Monday, October 18, 2010

And For Israel's Next Act: Complete Irrationality

Here are the thoughts of a Kadima Knesset contender, former IDF elite army office Doron Avital on the theme:

Israelis owe a loyalty to Israel, not to Judaism

...Israel has decided to reestablish this age-old division and to drive a wedge again between the Jewish people and its state, between its Jewishness and its Israeliness.

...Israelis we are, and our loyalty is to the State of Israel. Period. The layered complexity behind the term "the State of Israel" is not to be dissected or to be cast into a mold of one kind or another. A whole history lies behind the combination of the words "the State of Israel."

...to the Jews of the Diaspora it should be said that we are pleased to have a national proximity between us, and they are invited, by virtue of the Law of Return, to join us and become Israelis. We won't force an identity upon them. We will honor their choice, and they will honor our choice - to be proud Israelis.

...Many Israelis certainly...feel like proclaiming: "Israel? We are Israel."


Remember the position taken by Hillel Kook - 'Jews are those Holocaust remnants in Europe and rich people in America. We are Hebrews'?

Oiy. This thinking can result in things like this:

A student at the prestigious Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts in Givatayim was expelled last week after he and another student torched a classmate's portrait of Adolf Hitler.

The expulsion still needs Education Ministry approval.

The incident occured after 11th-grade visual art students presented original works for a class exhibition, as they do every year. This year the topic was "mistakes," and the interpretation was left open. One student presented a drawing of Hitler, which he called "the biggest historical mistake ever."

...When classes reconvened after the Sukkot holiday earlier this month, the students discovered the Hitler drawing had been taken down. In its place was a note that read: "We burned your work."

The principal filed a complaint with police...Last week, the school's pedagogic council voted to expel one of the students. The other left on his own accord.

The parents launched an online petition in a bid to enlist public support against the school's decision. He burned the work "in a moment of emotion," they said. "The student's grandfather is a Holocaust survivor, and the student was very influenced by this. We agree our son did something inappropriate, and we condemn it. But this does not warrant an expulsion."...

So, now we are not Jews but...art lovers?

^

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh yes it's the Jews versus the "Israelis " once again. I suppose there is a reason most observant Jewish olim prefer Jerusalem/Yesha, and the few Israeli wannabe types choose Tel Aviv.
Also which has a stronger pull against yerida- Jewishness or israeliness?
This is what happens when you try to create a "normal, non-Judaic " culture and remove the pais of Yemenites, forcibly secularize religious kids, deny jobs to religious olim etc.
To be fair, the "Israelis" have had some cultural successes. What other nations have produced the worlds fastest portrait painter, "the worlds first hip-hop violinist",or whose most famous singer is a she male.
Truth be told , Puerto Rico has produced a more sophisticated culture-and they don't have a heritage that includes Heine, Mendelson, Mahler and Singer.
P.s. Agnon wrote as a Jew

Juniper in the Desert said...

The principal threw out the students who burned the picture? Throw out the principal, she is the fascist!

Also, the above post by Doron Avital is complete rubbish, you can tell HE is a national socialist! Basically he is saying the State of Israel is nothing special, that it should not be a Jewish state: "the state of Israel is not to be dissected or to be cast in a mold"
In other words let us not think too deeply what Israel means or we(HE) will come across something unpalatable! The fact that the Jews DO have a country is unpalatable to HIM!

Why bother to call it Israel? The way he talks it doesn't much matter! Sickening scum!! Sorry.

Juniper in the Desert said...

I like this:

http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2010/10/undeniable-jewish-state.html