{"id":10787,"date":"2007-05-22T21:25:00","date_gmt":"2007-05-22T21:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/production.ou.org\/life\/other\/where_are_the_flags\/"},"modified":"2015-10-26T08:31:45","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T13:31:45","slug":"where_are_the_flags","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/israel\/where_are_the_flags\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Are the Flags?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image\"<\/div>\n

For a few days, I thought that perhaps I was misremembering. But as the days after Pesach continued to flow by, it was clear. Something was different. In years past, almost as soon as Pesach was over, the country would be festooned in blue and white. Flags fluttered from the windows of cars everywhere, and hung from the porches of buildings throughout the city. It seemed you couldn’t stop at a single red light without someone trying to sell you a flag to put on your car. And almost everyone bought them.<\/p>\n

Not this year, though. Sure, there was still the occasional car with flags attached to the rear window, and in our neighborhood, a few porches sported blue and white. Right before Yom Ha’Atzmaut there were a few more. But there\u2019s no denying. Relative to what there was a few years ago, and even last year, there\u2019s almost nothing. That flags are gone.<\/p>\n

I mentioned it to Elisheva a few days after Pesach, but she said I was imagining it. \u201cThey never come so quick after Pesach. People will put them up, you\u2019ll see.\u201d But they didn\u2019t. And then, on Wednesday evening, she, Avi and I were in the car, when from the back seat, Avi piped up, \u201cHave you noticed that there are no flags this year?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cFunny,\u201d I said, looking into the rear-view mirror, watching for the inevitable adolescent smirk, assuming he\u2019d overheard our conversation, and in his imitable fashion, was poking fun at his aging father.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not funny,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m serious. Look out the window. Any previous year, all these cars would have had flags on them.\u201d And even in the evening rush hour, with Emek Refaim jammed with cars, with less than a week to go until Yom Ha-Atzma\u2019ut, there was hardly a flag to be seen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen did you start to notice it?\u201d I asked him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t know,\u201d he said. \u201cBut my friend and I were talking about it today on the way home from school.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you explain it?\u201d I asked him, wondering what these twelfth graders, many of whom will be headed to the army in just months, were saying to themselves about what\u2019s going on around here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d Avi said. \u201cWe lost the war. We\u2019re not doing anything to get Gilad Shalit back. No one ever even mentions the other two. There are charges against too many government officials. There are no flags because nobody thinks there\u2019s anything to be proud of.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was quiet in the car. I didn\u2019t want to ask him if he also thought there was nothing to be proud of. Part of me didn\u2019t want to know. Another part of me knew that he wouldn\u2019t want a lecture, so there was no point eliciting an answer that would leave me unhappy, anxious to respond. Around here, these days, a lot of questions are much better left unasked.<\/p>\n

And while I don\u2019t think that that\u2019s what he felt, I think he summed it up exactly right. That week, just days away from the first celebration of Independence Day since the war, people apparently decided not to put up flags. The city put up a few, office buildings had some (but not nearly as many as before). But private citizens? An unspoken boycott of flags, it almost seems.<\/p>\n

On some levels, of course, it\u2019s not hard to understand. The war, to put matters mildly, did not go well, and left in its wake a good deal of unfinished business that some people say we\u2019ll have to attend to this coming summer. The Gilad Shalit situation is horrific. There\u2019s no way Israel can trade the number of prisoners that they\u2019re demanding, and release the sorts of people they\u2019re asking for. And there\u2019s no way we can leave Shalit in captivity.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s true \u2026 you almost never hear the names of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. Ask anyone on the street the name of the soldier kidnapped from Gaza, and they\u2019ll tell you \u2013 \u201cGilad Shalit.\u201d But ask them the name of the two soldiers kidnapped from the northern border right before the war, and they\u2019ll look at you. And then they\u2019ll look down at the ground, as if it\u2019s embarrassing, shameful that they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Actually, it is kind of shameful. But they don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Add to all that a President accused of rape, not likely to survive much longer, but who actually pondered publicly not extending his self-initiated suspension, so that he might be able to preside at the Memorial Day and Independence Day events. (A public outcry put an end to that.) And there\u2019s the Winograd report on the war, still looming, which may or may not bring down the government. And there\u2019s a Saudi peace proposal, which may or may not be a good thing. And confusing signs from Syria, and disagreement within Israel as to whether they\u2019re bluffing, getting ready to attack this summer, or whether, perhaps, Assad may just be serious about embarking on a genuine negotiation.<\/p>\n

