I never had any illusions. If Israel was, as some Zionists ideologues dreamed, going to normalize Jews, to make us a nation like any other, then it would inevitably be no more than yet another body politic with its interests rather than its ideals or policies. I recall the dreams and I shared them, but not the delusions.

When I first went to study in Israel in 1956, I was shocked to discover the extent of secular, anti- religious fervor, even hatred. The new State owed more to Eastern European socialism than to Judaism. Now, I was told, one could abandon one’s religious, spiritual heritage with an easy conscience knowing one was building a modern, post-Ghetto Jewish world.

If I disconnected from secular Zionism, I never liked religious fervor when it spilled over from the personal encounter with God into the public realm. The nationalist religious fanaticism disturbed me even if it excited others. Similarly I have always mistrusted rampant ethnicity with its turbulent populism. All these were mixed into the cocktail of seething inner conflict that is Israel today regardless of any issue of the “other.” How can any State survive such divisive hatreds?

Yet for all that and despite itself Israel turned into such an amazing country. The arts, music, literature, and intellectual activity of all sorts flourished. Universities sprouted up all over the place. Idealism can still be found in as much variety and color as can the worst aspects of humanity. Yes there is bureaucracy, corruption, proteksia (friends in high places), political haggling and siphoning, but despite it all everything good flourishes too. Even religion in all its monochromes has grown exponentially. Never have there been so many yeshivot, Kollels and Institutes of Higher Learning as well as innovative alternatives. I watched the child grow into a giant. No Jewish community comes near it in creativity, scholarship and richness. The Diaspora is fertilized through its teachers and those go there to study and return, by those who emigrate for marriage or work.

Even if Israel is no Jewish State there needs to be a State for Jews. Judaism was not designed to be a religion of an exilic minority but lived as a holistic, variegated community.

I am at heart an internationalist. I hold no brief for flags, anthems and the sad trappings of nationalism. But for as long as nationalism is the flavor of the day, if Kosovars can have a State, it cannot be logical or just to deny it to Jews. Yet I recall a powerful mood in the Fifties of Buber and Scholem, desperately wanting to live in harmony and equality with Arabs wherever they were. Even today there is so much being done to try to repair, to build bridges, but it hardly gets recognition. The violence and extremes on both sides commands attention.

I recall the initial aftermath in 1967 was so euphoric not because we had survived the threat of obliteration, but precisely because we thought now at last there would be peace and Palestinians would have their own state. I recall the pain of rejection after Khartoum and then the reaction, settlements and aggressive occupation. I have always sided with those who have cried for the lost soul of an occupational culture. I knew it could never be good but I wondered how else one could protect oneself from those who wished to destroy and refused to talk. War is awful. Action provokes reaction. It’s like two ill matched fighters slugging away until one drops exhausted. Then one gets a second wind and off they go again.

For thousands of years we have always been accused of taking someone else’s land, making the wrong alliances, the wrong decisions, betraying our principles and our God. Yet somehow we have survived. A country so divided against itself, so corrupt, so blind, subject to so much hatred and yet so vibrant creative and alive. If that’s not a miracle I don’t know what is. I am optimistic where logic tells me otherwise. Miracles never prevented disaster in the past. Who is to say they will now?