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 in time. I remember exactly where she was sitting. I recall the looks of discomfort on the faces of some of the other students, but the nods of agreement with her question from others. And I remember that I had no idea 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 why in the world we were thinking about Nachshon Wachsman, when my own heart was breaking, and out of place because I had no idea how to engage those students in a conversation about why he mattered to me. I didn’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 has been captured by the intellectual and emotional heirs of that graduate student. Today’s is a generation of young American intellectuals and communal leaders without the instinctive bond to Israel that my generation 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 feel entangled by [Israelis] decisions and implicated in their consequences… count me out.”
Even in the moments of our greatest frustration with Israel, the people that I grew up with could never utter the words count me out.
Michaelson is but part of a massive wave. Prof. Jack Wertheimer, in presenting some preliminary findings from his newest study of American Jews (the specific figures are still being processed), noted a few weeks ago that most young American Jewish leaders (yes, leaders) do not see Israel as central to Jewish identity and peoplehood.
The evidence is virtually limitless. We’re witness to a tectonic shift in American Jewish life, but many people would rather ignore it than face the serious work that lies ahead. Thus, when I pointed out (If this is our future,Jerusalem Post, May 7) that following Brandeis University’s invitation to Ambassador Michael Oren to be its commencement speaker, the public discourse was captured by those opposed to his invitation, some people responded by pointing out the (obvious) fact that many Brandeis students (and probably the majority) supported the invitation. A petition in favor, signed by 5,000 people, was also reported. And a small number of articles in the Brandeis paper, opined one faculty person in a response to the Post, ought not be taken out of context. Imagine someone telling you it’s pouring rain outside and you stick your head out 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 if the story that mattered was about Brandeis, which it obviously is not. Everyone knows that Jewish life on campus doesn’t get better than Jewish life at Brandeis. So why pretend that Brandeis is the issue? What is significant is that even at Brandeis, one of the crown jewels of American Jewish academe, as of the publication of my previous column, there had been four pieces in the student newspaper about the Oren invitation.The Justice’s official editorial and the head of the campus J Street chapter weighed in opposed. So, too, did a member of the computer science faculty. And a student representative to the Board of Trustees aimed to defend the invite by suggesting that Oren was being asked to campus not as a representative of the State of Israel, but as an academic.
WHY DOES any of this matter? Because in not one of these pieces did any of 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 that it’s not really raining and that there are only a few clouds in the sky, I propose that we ask ourselves a few basic questions: (1) Do we believe that the future of the Jewish people depends on what happens to Israel? (2) Do we believe that Israel can survive without strong and consistent support from the American Jewish community? (3) Given today’s younger generation, does a serious problem loom? (4) If we are facing 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 creative Diaspora community that many American Jews now take for granted is directly dependent on a vital and flourishing State of Israel. Today’s young American Jewish leaders can neither recall nor imagine the days in which Jews hesitated to march on Capitol Hill, or the days in which one could not get a job on Wall Street wearing a kippa. That confidence is the product of Israel, and of the formative experiences that many American Jewish leaders have had in the Jewish state. The image of the Jew, no longer one of victim, but of utter confidence, was born in June 1967. In Israel.
Though many will disagree, it seems equally clear to me that were the State of Israel to be vanquished, the vibrant American Jewish life that we now too easily take for granted would wither away within a generation. And if that were to happen, the two great centers of world Jewry 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 not sufficient to sustain the country. America’s support financial, military and in the increasingly hostile court of international public opinion is critical. Yet that support would be much endangered without an American Jewish leadership that instinctively feels deeply connected to Israel, that doesn’t ask, What does any of this have to do 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. It is notoriously horrendous at telling its own story, and has allowed those sworn on its destruction to capture world opinion. Nor has Israel been blameless in the interminable conflict with the Palestinians, of course. Israel alienates American Jewry with an anti-intellectual and often intolerant religious establishment. And the government still refuses to see the gradual distancing of young American Jews as a serious existential challenge, which it could become, if it isn’t one already.
But the responsibility for this widening fissure in world Jewish life cannot be attributed solely to Israel. Too many young American Jews have not been taught what they need to know to evaluate the conflict fairly. They know that they are opposed to the occupation, but they are much less clear on how the occupation began or what Israel has done in the past 43 years to seek to end it. Largely illiterate in Jewish texts or language, they are increasingly unaware of the cultural renaissance that Israel has made possible for Jews the world over.
Yet the problem is actually far more complex. At its core, the issue isn’t really Israel, or even American Jewish education. The real issue is 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 of Washington, denied that there is a problem. As Gary Rosenblatt of the Jewish Week recently wrote, Pianko insisted that boundaries don’t match the moment of 21st-century America. His America, Pianko says, is “post-ethnic,” symbolized by President Barack Obama, who he said represents racial fusion rather than division.
