Israel is a very low priority for Jewish Americans

50 Comments / 85 Comments

1. @ Felix Quigley:

   Sorry to hear about your pets… we all grow old even dumb Commies.

2. @ Michael S:

   American Jews — numbered at 5,200,000 strong in 2000 — constitute the second largest and the most influential Jewish community in the World. Yet, that figure hardly provides the objective observer with any insight as to the community’s future viability. To glimpse such an insight, one must examine those twin scourges of Jewish life — Love and Hate, more formally known as Assimilation and Antisemitism.

   The United Jewish Communities’ “National Jewish Population Survey 2000” — a decennial demographic study — found that, due to a negative net birthrate (i.e., Jewish deaths exceeded Jewish births for that period), America’s Jewish population had declined by 300,000 souls from 1990 to 2000. This translates to an average net loss of 82 Jews per day for that decade. This is hardly surprising in light of the study’s finding that 70% of Jewish women in the United States between the ages of 25 and 29 were childless.

   The study also discovered that, due to an ongoing intermarriage rate in excess of 50%, of all children under the age of 12 with Jewish parentage in the United States, less than half have two Jewish parents. Of the more than half with a gentile parent, (according to other surveys) only a quarter thereof will be raised as Jews. Of these, only a small minority will marry other Jews, as it will be almost impossible for an intermarried Jew, however sincere, to convince his or her child to do what he or she failed to do, namely: marry a fellow Jew.

   However, Assimilation and a low birth rate are not the only problems facing the American Jewish community. In its June 2002 “Survey Of Antisemitism In America” the Anti-Defamation League found that one third of all Americans believe that Jews have “dual loyalties” (i.e., they are potentially treasonous) and that one fifth of all Americans believe that Jews have “too much power in the U.S. today” (i.e., they are potentially dangerous). Ironically, it was once perversely believed that the multiplicity of ethnic groups inhabiting America — constituting a plethora of inviting targets for the majority population’s hostility — would provide a bulwark against an obsessive hatred of American Jews. Instead, it seems that at least some of these immigrants simply brought their Jew-hatred with them, thereby finding at least some common ground with those Americans who had arrived before them.

   The Message is clear. The American Exile will end, whether by Assimilation or Antisemitism — more likely, by a combination of both.

   When the nation-state of Israel was resurrected in 1948, it was home to a mere 5% of World Jewry. Today, it constitutes the largest Jewish community in the World, and is home to 50% of World Jewry. And Israel’s Jewish community is the only one in the World with a positive net birthrate.

   Due to ongoing terrorism and the enduring hostility of much of the World, Israel may not seem safe for the individual Jew. Yet, it is the only country in the World that is safe for the collective Jew.

   Again, the Message is clear. If the Jewish people are to have a Future, it will only be found in Israel. American Jews can either be a part of that Future, or they can simply disappear.

   At 5,200,000 strong, American Jewry will not vanish overnight. But its days are numbered.

   [Note: According to the most recent Pew Forum on Religious and Public Life, as summarized by the Jerusalem Post on February 26, 2008: “The survey found that Jews were aligned with the national averages in terms of marital status and divorce rates, but showed that the Jewish birth rate was the lowest among religious groups, with 72 percent of those polled replying that they had no children.”

3. Michael S Said:

   In the meantime, Judaism is losing its American children; but they aren’t becoming Christians; their Christian neighbors are suffering a similar loss. The answer is in the future; and it will not come from men and machines: It will come from God; it won’t be a change in the “powers that be” (They will destroy themselves); it will be a change in individuals’ hearts.

   No one is ready to sacrifice one’s life – nor the love of one’s life – for a culture.

   One-quarter of American Jews have rejected watered-down Judaism in favor of full-strength Christianity. Why?

   According to the American Jewish Identity Survey 2001, out of approximately 5.5 million American adults who are either Jewish by religion or of Jewish parentage and/or upbringing, nearly 1.4 million say they are members of a non-Jewish religion.

   We are not talking here about secularism, not about Jews who opt out of going to synagogue in favor of a baseball game or the movies, but rather in favor of church. Since the vast majority of American Jews are of Ashkenazic descent, this means that 25% of the descendants of European Jews who resisted the blandishments and threats of Christianity for some sixty generations, often at the cost of their lives, are now voluntary apostates.

   American Jews have been occupied for four decades in a desperate attempt to stay the tide of assimilation and intermarriage (not to even speak of their more hideous confrere: conversion). I remember as a teenager in the early 1960s sitting through sermons where our rabbi pontificated on the various solutions to The Problem. Yet exactly what is the Jewish leadership trying to perpetuate? Jewish genes? Jewish culture? A fondness for kreplach and klezmer and Isaac Bashevis Singer?

   If so, no wonder the Catholics are winning. They don’t strive to inculcate in their children a love for Catholic culture. They don’t try to whip up enthusiasm for the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day nor spend millions to make sure that every Catholic child decorates an Easter egg. They are propagating a religion, complete with God and soul and afterlife. We are pushing a culture, complete with Sholem Aleichem and dreidels and lithographs of the Western Wall. But for a culture, no matter how engaging, no one is ready to sacrifice one’s life – nor the love of one’s life. Against Christianity we have pitted not Judaism, but Judaica.

   History shows that substitutes for halachic Judaism have a shelf life of four generations or less. Reform Judaism’s founder Moses Mendelssohn had nine grandchildren; eight of them were baptized as Christians. Zionist founder Theodore Herzl’s children were not only not Zionists, they were not Jews. How many of the grandchildren of the great Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz married under a chupah? How many of his great-grandchildren know what a chupah is?

   To perpetuate Jewish culture, outside of museums and university courses, at the very least you need Jews. But Jews, as all the population surveys prove, are rapidly disappearing. The first step in the multi-million-dollar enterprise of passing Jewish culture on to the next generation is to ensure that there will be a next generation.

4. @ Edgar G.:
   Edgar,

   Thank you for mentioning me as your friend — and I certainly count you as my friend.

