggle of Jewish people of mixed ancestry. For some reason, you wrote that people have the privilege of serving the IDF between quotation marks. It is indeed a privilege to serve your nation’s armed forces; it doesn’t matter if it is the country you were born into or your adoptive country. I’m an immigrant to the US and I served in the American Army for 6 years. I didn’t agree with all the policies the US had in place during the time I served (one of the reason’s young Israelis who do not serve often use) but it was a great experience nonetheless. Serving brings people down to a common denominator; racial, ethnic, religious and gender differences disappear pretty quickly in battle. I wish the IDF had more flexible regulations regarding foreigners serving (the age restrictions more specifically). It would be a dream come true to make aliyah and serve the IDF in the first two years.
Dear LauraP and Karioka79:
I ask your patience for having to post twice, but this is a complex subject.
Now that we have the facts about how Israel treats half-Jewish people and interracial people, what can be done about their situation?
With regard to Yehudah Mirsky’s Zeek article on Brandeisian Zionist liberalism with Israel as a "core country" at the center of Judaism — well, it would have been nice to have an Israel like that, but that vision currently doesn’t exist.
Looking at the real Israel of 2009 –
 There are several organizations fighting discrimination against adult children and grandchildren of intermarriage in Israel — not surprisingly they are also fighting racial discrimination in Israel –
If you wish to help half-Jewish people in Israel, I recommend donating to the following Israeli organizations — fortunately, not all of Israel is opposed to us:
1. The Association for the Rights of Mixed Families in Israel (ARMF). Their website is:
http://www.mixedfamilies.org.il/english/index.php
2. The Israel Religious Action Center (for Reform Judaism). Their website is:
http://www.irac.org/
3. The New Family of Israel. Their website is:
http://www.newfamily.org.il/english.asp
All three organizations would welcome your money and help. They struggle to get attention from an American Jewish community that, as Laura P points out, places Israeli flags in its shuls, and clings to a vision of the secular, liberal, kibbutz Israel of the 1970s, which no longer exists.
Finally, I recommend that both of you contact and participate in:
4. The Half-Jewish Network — this is the largest international organization for adult children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of intermarriage. We fight tirelessly for the rights of descendants of intermarriage both in the Diaspora and Israel.
Our message board contains advice and support from descendants of intermarriage from all over the world. Our website is:
http://www.half-jewish.net
 I believe that both of you would find the message board very supportive.
 We also list other half-Jewish organizations on our website under "Other Half-Jewish Organizations."
LauraP, I am very sorry that your Jewish fiance treated you so badly. Unfortunately, as you will discover from the Half-Jewish Network message board, you are not alone.
The good news is that the younger Jews of today, at least in the Diaspora, and among some secular groups of Israelis, are not so bigoted, and some half-Jewish people are finding successful romantic relationships and friendships among born Jews.
Please bear in mind that 48% of all college-age Jews are now adult children of intermarriage. We will likely be the majority of Jews in America and probably other Diaspora countries by the year 2040.Â
At the Half-Jewish Network, we are preparing for that future, in which we will be the majority of American Jews, by creating a new Jewish group/outreach project, "Inclusivist Judiasm," which welcomes both half-Jewish people and disaffiliated people with two Jewish parents for a new vision of Judiasm.
For more information about Inclusivist Judaism, please visit the Half-Jewish Network website and contact us there.
Karioka79, I understand your attachment to Israel. Many of us at the Half-Jewish Network have struggled with this question. It is a source of continual debate on our message boards.
I believe that the best way for half-Jewish people to show caring for Israel is for them to financially support and publicize the three Israeli organizations fighting discrimination against us.
 Cordially,
Robin Margolis
http://www.half-jewish.net
Dear LauraP and Karioka79:
 I am the adult child of an intermarriage, just like both of you. As the Coordinator of the Half-Jewish Network (http://www.half-jewish.net), the largest international organization for adult children of intermarriage, I receive a continuous stream of information about Israeli treatment of members of interfaith and interracial families. Here are the facts.
Israel’s treatment of half-Jewish people can best be summarized as "bait and switch." We are encouraged to come to Israel from countries all over the world.
Officially, we are welcome under the Law of Return, which allows people claiming a Jewish parent or grandparent, and claiming Jewish self-identification, to make aliyah.
Once we arrive, sure, we can go to ulpan, and other immigrant benefits. But that’s where the welcome mat stops.
Jewish citizenship in Israel is controlled by a confusing mix of Orthodox religious courts and the Israeli secular immigration bureaucracy. The Orthodox courts have the legal power to decide "who is a Jew." The secular immigration bureaucracy can also decide that an Israeli citizen is not a Jew.
