Yes, I would like to receive periodic updates and information via e-mail from Commentary.

Recipient Addresses:

Separate each address with a comma.

Your E-mail Address: Message:

As soon as the Arab armies began to mass on the borders of Israel during the third week in May, the mood of the American Jewish community underwent an abrupt, radical, and possibly permanent change. In general, the immediate reaction of American Jewry to the crisis was far more intense and widespread than anyone could have foreseen. Many Jews would never have believed that grave danger to Israel could dominate their thoughts and emotions to the exclusion of all else; many were surprised by the depth of their anger at those of their friends who carried on as usual, untouched by fear for Israeli survival and the instinctive involvement they themselves felt. This outpouring of feeling and commitment appears to contradict all the predictions about the evaporating Jewishness of the American Jews. What happened here between the middle of May and the middle of June therefore demands explanation.

Unfortunately, it did not occur to any of the research agencies in the social sciences to initiate a disciplined study of the American Jewish response as the events were unfolding. So we have to rely, at least for the moment, on impressionistic reportage. Obviously no single person can have firsthand knowledge of everything that went on during the weeks in question. I myself was involved most directly as the rabbi of a suburban congregation on the edge of New York—in Englewood, New Jersey. At the height of the fund-raising activity throughout the country I also addressed a number of rallies and meetings in several different towns. In addition, I witnessed the besieging of the offices of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli Consulate in New York by hundreds of young people who volunteered, when the Israeli army was mobilized, to go to work in Israel. And finally, I have compared my own personal impressions with those of friends who were active in other communities and concerned with other aspects of the American Jewish response. On the basis of all this, let me try to describe the situation, at least in its major outlines, before attempting to speculate on what the extraordinary behavior of the American Jewish community during the crisis may mean for the future.

---

© 2009 Commentary Inc.