Moses Mendelssohn and the Modern Jewish Identity: Speculations

Moses Mendelssohn bade the Jewish people of Germany come out of their Ghetto's and enter society, to seek employment in areas outside their previous realms and to gain acceptance through integration. On the whole this theory failed in Germany. Integration was slow in coming and even when it places where integration occurred it failed to provide lasting security for the Jewish community in Germany. In these respects Mendelssohn's efforts did not bear fruit but in other parts of the world it did. In the United States Jewish integration is more or less universal and jobs filled by Jewish people run the gamut from dock work to major positions in U.S. cabinets (think Kissinger, Berger, Wolfowitz). In the U.S., where Mendelssohn's desired integration is readily visible, anti-semitism and anti-israelism runs very low, primarily isolated to ignorant adolescents sporting "Free Palestine" t-shirts. In the U.S. we often identify with good work ethic, strong moral tradition and pioneer spirit of Israelis. Israelis themselves have taken Mendelssohn's idea of emerging from the ghetto and seeking employment in more " robust" professions and transformed it into a specifically Israel ideal, that of the shabra. The shabra is the ideal Israeli, clad in khaki shorts and work shirt, the shabra works with his sun-tanned hands, turning the land and using the spade and shovel to gain physical and mental power and respect. This shabra was the Israeli ideal embodied by early settlers and those having their whole lives as free Israeli residents. This idea ties in with Agricultural Zionism and holds that Jews needed to emerge from their ghettos and the dark corners of the city and gain empowerment by working with the land and becoming physically and mentally strong. The idea of the shabra-living freely as he choses and going where he choses, not confined to the ghetto-is still a pervasive on in Israeli culture, where Mendelssohn's call to leave the ghetto and seek employment outside the standard spheres still rings in ear.
Matt Godwin