THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE, Institute of Human Relations, 165 East 56 Street, New York, NY 10022-2746

American Jews and Israel: Are They Drifting Apart?

A Symposium

Held at the Meeting of The American Jewish Committee's National Executive Council November 4, 1989 AMERICAN JEWS AND ISRAEL: ARE THEY DRIFTING APART?

A Symposium

Held at the Meeting of The American Jewish Committee's National Executive Council November 4, 1989

PARTICIPANTS

Arye Carmon, president, Israel-Diaspora Institute

Mel Lcvine, Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representative from California

Alfred H. Moses, chair, AJC Board of Governors and the American Advisory Board of the AJC's Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations

Norman Podhoretz, editor, Commentary INTRODUCTION BY ALFRED MOSES

Your attendance this morning and your uplifted faces beaming with keen anticipation tell me and our guests that this is an important session to the American Jewish Committee. We're going to be discussing whether American Jews and Israelis are moving apart. The announcement for the meeting uses the words "drifting apart." "Drifting" would indicate that neither American Jewry nor Israel has any control of the situation, that the forces of nature are moving ourselves and Israelis in opposite directions. I, for one, reject that. We may be moving apart, but there is no reason why we should be drifting apart. The fact is that the last 20 years have been very different from what was anticipated by most of us. More than 500,000 Jews left their countries of birth and came to the United States, not to Israel — well over 100,000 Soviet Jews, over 30,000 Iranian Jews, and many hundreds of thousands of Israelis. This will have its impact not only today but for years to come. Politically, American Jewry has remained committed to social democratic values at a time when Israeli society has moved to the right, away from the decisions of the Labor party, away from the political philosophy that was the underpinning of Israel for the first 20 years of Israel's existence. What do these two phenomena mean for the future of relationships between ourselves — American Jewry -- and Israel?

Before proceeding with our presentations it is appropriate that I review briefly at this lime the work of our Institute on American Jewish-Israeli Relations. Founded in 1982 by Bert Gold and directed by him since then (it is often referred to as Bert Gold's Institute, and logically so), the Institute is the first such effort by an American Jewish organization to come to grips with the issue we are discussing today - the relationship between American Jews and Israel. The Institute has set up advisory boards here and in Israel. The board in Israel is headed by Zalman Abramov, former leader of the Liberal party in the Knesset. It has among its members former ambassadors to the United States and European countries, academic deans, and leading figures in Israeli industry. We have a similar board here in the United States whose first chair was Stuart Eizenstat. And we have as our Institute's founding members persons who head the three major Jewish theological institutions in the United States — the Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University, and the Hebrew Union College. We also have the lay heads of most of the major Jewish organizations, including the United Jewish Appeal. Our two advisory boards not only meet separately at regular intervals but they also meet together in Israel each year.

We have established two exchange programs. One, founded and sponsored by Edna and Matthew Brown of Boston, has sent 65 young Israelis to the United States over the past seven years. Among them were young men and women who are today members of the Knesset and mayors of cities and development towns, some beyond the Green Line and some within the Green Line. And we now have sent two groups of young Americans to Israel in a program sponsored by my wife, Carol, and me. They spend two to three weeks with their counterparts in Israel. And these arc the persons who are the future Mel Levines of American Jewry. -2-

We send out a monthly newsletter in Hebrew to 1000 opinion-makers in Israel reporting on what is going on in American Jewry. And we know from our work in Israel how important that message is. It is the one vehicle that Israeli leaders have in their language to learn what's going on here in American Jewish life. We are working with the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture on the development of special programs for the training of teachers in instructing Israeli students about the Diaspora. The negation of the Diaspora is no longer acceptable to world Jewry. We have to learn more about each other. Israelis have to start teaching about us, and we have to learn more about our Israeli brothers in Israel, for we are one people. We have commissioned publications to deal with such critical issues as territory and peace - a look in-depth at halakhic justification for holding onto territories and at the same time giving up some of them, if necessary, for the sake of peace.

We have also sponsored conferences dealing with such issues as perceptions of Israel in the American media in the aftermath of the Lebanon War and with Ashkenazi-Sephardi relations in Israel. What we are doing is trying to bring the two societies together. The results of these conferences and the data produced by our opinion polls have served as resources for American Jewry and indeed for world Jewry. They are often reproduced in the American press and the Israeli press. That has been accomplished under Bert's direction. And I think we should, through applause, confer a message of appreciation for what he has done. REMARKS BY REP. MEL LEVINE

I am delighted to be here today at the annual meeting of the American Jewish Committee's National Executive Council. I welcome the opportunity to address this audience in my hometown and am pleased to appear on a panel with both Norman Podhoretz and Arye Carmon.

