DISCORD IN ISRAEL

...Tamarin...

...1. The precise meaning of the Hebrew word leom and what it denotes—a nation, a nationality, nationhood or ethnic group, and "ethnicity...

...ha-hymnon haleomi, the national anthem...

...The only interesting detail was to be found in the Jerusalem Post...

...As the London Times's Tel Aviv correspondent pointed out, "nationality and citizenship are two different concepts in Israel"—in contrast to practically every other country in the world with the notable exception of the Soviet Union...

...Meir as "the ABC...

...Elaborating further, Mr...

...It is quite true that persons belonging to the Russian "nationality" hold top positions and are generally considered a privileged group in the Soviet Union...

...So much for Israelis who are not Jews...

...State's Attorney Bach's insistence that Israeli and Jewish nationalities are identical is fully corroborated by Israel's national ideology and self-image as a "Jewish state...

...But upon coming back to Israel toward the end of January after a short stay abroad, I found the country "up to its neck" in ideology...

...The State of Israel, as represented by State's Attorney Bach and as interpreted by the Supreme Court, maintains a concept of "nationality" that is identical in every respect to "ethnicity...

...The other group—which comprises Jews who are not Israelis and totals some 83 percent of Jews everywhere—is less directly affected by Israel's concept of Jewish "nationality" than the former...

...For while it is technically true that in Israel citizenship and nationality are two different concepts—and while technically you can be a "citizen of the State" and belong either to the Jewish or Arab nationality— Israel's own definition of herself as a "Jewish state" makes nationality and citizenship overlap to the point of being completely interchangeable...

...This, I decided, was something to be clarified more fully, and in Jerusalem I glanced through the local newspapers...

...A British Jew is a citizen of the United Kingdom and therefore—according to his country's definition of "nationality"—a British national...

...There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people," the paper quoted the Supreme Court as stating...

...This brings us to the meaning of "nationality" in Israeli political terminology...

...The 28th Zionist Congress, after ten days of deliberations and a few scenes of pandemonium, concluded its sessions in January with a resolution requiring Zionists outside Israel to "fulfill their Zionism" by immigration and making it incumbent on them "to impart to their children Jewish and Zionist education"—or else resign from any office in the Zionist movement...

...Tamarin made, since plainly no one could claim—let alone prove—that such a thing as an Israeli "ethnic group" has come into being...

...In both of these countries you can be a citizen of the state and a member of a separate "nationality...

...Originally I had planned to devote this Letter to the internal situation in Israel—the socioeconomic gap and the Black Panthers, signs of corruption in high places, the New Class, and other strains facing a fundamentally egalitarian society that finds it increasingly difficult to reconcile theory and practice...

...In Israel—and in the Soviet Union—the picture is different...

...A few years ago senior government official put the matter as succinctly and as accurately as such matters can be put...

...This summary is taken from the January 25 Jerusalem Post "Law Report," prepared by Doris Lankin...

...It is readily to be seen that, while such a theoretical-ideological position does not materially affect the present status of non-Israeli Jews, it can be used to advantage by any regime that chooses to be hostile to its Jews or attempts to cause them embarrassment and even harassment...

...Meir was referring to "ethnicity" and "race...

...TheState's Attorney Gabriel Bach argued that nosuch separation is possible between the two: Jewish nationality and Israeli nationality are one and the same thing...

...Clearly, then, what we have here is a complete misunderstanding resulting from two totally opposing usages of the term leom...

...CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD PROM THIS and other reports on the Tamarin case It becomes clear that the whole question as to whether an Israeli nationality exists apart from a Jewish nationality revolves round two crucial points of political terminology and ideology...

...However, considering the interpretation which Israeli law gives the word, one can hardly accuse her of distortion...

...It is notable that the Hebrew term leom is rendered by Lankin as "ethnic group" rather than "nation" or "nationality...

...What he intended to argue is that in the courseof the years a separation from the Jewish nationhas taken place—so that in addition to it aseparate Israeli nation has been created...

...In the same way, an atheist Jew is certainly feasible, and Mrs...

...The fact, of course, is that in speaking of "nationality," Mrs...

...Genesis 25:23...

