That’s great Theodor, but what about the potholes?
GIL SHEFLER
HISTORY is filled with symbolism and irony. It just so happened that the day that Palestinians marked the the nakba, their national “catastrophe” caused by the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, was also the 151st birthday, going by the Hebrew calendar, of Theodor Herzl, the founding father of Zionism.
On the border with Syria and Lebanon, and in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian protesters clashed with Israeli soldiers. Later in the day, more than 1600 Israeli pupils celebrated Herzl’s legacy at a large ceremony held by the World Zionist Organisation at Mount Herzl in Jerusalem – just another day in the Middle East.
That same day the World Zionist Organisation released the results of an interesting and pertinent study. If the founding father of Zionism were alive today, a group of 500 Israelis were asked, what would he think of the nation he helped create?
Some 46 per cent said Herzl would either be pleased or very pleased with the Jewish State while a substantial 39 per cent said the opposite. The remainder either didn’t know or refused to answer the question.
A slim majority, then, believe Herzl would be happy with the country he helped inspire, but one cannot ignore the other 39 per cent. What should one make of these findings?
Professor Ariel Feldstein, an academic tasked by the Prime Minister’s Office with commemorating Herzl’s legacy, thinks most Israelis that took part in the survey didn’t understand the question.
“I’d say only 20 to 30 per cent of Israelis are really familiar with Herzl’s work,” Feldstein said. “And that’s being optimistic.”
Somewhat counter-intuitively, Feldstein speculated that had they been more familiar with Herzl’s work they might have thought he’d be even less favourable towards the outcome of his teachings.
“If they knew about his liberalism, his approach to religion, the relation between the army and the state, the public would react differently to the question,” he said. “On the religious level he saw the relationship between rabbis and the public as being more similar to the situation which exists in US Jewry. Although Israel has many achievements, in some aspects it stands opposed to the Herzlian ideals.”
One telling finding in the survey was that older respondents tended to think more favourably of Herzl’s view of Israel if he were he alive today than younger ones. Among the 66-plus age group, who were born at a time that Israel did not exist and when millions of Jews were being persecuted and killed in Europe, about 63 per cent said Herzl would be pleased with Israel.
Only 44 per cent of young adults aged 18 to 35 born after Israel was already very well established thought the same – a 20 per cent decrease.
Another important factor which I believe influenced the findings but cannot be found anywhere in the survey has to do with Israeli and Jewish psychology.
The Jewish people, it is no secret, tend to complain. A lot. Jews were a persecuted minority for thousands of years. It was truly terrible. Now they have their own state, but let me tell you something it’s not like we’re eating kreplach here every day. We like to kvetch, and why shouldn’t we? It’s a healthy way to deal with hardships and to convey criticism constructively.
It has sustained us through thousands of years. So Herzl would be mighty disappointed if he were alive today and saw the potholes on the road outside my house, I tell you. Mighty disappointed.
On a more serious note, as a student of history the bottom line for me is this. For a 19th century Jew, any Jew, be it Herzl, one of his Zionist colleagues or even an anti-Zionist Jew, the fact that a Israel exists today with a government, an army, a high-tech industry and despite its many flaws like the disparities in income and education between the rich and poor, the corruption in the government, a football team which never makes it to the World Cup and, how can we forget, that we do not exist in peace with our neighbours; despite and because of all that it would come as a very positive surprise for a 19th century Jew to know Israel exists.
My two cents? Imperfections and all, Herzl would break into a little hora dance even he knew what came of his teachings. Thankfully, some 46 per cent of Israelis still agree.
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