Plenty for us to be positive about
'We are bound together by a shared sense of destiny'
Division, schism, rift, dictatorship, tyranny, despair, discord … the passage of the Reasonableness Law in Israel last week had journalists the world over scouring their thesauruses for whatever synonyms they could find to convey the fallout from the controversial legislation.
So severe has been the impact on Israeli society that those who remember watching the country tear itself apart when Ariel Sharon pursued his policy of disengagement in 2005 say the fragmentation that episode caused is eclipsed by what’s going on right now.
Over the past few days and, indeed, the past few weeks and months, countless op-eds have been written by people with far more knowledge and expertise than I possess, arguing both for and against the coalition government’s uncompromising pursuit of its policy of judicial overhaul. There’s little I can add on that score. But that’s okay.
What I want to discuss is less the country of Israel than the spirit of Israel. For while the country may be rocked by disunity and disharmony, here in Melbourne we’ve just experienced a sense of unity, joy and pride related to Israel, far removed from the fragmentation and despair on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
To elaborate – the evening before the Knesset vote, legendary Israeli singer Aviv Geffen was in St Kilda performing his greatest hits and the crowd couldn’t get enough of it.
Just a few weeks ago, as Iron Dome shot down rockets overhead, Geffen was playing to an audience of 40,000 in HaYarkon Park. And now here he was on our doorstep with a show that sold out minutes after tickets went on sale.
The hundreds of Jews and Israelis gathered at Memo Music Hall loved every minute of the intimate concert, as the star sang all his classic numbers, at the same time regaling them with hilarious stories from his past.
And the icing on the cake, or tahina on the falafel as they say in Caesarea, he was joined on stage for two of his songs by his two young sons Dylan and Elliott, and for another song by Old Man River, aka Ohad Rein, who was the opening act on the night.
The crowd at the event, co-hosted by Zionism Victoria and Habayit, were in raptures and even those who couldn’t understand a word of Hebrew were swept up in the atmosphere.
Israelis united, Jews united, all singing in one voice – the event in Victoria was simply exhilarating.
The following evening, by contrast, there was no whooping or cheering. But the 70-plus audience was nonetheless on the edge of their Beth Weizmann seats as Entebbe hero Rami Sherman recalled the incredible rescue of more than 100 Jewish and Israeli hijack hostages from Uganda in 1976.
A week earlier, he’d shared his reminiscences of the historic mission in Hebrew with an equal number of members of Melbourne’s Israeli community.
So engaging were Sherman’s recollections at these talks, co-hosted by Zionism Victoria and Habayit, that there was total silence throughout his 90-minute address, save from an audible expression of disbelief from all quarters when he noted the response of then-United Nations secretary-general Kurt Waldheim to the mission.
Rather than condemning Idi Amin for hosting terrorists and hailing the heroic rescue, Waldheim upbraided Israel for a serious violation of Ugandan sovereignty.
Sherman was likewise less than impressed with those international authorities who were prepared to negotiate the release of the non-Jewish hostages, leaving the Jewish and Israeli ones behind. However, he was full of praise and admiration for the Air France pilot and crew who chose to remain with them throughout the entire eight-day ordeal.
Particularly moving was how Sherman revealed that he had never really thought of the significance of Entebbe until its 40th anniversary. Until then it was pretty much just another mission. He’d arrived back in Israel with those he’d helped rescue and, though there was some feting of those involved, it wasn’t long before he was on his next assignment.
However, when in 2016 he was asked to address a number of Jewish groups, it was then that he realised how important the episode was to the whole Jewish world, rather than just Israel. And from there he became aware of his own Jewish identity and how inseparable that was from his Israeli identity.
His address then was far more than an old soldier recalling a historic, if glorious, mission. Just as Geffen’s show was truly uplifting, Sherman’s reflections were truly inspiring.
And together they represented an aspect of Israel, distinct from the turmoil and strife that afflict the country both politically and geopolitically.
We are bound together by a shared sense of destiny, a feeling of belonging and a sense of pride and joy in all that has been achieved, all that is being achieved and all that can still be achieved.
In short, while you may be concerned about the current state of the State of Israel, the spirit of Israel is another matter altogether and, as we’ve seen here in Melbourne over recent days, it’s vibrant and thriving.
In short, insofar as the State of Israel is a state of mind, there’s plenty for us to be positive about.
Zeddy Lawrence is executive director of Zionism Victoria.
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