No one knows. And no one trusts anyone who says that they do know.<\/p>\n

Like birthdays and anniversaries, Independence Days are opportunities for introspection, for assessing whether we\u2019re the people \u2013 or the country \u2013 we want to be. This year, that\u2019s a painful process for Israelis. Had Avi asked me why I thought there are so few flags out there, I would have told him that in the last couple of years, what\u2019s happened is that the appearance of a shared worldview at the core of Israeli life has given way to an acknowledgement that there\u2019s not much we agree about anymore. Whether it\u2019s the past or the future, I\u2019d have told him, no one\u2019s very sure that they know what to believe.<\/p>\n

And, quite rightly, he\u2019d have said, \u201cHow do you know that?\u201d An answer to that question could take a long time (like a college semester), but if forced to boil it down, I\u2019d have taken out a copy of the Declaration of Independence, and showed him how so much of what was written to such acclaim only six decades ago now rings so hollow. Not that it was wrong then, or that it\u2019s wrong now. It\u2019s just that few people would say many of those things, anymore.<\/p>\n

The land of Israel was the birthplace of the Jewish people, the document begins. Great mythology, perhaps, but reality was infinitely more complex. Even the Bible\u2019s own account suggests that we were but seventy people upon leaving Canaan, more a clan than a nation. It was in Egypt that we became a People, not here. And more recent archaeological evidence, as even sophisticated high school students here know, complicates the story even more. Back then, when Ben-Gurion read the Declaration aloud to an anxiously awaiting nation, people wanted to believe, more than anything, that the past was simple, and that the future flowed naturally from it. But few realities match the neatness of mythology. We\u2019re \u201cpost\u201d one mythology, and \u201cpre\u201d something to substitute for it. Which doesn\u2019t leave you much, at least not right now.<\/p>\n

Here their spiritual, religious and national identity was formed, continues the Declaration. But again, with apologies to Gershwin, \u201cit ain\u2019t necessarily so.\u201d The document that ultimately shaped Jewish spiritual and religious identity was not the Bible, but the Babylonian Talmud. And that very name, Babylonian Talmud, makes the obvious point that it was not here that the magnum opus of rabbinic Judaism was created. In fact, one of the great characteristics of Judaism throughout the millennia has been the portability of its ability to thrive \u2013 here, or elsewhere. But the notion that Jews had thrived in Babylon, or in Europe (until the world conspired to put an end to that), or that they might come to thrive in America, didn\u2019t exactly cohere with the worldview of Ben-Gurion and his colleagues. So the Declaration (over)simplifies matters. But educated Jewish kids can\u2019t both study Talmud and read the Declaration and think that they both reflect the same reality. Life\u2019s complicated.<\/p>\n

Ben-Gurion also intimated, and maybe even believed, that despite all the divisions in Israeli society, at the end of the day, people here could come together to fashion a shared vision for the future of the State. Therefore, the Declaration refers to a Constitution to be drawn up by a Constituent Assembly not later than the first day of October 1948. Fifty-nine years later, that confidence that an Israeli Constitution could be written seems ludicrous.<\/p>\n

Israeli society is not characterized by a sense of \u201cWe the People\u201d the way that American society claimed to be in 1787. The divisions between secular and religious, hawks and doves, rich and poor, socialists and capitalists, Ashkenazim and Sephardim, Jews and Arabs are all wider and deeper than any might have expected they would become. If Israel ever does adopt a Constitution (which it may or may not), it is very unlikely \u2013 for a host of reasons, language not the only one \u2013 to begin with the words \u201cWe the People.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the past isn\u2019t as simple as we would have liked to think. Neither is the society of which we\u2019re a part. And with that naivet\u00e9 eroded, we\u2019ve also (perhaps fortunately) come to realize that these divisions can\u2019t simply be papered over. The authors of the Declaration finessed the disagreement as to whether to include God in their text by using the phrase With trust in the rock of Israel \u2013 a phrase that the religious could interpret as God, and which others could take to mean the military might of the emerging State. But it\u2019s not insignificant that the founders of the State couldn\u2019t even agree on whether to include God in the Declaration of Independence of the Jewish State \u2013 either as a theological claim, or merely as a rhetorical flourish. It should have told us something about what was yet to come.<\/p>\n

