Israel’s Thermidor Moment

Emmanuel Navon
For the Sake of Zion
19 July '10

The upcoming anniversary of the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and of the Jewish commonwealth occurs on the eleventh month of the Hebrew calendar. Three weeks of mourning culminate in a day of fasting during the hottest month of the year. Then the temperature goes down and Jews read the comforting words of Isaiah.

The eleventh month of the French Revolutionary calendar was also the hottest of the year. It was called Thermidor, after the French word “thermal” which itself comes from the Greek "thermos" (heat). In popular parlance, Thermidor has become synonymous of a period of cooling off after erring and tyranny. This is because on 9 Thermidor (27 July) 1794, Maximilien de Robespierre was guillotined and his Reign of Terror ended. The Thermidor revolt against Robespierre’s tyranny partially restored civil liberties and religious freedom.

Robespierre held on to his shaky power through terror and intimidation. Dissidents were systematically dubbed “traitors” and arbitrarily beheaded. Chopping off people’s heads is undoubtedly one way of making them abandon their ideas. But ideas live on when they happen to be successful, and eventually Robespierre himself was guillotined.

Just like Robespierre at the height of the summer, some of Israel’s academics seem to be feeling the heat. Last week, Eliya Leibowitz, an astrophysics professor at Tel-Aviv University (and a son of the late Lithuanian brainbox and sophistic maestro Yeshayahu Leibowitz) wrote a piece in Ha’aretz comparing some of Israel’s student movements to Mao’s Cultural Revolution.

(Read full post)

If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.