The subject of today's session is extremely important. Few can deny that events over the the debate over "Who is a Jew," U.S. and Israeli policy toward issues ranging ״ past several years from Soviet Jewry to South Africa, the peace process, and the Palestinian uprising - have created the perception and, at times, the reality of strains and stresses between the American Jewish community and Israel.

And yet, American anguish - and, occasionally, American anger - over these issues occurs within the broader framework of American Jewry's love for Israel and our commitment to Israel's safety and security. Often we find ourselves experiencing conflicting emotions.

For example, when the nightly news shows Israeli soldiers combating Palestinian protesters, do you sometimes say to yourselves, "There must be another way to respond"? And yet, when your local paper editorializes against Israel's treatment of those same Palestinians, do you feel provoked to make a response, committed to trying to place such incidents in context?

Or when the Israeli government is accused of dragging its feet on the peace process, do you feel that Israel should understand that it is in Israel's best interest to be seen as the party most aggressively pursuing peace, if only so as not to jeopardize American support? And yet, aren't you simultaneously stirred to anger when observers call Israel the "obstacle" to peace, knowing full well that Arab hostility to Israel over four decades remains the primary reason why no peace has been possible?

when told by American Jews what kind of concessions they -־ What about the Israelis who should make for peace - respond by telling you that the Middle East is their neighborhood, that it is their sons and daughters on the front lines, and that it is ultimately their blood which will be shed should too much be given too soon?

A brief story, often told by former Israeli ambassador to the United States Simcha Dinitz, illustrates this point.

A chicken and a salmon go out for a meal. They stop outside a restaurant to look at the menu, which features eggs - hard-boiled, scrambled, poached -- and also smoked salmon, salmon steak, and salmon souffle. "Let's go in," advises the chicken. "I'd rather not," replies the salmon. "Why?" asks the chicken. "Well," says the salmon, referring to the menu, "for you, it's a contribution; for me, it's a total commitment."

What about conflicts between American Jews and Israel over Soviet Jewish emigration? In Israel's view, if Soviet Jews are getting out of the USSR with Israeli visas, shouldn't they go to Israel, which really needs these potential oliml On the other hand, hasn't it been American policy and the long-standing goal of our community - simply to get these Jews out and then -־ for 20 years give them freedom of choice?

I want today to suggest that these situations are simply part of the ongoing evolution of the relationship between American Jews and Israel. My rabbi during Kol Nidre devoted her entire sermon to a perceptive analysis of this subject, and likened the relationship to a marriage. I agree. Just as in a marriage or any other long-term partnership, strains and stresses, conflicting emotions, are inevitable after a number of years. It can never be all good all the time — and it never is. When — as here — we speak of two societies, two countries, two cultures, they undoubtedly will deal differently with such critical issues as security and religion.

That this is so should surprise no one, but for us it can create a complex and sometimes confusing reality. We might be angry, frustrated, or disappointed on a particular issue, and might therefore want to speak out. We know that candor and openness are essential ingredients of a close relationship and must be parts of it. But we also know that public differences with Israel, on the peace process particularly, raise a real prospect that this criticism will be misused and manipulated.

I am convinced of two key points which contain the seeds of conflict but which must be reconciled. First, disagreement and differences arc inevitable. Israel itself is deeply divided. It is entirely natural for fundamental Israeli debates to be reflected in the American Jewish community. Most importantly, it is not unpatriotic to disagree.

Second, regardless of the disagreements, the future of Israel and of America's Jewish community are indivisible. Wc must always be there for the other, in both good times and limes of trouble. As lovers of Zion, we have a responsibility to do no less, to defend Israel in the court of public opinion.

even if vicariously - at Israel's birth, who saw Israel rise from ״ Those who were present the ashes of the Holocaust, who watched the desert bloom, who have history to inspire them: these arc the stalwarts of our community, the bedrock of Israel's support, who can look beyond the daily drumbeat of hostility directed toward Israel.

However, wc cannot ignore the fact that there are others who were also present at the creation who have a different view. They are the ones for whom the dream has died, for whom disillusion has set in. They arc the ones who turned off when the dancing stopped and the not- so-pretty process of nation-building began in earnest. It might be wrong, it might be unfair, it might totally ignore Arab enmity, but these feelings exist in our community, and we ignore them at our peril.

These sentiments at least appear to be felt more deeply among younger Jews too, and that points to another crucial matter of which we must be aware. It is very hard for Jewish students, in 1989, to defend Israel on the college campus. Israel's enemies in this setting are articulate, aggressive, and often intimidating. Many Jewish organizations do a superb job of educating our students to respond, but the tables have now turned.

