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Mixed Marriage: American Israeli Religious Zionists and Their American Experience Master's Thesis Presented to the Faculty Of Mixed Marriage: American Israeli Religious Zionists and their American Experience Master’s Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Yehudah Mirsky, Advisor In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Near Eastern and Judaic Studies by Brandon Pinsker May 2015 Copyright by Brandon Pinsker ©2015 Acknowledgements I wish to express my sincere appreciation to professors Yehudah Mirsky, Eric Fleisch, and Ilan Troen for their help and guidance throughout my undertaking of this thesis paper. I wish to thank Yehudah Mirsky for always being eager to assist me and I thoroughly enjoyed the considerable amount of time we spent discussing this paper. I am grateful to Eric Fleisch for his help in setting up the interviews for this project; without whose help this project would not have been possible. Last, but not least, I wish to thank Ilan Troen, for his guidance and wisdom throughout the duration of my studies. I cannot express enough my profound sense of gratitude for these three mentors. In Hebrew, “gratitude” is Hakarat HaTov, literally meaning “recognizing/knowing the good;” in this brief space, I merely am expressing recognition of the goodness inherent in Mirsky, Fleisch, and Troen. iii ABSTRACT Mixed Marriage: American Israeli Religious Zionists and their American Experience A thesis presented to the Department of Near Eastern and Judaic Studies Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Brandeis University Waltham, Massachusetts By Brandon Pinsker This paper presents qualitative research in the form of interviews with American immigrants to Israel who identify as Religious Zionists.1The paper will attempt to elucidate their opinions about how they connect to both Israel and the United States. Broadly, this study will help to explain the ideas of “Jewishness in contemporary America and Americaness in contemporary Israel.”2 Through an examination of the interviewees’ religious, cultural, social, and psychological views towards America and American Jewry— the latter being a subject within the study of American immigrants to Israel that has been given scarce attention— it will be argued that their views are mixed, and interestingly, at times contradictory, a conclusion similar in manner to Charles Liebman’s renowned The Ambivalent American Jew, in which he argued that American Jewry did not develop in a linear fashion of merely attaching Judaism to their American environment, but rather that American Jewry developed in a complicated—and often contradictory— manner.3 The substantive findings in this paper argue that the interviewees view American society and culture favorably, while viewing American Jewry more negatively; however, this seemingly simplistic argument will be further scrutinized to show its complicated 1 In this paper, these American immigrants will be referred to as American Israeli Religious Zionists. 2 Kevin Avruch, American Immigrants in Israel: Social Identities and Change (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 5. 3 Charles S Liebman, The Ambivalent American Jew (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1973). iv nature and nuance. Furthermore, the paper will analyze the ambivalences found within the opinions of the interviewees, which help shed light on major issues within American Modern Orthodoxy, the American community that most closely aligns itself with Religious Zionism, and issues within Religious Zionism. v Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………… 1 Data Sample………………………………………………………………....11 Chapter I…………………………………………………………………….13 Chapter II…………………………………………….…………………..….31 Chapter III…………………………………………………………………...43 Conclusion………………………………………………………….………..48 Bibliography………………………………………………………………....51 vi Introduction: A Brief Historical Review of the Components of American Aliyah Since the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, Jews have made Aliyah, Hebrew for “ascent,” which has since antiquity referred to immigration to Israel, from every continent save Antarctica. By and large, most of these new Olim (the classic Hebrew term for immigrants to Israel) came to Israel in search of a better life, either through economic betterment or a life free from anti-Semitism. American Aliyah is however a unique case. Those Americans who move to Israel generally do not do so because of economic or discriminatory factors. As sociologist Harry Jubas comments, if American olims’ motivations could be summed up in a single word it would be unquestionably “Jewishness.”4 These immigrants make Aliyah most pointedly because of their deep connection to Zionism and belonging with the Jewish State. They are not “pushed” to Israel due to economic or anti-Semitic concerns, but rather come because they are enticed, drawn, or “pulled” by the idea of living in Israel.5 From the period of 1948-1967, American Jewry had expressed reluctant support for Israel, but with the events leading up to the Six Day War, American Jewry was galvanized in support of Israel.6 In the weeks leading up to the Six Day War, with Egyptian leader Gamel Abdul Nasser, calling for Israel’s destruction, Israel was in a state of panic. Rhetoric of another Holocaust pervaded Israeli newspapers. For their part, American Jewish organizations made a 4 Harry Jubas, The Adjustment Process of Americans and Canadians in Israel and their Integration into Israeli Society, PhD Dissertation, Michigan State University, 1974. 