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JEWISH OR ZIONIST? The following paragraph was posted on 10/14/03 at the home page of the web site WHAT REALLY HAPPENED: Jews against Zionism. Our query to the webmaster of WHAT REALLY HAPPENED, Michael Rivero: Dear Mr. Rivero: Your web site WHAT REALLY HAPPENED is excellent, and your dedication in opposing racist Zionism is highly commendable. But what is your evidence for your belief that most Jews DO NOT support Israel, other than an article of your firm faith? Or hope? Or wish? Or dream? Stating that most Jews DO NOT support Israel is blatantly false. Your statement is propagandistic (I suspect unintentionally) for it has no basis in reality. Zionism is an outgrowth of Judaism. It was created by international Jewry, and the state of Israel is central to modern Jewish identity, whether secular or religious. Why are you, like so many, so terribly timorous about the root cause of the Zionist problem? The Palestinian Intifada has been going on, off and on, for many years now. You can't hope to realistically solve the problem of "Zionist" racism without honestly FACING exactly what it is. I submit to you the following evidence (all from Jewish scholarship and commentary) against your naive conviction about American (and international) Jewish community and its relation to Israel. Please bear in mind that most of these people are academics who have extensively studied their fields of commentary: * "The US Jews can't be persuaded to change their mind. View the results of a recent national Jewish public opinion survey in the US [1]: - Eighty-six percent of American Jews feel close to Israel; eighty-five percent of American Jews supports Israel in the ongoing conflict, and one percent supports the Palestinians. The survey proves that our wonderful Jewish friends of Palestine in the US represent roughly one per cent of the US Jews, or in plain words represent nothing. Some of them are crypto-Zionists providing alibi for the Jews and bringing disarray into our lines. Some of them are good and sincere people, great fighters for the cause of equality, like Jeff Blankfort or Ronald Bleier and many others. All of them are removed from positions of power and are rightly disregarded by power-seeking American elites as representing no one but goodness of their hearts. The survey indicates we should stop dallying for Jewish support and look for a strategy to win over the American - and the world - non-Jewish public opinion." -- Israel Shamir, in his recent article "A Mistake of Prof Neumann" (2) [1] 08-06-2002; US Newswire. The survey carried out July 11-21 by Stanley B. Greenberg, Ph.D. of Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner Research Inc. for the American Jewish Committee, one of the largest public opinion research projects ever carried out in the U.S. to gauge attitudes towards Israel. It was done in conjunction with a new strategic team, focusing on how Americans view Israel, which includes Greenberg, Democratic strategist Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, and Republican pollsters Frank Luntz, Ph.D. and Neil Newhouse. The American Jewish Committee is taking a leading role in this effort. [This paragraph is taken from Israel Shamir's footnotes in his article; see below (2) ] [2] Shamir, Israel. A Mistake of Prof Neumann. October 2003 *Results
of Poll Sponsored by Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish Week, and the Wilstein
Institute of Jewish Policy Studies Studies,
Its bibliography is listed at: http://www.jewishtribalreview.org/30bibl1.htm The central icon of allegiance for Jewish transnational solidarity and the major object of Jewish money rites is the modern state of Israel, the country which, says Nathan Glazer, "after 1967 ... became the religion of American Jews." [LIPSET, p. 157] "Nobody can deny the intensity of the American Jew's feelings about the state of Israel," noted James Yaffe in 1968, "Polls taken in 1967 during the six-day war showed that 99 percent of all American Jews supported Israel wholeheartedly against the Arab nations. Hardly any Jews who lived through those days didn't feel a weight of anxiety on his spirits -- and a wild elation when the weight was finally lifted." [YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 181] "The [1967] war," says Jack Wertheimer, "... converted American Jewry to Zionism. Whereas American Jews had demonstrated sympathy in the past, Israel was now incorporated into the very structure of American Jewish identity." [WERTHEIMER, J., 1993, p. 30] Even
earlier though, "Solidarity between
the Jews of the west, Israel, the Soviet Union, and threatened diaspora
communities has become more than the object of activism," says British
rabbi Jonathan Sacks, "it has become a carrier of identity."
