Instead of trying to convince ourselves that it’s not really
raining and that there are only a few clouds in the sky,
we should be asking a few basic questions on the
relationship between Israel and young American Jews
By DANIEL GORDISrain in jlem 311(photo credit: Ariel Jerozolimski)
In October 1994, several days after kidnapped IDF soldier Nachshon Wachsman was killed in a failed attempt to save him from his terrorist captors, I was scheduled to teach my weekly graduate seminar at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles. But given the horror of what had just transpired, I couldn’t even imagine simply teaching as planned. I no longer recall what had been scheduled for that day. But what I do remember is that I decided to scrap the usual fare and that I taught a text in memory of Wachsman.As the seminar drew to a close, it was obviously quiet in the room. But just as the students were preparing to disperse, one looked at me and asked, “What does any of this have to do with us?”More than 15 years later, I can still picture that moment, frozen intime. I remember exactly where she was sitting. I recall the looks ofdiscomfort on the faces of some of the other students, but the nods ofagreement with her question from others. And I remember that I had noidea what to say.And I remember feeling unbearably lonely and wholly out of place.Lonely because it was clear that she was not the only one wondering whyin the world we were thinking about Nachshon Wachsman, when my ownheart was breaking, and out of place because I had no idea how toengage those students in a conversation about why he mattered to me. Ididn’t know where to begin.What I didn’t know then, of course, was that a question that seemed to me an aberration would soon become the norm.BUT IT has. Among young American Jews today, the public discourse hasbeen captured by the intellectual and emotional heirs of that graduatestudent. Today’s is a generation of young American intellectuals andcommunal leaders without the instinctive bond to Israel that mygeneration possesses, even when Israel infuriates or embarrasses us.This is a generation of people like the talented writer Jay Michaelson,who wrote in The Forward, “I no longer want to feelentangled by [Israelis’] decisions and implicated in theirconsequences... count me out.”Even in the moments of our greatest frustration with Israel, the peoplethat I grew up with could never utter the words “count me out.”Michaelson is but part of a massive wave. Prof. Jack Wertheimer, inpresenting some preliminary findings from his newest study of AmericanJews (the specific figures are still being processed), noted a fewweeks ago that most young American Jewish leaders (yes, leaders) “donot see Israel as central to Jewish identity and peoplehood.”The evidence is virtually limitless. We’re witness to a tectonic shiftin American Jewish life, but many people would rather ignore it thanface the serious work that lies ahead. Thus, when I pointed out (“Ifthis is our future,” Jerusalem Post, May 7) thatfollowing Brandeis University’s invitation to Ambassador Michael Orento be its commencement speaker, the public discourse was captured bythose opposed to his invitation, some people responded by pointing outthe (obvious) fact that many Brandeis students (and probably themajority) supported the invitation. A petition in favor, signed by5,000 people, was also reported. And a small number of articles in theBrandeis paper, opined one faculty person in a response to thePost, ought not be taken out of context. “Imaginesomeone telling you it’s pouring rain outside and you stick your headout the window and see there are just a couple of clouds in the sky,”he wrote.But what we’re facing would be “just a couple of clouds in the sky” ifthe story that mattered was about Brandeis, which it obviously is not.Everyone knows that Jewish life on campus doesn’t get better thanJewish life at Brandeis. So why pretend that Brandeis is the issue?What is significant is that even at Brandeis, one of the crown jewelsof American Jewish academe, as of the publication of my previouscolumn, there had been four pieces in the student newspaper about theOren invitation. The Justice’s official editorialand the head of the campus J Street chapter weighed in opposed. So,too, did a member of the computer science faculty. And a studentrepresentative to the Board of Trustees aimed to defend the invite bysuggesting that Oren was being asked to campus not as a representativeof the State of Israel, but as an academic.
