Letters to an American Jewish Friend: a Zionist's Polemic by Hillel Halkin

Author:Hillel Halkin [Halkin, Hillel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9789652296306
Publisher: Gefen Publishing House
Published: 2013-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

Notes

1. While the number of traditionally observant Jews in the United States is probably little more than 5 percent of the total Jewish population there, the equivalent figure in Israel is undoubtedly several times higher. Yet one of the most common reactions on the part of American Jewish visitors to Israel is their profession of shock at the secular character of Israeli life. Are we not dealing with a double standard here that is as hypocritical in its judgments as it is revealing of the ambivalence with which Israel is viewed in the Diaspora, which first idealizes life here and then condemns it for failing to live up to the ideal? The Israeli thus assuages the American Jew’s sense of atavistic religious guilt in two ways: in the first place, the American Jew can be excused for not bothering with religion since there is a Jewish state to look after that; and, secondly, how can anyone possibly expect him to be religious when even Israelis are not?

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