Says time has come for Israel to imagine a role in the Jewish state for non-Jews as well.
By MATTHEW WAGNEReisen 224.88(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
Zionism needs to do more to integrate Israeli Arabs in the Jewish state, Arnold Eisen, the chancellor of The Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan, has told The Jerusalem Post.
"The time has come for Israel to imagine a role in the Jewish state not only for Jews, but for non-Jews as well," Eisen said in a telephone interview from New York.
"I want a Zionism that does not depend on negation of the Diaspora, that is not messianic, that imagines a place for non-Jews in the Jewish state.
"Zionist theoreticians spoke mainly about Jews and I think that it is time to go beyond that in the name of a Jewish state, and create a role for minorities in the Jewish state," he said.
Eisen spoke a day after the JTS, the flagship educational institutional organization of the Conservative Movement, hosted a conference titled, "Why Israeli Arab issues are so important to Israel's future as a Jewish state."
The conference was a celebration of the decision by the Gilboa Regional Council in the North to award the the Gilboa Award for Tolerance and Co-Existence to the Inter-Agency Task Force, composed of 80 Diaspora organizations, including the JTS.
The task force's goal, through funding and education, is to secure social and political equality for Arab Israelis.
Eisen said that he and other Jewish leaders in America were concerned about the growing radicalization of Israeli Arabs, especially since the riots of October 2000 in the Galilee.
"You have to start with realities," he said. "The more that Israeli Arabs see opportunities and see themselves integrated - not assimilated, not disappearing - in the workplace, in housing, in education, in services, the more they will be able to imagine a Jewish state that is more than just a Nakba for them.
"After all, the vast majority of Arab Israelis living in the Triangle prefer living as a minority in a Jewish state to making up a majority in a Palestinian state. Also, many speak very good Hebrew, and they don't learn the language purely out of economic motives so they can get a job. I think there is a real affection for the language. We should build on that as a vehicle for cooperation and a feeling of belonging to the State of Israel."
The Nakba, or disaster, is the Palestinians' term for the creation of the State of Israel.
Eisen said striving to attain equality for Israeli Arabs was not just important for political reasons, it was part of the Jewish tradition of respecting the stranger and remembering that Jews throughout the ages were strangers in foreign lands.
"My intention is not to preach to Israelis," he said. "We would just like to help our Israeli brothers get out of the morass."
Eisen said Jews in the Diaspora were able to view the relations in Israel between Jews and Arabs in a more objective way.
"I remember in the early days of the conflict [the second intifada] my cousin in Afula had her car stoned on her way to work. And I was living in Palo Alto [in California] and no one was stoning my car. I was in a better position to imagine a scenario where Arabs and Jews can live peacefully together."
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