In one of the important Jewish texts, Ethics of the Fathers, the great teacher Hillel says the following: If I am not for myself who will be for me? If I am only for myself what am I? In these two sentences Hillel captures the essence of the tension within Judaism: between universalism and particularism.
Of course this tension is to be found in many belief systems but, arguably, it is brought into sharper relief in Jewish history as Jews throughout their travails often occupied the borderlines of various civilisations and cultures. Thus, as a tiny minority, they were constantly buffeted by winds from diverse political, cultural and religious influences.
The political prospect of cosmopolitanism was hugely attractive to many Jewish thinkers in that a universal humanity which respected the diversity inherent within the idea held tangible hope for the oppressed “other”.
The Jewish tradition as sourced, for example, in the Prophets, represented a majestic and sustained affirmation of the dignity of all humankind, even as other parts of the tradition emphasised the idea of being separate. While the universal might have been the ultimate vision, Jewish experience of oppression ultimately compelled refuge in the particular from which position the fight for the universal could best take place.
The great biographer of Trotsky and Stalin, Isaac Deutscher, captured much of this when he wrote: “Most of the great revolutionaries — have seen the ultimate solution to the problems of their and our times not in nation states but in international society. As Jews they were the natural pioneers of this idea for who in this world was as well qualified to preach the international society of equals …
“The world has compelled the Jew to embrace the nation state, to make of it his pride and hope just at the time when there was little or no hope left in it. You cannot blame the Jew for this, you must blame the world.”
A modern world
The universal within Judaism had a further implication; the need to confront a modern world, thereby ensuring that the tradition spoke to humankind whatever the modes of the particular age: hence the need in the 21st century to embrace or at least engage, for example, with gender equality and the challenges of modern science.
On the political front, while the established Jewish community in this country nodded towards the particular, it was constantly confronted by the Jewish universal imperative born of both text and history, most recently the Holocaust.
Many South African Jews embraced the universal: all the white accused at Rivonia were Jewish. Others within that generation, such as Arthur Chaskalson in law, and Joe Slovo in politics, represented strains of the same tradition. Later trade unionists who followed Leon Levy and Ray Alexander, such as John Copelyn, David Lewis, Mike Morris, Bernie Fanaroff and Taffy Adler, made a significant contribution to what finally became Cosatu.
The establishment may have been complicit in its silence during apartheid but it was forced, at the very least, to confront the implications of the universal imperative and, with it, more than a modicum of critical debate was preserved. In some ways the community understood the tension and the need to respect diversity.
And as fierce as was the commitment to Zionism, the community embraced many strains thereof so that socialist Zionists who saw the universal dream through Israel, the moral exemplar, were equally prominent.
No more: look, if only, at the debacle surrounding the Goldstone bar mitzvah. The vicious reaction to Judge Goldstone, which has now transformed into an inaccurate attack on his judicial record during apartheid (sadly by quarters who said nothing about Israeli cooperation with the apartheid regime), bears luminous testimony to the new hegemony within the community.
Laager mentality
It is a combination of a fundamentalist orthodoxy and paranoid secularism. It has retreated into a laager brooking no dissent. Thus Israel can do no wrong: all criticism is at best seen as ill-informed; at worst as unbridled hatred.
Platitudes about a two-state solution aside, the belief in the status quo is far stronger.
In the early 1980s the community could debate the Shatillah and Sabra massacre and many supported the independent inquiry set up by the Israeli government. Today, apart from excoriating Judge Goldstone’s report, which few have read, there is a deafening silence about the need for Israel to hold a similar inquiry.
A remarkable feature of the attack on Goldstone is how few people have read the report. Apparently a few well-circulated criticisms, most from staunchly dependent sources, is more than enough for many to hold firm opinions against the report.
But the retreat from an engagement with the universal goes further than Israel. A fundamentalist theology dominates in its creationist variations as does a fierce opposition to any movement towards gender equality save among the minority reform and tiny egalitarian movements in this country.
Israel’s centrality
In general the established community has headed for the intellectual hills, thereby jettisoning any pretence towards universalism in the tradition.
To return to Deutscher: it is surely unfair to demand of Jews that they alone must dispense with a nation state and most certainly not when anti-Semitism is so rife in the world.
It is plain wrong not to recognise the centrality of Israel to the Jewish world or to ignore the moral indifference of critics to disgraceful treatment, as in cases such as Corporal Gilad Shalit, who is still held by Hamas without access even to the Red Cross.
But for those Jews who believe in the animating value of universalism, Israel’s existence, as inalienable as it must be, cannot come at the expense of similar rights for Palestinians, or be based on oppressive occupation. Neither can egregious breaches of international law by Israel be supported.
To be sure the Iranian regime is consistently in far greater breach of every principle of human rights and democracy but its oppression can surely never be a justification for wrongs Israel may commit against the Palestinians.
Recently Professor Shlomo Avneri noted his discomfort with those who criticise Israeli policy but do not bear the consequences of changed policies. It is not good enough simply to label critics as self-haters or anti-Semites. The tactic is not working. Jews, in places outside South Africa, have become more vocal in seeking to resist an unthinking particularism; organisations such as J Street in the United States are not prepared to be railroaded into support for everything a transient Israeli government decides to do. Egalitarian religious movements have sprung up over much of the Jewish world, promoting gender equality and critical forms of Jewish learning.
But as the Goldstone bar mitzvah showed, the community in this country, weakened both numerically and intellectually by immigration, overwhelmingly unexposed to the wonderful tensions within Jewish sources and still prisoners of a culture of authority that dominated not only our politics during apartheid, seems to accept a leadership that is immune to these challenges; indeed it has moved in an increasingly monastic direction.
For many like myself, the Jewish tradition remains contested, open to critique and change and capable of being read in a way that can promote a universal vision without any hatred for the other. It is a tradition that is worth passing on to my children.
For this alone this lay and orthodox religious leadership does not speak in my name.