...One evening newspaper, Yedi'ot Aharaonot opened its story thus: Does an Israeli nationality [leom] exist separately from a Jewish nationality...

...Meir and her speech writers, she refrained from mentioning the far less dramatic spectacle of "American Jews," French, Argentinian, Georgian, British, and Brazilian Jews—all of whom carried passports testifying that they belonged to other "nationalities" though they were all bona fide Jews and even Zionists...

...As a matter of fact, in the two cases in which the word occurs in Genesis, it appears in the plural and as a synonym to "peoples" ("And the Lord said to her: Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of you, shall be divided...

...This point can be illumined by a brief analogy with the situation in the Soviet Union...

...However, he continued, the appellant's claim that he was consequently entitled to have his ethnic grouping registered as "Israeli" instead of "Jewish" would only follow if he could prove that in fact such an ethnic group did exist...

...Moreover, according to this ethno-racial definition of "nationality," an Anglican or even a Buddhist Jew is indeed feasible since, if you are born a Jew, you will remain of Jewish "nationality" no matter what you choose to do with your religious convictions...

...In contrast Israel, by simultaneously defining herself as a Jewish state and making a distinction between citizenship and nationality, renders the terms "Israeli" and "Jewish" synonymous...

...Georges Tamarin, a Tel Aviv psychologist, went to court and demanded that the state registrar change the "nationality" classification on his identity card from "Jew ish" to "Israeli...

...In the course of a lengthy summation of the opinion of the court, President Agranat noted that he was prepared to assume the appellant felt in all good faith that he was ethnically an Israeli and not a Jew...

...In modern usage, too, leom has been generally used as an equivalent either of "nation" (hever ha-leomim, the League of Nations...

...Tamarin took the case to the Supreme Court which, sitting as High Court of Appeal, also rejected his appeal...

...Is it possible, for instance, that a Jew can come forth and plead: "I am an Israeli by nationality and anatheist by religion...

...Today, to the best of my understanding, such an Israeli nation already exists...

...In Israel, you can be an Israeli by citizenship (though such a classification does not appear in Israeli identity cards) and a Jew or an Arab by nationality...

...they belong to another nationality...

...One cannot," said the Israeli Prime Minister's Adviser on Arab Affairs Shmuel Toledano, "expect the Arabs of Israel to be loyal to the State...

...All the three leading English translations of the Bible render the word leom as "nation" or "people" ("The people curse him who holds back grain . . ." Proverbs 11:26...

...The Supreme Court's verdict in the Tamarin case, then, was a major ideological decision...

...For reasons best known to Mrs...

...The no-nonsense Prime Minister added: "An American can be an Anglican American or a Buddhist American, but I have yet to meet an Anglican Jew or a Buddhist Jew...

...Through his counsel, Mr...

...Israel, in effect, views these as Jewish "nationals" and--in accordance with her own definition of herself as a Jewish state and with the concept of nationality implicit in her laws—as consequently in some way "belonging" to the Jewish state...

...CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD A few days earlier, the well-known Tunisianborn French-Jewish writer Albert Memmi demanded that the Zionist movement divorce itself from the Jewish religion, on the ground that "the Jewish national movement cannot be ruled by values which belong to a world that is no more...

...Golda Meir's address at the Zionist Congress, the paper added in parentheses: "She was apparently referring to the High Court decision earlier in the day to the effect that religion and nationality are inseparable...

...The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewry...

...However, since the Hebrew for "nation" is more generally ummah (haummot ha-meuhadot, the United Nations...

...The appellant in the case speaks of leom in the sense of "nationality" as it is universally used today—i.e., as being equivalent to citizenship...

...On this reading of the term, it would seem, a person of Jewish faith and French, American, or Brazilian "nationality" simply cannot exist—although, speaking strictly, even this cannot be maintained since any man belonging to any ethnic or "racial" group can lawfully be converted to Judaism...

...Meir could not claim she was yet to meet one since most of her associates in her party and in the government can be so described...

...2. The meaning of "nationality" in Israeli ideological parlance and its relation to citizenship...

...CORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD Some additional light may be shed on this point by the way the Israeli Supreme Court formulated its decision...

