It is precisely this emphasis on Jewish uniqueness and distinctiveness that makes many Jews uncomfortable
Our recent column about the offensive election poster asking voters to choose between a Jerusalem of Israelis or chareidim engendered some provocative reactions, and is worth revisiting.
Can one be both an Israeli and simultaneously a chareidi Jew? Strictly speaking, yes, because Israeli is a political designation, a matter of citizenship, and has nothing to do with one’s daily practices as a Jew. Most chareidim who live in Israel are both Israelis — citizens of the land — and chareidim, practicing the life of adherence to Torah and mitzvos.
However, beneath this technical definition there lies much more complexity, and that is the issue of Israeliness and Jewishness. These are far from being identical. Jewishness implies an acceptance of the idea of Jewish chosenness — bechiras Yisrael — i.e. we are a special nation with a special purpose; a connectedness to the Creator and to the Jewish past and future, and an identification with the supreme values of the Jewish spiritual heritage as expressed in the study and practice of Torah and mitzvos. It is a people that envisions a restoration and reincarnation of the classical Jewish way of life as a path into the future.
Israeliness, on the other hand, views all this as an anachronism and a throwback to the ghetto/galus mentality they yearn to leave behind. Israeliness would create a “new Jew,” one who is muscular and physical, open to the wider world and, although respectful of Jewish tradition and certain rituals (which they don’t call “mitzvos”), engaged with the ongoing universalist and humanistic issues of living in the modern world — which they subsume under the misbegotten umbrella of tikkun olam. Israeliness is based on political, linguistic, and territorial matters — none of which is fundamental to Jewishness.
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