Israel, perversely, is too often seen as the Goliath, and our sons and daughters are always on the defensive. In fact, they operate at a handicap, for their history began during the latter Begin era, during Lebanon, a time leading to increasing disagreement in Israel and in the United - for they have not really lived ־- States over several of Israel's policies. They do not really know the full triumph and tragedy that is Israel: Entebbe and Maalot, the '67 war and the Munich massacre. So they begin to question the Tightness of the views on which they were raised. If it results in an abandonment of the cause? That is the potential tragedy.

and I believe it is America's heart ־־ Israel long ago won the struggle for America's heart that it must keep to ensure deep and lasting American support. Yet today's TV images arc both within and beyond the American Jewish ־- challenging the hold Israel has on America's heart community. Our imperative must therefore be to provide our offspring and our community with the ability, the incentive, and the inspiration to continue to make Israel's case forcefully to the world.

Part of the process must be a reiteration of some simple truths which are too quickly dismissed by Israel's detractors and even by some in our own community.

First, Israel reborn was a nation surrounded by those who vowed to destroy her at birth and who, with one exception, have reiterated that vow in word and deed for 40 years. Precisely because of the unremitting hostility Israel has faced during its four decades, both its survival and loom remarkably ־־ accomplishments -- in agriculture, industry, medicine, and so many other fields large.

Second, during a recent visit of my own to the Mideast, just last August, I met with all levels of Israeli society as well as with Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza. Everyone had an opinion on everything, be it the peace process, the PLO, the United States, even the NBA. There is no other country which, while surrounded by implacable enemies, has maintained such standards of democracy as has Israel. Imperfect, yes, but -- as regular visits to the Arab world remind me - it is light-years ahead of its neighbors.

Third, I walked down the streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Tiberias last summer. And as it always has - was the multiplicity of faces. It is a constant and visible ־- what struck me ־־ reminder that Israel is the refuge of Jews from over 100 countries of all backgrounds and colors Zionist pioneers, Holocaust survivors, Oriental Jews, Soviet and Ethiopian Jews fleeing persecution, repression, and famine, and so many others for whom Israel truly is the "Promised Land." What's more, Israel is home to upward of half a million Moslem and Christian Arabs, Druze, Baha'is, Circassians, and other groups, all of whom add to Israel's ethnic quilt.

Fourth, the principal reason I went to Israel in August was to share the country with my three young children. It was their first trip there; they loved it. Indeed, Israel is the place where many of our kids go to spend a summer or a semester, where they can see firsthand the history that is Israel. It is no surprise that the majority of those students who fight most fiercely on Israel's behalf are veterans of visits to the Jewish state.

I say all this not necessarily to be a cheerleader for Israel but to argue that we should feel proud of what Israel has accomplished. We should not let misgivings about certain Israeli policies make us so defensive or disillusioned that wc lose sight of these fundamental facts and lose the spirit to carry on the struggle.

My feelings for Israel -- and for America's interest in Israel's security -- motivate me to spend much of my time in Congress trying to do all that I can to ensure her continuing strength and survival.

by many here in this room and by Jews across the ״ And I know that pro-Israel activism -6- country - whether politically, financially, or culturally and whether through Federation, Bonds, PACs, defense agencies, or civic organizations remains both vibrant and vigorous. Success in Washington on behalf of Israel would not be possible without the enormous outpouring of support for Israel generated at the grass-roots level.

There is a final component in the strategy that I have outlined. For it is ultimately not enough to point out Israel's assets or focus on Arab flaws. Rather, it requires a return to the theme with which I began. And that is a recognition that there will be differences between American Jews and Israel, there will be tensions, and there will be trying times. Those times, those issues, must be dealt with honestly and candidly. But we cannot let these differences poison relations between Israel and the Diaspora. We need each other. We depend on each other. We cannot allow a divorce.

Like it or not, how conflicts are discussed is a sensitive subject. I believe candor is essential as an American congressman ״ in a relationship. Still, on a personal note, I also believe that I representing an American constituency who is not a member of the Knesset - can be most constructive when I have strong views to offer by offering them privately; that to choose up sides publicly in a domestic Israeli policy debate is doing neither side a service. Others will choose a different course. So far, I have concluded this is the way I can be most effective.

Inevitably, the destinies of American Jews and Israel will remain forever intertwined. They should be, and they must be. For the fate of the Jewish people everywhere is tied together. All Jews know instinctively that when a kibbutznik is killed in the Galilee, the Jew in Los Angeles grieves. And when the leader of the Jewish community is gunned down in the streets of Brussels, the Jew in New York, Miami, Mexico City, mourns. Whatever the strains, whatever the tensions, let us never forget: Am Yisrael Echad - that, ultimately, is the essence of my message today. REMARKS BY DR. ARYE CARMON

Just before this meeting I reminded Norman Podhoretz of the first time we met, some sixteen years ago. He had come to speak at the University of Wisconsin, where I was a graduate student. I told him that my grandmother's maiden name was Podhoretz. We noted how uncommon a name Podhoretz is, and assumed that our ancestors had come from the same area of Poland. Of course, we also had to assume that we are somehow related.