...To start with the former group, Israel's insistence on simultaneously seeing herself as a Jewish state and drawing a clear distinction between the "nationality" of her Jewish and non-Jewish citizens inevitably raises the cardiCORRESPONDENCE FROM ABROAD nal question as to the status of those Israelis who happen not to be Jews...

...For the fact is that while citizenship and nationality are two different concepts in Israel, there is a virtual equation of citizenship and statehood—in the sense that any ethnically designated state must perforce identify itself with those of its citizens who happen to have the same ethnic designation...

...Reporting Mrs...

...believesit is possible...

...While the respective positions in the two countries are similar in that, strictly speaking, both of them make a distinction between citizenship and nationality, the Soviet Union does not define itself as a nation-state (or rather a "nationalitystate") in the sense in which Israel does...

...In all these countries, nationality and citizenship are not only not two different concepts but are virtually synonymous: if you are a British 320 citizen then you are automatically a British "national...

...Ironically enough, this rendering makes it far easier for the courts to reject the kind of application which Dr...

...an American citizen is likewise a national of the United States of America, which means that he has United States "nationality...

...Tamarin applied for his leom to be changed from "Jewish" to "Israeli," therefore, he was plainly referring to the "nationality" classification on his identity card...

...THE TEL AVIV CORRESPONDENT of the London Times, Moshe Brilliant, printed a dispatch headed: "Israel court decides that atheist is still a Jew...

...haummah ha-yehudit, the Jewish nation), the word leom has in recent years been used more to denote "nationality...

...Toledano explained that, after all, one cannot expect Israel's Arabs "to believe in the national Jewish values...

...There is no guarantee whatever against its happening in other parts of the world...

...AmnonZichroni, he has argued: "When I immigratedto Israel (in 1949) there existed only a nucleusof an Israeli nation [leom] in the process ofcrystallization...

...This latter concept of the term views nationality as a legal-geographical rather than an ethnoracial term...

...The word leom first occurs in the Hebrew Bible in the plural form, leomim: "Let peoples ['amim] serve you, and nations [leomim] bow down to you" (Genesis 27:29...

...and so on), or of "nationality" (ha-leom ha-Americani, American nationality...

...An American Jew is a citizen—and therefore a national—of the United States of America...

...In the Soviet Union, again, you can be a Soviet citizen and a Jew, a Russian, a Ukrainian, a Georgian, or a Lithuanian by "nationality...

...When Dr...

...Examining the rest of the morning press, I discovered that all of them printed the same item prepared by a local news agency...

...Subsequently, Dr...

...But viewed in a theoretical-ideological context, the Israeli position can in the long run make the situation of non-Israeli Jews somewhat precarious...

...In this sense, indeed, "nationality" becomes synonymous with "ethnicity" and "ethnic group...

...An Arab can be a Moslem, a Christian, or a Druse by religion...

...This item carried by the Jerusalem Post was even smaller—and far less helpful—than that in the British paper...

...This affirmation, which according to the local press "drew warm applause from almost all the delegates," was described by Mrs...

...On the same day and from the same podium Prime Minister Golda Meir said with a grave scholarly air that "there is no difference between Jewish religion and Jewish nationality...

...nn THAT as it may, the official Israeli position vis-a-vis the nationality question—as presented and correctly interpreted by the Supreme Court in its latest decision—contains rather farreaching implications for two different groups of people: namely, Israelis who are not Jews and Jews who are not Israelis...

...And so it is with French, German, Danish, and Egyptian Jews...

...degel ha-leom, the national flag...

...An even more intricate problem is presented by the question of the relationship between citizenship and nationality...

...The Times report said that the Israeli court ruled that "to yield to his demand could lead to a schism in the Jewish people," and quoted Justice Agranat, the Court's president, as saying that "the wish of a handful of Jews to break away from the nation and to create a new concept of an Israeli nation was not a legitimate aspiration...

...This, basically, is what happened in the Arabic-speaking countries following the 1948 war in Palestine and in Poland after the SixDay War...

...Yet, juridically speaking, the Soviet Union has never described itself as a "Russian state...

...It was a report concerning a drawnout case in which Dr...

...The Tel Aviv District Court rejected his application on the ground that "an individual cannot found a new nationality solely by talk...