Aba-gate

Two weeks have passed since a series of videos produced by the Israeli Ministry of Absorption caused American Jewry to collectively bristle at the suggestion that Jewish life in America is so thin that the children of Israeli ex-pats living in America will, if they stay in America, assimilate into the melting pot of American life. Each advertisement cleverly played on the much feared moment when Aba turns to “Daddy,” Motek to “Honey,” concluding with the ominous post-script, “They will remain Israeli, their children will not.” The entire eruption, dubbed “Aba-gate” by David Hazony, brought down the wrath of the ADL, JFNA and all the other American Jewish organizations presently inundating your inbox for end-of-year donations. How can Israelis have the chutzpah to cast aspersions on American Jewish life? How dare they tell us that we are any less than they when it comes to Judaism?

Two weeks have passed, and let me suggest that the anxiety set off by the videos was not terribly new, was blown out of proportion and, most significantly, was entirely misdirected.

Let me explain.

For as long back as this week’s parashah, Jews have felt the anxiety of what it means to leave Eretz Yisrael. Joseph’s descent into Egypt marks a new stage in the formation of Jewish identity. Joseph did not have internet access in Egypt, but if he had, then those ads would have been directed at him. With every departure of an Israelite from the Land of Israel – Joseph, Jacob, each of the brothers – the Torah is well aware of the fear that outside the Land, the connective tissue of our identity may fray, a fear that continues to this day. It may have lacked a certain sensitivity for Israelis to point out the tug of assimilation in America, but such a claim is neither new nor necessarily wrong. Furthermore, the claim that Jewish life has the potential to hold a special texture in a Jewish state is a statement so obvious it borders on the banal. In fact, there is a word for it: Zionism.

All of us know, and if we don’t, we should, that it is a challenge to raise children and grandchildren in the Diaspora with a strong Jewish identity. As is often the case with criticism, the only difference between what the ads claimed and what we ourselves already knew to be the case was the source of the comment. Besides, as Hazony wrote, since when have American Jews been shy about telling Israelis how to run their lives?! If a painful truth needs to be told about Jewish life in the Diaspora, then better it should come from within the family.

The most interesting aspect of “Aba-gate” is not what it said about American Jews; on that front the incident is neither new nor interesting. The most interesting thing about the ads, that almost everyone missed, was what they said about Jewish life in Israel. If anyone should reflect on the deeper import of these ads, it is Israelis. Because if you stop to consider the implicit message contained in the ads, then you know they express the inner Israeli anxiety that their identities are so thin – all nationalism and no Judaism – that once they leave the country, there is not enough Jewish substance left to survive an extended stay out of the homeland. It is hard enough to be Jewish in the Diaspora, but these ads make clear that typical secular Israelis lack the tools or inclination to associate with the Jewish community outside of the Land.

Permit me to paint a picture, and it is not a pretty one. Unlike here in America, Judaism in Israel, for better but often times for worse, is controlled by the state. Marriage, divorce, burial, conversion – everything – reflects, conforms to and receives funding from the chief rabbinate, a chief rabbinate that does not recognize alternative expressions of Jewish life in Israel, or for that matter, in America. As liberal Jews we should be highly sensitive to the bitter irony that the modern state of Israel is a place where a Jew can be denied rights – as a Jew. In such a coercive and monopolized scenario, it is no surprise that many citizens have turned away from Judaism altogether. To use one such example, my own in-laws whom I will be visiting this week in Israel would never ever walk into a synagogue. They are Israelis through and through, but their inchoate Judaism has nothing to do with their national identity. This means that when they arrive outside of Israel – which for a variety and increasing number of reasons many Israelis do – they may speak Hebrew, but they have no inclination to connect to Jewish life.

And that is where the impetus comes for the ad campaign. The Israeli authors of these ads do not even reach for the word “Jewish.” Israeli and Jewish are treated as two distinct concepts. As the head of our movement, Rabbi Julie Schonfeld, wrote this past week, “The ads make painfully clear the extent to which the concept of a meaningful Jewish identity in the Diaspora eludes Israelis.” The ads challenge Israeli Jews to consider the host culture in which their Judaism takes shape; a struggle within Israeli, not American, Jewish life.

In just a few days we will gather in our homes around our menorahs to celebrate the miracle of Hanukkah. Hanukkah is about many things, including the miracle of the cruse of oil and the military victory over our oppressors. At its core, it describes a balancing act that continues right up to today. The ability to understand physical and spiritual strength not as an either/or proposition but as necessary and interdependent components of who we are. Hanukkah reminds us that Jewish sovereignty is important only insofar as it protects and encourages a vibrant Jewish life to emerge. The most important refrain of the Israeli National anthem, Hatikvah, is Lihiyot am hofshi b’artzeinu, “To be a free nation in our land.” These words are not only about the dream of a free Jewish state. They are about the dream that Israel aspire to be a place where all Jews are free to be the Jews they seek to be – Orthodox, Masorti and Reform. A place where Jews of different stripes and types are able to exist side by side, proudly. A place for the free flourishing of Jewish identity, capable of withstanding the pressures of living in Israel, in America or on the all important bridge between the two.