“Many Jews in America remain unreservedly supportive of Israel and its government. Still, the events of recent weeks have left some families struggling to navigate both the crisis abroad and the wide-ranging response from American Jews at home. What is at stake is not just geopolitical, but deeply personal. Fractures are intensifying along lines of age, observance and partisan affiliation.” (NYT, May 19, 2021)

The 2021 Pew Research Center study of the American Jewish community reported that half of Jewish adults under 30 describe themselves as emotionally connected to Israel compared with two-thirds of Jews over age 64.

There are likely many reasons for this diminishing attachment to Israel among young American Jews. Of one group, progressive Jews, I wrote earlier this month on this blog:

“Being an American progressive Jew legitimately can be confusing. Historically, Jews have experienced oppression, and now Israel has become an oppressor in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel occupied after the 1967 war.” (“Young Progressive Jews and Israel” – June 6, 2021)

Many disaffected young Jews have never been exposed directly to Israel. Only 20% of the liberal American Jewish community has visited Israel even once, so most young American Jews have little personal connection to the Jewish State. Add to this the fact that most young Jews are frequent visitors to social media sites where attacks against Israel are common. Many liberal Jewish college students report that when they have tried to become active with social justice and anti-racism groups on campus and said they were supporters of Israel they were heavily criticized and made to feel unwelcome.

What can be done to support our young people in coping with and addressing the onslaught of negativity they confront in relationship to Israel? More specifically, how ought Diaspora day schools, synagogue religious schools, Jewish summer camps, and families teach young American Jews about Israel in a way that affirms Israel’s historic importance to the Jewish people and extols the State’s many accomplishments and contributions to the world, but does not ignore or deny its imperfections specifically regarding its unequal treatment of Israeli-Palestinian citizens and its violation of Palestinian human rights living under occupation in East Jerusalem and the West Bank?

First, it’s important to create safe spaces where questioning Israeli policies can occur without the questioner being accused of treachery against Israel and disloyalty to the Jewish people.

Second, our young people need to understand that there is only one resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that can address most of the core issues, and that is two states for two peoples that assure both people’s security and justice for the Palestinians. Those who argue that Israel is illegitimate as a state are not only anti-Israel, they are antisemitic because they deny the right of the Jewish people to that which all other nations in the world have by right – a state of our own. With this understanding, one can be critical of Israeli policies and still be pro-Israel. One can be pro-Israel and pro-Palestine at the same time.

Third, we Jews living outside of Israel need to remember when criticizing undemocratic Israeli policies that we are not Israeli citizens, do not pay Israeli taxes, and do not serve in or send our children to the military. Only Israeli citizens can take the decisions necessary to maintain Israel’s security, democracy, and Jewish character. A measure of humility is therefore necessary for Diaspora Jews when debating the very difficult issues confronting Israel and the Palestinians who are all on the front lines.

Fourth, we Diaspora Jews have the right to be part of the conversation about Israel because our identity and security as Jews are dependent on Israel being a secure, free, and democratic state.

Fifth, when teaching young people, it’s important to remind them that Jews have lived in the Land of Israel continuously for three thousand years, and that our people there have made many laudable and positive accomplishments: the establishment of farms, cities, and institutions of a state; the revival of Hebrew as a modern language; the development of an advanced economy; the absorption of millions of Jews; the promotion of a democratic government, a free press, and freedom of religion; the founding of world-class universities and hospitals; the growth of hundreds of NGOs addressing every conceivable social need and human rights concern; the advancement of agriculture, water conservation, science, bio-technology, and cyber; the protection of the environment; the nurturing of Jewish culture; the promotion of peaceful international alliances; and the defense of its people.

Sixth, educators ought not to ignore the imperfections in Israeli democracy vis a vis Palestinian-Israel citizens and minorities, the deleterious impact of the occupation on the Palestinians, and the effect of the occupation on the moral character of Israeli citizens and the moral profile of the State of Israel in the international community.

