The recent Pew survey of American Jews caused a fluster in the organized Jewish community.
The survey raises a number of questions about the efficacy of Jewish institutions, leaving professionals and donors alike in a position of uncertainty regarding their investments in the Jewish future. But while traditional American Jewish organizations regroup and rethink, a growing movement in the community remains largely overlooked.
In major metro areas across the United States such as Los Angeles, New York, Miami and Boston, Israeli-American organizations are popping up and growing in popularity. Programs for families, young adults and children alike, centered on Israeli culture and Jewish identity have swelling appeal.
Participation in these Israeli-American organizations is increasing rapidly, and not only among Israeli expats and their children. In greater numbers, American Jews join in on Israeli programs related to Hebrew language, Jewish education, and creating connectedness to Israel through the arts, music, literature, and tradition.
The American way of practicing Judaism is largely based on attending synagogues and affiliating with religious congregations across the denominations. What it does not offer are substantial alternatives for Jewish involvement in a secular way. Within this reality, the phenomenon of growing Israeli communal life in the United States offers a new model for American secular Jews to express their Judaism without needing to belong to a synagogue or religious institution.
Accessible organized cultural Judaism
In Los Angeles, the Israeli American Council (IAC) reached over 50,000 members of the Israeli-American community in the area last year with its Israeli-tailored programming. The organization’s flagship event, the Celebrate Israel festival – now the largest Jewish festival in North America – turned out about 15,000 people, half Israeli-Americans and half American Jews.
Other Israeli-style holiday festivals with focus on family activities, Israeli performances, and Israeli or Jewish customs rather than religious observance attract thousands and reflect a similar demographic split.
The trend continues through the young professional program BINA, targeting the age group of American Jews who are least connected to Judaism according to the Pew report. The IAC’s success, in fact, led to its recent expansion across the United States, announced at a Rosh Hashana reception just last month.
American Jews in New York have also recently been showing a growing interest in Israeli educational programs, such as “Israeliness” at the 92nd Street Y, among others.
Upon a closer look, perhaps these developing programs, which are almost entirely secular in nature, are the new avenue for secular American Jews to connect to their Jewish identity.
The Pew results revealed that 70% of American Jews feel very attached or somewhat attached to Israel, and more than 60% believe that Judaism is about culture, ancestry and identity. What better environment to cultivate those feelings and transform them into strong connectedness to one’s Jewish roots than among secular Israelis.
Although Israelis living in the United States may have left the Jewish nation state, many maintain their deep love of Israel. You might even say they do so religiously. Many do everything they can to ensure their children will inherit their intense love for Israel though Hebrew culture, Jewish knowledge, and political awareness.
As Israeli expats strive to instill a secular Israeli identity in the next generation, many American Jews find themselves relating to the approach and spirit and jump on the bandwagon. Perhaps it is the Israeliness rather than the Jewishness of this community that attracts the at-risk American Jewish demographic, making organized cultural Judaism accessible in a new and relevant way.
American Jewish leaders have responded to the Pew survey with a number of calls, including for a rejuvenated core which is literate in Hebrew, investment in Jewish culture, and alternative venues for Jewish identity.
Well, look no further. The Israeli-American community may just be the answer.
Semi-believer that I am, I nevertheless support the truth of the proposition that Zionism without Judaism is meaningless and over the long term, impossible to sustain.
And in the long term, it will be seen that Israel can only survive as the one and only Jewish state, and not as just another state claiming to be “democratic”.
“Citizenship” and “nationality” are not synonymous terms. I am a citizen of the United States of America. But Judaism is my nationality. Democracy never shall be a system to which I shall swear and practice fealty.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Viiit Said:
Bagels and Dreidels could be called Judaica.
What stupid Jew or Israelite would sacrifice his life for Judaica?
Viiit Said:
ROFLMAOWTIME 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂
Israel Asks American Jews and Israeli Ex-Pats: Where Do Your Loyalties Lie?
Netanyahu Orders Ministries To Stop Distributing Survey haaretz
By Haaretz/Barak Ravid
Two sensitive and potentially explosive issues have always clouded the relationship between the Jewish community in the United States and the State of Israel. The first relates to claims of “dual allegiance” to both Israel and the United States; the other concerns the pro-Israel, American “Jewish lobby.” Many of those raising such claims against American Jewry have themselves been accused of anti-Semitism.
Israel Asks American Jews and Israeli Ex-Pats: Where Do Your Loyalties Lie?
Netanyahu Orders Ministries To Stop Distributing Survey haaretz
By Haaretz/Barak Ravid
Two sensitive and potentially explosive issues have always clouded the relationship between the Jewish community in the United States and the State of Israel. The first relates to claims of “dual allegiance” to both Israel and the United States; the other concerns the pro-Israel, American “Jewish lobby.” Many of those raising such claims against American Jewry have themselves been accused of anti-Semitism.
