My favorite newspaper, Haaretz, again breaks ground with a piece on Jewish identity in the U.S.
The author, Yair Sheleg, wants Jewish organizations here to come out against intermarriage, he/she wants them to support Jewish education so that Jewish kids won’t associate with gentiles. And of course he/she wants us to support Israel. Then Sheleg uses my favorite expression, dual loyalty:
[T]he [American] Jewish leadership is so afraid of any
hint of being accused of "dual loyalty" that even at last year’s
conference of AIPAC – the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the
American Jewish organization most identified with Israel – they
refrained from singing "Hatikvah" after two of the leading members of
the organizations were suspected of spying for Israel.
A year ago I felt that Walt and Mearsheimer’s Israel Lobby paper was high noon for the Israel lobby. In a sense it is much more: high noon for American Jewish identity. The convergence of the disastrous Iraq war and the success of Jews in the U.S. Establishment–what Paul Johnson says in this Haaretz piece is a more important event than even the foundation of Israel–is forcing Jews to choose. How do you define your nation? As Haaretz makes clear, the soulsearching is going to happen even if the American press ignores the issue…