The Jews, once settled in their own State, would probably have no more enemies. As for those who remain behind, since prosperity enfeebles and causes them to diminish, they would soon disappear altogether. I think the Jews will always have sufficient enemies, such as every nation has. But once in their own land, it will no longer be possible for them to scatter all over the world. The Diaspora cannot be reborn, unless the civilisation of the whole earth should collapse; and such a consummation could be feared by none but foolish men.”
So wrote Theodor Herzl 112 years ago in his prophetic pamphlet The Jewish State, which boldly and correctly foresaw the eventual establishment of the state of Israel, of which this work set the foundations.
But when it came to the diaspora, Herzl’s prophetic powers fell short. The Jews did not rush voluntarily to join a new-born Jewish state; those living outside it did not “soon disappear altogether”; and nor, for that matter, did their antisemitic enemies.
Even in Herzl’s lifetime, several of his Zionist contemporaries, most notably the Russian-Jewish philosopher Ahad Ha’am (Asher Ginzburg), took sharp issue with the notion that establishing a Jewish State meant a “negation of the diaspora”. Knowing his Jewish history far better than Herzl, Ahad Ha’am drew on the historical model of Jerusalem and Babylon, when a large and wealthy diaspora existed alongside the Second Jewish Commonwealth of Judea, until the Romans sacked Jerusalem in 70AD. Ahad Ha’am foresaw a Jewish state as providing more of a “spiritual centre” that would in fact help sustain the Jewish diaspora, and vice versa, in the context of a symbiotic relationship, as it did in ancient days.
Herzl did prove right in foreseeing the coming cataclysm that would wipe out a majority of Europe’s Jews, and rob it of its role as the pillar of diaspora Jewry. He did not foresee, though, that a critical mass would have emigrated earlier to the United States, and that this community — the biggest, richest and, crucially, most free and socially secure in all of Jewish history — would ensure that the diaspora would still emerge from the Holocaust as a strong and confident player in its relationship with the newly created state of Israel.
The Israeli leadership in 1948 may have enjoyed the prerogatives of sovereign power, but their nation barely numbered one-tenth of the total worldwide Jewish population, and was dependent on the economic philanthropy and political support of Jewish communities abroad. That Israel’s relationship with the diaspora was primarily one of dependency was formally ratified at the 1951 World Zionist Congress, which reiterated that the principal aims of Zionism were “the consolidation of the state of Israel, ingathering of the exiles, and the fostering of the unity of the Jewish People”. Crucially, no mention was made of consolidating or sustaining Jewish identity in the diaspora, a notion that — given the circumstances of the time — would have seemed irrelevant.
Thus for most of the past six decades, the Israeli-diaspora relationship has been conducted along the “Jerusalem and Babylon” model that was constructed at Israel’s inception. The fact is though that current conditions no longer support such a paradigm. The respective leaderships of those communities have to deal with the consequences by rethinking the Israel-diaspora relationship, not simply on a theoretical basis, but in terms of practical mechanisms set up to sustain the connection between them.
The big change over the past few decades in the Israel-diaspora dynamic is simple numbers. The Jewish population of the former is increasing, the latter decreasing; this is well known and not new. But what is new is that this dynamic is now progressing at a rate faster than most would have predicted.
According to a survey released last month by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, in just the last few years, Israel has become the world’s largest Jewish community, with 41 percent of the world’s 13.2 million Jews, and the US now down to 40 per cent.
More significantly, the poll revealed that just in the past year, the number of Jews living outside of Israel dropped by 100,000, while Israel’s Jewish population shot up by 300,000. What makes this figure even more remarkable is that 2007 was a year of relatively little Jewish immigration to Israel: a 20-year low of just 19,700. The difference is largely attributable to birthrate — last year saw the highest number of Jewish births recorded in Israel’s history (104,000), while declining birthrates, together with increasing intermarriage and assimilation, continue to shrink diaspora communities.
These figures mean the “ingathering of the exiles” concept is no longer practically applicable to global Jewish demography of the 21st century. Of course, individual aliyah remains a fundamental principle of Zionist ideology, and immigration is as important to Israel in terms of social and economic growth. Yet the era of mass aliyah “movements” clearly ended in the 1990s, with several hundred thousand olim who streamed in to Israel with the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
What is more, in the following decade Israel has come to realise that the large number of marginal Jews and non-Jews who immigrated under the liberal conditions (one Jewish grandparent) of the Law of Return — estimates run as high as 400,000 — has resulted in an unanticipated series of cultural and social problems which many see as weakening the Jewish character of the state. The result is likely in the coming years to manifest itself in a more selective approach by the Israeli leadership to aliyah, even toward those whose Jewishness is unquestioned. Signs of this are already evident.
Last October, the Israeli Minister of the Interior, Meir Sheetrit, told a Jewish Agency gathering he favoured tightening the Law of Return, even for those whose Jewishness is unquestioned. Sheetrit proposed that automatic Israeli citizenship no longer be granted to diaspora Jews on their arrival, but that they first fulfil a mandatory period of residency, as in the case with most other nations.
