Let me begin with a few things that seem to me to be self-evident. I shall have to reformulate some accepted phrases about identity and identification, because there has been a massive upheaval recently, an erosion of words and their meanings: ‘Jewishness’, ‘Zionism’, ‘homeland’, ‘national right’, ‘peace’ – these words are being dragged into new spaces, and laden with interpretations that we could not have imagined previously. And anyone who stands up and speaks out these days risks being stoned in the marketplace and suspected of Jewish self-hate or betraying the nation or desecrating the memory of the fallen, whose very rest is being disturbed so that they may be used as ammunition in our domestic quarrels.

To be a Jew

I am a Jew and a Zionist. In saying this, I am not basing myself on religion. I have never learned to resort to verbal compromises like ‘the spirit of our Jewish past’ or ‘the values of Jewish tradition’, because values and tradition alike derive directly from religious tenets in which I cannot believe. It is impossible to sever Jewish values and Jewish tradition from their source, which is revelation, faith and commandments. Consequently nouns like ‘mission’, ‘destiny’ and ‘election’, when used with the adjective ‘Jewish’, only cause me embarrassment or worse.

A Jew, in my vocabulary, is someone who regards himself as a Jew, or someone who is forced to be a Jew. A Jew is someone who acknowledges his Jewishness. If he acknowledges it publicly, he is a Jew by choice. If he acknowledges it only to his inner self, he is a Jew by the force of his destiny.