On Jewish Identity in Our Time and in General

With God’s help

Akdamot – 2014

"Suddenly a man rises in the morning and feels that he is a people, and begins to walk"

Michael Abraham

If there are kibbutzim that do not know what Yom Kippur is, do not know what the Sabbath is, and do not know what a ritual bath is. They raise rabbits and pigs. Do they have any connection to their father?… The Alignment? Is the Alignment something holy? They have cut themselves off from all our past and seek a new Torah. If there is no Sabbath and no Yom Kippur, then in what sense is he a Jew?

            ("The Rabbits Speech" of Rabbi Shach, Yad Eliyahu, 1990)

This article was written in the very days when yet another round of negotiations between us and the Palestinians was collapsing, except that this time the identity questions that led to it were much closer to the surface. The main trigger for the collapse, from Israel’s standpoint, was the demand to recognize the State of Israel as a Jewish state. This demand is answered, among other ways, by arguments from Palestinian and other parties who demand that we first define what and who a Jew is in our view before we demand this of others. In this context, some present us as descendants of the Khazars, thereby undermining the historical authenticity of the Jewish narrative, that is, the claim that we are indeed the natural continuation of the ancient Jews who lived here in the Land of Israel. On the other hand, the Palestinians too present a historical national identity (somewhat fanciful) as the basis for their claims. A particularly amusing example I found in Eldad Beck’s report, which describes a conversation between Minister Tzipi Livni, who was appointed by the Israeli government to conduct the negotiations with the Palestinians, and Saeb Erekat, who headed the negotiations on the Palestinian side:[1]

The members of the large Israeli delegation to the Munich Security Conference were astonished last night when Saeb Erekat, a member of the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel, hurled at Livni the claim that he and his family were Canaanites and had lived in Jericho 3,000 years (!?) before the Israelites arrived in the city under the leadership of Joshua son of Nun. During a discussion on the Middle East peace process in which the two participated, Erekat began speaking about the different historical narratives of the two sides, the Israeli and the Palestinian, and argued that the Palestinians, and he as their representative, are in fact descendants of the Canaanites and therefore have more rights to the lands of Palestine than the Jews. Livni replied that Israel and the Palestinians should not ask which narrative is more just, but rather how to build a future. "I do not look at a peace agreement romantically. Cynicism is no less dangerous than naivete. Israel wants peace because it is in its interest".

Beyond the practical argument, there is a sense that Livni is trying to avoid this embarrassing discussion because she thinks that national identity is essentially a kind of narrative, and therefore discussion about it is irrelevant. There is no right and wrong here, since, as is commonly thought today, every people constitutes its own identity and no one else has the authority to do so for it. Many would say that Jewish identity too has gaps that are filled by various narratives (though to a very different degree than in the Palestinian example). The claims of Golda Meir, Ben-Zion Netanyahu, and many others, according to which there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, sound today very outdated and archaic. Not because of any historical findings, but because people and nation are concepts defined only de facto.

Questions of identity, historical and cultural, refuse to let go of us. They rear up and attack us again and again. It seems that almost nowhere in the world do questions of national identity occupy people in so existential a way as they do among Jews, and of course in Israel as well. One may perhaps find arguments over whether you are an authentic Belgian or not, but mainly as a tool for attacking rivals, or as part of the romanticism of a nationalistic movement. It is hard even to imagine a group or a person existentially agonizing over the question of whether they are real and authentic Belgians, or Libyans.

If we take our personal identity as an example, none of us deliberates over the question of whether I am the real Michael Abraham, and in what sense I am Michael Abraham at all. What is the definition of Michael Abraham, and do I meet it? Personal identity is self-evident and needs no definitions. The same is true of family identity. Anyone who belongs to the Abraham family simply does, and that is that. Puzzling over criteria and definitions in these contexts seems bizarre. My impression is that for most peoples this is also true of national identity. It is simply there, that is all. So what is there in Jewish identity that returns and troubles us in such an existential way? Can one at all conduct a constructive and intelligent discussion on this subject?

In this article I will try to describe the methodological problematic involved in discussing Jewish identity, and to present, on the one hand, a common-sense analysis and, on the other hand, an analytic-a priori analysis of the topic and its implications. I therefore will not enter into details and nuances, so as not to lose the larger picture, and I will allow myself to use generalizations that seem reasonable to me without resorting to specific sources, whether Torah-based or from general thought. My resort to current events, and in particular to the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is not for polemical purposes but in order to illustrate arguments that will arise in what follows. I am not expressing a position here regarding the conflict itself or the ways to solve it.