Seventh, no nation is perfect – not ours in America, not in any democracy, and not in Israel. Just as America’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution strove to create “a more perfect union” but in which injustices remained and must be addressed, so too did the framers of Israel’s Declaration of Independence strive to create a free Jewish society founded upon principles of justice and equality in which injustices remained that must be addressed.

Dr. Tal Becker, senior fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, suggested that world Jewry ought to embrace what he called “Aspirational Zionism” in which the central question is how Israel needs to be grounded in liberal democratic values and in the values of the Biblical Prophets. Other important questions needing active consideration include:

• How do our liberal Jewish values augment Israel’s democratic, diverse, and pluralistic society?
• How do we bring the moral aspirations of the Biblical prophets and the compassion of rabbinic tradition into Israel’s relationship with its Arab-Israeli citizens and the Palestinians living and suffering under Israel’s military occupation?
• How do we join our fellow Jews around the world in fighting our enemies and assuring Israel’s security without sacrificing our moral and democratic values?
• How do we pursue peace as a moral and Jewish imperative despite the threats of terror and war?
• How do we support Israelis while advocating on behalf of democracy and the equal rights and dignity of Israel’s minorities?
• How do we oppose oppressive Israeli policies without turning our opponents into the “other” and losing the possibility of reaching the common ground of peace with the Palestinians based in justice, mutual respect, and security?
• How do we preserve a Jewish majority in Israel while supporting social justice, a shared society with Arab-Israeli citizens, and the human rights of all?

These questions strive to make compatible, as far as possible, our core beliefs with a liberal, progressive, and democratic Jewish nationalism.

Voltaire famously said: “Let not the perfect be the enemy of the good.” It’s important to remind our young people that even with Israel’s flaws and weaknesses, for the first time in two millennia Israel not only has offered refuge for the Jewish people and become a center for the blossoming of Jewish culture and the Jewish spirit, but is an arena in our historic homeland in which Judaism’s highest ethical and moral principles can be tested and debated within the context of power and sovereignty.

Lest we not squander arguably the greatest accomplishment of the Jewish people in two millennia, we owe it to ourselves and to the generations to come to preserve that safe space in which Jews of all ages, backgrounds, and proclivities can identify positively with the Jewish people and State of Israel, and to ask those probing, provocative, and disturbing questions the responses to which will help determine a robust Jewish future in the Land of Israel and throughout the Jewish Diaspora.

This blog is also posted at The Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/coping-with-anti-israel-rhetoric-and-activism-on-college-campuses/

I write this blog as pressure mounts on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (age 82) to retire at the end of this Supreme Court term and before the 2022 election to enable President Biden to appoint a liberal judge to fill Breyer’s seat while the Senate remains in Democratic control. Word from one of his former associates is that Justice Breyer will likely do so. However, the issues involved around his retirement extend beyond the high court and are relevant for us all.

There are so many people who resist retiring when they ought to do so for a variety of legitimate reasons. Some say they have no developed interests other than work, don’t know what they’d do with their time, and fear the unknown. Others believe that only they have the experience, expertise, judgement, and wisdom to do their job and that leaving their position would leave a void filled by others’ incompetence. Some worry about their loss of income. Many fear they’d become irrelevant and unproductive. And some are dependent emotionally upon the respect and admiration they receive in their position.

I’m not suggesting that everyone should retire at a particular age, be it sixty, sixty-five, seventy, eighty, or older. I am suggesting that there comes a time when it’s right to step away from one’s vocation when certain factors are clear. For me, that time came two years ago, but it was in the works for over the past four or five years. I had led a synagogue community for decades and accomplished everything I wanted and needed to do. I understood as well that the American liberal Jewish community was changing, and that younger rabbinic leadership was necessary to effectively carry forward the life of my congregation. I had my opportunity to lead, and it was time to enable another to take over in my place. I knew also that my particular interests extended beyond the specifics of synagogue leadership, that I could develop those interests and devote far more time to them and to my family in ways I’d never had the opportunity to do in my adult life.

