It is the affirmation of the self-governance of the Jewish people that come to live in Israel. It is a declaration that Israel is a Jewish haven and democratic, which it has realized and applies.

Many activists claim that to affirm Jewish nation AND democratic is a contradiction.

In contrast, I regard Zionism as a model. A demonstrated commitment to retain its democratic reality in spite of very grave external harassment over a very long period.

Jewish AND democratic is breathing. Inhalation/exhalation. If it were only Jewish and not also democratic then the criticism of the nature of Israel would be justified. If it were only democratic and not also Jewish, then the Jewish people that reside there would experience persecution. The continuum of the Holocaust would remain.

The Jews that populate Israel have very different experience from American liberal Jews. My parents’ family migrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century, 120 years ago. At the time, even in idyllic United States, Jews were legally persecuted. As an example, it was legal until the early 60s for employers, universities, commerce to prohibit Jews from participation.

My last name is Witty, a non-Jewish name given to my great-great-grandfather at Ellis Island when the agent couldn’t pronounce his birth name. The Wittys assimilated, not known as Jewish. In 1944, my father went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute which did have quotas on the number of Jews admitted and would have been excluded if they knew that he was Jewish. Similarly he would have been disqualified for his first job after graduation at Western Union which also had quotas on Jews employed.

Most Jews of my generation that reside in Greenfield have never experienced persecution. I didn’t. My home neighborhood in New Rochelle, New York bordering Scarsdale was an upper middle class Jewish “ghetto.” I knew only a half dozen non-Jewish friends in grammar school. Safe. Things had changed, thankfully.

We dismiss the current relevance of Jews’ American and world persecution, laugh at the
implication that it is present, or even recent.

My immediate family however includes children of Holocaust survivors that even after the war ended, experienced abuse when returning to their former homes in Hungary. Then, as they were religious, they were persecuted by the idealistic new communist regimes that demanded that all religious practice required “reeducation.” In the late 1940s, the United States had very restrictive immigration laws, that prohibited refugees from migrating here, even Holocaust survivors. Their request to migrate to the U.S. was denied. So, the only place to go was to newly founded Israel, a haven (except for the recurring wars and terror via sniper fire on refugee villages).

My son’s immediate family, by marriage, Israelis, were originally from Turkey and Iraq. The Iraqi family experienced gross persecution by former Nazi allied governments in the late 30s and early 40s, then following the formation of Israel, Jewish residents were prohibited from serving in Iraqi government, most professions, then property expropriated and forced expulsion.

For my wife’s family and for my son’s in-laws family, until the formation of Israel, things hadn’t changed.

The point is that the majority of Jewish Israelis had/have guttural experienced memories of intimately violent persecution, and require a haven. Different than liberal American Jews.

The history of persecution, the consciousness of persecution, was reinforced by the malevolent behavior of Palestinians at the time (not all), and of the Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic world. In the sense that Israeli Jews experienced continual violent persecution, they and many current Israelis experience the holocaust as the epigee of a much longer persecution, a holocaust that changes form but hasn’t and doesn’t cease.

While many of my friends have formed anti-Zionist worldviews due to the suffering of Gazans, it is sadly a politically unconscious conviction, a willing salt on wounds, made possible by our long period of liberal idealistic privilege.

So, I am a supporter of Zionism. I value the utterly unique multi-cultural reality of Israeli life, a jewel of reunification, and commitment to the AND democratic nature of Israeli life.

From strength, Israel can choose to treat its neighbors kindly and continue to affirm universal civil rights internally, which I have faith that it will.

In a year, Israel will have a new election. Its application of one person one vote with full civil rights for all parties and nationalities will be exercised. It’s a very important election there, as the parliamentary majorities are very thin.

IF Israel is harassed internationally, then Israel will think of itself as attacked from all sides and elect right-wing parties that seem to defend against that. If Israel is respected internationally, as it deserves, then Israeli voters will get to actually think and discuss what persons and parties will represent their most practical and decent aspirations.

Richard Witty lives in Greenfield.