The Cultural-Philosophical Discussion and the Torah-Halakhic Discussion

The main concept in the title of the discussion, Jewish identity, is vague. The discussion about it can be taken in at least two directions: a. Jewish national identity in the philosophical-ethnic-cultural sense. b. Jewish identity in the Torah-halakhic sense (many would not even accept the assumption that these are two different discussions at all). This of course connects to the question (sterile, in my opinion) whether Judaism is a religion or a nation, which I will also not address here. These are not merely two different discussions; they express two different methods of discussion: whether to conduct the discussion in the more general conceptual framework or in a Torah-halakhic framework.

As a rule, religious identities are easier to define than national identities. The reason is that religious identities are based on shared values and norms, and in particular on binding practices and beliefs (albeit with varying shades of interpretation. Nothing in life is ever really simple).[2] National identity, by contrast, is a more amorphous concept, and it is based on history, territory, culture, religion, language, certain character traits, and so forth, or on some mixture of all these. Usually national identity is not connected to shared theoretical or practical principles, and certainly not to principles specific to a particular people. But culture, language, and various psychological characteristics are variable and not unambiguous, and in most cases they can also be shared with other nations. Moreover, some of these characteristics change, and a person or a society can adopt or abandon some of them. So which of all these is a necessary criterion for national identity?

This is the situation in the Jewish context as well. It is fairly easy to define religious Jewish identity. Someone who is committed to observing commandments possesses Jewish identity. How many commandments must be observed? That is a more complex question, and it becomes ever more complicated in our complex generation, but this is a second-order question. A principled commitment to the commandments is a sufficient definition for our purposes.[3] Moreover, in the context of Jewish law the question of identity, even religious identity, has no importance. There is a fairly clear legal definition in Jewish law regarding all kinds of religious obligations, to whom they are addressed and who is obligated by them. Questions of religious identity do not arise directly in the Torah-halakhic world of concepts.

If, with respect to religious identity, the question has no halakhic importance, then all the more so with respect to the question of national identity. What is the halakhic implication of determining that some group has Jewish national identity? In Jewish law there is significance to the question of who does or does not observe commandments, and even more to the question of who is or is not obligated to observe them. The question of identity has no clear answer in Jewish law, and in itself it has no direct legal implications.

From the standpoint of Jewish law, a Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother or one who converted in accordance with Jewish law.[4] That is his identity in the halakhic sense, and it makes no difference what he does, in particular whether he observes commandments or not. From the standpoint of Jewish law he is of course obligated to observe them, and one may discuss whether someone who does not do so is a transgressor and what ought to be done with him. But the question of his identity is of no importance. Expressions like "has gone out from the community of Israel" are mainly metaphorical, and they have no real practical consequence in Jewish law. And even if they do have some meaning, Jewish law defines them according to its own technical criteria.

National Identity: The Distinction Between Conventionalism and Essentialism

Up to this point we have dealt with questions of identity from the halakhic-religious point of view. From the general philosophical point of view, the main issue is national identity and not religious identity. I have already mentioned that national identity in general is a vague concept and difficult to define. Here I will focus mainly on two extreme poles with respect to the definition of national identity: the conventionalist approach and the essentialist approach.

The question of nationality and national identity is a new question, modern in its essence. In the distant past, for various reasons, people almost never asked themselves what their national identity was and how to define it. The world was more static, people made few changes in their lives, and they almost never had to confront their identity with competing identities. It is doubtful whether they even had in their consciousness a distinct concept of national identity, and even if there were changes in that identity, they came of themselves, naturally and unconsciously. National identity was natural, in a way similar to the personal and family identity mentioned above. The religious background also contributed to this, since most people had a religious identity. In the more ancient world, the view prevailed that kingship is a divine gift to one born to rule, and so too national and religious identity and our belonging to it. All these were created with the world in the six days of Creation, and were perceived as natural and self-evident.