Obama did not create this worldview; this Weltanschauung elected him. But Obama is perhaps the most eloquent spokesperson for this orientation, insisting, as he did in Cairo, that we ought not be “defined by our differences.”
Even if we set aside the obvious fact that it is precisely by pointing to differences that we define most things, Obama reflects the worldview that is shaping both young Americans and increasingly, young Israelis: Difference is not an ideal, but an unfortunate reality, best transcended whenever possible.
In such a world, it is no surprise that a successful young nation-state, which breathes new life into an ancient language, which fosters Jewish ingathering from across the globe and which enables a cultural regeneration unlike anything humanity has ever witnessed a state which, in other words, celebrates difference would be uncomfortable for many, and reviled by some.
All of which makes the challenge even greater. Because engendering the instinctive passion for Israel that many of us feel, and miss, requires swimming against the current of an intellectual culture now pervasive in America and much of the Western world. But Jewish history in general and Zionism in particular are proofs that the trends of Western civilization can be withstood, and even altered at times. The question facing us now is whether we plan to capitulate, or whether we’re willing to lace up our boots and enter the battle.
This will be no simple battle. But as Joshua said to the angel (Joshua 5:13), you are either with us or against us. Left versus Right, or Orthodox versus Reform are now secondary issues. What matters now is whether or not each individual, organization, movement, etc. sees defense of Israel’s absolute right to exist as a Jewish state as its foremost responsibility. Let all our differences abide. But let both leftists and hard-liners understand that today, they are not opponents, but rather partners, assuming that both are committed to Israel’s survival 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, especially when any substantive chance for a peace deal seems remote, changing the Jewish conversation about Israel, and then the international conversation, is what matters most.
That will not be easy, but first we have to decide that that’s what we want to do. So let’s begin with honesty. We delude ourselves if we pretend that there are but a few clouds in the sky. The Jewish people will survive, and thrive, not by pretending that everything will magically work out, but rather by acknowledging the challenges that lie ahead, and by then bonding together and resolving to meet them head-on.
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Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center, where he is also a senior fellow. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents in Israel...
The Jewish State must end, say its enemies, from intellectuals like Tony Judt to hate-filled demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even average Israelis are wondering if they wouldn't be better off somewhere else. 
For all Jews, in Israel and dispersed all over the world, the notion of trying to separate “being Jewish” from G-d and Torah weakens us in our identity and our mission (to bring Heaven down to Earth). The connection we make to G-d and Torah through study and observance, and our teaching this connection to our children, naturally binds us to Jews everywhere and to the Land of Israel. If one leaves G-d out of the discussion, Israel comes to be misunderstood–just another place. It is for this reason that Chabad emissaries on the college campuses are truly the strongest teachers of Zionism.
For all Jews, in Israel and dispersed all over the world, the notion of trying to separate “being Jewish” from G-d and Torah weakens us in our identity and our mission (to bring Heaven down to Earth). The connection we make to G-d and Torah through study and observance, and our teaching this connection to our children, naturally binds us to Jews everywhere and to the Land of Israel. If one leaves G-d out of the discussion, Israel comes to be misunderstood–just another place. It is for this reason that Chabad emissaries on the college campuses are truly the strongest teachers of Zionism.
[...] Response to Daniel Gordis’ article, “The Storm Ahead” Jerusalem Post [...]
I agree with Daniel Gordis’ concerns and appreciate his efforts to consider potential solutions for building stronger bridges between our two communities. However, Gordis overstates his argument by claiming that “post-ethnic trends” in the “larger world” is the real issue in the growing gap between American Jews and Israel. While certainly an important factor, post-ethnic does not necessarily mean post-Zionist. Instead, it may engender important conversations about a new, more relevant, Zionism.
I am afraid I partially to blame for Gordis’ conclusion. Gordis buttresses his concerns about American Jews’ relationship to Zionism by citing my observations about “post-ethnic” trends in American identity politics. (Listen to my comments at tiny.cc/jfn_plenary or read the Jewish Week article at tiny.cc/jweek). While I am glad that Gordis agrees with my observation about the importance of accepting the new realities of identify formation in an Obama era, I disagree with the conclusions he reaches that the “real issue is the larger world in which today’s younger American (and Israeli) Jews live.”
Changing notions of race and ethnicity are certainly an important factor in assessing how young Jews relate to israel. The blurring of racial categories and the fluidity of ethnic boundaries in the US makes it increasingly difficult to justify automatic collective identification based on inherited ties or homeland allegiances. Gordis correctly warns his readers that establishing Israel’s relevance for Jewish identity shaped by post-ethnic assumptions will be far more challenging than it was for baby boomers raised on the identity and racial politics of the 1960s. But, there is another side to the coin that Gordis fail to mention.
