A M O M E N T Interview With Avraham Burg

A MOMENT INTERVIEW AVRAHAM BURG Talking with Shimon peres's new Advisor for Diaspora Affairs In late January, Avraham Burg was-surprisingly-named Advisor for Diaspora Affairs to the Prime Minister...

...And my hope is that I can be a bridge, finally, between these kinds of questions and the technical responses that the political domain must develop...
...So we have to face the ict...
...First is my family background...
...The fact is that the Jewish "prob-tm" with the Land started with the jodus...
...There, he suggested that the leaders of the Jewish people come to Jerusalem to discuss the subject...
...But the major part, in my view, is to help him think through the relationship at the conceptual level...
...To think, to write, to enlarge my horizon, to place what some peo-pie see as purely Israeli problems in larger context, to define them as Jew...
...Our problems are not, after all, "merely" the political problems of the moment...
...But I do have the consciousness of it, very deeply inbred...
...Rashi says that only 20 tfcent of the Jews left Egypt, and ie had the same thing with Ezra and fcchemiah, when we returned from labylonia...
...But that is merely an expression of our common wrestling, our shared concern...
...Internally, it'sti tell him who's who, to provide him the needed background on the people, who visit him here...
...I've also decided that if I am going to be operating in the political domain, I have to have a kind of spiritual base, for my own nourishment...
...But the job is actually considerably more than that...
...The Prime Minister and I share this perspective, and that is why I now have the job...
...You spoke earlier of your conscious-kss of the Jewish context for all lis...
...And sometimes I think it is because of our sins that «e are where we are...
...I suppose I am one of the few sabras who is involved with politics who sees an immediate relationship between the problems here in Israel and the problems you in the Diaspora wrestle with...
...But I had helped get something started, and it seemed to me that I was, in some way, obliged to follow through on that, to meet, in some way, the expectations I had raised by my activities during the war...
...His daily responsi-bilities—the West Bank, the economy, all the rest of it-are enormous...
...It is true that I have never lived in the Diaspora...
...But whether or not that's an exaggeration, there's a reason, and the reason was part of the infrastructure of my education...
...The third aspect has to do with my conception of responsibility...
...Why does he need advice...
...April 1983) and Matthew Nesvisky's "Unlimited Partnership" (May 1984...
...That in-volvement gave me the chance to come to the States and to learn direct} what the problems are, what troubles and even pains the Jews, and it also gave me time to think about these things...
...But there is, of course, another view, more humanistic, more universalistic in its outlook...
...In his first days in his new office, we asked him to share with us the background to his appointment, as well as his thoughts on Israel-Diaspora relations...
...So, too, the economy...
...Essentially, I hope to be able to do some of the thinking that he just can't get to...
...Sometimes I think that it is because of our sins that you are where you are...
...It's not an issue for us here alone...
...What does being a Jew, in the fullest and richest sense, have to do with living in the modern world, with sovereignty, with power, with justice...
...So the new job is a very natural extension of all that...
...I asked myself, a year or two ago, what was the implication of my involvement as a critic of the war...
...Unfortunately, one (ihe long-term victories of Hitler is ^the changed the nature of the Jew-j, state from a place of choice to a jjce of refuge...
...You said, "a center...
...The Prime Minister has had extensive experience in and exposure to the Diaspora...
...ish-Israeli problems...
...And because of that, ,hen we talk about the Jews of the af-l,ent countries, we're talking about eople who won't come unless they K pressed to come...
...The basic teaching with which *e were brought up is that the State of Israel is an instrument for the Jewish people...
...Having come to that decision, the question was how, where...
...It's also the case that I've been involved in the eye of the storm on the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, through my involvement with the New Israel Fund...
...So I don't see the shtetl as a dreary chapter of our past, as something to overcome, as a curse, but as a bhillah, a community, a positive social structure that we don't have here |*1 from which we have much to p"!- And it's for the same reason that 'read a lot of Sholom Aleichem and *t and Mendele, and prefer Hes-^Street to Fifth Avenue...
...I decided that I do want to be involved...
...For the last couple of generations, it's been much more one-way than that...
...Can you tell us how he sees your new role...
...The only political, ideological and educational issue that is the same for both of us, that provides the real common denominator for both of us, is the question of who is a Jew...
...You might add that I wear a yarmulke and that my last name is Burg...
...Isn't that an unusual formulation for someone in your position-or, for that matter, for almost any Israeli Jew...
...Long-term, our task is to figure out how to nourish and sustain such a dialogue once it does get started, how to insure that the new partnership flourishes...
...My experience...
...More seriously, my own belief is that the Jewish p50" pie has only one spiritual and physical center-the land of Israel- B"1 I'm cynical enough, or pessimistic ^ugh, to know and to accept, howreluctantly, that the Jewish jnple in our time won't come here for oSjtive reasons...
...So in this, I am unusual-in a way that is important for the job...
...A MOMENT INTERVIEW AVRAHAM BURG Talking with Shimon peres's new Advisor for Diaspora Affairs In late January, Avraham Burg was-surprisingly-named Advisor for Diaspora Affairs to the Prime Minister of Israel...
...The fact that I think that Israel is He center doesn't change the fact that my people, many of your readers, for example, think of it as a center...
