Published
by: Pluto Press 1999
- ISBN: 0 7453 1281 0 hbk
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Preface
Virtually identified with Arab terrorism, Islamic
fundamentalism is anathema throughout the non-Muslim world. Virtually
identified with ignorance, superstition, intolerance and racism,
Christian fundamentalism is anathema to the cultural and intellectual
elite in the United States. The recent significant increase in
its number of adherents, combined with its widening political
influence, nevertheless, make Christian fundamentalism a real
threat to democracy in the United States. Although possessing
nearly all the important social scientific properties of Islamic
and Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism is practically
unknown outside of Israel and certain sections of a few other
places. When its existence is acknowledged, its significance is
minimized or limited to arcane religious practices and quaint
middle European dress, most often by those same non-Israeli elite
commentators who see so uncompromisingly the evils inherent in
Jewish fundamentalism's Islamic and/or Christian cousins.
As students of contemporary society and as Jews,
one Israeli, one American, with personal commitments and attachments
to the Middle East, we cannot help seeing Jewish fundamentalism
in Israel as a major obstacle to peace in the region. Nor can
we help being dismayed by the dismissal of the perniciousness
of Jewish fundamentalism to peace and to its victims by those
who are otherwise knowledgeable and astute and so quick to point
out the violence inherent in other fundamentalist approaches to
existence.
This book is a journey of understanding—often painful,
often dreary, often disturbing—for us as Jews who have a stake
in Jewry . With our hearts and minds we want Jews, together with
other people, to recognize and strive for the highest ideals,
even as we fall short of them. We see these ideals as central
to the values of Western civilization and applicable throughout
the civilized world. We believe these values do not stand in the
way of peace anywhere. That a perversion of these values in the
name of Jewish fundamentalism stands as an impediment to peace,
to the development of Israeli democracy and even to civilized
discourse outrages us, both as Jews and as human beings. To identify
and lessen, if not purge, this outrage, we have written this book
and undertaken this journey in the hope that it may bring understanding
to our readers as it has brought understanding to us. Our assumption
is that peace in the Middle East cannot be achieved until the
currents and cross-currents of contemporary life in the region
are understood. In this most historical and most religious area,
understanding entails an exploration of the past that continues
to impinge upon the attitudes, values, assumptions and behaviors
of all the people of this beautiful and troubled land. Jewish
opposition in Israel to Jewish fundamentalism greatly increased
after a Jewish, fundamentalist, religious fanatic, Yigal Amir,
who insisted that he was acting in accordance with dictates in
Judaism, shot and killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. That numerous
groups of religious Jews after the assassination supported this
murder in the name of the "true" Jewish religion aroused interest
in Israel in past killings by Jews of other Jews who were alleged
to be heretics or sinners. In our book we cite present and past
investigations by Israeli scholars documenting that for centuries
prior to the rise of the modern nation state, Jews, believing
they were acting in accordance with God's word and thus preparing
themselves for eternal paradise, punished or killed heretics and/or
religious sinners. Contemporary Jewish fundamentalism is an attempt
to revive a situation that often existed in Jewish communities
before the influence of modernity. The basic principles of Jewish
fundamentalism are the same as those found in other religions:
restoration and survival of the "pure" and pious religious community
that presumably existed in the past.
In our book we describe in some detail the origins,
ideologies, practices and overall impact upon society of fundamentalism.
We emphasize mostly the messianic tendency, because we believe
it to be the most influential and dangerous. Jewish fundamentalists
generally oppose extensions of human freedoms, especially the
freedom of expression, in Israel. In regard to foreign policy,
the National Religious Party, ruled by supponers of the messianic
tendency of Jewish fundamentalism, has continuously opposed any
and all withdrawals from territories conquered and occupied by
Israel since 1967. These fundamentalists opposed Israeli withdrawal
from the Sinai in 1978, just as twenty years later they continued
to oppose any withdrawal from the West Bank. These same Jews printed
and distributed atlases allegedly showing that the land of Israel,
belonging only to the Jews and requiring liberation, included
the Sinai, Jordan, Lebanon, most of Syria and Kuwait. Jewish fundamentalists
have advocated the most discriminative proposals against Palestinians.