   I didn’t realize you had been a professional boxer. I was never a fighter. Believe it or not, I usually talked my way out of fights; but I did get into a few acerbic verbal confrontations. I have always held in high regard, the scripture,

   Qoh.9
   [10a] Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;..

   In a previous incarnation of mine, Ted actually did banish me to the Gulag. I think that my problem (Yes, I do admit that sometimes I had a problem) was that I was not familiar enough with Jewish culture, to recognize their “hot buttons”. I try to be more careful nowadays.

   Until our next round together, God bless and keep you 🙂

5. @ adamdalgliesh:

   Adam- this once I’ll respond, because you brought up something that may have been misunderstood. I rarely ever show temper, always calculated comment, except in the rare personal family matter mentioned here, and even there I could have said much more and much worse.. As a boxer I had 63 fights ( in those day exactly like professionals but fewer rounds) and no matter what, never showed temper. I was a keen competitive multi-sportsman amongst Goyim and often was blatantly ruled against. I never showed temper.

   This matter which was brought to a head by Ted’s -in my opinion-public bald interference on the side of his 50 year long friend, was caused by the foolish introduction of the poor poor man’s hurt feelings over the Ultra Orthodox regarding Reform as goyim. I got involved when I explained, that to the Orthodox they WERE goyim. I was agreeing with him.

   I’ve seen others called much worse than “fool” on this blog with no accusations of emotional crap, or anything at all. But I see that when a “friend” is involved, and cries on Ted’s shoulder, he takes sides. Michael’s and my posts were often mutually very acrimonious, with no censorship…which was as it should be, and we stayed friends.

   But it’s Ted blog, as he sees fit-no question. But I can object to discriminatory treatment. It took me by surprise. My amour propre was involved. I know I’m complaining, but I’m really EX-plaining. Ted is deep into far more serious matters which I fully support, to bother about this.

   When someone, obviously old and, although I didn’t know, ultra-sensitive, talks like a fool, I’m not going to answer by calling him a genius. I live in Canada too, and have my own opinions of Canadian Jewry which, in the form of B’nai Brit, is not high.

   ****I could quote Mark Twain’s “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offences” as thoroughly echoing my feelings on this present matter..(it’s a howl in beautiful prose-highly recommended) but…… I recommend it highly to everybody…….****

   My absence will be permanent, and I deeply regret no more crossing of swords with you, Michael, Bear, Sebastien and others., .In fact this post might also be censored or deleted.. Some years ago I left this blog for the same reason, censorship, and stayed away a very long time..

6. @ Edgar G.: Edgar, I will also miss you. Hope you come back. As you all know, I have a temper, too, and sometimes lose it in the heat of discussion. But I do my best to control it, and I will not be too proud to apologize when I realize that in the heat of the moment I may have got out of line. We all need to remember that even when we have strong differences of opinion with someone, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a bad person. Also, sometimes it is best to just back off when we accidentally touch a sensitive nerve in someone else and they lash out at us. Anger rarely leads to edification. Sorry for my pompous lecturing–I mean well.

7. @ Buzz of the Orient: Thanks, Buzz, for keeping me informed about your experiences in both Canada and the United States with Reform temples,. Obviously, there are Reform Jews and then there are Reform Jews. I think I am on safe ground in saying however, that in the last few years the leadership of the Reform movement, and to a slightly less extent the Conservative movement, in the United States, have been losing their way. They have come under the influence of leftist ideologues who depict Israel as the bad guy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, an obstacle to peace, an “apartheid state,” and the whole rest of the nine yards. The situation is considerably worse in the “liberal” Christian churches–the Presbyterian Church, the Methodist Church, the Mennonites, and the Quakers, which have been almost entirely taken over by leftist ideologues who are extremely hostile to Israel, and however much they deny it, increasingly antisemitic as well. Where we once had the CPUSA (The Communist Party of the United States, we now have the PCUSA (Presbyterian Church of the United States), which has now more or less takes its place as the leftists’ “vanguard” organization. Traditionally, the Reform movement in the United States has had friendly ties to the liberal Protestant churches, and perhaps the Reform leaders have have been influenced by these liberal Protestant ministries as they have drifted leftward. But I admit that this is just my speculation. “J-Street” and President Obama’s patronage of this organization hasn’t helped, either.

8. Edgar G. Said:

   I was not attacking him personally

   Really? You called him a fool. I only took issue with what I saw as an ad hominem attack.

9. I suggested that this poll showed Israel at the bottom, nearly, of issues. This is very misleading. What it means is that a very small percentage of young Jews placed Israel as the number 1 or 2 issue. The remainder may have placed Israel as the 3rd most important issue. We will never know.

10. @ Edgar G.:
    Edgar,

    I will miss your posts. You are one of very, very few people I can have a two-way conversation with about nontrivial matters. I hope your stay in the Gulag is brief.

11. @ Ted Belman:

    If I wrote what you aver no emotion came into it. I reserve my emotions for things more important to me, like what happened to my family. As for what happened to my family in the War it’s a sin for me even to mention it when involved in this present drek.

    Your post does not properly describe what occurred, and I object to your needless censorship . You can do what you like I suppose, but I don’t have to like it. Moreover I was not attacking him personally, I don’t know him, and by the sound of him crying to you I don’t want to. It was HE, not I who brought up the subject. He complained that the Orthodox regarded Conservatives and Reform like Goyim, and I responded that for them they were. I pointed out Chanukah Bushes and the massive intermarriage where the children are raised in the faith of the Goy. If I wanted to cry about my wonderful deeds I could, but am not THAT stupid. If you’ve known this guy for over 50 years you must have first met him when he was already about 55.This simple soul thought I was personally attacking his son and daughter about whose “professions” I knew nothing and care less….and whom, in my opinion, now that it has been brought up (and NOT by me) are merely communal p……no I’d better not, perhaps you’ll send me to the Gulag…… Phooey.

    I think I’ve outstayed my welcome here and can go to the Gulag under my own power. Thank you for all the interesting conversations, arguments, disagreements, and in the end a certain respect paid to one another. I can occasionally read the articles without posting.