So it’s strange that representatives of Israel’s immigrant absorption and foreign ministries have just distributed a questionnaire to tens of thousands of Israelis living in the United States and Jewish Americans, which includes problematic questions on exactly these issues, and asks them to indicate where their allegiance would lie in the case of a crisis between the two countries.
On Sunday, following the report of the story in Haaretz, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu directed the ministries to stop distributing the questionnaire. He also ordered that it not be promoted by any official government agency.
The survey was commissioned by the Israeli American Council, a private nonprofit group based in Los Angeles. Its mission is “to build an active and giving Israeli-American community in order to strengthen the State of Israel, our next generation, and to provide a bridge to the Jewish-American community,” according to the IAC website.
The IAC was established by Israelis living in Los Angeles in 2007, and is primarily supported by Israeli-American businessman Haim Saban, who has donated close to a million dollars in the past four years.
In September, the IAC announced plans to expand by establishing new branches throughout the United States. Conducting the survey is seen as part of this process.
According to the IAC, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson has taken it upon himself to help finance the group’s expansion.
Adelson, considered one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest allies, owns the pro-Netanyahu free daily Israel Hayom, and donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates in the last U.S. presidential election.
Last Tuesday, the IAC’s chief operating officer, Miri Belsky, sent an email to the Israeli embassy in Washington with a link to the survey, asking that Israeli consulates in the United States be instructed to distribute it. She even asked that the consulates send out four reminders – one every three days – in order to elicit replies from at least 10 percent of their mailing list.
That same day, the Israeli consulates in the United States received instructions from the embassy in Washington and the Immigrant Absorption Ministry’s returning citizens’ department to distribute the survey by email to the tens of thousands of Israelis and Jews on their mailing lists.
“The IAC is conducting a survey of Israelis in the United States to map their positions and needs,” read the email the Washington embassy sent to the consulates. “We will be partners in the findings. They are asking for our help in distributing the questionnaires via our communication channels, in order to reach as many Israelis as possible … We thank you for promoting this from today.”
Midgam Research and Consulting, a polling company, has been hired to carry out the survey, which is apparently financed by the IAC but was endorsed by official Israeli government agencies. The symbol of the State of Israel appears on the survey’s opening page, and the questionnaires were sent from official Foreign Ministry email accounts.
However, it is unclear what governmental level approved this move, or whether absorption or foreign ministry officials checked what type of questions would be asked. Only after several of the consulates had already distributed the survey to tens of thousands of recipients did some Israeli diplomats realize the significance, and partially halted its distribution.
“Tell her not to send it out. The questions in this survey are unbearable and not legitimate,” Gil Lainer, consul for public diplomacy at the Israeli Consulate in New York, wrote to one of his colleagues in an email.
One question in the survey asks specifically which side the respondents would support publicly if there was a crisis in the relationship between the United States and Israel. The respondents are also asked to what extent the presidential candidates or Congress members’ attitudes toward Israel impact their voting decisions.
They are also asked about the impact of American Jews and U.S. Jewish organizations on American policy, and how Israelis living in the United States and American Jews have an impact on Israel’s strength.
An Immigrant Absorption Ministry spokesperson told Haaretz, “this survey has no connection to the ministry,” but admitted ministry personal were involved in its distribution. “We will check how this hitch occurred.”
The Foreign Ministry noted that “the survey was distributed by Ella Saban – director of the department for returning Israelis at the Absorption Ministry – to the consulates. It is a project of the Absorption Ministry and the IAC.” However, it noted that the embassy in Washington and the consulates around the U.S. helped circulate the survey.
The IAC replied via its PR, Moshe Debby. “The Israeli American Council initiated and approved the survey and questions,” Debby said. “We drafted the survey and it was distributed by many organizations, including [the Immigrant Absorption Ministry agency] Bait Israeli. The government of Israel was not involved in drafting the survey. We chose to conduct this survey … checking the characteristics of Israelis living in America and their children, to learn about the community’s nature.
“We think those questions are legitimate, as they are not influencing the reader to vote one way or another. The survey is totally anonymous and the results are for statistical study. The questions you referred to are questions that many Jews and Israeli Americans are faced with.”
The program only has merit if it stimulates a significant aliyah and return of Israeli ex pats.
Secular identification is not sustainable and usually not transferable beyond 1-2 generations.
The Jewish question in America should be: Will your grandchildren be Jewish? Will a stronger identification with Israel in the American Jewish community reduce intermarriage? Give meaning and definition of what is a Jew and why be Jewish?
Israel is not all that secular why push it in America?
Israel should export National religious Zionist teachers funded by Israel to set up and teach religious Zionism to American Youth. The adults are a lost cause.
The religious aspect of Judaism is equally important.
No, it should be Jew, but Jew should be understood as nationality.
Jew, comes from Jude, from Judea from the name of our homeland.
Or perhaps we should stop using the word Jew and use Israelites (as opposed to Israelis)
This is great.
Cultural and social Jewish Association.
I just don’t like the name “Judaism” attached to this.
Irish association of this nature don’t call themselves “Cultural Irishism”, or Irlandism.