[SACKS, J., One, p. 11] "I speak to many Jewish communities
around the world," says Yitzhak Herzog, "and what strikes
me is that each community is of a different nature than the other. The
common denominator that I find in all is Israel. They are obsessed with
Israel and you can say that Israel, in effect, has become their religion,
as well as a social and political idea which they are involved."
[HERZOG, p. 20]
Even
in Costa Rica,
for example, a Jewish scholar noted in 1987 that "today, as in the
past, Costa Rican Jewry has tended to adopt a unified political stance
only vis-a-vis the question of the state of Israel." [GUDMUNDSON,
p. 229]
Venezuela? "Nearly a thousand Venezuelan Jews have settled in Israel," noted Howard Sachar in 1985, "Zionism is also the principal motif of Venezuelan Jewish education." [SACHAR, H., 1985, p. 266] Brazil? "It seems," says Henrique Rattner, "that the main objective of Jewish politics in Brazil today concern the defense of specifically Jewish interests in the fight against anti-Semitism and the preservation of the state of Israel and of the Brazilian Jewish community's identification with it." [RATTNER, p. 199] France?
"No other western Jewish community has been as passionately pro-Israel
as French Jewry," noted the Jerusalem Post in 1997,
"--defying media charges of dual loyalty ... More than 30,000 French
Jews visit Israel each year and over a thousand are currently studying
at Israeli universities." [PICKETT, W., p. 7]
The Jews of Brussels, in Belgium? "An affluent community, the 24,000 Jews of Brussels have developed their own version of a United Jewish Appeal. Contributions are generous and the lion's share goes to Israel. If Brussels Jewry evinces a distinguishing feature, it is its Zionism and secular character." [SACHAR, H., 1985, p. 46] South
Africa? "South Africa's small but influential
Jewish population of 118,000," wrote Seymour Hersh about the
late 1970s and early 1980s, "were always large contributors to Israeli
bond drives and charities; now [with the 1977 election of Israeli prime
minister Menachem Begin] they became more vocal in their support
for Israel's more conservative political parties, including Menachem
Begin's Likud Party." [HERSH, S., p. 264] "Zionism had from
its beginnings cast a spell upon the Jews of South Africa," adds
Barnet Litvinoff. [LITVINOFF, B., p. 184] "Nowhere else in
the Jewish world, conceivably," observes Howard Sachar, "was
Zionism so integral a feature of Jewishness as South Africa ... South
African Jewry has not rested in its exertions on Israel's behalf. The
Zionist Federation remains by far the most important organization in Jewish
life." [SACHAR, H., 1985, p. 187, 190]
Canada?
In 1999, in Montreal, the Quebec prime minister's brother, Gerard Bouchard,
"initiated a conference for French and Jewish Quebecers because he
wanted to know why, as a minority, Jews are not more sensitive to French
Quebecers fears for the survival of their culture [in English-dominated
Canada] and why they seem to focus on anti-Semitism in Quebec and not
in English Canada and why they do not have more sympathy for Quebec sovereignty
when they themselves had such an attraction to Israel." [ARNOLD,
J., p. 3, 25] "American Jews
automatically think of themselves as Americans," noted Jewish commentator
Barnet Litvinoff in 1969, "but in Canada they are primarily
Jews. Hence Zionism makes much more headway in Canada than the U.S.A.
... In Canada, as in Britain, there exists a comprehensive Jewish representative
organization making for tribal unity and discipline." [LITVINOFF,
B., p. 172] "Montreal Jews," noted Erna Paris in 1980,
"are notably dedicated to Israel and observably generous in their
contributions to the United Jewish Appeal." [PARIS, E., p. 102] "Among
the priorities of the Canadian Jewish polity," noted Harold Troper
in 1999, "is defining and promoting the relationship between Jews
in Canada, Jews in Israel, and Jews in other parts of the diaspora."
[TROPER, H., 1999, p. 230]
Russia?
