Is This the Real Life? Is This Just Fantasy?

For the majority of Jewish history, it was relatively uncomplicated to live life as a Jew with what we now might call Zionist inclinations. From roughly 135 CE to 1948, when the Bar Kochba Revolt was put down and when the Modern State of Israel was founded, respectively, Zionism was essentially an ideal—a dream—not a reality.

In a whole host of ways, it was probably easier to support the dream of Zionism than the reality. While Joseph may have been thrown into a pit for his visions (with his brothers famously quipping about him, “here comes the dreamer!”), dreams most of the time provide us safe respite. When we dream of ideals, as our ancestors living between 70 CE and 1948 did of a Jewish state, we needn’t (and they didn’t) worry about thorny realities—polling places, taxes, legal systems, the proper use of military force, and more. Instead, in dreams we may focus on grander things—in the case of Zionism, renewed Jewish autonomy, the beautiful shores of the Mediterranean, the Temple Mount and kotel, and maybe, too, the ingathering of Jews from all around the world to their ancestral homeland.

Alas, we no longer live in the dream; we face reality. To say that Israel has had a tumultuous history during its short existence would be an understatement. Israel was born in war, and violence has plagued it consistently during its coming of age. It has had to navigate the precarious political and ethical thickets of determining how best to protect itself, against very real threats, without dehumanizing its neighbors. Likewise, it continues to struggle in striking an appropriate balance amongst being a homeland for the world’s Jews, welcoming all Jews from secular to Ultra-Orthodox, and protecting the rights of its own religious minorities, Muslim, Christian, Druze, and more.

For all Israel’s faults, we can thank God that Israel follows the norms of our Jewish history (in the vein set by the early Rabbis) in being a democracy. Israel’s democratic process may compound its tumult, but it helps to ensure that its government is responsive to the needs of its people and is held accountable for its excesses. For the intersection of a Zionist ideal and the realities of the Israeli day-to-day, the country’s democratic process is where the rubber hits the road.

It isn’t always pretty. Last month, we witnessed Israel’s second general election in five months. There are many who are overjoyed with last month’s results; plenty, too, had certainly hoped for something different. But this may be an opportunity for productive transitions in Israel’s Democracy. Of course, the fragile balance that will be necessary for Israel’s new governmental coalition to succeed—even if that merely means survival—will likely make this new equilibrium operate in a wait-and-see mode for some time to come. Nevertheless, we may be looking at the beginning of a new Israeli political era.

Perhaps what matters most is that the Israeli people have spoken. Our Israeli brethren (and sistren) are operating in a real world, not one in the realm of ideals. The real/ideal bifurcation may help to explain a similar divergence reflected in the composition of new Knesset’s 120 seats: the center-left scraped out a tiny plurality with 56 seats, the right wing (Netanyahu’s traditional camp) came out with 55, and Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu—which defies easy left/right description in Israeli politics—took the remaining nine seats. A relatively even split, reminiscent of Zionism’s age-old conundrum: how to balance what we wish we had for with what we do have. Again in Israel, it seems, we have a precarious balance. We may wish for something a bit more decisive; but, alas, as they would say in Israel, eleh ha’chayim, “that’s life”—or, differently, that’s just the way it is!