256
PARTISAN REVIEW
million
yordim
(Israelis who have left their country) who speak Hebrew. So
Hebrew to some extent has filled that vacuum left by Yiddish (and by
Ladino for the Sephardic Jews) though it is hardly the main language of the
Jewish Diaspora, which today is indisputably English. This is one of the
facets in the growing separation of Israel and the diaspora. Thus we arrive
at the paradox that Jews have never had it so good and yet never have things
seemed so precarious in terms of their long-term prospects for maintain–
ing historic continuity and their cultural distinctiveness as a people.
This brings me to the last point I wish to make, concerning the Jewish
State and its role in this story. Clearly, Israel is the single most important
difference between 1900 and 2000. To that extent Herzl's prophetic vision
has been vindicated, even though it was very much a minori ty view at the
time. Israel today is more or less a part of the modern Western world in
terms of
per capita
income, developed technology, cultural and scientific
achievements, its literacy rate, health standards, and many other indicators.
It would, of course, be simplistic to describe it purely as a western society.
It might be more accurately characterised as a Mediterranean society with
a Western face, Eastern European institutions, and an increasingly Middle
Eastern population, both Jewish and Arab. More than half of Israel's Jewish
population are Sephardim-mainly from North Africa and the Levant.
Sephardic Jewry, which seemed to be a negligable factor in Jewish his–
tory at the begimling of this century, in terms of numbers, geographic
location, economic and political weight through Israel has largely come to
playa significant part in the fate and destiny of Jewish people once more.
In France too, the Sephardim have displayed a remarkable vitality and abil–
ity to take advantage of the educational opportunities available in an open
society. Their voice is also heard politically, which was rarely the case a
century ago. This reflects one of the greatest changes in the Jewish world
during the past hundred years. Experience has vindicated one of Herzl's
core ideas, that without a political center the Jewish people will face cat–
astrophe. According to Zionism, the great weakness of the diaspora was
that, as a dispersed people without any political organization, Jews would
be powerless in the face of a threat to their existence. Israel certainly rep–
resents the most centripetal force in a very centrifugal Jewish Diaspora
around the world today. Perhaps the Jewish State is no longer the unifying
force that it once was for the diaspora. Its policies are not uncontroversial
in the eyes of many Jews, although Israel has probably been and still
remains the single most important common cause for Jews around the
world. Israel has some obvious advantages. It does not suffer from the core
problems of the Jewish Diaspora-namely cultural assimilation, disaffilia–
tion, a low birth-rate, and intermarriage on a massive scale, nor is it
dependent on the whims of the non-Jewish majority. It is clearly and
unmistakably a Jewish nation; its ethno-religious identity is not in danger,
