Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
As Jeffrey Goldberg explains, Netanyahu's Ministry of Immigrant Absorption is sponsoring advertisements in American communities warning Israeli expatriates that they will lose their identities if they don't return home.
The Ministry is also featuring on its website a series of short videos that, in an almost comically heavy-handed way, caution Israelis against raising their children in America -- one scare-ad shows a pair of Israeli grandparents seated before a menorah and Skypeing with their granddaughter, who lives in America. When they ask the child to name the holiday they're celebrating, she says "Christmas." ,,,
The idea, communicated in these ads, that America is no place for a proper Jew, and that a Jew who is concerned about the Jewish future should live in Israel, is archaic, and also chutzpadik (if you don't mind me resorting to the vernacular). The message is: Dear American Jews, thank you for lobbying for American defense aid (and what a great show you put on at the AIPAC convention every year!) but, please, stay away from our sons and daughters.
Well that's just great. If I date a Turkish guy, his family will pretend I don't exist. If I date an Israeli guy, I'd damned well better move to Israel, because my experience of being an American Jew is inferior--even if that's the only experience of being a Jew I've got.
Keep it up, world, and I swear I'm running off with a young, proud telegraph operator from Aratacara.
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Aug '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
What you are not taking into consideration is that Zionism is the antidote to centuries of alienation and separation of Jews - primarily in Europe. Modern Zionism is also not necessarily based on religion. Many Zionists - like myself - are completely secular. Remember that secular Jews that had tried their hardest to integrate into European society - served in the Kaiser's army in WW1, etc - were never fully accepted, culminating in the Holocaust where even one Jewish grandparent was enough to put you in the gas chamber.
Mar '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
It was a bit ridiculous: had the ad contrasted Halloween vs. Purim costumes or something similar, it would have been more believable. Still, assimilation is a problem in America, and that's a legitimate concern for people who believe in the importance of a Jewish future.
I agree with Goldberg, though, that Israel should take a positive approach when trying to lure back its expats. Israel has a lot going for it, even if everything here is, as my dad says when he visits, "a drama."
Feb '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
In a world in which the UN equated Zionism with racism, we should be careful how we approach this issue. Zionism is not racism. Non-members of the Jewish tribe have full rights in Israel, serve in the military, are members of the government, etc.
I am a Catholic. My husband is a Jew. Before our wedding, we discussed the issue of intermarriage and Jewish survival, because I felt guilty in a way -- that his children would not be seen as Jews by other Jews. His parents love and esteem me more than I could have hoped for, but I know it hurts them. We try to make Jewish traditions part of our family life -- my children sing the Shma in Hebrew at prayer time, we Brucha over our bread and wine on Shabbat, I bake a mean challah, and my latkes are really yummy. We fast at Yom Kippur. We had a mohel after my sons' births. But they are baptized Catholics and we don't attend the local synagogue, a Reconstructionist one. We tried, but my husband disliked the rabbi intensely, so we quit.
I think these ads attempt to seriously address a difficult issue head-on.
Mar '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
The Contentions blog makes a point I was thinking, but was too lazy to write coherently, about Remembrance Day being a part of the Israeli experience that American Jews don't share. After all, the voice-over says they'll never understand what it means to be Israeli, not they won't understand what it means to be Jewish.
Edited on December 1, 2011 at 5:15pmFeb '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
SettlerMom: The Contentions blog makes a point I was thinking, but was too lazy to write coherently, about Remembrance Day being a part of the Israeli experience that American Jews don't share. After all, the voice-over says they'll never understand what it means to be Israeli, not they won't understand what it means to be Jewish. · Dec 1 at 8:14am
Edited on Dec 01 at 08:15 am
Reading a biography of Yoni Netanyahu, I came across that exact point. As a high schooler in western NY state, Yoni had difficulty with the concerns of his peers -- their lack of seriousness and existential awareness that he had as a citizen of a nation in constant peril. He could not wait to return home. The book, written soon after the Entebbe rescue, in the 1970s, speaks of Israeli girls as knowing the difference between different types of machine guns as other girls might be able to pick out designers or brands of clothing. Is that still true today?
Mar '11
Re: Way to Make Me Feel Like Part of the Tribe, Israel!
I'm not so sure. Israel has become more normal, the "good things in life" more available, and, while military service is still mandatory, the rate of exemptions has risen a lot. Perhaps I'm contradicting a bit the point made in the original quote, but I don't mean to negate it altogether -- the army experience is definitely a formative one for most Israelis. As for guns, the women in my circles experience them vicariously for the most part . . . I see guns everywhere around me, but have never held one, and military service consisted of waiting for my husband to come home from reserve duty.