In the modern era, with the awakening of nationalism in Europe and in the world generally, the question began to surface in full force. The difficulty of defining national identity yielded answers, most of which stand between two poles: the first is the conventionalist pole, which sees national identity as something grounded in an almost arbitrary agreement. The moment some group sees itself as a people, at least if this persists for a certain time, then it is a people. The poet Amir Gilboa, in 1953, following the establishment of the state, described it this way: "Suddenly a man rises in the morning and feels that he is a people, and begins to walk." The second pole is that essentialist conceptions see national identity as something natural and given, exactly like personal identity. When one reflects more deeply on the nature of that elusive "natural" element, the nation, the romantics sometimes arrive at metaphysics. According to these approaches, the nation has a metaphysical existence in some sense, something like a Platonic Idea, and the individuals who compose the nation are included in this entity because of their metaphysical affinity to it. Every horse belongs to the group of horses without any need to define explicitly what horseness is. It is simply a horse, and that is all. So too every Belgian belongs to the group of Belgians without requiring any definitions. Not only because it is difficult to offer definitions, but because there is no need to do so. National identity is a natural concept, just like personal and family identity.

It is important to understand that Amir Gilboa’s words describing national awakening could also have been written within the essentialist-metaphysical conception, except that here it would be an experiential awakening, in which that metaphysical reality that had previously lain dormant suddenly penetrates people’s consciousness. It awakens within them and they want to realize it in practice, in concrete political, social, and institutional terms. Suddenly a man rises and feels the metaphysical fact (which had always been true) that he is a people, and begins to walk. In the romanticism of national awakening, the person rises in the sense of awaking from slumber, as opposed to the conventionalist conception in which the rising is interpreted as getting up from the ground in order to begin walking. The dispute is whether the rising is an awakening or a coming-into-being.

National Identity: The Conventionalist Approach and Its Expressions

On the conventionalist side of the map stand thinkers such as Benedict Anderson, in his influential book Imagined Communities (1983), and many others following him. These deny the existence of an essential content to concepts such as nation and national identity. Those who hold this approach see the nation as a kind of arbitrary fiction created and consolidated in the consciousness of certain groups over the course of their history (usually a shared history). It is important to understand that this is not to say that this awakening lacks validity, or that one may dismiss its demands and claims. Certainly not. National identity exists as a psychological fact and it matters to people, and as such many think it deserves respect. But in essential terms it is something arbitrary. To sharpen the meaning of this approach, the reader will forgive me if I devote a few paragraphs here to current affairs.

A blatant example of an approach that belongs to the conventionalist school is the view of Professor Shlomo Sand. Sand is a historian at Tel Aviv University, who in the past belonged to Matzpen circles and is associated with the radical-left circles in Israel. In his controversial book When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? (Resling, 2008), Sand chose to analyze an example that particularly challenges Benedict Anderson’s thesis. There he tries to prove that the Jewish people are an imagined community. This task is especially ambitious, because whatever our view of Anderson’s position may be, if there is in the (Western) world an example that stands in sharp opposition to his thesis, it is the Jewish people. And indeed, in my view (and in the view of many others), Sand’s book gives historical research a bad name, and in particular harms the fundamental and so very important distinction between ideology and academic research.[5] But what enables him to do all this is the inherent vagueness of the concept of national identity.

If we continue with current affairs, a particularly clear example from the opposite pole, one that strongly confirms Anderson’s conception, is the Palestinian people. The Palestinians are a people clearly based on an imagined identity (which sometimes includes actual fictional hallucinations, such as affiliation with the Philistines or the biblical Canaanites, or even with earlier eras)[6], which was created almost out of nothing in historical terms.

It is worth pointing out here a typical implication of the conventionalist conception. At the opening of his book Sand dedicates the book as follows: "To the memory of the residents of al-Shaykh Muwannis who were uprooted in the distant past from the place where I live and work in the near present." The tone is descriptive and tranquil, and on the face of it he should not see any problem here. If national identities are imagined by their very nature, then one imagined identity displaces another. One comes and another disappears. Such is the way of the world. On his view, these are psychological facts and not values or metaphysical truths, and not even historical truths. This is the other side of the conventionalist coin, which sees national identities as imagined.

The conclusion is that if national identity is basically an arbitrary subjective agreement, then one may infer from this (though not necessarily) two opposite conclusions: 1. Such entities have no real rights. Nations are creatures without backbone, having no existence outside human imagination. 2. National identity is an inseparable part of the identity of many people, and in fact there is no other kind of national identity (real in an essential sense), and therefore the fact that this is an imagined identity does not mean that one may scorn the demands and claims of such entities.