12. @ adamdalgliesh:

    I cannot speak for the Canadian organized Jewish communities, whose perspectives on Israel may be different from those in the United States.

    I believe that both Ted and I would agree that generally Canadian Reform and Conservative Jews are more observant and the communities more favourable regarding Israel. I must admit that I did have the experience in Florida of having to say Yorzheit for my late father – there was a Templle close by and I was shocked that not only did it remind me of a church service (although it was not Messianic), in fact they did not use Hebrew at all, However, I also once attended a convention of Reform Jews in Dallas, where the late Governor Anne Richards spoke to the attendees (she was not only pro-Israel but she so impressed me I thought at the time that Texas was lucky to have a Governor like her), and there were many workshops that were based on observant tradiitions and only positive attitude towards Israel. It must have been before the creation of J-Street. I guess I’ve been out of touch with the current circumstances in the USA.

13. Generalizing or labeling a group of people as uniform in views tends to be very inaccurate and low level of intellectual thinking.

    Certainly many Reform Jewish leaders in the USA are not productive to say the least in their support of Israel. Some of the far leftists are harmful to Israel (e.g. Beinart).

    However, I have know over the years many reform Jews who are very supportive of Israel. Many have made aliyah and gone into the IDF. I have debated and convinced some Reform Jews to change their views on Israel and the conflict. I found in particular those who were not deeply knowledgeable, once presented facts they could be swayed to strong pro Israel views concerning the conflict.

14. @ adamdalgliesh:
    Hello, Adam et al

    I am not Jewish, as you all know very, very well; and I’ve managed to give and take my own peculiar brand of ad hominem attacks I don’t like them, in either direction, for what it’s worth. In spite of all this, I actually get along better with everyone here at Israpundit, than I do with many of my Christian acquaintances — particularly those of Pentecostal and Plymouth Brethren backgrounds.

    Just for curiosity’s sake, I have tried to draw some analogies between divisions in Judaism and those in Christianity. There are no exact parallels, but some similar streams. Here is what I have hashed out:

    1. Roman Catholic ~ Sephardic, particularly the political group Shas
    2. Orthodox Christian – Haredim
    3. Mainline Protestant – Left-wing Jews, including most US Jews
    4. Evangelical (Baptist et al) – Nationalist Jews, particularly the Modern Orthodox
    5. Small groups on both sides, such as the Mormons, JWs and Neturei Karta

    In all camps, there are obviously shades of difference.

15. Of course there are good people in both the Reform and Conservative movements. However, I know from personal experience (having frequently attended both Reform and Conservative temples here in the United States) that the rabbis and lay leaders of many of these temples see Israel as the oppressor of the Palestinian Arabs and the “troublemaker” responsible for the Arab-Israeli dispute. At one Reform temple in a small city in the Northeastern United States (which I will not name) the program director of the synogogue even expressed sympathy for the Arab terrorists who murdered and tortured eleven Israeli athletes to death at the Munich Olympics, while introducing a film on this subject. A heard a Conservative rabbi deliver a sermon in another small Northeastern city con the parsha in which Sarah sends Hagar into the desert. In this sermon, Abraham and Sarah, representing the Jewish people, were depicted as the “bad guys,” exiling Hagar and Ishmael, representing the Arabs, into the dessert and depriving Ishmael of his rightful inheritance. The rabbi drew a comparison between his interpretation of this Biblical story and the present-day Arab-Palestinian conflict.

    These personal experiences and similar ones have led me to believe that the leaders of these organized movements in the United States can no longer be relied on by Israel as a base of support in the United States. I cannot speak for the Canadian organized Jewish communities, whose perspectives on Israel may be different from those in the United States.

16. To Edgar G and to Buzz of the Orient.

    Unfortunately you both let your emotions get the better of you leading you both to make ad hominen attacks on the other which I have now deleted.

    I respect both of you for your commitment to Zionism and your knowledge. I want you to equally respect each other. So please make an effort.

    I have known Buzz for 50 years and can attest to his Zionism credentials. Your dispute started when you said the orthodox look upon the Reform as Goyim. He took offense and wrote to remind me: “I am sensitive about Reform Judaism (as you must know it is more observant in Canada than in the USA). My son is the senior Rabbi of a 1000-family member Reform Temple and my daughter is the Deputy Director of CIJA, and this guy knows nothing about me. I created the Hillel Counsellorship at McMaster University, was its first President, and I have been a supporter of Israel all my life. I raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for Netanya’s Orthodox Laniado Hospital when I was the Canadian Director of Development for that hospital, FROM REFORM JEWS!!!”. CIJA is The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. I know them well. In fact one of their leading officials is a friend of mine and contributed to my efforts to hold the conference on the Jordan Option. He and two other people who contributed significant money are all members of the Reform Temple in Toronto.

    So Edgar, help put this name calling behind us.

17. @ Edgar G.:
    Hi, Edgar.
    Earth is very easy to leave — in fact, when the Reaper calls, you can’t refuse. The next stop is Final Judgment. We will all get a speedy trial; but then, time is irrelevant: The scoreboard remains where it is when we die, forever. We can argue a long time or a short time, but the score never changes. It’s best to plead guilty, right off the bat, and beg for mercy. That’s what I plan to do.

    Then comes “moving day”, when we enter our eternal reward. Fortunately, there will be nothing to pack and move; our apartments will all be furnished. I’m not in charge of arrangements there; but here’s what I think. Are there people here, who never “pay their rent”? Who never thank God, but think they have something coming to them.? God has given them life, and all things; yet they aren’t happy. I don’t think they will be happy in the coming life either. As for me, I thank God all the time, for the undeserved goodness He has shown me here. How much more goodness can I expect there, when I am in His presence?

    I think it’s simpler, than people put it up to be.

18. @ Michael S:

    The problem about a permanent home heaven is that earth is so hard to leave. Life generally, no matter how hard, is enjoyable, and a worthy reward for humanity. Once in heaven-if there is such a place, you can never come back. But for those who belev there is, they make all kinds of obstacles to going there and cling to earthly life as hard as possible, now matter how old or ill. .

