Forging Jewish Identity in Israel

Allow me to place my observations in context by sharing a passage written by one of Israel’s leading statesmen. Allow me to place my observations in context by sharing a passage written by one of Israel’s leading statesmen.
“The problem started with our generation.Because we were the sons and daughters of rebels, we had no Judaism in our upbringing whatsoever.The result was that our generation in a way lost its roots, the first to have done so.What did we know about Jewish wisdom?What did we know about Jewish contributions to the world or about the Jewish presence here in Israel?Very little. Were we taught to be proud that we were Jews, descendants of those Jews who through the ages had fought to the death for their beliefs?No, we were not taught these things.Instead, with our generation there was an attempt to create not Jews but New Israeli Men and Women.In the process we were disconnected from those earlier generations whose Jewishness was inscribed in their hearts.
Would you say that the average Israeli citizen is proud of being a Jew?I don’t think so. One can be proud only of what one knows, not of what one does not know. And we, unfortunately, do not know.I was born in Israel.I had all my education here from kindergarten through university.But what did I and others of my generation learn in all those years of schooling that might have made us proud of our Jewishness?Reaffirming the identity between Israel and Judaism seems to me a prerequisite for survival.Not that all Israelis have to become orthodox, but that first of all this country must be a Jewish state and Jews must be proud that it is Jewish and they are Jewish.”

The writer of this admission is Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.He sets forth succinctly the challenge of the Masorti Movement and the Schechter Institute. The challenge of Zionism in its first hundred years was to carve out “a state for Jews” a physical and social infrastructure that over the past hundred years secured Palestine and later Israel as a haven and shelter for a downtrodden people.Growing numbers believe that our supreme challenge for the next hundred years will be to fashion a “Jewish State.”Let it be understood that, from where we sit today, our physical survival as a nation is not at risk.Yes – our enemies can hurt us.They cannot destroy us.We are a regional super power operating with a superior military edge. The most serious threats facing the country are internal and existential.In the Diaspora, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform and Hasidic Jews dwell in separate synagogues, often on the same block.A Jew chooses the one shul most appealing to his/her spiritual palette.
In Israel it is otherwise – Jews coming home occupy, as it were, the same house, and in this one house each branch of Judaism occupies a separate room.Or if you will, the branches are like children growing up under this one roof. When they grow up each wants to inherit the family home exclusively for himself.For some time now the children – the different versions of Judaism – are jockeying for position, asking the inevitable question: Who will be the “master of the house,” the Jewish baal habayit of the homeland?Who will shape its Jewish contours?What meanings will we give to the notion “Jewish?”

We are living through a “kulturkampf” – a war of ideologies.The Jew who comes home thinks he’s Moses incarnate bringing the authentic version of Judaism. In the Jewish state of the 21st century will there be complete separation of church and state?Will El Al fly or not fly on Shabbat? Will there be public transit in Jerusalem on Shabbat? Should Jewish studies be obligatory in secular state schools?What about obligatory prayer, or serious study of the theology of the prayer book?Will a monolithic brand of Judaism be dictated from above, or will there be freedom to choose – and if so, will choices be made on the basis of knowledge or on the basis of ignorance and public apathy?Will the “master of the house” be public consensus or Knesset legislation? Viewed from this angle, the challenges for Israeli society come as much from ‘within’ as from ‘without.’Painting with a broad stroke I see at least three prevailing attitudes in the country touching on the formation of Jewish identity:
The first is ambivalence and indifference typified by the 80% of secular Israelis who pass through the kind of curriculum Prime Minister Sharon was exposed to as a child.Can we imagine an American child finishing high school without learning about Shakespeare, Charles Dickens or Mark Twain?To read these giants is to highlight the complexity and perplexity of what it means to be human.These literary masters wrote for eternity; they touch and probe the human condition, our propensity to act with humanity and with animality.

