The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

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In 2003, several prominent Jewish philanthropists hired Republican pollster Frank Luntz to explain why American Jewish college students were not more vigorously rebutting campus criticism of Israel. In response, he unwittingly produced the most damning indictment of the organized American Jewish community that I have ever seen.

The philanthropists wanted to know what Jewish students thought about Israel. Luntz found that they mostly didn’t. “Six times we have brought Jewish youth together as a group to talk about their Jewishness and connection to Israel,” he reported. “Six times the topic of Israel did not come up until it was prompted. Six times these Jewish youth used the word ‘they‘ rather than ‘us‘ to describe the situation.”
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That Luntz encountered indifference was not surprising. In recent years, several studies have revealed, in the words of Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Kelman of the University of California at Davis, that “non-Orthodox younger Jews, on the whole, feel much less attached to Israel than their elders,” with many professing “a near-total absence of positive feelings.” In 2008, the student senate at Brandeis, the only nonsectarian Jewish-sponsored university in America, rejected a resolution commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Jewish state.

Luntz’s task was to figure out what had gone wrong. When he probed the students’ views of Israel, he hit up against some firm beliefs. First, “they reserve the right to question the Israeli position.” These young Jews, Luntz explained, “resist anything they see as ‘group think.’” They want an “open and frank” discussion of Israel and its flaws. Second, “young Jews desperately want peace.” When Luntz showed them a series of ads, one of the most popular was entitled “Proof that Israel Wants Peace,” and listed offers by various Israeli governments to withdraw from conquered land. Third, “some empathize with the plight of the Palestinians.” When Luntz displayed ads depicting Palestinians as violent and hateful, several focus group participants criticized them as stereotypical and unfair, citing their own Muslim friends.


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"Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

Morally, American Zionism is in a downward spiral. If the leaders of groups like AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations do not change course, they will wake up one day to find a younger, Orthodox-dominated, Zionist leadership whose naked hostility to Arabs and Palestinians scares even them, and a mass of secular American Jews who range from apathetic to appalled. Saving liberal Zionism in the United States—so that American Jews can help save liberal Zionism in Israel—is the great American Jewish challenge of our age. And it starts where Luntz’s students wanted it to start: by talking frankly about Israel’s current government, by no longer averting our eyes."

and send their knee-jerk parents to the old folk's home.

And calling their parents' opinions knee jerk is such a knee jerk pro-Palestinian response. So many DUers repeat those well-worn talking points while congratulating themselves on their independent thinking.

Thing about herd mentalities, they're so ripe for stampede.

Why do Israel's supporters all seem to believe that a Jew can only ever be a victim? Why do they insist that the Jewish people are helpless naifs in the wilderness, in need of constant succor and protection? Why is it that, in your eyes, there is no other possibility for a Jew, other than this, or a "sellout"? What's with the perpetual infantilization that you and your sort attribute to the Jewish people, where every Jew must always be terrified, and must allow someone else to think for him? Why do you ascribe such childish attributes to the entire race? Why must any Jew who attempts thought independent of seeing himself as a victim, the oppressed, the pathetic and the weakling, be dismissed as a "sellout" or, as your sort love to call them, "capos"? Where is it written that to be a "real Jew" one must not only be a victim, but one must also hate the Palestinians and support the very state that keeps Jews living in fear and danger due to its own policies?

The more I watch you and many other pro-Zionists on DU, as well as elsewhere, the more I am convinced that it is you sorts who are the biggest antisemites of this age. You strive to attribute a single outlook to all Jewry, one that must mesh with your own desires and predilections, or those Jews become "dangerous" or "questionable" - you attribute nothing positive to the Jewish people, only a constant stream of helplessness and victimhood, as if that were the definition of being a Jewish person.

It's really rather fucking sickening, Aquart. So why do you engage in this?

:toast:

Just for the record, I am one of the "questionable" Jews that aquart and the rest revile.

Not many years ago, they would have loved me, for I mindlessly supported Israel in everything it did.

