the exile within

They say south Tel Aviv is an acquired taste, and I think that I have finally acquired it. Florentine’s coffeeshops are deliciously free of any hint of pretence, and the surrounding buildings, hosting art galleries, squats, boutiques and all-night convenience stores, strike the perfect balance between derelict and glamorous. The less organised areas of Berlin come to mind. 

I am introduced to S in a bohemian street pub. She was born in New York to a Jewish family and has lived in various US cities. Cynical and charming in equal measures, she is sharing a plate of deep-fried haloumi cheese with me and talking about how she got here.

“I don’t know, back home it’s like, I never really felt like I belonged. Like it was my place, you know? I don’t know what it is, but funny enough the three closest people to me in the US are also Jewish. It’s not like I grew up in a Jewish environment, it just happened that way. It’s really hard to develop meaningful relationships with people, everyone is really only concerned with themselves.”

And so she came to Israel, and decided to stay. As a new Jewish immigrant, or “ascender”, S gets, asides from instant citizenship, quite a few spanking benefits that most indigenous Israelis would surely envy: a 1000 shekel monthly allowance; 90% percent discount on her property tax; complete medical insurance for 30 shekels a month; free Hebrew classes; and tax returns on all purchases for the first year or so. 

“How do you, um,” I choose my words carefully, “feel about this… pretty, I guess, unique…. mode of privilege?” 

“Let’s put it this way, what would you prefer? Going over to the ministry like every three months to renew your visa, or going twice, fill out a couple of forms, and get your permanent citizenship?”.

“Well, I hear you on that,” I say. “Like, if tomorrow they said that all gay people can come and live for free in say, Belgium, I don’t know, I would have to think twice. Then again I would not want to live in a society that was purely gay. Or purely anything for that matter.” 

S is referring to Israel’s Law of Return, its main legislative feature as a Jewish state. Enshrined in 1950, the law grants automatic citizenship to any Jewish immigrant - meaning anyone born to a Jewish mother or whose conversion to Judaism has been recognised by the Orthodox authorities. A reform of the law in 1970 meant that many economic migrants (especially from the former Soviet Union) gained citizenship by proving family or community links to Jewish lineage. This is how Israel is supposed to retain a Jewish demographic majority. The idea that “every country has its owners ” is a poor justification for this as it relies on an increasingly irrelevant blood nationalism. That Britain can be considered a Christian country is down to the fact most of its citizens today are Christians, and not because this majority is positively discriminated in the law. Without meaning to ignore or belittle European racism, Britain is not Christian, it is British. Israel, however, is a different story. 

In the first History lesson in my 7th grade, our teacher, who was also the school’s principle, said this: “democracy is not about two people deciding the third one should die.” It was, in my mind, one of the only valuable educational moments in my entire schooling. Not that he cared to demonstrate much, but a mischievous grin on his face meant that many of us were intrigued enough to try and think it through. Democracy does not only promote the will of the majority, it also protects the rights of all people as equals. You may argue, as a prominent British academic recently related to me, that the majority of people in Israel legitimately choose to design its immigration policy along religious and ethnic lines. That this will not produce systems of racial discrimination was supposed to be Zionism’s saving grace, but in reality equality between Jews and non-Jews remains a distant fantasy. Inevitably, the Law of Return not only produces intricate satellite projects, but reinforces racist social relations, creates unequal municipality funding, restrains freedom of speech (members of the Knesset may be impeached for expressing themselves against the “Jewish character” of the state) and means non-seperation of state from Church (or in this case, Synagogue), as expressed perhaps most notably in marital law. You need only stroll down King George Street in Jerusalem to marvel at the physical incarnation of this system: the fortresses that serve as homes for the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation represent Israel’s top priorities. Bringing as many Jews as you can to live in your country is an expensive business and an elaborate public relations project that includes, for example, regular and subsidised luxury holiday trips for the Jewish youth of America. Is it any wonder then that Palestinian citizens of Israel are never equal, but at best tolerated? How equal can you get as a minority group considered by so many members of the Knesset a “demographic time-bomb”? 

It was one thing to support and nurture Jewish existence in Palestine, and quite another to decide to fortify a whole state as reserved space for Jews. In today’s Israel, people who have never had anything to do with the Middle East have more rights than those who have lived there for many generations, and at their expense. Indeed, the latter are often forbidden from even entering what used to be, until recently, home.