Regardless of whether this is true or not, I want to open with this sentiment. More than two generations ago, whether we were relatives or not, we would have spoken the same language, shared the same tastes, looked at the same landscapes, and aspired to more or less the same things. ,not so many years later ״ We feared the same surroundings. We were part of one culture. Today but already two generations after the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel have become here I am, speaking to you in a language not -־ predominant in the Jewish collective consciousness my own. Your culture is not my culture; your horizons are not those that I know. True, we still have a lot in common: memories, feelings -- we even think alike. I am not sure, though, if the same will be said about our grandchildren. What will happen two generations from now? This is my concern.

Are we drifting apart? I suspect we are. Is this inevitable? Quite frankly, I don't know. Looking back over the past decade, it looks on the surface like we have walked away from these problems, ignored what is nothing less than a crisis in the relationship between us. The extent of I don't know if "gulf is the right word -- but clearly there -־ our differences is not yet clear to me are signs of growing problems in the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora. Personally, as an educator, I am committed to trying to prevent this.

The first observation I want to make is that the very notion of drifting apart is couched in our experiences of the past. We ought to be vigorous enough, courageous enough, imaginative enough, and creative enough to deal with this issue from the perspective of the upcoming century. This would certainly be more constructive. My thoughts can be divided into several points:

First, the political situation has changed drastically in Israel. Since the late 1970s all the rifts and schisms inherent in Israeli society have come to the fore. Today, for instance, we do not have a dominant party in power, we have two. The result is a government which is often a ־־ let along the Diaspora Jew ״ incapacitated and is certainly unable to offer the Israeli citizen clear, unified political vision.

This has obviously affected the American Jewish community. We no longer have the luxury of saying "we are one." American Jews can no longer simply adhere to official Israeli policy because there is no longer just one Israeli policy. -8-

Looking back at the decade of the 1980s we can point to several other events that are part of this watershed in the relationship: the war in Lebanon and the intifada. In the early 1980s, during the Lebanon War, I was a visiting professor at UCLA. As I spoke to the community, on many occasions, I learned that "fact-finding missions" were sent, first to Yamit (during the Israeli evacuation of the Sinai), then to Lebanon. I begged my friends in the Los Angeles Jewish community to send a fact-finding mission to Israel to learn about the impact of these events on Israel itself. Their confusion, however, only confused me; and then I started to understand the extent of the differences in our respective perceptions of Israel and of Jewish responsibility.

The 1980s was also a decade of change in the leadership of the Jewish communities. Both in Israel and in the Diaspora we have a new generation of leaders who did not live through the trauma of the Holocaust and the wonders of founding the Jewish state, For this generation the existence of the State of Israel is a fact. This allows them to be more rational, more critical. A similar change has occurred in the American political leadership. One need only to compare Reagan's almost emotional attachment to Israel with Bush and Baker's more analytical, detached approach to diplomacy in the Middle East. The American friendship with Israel is being transformed not by a political conflict, or even by disagreements between friends, but because something has happened generationally in the leadership of both countries.

My main point, though, goes deeper than this. I would like to argue that what is at stake is an identity crisis in Israel. Speaking as an Israeli, I would like to emphasize the asymmetrical relationship which exists between Israelis and Diaspora Jews. As a Zionist, I would like to pose an ostensibly non-Zionist argument. It seems to me that the continued Israeli denial of our diasporic heritage and our diasporic tradition is the crux of the crisis we face today. Zionism attempted to negate "diasporism," to erase the galut from the collective consciousness. For our parents, who were rooted in the Diaspora, this was an understandable necessity. They could never have built what they did without wrenching themselves from their own past. But we — the sabras whose roots are Israel itself - have been brought up totally disassociated from our historic past, from our diasporic essence. If we look at Israel as a society in the making, one still far from achieving its final form, then we can begin to understand how important it is to connect the past 40 years with the previous 2000 years. Both for better and for worse. For instance, those 2000 years were years without political sovereignty. But it is precisely this political responsibility for which stands foremost on our agenda ״ ourselves - the fostering of democratic institutions in Israel in Israel today. This was not necessarily a part of Zionist consciousness because it was not a part of the Jewish experience in the Diaspora. And now, because we do not have a past which taught us about political sovereignty, we have problems with the future.