Not surprisingly, Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir, the most sensational
Jewish assassins of the 1990s, and most of their admirers have
been Jewish fundamentalists of the messianic tendency.
In the 1990s, Israeli sociologists and scholars
in other academic fields have focused more attention than ever
before upon the social effects in Israeli society of Jewish fundamentalists.
The overwhelming opinion of these scholars is that the adherents
of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel are hostile to democracy .The
fundamentalists oppose equality for all citizens, especially non-Jews
and Jewish "deviants" such as homosexuals. The great majority
of religious Jews in Israel, influenced by fundamentalists, share
these views to some extent. In a book review published on October
14, 1998, Baruch Kirnrnerling, a distinguished Israeli sociologist,
citing evidence from a study conducted by other scholars, commented:
The values of the [Jewish] religion, at least in its Orthodox
and nationalistic form that prevails in Israel, cannot be squared
with democratic values. No other variable—neither nationality,
nor attitudes about security, nor social or economic values,
nor ethnic descent and education—so influences the attitudes
of [Israeli] Jews against democratic values as does religiosity.1
Citing additional evidence, Kimmerling commented
further that secular, Israeli Jews who had acquired college or
university education had the greatest attachment to democratic
values and that religious Jews who studied in yeshivot (religious
schools) most opposed democracy. It is clear that fundamentalist
antagonism to democratic values, as well as to most aspects of
secular culture and life style, is deeply instilled in Israel's
religious schools.
The documentation of fundamentalist antagonism to
the secular life style of a majority of Israeli Jews is clear.
The September 20, 1998, edition of Yediot Ahronot, the largest
circulation, Hebrew language, daily Israeli newspaper, for example,
contained a "cultural profile" survey of Israeli Jewish society.
The survey revealed that the major Israeli consumers of culture,
who visit museums and attend concerts and the theater, had finished
high school and defined themselves as either secular or not Orthodox
(religious). The Israeli religious press and pronouncements by
Israeli rabbis, condemning cultural activity, have confirmed the
survey's findings.
Jewish fundamentalists have displayed severe enmity
against Jews who adopt a different sexual life style. Many Israeli
rabbis and the Israeli religious political patties in the 1990s
reacted sharply against the increased visibility and power of
the homosexual and lesbian communities in Israel. According to
the Halacha {Jewish religious law), homosexuality is punishable
by death by stoning, and, although the punishment is not clear,
lesbian relations are forbidden. The Israeli secular press emphasized
in the 1990s some of the more outrageous rabbinical proposals
for dealing with homosexuals; these included a "compulsory healing
treatment" and/or a period of "education in a closed institution."
Many rabbis, when interviewed, indicated that they favored imposition
of the death penalty for Jewish homosexual men. (The rabbis tended
to leave lesbians alone.) In their televised election advertisements,
Israeli religious political parties usually have emphasized that
homosexual Jews constitute one of the greatest dangers facing
Israel. The religious parties have been successful in their attempts
to eliminate in public school courses any mention of Hebrew homosexual
love poems, some of which contain beautiful Hebrew lyrics. This
censorship is evidence of fundamentalist influence.
Conflicts in Israeli society between adherents and
opponents of Jewish fundamentalism rank among the most important
issues in Israeli politics. In this book we do not attempt to
discuss all of these problems and/or issues. Rather, we focus
upon what we consider to be the most vital problems and issues
of Jewish fundamentalism.