American Jewish efforts to Zionize the Jews of former communist Russia
was noted in a 1999 article in the Baltimore Jewish Times:
"United States Jewish groups have contributed heavily to building
synagogues, community centers, and schools in Russia ... Privately, many
Jewish leaders say that community building encourages many [Russian] Jews
to make aliyah [emigration to
Israel] by building a sense of Jewish identity that will be Israel-centered."
[BESSER, 4-30-99, p. 30] And as Irving Horowitz noted as early
as 1979, "The fact that Israel can call upon a hidden Jewish constituency
overt in the United States and covert in the Soviet Union does indeed
give weight and substance to the Israeli claim that it is not simply a
small power which can be regulated or mortgaged at the behest of the major
powers, but a force of international socio-economic weight as well as
national interests." [HOROTWITZ, I., 1979, p. 104]
Argentina?
Like many -- probably most -- Jews, news mogul Jacobo Timerman
equates raising verifiably troubling questions about Jewish collectivist
behavior the world over as tantamount to expressions of Nazism:
"In
Argentina, in 1980, thirty-five years after Hitler's defeat, on the
In 2001, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles featured an article about the immigrant Jewish Iranian community in that city, based on a familiar theme: "Persian Jews are facing challenges familiar to previous generations of Jewish immigrants; among them, dilution of traditional values and assimilation. 'There is no question there is an influence of materialism,' [Sam] Kermanian [head of the Iranian-American Jewish Federation] said. 'Some of the old values are still holding the community together, but, obviously, this is something that will not last forever. We know that within a generation or two, we will assimilate into a larger landsape. Our goal is to make sure that we assimilate into the American Jewish community rather than the secular American landscape." [AUSHENKER, M., 6-20-01] Incredibly,
of all the cultural, ethnic, and religious aspects of being Jewish, in
a 1988 Los Angeles Times national survey 17% of American Jews believed
that support for the state of Israel was the most
important part of their Jewish identity. [WAXMAN, p. 137] Even more startling, a 1990 American Jewish Committee survey of
"American Jewish leaders" across the country found that 81%
listed the "safety of Israel as the most important item on the Jewish
agenda today." Nearly half of the leaders were under fifty years
old, 94% were married to fellow Jews (plus 3% to spouses who had converted
to Judaism), a quarter of them had a household income between $200,000
and $499,000, and another third between $100,000-$199,000. [AIN, SURVEY,
p. 28]
A
1983 poll of American Jews at-large found that 20% had even written to
an elected official on behalf of Israel. [BRENNER, p. 123]
The 1990 National Jewish Population Survey found that 76% of American
Jews described themselves at least "somewhat attached to Israel."
[HALBERSTAM, p. 188] Of high importance to an overwhelming number of those
who call themselves Jews, 85% of Jewish respondents in the 1983 poll favored
strong United States support for Israel, a figure that is consistent with
other surveys. [WAXMAN, p. 136-137] (Meanwhile, says Jewish critic Lenni Brenner,
"American Jewry has one of the weakest military traditions in America.
Many Jewish immigrants came here to get away from conscription."
[BRENNER, p. 131]
A
1998 national poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times and
Newsday found that 43% of American Jewish respondents had
donated money to Israel in the past year; 60% of those over 65 years of
age said they had given money in the same time period to the Jewish state.
