Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (Book Review)
Reviewed
by Mordecai Briemberg (January / February 2001)
JEWISH FUNDAMENTALISM IN ISRAEL
By Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky. Pluto Press, London, 1999.
Introduction of the authors should not be, but is, necessary;
necessary
because the dominant North American public intellectual culture
"disappears" the Shahaks and Mezvinskys with their upsetting challenges
to
prevailing dogma.
Israel Shahak was born into a religious Jewish family in
Warsaw. He
survived Bergen-Belsen, went to Palestine in 1945, and has been an
indomitable human rights activist there, utterly opposed to Israeli
discrimination against and repression of Palestinians. Now a retired
professor of organic chemistry at Hebrew University, Shahak continues
his
lifelong study of Jewish religion. Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel is
a
companion to his earlier book Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight
of Three Thousand Years1. Co-author Norton Mezvinsky is a history professor
in Connecticut, where he teaches and writes on Judaism, Zionism and the
contemporary Middle East.
One thing their book provides is a small compendium of Jewish
religious
idiocy and cruelty.Idiocy category: Jewish religious law (halacha) forbids
Jewish men from listening to women singing (considered a "sin" equivalent
to adultery). So, with "creativity" and the approval of the rabbinical
censor, settler members of the National Religious Party (NRP) first have
a male singer record a song made popular by a woman, then electronically
modify this recording to a female pitch for broadcast on their radio station,
Arutz 7. The goal of this "virtual adultery" is to broaden the appeal
of their
station to non-fundamentalist Israeli Jews.
Cruelty category: In a concluding chapter, Shahak and Mezvinsky
provide the
historical context for Yigal Amir's religiously motivated assassination
of
Israeli Prime Minister Rabin. The historical record, well-known in Israeli
scholarship on Jewish history, shows that for nearly two millenia "many
murders were committed for religious reasons" by secret rabbinical courts,
who appointed secret executioners. More tellingly, this continued up to
the
late 19th century in areas where rabbinical power was given greater
independence by state authorities. Women accused of adultery were
assassinated in synagogues, or had their nose sliced off, by command of
rabbis. Israeli scholar Dr. David Asaf researched an 1836 case in the
Ukraine in which a famous Hasidic rabbi ordered the death of two men,
one
of them was strangled while praying, his body dismembered, and the parts
burned in the oven that heated the communal bath.
Shahak and Mezvinsky's explicit objective is to rouse the
reader,
particularly the North American reader, into an acknowledgement that Jewish
fundamentalism is as "pernicious" as other fundamentalisms. This requires
us to approach the Jewish past not as a folk-tale, but as history.
Some readers, though influenced by modernity and self-identified as
secular, could be shocked, even affronted, by the evidence presented of
pernicious Jewish fundamentalism. If so, perhaps it may be because such
readers retain one affinity with the fundamentalists; namely, a dedication
to the idea of Jewish "exceptionalism." Reveries about an unhistorical
Jewish "past" are one of the mechanisms used to consolidate this
self-serving sense of "uniqueness," which is often intertwined-in Shahak
and Mezvinsky's pithy words-with a psychological "blend of inordinate
fears
and exaggerated self-confidence."
The fundamentalist principle of "uniqueness" was clearly
stated by Rabbi
Kook the Elder, Chief Rabbi of Palestine from 1920 until his death in
1935:
"The difference between a Jewish soul and the 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." In 1996, Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburgh
wrote
that "something is special about Jewish DNA." Speaking of organ
transplants, he wrote: "If a Jew needs a liver, can he take the liver
of an
innocent non-Jew to save him? The Torah would probably permit that. Jewish
life has an infinite value. There is something more holy and unique about
Jewish life than non-Jewish life." This August, the religious leader of
the
third largest political party in Israel, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, pronounced
that Arabs are "snakes", "thoroughly evil", and that "God regrets having
created them".
Jewish fundamentalism, of which mysticism (Cabbalah) constitutes
a vital
part, according to Shahak and Mezvinsky, in a way similar to other
religious fundamentalisms, is a "reaction against the effects of
modernity". It is against reason, against access to information, against
tolerance for differences of understanding, against democratic
decision-making, against equality of citizenship, against the shared
humanity of people: both genders, various sexual orientations, all skin
colours, ages, physical and mental conditions.
How influential is Jewish fundamentalism? In 1994, Baruch
Kimmerling,
sociology professor at Hebrew Univerity, reported the results of a survey
he had done. Nineteen percent of Israeli Jews reported that they prayed
daily; an equal number said they wouldn't enter a synagogue under any
circumstances. Analyzing the 1996 elections, Shahak and Mezvinsky estimate
the support for the fundamentalist parties, the Haredi ("God-fearing")
parties, at about 13% of the Jewish-Israeli population. These parties
include the National Religious Party, Gush Emunim ("Bloc of the Faithful"),
Shas (Oriental) and Yahadut Ha'Torah ("Judaism of the Torah", Ashkenazi).
But for the authors, influence is more than electoral seats, or
machinations within governing coalitions. For them, the critical factor
is
the impact of the fundamentalist "world outlook" on a militarized Israeli
society. The authors contend that this impact has been enormous,
particularly on the Likud. Certainly there are parallels in outlook between
secular political parties-not only Likud-and Jewish fundamentalism;
however, the authors do not demonstrate the dynamic of influence
sufficiently to convince me of a causal relation.
Shahak and Mezvinsky do give some information on Haredi
school networks.
Particularly since 1980, the Haredim have influenced schooling in many
poorer provincial Israeli towns, and in slum areas of larger cities. Haredi
"education" excludes mathematics, sciences, foreign languages, Hebrew
literature, grammar, and Jewish history. Except for the Pentateuch (the
first five books of the Hebrew bible or Old Testament), students are not
even taught a general knowledge of major parts of the Bible. Due to Haredi
influence, in the town of Netivot there is no public high school, because
if there were it would be obligated to teach secular subjects.
Jewish fundamentalism seeks a return to ignorance, ritually
prescribed
behavior, and authoritarianism inseparable from inhumane viciousness;
in
short, the recreation of the internal conditions of pre-modern Jewry.
If Stockwell Day's "creationist" ambitions make you laugh nervously, Jewish
Fundamentalism in Israel will be a panic.
1 For a review of this book, see the October-November 1996
issue of
Outlook. - Eds.