    So a lot of the talk about “heaven” is dubious, but in your case Michael, you seem very sincere, for which I respect you, even if, in my opinion, completely misled.

19. @ Edgar G.:
    Thanks for sharing your story, Edgar.

    This whole blog, is about fighting fo the Jewish right to their homeland. Once, you tried to fight the fight by doing aliyah; and this proved incredibly hard.

    US Jews, for the most part, live comfortable lives. I can’t blame them for not wanting to move to Israel — or for that matter, not being very Jewish.

    My own family have been wanderers, for hundreds of years. We seek a permanent home, in heaven.

20. I’m writing far too much about this, but will finish with an unusual coincidence. When we came to the hospital for our first birth who should meet there by my cousin Lennie Jackson, with whom I always used to stay in Montreal for a week or two when (going and coming back) travelling to Ireland. I those days I had never flown, always went across Canada by train. He was working in Laniado as a doctor. In Montreal he’d been the many-year Supt. of the Grace D’Art Chest Hospital. When a nationalist govt got in (maybe Parti Quebecois), all professionals were given 2 years to learn enough French to conduct their work or be fired. He and others saw the “writing on the wall” (his words) so quit and he came to Israel. His wife has died; the eldest sister of Eli Wiesel…she was so very nice.

    Anyway an extra little vignette…..

21. @ Edgar G.:

    ADAM…..Correction…….. the street in Karmiel where the apartment was is Netiv Halotus # 5 (I think).The name “Misgav” keeps coming to my mind also-maybe that is where my land plot was.. Before Karmiel we lived In Netanya for 3-4 years on Yehuda Hanasi St. (2 of our children were born n the Laniado Hospital in Kiryat Sanz It was erev Shabat came n the caravan becuse would stay there..when got back one night
    I found it had been broken into, much stolen.)…leading straight down to the beach….which was about 20 ft. below the sea walk. Along this walk there used to be many elderly men with their heads down and hands clasped behind their backs, wandering and wondering what to do.

    I spoke with many of them….nearly all men of great wealth, who were running huge factories and other businesses in the US, employing thousands of workers. They expected to be able to put their experience at the service of the country….but were told that they were not needed, only their money. Not so bluntly, but that was what they all without exception, had felt. ……… They spent their time talking to one another or playing draughts (or maybe chess) on giant boards laid out on the cement and brick walkway cutouts.It was pleasant to stroll, but the beach below,was hopeless, full of balls of tar. There were frames supporting a water pipe and a can of kerosene w/brush because if you walked there your feet got filthy with tar. They always talked about saving water, but those pipes were running 24 hours a day; no shut off valves, just mostly wasted water. Nobody cared…..except me. Then I stopped caring.

22. @ Michael S:

    Thank you and believe you are right. I would have stayed and fought them. actually went to court, and in the meantime we went for that visit to Canada. They stopped us getting on the plane. It was their legal trick. Although I was the plaintiff, they demanded a security of a $125,000, in case I lost the suit, for their possible costs award. We missed the plane, with 4 very young children, one just 6 months old .And I had no idea how to get to a bank in Karmiel from Ben Gurion Airport. They planned it well…….. It was after closing time…I can’t even remember how I managed…now that I think about it.

    Then, with no apparent progress the lawyers contacted me in Canada and asked for another $5.000….I got a brain flash then They would squeeze me dry, and drag out everything until I had no more money. So I wrote my complaint and case to the Judge. Oh horrors..the lawyers had fits…I told them to take their doodling around and sit on it…..There was much more, but writing it only brings up memories I want to keep in the background..of a horrible period in our lives.

    I thought I lost over $250,000 but I believe it was more like over $400.000, not counting the tzorrus, a disrupted family life, and a wife who swore she would NEVER go back to Israel.. In the past I’ve posted about the dirt and filth that goes on there but never so openly as today. I love the country but I hate the “ruling classes”….You know what I mean ..those whose interwoven families seem always to be in charge of everything even if only in the background sometimes..

    We were idealistic, particularly my wife who converted from choice. We wanted to live our lives there under our “fig trees”, be friendly towards our neighbours and bring up solidly Jewish children….. The reality shocked irrevocably…….!!

23. @ Edgar G.:
    Hi, Edgar.

    So, it wasn’t the Cossaks, nor the Arabs, etc. It wasn’t even proper criminals, but people connected with the authorities. It was your prospective neighborsl and since they were well-connected and you weren’t, chances are that they would remain in the neighborhood and you would have to suffer or leave.

    In a situation like this, maybe it’s just as well that you and your wife got out when you did, instead of enduring years more of headaches. Solomon said,

    Prov. 15:
    [17] Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

    Life on earth is short. I wish you well, in your remaining years.

24. @ adamdalgliesh:

    No, I was talking about the Dublin Community in which I grew up, leaving at nearly 28 years old but going back periodically. The Israeli town/city is Karmiel. Venger is dead
    (and I hope most of the others too-it may be different now) The street in Karmiel is Misgav St. Crooked local politics work for the favoured few. Shikkun Ovdim the huge building Co. decided to sell the apartments to those living in them. My 5 roomed apt.(large) was $22.000. They sold to everyone, but refused to sell to me without $100,000 frozen guarantee that we would occupy it all that time, also that I wouldn’t sell it within 10 years. The local Shikkun Ovdim Manager, was one of the Oligarchy. This was before the destruction but after the Migrash drek.

    When we left, we abandoned everything, except a few lifelong items we’d found in the rubble. I loaded over 45 large banana cartons of debris into the large garbage container, gave away over 1000 books I’d collected over a lifetime, and salvaged many I sent back to Canada.

25. @ Michael S:

    Jews….from the apartment just below. It’s a story that perhaps might better ft in my answer to Adam….and meaning no offence to you. @ adamdalgliesh:

    No don’t think that’s the same Burg. This guy was a Minister of Health one tme, eventually the Head of World Mizrachi, and I’m pretty sure that he was the Interior Minister when I wrote to him…..(but I could be wrong) but he was the one wrote to.

