Having long pressed for an open division inside the Jewish family over Israel, I’m pleased by Dana Goldstein’s New Year-timed piece at Time.com titled, “Why Fewer Young American Jews Share Their Parents’ View of Israel.” The piece begins bravely with Goldstein’s differences with her mother and though it concludes on a pro-Zionist note, captures some important elements of this new moment in Jewish life, including the idea that Zionism and liberal values are irreconcilable.
“I’m trembling,” my mother says, when I tell her I’m working on an article about how younger and older American Jews are reacting differently to the Palestinians’ bid for statehood at the United Nations….
“This is so emotional,” she says as we cautiously discuss our difference of opinion. “It makes me feel absolutely terrible when you stridently voice criticisms of Israel.”
I respect the word cautious characterizing Goldstein’s conversation with her mother, that’s like my conversation with my mother; but I want Goldstein and her mother to go on stage at the 92d Street Y, along with a neoconservative and anti-Zionist relation or two. Have it out in front of everyone. Jewish identity is central to the mess. This is very nice:
Hanna King, an 18-year old sophomore at Swarthmore College, epitomizes the generational shift. Raised in Seattle as a Conservative Jew, last November King was part of a group of activists who heckled Netanyahu with slogans against the occupation at a New Orleans meeting of the Jewish Federations General Assembly.
“Netanyahu repeatedly claims himself as a representative of all Jews,” King says. “The protest was an outlet for me to make a clear statement, and make it clear that those injustices don’t occur in my name. It served as a vehicle for reclaiming my own Judaism.”
Toward the end of the piece Goldstein reels in some line:
Ben Resnick, 27, [rabbinical student]… published an op-ed pointing out the ideological inconsistencies between Zionism, which upholds the principle of Israel as a Jewish state, and American liberal democracy, which emphasizes individual rights regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. “The tragedy,” Resnick says, is that the two worldviews may be “irreconcilable.”
Still, after living in Jerusalem for 10 months and then returning to New York, Resnick continues to consider himself a Zionist.
There was an article on the Economist about this issue…
I am quoting from there:
Steven Cohen of the Hebrew Union College in New York is one of several scholars to say that apart from the Orthodox minority, younger Jews in America show less attachment to Israel than their elders.
Why this is happening is fiercely debated. One theory blames intermarriage; another that the young are alienated by Israel’s policies.
Peter Beinart, the author in 2010 of a scathing critique of the Jewish establishment in the New York Review of Books, says that by drifting right and defending whatever Israel does, AIPAC and other leading Jewish organisations have become “intellectual bodyguards for Israeli leaders who threaten the very liberal values they profess to admire.” He says that a Zionism that emphasises Jewish victimhood and allows no empathy for the Palestinians is losing its resonance with younger Jews.
For the present, of course, AIPAC remains highly effective. It still towers over J Street, its doveish rival. Also secure for now is Israel’s standing in the United States. It is, after all, not only Jews who favour Israel over the Palestinians: just ask the evangelicals.
But if young American Jews really do turn away from Zionism, or are turned off by it, everything could one day change.
http://www.economist.com/node/18744129
I commented on, and referenced that TIME online article earlier today in another thread on MW. Now, here’s a more recent tweet:
100,000 US Israel 1st Jews petition Obama 2 veto Palestinian state says Israeli radio; US MSM silent.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/americas/2876-american-jews-petition-obama-against-palestinian-state
phil, on page 2 of the time article is a link to the rabbinical report mentioned in the article. following the link, from the report:
quite revealing.
This is probably the best obfuscation I have read in a while. This girl is hardly “liberal.” Israel was “more of a victim” in her parents generation. Was it? Is there not a library at Swarthmore or wherever Goldstein went to school? How can blatant falsehoods like the “victimization” of Israel continued to be published? In a ARTICLE CRITIQUING ISRAEL?!?!?! The Zionists/Israel was the aggressor pre-48, in 48 and in 1967 ( as well as others) Those are called FACTS. This article is propaganda, pure and simple. “Humanizing” racism – thats all this article does. Who would have thought that a movement to create a state for a specific group of people on land that did not belong to them “might” be “irreconcilable” with liberalism?
Zionism is the HUGE elephant in the room, with Goldstein, with the girl from swarthmore and the kid Resnick at yeshiva. Your problem isnt with the current state of Israel, your problem is with a racist and exclusivist ideology that makes a mockery of your religion and threatens to engulf the region and the world in war. And please, no more bringing up the holocaust to defend Zionism, Zionism predates the holocaust by a long measure.
But there is hope, there is hope that eventually young jews the world over will expand their criticisms beyond Israeli policy and go after the heart of the matter: Zionism. It is the enemy of liberalism, of peace and of mankind.
– Dan
Still, after living in Jerusalem for 10 months and then returning to New York, Resnick continues to consider himself a Zionist.
If he lived in Jerusalem for 10 months, then he must have witnessed or heard about the many violations of Article 8(2)(a)(vii) of the Rome Statute: Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement; There are more than 7,000 Palestinians imprisoned in jails on the Israeli side of the Green line and revocation of residency rights in East Jerusalem continued unabated in accordance the express policy of limiting the ratio of Palestinians to no more than 28 percent of the city’s population. The numbers of Palestinians that have had their residency rights in Jerusalem and the OPT revoked by administrative decisions since 1967 is measured in the hundreds of thousands. Even the elected representatives of the Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem have been deported.
He also must have witnessed or heard about the many violations of Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute:The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory; There are 650,000 people living on state lands and expropriated private property that has been illegally converted for use by Israelis as Jewish-only racially segregated communities.
So after living in Jerusalem for 10 months and then returning to New York, Resnick seems to be a heartless thug with the manners of a common bully.