A failure called education

A failure called education

By: Rabbi Meir Kahane

A failure called education

Talking about the government's failures today is such a popular thing that a person like me - who has been accustomed for years to saying things that are not pleasant to the ears of those who hear them - feels uncomfortable joining the orchestra of attackers of the Yom Kippur failure.

But this time I will focus on another failure, which in my opinion is the father of all failures. It is the failure of abandoning Jewish youth in the Land of Israel, and turning them into a confused generation that does not know who and what they are, where they came from, and where they are headed.

Among the many accusations that have been made against me since I immigrated to the Land of Israel, the most common is how a "new immigrant" who "has recently come" dares to preach morality to "us" and say what is good for "us." And in saying "us," they are like that wicked man from the Passover Haggadah, who excluded himself from the whole of Israel.

I admit my guilt. I am indeed a "new immigrant," even though my grandfather was born in Israel. It is not my fault that I was born in the American diaspora. But even though I am a newcomer who has only recently arrived, I dare say that I know the youth growing up here in Israel better than any other political leader in Israel.

From my contact with the youth in Israel, I know that no one understands what is called here the "Founding Generation" - we don't talk to them, we don't meet with them, we don't listen to them, and we don't understand them. Since I immigrated to Israel, I have been meeting with youth several times a week. I come to schools, usually at the invitation of the students, I lecture my views, and what is more important: I try to listen and understand. Even in the midst of the election campaign, I found time to meet with youth, at least once a week, because these meetings are more important to me than just a few more votes at the ballot box.

We are sitting on a volcano, on the edge of an abyss. I come from a country where a process took place whose buds - and perhaps the first fruits - are also seen here. In America, this process brought a terrible shock to American society, the destruction of the most sacred values, to complete nihilism, to the disintegration and destabilization of the entire social structure. The beginning of the process was the alienation between the generation of fathers and the generation of sons. Everyone laughed at the handful of eccentrics of the "New Left", at the "hippies" with long hair and dirt, who hung around the universities and spread their teachings, who exhaled clouds of marijuana incense. But the people of the New Left came with an idea, to a generation that had lost all faith and despised from the bottom of its heart its fat, hypocritical parents. The emptiness of the youth was filled with the destructive idea of ​​the "New Left", and the results are known to all.

I'll admit the truth: Before I came to Israel, I didn't know how serious the situation was here, although anyone with eyes in their heads must have known that this was what was to come. Anyone who looked at the curriculum of the secular schools in Israel, and saw what shallow and pathetic baggage their graduates receive, should have known that we are getting closer to disaster.

But only close contact with the youth in Israel taught me how serious the situation was. I got to know young people called "marginal youth" while I was in Ramle prison. Most of them are from the Mizrahi community, most of them descendants of a glorious Judaism that preserved the embers of its Judaism for thousands of years in a dark diaspora. What remains of their vast heritage? What did they learn in the "HaShomer Hatzair" kibbutzim, which emptied them of the Torah that their ancestors had bequeathed to them?

But are the "children of Tnuva" from north Tel Aviv better? - Absolutely not. Their parents are richer, and therefore they have been blessed with a good home, a pleasant environment, clothing, humane living conditions, a place to live worthy of human beings. But in their spiritual baggage, in their system of aspirations, in their Jewish consciousness - they are no different from the young people I learned to know and love in Ramla prison.
Indeed, a poor generation. It does not know who it is and what it is. It does not know who its ancestors are and why they were willing to sacrifice their lives for the sanctification of G-d. It does not know where it comes from, therefore it does not know where it is going and what the meaning of life is, hence the questions: "What will happen", "Until when", "How many more wars will we fight", and "The whole world is against us". And on this fertile soil of skepticism, of emptiness, of absolute nothingness, the sages of "peace" of all kinds sow in the light. These beauties of soul are themselves a product of education in this country. They too - despite their academic education and linguistic sophistication - are empty of any Jewish content. These are the "professional Israelis", who believe that they have cut themselves off from the Jewish heritage and have become something new. They do not know how similar they are to the poor Jews in the American diaspora, who try to convince those around them that they are not Jews but citizens of the world, because what value do flags and nations have? And all they succeed in is convincing themselves. In the eyes of the Gentiles, they will always remain Jews.
What is all this and the failures of Yom Kippur?
Only a blind man cannot see this. The failures of this war are not the heavy losses we have suffered. The great failure is the heavy depression that has descended upon this people, the lack of faith in its divine destiny and the eternity of its existence.

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1 Written in connection with the Yom Kippur War omission

2nd Tevet 5774 (27.12.73). Published in Yedioth Ahronoth