    A migrash s a plot of land for building was awarded in a lottery. There’s a story about that too might as well tell you. There were about 80 plots and the next plot owner to mine was the very first to start building. was busy planning the dream 380m. home with a top architect. We envisioned holding monthly neighbourhood parties with the kids having a great time in the swimming pool. It was a mansion…tall oval-topped windows, a large roof garden a strong Miklat (basement strong room) with a steel door and toilet. Everything to make our lives happy and fulfilled. joned the local Security force became a sniper…..etc

    Anyway when it came to build, my arch. told me that the plot was legally too small for the house. We had the plot measured and found that on the “neighbour” side a strip nearly 2 metres wide was missing. Also we found about 10 piles of extra soil piled just over the neighbour wall clearly bulldozer piles, according to a witness.. So I had them piled on the road in front of the neighbour’s completed house. They were his not mine.

    I was arrested and taken to jail. The police Chief insisted that I remove the piles of drt, and threatened to put me n a cell under the stars with a complete steel door with only a tiny air hole. There was an Arab in it as a cellmate. I could see the end of hs cigarette. They took my fingerprints. My pregnant wife, 2 small children were with me.
    I was told that the “neighbour” was the senior official in the Moetza Mekomit (City Hall) and a special pal of the Mayor. (whose name was Baruch Venger).

    We had previously gone to Venger and complained very politely. He leaned back and put his feet on the desk…and said…”If you don’t like it..go back vere you kem from..”.
    This all happened BEFORE the apartment destruction. So the missing plot portion, was cut off by the Mayor, for his friend, decided at a meeting. At a meeting of migrash owners, where I told my story. a local architect said to me, “I was at the meeting and when widening X’s plot came up,, the mayor said he’d take it from, my plot as “it’s only the plot of an Oleh Chadash”.

    After hearing this, I went back to the City Hall and told them that I would relate all this to the newspapers (my cousin was a well known editor) so they gave me a strip on the other side, bordering the hillside steps…but, as I found when excavating, it contained important pipes and sewers. So it was no good. THEN I wrote to Burg about the situation and the police threats etc. His reply was that he didn’t believe they would act this way……period. All this took nearly 3 years..the exact time I was allowed to begin building.

    We had to get away, so took 3 month trip to Canada are already mentioned, and came back to the destruction. The culprits had the apartment immediately below. .The whole block knew who they were. They gained entrance by reaching out to climb up the “ornamental” metal slats which hid the clothes lines outside the kitchen balcony. You could see the depression in the slats.

    They were a Moroccan family, 3 sons, with IDF unforms and excused because their father had died not too long before….

    At that time I was the Northern Israel table tennis champ, (playing for Eli Tzur) and I just quit. We (I) were defiant, but heartbroken.

    This is EXACTLY what happened.

26. @ Edgar G.: What was the 4,000 member ‘community” that you mention? Is it in Canada or Israel? Were you living in your apartment (or house?) when it was broken into? If this is such a great “community,” why weren’t your neighbors more helpful. Please tell me the communitiy’s name so that I will avoid it when I make aliya.

27. @ Edgar G.: Important information, Edgar! Was all this stuff trashed and stolen during a break-in at your apartment while you were out? Did the police ever arrest the culprit? What i a “migrash? I am not familiar with the term.

    Was this “Burg” guy the same one who was for a time head of the Jewish Agency, then wrote a book denouncing “Zionism” and claiming that Israel was illegitimate, all the while operating a business in Belgium while retaining his luxurious Jerusalem House, and demanding a free car for life from the Jewish Agency? If so, no surprise that he was no help.

    These personal reasons for leaving Israel seem to me more valid than the political ones you cited earlier. Life in Israel is difficult and not to everyone’s taste. You have to be tough and thick-skinned just to survive there. But knowing all this, I am still preparing to make aliya.

28. @ Edgar G.:
    Edgar,

    Who broke into your place? Arabs? Hooligans? It sounds really malicious, like a pogrom

29. @ adamdalgliesh:

    No Adam, they weren’t MY personal standards of perfection. They were just the normal standards that my personal family and my whole community of about 4000 people lived by.

    Because of grim conditions then, an Oleh Chadash was able to bring many things in. free of duty-or tax- can’t recall… ONE TIME ONLY..{So we brought in enough items so that any children we had could be supplied when grown}. Several sets of dishes, much cutlery smashed, bent, broken.. towels stuffed down toilets, about 20 fine linen sheets torn to shreds… Our lovely new fridge, stand-up freezer, washing machine, and vacuum stolen or smashed. …. Our top floor apt. in a 25 apt. building and a broken vinyl LP sounds like a shot…but nobody heard anything..it seemed…..300 were smashed. {When I got there the rubble was over 3 ft. high, I could stand on it and touch the high ceiling}….

    Top of the line Hitachi + Dolby, smashed with 2×6 ft speakers torn to shreds (special needle cost over $50) ..The telephone we waited for 8 years to get was stolen.. My new “car of the year” and Caravans International trailer were trashed and gutted..3 lovely bedroom suites chopped, glass smashed splintered battered…. nobody heard anything… Oh well……. SO I’m pessimistic…. Good reasons…

    My dear mother’s large colour photo on canvas and framed, taken age 14 in 1908 shredded into stamp sized fragments.. Valuable stamp collection stolen…And so much more than can say….

    My wife had a breakdown… and we went back to Canada to visit her parents…again. We had just been there for 3 months during which all this happened. She refused to come back to Israel…we had 4 little children under age 8 who had to go to school. So I abandoned everything, including the migrash on which our dream designed villa was half built- with the balance of the materials stolen. That’s less than a 1/4 of what happened. Joseph Burg the Interior Minister, refused to do anything…the police….pish…!! And SO much, much more……

    …….THAT’S why we “left”……

30. @ Edgar G.: Felix, Begin did have a party, the Herut which he founded. He also founded the Likud (still nominally Israel’s ruling party) by merging some smaller groups with Herut. The problem was not with Begin or his immediate successor, Shamir, both of whom were staunch Jewish patriots, but with thie successors after Shamir was ousted in 1992, such as Ariel Sharon.

