At what point is an immigrant to Israel a genuine Israeli? Ever?
Amnon Abramovich, a well known Israeli journalist, got himself into hot water when he opined on Ron Dermer's "Israeliness"—or lack thereof. The social media channels went wild.
More than twenty years ago, the professor who had been my mentor at the Mandel Foundation, where I first worked when we got to Israel, and who had already been in Israel for decades, got off the phone, clearly deeply annoyed. I happened to be in the room.
He’d served for as head of School of Education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for a decade and a half, established the Melton Center for Jewish Education at Hebrew University, was the first president of the Mandel Foundation–Israel and a founder of the Mandel Leadership Institute. And he’d been living in Israel since 1966, about forty years at the time of this incident.
Why was he so annoyed when he got off the phone? The person on the other end of the line, he told me, was putting together a panel, and asked him to be on it. All good. Then, she said, she also wanted to get “an Israeli” for the panel, too.
“I’ve been living in this country for forty years,” he steamed, kind of at me, kind of not. “All three of my boys have served in the army.” I ran a school at the Hebrew University. What will it take for them to start thinking of us as Israelis?”
He had a point.
On Friday evening, June 1, 2001, 21 people were killed and 120 were wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up outside a disco near Tel Aviv's Dolphinarium along the seafront promenade just before midnight. The terrorist had managed to get into the middle of a group of teenagers, who were waiting on line to enter the disco. He then detonated the explosives strapped to his body.
Most of those killed were teenagers from the former Soviet Union who had planned to attend a dance party at the Dolphin disco. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, so there’s reason to hope that those who planned it are now dead.
Why do I mention the Dolphinarium here? Because I still remember, as if it were yesterday, watching the news and seeing the interview with one of the grieving mothers, who spoke with a clear Russian accent. “Maybe now that our kids have also been killed, people will start to think of us as Israelis?”
It was so agonizing a sentiment that it’s the main thing I remember about the attack.
When does someone here become Israeli? That question below up again this week, when Amnon Abramovich, a much respected Israeli journalist, opined on the degree to which Ron Dermer is, or isn’t, a “real Israeli.” Social media went nuts, and we’ll return to that issue below.
First, this ….
I mentioned in a column last week that the sign that I’d seen about Eden Yerushalmi, z’l, in Givatayim, was clearly put up after her murder, since the wording listed both the year of her birth as well as the year of her death. The signs of Hersh Goldberg-Polin in our neighborhood, I noted, had all been up for a very long time.
Turns out, that’s not true anymore. I saw the sign above just a few blocks from our house the other night. Brand new, just as heartbreaking as ever.
With winter coming, and the wet and the cold seeping in everywhere, the security apparatus is warning the political echelons that it’s unlikely that most of the hostages who are still alive can survive much longer.
Bibi’s now offering $5M for each hostage anyone can help release to Israel—though few people here think that’s a serious attempt to accomplish much. Some people believe that there actually is a plan being cooked up… we shall see.
I’ll be traveling this week and next, so our schedule of posting will be slightly adjusted. As always, though, podcasts will appear on Wednesdays as regularly scheduled. Other columns will be sent out, as well.
Last Friday, in the aftermath of all that’s been happening in Amsterdam, Makor Rishon ran an article about a member of the French Parliament, a Jewish woman named Caroline Yadan. She’s a member of Macron’s party, but has been highly critical of his statements about Israel.
She came out and said what many have been whispering for quite some time. “I understand the Jews who ask themselves whether we can still live in Europe or if we must save ourselves and move to other places like Israel,” said Yadan. “This is a crucial issue not only in France but throughout Europe … Most Jews in France are no longer wondering whether to leave, but when.”
No one should fool themselves into thinking that what’s happening in Europe is really about Israel, she said. Though others disagree, she insists,
It is a symptom of a sick Europe that has failed for years to take necessary actions to condemn antisemitism in its evolving forms, which feed on hatred of Israel. The lack of condemnation has led us to face such horrors today. This is not merely a clash between supporters; it involves deliberate and organized actions aimed at harming Jews.
People had been saying that about France long before the violence in Amsterdam. As far back as July, the Jerusalem Post reported that the Rabbi of Paris’ Grand Synagogue felt similarly:
Which brings us to Amnon Abramovich ….
Abramovich’s comments didn’t come out of nowhere. Channel 12 ran a piece on Dermer, who is known to have Bibi’s confidence and to be very close to him, called “Bibi’s Third Son.” Towards the beginning of the piece (in Hebrew only), the people who put the video together went out to the street to show people a photo of Dermer to see if they could recognize “perhaps the most influential man in the government.”
Most couldn’t. That was basically the point of the article.
There are many things that one can say about the fact the one of the most influential people in the government is someone about whom most Israelis know nothing at all. Fair enough.
But that’s not what got Abramovich all worked up. What got him all in a huff was the “fact” that Dermer is not sufficiently Israeli.
Here’s a subtitled version of the clip that was shared around social media:
Abramovich is hardly a Bibi fan. I doubt that Netanyahu has aspirations to be the President of the United States (which, as one of the panelists mentioned, is not allowed under American law, since Bibi wasn’t born in the US). The whole thing is a bit of a screed against Bibi, but it comes at the expense of immigrants in general.
The “fiddler on the roof” comment is pretty gross.
Why does any of this really matter now? Because as complicated as things are now in Israel, everywhere you go around here, you hear that Israel is still the safest place in the world for Jews. (That’s what you hear—I’m not opining as to whether or not it’s true.) European Jews are said to be planning to move to Israel in large numbers. The Tel Aviv college scene is exploding with young Americans (and others) who don’t want to be on American campuses anymore. And so forth.
This is a country built on immigration and immigrants. What Abramovich is representing that elitist, Ashkenazi, native-Israeli attitude that has led to what many Israelis call “the second Israel.” Usually, “second Israel” refers to the Mizrachim, who, it was said, largely supported judicial reform as a way of unseating the Ashkenazi elites in the courts (that assessment, as we showed many times, was not correct).
That kind of elitism doesn’t do Israel any good these days. One day, some time, this war is going to end. Israel is likely to emerge much stronger, especially if Iran can be toppled or stopped. That moment could be a transformational one for Israel, as more and more Jews make their way here.
The question they might well be asking themselves is, “If I go, will I ever be considered Israeli?”
Abramovich should take the outcry against him seriously, because what he represents is a prejudice that at this moment in its history, Israel can in no way afford.
A few examples of Israelis not considered Israeli enough for Israelis: Chaim Weizmann , Abba Eban , Rav Shach,
I have lived here over 50 years and today, while visiting my husband in Meir hospital, he tells me that one of the nursing staff asked him if I was his wife... and then said... she's not Israeli, is she?