Jews no longer in exhile

Are the Iranian Jews in exhile? Of course not! They are Iranian in blood and Jew in religion
Were the Yemeni Jews in exhile? Of course not! They are Yemeni in blood and Jew in Religion!

Were the DEtjhiopian Jews in exhile? Of course not! They are Ethiopian and blood in Jew in Religion!

Here is some nonsense about European Jews being in exhile from the Jewish Forward!

courtesy of the diaspora museum

Leaving Zion: One of the exhibits near the entrance to the Diaspora Museum displays a detail from the Arch of Titus, which shows the treasures from the Second Temple being taken out of Jerusalem.

Now, with a big jolt of funding, the museum has announced that it will completely overhaul its exhibitions in an effort to put Diaspora Jews on an equal footing with those in Israel. The state-funded museum, which opened in 1978, will soon begin a $25 million project to expand its footprint, redevelop the exhibitions and reopen in 2012 with what essentially will be a new museum, including a new name: the Museum of the Jewish People.

One of the main things that will be changed in the new museum is the old-fashioned Zionist narrative, which expected the Diaspora to disappear as Jews immigrated to Israel. Currently, the Jewish past is dealt with in five sections on Diaspora history. The sixth section deals with the end of the Diaspora in the establishment of the State of Israel. It’s a reality that has not come to pass, and the new museum will reflect that.

“The idea of the museum’s founders was that it was the history of the Jewish Diaspora, which started with the destruction of the Temple and ended with the return to Zion, the last chapter in Diaspora history,” Avinoam Armoni, CEO of the museum, told the Forward. “But 31 years on, we know that there is still life, and thriving life at that, in the Diaspora, meaning we need a different approach.”

Located on the Tel Aviv University campus, the museum houses permanent exhibitions, a genealogical database and photo archives. Abba Kovner, leader of the Vilna Ghetto uprising, conceived it, and when it opened it was considered a sign of the growing intimacy between Israel and Diaspora communities. The detailed redevelopment plan was announced at a meeting of the international board of governors at the end of June. The redevelopment will go forward without the museum closing.

At the new museum, there still will be exhibitions on the establishment of the State of Israel, but there also will be major displays on contemporary Jewish life outside Israel. An international advisory board, comprising members of communities across the world, will be involved in planning them.

“There will be no endpoint to the exhibition,” Armoni said, drawing a contrast with the current exhibition. “It will start with Abraham and Sarah from the Bible, and there will be no end — it will continue to develop as the story of the Jewish people is still unfolding.”

The plan will be bankrolled by the government of Israel and the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, the central body for Holocaust restitution claims. Donors also will contribute, including a fund run by the Russian-born, Israel-based oligarch Leonid Nevzlin, chairman of the museum’s international board of governors.

The funding represents a change of fortunes for the museum, which has spent much of the past decade in financial crisis — to the extent that on several occasions, there have been rumors of impending closure. The museum today has the feel of an institution that has lost its former glory; many of the features that were cutting-edge when it opened no longer work, due to poor upkeep.

The museum’s fortunes turned around in 2005, when the Knesset passed a law making the museum a national institution and ensuring it an annual budget from state coffers. Around the same time, Nevzlin became involved and became a major funder.

The changes at the museum represent the latest stage in an evolution in Israeli thinking about the Diaspora. Until the 1970s, Zionists of all political shades tended to be committed to the principle of shlilat ha’galut, translated as “negation of the exile.” The Israeli school curriculum promoted the idea.

In the 1970s, the language used was softened. People began to refer less to the galut, or “exile,” and more to the tefustot, or “Diaspora.” Nevertheless, there was a widespread belief that the future of the Jewish people lay in Israel and not in the Diaspora, and it was in this context that the Diaspora Museum was established.

Haifa University sociologist Oz Almog, an expert on contemporary Israel, told the Forward that the mindset today could not be more different: “Ask Israelis now what they think about Jews coming from countries where they aren’t persecuted, like the U.S. and Britain, to live in Israel, and they’ll say, ‘Those who do are nuts.’”

