The
Rift Between American Jews and Israel
Dr. Harold Goldmeier is the manager of an
investment fund, university teacher, business consultant, speaker and writer
who can be reached at Harold.goldmeier@gmail.com
Countless articles and books
address the vexing rift between American Jews and Israel. They are short on
solutions and long on confirmation bias. Daniel Gordis adds another tome to the
pile with We Stand Divided, The Rift Between American Jews and Israel, HarperCollins Publishers, 2019. He, too, is
short on solutions.
Nevertheless, his 14th book is receiving plaudits and
endorsements from big-name pundits and politicians. Yet, I find little in the
book that adds to my general knowledge of the subject or a solution to his
desperate plea opening the Introduction, “WHY CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?”
He ought to know the answer by now after years officiating at the
Shalem College in Jerusalem, speaking on the college-synagogue-Jewish lobby
circuit crisscrossing Israel and America, making a mint, debating doubters like
Peter Beinart and fellow-travelers of J Street. Yet, Gordis doesn’t off the
reader outstanding, why didn’t I think of that, answers to heal the rift. There is nothing explosive if that’s what a
book buyer is expecting.
“My goal is to put the big ideas about the relationship into the public
sphere, so that we can all engage in a rethinking of why the relationship
between the two communities is fraught, deepen the conversation that many in
the Jewish world are having about the rift, and even begin to muse on some
possible directions for healing the break.” We are way past musing. Just ask my
foreign students and my children living overseas.
Moreover, the new government of Israel has multiple ministries
addressing the rift spending billions of shekels. There are thousands of
overpaid NGO officials with inflated memberships soliciting tons of money and
little to show but glittering generalities claiming at lavish fundraising
dinners to have the answers.
I’m not going to list the religious, political, and nationalist causes
Gordis identifies for the rift. They are commonly known to people familiar with
the subject. The book is interesting because Gordis provides a great deal of
novel history and recordations of lesser-known interactions between
Israel/Diaspora advocates and contrarians.
Suffice to say he spends more than 200 pages and nearly 250 footnotes
on the history of the Jewish people and the rift. This is an excellent primer
for students new to the subject of Israel and aliyah. But you cannot fix the
rift with intellectual “truths” about history, or detailing the threats to
Jewish survival in Diaspora. Gordis is more truthful and a realist than many observers
when he offers readers this ominous portent: “If anything, what is surprising
is not that the relationship is wounded, but that it has survived intact for as
long as it has.” Furthermore, unless we find the right answers, darkness may
descend on the two Jewish nations of Israel and Diaspora.
So, Gordis takes a stab at answering the ultimate question, “What
anyone should actually do?” He offers six points for healing the rift but I
cannot imagine how they will save the Jewish people.
There is a bit of sunshine on the horizon. Diaspora support for Israel
is regularly reported on tenterhooks in poll after poll of young Jews. A new
poll suggests there is a sea change in their views about Israel for the
positive, as Diaspora Jews age into their late 30s and 40s. This is when
Americans trend away from youthful progressive ideas and hook onto more
conservative ones. Having been a teacher of international gap year students in
Israel, I list as the number one-rift healer bringing Diaspora Jewish youth and
young people of other backgrounds to Israel to see for themselves. COVID-19 hit
these programs hard. Masa high school and college study abroad, yeshiva and
seminary programs, Birthright, student
exchange programs, are critical in healing the rift. Spend money bringing them two and three times
to get to know life in Israel.
Gordis writes a four-page advocacy statement in the book for these
programs. In my experiences, these programs are the most educational and
lasting means of building a positive image and attachment to Israel. They are
the means to realize the dream of Gordis, i.e., “The light simply must be
ushered in.” The young people bring the light in their eyes home with them whether
they make Aliyah or live overseas. Bring them to Israel and make her a light
unto the Jews of their nations.
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