    Sharon, unfortunately, proved to be corrupt, and more interested in keeping his wealth and staying out of jail than in the welfare of the Jewish people. He had always been an opportunist with shifting political loyalties, more interested in glory for himself than anything else.

31. @ Felix Quigley: Welcome back, Felix! I have missed arguing with you. I don’t have all the biographies of Trotsky that I have read, including parts of Nedava’s work, with me to quote them chapter and verse. But I do remember that Nedava wrote that Trotsky repeatedly “lied,” when he claimed he could not speak Yiddish, when actually he was fluent in the language. What possible motive could he have had for lying about this, except shame at his Jewish roots? He also quotes someone whom he describes as a close personal friend of Trotsky (I do not remember his name) who wrote to one of their mutual friends that Trotsky had always felt shame at his Jewish origins, and never entirely freed himself from this sense of inferiority.

    Also tending to support this view is the fact that Trotsky said repeatedly that he was not an appropriate choice to lead Russia because he was a Jew, and that the Russian people would never accept a Jew as their leader. During the last eighteen months of his life, when the ailing Lenin realized that Stalin had taken over, he practically begged Trotsky to organize opposition to Stalin and take over the leadership himself. He even attempted to appoint Trotsky the deputy head of the council of commissars (the Soviet government), which would have positioned him to effectively oppose Stalin after he (Lenin) passed away, but Trotsky refused the appointment, again citing his Jewishness as one of the reasons for refusing the appointment.

    Trotsky’s private interview with a Zionist, quoted by Nedava, also revealed that he did not have the courage to express publicly his sympathy with Zionism. That would have meant that he would have had to publicly “take ownership” of his own Jewishness. But he did not have the inner sense of his own “authenticity” (as Sartre defined this concept his book “anti-Semite and Jew”) to do this, whatever his private feelings may have been. He never did feel the pride in his own Jewishness needed to join the Jewish national movement. Trotsky’s failure to accept himself as a Jew is the main reason why he failed to accomplish anything positive in his life, either for his fellow Jews or for humanity, and why he left behind no lasting legacy other than the antisemitic as well as ineffectual and fragmented “Trotskyist” movement.movement.

32. @ Edgar G.: Edgar, you come accross as even more pessimistic than I am, if such a thing is possible. Like many people, you demanded that Israel meet your personal standards of perfection, and then left when it failed to meet that test. But if you read the Tanakh and almost every other Jewish holy book, you will find that the Jewish people have always fallen short of God’s expectations of us. And he has always punished us in one way or another for out failure to keep his commandments and to place unconditional faith in our ability to achieve what he has directed us to achieve. Consider the failures of the generation of the forty years. Yet in spite of these failures, the Israelities (minus the males over the age of twenty when the exodus began) did eventually make it to the Promised Land. We must be patient with ourselves and with our fellow Jews. Also remember that four-fifths were lost in the “Plague of Darkness” (perhaps symbolic of the majority of today’s American Jews), but the remaining fifth did follow Moses into the dessert, however reluctantly. Amazing parallels to what is going on now.

33. @ Felix Quigley:

    Felix, you will find many of my family in your photos. If you send me your email through Ted, or, with my assent ask him for my email, I’ll send you my name and who and where to look. I was back several times, but never had the heart to go there to look at the stone memorials. I think that Bobbie Briscoe’s two youngest sons are still there; definitely the youngest,Ben (ex Lord Mayor-like Dad). Brian, is a dentist likely still in England. (Older brother Joe who died 3 years ago-another dentist- stayed in Dublin-Clonskeagh.). They were both pals of mine. We chased girls together.

    Bobbie, the father, Dev’s pal, was a close friend of my dear late father, and a member of our Synagogue, which my father presided over most of his life. Have a safe trip.

34. @ Edgar G.:
    Hi, Edgar

    I sympathize with you, concerning the way the upcoming generations — both in Israel and abroad — seem oblivious to the values of their parents and grandparents. When I grew up, society largely reinforced the values that my parents inculcated in me. Nowadays, it seems there is continual warfare outside the home — and, with the advent of the Internet, even within the home — against the family-centered upbringing we were familiar with.

    The tendency is for the State to be one’s Papa and the electronic “cloud” to be one’s Mama. Parents can work very hard, to inculcate values into their children; but we are up against powerful enemies. To address Quigley’s concerns, a Trotskyite political party will not alter this; neither will a religious political party. No political “power from above” can correct the problem of a breakdown of transmission of values; in fact, it can only exacerbate the matter.

    The day is coming, and it can’t come soon enough, when our increasingly top-heavy, externalized societies become separated from their ghoulish “New World Family” — when “Papa” is transformed from the wise “Wizard of Oz”, into the helpless “man behind the curtain”. Unfortunately, this will require a cataclysm.

    In the meantime, Judaism is losing its American children; but they aren’t becoming Christians; their Christian neighbors are suffering a similar loss. The answer is in the future; and it will not come from men and machines: It will come from God; it won’t be a change in the “powers that be” (They will destroy themselves); it will be a change in individuals’ hearts.

35. @ Edgar G.:
    That is of course very obvious plus this is actually a unique experience which in the world of today (which answers nothing) of ipads etcetera is very valuable for humanity once again.

    The discussion here reminds me of a series of articles in which there is a lot of truth, not total inmy opinion, but a lot. My reservation is that there is another way to understand 1933 but certainly 1933 was the critical year, I agree with that.

    THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH
    SELF-DEFENSE

    An HIR series

    Historical and Investigative Research – 22 March 2006
    by Francisco Gil-White
    http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders2.htm

    ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

    2

    How most mainstream Diaspora

    Jewish leaders are failing the Jewish

    people today

    (the series of six articles can be picked up here
    http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders2.htm)

36. @ Edgar G.:

    That is an extremely enlightening little article for me anyway.