Yet, the average Israeli pupil goes through the ‘mamlachti,’ (secular) system without reading equivalent Jewish giants.There is little or no exposure to the spiritual geniuses who shaped the Talmud, nor to the insights of Rashi, Maimonides, or Yehuda Halevi in the Middle Ages, not to speak of never caressing the poetry of the prayer book composed over a thousand year span.Is it any wonder that so many Israelis, post-army, seek spiritual solace in Tibetan ashrams and Thai villages, seeing they were denied access to Jewish spiritual reservoirs growing up? Eastern spirituality, of course, has a magnetic draw when you never poured over a midrashic, or Hasidic text, or never encountered the mind-stretching writings of Rosenzweig, Heschel or Kaplan; or when the siddur was reduced to a quaint book reserved for the pious zayda from Poland or savta from Morocco.

And don’t think it’s a picnic for Israelis when they do flirt with the Bible, the one book that is most accessible.Bible study, beyond the Chumash (Five Books of the Torah) is deeply problematic for the 20% of Orthodox children in the school system.They don’t study the Prophets, or the poetry of the Psalms systematically, lest they be exposed to more than one way to do the Jewish religion, and more than one way to “image” God.To perceive God as metaphor, as poetic understatement, might just lead them to understand Judaism as a tolerant religion.It might lead them to realize that the Biblical writers graciously recorded multiple “takes” on God even if they didn’t necessarily concur with a particular perception.

As for the remainder of kids who learn in secular state schools, they also have a problem:With the exception of the Book of Esther and the Song of Songs, the Bible refuses to skirt a potentially most embarrassing subject:God!Now, as a secular Israeli, if you cannot talk about how our ancestors imagined God, how do you authoritatively teach about right and wrong, which have their origins in revelation, not to speak of how it’s possible to have different “spins” on what we mean by revelation.If you cannot talk about God,you can’t take up the contentions of Job who refuses to tiptoe “round the tulips” when confronting his creator about his undeserved suffering!There is, tragically, plenty of underserved suffering in the country to pique and exercise a student’s imagination, yet, for ‘cheeloni’ (non-religious) pupils, Job’s “spin” on the religious life is lamentably a closed book.*
Alongside ambivalence and indifference is ignorance, typified by nearly a million Russians who have arrived in Israel since the fall of Communism because that is where world Jewry wanted El Al to deposit them.With the exception of the Natan Sharansky’s, Yuri Edelstein’s and Yosef Begun’s of Refusnik fame, the Russian aliyah has hardly been energized by the Zionist dream.Now that the Russians are settling in, a serious question ought be asked; What will be the Jewish quotient of their lives and of their children?The verdict awaits closure.

Finally, there is a segment of Israelis thirsting for Jewish learning who actually want to know what role religion can play in their lives.The late Emil Fackenheim’s 614th commandment, “choose to remain a Jew so as to deny Hitler a posthumous victory,” is not enough to sustain long-term Jewish identity, not in Israel, nor in Los Angeles.Truth to tell, we have survived 4,000 years, not primarily because of anti-Semitism, but because Judaism offers invaluable lessons about how to construct order and meaning out of the chaos that all too frequently infects our lives.
Let me advance a more comprehensive claim which propels me as rabbi and educator: The Jewish contours of Israel will be shaped by those groups best able to integrate Mordecai Kaplan’s three building blocks of Jewish identity: belonging, believing and behaving!In Israel, as in America, we need multiple ways to access Kaplan’s equation. Through synagogue life and through Noam, our energetic Masorti youth movement, the Masorti Movement provides a Jewish contour for Israelis ready to investigate the fullness of the three B’s.

I pay tribute to my colleagues:Rabbis Matt Futterman in Ashkelon, Mike Graetz in Omer (outside Beersheva), to Mauricio Balter outside Haifa, Roberto Arbiv in Tel Aviv, Simcha Roth in Herziliya, Irvin Birnbaum in Netanya who have invested the best years of their lives building religious spiritual centers attracting not only Anglo-Saxons, but native-born Israelis, and Russian and South American immigrants.These Masorti pioneers have been joined by younger Schechter Institute rabbis: Elisha Wolfin in Zichron Ya’acov, who began his studies at the UJ, by Rabbis Zvi Berger and Zvi Landau in the Upper Galilee, and by Rabbi Barry Schesinger of the prestigious Masorti pulpit in East Talpiot, (Jerusalem).Let there be no doubt, their accomplishments and their staying power, their incredible perseverance have been won at great personal struggle and sacrifice -not the least of which has been, at times, severe financial hardship. Their labors are the epitome of passion for a more tolerant, inclusive Judaism built on compassion and caring for all – Jew and Gentile alike.