And here is yet another element. For the past 40 years Israel has been immersed in the awesome effort of developing itself. We have observed this same process in other nations. But Israel could be singled out in modern history as the only society that has been undergoing this process during an ongoing geopolitical conflict which draws all her energies and resources into what has been called "a struggle for survival." What has emanated is a mentality, even an ethos, of "survival" which I see as poisoning that very entity wc have worked so hard to achieve. Jewish history makes use of the word kiyum, which means existence, not survival. Existence in Jewish history had two faces: the physical and the spiritual. The latter meant on ongoing search: Jewish existence is an answer to what question? And hence: Is Israel an answer to the existential Jewish question? "Survival" debilitated our response to this essential question.

One tangible symptom of these difficulties, which I wish to bring as an example, is what I call the abandoned generation, the generation of those children, my children, born into the post- '67 situation.

I was born in Jerusalem and grew up in a country with borders. It was clear where my country started and where it ended. I also knew exactly what lay beyond those borders: not just the enemy, but another language, another culture, another aesthetic. My children are growing up in a country without such boundaries, without that which determines one's own collective identity. In this respect it would not be enough just to hope that their own children will grow up in a country where there will be democracy on both sides of the Green Line. Something has to be done, and is not.

Without entering a political discussion on the occupied territories, my point is that we have raised our children without preparing them to deal with today's conflict. We have not taught them how to live with the deep ambiguities and confusion of a situation which I did not have to face as a young man in a young nation in the 1950s and 1960s. This is one of the most important aspects of our identity crisis. A vacuum has been created into which those very values Zionism rebelled against are penetrating: ultraorthodoxy, bigotry, and fundamentalism. Forty years after the founding of the state we have only one truly national, nonorthodox symbol: the annual sirens which mark the commemorations of Holocaust Remembrance Day and the Memorial Day for Fallen Soldiers. Indeed, the one symbol which should represent the ethos of the Jewish democratic state is connected with death. I see this as a major problem for Israel, and an important message to anyone wishing to make a serious relationship with us.

To illustrate, I am reminded of the story about Mr. Goldstein. When he passed away, he want "upstairs" where he was told, "Look, Mr. Goldstein, we have a problem. You're in heaven, but your sins and good deeds are about equal, so you can choose between paradise or hell." Goldstein asked for a look at his choices. When he opened the door to paradise, he was surprised to see a huge garden with olive trees and under it a Jew studying the Talmud. It looked a little boring, and he asked to see hell. When he opened that door he saw all sorts of wining and dining and good times. Fantastic! He went back to say that he wanted to go to hell. A few hours after his arrival, they turned off the lights, brought in the boiling oil, and dropped him in it. It was really hell. So, he ran back to the entrance and yelled, "What happened? Yesterday it was great!" "Yeah, but yesterday you were a tourist!"

There are two ways to look at Israel, from the inside and from the outside. I am by no means implying that Israel is hell. But I would like to point out some distinctions which I think arc very important in a serious observation of the relationship.

We are different. Israel is trying to substantiate its sovereignty in a very dynamic way. At the moment, it is disassociated from its tradition, and there is a whole web of problems in defining its identity — its own Jewishncss. On the other hand, when we talk about the American Jewish community, we talk about an American Jewish ethos which resides very comfortably within a Protestant American ethos and has succeeded in creating a certain synthesis, which is very interesting. I cannot elaborate now, but let me pose one thought to you: Time and time again, wc have heard, particularly from the American Jewish Committee, about the need for religious pluralism in Israel. I submit to you that the very phrase "religious pluralism" is a peculiarly American Jewish phrase. I am not as sure as I was a few years ago that we can transplant Reform and Conservative Judaism into Israel, and institute that pluralism which is so familiar to you. I am not so sure whether we should. Perhaps we should use more endemic aspects of our culture in order to foster our own brand of diversity.

Do we want Israel to be both a democracy and a Jewish state? If so, then I think we can do many things together. As an illustration I will conclude with the following suggestion: We arc on the threshold of the twenty-first century and the world is shrinking. Communication, transportation, and the media all make us much closer to one another. 1992 is going to bring a major change to Europe. It follows that the whole issue of Israel's borders may have to be looked at in a new way. -10-

In the Zionist dream, borders were important things. They were a symbol against the homelessness, the powerlessness, the statelessness - the galut of the Jew. It is this question of borders that has so deeply divided us in Israel and made the building of the state that much more difficult. Borders have another dimension, though. Are the borders of a sovereignty really the borders of participation in that society? Shouldn't we Israelis open our eyes to the reality of our Jewish-diasporic existence? At the same time we have members of the Jewish collective who are not citizens of our state. And there are citizens of this state who are not members of this collective. This is one of the major dilemmas that we have to deal with together.

