Unity

Dr. Amalia Kedem is a musicologist and archivist who specializes in ethnomusicology and Jewish music. She was recently appointed curator of the Music Collection at the National Library of Israel.

Since the outbreak of the war in the month of Tishrei/October last year, the public space in Israel has been flooded with statements about the importance of unity: ‘Together we will win. We are one people. Our strength is in our unity.’ Months of public struggle around the intended judicial overhaul that preceded the outbreak of the war became in one terrible day also the backdrop for the brutal attack. The enemy sees our internal division and disintegration and identifies the weakness. And the conclusion is that we must unite.

The reference to unity within the people as positive, beneficial and enabling – as opposed to division and strife – is neither new nor surprising. Rashi’s commentary on the verse: “After they set out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai, and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain,” (Exodus 19:2) is well known: “Israel dwelt there as one man with one heart, whereas their other encampments had been in a spirit of resentment and discord.” So we can see, according to this interpretation, discord is the opposite of unity; discord creates division and thus prevents unity.

Israeli society is multifaceted. Its cultural origins have evolved over countries and continents. And just as the faces of its members are diverse, so too are their opinions – and it is no wonder that there is so much disagreement. The question thus arises as to whether it is indeed possible to strive for unity in such a society. What can be the meaning of the call for unity when it is evident that gaps cannot be bridged and ‘every tzaddik in his faith will live’?

I would like to offer the world of prayer and Jewish poetic liturgy (piyutim) as a model from which a useful line of thought can be derived for solving this question. There are many branches of Jewish prayer and traditions of piyut, within which three main ones can be distinguished, and these also split into sub-branches: Sephardic, Ashkenazi and Yemeni. Some of the branches overlap with defined geographical areas and others are grouped around language or culture. After hundreds of years of creation and evolution, in the twentieth century it was already clear that the piyut, a cultural-literary-liturgical phenomenon, is one of the distinguishing factors among the traditions, sometimes in a distinct, textual and ritual way. In the Music Collection at the National Library of Israel, a dedicated effort has been made over the years to curate this variety and also to catalog it in a precise way, distinguishing and differentiating between traditions and sub-traditions, and where possible also indicating the geographical origin. And despite this difference, both in the Library and in reality, there is cross-tradition agreement on two elements: one, that the role of the piyut is to enrich and embellish the prayer; the second, that the regular prayer, which the piyut enhances, is the main thing, without which the mitzva of prayer is not fulfilled, and the piyut cannot fill its place.

In the past year, and in the year before, much was written in the press and online about the subject of unity and it seems to me there is an understanding that unity does not necessarily reflect consensus. Unity is certainly not uniformity. Like other traits, such as attentiveness and caring, unity as a mindset needs no declarations when it simply exists! In a society where the disagreements, which emphasize what is different and unique to each group, receive the most mental effort and attention, it is not superfluous to mention that they cannot replace the common and unifying essential basis (such as, say, the existence of political independence for the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, or an aspiration for a life of dignity and growth, with compassion for every person no matter who they are) just like the regular prayer, for which the piyutim that attract the heart and soul are only an embellishment. This is not a call to ignore disputes or seek to eliminate them. Would it occur to anyone to call for an end to the chanting of piyutim, such as: “Adon HaSlichot”, “El Nora Alilah” or “U’Netane Tokef” just because they do not appear in the canons of all the traditions? On the contrary, the understanding that the poem is not the essence is probably what has enabled openness between the traditions in recent years – and even a gradual process in which the piyutim of one tradition permeate and are accepted in the synagogues of others. Why then don’t we remind ourselves that disagreement does not make us enemies, and does not replace the common basis for all of us, but only emphasizes the diversity and, accordingly, allows it to define itself in its appropriate place?

This is, therefore, a call to listen attentively and to focus on the basis we share as a society without silencing or ignoring the disputes – but also without giving them center stage. From this deliberate action, I have no doubt that the yearned-for unity will emerge and arise, serving as a compass for our continued existence in the Land as Israelis and Jews. And this is my hope for the coming year: that it will be a good year and we will find in it the unifying, the shared and the benevolent.

Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior fellow of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem. He is author of the 2013 book Like Dreamers, which won the Jewish Book Council’s Everett Book of the Year Award, and of the 2018 book Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor, a New York Times bestseller.