I’m reminded of the collection of Midrashim about Moses as an old man who refused to accept the divine decree that he would not live forever nor enter the Promised Land. Moses argued with God: ‘How can You, Almighty One, not let me, your most intimate and trusted servant, the only human ever to meet You panim el panim (face to face/soul to soul) to live eternally and to enter the Promised Land?’ God answered: ‘Moses – your decree is sealed, but I will transport you to the study hall of one of the greatest sages of future generations so that you will understand that your end-time as leader has arrived and that even you, my most cherished one, are not immortal.’

Moses found himself suddenly in the presence of the great Rabbi Akiva. One of Akiva’s students asked about the origin of the sage’s teaching. Akiva answered: ‘It was received by Moses at Mount Sinai.’

Moses was dumbstruck, for he did not understand, and in his incapacity he felt small and humiliated. But, he realized that his time had indeed come to step away, that he was no longer the leader he once had been, that he must accept his fate and the way of all human beings.

Though these Midrashim addressed death as the ultimate reality in Moses’ life, the teaching also applies to the living, that there comes a time for us all when acceptance of change is necessary, that we are no longer necessarily effective enough or capable enough to carry on as we had in former days. When that time comes, it is in our best interest and the best interests of those we serve, who depend on us, who look to us to lead, to step aside and allow the next generation to assume the mantle of leadership.

Though change means loss of all kinds, it opens us as well to new opportunities. The twentieth century French philosopher Paul-Michel Foucault put it this way: “The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.” And Buddha taught: “In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.”

Also posted on my Times of Israel Blog – see https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/holding-on-too-long-when-to-retire/

My note: From time to time I come across an analysis in the Israeli newspaper of record Haaretz that is important enough that anyone interested in American Middle East policy and Israel’s security ought to read. The American re-entry into the Iran agreement is probably imminent. This is one of those pieces that explains the significance of the recent presidential election in Iran that “elected” Ebrahim Raisi. As Pinkas notes up front, this was far from a fair democratic election. More broadly, Pinkas reviews where we are vis a vis the 2015 Iran Agreement and what we might expect going forward.

Alon Pinkas – Haaretz

June. 21, 2021 5:23 PM

Ebrahim Raisi may be known as the ‘Executioner of Tehran,’ but his election is unlikely to change Iran’s thinking concerning its nuclear program. Israel’s new government has a major challenge ahead

Judging by the shocked and dismayed reactions around the world, including in Israel, you would think that the newly elected president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, was running against Thomas Jefferson in a fair and open election in which the “conservative” and “reformist” factions of the perpetual Islamic Revolution were civilly clashing over how to improve the future of Iranian democracy.

Especially odd and somewhat amusing were statements, in both the United States and Israel, along the lines of “How could the U.S. possibly reenter the Iran nuclear deal with a man like Ebrahim Raisi?”

First, ultimate power in Iran rests with the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s successor). The president of Iran serves at his pleasure and follows his directions to the letter. So whether it is Raisi or, indeed, Thomas Jefferson as president, it make little substantive difference to foreign and security policy.

Second, Raisi did not invent Iran’s nuclear program, nor will he curtail Iran’s nuclear program. This is a decades-long ambition and no amount of sanctions or pressure can alter that. What is debatable, and subject to evolving and changing intelligence assessments, is whether Iran is content with being a “threshold state” – as evidence shows it has been since 2003 – or intent on militarizing its nuclear capabilities.

Third, it’s not as if the original Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA) in 2015 was struck with mild, moderate pacifists like Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Ali Larijani, while Raisi is a dangerous extremist. Essentially, the conservative and reformist factions are two sides of the same revolutionary coin. Differences rarely exist when it comes to Iran’s national security – and when they do, they are limited to style and tactics, not core policy.

Raisi, aka “the Executioner of Tehran,” is a known commodity to Iran specialists and observers. He heads Iran’s judiciary and has been subject to U.S. sanctions since his direct involvement and complicity in executing many thousands of political rivals and dissidents in 1988. He ran for president in 2017 and was defeated by Hassan Rohani, the man he is now replacing. Anyone who follows Iranian politics knows who and what Ebrahim Raisi is, and his position in the Iranian power structure.