Museum insiders say that nowadays, using even the word “Diaspora” in the museum’s name is considered chauvinistic, because it puts foreign Jews in a single boat even though their cultures are diverse — hence the new name.

“There was a sense that “Diaspora” is a pejorative term,” said Mark Kurs, director of the visitor center.

There has been a notable lack of opposition to the changes. Even pressure groups that fight to strengthen Zionist identity in Israel, such as the hawkish Institute for Zionist Strategies, which produces leagues of tables telling how well different lawmakers score in terms of “Zionist legislation activism,” welcomed the plan.

“Zionists don’t expect every Jew to move to Israel today,” institute founder and president Joel Golovensky said.

It is not only the Israel-centric mindset that will be challenged in the new displays. Women and Sephardim, who were given short shrift in the old displays, will be given more prominence in the new designs — as will non-Orthodox religious movements.

Hebrew University sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi said the fact that it has become commonplace for Israelis to move abroad, either permanently or for a stint, makes it contradictory for their families to look down on Diaspora Jews. More than this, she said that while Zionist ideology traditionally preached that Jews are vulnerable in the Diaspora, today, following two intifadas and various other attacks, “many people are not so sure that Israel is the safest place for Jews.”

Contact Nathan Jeffay at jeffay@forward.com

Comments

Yehuda Thu. Jul 9, 2009

It's true that Israel is not exactly the safest place for Jews. Moreover, it's true that Jewish life continues in the Diaspora even after the birth of Israel. And, yet, the Zionist perspective of Jewish life is still absolutely true. The Diaspora communities are very weak. The Jews no longer speak their own languages, a clear indication that there is no Jewish society that stands in its own right. Jewish education in the Diaspora is a sad story. Most Jews receive no Jewish instruction at all. Most importantly, one's Jewish identity is no longer the primary identity in life. There is always another non-Jewish peoplehood identity (the American identity, for example) that is much more substantial. In Israel, on the other hand, the Hebrew language expresses the reality of a Jewish society that has its own culture - a Jewish society for which Jewishness is the overwhelming identity, and Jewish education is universal.

The changing of the Diaspora Museum message is not a reflection of accepting the Diaspora as an equal drama in today's Jewish world. The drama of Israel and her Hebrew culture obviously outshines any Diaspora community - and there's no serious Jewish educator who would tell you otherwise. It is self-evident that Diaspora children are brought to Israel for a mere ten-day visit in order to strengthen their Jewish identity. I haven't yet heard the news about a parallel project of sending Israeli children for ten-day visits to the Diaspora for the purpose of showing them an alternative way of expressing Jewish identity. The changing of the Diaspora Museum is more an expression of politeness (PC). It certainly is an expression of Israeli self-confidence: The story of the Diaspora can be told without fear of casting doubt as to the obvious centrality of Israel and her Hebrew culture in the story of today's Jewish people.

Bertram Cohen Thu. Jul 9, 2009

The arguement is already settled. Most Jews in the American diaspora are assimilating. In my New York upstate county there are about 10,000 Jews. Despite all the urgent issues facing Jews there is NO community dialogue all these years. The leaders do not lead, the members remain asleep and my efforts to spark a dialoge fall on deaf ears. Over 80% vote Democrat regardless of who is running. Except for the orthodox minority the rest do not exhibit the qualities for long term spiritual survival. And most of those are actually proud of their growing detachment from genuine Judaism. The 'liberal' Jews do not seem to notice, the high assimilation, low birth rate and intermarriage. After WWII we had more U.S. Jews than today and we are the only ethnic group in the u.S. to stagnaate in numbers. The secular Jews lack the spiritual vitality to survive for the long term.

jeanette friedman Thu. Jul 9, 2009

Of course, there are zionist mindsets, especially among some of the Ortdoz that still prevails among those who narrowly define Jewish people by their observance of Halakha.