    And as they say it is not over till the fat lady sings.

    With experience for some people comes a deadening. But for others who have spirit and learning can come the ability to be not pliable but ready for new turns in any situation.

    I do not think that Trump is transient because he represents something greater than himself as an individual, and that is the power of nation, derided by Marx and Engels, made Lenin and truth to tell Trotsky also uneasy but when Trotsky began to question that around the early thirties probably, it was a new ball game. By 1938 he not only grew close to Zionism but he had, I maintain and I take this from a very good person Joseph Nedava, an actual Zionist but Joseph does not say that, I do. It is just that he was a Zionist while remaining true to his being a confirmed materialist, but it is clear that he was an emotional Zionist. Say what they like these commie haters of the Joe McCarthy type I believe my lying eyes on this. The strange thing is that I read this first on a site by a guy who became more and more antisemitic last time I looked and then I bought the book by Nedava…

    “I told him who I was, and that at the time I had been expelled from Russia as a Zionist-Socialist. If he was interested, I would tell him about our life in Palestine. Trotsky got up from his chair, asked me to wait awhile, and soon returned with his wife. He introduced me to her and asked me to tell him everything. He wanted to know about Palestine and was happy to hear a report from a person living there.

    I talked to him not as one talks to a stranger. A feeling accompanied me all the time that he was a Jew, a wandering Jew, without a fatherland. This brought me closer to him, aroused in me confidence that my story was addressed to a man who was able to understand. I interrupted my story several times, asking him whether he was sure he had the time to listen to me, and he urged me to continue, jotted down some points, and then began to question me: How many Jews are there in Palestine? Where do they reside; is it only in towns? He asked numerous questions about the kibbutzim and the Histadrut. Are we able to work in harmony with the employers within the framework of the Zionist Organization; how do we bring Jews to Palestine and how do they join our party; how is our young generation being brought up and what is its language? He asked me to say a few sentences in Hebrew and smiled at the sound of the language. He wrote several words and noted down mainly the names of the Zionist leaders, the parties, the Histadrut, and various places in Palestine. He showed interest as if he were a man hearing about an unknown land, but I was under the impression that the subject absorbed his thought and heart.

    The conversation lasted nearly three hours. After telling how we were fighting for Jewish immigration into our country, and he was deeply immersed in thought, I asked him: “Here is a country that is ready to admit you; perhaps you, too, will go to Palestine?” I felt that a shiver ran through his spine. He replied with a calm question: “Wouldn’t you be afraid to accept me?” I answered: “No, we won’t be afraid, for our idea is stronger than any fear of any man, even of a man like you.” Trotsky came over to me, pressed my hand, and said: “Thank you. It is a long time since I have felt so good. But you should know that I have friends throughout the world. We have not renounced our views”.
    http://mailstar.net/nedava.html

    Trotsky was heading a movement that he could not change enough (but there is confusion spread here, these people were always against antisemitism and even putting to death members of the Red Army who had drifted in on a peasant mob intake with antisemitic views he and Lenin would not stand for that) and in year or two he was gone and the evil raised its head inside of “Trotskyism” a name Trotsky rejected, people like Mandel, Pablo, Healy, Grant took control, leading on to Redgraves under Healy.

    Begin is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Too much pressure was placed on his shoulders. He did not have a party around him to comfort him and to help in the ideological struggle where new ideas are aired and debated. In that situation he became stunted but he never really gave in and still kept his spark. My idea of the opposite of that situation is that if the individual dies then it is not all ended, and at the same time it is in a party of fellows that the individual can reach their full ability as an individual.

    When I think of the poor Jews of Ireland it is nearly heart breaking and when I see these loud mouthed fxxkers of today going around it makes me very angry. These Irish loafs of today in Sinn Fein do not even know their own history, the Briscoes. But we have to keep our cool and develop a cadre which will become steeled by knowledge in this struggle. In some of these youth I have met in Spain I can see the valour of those who fought Franco.

    For me it is the end of an era anyway. In the beginning of summer my little dog Divi (from the Gaelic for black) died. Looking back it was on the cards but I thought it would go on forever. We had many walks over the years and then he would only go about 30 yards, stop and look at me. The thing is it was not just Divi it was also my cat which was and is a wild Spanish cat and only relates to me, plus now two more wild (and young abandoned) cats have joined up the fun as well. These great creatures are far in advance of Spanish humans. But I intend soon to go to Ireland and I have a mind to go around Ireland and look up and photograph Jewish graveyards. Will keep you posted.

37. @ Felix Quigley:

    You are exactly right Felix, you understand what I was getting at. Also Adam’s first couple of sentences show that he to got it. But then the rest of his post leans towards the dismal. Yes there should have long ago been a party formed which kept the facts right in front of their eyes and related to all others from that blueprint..

    I thought that Begin was the man, and because of him, whom I admired, I went to Israel with my fiance, got married there, had my children there but, was thoroughly disgusted at the behaviour of the people as a whole. When he handed over the Sinai, regardless of the pressures he felt under, Begin was not the same man that I knew originally. With a chronically ill and failing wife that he loved and depended so much on, , I’m sure it affected his judgement.

    Sadat, was laughing about it, getting the Sinai for a piece of paper with his signature on it.

    I met many fine persons, my Israeli born relatives were wonderful to us, and about half of KIbbutz Lavi were cousins originally from Dublin….. but the internal squabbling and pettiness drove my wife crazy, and after nearly 14 years we had to leave. She was originally from the Plymouth Brethren and converted by the Satmarers several years before marriage.

    We were both horrified, to find that we always had to make sure that the restaurant had a valid kosher cert. Little things, but they wear away as a fragile woman. Also to find that Chazar, was easily obtainable, that there were actually pig farms. That wasn’t the Israel we had in our minds for years and I, for all my life.