In fact, one Iranian affairs scholar, Tel Aviv University’s Raz Zimmt, predicted two years ago that Raisi had been ordained by the religious establishment, i.e., Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was destined to become president and, later, supreme leader. His election, however undramatic given the wholesale disqualification of other candidates – particularly those the religious establishment views as moderate “reformists,” or unpredictable outsiders like former President Ahmadinejad – raises some important questions. Has the regime’s legitimacy been tarnished? Is the low voter turnout an indication of a growing disconnect between the regime and ordinary Iranians oppressed by hard economic conditions and the coronavirus pandemic? Are there serious power struggles within the regime? Is there still a viable “moderate” faction in Iranian politics? And so on.

These questions are best left to Iran experts and a perspective available only with time and the geopolitical environment of the next few years.

The nuclear agreement – more specifically the U.S.’ reentry into it – seems an increasingly urgent and immediate issue that may be affected by Raisi’s election. This is, naturally, the issue that concerns Israel, and presents an early and complex challenge to the new Naftali Bennett–

In terms of the time frame, there are two scenarios that can play out: an agreement is reached by August while Rohani is still president; or talks drag on without a deal being concluded until Raisi takes over. On Monday, he already announced that he wants the U.S. and European signatories (France, Germany and Britain) to “revive the agreement that the U.S. violated.”

Talks in Vienna were effectively suspended pending the election, but are scheduled to resume in the coming days with several outstanding and contentious issues still unresolved:■ The sequence: Iran is demanding that all U.S. sanctions reimposed after its unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 be lifted. The Americans want gradual reciprocity. Many sanctions – approximately 1,500 – were imposed through anti-terrorism laws and thus require congressional action, not just a presidential executive order.

■ Iran demands reparations for the economic costs and losses it accrued as a result of the U.S. withdrawing despite Iranian compliance.

■ Iran wants a U.S. commitment not to attack its nuclear facilities.

■ The U.S. demands an Iranian pledge to expand the agreement in the coming years to nonnuclear issues, particularly long-range missile development and regional support of terrorism via proxy organizations in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

If both sides show goodwill, good intentions and creative thinking, these differences can be overcome and a deal can be struck. That is exactly why Israel is apprehensive and anxious.

While the new agreement may provide Israel with ample time to devise a grand strategy, it is perceived as being a setback compared to the original 2015 agreement that Israel encouraged then-President Donald Trump to ditch.

Israel’s main concerns pertain to the significant shortening of Iran’s “breakout time” – the period between having the capabilities and actually manufacturing enough weapons-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear device. Since Iran began violating the agreement in 2019, it has enriched uranium using advanced centrifuges. From what Israel knows about the details of a possible agreement being negotiated in Vienna, there is no time-compensation for Iran’s advances. That is also the position of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Right now, Israel assesses the breakout time to be three to four months. In a scathing attack on former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Iran policy, former Military Intelligence Chief Maj. Gen. (ret.) Aharon Zeevi Farkash told Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday that “this is the very last minute of the game. … Israel had no impact whatsoever on negotiations. … Netanyahu failed in preventing Iran’s nuclear program, failed in preventing or adding input or influence to the 2015 agreement … and now Iran is much more advanced than it was while the agreement was in place. Yet [Netanyahu] chose not to do anything, instead trying to set up the Bennett-Lapid government for failure.”

Israel has two main concerns. First, the “military group” – the technological-scientific department in the Iranian nuclear program dealing with weaponizing nuclear capabilities (or, put simply, building a working warhead). U.S. and Israeli intelligence vary on the scope of operations of that department.

Second, the U.S. commitment, if one is actually made in the deal, not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities presents Israel with a vexing dilemma going forward, requiring a bilateral, discreet mechanism to determine whether Iran is violating the agreement and what the “red lines” are justifying an assortment of possible Israeli actions.

