All the signs show that with terrifying speed, we are nearing the point of no return. Some are counting down to the transition from a young, warmly embraced country to a leper state, while others see the transition from a civilized Western democracy to a theocratic-totalitarian, hollow democracy.
Some are eulogizing the end of Zionism, which has lost its status as the legitimate national movement of the Jewish people in the eyes of the nations, and in the eyes of some of the citizens of the Jewish state.
But for the deep structure of this roller-coaster, we must go back 250 years in time. Israel is saying goodbye to the revolution of the Haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment movement, which changed the face of Judaism and was a precondition for all the diplomatic and cultural creativity that gave birth to the Zionist movement.
The Jewish enlightenment movement was started by Moses Mendelssohn toward the end of the 18th century under the influence of the European enlightenment movement. Mendelssohn was religious, but the enlightenment movement he founded opened up Judaism to world culture.
First it released the Hebrew language from its monopoly on the holy scriptures, and broke the path for nonreligious literature and secular journalism. In the metaphors of the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, it opened up the Jewish cultural horizon, expanded it and created a new model of Jew: the enlightened Jew.
These enlightened Jews – maskilim – left the yeshivas and religious study halls, equipped with deep knowledge of Jewish sources, and fervently, hungrily completed their education with new and exciting approaches of give and take with world culture. The Haskalah movement enabled Jews to place themselves at the heart of European creation: science, medicine, art and philosophy.
Along with the fulfillment of the Zionist idea, these good tidings came to the Land of Israel too, to the schools and universities, to the new Hebrew works, to the legal system and governmental values.
Micha Josef Berdiczewski, a journalist who wrote in Yiddish, German and the Hebrew that was only then beginning to be resurrected.Credit: Wikimedia Commons
The ethos of the enlightenment underwent changes and faced obstacles, but it remained the foundation. This was also the fortune of those enlightened Jews who continued to observe the commandments, from Gershom Scholem and Shmuel Yosef Agnon through Yeshayahu Leibowitz.
This was the secret of its strength: You don't abandon what already exists, the ancient language, Bible and connection to thousands of years of Jewish works; you integrate them with world culture, adopt it, create within it and enrich it.
There was evidence of this from the field: an advanced education system registering achievements by international standards; rich, translated Jewish Hebrew literature and art, and internationally acclaimed Jewish scientists.
From the beginning, the Jewish enlightenment in Israel had enemies. The Haredim were always there, they would not let the abomination of core secular studies into the yeshivas, but neither did they interfere. Some of the public and politicians saw Western democracy and its values as a failure, even a disaster, but they did not have spokesmen and had no driving force.
Jewish ultra-Orthodox men dressed in costumes celebrate the Jewish festival of Purim in Bnei Brak, Israel, on March 24, 2024.Credit: Oded Balilty/AP
The past decade has been one of accelerated abandonment of the Haskalah, the ethos of the enlightenment, the achievements of the enlightenment. Regrettably, it has happened at the same time as terrifying processes are occurring in the Western world, of separation from the enlightenment, which is the mother of the Jewish enlightenment movement.
But for us, this is abandonment on steroids, one brick falling after another. The overthrowing of the Israeli legal system is shattering the independent power of the legal system, without which democracy will be heading down a slippery slope. The democratic ethos that limits and reins in the government's power has shattered on the worship of a modern king fed by a cult of personality.
The war has only intensified these processes that had deepened even before it, of racism, hatred of the other and isolationism. The free press, the living soul of modern democracy, is under threat.
The Haredim are continuing on their own path, but their numbers are growing and they are turning into a critical mass that threatens the very nature of the country.
The results follow accordingly: Study of the humanities is emptying out, student achievement is deteriorating, popular culture is becoming bestialized, and the enlightened forces are being pushed to the back, on the defensive, and many of them are leaving the country.
The Haskalah ethos is being replaced by a military ethos. The army is a necessity, but the military ethos as the leading and sole ethos is not. It covers up the fading away of any other ethos.
What remains is the country of Likud Knesset members Shlomo Karhi and Tally Gotliv: screeching, boorish, arrogant and galloping toward its ruin under the auspices of a king haunted by demons.