Around 2006, my concscience could stand it no more. My "bullshit detector", honed in the last decade (like so many of us DUers) by the Most Sophisticated Propaganda Machine of all time, the RW Lie Machine, suddenly began to see that the Israelis had an almost identical Lie Machine at work, using identical structure, identical mis/disinformation, and identical propaganda methodologies based on the latest progress in marketing/PR/advertising collated & coordinated by the intelligence community.

After awhile, I would think the gross similarity would become too obvious to anyone, but as always, I underestimate the human capacity for tribalism and self-deception, even my own.

How aquart or ANY DUer can rail against O'Reilly, Beck, Hannity, Savage etal, and the shameless lies they spin and then, in the next second, vehemently support the same type of lies and often the same lies, just because they come out of the mouths of "OUR SIDE", is beyond me.

But I have no right to judge, not 5 years ago I was as deeply entrenched a believer in Israel's RW Lies as much as anyone. No one convinced me or argued me out of my position. My own eyes and conscience did that.

Which just goes to show that we Jews are not special in any way - just another bunch of hominids with the same failings, vanities, venalities, and proportion of sociopaths (not speaking here of aquart but of Israel's "Bushie" Leadership) as any other bunch.

And for those young people, they have no reason to feel that this state must be unquestioningly defended simply to preserve their own safety.

And if you really feel that it is, than you and everyone else who feels that way need to defend Israel by telling its government to stop endangering Israel's security through its brutal treatment of Palestinians. Not only have Israeli government "security
policies" justifiably made Israel a pariah state, but it is those policies that have done more than anything to fan the flames of antisemitism, endangering Diaspora Jews who otherwise would never have been at any danger of a rise in antisemitic feeling.

And what good has it EVER done for the cause of Israeli security to take this "we can't publicly question ANYTHING the Israeli government does, and we have to demonize anyone who does" line? Has that made Israel any more secure in any way at all?

Israel is a state run by mortal, fallible politicians, like any other state. Anytime you leave ANY politicians with the feeling that they can get away with whatever they want to do, they will try to. And it's not good for the constituents of any politician to have that feeling.

Why can't you see that the best way to defend Israel is to call on the Israeli government to stop doing stupid, brutal, arrogant thing?

The "circle the wagons" meme failed, my friend. It's only critical support that can preserve Israeli security now. Please accept that and be part of the solution.

Seems like the author of this article would prefer a herd mentality.

Israel may be a necessity but starving innocent people and closing any access to freedom is unnecessary. What Israel is doing is not working and they have made themselves the bad guys now because of what they did.

is just as bad as militant Islamism. When people realize that its the same mouthful of mouthwash swishing over to the other cheek, they can really work to make some effective change. Until that happens, there can be no peace there.

And nearly devoid of your own opinion about the issue at hand. It is comprised almost entirely of characterizations of others. "Many say".
I think you miss the point of the OP. The herd mentality is vanishing. Truth time is coming. People who love Israel need to save her from herself. The biggest threat to Israel right now is Israel itself. It is just not helpful to hand out your notes of disapproval to others. If you do not agree, say why that is so. The verbiage, what do you think that buys you, the snarky imagery about the motivations of others?
Have you ever persuaded anyone to your point of view using such methods, I wonder?
I'd be interested to hear what you think these young people-kids are children, not university students- young American people, what will they 'find out' when they enter American culture, that makes Israel necessary to them? Explain. They will find out that their families have lived and prospered here or generations? You think they will perceive pogroms brewing in Portland?
What is the point you are making about the issue, now that you have made your point about those who differ with you? Did you read the piece? If so, what did you think about it? And why? Arch insinuations usually indicate a lack of facts. "Oh, they'll find out what they need." Is arrogant, of course, as what another needs is actually a mystery to each of us.
What are they going to find out? How does their 'bubble' protect them? What do you mean by 'bubble'?

even though it was a troubling read. Thank you for posting.