Washington Report On Middle East Affairs – October 2018

ISRAEL’S STEADY RETREAT from

democracy, as dramatically manifested

by the Knesset passing in July a new

nation-state law—and its 51-year oc-

cupation of the West Bank and East

Jerusalem—is widening the division

between American Jews and the self-

proclaimed “Jewish state.”

An opinion poll published in Israel in

June shows a growing gap between Is-

raelis and American Jews. The Ameri-

can Jewish Committee (AJC) survey

found that 77 percent of Israelis ap-

proved of President Donald Trump’s

handling of U.S.-Israel relations, while

only 34 percent of American Jews did.

Eighty-five percent of Israelis supported

the decision to move the U.S. Embassy

to Jerusalem, upending decades of

U.S. foreign policy and an international

consensus that the city’s status should

be decided through peace negotiations.

Only 47 percent of American Jews supported the move.

The poll also found that 59percent of American Jews favor the

establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, compared to

only 44 percent of Israelis. The two communities also differ sharply

on matters of religion and state, particularly on the ultra-Orthodox

monopoly over religious affairs in Israel.

The vast majority of American Jews identify as either Reform or

Conservative, the more liberal streams of Judaism. In Israel, how-

ever, Reform and Conservative rabbis cannot perform weddings,

preside over funerals or conduct conversions. American Jews

overwhelmingly support religious freedom and separation of reli-

gion and state. Israel, quite to the contrary, is a theocracy. There

is no such thing as civil marriage. If a Jew and non-Jew wish to

marry, they must leave the country to do so. On one of the most

controversial issues, regarding mixed gender prayer at

Jerusalem’s Western Wall, 73 percent of American Jews ex-

pressed support, compared with just 42 percent of Israelis.

In another recent survey, only a minority of Jews in the San

Francisco Bay Area believe a Jewish state is important, and only

a third sympathize more with Israel than with the Palestinians.

When 18- to 34-year-olds were asked if they were “very at-

tached” to Israel, only 11 percent said yes, compared to 45 per-

cent of those aged 50 and older. Only 40 percent of the young

respondents said they were “comfortable with the idea of a Jew-

ish state.”

Young people feel uncomfortable with the idea of a “Jewish

state,” argues Prof. Steven Cohen of the Hebrew Union College,

who conducted some of the recent surveys, because they have

an aversion to “hard group boundaries,” and the notion that

“there is a distinction between Jews and everyone else.”

In June, five participants in the Birthright Israel program, which

brings young people on expense-paid visits to Israel, walked out

on the program to take a tour of the segregated West Bank city

of Hebron, led by dissident IDF veterans from the group Break-

ing The Silence, which opposes Israel’s occupation. They

wanted to see what the Birthright program, which is financed by

such supporters of the occupation as casino mogul Sheldon

Adelson, wanted to keep from them.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish mourners at a funeral in Jerusalem carry the body of Israeli Rabbi

Shmuel Auerbach, 86, who opposed attempts to force ultra-Orthodox students to serve in the

military like their secular counterparts.

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of

the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for

Research and Education, and editor ofIssues,the quarterly journal

of the American Council for Judaism.

15

Israel’s Retreat From Democracy Creating

Widening Division With American Jews

By Allan C. Brownfeld

OCTOBER 2018 WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS

Israel and Judaism

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