For a leading figure in Israel’s ruling party to take such a stand would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, and Sheetrit’s willingness to do so — especially in a forum attended by a large part of the diaspora Zionist leadership — is a strong indicator of how the balance of Israel-diaspora relations has quickly became unbalanced in favour of the former.
Another reason behind that shift also has to do with numbers, although not related to population. While philanthropic diaspora donations to Israel remain substantial, they were a fraction of foreign business investment in Israel in 2007, which reached a record $25 billion. And a new class of top-tier Israeli businessmen spent close to half that sum investing abroad last year. The old notion of Israel as the poor, Middle-Eastern cousin of world Jewry; as a schnorrer dependent, in great part, on generous philanthropy from abroad, is no longer applicable as the Israeli economy develops to reach an equivalence with some of the smaller European states.
This, too, has resulted in practical changes in the established structure of Israel-diaspora relations. In December, for example, it was announced that the Jewish Agency — the organisation that has always served as the prime policy-making body between diaspora Jewry and the Zionist enterprise — will soon appoint to its to its board of directors a representative from the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a philanthropic organisation supported primarily by the evangelical Christian community in the US. The move, in recognition of the tens of millions of dollars donated each year by this group and other Christian supporters of Israel, signals an acknowledgement that other players, besides diaspora Jewry, now play a significant practical role in supporting the Zionist enterprise from outside.
This dynamic is also playing out on in the diplomatic sphere. Despite its economic growth and increased military prowess, Israel is still perceived as a small nation facing existential security threats, especially radical Islamic terror movements, and the Iranian regime’s push to develop nuclear weapons.
Concurrent with this has been a growing ideological opposition to Israel in some Western intellectual circles which questions Israel’s very right to exist. Some of the larger diaspora Jewish communities — notably American Jewry — have long been valued as key strategic allies for Israel in its struggle for international support and legitimacy. But the fact that these communities are shrinking — while in key Western nations such as the US, UK, France and Germany the Muslim populations are increasing — calls into serious question the long-time value of diaspora-Jewish political support as a significant factor in Israel’s security.
The growing prominence of the evangelical Christian community in the US and elsewhere as backers of the Zionist enterprise (including their cultivation by certain sectors of the Israeli leadership), is in no small way influenced by a recognition that Israel’s bedrock support outside its borders needs to be expanded well beyond a fading diaspora.
The decline of influence of diaspora Jews at home also means a concurrent loss of influence on the Israeli political scene. This scenario is now playing itself out most prominently in the debate over the future status of Jerusalem, and the strong desire of some diaspora leaders to give world Jewry an active role in deciding the outcome of talks on this issue.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sent in early January, the American-Jewish billionaire Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, declares that “while recognising Israel’s inherent prerogatives as a sovereign state, it is inconceivable that any changes in the status of our Holy City will be implemented without giving the Jewish people, as a whole, a voice in the decision”.
While saying that he would listen to the concerns of diaspora Jewry, Olmert stated: “The government of Israel has a sovereign right to negotiate anything on behalf of Israel.”
And Israelis stand behind him. According to a new poll, only 16 per cent Israelis believe that diaspora Jewry should be involved in deciding the fate of Jerusalem. As the country’s leading Zionist historian, Hebrew University professor Shlomo Avineri, told The Jerusalem Post: “All of us in Israel welcome the serious and deep concern Jews all over the world have for the Jewish state. Your voice should be heard; but the ultimate decisions — whether to go to war or make peace, whether to pay the price, for war as well as peace — are for the sovereign body of the country’s citizens to make. Without engaging in any simplistic Zionist ‘negation of the diaspora’, this is, after all, the difference between living in the Jewish state and deciding to live, well, somewhere else.”
Although this particular debate may be over the fate of Jerusalem, it also highlights that of “Babylon” — illustrating the waning influence of a diaspora leadership once seen as an equal partner to the Jewish community in the historic Land of Israel. A weaker diaspora also means a weakening of diaspora-Israeli ties, an outcome that should seriously concern the leaderships of both communities.
A belief in the “unity of the Jewish people” remains a fundamental tenet of the Zionist enterprise, and a failure to maintain an identification with diaspora Jewry will only weaken the Jewish character of Israel at a time when its definition as a Jewish state has very real practical ramifications in the geo-political sphere.
For diaspora Jewry, the stakes are even higher; its long-term continuance as a self-perpetuating community, or merely a group of scattered individuals maintained by a set of religious beliefs or cultural attitudes.
There already exist many ideas, proposals and even pilot projects designed to reverse these trends, which are far from historically pre-determined. A future relationship between Israel and the diaspora based more on Ahad Ha’am’s hopeful vision of profitable co-existence, rather an Herzl’s prophecy of negation, is eminently achievable.
But this is only possible if the diaspora leadership — especially its younger generation — looks at that future with clarity and honesty. And understands that, while Jerusalem’s future is far from certain, this time around it is Babylon which is well on the way into historical oblivion.
Calev Ben-David is a columnist for the Jerusalem Post