Wednesday, April 24, 2019
The IDF wished its Christian, Druze, and Jewish soldiers a happy holiday this week. Which is fine. Israel is, after all, a democracy, and we have soldiers of various religions serving side by side. But I did wonder why the graphic showing the Jewish symbol associated with Passover, a matzoh, was situated at the lowest point of the three symbols depicted. After all, the IDF is an army that represents the Jewish State.
Why is the matzoh situated at the lowest point of the graphic? Misplaced humility.— (((Varda Epstein))) (@epavard) April 22, 2019
I’m sure no harm was meant.
Quite the opposite. That holiday greeting was an exercise in democracy, showing
Israel’s tolerance for people of different faiths. The point of juxtaposing the
symbols in that manner was perhaps to show that Israel is humble—that we don’t
need to see Judaism as superior to other religions. Only different.
Whether or not we agree with
this idea, it is important for Jews to remember and absorb the lessons of Jewish
history. In Ottoman times, it was prohibited
for Jews to build homes higher than those of Muslims. Four important Jerusalem Old
City synagogues, in fact, were built
below street level as a result of this prohibition. Officials had to be bribed before the
Hurva synagogue could be renovated during the early 1700s, because it was to be
built higher than before.
The issue of height was not
exclusive to the Turks, to buildings, or even to Jews. It was the practice wherever
there was Islamic rule that those who were not Muslim be subject to
humiliation. Often, humiliation was expressed through lowering the height of
Infidels as compared to Muslims. This meant that, for instance, Jews and
Christians could not ride horses.
It was regarded as a grave offense for a dhimmi to ride upon a noble animal, such as a camel or a horse. . .
In 1697, a Frenchman visiting Cairo noticed that Christians could ride only
donkeys and had to dismount when passing distinguished Muslims, “for a
Christian must only appear before a Muslim in a humiliating position.” Till the
beginning of the twentieth century, in Yemen and in the rural areas of Morocco,
Libya, Iraq, and Persia, a Jew had to dismount from his donkey when passing a
Muslim. An oversight authorized a Muslim to throw him to the ground. A
Spaniard, Domingo Badia y Leblich, who traveled in North Africa and the Orient
between 1803 and 1807, and who wrote under the name of Ali Bey, related that no
Jew or Christian in Damascus was even allowed to ride a mule inside the town. In
Yemen, the prohibition on riding horses remained in force till 1948, as well as
a rule obliging the Jewish dhimmis to
ride donkeys sidesaddle. (Bat Ye’or. The
Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam: From Jihad to Dhimmitude, Farleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1996)
The lowering of the Infidel in
Muslim lands was a pervasive practice enshrined by law. Humiliation, as a
precept, was extended to walking as well as to speech. Eyes had to be lowered,
doorways, too.
In some legal opinions (fatwas), jurists required dhimmis to walk with lowered eyes when
passing to the left—the impure side—of Muslims, who were encouraged to push
them aside. In the presence of a Muslim, the dhimmi had to remain standing in a humble and respectful attitude,
only speaking in a low voice when given permission. Jews and Christians were
humiliated and maltreated in the streets of Jerusalem, Hebron, Tiberias, and
Safed till the middle of the nineteenth century. Travelers to the Maghreb and
Yemen mention similar customs even later; in the early twentieth century Nahum
Slousch observed at Bu Zein, in the Jabal Gharian (Libya), that it was
customary for Arab children to throw stones at Jewish passersby.
In Persia and Yemen, at the beginning of the twentieth
century, foreigners noticed the low doors that forced the dhimmis—as an additional humiliation—either to stoop or knock their
heads when entering their own homes . . . At certain periods, the Jews of
Bukhara . . . had to crouch in their shops so that only their heads and not
their bodies were visible to their Muslim clients, a practice reminiscent of
the obligation for Jews and Christians in fourteenth-century Damascus to keep
the threshold of their shops below street level so that they would always
appear in an inferior position before a Muslim. (Bat Ye’or, Ibid.)
In the book Miriam's Song: The Story of Miriam Peretz,
Miriam Peretz tells how, as a little girl in Casablanca, she was running an
errand for her mother, and as she came up to the counter, several Muslim
children entered the store and the storekeeper waited on all of them before
her. It was just the way things were in Muslim countries, even in the mid-twentieth
century. Their money may have been as green as anyone else’s, but Jews were
always secondary to Muslims in Muslim countries. It appears it was not, in
fact, “all about the Benjamins, Baby.”
Jews and Christians had to be
lower than Muslims, both figuratively and literally. Muslims were always first,
higher, and ahead of anyone else: ahead of people with differing beliefs. And
of course, the Jews were the lowest of the low and had to walk in the gutter to
be lower than Muslims, identify themselves with different clothing, and wear
bells and/or silly hats to announce their offensive presence to Muslims.
This history of humiliation is a
part of who we Jews are today as a people. The historic practice of Muslims humiliating
Jews is, in fact, one of the reasons it is so important we have our own state:
a place where we can live life with basic human dignity, as people with the same
rights as any other people in any other place.
But in Israel, the Jewish part
is supposed to come first.
Hence, in Israel, we are not
bombarded with television specials designed for children with a Christmas
theme. Our holiday is Chanuka.
It is not that we are saying
that Christmas doesn’t exist, or that Chanuka is better. It is that Israel is
the Jewish State, where Jewish practice is primary.
Other people are welcome to live
alongside us, rather than below us in humiliating fashion, but we must insist
on the central Jewish character of the State of Israel, or we imperil what it
means to us as Jews who for so long had to live subservient to other cultures, marked
inferior due to our religious beliefs.
This being the case, where
should the IDF graphic artist have rightfully placed that matzoh symbol? On
top, showing that in the Jewish State, Judaism reigns supreme? At the same
level, implying equality? Or at bottom, because after all, humility is also a
trait of decency and tolerance.
It’s a toughie, all right. And I
don’t envy that graphic artist’s dilemma: how to depict all the symbols so no
one gets upset. As such, the artist chose to put the Jewish symbol at the
bottom, thinking: the Jew won’t mind. It isn’t the locus of the symbol that
matters, but the holiday itself.
There is no doubt the graphic
artist serving the IDF meant to show Israel as a democracy, a place where all
people have complete freedom of religion, and can live in equality and harmony.
What that holiday greeting suggested,
however, is that our stateless wanderings of the past have affected our current
collective psyche. We are used to being humbled, used to letting others go
ahead of us, used to letting others climb on top. But now that we have our own
state, things are supposed to be different.
Menachem Begin knew this, felt
it when, in 1982, he said to then Senator Joe Biden, who had threatened to cut
off U.S. aid to Israel, “I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew
with 3,700 years of civilized history. Nobody came to our aid when we were
dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were
striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for
it. We will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary,
we will die for them again, with or without your aid.”
That is the spirit that is
missing from that graphic. The spirit that rebels at the idea of being Jews
with trembling knees. But it’s better that we find out now. It’s better that we
know the nature of the work that lies ahead. That IDF holiday tweet tells us
that our IDF soldiers (including those who serve as graphic artists) need to
have a much better grounding in Jewish history. That is if they are to be the
first line of defense for the Jewish character of the Jewish people in the
Jewish State of Israel.
UPDATE: As reader Dovid Levine noted, I originally said the IDF holiday greeting mentions Jewish soldiers, last. I have updated to correct the error.
UPDATE: As reader Dovid Levine noted, I originally said the IDF holiday greeting mentions Jewish soldiers, last. I have updated to correct the error.
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