A piece by Adam Chandler at Tablet describes a group of American veterans of the Israeli army who meet in New York. It is named Aluf Stone after an American soldier of an earlier generation who went to serve in Israel. I know we’re not allowed to talk about dual loyalty. But in this day and age sometimes we have to. How many other foreign armies are calling to American youth?
And I wonder about the numbers. “Aluf Stone currently has hundreds of members around the world.”
[Lilit Marcus] sees the group as a social corrective for the isolation that many of the veterans feel: loyal to both Israel and the United States, yet with an experience that’s foreign to most other people in both countries.
“Aluf Stone occupies an interesting middle ground in the U.S. They don’t belong in U.S. veterans’ groups and networks, as they didn’t [all] serve in the American military,” she explained. “But when they interact with other Jews in the United States, they can’t necessarily share their experiences without the stories being seen as politically charged. Several of the men who attend Aluf Stone meetings have told me that they have shared stories with each other that they can’t even share with their own families.”
Some of the members also interact with Israeli-born IDF veterans who have since moved stateside—but again, their experiences are not exactly the same, and native-born Israelis sometimes look askance at these vets. A common phrase used by Israelis to describe the foreign soldiers who came to join the IDF is the Yiddish slur “freier,” which is somewhere between a fool and a sucker. While each man says the respect eventually came, the broader sense of integration often didn’t. In this way, Aluf Stone deals with the consequences of dual loyalty—of not truly belonging in either place.
“Some people aren’t sure why we’re in the States at all,” said Matthew Ronen, 30, another of the group’s founders—an Ohio native now living in New York City after his IDF stint. Some in the group say that Americans shun them for leaving home to serve abroad; others note that Israelis shun them for leaving Israel after their service. “If you served in the IDF, people wonder why you came back,” Ronen said. “Sometimes there’s a sense of failure there.”
Here’s a guy who was 19 years old on 9/11 and within a few years, the US military is engaged in 2 wars, and he chooses to become a mercinary in a foreign army for a foreign state and he puzzled by people’s reactions? Even if you find the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan repugnant, one shouldn’t find the reaction puzzling.
If, after 9/11, you’re an american feeling the need to enlist and you happen to be jewish and you join a military that happens to be Israel’s your not dually loyal – you’re a coward.
I can see a young fellow who has been raised on some identity emotion for a foreign country going off to join their armed forces “if” that country is embroiled in some great war and the US isn’t embroiled in one at the same time.
I probably wouldn’t have much of a problem with that.
I can’t see one doing that if that other country isn’t in some significant war, just to serve the other country as a sign of loyalty.
What I have a big problem with is those who do that when the US is involved in actual combat wars and they don’t join the US military to serve but do go join the IDF.
I think a fair law would be that if someone leaves the US to join a foreign military during our time(s) of war instead of serving the US then they should have their citizenship revoked and not be able to come back.
“A common phrase used by Israelis to describe the foreign soldiers who came to join the IDF is the Yiddish slur “freier,” which is somewhere between a fool and a sucker. “
There you go.
Good for this guy he is living in NY, he wouldn’t be able to get a job as dog catcher in most parts of the country with a resume showing he took off to join the Israeli military instead of the US after 911.