Today, we know that no clever turn of a phrase will bind us together. In the Disengagement of 2005, we destroyed each other\u2019s homes. And a year after that, in the War of 2006, we saw that many eighteen-year-olds are increasingly refusing to serve in the same army with each other.<\/p>\n

Is it any wonder that the flags did not appear?<\/p>\n

But that, it might be said, is all about the past. Perhaps the past, by definition, had to be over-simplified in a document like this. Surely, though, people can bond together behind some shared vision of the future, no?<\/p>\n

Increasingly, though, people don\u2019t even know what future to hope for. We offer peace and unity to all the neighboring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation, says the Declaration. What my kids\u2019 generation would say about that cannot be reprinted in a forum such as this. So I\u2019ll transpose into more acceptable language. \u201cWe leave Lebanon, and five months later, get the Intifada. We leave Gaza, and get Hamas and the war. Assad says he wants to negotiate, but then has a minister make clear earlier this week \u2013 either the Golan goes back by negotiation, or Syria will take it back by force. The guy tells you if you don\u2019t make peace he\u2019ll attack you to achieve peace?\u201d<\/p>\n

Talk about peace in front of my kids\u2019 friends, and they look at you as if you were dropped on your head.<\/p>\n

And inside these borders? While the Declaration calls upon the Arab inhabitants of the State of Israel to return to the way of peace \u2026 and equal citizenship, reality has been anything but that. The enormous social and economic disparity between Jew and Arab that the State has both fostered and permitted is a blemish on the democratic character of this country. But if ten years ago there was a broad consensus among Israeli Jews that the socio-economic discrimination needed to be addressed, today other sensibilities have triumphed. Many Israelis still bristle at the images of Israeli Arabs \u2013 citizens of this country \u2013 demonstrating in favor of Nasrallah even as his missiles were hailing down on the north during last summer\u2019s war. More recently, the Israeli Arab document entitled \u201cThe Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel\u201d described Israel as a colonialist venture spawned by European Zionist elites. As a means of creating social equality, it urges an end to the Jewish character of the State. Not exactly the sort of utterance that encourages social rapprochement.<\/p>\n

So, some people are now asking, is it really a good idea to end the social and economic disparity? Is it really in Israel\u2019s interest to enable them to stay? Not a pretty question, but there\u2019s no denying that you hear it being asked \u2013 and by people who would have bristled at the mere suggestion not very long ago.<\/p>\n

So, let\u2019s just say that we\u2019d been on a longer drive, and Avi had decided to ask me, \u201cGiven all that, why are there flags fluttering from both sides of our car? In fact, since I can see that you and Ema still have last year\u2019s flags lying in the very back, why\u2019d you buy two new ones this year that you didn\u2019t even need?\u201d<\/p>\n

What I\u2019d have told him is that I, too, have no idea what the future here will look like. I have some idea of what I would love to see, but what will actually be, who knows? And my read of the Jewish past is hardly dependent on the Declaration of Independence. But there\u2019s one thing about the Declaration that still rings true, and which matters more than either of those. And that \u201cone thing\u201d is what\u2019s happening to the Jewish people, here and now, in a way that it simply can\u2019t happen anywhere else.<\/p>\n

Not by accident, I imagine, did Ben-Gurion structure the Declaration so that situated between its historical mythology and utopian vision lies reference to the Jews\u2019 having returned in masses \u2026 revived their language, built cities, and [are] ever prepared to defend themselves. I could imagine Avi asking: couldn\u2019t Ben-Gurion and his co-authors have come up with something a bit less quotidian? \u201cLiberty, equality and fraternity,\u201d after all, sound infinitely more elegant.<\/p>\n