Over the coming week, Israel has two opportunities to convey its concerns: IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi is currently in Washington; and presidents Reuven Rivlin and Joe Biden are set to meet next Monday.

Irrespective of those meetings, a new nuclear deal may be struck and it’s the new Bennett-Lapid government that will have to set up a credible and serious dialogue with the Americans on how to deal with Iran in the aftermath, and to press for and insert its own input into an expanded version of the deal.

On a hot afternoon earlier this month I played golf with my 31 year-old son. We walked the course as we’ve done over the two decades we’ve played together. He carried his clubs and I pushed mine in a hand-cart. I didn’t drink as much water as I should and so, by the sixth or seventh hole I felt so depleted that I wondered if I could finish the front nine. ‘What was going on,’ I thought as I struggled up and down the gentle grades of the course. I walk every morning between two and a half and four miles, but this trek felt beyond arduous. It took me three days to recover. Yes, it was hot and I didn’t drink (I will the next time), but I’m also 71 years-old and I was feeling it. I told David that this round was the last in which I would walk the course. I’m riding in a cart from now on.

I’ve noticed other things too about getting older. I have difficulty getting up off the floor after playing with our two and a half year old granddaughter. At times, I can’t remember the names of books and their authors, films and their screenwriters, casts, and directors that I’ve just read and seen. My hair is grayer now and starting to turn white like my mother’s and all her nine siblings when they reached my age. I doze midday after reading five to ten pages of even the most compelling novel or mystery. I’m tired earlier each evening no matter what I do during the day. By nine pm I’m ready for sleep. I still think and feel like I’m a forty or fifty year-old, but the above tells me otherwise. When I was my grown sons’ ages, I can’t recall seeing doctors except a dentist every six months or so. Now my list of physicians is substantial.

I’ve come to regard myself as a used 1949 Chevy, a good solid car in its day, but like all old cars things break, need repair and new parts. Why should I be so surprised that the same thing happens to us as we age?

A friend once quipped “Getting old sucks! Not getting old sucks more!” True enough and I’ll happily take as many years as I can get.

I read the obituaries now more than I used to both because people’s lives fascinate me and I’m curious about others’ longevity. My father lived 53 years and all my grandparents except one died by 60. My mother was the exception. She lived to 98. Medical advances suggest that so many of us likely will live longer than those in earlier generations.

Accepting the truth that I’m aging has been a preoccupation for me over the past decade or so. At times, I deny that it’s happening and dismiss the aches and pains as just having a bad day. Mark Twain said, “Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” I wish I minded less.

There’s no magic pill to reverse what happens to us. We can slow the effects somewhat if we eat right, exercise daily, keep our weight down, get enough sleep, stay engaged with people and things that matter, remain productive, and see doctors regularly and especially if something feels wrong (without becoming a hypochondriac).

I consider myself a fairly empathic person which enabled me to engage effectively, I like to think, in my former people-intensive vocation. But, until I experienced something personally, empathy only took me so far. Experience is our greatest teacher. Isn’t it? We can read about the truths of aging, but until we grow older ourselves, we don’t really understand it.

A big part of life, should we live into old age, is about accepting the variety of loss we inevitably endure – the illness and death of loved ones and friends, getting sick ourselves, physical incapacity, and diminished mental and physical strength and stamina. Acceptance, thankfully, has ancillary benefits – learning the new emotions that time and events bring and gaining wisdom and perspective from them.

Virginia Woolf wrote in her novel Mrs. Dalloway:

“The compensation of growing old…was simply this, that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – The power which adds the supreme flavour to existence – the powers of taking hold of experience, of turning it round, slowly, in the light.”

I count my blessings every day – my wife, children, and granddaughter most of all, my brother and dear friends too, generally good health, a home I love, enough income so I don’t worry, and the capacity to do most of what I wish to do. Riding in a golf cart instead of walking isn’t much of a sacrifice because still I get to spend four or more hours of uninterrupted time with my son. I’ll continue to do that as long as I can swing a club.

