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Jerusalem Diary

05.05.2008 16:20 - category: World News : BBC News

- Source: BBC News

By Tim Franks BBC News, Jerusalem

THE DREAM OF A JEWISH STATE

On page 15 of the 17 January 1896 edition of the London Jewish Chronicle, the editorial is buried, modestly, beneath advertisements: "Herbert Hanks, Decorator, Upholsterer, Panelling - Highly Recommended by Many Hebrew Families… Lamplough's Pyretic Saline - Worth its Weight in Gold."

The editorial is entitled The Dream of a Jewish State.

It follows the publication, elsewhere in the newspaper, of extracts of Theodor Herzl's new book, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State).

The paper reflects on the gravity of Austrian anti-Semitism: "Dr Herzl's scheme, for what practically amounts to the re-establishment of the Jewish state, is a scheme hastened, if not dictated, by panic."

The editorial heaps praise on the seriousness and standing of Theodor Herzl, "a distinguished journalist and litterateur of the first rank in Vienna, no dreamer of dreams but a practical man of the world".

However, the Jewish Chronicle concludes of Herzl's prophesies of the "coming storms":

"We find it ourselves hard to accept these gloomy prognostications. We hardly anticipate a great future for a scheme which is the outcome of despair."

ISRAELI ON ISRAEL

It will be at the Herzl museum in Jerusalem, on Wednesday 7 May, that Israel's main 60th anniversary pageant will be held.

All the bigwigs will be present. Shimon Peres, the president, was in his 20s when the State of Israel was declared, in May 1948.

According to Friday's edition of The Jerusalem Post, in an as yet unpublished interview, Mr Peres "is greatly concerned about the demoralisation of the nation".

"Here, everyone begrudges everyone else," he is quoted as saying.

So what do Israelis make of their compatriots, and their state?

Israel is no monolith. This week, the Today programme, one of the BBC's leading domestic radio news programmes, will hear from five of the tribes of Israel.

The five we have chosen are secular, settler, ultra-orthodox, Palestinian (the man in question rejects the label "Israeli Arab"), and non-Jewish Russian immigrant.

The one thing the five share is that they all hold Israeli citizenship.

It is an exercise that invites failure. Why these tribes? What about the division between Ashkenazim (the Jews from European families) and the Sephardim (from Arab countries)?

Where are the Ethiopians, the Druze?

What about the divisions within settlers - between those who have moved across the green line for ideological or for economic reasons?

What about the ranges within orthodoxy and ultra-orthodoxy?

What about the vastly differing politics of the secular?

What of the Palestinians without Israeli citizenship, those who also see themselves as victims of the nakba (catastrophe)?

And what of the fact that our 20- or 30-minute interviews have been hacked to less than three minutes, to fit the demands of news?

The answer is that this is no more than a splash of colour from the most loved, most hated, most bewildering small country in the world.

What remains is the question whether the pieces of the mosaic fit, or whether Israel is increasingly fractured and fractious.

With apologies to the interviewees, here is a very partial taster:

Yuli, the secular trainee teacher from Jerusalem: "The moment that people will prefer to deal with their own stuff, and dream their own dreams, rather than the dreams of the big Jewish nation, maybe the situation will get better."

Shoshana, the settler from Qedumim: "This is the Middle East: another language, another code. It's not Europe; it's not America… My father, who built this state, always told us that we have to pay a tax, a price, for living here. We have an obligation to pay, as we don't have any other place to go."

Mohammed, the Palestinian from a village near Nazareth: "The way Israel deals with its Arab minority is the indication of how the world should deal with the Jewish minority. If Israel continues to discriminate against the Arab minority in Israel, it has no moral right to speak against discrimination against Jews around the world."

Jonathan, the Haredi (ultra-orthodox man) from Jerusalem: "Israel was meant to create a New Jew - the idea that the term Jew was not enough, and we had to create something new, something that was a rejection in many respects of the Jew of the exile. But that New Jew has turned out to be a chimera."

Mila, the non-Jewish Russian immigrant, now living in Gedera: "I am not a Jew, no. But when I sing songs in class about love for the land of Israel, it's just like in Russia when we would have moments of love for our homeland. Then when I hear the songs and spoke with older Arabs, my heart hurts and I start to cry."

EYES WIDE OPEN

The closing quote, on Israel's 60th anniversary, goes to a young woman, who appears in Paula Weiman-Kelman's documentary, Eyes Wide Open.

For a year, Ms Weiman-Kelman followed American Jews as they visited Israel. Towards the end of the film, a young, articulate woman comes out with this sweet solipsism: "I would love to be non-conflicted about this place." Quite.

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