Rosner's Domain: Jack Wertheimer on how American Jews view Israel

Jack Wertheimer, of the Center for the Study of Conservative Judaism, wrote a lengthy article for the American Jewish Year Book of the American Jewish Committee entitled American Jews and Israel: A 60 Year Retrospective. You can read a couple of paragraphs from the article on the post I published here.

Earlier this week I sent Wertheimer five questions. Here’s the Q&A:

1. You write: "American Jews will have to confront further ramifications of Israeli sovereignty, some of which will not necessarily be to their liking, and certainly will be far from their own experience as a small minority whose relation to power has been very different."

Can you please explain - maybe give an example?

Large swathes of American Jews have acted over the past 60 years to fulfill their responsibilities toward the Jewish state in the form of philanthropic and political support; but that is different from their internalizing the implications of Jewish sovereignty. One could imagine that a far-reaching new thinking would have taken hold now that Jews have regained power and run their own state. And yet we continue to use many of the old paradigms and have yet to work through how to relate to the Jewish state. Symptomatically, much effort is now being expended to figure out the goals of Israel education in American Jewish schools. We have no coherent way of talking about Israel. What does it mean to American Jews? How might American Jews think differently about themselves now that there is a Jewish state? What further responsibilities do American Jews have toward Israel?

When I refer to old paradigms, one of the things I have in mind is the insistence on imposing American categories on Israel as if circumstances in the Middle East are the same as in the U.S., and as if the ideological positions American Jews developed to protect themselves as a minority in this country can simply be imposed upon the Israeli context where Jews form a majority that must deal with very complicated and often hostile minorities. American notions of fair-play, pluralism and diversity are not easily transferable to the Middle East, a point critics of the war in Iraq endlessly make but then refuse to apply to Israeli realities. 

2. On many of the questions you present, you seem to deliberately avoid any expression of your own opinion. For example, you say that "American Jewish thinkers will have to determine whether their own internal deliberations about Jewish identity, the nature of modern Judaism, and the meaning of being Jewish can be enriched by intensive contact with Israelis struggling with the same issues, or whether the two communities must go their separate ways." Well, should the deliberate separately or together?

I certainly do favor far more exchange between Israeli and American Jews over questions of Jewish meaning. We are both grappling with common issues but seem to operate as if we have no counterparts. To give two examples: In Orthodox communities here and in Israel, the plight of Agunot is a human tragedy and a hilul hashem but there seems little willingness to resolve this issue across the board.  If anything, the recent power play of the Israeli rabbinate seems designed to marginalize Orthodox rabbis in the U.S., rather than benefit from their experiences and expertise. Second,  the "who is a Jew?" conundrum is treated like a separate problem in Israel and as a non-problem in the U.S. when in fact it is one of the central dilemmas facing all of world Jewry. Why not work on these issues together-- and not just at a one-time conference but in sustained working groups? The same can be said about bringing Israeli and American Jewish intellectuals together to address common problems rather than continue the unhelpful pattern of having speakers posture before one another about who is living the most authentic or creative Jewish life.

 3. You say that "American Jewish culture has absorbed Israeli influences with growing intensity over the past 60 years", but that American Jews still don't know much about the "real" Israel. Is that because Israel was doing a lousy job communicating its "real" self, because Jewish American organizations wanted Israel to be portrayed in a certain way (better for fund raising), or because Jewish American do not want to know more - maybe fearing that they might not like it?

There is no single answer to your question. All of the above probably are contributing factors. I,ll even add a few more: most American Jews are ill-informed about many aspects of Jewish civilization, and therefore their ignorance about the real Israel is part of a much larger problem. Israel also played a role in this by preferring to project certain aspects of its culture while hiding others. But in fairness to all the players: How many German-Americans or Italian-Americans or African-Americans have a strong grasp of the actual culture of their places of origin? In the case of Israel, the preponderant majority of American Jews are not even immigrants from the Jewish state, but we expect them to keep a close eye on Israeli life and culture. Let,s recognize that when we lament, as I do, the ignorance about the "real" Israel, we are imposing a heavy set of expectations onto American Jews. I,d like us - American and Israeli Jews - to figure out together how to deepen knowledge and understanding. Groups of young Jews such as Kol Dor and Presentense  give me hope that we will harness the new global communications to do a better job.

4. To what extent you think the problem for American Jews to come to terms and find a common ground on Israel-related issues is about the politics of the Arab-Israeli conflict? Or is this just a convenient diversion from the real issue: which will be the more significant, more powerful Jewish community? You can frame it this way: is it about the political nature of Jerusalem - or about Jerusalem vs. Babylon?

I don,t see the language of Jerusalem vs. Babylon having much resonance for American Jews. I also suspect that shlilat ha-golah is not as powerful in Israeli circles as it once was. Further, I don,t regard disagreements over the correct policy for Israel to pursue vis a vis its neighbors to be necessarily indicative of a lack of common ground. Look how divided Israelis are about such matters. Rather than fret about opposing policy positions, I worry that Israel is becoming too distant, its problems too foreign to the American Jewish environment. Increasingly, I hear Jews express indifference, if not annoyance. Israel, with its seemingly intractable conflict with its neighbors is becoming inconvenient for many American Jews who cannot handle the dissonance between their professed values and the tough realities of the Middle East.

But Israel is more than the Arab-Israeli conflict. Let,s broaden the conversation to explore Jewish meaning, religious purpose, values, our common cultural heritage, our bonds of peoplehood - these are matters around which we potentially can build a dialogue.

5. You conclude by noting that "American Jews have borrowed freely from Israeli forms in order to reconstruct their own culture". But while your article deals with dilemmas facing the American Jewish community one can also ask this: Should Israel be the one now looking for new ways with which to make itself more relevant to American Judaism? What is it that American Jews will be able to borrow in future decades?

Cultural borrowing is not a planned process. It,s not as if we can tell Israelis to develop new ways to be relevant and presto! Something positive will emerge that will be seized upon by American Jews. I suspect the real reason so much of Israeli culture has infiltrated American Jewish life is because of the serious problems we American Jews have in producing a Jewish culture. What, after all, is Jewish music or Jewish dance in the U.S. if not Israeli imports or neo-Hasidic confections? Lacking a distinctive Jewish language, and increasingly lacking any connection to a larger Jewish community, American Jews hunger for cultural expression based on something Jewish. I don,t place the burden of responsibility on Israelis to make themselves more relevant to American Judaism. I do hope, though, that we can nurture more religious and cultural endeavors that bring American and Israeli Jews together in a common effort.