Published: 31 March 2018
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Anyone who spent three seconds in the company of Israelis, I like to say when I speak about the conversation surrounding Israel in the Jewish community, knows that arguing and criticizing our society, culture and politics is our national sport. Israelis love Israel through constantly criticizing everything about it.
When I arrived in Boston as an Israeli student some years ago, I was eager to join the infamous campus conversation about Israel. So eager, that I practically dropped my luggage in my dorm room and ran to the first few Israel events I could find. I’ll never forget how disappointed I was.
The events weren’t boring, badly organized or anti-Israel. In fact, it was inspiring to see so many bright and passionate students who care so deeply about a small country on the other side of the ocean. What was uninspiring was that the conversations seemed to only include people who agreed with one another.
I vividly recall attending an event organized by a right-leaning pro-Israel organization. Everyone there was right-leaning. Then crossing campus to another event, sponsored by a left-leaning organization and quickly noticing it was exclusively attended by left-leaning students.
Students who care about Israel, I realized, avoid talking to students with different views. When people who disagreed actually engaged with one another it would immediately escalate into a shouting match. Sometimes, even if two student groups could agree on something as acute as the two-state solution, but disagreed on the way to achieve it, they were unable to hold an open dialogue.
The tension was often so bad that students who actually wanted to engage civilly with real intellectual curiosity, preferred to shy away. Birthright alumni who came back from an eye-opening trip, excited to engage, attended one or two events and realized that it was not the kind of discourse they were interested in.
* Special thanks to Lital Carmel and Adi Mayer for their input
The result was a void and as we know, voids don’t stay vacant. It was quickly filled by those representing extreme views, with those few who are interested in shouting and being heard rather than speaking and being listened to. The space was filled with vehemently, hatefully anti-Israel groups who take advantage of the lack of conversation to dictate the tone and get all the attention.
Six years later, I feel safe saying that the Israel-conversation is a challenge well beyond campuses. Much has been written about the Jewish-American communal inability to discuss Israel constructively. It’s an issue troubling pulpit rabbis, community leaders, congregation members and Jewish professionals. It prevents many from engaging with Israel and some even from engaging with Jewish life on the whole.
Thankfully, many are already leading efforts to ameliorate this dire reality. ‘Resetting the Table’ provides communities with tools for constructive conversations around tense Israel issues. Some federations, like the CJP in Boston, initiated programs encouraging dialogue-building events. Many others are suggesting different ways to reframe the conversation. The Forward’s editor Jane Eisner, as one example, suggested shifting to a framing based not on “pro” and “anti” but on whether Jews are engaged with Israel in some productive way.”
I would like to posit another solution towards this effort to improve the Israel conversation:
Make it more Israeli.
First it is important to acknowledge that left or right, conservative or liberal, the vast majority of people in this conversation are actually ‘stakeholders’. Their futures as Jews are tied with the future of Israel and when they speak, they speak about themselves. When Israelis bash each other’s points of view only to conclude with a hug, it’s because we know just that – we’re stuck here (or should I say, there) together.
I have right-wing Israeli friends who sometimes, in argument, call me a self-hater. I also have leftist friends who in the heat of conversation imply that I am a fascist. Nonetheless, in this process, we both learned a little more about our views and even became better friends. It’s the Israeli way - even when our partner-in-argument seems to simply not get reality the same way we do, we know that it’s also his/her reality - and that s/he also wants to make it better.
My second suggestion is directed to the 500,000-1,000,000 Israelis living in America – In order to improve the conversation surrounding Israel we need to make sure more Israelis participate in it. As almost 10% of American Jews are Israeli-Americans, they can inject ‘Israeliness’ to the conversation. Israelis bring both their personal, first hand, experiences and the culture of a lively, confident, bristly but accepting debate.
There are several ways Israelis can get involved. Organizations like the Public Conversations Project and the Civil Discourse Project have attempted to tame heated debates by creating a dialogue based on the guidelines of listening and respect. These conversations should be led by skilled facilitators with a strong sense of what is necessary for conducting a powerful conversation on the subject of Israel. Who is better for the job than Israelis themselves?
Furthermore, Israelis can play a vital role in framing the debates. An idea proposed by Richard A. Block, President of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, is that conversations about Israel should not be solely focused on controversial issues. Israel has many positive layers, and in order to understand the controversial issues, one must learn the context. Israelis have strong understanding of these topics; they have personally seen and experienced them and are able to effectively incorporate them into conversations about Israel.
The Jewish-American community needs us. At the Israeli American Council we are working to build and empower an Israeli-American community and strengthen its connection with the Jewish-American community.
In this process, we must remember - Israel, as Eisner notes, is also a Jewish-American reality. “Engagement with Israel is an essential part of what it means to be a Jew in the 21st century,” she argues. “That wasn’t necessarily the case for my parents or, of course, for my grandparents, but it is for Jews today. Israel is there. It is to be supported, challenged, wrestled with, embraced. Ignoring it is to ignore this very historical moment, a moment of privilege, of living at a time when Jews are able to exercise sovereignty in their ancient land.”
And with privilege, as anyone who watched or read Spiderman knows, comes responsibility. In this case the responsibility to criticize out of love, and love through argument. It’s time for Israeli-Americans to take on their important role in promoting the fulfilment of this responsibility in Jewish communities in America and beyond.