Defenders of the "Jewish interest" often attack
persons who write critically about Jews and/or Judaism for not
emphasizing in the same text positive features that may have nothing
or little to do with the substance under focus. Some of these
defenders, for example, attacked Seffi Rachlevsky after the publication
of his best-selling book, "Messiahs' Donkeys." In his book, Rachlevsky
correctly claimed that Rabbi Kook, the Elder, the revered father
of the messianic tendency of Jewish fundamentalism (who is featured
in our book), said "The difference between a Jewish soul and souls
of non-Jews—all of them in all different levels—is greater and
deeper than the difference between a human soul and the souls
of cattle." The Rachlevsky detractors did not attempt to refute
substantivey the relevance of the Kook quotation. Rather, they
argued that Rabbi Kook said other things and that Rachlevsky,
by neglecting to mention them, had distorted the teachings of
Rabbi Kook. Rachlevsky pointed out that Rabbi Kook's entire teaching
was based upon the Lurianic Cabbala, the school of Jewish mysticism
that dominated Judaism from the late sixteenth to the early nineteenth
century. One of the basic tenants of the Lurianic Cabbala is the
absolute superiority of the Jewish soul and body over the non-Jewish
soul and body. According to the Lurianic Cabbala, the world was
created solely for the sake of Jews; the existence of non-Jews
was subsidiary. If an influential Christian bishop or Islamic
scholar argued that the difference between the superior souls
of non-Jews and the inferior souls of Jews was greater than the
difference between the human soul and the souls of cattle, he
would incur the wrath of and be viewed as an anti-Semite by most
Jewish scholars regardless of whatever less meaningful, positive
statements he included. From this perspective the detractors of
Rachlevsky are hypocrites. That Rabbi Kook was a vegetarian and
even respected the rights of plants to the extent that he did
not allow flowers or grass to be cut for his own pleasure neither
distracted from nor added anything to his position regarding the
comparison of the souls of Jews and non-Jews. That Kook deprecated
unnecessary Jewish brutality against non-Jews should not minimize
criticism of his expressed delight in the belief that the death
of millions of soldiers during World War One constituted a sign
of the approaching salvation of Jews and the coming of the Messiah.
The detractors of Rachlevsky and those who may level
similar criticisms against our book and us are not the only hypocrites
in this area. Shelves of bookshops in English-speaking and other
countries groan under the weight of books on Jewish mysticism
in general and on Hassidism and the Lurianic Cabbala more specifically.
Many of the authors of these books are widely regarded as famous
scholars because of the minutiae of their scholarship. The people
who read only these books on these subjects, however, cannot suspect
that Jewish mysticism, the Lurianic Cabbala, Hassidism and the
teachings of Rabbi Kook contain basic ideas about Jewish superiority
comparable to the worst forms of anti-Semitism. The scholarly
authors of these books, for example Gershon Scholem, have willfully
omitted reference to such ideas. These authors are supreme hypocrites.
They are analogous to many authors of books on Stalin and Stalinism.
Until recently, people who read only the books written by Stalinists
could not know about Stalin's crimes and would have false notions
of the Stalinists' regimes and their real ideologies.
The fact is that certain Jews, some of whom wield
political influence, consider Jews to be superior to non-Jews
and view the world as having been created only or primarily for
Jews. This belief in Jewish superiority is most dangerous when
held by Jews who love their children, are honest in their relations
with other Jews and perform, as do fundamentalists in all religions,
various acts of piety. This belief is less dangerous when held
by Jews who are not overwhelmingly concerned about religion and/or
corruption. A parallel worth citing here is that in a secular,
totalitarian system, a dedicated party worker or a convinced nationalist
is usually more dangerous and harmful than a corrupt member of
the same ideological system.
