Leonard Fein's New Zionism: An Inspiring Vision Or a Flawed Argument?

...He is no doubt a perceptive observer and correctly identifies some strains in the mix, but the overall picture, I believe, is grossly distorted These are not easy times for Israel She is faced with seemingly intractable problems that may threaten her existence...

...It is based on a series of questions...

...But the interesting point is that the figures haven't changed between 1986 and 1988...

...Fein also grossly exaggerates, I believe, the antipathy, amounting almost to animosity, that he tells us Israelis feel toward American Jews Because of our success and the possibilities of American Judaism, Israelis view us, according to Fein, as "a radical insult...

...It is good to have Leibel back in the pages of MOMENT with a major statement (p...

...Whatever our need to defend Israel before the court of American public opinion, we dare not allow ourselves to defend it in ways that alienate our own young people Here too Cohen's statistics provide an answer and indicate that—contra Fein— young American Jews are not abandoning Israel in droves because of recent events...

...For each of the truths listed above, there is another truth necessary to complete it...

...Media bias," Fein tells us, was a category that could contain "an almost infinite amount of disturbing data...

...you will feel better almost instantly and you will swell with moral pride...

...Another Truth 1: For all of its faults, Israel has created a unique, distinctive and wonderful culture...

...They see our unconditional love of Israel as "mindless...

...Thus, we are "an insult and an object of contempt " Instead of regarding us as "a gift to be treasured," we are "a curiosity to be manipulated and exploited " To be sure, Fein does not blame the Israelis for this: Given a Zionist philosophy that requires attyah and considering the way we American Jews behave the Israelis' view of us is "inevitable " I wonder what data Fern relies on...

...I do not wish to defend the statements of the Presidents' Conference, but it is obvious to anyone with any sophistication that more is needed from the Presidents' Conference than condemnation of Israel's actions Fein enjoys the freedom of one unburdened by responsibility...

...a vibrant, robust democracy...

...In 1986, 61 percent of the respondents said that if Israel were destroyed, they would feel as if they "had suffered one of the greatest personal tragedies" of their lives In 1988, the figure went up to 63 percent Perhaps even more significant, between 1986 and 1988, there was a 13 percent increase in the number of respondents who said that "caring about Israel" was "a very important part" of their being a Jew In 1986, the figure was 63 percent...

...We became virtuosos at euphemisms, at excuses and alibis...

...In 1988, 15 percent of the respondents agreed that they were "sometimes uncomfortable about identifying myself as a supporter of Israel," up from 8 percent in 1986...

...some have moved from distancing to estrangement, tomorrow, estrangement will collapse into alienation " For Fein, when you see a spade, you call it a spade, when Israel does evil, you say so...

...And so, over the years, we became not only Israel's defenders, but also Israel's apologists...

...he is easily exposed...

...a warm, patriotic, socially-conscious people, a thriving intellectual life...

...and he forces us to ask ourselves difficult questions He is nothing if not provocative...

...In the end, he offers a few simplistic proposals for establishing a more mature basis for Israel-Diaspora relations: (1) Re-think Zionism in a way that recognizes the differences between our cultures (This re-thinking apparently requires us to condemn Israel...

...Specifically, we owe them the right to love Israel freely and critically, lest they not love Israel at all...

...The liar is no hazard...

...48) He has insights that often escape us...

...Fein sees with a penetrating eye but through a prism that cuts off much of the image...

...Yet despite the fact that a significant segment of American Jews is often troubled by some of the policies of Israel's current government and a smaller segment is "sometimes uncomfortable" at identifying themselves as supporters of Israel, the feeling for Israel remains high and, if anything, has increased since the intifada...

...Is the evil an individual act, a government act, an act of the people9 Does it reflect the society or is it the unexpected outcome of faulty policy' Or is it the lapse of an individual, perhaps frightened and strained to the breaking point, or individuals who are simply morally weak...

...Fein could live with Israel's ordinariness, with its normalcy, but the moral lapses he catalogs for us go beyond the pale If we hearken to this argument, we are dnven to one of two alternatives (1) recognize Israel for what she is and condemn her—this at least allows us to retain our integrity or (2) support Israel and lose our soul Fein himself continues to love Israel But it is other American Jews that he is concerned about "American Jews," he tells us, "in large number, have begun to distance themselves from the Jewish state...