As a case in point, take the aspect of Obama’s self-narrative I did not have a chance to discuss in the talk Gordis cites. The self-identified first African-American president described his autobiography as “a story of race and inheritance.” After a long and fraught journey, Obama ultimately identities quite explicitly with the particular aspect of his African-American roots. His narrative emphasizes both the possibilities of erasing differences, but also, affirming distinct traditions. Cultural trends toward discovering ethnic roots and religious seeking can often catalyze particular commitments, allegiances, and homeland attachment. In order for such ties to develop, however, they must demonstrate personal meaning and relevance.
This more nuanced reading of contemporary trends in American ethnic identity suggests that the storm Gordis foresees is not inevitable. Moreover, placing blame solely on external realities abnegates any internal Jewish communal responsibility for these weakening ties. A more effective strategy would approach the situation as the result of two simultaneous trends—a post-ethnic moment in American identity politics and the inability of American and Israeli Jewish leadership to articulate compelling models of connecting our two communities.
Without meaning to, Gordis actually illuminates how communal assumptions about Israel contribute to the erosion of Israel’s relevance today. Gordis’ view of the diaspora Jewish community echoes the outdated and patronizing claims of classical Zionist ideology. Gordis claims that the “secure, confident and creative Diaspora community that many American Jews now take for granted is directly dependent on a vital and flourishing State of Israel,” and also writes, “it seems equally clear to me that were the State of Israel to be vanquished, the vibrant American Jewish life that we now too easily take for granted would wither away within a generation.” I thought we finally put these outdated assertions to rest after the A.B. Yehoshua controversy a few years ago.
I find these assumptions unfounded and ultimately counter-productive to building stronger ties between our two communities. Contrary to your claims, young American Jews don’t feel comfortable wearing kippot on Wall Street because of the 1967 war (even if their parents did). We feel comfortable expressing and publicly marking our Jewish identities because we live in an incredibly multicultural society that legally protects and culturally tolerates religious diversity. American Jews’ creativity, especially in areas of religious innovation, egalitarian practices, and passion for Judaism’s commitment to universal justice, has emerged in this country without any support (and, in fact, often strong opposition) from Israel. The separation of church and state in the U.S. (even if far from perfect in practice), has created a rich laboratory of Jewish innovation not possible in Israel.
But let’s not argue about whether or not Israel deserves full credit for the creativity of American Judaism, or whether the state serves as the lifeline for a community that would otherwise disappear. There is something more important at stake.
On a purely practical level, the prevalence of the negation of the diaspora rhetoric (from extreme statements like those quoted above to the more implicit arguments about Israel’s automatic centrality in Jewish identity)fuels the growing alienation of American Jews from Israel. The claim that Judaism is completely dependent on a more sustainable, authentic, and complete Jewish identity delegitimizes American Jews’ role as active contributors to Judaism and to the Jewish people. This enduring insistence on Israel’s centrality among Jewish leaders and intellectuals leaves little room for feeling part of the state’s story without undermining our own paths toward building vibrant Jewish communities. As other parts of Prof. Jack Wertheimer’s survey indicated, American Jewish leaders have very close ties to Israel. However, exploring and nourishing these ties are hindered by the expectation that Israel supporters accept the second-class status of diaspora life and discount our own ability to thrive in the United States with Israel’s leadership.
If there is a storm ahead in the Israel-American Jewish relationship, the best strategy for avoiding its destructive force is twofold. First, we must analyze the ways in which new conceptions of race and ethnicity are shaping American Jewish identity anew. Second, we must critically self-assess our own assumptions about Israel’s role in Jewish peoplehood. The hierarchical model of homeland-diaspora formulated decades ago clashes with the emergence of two strong centers of Jewish life in the U.S. and Israel. While post-ethnic trends certainly present new challenges, they also provide new opportunities to rethink the nature of American Jewish-Israel relationship. (I look at these in the last chapter of my book, see http://www.noampianko.com/scholarship/books/). Perhaps it will take an impending crisis to articulate a novel and meaningful partnership between our two communities.
Israel is my family. Every family has a crazy uncle or an obnoxious cousin, a nephew who has gone through a difficult phase or an aunt with a checkered history. Yet we love them.
Tell me a country with no flaws. But I also challenge everyone to find two more noble nations than Israel (the country) and America.
In the high school I’m connected with we send more than half the 10th grade to Israel for a full semester. Even before they go they are prepared for the trip, starting in the eighth grade. And when they return they have follow-up programs in the 11th and 12th grades, with an additional trip after graduation to understand that while they are preparing for college, the Israeli kids they became friends with are going off to the army.
Only with a saturated love for Israel the country and Israel the people/nation will we make it through this difficult time.
And as for William Bilek’s trenchant question, I do have a controversial answer.
