Read Online My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel by Ari Shavit - Free Book Online Page A

undertaking a daring, unprecedented social experiment, they refute any charge that they are about to seize a land that is not theirs. Yet all this idealistic socialism is just subterfuge, future critics will claim. It is the moral camouflage of an aggressive national movement whose purpose is to obscure its colonialist, expansionist nature.
    True and not true. Just before May Day 1922, a young poet living in Ein Harod translates the international socialist anthem into Hebrew. The Hebrew version gives a poignant subtext to the original words that refer to the universal working class. Now the text is not only about the world’s poor, it is also about the world’s most oppressed people. It is about the mission Ein Harod took upon itself: to destroy an old world and build another, to unload the heavy burden from a broken back. Asthere is no God, no king, and no hero, we shall break through toward the light all by ourselves. We shall win the last battle of an eternal war. Yesterday, nothing; tomorrow, everything.
    Tabenkin is the very incarnation of this Zionist-socialist symbiosis. In his mid-thirties, he is still an attractive man, with sensual lips and a high forehead. He is not a profound intellectual, but he has historical pathos and conviction. He doesn’t write much, but he speaks passionately and at great length. There is something truly Soviet about him. Had he not been Jewish he could have stood now by Lenin or Stalin in some remote kolkhoz or at a mass gathering of the Novosiberian proletariat.
    But Tabenkin is Jewish. And he believes that in the twentieth century the Jewish people are heading for disaster. Twenty years before the Holocaust he feels and breathes the Holocaust daily. That’s why he is impossible to be with and impossible to live with. He believes that in Jewish youth lies the only remedy, that only Jewish youth can save the Jewish people from the approaching catastrophe. But he knows there is no time. And he feels that all that is being done is not enough. Palestine might not be ready in time. The valley might not be ours in time. That’s why Tabenkin is so demanding. He is as cruel to himself as he is to others. He is preachy, stringent, chastising. He says over and over again that socialist Zionism must do more, much more. He preaches over and over again that every young pioneer must achieve more, much more. The avant-garde of Ein Harod must stretch itself beyond its capabilities. Ein Harod must accomplish its mission impossible. Tabenkin is not much of a theoretician. Unlike other revolutionaries, he does not have an overall, systematic ideology. But the Ein Harod rabbi has a powerful concept: activism.
    Ideologically, activism means practicing revolutionary values in everyday life. Socially, activism is wrestling with human nature and changing the unjust order of things. Politically, activism is seizing the initiative and confronting the Arabs by force. But activism has an overall meaning that is far deeper than all that. Activism is the revolt of the Jews against the passivity of their past. It is the rebellion of the Jews against their tragic fate and against acceptance of their tragic fate. It is not a specific goal or target, but momentum. Activism is the momentum of doing, of moving forward. Activism is the last attempt of the Jews toresist oblivion. Activism is the desperate rebellion of Jewish life against Jewish death.
    Like Bentwich, Tabenkin is not a gentleman whose company I would enjoy. Personally, I cannot stand Soviet-type politicians, dogmatic revolutionaries, and leaders who preach but don’t practice. Yet as I go over Tabenkin’s old photographs in the Ein Harod archives, I am far more forgiving. There is something fascinating about the man. He does not have Ben Gurion’s political genius. He does not have the intellectual depth of some other founding fathers of Zionism. He does not have the impressive work ethic and moral rectitude of his fellow rank-and-file comrades in Ein