Dear Shlomi,



The definition of the modern Jewish nation is one of the most important and most complicated we have as citizens of the State of Israel, established as a national home for the Jewish nation.



I wrote “modern” because from the destruction of the Second Temple until the modern era the Jewish nation was defined simply, as Saadiah Gaon (882 CE) wrote: “Our nation is not a nation except in its teachings” (HaEmunot V’haDeot essay 3). The Jewish nation was dispersed and scattered in the various diasporas under the rule of different nations, with no state. The communities were separated from each other by language, costume, food…the Jewish community of Eastern Europe was not like the community of North Africa, etc. The tie that bound the communities was the fulfillment of Torah and the commandments.

In other words: until the modern era the Jewish nation was not defined by territory or a unified culture. The concord which unified that nation was a simple one: belief “in the G-d of Israel who gave the Torah and the commandments to the Jewish nation.”

In the modern era changes began. One is that most of the Jewish world has shaken off the Torah and commandments, and another is that the State of Israel, defined as a “national home for the Jewish nation” has been established.

The question of what now unifies the Jewish people causes even greater confusion and embarrassment for those Israeli citizens who define themselves as Jews and accept upon themselves the values of the enlightened world.

The State of Israel is androgynous, part old world and part new. On the one hand we want to enjoy the benefits of the values of a modern Western state which champions full equality of all its citizens, and on the other we want to uphold the old view of preserving the Jewish nation [the State of Israel does not permit all its citizens to marry equally].

In other words: the State of Israel aspires to enlightenment and yet is still tied to the old world.

To sharpen the problem, we will ask: what is the tie that binds the people of Neturei Karta, whose Judaism no one questions, and a secular hi-tech entrepreneur? Their language, their costume, their foods, their ways of life, and basic values are utterly different. The secular person will not want to marry a Charedi because of his cultural foreignness, and a Charedi will not want to marry a secular person because he rejects “the G-d of Israel.”



Elbar Memi, born in Tunis and living in France, wrote in the novel Netziv HaMelach about the confusion and embarrassment of the story’s protagonist: I live in France, but I’m also Tunisian. I’m Tunisian, but I’m also a Jew, but not a religious Jew who believes in superstition.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet

Hello,



According to you, the definition or public statement “I am a Jew” creates a nation, even if individuals within it do not eat together and will not marry each other (from cultural reasons for the secular and from legal reasons for the religious). Moreover, you wrote: “though the concept of ‘Jew’ is different for each,” meaning that the religious person sees a “Jew” as one who observes the Torah and the commandments, and any who rejects the Divine Torah is an apostate and heretic who should be sentenced to death, while the secular person sees “Jew” as a shared history, a common past though now they are polar opposites.



A nation whose sole unity is the past and whose present is split in all details of everyday life, ideas, and ideological aspirations has a very doubtful future existence.



Sincerely,



Daat Emet