Expressing ties to Israel

Intifada tests pro-Israel feelings, however U.S. Jews define pro-Israel

CARL SCHRAG
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

Marissa Kerzner of Phoenix is currently studying and traveling around Israel with the Alexander Muss High School in Israel program, organized locally by the Bureau of Jewish Education. Here Kerzner, who will be a senior at Pinnacle High School in the fall, visits Mount Gilboa. Photo courtesy of Mark Kerzner

Every week, Sheldon Berman distributes an e-mail compilation of "must-read" articles and commentaries about Israel from a variety of media outlets around the world.

"Everybody's inundated with stuff to read," the Baltimore accountant says from behind his cluttered desk. "I try to keep it to 10 pages."

Berman began distributing his e-mail newsletter about three years ago, when he and other members of his synagogue, suburban Orthodox Congregation Toras Chaim, decided they needed to take steps to educate their 260 member families about events in Israel.

"We're a very Zionist shul," he says, "and we wanted to prove it."

Just what does it mean to be pro-Israel in America today? How do American Jews express their ties to Israel?

The old joke says that whenever two Jews get together, they have three opinions. That's certainly true of the ways American Jews express their support for, and concern about, the Jewish state.

Does support for Israel mean writing a check, attending a rally, visiting or even moving there? Politically speaking, does it mean defending the government's policies or advocating different ones?

The questions take on added significance at times of crisis in the Jewish state and the answers go a long way in reflecting the relationship between American Jews and Israel.

The American Jewish Committee's 2003 Survey of American Jewish Opinion found that some 74 percent of respondents said they feel very close or fairly close to Israel, and 76 percent agree that "caring about Israel is a very important part of my being a Jew."

A smaller, but still significant, majority of respondents, 63 percent, said they believe they should support the positions of Israel's elected government even if they disagree with them.

But beyond survey numbers are the actions taken.

One measure of support for Israel is a visit or long-term stay. Berman has visited five times in the three-and-a-half years since the Palestinian intifada began. Next year, his son will study in a yeshiva there.

According to Brandeis University professor Jonathan Sarna, Berman is fairly typical of the Orthodox community.

"There is a huge difference between the Orthodox community and others," Sarna says. "The Orthodox have by and large continued to go to Israel and to send their children to Israel."

Nathan Hyman is a junior at the Orthodox Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community High School in Baltimore.

"You'd be a different kind of Jew if you were disconnected from Israel," he says. "The message I've gotten from being in this school is that Israel is a cornerstone of the Jewish faith." He added, "It seems natural to be involved."

The school has changed its Israel studies curriculum in light of the current unrest, according to Joshua Gurewitsch, who chairs the Jewish history department.

Students learn to read media accounts of the conflict with a critical eye, and guest speakers help prepare seniors for potentially hostile encounters with anti-Israel activists on college campuses.

Many of Beth Tfiloh's students will get additional reinforcement before going to college. Most of the 90 seniors go to Israel on an extended class trip, and many spend a year studying in yeshivas or other educational programs.

While Orthodox youngsters may have the most all-encompassing immersion in Israel education, other movements also seek to instill in their youths a strong tie to the Jewish homeland.

Just a few miles south of Beth Tfiloh, in Bethesda, Md., members of United Synagogue Youth, the Conservative movement's youth arm, have been volunteering to run a phone bank for the Koby Mandell Foundation, which supports victims of terrorism.

Mandell was a 13-year-old Israeli-American who was bludgeoned to death by Palestinian terrorists in 2001. Mandell's parents had made aliyah from Maryland, where his father, Seth, had been a Hillel director.

One recent night, eight high school students phoned donors across the country to seek support for the foundation's Camp Koby, which provides a camp-style break for Israeli children who have lost a loved one to terrorism.

Taking a quick break between calls, 15-year-old Abe - the organizers asked that last names not be published - said that learning about Mandell helped him put a face on the terrorism he learns about in religious school.

"I feel good to be doing this," he says. "It's better than sitting at home watching TV."

The group surpassed its goal, raising $1,681 for Camp Koby.
Rabbi Barry Block, of the Reform Temple Beth-El in San Antonio, Texas, said his congregants are very interested in Israel. He says that though they had shied away from Israel travel following the collapse of the peace process in late 2000, now "we're back - with a lot of excitement."

This summer, six of his young congregants are going to Israel with the Reform movement's youth arm, the National Federation of Temple Youth. That's the same number that went in 2000, before the intifada began.

If resuming travel to Israel is a sign that Jews are adjusting to the new reality of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, then a return of dissent and disagreement is another indicator.

Observers say that like Israelis, many American Jews who care about Israel but disagree with the government's policies felt compelled to keep quiet during the early part of the intifada, when Israel was under constant attack.

But recent stirrings on the political left show that the limits of silence are being reached in Israel, and American Jews who disagree with Israeli policy - or are supporting Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza - also are speaking up.

"There's more than one way to be pro-Israel," says Steve Masters, a Philadelphia lawyer who was a founder of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, which describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace and pro-human rights organization.

Since its founding in April 2002, Brit Tzedek has advocated dismantling Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and pushing Israel's leaders to be more forthcoming in peace negotiations.

When Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met President Bush in Washington in April, Brit Tzedek delivered to the two leaders a petition signed by 10,000 American Jews calling for the Israeli government to offer financial incentives to settlers who relocate into Israel proper.

A founder of Brit Tzedek, Marcia Freedman of Berkeley, Calif., accuses the organized community of stifling dissent on Israel. She says the old joke about two Jews having three opinions is no longer accurate.

"Now you get 10 Jews, one allowed opinion. Everything else is traitorous," she says. "It's intimidating to be told, 'You're threatening Israel by saying that.' If you're told that what you're saying is dangerous, you start being quiet."

Some community leaders have dismissed such gripes as unfounded, arguing that there simply are fewer dissenting voices because so many American Jews perceived that even Israel's most generous peace offers elicited a belligerent Arab response.

Some Jews seem to be simply turning away from Israel rather than wrestling with the difficult issues.

"Almost no one talks about Israel," says Gerald Bubis, a prominent figure in left-of-center pro-Israel groups in Los Angeles. "Far more people just are not interested in Israel today because it is just too painful for them. I see it in intangible ways."

As an example, he cited the charities chosen by children at their b'nai mitzvot. In years past, many children asked that gifts be made to Israel-related charities, he said, but today he sees many more choosing local causes.

Still, in recent months, Bubis has noticed something of a resurgence of left-of-center voices in his community. Attendance has increased at programs sponsored by the local Peace Now chapter and the Progressive Jewish Alliance, which promotes left-of-center views on Israel.

The director of the San Francisco region's Jewish Community Relations Council, Doug Kahn, notes that thousands of local Jews can be counted on to mobilize around Israel-related issues, but he says he is worried by the large number who simply have "moved on" to other issues or causes.

He adds that the collapse of the Israeli left has caused many on the left in his community to step back from their pro-Israel activities.

"It has been a challenge to keep them engaged," Kahn says, adding that a relatively small number have become pro-Palestinian activists.

The real problem is long-term, he says, and it didn't start in the last few years: He points to the 1982 Lebanon War as the beginning of a period in which many American Jews grew disillusioned with Israel.

"It's fairly easy to mobilize the activist core around issues related to campus or media," he says. "There tends to not be enough attention paid to a diminished attachment felt by a larger cross-section of American Jews."

Funding for this series was provided in part by the American Jewish Committee's Dorothy and Julius Koppelman Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations and The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.

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