When the Jewish People and Israel Conflict

I spent a lot of time in front of the computer this week so my post is of a more academic rather than experiential nature. This is going to be published in the next issue of the "Peoplehood Papers"published by UJC and the Peoplehood hub of the Jewish Agency......

The word “Israel” has multiple meanings and associations. In the news, it refers to the modern state of Israel. When it appears in the siddur, it might be referring to the Jewish collective or to the actual Land of Israel. In the Bible, it might also refer to the collective or to the patriarch Jacob whose name was changed to Israel after he wrestled with the angel. In contemporary parlance, the word םואל (l’om), usually translated as nationality, is used in similar fashion to Israel, at times referring to the modern nation-state and at other times referring to the entire Jewish people. Placing an adjective in front of Israel adds to the multiplicity of meanings. Am Yisrael can be understood narrowly as the modern nation or more broadly as encompassing all Jews everywhere. Similarly, Eretz Yisrael is used both to refer to the land on which the State is situated as well as the sacred Land that God promised to Abraham and his descendents.

The ambiguity of the three terms – am, eretz, and l’om, is intentional, signifying the actuality of a rootedness in a particular geographic locale and the aspiration that all Jews are part of the Jewish collective regardless of whether they live in that locale or not. A far less ambiguous descriptor is Medina, the state, which is defined by citizenship. And yet here too, we find some blurred boundaries, literally in terms of its defined and disputed borders and figuratively, in terms of considering just who is a part of this civic collective. We see this play out in common parlance. For instance, many of the quasi-governmental agencies that historically have connected Diaspora Jews to Israel, the Jewish Agency, WZO, Keren Hayesod, Keren Kayemet (JNF) are referred to as " המוסדות הלאומיים" the nation/people’s institutions, not the State’s. Likewise, you can see a blurring in the distinction between medina and l’om for example, in the name for a new parking lot by the Government Center (Supreme Court, Bank of Israel, Prime Minister's Office, Knesset...): חניון הלאום, the nation/people’s parking, not “governmental” or “state”. And for decades political figures refer regularly to the population of the State of Israel as Am Yisrael or even "כל עם ישראל " (the entire am/people Israel).[1]

The intentionality of this ambiguity actually conveys a clear message: Israel’s raison d’etre is to be the national homeland for the Jewish people. That is the core purpose for the establishment and ongoing project of nation building within the Jewish state. For many Jews, both in Israel and the Diaspora, Israel serves as an anchor and some would say the center of the Jewish collective experience, the place where Jews can enjoy full equality and express the full measure of their humanity. Others however, reject the notion of Israel as the (or even a) center of collective Jewish experience, Indeed, there appear to be a growing number of those who suggest that Medinat Yisrael the state, presents an obstacle to identification and solidarity with Am Yisrael, the Jewish people and who may even reject the idea that collective Jewish experience is a value worth upholding and acting upon at all.

Attention to these multiple meanings is far more than wordplay when considering the impact on the next generation of American Jews and Jewish leadership. The same might be said for Israeli Jews as well, although my focus here draws from my experience with young American Jewish adults. Over the past several years, I’ve had the opportunity to engage in serious, substantive, and ongoing conversations about Jewish Peoplehood with rabbinical and education students at the Hebrew Union College. These conversations have been structured around formal and informal encounters with people and ideas with the intent of fostering a greater consciousness about and commitment to Klal Yisrael, a less ambiguous term than those already noted, that connotes Jewish Peoplehood without a specific connection to nationhood. For many of these young adults, Klal Yisrael is a foreign and even alienating concept, so it logically follows that the ideas of am, l’om, and medina are even more distant from their consciousness and experience. Three core tensions seem to contribute to this detachment. The first relates to the primacy of the individual over the collective, the second concerns the relationship between varying streams of Jews, and the third is the relationship between the Jewish State and the Palestinians.

On the surface, the first of these factors may appear to be unrelated to the tension between Am Yisrael and Medinat Yisrael, but in fact, it does shape foundational perceptions and assumptions about the Jewish collective and Israel as a Jewish state. Most American Jews today see Judaism as a personal matter, where individual autonomy is privileged over a commitment to a communal set of norms, values, and behaviors. This sentiment is often given expression by the phrase “my Judaism,” meaning that Judaism is whatever I make it. American Jews, including these highly engaged and deeply committed future rabbis and educators, feel fully comfortable choosing whether, when, where, and how to connect to Jews and Jewish beliefs and practice. They also prefer communities with porous and fluid boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. For them, this is normative, which is hardly the case in Israeli society today.

This then relates to the second issue, which is when these American young adult Jews come to Israel for their first year of graduate studies at HUC, many share experiences where they encounter derision and disdain for Reform Judaism and Reform Jews both from Am Yisrael, the Jewish nation/people and Medinat Yisrael, the Jewish state. They experience this in informal conversations and in the public square. At the extreme, they are sworn at and spat upon which lately occurs with some regularity at the Kotel during Women at the Wall Rosh Chodesh services. In more benign fashion, they are simply dismissed as inauthentic, ignorant, and non-halachic. Their response is one of alienation and profound hurt that often gets expressed in the retort: “Why should I want to feel connected to Klal Yisrael when there are many in that collective who reject that I’m studying to be a rabbi and maybe won’t even accept that I’m a Jew?”

A third tension that informs their experience of Israel concerns the relationships and attitudes of Am Yisrael, the Jewish nation/people, towards the Palestinians, both those who are citizens of Medinat Yisrael, the Jewish state, and those who are stateless in the West Bank and Gaza. For many of these students, social justice activism is a core aspect of how they express themselves as Jews. Thus, many express profound disappointment when they confront a complex and difficult reality where a sizable minority of Israel’s own citizens (not to mention Palestinians who are under Israeli governmental control) are denied equal access to the full measure of rights and opportunities afforded to Jewish citizens of the state. In essence, the question they ask is: “How can Israel live up to its ideal as a “light unto the nations” when it systematically and consistently discriminates against 20% of its own population?” Indeed, they even perceive, perhaps correctly, that most Jewish Israelis are content to continue such discriminatory policies in the fear that providing fair and equal access to Palestinian citizens of Israel will undermine the Jewish nature of the state.

These tensions are real and are seen by many as irreconcilable. Indeed, their resolution may require both political and educational action. While this brief presentation does not allow for detailed elaboration of an educational strategy, what is clear is that thoughtful and deliberative educational experiences can re-frame polarizing tensions as formative ones that invite learners to engage in serious and productive grappling with their attitudes and understandings of the interrelationships and conflicts between Am, Eretz, and Medinat Yisrael. It requires open and honest exploration of ambiguities and complexities through encounters, experiences, dialogue and reflection both with like-minded and culturally compatible peers as well as with individuals and groups who are markedly different in world view, life style, and culture. Working through such tensions in a formative way challenges one to opt in to being part of the politics of the Jewish public sphere in order to influence it. That is the difference between “my Judaism” and committing to live as a member of the Jewish collective which is the ultimate goal in creating a thriving and more connected Jewish world.



[1] Thanks to Peretz Rodman for pointing out these examples of contemporary usage of l’om and am.