But elegance is not our aim, I\u2019d have said. Survival is. Revival is. Between history and utopia, the Declaration suggests, lies messy state-making. It\u2019s what Fackenheim called the \u201cJewish return to history.\u201d It\u2019s about a people healing, recreating itself. It\u2019s about the revival of a language that not long ago, almost no one spoke. It\u2019s about a country filled with museums, and not of an extinct culture. It\u2019s about a country teeming with bookstores overflowing with thousands of volumes produced by a population smaller than that of Los Angeles. It\u2019s about a people having power, and using that power to make agonizing decisions about impossible situations. It\u2019s about the dignity \u2013 and admittedly, the pain \u2013 that comes with the knowledge that we have to make the choice about whether and how much to trade for Shalit. It\u2019s about the real life that tragically means knowing that we have to be able to look Shalit\u2019s parents in the eye, but that we also have to make sure that the prisoners we\u2019ve incarcerated don\u2019t kill again. And that we don\u2019t encourage the kidnapping of another soldier for the next trade. It\u2019s about the knowledge that if the world can\u2019t stop Ahmadenijad, we\u2019ll have to. Because this place is that Jewish people\u2019s last chance.<\/p>\n

That, I would tell him, is why we bought new flags. The old ones were a bit tattered. This year, I wanted something new. Brighter. Sturdier.<\/p>\n

We can live with the myths breaking, and the utopian visions fading. (Would it have sounded less \u201cfatherly,\u201d I\u2019d have suggested that he read Paul Tillich\u2019s Dynamics of Faith, and a different look at what \u201cmyth\u201d means. But he\u2019s seventeen, and just loves when I give him reading assignments.) But what Jews will not survive without \u2013 here, or anywhere else \u2013 is an end to the building, to the revival of culture, to the defending of the perimeter. Because the State is not about history or utopia, but about the possibility a future in any form. Does anyone really imagine that without this State, there could be any Jewish future over which to argue?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a terrible year, no question. But what matters, Ben-Gurion would have said to us, is not where we\u2019ve been, but where we\u2019re headed, and whether, in the face of myths we\u2019ve lost and visions in which we no longer believe, we still care enough to do what it will take to give this people the last chance at a future it\u2019s likely ever to have again. It would be ironic, I think he would have said, for us to fail this test after we\u2019ve muddled through all the others.<\/p>\n

The King David Hotel is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. And in the lobby, way in the back on the left hand side as you enter, is an enormous aerial photograph of the King David, and of the YMCA across the street, taken shortly after the hotel was built. I\u2019m mesmerized by the photograph every time I see it. Because what was here? The hotel, and the YMCA. And virtually nothing else. Nothing. The city as we know it simply didn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a legitimate metaphor, I think, for life here at least. Seventy-five years ago, what was here? Not most of the universities. Or the schools. Or the cutting edge medical system. Or the industry. Or the flourishing art scene. Or the sort of religious creativity you know find all over Jerusalem. Or a population of millions of Jews. None of it.<\/p>\n

And people would dare think that there\u2019s nothing to be proud of?<\/p>\n

Of course it\u2019s been a bad year. What country doesn\u2019t have bad years? But now\u2019s not the time to drive flagless. If we\u2019re \u201cpost\u201d one myth and \u201cpre\u201d the next, it\u2019s time to start getting a generation of kids (and people who\u2019re older, too) to do exactly what Avi\u2019s decided to spend next year doing \u2013 to re-confront Jewish texts, western texts, Zionist texts and history, and to re-imagine what this place could become if we cared enough. An emaciated form of generic liberalism will not fuel this project it will kill it. It\u2019s time to start figuring out what uniquely Jewish values should permeate this place, what we could build that would justify the price that life here is likely to exact for a very long time.<\/p>\n

The flags don\u2019t matter of course, but what they represent, and what they evoke, do. Shouldn\u2019t that have been reason enough to hang a flag? Isn\u2019t that reason enough to buy two new flags?<\/p>\n

Even this year? Especially this year?<\/p>\n

\n

\u00a9 Daniel Gordis, reprinted with permission of the author. Daniel Gordis is Vice President of the Mandel Foundation – Israel, and the author, most recently, of Coming Together, Coming Apart: A Memoir of Heartbreak and Promise in Israel <\/a>(John Wiley & Sons, 2006). Visit his website at www.danielgordis.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a few days, I thought that perhaps I was misremembering. But as the days after Pesach continued to flow by, it was clear. Something was different. In years past, almost as soon as Pesach was over, the country would be festooned in blue and white. Flags fluttered from the windows of cars everywhere, and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":49635,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cloudinary_featured_overwrite":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-inspiration","category-israel"],"yoast_head":"\nWhere Are the Flags? - OU Life<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Of course it\u2019s been a bad year. What country doesn\u2019t have bad years? 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