By some miracle, not a few proponents of this approach allow themselves to use it in order to criticize one identity (in Sand’s case, the Israeli-Jewish one) and accuse it of mystifying an arbitrary and imagined social convention, of inventing ourselves out of thin air, while at the same time, from that very same perspective, they raise arguments in defense of the right of another imagined identity (the Palestinian one, in Sand’s example). The absurdity becomes even sharper when we recall that precisely the Jewish people are the less successful example, while the Palestinian people are the paradigmatic example of imagined nationality. Let me stress again that I do not intend here to discuss the proper attitude toward such a community’s claim to political recognition, since that is a normative-ethical-political question. Here I am concerned only with historical-cultural description and with criticism of incoherence in the discussion.

National Identity: The Essentialist Approach

Up to this point I have discussed conventionalism and the problems involved in it. Perhaps precisely because of these difficulties, some take the concept of national identity into the realms of metaphysics. The awakening of nationalism in Europe, as well as the Jewish national awakening that found expression in the Zionist movement and was very greatly influenced by European national romanticism, often express the position that nationalism is grounded in some metaphysical entity (the people, the nation). Extreme expressions of this conception appear in fascist thought (in Hitler’s Germany, Bismarck, and many before them, as well as in Garibaldi’s Italy and others). These approaches found expression in the Torah thought of Rabbi Kook and his students. They adopted this metaphysical idea and turned it into a Jewish article of faith. The Jewish spark, however dim, hidden, denied, and repressed it may be, is what defines a person’s Judaism. The special quality of Israel and the innate and genetic uniqueness of every Jew became almost the exclusive criterion of Judaism, especially when all the traditional characteristics (commandment observance) disappeared, or at least ceased to be an agreed common denominator. "Knesset Israel" became, from a metaphor, an ontological expression of the Jewish metaphysical idea.

I present the essentialist approach here as a response to the conventionalist one, but on the historical axis it is clear that the essentialist conception (even if not always metaphysical) preceded conventionalism. Historically, the conventionalist approaches arose as a response to the essentialist ones. If the essentialist approach is strongly identified with modernism and the awakening of nationalism, then conventionalism is part of the "new critique," the post-national stance associated with the position called postmodernism.

The Basic Paradox

Up to this point I have described the two conceptions in contrast to one another. Where do they clash? What are the differences between them? It seems to me that on this plane a surprise awaits us. A priori, it is precisely the proponents of the second approach, the essentialists, who are exempt from the need to seek definitions of national identity. After all, on their view, anyone who has an affinity with the metaphysical Idea (Knesset Israel) is a Jew. Even in the polemic over conversion we hear again and again the argument of Jewish ancestry (zera Yisrael) as a basis for demanding leniencies in the conversion process, and not surprisingly this comes mainly from circles close to Rabbi Kook. Metaphysics is what defines us as Jews, and therefore we are exempt from resorting to substantive definitions. For the metaphysical romantics, Jewish identity is an empirical fact that is not subject to contents, values, or any other criterion. Of course, proponents of such an approach may think that every Jew is obligated to uphold the values and commandments of the Torah, but that has no connection to his definition as a Jew and to his identity.

Of course, even according to the essentialist-metaphysical conceptions one can propose various characteristics of Jewish national identity, but on their view these are contingent characteristics, that is, they are not important for defining the nation. Even someone who does not observe them is a Jew by virtue of his belonging to the Jewish metaphysical Idea. As unexpected as it may be, the question of identity is foreign to traditional thought.

By contrast, it is precisely the proponents of the conventionalist approach, those who do not believe in metaphysical romanticism, who need definitions, criteria, and characteristics much more, by means of which they can judge who belongs to this national identity and who does not. Therefore it is precisely they who ask themselves in what sense we are Jews. If not metaphysics, then what? But the conventionalists do not find such a reasonable definition, and thus they arrive at conceptions of imagined identity. Many of them adopt a definition that does not seem like a natural continuation of Jewish identity as it was understood in the thousands of years that preceded us. Reading Amos Oz, speaking Hebrew, serving in the army and paying one’s taxes faithfully to the state, having been persecuted in the Holocaust, and perhaps also drawing inspiration from Torah sources, are the characteristics of Jewish identity in our time. To this one must add shared history and genealogy. For as a matter of fact, this and only this is what really characterizes Jews in our time (though certainly not all of them). If so, even on their view national identity is a kind of fact, just as in the metaphysical method, except that here it is a psychological-historical fact and not a metaphysical fact.

