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Is A.B. Yehoshua a self-hating Jew?
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04/21
Amira Lam |
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| By israelinsider staff and partners April 25, 2005 |
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Avraham B. Yehoshua has written a lot in his day. But the celebrated Israeli fiction writer's most recent essay -- the thesis of which is that there is something amorphous and undefined in the Jewish identity that promotes hatred and anger among gentiles -- has itself promoted its fair share of anger among Israeli critics.
Yehoshua, who said he decided to write the article on the occasion of the recent worldwide upsurge in anti-Semitism, writes the following:
"The Gentiles feel threatened by Jews, because they have a double identity. The Gentile does not grasp that concept and so he might, under some conditions, react to it with violence."
According to Yehoshua, every Jew around the world recognizes himself as such before he assumes any other identity. He mentions the affinity between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, despite their vast cultural and linguistic differences, as evidence of this universal Jewish truth.
Not only do Jews possess a dual identity, but they constantly change from one identity to another. This "chameleon characteristic" as he dubs it, is difficult to accomodate and also makes Gentiles uncomfortable.
"I think a 'defined identity' has more responsibility; it has limits, it is responsible for what it does. Amorphousness is a way to get away from responsibility," he says, adding, "I describe the facts. The Jew changes all the time. He can be assimilated without any visual indications of his identity, or he can distinguish himself, as does an Orthodox Jew. At the same time, he assumes the identity of whichever nation he occupies."
This concept of dual-identity provides the backbone of the author's label of 'Jewish amorphousness'.
It is not altogether a negative label. According to the author, it is this quality that has made Jews so disproportionately successful. "It is true that this quality gave birth to Nobel Prizes," he says. "But I am willing to give up the Nobels to get back all the murdered children of the Holocaust.
"Being amorphous has its advantages, but there is a price for the amorphous identity. Be amorphous, be whatever you want to be, walk around in the air, the problem is the price."
At the same time, the Jews are guilty of possessing another duality: Jews are composed of two codes: a 'national code' and a 'religious code'. These two codes are, perhaps predictably, at odds with one another.
According to Yehoshua, all that is required is to forge a separation between codes. "I think that constructing a Jewish code completely separate from the Israeli code is part of the solution," he says. "Look at the Italians: at the Pope's funeral we all saw how Catholic they really are. But their religion is not the only factor making them exclusively Italian."
It is for this reason that Yehoshua supports the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, since he believes it shows that Israelis favor nationalism over religion.
At first, Yehoshua says, the State of Israel was a solution to the problem of Jewish amorphousness, because it placed the Jews among other nations. But then came what he calls "the big setback" (ie. the Six-Day War).
"Israel's clear-cut borders faded, as the nation once again started mixing with another people," he said. "Indeed, anti-Semitic statements against Israel recurred. The fact that we are in the midst of withdrawal is a positive thing. It is important that there is a border; every country has a border."
In conclusion, Yehoshua says if all Jews lived in Israel then in 50 years, there would be no more anti-Semitism. "People would not know the Jews at all, just like we don't know the Tibetans," he said.
Shinui Party Chairman Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, disagreed with the author's high-flown theories. According to Lapid, the real existential hatred against Jews was directed particularly toward assimilated Jews, who were more successful than Gentiles. "There was no dual identity situation with those Jews," Lapid said. "On the national level they felt themselves to be complete Hungarians, and their 'religious aspect' went unexpressed."
Even if it were true that Jews around the world share some sort of amorphous character, Professor Yirmiyahu Yuval says they couldn't possibly be responsible for possessing such an identity. "In order for that to be true, Jews would have to have had the opportunity to make a choice. Jews may have lived one way or another, but it doesn't necessarily mean they lived under conditions that permitted them to choose."
Acknowledging that his thesis might seem to place moral responsibility for Jewish hatred onto Jews themselves, Yehoshua says, "The inability to look inside is a horrible thing. I do not criticize anyone in my article, but rather check the structure of Jewish identity and try to understand what within it brings such horrible disasters and awakens such pathological interactions [with non-Jews]."
If a girl wears a miniskirt in the woods, she is entitled to do so. If someone attacks her, it is his fault. But she should know that something like this can happen; meaning one has to be aware of the world around him."
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