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Part Four - Judaism, Culture and State
Identity and independence in culture
The vision – an independent cultural and spiritual flowering
The Zehut Party believes as a matter of principle, supported by the reality surrounding us, that the state should not interfere in matters of culture and religion either through funding or guidance. This is for the benefit of culture, for the benefit of religion, and especially for the benefit of the people from whom culture and religion come and to which they return.
We see before us a vision of a tremendous national cultural flowering and the emergence of wonderful powers of creativity in the State of Israel, which are growing directly out of the people, which asks for it and makes use of it, without the need for a governmental middleman. We want to see cultural creativity that is rooted in the people, and which expresses itself through that people to the highest peaks, culture that is within the people, and waiting for works that will take them from the potential to the actual.
"As long as we are missing a single sketch hidden in the depth of the soul, which has not brought to actuality, there remains an obligation on the work of art to bring it out," wrote Rabbi Kook[33], and this is indeed the duty of art and artists. But this does not mean that there is a duty for the public to fund it. Culture should not be a tax imposed on the public by force. Cultural creativity based on taxation of the population and division according to government criteria creates a culture that sees no need to correspond with the values and desires of the public, but rather sees the public as a target for education for its own purposes, but at their expense. In the view of Zehut, this is an immoral position. If an artist wishes to educate the public, as artists with a moral mission do, he can do so with his own money or the money of his benefactors and supporters, but not from the funds of the public he wishes to shape.
The same is true of religion and tradition, and indeed religion is part of culture and culture and is part of religion, particularly among the Jewish people.
The Situation Today
In the State of Israel, funding for cultural activity on the national and municipal level from tax money is considered a given, and those who oppose it are denounced as the enemies of culture in general. The battle against Israeli communalism is not merely about government involvement in financing of culture, but rather on the objectives of this funding. Moreover, while the question of the government's cultural goals occasionally comes to the headlines, in the context of this or that scandal, most of the organized funding for cultural institutions, which passes through the municipalities through municipal taxes, flows without anyone wondering how it is distributed, as long as the headlines do not produce a scandal.
But the scandals that float to the surface periodically in the news are nothing more than an expression of a fundamentally flawed reality, one in which at any given time, every citizen, through the national and municipal taxes he pays, funds cultural, moral and religious content that he does not identify with and even strongly opposes.
Why should an ultra-Orthodox person participate in the funding of a soccer stadium that neither he nor his children and grandchildren will ever enter, when he is also a vehement opponent of the culture that this stadium represents? Why should a person who has nothing in common with the observance of Jewish law funding cantorial performances in synagogues? Why should a national religious person fund the Archaeology Department of the Israel Museum, which tells its visitors that the People of Israel are descendants of the Canaanites, and that the God of Israel is the incarnation of a Canaanite idol? Moreover, why should citizens' funds be diverted as part of the funding of culture into political channels that fundamentally contradict their values?
When the IBA produced a cinematic version of Hirbet Hiza almost 40 years ago, the storms raged that public funds could not be used to produce works far removed from the moral and political consensus.[34] Against these claims, even then, were raised arguments regarding the freedom of creativity and the danger of censorship and "silencing", and about the freedom of art and the importance of open cultural discourse.
In 2010, Habimah announced that it would refuse to perform in Ariel, since it contradicted the moral consciousness of its players. Storms raged, because this was an state-sponsored institution, and a compromise was reached. In 2016, the Minister of Culture announced that she wanted to impose huge fines for state-sponsored cultural institutions that refuse to appear in places like Ariel and Kiryat Arba for political reasons.[35]
Zehut believes that both sides are absolutely right. "Who even wants to go to a cast of actors who are there against their will?" asked Zehut chairman Moshe Feiglin at that time.[36] It is clear that artists are supposed to act according to their consciences, like all people, and it is clear that those who receive a government budget must carry out the role that the government hired them to perform. The problem is the method, and not the people. Habimah performers do not have to appear in Ariel if they do not want to, but the citizens of Ariel should not have to fund Habimah activity.
In Israel, a simple truth has been forgotten: conscientious freedom and free, revolutionary and avant-garde artistic creation contradict government funding inherently. Either the people's money is directed against them and their values, or artists are forced to give up their integrity.