...Forty years later, the mystery of the miracle remains And every Israeli, old and young, knows it They do not meditate on it when they lie down and when they rise up, but it is there in their consciousness, whether on the surface or deeply buried The Israelis are part of this recognition...

...These are difficult times, it is true, and we would expect some falling off of Jewish support for Israel Interestingly enough, however, the most recent figures do not show the drop-off we would expect Let us look at the figures presented by one of America's leading Jewish opinion pollsters, Professor Steven M Cohen of Queens College, presented at the annual meeting of the Association of Jewish Studies in late December 1988...

...These figures are especially interesting because Cohen was able to compare 1988 responses (after the intifada) with responses to the same questions two years earlier, in 1986...

...Mountains are in labor, and scarcely a mouse is born," said the poet Horace I do not deny that there are provocative insights in Fein's article, especially regarding the differences between American Jewish and Israeli culture But there are also incomplete and overdrawn pictures I will mention only two which seem to me central to his thesis First, I think he grossly exaggerates the alienation of American Jews toward Israel...

...its numbing, debilitating bureaucracy—the list is endless Truth 2: Obviously no mature relationship between Israel and the Diaspora can be based on Israel as an ' 'enchantment beyond logic" on "the unmodified Israel of the swamps drained and the deserts made green, of immigrants ingathered and lives repaired...

...Alienation"'Are we really experiencing a "revolution of collapsing expectations"' "a widespread sense of betrayal...

...But that is not what really disturbs him It is not that Israel became normal, but that she became bad, in some respects evil In Fein's view, the beginning of our redemption lies in Truth 1: Of course Israel has its whores and hardhats...

...This is not Israel, if it ever was But these "truths" are only a partial picture...

...in 1988, the figure went up to 45 percent.* But far fewer felt "uncomfortable" as supporters of Israel...

...The resulting picture depresses and saps us of our energy His subject, in the large, is Israel-Diaspora relations...

...He does not stop to consider whether, perhaps, there was some "media bias...

...Will the condemnation of the particular evil be used to condemn Israel as a nation' Are there other things that must be said to create a complete picture' None of this is meant to suggest that American Jews should condone or defend Israel's—or anyone else's—evil, or perhaps merely foolish policies, but simply to call for more subtlety and circumspection than Fein's argument reflects...

...he identifies important currents that flow below the surface...

...Then came "normalization," when Israel had her own "whores and hardhats...

...Then, and only then, can we stop being Israel's apologists and enter into a mature relationship with her As the following quotation suggests, Fein saw the truth as early as 1967...

...It is the half-truth, the one-sided picture that imperils us...

...Here is a reasonable, balanced picture—indeed an encouraging one, a far cry from the impression we get from Fein's argument...

...In his felicitous prose-Though we owe Israel a great deal, we owe our children more...

...its intolerant zealots, religious and otherwise...

...In both years, the index for all age groups together was exactly the same...

...Fein, however, is concerned not so much with American Jews as a whole, but with the younger generation, the generation that is less closely attached to Israel...

...for him, "media bias" was simply a device we invented to fool ourselves: 'Media bias' [was the] device that enabled us to deny what our eyes were seeing and our hearts were feeling No matter the evidence, our way has become to blame the messenger...

...67 For the lowest age group, 25-34, it was also exactly the same: 59 No change between 1986 and 1988, no drastic falling off, even among the young, in attachment to Israel Indeed, in the age group 35-44, the index went up from 63 in 1986 to 65 in 1988...

...the Israel of Jewish terrorists, of corruption both petty and grand, of Sabra and Shatila and of administrative detention, of Jonathan Pollard and of the new political party, Moledet, which won two seats in the new Knesset on its one-plank platform, a plan calling for the transfer of the Palestinian Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza " There are truths, half-truths and ultimately a fallacy at the heart of Fein's analysis: that mystery—ahd so, in our attenuated way, are we...

...2) Teach our children Hebrew, (3) Undertake joint social projects together like a "Jewish peace corps of some sort, aimed not at the slums of Tel Aviv but at the villages of Thailand or Kenya—or even at Chicago...

...If anyone writes about our Jewish condition with more attractive grace than Leonard Fein, I do not know who that person is...

