The work will be done here

Not surprisingly, the debate that writer A.B. Yehoshua sparked with this remarks at the convention of the American Jewish Committee in Washington involves the most profound issues of identity that now concern Jewish society in Israel and abroad. In fact, it appears that the two sides to the debate represent the two sides of the same coin: Both of them cast doubt on the historical importance of the State of Israel.

On the one side are Israelis who see their native experience in the land as one of crucial importance, one that detaches them from the chain of Jewish generations and reconstitutes them anew as "Israelis" - closer to their brothers-in-fate, the Palestinians, than to the descendants of the Jewish people in exile.

On the other side are the Jews of the Diaspora, who proudly consider themselves citizens with equal rights and considerable influence in the places where they live. Most of the supporters of Israel among them feel that at most Israel is another small wrinkle in Jewish history - a kind of sometimes impressive and sometimes unfortunate experience, but not truly critical with respect to the fate of the Jewish people.

The thing is that the two sides to the debate are not really very far from each other. Both aim to minimize the importance of the State of Israel as a profound and restorative revolution in the chain of the history of the Jewish people. Therefore both sides believe that Israel does not need to be really important to the Jewish people. The former, because they prefer to detach - themselves entirely from the continuum of Jewish history, and the latter because in effect they see themselves, rather than the State of Israel, as the continuation of the historical continuum of the Jewish people.

Judging by the tempestuous reactions, it appears that what was not understood at all in Yehoshua's remarks is that the debate does not exist between these two negativistic approaches. Instead the debate rages between two groups: those who believe that Israel has afforded a renewed opportunity to the sons and daughters of the Jewish people to reenter history not just as individuals, but rather as a significant collective with a common cultural vision - and those who do not at all grasp the significance of renewed Jewish entry into history as a collective with a vision, and content themselves with passive Jewish continuity outside of history.

The latter choose to believe that there is no far-reaching existential difference between the Jews who are citizens of the State of Israel and the Jews who are citizens of the various countries of the Diaspora; in both cases it is a matter of individuals who have certain preferences and nothing more. In their view, then, the Diaspora solution of Babel is as satisfactory and as existentially adequate with respect to Judaism as is the Israeli solution. Indeed, perhaps it even has a moral advantage in that it does not entail the complications of Israel as having harmed and as still harming the Palestinians' existence.

The former believe that in an age of liberty, there is a point to Jewish continuity only if it entails taking complete responsibility, insofar as possible, for all aspects of our lives and for shaping reality, as a moral collective with a common cultural vision that aspires to instill its cultural connection in the coming generations as well. This collective responsibility inevitably includes not only the shared concern for the continued existence and physical flourishing of the inhabitants of Israel. It also, equally, includes the moral responsibility to prevent injustice and to end the occupation of the Palestinian people completely, as well as to relate in an egalitarian way to all minorities, including of course the Arab minority that lives in Israel.

Our Jewish brethren in the Diaspora who are concerned about the fate of Israel must acknowledge that in preferring to live among the nations and not within the sovereign collective in Israel, they are relinquishing the truly significant Jewish existence: the opportunity to shape - and the responsibility for creating and living within - a comprehensive moral reality in the spirit of the prophets of Israel. We need them and their love. Therefore, let us hope that they and their children will continue to see themselves as part of the Jewish people in all its generations. But the truly great historical, cultural and moral work of the Jewish people will apparently be done elsewhere. Here, in the State of Israel.

The author is the head of the Mifne (Turning Point) Institute for democracy and Judaism.

	Tzvia Greenfield