My Problems with Israel

Although I was an enthusiastic and satisfied participant in a birthright israel trip, led recruitment for birthright israel at Washington University for two years when I worked at the St. Louis Hillel, helped with Israel activities on campus, and, of course, decided to come to Israel to learn Hebrew and study Torah, I wouldn't say that I love Israel. Some of the time, I don't even like it.

And now that my Israel adventure has begun I wanted to lay out some of the problems I have with Israel so that I can see how accurate they are and find out how my positive experiences here may outweigh the concerns that I have.

[Two more brief digressions before I get into my conceptions (misconceptions... preconceptions) about Israel:

All of this below is not to imply I'm anti-Zionist, or that I don't believe, at the moment, the modern state of Israel continuing to exist is the best of all possible options. Israel exists, and although there might have been a better solution in 1948, we are where we are today, and I haven't heard a credible one state or two state solution that I would be more comfortable with right now than the status quo.

Secondly, I'm being intellectual here, and these criticisms have almost nothing to do with my day to day enjoyment of living here. Living in Israel, the vast majority of the time, is like living in any other country, and when there are noticeable differences, they are almost new! and exciting! and good!

The Creation of Israel Established a Powerful Voice of Normative Objective Judaism.
Among the many strands of Judaism, there has always been disagreement over who is a Jew and what Judaism is and how it should be practiced. I think some people go too far in restricting who is Jewish and how to practice the religion, while others are much too broad in declaring who is Jewish and what Judaism should look like. But among all that argument, it is possible for anyone to feel correct in their own interpretation and seek out others with a similar worldview.

As much as the Orthodox tried to position themselves as spokespeople (in the case of the Orthodox, spokesmen would be more accurate) for true and right Judaism, both within the Jewish community and in the eyes of the world, it was a self-assigned position and they have no special power or control over the religion and its interpretation. [Not to mention, there are those of us that view Judaism as a culture/peoplehood, a conception which actively marginalizes Orthodox interpretations. Not to say that the Orthodox don't believe that Judaism is a peoplehood, they do-to such an extent that they usually don't even accept that someone can convert out of Judaism. But for them, Judaism only as a peoplehood is anathema; Judaism is about observing the religion and they would not agree with those who say that Jewish identity can conclude with Jewish peoplehood without any additional religious practices.]

But then along came Israel, the Jewish state, and the Jewish state had some difficult decisions to make about who is Jewish and what activities would be allowed and banned in this new Jewish state. And I think, all things considered, as far as there would/should be a Jewish state, they did a pretty good job of coming up with compromise positions. That being said, there was a lot that I think they got wrong, and even more so, it pains me that there had to finally be a voice of normative objective Judaism that can't be easily ignored. Israel, rightly or wrongly, has established itself as the means of connection between all Jews, secular and observant, liberal and conservative, citizen and diaspora to each other and to a Jewish homeland. And with that authority has come a necessity in excluding some people and some practices from Israeli Judaism.

Yeah, it's great that Israel considers me Jewish, but there are other people who Israel doesn't consider Jewish and Israel doesn't legally allow me to be Jewish the way that I would like. Unlike some of my other concerns, the creation of a Jewish state necessitates making the difficult decisions that I've discussed above. And while I would still object even if the Judaism of Israel perfectly matched my own view of how a Jewish state should operate, that Israel has adhered to an Orthodox interpretation of Jewish law (halakha) in important matters makes it that much worse. And perhaps, on balance, I can be convinced that having a state is worth the cost of having that state make objective decisions about who and what should or shouldn't be Jewish, but it weighs heavily on my judgment about Israel.

Israeli Sephardic/Mizrahi Culture vs. Ashkenazi Judaism
My Jewish ancestry - my maternal grandparents were from Hungary - is Ashkenazi (European). And Eastern European Judaism is the Judaism that I identify with and like. It's the Judaism of gefilte fish and yiddish, Fiddler on the Roof and lattkes, chess and hard T's instead of S's. And speaking of Hungary, while I haven't ever thought of myself as a Hungarian chauvinist, I'm thinking of starting.

Israel, on the other hand, is a melting pot, and it's a melting pot that includes large elements of Sephardic and Mizrahi Judaism. Put simply, that is Judaism that came out of the Spanish expulsion (1492) and the Middle East respectively. While in America, I would get annoyed when Israeli culture began to define Judaism in America through this Sephardic/Mizrahi influence. When Jewish events featured pita and hummus, falafel or hookah it wasn't the sort of Judaism that I preferred. I'll take gefilte fish and matzoh ball soup before an Israeli shabbat dinner every time.

In my simplified view, the Jewish immigration to America was largely Ashkenazic, whereas because Israel had many more Sephardim and Mizrahi immigrants the creation of Israel and increased focus on Israel activism in America has led to growing influence of non-Ashkenazi culture on American Judaism. If this simplified view, where American equals Yiddish and Israel equals Ladino is more accurate than not then increased Israeli attention in the American or worldwide conception of what Judaism is means that the Eastern European culture that I adore might be on the decline.

