Israel at 60

May 15, 2008

New generation has a new take on Israel

By Julie G Fax

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Earlier this spring, David Weiner, a 32-year-old social studies curriculum publisher from Los Angeles, went on an unlikely pairing of back-to-back missions to Israel.

His first week in Israel, he and a mini-bus full of peers in their 20s and 30s visited grantees of the New Israel Fund, a progressive social justice organization. They met a man who had built a sustainable living home and toured Hebron with Breaking the Silence, a group of veteran soldiers who give frank and sometimes disturbing accounts of their military service. They dealt with the prickly issue of religious pluralism, visited Palestinians, Bedouins and Ethiopians, and, with the human rights organization B'Tselem, explored East Jerusalem and the wall separating the West Bank.

The next week, Weiner embarked on the American Jewish Committee's (AJC) Board of Governors Mission, where he and about a dozen young members of the AJC's Access young professionals group joined more than 100 machers on two large tour buses.

They met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and other government officials. They visited the beleaguered town of Sderot, met with journalists and questioned various expert panels on political and social issues facing Israel. They explored the meaning of Zionism with Israeli nonprofit leaders and met with a rabbi who puts his kashrut stamp on restaurants that have disabled access.

Weiner says his involvement in each of these organizations -- one progressive and alternative, the other mainstream and established -- enriches his experience in the other.

"Both trips combined allowed me to get a much more thorough and nuanced understanding of some of the challenges that are currently facing Israel. Each organization has different strengths and different areas they might focus on, but I don't feel like they contradict each other," he said. Weiner also participates in NewGround, the Progressive Jewish Alliance's Muslim-Jewish dialogue for young professionals.

Weiner's high level of Israel involvement might not be typical of his generation, but what is typical is his approach to his relationship with Israel: He wants to sample from the buffet and eat standing up, not order a five-course sit-down dinner.

Many Gen Y-ers -- people born between the mid-1970s and early 1990s -- don't buy into the mainstream demand that they wave the Israeli flag and pledge support to the Jewish state. Uncomfortable with terms like "Israel advocate" or "pro-Israel," many of today's future leaders are forging an arena where they can build a relationship with Israel that is nuanced and multifaceted, relying on cultural interactions or collaborative tikkun olam projects, sometimes in addition to, sometimes instead of, traditional political advocacy. To them, Israel is not a miracle to be held in respectful and infallible esteem, but a complex reality to be criticized and/or befriended, woven into or left out of many layers of their ongoing search for meaning.

It is a shift in attitude that the Jewish establishment is still trying to get its head around.

Weiner said that board members on his AJC trip were eager to hear about his New Israel Fund experiences. AJC has already taken strides by developing the Access program, and they are eager to find out what appeals to this generation of multitasking, wirelessly wired, socially and psychologically self-aware resume builders, who were raised on a diet of unconditional validation and self-esteem building.

Community leaders were rocked last year when a study by demographers Steven M. Cohen and Ari Y. Kelman revealed that more than 40 percent of non-Orthodox Jews under 35 felt only a low sense of attachment to Israel, and nearly half would not view Israel's destruction as a personal tragedy -- slight but notable shifts from their Gen-X predecessors and more so from their Baby Boomer parents. Israel advocates were left wondering whether there will be enough dedicated Israel supporters to replace the retiring Baby Boomers and what the diminishing numbers might mean for fundraising and advocacy for U.S. support of Israel.

Much of this generation's alienation from Israel can be attributed to general attrition of Jewish identity. Many of this generation have intermarried or are not averse to the possibility, or are disconnected from Jewish life altogether, which from the start makes them less likely to feel strong ties to Israel.

The question taunting community leaders now is whether even those who do identify Jewishly are losing their connection to Israel, as the Cohn-Kelman study and other more anecdotal evidence indicates, or whether the Gen-Yers are simply expressing a new kind of relationship to Israel in terms the mainstream doesn't yet understand.

"The world they are in looks different in terms of opportunities, in terms of the relative place of things in community memory, in terms of the assumptions of what it means to be Jewish," said Yoni Gordis, executive director of Center for Leadership Initiatives, an operating foundation funded by Tulsa-based philanthropist Lynn Schusterman.

"This generation lives in multiple communities simultaneously, and they don't have as much guilt as the previous generation," Gordis said. "That empowers them and gives them a huge number of opportunities, and it can also make it more challenging to figure out what their level of commitment is to specific jobs or opportunities. We have to understand their commitment to community in a different way, because they express it in a different way."

What can sometimes appear to establishment leaders as waffling on Israel by the younger generation may instead reflect a disinclination to connect to Israel through the institutional models of the past few decades. To ask a Gen-Yer whether he or she is a supporter of Israel, or emotionally invested in Israel, might be irrelevant. What they want to talk about is how Israel is one of many components of a Jewish identity, and how Israel affiliation can be integrated among their other core values, such as social justice, the environment and artistic expression.

And they want to feel free to be critical of Israel.

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Forum discussion from other readers

Ah Chaim,if only the draft dodgers and people that encourage them in Israel would only listen to you.  They might get some inspiration and come to their senses.

Posted by sam corwin on 6/11/08 at 11:22 pm

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Ah Chaim,if only the draft dodgers and people that encourage them in Israel would only listen to you.  They might get some inspiration and come to their senses.

