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Tsvi Bisk On The Importance of Symbols
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by tikun | July 24, 2008 at 06:21 am
472 views | 2 Recommendations | 7 comments
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Tsvi Bisk is an American-Israeli futurist, social researcher and strategy planning consultant. He is the Director of the Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking (www.futurist-thinking.co.il). He is co-author of Futurizing the Jews (Praeger Press 2003) and author of The Optimistic Jew: A positive vision for the Jewish people in the 21st century (Maxanna Press 2007). Tsvi has published over 100 articles and essays in Hebrew and in English – including two in Macmillan’s Encyclopedia of the Future. He is a popular lecturer in both Hebrew and English in areas pertaining to Jewish and Israeli futures. You can reach him at bisk@futurist-thinking.co.il.
For more on Israel Seen please go to www.israelseen.com
The demand of Arab nationalists and Jewish post-Zionists to remove the Star of David from the Israeli flag as well as to replace the menorah as the national emblem and HaTikvah as the national anthem must be rejected with the contempt they deserve. This demand does not reflect superior moral and democratic values. It reflects the residual historical contempt of Christianity and Islam for any Jewish pretension at political equality as well as the habitual obsequiousness of a certain breed of Jewish intellectual.
England, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Iceland, and Switzerland are all democratic countries, and all have Christian crosses in their national flags. Most have an official state religion. England and Denmark are structural theocracies. The Queen is head of state and head of the Anglican Church in England. The flag of England and the flag of the Anglican Church are one and the same – the cross of St. George. The Union Jack, the flag of the United Kingdom, is a combination of two crosses (the cross of St. George and the cross of St. Andrew). The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the official state church of Denmark and the only religious group to receive direct economic support from the state.
These countries’ national mythologies, coats of arms, and holidays are not ethnically neutral; they reflect the dominant ethnic group, even while conferring freedom and equality to all their citizens, whatever their ethnicity. In this sense, Denmark is the country of the Lutheran Danes and of all its citizens, and no Jew or Moslem residing in Denmark or deracinated Danish intellectual would dare demand the removal of the cross from the flag.
India is the largest democracy in the world. Its flag has an ancient Hindu symbol, the dharma chakra, at its center, just as the Star of David is at the center of Israel’s flag. The state emblem of India is a representation of the top of a pillar built by Asoka, a Hindu who converted to Buddhism, just as the state emblem of Israel is a menorah. Some 20% of India’s population is non-Hindu and non-Buddhist, with more than 150 million Moslems and close to 20 million Christians whose rights as citizens are also constitutionally guaranteed. Could one imagine these non-Hindus attempting to carry on a public campaign to change the symbols of India?
India’s non-Hindus justifiably fight to translate their formal constitutional rights into equal treatment in practice. Israel’s Arabs should also fight to translate their formal constitutional rights into equal treatment in practice and not constantly accuse the Jews of racism because we desire one geographically insignificant state on the face of the planet whose national symbols are Jewish. By fighting for their rights rather than disdaining Jewish rights Israeli Arabs would earn the support of many Jews. It is, however, psychologically difficult to fight for the equal civil rights of people who deny you equal national rights.
Israel’s democratic model is Denmark, not the United States. Denmark should be a light unto the Jews, and we should strive to equal Denmark in its treatment of its non-Lutheran non-Danish population. This even despite the obvious difference that Denmark is not surrounded by countries and terror movements dedicated to its destruction, which are of the same ethnicity and religion as Israel’s largest minority. We certainly do not want our models to be Pakistan, Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, or Tunisia, all of which contain the Islamic crescent in their flags, a fact that for some reason does not excite the indignation of European, Moslem, or deracinated Jewish intellectuals as being racist.
Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (7)
at 23:00 on July 24th, 2008
You do have a great many flaws in this, just one exemple! You say countries such as Sweden, Norway..... have the Christian cross in their flags, wrong! It is the ancient symbol of the North Star that can be fund through out Nordic History long before Christianity even existed, Christian have borrowed such symbols for the European and integreted them into they religion just like the Chrismas tree is an ancient Nordic ritual celebrated around the 21th of december to chase away the spirits of darkness! The Creccent Moon has similar ruhtes in ancient Persia! Please do study the origin of those symbols and then rewrite you post. This is an OPINION post and should be marked as such!
at 23:39 on July 24th, 2008
Thanks for your thoughts .I have passed your comments to Tsvi Bisk and asked him to reply. Be Well, Tikun
at 05:20 on July 25th, 2008
Tsvi Bisk Replies,
And the origins of the "Star of David" are from Hindu India and have nothing to do with Judaism – so what? The Jews have adapted it as their national symbol; the Moslems have adopted the crescent as the symbol of their faith and when Norwegians and Swedes look at their flag they do not see a symbol of the North Star, they see a cross – certainly the non-Swedes and non-Norwegians in these countries see a cross. You yourself state this symbol was co-opted by Christianity and has thus become a cross.