Also posted on my Blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/aging-gracefully/

My friend Andy and I were walking the golf course thirteen years ago when we saw some old guys in their seventies playing together. “That’s you and me in 20 years,” he said.

We then spoke about the importance of our friendship and male friendship generally and thought of who, amongst all the people we jointly knew that we’d like to have in our lives as we grow old and how best to assure sustaining those friendships over time.

“A book group,” one of us said.

“Great idea,” said the other.

So… we selected a dozen mutual friends who were smart, liberal-thinking, interested in the world, thoughtful, reflective, verbal, and liked to read.

We ended up with a varied lot: lawyers, a judge, physicians, entertainment executives, a journalist, an engineer and inventor, a media analyst and former political speech writer, business guys, a psychotherapist, and a rabbi. Four have written books. Half are now retired. We are American-, French-, and Egyptian-born. We include a child of survivors and a Jew-by-Choice. We are all – or were – married. We’re dads and granddads. Our grown kids live all over the place including a Haredi in Israel. A few of our originals dropped out and we added two or three new guys from time to time. We’ve met consistently every other month for the last twelve years.

The first book we read was Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope. Since then, we’ve read sixty to seventy books, fiction and non-fiction, from Franz Kafka’s Short Stories to Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. Everything we’ve read was, in one way or another, worthwhile even if some of us didn’t like the book. Our conversation was always engaging, and we genuinely like and respect each other.

This past week after fifteen months of zoom meetings, we met on my backyard patio to discuss the contemporary Irish writer John Banville’s novel Snow. As host, before we began discussing the book I asked everyone to share whatever silver lining he might have gleaned during the lock-down.

Many of us said we bonded more deeply with our spouses, children, and grandchildren, how much we appreciated a more simplified life, solitude, working from home, and grateful that we didn’t suffer financially as so many millions did around the country.

We’re between 50 and nearly 80 years old now. We noted, as Andy and I used to say on very hot summer days on the links plodding along from hole to hole that we feel fortunate to still be on this side of the grass and more or less healthy. Only one among us got sick from Covid, but he – thankfully – recovered.

After the meeting, I thought more about the silver lining during this horrendous period of Covid. I’m naturally an optimist. But, I have fewer illusions about human nature than I did. The Trump era showed how many millions of Americans are bigoted, mean-spirited, and susceptible to demagoguery, and where the injustices and weaknesses are in our imperfect democracy, but also how many more millions of people (again, my optimism speaking) are good and decent who believe in a shared society based upon justice, compassion, and respect for others and for America’s democratic traditions.

Our discussion of John Banville’s Snow had at least one relevant theme consistent with our reemergence from isolation. Set in Ireland in 1957, the plot centers around a brutal murder of a Roman Catholic Priest in the middle of a frigid winter. The book is both a mystery who-done-it and a novel. “Snow,” actually, is a key character in the book, as is the sea, wind, trees, and animals. Like all the anthropomorphisms and human characters, what lies beneath the surface is a deeper, more disturbed, and complex order of things, not nearly as pure and straight-forward as they may wish to appear. Each character held secrets, and though the murderer of the Priest seemed obvious from the beginning of the story, at the end we were shocked to learn the identity of the true killer.

Of course, everyone has secrets – including us – and Covid helped bring many of those into focus. We became more aware of what we really want, need, value, and cherish, and how and with whom we wish to spend our time, energy, and treasure. For us, most of our lives are behind us in the rear-view mirror. We find ourselves therefore focusing more on the present and short-term future, as well as on the future well-being of our children, their partners, and grandchildren. We feel less patience for wasting our time on that which either doesn’t interest or engage us and more patience with the people we love and for meaningful pursuits.

There was much clarity spoken between the twelve of us on my backyard patio this past week. Andy and I no longer play golf weekly for all kinds of reasons, but we do have each other still and, of course, our book group. Dayenu – that’s enough for which I feel grateful these days.