Our final point in this preface is both personal
and universal. As Jews, we understand that our own grandparents
or great-grandparents probably believed in at least some of the
views described in our book. This same statement may apply to
other contemporary Jews. In the past many non-Jews, as individuals
and as members of groups, held anti-Semitic views, which, especially
when the circumstances were propitious, influenced the behavior
of others towards Jews. Similarly, in the past, slavery was universally
practiced and justified, the inferior status of women was a global
phenomenon and the belief that a country belonged to an individual
or family and was heritable was common. Jewish fundamentalists
still believe, as they have in the past, in a golden age when
everything was, or was going to be, perfect. This golden age is
so much of a reality for them that, when faced with issues of
pernicious beliefs and practices, they take refuge by invoking
God's word, by falsely describing the past and by condemning non-Jews
for harboring feelings of superiority and having contempt for
Jews. The fundamentalists also justify their own belief in Jewish
superiority and their feeling of contempt for non-Jews; they seek
to reproduce the mythical golden age in which their views would
dominate. We have written this book in order to reveal the essential
character of Jewish fundamentalism and its adherents. This character
threatens democratic features of Israeli society. We believe that
awareness is the necessary first step in opposition. We realize
that by criticizing Jewish fundamentalism we are criticizing a
part of the past that we love. We wish that members of every human
grouping would criticize their own past, even before criticizing
others. This, we further believe, would lead to a better understanding
between human groups and would be followed, perhaps slowly and
hesitantly, by better treatment of minorities. Most of our book
is concerned with basic beliefs and resultant policies in Israeli
Jewish society. We believe that a critique of Jewish fundamentalism,
which entails a critique of the Jewish past, can help Jews acquire
more understanding and improve their behavior towards Palestinians,
especially in the territories conquered in and occupied since
1967. We hope that our critique will also motivate other people
in the Middle East to engage in criticism of their entire past
in order to increase their knowledge of themselves and improve
their behavior towards others in the present. All of this could
constitute a major factor in bringing peace to the Middle East.
Introduction
This is a political book
about Jewish fundamentalism in Israel. It includes some original
scholarly research but is based to a great extent upon the scholarly
research of others. Hopefully, this book is analytical.
We have inserted in the text many and copious quotations
from serious articles that have appeared in the Israeli Hebrew
press. The majority of articulate Israeli Jews have learned about
Jewish fundamentalism and some of the reactions thereto during
the past ten to fifteen years from these articles. Some of these
articles provided summaries of and analyses by leading scholars
who have researched in-depth aspects of Jewish fundamentalism.
We have quoted and have usually explained texts
from talmudic literature. Such texts have been and still are often
used in Israeli politics and often quoted in the Israeli Hebrew
press. We have concluded that in the usual English translations
of talmudic literature some of the most sensitive passages are
usually toned down or falsified—as a result, we have ourselves
translated all of the texts from talmudic literature that we have
quoted in the book. The quotations from the Bible, however, follow
the standard translations, sometimes in more modem English, except
when specifically noted otherwise.
We realize that we have presented a number of lengthy
quotations. We determined that this was necessary in order to
explain our points adequately. We believe the quotations deserve
to be and should be read in full. Instead of footnoting each quotation
separately in the traditional scholarly manner, we decided to
mention in the text from where each quotation was taken. Although
this may at times appear to be a bit redundant, it makes the flow
of understanding easier.
Although our book deals primarily with recent developments
in Jewish fundamentalism, it is rooted in Jewish history. A brief
overview of Jewish history, especially for readers who may lack
adequate knowledge thereof, is necessary in order to provide the
contextual framework for the subject matter. Fundamentalists of
all religions wish to restore society to the "good old times"
when the faith was allegedly pure and was practiced by everyone.
Fundamentalists believe that in the "good old times" all the evils
associated with modernity were absent, To gain an understanding
of Jewish fundamentalism, it is imperative to identify the historical
period that fundamentalists believe should be re-established.
In order to do this, we must specify the various periods of Jewish
history.
Jewish history is usually divided into four major
periods. The first is the biblical period during which most of
the Jewish Bible (Old Testament in the Christian tradition) was
written. Although its beginning time is uncertain, this period
lasted until about the fifth century BC. Judaism, at least in
its major characteristics, did not exist in this time period.