...He asks us "to explore the possibility that what we [American Jews] actually have [with Israel] is a very shallow relationship"— not simply a relationship that is shallow in some respects and deep, meaningful, and fraternal in other respects, but just "very shallow " The fault lies not with the Israelis, he says, but (1) with American Jews and their attitudes toward Israel and (2) in the gap between Israeli and American Jewish culture Fein traces the gradual disillusionment of American Jews with Israel He begins with the heady days when we were "mesmerized by the events surrounding Israel's birth...

...If you didn't see it by 1982, you were blind' The day came—for some of us in 1967, for others in 1977, for still more m the summer of 1982 [the siege of Beirut]—when the category we called 'normalization' was no longer adequate to contain all the data Those who, unlike Fern, refused to see the truth, blamed the media instead of recognizing Israel's evil for what it was...

...His figures show that the older the age group the more attached to Israel it is, even when adjustments are made for such variables as ritual observance, having visited Israel and the like...

...Cohen has created an index he calls the "attachment to Israel" index...

...To those of us who feel the discomfort most painfully, Fein offers a palliative-Recognize Israel for what she is and say so plainly...

...And now we "defend...

...in 1986, 40 percent of the respondents agreed with this statement...

...Those Jews, he says, are his • The survey did not, however, identify which policies the respondents were troubled about, those relating to the intifada or other Israeli policies such as us attitude towards Reform and Conservative Judaism Interestingly, 65 percent of the respondents agreed with the following statement (only 14 percent disagreed) "Aside from a few regrettable incidents, Israel has used a reasonable and appropriate level of force in countering recent Arab violence on the West Bank and Gaza " "principal concern...

...Yet his argument in this case is also dangerous—precisely because it is so insightful and thus so beguiling...

...and—with all its deviations from its own standards—a moral sensitivity unparalleled anywhere m the world, including the United States Another Truth 2 Despite the fact that Israel is neither a nation of pioneers making the desert bloom, nor is it manifestly "the beginning of the blossoming of our redemption," as Fein quotes it, there is nevertheless something messianic in its spirit—never lose sight of this Fein tells us not to transform Israel into "a myslenum tremendum," a Latin term used by Christian theologians for the mystery of the divine But with all Israel's faults and with all our disappointments in her, there is something mysterious, something beyond our understanding, in her rise from the ashes of the Holocaust, after 2,000 years of praying and fasting and wandering...

...Troubled' Yes Disturbed' Yes But "estrangement...

...Nor need you feel any remorse, because Israelis regard you as an "object of contempt" anyway Fein's piece is powerfully seductive— as well as insightful But it requires a critical reading.—H.S...

...If peace comes, she will be painfully pressured into accepting risks she fears to take She has revealed herself full of flaws and has made mistakes In these circumstances, it is a difficult time to be a supporter of Israel...

...From half-truths, Fein's argument slips into fallacy His argument ultimately leads to the conclusion that Israel is immoral if not downright evil— "radical imperfection" is his euphemism And we' We make excuses for Israel by calling blood "paint...

...They view us—or what we represent—"with disdain and even contempt...

...To be sure, some feel "troubled" and "uncomfortable" Respondents were asked to "agree" or "disagree" with the statement, "I am often troubled by the policies of the current Israeli government...

...in 1988 it went up to 76 percent' Moreover, in 1988 only 13 percent said that because of the recent events they felt "less warmly" about Israel...

...its greedy, stupid politicians...

...Fein deplores the statements issued by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations...

...After the intifada, American Jews felt somewhat closer to Israel than in 1986 In 1988, 69 percent of the American Jewish respondents said they felt very close or fairly close to Israel In 1986 only 62 percent responded in this way...

...The first commitment of our communal leadership and the first requirement of a new Zionism must be," Fein tells us, "to call things by their right names, lest in our zeal to defend Israel we forget what those names are, lest in our concern for Israel's safety we alienate a generation of young people who cannot bring themselves to take seriously a community that cannot or will not tell blood from paint...

...She is isolated among the nations...

...But life is not so simple...

...Our children will read these statements and find that ' 'the stale apology and cliched excuse . . . [are] an outright embarrassment...

...And 82 percent agreed with the following statement (8 percent disagreed and 10 percent said they were not sure)' ' 'Even when I disagree with the actions of Israel's government, that doesn't change how close I feel toward Israel...