The claims are spurious; that Israel is a state founded on the displacement of the Palestinians; that Israel’s Jewish character excludes millions of people based on religion; that Israeli policy inevitably leads to ethnic cleansing; that Israel is an illegitimate state.

These wild and largely untrue assertions are being disseminated more brazenly by anti-Israel proponents and are accepted by many far left American progressives including some young Jewish Americans. How many Jews believe this is not known. Regardless of the numbers, progressive Zionists need to understand what is motivating these Jews, consider what their extreme positions say about the character of their Jewish identity, and the impact upon the well-being of American Judaism in its relationship with Israel itself.

The 2020 Pew Research Center study of the American Jewish community is not specific about the numbers of Jews who hold anti-Israel positions, but it does report that younger Jews generally feel less emotionally connected to Jewish peoplehood and the State of Israel than their older counterparts:

“Eight-in-ten U.S. Jews say that they feel at least some sense of belonging to the Jewish people, and three-quarters say that ‘being Jewish’ is either very or somewhat important to them…

Young U.S. Jews are less emotionally attached to Israel than older ones. As of 2020, half of Jewish adults under age 30 describe themselves as very or somewhat emotionally attached to Israel (48%), compared with two-thirds of Jews ages 65 and older…

Among Jews ages 50 and older, 51% say that caring about Israel is essential to what being Jewish means to them, and an additional 37% say it is important but not essential; just 10% say that caring about Israel is not important to them. By contrast, among Jewish adults under 30, one-third say that caring about Israel is essential (35%), and one-quarter (27%) say it’s not important to what being Jewish means to them.” (https://www.pewforum.org/2021/05/11/jewish-americans-in-2020/)

There has not been much change in these numbers since Pew last studied the American Jewish community in 2013. Nevertheless, it seems that there are more American Jewish progressives who are critical of Israel’s policies vis a vis the Palestinians than there used to be. But, this does not necessarily mean that these Jews have turned their backs on Israel or joined with Israel’s enemies in attacking Israel’s legitimacy. It would be a serious mistake to lump into the same pot responsible critics of Israeli policy with delegitimizers of Israel.

I have always believed that criticism from love is the highest form of patriotism. There are many who love Israel in the progressive American Jewish community but who oppose Israel’s hardline right-wing policies towards the Palestinians. There are others, however, probably a small minority among America’s 7.5 million Jews, who feel no love for Israel and challenge Israel’s legitimacy. All that said, something new seems to be happening amongst younger American progressive Jews that progressive Zionists ignore at ours and Israel’s peril.

We have to ask what motivates those far left American progressive Jews who hold anti-Israel views?

Being an American progressive Jew legitimately can be confusing. Historically, Jews have experienced oppression, and now Israel has become an oppressor in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel occupied after the 1967 War. The occupied lands are not de jure part of Israel, though Israel’s right wing presumes de facto that they are. These Palestinian areas are administered under the Israeli military and not according to Israel’s democratic institutions and processes. The IDF often confiscates Palestinian-owned land, demolishes Palestinian homes built without permits, threatens the expulsion of Palestinian families from their homes in Sheikh Jarah and Silwan, and humiliates Palestinians at check-points and in middle-of-the-night raids. Settler violence against  West Bank Palestinians and their olive groves and crops continues with few arrests and prosecutions of the culpable extremist Jews. The people living under occupation are oppressed and victimized, and that is intolerable and unsustainable for a democratic Israel.

Gaza is something else entirely. Hamas rules over it, though Israel and Egypt control its borders, and its policies and intentions are clear – to kill Israeli civilians, destroy Israel, and replace the Jewish State with a Palestinian-Hamas State from the river to the sea. Hamas cares little about the lives and safety of its own civilians or it would have built shelters with the millions of dollars and tons of cement it used to build tunnels to move Hamas fighters and weaponry and attack Israelis in their homes.

The consequences of every war are awful, with many innocent dead. But, as difficult as it is for a progressive Zionist like me to say it, I do not know what Israel was supposed to do except to fight back in response to Hamas firing 4500 rockets at Israel’s civilian population centers with the sole intent to kill and terrorize as many Israelis as possible. Israel’s Iron Dome defense system vastly limited the damage, but that does not diminish Hamas’ evil intent.

