The Transformation Of Israeli Society

An Essay In Interpretation

S. N. Eisenstadt, S N Eisenstadt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367296667
• eBook ISBN: 9781000306439
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book discusses the development and organization of the major spheres of life of Israeli society. It analyses major aspects and trends of development of Israeli society which have been taking place continuously since its beginning, from the early period of Zionist settlement in Eretz Israel.

PART ONE
The Historical Background

CHAPTER 1
The Emergence of Jewish Civilization

Introduction

The Zionist movement and Israeli society against the background of Jewish history

It is impossible to understand the transformations of Israeli society without reference to its relationship with the Jewish nation, people and communities, to its place - as seen from within itself and by others - in Jewish history. It is not only that its origins - the origins of the Zionist movement and of the settlement in Palestine - were rooted in a rebellion against the realities of Jewish life as they existed in different Jewish communities, above all in Europe, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Equally important is the fact that this very rebellion was to a very large extent constructed in terms of some basic, perennial themes or orientations of Jewish civilization - themes relating to the Jews themselves, to their ways of life and civilization, and to their relations to other nations. The concrete implementation of this rebellion, the crystallization of Jewish society in Eretz Israel and the development of Israeli society, have been continuously related both to these themes and to the reality of Jewish life throughout the world, in the Jewish communities in the Diaspora. It would therefore be appropriate to start our exploration with a very brief survey - not of the history of the Jewish people, something which would be beyond the scope of this book - but of some of these basic themes, realities and problems of Jewish civilization as they have developed and changed through the history of the Jewish people.

A good starting-point for such an analysis is the apparent contradiction between two aspects of Jewish existence as it could have been, and often was, portrayed in that very period in which the Zionist movement started to crystallize - the second half of the nineteenth century.

On the one hand there were the great - what today would be called 'traditional' - Jewish masses concentrated in Eastern Europe and beyond in the various countries of the Ottoman Empire. The internal life of these communities centred around the institutions of the synagogue, the places of learning, and the various communal organizations led by a combination of community leaders and rabbis; it was seemingly ruled by centuries-old traditions of learning, of ritual observance and legal prescriptions, and of prayer; and it was characterized by strong cohesive family life, and by interfamily and inter-community networks and organizations. Externally the life of these communities was shaped by the attitudes of their 'host' people: they usually lived in a situation of political powerlessness, of an almost total dependence on the will of the rulers; they had no political or citizen rights beyond the privileges or immunities granted to them by the rulers, and were indeed, until the attainment of emancipation, seen as strangers in the lands which they inhabited.

Economically they were always confined to relatively distinct and special niches allowed to them within the encompassing economic structure - above all, with some spectacular exceptions, in petty finance and commerce, in various middlemen positions such as handicraft and to a much smaller degree in the field of agriculture. Most of them - with the exception of those in special communities or special sectors, like those attached to the courts of kings or engaged in international commerce or finance - were not very affluent; many were rather poor although probably better off, even if less secure, than the peasantry which constituted the bulk of the population.

They were seen by the majority - especially in the Christian, but also in the Muslim lands - not only as an alien minority, but also as the carriers of a faith, of a civilization which denied the validity of the basic premisses of the 'host' civilization; hence, by their very existence, they presented a constant threat to the dominant faith. At the same time, however, the very apparent shabbiness and precariousness of their existence, evident in the persecutions, pogroms and expulsions of which Jewish history was full, was taken by their 'host' people as proof of the inferiority of the Jewish people - but an inferiority to which those who remained within the fold of the Jewish faith and community (and there were always many who left) would never admit.

However, against this picture of apparent stagnation - later depicted by Arnold Toynbee as a 'fossil', in which the only realm of cultural creativity in which Jews could excel was the sphere of legal-ritual prescriptions - in the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in Western Europe, there existed the kernels of a different picture, which yet had their roots in the past, as we shall see later on.

When the gates of the crystallizing modern European society and nation-states were - albeit slowly and ambivalently - opened before the Jews, there was an outburst of creativity in almost all spheres of social and especially cultural activity. In Western and Central Europe - and much more haltingly in Eastern Europe - large numbers of Jews made a rapid advance economically. They quickly transformed themselves educationally and occupationally, moving into modern educational institutions - those of the wider societies or those of their own - most of which were already shaped according to the premisses of the general society. In two or three generations they became highly prominent in many new fields of economic activity and in higher learning, in the arts, in journalism and also in some, above all the more radical, political, intellectual and social movements.

