Yehoshua article sparks storm

Essentially, the article's thesis is that there is something amorphous and undefined in the Jewish identity that promotes hatred and anger.

According to Yehoshua's thesis, identity is actually a fusion of religion and nationality. The gentile, Yehoshua said, uses the demonized Jew to mirror his fantasy images, his demons, and his fears.

Yehoshua said he had decided to write the article in the wake of a recent upsurge in anti-Semitism worldwide.

"For example, after al-Qaeda blew up the Twin Towers, some said the Mossad knew when it was going to happen, and it warned the Jews not to come to work that morning. All kinds of all-too-familiar statements regarding Jewish conspiracies were suddenly heard. Things that sound like 'Protocols of Elders of Zion,'" he said.

Yehoshua's response to accusations that the article blames Jews for anti-Semitism is that the "inability to look inside is a horrible thing, and I do not criticize anyone in my article, but rather check the structure of Jewish identity and try to understand what in there brings such horrible disasters and awakens such pathological interaction."

He said he has gotten the feeling that his thesis might seem as if it places criminal or moral responsibility for Jew hatred on Jews themselves.

"This is not the case," he said. "If a girl wears a miniskirt in the woods, she is entitled to do so. If someone attacks her, it is his fault. But she should know that something like this can happen. Meaning, one has to be aware of the interaction around him. There is no sin. The fault is on the attacker. But you should know the price. In case of the Jews, the price was so horrible, something should be done."

Critical responses, some support

Professor Yirmiyahu Yuval said Jews are not responsible for having an identity with amorphous characteristics.

"In order for that to happen," he said, "Jews need to make that choice, and I am not sure of that at all. Even when the Jews choose this option or the other, that doesn't mean they necessarily chose under the conditions that allow them to choose."

Shinui Party Chairman Yosef "Tommy" Lapid, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary, said the real existential hatred against Jews was directed particularly toward assimilated Jews, who were more successful than Gentiles.

"There was no double identity situation with

those Jews," Lapid said. "On the national level they felt themselves as complete Hungarians, whereas the religious aspect did not have a role."

Hebrew University Modern History Professor Robert Wistrich blessed Yehoshua for "the courage he demonstrated while jumping into quicksand, where even angels are scared to walk."

A Jew is a Jew before he is anything else

Basically, Yehoshua said that at the basis of the amorphous identity is the understanding that every Jew around the world recognizes himself as such before he attempts to assume any other identity.

For example, he mentions the affinity a Polish Jew and a Yemeni Jew share, although they cannot talk, let alone meet.

"The Gentiles feel threatened by Jews, because they have a double identity," he said. "The Gentile cannot seem to grasp and might, under some conditions, react to it with violence."

The Jew as chameleon

Another reason Yehoshua listed to base his theory of threatened Gentiles is the fact that Jews have an ever-changing, unstable, chameleon characteristic, which is difficult to accommodate.

"I describe facts," he said. "The Jew changes all the time. He can be assimilated, practically without any defined identity, and he can be an Orthodox Jew. He can be in different places and assume the identity of different nations."

He said that this "virtual ability" has sharpened Jewish spiritual talents, but also has brought on disasters.

"It is true that this virtual quality gave birth to Nobel Prizes, but I am willing to give up the Nobels to get back all the murdered children of the Holocaust," he said.

The cost

The only wrong thing with the basic amorphous identity the Jew has acquired over the years is its cost, Yehoshua said.

"I think a defined identity has more responsibility; it has limits, it is responsible for what it does. Amorphousness is a way to get away from responsibility," he said.

"Being amorphous has its advantages, but there is a price for the amorphous identity. Be amorphous, be whatever you want to be, walk around in the air, the problem is the price," he said.

Separating religion and state is the solution

"I think that constructing a Jewish code completely separated from the Israeli code is part of the solution," he said. "Look at the Italians: in the Pope's funeral we all saw how Catholic they really are. But the religion is not exclusively Italian."

He said Jews are composed of two codes - a national specific code and a specific religious code, and that these codes clash with one another.

Yehoshua supports the disengagement from Gaza, and believes that it shows Israelis favor nationalism over religion.

"I remember that my son was in Hebron after the Goldstein assassination," he said. "I was so scared I could not sleep at night. I said: who else does not sleep at night because of a 3,500- year-old grave? Is there a Jew overseas that loses sleep over a 3,500-year-old grave?"

Israel hatred goes back to '67

At first, Yehoshua said, the state of Israel was a solution to the problem of Jewish amorphousness, because it placed the Jews among other nations. However, then came what he calls: "the big setback" of the Six Day War's triumph in 1967, which brought along Palestinian territories and their residents.

Israel's clear-cut borders had faded, as the nation once again started mixing with another, he said.

"Breaking the borders took us back to the same Jewish thing that was there before; indeed, anti-Semitic statements against Israel recurred. The fact is that the disengagement now creates a positive reaction. It is important there is a border, every country has a border," he said.

'In every generation an enemy rises upon us to destroy us'

In conclusion, Yehoshua said if all Jews lived in Israel then there would be no anti-Semitism after 50 years. People would not have known the Jews at all, "just like we don't know the Tibetans," he said.

"In every generation an enemy rises upon us to destroy us," is the song Jews sing in the seder that exemplifies the idea of Jewish unity in face of anti-Semitism. For Yehoshua, this line exemplifies the only action to counter anti-Semitism Jews can take until Jewish identity is redefined.