Two questions arise with respect to the conventionalist approach:

• In what sense does this national identity constitute a continuation of its previous manifestations? If only the imagined identity is the basis for continuity, then it is not enough. We must first define the group, and only afterward can we ask what its characteristics are. But as long as the characteristics do not yet exist, how shall we define the group? This is a question that remains without a satisfactory solution, and there can be no satisfactory solution to it within the conventionalist picture. As stated, the proponents of the essentialist position also have no solution to this question, except that they are not troubled by it at all.
• Do these definitions indeed "do the job"? After all, these definitions do not really stand up to any critical test. Think about the definitions proposed above. Speaking the Hebrew language certainly does not uniquely distinguish Jews, and on the other hand there are very many Jews who do not speak Hebrew. Even the connection to the Hebrew Bible is not such (Christianity is connected to it much more deeply, and many Jews are not connected to it at all). Paying taxes and serving in the army certainly do not characterize Jews in particular (Druze, Arabs, migrant workers, and other non-Jewish citizens do this no less well). And conversely, there are quite a few good Jews who do not do this, and no one doubts their Jewishness. Amos Oz and the Hebrew Bible are read throughout the world, even if not in the original language. And on the other hand, is literature written in Poland with an affinity to the Hebrew Bible also Jewish? So what remains?

It is important to note here that there certainly are Jewish character traits, just as one can speak about the collective character of many other peoples. But character traits are not national identity. Moreover, in order to speak of a character trait one must first define the group that possesses it. After all, there are many people in the world who possess a character that could fall under the definition of Jewish character, and yet no one would say that they are Jews. Only after we know who is a Jew can we look at the group of Jews and ask whether there are character traits that characterize them. There is also Jewish history and common origin, but these are simply facts. It is difficult to see any value in all this, and it is not clear why all this is perceived as an existential problem and as something requiring definition. Factually, it is true that most Jews have a common origin and history in some sense. So what? Is there room to demand of someone that he be Jewish, in the sense of genealogy and history? If he is such, then he is such; and if not, then not.

So even if we are very open and flexible, it is still difficult to put our finger on a sharp criterion for who is a national Jew in the value-laden sense according to the conventionalist approach. Should we perhaps adopt the method common in psychological diagnosis (and sometimes also medical diagnosis), according to which the existence of a certain number of characteristics from a given list will constitute a satisfactory definition of Jewish identity? As I showed above, it is difficult to see even this as a sufficient criterion. Can any of us provide such a list? Can any of us explain why precisely six out of this list of characteristics are required, and not seven or five? And above all, will this criterion really succeed in distinguishing Jews from non-Jews reliably? It is quite clear that it will not (see the examples above).

Because of this problematic, many conventionalists return here to the realms of halakhic genetics; that is, they too seek Jewish identity in the mother. Others attach it to the person’s personal consciousness: a Jew is one who feels and declares himself to be Jewish.[7] The circularity and built-in emptiness of this definition do not especially disturb the conventionalists. Conventionalism is prepared to accept any convention whatsoever, however circular or contentless it may be. Its validity derives from the very fact that it has been agreed upon. It is only to be expected that an imagined community will be willing to base its identity on imagined criteria. Beyond all these arguments, we are still dealing either with facts or with empty claims, which certainly does not explain the existential tension surrounding this topic.

Rabbi Shach, in the speech quoted above, attacks the definition of Jewish identity, and he does so in halakhic terms. In fact he presents a kind of essentialist position, though not necessarily a metaphysical one (national identity in terms of commitment to certain values). In Wikipedia, under the entry ‘The Rabbits and Pigs Speech,’ the response of the Lubavitcher Rebbe to Rabbi Shach’s rabbits speech is described as follows:

the Lubavitcher Rebbe‘, a long-time disputant of Rabbi Shach for many years, responded to the speech with a speech of his own, which he delivered on the following Sabbath in his study hall. The Rebbe said that no person has any right to speak against the Jewish people. The Jewish conception is that "A Jew, even though he has sinned, is still a Jew," the children of Israel are God’s "only son," and anyone who speaks ill of them is as one who speaks ill of God. One should help every Jew fulfill all the commandments of the religion, but under no circumstances attack him. The Rebbe defined the people of his generation as "brands plucked from the fire," and as "captured infants", who are not to blame for their knowledge and their attitude toward Judaism.