Is it really a question of "either democracy or Jewish identity"? Are these two irreconcilable? To prove their compatibility, we must work together to redefine the identity of the state, and make use of modernity's acceptance of the differences between us, between Israel and the Diaspora. This understanding may help to bridge the gap we feel right now.

Now, a final word. These issues are not just philosophical. I truly believe that we can act on them and make concrete progress. This will take time, which is more expensive than the checks written to the UJA Two specific issues come to mind: My institute is currently involved in electoral reform in Israel. We believe that reform of the electoral system in Israel may be the key to a reconncction to the Diaspora, to the Jews of the Diaspora. We do not want the issue of "Who is a Jew?" to surface anymore. We believe in a strong, stable government for Israel. We want to reinforce democratic institutions. This is something the Diaspora Jews have a stake in. We believe that they will help us find a way of achieving our goal. Not directly, of course, because this is an internal issue for Israel. But since democracy is something that we share, we have to find a way to communicate with each other about it.

Another sphere of joint action, an issue of mutual concern, is culture, which has always been one of the best ways of bridging gaps. Israelis are very hungry for the arts and the artifacts that represent the richness of the Jewish tradition. This might pave the way to deal with the Israeli crisis of identity.

I could go on, but I won't. I just want to conclude with the one thought that I mentioned before. We cannot deal with our present circumstances in a superficial way. If it is indeed as important as I believe we all agree it is, then we must place this issue higher on our common agenda. -11-

REMARKS BY NORMAN PODHORETZ

I'm sure that Arye and I must be cousins because Podhoretz is a most uncommon name. We no doubt are related, and we come from the same culture, which was, of course, a Yiddish- speaking culture. Growing up in Brooklyn, I had grandparents who spoke only Yiddish and they had to put up with foreign grandchildren like me who spoke English. Most of us learned Yiddish, but we were after all English-speaking. And when I got older I used to wonder what the experience would be of having children or grandchildren who were foreign - that is, who spoke a different language. And now God has rewarded me with the same experience. I have two Israeli grandchildren, little foreigners who speak Hebrew. As someone said to me observing us together at the King David Hotel a few months ago, "Now you know what your own grandfather felt like." I do indeed. Jewish history plays many cunning jokes on us. And that is the theme of my remarks. Jewish history has its own complexities which are difficult to unravel, especially from the perspective of other national histories. So I'd like to look at the question that we're considering here this morning from the perspective of the cunning of Jewish history.

I want to interject one introductory remark. I'm not going to talk about the Israeli side of this relationship; I will not presume to do so with a native of Jerusalem here on the platform. But I do wish to offer a bit of personal testimony that to some extent contradicts the picture that Arye gave us. I remember when I first visited Israel back in the early fifties. In those days I spoke Hebrew quite fluently. (I don't anymore. I speak it brokenly now because I never kept up.) And because I spoke Hebrew quite fluently, I felt very much at home in Israel. Yet I soon came to feci alien after a few weeks in Israel because of the relentless insistence on the tradition Arye has shlilat ha-golah, the negation of the Diaspora. One ran constantly into people ״ reminded us of who poured contempt on Jewish life in the Diaspora. They constantly said, "Why are you living there? Why aren't you living here? If you're Jewish, you have no business living anywhere else." One rarely runs into that kind of thing anymore in Israel, even from old-style Zionists. On the contrary, one finds a rather poignant and wistful altitude toward the Diaspora which is perhaps more positive than it should be from the Israeli point of view. So I think the picture of the growing separation between the Israelis and American Jewry may be somewhat overdrawn.

From the other side, I also think that the anxieties over a split between American Jews and Israel have been overdrawn in the last ten or so years. The question is: What is our comparative benchmark? We all have short memories in this country. And few of us seem to recall, either because we're too young to have been there, or because we have simply forgotten the history that we ourselves lived through, that not all that long ago - no longer ago than in the mid-fifties - there was a good deal of unfriendly sentiment toward the State of Israel in the American Jewish community. And I put that mildly. For instance, the Sinai campaign in 1956 uncovered the depth and extent of the unfriendly feeling that a great many American Jews in those days felt toward Israel. -12-

In those days you still had a Reform movement which was heavily, if not indeed overwhelmingly, led by rabbis and lay leaders whose tradition was anti-Zionist and who were actively hostile to the idea of a sovereign Jewish state, which they regarded as a regression from universalism to tribalism. That same world contained people who were what they called non-Zionist rather than the ״ anti-Zionist. It was a distinction sometimes without a difference. Even this very organization American Jewish Committee - still had traces of its old prc-1948 non-Zionist ideology.