WHY DOES any of this matter? Because in not one of these pieces did anyof the four writers have a single positive thing to say about Israel.That, not Brandeis, is the story.So instead of circling our wagons, seeking to convince ourselves thatit’s not really raining and that there are only a few clouds in thesky, I propose that we ask ourselves a few basic questions: (1) Do webelieve that the future of the Jewish people depends on what happens toIsrael? (2) Do we believe that Israel can survive without strong andconsistent support from the American Jewish community? (3) Giventoday’s younger generation, does a serious problem loom? (4) If we arefacing a challenge, how did it arise? (5) And perhaps most importantly,what should be done?To me it seems patently obvious that the secure, confident and creativeDiaspora community that many American Jews now take for granted isdirectly dependent on a vital and flourishing State of Israel. Today’syoung American Jewish leaders can neither recall nor imagine the daysin which Jews hesitated to march on Capitol Hill, or the days in whichone could not get a job on Wall Street wearing a kippa. That confidenceis the product of Israel, and of the formative experiences that manyAmerican Jewish leaders have had in the Jewish state. The image of theJew, no longer one of victim, but of utter confidence, was born in June1967. In Israel.Though many will disagree, it seems equally clear to me that were theState of Israel to be vanquished, the vibrant American Jewish life thatwe now too easily take for granted would wither away within ageneration. And if that were to happen, the two great centers of worldJewry – Israel and America – would each essentially be gone.And I believe that Israel’s military might, cultural flourishing,strength of spirit and more, important though they all are, are notsufficient to sustain the country. America’s support – financial,military and in the increasingly hostile court of international publicopinion – is critical. Yet that support would be much endangeredwithout an American Jewish leadership that instinctively feels deeplyconnected to Israel, that doesn’t ask, “What does any of this have todo with us?”Today, we have that leadership. But the future is not as secure as many would like to believe. Nor is that future very far away.SO HOW did this come to be? To be sure, Israel is partly at fault. Itis notoriously horrendous at telling its own story, and has allowedthose sworn on its destruction to capture world opinion. Nor has Israelbeen blameless in the interminable conflict with the Palestinians, ofcourse. Israel alienates American Jewry with an anti-intellectual andoften intolerant religious establishment. And the government stillrefuses to see the gradual distancing of young American Jews as aserious existential challenge, which it could become, if it isn’t onealready.But the responsibility for this widening fissure in world Jewish lifecannot be attributed solely to Israel. Too many young American Jewshave not been taught what they need to know to evaluate the conflictfairly. They know that they are opposed to the occupation, but they aremuch less clear on how the occupation began or what Israel has done inthe past 43 years to seek to end it. Largely illiterate in Jewish textsor language, they are increasingly unaware of the cultural renaissancethat Israel has made possible for Jews the world over.Yet the problem is actually far more complex. At its core, the issueisn’t really Israel, or even American Jewish education. The real issueis the larger world in which today’s younger American (and Israeli)Jews live. Responding to Wertheimer’s study and the concerns it raised,Noam Pianko, a professor of Jewish history at the University ofWashington, denied that there is a problem. As Gary Rosenblatt of theJewish Week recently wrote, Pianko insisted that“boundaries don’t match the moment” of 21st-century America. HisAmerica, Pianko says, is “‘post-ethnic,’ symbolized by President BarackObama, who he said represents racial fusion rather than division.”Obama did not create this worldview; thisWeltanschauung elected him. But Obama is perhaps themost eloquent spokesperson for this orientation, insisting, as he didin Cairo, that we ought not be “defined by our differences.”Even if we set aside the obvious fact that it is precisely by pointingto differences that we define most things, Obama reflects the worldviewthat is shaping both young Americans and increasingly, young Israelis:Difference is not an ideal, but an unfortunate reality, besttranscended whenever possible.In such a world, it is no surprise that a successful youngnation-state, which breathes new life into an ancient language, whichfosters Jewish ingathering from across the globe and which enables acultural regeneration unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed – astate which, in other words, celebrates difference – would beuncomfortable for many, and reviled by some.All of which makes the challenge even greater. Because engendering theinstinctive passion for Israel that many of us feel, and miss, requiresswimming against the current of an intellectual culture now pervasivein America and much of the Western world. But Jewish history in generaland Zionism in particular are proofs that the trends of Westerncivilization can be withstood, and even altered at times. The questionfacing us now is whether we plan to capitulate, or whether we’rewilling to lace up our boots and enter the battle.This will be no simple battle. But as Joshua said to the angel (Joshua5:13), you are either with us or against us. Left versus Right, orOrthodox versus Reform are now secondary issues. What matters now iswhether or not each individual, organization, movement, etc. seesdefense of Israel’s absolute right to exist as a Jewish state as itsforemost responsibility. Let all our differences abide. But let bothleftists and hard-liners understand that today, they are not opponents,but rather partners, assuming that both are committed to Israel’ssurvival and to making the case for that survival day in and day out.The rest we can deal with down the road. For the moment, especiallywhen any substantive chance for a peace deal seems remote, changing theJewish conversation about Israel, and then the internationalconversation, is what matters most.That will not be easy, but first we have to decide that that’s what wewant to do. So let’s begin with honesty. We delude ourselves if wepretend that there are but a few clouds in the sky. The Jewish peoplewill survive, and thrive, not by pretending that everything willmagically work out, but rather by acknowledging the challenges that lieahead, and by then bonding together and resolving to meet them head-on.The writer is senior vice president of the Shalem Center inJerusalem. His most recent book, Saving Israel: How the Jewish PeopleCan Win a War That May Never End (Wiley), recently received a 2009National Jewish Book Award. He blogs athttp://danielgordis.org
