Long-term future of the Jewish people

Cliff Savren penned an essay in the Columbus Jewish News whose title appears in the headline of this column. Savren opened:

“A headline this month in the Jerusalem Post caught my eye. It said 25% of American Jews polled in an American Jewish Committee survey said a thriving Israel was not vital to the long-term future of the Jewish people.

“The suggestion that one in four Jews in the US doesn’t think what happens here in Israel is vital to the Jewish future is not only surprising. It’s utterly divorced from reality. What planet do these people live on?”

Which means: 75% of American Jews polled do believe that a thriving Israel is vital to the long-term future of the Jewish people. This is not surprising.

Take into account the hundreds of thousands of young American Jews who have gone on Birthright, virtually all of whom come away impressed with Israel’s superior Jewish vitality.

Take into account the hundreds of thousands of young American Jews who have spent a gap year in Israel, be it at yeshiva, university or a work-study program; and the growing number of still younger Jews who study in Israeli high schools and are likewise edified.

Take into account the hundreds of thousands of American Jews who have relatives in Israel, and know Israel’s Jewish vitality.

Take into account the hundreds of thousands of other American Jews who visit Israel, or who would move there if they could; and the still larger number who are active in Jewish organizations that stand up for Israel in the current political climate.

Take into account the hundreds of thousands of America’s religious Jews for whom Israel is a religious pillar.

Take into account that while some of these groups overlap, we are left with a far larger cohort of Israel-sensitive Jews than the 25% whose views on Israel seem to reflect an overall assimilationist stance more than anything else.

Not that 25% is not a big number.

Not that assimilation is not swallowing up more Diaspora Jews than ever before.

Not that assimilation is an issue only in the Diaspora. The so-called Hebrew-speaking gentile in Israel presents its own challenge, a challenge that will be greatly exacerbated if peace ever descends. Without constant pressure to defend the country against Arabs, intermarriage in Israel will skyrocket, just as it does in all open societies that happen to include Jews who lack a Jewish identity that transcends a Jewish language. Yiddish alone could not keep Jews Jewish, and neither can Hebrew.

Still, besides the millions of American Jews who do see a vital Jewish future in Israel, look at the facts there.

Israel’s Jewish population is 6.7 million — the majority of the country. Judaism in a Jewish-majority context is immeasurably less apologetic and more organic than in most Jewish circles in the Diaspora.

Even Israel’s so-called secular majority, which does feel the pressure to defend the country against Arab hostility, enjoys a higher rate of Jewish (not just Hebrew) literacy and Jewish observance than assimilated Jewish circles in the Diaspora. In the Diaspora Jews melt away, while secular Jews in Israel live by the Jewish calendar. They know Shabbos, however they may or may not observe it. Same for all of the Jewish holidays, which are special times throughout Israel.

But the real news in Israel is that the number of purely secular Israeli Jews is shrinking. The classic, Israeli, socialist kibbutz is dead.

Israel’s religion of socialism is, at best, on life support. Jewish observance is up. Jewish study is up. These developments are obscured by the conflict between the Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jews over the Chief Rabbinate, which is wrongly understood to mean that if you’re not Orthodox, you are secular. No more. There is now a wide middle of Israelis who observe more Jewish customs than they don’t.

That adds up to millions of Jewish Israelis. Indeed, they are shaping the Jewish future. Not only them, but mainly them.

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