DINA PORAT

The first 1,000 years of Jewish history were during the times of the two Temples, and so much in the Jewish canon is related to this period when Jewish independent life was practiced as a sovereign entity. Then, during the following 2,000 years of exile, there were prayers, poems, songs and writings (both rabbinical and secular) about the longings for the land and the wish to come back to it. The establishment of the State of Israel at the end of these 2,000 years of exile was like taking all those prayers and poems and wishes and habits, with the Bible in the center of it all, and giving it meaning. It was the wishes realized.

Today’s State of Israel was not “born out of the ashes of the Holocaust”—a phrase that should be retired from use. Rather, Israel was created by Zionism— building and settling, developing agriculture and industry and culture, accepting newcomers and so on—starting in 1860. Imagine if there had been no Zionism and the country had been empty of Jews when World War II ended: Where exactly would the destitute, sick survivors have gone? Instead, there were already close to half a million Jews here and a vibrant volunteering entity that accepted them.

After the vote in the United Nations in November 1947 that called for two countries, an Arab one and a Jewish one, there was dancing in the streets, and people were thrilled and crying for a Jewish state. But the vote was not the result of the Holocaust or of the world’s conscience suddenly waking up. Where was their conscience a few months before when Jews were killed by the millions? It wasn’t because of the Holocaust. It was because of political interests—the Soviet Union pressured nations in Latin America and the Far East to vote yes on partition because it wanted to build its influence in the region.

With all that said, the Holocaust, though not the primary cause of its birth, had an enormous impact on the young state, and for decades after. The impact is still here. If you take the number of those who came after World War II and subtract the 70,000 who could not manage here and went back, we had 370,000 survivors. This includes survivors who came right after the war in the late 1940s, those who came in the 1950s from Poland and Hungary, and then, in the 1970s, immigrants from the Soviet Union who also were survivors. They participated in large numbers in the War of Independence in 1948. Don’t listen to post-Zionists who say that they were forced to participate— they wanted to participate. According to surveys, at the end of 1951, one out of four Israelis was a survivor, which means a quarter of the population. They rebuilt themselves, and then were able to contribute. They grew older, and many started writing their memoirs. They were very active and present in the building of museums, in Holocaust memorial days, in creating laws and regulations related to the Shoah.

But the terrible loss, the tortures, the humiliations, the whole history of the Holocaust left behind an imminent fear that you cannot ignore. It’s very easy to speak about the new Israeli who is brave, who goes to the army, but—as the great poet Dahlia Ravikovitch said—the Holocaust was like a hand grenade that exploded, and each person living in Israel had a little splinter of it that he carries with him. There isn’t one day in Israel when the Holocaust is not mentioned in some way. It is still with us, part of living life, even though life here is vibrant.

Dina Porat is professor emeritus of modern Jewish history at Tel Aviv University and chief historian of Yad Vashem.

Konstanty Gebert

Even if you throw in the several hundred years of independent Jewish kingdoms in antiquity, we’ve spent most of our time in the diaspora. We’ve been shaped by the diaspora, we’ve adapted to living in diaspora, we’re a diaspora people. However, we could survive in the diaspora only because of the spiritual and intellectual bond that connects us with the land of Israel. Without that, we would have disappeared like the other peoples we know only from the long lists in, for example, the writings of Julius Caesar. So what Israel’s 75th anniversary means for me in the diaspora is another reconnection with the source. Our diaspora life and identity assumes a new meaning, informed and transformed by what Israel does, thinks, prays and hopes.

Of course, the existence of modern Israel changed life in the diaspora. My first encounter with antisemitism was in 1967, when the “wrong” side won the Six-Day War and the Polish state was unhappy about it. Most people in Poland today react to me as a Jew, whether positively or negatively, because of Israel. So many more people know the name of Benjamin Netanyahu than they know those of Abraham Joshua Heschel or Martin Buber or, frankly, Isaiah. I am seen by others through an Israel prism. As for me, I see Israel through a diaspora prism: I find it very easy to understand what an Israeli Arab citizen feels, being part of a country whose anthem and symbolism and religion are not mine—because that was the Polish Jewish experience.