The Hebrew word "yehudim" ("Jews" in post-biblical Hebrew) and
its cognates in the Jewish Bible only denotes the inhabitants
of the small kingdom of Judea and is used to distinguish these
inhabitants from all the other people, called Israelites or "sons
of Israel" or, rarely, "Hebrews." The Bible anyway is not the
book that primarily determines the practices and doctrines of
Orthodox Jews.2 The most fundamentalist Orthodox Jews are largely
ignorant of major parts of the Bible and know some parts only
through commentaries that distort meaning. Controversies, moreover,
consumed the biblical period. The majority of Israelites, including
inhabitants of Judea, practiced idolatry throughout much of this
period. Only a minority of Israelites followed those tendencies
from which Judaism subsequently arose. In short, Judaism, as it
came to be known, did not exist during the biblical period.
The second period of Jewish history, usually called
the Second Temple period, began in the fifth century BC and lasted
until the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in AD
70. This was the formative period of Judaism with its subsequent
characteristics. The term "Jews," which denotes those people who
followed the distinctive religion of Judaism and the name Judea,
which denotes the land wherein Jews lived, appeared in this period.
Near the end of this period, after Jews had conquered most of
Palestine, the Romans adopted the term "Judea" in describing Palestine.3 The two most important new Jewish characteristics
that developed in this period were Jewish exclusiveness and the
resultant separation of Jews from all other nations. For the first
time the persons of other nations were referred to by the collective
name of gentiles.4 The second new characteristic was based upon the
assumption that the Jews must follow biblical law, that is, the
true interpretation of the law. During most of this period, however,
disputes centering upon differing and rival interpretations of
the law occurred. At times, these disputes erupted into civil
wars. The long-lasting quarrel between the Pharisees and Saducees
was but one example of such disputes. Shortly after the beginning
of this period, Alexander the Great conquered Palestine. States
influenced by Hellenism ruled Palestine for almost a thousand
years thereafter; even the short-lived independent Jewish state
of the Hasmonean dynasty was in most essentials a type of Hellenistic
state. Consequentially, Jewish society and the Hebrew language,
even though keeping their Jewish characteristics were transformed
by the influences of Hellenism. Hellenism influenced even more
deeply the Jewish diaspora in Mediterranean countries. Jews in
those countries often spoke and prayed in Greek. Unfonunately
most of the Jewish literature in Greek, which was produced in
this period, was subsequently lost by the Jews; only that part
preserved by various Christian churches has remained.
Most historians date the beginning of the third
period in AD 70 with the destruction of the Second Temple. Other
historians prefer to date the beginning of the third period in
AD 135, when the last major Jewish rebellion against the Roman
Empire ended. This period ended at different times in different
countries with the onset of modernity and the rise of modern nation
states. Modernity began when Jews were granted rights as citizens
equal to those granted to non-Jews and consequently when their
autonomy, which entailed subjection to the rabbis, ended. This
occurred in the United States and France, for example, by the
end of the eighteenth century; this did not occur in Russia until
1917 or in Yemen until the 1950s. The Jewish rebellions against
the Romans resulted in a permanent loss of Jewish population in
Palestine; the importance of the Jewish diaspora thus increased.
This change became fully operative in the fifth century AD. Additionally,
the failure of rebellions caused the Jews to lose hope that the
Temple would be rebuilt and that the animal sacrifices performed
in the Temple, previously the heart-center of the Jewish religion,
would be restored before the coming of the Messiah. The repeated
defeats caused most Jews to accommodate themselves to the ruling
authority of Rome and of other states in return for the limited
autonomy directed by the rabbis. Thus, in the Roman empire of
the fourth century AD, in a system created much earlier, all the
Jews were in religious matters subject to the Patriarch who had
the power to punish them by flogging, by levying fines for religious
offenses and by imposing taxes. The dignitary called Patriarch
in Roman sources was called President ("Nassi" in Hebrew) in Jewish
sources. He presided over the Sanhedrin, the supreme Jewish court,
and in Palestine appointed court members and other religious functionaries.