I assume you are referring to the rapidly growing non-religious draft dodging sector

I also brought up that the real problem lies in the secular draft dodgers. Here is a report called Israel wages war on army of refuseniks showing that 27% of eligible draftees are not serving, and the trend is upward. Excluding those that ARE cowards or criminals or blind pacifists or out of the country, “7% are being excused because of either medical conditions or “psychological incompatibility” and that figure is increasing. “... people who turn up at recruitment centres with a letter from their psychiatrist saying they’re mentally unfit, and the next minute they’re running a hi-tech company.” Even those that serve are refusing to go on reserve duty; “Courage to Refuse” is not a haredi organization. And the stated reasons? They want to learn the Talmud. Hahaha, just kidding. “The reasons for the lack of commitment are clear. The recent Intifada and last year’s bloody war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, are fuelling the reluctance to sign up. IDF officials also insist the yuppification of Israel is a contributing factor, with the MTV and internet generation much more interested in making money than serving at an army checkpoint on the West Bank.”

Posted by Ben Plonie on 6/12/08 at 8:02 am

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I love all these bold statesments. “...also brought up that the real problem lies in the secular draft dodgers. Here is a report called Israel wages war on army of refuseniks showing that 27% of eligible draftees are not serving, and the trend is upward. Excluding those that ARE cowards or criminals or blind pacifists or out of the country, “7% are being excused because of either medical conditions or “psychological incompatibility” and that figure is increasing. “… people who turn up at recruitment centres with a letter from their psychiatrist saying they’re mentally unfit, and the next minute they’re running a hi-tech company.” “...The reasons for the lack of commitment are clear. The recent Intifada and last year’s bloody war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, are fuelling the reluctance to sign up. IDF officials also insist the yuppification of Israel is a contributing factor, with the MTV and internet generation much more interested in making money than serving at an army checkpoint on the West Bank.” Yeah, thats cute. It couldn’t possibly be that they just dont want to risk life and limb for seditionists, racists, and hooligans, who spend most of their time attempting to deligitamize and disenfranchise the very people who are being asked to guard these “students of the talmud”, who if given half the chance would turn the country into Boro Park, with all the attendant victimhood, halachically sanctioned corruption, misogyny, and sexual deviancy. Yeah, I tried your link. No joy there. Here are some links that do work. “...11% received exemptions this year on grounds of being ultra-Orthodox, an increase of 1% over last year. As it is Jerusalem Post, we can assume that they mean that last year there were 10% ultra-Orthodox exemptions, and this year there were 11%. That is an increase of about 10%, not 1%. ” “...For our mathematicians: assume that the number of ultraorthodox increases at the rate of 10% of current ultra-orthodox draft dodgers each year. In what year will all draftees be exempt because they are all ultra-orthodox, unfit or abroad? Now assume that there is a non-induction induction effect. By that I mean that for each ten ultra-orthodox draft dodgers, there will be 3 or 4 non-ultra-orthodox who decide they aren’t going to be suckers: if the ultra-orthodox don’t go to the army, why should they serve? Can you imagine the absurdity of the fact that Druze youth volunteer to serve in the army of the Jewish state, while ultra-orthodox Jews do not? Can someone explain how and why this is justified? Can you explain why a kibbutznik who belongs to peace now should be guarding settlements, while an ultra-orthodox Shas or United Torah Judaism voter who insists that Israel must never give up a millimeter of the occupation is busy making believe he is studying the Talmud?” “...For the rest of us, an easy question: If it costs NIS 40,000 (currently - soon to be increased) to pay university tuition for one future Israeli engineer, how much does it cost to pay tuition for 100 ultraorthodox draft dodgers? Answer NIS 0. Yeshiva tuition is paid for. Yaakov Katz, THE JERUSALEM POST Jul. 30, 2007 “...The Israeli government can hardly complain, since they promulgated the Tal law. It is impossible that the majority of Israelis support this unfair, suicidal law, and yet periodically it is renewed, the monstrous offspring of incestuous coalitions. ” Ahead of the August draft, the IDF reported damning statistics showing a sharp rise in the number of teenagers dodging military service. The total reaches 25 percent of youth born in 1989 and scheduled to enlist in the IDF this summer. Of the 25%, some 11% received exemptions this year on grounds of being ultra-Orthodox, an increase of 1% over last year. Seven percent did not enlist for medical reasons, including physical and mental conditions. Four percent did not enlist because of criminal records, and 3% live abroad.” http://www.zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/07/barak-versus-ultra-orthodox-draft.html. Though I do not agree with the concept that the actions of secular prospective inductees is conditional upon the actions of ultra-orthodox prospective inductees, It would appear, at least according to these numbers, that at worst( going on the assumption that everyone of the 7% claiming some medical or mental disability is full of it), responsabilty for this situation wouldbe evenly distributed between the secular and religous communities. That however, is likely not the case. “...RAMAT GAN, Israel, Nov. 21 (UPI)—An Israel Defense Force general spoke out Wednesday against a growing number of Israeli youth who dodge the draft. Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, speaking during a conference at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, called leftist non-religious youth and ultra-orthodox youth who receive government exemption from military service draft dodgers, the Jerusalem Post reported. “When a leftist refuses to enlist we drag him to court,” Stern said in a statement. “But when someone on the other side (right-wing religious) does not enlist, nothing is done.” Stern cited figures that say about 26 percent of Israeli youth do not enlist in the IDF, with a majority of that number from ultra-orthodox groups. Some critics argue that one factor to draft dodging may be a result of what is seen as a military failure during the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. Still, Stern argued that military service exemptions from the government did not mean that the youth involved were not draft-dodgers. “There is no such thing as an entire neighborhood, an entire family or an entire community being suited to sitting and learning Torah,” Stern said referencing the Torah studies that are used as a justification by the ultra-orthodox for military exemption.” http://www.upi.com/Emerging_Threats/2007/11/21/Israel_general_speaks_out_on_draft_dodgers/UPI-36771195676117/

Posted by Shoded Yam on 6/12/08 at 9:51 am

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