Within the Orthodox community, 30 years ago, many were hostile to Israel on the ground that it represented a blasphemous forcing of the end of days. (A few of those types are still around today.) You also had a vigorous socialist element within the Jewish community which was hostile to Israel. Not, of course, because Israel represented a forcing of messianic days but because it represented a form of what they considered reactionary bourgeois nationalism. I'm talking here not only about communists but also about people within the large labor unions who were democratic socialists or social democrats. The Jewish Daily Forward, which was the largest-circulation Yiddish newspaper in this country, was actually anti-Zionist from a socialist point of view for a very long time.

Finally, you had a very large group of assimilationists, people who were neither hostile nor vaguely unfriendly to Israel but simply indifferent, totally indifferent. Most of the aspiring young intellectuals I went to Columbia College with in the late '40s were mystified by the fact that I used to go two nights a week and Sundays up to 122nd Street and Broadway to the Seminary College of Jewish Studies where I was pursuing a higher Jewish education while simultaneously studying English and American literature at Columbia. They couldn't understand why I would interest myself in that "parochial," "trivial," "marginal" stuff that was fading away and was of no importance or distinction anyway. These were Jews, not Gentiles, very brilliant Jews, some of whom have become very famous. One of them was Allen Ginsberg, by the way.

Now as compared with that period, only 30 or 35 years ago, the degree of hostility and unfriendliness within the American Jewish community today looks rather tepid. Or, to put it more positively, the degree of commitment to and interest in Israel today looks very impressive.

Why then is there so much talk about a growing split? Obviously, because the benchmark ,the post-'67 period. What happened in 1967 ״ being used for comparison is a more recent period as a result of the Six-Day War, and was then reinforced in 1973 by the Yom Kippur War, was (if I may quote myself), the "Zionization of American Jewry." I won't rehearse the drama of the two- week period leading up to the Six-Day War - the anxieties about another Holocaust that were aroused. But there is no question that all the groups I just mentioned -- the Orthodox, the Reform, the socialist, the assimilationist - who had been either hostile or indifferent to Israel experienced something like a conversion to Zionism. I don't mean Zionism in the classical sense of saying that all Jews have to live in Israel. I mean Zionism in the minimal sense of a commitment to the idea that there should be a sovereign Jewish state in the land historically called Palestine. Something like 99 percent of the American Jewish community suddenly found itself Zionized in this minimal sense by the experience of standing and watching the possibility of another Holocaust unfold in the two weeks before the war, after Nasser closed the Straits of Tiran and the UN pulled out and there were blood-curdling threats about destroying the Jewish state and driving its inhabitants into the sea. Then came what seemed to everyone a miraculous victory, and in only six days. All this had an enormous effect not only on Jews who were already Zionists in the sense in which I have defined it but on those who had not been Zionists. These anti- or non-Zionists simply dropped all their old anxieties about tribalism and the forcing of the messianic era and reactionary bourgeois nationalism. Everything of that kind faded. And everyone now agreed that it was absolutely essential that there be a sovereign Jewish state in that part of the world.

I think the most telling summation of what overcame the Jewish community in America, -13- and incidentally in other countries as well, was made by the theologian Emil Fackenheim in, I am proud to say, an article in Commentary where he spoke of the 614th commandment - the post- Auschwitz commandment, the commandment that said, negatively, "You shall give no posthumous victories to Hitler," and whose positive face was, "There shall be Jews." And here I must disagree profoundly with something Arye said about death as the only unifying symbol for Jews today. Whatever existential questions the Jews may have wrestled with, it seems to me that in the period after the Holocaust one existential question has been settled for some time, the question of whether there should be Jews or not. Jews chose, Jews answered, they chose life, not death. They chose life as a community. And the fact that they may define Jewish existence in ways that would have horrified my grandparents and Arye's doesn't matter. Jews, in the very depths of their being, might well have been tempted to fade away, to disappear after the Holocaust. They might have said, "This is enough. It was fine while it lasted. But no more. We will yield to this monstrous will to wipe us off the face of the earth. There is no point in struggling against it anymore." The Jews did not say that. They said, on the contrary, "We will react to this effort to wipe us off the face of the earth by reasserting our determination to survive - here, in Israel, and everywhere." I myself find this the most moving moment in the whole of Jewish history, and it is a moment in which we are still caught up. It's not a moment that has passed, it's a moment in which we are still living.