Names like Heine, Moses Hess, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy or Lassalle - to mention but a few - became part of the general cultural scene. Attitudes remained ambivalent towards them. But the strong, new, modern anti-Semitism was no longer only religious, but more and more racial. The Jews were no longer seen as a small seemingly stagnant minority holding on to its faith and ways of life in a hostile environment. They were penetrating some of the central arenas of social and political life and becoming very visible within them, some becoming baptized, some assimilated. Yet very often they were unable to shed, at least in the eyes of their hosts, the imprint of their Jewish origins. Moreover, among the Jews in Western Europe, but above all in Eastern Europe, there were the beginnings of the creation of new types of Jewish institutions and organizations, as well as activities within the institutional frameworks of the general societies.

The Zionist movement developed (as we shall see in greater detail later on) as one of the reactions - the most radical and revolutionary one - to these two poles of Jewish existence as they developed above all in Europe, in the second half and especially the last third of the nineteenth century. But in order to understand fully the nature of this rebellion or revolution we have first to understand how it was possible for these two poles to exist and develop side by side. This brings us back to the search for some of the basic realities, constellations, problems and themes of Jewish history and civilization. In the following chapters we shall pursue such a search - without, of course, pretending to write the history of the Jewish people. Given the long - in some ways unique - continuity of this history which we shall explicate to some degree later, we shall start by going back to its origins, when some of its basic characteristics began to take shape.

The Biblical Period and the Period of the Second Commonwealth

Historical background

The external facts of Jewish history are, of course, well known. Jewish history emerged sometime in the middle of the second millennium before the Christian era (BCE). Its first decisive encounter was the conquest of the Land of Canaan by the tribes of Israel, under the leadership of Joshua but presumably already bearing the stamp of legislation attributed to Moses; and then the settlement of these tribes in Canaan. Such conquest, quite natural in those times in that part of the world, necessarily entailed a continuous encounter and conflict with their neighbours - the various nations or tribes which had also settled in that territory. This settlement was initially, in the period of the Judges, a relatively dispersed one, with the different tribes leading relatively separate existences, yet with some common sacred places, coming together to some degree in times of war, and maintaining some continuous common trans-tribal identity.

From the very beginning of this period the Israeli tribes were characterized by several special social characteristics, which we shall analyse in greater detail later on. At this stage of our discussion suffice it to point out that the most important of these characteristics were their relative multiplicity, and the heterogeneity of social, economic and cultural forms and elements of which they were composed. Most important among the latter were, of course, the priest and prophets who had acquired as we shall see some very outstanding characteristics in Israel which distinguished them from their seeming counterparts in the neighbouring societies.

Then in the tenth century BCE came the period of the unification and establishment of the monarchy, first under Saul, then under David and Solomon; the erection of the Temple and the attempts at the centralization of the cult; the continuation and intensive development of groups of prophets; the division of the realm after the death of Solomon, under his son Rehoboam, into the two Kingdoms of Judea (composed mostly of the tribes of Juda and Benjamin) and of Israel (composed of the other ten tribes); the continuous involvement of these Kingdoms in the international conflicts of the region, especially in the conflicts between the great Empires, the Egyptian on the one hand and the Assyrian and Babylonian on the other, as well as various kingdoms in the north, such as for instance the Akkadians; the destruction by the Assyrians of the Kingdom of Israel in 722 and the almost total disappearance of the ten tribes as a distinct cultural and political entity; the continuation of the Davidic monarchy, the priestly cults and the prophetic tradition in Judea with its centre in Jerusalem, the ultimate destruction of this monarchy in 587; the exile of large parts of the population - especially of the leadership - to Babylon, and the first movements of dispersion to other lands, especially to Egypt.

Until this point, the story, although very dynamic and to some degree dramatic, was not unique, and the Israeli nation - the Jewish people - would have disappeared from the face of subsequent history as did so many other nations in this region at that time. But they did not disappear, and it is in this fact that they are unique. Large parts, and probably the more active leadership elements, of the population of Judea went to Babylon. Many of course remained there, but many of the exiles in Babylon kept up the dream of returning to Zion, and, after the Persian conquests of Babylon under Cyrus (550-530), and later in 525 of Egypt by Cyrus's son Cambyses, they - or rather some of them - started to return to Eretz Israel and joined those who remained there in a state of decline. They came here first as rather small dispersed groups; then under the vigorous leadership of Ezra and Nehemia they reestablished and reconstructed their religious and communal-political institutions, rebuilt the Temple and forged a new national identity (yet one based on continuous reference to the former period and its symbols) and new political organizations. From this a new independent political entity emerged after the Hasmonean revolt. The external story of this period is very well known and needs no more than a brief recapitulation.

With the fall of the Persian Empire in 330 BCE and the rise of the Hellenistic monarchies in the Middle East, there developed a much stronger confrontation of the Jewish people with the new expanding civilizations. The Jewish communities in general, and that in Eretz Israel in particular, became increasingly entangled in the political struggles of the region. At the same time Jewish settlement expanded beyond the Temple City State of Jerusalem, with the consequent possibility of confrontation between the Jews and the Hellenistic - and later also Roman - rulers.