Adult children and other descendants of intermarriage in Israel are second-class citizens. Their Judaism is repeatedly challenged. Unless they can prove that they have a Jewish mother or a maternal Jewish grandmother — and the standards of written proof have been set very high by the Haredi Orthodox-dominated Israeli rabbinic courts and the secular Israeli immigration bureaucrats — they are officially classified as Israeli "non-Jewish" citizens.
So if you have a Jewish father or paternal/maternal grandfather — and no Orthodox conversion — or you don’t have "sufficient" documentation that your mother or maternal grandmother or great-grandmother was Jewish, even if you know that is true – you are considered to be a "non-Jew" Israeli citizen — which is the term Israel’s newspapers use to describe us.
Orthodox conversions for half-Jewish people — which used to be touted as the "solution" to our citizenship problems –Â are increasingly difficult to obtain — the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate is deeply divided among themselves and have begun invalidating many conversions of adult children and other descendants of intermarriage, both conversions done abroad and conversions done in Israel.
So even after decades of living as a Jew with an Orthodox conversion, a half-Jewish person in Israel can find his/her "Jewish" status abruptly removed during a routine Israeli Orthodox rabbinical court procedure, such as a divorce, or during some interaction with the Israeli immigration bureaucracy.
What this means is that while half-Jewish people have the "privileges" of serving in the IDF and paying taxes — they do not have the right to marry "real" Jews in Israel who have two Jewish parents or who can prove that they have a Jewish mother — since 90% of them marry Israeli Jews, that means that they must go to foreign countries to marry other Israeli Jews — as Israel legally recognizes foreign weddings.
Half-Jewish people also experience obstacles in being buried in Israeli Jewish cemeteries.The IDF buries half-Jewish soldiers killed defending Israel in special plots reserved for "non-Jewish" soldiers, including Christians and Druze.
This is all bad enough, but it gets worse. The Israeli right-wing parties (who now control the Israeli government) are very hostile to members of interfaith families. They have been trying to remove patrilineal grandchildren of intermarriage — LauraP’s daughter –Â from the Law of Return for several years, and legislation doing that almost passed the Knesset last year.
 The Israeli immigration bureaucracy, even under centrist Kadima governments, repeatedly tries to remove the "Jewish" part of the citizenship of Israeli "mixed-descent" families, including a recent, ugly initiative to try and deport from Israel the non-Jewish (as in completely Christian) elderly widows and widowers of intermarried Israeli Jews.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture.
Here’s what would have happened to LauraP, had her Jewish fiance married her and brought her to Israel in the 1980s. Back then, the Orthodox had not yet seized control of the "who is a Jew" issue. She and her family would have been welcomed in Israel — but she and her daughter would have been classified as "non-Jewish" Israeli citizens.
If LauraP and her fiance had wanted her and her daughter to be classified as "real" Jews, she and her daughter would have had to obtain Orthodox conversions — which were not that difficult to obtain back then — to be classified as "Jewish" Israeli citizens. LauraP’s chiloni (secular) neighbors would not have made a big issue out of LauraP’s mixed descent, nor would her Israeli Reform shul.
In the meantime, Israel’s growing shift to the right would have meant that sooner or later LauraP and LauraP’s daughter would have bumped into discrimination – she would have been refused permission to marry an Israeli Jew in Israel; denied burial rights, etc. LauraP and her daughter would have experienced social discrimination — a sense that even some of their secular Israeli Jewish neighbors did not consider them to be "as good as" other Israeli Jews.
If LauraP had coverted a second time via Orthodoxy, she and her daughter, like many descendants of intermarriage, would be official "Israeli Jews" –
but would now be living in fear that any contact with the Israeli government or the Orthodox rabbinical courts could result in their "Jewish status" being abruptly invalidated, reducing them to "non-Jewish" Israeli citizens.
As Israel continued to shift to the right, away from the secular, kibbutz roots of its earlier history, LauraP and her daughter would have noticed a massive increase in Israel’s secular newspapers of attacks on members of interfaith and interracial familes as an "erev rav" (mixed rabble), accompanied by attacks on Ethiopian Jews ("not really Jewish"), Arabs, etc.
They might have spotted wall posters put up by one Orthodox group, urging its young men not to date "non-Jewish women" — the half-Jewish daughters of intermarried Russian Jews in a nearby neighborhood. They would have noticed that the half-Jewish patrilineal Russian Jews in the IDF were signing up for IDF Orthodox conversion programs, but that those conversions were being challenged by the Israeli Orthodox rabbinate. They would have noticed that many people of mixed descent felt it wise to "keep quiet" about their mixed ancestry.
They would have seen that Israel’s dark-skinned citizens, both those with one Jewish parent and those with two Jewish parents, are definitely at the bottom of the social ladder, despite all of the propaganda about Jews being a "coat of many colors."
They would have seen recent Israeli population statistics showing that ultra-Orthodox children — the Haredim — are now 25% of all Israeli elementary school children — meaning the ultra-Orthodox will likely be a third to one-half of all Israeli Jews in the year 2040.
The ultra-Orthodox will not be a "minority" much longer, and due to Israel’s unstable multi-party system, already exercise majority veto power over much legislation.
The ultra-Orthodox have been very honest about their goals in the Israeli press. They expect to become the majority of Israeli Jews, due to their much-higher childbearing rates, and create a sort of "Halachic Republic of Israel" once they gain control, probably around the year 2040. It would be like the Islamic Republic of Iran, an Israel totally governed by halachah (Orthodox religous law).
 Guess what the lives of half-Jewish people and dark-skinned Jews will be like under the "Halachic Republic of Israel"? There are already calls among the Israeli right-wing parties, heavily dominated by the Orthodox, to get rid of the Law of Return, as it is "archaic." And many Haredi schools discriminate against fully Jewish Ethiopian and even Sephardic children. What will their behavior be like when the Haredim have control of Israel?
And LauraP and her daughter would have had to ask themselves in the year 2009: do we want to stay in Israel?
Cordially,
Robin Margolis
http://www.half-jewish.net
I’m sorry about what happened to you, and I’m glad you are on a journey to make peace with your Judaism. I’m also from multiple ethinc/religious backgrounds; Ashkenazi, Native Brazilian and Portuguese.  My mother’s parents, Polish Holocaust survivors, were absolutely horrified when my mother brought home my dark skinned, long haired, hippie father, even though he wanted to convert to Judaism. As most Jewish parents I know, they quickly got over it as soon as they realized a marriage was the next step.
Anyways, it seems like the crux of the issue is you former fiance. Like I said before, there are thousands of Ethiopians, and probably even more Russians living in Israel right now with exponentially less documented connection to Judaism than you. It doesn’t seem like your ex was willing to push the issue, or look for alternatives that could allow you both to be happy, wherever you ended up living. I don’t want to judge the guy or the repercussions of what happened with this very limited information I have, but it seems like a classic case of douchebaggary on his part. That is certainly not an issue limited to Jewish men.
 I still believe that amongst the majority of minority groups, Jews are in generally more acceptable of differences between members of our religion and other ethnic/religious groups. That is not just some mantra I like to repeat to myself, but something I have experienced first hand living in Brazil, Belgium and the United States. The "who is a Jew" question is probably as old a Judaism, and is a never ending debate in Israel and in the diaspora community. My view is admitedly simplistic, if you feel you are Jewish, then you are Jewish. The Rabbis in Israel or elsewhere demanding Orthodox convertions is, in my opinion, more a quesetion of power than of religion, I say: screw them.
Hello from a Cuban Jew who grew up in Miami. I have been to Israel, as a young woman (a couple of decades ago), fell in love with it. Adored it, wanted to end up there. Last year of college I was engaged to a Jewish man, a son of a Holocaust survivor with a few relatives in Israel who wanted to make Aliyah. He was a cultural Jew, had never set foot in a synagogue while I was a Hebrew school product, observant. I was ready to go. The issue? My mom comes from a mixed background, some Sephardic, some of everything else under the sun. So just to be sure she was covered, even though she had already identified as Jewish, she did undergo a formal conversion before marrying my Dad, a Reform conversion. About 3 months before my wedding was to happen that my former fiance, who had been handling the international logistics of our future, informed me angrily that I wasn’t really a Jew according to the Israeli Rabbinical authorities, that the state of Israel wouldn’t recognize our marriage or recognize any children of ours as Jews, and that was a deal breaker for him. Not only did this devastate me in ways you cannot possibly imagine on a personal level, it was a complete abnegation of my existence and identity as a Jew. If Israel won’t take you, aren’t you a poser? Now, I can change a lot of things, but not my race. The irony of being rejected by Jews on the grounds of racial purity was not lost on me. It led me to a place where I spent the next several years rejecting Judaism. I have made my peace to an extent, but it is still a wound that occasionally bleeds….mostly out of fear that my daughter (who has a strong Jewish identity) will be discriminated against someday. And I won’t pretend that it didn’t change the trajectory of my life on many levels…obviously I never went to live in Israel and I never dated another Jewish man (I knew I didn’t have it in me to face that sort of devastation if I fell in love and wasn’t good enough, Jewish enough).