I for one am not moving to Israel, because as a Jewish woman,I do not believe that anyone has the right to push me to the back of the bus and beat me up if I refuse to go there. I refuse to live in a country where the rabbanut makes sure that women cannot get gets unless someone gets paid under the table, and who make believe, with their lies, that there are no agunot, when in fact, there are almost 1,000 whose husbands will not give them gets, and they play around with semantics about who is or isn't an agunah.

And last but not least, why would I live in a country that calls its Holocaust survivors Sabon and Sabonit, and which holds back 66,000 bank accounts and has a prime minister that demands complete control of the claims conference while he tells its board of directors that survivors aren't entitled to a free lunch. With 80,000 survivors under the poverty line in Israel who do not get basic needs met, and with a government whose policies toward survivors generally stinks, why would I

jeanette friedman Thu. Jul 9, 2009

want to live in such a country?

Why would I want to live in a country where I, a daughter of Holocaust survivors, has to prove I am a Jew?

My aunt and uncle survived Aushcwitz, they were in their mid-80s, and the Interior Ministry called them liars. So they didn't make aliyah.

BTW, using the West Bank as a toxic dump doesn't help either.

Some exhibition of ethical behavior by the government in Israel would be nice.

David Fisher Thu. Jul 9, 2009

My ancestors may have lived in what is now Israel a long time ago. I am an American Jew living in Australia. My children in the United States have gone to school together with children of other religious and ethnic backgrounds. The US Supreme Court has decreed that schools cannot be segregated and equal. In Israel the children of Haredim, secular Jews and non-Jews go to different schools.

I belong to a reform congregation. Neither the government of Australia nor the US cares what sort of Jew I am or even if I am a Jew. In Israel orthodox Jewry controls state institutions and receives favored treatment.

My ancestors and family came from czarist and communist Russia where they were discriminated against for being Jews. They gained freedom in the United States where there was separation of religion and state. In Israel there is not even civil marriage. All marriages must be approved by a functionary of some religion.

In a state which is identified with any ethnicity or religion those who are not identified with the state ethnicity or religion become second-class citizens. It has been the fate of Jews in many times and places to be second-class citizens. In Israel non-Jews can be second-class.

Israel can be a Jewish state or a democratic state. I think we kid ourselves in thinking it can be both. I have a deep commitment to being Jewish and a deep commitment toward democracy. Israel cannot be my country.

Benjamin Thu. Jul 9, 2009

"To the eternal people home never is home in the sense of land, as it is to the peoples of the world who plow the land and live and thrive on it, until they have all but forgotten that being a people means something besides being rooted in a land. The eternal people has not been permitted to while away time in any home. It never loses the untrammeled freedom of a wanderer, who is more faithful a knight to his country when he roams abroad." - Franz Rosenzweig

David Fisher Thu. Jul 9, 2009

My ancestors may have lived in what is now Israel a long time ago. I am an American Jew living in Australia. My children in the United States have gone to school together with children of other religious and ethnic backgrounds. The US Supreme Court has decreed that schools cannot be segregated and equal. In Israel the children of Haredim, secular Jews and non-Jews go to different schools.

I belong to a reform congregation. Neither the government of Australia nor the US cares what sort of Jew I am or even if I am a Jew. In Israel orthodox Jewry controls state institutions and receives favored treatment.

My ancestors and family came from czarist and communist Russia where they were discriminated against for being Jews. They gained freedom in the United States where there was separation of religion and state. In Israel there is not even civil marriage. All marriages must be approved by a functionary of some religion.

In a state which is identified with any ethnicity or religion those who are not identified with the state ethnicity or religion become second-class citizens. It has been the fate of Jews in many times and places to be second-class citizens. In Israel non-Jews can be second-class.

Israel can be a Jewish state or a democratic state. I think we kid ourselves in thinking it can be both. I have a deep commitment to being Jewish and a deep commitment toward democracy. Israel cannot be my country.