All this misses the point – all are the symbols of their respective cultures and only the Jews are expected to deracinate themselves and get rid of their symbol. And by the way why would a Nordic symbol be any less "racist" than a cross when substantial portions of modern Scandinavian populations are of non-Nordic origin? It is still the same principle – the cultural symbol of the majority ethnic groups "imposed" on minorities.
at 05:33 on July 25th, 2008
tikun, I like this story. It's good stuff.
at 06:22 on December 15th, 2008
"The demand of Arab nationalists and Jewish post-Zionists to remove the Star of David from the Israeli flag" results from disputatiousness and from a desire to achieve short term political goals.Truth is that this emblem belongs to Muslims (and to Christians and to Buddhists) not less than to Judaism all along history, and even today there are more non-Jews who use it than Jews. That's why it is fitting to be used as a symbol of FUTURE cooperation between the main religions, and as a Futurist I'm sure you'll appreciate this idea (I heard it for the first time from Dr. Asher Eder, who lives in Jerusalem).
As for your comment that "the origins of the "Star of David" are from Hindu India, I don't think you can prove that. The first dated six-pointed star is from Sumer.
There is also a theory by Uri Ofir about its Jewish usage since the first year after the Exodus.
at 03:32 on June 28th, 2009
Zeev Barkan: As for your comment that "the origins of the "Star of David" are from Hindu India, I don't think you can prove that.
Oh, yes history can prove that.
Hinduism came into existence before Judaism.
Judaism is a potpourri of many cultures: Its symbols originate in Hinduism, Its practices originate in Africa, its Laws originate with the Code of Hammurabi and the Ancient Egyptian Books of Death and Righteousness. Israel was Never "Jewish" as is claimed today. This is of the Present, not the past. The Oral Laws of the Tribes are no different from the Oral Laws of any other Tribe whether in Australia, Africa, or South/North America. No Name in the Biblical Stories is Jewish, None practice Judaism: it is a Religion made by the Rabbis between 100CE and 230CE.
Avram, and the rest of the Clan/Tribe were Tribal Names: They had a god with NO NAME. The Rabbis made a religion and claimed it is a god with a name too holy to utter and invented various names as time goes on from HaShem = Origins in Egypt; to Elohim origins in Canaan; to Adonai = origins in Greece.
Just to give an example: Shem in Ancient Egypt referred to High Summer or the Harvest Time; it also refers to a young woman in her fertile time of life; and it refers to the Sunlight that makes things grow. Ha means Higher or the Highest. So the name HaShem refers to the Force of Life or a God with No Name.
Elohim originates in Canaan: El being the Son of Baal. You know the story and the dispute between Father and Son. Elohim are the followers/servants of El.
Adonai = Adonis ...handsome god in Greece ...do we need to add more?
The Magen David is an exact Replica of the Hindu Shatkona.
The Hamsa is a perfect replica of the Hindu Hamsa
Yeshiva is derived from the House of Shiva or House/Temple of Learning.
Menorah, Tree of Life is derived from the Hindu Tree of Life.
Maybe it is long overdue that the Rabbis come clean with their deceitful stories to make up a religion for people have died for their nonsense.
Why is Genesis1 Changed in Genesis2 turning vegetarianism into Carnivorism? With the Great Reform of Josiah, who slaughtered 33000 animals for a so called Pesach, he instituted in the name of a god horrific animal cruelty and slaughter that has been adopted in the Religion of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
Ezra means Help: Was it the name of a movement/a group/a person? Was Josiah a self-appointed leader after the arrival from Babylon?
See the Domainofman.com for the real identity of what Judaism calls its ancestory. By Jewish/Judaic Law None of the Names in the Bible fulfill the requirements to be Jews.
Historically Israel was Never a Jewish Nation: this is NEW and present day History.
at 03:44 on June 28th, 2009
Tzvi Bisk is co-author of Futurizing the Jews...
It all has to start with historic honesty. Unless the Religious are going to admit their errors, the falsehoods will remain and gullible people will be exploited.
A secular Israel was the vision. Lets keep it that way.
2000 years ago the Religious created a civil war and the Romans, tired with the perpetual gang wars, destroyed the Temple. 2000 years later we have different toys of war, will the Religious, again, trigger a destruction, this time they may take the entire planet with them?
Is Religion killing us all and destroying the Planet?
L'Chaim.