THE HOLOCAUST IS OVER WE MUST RISE FROM ITS ASHES

admissible. I am sorry, but this does not define my identity and my Judaism. Amultifaceted culture cannot be squeezed and defined by orthodoxy only. For me, theonly valid test is if someone identifies with the human and universal aspects of theTorah and the dreams of our prophets, someone who identifies with the achievementsof past Jewish civilizations, and someone who identifies with contemporary Jewishculture.The strict man-made rules, which my friends, the majority of Israelis, and I do noteven think of observing, should not be the standards imposed selectively on ournewly converted only. Only the fundamental position of the mother of all the Jewishconverts, and the ultimate mother of the Jewish Kingdom, namely Ruth the Moabite,is the position to which we should return. The Bible story tells us of Naomi, a widowfrom Bethlehem, who returns from the field of Moab with her young daughter-in-law,also a widow. The two of them were poor and bereaved, returning empty-handedfrom exile. The young Ruth promised the old Naomi thus: “Where ever you go I shallgo and where ever you lodge I shall lodge, as your people is my people and yourGod my God.” 4 Ruth first expressed her identification with Naomi, then with herbelonging to the collective, and only then with the spirit and with God.With us, the order is reversed. God’s rabbis received from the heads ofgovernment in the early state a monopoly over civilian identity, and all they demand isexternal superficiality. They demand submission before a blurry God, hidden andsevere, without really building the internal structure, the solidarity of those joining theIsraeli collective. I say solidarity first, and all the rest, if at all, later. This line is not myown; it is written in our Talmud. “A proselyte who comes to convert at this timeshould be asked: What did you see that you came to convert? Know you not thatIsrael at these times is pained, pushed, downtrodden and maddened? And they aretormented? If he says, I know and I do not mind, he is received at once.” 5 For me, aconvert to my people is someone who came to share my destiny, or someone who ispartner to my human and cultural values, whatever are his origins.Once the Israeli identity debate opens and we are able to base Israeli identity onfoundations of self-confidence, openness, and acceptance, we can also discuss thedeletion from our legislation of the term “crimes against the Jewish people.” If theJewish people and the Israeli state are not an integral part of humanity, but are anindependent, separate entity that does not belong to history, then such a law is