Israel vs. the Diaspora
At the last Hillel Professional Staff Conference, an Israeli diplomat gave a talk, and one of the things he said, to paraphrase, was that Israel needed the Diaspora and the Diaspora needed Israel. And in a broad sense, at least at the moment, I think this is true. But in meaningful ways, Israel has been bad for the Diaspora and I'm a Diaspora Jew more than I'm an Israeli Jew. The most obvious and most basic conflict between the Diaspora and Israel is over bodies. The creation of Israel led to a mass exodus of Jews from almost every Middle Eastern country to Israel, which, of course, made sense considering how the Jews in those countries were being treated and the opportunities they had in Israel. But over time, more and more areas are seeing their Jewish populations decline as people move to Israel. There don't seem to be enough Jews to go around, and each one who moves to Israel means one fewer in that country, and I suspect it's the more passionate and more involved Jews who are the ones leaving their home communities.

At Shabbat dinner last night, I was speaking with a friend who is also studying here at Hebrew University, and he said unequivocally that he thought every single Jew should move to Israel. And for observant/Orthodox Jews or super-Zionists, the Diaspora probably doesn't have any value, at least not compared to a strong and vibrant Israel. But for someone, like myself, that sees Judaism as a diverse and changing peoplehood, as a culture and not just a religion, then the Diaspora provides the multiculturalism that makes Judaism so interesting.

The Opportunity Cost of Promoting Israel at the Expense of Domestic Judaism
Promotion of Israel has two main purposes in America: Publicizing Israel for the sake of Israel, and using Israel as a means of strengthening Jewish identity. As far as the first goes, I think American Judaism is having enough trouble as is, and that any effort directed at Israel has the potential to take away time, money, attention, and resources from focusing on Judaism itself. And as far as the second, I'm not sure how effective Israel is as a tool of strengthening Jewish identity.

There isn't a finite amount of resources for Israel and Judaism that has to be divided up. It's quite possible that even while maintaining the status quo efforts promoting Judaism, we could find more money and resources for Israel. But in practice, when dealing with the way we educate our children at temple, college students, or young adults, there is only so many opportunities that we have, and when a focus is placed on Israel, it tends to crowd something else out. And for many people, Israel seems to be it's own entity, distinct from Judaism. And while Israel is Jewish, a focus on Israel is foreign for many Americans, because it's not the type of Judaism that they grew up with or identify with. [And while this raises the question of whether Israel can be envisioned in a way that makes it relatable and relevant to today's American Jews not only as Israel, but as a Jewish concept, I don't think that is happening yet.]

My second concern relates to the focus given in the United States to promoting Israel as a way to strengthen American Jewish identity. There was a big freak-out about 18 years ago when a general survey on the state of the American Jewish community showed high levels of intermarriage, and that more and more people weren't practicing Judaism and bring up their children Jewish. Now one of the responses to this was birthright israel, which hoped to use peer-group immersion experiences in Israel to help connect people with their Jewish identity and promote a life-long commitment to Judaism. And while birthright israel has been (reasonably) successful in this goal, it doesn't follow that any Israel activities will be helpful in promoting Jewish identity. If anything, efforts in American to keep Jews interested in their Judaism through a focus on Israel are doubly unsuccessful, both using up time, money, and resources that could be going into straightforward promotion of Judaism, and unsuccessfully using Israel to try to connect Jews to Judaism. For a number of reasons, a lot of Jews in America don't care about Israel very much. And if you're not religiously observant or a Zionist, I'm not sure why you would/should care about Israel, at least any more than you would your Judaism identity. Certainly, the increasing indifference of Millennial Jews to Israel shows that there isn't a convincing message out there yet about why Israel should be important to people who are comfortable with their Jewish identity and Jewish communities in America. We're sending the message that in order to connect people to Judaism we have to use Israel, which I think does a disservice to what Judaism has to offer.

Conclusion
During my time in Israel, I will be curious to see how my factual understanding of Israel and it's relation to worldwide Jewry changes, and how my opinion of which of these competing values and conflicts is more important. Since I know some of the people reading this are here with me in Israel (and likely disagree with some of the above) I would love to discuss any of these ideas in more detail.

Aside from the issues discussed above, I have other concerns about Israel that I didn't list here because they are too irrational, too quirkily personal, or too undeveloped to consider wasting your time with, but I might elaborate on this more later. I wonder if much of what I have liked about Judaism historically is its subversiveness and progressiveness, and whether this role of Judaism as a positive force of social change relied on the subaltern status of the Jewish people and whether the strength of the Jewish people through Israel will end our marginalized status. And did the creation of Israel permanently link the Palestinian problem and peace in the Middle East to Judaism. Can one be a (good) Jew in American without caring (or wanting to care) about the Palestinians?

Anyway, if you have any thoughts, please comment as I'd love to hear what you think about the above.