I’d like to respectfully disagree with Jonathan’s post yesterday on the Israeli government ad campaign directed at expatriate Israelis living in the United States. Anything that might unnecessarily distance American and Israeli Jews is certainly unwise just now, when the temptation to imagine that they might save themselves from the hatred directed at the Jewish state by disassociating themselves from it is one so many American Jews find hard to resist. But to be pricked by the current ads is to be overly sensitive to their potential implications.
The ad most in question focuses powerfully on Yom Hazikaron and the inability of an American (potentially) Jewish boyfriend to begin to understand its
significance, and the probability that he never will. Not knowing the date, he mistakes a yahrzeit candle set on a table and his Israeli girlfriend’s unwillingness to go to a party as an indication of a romantic evening, not the somber affair she has in mind. Her participation in the memorial is through a website which, being all in Hebrew, he does not understand, even when it dawns on him that something more significant than a date-night is afoot.
While melodramatic, there is not much in this scenario that rings false to me. Few are the American Jews who are aware when Yom Hazikaron passes on the calendar, and few as well are those who can identify even the simple Hebrew word yizkor (remember). More probably can successfully identify a yahrzeit candle but rarely use them and in seeing one would be likely to mistake its significance.
More to the point, the power of Yom Hazikaron to Israelis is one we American Jews should be able to find the humility to recognize we cannot fully appreciate. For us and our family members, military service and its attending dangers is a choice, not an obligation. Even the laudable examples of those young American Jews who choose to serve in the IDF do so for a much shorter period of time than their Israeli cousins. There are of course cases where those soldiers die, and there is no overstating the sacrifice they and all lone soldiers make.
Still, we who choose not to live in Israel and bear for ourselves and our families, forever, the shared burden of manning with our lives the gates of Jewish independence cannot know what Yom Hazikaron truly feels like for those for who do. Unlike us, they also all probably are themselves – or know someone else who is – touched by the terrible sacrifice that burden can impose.
This is a powerful ember for Israeli culture and patriotism. Faced with another national cultural need to maintain Jewish immigration and the reality of a significant population of expats whose reintegration into Israeli society is far easier than the absorption of those Jews born and raised in the diaspora, it seems far too much to ask that Israelis not use this ember.
There is more to say besides about the deep cultural differences between American and Israeli Jews, the lingering inability of American Jews to accept that the Land of Israel and the Jewish state it holds are the rightful center of the Jewish world, and the fact that very few of the American Jews who might be offended by the ad campaign will ever be even aware of it.
A core truth remains: if it is among the obligations of the Jews of Israel to fight and die for the continuance of the Zionist dream, it is among the obligations of the Jews of the diaspora to accept that it is a burden whose reality we cannot fully grasp.
I find the likening of Israeli expats marrying American Jews to a kind of miscegenation completely abhorrent.
Why are people outrageously outage? Think about it for a minute. Let’s look at both commercials. The first one focus’ on Yom HaZikaron, does anyone who is ‘outrage’ mourn on this holiday? I’m going to take a wild guess and say no. And let’s say as an American Jew, you did, unless you lived in Israel and know family members who have died defending Israel or died in a terrorist attack, the mourning that they would do would not have the same effect as someone who has lived it themselves. This includes me. Liberal Jews need to get over themselves. nNow onto the second commercial: Let’s be honest with ourselves, the Jewish population in 1950 stood at 5 million, in 2011 it stands at 5 million. What does that tell us? Assimilation is real and it’s the greatest threat to American Jewry. Why not be upfront about this problem, our Jewish leaders in this country just spin their wheels on this issue. nBut let’s look at the overall view American Jews have of Israel, while most still support Israel; that support has waned. I really doubt we could pull off a mass protest if Iran got the bomb, like when American Jews held mass protests for the refuseniks in Russia in the 70’s. And look at Jewish American intelligentsia, is overwhelming hostile to Israel: Peter Beinart, Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Robert Falk, the b*tch that wrote the Pinkwashing op-ed (she symbolizes American professors) NYT, the MSM, etc. And then there is J Street, no words are needed. nFinally, the underlining problem we American Jews have is that there is not enough of us believe in this ideological war. It is a war of ideas, and since most Jews want to be proud ‘progressives,’ Israel has to take a back seat to ‘the greater cause.’ And most American Jews are sadly fine with that. That’s why these commercials were made. n
Why are people outrageously outage? Think about it for a minute. Lets look at both commercials. The first one focus on Yom HaZikaron, does anyone who is outrage mourn on this holiday? Im going to take a wild guess and say no. And lets say as an American Jew, you did, unless you lived in Israel and know family members who have died defending Israel or died in a terrorist attack, the mourning that they would do would not have the same effect as someone who has lived it themselves. This includes me. Liberal Jews need to get over themselves.
I'm sorry, but this whole line of argument seems ludicrous. If the Israeli girl in the ad did not tell her American boyfriend why she did not want to go out and what the significance of Yom Hazikaron is to her, there are more things wrong with their relationship than a US-Israel cultural barrier. n nWith respect Matthew, your heartfelt description of the Israeli connection to Yom Hazikaron and the role that the IDF plays in Israeli society belies your own argument. Clearly there are many American Jews, including yourself, who hold a deep respect for the day and what it represents. n nEven if her American husband had never even heard of Yom Hazikaron, what's to stop her teaching him about it? And who's to say their children won't be commemorating it in an IDF uniform some day? Many children of Diaspora Israelis choose to go back to Israel and do their army service. n nThe add uses a very emotional tone and a very sombre day. If it were intended to be tongue-in-cheek, it would be less offensive, but as it stands it is totally inappropriate and is offensive to those of us Diaspora Jews who do hold a strong connection to Israel.