We all say stupid stuff. I seem to recall some Israeli prime minister getting caught saying that one cannot be a real Jew without living in Israel.
The Google, it does nothing. Anyone out there remembers it better?
Yuli Edelstein, Speaker of the Knesset, has said: “In my eyes, with all due openness and tolerance, I doubt whether a person can be a complete Jew without living in Israel (while still a good and beloved Jew!).”
Thank you.
Too bad that living in Israel has not made Mr Edelstein a completely intelligent person.
Yuli Edelstein was a Soviet dissident who spend several years in a Siberian gulag in the 1980s for the crime of teaching Hebrew and seeking to immigrate to Israel. His perspective on the matter is different than yours.
That’s nice. His point of view on that particular matter is not worth as much as mine is, because mine has the distinct advantage of being true. (In particular, that being Jewish is what makes a person Jewish, not their mailing address or the name of their town.) The pretentious twaddle that a particular piece of land is tied to a particular ethnic or religious group in perpetuity is no better or holier coming from Mr Edelstein’s mouth than from Mr Hitler’s mouth, and Mr Edelstein’s government’s hard push for Lebensraum is not kinder or nobler because the two men spoke different languages.
You must be a very observant and proud Jew.
Sure, sounds like he is not offering a dispassionate and objective opinion on this at all and his idiotic and harmful opinion can be discounted.
I don’t doubt that his, no doubt, terrible experiences in Siberia has tainted his ability to think clearly on the matter. You are right to bring that problem to our attention.
Aliyah never stopped being one of the key tenets of Zionism. You’re welcome to disagree to MK Edelstein and me, but we’re still entitled to our beliefs.
But Zionism is not the same as Judaism is it? Mr. Edelstein was speaking of being a complete Jew, not a complete Zionist, correct? It almost seems as if he in conflating Judaism with Zionism. Or implying all Jews should be Zionists to be complete??
There are substantial Jewish sects religiously opposed to Zionism and/or to the state of Israel. Some Haredim, for example.
Exactly. So to Mr. Edelstein, is it impossible for those Jews who oppose Zionism to be “complete Jews”? Because IMO, that would be fucked up.
Zionism has always been about the belief that all Jews should live in Israel. How is this news to you? And why is it such a big deal? Edelstein just said that people who disagree with him are wrong (but are still good people). Hardly a bold statement coming from a politician.
Moderator Note
DavidwithanR, let’s keep political jabs, especially ones as inflammatory as comparing a Jewish politician to Hitler, out of General Questions. No warning issued, but do not do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
That’s not what he said.
Many ultra-Orthodox in fact live in Israel, while not supporting Zionism; many Zionist supporters do not live in Israel.
According to the statement, the first group would be more likely to have a “complete” experience than the second.
Last I heard, while aliyah is seen as good and desirable it was not required in order to be a Jew. That’s what makes the statement stupid. It’s imposing a requirement for membership in a group that doesn’t exist.
Also, as already pointed out, not all Jews are Zionists, but they’re still Jews.
Again, I think that’s reading too much into the statement.
He simply isn’t saying you can’t be a Jew if you don’t live in Israel - in fact, he clearly states the opposite, that you can still be a “good Jew” living elsewhere.
Nor is he saying you must be a Zionist (or hold any particular political opinion)–his statement is merely about where you live, not what you believe.
I don’t agree with him, but I think the fuss about what he said is unwarranted.
Two solely factual questions:
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Does anything in the Torah or widely accepted rabbinical texts require Jews to live in Israel, or even suggest that it is preferable to living elsewhere?
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Are Jews who did not live in Israel because there wasn’t an Israel from the seventh to mid-20th centuries considered incomplete, in Edelstein’s view? Or would living under Abbasid/Mamluk/Ottoman/whoever rule within the boundaries of historic Israel/Judah suffice?
He’s making a distinction between a “complete” Jew and a “good and beloved” Jew. As an American Jew with no intention of making aliyah, I’m not particularly insulted. I can respect that a Zionist in Israel would say, “Johnny Bravo, my good and beloved brethren, will you not complete yourself by coming home?”
That’s what aliyah means to Zionists - it’s a homecoming. It’s a fulfillment of a divine promise and an end to the diaspora. Of course they want that for me. They’re family.
Even if I don’t want it for myself, I’m glad that they’re waiting for me with open arms should I change my mind. I feel similarly about the local Lubavitchers, who would very much like for me to wrap myself in tefillin and eat a whole lot less bacon.
Yup, it’s a commonplace. “Next year in Jerusalem!” is how the Passover Seder traditionally ends.
What exactly this means of course varies from commentator to commentator, but the notion that Jews gain something from residence in what is now Israel clearly has religious roots that long predate political Zionism.
Religious Jews travelled to live in what is now Israel since the exile, for that apparent reason.