Being Jewish is dangerous. From an actuarial perspective, being Jewish exposes every Jew to the danger of being killed. From the long perspective of history, no insurance company would issue life insurance to Jews without a special risk premium. One generation may escape, but over the centuries the mere fact of being Jewish is dangerous and puts the lives of our children at risk.
Every time we educate our children in Judaism and transmit its values and the emotional connection to it, we put the next generations at risk of being killed.
If this sounds too radical, consider what you would say to the Jews of Europe in, say, 1890. Would you tell them to keep Judaism alive for their children, knowing what was to come 50 years later?
So why do we keep doing it? For me this is the message of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac. G-d was telling Abraham that if he kept the covenant, all future generations would be under Isaac’s risk of death.
Again, why do we keep doing it? The majority of commendable Jewish values are carried out by enlightened Christians and by the best of the secular humanists, so are we really needed any longer?
My answer is a resounding YES. We were CHOSEN by G-d for a mission and He has not dismissed us from that charge. So yes, yes, yes — we pass Judaism along to our children even though we know it may put them or their children at risk. And yes, yes, yes, that is why I went to Israel twice a year each year following 9-11. And why I sent my children to study in Israel. And why I am sending this comment that perhaps few or none will read.
I agree that the American secular Left and the American religions Left, together with the Israeli secular Left and Israeli religious Right are making me extremely uncomfortable. They are putting my two beloved countries in danger. But nothing will stop my love of Israel — country and nation/people.
I believe we were deputized by G-d, through Abraham and again at Sinai. I’m not going to turn away from that.
I’m sorry to have gone on at such length and thank you for your indulgence.
I must confess that Rabbi Gordis’ observations give me joy. As illustrated by the massacre today by the IOF, our young are casting off the false religion of zionism just like their great grandfathers casting off the yoke of Tephillin 100 years ago at Ellis Island. But fear not, New Judaism is stepping into the void. Offering social and economic justice, including the Right of the Return for the Palestinian people, our Jewish youth are yearning for NewJudaism, that replaces the tribal atavistic ties to land characterized by tribal rabbinic Judaism
“The image of the Jew, no longer one of victim, but of utter confidence, was born in June 1967. In Israel.”
In the United States, the image of the Jew first changed when one of baseball’s greatest pitchers, Sandy Kaufax, refused to pitch Game 1 of the 1965 World Series because it fell on Yom Kippur. I was 10 at the time, and I remember every Jewish boy and man standing a bit taller and certainly being prouder to be a Jew. One of our own stood up for our rights, and the image of the Jew took a huge step forward.
Larry
[...] The Storm Ahead- Eerie Prediction By Daniel Gordis June 1, 2010 Posted by rabbiyonah in Judaism. Tags: daniel gordis, flotilla, Israel, shalem center trackback From Daniel Gordis’s website – there are 57 comments there already. [...]
Professor’s Gordis article is worrying to the extreme. sMost Jewsih American children will go to non religious day schools. At college, they will socialise with many Jews of similr educational background. A reasonble knowledge of Jewish history , mores and relgion can therfore only be learned in the home, since they will not get it from perfunctory attendabce at Sunday . The problem can only be solved for most of these children by more effective after school instruction – to give them they not get it at home or at many Sunday schools.
Response to S. Rappaport
Chabad does not support Israel. Israel supports them. Chabadnicks, in general, do not work in Israel (or in the US for that matter) nor do they serve n the army. They are a burden on the state and this problem is becoming drastic.
As for G-d, one does not need Chabad for this. Jews believe in G-d. Chabad is not necessary for this notion. There are all kinds of approaches and even Orthodoxy, without these college campus wanderers with credit-card machines.
Chabad is not Zionist; Chabad does not believe in the State of Israel because the Messiah is not here. However, most of Chabad claims, on the other hand, that Rabbi Schneerson, deceased, is the Messiah. Go figure. The last thing Israel needs is more non-productive people.
One can learn how to be Jewish without Chabad at age 22. Chabad, for the most part is not concerned about Israel, they are ‘Golus’ oriented. Their history is clear. They walk around with Polish Garb and they are the last people to support Israel in a real way. They just look at Israel as another target.
Israel needs talented people, not non-productive people who are wards of the State, such as are the members of Chabad. And talented people are quite capable of believing in G-d without Chabad or a 24 year old spoiled ‘Shluch’ sent to a college campus who does not speak Hebrew, has never been to Israel, and has never held down a job, other than speding the money of other Jews who do work hard. They teach nothing about Zionism. Their followers are trained to live in Brooklyn, Pittsburgh and Minneapolis not Dimona and
Afula.
G-d is great. And the religious in Israel who work and contribute are nice, such as the B’nai Akiva. However, for the most part, Chabad is there to take, not give.
Im Ayn Kemach, Ayn Torah.
Lionel