Full cultural independence
In principle, and in practice as well, culture does not necessarily need any support, and can often be a successful business in its own right. Popular television series produced today are certainly impressive cultural works, for better or for worse, and no one imagines they need government or municipal funding. The Harry Potter books did not need government funding, and the profits we have seen them earn could finance governments, not vice versa.
The same can be said of any kind of cultural activity, such as theater, dance, music, poetry, football, wrestling, and lectures to the general public. If such activity can finance itself from the sale of tickets, or donations from philanthropists – good. And if not, then the public voted against it with their feet, and in any case the state should not have any business funding it.
This position makes great sense, but it is very far from the prevailing perceptions in Israel, and it may also be distant from human nature in general, although it can certainly be seen as an ideal. A situation in which every person is willing to invest his money proactively in values that he adheres to as much as he is willing to invest in his needs is an ideal situation to strive for. But in practice, Zehut does not suggest going to the extreme of denying any possibility of public funding, even if it is voluntary, because it is contrary to Israeli culture and perhaps to human nature. The solution presented below enables us to reach the goal of cultural independence in a realistic way.
Zehut's outline for funding culture
Closing the Ministry of Culture
The Ministry of Culture will be closed, gradually, together with most direct national governmental interference in the funding and direction of culture. Financing culture from tax funds will take place at city and neighborhood levels, and not at the state level.
Financing municipal culture through a voluntary tax
Despite the large budget of the Ministry of Culture and its distribution arms, today most of the culture budget in the State of Israel comes from the municipal level. And we believe that this is also proper and correct, with one important reservation. Today this is done as part of the municipal taxes included in the arnona-tax. The Zehut party's plan is to separate taxes for culture and religion from ordinary municipal taxes, and to make them voluntary taxes.
Zehut, however, stands behind the citizen's right not to fund, even at the municipal level, cultural and value-based activity that he is not interested in, and even opposes. The reality in which the public is constantly forced to fund activity that is contrary to its values so that the activity that matches its values will also be financed is the opposite of moral independence, which is the basis for a deep culture.
Under Zehut's voluntary funding model, public bodies will be prohibited by law to finance cultural institutions from funds that do not come from either the voluntary tax or from private donations. The voluntary tax revenues will only be allowed to be used for cultural purposes.
Under Zehut's voluntary funding model, every resident of a local authority has the right to choose not to pay the voluntary cultural tax. The local authority will determine the voluntary tax rate and may even divide it into a number of levels or allow each resident to pay as he pleases. The local authority shall have the right, if it chooses to use it, to provide cultural services, such as subsidized tickets, only to payers of the culture tax. It shall also have the right to use voluntary tax funds for cultural services for residents who can not afford them. If the residents are not satisfied with the way the municipality uses the culture budget, they can simply choose not pay it.
Culture from identity and responsibility
Under the proposed model, subsidized culture in Israel will rise to a path of renewed contact with the public, both in the local, regional aspect, which will allow neighborhoods that differ by nature to invest their cultural budget in entirely different ways even within the borders of one city, and in the basic economic aspect, according to which culture that the public is not interested in will not be funded, as opposed to culture that the public is interested in, which will consequcntly receive its support.
This connection with the public is not something negative, vulgar, and inferior, as some try to present the claims about the public's right not to consume the culture that artists offer it. The connection between cultural figures and the public, expressed in the willingness of the public to pay its artists, is the foundation of a culture that grows out of an existing identity and which expresses it.
This policy is also the realization of the principle of civil responsibility. In order to decide to pay voluntary taxes, a person must develop a sense of civic responsibility many times greater than the norm in Israel. This responsibility of a person to the image of his community, expressed in his willingness to pay to shape its image, is precisely the guarantee of a truly free culture of freedom coming out of identity, which is also the basis for a life of meaning and reason – meaning and reason that only cultural life can give to man and society.
[33] Rav Kook's introduction to the Song of Songs, which appears in the book of Olat Raya on the prayer book.
[34] The winds did not rage before, because when Mapai controlled the State of Israel, the use of public funds for cultural and political purposes was self-evident, and there was no surprise to anyone: The film adaptation of Khirbet Haz'a came into being after the rise of the Likud to power in the "revolt".
[35] An article on the site "Mako"
[36] Moshe Feiglin's Facebook post, October 25, 2016.
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