Secular, but Jewish
Secular Israelis don't have a Jewish identity problem like American Jews do, writes Anshel Pfeffer in Ha'aretz. That's part of what American Jews, like Edgar Bronfman, don't get about Israel, he writes:
While the Jews in America and other communities have been grappling for decades with the question of how to define a Jewish identity that is not tied down only to religion, secular Israelis simply don't have that problem. Sure, many of them lack a lot of Jewish knowledge and they certainly are not very aware of the Jewish world outside Israel. But they're not very bothered about it, because for them every moment in Israel is passed within a Hebrew speaking Jewish environment..
Israel, the Zionist project, was founded... to serve as a secular Jewish alternative to life in the Diaspora. And while it's far from perfect, for most Israelis, it is still a credible option. They are not blind to its shortcomings, but they are still content with living their Jewish lives here.
And at least on a sub-conscious level, this contentment is galling to many Jews in America and elsewhere, especially those who are struggling to come up with an alternative Jewish life of their own that will be sufficiently attractive to a disinterested young Jewish generation
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Whether I agree with Uriel or not, the important thing is for people to realize how important the issue is.
Much stronger interdependence between Jews in America and Jews in Israel - on a personal level - is critical to the future of the Jewish people. I agree that the threats to Jewish survival, both physical and cultural, are significant. We therefore cannot afford the luxury of the significant gap and almost total lack of communication that separates Israeli Jews from American Jews.
For American Jews, I think that gap exists because they cannot connect with Israeli Jews in the only language that can connect them - their Judaism - their Jewishness. Israeli Jews are simply too weak in their commitment to, involvement in, and knowledge of Judaism to be credible Jewish conversationalists. To American Jews looking at Israelis, the rising standard of living, the cultural connection to Europe and to every modern cultural stream but modern Judaism, they see a community of Jews as likely to assimilate into Western culture as the vast majority of American Jews. To engaged American Jews, you can’t be a part of the Jewish Project unless you are committed and living your Judaism.
American Jews, therefore, have little or nothing to say to Israeli Jews on a personal level - they simply don’t connect.
So this is a huge problem - perhaps the central problem - for the Jewish people today.
Like I said. Uriel may be right. I may be right. Neither of us may be right. But the issue is important and needs to be discussed publicly and honestly.
Chaver Steve
There are many ways to define what a Jew is. We are not all speakers of Jewish languages: Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, etc. We are not all practitioners of the Jewish religion. We are not all believers, to the contrary, statistics reported in the JTA reveal that the vast majority of Jews are atheists, or what we euphemistically call “Jewish Atheists.” Many Jews identify themselves openly as Jews, while some are so assimilated that they do not. Some Jews still live in cultures where revealing their Jewish identity is risky. Some Jews, such as the Conversos, have only a remote historical connection to the Jewish people, but may themselves observe som form of Christianity.
In the US, we constantly decry the high rates of intermarriage and assimilation, as if this were something new. However, assimilation to the predominant culture is something that has been going on since the days of the Greeks.
For most of the years since the destruction of Israel in 70 c.e., Jews lived separately from the rest of society because those societies prevented us from mixing in. Only in the XIXth century did Jews in Europe begin to assimilate, some going so far as to convert to Christianity or to simply intermarry and lose their Jewish identifies. Many people in pre-war Germany were shocked to find out that the Nazi government considered them Jews when they didn’t even know they had Jewish parents or grandparent and had never been inside a synagogue.
Today, Israel exists as a place where all Jews can go and become citizens. They are free to live their lives in Israel in the way that meets their needs. That does not mean that, by moving to Israel, they are going to grow payess, wear tsitsis, don a stremel, and refrain from work on Shabbos. Nor should we expect them to. Israel is, after all, only 60 years old, it has an ever-changing population, as manifested by the influx of non-religious Russian Jews in the 1970s and beyond, and more recently the very religious and observant black Jews of Ethiopia. While the ultra-religious in Israel would like to impose their observances on all Jewish Israelis, that is not going to happen, nor should it. Israel is a democratic country, and Israelis have the right and the freedom to choose how they express their Jewishness. And it is not up to us to question or criticize them for their self expression.
Thank you Mr. Rose...I am really tired of “all” American Jews being put in a box by folks like Mr. Pfeffer. We are as different from each other as we are from Israelis. I am not observant yet have no problem identifying myself as a Jew and I am far from alone.
@Stanley E. Rose, thanks for shining some light where there is usually just heat!
my comments at http://www.commentino.com/Maskil
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John Hanks
12/01/08 02:08 PM
The only identity that counts is one’s identity as a human being. Human beings are trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly courteous, kind, etc. The only real weakness is that they just don’t have much in the way of smarts. Zionist fanaticism has been a disaster for everyone connected with it whether pro or con.