Summer 1967. My father and I are visiting Israel for the first time, celebrating the happy ending of the Jewish story.

Someone gives me a souvenir edition of Bamachaneh, with a prose poem by Dan Ben-Amotz. It is a love song to the people of Israel – the eager high school students who delivered the mail five times a day, the annoying pensioners who enforced the home front blackout, the pious Jews who violated Shabbat to fill sandbags. V’ameich kulam tsadikim: Everyone had a role in this victory.

The whole world can be against us, my father tells me, but if we are united, no force can destroy this little people.

Summer 1982. I am just off the plane, a new immigrant.

The IDF is at the gates of Beirut. We have never placed an Arab capital under siege before; we have never been stronger. But we have also never been divided during a war. Left-wingers and right-wingers shout at each other in the streets.

We win the war. And then we lose.

February 10, 1983. Someone throws a grenade into a Peace Now demonstration at the Prime Minister’s Office. Emil Grunzweig, high school teacher, kibbutznik, paratrooper, is killed.

All along the route of the march, protesters had been taunted and attacked. No one has been arrested but everyone knows: A Jewish hand has spilled this blood.

I happen to be nearby and rush to the scene. By the time I get there, the stunned protesters have dispersed. On the pavement are discarded syringes and a small pool of blood.

A half dozen counter-protesters linger, chanting slogans against the left. “A Jew was murdered here tonight,” I say to them and point to the pavement. “We like to say that Jewish blood isn’t cheap. Well here it is: Jewish blood.”

They laugh.

Kibbutz Ein Shemer, winter, 1996.

It is the national convention of Hashomer Hatzair, and a banner on the wall declares its theme: “Can Civil War Be Avoided?”

Yoel Bin-Nun stands before hundreds of young people in blue shirts with white laces crisscrossed at the neckline. He has become a virtual outcast in his community for accusing fellow rabbis of incitement to murder Rabin. Still, the young people eye this man with the big knitted kippah and long beard and tzitzit warily.

Judaism doesn’t only belong to me, he tells them. Take responsibility for your birthright; that is the shared language that can help us prevent civil war.

Yoel points to a man in kibbutz work clothes sitting in the back: Avital Geva, artist and educator, a man of Ein Shemer. Let me tell you about my friend, Avital, Yoel says. When we were together in Suez City after Yom Kippur, the religious soldiers were given time off to prepare for Shabbat. What about the rest of us? Avital demanded, Shabbat also belongs to me! So the commander gave everyone time off.

Avital and Yoel embrace.

Life in Israel has turned me into a centrist. The political and cultural center is the ground that can hold our tensions and contradictions. Jewish and democratic. Security and morality. Eastern and Western. Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli. Secular state and Holy Land.

The Ingathering of the Exiles has brought together Jews with opposing ideas of a state. Each ideological camp embodies a part of the Jewish experience. No camp can impose its entire agenda on the nation. Israel’s well-being requires a delicate balance between competing and necessary values. When difficult decisions – over territory, over identity – need to be made, it must be done from a recognition of the Jewish legitimacy of our rivals.

January 14, 2023, Habimah Square, Tel Aviv.

Tens of thousands of protesters stand in a downpour so fierce it penetrates the dome of umbrellas. And yet no one around me moves. We are here to defend the institutions that make us a decent society.

Chazal, the ancient rabbis, taught that Jerusalem was destroyed because of sinat hinam, baseless hatred among Jews. And the antidote was unconditional unity.

But now I read the story differently. What brought down the Judean state was the corruption of its monarchy and priesthood and the recklessness of its zealots. And sometimes, in the life of a nation, unity is betrayal.

The crowd presses together. Against the rain and the wind, against the abyss that has opened within us.

October 8, 2023

In the shattering, we learn this about ourselves: We haven’t forgotten the instincts of solidarity.

How is it possible to instantly pivot from October 6 to October 8 – from the lowest point of our schism to one of the peak moments of national unity?

This is the moment of our maturation as a people. Unlike previous wars, no one inspires us, no one directs us. We mobilize ourselves.

We know the divides will return; this isn’t June 1967.

And yet here we are, still one people.