This is an example of a response of the metaphysical type. By contrast, the president at the time, Chaim Herzog, expressed the conventionalist response to Rabbi Shach’s words when he wondered how one could cast doubt on the Jewishness of the kibbutz members, with calloused and scarred hands, who built the state and served in the army with great devotion. So what does Rabbi Shach mean? He does not accept the metaphysics, and he is also unwilling to be a conventionalist. Is there a third possibility?

Do Concepts That Cannot Be Defined Not Exist?

The obvious conclusion is that the concept of Jewish national identity cannot be defined. One can of course propose different definitions, each according to his own degree of creativity, but certainly one cannot agree on a definition, and at least with respect to most groups it does not seem that these definitions would remove whoever does not meet them from the Jewish people (as long as his mother is Jewish). Does this mean that such an identity is necessarily imagined, that is, that Jewish identity does not really exist? Is the only alternative to metaphysics or halakhic formalism the narrativization of identity? I am not sure.

This question takes us into philosophical territories that this is not the place to enter, and so I will try only to touch on them briefly. We use many vague concepts, such as art, rationality, science, democracy, and others. But the moment we approach the task of defining such a concept, we encounter problems similar to those described here. Many infer from this the conclusion that these concepts are imagined, and even build around this a magnificent postmodern palace (the conceptual affinity to Rabbi Shagar is not accidental). A clear example of this is Gideon Ofrat’s book The Definition of Art, which proposes dozens of different definitions of the concept of art and rejects them, until in the end it arrives at the conclusion that art is what is displayed in a museum (!). On the other hand, Robert M. Pirsig, in his cult book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, describes the metaphorical journey of a rhetoric professor named Phaedrus, who is in pursuit of a definition of the concept of quality. At a certain stage he undergoes an illumination and concludes that Greek philosophy has caused us the illusion that every concept must have a definition, and that a concept without a definition simply does not exist (it is imagined). But a concept such as quality apparently cannot be defined, and nevertheless he refuses to accept the conclusion that it is a concept without real content, a mere convention. After all, it is perfectly obvious that there is high-quality writing and there is writing that is not. By the same token, there are works of art and works of poor artistic value. The conclusion is that concepts such as quality, or art, even though it is difficult and perhaps impossible to define them, nevertheless exist. They are not necessarily imagined.

It seems that a similar claim can be raised in the context of national identity as well. One can accept the essentialist thesis that there is national identity without resorting to metaphysics. National identity has various characteristics and it is difficult to offer a definition of it, and yet it is not necessarily a matter of fantasies or conventions, and not necessarily of metaphysics either. It may be a real amorphous concept that is difficult or impossible to define. It seems to me that a similar essentialist definition underlies Rabbi Shach’s conception (though he proposes a halakhic definition, and does not accept the possibility of an alternative national definition). He claims that there is an essential definition of Jewish identity, and he even makes demands of people on that basis. On the other hand, he does not see metaphysics as a sufficient alternative. As for myself, I am not inclined to think so. Without metaphysics I do not see how one can speak of a national entity in the ontological sense. But it is clear to me that many disagree with me on this.

Conclusions

So much for the philosophy. But now comes the next question: why is any of this important at all? Why do we need to define, or even try to understand, Jewish identity? My answer is that it is not important at all. This question has no consequences, and at most it is a matter for intellectual analysis (usually sterile, and perhaps even empty of content). If I may indulge in armchair psychology, the search for Jewish identity is an expression of a feeling of commitment to religion and to Jewish history without a willingness to realize them in practice. People seek alternatives to an identity that was once religious, so that they can feel Jewish after shedding religious identity and commitment. For that purpose they invent new questions and new concepts, and invest considerable and futile effort in deciphering them.

In my opinion there is no possibility of conducting an intelligent discussion about Jewish identity, certainly not of reaching decisions regarding it, and this is not really important either. If it is a convention, then why argue about agreements? Let each person sign the agreements that seem right to him. If it is metaphysics, I do not see how it is accessible to discussion and dispute. And even if we accept an essentialist conception of Jewish national identity (as distinct from halakhic identity), the matter again is not accessible to definitions, to dispute, and certainly not to an agreed decision. These are semantic proposals, a considerable part of which are unfounded, and others are genuinely empty of content, or do not stand up to any test of plausibility. Moreover, as I have noted, none of this has any practical significance whatsoever. These are psychological struggles people conduct with themselves, and nothing more.