In any event, Jews everywhere committed themselves to the 614th commandment, even if they did not observe any of the other 613. The 614th was felt existentially, if you will, to include and supersede the other 613 at this period in Jewish history. And having submitted to the imperatives of that commandment, to what Fackenheim calls the commanding voice of Auschwitz, Jews did what they do. In Israel they fought. Here in America they gave money. They gave political support. They produced people like Mel Lcvine who would help in Washington. It was an extraordinary period. I've often said, looking back at it, that it was a golden age, not of Jewish culture such as the Jewish people experienced in medieval Spain, but of Jewish security in the Diaspora. Because in that period - roughly the period from '67 to '82; we can, alas, demarcate these periods by wars, the Six-Day War, the Lebanon War - you found a harmony, an easy harmony between the Jewish commitment to the 614th commandment and the commitment of American Jews to the other religion to which they have, from my point of view, somewhat less rationally submitted, namely, liberalism. There was no conflict between the political or secular religion of the Jews and the commitment to Jewish survival as embodied in the security of the State of Israel. It was a happy harmony, and Jews here were asked to sacrifice nothing except a few bucks in order to be true to both religions. And money is cheap, as they say. It's a lot cheaper than psychological or spiritual or ideological discomfort. Certainly for some people it is.

I don't have time, unfortunately, to develop this scenario, but you all lived through it and you probably remember it just as well as I do. All I want to say is that this happy harmony was disrupted by a number of episodes. One of them was the coming to power of Menachcm Begin, which meant there was now a government in Israel that was not felt to be "like us" - that is, like us American liberals. It was bad enough that Begin was a "right-winger," but what was even worse was that he depended for his electoral support on those "fanatical fundamentalists." I sometimes compare the reaction of Jews here (and also in Israel) to the accession of Begin with the reaction of American liberals to the accession of Richard Nixon to the presidency. Both were felt to be a kind of usurpation of power by elements who had no right to rule. In any event, the accession of Begin was compounded by the Lebanon War which together had the effect of bringing about what I like to call a return of the repressed. That is to say, the various forms of hostility to Zionism that had existed in the past but had been repressed or suppressed or squelched after '67 and '73 now came back. You found, for example, a resurgence of the old Reform tradition, not this time taking the form of outright opposition to the Jewish state, not at all, but taking the form of giving Israel's enemies, or Israel's critics, if you like, the benefit of the doubt in every conflict. It as a kind of sour disposition toward the Israelis and particularly toward the Israeli government. -14-

You also found the old socialist position coming back, not in the form of a dismissal of Israel as a reactionary force or a tribalist culture, but in the form of an attack on Israeli security concerns as a manifestation of tribal or xenophobic sentiment. I could go on and on with this. But the point, I think, is clear.

Now, let me wrap this up quickly. I don't think anti- or non-Zionist sentiment cither in its older forms or in its newer mutations ever penetrated a substantial segment of the Jewish and probably no more than 15 or ״ community. Today, about one-third of the community at most shares in these sentiments. The survey data seem to bear that estimate out. Yet what ״ percent 20 has happened in the last few years, particularly since the intifada, is that the influence of this rather small segment has been magnified by a journalistic culture which has tried to appoint spokesmen for these perspectives as true representatives of the Jewish community. Their representativeness has been widely exaggerated by the amount of attention that has been paid to them in the press and on television — panels and talk shows and interviews. There is a hidden political agenda in this effort to magnify that point of view and it is precisely to undermine the idea that any politician in this country who is unfriendly to Israel will be penalized by Jews to the extent that they have the power to penalize him. The message that is being sent to politicians is that it is now getting safer to attack Israel because the Jews arc split. They can risk offending the so-called Jewish lobby (which is really nothing more than the totality of the Jewish community as it reacts to politics; the whole idea of the Jewish "lobby" is itself an attempt to denigrate the commitment of the Jews as a whole to the State of Israel).

The truth, however, is that the Jewish commitment to Israel remains firm and is shared by the overwhelming majority of American Jews. So, incidentally, is the willingness to allow Israelis whose sons are on the line, whose blood is one on the line, to decide how best to get through the crisis through which they are now passing. I know that anecdotes arc not proof, but I can tell you that in my own visits to Jewish communities around the country, I find confirmation of this impression everywhere - that is, that Jews are for the most part very firm. And I mean very firm not just in their support of Israel but very uneasy about the idea that they are split or that they wish to do anything to undermine the position of the Israeli government which is a democratically elected government with all its difficulties.

I said before that the moment in which the Jews decided to submit to the 614th commandment, to live and not to die, was perhaps the most moving moment in all of Jewish history. Speaking as one who lives and participates in that moment along with the rest of you, I feel both proud and yet humble to be a part of it. And as long as we remain a part of it, as long as we resist the forces trying to undermine and split us, we will be doing our duty by the Jewish past, by the Jewish present, and by the Jewish future. 1 f

THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE Institute of Human Relations 165 East 56 Street, New York, NY 10022-2746

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