Shalom!
Laurap, of course you owe Israel absolutely nothing, no Jewish person does. I’ve met more than one Israeli in America who has no intention of returning to live in Israel. I have friends I grew up with in Brazil who went to Israel on vacation and stayed there for good. At the end of the day, it is just another country, some love it, some want to run away from it. We, Jews, were in forced exile from Israel for almost 2,000 years, but Judaism didn’t cease to exist. After Israel’s independence, most Jews around the world decided to stay exactly where they were instead of coming to Israel. To different people, Israel means different things, but I believe that we should support it’s existance, especially as an option for those who are not as lucky to live in a country where Jews are as well assimilated as in America.
I live in South Florida, where there is a very large and diverse Jewish community, from Cuban Jews to old New York Jews, and I’ve never been accosted by anyone to give money or anything else towards Israel (I did throw some quarters in a "plant a tree in Israel" tin can once). I’m not sure if you ever actually been to Israel, but I doubt they will turn you away at the border because of you are mixed-race. As much as the Ethiopians Jews may struggle in Israel, they were brought there by the government, with the full support of the Israeli society, and their "Jewishness" had been dorment for centuries. The Law of Return allows for children, grandchildren, spouse of a Jew, spouse of the child of a Jew, pretty much anyone with any traceble Jewish heritage. Furthermore, being Jewish is not the only way to become an Israeli citizen. Yes, some crazy Orthodox might take issue with it, but they are still the minority. Maybe if secular diaspora jews and Israelis continue turning their backs to Israel, the Orthodox will get to be the majority. Then we can all sit together and muse about what Israel could have been. Â
…is walk away to preserve one’s own sanity. I don’t owe Israel or Israelis one g-ddamned thing. Especuially since, while they want my money and my political influence (as a Reform Jew) pushing Obama to support whatever idiot policy they’re implementing now, if I tried to actually move there they would look at my mixed-race face and that of my daughter and would see my Mother’s Reform conversion and they would turn me away at the border. Not that America is fabulous…we can’t get something as basic as Health Care for our population. But I resent this insistence that I owe something to a government that doesn’t even acknowledge me or any Reform convert or child of a convert as a Jew.Â
Shalom!
I have a real hard time understanding American Jews such as LauraP. So, since modern Israel is not a perfect fit for the brand of Zionism you were brought up with; Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist synagogues should not "wrap every event in the Israeli flag"? They should do what exactly? Ally themselves with the Naturei Karta or try to work for change? Only support for Israel when the political/societal reality suits their taste? Do you only support your friends and family when they do things your way?
There is misogyny is Israel, like in every other country in the world. There is racism in Israel, like in every country in the world. There are a lot of wrong things with Israel, and with this world. Israelis are just humans….
You seem to have missed this sentence in the article "As it turns out, the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine saw things differently and many still do." Catch my drift?
You should shed some tears for yourself, there is no way you can be happy living in a country filled with racism and misogyny like America. There is nowhere someone like you, who only sees the ugly and walks away when things need to be fixed, could be happy living anywhere.
I have a hard time reconciling the ideal to the present reality on the ground. At my Jewish Day School (in the early 1970′s) painting murals of Kibbutzes and talking about civil rights and the breakthroughs that would lead to a future of Israeli Arab peace and brotherhood and a land full of strong women working side by side with the men as equals…you catch my drift.
The thought that one day women would be beaten for immodesty, forbidden to pray aloud at the Kotel and segregated on buses…unthinkable. That racism would become so open and a lynchpin of some relatively mainstream political parties…unthinkable (and not just anti-Arab, anti-immigrant, anti-Ethiopian if you read about Othodox schools not allowing Ethiopians to enroll, etc).
So I’m sure that I’m not the only child of the 1970′s raised on idealistic hippie-infuenced Judaism who finds herself rethinking the Zionist label….and walking away from it. I find myself wondering why Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist synagogues continue to wrap every event in the Israeli flag when (since the Israeli Rabbinate is staunchly Orthodox and the Israeli government is totally controlled by Orthodox interests) Israel does not even acknowledge us as Jews (if we or our mothers converted under non-Orthodox auspices) and depending on our ethnicity, we may not even be allowed to make Aliyah. Believe me, that can be a heartbreaking realization. I think there is way too much conflation between Judaism and Zionism.
Just a random bit of musing…representing a lot of years of tears and disappointment over the trajectory of Israeli society.
Shalom!
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