The Patriarch, whose post was hereditary, held a high official
rank in the hierarchy of Roman state officials. A similar arrangement
simultaneously existed in Iraq where the top official was called
the head of the diaspora. Both the patriarch and the head of the
diaspora claimed to have been descended from the family of King
David. The office of the patriarch lapsed shortly after AD 429;
the office of the head of the diaspora lasted until about AD 1100.
Both offices provided the framework for models of Jewish autonomy.
This autonomy, which persisted until the modern era, and later
repercussions thereof, contributed to the rise of Jewish fundamentalism.
The great abundance of literature produced in the third period,
the longest in the entire course of Jewish history, was written
mostly in Hebrew but also in Aramaic, Greek, Arabic, Yiddish and
other languages. The major theme was religion; the minutiae of
religious observances were mainly emphasized. Poetry, philosophy
and science, predominantly of the Aristotelian variety, appeared
at some times in some places but were neither universal nor continuous.
In many diaspora areas, particularly in central Europe, the only
literature produced until 1750 was religious. From the perspective
of Jewish fundamentalism the most important occurrence in the
third period was the growth of Jewish mysticism, usually referred
to by the name of Cabbala. Jewish mysticism transformed Jewish
beliefs without changing, except for a few details, Jewish observance.
Between 1550 and 1750, the great majority of Jews in western Europe
accepted the Cabbala and its set of beliefs. This was the end
of the third period of Jewish history, which immediately preceded
the rise of modern nation states and the beginning of modern influences.
Mysticism is still accepted by and constitutes a vital part of
Jewish fundamentalism, being especially important in the messianic
variety. As shown in our book, the ideology of the messianic variety
of Jewish fundamentalism is based upon the Cabbala. In spite of
making occasional references to the Bible, Jewish fundamentalists
generally have consistently pinpointed and described the last
part of this third period as the golden age that they wish to
restore. It is important to note that, beyond the spawning of
Jewish fundamentalism, the wide circulation of religious literature
in this third period created a strong sense of Jewish unity, based
upon a common religion and the Hebrew language. (Almost all educated
Jews, regardless of what language they spoke, understood and employed
Hebrew as a written language for their religion.)
The fourth and modern period of Jewish history is
the one in which we live. It began at different times in different
countries; many Israeli Jews passed directly from pre-modern to
modern times. As discussed in Chapter 3 of our book, this phenomenon
has been especially important for Oriental Jews. Our book emphasizes
that Jewish fundamentalism arose as a reaction against the effects
of modernity upon Jews. The influence of Jewish fundamentalism
upon the Israeli Jewish community can only be understood adequately
within the context of the entire course of Jewish history.
NOTES
1. Baruch Kimmerling, review of Yohanan Peres and Efraim Ya'ar
Yukhtman, Between Agreement and Dispute: Democracy and Peace
in Israeli Society (Jerusalem: The Israeli Institute for
Democracy, 1998) in Hebrew. Kimmerling carefully reviewed and
analyzed the data, assembled between 1993 and 1995 by Peres and
Yukhtman.
2. We explain this to some extent in this book. This is explained
in greater detail in Israel Shahak,
Jewish History, Jewish Religion (London: Pluto Press,
1994).
3. The Romans actually adopted the term Judea by employing the
form of "provincia Judea" in describing Palestine, which in the
Bible is called by other names.
4. The Hebrew word for gentiles is "goyim," a word which, as used
in the Bible, simply means nations. The singular "goy" in the
Bible was—and is—applied to the Israelites themselves.
Web Editor's
Note:
This document has been edited slightly
to conform to American stylistic, punctuation and hypertext conventions.
Other than a slight reorganization of sections and the correction
of a few typographical errors, no further changes to the text have
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