Yet I feel the most connection with Israel when Israel does something I’m not happy with, like the judiciary overhaul now, or, going back further, the Lebanon War—because I have to accept that this is done in my name. Israel is acting in the name of its own citizens, but it has a claim to speak in the name of world Jewry, and therefore its actions are also in my name. I’m immensely happy and appreciative of Israel’s successes, but it’s appreciation, not pride. I didn’t contribute to it; I didn’t help build the country. But when Israel goes off the rails, I feel unhappy and co-responsible. It doesn’t make sense logically, but emotionally it’s very clear. excising the whole of the post-Second Temple Diaspora experience from Jewish history. To me, that presents a tremendous paradox within modern Jewish existence. Jews have gone through previous catastrophes, but it seems like people had decades and centuries to process those events in various ways, and in a sense, it feels like in the 20th century, we didn’t. The catastrophe was so quickly followed by the birth of the new state, and a continued negation of the diaspora, that somehow, the mourning was always kind of incomplete.

In terms of individual events, no single event, apart from the Shoah, was as important in the sweep of Jewish history as Israel’s independence in 1948. In terms of processes, yes, some longterm diaspora processes have been just as important as Israel’s 75 years. The development of the community and its institutions in isolation in the ghetto, the emancipation, Hasidism, Jewish socialism were to my mind as important to Jewish development as Israel’s 75 years. But in terms of discrete events, only the Shoah’s as important Jewishly as the rebirth of Israel.

Konstanty Gebert is a journalist in Warsaw, Poland. His books include a forthcoming history of Israel’s 75 years, A Room with a View of the War.

There have always been Jews both in the land of Israel and in galut (exile/diaspora), so there’s always been a complex dynamic between the two groups. But not like today. There have never been this many Jews in Israel—half of world Jewry now lives there—and this has heightened our sense of our connection to the land. But then there’s also the spiritual state of exile. We’re all still within the state of spiritual exile, whether we live in the State of Israel or the state of New York. Personally, I think this is fertile ground for connection between Israeli Jews and American Jews.

It’s so hard to disentangle the establishment of the State of Israel from the destruction of European Jewry. Even 75 years on, Jews never got a chance to fully process what happened during the war; they just got on with life and, for so many, turned their focus to supporting the new State of Israel. At the same time, baked into the ideology of the new state, especially that of its first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, was the belief in a “historical leap,” effectively

There’s still a very highly romanticized and idealized idea of the State of Israel that people cling to and that was essential to building global consensus about it. It can create real problems because Americans don’t understand the way people live in the state, how they perceive the state or what really goes on there. The majority of American Jews vote Democratic and those are their values, in a very broad sense. If you’ve traveled to Israel in the last six or seven years, you’ve seen how popular Trump is there, and the disjunction in political values can be pretty shocking. What does that mean? It could be that it shows that American Jews—who are largely center-liberal-leaning—don’t fully understand the realities of the State of Israel as a modern political entity.

Israelis live in a Jewish state where the language is Hebrew and the rabbinate has significant power over their lives. They are Jewish citizens in a way that we aren’t in the United States. The majority of American Jews are not religious and are not shulgoers. A very large part of Israeli society are secular Jews, but that secular identity exists in a very different place and is expressed in very different ways. It is true what people always say, that Israelis exist in a much richer and thicker Jewish context, just by dint of where they are. American Jewish secular identity, if you want to call it that, is much more American than it is Jewish, in that the values are in large part American. American Jews are not really aware of that because they’re so deeply enmeshed within American values. Monolingualism is a very American value, for example, and one that is at odds with the length of Jewish history. Polling data shows us that, when asked what is essential to their Jewish identity, American Jews say that remembering the Holocaust is at the top, along with being a good person and supporting Israel. All the way at the bottom is being part of a Jewish community or observing Jewish law. American Jews are very, very American, and our values are very American. Even our Jewish values are very American. But that doesn’t make them less important.

Both of our countries, the State of Israel and the United States, seem to be at these moments of being extremely tested. This also gives us opportunities to renew and rethink our relationships to each other. There’s a lot for American Jews to engage with and not just say, “Oh, we’re the diaspora,” and accept that we play a supporting or a lesser role. It’s just not true. Israelis need us in many ways, and Israelis need the culture of the diaspora. Israelis need Yiddish, they need Ladino, they need all the things that were left by the wayside in the de- velopment of a unified Israeli culture at the beginning. It’s a good time for us to rethink the dynamic and roles that we play with each other and for each other.

Rokhl Kafrissen is a journalist and playwright in New York City and the winner of the Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award in 2022.