Abraham Burg, the former president of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament), the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization called;
Government of Israel not to be considered a Jew.
In an interview with the French mediapart, Burg explained - to his interviewer, René Bachmann - why he asked not to be listed as a Jew in the Israeli Interior Ministry's registry, saying that he "no longer feels connected to the Jewish nationality with the Jewish community."
Abraham Burg - who wrote in the French version of his article "Victory over Hitler" in 2008 "I was an exemplary Israeli for a long time" - embodied in the eyes of his countrymen the legacy of the "Zionist aristocracy" that ruled the country since its inception, as he was the son of one of the founders of the National Religious Party, and was elected He has been a member of the Knesset for nearly 40 years, and was appointed three times as minister in governments from the right and the left.
Burg joined the Labor Party after his military service in the Umbrella Unit and the Study of Social Sciences at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was appointed as an advisor to Prime Minister Shimon Peres in 1985, and in 1995 he was appointed head of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization.
In a 2008 lecture, he said that the two-state settlement was about to perish, calling for one federal state for two peoples;
“Because the country cannot accommodate two independent states,” he said.
Burg returned to parliamentary politics in 1999 as speaker of the Knesset, and became interim president of the State of Israel for a few weeks in 2000, but decided to retire from political life after trying in vain to be elected Chairman of the Labor Party.
Today, despite his path as an "idealist Israeli," he is distancing himself from his Zionist heritage, which caused him severe arguments and sharp criticism by his former friends on the pretext of his "leftist extremism," as they see it.
And in his book "Victory over Hitler", which was published on the occasion of the 4 decades since the occupation of the Palestinian territories;
He disavows the Zionist identity, considering that the definition of Israel as a Jewish state implies the key to its end. In his book, Burg touched on the spread of Israeli ethnic theories, especially among the rabbis in the settlements of the occupied West Bank, indicating the Israeli society's reluctance to pay attention to the growing phenomenon "under its nose." .
"My Jewish Identity"
Burg wrote in an article in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper in 2003, "The Zionist revolution is dead," before confirming that Israel, the "Zionist ghetto," is heading towards ruin by defining itself as a Jewish state, indicating that Zionism should have been abolished after the establishment of the state of Israel, as he put it.
A few weeks ago, Burg asked the Jerusalem District Court to cancel his registration as a Jew in the Population Registry at the Ministry of the Interior, "because, he says, I no longer feel connected to the Jewish nationality," noting that the so-called "Declaration of Independence" of 1948, even though it was not a constitution Even though it is close to that in Israel, it has a very interesting balance. "
This declaration says, on the one hand, that Israel is a Jewish state and a state for the Jews, but it also says that Israel is firmly committed to practicing non-discrimination among its citizens and to guaranteeing equal social and political rights for all its residents, without distinction of sex, creed, ethnic origin, or political opinion.
Burg explained that this position is very strong, if not ideal, and therefore "people like me who do not like the current situation can tell themselves that the situation is not ideal, but we have a place to live because the founding principles of 1948 are good."
But since the adoption of the Jewish nation-state law in July 2018, everything has changed - according to Burg - because what Israel is now known for is "its monopoly over the Jews alone, without the constitutional balance of rights and freedoms; thus, according to this law, it became the status of a non-Jewish Israeli citizen." Lower, like the ones that were with the Jews in the past, which means that the situation that we abhorred is now attached to our non-Jewish citizens, "as he put it.
This legislation - as Burg says - is in fact a new definition of majority and minority relations in Israel, and it “constitutes a change in my existential definition and identity, and in such circumstances my conscience now prevents me from belonging to the Jewish nationality, and my classification as a member of that nation belongs to the gentlemen group, which is A situation I reject. I do not want to belong to a group defined by the promoters of this law. "
Who is a Jew?
When asked: Do you want to leave the Jewish people?
MP Hariri: What does it mean to be a Jew?
Is it a religion, a culture, or a civilization?
He said that what he can know is his father’s Judaism and Diaspora Judaism which is his own, “To be a Jew - for us - means belonging to a group of people historically defined by their desire to be equal but different. We were equal in our nationality, and we ask of those we live in. They maintain this right to be different, but we are equal. And I will add that when I started my political life in the eighties, I adopted two principles that I am still committed to, namely the separation of religion from the state and the end of the occupation.
Burg explained that the nation-state law denies all this, and the definition of a Jewish society disappears as it is found in the 1948 declaration, “where we want to be a majority but we deny others to being different and equal, and it is a way to redefine the Jewish community that I reject in the name of my philosophical and moral heritage, and I say to the state. Today I am not one of your new Jewish people; therefore, I ask the court to remove my name from the national register of the Jewish people. I am a historical Jew; I believe in equality, universality, humanity and the rights of minorities. "
"I told the prime minister and those who supported him, if you want the whole of Greater Israel, you cannot at the same time demand democracy, either this or that, and you must choose," Burg recalled what he wrote in 2003, and said he was close to predicting.
Unfortunately, the Israelis preferred the biblical state over democratic rights, and my prophecy is being fulfilled because Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is changing, and it is drifting towards the notorious model of illiberal democracy. "
Populist extremist law
I am fighting this development - says Burg - and "since I am neither a political activist nor an elected official, but I am a conscious citizen of the political situation, this battle for me is intellectual, philosophical, moral and personal, and what I challenge is the concept of the nation-state of the Jewish people."
He added that he is not only afraid of discrimination against the Arab community in Israel, but "directing Israel towards a constitutional basis different from what appears in the declaration, and for establishing the state on the supremacy of a group whose essence consists of elected religious officials," as he put it.
When asked what will this decision change in his daily life?
He replied that he does not change anything, “but it is about my identity. I want to live a life in which no one knows who I am. I am a Protestant Jew,” which means, “I am fully responsible for interpreting texts, obligations and commandments, and I do not need a rabbinic church institution. I belong to a different form of Judaism. My Judaism is my culture and my spirituality, and I do not want an authority that defines and imposes my identity. "
Burg explained to his interlocutor that the passage of the State Judaism Law in the Knesset is a symbolic political step taken by the most religious, conservative and nationalist elements of the Israeli population, and it is evidence of the fragility and lack of self-confidence of defenders of this new identity.
Burg stressed that this law is a right-wing, extremist and populist text, and that it is part of a battle between liberal Israel and conservative Israel, as he put it.
Similar positions
Burg's position recalls the positions of a number of intellectuals, academics and activists who recently left Israel and decided to immigrate from it to choose a life of exile, after they were subjected to harassment and silence, and they had no choice but to leave and forever.
In a previous report published by the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz", writer Shani Littmann spoke with some of these immigrant intellectuals, some of whom founded political movements or headed left-wing organizations and human rights associations, before some of them were forced to leave their academic jobs due to political beliefs and activities, after they felt that they could no longer Express their views in Israel without fear, and they no longer have a place within Israeli society.