Constitutional musings: on the state of Arabic

.: February 15, 2008

In this article, Aryeh Tepper argues that the State of Israel should grant constitutional status to the Arabic language because of its significance for Jewish identity. While Zionsim has been a political success - the Jewish people have re-established a state in their ancestral homeland - to the degree that it has assigned to the Jewish people a Western identity, as opposed to a universal, multi-lingual identity, it has been a cultural failure. In this context, granting official, constitutional status to Arabic would constitute one small step in returning the Jewish people to itself.

Israel will turn 60 in May, and together with England and New Zealand it remains one of only three liberal democracies without a constitution. However if the Chairman of the Knesset’s "Constitution, Law and Justice Committee" (CLJC) Prof. Menahem Ben-Sasson has his way, Israel will have a constitution before its sixtieth birthday.

A very short history of Israel’s constitutional process would begin in 2003, when the previous Chairman of the Knesset’s "Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee" MK Michael Eitan announced his intention to prepare a complete constitution for Israel, in line with the task assigned by the Knesset in 1950. Ben-Sasson replaced Eitan as Chairman of the CLJC after the last elections, but he signed on to Eitan’s project, and the leaders of the three major parties, Labor, Likud, and Kadima, have all announced their support for the idea.

There are two major drafts of a constitution for Israel presently on the table. The first was proposed in 2005 by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) under the leadership of retired Supreme Court Judge Meir Shamgar, and the second was crafted in response in 2006 by The Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS) under the direction of Hebrew University Professor of Political Science Avraham Diskin. The competing proposals are, in a sense, another battle in Israel’s culture wars, because each proposal offers an unequivocal answer to the question of whether the state of Israel should be a multi-cultural state of all her citizens, or a nation-state that, while respecting the rights of her minorities, advances the interests of the Jewish people.

According to the Israeli Democracy Institute’s proposal, “The State will guarantee the preservation and development of historic and cultural heritage of the country and its inhabitants.” (Principle 12). Lest one miss the import of this promise, the IDI adds the following explanation, “This directive expresses the importance of the historic and cultural heritage of the country’s inhabitants as well as the long history of different cultures that belong to this geographic region.” (p. 152; my emphasis) By assuming responsibility for the heritage of the country’s inhabitants and emphasizing the historically multi-cultural context, the Israel Democracy Institute’s proposal would minimize the connection to Diaspora Jewry, and instead create a state that inclusively cares for the heritage of both Jews and Arabs. “This heritage includes… languages,” continues the explanation, and it is thus not surprising to find that while the IDI asserts that Hebrew is the language of the state, Arabic is also accorded official recognition (Principle 5).

The IDI’s vision departs from the traditional Zionist understanding of the mission of the State of Israel, and the draft version Institute for Zionist Strategies responds accordingly, “The State shall act to preserve and to further the cultural and historical heritage of the Jewish people.” (Principle 29; my emphasis) Lest one miss the import of this promise, the IZS version also reads, “Hebrew is the official language of the State.” (Principle 22) Arabic is silently dropped.

The positions outlined by the IDI and the IZS are clear and consistent. The IDI’s ‘Post-Zionist’ proposal would fashion a multi-cultural society that cares for the heritage of both the native Jewish and Arab communities, and as such guarantees the official status of both Hebrew and Arabic. The IZS’s ‘Neo-Zionist’ proposal would reinforce a nation-state that promotes the culture of the Jewish people, and accordingly only recognizes the official status of Hebrew.

Now, one might think that debating the question of language would naturally lead to a deeper discussion of identity, but the present debate doesn’t rise much above the level of politics and as such, according to my understanding, it fails to get to the heart of the matter. A more thorough discussion obligates us to begin with the political level, but to ascend to historical, social, and cultural questions, and to even touch theological issues, a movement of thought along the lines of Jacob’s ladder ─ rooted in the earth but with its head in the heavens. In the following short discussion, I will try to delineate a thought process that points to the essential questions.

My basic claim is that on a profoundly Jewish level, both of the positions are problematic. In contrast to the IDI, which would recognize Arabic because of a commitment to multiculturalism, and the IZS, which would deny official recognition to Arabic, there is another view: Arabic should be recognized as an official language of Israel because of the role that it plays in Jewish identity and heritage.

There are historical, social, and cultural reasons why, in an ideal situation, officially recognizing Arabic would be a Jewish concern. First the historical perspective: Jews lived and created in an Arabic milieu for approximately 1,200 years, and were in many ways culturally Arab. Masterpieces of the Jewish tradition — Se’adia Gaon’s Book of Beliefs and Opinions, Yehuda ha’Levi’s Kuzari, Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed — were all written in Arabic. And the names carried by Jews attest to their deep identification with the surrounding culture: Ibn Pakuda, Ibn Ezra, Ibn Da’ud, etc.

With the establishment of the State of Israel, however, Arabic was soon transformed into something foreign and inferior — taboo — in the eyes of mainstream Israeli society. For instance, the leader of the Revisionists, Vladmir Jabotinsky, expressed a fairly representative a ’liberal’ view with the following nonsense, "We Jews have nothing in common with what’s called ’the East,’ thank God. To the degree that our uneducated masses possess ancient traditions and customs that remind one of ’the East,’ they need to be weaned from them … We are going to the land of Israel… as Nordau said, ’to extend the border of Europe to the Tigris.’ In other words, we are going in order to fundamentally cleanse the land of Israel, as far as the present and future of Judaism is concerned, of every trace of the ’Eastern soul.’" In time, the Arab-Israeli conflict only deepened the crusading fervor with which many Zionists set about establishing a Western colony in the heart of the Middle East.