This unnecessary and unimportant dispute serves today mainly as a weapon against one’s rival. Whoever wishes to promote socialist ideas explains to all of us that Judaism has always been socialist, and whoever is not such is not a Jew. Others who are interested in militaristic ideas likewise wave Judaism and Jewish identity. The same is true regarding democracy, equality, capitalism, liberty, openness, coercion, charity and kindness, social justice, and every other lofty value. In short, Judaism is a light unto the nations, except that the nature of that light is subject to a profound dispute that cannot be decided. Unlike other disputes, for which there may be ways to clarify them and there may also be some value in that, the dispute regarding Jewish identity is in principle undecidable and unimportant in any sense.

One thing is completely clear from a logical standpoint: none of the values on this list (socialism, militarism, social justice, equality, freedom, and the like), or any other value, can constitute an essential component, whether necessary or sufficient, in the definition of Jewish identity. Someone who believes in any one of these values, or in any combination of them, can be a perfectly good gentile by all accounts and without dispute. There is nothing to prevent a gentile from being socialist, committed to equality or freedom, militaristic or not. Therefore all these are not relevant criteria for Jewish identity, even if the unbelievable were to happen (and do not worry, it probably will not) and someone succeeded in proving from Jewish tradition and sources that one of these is indeed part of the content of that identity.

Jewish Identity in Our Time

The conclusion is that the discussion of national identity is sterile and devoid of any value. As I already mentioned, the same is true with respect to religious identity. Anyone born to a Jewish mother or who converted in accordance with Jewish law is obligated to fulfill the commandments of the Torah and the words of the Sages and not to commit transgressions. That is all. The definitions of the person, his identity, and all the rest are a subjective matter, whether psychological, metaphysical, conventionalist, or perhaps even amorphous-essentialist (something that cannot be defined). All the possibilities may be correct, and therefore there is no point in discussing them either.

Let us think what the implication of such a discussion could be. That someone will feel satisfaction that he is a good Jew? Feeling good is a matter for psychologists. Discussions of identity in the value-laden sense are sterile semantics and empty of content, and therefore unnecessary. If a concrete implication were given for which we are interested in defining identity, then it would perhaps be possible to discuss the questions relevant to it. But as long as this is a general discussion, let each person define his Judaism as he wishes. Even if one person is right and all the rest are wrong, this question should interest no one, except perhaps a few academic researchers who make their living from such semantic analyses. On the other hand, who am I to interfere with this heroic and futile effort? Sisyphus too is part of our cultural identity…[8]

[1] Eldad Beck from Germany, YNET, 1.2.2014.

[2] The process of secularization raises problems of religious identity that has undergone secularization (is there any meaning to a secular Protestant, Muslim, or Catholic?).

[3] If we are dealing with definitions, then the nature of the commandments in question and the motivation for observing them are very important. Even if Jewish law requires moral behavior, it is not reasonable to define Judaism on that basis, since it is shared by all human beings. Even commandments such as settling the Land of Israel, which do not have a moral character, cannot define religious Jewish identity, since it exists also among those who do not define themselves as part of the Jewish religion, because in many cases the motivation for fulfilling them comes from the same place as national awakenings among other peoples.

[4] Admittedly, conversion too is a process that is itself subject to certain disputes, as are many other issues of Jewish law, but for our purposes this is enough.

[5] This did not prevent the book from being translated into twenty languages and from winning prizes around the world.

[6] See, in the quotation from Eldad Beck’s report brought above.

[7] If I remember correctly, the president at the time, Chaim Herzog, in his response to the rabbits speech, as well as many others down to our own day, also mentioned this "criterion." Anyone possessed of even a little logical sensitivity stands astonished before this fascinating phenomenon. We want to define the concept of Jew, and we do so in the following way: every a that can be placed in the position of X in the following template: "X who feels himself to be X," and the description comes out true, is a Jew. According to this definition, every self-aware creature that does not lie to itself is a Jew (check the domain of substitution).

[8] It may be that this is also how we should understand Gideon Ofrat’s above-mentioned conclusion. Perhaps he is not saying that there is no such thing as art, but only concluding that the discussion about it is unnecessary and sterile.