This culminated in the first dramatic encounter in the second century BCE with the Seleucid King Antiochus iv, giving rise to the Hasmonean (Maccabean) revolt and to the rise of the Hasmonean theocratic monarchy in which the office of High Priest and ruler (ethnarch-Nasi) were combined. This dynasty lasted till about the middle of the first century BCE. It was characterized, especially during the reign of Alexander Iannai (Ianneas) (103-76 BCE) and his successors, by a policy of far-reaching expansion, bringing the Jews into continuous encounter with both various local populations and the 'super powers'. During Alexander Iannai's reign there broke out an intensive civil war led against him by groups of the Pharisees. After his death Judea became strongly entangled in the Roman expansion in the Near East and in Roman-Parthian wars. The end of the Hasmonean dynasty came about 37 BCE, when Herod, the son of the Edomite adviser to Hyrcanos, Alexander's son, was declared King of Judea by the Romans and reigned till 4 BCE as a Roman client - and as a secular king.

Under Herod's successor the Kingdom was divided between his three sons, and in year 6 of the Christian era (CE) the Roman government assumed direct rule in Judea - a fact even welcomed by those more religious sectors of the Jewish population who strongly opposed the reign of a non-Jewish king. This direct subjugation to the Romans was interrupted under the brief reign of Herod's grandson Agrippa (41-4 CE), a friend of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who attempted to re-establish some sort of a unified Jewish monarchy and was on the whole accepted by most sectors of the Jewish population. But with his death there developed a continuously growing tension between the Roman procurators and the Jewish people, as well as increasing division within the latter, giving rise to the great war or rebellion against the Romans (66-7 CE), the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and loss of political autonomy, and the move of the Sanhedrin under the leadership of Rabbi Yohanan Ben-Zakai - the leader of the Pharisees - to Yavneh.

Cultural activity

But the period of the Second Temple did not only see the emergence and crystallization of a new independent political entity. It was also a period of great cultural transformations.

The Prophets, so predominant in the period of the First Temple, gradually disappeared; the priests, at least in the beginning of this period, became much more predominant; kings from priestly families emerged and also, perhaps most important, some entirely new types of leadership, based to a large degree on new traditions of learning as well as a multiplicity of sects.

There were the first encounters with mighty pagan Empires and a multiplicity of pagan nations, and also with a new type of civilization - the Hellenistic - and with the Hellenistic and Roman Empires whose claims to some universal validity were rooted not just in conquest or in the mightiness of their gods but in their philosophical and legal tradition.

At the same time there was great internal cultural creativity, giving rise within the Jewish nation to many new religious, cultural and social visions - one of them, connected with Jesus, destined to reshape in the form of Christianity the whole course of history in the West and later on in the world.

The combination of internal and external turbulence culminated, as we have seen, in the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the loss of political independence and, ultimately, dispersion. But at the same time there emerged here a new institutional mould which evinced rather special frameworks of civilization, religion and collective identity despite loss of independence and continuous dispersion. Later on these continuous frameworks were to be confronted with Christianity, and then with Islam, as the dominant religions in most of the lands in which the Jews lived.

These developments created a situation in which the Jews were not just a national or religious minority in some 'alien' environment. They became such a minority in civilizations whose historical roots and basic premisses were closely interwoven with Jewish history and faith; which not only developed historically out of the Jewish fold, but for whom continuous Jewish existence always constituted an ideological challenge and an ambivalent and negative reference point; for whom the Jews' adherence to their faith and modes of life was not just a curious and strange fact, but an ideological threat to the very legitimacy of their own civilizations.

There were two poles to the continuity of Jewish civilization: first, the development of institutional and cultural frameworks which made possible the continuity of the Jewish people and civilization in a situation of dispersion of Jews in many lands; and secondly the strong, ambivalent attitude of the 'host' civilizations, reciprocated by a parallel ambivalent attitude among the Jews towards these civilizations. These poles shaped the course of the Jewish history of exile.

The Problem of the Continuity of Jewish History

The origins of Jewish civilization

How can the puzzle of such continuity be explained - if it can be explained at all? A first approach to such an explanation necessitates the analysis of the basic realities and themes of Jewish civilization to which we have referred above.

The roots of these themes and realities do, of course, lie in those situations about which relatively little is known - in which the Israeli tribes started to differentiate themselves from the other nations in the Near and Middle East. It was not, of course, the fact of such distinctiveness or differentiation that is unique. There was an abundance of distinct tribes or nations in that period in the Near East, each with different language and customs, worshipping different gods and organ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• TABLES
• preface
• Part One The Historical Background
• Part Two The Zionist Movement and the Settlement in the Land of Israel
• Part Three The State of Israel - Crystallization of Institutional Moulds
• Part Four The State of Israel - Change and Transformation
• CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS - The Jewish Re-Entry into History and its Problems
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX