The J Street conference in Washington last weekend had a panel on the growing rift between American and Israeli Jews at which Rabbi Ayelet Cohen of the New Israel Fund, a liberal Zionist organization, said American Jews are losing interest in Israel, have “shame” and disappointment about Israel, are tired of fighting over Israel, and rabbis are quietly dropping Israel from Hebrew school curricula and no one’s noticing. Here’s her full opening statement.
When I think about the language of a rift, I think about active conflict, I think about moments that have stood out as crisis points between Amerian and Israeli Jews–I’m sure Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, the whole issue around the Iran deal, the Jerusalem embassy. But I think on a daily basis more than active experience of rift, what we are experiencing is a very troubling cooling of interest, of curiosity, of engagement between American Jews and Israelis and vice versa. I think for many of us it’s about despair, it’s about averting our eyes, it’s about misalignment of values.
For many of us, and we see this in many communities of North American Jews, across movements, affiliation, across religious connection, people who were deeply connected to Israel are tired, they are constantly feeling a need to justify why they feel connected to this place, they’re constantly disappointed, experiencing a lot of shame about this place– always hoping that it will rise to the occasion, be something that it’s not.
I think probably a lot of us in this room have felt that way at various points. It’s a lot of work to stay engaged, to keep holding on, to not walk away.
Most people are conflict averse. We don’t want to have fights with our families, we don’t want to have fights with our Jewish schools, we don’t want to have fights in our synagogues, and we see this playing out in so many different Jewish communal organizations. We see this playing out in philanthropy. It’s easier to look away.
And with the current political reality here in the U.S., there’s plenty for us to do here as concerned Jews who want to act for our values. And so while of course that work is essential and many of us are doing that as well, I think for some of us it also is a way of not having to worry about what’s going on in Israel, not having to think about it.
In my work, I talk to a lot of my rabbinic colleagues. What we’re seeing is, in many synagogues, in summer camps, it’s easier to just not talk about Israel. It’s too divisive, it’s too complicated. Politically engaged congregations have so much to do around immigration and other domestic issues– why talk about something that’s going to be so painful, so complicated, and feels further away for a lot of us?
I’ve spoken to some rabbis who have slowly taken Israel out of the Hebrew school curriculum, and no one noticed. As long as we’re still talking about social justice and anti-Semitism and highlights of Jewish history and holidays, nobody notices that Israel isn’t in there. So in that we are creating another generation of American Jews who are even further away and further disconnected from Israel.
Will a transfer of power [end of Netanyahu era] make a difference in terms of the relationship? Look, I think it’s a moment of opportunity for us. We know that the prevailing strategy of the American Jewish establishment has been a complete failure. Lying to smart young people has not worked. Trying to only talk about the good and brand anyone who talks about the bad as a traitor has not worked. It’s backfired spectacularly. Because it’s caused smart American progressive Jews to suspect the good as well as be concerned about the bad, and that’s terrible. That’s actually tragic to me. We have a lot of work to do to really engage.
I know that for rabbis there is a tremendous amount of pressure and intimidation to talk about Israel with less intellectual rigor and curiosity than almost everything else we talk about from the bima [altar]. And we fear and are frequently faced with intimidation and financial consequences when rabbis try to do that. For a lot of my colleagues I know it’s brave to even be here at this conference.
I also think there’s a lot of opportunity in this moment and part of why I like coming to J Street is the opportunity for so many American Jews to spend time with and connect with the Israelis who are the opposition, who are the resistance. All of the civil society organizations– it’s always a treat for me to see so many of the New Israel Fund grantee organizations here. So that Americans can connect with and hear from Israeli activists like themselves who are deeply concerned with what’s going on.
The best thing that we can do are tell their stories, lift up their voices, remind ourselves as an American Jews that there are Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs who are working every day. They do not have the luxury of averting their eyes, it is not an option. So for us to be truly in relationship, we have to look too and have to listen and we can get reconnected and reenergized.
“I’ve spoken to some rabbis who have slowly taken Israel out of the Hebrew school curriculum, and no one noticed. As long as we’re still talking about social justice and anti-Semitism and highlights of Jewish history and holidays, nobody notices that Israel isn’t in there. So in that we are creating another generation of American Jews who are even further away and further disconnected from Israel.”
Makes sense.
Just Iook at the junk that Israel is teaching in their schools: I posted this the other day:
“Israel’s Civics Exam to Require Students to Memorize Controversial Nation-state Law
Meanwhile, the concept of a multicultural state, which appears in the curriculum, will not be studied for the next two years …”
more @- https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-s-civics-exam-to-require-students-to-memorize-controversial-nation-state-law-1.8029077?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Here’s an opinion piece in Haaretz from today:
“Israeli Schools Teach Pro-settler Religious Nationalism Is the Only Way to Be Jewish
Raising a pious, pro-settler generation: Israeli schoolkids are now targets of a state-sponsored campaign of political and religious indoctrination
The Israeli government recently approved school trips to sites over the Green Line, fully funded by the Education Ministry. The reason given? It’s unabashedly stated by Rafi Peretz, Israel’s former Minister of Education: “In order for couples to move here [to the occupied territories] when they’re 30 years old, we need young people at 16 to visit here…that is the way we will build another new step to the settlement project.”
It’s time we faced the truth: In recent years, Israel’s education ministry has pushed a hidden agenda. Not only is it moving our kids towards a more Orthodox approach to their Jewish identity, but it is pushing them to the political right, too.
As a long time Jewish educator and mother of three Israeli children I often get asked, “Is Israel getting more religious or more secular?” My go-to answer: “It’s complicated.” When we try to analyse sociological and ideological trends in Israel relating to religion and secularism, it’s a complex picture.
What if we start by asking smaller questions, like: “Are our children getting a different kind of Jewish education than their parents? Are kids at state secular schools exposed to more Orthodox undertones (and overtones) in their Jewish education?”
The answer to these questions is far more simple. It is unequivocally “Yes.”
The controversy around how far a religious Jewish agenda is being forced on secular public school students in Israel has been brewing for some time. Commonly known as “hadata” (“religionization,” or religious coercion, from the Hebrew for religion, “dat”), now it seems to have gone one step further.
A new term has entered the national vocabulary: “hadlata,” an acronym which adds the element of “leumi,” or nationalist, so it means a process of enforcing theological nationalism. The Jewish education our kids are receiving in non-religious public schools is not only indoctrinated by religion, it has increasingly taken on a politically nationalistic slant as well. …
… Participants report that the overriding atmosphere that the organizers try and foster is permeated by extreme nationalism, supremacism and an “us against them” mindset; counsellors spoke out against a secular Jewish lifestyle and suggested Arabs have no place here in the Jewish state. In some instances, educators push students to try Orthodox Jewish practice.
The report’s main criticism is not so much in the content presented, as in what is left out: there is no mention of other streams of Judaism, of Jewish pluralism, of Arab Israelis, of non-Jewish residents of Israel or of the Palestinian conflict. As if these issues have no bearing on the formation of our children’s Jewish-Israeli identity.
While some students and teachers my well return from the seminar inspired and enriched, it raises some serious questions for secular Israelis.
What models of Jewish education are we presenting to our kids? What types of Jewish identity are we fostering? Are we presenting them with a range of inspirational role models that are congruent with a secular-humanistic-liberal worldview? Have we somehow lost our way, so others are offering another path for us?
I believe we are seeing the result of an ongoing process of disempowerment on the part of the secular Israelis when it comes to their Jewish identity.
Many secular Israeli parents just ask: “What’s wrong with a little yiddishkeit”? Their lack of Jewish literacy and confidence in their secular Jewish world-view, and their failure to understand the methodology of missionizing Orthodoxy, leads them to outsource their children’s Jewish identity and values education by right-leaning, religious educators.
Guess how often it works the other way around – how many secular teachers are allowed to teach Judaism to kids in religious public schools? You guessed it. Zero….”
more @- https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-how-israeli-schools-teach-religious-nationalism-as-the-only-way-to-be-jewish-1.8061651
I don’t think that any of this will make those “sick and tired” Americans less” sick and tired of Israel”.
I may find Trumpian America to be hateful, in many ways; but there are very cool Americans, doing some very cool stuff, day to day, down on the ground—props to them. And, here’s to the very cool Israelis, pushing the envelope. It’s their country; and good guys don’t walk away. NIF’s support for those good guys? Respect. Sure it may be ultimately hopeless; but that’s besides the point. Our entire Human civilization could be doomed, with climate-chaos wiping out the agriculture; but still, respect, to whoever nonetheless plants young apple trees; or, for that matter, births babies. We go on; however bleak the scenario. Ditto for Israel-action. Who knows how its future generations may change it? While boycotting to send a bit of pressure, I’ll not pooh-pooh the justice-warriors in the trenches. Having fought for the lost cause, sometimes becomes the pride of our heritage.
Must read: An analysis of the monster Zionism has created:
https://socialistproject.ca/2019/11/global-israel/
“Global Israel” International Relations, Nov. 1/19, by Judith Deutsch
(Judith Deutsch is a member of Independent Jewish Voices, and president of Science for Peace. She is a psychoanalyst in Toronto)
“Securocratic War, Securocratic Borders, Securocratic Emissions”
Excerpts:
“Globally, human societies are veering toward the precipice of a cascading extinction event that is traceable to 20th century wars and to accelerated dangers following the end of the Cold War. This pivotal time could have seen the end of nuclear weapons and the near elimination of greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, the major nuclear weapons states are modernizing their arsenals, and greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 surpass cumulative emissions since the beginning of the industrial revolution. From 1990, transformations of global militarization have proven to be both a cause and effect of interconnected crises. Israeli militarization, inflicted on Palestinian people and territory, has been integral, and at times a groundbreaking catalyst, facilitator, and collaborator in this global disaster. Post-Cold War Israel put its so-called peace process in ‘formaldehyde’ (in the words of Dov Weisglass).”
“Nuclear Weapons”
“Israel’s nuclear weapon secrecy mirrors little children hiding in plain sight, except little children innocently and charmingly believe that no one can see them while Israel’s ‘secrecy’ tauntingly communicates a sense of entitlement to destroy. Israel’s arsenal is variously estimated to be between 80 to 400 nuclear warheads. Israel is not a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), yet Israel was allowed to participate and determine the focus of the 2015 five-year UN NPT conference held during the Ukraine/Crimea crisis. With fears of a nuclear conflagration between the USA and Russia, the aim was to take nuclear weapons off high-alert status, but Israel deflected attention to the purported threat of Iran, and the NPT review conference was a failure as a result.”
“Israel’s ‘operations’ against Gaza involve the ‘limited use of unlimited force’: a multilayered effort to inflict the greatest damage possible on terrorists and their weapons systems, their infrastructure, support networks, financial flows, and other means of support. Civilian villages are treated as military bases.
“Israel, using assaults on Palestinian territory as a lab, sells its ‘battle-tested’ high-tech cyber-security technology, drones, unmanned aerial systems, missiles, radars, and electronic warfare systems. Under ‘precision engagement,’ Israel takes the lead in Unmanned Surface (naval) Vehicles and Unmanned Ground Vehicles, Fighting Robots, and Directed-Energy Weapons (lasers, high-powered microwaves, particle beams and advanced optics). Scientific and ‘cute’ terms for weapons systems that penetrate and desecrate body boundaries are sold at the world’s arms fairs: biometric templates for fingerprints and retinal and facial measurement; joy sticks are remote killing devices used to ‘Spot and Shoot.’ Killer and surveillance drones are called BirdEye, Skylark, Ghost, Bat, and Mini-Panther. Entomopters are bug-sized devices that carry out ‘precise, deadly strikes without sending its own soldiers into danger’; the Mosquito, weighing only 450 grams, can range up to two kilometers and can activate a ‘hive’ of three JUMPER canisters, each containing eight missiles that can deliver several possible warhead options up to a range of 50 km. Snake robots of varying sizes, equipped with cameras and occasionally explosives, can be deployed in contested buildings for surveillance, ‘or potentially, to implant poisons or debilitating devices in targeted individuals.’ (Halper, p 131-33).”
“Securocratic Emissions”
“The military is exempt under the Kyoto Protocol, yet the military is the largest single institutional emitter of greenhouse gases. An ignored source of emissions are the massive data centres (server farms) for sending and receiving information from weapons and surveillance systems.”
“Laws and Institutions”
“Israel deflects criminal charges partly by formulating new laws (‘lawfare’). After removing Israeli settlers from Gaza, Israel continued to control Gaza’s air, sea, and land borders but fabricated a legal category ‘parastatal entity’ to evade Geneva Convention obligations to occupied peoples.
“Israel signed but did not ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and is not a party to the Biological Weapons Convention. Israel violates the 1925 Geneva Protocol on Poisonous Gas and the 1993 Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling, and Use of Chemical Weapons.
“Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine erases the distinction between civilians and military and legalizes what is illegal under international law: the Principle of Distinction (between civilian and military) and the Principle of Disproportionality.”
“Morality”
“Eyal Weizman writes of a degraded moral category of ‘least possible evil,’ a permissible evil if it prevents an even greater crime. A grim irony is the view that the Nazi genocide was the worst evil because it was uniquely methodical, scientific, and technological, yet Israel’s proclaimed cutting-edge precision methods of control and killing are morally unquestioned. The military aim is full-spectrum dominance over all movement on the ground, air, and sea, and inside body and mind. Most often, what Israeli leaders say and do causes no moral discomfort. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s was able to say, ‘We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. But we can never forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.’ Shaul Mofaz is known as the ‘butcher of the Jenin refugee camp’ who ‘mowed the lawn’ of humans, and Shaked publicly called for the slaughter of Palestinian mothers who give birth to ‘little snakes.’ Canada allowed Mofaz to speak and Ayelet to vacation in Canada but refused admission to Israel critic former British M.P. George Galloway and to pro-BDS peace activist US Colonel Ann Wright.
“In 2004, over one hundred Israelis signed the Olga Document, expressing shame and guilt: ‘We are talking of a road that has not been tried hitherto: being honest with ourselves, with our neighbours and particularly with the Palestinian people – our enemies who are our brothers and sisters. If we muster within ourselves the appropriate honesty and requisite courage, we will be able to take the first step in the long journey that can extricate us from the tangle of denial, repression, distortion of reality, loss of direction and forsaking of conscience, in which the people of Israel have been trapped for generations.” Richard Falk speaks of a global morality beyond the nation state: ‘We as species need urgently to affirm the imperative of serving human interests and to recognize that this can only begin to occur if people are able to create a vibrant global political community that embraces the whole of humanity.’ This would be revolutionary but do-able.”
My sentiments, exactly.
What American Jews just don’t get about Israel
Quite frankly Israeli Jews are pretty jack of American Jews continually telling them what they should do.
Rabbi Ayelet Cohen through her agency as a New Israel Fund torchbearer needs to bear a lot of the responsibility for the damage and the shift away from talking about Israel constructively and the positive aspects of Israeli society to concentrating instead solely on issues that denigrate and demean the state of Israel. The New Israel Fund should really be called the Negative Israel Fund.