[FRIEDMAN, J., p. A7] "For me to be a Jew today," said Canadian
Sarah Tobin in 1990 (she had lived in Israel for a few years),
"means
having a personal relationship with Israel. This is my bottom
"For
tens of thousands of Jewish Americans," says Joyce Starr,
"Israel
has become so central to their lives that dedication to 'the
"The
image of Israel," note Charles Liebman and Steven Cohen,
"so central to the lives of American Jews, is projected as that of
a country surrounded by enemies bent on its destruction ... And the Holocaust
itself, which along with Israel has assumed central symbolic importance
in American Jewish life, reminds Jews above all of their precarious status
among the hostile Gentiles. These themes tend to be combined in appeals
by Jewish organizations for funds." [LIEBMAN/COHEN, p. 32] "American
Jewish life," wrote Seymour Lipset and Earl Raab in
1995, "embodies a kind of 'cultural Zionism,' which recognizes Israel
as its spiritual center, inspiring rather than assembling the Jews of
the world." [LIPSET/RAAB, p. 130] Since 1967, notes Allon Gal,
"virtually all American Jewish community organizations have become
supporters of the Jewish state and have developed some variation of 'a
vision of Israel.' [GAL, p. 13] Since
1967 too, notes Theodore Solotaroff, "the survival of Israel
has been the paramount concern of organized Jewish life and probably the
paramount source of Jewish identity." [BARACK-FISHMAN, p. 279]
"The
oneness that holds Jews together," says Edward Shapiro, "is
no longer Judaism or anti-Semitism but Israel ... Israel provides the
link that bonds Jews together, no matter how remote they might be from
any involvement in Jewish society or religious life. The Jewish thing
most Jews have in common [is] ... contributing at least a nominal sum
to the United Jewish Appeal." [SHAPIRO, E., Jewish American,
p. 169] "Central to the understanding of American Jewish identity,"
notes Marla Brettschneider," is this idea of being pro-Israel
... By the 1970s, as the [Jewish] mainstream organizations began to wield
unprecedented power in Washington D.C., the litmus test for the stance
constituting such an attitude reached hegemonic proportions ... Many had
come to feel that on issues relating to Israel, the American Jewish community
had become a closed political space, an area where neither dissent, nor
even debate, is tolerated." [BRETTSCHNEIDER, M., Cornerstone,
p. 1-2]
Research
studies by the American Jewish Committee, noted David Schnall in
1987,
"indicate
that U. S. Jews overwhelmingly support Israel by every standard definition
of
the term. Over 90 per cent said they paid special
In 2001, the United Jewish Communities (formerly the United Jewish Appeal)-- the foremost Jewish solidarity organization -- announced its new "$4 million solidarity campaign titled 'Israel Now'" to propagandize for the Jewish state and sanitize its miserable human rights record towards the Palestinians. "Campaign highlights" included: * "Heavy promotion of solidarity missions to Israel." * "Advocacy- and media-training for campus and community activists ... 'to train * "A 'media tour' that will take Israeli spokesmen and U. S. Middle East experts -- scholars, journalists and other opinion-shapers -- into key communities * "A Solidarity Shabbat on Sept. 22-23 that will reach out to synagogues, churches and university campuses to show that 'support for Israel extends beyond the Jewish community.'" [JORDAN, M., 6-19-01]
In
this context, it is certainly legitimate to wonder about the implications
of the well known statement by the prominent 20th century American rabbi,
Stephen Wise: "I may have been an American for sixty-four
years, but I have been a Jew for four thousand years." [HERTZLER,
p. 76]
"to
discover how Israeli nationalism has penetrated into American life
In
1982, another Jewish anti-Zionist, Alfred Lilienthal, wrote that
"This
and this alone is the issue: will American Jews allow Zionism to
"This
curious [Jewish] feeling [for Israel]," says Jewish author James
Yaffe, "has very little in common, I think, with anything
that the Irishman feels for the Free State or the Italian for Sicily.
No Sicilian ever loved his country for its military power; no Irishman
in his right mind ever praised the Free State for its tremendous economic
expansion. What they feel for the old country is all nostalgia, but
the American Jew's feeling for Israel has something else in it."
[YAFFE, J., 1968, p. 190] "American Jews have a profound dedication
to Israel," noted Irving Friedman, the executive vice-president
of the United Jewish Appeal in 1973. [GOLDEN, H., 1973, p. 120] "Even
if they are not Zionists according to classic definition," noted
David Mittelberg in 1999, "most American Jews are pro-Israel.
They support Israel 'politically, economically, and emotionally.'"
