Couple’s Therapy
Daniel Gordis a vice president at
Israel’s Shalem College has written an important book about the growing divide
between Israeli and American Jewry. Indeed both parties are in need of some
very serious couple’s therapy if the longstanding relationship is to remain
intact.
What distinguishes Gordis’ view is that
the divide is not about what Israel does,
but rather what Israel is. Simply put
Israel is not a transplanted America on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
Sea. Further it is not quite the Ashkenazi culture of American Jewry, but
rather it is a lot closer to the Sephardi/Arab culture of the greater Middle
East.
While most American commentators focus
on what Israel does with respect to the treatment of its own Palestinian
population as well as its treatment of Palestinians within the territories and
the rightist policies of the Netanyahu government, to Gordis the issues run far
deeper. To put it bluntly, changing the Israeli government will not solve the
core issues. Similarly Israeli’s view American Jews as to being completely
clueless about the security situation they face.
The differences revolve around three
issues:
1.
America is built on
a universalist ideology (all are welcome) while Israel is built on a
particularist ideology. (Zionism)
2.
America is a
liberal democracy while Israel is an ethnic democracy.
3.
Many Jews in
America view Judaism solely as religion while Israeli’s view Judaism as both a
religion and a people.
To be sure many American Jews are very
comfortable with the Israeli version of these three issues, but to those
American Jews who worship at the altar of secular liberalism, these are very
serious differences and it is to these Jews that Gordis has written his book.
With respect to the first two
differences many liberal Jews are uncomfortable with nationalism in general and
ethnic nationalism in particular. Hence no matter what Israel does, they will
have a quarrel with it. These differences are exacerbated by the control
Israel’s orthodox Rabbinate exercises over religious life in the country
thereby estranging both reform and conservative Jews. However as long as they
believe that there is peoplehood associated with Judaism the way will be open
to reconciliation. Put bluntly they can agree to differ. After all demography
has shifted the locus of post-Holocaust Jewry from America to Israel.
However for those Americans who view
Judaism solely as a religion for which there is historical precedent (See the
1885 Pittsburgh Platform of Reform Judaism), then reconciliation becomes an
extremely difficult task. To them Israel would just become another country
where the Zionist project has little or no meaning. That result would be
extraordinarily sad for the Jewish people.
Thus as in couple’s therapy the issue
isn’t about taking out the garbage, but rather the fundamental nature of the
relationship. Both Americans and Israeli’s are going to have to reconcile their
competing visions of culture, democracy and religion in order to live under the
same big tent. Further as an American Zionist I would say to my secular friends
that there is no guarantee a secular society will remain hospitable to Jews;
witness Europe. I guess they would rather support the cowering Jews of the
eastern European shtetls rather than the more muscular Jew of today’s Israel. And to my religious friends I agree that
Israel should be “a light unto the nations,” but it is an imperfect state
living in a very hostile neighborhood. Thus reading Gordis’ book would be a
first step on the rode to a fruitful couple’s therapy.
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