NEW YORK – A program to promote better relations between Israeli leaders and the
American Jewish community has led to plans to form a caucus in the Knesset on
Israeli-North American Jewish relations, MKs told reporters in New York on
Friday.
“It’s something lacking in the Knesset, and that will help better
improve the relationship between American Jewish community and Israel,” Jay
Ruderman, head of the Ruderman Family Foundation that, along with Brandeis
University, sponsored the Ruderman Fellows program, said.
RELATED:Column One: American Jewry’s fightDo American Jews still like Israel?The Ruderman
Fellows program, in its inaugural year, is an attempt to create a deeper
awareness of the diverse quality of American Jewish life by connecting Israeli
political leaders with US-based community leaders, scholars, clergy and
professionals.
Six Knesset members, selected as the program’s initial
fellows, concluded a five-day series of seminars and meetings in Boston and New
York on Friday, and met with reporters to discuss their experiences. The Israeli
lawmakers who participated were Likud MKs Carmel Shama-Hacohen and MK Tzipi
Hotovely, Kadima MKs Avi Dichter and Ronit Tirosh, and Labor MKs Eitan Cabel and
Daniel Ben-Simon.
“This program was an attempt to take members of the
Knesset from the three major parties and to educate them on the American Jewish
community,” Ruderman said. “Hopefully it will continue, and as the years go on,
we will build up a number of Knesset members, members of the Israeli government,
who will have a better understanding of the American Jewish
community.”
Brandeis professor Jonathan Sarna said that it was while he
was on sabbatical last year in Israel that he realized that there was no center
for the study and teaching of American Jewry at any Israeli
university.
“Every major American university has someone who teaches
about Israel,” Sarna said. “There are many Israel study centers, but no Israeli
study center on American Jewry. And as we see, even the leading figures in
Israel do not feel that they understand American Jewry appropriately. This
program will be the beginning of a new effort to teach Israelis about the
American Jewish community so that our two communities can better understand one
another.”
After five days of meetings, the MKs said they were surprised
by the diversity, both for good and for ill, of the American Jewish community in
both Boston and New York. At least one member, Cabel, had never visited the
United States before.
Shama said he arrived in the United States knowing
“very little” about American Jewry but leaves with greater appreciation of the
significance of Israel to the American Jewish community as well as vice
versa.
On returning to Israel, Shama said, he planned to be an ambassador
to his fellow Knesset members and constituents for a better comprehension of the
American Jewish community. As a member of the Knesset’s Constitution,
Legislation and Law Committee that discussed the Rotem conversion bill, Shama
said, he had “no doubt” that “if that bill is again discussed, should that
happen, I will examine it from a much broader and clearer and different
position, based on what I have learned here.”
Tirosh, who offered to
spearhead the North American Diaspora lobby in the Knesset, said she was taken
by the diversity of the American Jewish community in both good and bad ways.
During a talk at Brandeis, she recounted, Dichter had been shouted down by
protesters. Afterwards, she was shocked to discover that the protesters were
American Jews and former Israelis.
“I’m very impressed by the liberalism
and the way you look at each other,” Tirosh said. “But I thought American Jewry
would automatically support Israel and that we can rely on it. But now I
understand that we need to give them more tools in order to find a way how to
support us in these difficult days of boycotts.”
Dichter said the trip
taught him the differences between the powerful American Jewish community and
its counterparts in other parts of the Diaspora.
Cabel said that had the
Knesset debate on J Street been held after this trip, his outlook likely would
have been different, and that he felt that both AIPAC and J Street had something
to contribute to the conversation about Israel.
Ben-Simon said he was
particularly impressed by a dinner at Brandeis University with students – not
the food, per se, but the fact that kosher-observant and non-kosher-observant
Jews ate together, without judging one another for the choices they had made
with regard to their Judaism.
Saying Israelis were “undergoing open-heart
surgery on the question of the character of the Jewish state,” Ben-Simon said
Israelis could take a page from the American playbook in terms of tolerance and
diversity.
“Unlike us, you prosper on diversity, and you do it with such
style,” he told the US reporters. “We nearly kill each other. In diversity, we
can be united.”
And on the flip side, Ben-Simon counseled American Jews
to take an active stand on issues in Israel.
“You will have to tell
Israeli leaders the impact of what they’re doing on you,” he said. “But you’re
not courageous enough. You come to Israel and take photos instead of saying,
‘What you’re doing has an impact on us.’ Tell Israeli leaders what you think
about it. Tell them to think about you and not just their voters and their
interests.”