'Think of Zionism as an answer for materialism'

McGill history professor: 'Think of Zionism as answer for materialism.'

By JUDY SIEGEL, THE JERUSALEM POST, LOS ANGELES
israel flag 88 (photo credit: )
israel flag 88
(photo credit: )
The growing materialism and "meaninglessness" in much of American Jewry could be fought with teaching Zionism by creating savings accounts for children and teenagers to be used for eventual trips to Israel, suggested McGill University history Prof. Gil Troy. Speaking on Monday, the second day of the 94th annual Hadassah convention at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles, Troy and other speakers at a plenary session "Is Israel on Your Radar Screen?" bemoaned the fact that the younger Diaspora Jews are, the less likely they are to care about or identify with Israel. The birthright program that will bring 42,000 young Jews to Israel for 10-day trips this year is excellent, said Troy, "but we have also to take personal responsibility for it and take more vacations in Israel. As the father of four young children, I know that Jewish children get more and more unnecessary gifts. Instead, think of Zionism as an answer for materialism. Hadassah, he suggested, can lead by organizing such savings accounts for travel to Israel. He also advocated widespread teaching of Hebrew to American Jews. The convention's 2,000 delegates were polled instantaneously using electronic devices that captured their opinions. When asked whether their youngest adult child was just as attached to Israel as they were, only half answered yes, and 85 percent felt that Jews in their 20s and 30s are not as attached to Israel as their elders. Prof. Steven Cohen, a researcher in Jewish social policy at the Hebrew Union College, conducted his own scientific study of non-Orthodox American Jews who constitute 90% of Americans who identify themselves as Jews. According to all measures, the younger they are, the less attachment they feel about Israel. "It's a terrible tragedy. The only exception of less activity compared to their elders is that younger Jews are more likely to speak to non-Jews about Israel, but this is because they know more non-Jews." Because the poll queried people who identified as Jews, Cohen said it "overrepresents Jewish attachment to Israel because there are many intermarried and assimilated Jews who do not identify themselves as such." The serious decline in donations to Jewish causes since the 1980s reflects the fact that unmarried intermarried Jews are less inclined to financially support Jewish and Israeli causes, Cohen said. "The strongest predictor of attachment to Israel is if you have a Jewish marriage partner. There is a corrosive effect on Jewish identity in the US. You can't sustain ethnicity if don't have Jewish friends, neighbors and spouses, but two-thirds of young Jews have a non-Jewish romantic partner. "Assimilation and intermarriage is at the root of declining identification by Jews with and support for Israel. But an antidote is to travel to Israel, and the more you come, the better." Cohen also endorsed Jewish financial support for Jewish summer camps and youth movements, independent prayer groups and Jewish learning. Rabbi Eli Stern, director of special projects at the Samuel Bronfman Foundation, said that there is a "profound identity shift among young Diaspora Jews from assumed Jewish identify to asking why one should be Jewish at all." The serious decline of the Conservative Movement, which always supported Israel, Stern said, reflects this disillusionment. While political support for Israel in the general American population remains strong, using Israel as a source for collective Jewish identity has taken a tremendous hit, Stern added. Former Israeli cabinet minister, refusenik and human rights activist in the Soviet Union, Natan Sharansky, who is now chairman of the Institute for Strategic Studies at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, said at the convention that the growing view among young Jews that freedom and peace can be achieved only by rejecting ethnicity, nationalism and faith was dangerous. "They think that freedom and identity are on opposite sides, that there no values worth dying for. There must be no hesitation in saying proudly that we are for justice and human rights, but the only way we can defend and protect Israel is going back to our roots and being proud Jews," he said, earning a standing ovation.