The acrimony that has built up between the leadership of American and Israeli Jewry reminds me of two squabbling parents threatening a divorce. As the grown-ups act out their insecurities, the kids are being dragged into the fight. The kids themselves are pretty chill, but because the parents are at each other’s throats, it has become a messy, all-around food fight. Just wait until the divorce lawyers get involved.
My suggestion is that, before that happens, we should get a good family therapist.
The first thing we’d need from this therapist is to tone down the hysterics. Yes, the issues are serious, but they shouldn’t shock us. So many of the conflict areas between Israel and American Jewry are perfectly normal given the unique circumstances of both communities.
American Jews are not part of a sovereign Jewish experiment. We are grateful members of the most welcoming foreign power in Jewish history, where we have thrived in a free and secular environment. There is no controlling religious Jewish authority in America—it’s pretty much anything goes. Different Jewish streams have different rules and customs, and no one can tell anyone what being “Jewish” means.
Israel is not America—it’s a Jewish state. It represents a return to Jewish sovereignty after nearly 2,000 years. It has a core, fundamental interest in maintaining its Jewishness. This has led to an uncomfortable dance between synagogue and state, one that has been full of stumbles and mistakes. Jews represent nearly 80 percent of the population in Israel, compared to around two percent in America. That fact alone suggests we should expect obvious differences between the communities.
The question is: What should we do with these differences? Should we rail against them and allow them to divide us, or should we recognize them honestly and use them to strengthen us?
Recent decisions by the Israeli government — such as reneging on an agreement for egalitarian prayers at the Western Wall and giving total monopoly on conversions to the Chief Rabbinate — have brought these divisions to the fore. Much of the commentary from America has been angry, warning of a deep and permanent chasm opening between the two communities.
I get the anger, but it’s not helpful. While these latest quarrels are certainly vexing and demand resolution, they’re only symptoms of deeper issues that both sides need to understand and work through.
The best exposition I’ve seen of these issues is from an essay in e-Jewish Philanthropy by Yehuda Kurtzer, President of The Shalom Hartman Institute of North America.
Titled, “Minding the Gap: A Primer for Jewish Professional and Philanthropy,” the article lays out a series of steps toward building a more honest and healthier relationship between Diaspora and American Jewry.
This relationship will never improve until we first recognize the depth of our differences, which he summarizes as follows:
“Israeli Jews and American Jews are on diverging paths because of the following factors and more: the ethnic overhaul of American Jewry due to intermarriage, adoption, and conversion; the ethnic overhaul of Israeli Jewry thanks to immigration and the citizenship rules of the Law of Return which allow for partial Jewish ancestry; political, religious, spiritual, and ideological trends in both countries; the massive gap in cultural and linguistic vocabulary; the educational systems in both places that have yet to figure out how to authentically represent the other; imbalances between the two in philanthropy and perceived responsibility to ‘the Jewish people’; different social and political circumstances given the respective geographies of America and Israel, and so on.”
When we acknowledge and honor these differences, we can “take each of these communities seriously on their own terms, and not allow the successes and failures of each to be measured against standards created by the other.”
Kurtzer’s essay comes down to an attitude adjustment for both communities. We need not romanticize the relationship and cover up our differences with the wishful rhetoric of “Jewish peoplehood,” but, at the same time, we need not beat ourselves up over those differences.
Instead, Kurtzer calls for Jewish leadership to “ramp up our efforts towards greater understanding between these communities, with educational approaches that originate with greater insight into the strengths of the two communities and their separate characteristics.”
None of this means we shouldn’t push for meaningful change. What it means is that any such push should come from a deeper place of mutual understanding. Of course, Israeli politicians hungry for power couldn’t care less about schmaltzy notions like “mutual understanding.” But maybe that’s why community leaders should work even more diligently to counteract that reality, lest we allow it to poison the relationship.
The bad news is that there are no shortcuts. Glamorous conferences and public rallies may feel good, but they won’t cut it. If we want to save the relationship, both sides need to go deep and engage on multiple levels over the long term, with an open heart and a reasonable mind.
I know, it sounds like something any good therapist would say.
Israeli and American Jewry need therapy : http://ift.tt/2trRiSP
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