    As for what I propose to do about it……I do what I can, which at age is talk, publicize, send around relevant articles and etc. Israel is Ghetto-conditioned, and uses it’s intelligence to keep just ahead, and not become too “pushy”, apart from the “start-up nation” tag. It has also become an almost ruinous nation of legal busybodies. ,,,

38. @ Buzz of the Orient:

    Modern and educated Amercian Jews are nearly all VERY Liberal and make up a lot of the opposition to Israel. They ALL vote Democrat also.

39. @ Buzz of the Orient:

    One of the big problems here is that for the really Orthodox about many or even most of the Reform and to a lesser extent the Conservatives….. they ARE Goyim……. They’ve thrown away Halacha and many Reform even keep Christmas with a tree and all the baubles.

    For how many years now have we been hearing about familes with “Chanuka Bushes”?…… Look at how many Jewish people marry Goyim and bring their children up in the religion of the Goy.

    It’s a real MESS….and you want to bring this into the heart of Israel….Shame on you..
    It is the Haredim, who kept Judaism alive all through the horrific ages.

    I myself am not religious, but am strictly kosher, and Fast on Yom Kipur along with several other wholly Jewish religious customs, like keeping Pesach. I keep many Yahrzeits… I don’t pray much at other times, but I do what I do, because of the respect and love I had for my parents and departed siblings, and for the long line of ancestral martyrs who suffered, to bring me to this day.

    I am 100% Jew, and very proud of it.

40. @ Felix Quigley:

    To not build a party to change this reality there can be no forgiveness.

    Basically you articulate that the perspective of each person is subject to all kinds of pressures.

    You correctly identify that there is not some magic in the air in America that causes Jews or anybody else to betray the mission.

    It is all a condition of ignorance, and a straying off the beaten path of scientific truth.

    But what good is any individual, in the past, in the present and the future. And these blogs are so frustrating because they lead into individualism.

    Yamit82 had got good experience of what Begin did in 1982, one of the key moments. But he built nothing. There is therefore no leadership today, no collective leadership, and the youth of today are totally unprepared, as indeed it proved to be so in 2005, where the youth were dragged out of their homes by the ISRAELI RULING CLASS.

    He did not build any party. How were the youth of 2005 to know anything as the events swirled around them!

    You absolutely need a party in which is rooted the experiences of political life.

    Everybody runs down the American Jews but they only show their own political bankruptcy.

    THERE IS NO PARTY IN THE SITUATION.

41. @ Edgar G.:

    I do believe that you are making the point that there is a huge ignorance of the actual history behind this situation (By situation I mean roughly the Jews creating their National Homeland and religious refuge if I can put the latter like that)

    This in my opinion IS the centre of the problem.

    It also applies to Canada, applies to UK over all parties also but is at the centre of Galloway and Momentum, Scotland, Ireland,Germany, Australia…in other words a global and universal problem.

    The poll itself by J Street is playing on this overall ignorance, in fact you could say that J Street exists on the basis of this ignorance. They use and depend on this ignorance to advance their own ideology.

    So obviously Edgar being a person who has thought about this a lot you will have anticipated my next remark in the form of a question…What do you propose to do to change it?

42. Perhaps if the Ultra-Orthodox who control the religious affairs of Israel did not treat Reform and Conservative Jews like goyim there might be a change in the attitude of modern educated American Jews. I take note that nobody has anything to say about that possibly being a reason for American Jews’ attitude towards Israel.

43. Perhaps if the Ultra-Orthodox did not treat Reform and Conservative Jews as goyim there might be a change in the attitude of modern Jews. Has nobody considered that?

44. @ Edgar G.:
    Polls are easy to manipulate, the questions asked the the demographic questioned.

45. @ Ted Belman:
    Perhaps the Pittsburgh Synagogue murders might cause a change of attitude.

46. The poll is clearly biased, like the organization that commissioned it. Filled with leading question intended to “guide” the views of the pollees. The pollsters eveniadmit it is “weighted” toward young people , who are the group in the Jewish community with the least interest in Israel .

    Nevertheless, I suspect that it is true that American Jewish support for, and even interest in, Israel , has declined dramatically in recent years. It is also probably true that half or more of American Jews are not interested in Israel, do not follow the news from the Middle East, and are indifferent to, or even the disagreements between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish leaders leaders. There is a great deal of apathy toward both Israel and Judaism, as well as a substantial minority of American Jews who are actively hostile to both.

    The lesson for Israelis is that they must face reality and “write off” most American Jews as a source of support for Israel. Some, but by no means all, American Orthodox Jews feel committed to Israel–maybe 5 per cent or so of the American Jewish population. The rest just dont give a s___t.

47. Wouldn’t trust any info from J St. It:s like taking the word of Dr Goebbels

48. @ Ted Belman:

    I was suggesting that their comparatively low opinion of Israel was caused by their ignorance of facts. After all, it was a loaded questionnaire….

49. The only thing that matters in this poll is that Israel is a very low priority to the Jewish Americans. That tells you how indifferent they are to Israel’s welfare.

50. The poll is useless……why..because the major questions are not asked…. Like..
    “How much do you feel a part of the Jewish People”.. (To find out what merit to place on the answers)

    1) How familiar are you with the Balfour Declaration.. describe
    2) How familiar are you with the L of N British Mandate for Palestine-Describe
    3) Do you know how the “Palestine People” began,…when, and why.-Describe.
    4) Do you know Jordan was originally apportioned to the Jewish People…Describe.
    5) What do you now of the Arab riots and the many murders in crowded restaurants..

    All questions beginning with “based on what you know” should continue to find exactly what they DO know-if anything.
    Ask if they know that many “settlements” are actually cities up to 40-50,000 pop.

    Questions of Israel “treatment” of “Palestinians” should be couched differently. AFTER establishing how much they actually now about the REAL circumstances in Israel.

    I find the whole poll very one sided with very suggestive questions on a group very ignorant of the real situation..which, from the beginning should have been established.

    Asking them if the’d ever been in in Israel would have been another missed question.
    .
    There s no point in polls by J Street that are guaranteed to give the answers they want.

    /