You don't say: Younger American Jews are alienated from Israel

As Rosner tells us: Younger American Jews are alienated from Israel. It seems another study has found what we already know.

The reality of young Jews is informed by Rabin's assassination and the second intifada. The impact of this is immediately evident in their use of the word "they" rather than "us" when they talk about Israel. The Jewish state is tangible and emotional for most Jewish organizations but is an abstraction for many younger Jews.

Probably it is, all true, but there are other, "organic" reasons for the change. Each decade, we get one decade further from the Holocaust and its lessons, and one decade further away from both the old Jewish culture, and the Zionist culture that Jewish immigrants had brought to America.

"Historians and philosophers have tried to understand history. Our task is to change it."

If the Jewish state is an abstraction for younger Jews, how can we change that? Maybe we can't:

...40% of older Jews were rated in the study as highly attached to Israel, just 20% of younger Jews ... Many of them (more than half) just don't feel comfortable with the whole idea of a Jewish state.

 

"Don't feel comfortable with the whole idea of a Jewish state." Why? Are they bothered by the idea of an Italian state or a French state or an Egyptian state?

Ami Isseroff