Whereto ‘Jewish’ Israel; Whereto ‘American’ Jews

By Malcolm Dash

I recently listened to a radio program broadcast on Israel Broadcasting Authority. I commend the moderator, Yitzhak Noy for tackling the complex subject of American Jewry and Israeli Jews. His guests were three Jewish Israeli professors from mainstream Israeli universities. The professors probably see themselves as the classic variety of Liberal, however, they appear to have unwittingly become hostage to a progressive world view.

They agreed that most of American Jewry have diverged from their Israeli brethren. Their rapid assimilation and intermarriage set them apart from the majority of Israelis who are still traditional. US Jewry overwhelmingly identifies with and vote for the Democratic Party, whereas Jewish Israelis primarily identify with Right-wing parties. It is worth noting that the Democratic party has moved dramatically leftwards towards Progressivism, and even appears to be flirting with the philosophy of Socialism. The professors also suggested that Israel’s Jews manifest ethnic, tribal, and chauvinistic tendencies.

Even though the professors didn’t acknowledge it, or maybe they were simply unaware that the proposition that they were discussing: is the twenty-first-century worldwide Jewish identity crisis that reflects the panoptic Western world’s exigencies of identity and identity politics. American Jews have identified themselves as Americans first. They primarily inhabit large cosmopolitan cities, promote pluralism and diversity, yet reject pluralism and diversity of thought.

American Jews helped advance the concept of “Affirmative Action” that unintentionally, institutionalized the bigotry of low expectations in the Black community, are avid promoters of gay rights and stalwart protectors of Roe v Wade legislature.

This underscores their endorsement for the ongoing activism of the supreme court justices whose rulings are shaped by their world view rather than by the law.

Most US Jews reject the particularity of Judaism and promote universalism in its stead. They uncritically endorse the Black Lives Matter movement even though it displays nasty threads of antisemitism and anti-Israelism.

In comparison, Jewish Israelis, of whom approximately thirty percent are religious Zionists, ten to twelve percent Haredi, and thirty percent traditional, deem their Jewish identity as predominant. This Jewishness is the quintessential element, the glue that unifies Jewish Israelis. Although the Jews of Israel appear to be tribal, this is tempered by communal historical memories. Such as; religion and religious holidays, Hebrew language, national symbols, national achievements, national miscalculations, and especially the psychological impact of the Holocaust.

These common bonds have been time-tested and strengthened by the underlying, menacing, hostile existential regional threats. Threats targeted to?, yes, you have guessed it, to the Jews, not Israelis.

The Jews of Israel are not invested in the revolutionary re-engineering of society as the Jews of America are. Instead, the Jews of Israel align themselves with the gradual march of evolutionary progress. Notwithstanding, Israeli Jews are struggling with Israeli elites, who control the legal establishment, media, academia, and tenured bureaucrats. These formidable institutional bodies, molded by beau monde ideologies, ideologies that are influenced by their Weltanschauung. This world view mirrors the philosophy propounded by the Western progressive outlook.

The professors lamented the rupture between the two largest Jewish communities in the world. Their alarm was accompanied by cries for outreach by the Jewish Israelis to their American Jewish brethren. There were no solutions offered in these rallying cries on how to bridge the widening fissure between the two communities. And, it is highly unlikely, that they can provide a road map that would advance a shared purpose between the two groups.

It is a Jewish divide requiring examination through the lens of the revolution taking place in Western civilization. A religious-like crusade led by American and European millennials. An all-embracing cultural struggle conceptualized to depose the established social institutions, traditions, religions, laissez-faire economy, orthodox sexual practices, and the effacement of sexual identity.

Most of the current American Jewish generation is supporting this revolution, or they and their parents have assented to, or have chosen to be silent. If this is the case, there can be no safe harbor or bridge to span the many diametrical experiences that have molded American Jews, and the Jews of Israel.

Regrettably, the Light of American Jewry is dimming, and the American pledge to create a melting pot society has been availed by its Jews. They are rapidly shedding their identity and are assimilating out of existence. Hopefully, Jewish Israel will not succumb to the identity catastrophe that is extinguishing America Jewry.

If Jewish Israel yields to the dialectics of the Western progressive agenda, a plan adopted by Israel’s legal establishment, mainstream media, and academia; then the Zionist enterprise will not be able to maintain itself in the Middle East.

For without its Jewish character, the ‘Israeli’ Jews will have undermined the historically legitimate Jewish claim to its motherland,

I leave it to your imagination as to how Israel’s enemies would respond to a Jewish state, overwhelmingly inhabited by Israelis who have divorced themselves from their history, religion, traditions, and above their historical rights to their Land, Ha’aretz.