The Jews supposedly have a homeland now, but I, strangely enough, still live in America. After a semester abroad at Ben-Gurion University in Be’er Sheva, Israel, some thoughts on the homeland-Diaspora question.
January: To be a Jew and an American, to be so egregious as to say: when I left the United States and came to Israel, I left one “Diaspora” and entered another. Because I am a Diaspora Jew. And as a member of the Diaspora, I scorn the new muscle-Jew, the tough-looking Israeli sabra who keeps bumping his oversized gun into everything he passes. I shake my head at that Zionist intellectual who claims to represent “the historical Jewish People” and the culmination of Jewish history. But that person excludes, of course, those embarrassing 1800 years of exile: Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Arabic, etc. Communities all around the world. Instead they remember only the ghettos and the pogroms, the inquisition, and of course, the fateful Holocaust.
The Hebrew word for Diaspora is “galut.” In an English-Hebrew dictionary, I see that the adjective “galuti” is translated as “ghetto-like.” I suppose that’s how Israelis like to remember the Diaspora.
February: I keep studying the language. In Hebrew, male is generic. An audience of a hundred women and one man is addressed with the male pronoun. It makes me uncomfortable, but that’s simply what it takes to speak in Jewish. That’s just the way the way the language is constructed. And more specifically, it’s constructed like this: All the body parts that come in pairs are female: ears, cheeks, eyes, hands, palms, feet, legs. Maybe there are three or four exceptions, most especially: the word for breasts, woman-breasts. Man-breasts get a different term. Women-breasts are male. “You see,” says a friend, “women-breasts have penises – Hebrew is gender-queer!” And after sitting in Hebrew classes for five hours each day, finally some relief.
March: I’m really learning the city of Be’er Sheva. And everyday, I am horrified and amused: In downtown Be’er Sheva, for example, Jabotinsky St., named for the fascist Zionist leader, meets Derekh HaShalom, “the way of peace.” Is that a joke? Or simply as unintended and nonsensical as at the intersection of Golda Meir Ave. and Abravanel St., when the former prime minister meets the medieval Jewish philosopher? But even that seems somewhat normal compared to my daily walk down the “Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Street.” I know these names are fun and random, but not totally random. In 1948, Bir as-Saba’ was predominantly Arab, but now, even the streets of Be’er Sheva are Jewish. The people have been cleared, and the land reclaimed.
April: In my politics and society course, I tend to argue with my professor, trying to understand her motivations in avoiding the word “racist” in describing “discriminatory” government policies. I don’t think she appreciates it. So she struck back. A classmate comments on the “demographic problem” in Israel – a code phrase for “oh shit, the Arabs are multiplying; they’ll overtake us!” Who will take control of the land?! My professor responds with freshly released statistics to suggest that the rate of Arab population-increase is actually decreasing, partly due to the exceptional birthrate of Jewish ultra-Orthodox families, which have as many as a dozen children or more. When she explains how the ultra-Orthodox population “is quickly reproducing,” I can’t help but add under my breath: “like rabbits.” But she overhears and responds, “now that’s racist.” I decide to keep my mouth shut and not remind her that taking the “demographic problem” seriously is also racist. But that’s a pretty good description of the Middle East: everyone competes to see how racist they can be.
I spent a semester abroad in the Holy Land, where every city street marks a former battle line, a place where someone died for the “homeland.” War memorials dot that consecrated land. Now, I only want to stand on my native soil, far far away from that oh-so-holy place. The land there is so holy, that Holy Land, they say, that there’s no holiness left for anything else. Especially not for the people. Really now, why would you waste holiness on people, when there’s land to build up, to “redeem,” to “make bloom”?
After a semester abroad in Israel, I came home to the Diaspora. Perhaps I ought to call it something other than “Diaspora,” something which does not imply “scattering” and “exile.” We need a new name. But in the meantime, let Diaspora Judaism denote the radical notion that human beings are holier than land.