[MITTELBERG, D., 1999, p. 7]
Former American Jewish Committee official Stephen Steinlight admits Jewish "dual loyalty" freely; it began to trouble him when the balkanized American society Jews have been instrumental in creating seemed to be threatening Jewish interests (i.e., that other minority groups were seizing the Jewish-inspired model): "We cannot pretend we are only part of the solution when we are also part of the problem; we have no less difficult a balancing act between group loyalty and a wider sense of belonging to America. That America has tolerated this dual loyalty -- we get a free pass, I suspect, largely over Christian guilt about the Holocaust -- makes it no less a reality." [STEINLIGHT, S., OCTOBER 2001] "In recent years," notes Jewish scholar Peter Novick, "it has become not just permissible but in some circles laudable for American Jews to assert the primacy of Jewish over American loyalty. 'We are Jews first and whatever else second,' says Rabbi Haskel Lookstein, the author of a searing indictment of American Jews' reaction to the Holocaust." [NOVICK, P., 1999, p. 34] "No
other people in the world is so attached to its country of origin
-- Palestine [i.e., Israel] -- as the Jews," wrote Nahum Goldmann,
head of the World Jewish Congress and World Zionist Organization,
"who
are bound by feeling and religion, as well as by utterly mystical
In
1959, in a survey of 1,000 teachers in Jewish schools in the United
States, only 48 were found to be "teaching Israel as a subject
of study." By the early 1980s, 98% "included Israel/Zionism
in some form or another as part of the curriculum." [ACKERMAN,
W, p. 179-180] By 1996, some
40-45% of all American Jewish children attended part-time Jewish schools
where there is, notes Walter Ackerman, "an increased commitment
to the idea that Israel is central to the identity of Jews growing
up in America." Noting the preponderance of Israelis actually
teaching the courses in Jewish American schools, he adds that "today
it is doubtful that Jewish education in the United States could function
without Israelis." [ACKERMAN, W, p. 187-188]
As
James Yaffe noted in 1968:
"Synagogues
around the country have become Israel-minded: they raise
aren't
aware of being in it, yet they would almost automatically vote
In a textbook for Jewish high school students published by the Union of American Hebrew Congregations in 1964, Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn tells his students: "Our continued financial and political help is still needed by Israel ... Intelligent, well-trained Americans can help Israel immeasurably by their willingness to to volunteer for limited periods of service there. During the Arab War of 1948, many young Americans -- including some Christians -- volunteered for military service on Israel's behalf because they saw in the new State an expression of the highest and finest American ideals of democracy." [GITTLESOHN, R., 1964, p. 223-224] "Popular Jewish attitudes [have] underwent a profound 'Israelization,'" wrote Peter Novick in 1999, "The hallmark of the good Jew became the depth of his or her commitment to Israel. Failure to fulfill religious obligations, near-total Jewish illiteracy, even intermarriage, were all permissible; lack of enthusiasm for the Israeli cause (not to speak of public criticism of Israel) became unforgiveable ... The presence of Israeli artifacts in the living room became as mandatory as a mezuzah on the doorpost. (In none of this was any knowledge of Israel required. A survey in the 1980s revealed that fewer than a third of American Jews knew that the archenemies Menachem Begin and Shimon Peres were members of different parties)." [NOVICK, P., 1999, p. 148] "In a bulletin of the Washington Heights, New York, Sunday School of the Y.M.H.A. and Y.W.H.A. (Sunday School Life, Chanukah issue)," noted Alfred Lilienthal in 1982, "one reads this extraordinary pledge of young Americans: 'Here is our pledge, Israel: I pledge my loyalty to God, to the Torah and to the Jewish people and to the Jewish state ... When a questionnaire was issued to pupils of the public school system in Galveston, Texas, 102 students answered the question 'What is your nationality?' with 'Jewish.'" [LILIENTHAL, p. 23] And the results of such socialization? Take, for example, the case in 1999 when an American Jewish teenager, Abraham Derman, made international news when he cut through a razor wire fence at Boston's Logan airport, climbed into an open jet unnoticed, and rode with other passengers to London. Why? He "told investigators that he wanted to go to Israel and had hopes the stunt would help him get a job with Mossad [Israel's international spy agency]." [BORGER, J., 7-30-99, p. 15] Somewhat
similarly, in 1997, California-born Israeli soldier Adam Sager
made Jewish American news for winning an Israeli Defense Force poetry
contest. "The poet's affinity for Israel surfaced at a young
age," noted the Jewish Bulletin. "Ever since I was
5," said Sager, "my
parents would ask me, 'Adam, what do you want for your birthday?'