...There is a tension between the concept of the Jews as a chosen people and as a goy k'chol hagoyim, between Shammai and Hil-lel, and this tension gets played out in Israel to this day...
...It's j that kind of understanding that has to \ inform the new atmosphere...
...I was involved in that very powerful wave of internal criticism, and I suppose I could have gone home and resumed my anonymity...
...I am the son of Minister of the Interior Yosef Burg...
...So I've joined the Shalom Hartman Institute, which allows me to think reflectively about some of the truly underlying issues-what is Jewish sovereignty, what is the relevance of the traditional sources to the issues of the day-not in a cheap or merely rhetorical or propagandistic way...
...I hold to the pluralistic, open, tolerant side of Judaism, and when I look for Jewish support for that position, I see that part of myself conceptually lives there in the States, because there you can find, de facto, universal-ism, pluralism, openness...
...These add to the curiosity...
...That's what I told him...
...And, more precisely, what is a Jew...
...I'll leave out the political and social roots, but one of the causes goes back to the tension we feel when we try to understand Judaism...
...Your experience with democracy and civil rights, for example, reinforces the kind of Jewish understanding that I hold dear, that I want to help extend here in Israel...
...There are underlying questions, and those questions are related to the immediate political questions...
...And that's what I've been trying to think about and to work on for the last three years of my life...
...What I'm saying is that if there is an enduring connection between Israel and the Diaspora, it is about issues of Jewishness and Judaism, and that is not understood by many sabras...
...debate...
...On the immediate level, it's to represent the Prime Minister and to bring his word, his message, to those places he can't get to...
...There are two ways of responding to that...
...You're just 30, your experience in the Diaspora is rather limited, you've not worked your way up the political ladder...
...So if there's going to be any initiative, or any serious conceptual work on how you make the State of Israel-which is, after all, a very important centerfor the Jewish people-more available and more meaningful to all the Jews, not only the 25 percent who are already involved in the traditional ways, that is something I will have to do...
...Second, I first became involved in **li public life during the Lebanon And when I sat down and tried to think of the origins of the war in Lebanon, I came to the conclusion that the roots of this war were much deeper than a superficial look suggests...
...I believe we have to develop a new and healthier consciousness of what we can do together and of how we can support each other...
...He knew my opinions...
...And I'm not tout to support or encourage anti-frnitism just to see you here...
...Burg-we call him Avrum-is known to moment readers through Leonard Fein's article, "What, Then, Shall We Do...
...Actually, the Prime Minister asked me to describe my understanding, and I suppose that it accords with his, since he then appointed me...
...Where does that consciousness tome from...
...Now, if these are the kinds of problems you are interested in and where you feel you may be able to make a contribution, then the result is that you're involved in the ultimate questions of Jewish peoplehood, of Jewish identity and of Jewish responsibility...
...What I said was this: I see the task on two levels, one immediate, one long-term...
...And that is something I want to bring here...
...I said, "Look, what do I need the job for...
...And as for the fact that I'm young-it's just a matter of time before I overcome that liability...
...I have in mind, for example, the kind of approach the Prime Minister took in his speech to the Knesset last week in the "Who is a Jew...
...The immediate task is to change the atmosphere in Israel-Diaspora relations, to help create a real dialogue, one that does not assume as its starting point the negation of the Diaspora, because on that assumption, you cannot have a real dialogue...
...Objectively, however, aren't you a somewhat curious appointment...
...And I thought that, given who I am, where I come from, what interests me and compels me, I can perhaps be most useful as a kind of human bridge-between the religious and the non-religious, even perhaps between Judaism and modernity, between morality and existence...
...According to that understanding, we are a distinct people, a people that dwells alone, and the whole world's against us...
...by asking them, we can offer each other real help...
...On the one hand, we have the classical Judaism, as we have come to view it in our own time...
...If my father has spent so much foe in the Diaspora, that is because I* Jewish people is his consti-tacy-and that is what I was taught...
...You know the saying, "It is because of our sins that we were exiled froo the Land...
...As I see it, there is a bridge to be built even between Judaism and Zionism...
...Hat's the lowest common denomi-nator, and that's where we, therefore, have to start...
...On the territories, for example, you in the Diaspora can be very much concerned, but it is not part of you...
...If I have any advice, I'll call you...
...In asking you to do this job, the Prime Minister must have discussed his understanding and expectations with you...
...He recognized that in his speech and proposed, therefore, to handle it in a new and creative way...
...And there is a continuing tension between the two, existentially and historically...
...Here's a long-standing joke in Israel mat my father spends more time abroad than he does here...
...Is man the instrument of a system, for an ideology, for the Torah, even-or is man the topic of creation, as in "for my sake the world was created...
...we had spoken before and during and right after the election, and he knew very well who I am and what I am about...
...If I can make that happen, then we will have a context for a truly serious dialogue with the Diaspora, for these are the kinds of questions that all of us must work through...
...Still, the Prime Minister obviously knew exactly who I am...
...Just now, that question has been overwhelmed by the question of who is a rabbi...

Vol. 10 • March 1985 • No. 3


 
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