Hamas War

Monday, August 1, 2011

Demonstrating For Non-Socialist Zionism

Yesterday we attended Ze'ev Jabotinsky's yartzeit, 71 years after his death.  Jabotinsky was the leader of the Zionist Revionist Movement, the non-socialist Zionists.  I sat in a row with other North American Betarim.

The elite of the Israeli Government also attended, President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

I hadn't attended the event for over thirty years.  It certainly had changed.  In the olden days, we just walked into the official Mount Herzl Cemetery and found a place to stand, under the hot sun, with a view of the grave. 

Security was very tight.  After my bags went through x-rays, they insisted on checking my wallet of all things.  If they were looking for money, they didn't find any. Rumor was that there was more security because of the anarchists Leftist anti-government demonstrations.  The seats were in a specially shaded area.  I didn't need the hat.

The anti-government Korach-style demonstrators didn't make it to the ceremony.  The Jabotinsky followers aren't very sympathetic to the unrealistic slogans.  Jabotinsky was a realist.  I'd say that realism, not capitalism, is the opposite of socialism.

4 comments:

Hadassa said...

Shalom!
Many people would argue that capitalism is the economic part of realism. (Before anyone flames me for being a heartless, greedy capitalist something nasty: capitalism will solve the world's economic ills only within the guidelines of the Tora.)

Batya said...

Even the socialist countries practice a form of capitalism, but they distort it. And there isn't a truly socialist country, because each has its elite which gets more than their fair share.

Hadassa said...

Shalom!
IMHO the key word there is "distort".

YMedad said...

"Scattered around" were also Mitch Haspel (1955-57) and
Aaron Bashani (1953-58) and, of course, Misha was there
as well as Danny Rosing. Steve Adler, Nisan Teman, Chaim Fischgrund, Winkie, Chandi,