Of course, negotiations must happen with Palestinian leadership to reach a diplomatic resolution of the conflict. But Israel has no negotiating partner in Hamas and never did. Hamas is maximalist. It does not nor will it accept Israel’s legitimacy. To think otherwise is delusional.

Perhaps the difference between young progressive Jews who challenge Israel’s legitimacy and people like me is based in our different generational experiences. The Pew statistics suggest as much. I was born a year after the establishment of the State and raised with the narrative that Zionism and the State of Israel are responses to historic Jewish vulnerability and powerlessness, the need for Judaism to blossom culturally in its historic homeland, and as a way to test Jewish ethics in the context of having and exercising sovereignty and power.

I know Israel’s history and Jewish history well, and I understand the Palestinian’s history and narrative too. I suspect that most young progressive Jews do not know that history nor do they remember personally the Oslo process or an Israeli government trying to make peace with the Palestinians. All they know is an increasingly hard-line right-wing Israeli government supporting the settlement enterprise, oppressing Palestinians under occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and fighting wars against Hamas in which apartment buildings collapse and hundreds of Palestinians die, including many children. Over the last decade, they’ve watched as PM Netanyahu favored a relationship with the right wing of the Republican party, with the despised Donald Trump, and with American evangelical Christians instead of maintaining a non-partisan relationship with American Jewry as a whole and dismissing the needs of 75% of the American Jewish community that votes with the Democratic Party. Is it any wonder that many progressive Jews feel outrage and alienation?

As American progressives, they support cultural diversity and intersectional politics. Their political values are simple, based in what’s right and wrong. They affirm equality, justice, and respect for the “other” as means to building a better America. They are not wrong. I agree with them. But, the situation in the Middle East is not simple nor is it America.

American Jews are faced with the challenge of squaring our connections with the Jewish people and the State of Israel and our concern for fairness, justice, and the well-being of other oppressed groups in our imperfect American democracy. But American institutional racism is not similar to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. That conflict is not a racial conflict. Israel is not a racist nation, though there are many racists in Israel. Nor is Israel an apartheid state as the far left in American politics is claiming with more and more frequency. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is about two peoples who claim the same land as their people’s homeland.

In Israel itself (i.e. the 1948 armistice lines) Israeli-Palestinian citizens enjoy the same rights as Israeli-Jewish citizens. Palestinian Arab-Israelis are members of the Knesset and now an Arab political party will be in the ruling government coalition for the first time in Israel’s history. There are many Arab-Israeli judges including an Arab-Israeli Supreme Court Justice. This isn’t to say that Israel’s Palestinian citizens are treated equally to its Jewish citizens. They aren’t. They deserve equal treatment and equal rights as promised in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

All this said, I ask two questions of progressive Jews who are anti-Israel:

Do you believe that even the most progressive secular Jewish state is an anathema?

Do you believe that Judaism cannot live with a Jewish state, that your being a Jew is inconsistent morally with the idea of a State of Israel?

If your answer is yes to either or both of these questions, what are you saying about Judaism itself?

Judaism that devolves into universal humanitarianism is no longer Jewish. Judaism teaches that essential to Jewish identity is a commitment to Jewish peoplehood on the one hand and to ethical values on the other. At times, they may clash – but holding both together is essential to maintaining Jewish integrity. To teach one to the exclusion of the other results in a truncated and reductionist Judaism that is ultimately destructive to the Jewish people and to the Jewish State.

What worries me the most is that a growing (albeit currently relatively small) number of young American progressive Jews have become so alienated from Israel and the Jewish people that they have turned their backs on who they are as Jews in history and on the Jewish right to self-definition as a people. Critics of Israeli policies are not antisemitic. However, when critics say that Jews have no right to a state of our own, that is antisemitism.

This blog is also posted at The Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/young-progressive-american-jews-and-israel/