From a social perspective, there is a close connection between this transformation and the social status of Israeli Jews from Arab lands, who are considered to be the carriers of an inferior culture. Of course, only momentary reflection is necessary for realizing that Western culture possesses many ills while Arab culture possesses many virtues. Nonetheless, Jews from Arab lands must adapt to Western norms if they wish to be considered respectable, and two generations of Israelis have already been raised to reject, in effect, a part of themselves. In order to demonstrate this point, consider the following: while it is normal to call the ‘Ashkenazim’ European Jews, it is unacceptable to call the ‘Sephardim’ Arab Jews. But what’s the difference? Apparently two world wars and one Holocaust haven’t sufficed to emancipate certain Jews from their inner servitude to the West.

From a cultural perspective, the Zionist aspiration to transform the people of Israel into a Western nation has deeply distorted Jewish identity. The people of Israel, historically and empirically, are not part of the West. Or rather, the West is part of Israel, just as the East is part of Israel, for Jews are both Western and Eastern, in the same way that the Jewish tradition has absorbed the best of the East and the West. In fact, from a certain perspective the history of Israel in exile is universal Jewish history ―Israel’s contact with and absorption from other cultures.

At this point, one might object that according to the logic of my argument, Yiddish should also be accorded the status of an official language. After all, hasn’t the marginalization of Eastern-European Jewish identity and language mirrored the Arab Jewish experience? Moreover, why stop there? Perhaps all the languages that have come to Israel with the Jews ─ Russian, Amharic, Ladino, French, etc. ─ should light a torch on Independence Day and proclaim (in their native tongue) "To the glory of the State of Israel!" My response to this objection is: yes, exactly. Jewish identity is ideally a universal, multi-lingual identity. While we will continue to speak Hebrew, it would be good were it also written in the book of Laws that the state of Israel has 70 sub-languages; thus the children of Israel will learn how, at least in the spiritual realm, the entire world became the land of Israel. In the symbolic language of the Jewish tradition, 70 souls descended into Egypt, parallel to the 70 nations who constitute the world, parallel to the 70 languages into which Moshe Rabbeinu translated the Torah before our entry into the land. (Devarim 1, 5; Rashi) This nation, when it realizes itself, embraces entire worlds.

If, in addition, we are asked to return to earth, to what’s actually happening in ’the field,’ from a political perspective there is also a clear Jewish interest to advance the status of Arabic in Israel. The reason is two-fold: in the short term, readiness to see Arabic language and culture as part of our identity will enable us to better recognize threats that emerge from our immediate environment, while in the long term we will be able to feel at home not only in the land of Israel, but also in a region that, it is reasonable to assume, will remain largely Arab for quite a while.

Many proponents of a constitution for Israel claim that the constitutional process offers a rare opportunity for engaging in civic education. That claim should be embraced. And if the educational process leads one to radically question the cultural dimension of Zionism, perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising: while the state of Israel will soon turn 60 years old, the people of Israel is much older than 60, and it is a question if this ancient and well-traveled people can be defined or confined within the modern or post-modern boundaries of nationalism, the nation-state, or a multi-cultural liberal democracy.

The IDS’s draft constitution would transform Israel into a multi-cultural society and to a large extent without a national identity, and as such grant the Arabic language official recognition. Its reasons are pragmatic, and from a Jewish perspective it would still relate to Arabic as something exclusively ‘other’. The IZS would reinforce the Jewish character of Israel, but at the price of imagining Jewish nationhood to be similar to the nationhood of peoples the world over, limited by a particular land, language, and history. In other words, the IZS proposal offers a shallow vision of Jewish identity. Ideally, there is a third way: it is possible to fiercely criticize Zionism from a cultural perspective, while identifying with the political objective, namely, establishing Jewish sovereignty. And while the State of Israel in the land of Israel is the home of the Jewish people, the Jewish people are unique, not part of the East or West, but encompassing both. Under present conditions, granting Arabic recognition would constitute one small step in returning the nation to itself.

For all of these reasons — historical, social, and cultural — it should be a Jewish concern to promote the status of Arabic in Israel. There is, of course, little chance that this will actually happen. But a true idea is not only judged by its practicality; it also provides a standard in light of which the present can be viewed. If the present is demonstrated to be excessively narrow, a truth offers the promise of spiritual emancipation and what the chassidic masters called mochin de’gadlut, an expanded consciousness.

In this context it is interesting revisit R’ Morderchai Yosef’s interpretation to Psalms147, "The Lord is the builder of Jerusalem, He gathers in Israel’s exiles." Writes R’ Mordechai Yosef, "Jerusalem is built mainly during the time of the exile, when the Lord dispersed Israel among the nations in order to receive the good from them… so it turns out that the building is during the time of the dispersion." According to this interpretation, during the exile Israel amassed those powers that would serve it as creative power when the time came to return to the land of Israel. As we approach Israel’s 60th birthday, it remains to us to gather in the dispersed ─ the creative potential ─ of Israel, and to transform them into the foundations stones of our old-new national home.

Aryeh TEPPER © Makor Rishon (Israel)