We Stand Divided by Daniel Gordis

Author:Daniel Gordis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2019-08-07T16:00:00+00:00

The Future

7

Charting a Shared Future—and Why That Matters

So here is where we find ourselves. After decades of marriage, our “couple” finds itself at a crossroads. The relationship is shaky, but not for the reasons we have long assumed. As critically important as are issues such as Israel’s incessant conflict with the Palestinians, the rabbinate’s intolerance for liberal Judaism, and young Americans’ refusal to embrace even the idea of Zionism, none of these are the root cause of the rift. The fundamental issue, as we have seen over the previous four chapters, is that by this point in their respective histories American Judaism and Israeli-ness are fundamentally different. The issues addressed in the previous chapters do not, of course, come close to exhausting the issues that divide these two communities, but they do demonstrate that the real causes of the divide are much more fundamental than the current events that often trigger skirmishes between them. Israeli comportment does matter a great deal, and Israel (like any country) is surely not beyond reproach. Still, the crux of the problem between the communities is not what Israel does, but what Israel is.

The critical question, then, is this: Is there anything that can be done? Can the relationship be healed? Can it survive? Before discussing what might be done, the more immediate question to address is why the relationship matters in the first place. Why should we care? How would the Jewish world change were the relationship to end? What is at stake for each of the parties?

DOES AMERICAN JEWRY REALLY need Israel? While the question itself might once have been considered heretical, that is no longer the case; in fact, some leading voices are now answering in the negative. Israel, they say, is a fascinating phenomenon and in many ways successful beyond what anyone could have imagined at its founding, but at the end of the day American Jews do not really need it.

That sentiment is by no means limited to the left, to progressives, or to millennials. There are deeply committed Zionist, Orthodox leaders who say the same thing. Few have made their case more articulately than Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz. Yanklowitz, a modern Orthodox rabbi who defines himself as a Zionist, has twice been listed by Newsweek as one of America’s fifty most influential rabbis. He has this to say:

Since many of us took our first breaths, we’ve been taught that our priority should be supporting Israel since that is the playing field for Jewish life; those of us outside of Israel are merely on the sidelines. It is as if those who live inside Israel are the book and everyone outside the borders are the footnotes. From my perspective, however, the opposite is true. Israel may become—by reality and necessity—less significant and central to the success of global Jewish life.

Yanklowitz believes that the problem we face is deeper than the fact that Israelis and American Jews are different. Rather, he says, a fundamental part of the problem lies with Israel’s shortcomings.

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