The "New Jew" Myth

Israeli filmmaker Eytan Fox's Walk on Water is currently in theaters. The plot deals with a Mossad agent assigned to kill a mass-murdering Nazi and the relationship he develops with the Nazi's grandchildren. Fox has described the movie as an attempt to "understand the psyche of Israeli men" and remarks:

As far as I see it, the whole development of the Israeli psyche, or Israeli masculinity, has a lot to do with the Holocaust. Because you know our grandparents came from the Holocaust with this terrible, terrible tragedy and trauma and wanted to start a new kind of world, a new kind of Jew, who would be this tough warrior. And these men, these warriors, did amazing things for Israel, for the Jewish people.

This idea of Israelis as new Jews is prevalent among Israelis and non-Israelis alike. Israeli sociologist Oz Almog's study The Sabra (a Sabra is a native Israeli) is subtitled "The Creation of the New Jew." Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua comments:

The concept of a "New Jew" has been a part of the Zionist enterprise since its inception and became one of the fundamentals of Zionist rhetoric. The idea was that the Land and State of Israel would engender a "New Jew," one different from the Diaspora Jew, who for the purpose of this discussion will be called the "Old Jew"...The "New Jew" would bear arms and defend himself and would never have to be dependent on the mercy of non-Jewish authorities. He would be proud and direct and clear about his identity.

In fact, Israel's contemporary warriors are old Jews, extending an ancient heritage that includes Shimon Bar-Kokhba, the Maccabees, Samson, and Shimon and Levi. It was mindful of this heritage that Hebrew poet Chaim Bialik wrote with outrage after the 1903 Kishinev pogrom:

...the heirs
Of Hasmoneans lay, with trembling knees,
Concealed and cowering—the sons of the Maccabees!
The seed of saints, the scions of the lions!

Kishinev was a desecration of the atzilut (nobility) intertwined with Yahadut (Judaism).

Israeli novelist Sami Michael attributes the new Jew idea to leftist roots (David Ben-Gurion, for instance, called Lenin "a great man" and "giant of thought"):

I think it's the worst thing to say, "We've created a new Jew." I think that this attitude stems directly from communism, from Marxism, from the ideology of Arab nationalism — all of which tried to create a new person. First of all, it's a lie. As soon as one is speaking about a new Jew, they're referring to the proud Jewish fighter, the hero—Samson. It's so old, so ancient...

Appreciation of Israelis' quintessential Jewishness isn't an interpretive trifle. Non-Israeli Jews who view Israelis as new Jews create a psychological separation that makes empathy impossible; they can admire Israelis but not identify with them. Implicit in this misperception is a view of Judaism as a deficient tradition that required reinvention. (A new Jew means an inferior old one.)

That's a poor way to look upon one's lineage.