Let's try to remember why we came here in the first place
Photo: Reuters
Israelis must let go of self-flagellation
Op-ed: If those who write about how expensive it is here and why we shouldn't continue living here would get their nose out of Facebook, they would realize things are not so bad here.
Just before we start the annual self-battering festival about where the state is deteriorating to, how expensive it is here and why we shouldn't continue living here, I would like to suggest, just for a moment, that we try to remember why we came here in the first place.
It's true that a home was not as expensive as it is today and everyone had access to Tnuva's products – but no one felt weird housing three children in one room, or felt the need for five different types of yogurt. Yet that generation was happier, because it didn't live only for the sake of living.
When Rivka, my great grandmother, decided to leave America in the 1920s with her two small children and join the collective agricultural labor settlements in the Land of Israel, she didn't feel like a martyr – and she wasn't one either. She was looking for a life with a meaning, she was looking for a place which practices the concept of mutual responsibility on a daily basis instead of just writing about it in the newspaper, she was looking for a place with people who wake up every morning and think about how to make society better – and she found it in the northern moshav of Nahalal.
Emigration Debate
Naor Krekoano
Op-ed: If you're not rich, a criminal or have strong connections, you have no chance of succeeding here.
They are so busy trying to renounce their Judaism, that those in favor of emigrating from Israel are committing the most ancient Jewish sin: Self-flagellation. It's so easy to come down hard on ourselves, to say that we are a worthless nation, a nationalistic and corrupt nation. I have nothing against self-criticism. In fact, I even think it's necessary – but it's a privilege reserved only for people who actually engage in social improvement.
The state is not becoming more radical. On the contrary, every day I see a huge community of young people, who are choosing not to renounce this archaic concept called ideology, moving mountains in this country.
It's true that values don't make the cost of living easier, and a life with a meaning doesn't really help reduce the price of parmesan cheese. I do see that our generation – the Millenials, the one everyone says is emigrating from Israel – is the generation which has been settling in the Negev and the Galilee in the past decade, the generation which is slowly restoring Jerusalem's status as an enlightened city, the generation which insists on working in the public service for a low salary because it has had enough of dull government workers and wants to make an impact.
Despite everything people say about us, we are also a patient generation. We understand the rules of demography and understand that it will be difficult and it will take a long time to change the culture of despair which has burnt our parents' generation for 20 years.
If those who write about what a screwed up place Israel is would get their nose out of Facebook for a second, they would realize that there Israel contains a bit more than a partition plan of "haredim, nationalists and hipsters."
I'm not saying we're all like that. There are quite a few post-Zionists around me. To tell you the truth, it would do no harm if they left the country and went to beat Germany a little.
But if we try to remove the spotlight from them and turn it, if only for a second, on the beautiful and huge part of our generation, on today's beautiful swamp dryers with their dreadlocks, and let go of this self-flagellation for a minute, I think we'll realize things are not so bad here. And also that there is still a lot of work to be done here which requires a lot of workers.
Elisheva Mazya is the CEO of the New Spirit movement in Jerusalem.