5 Chaim I Waxman, "In the End Is It Ideology?: Religio-Cultural and Structural Factors in American Aliya," Contemporary Jewry 16, no. 1 (1995): 50. 6 Jonathan D Sarna, American Judaism: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 333-36. 1 massive effort to raise funds for Israel and to pressure the White House to help Israel.7 As historian Lawrence Grossman notes, “Many Americanized Jews who had never before affiliated with the community found themselves moved by Israel’s plight.”8 The threat of Israel’s destruction helped to strengthen American Jewry’s communal involvement in regards to Israeli affairs. After a preemptive strike by Israel against the Arab armies massing on its borders, in just six days Israel had beaten back the Arab armies of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, causing a euphoric reaction in the American Jewish community. American Jews had held their breath as Israel was faced with the prospect of annihilation. The war was a huge win for Israel, who conquered the Sinai Peninsula, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, and was a humiliating defeat for the Arabs. A poll after the war found that 99% of American Jews supported Israel during the war.9 After the war, Israel became the dominant force in American Jewish life.10 As Historian Jonathan Woocher notes, “It has been that American Judaism recognizes only one heresy which subjects the perpetrator to immediate excommunication: denial of support to the State of Israel.”11 With an outpouring of support after 1967, American Aliyah rose dramatically, with a concentration of the immigrants being from the Orthodox sector. After 1967, there was euphoria across the Jewish world. Political Science professor Daniel Elezar noted that the war had made worldwide Jewry, “deeply aware of the shared fate of all Jews, and of the way that fate is now 7 Sara Yael Hirschhorn, "City on a Hilltop: The Participation of Jewish-American Immigrants within the Israeli Settler Movement, 1967--1987" (PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago Press, 2012), 85. 8 Lawrence Grossman, “Transformation Through Crisis: the American Jewish Committee and the Six-Day War 9 Arthur Hertzberg, "Israel and American Jewry," Commentary 44, no. 2 (1967): 70. 10 Sarna, American Judaism: A History, 336. 11Cited in: Chaim I Waxman, American Aliya: Portrait of an Innovative Migration Movement (Detriot: Wayne State University Press, 1989), 109. 2 bound up with the political entity that is the State of Israel.”12 With Israel taking an increasingly central role in the identity and in the fate of American Jewry, American Orthodox Jews began to make Aliyah in larger numbers after 1967.13 Their investment in Aliyah is evident when we consider that currently 10% of the Jewish demographic within the United States identifies as Orthodox,14 but 40%15 of American olim are Orthodox.16 Religious Landscapes of Israel and the United States To understand who these American Israeli Religious Zionists are, the Jewish religious landscape of Israel needs to be defined. The broad categories of Jewish identification in Israel are the Chilonim (“secular”), the Mesortim (“traditionalists”), Religious Zionists (National Religious or Dati Leumi, and the Haredim (to tremble in fear;” the ultra-Orthodox).17 The secular tend to not be religiously observant of Halacha, Jewish law, while the Mesortim observe Jewish law to some extent. Within Israeli society, Mizrahim, those that follow Jewish rite from the Middle East and North Africa, tend to be more traditional or religious in general than Ashkenazim, those following the Jewish customs of Europe, evidenced by 44% of Mizrahim identifying as Mesorti while only 18% of Ashkenazim identify as Mesorti.18 12 Cited in Sarna, American Judaism: A History, 315-16. 13 After 1967, the principle motivation became more of a “religious calling” than the pre-1967 desire to merely take part in the Zionist enterprise. 14 L Lugo, A Cooperman, and GA Smith, "A Portrait of Jewish Americans," Washington, DC: Pew Research Center (2013): 48. 15Calvin Goldscheider, "American Aliyah: Sociological and Demographic Perspectives," in The Jew in American Society, ed. Marshall Sklare (New York: Behrman House, 1974), 380. 16 According to author’s conversation with Aliyah organization Nefesh B’Nefesh, it was estimated that 30% of American olim identified as Orthodox within the 2013 Aliyah year. 17 Tamir Sorek and Alin M Ceobanu, "Religiosity, National Identity and Legitimacy: Israel as an Extreme Case," Sociology 43, no. 3 (2009): 481-82. 18 Asher Arian and Ayala Keissar-Sugarmen, "A Portrait of Israeli Jews: Beliefs, Observance, and Values of Israeli Jews, 2009," The Guttman Center for Surveys of the Israel Democracy Institute, AVI CHAI–Israel Foundation (2012): 34.
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