Jewish Nation-State VS. Hebrew Bible(Giles Fraser) - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

承前*1

Giles Fraser*2 “Binyamin Netanyahu’s nationality bill is at odds with the Hebrew Bible” http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2014/nov/28/binyamin-netanyahu-nationality-bill-at-odds-with-hebrew-bible

Fraser氏は先ずユダヤ人は他のどの民族よりも他人の国で「権利なしに」生きることの意味を知っている筈だという。また、ヘブライ語聖書*3は「流亡（exile）」とその帰結の記録である；

Of all people, Jews know what it is to live in somebody else’s country, without rights, subject to their laws, subject to their prejudices. The Hebrew Bible*4 itself is a record of the experience and psychological consequences of exile – of being the forced labour of Pharaoh’s megalomaniacal building programmes, of weeping by the rivers of Babylon. And when the story of the Bible finishes and the Jerusalem temple is destroyed by the Romans, a new period of extended exile begins, shaping the collective memory with centuries of religious persecution, collective punishments and eventually mass murder.
It is not difficult to see why security is extra precious for the Jewish people and why the very idea of a Jewish homeland has a meaning and significance far in excess of that envisioned by the modern democratic nation state.

また、ヘブライ語聖書は移民やマイノリティへの同情で充ちている；

But, throughout the Bible at least, this experience of being strangers in strange lands has another consequence: it amplifies the empathy that the writers of the Hebrew scriptures have for migrants and minorities. Thus, for instance, Deuteronomy 10:19 goes as follows: “And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.” Its not a one-off passage. Again and again precisely this formula of expression is used to encourage identification with people who find themselves living in someone else’s country and culture. And this sense of solidarity is such that the Bible insists that both Jews and non-Jews are to be subject to the same laws, the latter having the same legal protections as the former. The Book of Numbers has it thus: “The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord. The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you.”

最近イスラエルの内閣が承認した、イスラエルを「ユダヤ人の民族国家と公式に定義する」法案はヘブライ語聖書とは直接的に矛盾する。それだけでなく、Giles氏によれば、1948年のイスラエル「独立宣言」*5にも反しているということになる。そして、古代イスラエルの預言者たちが召喚されながら、テクストは締め括られている；

Through the biblical prophets, the people of Israel are regularly scolded for their forgetfulness, and lambasted for their failure to keep faith with the covenant they made with God. The prophets represented the self-critical vigilance of the Jewish people. They spoke the uncomfortable truth to power. Oh, how we need to listen to their voices once again.

*1:http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20141125/1416849839 http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sumita-m/20141127/1417020205

*3:これは宗教的に中立的な呼称といえるだろう。旧約聖書という場合の基督教的バイアス。

*4:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_Bible へのリンク。

*5:“Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel” http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/declaration%20of%20establishment%20of%20state%20of%20israel.aspx