As to activities of the Schechter Institute proper, there is a Bhuddist aphorism that claims: if you are making plans for a year, plant corn; if you are planning for a decade, plant an orchard; however, if you are setting out a master plan for a century, then you must educate!Schechter is deep into educational programming for this new century.Within our cramped Jerusalem classrooms, hundreds of Israeli teachers, social workers and JCC directors are “conquering” Jewish texts the way their pioneer parents and grandparents once spoke of “conquering” the desert.This has become the mission of our 600 graduates and current crop of 450 Masters degree students.

As we scale the educational ladder to our rabbinical school, since its humble beginnings in 1984 it has graduated close to sixty Conservative rabbis.Together with our current crop of 25 full-time Israeli students, all of whom have served in the Israel Defense Forces, and half of whom are women, they bring a vital claim to the Israeli public: The superficial rhythms of Jewish life (Shabbat as the day off, Pesach as a national holiday) are by themselves insufficient to stave off the threat of assimilation.Zionism, seen as a knee-jerk reaction to anti-Semitism and the biased reporting of CNN and the LA Times, is only a partial response to the preservation of Jewish identity.

The challenge to Jewish survival in Israel is existential!It emanates, primarily, not from external enemies but from an inability to convince the next generation of Israeli children that Jewish learning and living are relevant options in their lives. This is why Conservative rabbis 25 years ago set up the TALI stream of Jewish education within the framework of Israel’s secular public schools.Today more than 20,000 Israeli youngsters in more than 100 settings are exposed to a Solomon Schechter-type education, combining the best of general and Jewish studies. There are, in fact, more students enrolled in TALI classrooms than in schools controlled by Shas, the Sephardic ultra-Orthodox political party.

We live in times of horrendous uncertainty.Every Israeli’s nerves is set on edge.Our students, both secular and religious, I dare say, use their book learning at Schechter to probe their raison d’etre:What does it mean for me to be a Zionist in the 21st century?How can the great books of Judaism empower me to answer the claim of the German seer, Friedrich Nietzsche: “When you have a why to live for, you can cope with almost any how!” What is the “why” of my existence, of my readiness to endure psychological trauma?What propels me to dwell in this troubled, yet glorious land!Are there Jewish reservoirs of meaning, comfort, and hope I can tap into as I experience a pressure-cooker life, framed these days around unholy terror and fright?

The Schechter Institute grows in numbers and earned reputation; Israelis flock to us from all corners of the country, from Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Ashkelon; from the Golan Heights in the north to Eilat in the south.Why do they make this long weekly trek?Because, as they themselves tell us:When they ask tough questions about Judaism and about their own lives, they know they will be answered with utter intellectual honesty, with empathy and with a listening ear.The word on the street is that the Schechter Institute is in the business of “Applied Judaism.”If our trademark is anything it is this: we do not overestimate a pupil’s knowledge, yet we never underestimate his/her innate intelligence and curiosity.

On behalf of the Masorti Movement and the Schechter Institute I applaud and pay tribute to our distinguished honorees; may you all go forward in strength and good health.I thank you all for your gracious support.I also wish to acknowledge the support of Mercaz, the Zionist arm of Conservative Judaism which enables us to receive direct funding in Israel from the WZO.Above all, we thank you for enabling the Jewish nation to buy into a brand of Judaism based, not on coercive legislation, but on informed opinion, and above all, on love!
Todah!

*On the problematics of teaching Bible see Mayer Gruber, “Reflections on the Teaching of the Bible in Israel,” in Judaism and Education: Essays in Honor of Walter I. Ackerman, edited by Haim Marantz (Beer-Sheva, Ben Gurion University, 1998) pp. 207-217.

This address was delivered at the annual Los Angeles Schechter/Masorti Dinner – November 16, 2003.

Rabbi Dr. Harvey Meirovich is Dean of the Schechter Rabbinical Seminary, Jerusalem