A recent survey, reported in this week’s IJN, reiterates what many surveys have shown: More American Jews are critical of Israel. Why?
We’ll take the long view. This is not to dismiss American Jewish concerns about Israeli policies. Part of American Jewry is upset about settlements on the West Bank and religious policies from conversion to the Western Wall. Another part of American Jewry is upset about the increase in official sanction of Sabbath desecration. Still others do not appreciate either Obama’s distancing from or Trump’s embracing of Israel. Some are appalled by Israel’s response to rocket fire. No doubt, these and other policies trigger enough discomfort among some American Jews to distance them from the Jewish state, while other American Jews, though in disagreement, keep their allegiance to Israel strong. Either way, this is not the long view.
Nor is the long view coterminous with the record-setting tenure of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. No doubt, Israel-Diaspora relations deteriorated on his watch. At the same time, they strengthened via the massive, creative Birthright program. In any event, let’s look longer.
To us, the critical turning point came in the mid-1980s, when Israel no longer needed financial contributions from the Diaspora — but kept insisting on them. To us, it was Israel’s socialist, hand-out mentality that prevented a dispassionate analysis of the needs of the Jewish people worldwide. The primary needs ceased being Israel’s economy, which, even before startup nation, had improved to the extent that the total Diaspora financial contribution to Israel covered just a percent or two of its national budget.
This was the time to invest in the Diaspora.
This was the time to bolster Jewish education.
This was the time to create a literate, Hebrew-writing, Hebrew-reading and Hebrew-speaking Jewish people.
This was the time to bring the Jewish people back to normal, to being the people of the book, the people that would know what Israel meant because they would read and understand the Jewish sources themselves — and get the power, not just the message, from the sources.
This was the time. But what happened? Israel kept demanding the funds that would have revitalized the Diaspora, and American Jewish leaders, most of whom were not literate in the Jewish sources, just went along.
This was the time when collective thinking failed.
This was the time of intellectual autopilot that neither acknowledged nor adjusted to new realities.
This was the time when allegiance to Israel could have been wisely rooted in the depths of Jewish learning.
It did not happen.
Now we are reaping the whirlwind.
When the emotional bonds to Israel were breaking as the generation that witnessed the creation of Israel inevitably aged, these bonds were not reestablished by immersion in the Jewish tradition that placed the land of Israel at the center.
Now we are left with a diminished Diaspora. It doesn’t count as much because, to itself, it doesn’t count as much. It is not as strong as before. Maybe the numbers are up, maybe they are down, it doesn’t really make a difference. The Jewish Diaspora is not the same. When it was possible to turn it around, the funds to make it happen were siphonedover to a State of Israel that, blessedly, no longer needed them to survive or to thrive.
We are left with a Diaspora wondering who does, in fact, count. Who do the demographers count? Jews born to a Jewish mother only? Patrilineal Jews? Cultural Jews? “Just Jews?” Messianics? Self-identifying Jews? The multiplication of possibilities offers, to some, an allure. We’re stronger than ever. But if so, why is it harder for synagogues to sustain membership? Why do chapters of national Jewish organizations close down? Why is “leadership development” a rarer and rarer phenomenon in the Jewish community? Why can the federation system no longer generate enthusiasm for a General Assembly? Why, finally, is it harder to galvanize the Jewish community on behalf of Israel? Put differently, why is Israel taken for granted, such that it’s open season on Israel if, forced to defend itself, it is also forced to fight an enemy that uses its citizens as fodder? Why is it now a badge of Jewish conscience to be critical of Israel? None of this is a sign of a strengthening Diaspora. It is a sign of a weakening Diaspora, whoever you count and by whatever criteria you count.
The passion isn’t the same. It is not as widespread. It is not as deep. It pops up in very strong pockets which stand out precisely for being pockets.
Israel and the Diaspora are going to have to focus, laser-like, on these pockets to sustain the support for Israel around the world. It is naive to think that Israel can survive in international isolation, or without American armaments. It can’t.
This is not a happy development. But it is where we are.
Copyright © 2021 by the Intermountain Jewish News