And I would always answer, 'I want to go to Israel.'" [KATZ,
L., 1997, p. 29] "Between the years 1966 and 1993," notes
David Mittelberg, "just over a quarter of a million Jewish
youngsters from all over the world participated in some type of educational
program in Israel under the auspices of the Jewish Agency." [MITTELBERG,
D., 1999, p. 13]
In
1981, Jewish author Ann Roiphe went to her daughter's kindergarten
class and listened to another mother gush about her own child drawing
pictures of the Star of David:
"Look
at that Jewish star, look at the picture of her family. She knows
Roiphe,
looking around the room at non-Jewish children, observed that "None
of the Christian children had drawn crosses or churches." [ROIPHE,
1981, p. 52]
"To the extent that we may
identify Zionism with support for Israel," notes David Schnall,
" -- and there will be some who object to this identification
-- the United States Jewish community has been 'Zionized.' The battles
of the past -- fears of dual loyalties
... have not so much been won as made irrelevant." [SCHNALL,
p. 122]
In the wake of the 2001 terrorist attacks in America, and worries about increased balkanization of American ethnic cultures that could undercut Jewish ethnocentric interests , Stephen Steinlight (former Director of National Affairs for the American Jewish Committee) had some confessing to do: "We cannot consider the inevitable consequences of current [immigration] trends -- not the least among them diminished Jewish political power -- with detachment ... We Jews need to be especially sensitive to the multinational model this crowd (many of them Jewish) is promoting. Why? Because one person’s 'celebration' of his own diversity, foreign ties, and the maintenance of cultural and religious traditions that set him apart is another’s balkanizing identity politics. We are not immune from the reality of multiple identities or the charge of divided loyalties, a classic staple of anti-Semitism, and we must recognize that our own patterns are easily assailed, and we need to find ways of defending them more effectively as the debate goes on. Much public opinion survey research undertaken in recent years continues to indicate that large numbers of Americans, particularly people of color, assert that Jews are more loyal to Israel than the United States. For Jews, it is at best hypocritical, and, worse, an example of an utter lack of self-awareness, not to recognize that we are up to our necks in this problem. This has been especially true once we were sufficiently accepted in the United States to feel confident enough to go public with our own identity politics. But this newfound confidence carries its own costs; people are observing us closely, and what they see in our behavior is not always distinct from what we loudly decry in others. One has to be amused, even amazed, when colleagues in the organized Jewish world wring their hands about black nationalism, Afrocentrism, or with cultural separatism in general — without considering Jewish behavioral parallels. Where has our vaunted Jewish self-awareness flown? I’ll confess it, at least: like thousands of other typical Jewish kids of my generation, I was reared as a Jewish nationalist, even a quasi-separatist. Every summer for two months for 10 formative years during my childhood and adolescence I attended Jewish summer camp. There, each morning, I saluted a foreign flag, dressed in a uniform reflecting its colors, sang a foreign national anthem, learned a foreign language, learned foreign folk songs and dances, and was taught that Israel was the true homeland. Emigration to Israel was considered the highest virtue, and, like many other Jewish teens of my generation, I spent two summers working in Israel on a collective farm while I contemplated that possibility. More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we could rely on no one." [STEINLIGHT, S., OCTOBER 2001] "No
other ethnic group in American history has so extensive an involvement
with a foreign nation [Israel]," wrote Melvyn Urofsky in
1975, "No other nation relies upon a body of private individuals
who are neither residents nor citizens of their land to underwrite
a major portion of their budget. American Jews buy Israeli bonds,
give generously to the United Jewish Appeal, lobby [American] government
representatives to pursue pro-Israel policy, travel to Israel (where
they are greeted with 'Welcome Home' signs), respond to every crisis
in that part of the world, and yet maintain passionately that they
are Americans first and Jews afterward." [UROFSKY, p. 1]
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